Lucas Christensen
Teaching Scholar, Theology
Primary Area: Liturgical Studies
Biography
Lucas Lynn Christensen holds a Ph.D. in Theology from the University of Notre Dame, with a concentration in Liturgical Studies and a graduate minor in Visual and Material Culture. His research explores how liturgical aesthetics form participants’ perception of worship and its environment. This forms the basis of his forthcoming book, which investigates vivid descriptions of art, architecture, and ritual practice in Early Byzantine festal homilies, bridging Late Antique theories of rhetoric and image.
His current project examines how Late Antique sacred architecture functions as a cosmological model that frames the natural world as a ritualized environment. This investigation centers material culture to provide a historical perspective for modern eco-theology, and to expand our understanding of ritual space in Early Christian interpretation.
Lucas provides ongoing education in homiletics as Assistant Director of the Compelling Preaching program at St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary, a research and resource project funded by the Lilly Endowment. He also serves on the Notre Dame Crucifix Initiative committee, advising on the installation of crosses from global cultures across campus.
Research Interests
Liturgical Aesthetics, Homiletics, Sacred Art & Architecture, Sacramental Theology, Spiritual Senses & Mysticism
Representative Publications
Homilist as Hierophant: Ritual Perception and Byzantine Ekphrasis, forthcoming, under publisher review.
“The Church as Type and Image: Maximos the Confessor’s Ecclesiastical Mystagogy in light of Carthaginian Church Architecture,” co-authored with Robin Jensen. Forthcoming in Collected Papers of the Colloquium on the Mystagogy of Maximos the Confessor, Pappas Patristic Institute, April 2022, edited by Thomas Cattoi and Paul Blowers. (https://doi.org/10.1016/J.ACTPSY.2024.104349 )
“The Effect of Temporal Context on Memory for Art,” co-authored with Sean Dageforde, Dani Parra, Klaudia Malik, Robin M. Jensen, James R. Brockmole, Gabriel A. Radvansky. Acta Psychologica 248 (2024).
“The Deifying Sacrifice: Thysia in the Eucharistic Prayers of Byzantine Basil.” In Further Issues in Early Eucharistic Praying, edited by Maxwell E. Johnson. Liturgical Press (2023).
Dissertation
“Homilist as Hierophant: Guiding Liturgical Perception via Byzantine Ekphrasis”
Director: Robin M. Jensen
Education
- Ph.D. University of Notre Dame
- M.Div. Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology
- B.A. Concordia University Wisconsin