Igumen John Harwell
December 2, 2000

John H. Harwell was born in Opelika, Alabama, on August 25, 1921. He studied as both an undergraduate and a graduate student at the University of Chicago, and taught English briefly at Chicago and at the University of Montana. Upon being confirmed in the Episcopal Church in 1953, Igumen Harwell spent five years at an Episcopal monastery in Three Rivers, Michigan. After attending General Theological Seminary in New York City, he was ordained as an Episcopal priest in 1964. In that capacity, he served parishes in Livingston, Alabama, and Opelika, Alabama. Igumen Harwell left the Episcopal Church in 1976 when that denomination began ordaining women as priests, and joined the Eastern Orthodox Church in 1977. He later became a monk at a Russian Orthodox monastery in Resaca, Georgia, and was ordained to the Orthodox priesthood in 1990.

Igumen Harwell began compiling collection of work, which was edited by two of his friends, Washington, D.C., lawyer Richard L. Wyatt, Jr., and Auburn University English professor Ward S. Allen. The unpublished manuscript contains the igumen’s philosophical reflections on and critiques of Western thought from an Eastern Orthodox perspective, focusing on science, history, literature, and theology, as well as his correspondence with Wyatt and Vanderbilt University English Professor Harold L. Weatherby.
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