May 15th 2010 - Orientale Lumen 15 Years On

May 15th will see our first major Conference for some time, to celebrate 15 Years since the Apostolic Letter, Orientale Lumen.

This will take place in the academic space of Heythrop College, University of London. It will be the opening event of their new Centre for the Study of the Eastern Churches, whose founding director will be Anthony O'Mahoney.

But the conference itself is sponsored and supported by the Society of St John Chrysostom, the Institute of Orthodox Christian Studies at Cambridge and the Monastic East-West meetings hosted by Minster Abbey.

The key conference participants will be

• Our president, the Archbishop of Westminster, the Most Revd Vincent Nichols
• Metropolitan Kallistos of Diokleia
• Anthony O'Mahoney, director of the new Centre for the Study of the Eastern Churches
• Mother Nicola of St Mildred's Priory, Minster Abbey
• Archimandrite Demetrios Sharbaq of the Orthodox Patriarchate of Antioch (whose paper on the Petrine Primacy in the current edition of One in Christ is well worth reading)
• Dr Aidan Nichols OP, of Blackfriars, Cambridge
• Dr Iwan Dacko, President of the Centre for Ecumenical Studies, Ukrainian Catholic University, Lviv
• Dr Simon Marincak, Director. Michael Lacko Centre for East-West Spirituality, Kosice, Slovakia
• Dr Marcus Plested, Academic Director, Institute of Orthodox Christian Studies, Cambridge

The aim of the day is to 'capture' in an academic space the progress, challenges and achievements of Orthodox-Catholic relations since Patriarch Athenagoras and Pope Paul VI began the current move towards reconciliation in the 1960s, and the progress of the joint theological commission, especially in its present phase. We will also look at the particular contexts for Catholic-Orthodox ecumenical engagement and moves towards recovering full communion, in Antioch, Ukraine and the interpenetration of the Latin Catholic and Byzantine Orthodox and Greek Catholic diaspora.

Participation is by invitation owing to restrictions on space. If you would like to be invited, please email the Society