Welcome to St Vladimir’s Seminary! This is a special place: here, both faculty and students – male and female, single and married – live on campus to worship and study together, providing the best environment for the study of theology and the formation of future priests, theologians and other co-workers of God.

St Gregory the Theologian, speaking of his student years in Athens with St Basil the Great, recalls that they only knew two paths – one led to the church, the other to the classroom. The same is true in Crestwood today.

Our Chapel is at the center of campus life: the community comes together morning and evening for daily services and celebrates the feasts with unparalleled beauty. Liturgical worship is the most important element in the formation of our students, providing the necessary context and nourishment for all our other work.

The second path leads not only to the classroom, but also the library (the finest collection of books relating to Orthodoxy in the Western world). In the classroom, students are challenged not merely to repeat what was said in the past, but to continue the tradition of the Fathers by speaking the truth today, so continuing the legacy of excellence established by our former deans and faculty, luminaries of Orthodox theology in the twentieth century – Frs Georges Florovsky, Alexander Schmemann and John Meyendorff, to name but a few.

We offer a number of different programs of study. Our core course is the Master of Divinity, which prepares students for service to the Church as priests and in other leadership roles. With the rich tapestry of Orthodoxy in New York, our students experience a wide range of parishes and parochial ministry in their weekend assignments and internships, in addition to the pastoral training that they receive at local hospitals and other ministries. We also offer a Master of Arts program in Orthodox Theology, other programs in Music and Education, and a Master of Theology for advanced academic study.

Our mission is further served by SVS Press, the leading publisher of Orthodox materials in English. The books that we have published over the past decades have been one of the most important factors in the spread of Orthodoxy in the West, bringing countless people to Christ.

You can find much more information about all that we have to offer on this website. If you are interested in coming to study, would like to find out more about what we do, or would like to support our activity, please do contact us.

Rev John Behr
Dean, St Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary