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 presented in collaboration with the Godbearer Institute as part of a Fall webinar lecture series on "Eastern Catholic Theology in Action."

Three features are common to all Eastern Christian traditions—philanthropia, mystery, and martyria. They appear repeatedly in Eastern Christian writing, ritual, and personal practice from the preaching of Jesus to the present. Philanthropia, God’s love for humanity, prompts the mission of the Logos to provide for humanity’s return to the divine. Mystery, which paradoxically reveals and conceals, both in ceremony and in “ordinary” time, the Logos’ saving events. Martyria is the sign and demonstration of God’s beckoning love and the replication of the “priesthood of all believers.” Dr. Young will explore these themes through examples, not only from the Greek and Slavic traditions, but also from those of the Christian traditions of the East, the Caucasus and Ethiopian Christianity.

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.

Upcoming Series Lectures:
 

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)

Monday, November 12, 7 p.m. CDT
Quo Vadis: The Direction of Eastern Catholic Theology, a Pastoral Perspective for the 21st Century| Archbishop Borys Gudziak (Ukrainian Catholic Archeparchy of Philadelphia and Metropolitan of the Ukrainian Catholic Church in the USA)