St Vladimir's Orthodox Theological Seminary - Symposium Report Eastern-Oriental Symposium on Jerusalem Participant Biographies

Main presentations:

Dr. Roberta Ervine is Associate Professor of Armenian Studies at St. Nersess Seminary. She was the first student to enroll in Columbia University’s Armenian Studies Program when it reopened in 1979. She received her Ph.D. there in 1988, working under the direction of Prof. Nina Garsoian. From 1981-2001, she worked in Jerusalem, first doing doctoral research, then teaching Classical Armenian and Armenian History in the Holy Translators Academy of the Armenian Patriarchate, and then from 1995-2001 teaching at the Hebrew University. After Jerusalem, she joined the faculty of St. Nersess Seminary. Her primary interests are in the history of the Armenians in Jerusalem, medieval Armenian literature, and the Eastern Churches. Her presentation was on the Historical Context of Christian Relations in Jerusalem.

Fr Alexander Rentel, a 1995 M.Div. graduate of St Vladimir’s, is currently finishing his doctoral dissertation under the direction of Fr Robert Taft, SJ, at the Pontifical Oriental Institute in Rome. Prior to coming to St Vladimir’s as an Instructor in Church History and Canon Law, Fr Alexander was a Junior Fellow in Byzantine Studies at Dumbarton Oaks, Washington, D.C. In the spring of 2001, Fr Alexander received the E.K. Rand Dissertation Grant from the Medieval Academy of America, which enabled him to make a research trip to Meteora, Greece. His lecture was entitled Has Jerusalem Served to Unite or Divide Christians? A Review of the Liturgical Evidence.

Dr Serge Schmemann is a senior writer for the New York Times, where he also sits on the editorial board. He has served as the Times Bureau Chief in Moscow, Bonn, and, from 1995-1998 in Jerusalem. In 1991 he won the Pulitzer Prize in Journalism for International Reporting, 1991, for coverage of the reunification of Germany. He has taught journalism at Columbia and Princeton, and is author of the award-winning book Echoes of a Native Land: Two Centuries of a Russian Village (1997). He will soon be moving to Paris to take up a senior post at the International Herald Tribune. He will speak with us on the situation of Jerusalem today.

Dr George Kiraz is a computer scientist and Syriac scholar. He was born in Bethlehem and has served as a deacon in the Syrian Orthodox Church, at the Holy Sites. His doctorate is in Computational Linguistics, from Cambridge, 1996, but he holds a degree in Syriac from Oxford as well. In 1992 he founded Beth Mardutho: The Syriac Institute, which he also directs. He is a fellow of the Institute of Christian Oriental Research, at The Catholic University of America. He runs Gorgias Press, which publishes and reissues primary-source and scholarly texts relevant to Syriac studies (available in the back of the auditorium), and is a widely published author of his own works. His presentation today, like Fr. Alexander's took up the liturgical side of the ecclesiastical landscape in Jerusalem: The Swords of Candles: Syriac Orthodox Worship in the Holy Sites.

Panel participants:

Dr Tarek Mitri (panel moderator) studied in Beirut and Paris, where he earned a doctorate in Sociology of Knowledge. He teaches regularly at the Saint John of Damascus Institute of Theology, at Balamand, Lebanon. He has been a visiting professor in Rome, Paris, Geneva and Amsterdam. This semester he is a visiting faculty member at the Harvard Divinity School and tutoring students at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. He is director of the team on Interreligious Relations at the World Council of Churches. He plays a significant role of service to his Church (the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Antioch) as an advisor to Patriarch Ignatius IV Hazim.

Dr Abraham Terian is Professor of Armenian Patristics and Academic Dean at St Nersess Seminary. He is also editor of the St. Nersess Theological Review, and the author of several books on Philo of Alexandria. He has more than fifty articles in historical, philological, and literary periodicals and monographs. Before coming to St. Nersess in 1997, he was Professor of Intertestamental and Early Christian Literatures for twenty years at various universities in the US and abroad, and for four years a Visiting Professor for both Classical Armenian and Hellenistic Judaism at the University of Chicago. Prof. Terian is also a native of Jerusalem.

H.E. Archbishop Cyril Mor Aphrem is Patriarchal Vicar and Archbishop of the Archdiocese of the Syrian Orthodox Church for the Eastern US. He has studied in his native Syria, as well as in Egypt, and in St. Patrick’s College in Maynooth, Ireland, where he earned the Doctorate of Divinity. He has taught at the St Ephrem Theological Seminary in Damascus, and served as secretary to Patriarch Ignatius Zakka I Iwas. He was consecrated and installed to his current post in 1996, and has served since then at St Mark’s Syrian Orthodox Cathedral in Teaneck, NJ.

V. Rev. Leonid Kishkovsky, Ecumenical Officer of the Orthodox Church in America the Orthodox Church in America, serves on countless boards and executive bodies of Church and interchurch organizations. He was President of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the USA from 1989-1990, and for three years was a member of the US Secretary of State’s Committee on Religious Freedom Abroad. He occupies leadership roles in several organizations including International Orthodox Christian Charities, Action by Churches Together, the US Conference of Religions and Peace, and serves on the Executive Committee of the World Council of Churches. And for nearly thirty years he has been parish priest at Our Lady of Kazan Church in Sea Cliff, New York.

His Excellency, Ambassador Patrick Theros served for 35 years in the US Foreign Service, in diplomatic positions in Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, and Nicaragua, and was US Ambassador to Qatar from 1995-1998. In 1992, Mr. Theros was bestowed the President’s Meritorious Service Award, and the Secretary of Defense Medal for Meritorious Civilian Service. Immediately before his appointment to Qatar as Ambassador, he served as Deputy Coordinator for Counterterrorism, responsible for the coordination of all US government counterterrorism activities outside the US. Since 2000 he is President and Executive Director of the US-Qatar Business Council. He has formally represented the Patriarchate of Jerusalem in the US.