On July 16, 2008 Jesuit Father Miguel Arranz, the well-known professor of Liturgy who
taught at the Pontifical Oriental Institute, Rome, in Moscow and in St Petersburg, died.Father Arranz was born on July 9, 1930 in Guadalajara, Spain. Between 1941 and 1949, he studied at the Seminary of Toledo and in 1949 he began studies at the Pontifical Oriental Institute where he trained under Jesuit Father Juan Mateos. He was ordained a deacon in 1952 and two years later he was ordained a priest. After spending a period of time studying in Belgium, Father Arranz returned to Rome in 1967 and began his study of the Typicon of the Monastery of the Holy Savior (Messina, Italy). In 1969, he defended a work titled "How did the ancient Byzantines pray?" at the Saint Petersburg Orthodox Spiritual Academy. Between 1969 and 1975, he taught Liturgy at the same Academy where in 1975 Patriarch Pimen appointed him a full professor and later he taught in Moscow and in St Petersburg. Father Arranz is the author of many scholarly articles and books on liturgical theology and history.
