This article considers academic freedom—understood as a scholar’s freedom of conscience to pursue research without interference or retribution— and its application within the Church as a freedom to think, ask questions, speak, do research, and propose new ideas that address contemporary culture. After cataloging some of the challenges to academic freedom, the article looks at the gospel basis for an Orthodox approach and at the ways two contemporary thinkers, Jaroslav Pelikan and Metropolitan Kallistos Ware, have defended academic freedom.
