Vassa Larin

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Dr. Sr. Vassa (Barbara) Larin (born Varvara Georgievna Larina, Russian: Варва́ра Гео́ргиевна Ла́рина, pronounced [vɐrˈvarə ɡʲɪˈorɡʲɪ(j)ɪvnə ˈɫarʲɪnə]; December 11, 1970) is an American nun with the Orthodox Church of Ukraine. She is the author of many scholarly articles and a monograph on Byzantine liturgy and theology, and an outspoken public intellectual on current issues of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia (ROCOR), of which she was formerly a member. She is Professor of Practical Theology of the Kyiv Orthodox Theological Academy.

Sister Vassa was a member of the Commission of the Inter-Council Presence of the Russian Orthodox Church: the Commission on Liturgy and Church Art, and the Commission of the Inter-Council Presence of the Russian Orthodox Church: the Commission on Canon Law.

Biography

Varvara Georgievna Larina was born to the family of a Russian Orthodox priest in Nyack, New York. Larin graduated from Nyack High School and entered Bryn Mawr College in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, at the age of 16. She left college to enter the Lesna Convent of the ROCOR in Provement, France, at age 19. After ten years in France, she spent two years at the Mount of Olives Convent in Jerusalem. Following a long spiritual and academic novitiate training, involving the study of Greek, Latin, German, Patristic Theology and Church History, Vassa was eventually enrolled by Archbishop Mark (Arndt) of Berlin and Germany to study Orthodox Theology at the Orthodox Institute of LMU Munich, Germany. There she received a master's degree in Orthodox Theology, having written a Master’s Thesis on the “Royal Office” at the beginning of Byzantine Orthros.^{[citation needed]}

From 2006 to 2008, she worked as the Graduate Assistant of expert on Byzantine Liturgy, Professor Robert F. Taft, S.J., at the Pontifical Oriental Institute in Rome. Taft directed Sr. Vassa’s doctoral dissertation on the Byzantine hierarchal liturgy, which she defended summa cum laude at the Orthodox Institute of LMU Munich in December 2008.^{[citation needed]} A revised version of Larin’s dissertation, titled The Byzantine Hierarchal Divine Liturgy in Arsenij Suxanov’s Proskinitarij, was published in 2010 as volume 286 of the academic series Orientalia Christiana Analecta.

Larin once taught Liturgical Studies at the Catholic Faculty of the University of Vienna in Austria.

She is a founding member of the Society of Oriental Liturgies, and a member of the North American Academy of Liturgy. ^{[citation needed]}

Writings

Her numerous publications, written in English, Russian, or German, include scholarly studies based on original manuscript-research, as well as articles on controversial topics in contemporary Orthodoxy.

References

External links

• Coffee with Sister Vassa website
• Full CV and Bibliography on the website of the Catholic Theological Faculty of Vienna University Archived 2013-12-05 at the Wayback Machine
• Works available online on personal website of Michael Zheltov
• Video of Sr. Vassa’s lecture, “Why Study the History of the Liturgy?” (June 2012)
• Audio of Sr. Vassa’s lecture, “The Active Participation of the Laity and the Byzantine Liturgy” (June 2012) on Ancient Faith Radio
• Interview for ROCOR-Studies website, “Orthodoxy is Not a Religion of Fear” (May 4, 2009)
• Interview for ROCOR-Studies website, “Orthodoxy: Affirmation, Not Negation” (September 4, 2009)