This edition reproduces the diary almost in its entirety. In a joint work with Father Alexander's wife, Ulyana Sergeevna Schmemann, some repetitions, details concerning people still alive, as well as notes that could be misunderstood by an unprepared reader, have been removed, but these cuts make up no more than three percent of the entire manuscript.

The manuscript was prepared for publication by Elena Yurievna Dorman, she also made notes to the text and translated quotations into Russian, as well as compiled an index of names. Invaluable assistance in this work was provided by Archpriest. Victor Sokolov (San Francisco), Jean-François and Lilya Colosimo (Paris), Nikita Alekseevich Struve (Paris), Natalia Andreevna Schmemann (Paris), Victor Maximovsky (Finland) and others. Viktor Sokolov.

The text has been brought into line with modern norms of spelling and punctuation, but the linguistic features characteristic of Father Alexander's speech have been preserved

Prot Alexander Schmemann

DIARIES 1973-1983

Notebook I

JANUARY 1973 – NOVEMBER 1974

Monday, January 29, 1973

Yesterday on the train (from Wilmington, Del.) I thought, fifty-second year, more than a quarter of a century of priesthood and theology, but what does it all mean? Or how to connect, how to explain to oneself what all this amounts to, clair et distinct, and is such an explanation possible and necessary? Twenty-five years ago, when this life (initiation, theology), which has now determined me, began, it seemed that any day now I would sit down, think about it and find out that it was only a matter of leisure. But here it was twenty-five years! And, without any doubt, most of life is behind your back, and there is much more unclear – in the depths – than clear.

What exactly needs to be explained? A combination, which always surprises me myself, of some deepest evidence of the reality without which I could not live a day, with all my growing disgust for these incessant conversations and arguments about religion, for these easy convictions, for this pious emotionality, and, of course, for "churchliness" in the sense of all small, insignificant interests... Reality: only yesterday I felt it – going to church for mass, early in the morning, in the desert of winter trees, and then this hour in an empty church, before mass. Always the same feeling: time filled with eternity, fullness, secret joy. The idea that the Church is needed in all its "empiricism" only for this experience to exist, to live. So, where it ceases to be a symbol, a mystery, it is a horror, a caricature.

Friday, February 16, 1973

I was looking for a notebook in my desk. I found almost a new one – and there was one entry in it, made on November 1, 1971. It is almost ridiculous how similar it is to the one that precedes this one: "religion" is the worst and best in man. Not only the best, but also the worst. I read the Journal Litteraire Leautaud – a strange attraction to this kind of book. Perhaps because it is like a mirror for believers: this is how truthful people see us. Falsehood, the horrible falsity of "religiosity." Joylessness. Mediocre "seriousness". Is it really possible if you believe in God – in the eternal and most important tout est ailleurs3 (Julien Green)? It is almost impossible to endure the "academic study of spirituality" any longer. How much is unnecessary, empty, pharisaical.