Sean Griffin
Associate Professor of Slavic and Eurasian Studies
Education
PhD, University of California, Los Angeles
MA, University of California, Los Angeles
BA, Pepperdine University
Research and Teaching Interests
- Russia and Ukraine
- Politics
- Eastern Christianity
- Cultural Memory
- Cinema
Biography
Sean Griffin is an interdisciplinary scholar of Russia and Ukraine. His research focuses on the history of the Orthodox Church and its role in the sacralization of political power: from the liturgy and chronicles of medieval Kyiv to the arthouse cinema and wartime propaganda of Putin's Russia.
Griffin's newest book, The Patriarch's War: Kirill Gundiaev and the Forty-Year Battle for Ukraine, tells the story of modern Russian Orthodoxy through the rise of its most powerful and polarizing leader. Moving from the Gulag legacy of Kirill’s family to the Kremlin’s war against Ukraine, he uncovers the deep religious origins of the full-scale invasion and reveals how Patriarch Kirill has mobilized sacred memory to sanctify Putin’s war. Blending intellectual biography with political history, Griffin offers the first full account of how Kirill has taken Christ and Mary and fashioned from them the gods of war.
Griffin’s first book, The Liturgical Past in Byzantium and Early Rus, was published with Cambridge University Press. The chroniclers of medieval Rus were monks, who celebrated the divine services of the Byzantine church throughout every day. The study analyzes how these rituals shaped their writing of the Rus Primary Chronicle, the first written history of the East Slavs. The Liturgical Past was the winner of two international book awards: the W. Bruce Lincoln Book Prize and the Ecclesiastical History Society Book Prize.
Griffin completed his PhD in Slavic Studies at UCLA. His research has been supported by the Volkswagen Foundation, the Dartmouth Society of Fellows, the Gerda Henkel Foundation, the ACLS-Luce Foundation, the Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies, and the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation.
At Notre Dame, Griffin teaches interdisciplinary courses on the history, culture, religion, and politics of Eastern Europe. He also leads courses in the Russian language program. His interest in these subjects was inspired by his own unexpected conversion to the Orthodox Church as a young college student, searching for the meaning of life in the mountains of southern California.
Representative Publications and Accomplishments
The Liturgical Past in Byzantium and Early Rus, Cambridge University Press, 2019.
Winner, W. Bruce Lincoln Book Prize
Winner, Ecclesiastical History Society Book Prize
"The Dark Double: Russian Orthodoxy in Andrei Zviagintsev's Leviathan" Slavic Review, v. 83/1. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Press, pp. 576-590.
“Putin’s Holy War of the Fatherland: Sacred Memory and the Russian Invasion of Ukraine.” The Russian Review v. 83/1. Lawrence, KS: Wiley Periodicals, pp. 79-92.
" Revolution, Raskol, and Rock 'n' Roll: The 1020th Anniversary of the Day of the Baptism of Rus", The Russian Review , v. 80/2. Lawrence, KS: Wiley Periodicals, pp. 183-208.
Winner, Eve Levin Prize
"Putin's Medieval Weapons in the War Against Ukraine", Studies in Medievalism v. 29. Karl Fugelso (ed.). Suffolk, UK: Boydell and Brewer, pp. 13-21.
"Византийская литургия и создание Повести временных лет", Ruthenica, v. 15. Kyiv: Institute of History, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, pp. 7-44.