VIII Theological Conference of the Orthodox St.Tikhon’s Theological Institute

VIII THEOLOGICAL CONFERENCE OF THE ORTHODOX ST.TIKHON’S THEOLOGICAL INSTITUTE

The VIII Theological Conference organised by St.Tikhon’s Orthodox Theological Institute was held at the building of the Moscow Lomonosov State University on Sparrow Hills on January 29-31.

At the beginning of a plenary session Bishop Augustine of Lvov and Drogobych read out a message of greetings from His Holiness Patriarch Alexy II of Moscow and all Russia to the Conference.

Archpriest Vladimir Vorobyev, rector of St.Tikhon’s Orthodox Theological Institute, presented a report on “Memory of the New Martyrs and the modern history of the Russian Orthodox Church’ in which he spoke about a major direction of the scholarly research work of the Institute – the collecting of data on the new martyrs and confessors of Russia who had suffered for their faith in Christ in the 20th century. These theme was continued by Hieromonk Damascenes (Orlovsky) who presented a report on the life and death as a martyr of Bishop Barsonophius (Lebedev) who was killed by the Bolsheviks in September 1918.

The Conference worked in sections on theology, history, philology, pegagogics, church arts and church singing. The sections ‘History of the Russian Orthodox Church in the 20th century’ and ‘Mission of the Russian Emigration’ dealt with the questions of church history in the research of which St.Tikhon’s Institute is the recognised leader. The section on church arts this year was dedicated to the 10th anniversary of the demise of L.A.Uspensky, an outstanding researcher of icons, an author of the book ‘Theology of the Orthodox Icon’. Over 130 speakers from Russia and the countries of the far and near abroad spoke at the Conference.

On January 30, in the framework of the Conference there was held an evening dedicated to the memory of Archpriest Vsevolod Shpiller, a well-known Moscow preacher and pastor.

The materials of the seven previous conferences were published by the Institute in two sets. The first includes major reports from 1992 to 1996. The second which was issued in November 1997, includes the reports made in the late January-early February 1997. Materials of the VIII Conference are being prepared for publication. You can purchase publications of St.Tikhon’s Orthodox Theological Institute at the “Orthodox Word” bookstore (109017 Pyatnitskaya street 51/14, bld.2. Tel. (095) 951 5184.)