THE REVEREND CANON ARNOLD WILLIAM
KLUKAS, PHD
awklukas@nashotah.edu
(262) 646-6542
Courtauld Institute of Art, University of London, Occasional Student (1975-1978)
Divinity School of Yale University, Master of Divinity (1972)
Faculty of Theology, Oxford University, Diploma in Theology (1971)
Wittenberg University, B.A., History (1969)
PROFESSOR OF LITURGICS AND ASCETICAL THEOLOGY
He chose to attend divinity school and, much to his dismay, found it a place where neither worship nor the practice of spiritual disciplines was considered of any importance. A fellowship to study theology at Oxford University provided an escape from the trendy liberal Protestant scene into the quiet cloisters of Anglican tradition and English stuffiness. There he found his true home, and his first spiritual director, at Pusey House. He returned to the USA as a staunch Anglo-Catholic and a repentant student of divinity; soon thereafter he sold his trendy theology books for a set of Aquinas in Latin and pursued a PhD in English Medieval Art and Architecture By God's gracious providence and without any machinations on his part, he was offered a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship to do his research in Great Britain, and his parish priest in Pittsburgh found him a curacy at All Saints' Church, Margaret Street, in London. At Margaret Street, working with the adjacent convent and an innovative program of Christian discipleship for young adults within the parish, he found exactly what his seminary training had lacked--the beauty of holiness, the importance of the ascetical life, and worship as our self-oblation to a transcendent, yet loving God.
After Fr. Klukas's return to the USA in 1978 he taught Art History at Oberlin and Smith Colleges but sorely missed his priestly life in London. His wife's expertise as a PhD in Biochemistry led to a job offer in Pittsburgh, where Fr. Klukas had been ordained. This led to fifteen years of parish ministry, revitalizing a dying inner-city parish into a dynamic center for Anglo-Catholic worship and spirituality. When he left Grace Church to come to Nashotah in 2002, he left behind a flourishing arts ministry, a multifaceted social outreach to the neighborhood, and the founding of a mission church that soon outgrew its "mother" in size.
Fr. Klukas considers his post as Professor of Liturgics and Ascetical Theology a job "made in Heaven" for him. Everything he is passionate about is part of his job description. Best of all, his dual vocations as a scholar/teacher and as a priest and spiritual director are finally combined into one job in one location--and such a holy and beautiful location! This side of heaven there could not be any place or any position that could possibly please him more.
