Location: This event will be held ONLINE via Zoom.
Cost: $25 plus HST
9:30 am Welcome and Introductions
9:40 am First Conference
Break/Discussion
10:45-11:00 am Second Conference begins
Break/Discussion
12:00-12:15 Final Conference
Discussion/Q&A/wrap up
1:00 pm End
If you would like to join our electronic mailing list, please send an email to lay.formation@staugustines.on.ca.
Please note: The recommended age of all attendees is 15 and over.
Presentation Description:
The Christian East is well known for its sacred images, which serve not only unto catechesis but as veritable sites of divine-human encounter: icons, that is, not only represent, but re-present--allowing us, in turn, to join with "the great cloud of witnesses" in their contemplation of the magnalia Dei, "the wonderful works of God." The heart of Eastern Christian spirituality, however, lies arguably not in iconography but rather in the Jesus Prayer--an ancient practice that is effectively an iconic. How then are such seeming opposites knit together into a seamless devotional vesture? How can both contribute to the renewal of faith and pastoral ministry in our day? How might we better pray with--but also without--images? Come and "see"!
Our Presenter: Dr. Brian Butcher
Brian A. Butcher is newly arrived at McGill University, as Adjunct Professor in the School of Religious Studies. Most recently, teaching in the Toronto School of Theology, where he remains a Fellow of the Metropolitan Andrey Sheptysky Institute of Eastern Christian Studies (at the University of St. Michael's College) and Sessional Lecturer at St. Augustine's Seminary, he previously taught courses at Saint Paul University in Ottawa in both Eastern and Western Christian traditions. With expertise in Eastern (-Rite) Catholicism and comparative liturgy, his research interests include sacred music, patristics, philosophical hermeneutics and interreligious dialogue. He is the author of Liturgical Theology After Schmemann: An Orthodox Reading of Paul Ricoeur (Fordham University Press, 2018). Brian cantors in both the Byzantine and Latin Rites, and is a subdeacon in the Ukrainian Greco-Catholic Church.