International conference, Syros 29 May–2 June 2025
Venue: The Cultural Centre of the (and next to the)
Orthodox Metropolis’ Metamorfosi Cathedral in
Ermoupoli, Syros
The proceedings of the Syros ΙΙ conference were successfully concluded. The publication of the presentations in a volume is forthcoming.
We tend to think of dialogue between the churches as a top-down, institutional affair centring on certain core doctrinal differences — e.g., the filioque and the ecclesiological prerogatives of the bishop of Rome in the case of the Catholic and Orthodox church. In 2019, we chose a different approach at the ‘Mapping the Una Sancta’ conference in Syros, Greece — an island inhabited by a population of roughly 50% Roman Catholics and 50% Eastern Orthodox believers, and thus unique for the purposes of that inquiry. Prompted by Edward Siecienski’s two important volumes, The Papacy and the Orthodox: Sources and History of a Debate (Oxford University Press, 2017) and The Filioque: History of a Doctrinal Controversy (Oxford University Press, 2010), a bottom-up gathering of scholars attempted to tackle a number of issues in Orthodox and Catholic theologies, practice, and relations in a way that cannot always be the case within the context of the official dialogue between the Churches: inter alia, by approaching inter-ecclesial dialogue as a unique vector for a tradition’s self-discovery in the face of the other’s alterity. This produced the volume Mapping the Una Sancta: Eastern and Western Ecclesiology in the Twenty-First Century (eds: S. Mitralexis & Andrew Kaethler, Winchester University Press, 2023). Meanwhile, since the last conference we have witnessed ever more febrile debates across churches and denominations on eschatology; on our hopes for the hereafter. And, moreover, a third volume published by Edward Siecienski has shed light on the history and development of the other issues that divided East and West: Beards, Azymes, and Purgatory (Oxford University Press, 2023), with an upcoming volume on the history of the clerical celibacy debate coming soon. While our approach centres on the things we do not know and desire to examine deeper, rather than on those one may speak about with certainty, one thing is for certain; the time is ripe to return to Syros. In 2025 (Thursday 29 May-Monday 2 June), the conference On the Future of the Una Sancta: Incarnate Reality and Eschatological Hope will offer a non-exclusive focus on the incarnate reality of diverging material practices (including, but not exhausted in, beards, azymes, celibacy or the lack thereof) and on what the Christian gospel and tradition(s) expect in the hereafter: heaven, hell, the question of purgatory, and the eschatological horizon at large. The central question remains fixed on an encounter with the “One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church” that we confess to during each liturgy and mass — and on its future: the future of the Una Sancta.
Here is the Syros I volume under the title Mapping the Una Sancta: Eastern and Western Ecclesiology in the Twenty-First Century
More on the Syros II conference:
Some pictures from the proceedings:
