Living Icons.

Living Icons. By Michael Plekon: University of Notre Dame Press, 2002. ix and 337 pages. Cloth. $37.50.

Father Michael Plekon has written a beautiful book on nine exemplary Orthodox "missionaries." The title, Living Icons, is appropriate because the persons chronicled were public witnesses to the gospel of Jesus Christ in the world and to the church catholic.

The Russian diaspora following the Bolshevik Revolution and the founding of St. Sergius Theological Institute in Paris serve as a backdrop for recounting the lives and witness of Professor Paul Evdokimov, Mother Maria Skobotsova, and Fathers Sergius Bulgakov, Lev Gillet, Gregory Krug, Nicholas Afanasiev, Alexander Schmemann, John Meyendorff, and Alexander Men. The author devotes a chapter to each witness. This is the era of Barth, Bultmann, and Bonhoeffer. Living Icons adds Orthodox names and faces to this age of social and theological ferment, so be prepared to leave the familiar theological environs of Germany and Switzerland for France and the Soviet Union.

What makes these living icons' witness so compelling is theosis, the Holy Spirit transforming disciples into the likeness of God, a process that begins at baptism and chrismation. Theosis leads these faithful disciples to discern in the Great Depression and in the Second World War opportune times for the church's mission.

The chapter on Mother Maria Skobotsova is instructive. She escapes with her life from the Soviet Union. She marries impetuously. She ignores her own children but dotes on the children of friends and acquaintances. She ignores the canonical hours and her Spiritual Father because she is too busy rummaging for food to feed the poor from her soup kitchen. She evangelizes in cafes and smokes like a chimney. It is her refusal to abandon her Jewish friends that leads to her martyrdom at Ravensbruck. Her story alone conveys the beauty of Orthodoxy: the absolute mystery of faith, prayerfully witnessing in the midst of antinomies that refuse easy resolution.

Last year I had the occasion to have lunch with an Orthodox member of the Lutheran-Orthodox dialogues. His portion of our discussion was exclusionary, which begs a question: What is the point of continuing conversation if Lutherans are canonically problematic? Living Icons answers this question. We Lutherans and Orthodox are living icons of the gospel. We know the toil and joy of daily life in Christ. I do not know if this is enough to satisfy the finer points of ecumenical dialogue, but as both the Letter to the Hebrews and Living Icons remind us, the obedience of faith sure seems like a good place to start.

Bill Pierce

Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church 

Houston, Texas