Saint Maria Skobtsova (1891-1945) perhaps captured, more vividly than any other figure of modern Orthodoxy, the evangelical message in all its revolutionary and provocative dimensions. While her theological discourse may seem scandalous, iconoclastic, and revisionist, we believe this is because we Orthodox Christians have, in many cases, lost the evangelical criterion for distinguishing the essential from the non-essential and for discerning the essentially Christian from that which merely bears the Christian name.

The Orthodox Church has often identified itself with a specific culture of the past and a type of spirituality in its attempt to preserve its distinctiveness from the Western Christian tradition. In this way, it is self-referentially defined by its tradition and cultural uniqueness and, at the same time, is hetero-referential in contrast to the "Other".

Saint Maria simply comes to remind us and the Church of its biblical and Christocentric foundations and references. For this very reason, her theological contribution is invaluable. We only need to be attuned to it.