• Katherine Kelaidis

    Katherine Kelaidis

    National Hellenic Museum (Chicago)

    Katherine Kelaidis is Director of Research and Content at the National Hellenic Museum in Chicago, IL. She holds a B.A. in Classics from the University of California, Berkeley, and a Ph.D. in Classics from the University of London.  Dr. Kelaidis is currently a Fellow of the Institute of Orthodox Christian Studies, Cambridge and has previously held posts at the Institute of Classical Studies, Freie Universitat Berlin, and Oxford University.  Her current academic work focuses on the deployment of historical narratives in shaping Eastern Christian identity and discourse in the diaspora.

    In addition to her academic work, Dr. Kelaidis writes and comments regularly in the popular press. She is a Senior Editor at Religion Dispatches, and her work has also appeared in several other publications including The Atlantic, The Spectator, and Salon. Her first book Holy Russia? Holy War? is now available from SPCK Press.
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Christian Practice

History is Not Your Friend
Christian Pacifism and the Imagined Past

It perhaps goes without saying that we have a tendency to construct our historical narratives less out of concern for accurately depicting the past and more out of a desire to make sense of the present, particularly where “making sense” means finding in history evidence for our own views with respect to contemporary debates. In...
Also available in: Русский | Ελληνικά

More posts by the author

Documents, Gender and Sexuality, Religion and the Academy

Freedom from Fear
Response to the Statement of the Holy Synod of the Orthodox Church in America

“There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.” (1 John 4:18) In our inaugural editorial in 2015, we stated: “The Wheel is a journal for the intelligent and constructive articulation of the Chr... Read more.
Culture and Arts

Contemporary Orthodox Fiction

by Katherine Kelaidis | ქართული | Ελληνικά | Русский | Српски The Brothers Karamazov is unarguably one of the greatest pieces of prose fiction ever written. It is also a distinctly Orthodox novel, that is to say a novel infused with the theology, customs, and cultu... Read more.
Also available in: Ελληνικά | Српски | ქართული | Русский
Theology

Our Problem with Forgiveness

by Katherine Kelaidis | ελληνικά | ру́сский People really like Hell. Or at least they really like the idea of Hell. And many are positively gleeful at the notion of some or another of their fellow human beings being tormented forever in its fiery furnaces (that’s right, forever, f... Read more.
Also available in: Ελληνικά | Русский
Culture and Arts, Orthodoxy and Modernity, Women in the Church

Headscarves, Modesty, and Modern Orthodoxy

by Katherine Kelaidis Yiayia Kay kept her scarves in the far upper right hand corner of the long light oak dresser. By the time I was old enough to remember, she never took them out except to garden. She would drape one of the silk covers over her perfectly coiffed hair to protect it against...... Read more.
Gender and Sexuality, Women in the Church

St. Kassiani, Sex Workers, and FOSTA-SESTA

This is not an essay 1) advocating sex work or 2) denying the need for repentance. This is an essay asking us to reconsider how we treat sex workers. If there is one thing that even the most theologically illiterate can accurately remember about the life of Christ, it is that he hung around with ... Read more.
Also available in: Ελληνικά | Русский
Uncategorized

My Gay Orthodox Friend’s Suicide

Last August, the first real friend I ever made at church took his own life. Jonathan (not his real name) was a year ahead of me at Cal where we met my freshman year. He was received into the Orthodox Church during the weekly liturgy our Orthodox Christian Fellowship chapter held in a chapel located.... Read more.
Also available in: Русский | Ελληνικά