Michael Plekon is an Americanpriest, professor, author, sociologist and theologian. He has published more than a dozen books, as well as hundreds of journal papers, book chapters and reviews on faith and holiness. His works include religious social history, social theory and its connections with theology, the works of Søren Kierkegaard, contemporary Eastern Orthodox theology and theologians of the Russian emigration and saints. More recently, his research and publications explore persons of faith, seeking identity and God in spiritual journeys. He is also writing about persons of faith struggling for social justice and for ways of rediscovering holiness in ordinary life. He is especially interested in the encounter with God in the everyday. Plekon's efforts to describe what holiness looks like in our time, the distinctive characteristics of women and men of faith, have been praised by colleagues. They see it as an important "new hagiography" or writing about saints who are our contemporaries, like Dorothy Day, Mother Teresa, Thomas Merton or Daniel Berrigan. Plekon has had a long career as an academic, theologian and clergy member. Since 1977, Plekon has taught at Baruch College, first as an Assistant Professor, and eventually as a Professor within the Weissman School of Arts and Sciences since 1998. In addition to his academic work, he has served as an Associate Priest as St. Gregory Orthodox Church inWappingers Falls, New York since 1996. Ordained in 1983 in the Lutheran Church in America, later the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America Plekon was later received into the Orthodox Church in America. For almost 40 years, he has served as a parish pastor, alongside teaching and research. He is writing about his pastoral experiences and is examining the importance of community, not only for church but for meaning and depth in one's life in a book in progress. This work also deals with our need, in a diverse America, to cross into other cultures and religious traditions with respect, learning from them and becoming deeper persons from this encounter. This was something he experienced in his own family's ecumenical sensitivity. Plekon's book, Uncommon Prayer: Prayer in Everyday Experience, was named by Spirituality and Practice as one of the best spiritual books of 2016 and was the Gold Winner of the 2016 Foreword INDIES book of the Year Award in the Adult Nonfiction, Religion category.
Biography
Plekon's interest in studying religion began early on when he chose to pursue a bachelor's degree in Sociology and Philosophy from the Catholic University in Washington, D.C. in 1970. He later obtained a master’s degree and a doctorate in Sociology and Religion from Rutgers University in New Jersey. Plekon's doctoral advisor was renowned sociologist of religion and theologian Peter L. Berger, who mentions Plekon in his memoir among his students of interest as an "expert in the Orthodox diaspora in the West.". Plekon met his wife Jeanne through a long-time friend while she was pursuing a master's in art history and museum studies at The Clark Institute, Williams College. They have been married since 1976 and have two children, Paul and Hannah.
Awards and Honors
Plekon has received more than twenty research awards in his years at Baruch College-CUNY, including annual PSC-CUNY Faculty Research Awards, several Baruch Faculty Fellowships for a year of study and other research grants.
