Biographies
Metropolitan Basilios (Mansour)
His Eminence Metropolitan Basilios (Mansour) holds a Ph.D. in Church History from the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece
Archbishop of the Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of Akkar.
Professor Constantin Panchenko
Constantin Panchenko graduated from Moscow State University (1993);
Professor, Department of Middle and Near East History, Institute of Asian and African Studies, Moscow State University, Russia.
Sphere of interest: a history of the Christian Arabs, particularly the Middle Eastern Greek Orthodox (the Melkite) community, in the Middle Ages and Early Modern time.
The author of about 300 academic publications, including 4 monographs, collection of articles, articles and abstracts on the history of the Middle East. The editor of 2 collective monographs.
The main publications:
1. Arab Orthodox Christians under the Ottomans. 1516–1831. Transl. by B. Phieffer Noble and S. Noble. Jordanville, N.Y.: Holy Trinity Publications, 2016. 688 p.
2. When and Where “The Melkite Renaissance” Started? Metropolitan Yuwakim of Bethlehem, a Forgotten Arab-Christian Scholar of the Late 16 th Century // Travaux de symposium international Le Livre. La Roumanie. L’Europe. Troisieme edition – 20 a 24 Septembre 2010. T. IV. P. 469–481. Bucarest, 2011.
3. The Antiochean Greek-Orthodox Patriarchate and Rome in the Late 16 th C. A Polemic Response of the Metropolitan Athanasius Ibn Mujalla to the Pope // Actes du symposium international Le Livre. La Roumanie. L’Europe. 4-eme edition. 20-23 Septembre 2011. T. III. Section III. Latinite Orientale. Bucarest, 2012. P. 302–315.
4. A “Melkite Protorenaissance”: A forgotten cultural revival of the Melkites in the late 16 th century / Parole de l’Orient. Vol. 39 (2014). P. 133–151.
5. Orthodoxy and Islam in the Middle East. The Seventh to the Sixteenth Centuries. Transl. by B. Phieffer Noble and S. Noble. Jordanville, N.Y.: Holy Trinity Publications, 2021. 206 p.
6. The “Dark Age” of Middle Eastern Monasticism. Decline and Revival of the Palestinian Monasteries in the Late Mamluk and Early Ottoman Periods // Arabic Christianity between the Ottoman Levant and Eastern Europe. Ed. Ioana Feodorov, Bernard Heyberger, Samuel Noble. Leiden-Boston: Brill, 2021. P. 30–46.
Professor Christos Arambatzis
Professor, Department of Theology, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki Greece
Associate Professor Hasan Çolak
Hasan Çolak (PhD, University of Birmingham, 2013) is an Associate Professor of Ottoman Institutions and Civilization at TOBB University of Economics and Technology in Ankara, Turkey. He is also a Senior Researcher in the research project entitled ‘Early Arabic Printing for the Arabic-Speaking Christians Cultural Transfers between Eastern Europe and the Ottoman Near East in the 18th Century’ funded by a European Research Council Advanced Grant and conducted at the Institute for South-East European Studies of the Romanian Academy. His research focuses on the Greek Orthodox community as part of the Ottoman world, with a particular eye to its administrative, commercial, and intellectual aspects. He is the author of
The Orthodox Church in the Early Modern Middle East (Turkish Historical Society, 2015). With Elif Bayraktar-Tellan, he has published
The Orthodox Church as an Ottoman Institution (2019) and established the book series
Ecclesiastica Ottomanica, both with Isis Press. He is a 2020 recipient of the Outstanding Young Scientist Award from the Turkish Academy of Sciences, and as part of this award, he leads a project on the interaction of Ottoman Muslim and Orthodox intellectuals. In his graduate courses he has taught the relational theoretical approaches including
histoire croisée, entangled history, connected histories, and transculturality in Ottoman and European space(s).
Professor Demetrios Stamatopoulos
Καθηγητής
Τμήμα Βαλκανικών, Σλαβικών και Ανατολικών Σπουδών
Πανεπιστήμιο Μακεδονίας
Professor Tom Papademetriou
Dr. Tom Papademetriou is the Constantine and Georgeian Georgiou Endowed Professor of Greek History, and Director of the Dean C. and Zoë S. Pappas Interdisciplinary Center for Hellenic Studies of Stockton University. A graduate of both Hellenic College (‘88) and Holy Cross School of Theology (’92), Dr. Papademetriou received his Ph.D. from Princeton University’s Department of Near Eastern Studies in Ottoman History. Conducting research in the Ottoman Archives, the Archives of the Ecumenical Patriarchate in Istanbul, and at the Centre for Asia Minor Studies in Athens, he focuses on the history of non-Muslims under Ottoman rule, especially the relations of the Greek Orthodox Church and State in the early Ottoman centuries which is the subject of his book,
Render Unto the Sultan published by Oxford University Press.
Dr. Papademetriou has been awarded several research fellowships including from Dumbarton Oaks Byzantine Research Center-Harvard University, and the Edwin C. and Elizabeth A. Whitehead Member of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, NJ. Dr. Papademetriou serves as President of the Modern Greek Studies Association and was invested as Archon Didaskalos tou Genous of the Order of Saint Andrew the Apostle by His All-Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew in 2021.
He lives in Linwood, NJ with his wife, Dorrie, who directs MudGirls Studios, a non-profit organization assisting women in poverty.
Associate Professor Giannis Bakas
Associate Professor Ioannis Bakas comes from Nigrita (Greece). He studied Theology and History. Their postgraduate and doctoral studies concern the History of Hellenism and the History of the Church. He worked as a research associate at the Society for Macedonian Studies and served in Secondary Education. He taught at the School of Language, Philology, and Culture of the Black Sea Countries of the Democritus University of Thrace and in the Postgraduate Program "Studies of Southeast Europe" at the Law School of the same University. He also taught, as an assistant professor, at the Department of Greek Language and Culture at the University of Edirne (Turkey). Since 2009 he has been serving at the School of Social Theology and Christian Culture of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki on the subject of History of Ancient Patriarchates. He has participated in over thirty international and local conferences and has published four monographs and several articles.
Professor Symeon A. Paschalidis
SYMEON PASCHALIDIS is Professor of Patristics and Hagiography at the School of Social Theology and Chri¬stian Culture, at the Faculty of Theology of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and dire¬ctor of the Patriarchal Foundation for Patristic Studies in Vlatadon Monastery / Thessaloniki.
He has served as President of the Byzantine Research Centre of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and Head of his School at the Faculty of Theology during the last eight years. He is currently the director of the program for graduate studies on Mount Athos' history, art, spirituality, and music tradition.
Professor Paschalidis has given lectures in greek and foreign universities and scientific centres and has participated in many scientific conferences in Greece and abroad. He is the author and editor of 10 monographs and more than 50 of articles and chapters, written in Greek, English, French, Russian, Ukrainian and Italian, published in scientific journals, collective volumes, and proceedings of conferences. Ηe is also the editor of the scientific journal
Kleronomia (Thessaloniki) and member of the editorial advisory board of the
Greek Orthodox Theological Review (Βrookline, Mass.).
His main interests lay on Patristics, byzantine and post-byzantine Hagiography, early patristic and ascetic literature and spiritual history of Monasticism.
Dr. Martin Lüstraeten
Martin Lüstraeten, born 1985, Master of Arts in Ancient Cultures of the Eastern Mediterranean, doctorate (ThD) in liturgical studies with a dissertation on the Arabic manuscript tradition of the Typikon; at present lecturer for liturgical studies at the University of Mainz, Germany.
Andreas Müller
Andreas Müller is born in Bochum in Germany. He studied protestant theology in Bethel/Bielefeld, Bern (CH) and Heidelberg. After his examinations he spent two years in Thessalonica for postgraduate studies. In this time he began to write his doctoral thesis on the first contacts between the Reformation and the Orthodox Churches focusing on an text presenting the protestant tradition to Greek Orthodox people in 1550. Müller spent some time again in Bielefeld to finish his doctoral thesis and to work as a vicar in his church. From 1998 to 2003 he worked as assistant at Munich in Church History. He wrote his habilitation thesis on Spiritual Obedience in the ladder of St. John Climacus. From 2003 to 2009 he worked as a pastor in Minden, where he wrote a book about the church of this area in the time of Nazism. He also worked as temporary professor in Jena, Kiel and Berlin. 2009 Müller became professor for church history and religious history of the first millenium. He is senator in the university council and president of the section of Church History of the Scientific Society of Theology in Germany.
