2022 St Andrew's Patristic Symposium

With the blessing of our College Dean, His Eminence Archbishop Makarios of Australia, the Ninth Patristic Symposium was held at St Andrew's in on the 2-3rd September, 2022. The theme of the Symposium is 'Saint Maximus the Confessor: 7th Century Christianity: Theology and History'.

This year’s patristic symposium honoured the life, times and works of this great Father of the Church, both for this unwavering commitment to our Lord Jesus Christ and for his contributions to theology, which were utilised by the Sixth Ecumenical Council (AD 680-81) and elaborated upon by later Church Fathers including Saints Symeon the New Theologian and Gregory Palamas. Thus, standing within patristic tradition, St Maximus remains one of its greatest interpreters.

The symposium showcased presentations from the different disciplines of Christian theology interested in further reflecting on this central figure of the early Church, irrespective of their field of expertise, academic affiliation or denominational background. Indeed, it is hoped that this cross-disciplinary approach (whether this be, systematic theology, patristics, ethics, biblical studies, church history, liturgics etc.) will contribute by casting further light—indeed a more enriching and holistic perspective—on this most prominent father of the early Church.

Convenors: Professor Jim Harrison and Associate Professor Philip Kariatlis

St Maximus The Confessor: Interpreter of Tradition

St Maximus the Confessor is one of the most significant Byzantine saints in the Orthodox Christian tradition. In scholarly circles the ‘ressourcement’—the ‘return to the sources’ of Christian tradition, namely the patristic ones—spearheaded by scholars such as Hans Urs von Balthasar and Lars Thunburg in the mid-to-late 20^th century, witnessed a retrieval of Maximus’ comprehensive theological ouvré that saw his renown and reception skyrocket both in the academy and in ecclesial milieus.

In tradition, the saint is acknowledged as an interpreter of tradition: he not only managed a unique synthesis of Platonic and Aristotelian categories within a comprehensive Christ-centred worldview, but he engaged and clarified difficult sayings in the writings of St Gregory the Theologian, expanded upon the thought of St Gregory of Nyssa, and wrote extensively on the nature of the Church, asceticism, and self-sacrificial love in Christ and the life of holiness.

It was the latter that he embodied as he humbly witnessed to the duality of Christ’s wills, both divine and human—i.e. dyothelitism—when the Byzantine empire lapsed into the heresy of monothelitism, the belief that Christ has only one, divine will. St Maximus’ response to this heresy was a logical extension of the formulations of previous Fathers and ecumenical councils who affirmed the belief in one Christ in two natures, and the salvific implications of this for all Christians. For this response he was terribly persecuted and mutilated, dying as a confessor in AD 662, yet—like the martyrs—becoming an immediate participant in and intercessor to our Lord Jesus Christ.

This year’s patristic symposium will therefore honour the life and works of this great Father of the Church, both for this unwavering commitment to our Lord Jesus Christ and for his contributions to theology, which were utilised by the sixth ecumenical council and elaborated upon by later Church Fathers including saints Symeon the New Theologian and Gregory Palamas. Thus, standing within patristic tradition, St Maximus remains one of its greatest interpreters.

Life os St Maximus

St Maximus left many writings (some of which are collected in the Philokalia) that are still widely read today; some are doctrinal, but many more describe the contemplative life and offer spiritual advice. He also wrote widely on liturgical and exegetical subjects. His theological work was later continued by St. Symeon the New Theologian and by St. Gregory Palamas.

His writings include:

Quaestiones ad Thalassium—65 questions and answers on difficult passages of
Holy Scripture
Ambigua—an exegetical work on St.
Gregory the Theologian
Paraphrases of the works of Dionysius the Areopagite (though many of the works that have come down under Maximus' name are now held to be the work of John of Scythopolis, who wrote in the first half of the 6th century, some 100 years before Maximus)
Several dogmatic treatises against the Monothelites
Liber Asceticus
Capita de Caritate
Mystagogia—a mystical interpretation of the
Divine Liturgy

Essential Information

Registration Forms

Learn More

Event Program

Learn More

Past Annual Symposia

Event Gallery

View Gallery

Registrations are open to all

Please mail your registration to St Andrew's, or simply email the document to events@sagotc.edu.au

We welcome any enquiries to events@sagotc.edu.au

We look forward to seeing you there

Keynote Speakers

Professor John Behr

Professor Paul Blowers

Professor Peter Bouteneff

Internationally renowned scholar the Very Reverend Professor John Behr will be one of the keynote speakers for this years Symposium. He has recently been appointed Professor in Divinity at the School of Divinity, History and Philosophy of the University of Aberdeen (Scotland). Before that he was the Father Georges Florovsky Distinguished Professorship of Patristics at St Vladimir’s Theological Seminary. He also hols the Metropolitan Kallistos Chair of orthodox Theology at the University of Vrije (Amsterdam).

KEYNOTE ADDRESS

From St Gregory of Nyssa to St Maximus the Confessor; The Background for Ambiguum 41

Abstract: Although the Ambigua of St Maximus the Confessor are devoted to expounding passages from St Gregory of Nazianzus, the background for Ambig. 41 lies instead, as has often been noted, in St Gregory of Nyssa. Building on my new edition and translation of St Gregory of Nyssa’s On the Human Image of God (previously known as On the Making of Man), this lecture will examine the play in St Maximus’s text between being human, on the one hand, and existence as male and female on the other, and offer new insights into the best way to translate this difficult text and into the mystery of being human.\

Building on his new edition and translation of St Gregory of Nyssa’s On the Human Image of God, Fr John explored the meaning of the biblical term ‘image’ as it relates to the human person; here he highlighted that the term ‘image’—a referent to all of humanity throughout the ages which together image Christ—is properly understood as an eschatologically conditioned reality, namely, it is in dying that human creatures are born into life as human beings. Furthermore, he argued that the male-female distinction is the means by which God foreordained that humanity might fulfil His eternal plan for the human person. In light of today’s contemporary society which often asks what it means to be a human person, the focus of the address on Christian anthropology in saints Gregory of Nyssa and Maximus was most relevant and highly appreciated.

Select Bibliography

John the Theologian and His Paschal Gospel (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019)
Origen On First Principles, Oxford Early Christian Texts (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018)
Irenaeus of Lyons: Identifying Christianity, Christian Theology in Context (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013)
Becoming Human: Meditations on Christian Anthropology in Word and Image (Crestwood, NY, SVS Press, 2013)
St Athanasius: On the Incarnation, translation and introduction, Popular Patristics Series (Crestwood, NY, SVS Press, 2011)

Presenters

Fifteen speakers presented their research papers. We are overjoyed by the diversity and richness of the respective presentations and the variety of topics in St Maximus explored. Select papers from this Symposium are scheduled to be published as peer reviewed articles in St Andrew's Academic Journal Phronema in the second semester of 2023.

Listed below are the symposium presenters with their respective topics:

Sr Margaret Beirne

Dr Cullan Joyce

Dr Vasilis Adrahtas

Revd A/Prof. Bassam Nassif

Dr Nikolaos Zarotiadis

Very Reverend Professor John Behr

A/Prof. Adam Cooper

Professor Aristotle Papanikolaou

Professor David Bradshaw

A/Prof. Eva Anagnostou-Laoutides, Kyeongyoon Woo

Revd Dr Joe Mock

Professor Paul Blowers

Dr Andrew Mellas

James Rutherford

Michael Ibrahim

Sr Margaret Beirne

Christoph Schönborn on Pleasure and Pain, according toQuestiones ad Thalassium

Abstracts

Fifteen speakers presented their research papers.

We are overjoyed by the diversity and richness of the respective presentations and the variety of topics in Christology explored

Select papers from this Symposium are scheduled to be published as peer reviewed articles in St Andrew's Academic Journal Phronema in the second semester of 2023.

Dr Vasilis Adrahtas

Sr Assoc. Prof. Margaret Beirne

Professor David Bradshaw

Assoc. Prof. Adam Cooper

Michael Ibrahim

Dr Cullan Joyce

A/Prof. Eva Anagnostou-Laoutides, Kyeongyoon Woo

Dr Andrew Mellas

Revd Assoc. Prof. Bassam Nassif

Professor Aristotle Papanikolaou

James Rutherford

Dr Nikolaos Zarotiadis

Dr Vasilis Adrahtas

Western Sydney University and University of NSW

St Maximus the Confessor at the Intersection of Hellenic Philosophy, Jewish Mysticism and Early Islamic Thought

Abstract: The historical contextualisation of St Maximus the Confessor yields some quite intriguing details. More specifically, he was born just 10-20 years after the last pagan philosophers (Simplicius and Olympiodorus); his lifespan lies right in the middle of the historical development of the type of Jewish mysticism known as Merkabah and Hekhalot literature; and lastly, he was roughly a contemporary of Muhammad (about 10 years younger than the Rasul of Islam), while his end coincides with the end of the Rasidun period. The critical question that arises here is the following: does this contextualisation have any concrete and specific relevance to the work of St Maximus? The present paper aspires to provide an answer to this question by exploring the oeuvre of St Maximus the Confessor from a broader History of Religions perspective. In particular, it treats the aforementioned contextualisation as a working hypothesis and investigates both the hierophanic and the rationalist Neoplatonic traditions, the claims of the so-called ‘Theophaneia School’ regarding the origins of Christian mysticism, as well as the early protest Islamic movement of the Kharijites. In other words, the paper argues that the hypothesis that the thought of St Maximus the Confessor can be fully appreciated if seen at a multi-religious intersection can be sustained. St Maximus’ Scholia on the Corpus Areopagiticum and his work on various philosophical topics (terms, definitions, syllogisms, etc.) are approached with regards to his Neoplatonic influences. His Mystagogia, as well as a range of his ascetical Chapters, are put forward as prime examples of his mystical theology vis-à-vis Jewish mysticism. And, lastly, the Kharijites and their emphasis on personal agency and the importance of internal volition are brought into the discussion in order to show that they were part of a broader interest of the times, which was manifested magisterially in the dogmatic works of St Maximus.

Questions?

events@sagotc.edu.au