Born in Leningrad in 1952, Irina overcame repeated discrimination in the Soviet Union before graduating summa cum laude in Classics and beginning her research career in ancient history and epigraphy. Her Christian faith, formed in part through contact with persecuted believers, shaped both her scholarship and her public commitments.
Her first visit to Cambridge in 1989 brought her into collaboration with Bruce Winter at Tyndale House, leading to her influential volume The Book of Acts in Its Diaspora Setting (1996). Irina became a familiar presence in Cambridge over the years, supported by Joyce Reynolds and many friends in the university and at Tyndale House.
“By the time I started studying at Tyndale House in the early 1990s, Irina Levinskaya was already a regular visitor. Over the years, this courageous, principled and learned lady made than 50 study visits to Tyndale House and always enriched the community. At Tyndale House we particularly want to remember Irina publicly, because the circumstances of her life are such that she could easily be forgotten, even though she was the first person since the Russian Revolution to teach the New Testament at a state university in Russia.”
Peter J. Williams, Principal of Tyndale House
Irina held senior research posts in Saint Petersburg, reintroduced New Testament teaching at the State University, and published widely on Acts, early Judaism, and the Bosporan Kingdom. In later years, she became an outspoken advocate for political dissidents in Russia, resigning from her institute in 2022 in protest at the invasion of Ukraine.
She died on 5 February 2025 after a long illness, leaving a significant legacy in biblical studies, classical epigraphy, and the history of early Jewish–Christian relations.
Irina Alekseyevna Levinskaya (1952–2025) | Published in Tyndale Bulletin.
April 22, 2026