POLIN DAY 3.2.2025 THE COUNCIL OF NICAEA AND CHRISTIANITY IN THE EAST: ANCIENT RECEPTION AND MODERN ECUMENISM
Auditorium Theologicum, Annexet, Piispankatu 16
The spring Polin Day will be held on 3rd of February, 2025, from 9:30-17:00 with the theme The Council of Nicaea and Christianity in the East: Ancient Reception and Modern Ecumenism. Possibility to participate via Zoom, https://aboakademi.zoom.us/j/69015444336 (Meeting ID: 690 1544 4336).
Dinner at 18:00 at Restaurant Rioni at everyone’s own expense.
Please find the booklet here.
Program
09:30 – 10:00 Opening of the Polin Day
10:00 – 10:45 Topias Tanskanen: Aphrahat and Nicaea: Review of Research
10:45 – 11:15 Coffee Break
11:15 – 12:00 Serafim Seppälä: Nicene Themes with un-Greek Instruments? Ephrem the Syrian
12:00 – 13:30 Lunch at Grädda
13:30 – 14:15 Maros Nicak: East Syriac Christology in the Poetic Form of a Fictional Dialogue Between Cyril of Alexandria and Nestorius of Constantinople
14:15 – 15:00 Grant White: Christology in the Anaphoras of the Ge’ez Tradition: The State of the Question
15:00 – 15:30 Coffee Break
15:30 – 16:00 Jouko N. Martikainen: Did Christ See Corruption? Acts 2:27 (presentation in Swedish)
16:00 – 16:45 Emil Anton: Modern Ecumenism between Chalcedonian and Non-Chalcedonian Churches
16:45 – 17:00 Conclusion
18:00 Dinner
The Polin Institute offers lunch but the dinner is at everyone’s own expense. The Polin dinner takes place at Restaurant Rioni, Eerikinkatu 8, 2nd floor, at 18:00.
Both the lunch and the dinner are open to all, but pre-registration is required by 26 January via this link. Please remember to write in the form of any dietary restrictions.
Topias K. E. Tanskanen is a Postdoctoral Researcher in Exegetics in the Polin Institute at Åbo Akademi University and expert in early Jewish reception history of the Bible. He has studied Old Testament Exegetics and Jewish Studies at Åbo Akademi University, where he earned his ThD in 2023, and Hebrew and Semitic philology at University of Helsinki. He currently investigates the biblical interpretation of Aphrahat as a collaborator in the project “Isaiah between Judeo-Christian Borderlines” funded by the Academy of Finland and the Polin Institute.
Serafim Seppälä is a professor of systematic theology and patristics at the University of Eastern Finland since 2007. He studied comparative Semitic linguistics and Islamic studies at the University of Helsinki, where he earned his PhD in 2002. Following several years at the Monastery of New Valaam, he pursued an academic career but continues to serve as an archimandrite in the Orthodox Church of Finland. His research interests span a wide range of topics in early Eastern Christian literature, including Byzantine aesthetics, Syriac and Greek ascetic and mystical theology, the interaction between Judaism and Eastern Christianity in late antiquity, the encounter between early Islam and Christianity in the Middle East, and the cultural heritage of the Armenian genocide.
Maros Nicak works as vice dean at the Evangelical Lutheran Theological Faculty (Comenius University Bratislava). Maros did his doctorate in the field of oriental church history at the Georg-August-Universität in Göttingen and Post-Doc in Salzburg, Åbo (2x) and Uppsala. Within the ENLIGHT project, he is responsible for WP5 (Outreach). Founder of the Regional Academy of Comenius University.
Grant White is a Senior Lecturer in Eastern Christian Studies at University College Stockholm and Sankt Ignatios College, Stockholm, where he teaches liturgical studies. He has taught liturgy, patristics, and church history at institutions of theological higher education in the United States, Finland, England, and Sweden, including St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary. He has also served as Principal of the Institute for Orthodox Christian Studies, Cambridge, England.
Jouko N. Martikainen is professor emeritus of Church History, especially Syriac Church History, at the Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, Germany, where he worked between 1984–2001. He is also alumnus of Åbo Akademi University where he earned his doctoral degree in 1978.
Dr. Emil Anton (born 1986) is a Finnish-Iraqi Catholic theologian and author.
Do you have any questions? Please contact Topias Tanskanen topias.tanskanen@abo.fi.