Jaroslav Pelikan, RIP

Gashwin Gomes has information and links.

Comments

[RP Burke]

Let us always keep in mind the distinction he so clearly articulated (though I think Chesterton may have said something similar:

Tradition is the living faith of the dead; traditionalism is the dead faith of the living.

(From volume 1 of "The Christian Tradition: A History of the Development of Doctrine")

[BG Gruff]

I took two of Pelikan's lecture courses in college, one on Augustine and one on early medieval intellectual history. He was a great teacher and had a wonderful vision of what undergraduate education was all about. I still find his simple "continuity/discontinuity" framework for historical development to be helpful. I hadn't realized he had entered the Orthodox Church, although I am not too surprised. I will pray for him and his family.

[Cornelius AMDG]

Growing up Lutheran, there were two leading Lutheran intellectuals of whom I was aware and whom I tried to read -- Pelikan and Richard John Neuhaus. Perhaps not surprisingly, I later followed them out of the Lutheran church. I followed Neuhaus's specific path, but I am deeply indebted to Pelikan. May his soul rest in peace.