A God on Man’s Trail
A winter school for Dominican friars
An Ideal Location
Istanbul is the place where two continents and many cultures meet. In the city with three names (Byzantium, Constantinople and Istanbul) and located among three seas (the Marmara Sea, the Golden Horn and the Bosphorus) you can stroll among the remnants of ancient Roman palaces, gorgeous Ottoman mosques and mysterious medieval Latin neighborhoods.
Istanbul is not only the place where Muslims and Christians live side by side. It is also the home of many Oriental Christian churches. Notably, on the shores of the Golden Horn lies the church of Saint George, seat of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople. On the other side of the ancient city you will find the Armenian Apostolic Patriarchate. Not far from Taksim square, the very heart of the Turkish capital city, you can meet the Syriac Metropolite and the Chaldean Bishop.
Istanbul has been a crucial place for defining the tenets of our faith. Nicea is located a couple of hours away from old Constantinople and Chalcedon lies on its Anatolian shore. Istanbul itself has been the seat of four ecumenical councils.
A Winter School for Dominican Friars
For all these reasons, Istanbul is the best place to relate a Christian theological reflection on the wider ecumenical and interreligious debate. Therefore, the Dominican friars of Istanbul, through DoSt-I, their study institute, would like to offer to their brethren a winter school focusing on a Christological debate among Christian communities.
The objective of the programme is come together to learn how Christians have thought and continue to think about the God incarnate. Through classes, discussions, meetings with witnesses, visits to significant historical sites and moments of shared liturgy, we will be able to experience the living faith of Syriac, Armenian and Greek Orthodox Christians.
The Winter School will be the first step on a journey towards the Seventeenth Centenary of the Council of Nicea (325-2025). We would like to foster a five-year period of activities, initiatives and cultural projects revolving around the notion of the relationship between God and man, real and reciprocal despite the incommensurability between the two partners of the alliance. This is because through the use of the category of kenosis, one implies not only the possibility of man of being capax Dei, but also the possibility that God himself is capax hominis. Above all, the opportunity to rethink some aspects of an “Islamic Christology” will also be made possible.
In summer, a second programme will be offered in collaboration with the Ideo focusing on Jesus in Islam.
The Programme of the Winter School
The Chalcedonian formula must be read in the polemical context that generated it: a historical reconstruction of the question of the “crisis” and the “Christological dissent” of the fourth and fifth centuries.
Nestorians and monophysites have since then constituted non-Chalcedonian churches: the Assyrian of the East, the Orthodox Coptic, the Ethiopian Orthodox, the Orthodox Eritrea, the Syro-Orthodox, the Syro-Orthodox Malankara, the Syro-Malankara Orthodox, the Armenian Apostolic.
Of course, the loss of the Christological consensus determined by the refusal of Ephesus and Chalcedon was mixed with intricate questions of ecclesiastical politics, economic interests, and cultural and linguistic misunderstandings, as well as ill will. A synthetic presentation of this intricate panorama and of the ecclesiological and ritual picture that emerges is needed (in connection with the present and active communities in Istanbul).
| 29/12 | Sunday | Arrivals | |
| 30/12 | Monday |
Introductory Session:
The
Christological question
| with Antonio Olmi |
| 31/12 | Tuesday |
Iconoclasm and its art
visit
to Haghia Sophia
| with Claudio Monge and Silvia Pedone |
| 01/01 | Wednesday |
Orthodox Christologies
visit
to Ayon biri Kilisesi Unkapani and the Ecumenical Patriarchate
|
with Antonio Olmi and Nicholas
Wrywoll
|
| 02/01 | Thursday |
Chora ton
Zoon:
The
Christ in the mosaics of the Saint Saviour
visit
to Kariye Muzesi
| with Silvia Pedone |
| 03/01 | Friday |
The Armenian Church and its
Christology
| with Mons. Zevon Zekiyan |
| 03/01 | Friday | The Syriac Church and its Christology visit to the Syriac Patriarchate | with Zeki Demir |
| 04/01 | Saturday |
Concluding Session
| with Antonio Olmi and Claudio Monge |
| 05/01 | Sunday | Departures |
Teaching Staff:
- Fr. Antonio Olmi op (Facoltà Teologica dell’Emilia Romagna),
- Fr. Claudio Monge op (DoSt-I)
- dott.ssa Silvia Pedone (Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei)
- Mons. Zevon Zekiyan (Università Ca’ Foscari)
- Fr. Nichola Wrywoll (Regensburg Universitaet)
- Zekay Zeki Demir (Süryani Ortodoks Metropolitliği).
Dates: From 29 December 2019 to 5 January 2020.
Location: Istanbul and the Dominican priory of St Piyer in Galata.
Inscription fee: € 50 to be paid upon registration through bank transfer to
PROVINCIA SAN DOMENICO IN ITALIA Via Giuseppe Antonio Sassi 3 20123 MILANO Agenzia: Milano-Cadorna IBAN: IT07U0200801628000004913354 BIC SWIFT: UNCRITM1228
Reason: *Your name* Istanbul
There are no boarding costs.
Registration deadline: 1 December 2019. Max. participants 12 people.
For further information please contact info@senpiyer.org
