One of my most vivid recollections in Berkeley was a class with Dr. A. T., the quintessential absent-minded professor. Thick glasses, messy hair like he just got out of bed, unkempt mustache. He wore the same ratty sport coat every day, and it had one pocket that was always just a little bit ripped off. His disheveled appearance seemed organically to merge with his general disdain for anything traditionally perceived as sacred.
During a “Russian, Eastern European, Eurasian Cultures” class we were reading the life of Prince Vladimir of Kiev. Dr. T. scoffed, along with all the rest of the students, at the mere suggestion that Prince Vladimir became a monogamist after his conversion to Christianity. The possibility of “suffering a sea change” was not even considered by these people. Not surprising, perhaps, in a college environment where excess is the banal norm, but that’s not what struck me the most. In my rather sheltered Orthodox existence, it was my first time encountering the idea that the Lives of the Saints are in some sense “not true”.
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