Three Orientale Lumen Conferences are scheduled for the summer of 2010, all on the theme of “The Councils of the Church.”  We have a great lineup of speakers from around the world including hierarchs, theologians and other leading experts, all from a wide range of Church traditions, both Catholic and Orthodox.

The deadline for registration for ALL three of these conferences is fast approaching. 

For the conference in Constantinople, July 5-8, the deadline for registration is May 1.  For the two US conferences in June, the early registration deadline is also May 1 when you can register for a discounted fee.  The final deadline is June 1.  See the attached brochures for more details on each conference.

If you are planning to attend one or more of this year’s conferences, please register ASAP so we can plan our meals, lodging and transportation accordingly.

OL XIV Brochure

OL EuroEast III Brochure

For the past fifteen years, I have personally subsidized the establishment and growth of Eastern Christian Publications, the Orientale Lumen Conferences, and most recently Orientale Lumen TeleVision.  Last year, at the suggestion of many who responded to our survey for OLTV, I created the Orientale Lumen Foundation to provide a more stable and permanent financial environment for future projects and programs.  The Foundation has been granted 501(c)3 status by the IRS as a charitable and tax exempt organization, so your donations made to the foundation are tax deductible.

There are several projects needing additional funding support right now:

• Establish a special fund to subsidize some of the travel expenses for 12 students and professors from the Pontifical Oriental Institute in Rome to attend the Orientale Lumen EuroEast III Conference in Constantinople
• Provide a scholarship fund for students or monastics who wish to attend the Orientale Lumen Conferences in the US
• Record and edit additional theological lectures for OLTV programs (including ones by Metropolitan Kallistos, Archimandrite Robert Taft, and others)
• Record and edit the three OL Conferences scheduled for this coming summer to create a large educational library of lectures by our 20 speakers on the conference theme “The Councils of the Church”
• Convert our most popular recent book, “Finding A Hidden Church” by Father Chris Zugger, into a documentary about the persecution and resurrection of the Greek Catholic Church of Transcarpathia, Ukraine, homeland of the American Byzantine Catholic Church

I urgently ask for your help and support by making a financial donation to the Foundation so that we can continue and expand the valuable programs that I have started.

You can contribute in one of four ways:

1. Go to our website www.oltv.tv and select the Donations tab on the left side of the screen.  This will provide you a screen to make a donation directly to the Foundation through PayPal.
2. Go to our website www.olconference.com and click on the text link on the lower right corner of the home page.  Choose the amount you wish to donate, and pay by credit card.
3. Access the PDF file below, print the donation form, and send with your check or credit card information to our office.
4. Call our office at 703-691-8862 and make your donation over the phone by credit card

 OL Foundation Donation Form

Any amount will be greatly appreciated.  For donations of $100 or more, we will send you a thank you gift DVD of Metropolitan Kallistos’ lecture at Catholic University in February, 2010 on the status of the Orthodox-Catholic Dialogue.

If you would like to discuss any of our programs further, or an even larger donation, please contact me directly by email at jackfigel@verizon.net.   Thank you for your support!

During the recent visit of Metropolitan Kallistos of Diokliea (Timothy Ware) to the US, we obtained copies of three of his most popular books — The Orthodox Church, The Orthodox Way, The Inner Kingdom.  They were very popular at all of his lectures, and we sold nearly 100 copies of each.

Eastern Christian Publications will continue to offer these three titles in conjunction with the extensive collection of theological lectures that we offer by His Eminence through OLTV.  OLTV has recordings titled “Mystical Theology of the Eastern Fathers”, “Heaven on Earth: The Inner Meaning of the Eucharist”, “Ecumenical  Reflections: 10 Years of OL Plenaries”, and “Our Lenten Journey.”  We will be recording another series of lectures on the Doctrine of the Church in April and hope to have them available by June 2010.

As a special introductory offer, customers who place orders through our website (New Titles on www.ecpubs.com) or call into our office (703-691-8862) by April 20, 2010 for any of these three books will received SIGNED copies by the author.  This is a one-time only offer and expires on April 20.