Dr. Ioana Feodorov
Ioana Feodorov is Senior Researcher with the Institute for South-East European Studies of the Romanian Academy in Bucharest. Ph. D. (1998), Habil. (2019). Research fields: the Romanians’ contribution to the beginnings of Arabic printing in the East (e.g.,
Beginnings of Arabic printing in Ottoman Syria (1706-1711). The Romanians’ part in Athanasius Dabbās’s achievements, “ARAM”, 25, 1-2(2013), 2016, pp. 233-262); Arabic texts that document the historical connections between Romanians and Arab Christians in the 16 th–18 th c.; the 1705 Arabic translation of prince Dimitrie Cantemir’s
Divan by Athanasios Dabbās; cataloguing Arabic manuscripts in Romanian collections. Principal Investigator of the project
TYPARABIC . Early Arabic Printing for the Arab Christians. Cultural Transfers between Eastern Europe and the Ottoman Near-East in the 18 th century , funded by the European Research Council (AdG – Horizon 2020 – 883219-2019). Head of an international team working on a complete annotated Arabic edition and English translation of Paul of Aleppo’s
Journal of his travels in 1652-1659 to Constantinople, Moldavia, Wallachia, the Cossacks’ lands (Ukraine), and Muscovy, accompanying his father Makarios III ibn al-Zaʿīm, Patriarch of the Church of Antioch.
Archimandrite Policarp Chitulescu
Policarp Chițulescu< is an archimandrite at the Monastery of Radu Vodă in Bucharest, patriarchal counselor, director of the Library of the Holy Synod. PhD in Theology – Christian literature; specialist in bibliophilia and rare books. He attended numerous conferences, wrote and published books and several tens of studies. Research fields: history of printing, of books (manuscripts or printed) and libraries, history of the usage and practices of writing, history and circulation of ideas, cultural relations between the Romanian Principalities and Europe. He composed catalogues of manuscripts and rare books (published 2020-2021), enclosing his contributions to these fields. He is a Senior Researcher with the ERC-funded project TYPARABIC (AdG-Horizon 2020-Grant No. 883219-2019) dedicated to the study of relationships between the Romanian Principalities and the Arabic-speaking Christians through the printing of ecclesiastic books.
Recent publications (selection):
Slavic books in the Holy Synod Library 17th-18th century, Bucharest, 2020;
Antim Ivireanul – The Printed Works (coeditor), Bucharest, 2016;
Monastery libraries, in
The Encyclopaedia of Romanian monasticism – history, culture, spirituality, II, Bucharest, 2016, pp. 243-397;
Books from Mediaeval Romanian Libraries preserved in the Holy Synod Library, Bucharest, 2011; “Livres imprimés à Venise aux XVII e et XVIII e siècles avec la contribution des Pays Roumains”, in
Culture manuscrite et imprimée dans et pour l’Europe du Sud-Est. Manuscript and Printed Culture in and for South-Eastern Europe, Istros, Brăila, 2020; “Manuscripts in the Library of the Holy Synod of the Romanian Orthodox Church in Bucharest Related to Moldavia and the Monastery of Zograf”,
Zographski Sbornik, Zographski Manastir, Mount Athos, 2019; “Contributions to the history of some monasteries from Moldavia and their relation with Mount Athos (the Zografu monastery)”,
Revista istorică (Historical Review), XXIX, 2018; “Holy Relics Consecrated by the Saint Hierarch Antim Ivireanul”, in
Georgia and European World Philosophical-Cultural Dialogue, II, Tbilisi, 2017.
