KESICH, VESELIN

KESICH, VESELIN, Serbian-American New Testament scholar, Slavicist, churchman (1921– ). Born in Yugoslavia, he passed through the displaced persons camps in Italy before beginning his studies at Dorchester College, Great Britain, in 1947, completing his Ph.D. in the Columbia University-Union Theological Seminary joint program after arriving in the United States in 1949. He served as professor of New Testament for thirty-eight years at St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary (q.v.) and professor of comparative religion at Sarah Lawrence College, then holding faculty emeritus status at both institutions. In the field of New Testament, in addition to occasional articles and essays, he has published The Passion of Christ (1965), The Gospel Image of Christ: The Church and Biblical Criticism (1972; rev. ed. 1992), The First Day of the New Creation: The Resurrection and Christian Faith (1982), and Treasures of the Holy Land (1985), coauthored with his wife, Lydia.

Influenced in his learning by Frederick Grant of Union and Georges Florovsky (q.v.), who was dean of St. Vladimir’s, Kesich evaluates the historical critical method as a neutral tool, accessible to the Orthodox Church and its Scripture scholars, not to be used in isolation from patristic (q.v.) commentaries and other traditional tools. A line of continuity may be drawn from Florovsky’s neo-patristic synthesis to Kesich’s evaluation of the historical critical method, and beyond to the approach taken by some younger Orthodox Scripture specialists, all of whom have accepted Kesich’s position as (now) a presupposition.

In the field of Slavic studies, aside from adjunct professorships at the University of California, Berkeley, and New York University, he has authored articles on Dostoevsky (q.v.), Sava of Serbia, Bishop Nikolai Velimirovich, and other topics relating to the spirituality of the Serbian Orthodox Church (q.v.) and Serbo-Croatian literature. Kesich’s lectures at Berkeley on Dostoevsky and Orthodoxy were presented to packed rooms and attended by ranking faculty. Always a faithful churchman, displaying balance in his theology and humility in his personal behavior, Kesich’s quiet legacy will continue on to reflect the “Orthodox-mindedness” of 20th-c. Scripture and Slavic studies scholarship.