Feast of the Annunciation. Sermon by Dr. Irina Paert

The sermon for the Feast of the Annunciation is given by Dr. Irina Paert. Dr. Paert is an assistant professor at the School of Theology and Religious Studies at the University of Tartu, Estonia. Being born in Russia and graduating from the Urals State University in Yekaterinburg, she continued her postgraduate studies at the Central European University in Budapest and at the University of Essex, UK. After completion of her PhD, she held a lectureship at the University of Bangor, UK but later she moved to Estonia, where worked on different research projects. She is a specialist in the history of the modern Orthodox church in Russia and in the Baltic and has many academic publications in this field. She is also a co-founder of the St John’s School in Tallinn, Estonia which is a school based on the Orthodox principles for the ages 7-19. She is coordinating a research team of scholars working on the project Orthodoxy as Solidarity: conciliar and popular Orthodoxy in Estonia in the long 20th century, funded by the Estonian Research Council.