Online Zoom Forum: Metropolitan Kallistos Ware: The Spiritual and Ecological Vision in his Life and Work.
Date: Wednesday 18 September 2024.
Time: 7pm-9pm (UK time).
Event Description:
Format: There will be five talks, each of 12 minutes, followed by 20 minutes of discussion among the speakers and the chair, followed by Q & A.
Chair:
Bruce Clark:
Bio: I write, broadcast and speak on a wide range of subjects including religion and geopolitics, the history of south eastern Europe and the story of textiles. I am the online religion editor of The Economist, and I often contribute to other publications. I serve on the committee of the Maghera Historical Society and I have a strong interest in the local history of my corner of Northern Ireland, especially its linen heritage and its early American connections. I have been an active participant in global debates organised by the Ecumenical Patriarch on the subject of faith and the environment. The early Christian history of Ireland and Scotland is another strong personal interest.
What Bruce did before: Since 1998 I have worked mainly for The Economist, covering everything from conflict in the Balkans to transatlantic relations and comparative religion. Between 2002 and early 2004 I took a sabbatical to research the history of forced migration between Greece and Turkey. In 2006, I launched the international pages of The Economist’s foreign news section, a new editorial feature devoted to broad global topics from disarmament to development.
Bruce and Yeltsin: Before joining The Economist, I served as diplomatic correspondent for the Financial Times, working in London, Brussels and then Washington DC. From 1990-1993, I was a correspondent for The Times in Moscow, covering the fall of communism and Russia’s post-Soviet transition. In an earlier stint at the Financial Times, I was editor of the European news section. My first jobs as a journalist were with Reuters, as a junior correspondent in Paris and as the agency’s main correspondent in Athens. Thanks to these jobs, I have a good working knowledge of French, modern Greek and Russian and I can get along in Italian, Dutch, German and Spanish.
At Saint John’s College, Cambridge, I studied Philosophy and then Social and Political Sciences, graduating with a BA in 1979. Before that I was educated at Maghera Primary School, Brook House School in Dublin and Shrewsbury School.
I have written three books:
An Empire’s New Clothes: The End of Russia’s Liberal Dream was published by Vintage Paperbacks in 1995.
Twice A Stranger: How Forced Migration Forged Modern Greece and Turkey. Published by Granta in the UK in 2005 and Harvard University Press in the USA in 2007.
Athens: City of Wisdom. Published by Bloomsbury Publishing PLC in 2021.
Speakers:
Dr Elizabeth Theokritoff:
Title: The Philokalia, Porridge and Shepherd Dogs.
Description: Despite Metropolitan Kallistos's erudition and long career as an Oxford don, there was nothing academic about his theology: it was grounded in prayer, spiritual reading and church life, and the tradition handed on from spiritual fathers and mothers. I will give a few examples (from his great store of anecdotes) of how his vision of creation was shaped by the writings of the Philokalia, but also by his decades of work translating it, and the people and places with whom this brought him into contact.
Bio: Elizabeth Theokritoff earned her doctorate in liturgical theology in 1983, under the supervision of Metropolitan Kallistos. She was Secretary of the Fellowship of St Alban and St Sergius 1983-1990, and worked for many years as a theological translator from Modern Greek. Elizabeth is an independent scholar with a particular interest in theology and ecology, lecturing and supervising part-time at the Institute for Orthodox Christian Studies, Cambridge. Her publications include The Cambridge Companion to Orthodox Christian Theology (as editor - 2008), Ecosystem and Human Dominion (in Greek; 2003), for which Metropolitan Kallistos kindly wrote a Foreword, and Living in God’s Creation: Orthodox Perspectives on Ecology (2009), as well as numerous chapters and journal articles.
Revd Dr Liz Carmichael MBE:
Title: Kallistos Ware as Lecturer in Theology, and as speaking to a wider audience.
Description: After brief reminiscences of Metropolitan Kallistos as Spalding Lecturer in Eastern Orthodox Studies, I will play a few minutes of one of many talks he gave to a more general audience, at a Study Day at the ecumenical St Theosevia Centre, of which he was a Founder.
Bio: Revd Dr Liz Carmichael MBE is an Emeritus Fellow in Theology at St John's College, Oxford, she is the successor to Metropolitan Kallistos as Director of the St Theosevia Centre for Christian Spirituality, and Co-convenes OxPeace (the Oxford Network of Peace Studies) promoting the study of peace, peacemaking, peacebuilding and peacekeeping at Oxford and beyond. Originally a medical doctor, Liz worked one year in Canada, then seven years at Baragwanath Hospital, Soweto (1975-1981) while also co-leading contact programmes across apartheid barriers. Back in Oxford Liz achieved a First in Theology and wrote a doctorate on friendship as a descriptor of Christian love, agape (Friendship: Interpreting Christian Love, T&T Clark, 2004). She worked 1991–1996 in spirituality and education in the Anglican Diocese of Johannesburg, was ordained priest in 1992, and served on peace committees under the National Peace Accord, before becoming Chaplain and Tutor in Theology at St John’s College 1996-2011. Recently Liz published Peacemaking and Peacebuilding in South Africa: the National Peace Accord 1991 – 1994 (Boydell & Brewer: 2022).
Prof Marcus Plested:
Title: Through the Creation to the Creator.
Description: This talk will provide some further reflection on the theological underpinnings of Metropolitan Kallistos' ecological vision with particular reference to the theology of St Gregory Palamas. I will also speak briefly about the inspiration he gained from his friend and collaborator Philip Sherrard.
Bio: Marcus Plested (D.Phil., University of Oxford, 1999) is Professor of Greek Patristic and Byzantine Theology at Marquette University.
Schooled in London, he studied modern history followed by theology at Merton College, Oxford, completing his doctorate under the supervision of Metropolitan Kallistos Ware.
He taught for many years at the Institute for Orthodox Christian Studies and the Faculty of Divinity in Cambridge (UK).
He has been a member of the Center of Theological Inquiry and the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, NJ, and has taught, lectured, and published widely in patristic, Byzantine, and modern Orthodox theology.
He is the author or editor of four books to date: The Macarian Legacy: The Place of Macarius-Symeon in the Eastern Christian Tradition (Oxford: OUP 2004); Orthodox Readings of Aquinas (Oxford: OUP 2012); The Oxford Handbook to the Reception of Aquinas (Oxford: OUP 2021) (with Matthew Levering); and Wisdom in Christian Tradition: The Patristic Roots of Modern Russian Sophiology (Oxford: OUP 2022).
Archpriest Stephen Platt:
Bio: Rector, the The Parish of St Nicholas Oxford.
An archive recording will be made for the EICSP archive.
NB: There will be no refund if you cancel your booking.
Cost: By Donation:
Contact: Neill Walker, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
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