Anthony Antolini will speak on The Russian Orthodox Church Today on Thursday, December 18, at the Rockland Public Library. This event takes place from 6:00-7:30PM and is free and open to all.

Note: This talk will be repeated on Thursday, January 8, 6:30PM at the Merrill Memorial Library in Yarmouth.

The Russian Orthodox Church today represents a far more powerful force in Russian society than it has in over a century. Throughout its history the Russian Church has been inextricably connected with political forces. These influences continue today but in new and surprising ways that seem quite foreign to the American experience. The presentation will include a brief summary of Russian Church history, a review of recent developments in the Putin administration and a look at how Eastern Orthodoxy is connected to the current crisis in Ukraine.

About the speaker: Anthony Antolini, Ph.D., graduated from Bowdoin College with a degree in music. He then went on to Stanford University where he completed a master’s degree in music and another master’s degree in Russian and a doctoral degree in Slavic Studies. He was also a foreign student at Moscow University in 1976. He taught Russian language at Cabrillo College in Santa Cruz County, California and combined it with a rising career as a choral director, combining his professional interests in music and Slavic languages. In 1986 he created (and subsequently published) the first American bilingual edition of Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom (composed in 1910) and began touring with that work, first in the United States and subsequently in the USSR at the invitation of the Soviet government. The tour, which took place in 1987-88 became the subject of a PBS documentary, Rediscovering Rachmaninoff, which won a Silver Apple Award for best classical music documentary in 1990. He has been a guest lecturer for the American Choral Directors Association and the University of New Mexico’s Annual Conference on Mentoring. Antolini is artistic director of Down East Singers, music director of the Lincoln Festival Chorus and organist at the Episcopal Church of St. John Baptist in Thomaston. This fall he is on sabbatical from his teaching position at Bowdoin and is editing music for future publication.

This presentation is hosted by the Rockland Public Library and offered as a free community event in in anticipation of the 28th Annual Camden Conference: Russia Resurgent, February 20-22, 2015.

The mission of the Camden Conference is to foster informed discourse on world issues. For more information, visit www.camdenconference.org, email info@camdenconference.org, or call 207-236-1034.