Lumen Christi Institute

Free and open to the public. This event will be presented on Zoom (registration required), as well as through live-stream on YouTube. This event is co-presented with the Godbearer Institute and the Collegium Institute.

Metropolitan Borys Gudziak has spent his life committed to Catholic education. He helped to found Ukrainian Catholic University in Lviv, the only Catholic University between Poland and Japan. The University’s mission was simple: to bring the Christian humanist vision of the Catholic University to Ukraine to heal the wounds inflicted by Soviet oppression. Gudziak was rector of Ukrainian Catholic University until 2012 and became president upon his episcopal ordination. After seven years as ordinary for Ukrainian Catholics in France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, and Switzerland he was named metropolitan archbishop of the Ukrainian Catholic Archeparchy of Philadelphia in 2019. From the depths of his experience living between continents, eastern and western Europe, the academy and pastoral life, Gudziak will offer a pastoral perspective on the Eastern Catholic theological voice and its role in communicating the Gospel today.

Eastern Catholic Theology in Action

Distinct in their liturgy, theology, spirituality, and discipline of Church life, 23 Eastern Churches are in communion with the Roman Catholic Church. The Second Vatican Council urged the Eastern Catholic Churches to cultivate and promote their unique share of the tradition. This series responds to that mandate and features leading scholars in the field to offer their theological perspectives drawn from the wisdom of Christian East. In view of broadening our understanding of the Catholic intellectual tradition, this series draws attention to the vantage points of Christians who worship, think, and pray in continuity with the first 1,000 years of the undivided Church.

This series is co-presented with the Godbearer Institute and co-sponsored by the Beatrice Institute, the Calvert House Catholic Center, the Catholic Theological Union, the Institute for Faith and Culture, God With Us Online, the Harvard Catholic Forum, the Metropolitan Andrey Sheptytsky Institute of Eastern Christian Studies, the Nova Forum, the Orthodox Christian Studies Center at Fordham University, the Saint Benedict Institute, the St. Paul University Catholic Center, St. Stephen Byzantine Catholic Church, and the Tabor Life Institute.

Previous Lectures in the Series

Thursday, September 3, 7 p.m. CDT 
Introduction to Liturgical Mystagogy | Daniel Galadza (University of Regensburg)

Thursday, September 10, 7 p.m. CDT
A Theology of Wonder: An Introduction to the Poetry of Ephrem the Syrian | Andrew Hayes (University of St. Thomas, Houston)

Thursday, September 17, 7 p.m. CDT
Christ the Lover of Mankind: Philanthropia, Mystery, and Martyria in Eastern Christianity | Robin Darling Young (Catholic University of America)

Thursday, September 24, 7 p.m. CDT
Eastern Churches, Latin Territories: Ecclesial Catholicity and the Notion of Diaspora | Alexander Laschuk (Sheptytsky Institute of Eastern Christian Studies at University of St. Michael’s College) 

Thursday, October 1, 7.p.m. CDT
Expanding the Archive: Syriac Literature and the Study of Early Christianity Today | Erin Walsh (University of Chicago)