Alexander Schmemann was a theologian who could explain why the Eucharist is not a ritual but a reality. His books are read by Orthodox, Catholics, and Protestants alike, because they speak of something that matters more than confessional lines.
He was born in 1921 in Reval (Tallinn), into a family of Russian émigrés, and grew up in Paris, where he studied at the St. Sergius Theological Institute. In 1951 he moved to the United States and taught at St. Vladimir's Seminary in New York for the rest of his life.
For the Life of the World is his central book: Christianity, it argues, is not a religion of the "spiritual" set against the "material," but the sanctification of the world itself — of its food, its water, its time. Liturgical theology as an encounter with reality.
His broadcasts were heard by millions in the USSR — a quiet voice on things spoken of nowhere else. He died of cancer in 1983. His Journals, published after his death, became one more book — about doubt, weariness, and faith.