Dr. Vera Chentsova
Vera Tchentsova received her PhD in the Institute of General History of the Academy of Sciences of Russia in Moscow (1995), where she started to conduct research specializing in Byzantine history. Her interest in manuscripts and archival documents then led her to join the research projects on the unpublished materials concerning the relations of Russia with the Christian East in the 16 th-18 th centuries from the Muscovite depositories. Later she combined these studies with the research work in foreign collections of documentary materials (in Greece, Italy, Ukraine, Romania), preparing publications regarding church contacts, diplomatic links assured by the representatives of the Orthodox clergy, international politics in Eastern and South-Eastern Europe,
translatio of “Byzantine heritage”, post-Byzantine art and its artistic influences in East-European countries. She is senior researcher in the ERC AdG 2019 Typarabic («Early Arabic Printing for the Arab Christians. Cultural Transfers between Eastern Europe and the Ottoman Near-East in the 18th century») in the Institute for South-East European Studies of the Romanian Academy and an associated member of two institutions: UMR 8167 “Orient et Méditerranée / Monde byzantin” in Paris and the Maison française d’Oxford.
She is the author of Ikona Iverskoĭ Bogomateri (The Icon of Our Lady of Iviron), Moscow, 2010; Kievskaia mitropolia mezhdu Konstantinopolem i Moskvoj, 1686 (Metropolitan See of Kyiv between Constantinople and Moscow), Kyiv, 2020, and of numerous articles on Church history.
Currently she carries out her work participating in several projects intended to make available to the scholars the unpublished materials concerning the Eastern Church. She conducts research in four core areas: 1) paleographic methods of studies of Greek letters of the 16 th-18 th centuries and cataloguing of Greek documents from the archival funds in Moscow; 2) documentary materials on the two voyages accomplished in 1650-1670s by Macarius, Patriarch of Antioch, and his son, archdeacon Paul of Aleppo to Constantinople, Romanian principalities, Ukraine and Russia; 3) the metropolitan See of Kiev, Patriarchate of Constantinople and Russia in the 17 th century; 4) translation and transformation of Greek prophetic and esoteric texts in Moscow.
Dr. Mihai Grigore
Mihai Grigore graduated in 1999 from the University of Bucharest in the Department of Historical Theology and Byzantine History with a thesis on the Second Bulgarian Empire between the 12th and 13th centuries. 2007: PhD in church history from University of Erlangen and Nuremberg with a dissertation on the Peace of God (Pax Dei) in West-Frankish area of the 10th and 11th centuries. 2007-2012: postdoctoral researcher at the Max Weber Center for Advanced Cultural and Social Studies with a project on the prince of Wallachia Neagoe Basarab (1512-1521) and his role for the orthodox political thought. January-May 2012: Stanley S. Seeger Research Fellow at the Center for Hellenic Studies of Princeton University. Since November 2012: member of the academic staff of the Leibniz Institute of European History in Mainz. In the moment, he is writing a book on monkish networks of mobility in Trans-Ottoman space on the example of the Danubian Principalities between the 14th and the 17th century.”
Fr. Chrysostom Nassis
Rev Dr Chrysostomos Nassis, a graduate of Hellenic College (class of ’95) and Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology (class of ’98), served the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople (1998-2000) as a Writer-Translator of the Office of the Chief Secretary, Local Deputy Coordinator of the Patriarchate’s Environmental Initiatives, and International Dignitaries and Diplomatic Corps Liaison.
He completed his doctoral studies at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki Faculty of Theology in April 2006 and subsequently took on teaching positions at the St John of Damascus Institute of Theology of Balamand University, Tripoli, Lebanon, and the Supreme Ecclesiastical Academy (Seminary) of Thessaloniki. He currently holds the position of tenured Assistant Professor of Byzantine Liturgy and Liturgical Sources at the School Social Theology and Christian Culture at the Faculty of Theology of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki where he is also director of the School’s Laboratory for Liturgical Studies.
Fr Chrysostomos has published extensively in his field and has participated in numerous scientific conferences both in Greece and abroad. He is a member of the Society of Oriental Liturgy and the Society for the Law of the Eastern Churches. He has represented the Ecumenical Patriarchate on various occasions in academic, ecclesiastical, and ecumenical settings and was appointed member of the Synodal Committee on Divine Worship of the Church of Cyprus. As a protopresbyter, Fr Chrysostomos serves the Church St Anthony, a dependency of the Monastery of St Theodora of the Holy Metropolis of Thessaloniki.