So if you want a signed copy of these timeless and valuable books by the leading Orthodox lecturer, educator and theologian of the late 20th century, place your orders now.  Books will be shipped in early May.

Eastern Christian Publications is pleased to offer several new titles to its growing catalog of books.

The Ratzinger Formula: A Catalyst for the Unfolding Dialogue Between the Catholic and Orthodox Churches on “Conciliarity and Primacy” by Richard A. Mattiussi.  373 pages.  $30.00.

The Formula itself was originally articulated in a lecture given by the then Fr. Joseph Ratzinger at an ecumenical gathering in Graz, Austria in 1976 … In sum, he proposed that the Catholic Church must not require any more of an adherence to the Roman Primacy from the Orthodox Churches than had existed in the first millennium. On the other hand, the Orthodox must not condemn as heretical the developments that took place within the Catholic Church during the second millennium… Hence, “the Ratzinger Formula” will hopefully provide a fundamentally dynamic starting point where sister churches from two distinct ecclesial worlds may seek common ground in search of a concrete model that will express full and complete Eucharistic Communion.—Richard A. Mattiussi, taken from the General Introduction

Leaving for, Living in, & Farewell to CHINA:  The Life Experiences of a Carmelite Nun by Mere Elisabeth.  206 pages. $20.00.

What difference is there between the star that stood over the manger where lay the Holy Child in Bethlehem, and the star on the red background of the flag of Communist China? An unexpected question! But if it were put to Mère Élisabeth, the author of this book, the answer would be even more surprising: “There is no difference!” Our Carmelite found the Peking Christians’ idea brilliant; to drape the Crib with the red silk of the Chinese flag in such a way that the star dominated the scene of the Nativity of the Saviour of all mankind. Recalling the separation from her Chinese Sisters whom she was to leave, Mère Élisabeth wrote: “Our Chinese Sisters are going to suffer in the heart of the surrounding atheism, the painful, perhaps long drawn-out birth of a new Christian China. May the sacrifice of our parting also make fruitful the harvest.” Those who hope that the dawn of democracy and liberty will arise over the vastness of China, and those who cannot see that it is in the simplicity of our lives that we can be men and women of light transforming the world, all will derive great benefit from reading this book.

—Mgr. Gérard Daucourt, Bishop of Troyes
President of the Episcopal Commission for Christian Unity

Ordo Celebrationis:  English-Latin Study Edition.  270 pages.  Spiral bound.  $20.00.

This is a special edition of the Ordo Celebrationis published by the Congregation for Eastern Churches in Rome and contains the rubrics and instructions for serving Verspers, Matins and the Divine Liturgy for a priest and deacon.  ECP first published an English edition of the Ordo in 1996 with illustrations and over 400 annotations added for education of today’s clergy.  At the request of many users of that publication, we now offer a parallel English-Latin edition of the TEXT ONLY.  The Latin edition was promulgated in 1952 by Cardinal Tisserant and is out of print.  ECP scanned the individual pages of that original edition and aligned the English text of our edition to those same pages.  We hope this study edition will be useful for liturgists and scholars in discovering the richness of the Ruthenian liturgical tradition.

Trebnyk of Peter Mohyla:  1646.  In Four Volumes.  1728 pages.  Hardbound.  Two-color printing.  $700.00.

In parallel to the 1639 Sluzhebnik (Liturgicon) of Saint Peter Mohyla of the Caves in Kiev, ECP is pleased to offer this facsimile reprint of the companion books containing texts and instructions for the Sacraments of the Eastern Slav Churches as practiced in the 17th century.  We have enhanced the original editions by dividing the unwieldy huge edition into four books, added Arabic page numbers and provided an English translation of the Table of Contents of the entire set in the front of each book.  Archimandrite Serge Keleher has also written a Preface for this edition, explaining its historical significance.

You can order copies by calling our office at 703-691-8862 or online in the New Titles section of the Online Catalog at www.ecpubs.com.

