Westminster History Professor Named VP of New Association

Dr. Russell Martin, associate professor of history at Westminster College, was recently named vice president and president elect of the Association for the Study of Eastern Christianity (ASHEC.)

"The new association was created to support the study of the history of Eastern Christianity, and to encourage new approaches in this understudied field, Martin said. This professional organization emerged out of a Harvard/Yale group that is putting together a volume on the history of Russian Orthodoxy. I am contributing one of the chapters on death and commemoration in medieval Muscovy."

Martin appeared on A&E Biography in a broadcast on Ivan the Terrible as an expert on the controversial ruler, and has been an expert witness in a Canadian civil trial about the Russian royal family. He is the co-founder of the Muscovite Biographical Database, a Russian-American computerized register based in Moscow of early modern Russian notables. The Neville Island, Pa. Native is not only fluent in Russian, but also reads Old Church Slavonic/Russian, French, German, Latin, and Polish.

Martin, who has been with Westminster College since 1996, earned his bachelor's degree from the University of Pittsburgh, and his master's and Ph.D. from Harvard University.

For more information, contact Martin at (724) 946-7246 or e-mail martinre@westminster.edu.