Who We Are

Our Vision

The Liturgical Arts in the Orthodox Church are the product of two thousand years of liturgical worship in an unbroken continuity; they serve to lift up the worshiper from the earthly plane to the heavenly realm.  Because we see a loss of the Church’s traditional worship in America, we endeavor to implement a project that will revitalize the traditional liturgical arts in order to restore the proper power to, and transformative nature of, our worship.  Each generation must acquire the skills and knowledge of the tradition and carry it forward as their own living and vital expression of our faith in God.

Our Mission

The Liturgical Arts Academy teaches church leaders and artists the traditional skills and knowledge of Byzantine chant, iconography and other liturgical arts amidst a new culture, a new language and to a new generation of Orthodox Christians in the United States. The Academy strives to revitalize the Orthodox tradition of the liturgical arts in order to restore the proper power and transformative nature of worship of the Holy Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit for the salvation of all. 

TLAA is a member of the Orthodox Christian Academy of Atlanta, with the blessing of His Eminence Metropolitan Alexios of Atlanta.

The Executive Board

  • Presvy. Christine Salzman

    EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

  • Fr. Anthony Salzman

    PRESIDENT & FOUNDER

  • Constantine Kokenes, MD

    VICE PRESIDENT & FOUNDER

  • Jamie Tarasidis

    SECRETARY

  • Fr. Andreas Houpos

    Advisor

  • Dimitri Triantafyllides

    TREASURER

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Experience the Spirit of The Academy

Our Sponsor

The Renaissance Fund

We are grateful for their support for our 2024 program! We have received a MATCHING GRANT and hope that you will contribute to TLAA, where the impact of your gift will be doubled by the Matching Grant from The Renaissance Fund.

RF is a private foundation that supports religious, charitable, educational, and scientific purposes of organizations promoting educational and humanitarian efforts and programs in the Greek Community within the United States, and the Eastern Orthodox Church.

Our Story

In 2015, St. Philothea Greek Orthodox Church in Athens, Georgia was selected to participate in the “Congregations Project” at the Yale Divinity School’s Institute for Sacred Music. ISM invited 7 congregations to work on a project related to the theme From Generation to Generation. Reverend Anthony Salzman, iconographer, and Dr. Constantine Kokenes, psaltis, crafted a project entitled  “Liturgy as Outreach: Traditional Worship and Contemporary Witness” which centered around training our young people in the arts of Byzantine music and iconography.  They included Maximos Salzman, a 19 year old artist and faithful Orthodox Christian, to join them as a representative of the youth of the Church. The by-line of the project read “keeping and proclaiming the Orthodox Christian Faith and sanctifying the faithful through God’s grace by celebrating the divine Liturgy and sacraments.

The experience at Yale was the inspiration that sparked the development of a training program at the Diakonia Retreat Center to teach chant and iconography. In 2017, Fr. Anthony and Dr. Constantine applied for and were awarded a Vital Worship Grant from The Calvin Institute of Christian Worship and so The Liturgical Arts Academy was born. The quality of the program was top priority for Salzman and Kokenes who planned a one-week event centered around high quality instruction, daily worship, evening lecture programs and the fellowship of believers. Fr. Anthony directed the iconography program, Dr. Kokenes directed the chant program and Presvytera Christine Salzman took on the administrative tasks. TLAA 2018 had 30 students. TLAA 2019 added Liturgical Textiles and had 46 students, and TLAA 2020 had 62 students registered before it was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Although the program is hosted in the Greek Orthodox Metropolis of Atlanta, it is a pan-Orthodox event and the participants come from all over the United States.

His Eminence Metropolitan Alexios and The Diakonia Retreat Center have welcomed and transformed The Liturgical Arts Academy from merely an academic gathering to a spiritual retreat; a gathering in nature with meeting halls, delicious food and a beautiful lake. The magnificent Panagia Chapel is an acoustically unique church for the chanters to sing praises and for the artisans to ponder the works of His hands.

Leadership 100 and The Calvin Institute of Christian Worship provided grants early in our development, allowing us build our program from the ground up. We are so grateful for the ongoing support of The Renaissance Fund from 2022 to the present.

In January 2023, with the blessing and encouragement of His Eminence Metropolitan Alexios, we became a part of the Orthodox Christian Academy of Atlanta, which seeks “to foster dialogue between the Church and contemporary society” through symposia and lectures at the Diakonia Retreat Center.

We see God’s hand guiding The Liturgical Arts Academy to raise up chanters, iconographers, and hopefully other artisans to reflect the eternal beauty of God.

Past Sponsors of The Liturgical Arts Academy

The Leadership 100 Fund

offers grants to Christian church communities, students, teachers and scholars for initiatives that strengthen faith. TLAA received grants from CICW in 2017 and 2019.

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The Calvin Institute for Christian Worship

is an endowment fund of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese to provide an opportunity for Greek Orthodox leaders to support the life-sustaining ministries of the Church.