Metropolitan Kallistos of Diokleia, one of the foremost Orthodox lecturers, authors and theologians alive today, gave a series of lectures on various Lenten themes during his visit to America in early February 2010.  OLTV recorded all of his lectures and they are now available, along with other collections of talks by His Eminence.

They include:

1. Mystical Theology of the Eastern Fathers
2. Ecumenical Reflections: 10 Years of Orientale Lumen Plenaries
3. Heaven on Earth: The Inner Meaning of the Eucharist
4. Our Lenten Journey: Spiritual Preparation for the Great Fast

His Eminence has also agreed to record another series of talks later this month on the Doctrine of the Church, or Ecclesiology.  I will be spending a week with him in Oxford making the recordings and hope to have them available later this summer.

Two other individual lectures on the Ravenna Agreed Statement of the Orthodox-Catholic International Dialogue given by Metropolitan Kallistos at the Catholic University of America in 2008 and 2010 are also available.

Use the flier and order form below, or you can order through the online catalog at www.olconference.com or call 703-691-8862.

Kallistos Media Flier

Professor Richard Schneider is a professor of iconology (the theology and symbolism of icons) at York University in Toronto and St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary in New York.  He has been a speaker at several Orientale Lumen Conferences over recent years and always gives a fresh and in-depth perspective of iconography.

In October 2009 he was invited to give a lecture in Washington, DC by the Washington Theological Consortium in conjunction with an icon exhibit at the Dadian Gallery of the Henry Luce III Center for the Arts and Religion at Wesley Theological Seminary, one of the members of the consortium.  While in the area, he agreed to record several lectures about the icons of the Great Feasts of the Eastern Churches.  He illuminates the deep meaning that lies within the Holy Icons and their importance in the Eastern Christian liturgical cycle of feasts.  He teaches us how to read icons through their “rhetoric” and “order.”  Focusing on 14 Great Festal Icons, Professor Schneider objectively discusses the historical, theological, and scriptural significance of each and their inter-relationships.

In his six lectures he covers:

1. Introduction
2. Nativity of Our Lord; Encounter with Simeon
3. Nativity of the Theotokos; Entry of the Thetokos into the Temple; Annunciation
4. Epiphany of Our Lord; Palm Sunday; Great and Holy Friday
5. Transfiguration; Ascension; Dormition of the Theotokos; Pentecost; Exaltation of the Holy Cross
6. Resurrection and Conclusion

In each talk, Professor Schneider uses scripture and liturgical texts to point out the meaning behind specific elements of each icon.  The video shows the icons in a general view but also highlights the details explained during the lecture.

Each lecture is 40-80 minutes in length and is an excellent series for anyone who wishes to better understand the Holy Icons and their importance to Eastern Christian worship.  This series would also be a great program for an adult education program in a parish, using the video as the starting point following by group discussion.

This program is one of the newest additions to the OLTV group of Adult Enrichment programs available in DVD form, and can be purchased through the online catalog at www.olconference.com or by calling 703-691-8862.

Three Orientale Lumen Conferences are planned in 2010 for lay persons and clergy from the Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Eastern Catholic and Oriental Orthodox Churches.  One of the few ecumenical dialogue meetings that are open to the public, this year’s conferences will focus presentations on “The Councils of the Church”.  Held annually since 1997, the Orientale Lumen conferences provide a “grass roots” form of ecumenical dialogue where all persons learn from each other’s traditions.

The first conference will be held June 7-10 at Seton Hall University in South Orange, NJ and is co-sponsored by the Center for Catholic Studies.  The speakers will include:
• Archbishop Cyril Vasil’, SJ, Secretary of the Congregation for Eastern Churches, The Vatican
• Archimandrite Cyril Hovorun, Director of Religious Education, Moscow
• Archimandrite Robert Taft, SJ, Professor Emeritus of the Pontifical Oriental Institute, The Vatican
• Father John Behr, St. Vladimir’s Seminary, New York, NY
• Father George Gallaro, SS Cyril & