International Conference in Bose, Italy

Two Patriarchs will attend the Ecumenical International Conference on Orthodox Spirituality in Bose, Italy.

His All Holiness Bartholomeos, Ecumenical Patriarch, and His Beatitude Theodoros II, Patriarch of Alexandria and All Africa, are among the guests of the event which will take place on September 6-9, 2017.

The program of the conference is as follows:

Wednesday 6 September

To Receive Humanity on a Habitable Earth
Opening Speech of His All Holiness ✠ Bartholomeos I
Archbishop of Constantinople and Ecumenical Patriarch

‘I was a stranger and you welcomed me’ (Mt  25,35)
Enzo Bianchi, Founder of Bose

Discerning the blessing of the stranger
His Beatitude ✠ Theodoros II
Patriarch of Alexandria and All Africa

3:30 pm
“Give me the Stranger who has welcomed strangers” (Triodion, Holy Saturday). A theological understanding of hospitality
Chrysostomos Stamoulis, Aristotle University, Thessaloniki

‘For here we have no lasting city, but look for the one to come’ (Hebr 13:14): Xenitéia and Philoxenía in Orthodox Tradition
Marcus Plested, Marquette University, Milwaukee WI

Theía Philoxenía. Abraham’s Hospitality in Patristic Theology: 
Divine Hospitality as a Ground for Divine and Human Interaction. 
Peter Mikhailov, St Tikhon University, Moscow

Thursday 7 September

Receiving the enemy in the fathers of the desert
✜ Epiphanios of St Macarius, Scete, Egypt

Hospitality in the Rule of Saint Benedict
Fotios Ioannidis, Aristotle University, of Thessaloniki

The spiritual work of xenitéia in John Climacus
Justin Sinaitis, Saint Catherine’s Monastery, Mount Sinai

3:30 pm
Hosts, guests, strangers:  Russian emigration encounters with new contexts
Nadia Kizenko, University at Albany, New York

Hospitality as a spiritual work. Paisij Veličkovskij and his multiethnic community
Anna Briskina-Müller, Martin-Luther-University, Halle-Wittenberg

Hospitality of the Iviron Monastery at the Crossroads of Orthodox Spiritual Traditions
Giorgi Zviadadze, Tbilisi Theological Academy

Friday 8 September

Divine Liturgy

9:00 am

The Sacrament of hospitality. A liturgical understanding of hospitality and communion
Paul Meyendorff, Saint Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary, Crestwood NY

Eucharistic hospitality: a phenomenological analysis of recent Orthodox theology
Radu Bordeianu, Duquesne University, Pittsburgh, PA

3:30 pm
The typology the strannik and the perception of the “stranger” in Russian Orthodoxy
Vera Shevzov, Smith College, Northampton, MA

The hospitable God in the religions that have Abraham as father
Claudio Monge, Dominican Studies, Istanbul

The dialogue with Islam in the Antiochian Church
Boulos Wehbe, Notre Dame University, Beirut

Saturday 9 September

‘Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers’ (Hebr 13:2). The tradition of hospitality in Russian monasteries
Hegumen Iosif (Krjukov) Moscow Podvor’e of the Valaam Monastery

Athonite Hospitality and Christian Ethos
Hegumen Elisseos, Monastery of Simonopetra, Mount Athos (read by fr. Theotokis)

Monastic hospitality and reconciliation between the Churches
fr. Alois, Prior of Taizé

Conclusions
Michel Van Parys¸Monastery of Chevetogne

The 25th International Ecumenical Conference on Orthodox Spirituality, organized in collaboration with the Orthodox Churches (Bose, 6–9 September 2017) wishes to examine more closely an essential dimension of Christian life: xenitia, the consciousness of being strangers and temporary residents on earth (cf. Heb 11,13), which leads to welcoming the other as a gift of God, to philoxenia (cf. Heb 13,2).

Christians are called upon to be strangers capable of hospitality. The church of God, local churches, and Christians live in anticipation of the Kingdom while being migrants towards the heavenly Jerusalem. The conference will attempt to illustrate some aspects and moments of this constituent and fertile tension of being a church in journey by drawing especially on the rich tradition of the Christian East and on the teaching of the fathers, the example of monasticism, but also by listening to the experience of Orthodox Churches today.

Source: basilica.ro