The Sacred Arts asMystagogical Catechesis (PAST 7025)

Term: Academic Year 2025-2026 Spring

Faculty

	Lucas Lynn ChristensenShow MyInfo popup for Lucas Lynn Christensen
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Schedule

Tue, 6:30 PM - 8:50 PM (1/20/2026 - 5/11/2026) Location: MAIN ONL SYNC

Description

In the earliest centuries of Christianity, “mystagogy”—the meaning of the Church’s worship, its environment, and its ritual practice—was conveyed to adult converts through catechetical orations. Over time, as initiates came normatively to be received in infancy, mystagogy had to be taught through other means. Individual writers composed standalone treatises, which were composed and disseminated, and the Church in the Early and Byzantine periods incorporated these, and earlier liturgical hermeneutics through the interplay of homiletics, hymnography, architecture, and iconography. Students in this seminar-format class will investigate development of the content and form of mystagogy by engaging its primary sources and select studies:
beginning with the scriptures, early church orders, and catechetical orations; in the next phase, moving to the texts of (ps.) Dionysios the Areopagite and St. Maximos the Confessor; then, turning to elaborations in sacred architecture and the development