A discussion of issues of religion and spirituality in Pärt’s life and works describing the numinous encouner and including a brief consideration of Pärt’s own faith background, an assessment of certain theological realities for his life and music (which amount to theologies of both word and sound), contextualizing his beliefs (as expressed in his music) in comparison with St. Silouan, one of the Orthodox writers he most admires, a statistical evaluation of his predominantly Christian texts, a related examination of how his music embraces both secular spirituality and institutional religion, and how the texts can speak to contemporary audiences, an analysis of the iconic and transcendent properties of his music and an approach to understanding how it works, and finally, the suggestion of a way of accounting for the popularity of his music with diverse audiences on various levels of comprehension using mentalese and anagogy.