Associate Professor Elie Dannaoui
Elie Dannaoui, Associate professor of Church History at Saint John Institute of Orthodox Theology and Director of the Digital Humanities Centre at the University of Balamand. Dr. Dannaoui holds a PhD and a Master’s degree in Eastern Ecclesiastical Sciences – History from the Pontifical Oriental Institute in Rome (Italy), a Master of Educational Technology from the University of Poitiers (France). He pursued postgraduate studies in computer science at the École Nationale Supérieure de Mécanique et d'Aérotechnique in Chasseneuil-du-Poitou (France). Dr. Dannaoui completed his undergraduate studies at Saint John of Damascus Institute of Orthodox Theology – Balamand and graduated with a Bachelor of Orthodox Theology. He is currently teaching Church History at the Saint John Institute of Orthodox Theology and history of Civilizations at the Lebanese Academy of Arts ALBA at the University of Balamand. Dr. Dannaoui's research interest in the history of Arabic New Testament translations led to the publication of PAVONe, an online database of Gospel manuscripts copied between the 9th and 19th centuries. His research includes the Arabic Christian Literature in general and focuses on the Ottoman period. Dr. Dannaoui is member of the editorial board of ACTS (Arabic Christianity: Texts and Studies) published by Brill and Biblical and the Apocryphal Christian Arabic Text Series - Gorgias Press.
Dr. Carsten Walbiner
Carsten Walbiner has earned his Ph.D. in 1995 from Leipzig University with a thesis on Macarius ibn al-Zaʿīm, a leading personality of the Greek Orthodox Antiochian Church in the 17 th century. Since then, he has devoted his scholarly activities to the history and literature of Arab Christianity during Ottoman times. He has published more than 50 articles and papers (cf.
https://independent.academia.edu/CarstenWalbiner ). Being a member of the Research Center for the Christian Orient at the Catholic University Eichstaett/Germany, he works presently as a project manager for the German Academics Exchange Service (DAAD) in Beirut/Lebanon. He belongs to the editorial boards of the “Journal of Eastern Christian Studies” and “Parole de l’Orient” and served for long years as section editor for Christian Arabic sources in the international project “Christian - Muslim Relations: A Bibliographical History, 1500-1900” (Birmingham/Leiden). Currently he works on establishing catalogues of the Christian Oriental manuscripts kept at Andechs monastery in Bavaria and the so far non-described Arabic manuscripts of the Franciscan Custody of the Holy Land in Jerusalem.
Fr Michel Najim
Fr. Michel Elias Najim is the President of AHOS, Professor of Patristics & Church History at AHOS, Professor of Christian Ethics at PTS, and Director of Saint Maximus the Confessor, former Dean of St. Nicholas Cathedral in Los Angeles, CA. Fr. Michel was born and raised in Beirut, Lebanon, and joined Balamand Ecclesiastical School in 1962 under the tutelage of Patriarch Ignatius IV and graduated from St. John of Damascus Institute of Theology in 1974. He obtained his M.Th.(1976), and his doctoral degree in theology (1985) from the University of Thessalonica, where he studied under Fr. John Romanides and Prof. Nikos Matsoukas, while serving as Dean of the School of Theology in Balamand. After moving to the USA with his family, he worked with the newly converted Evangelical Orthodox at St. Athanasius Academy, from 1987 to 1996. Unassuming in his demeanor, Fr. Michel is a bearer of the authentic Antiochian heritage, a deeply dedicated churchman and scholar. He is personally acquainted with many spiritual and ecclesiastical figures. Throughout his ministry, Fr. Michel has taught thousands of clergy including hierarchs, lay theologians and professors.
Fr Daniel Buda
Archpriest Prof. Dr. Daniel Buda
Professor and Dean of the Orthodox Theological Faculty
"Lucian Blaga" University, Sibiu, Romania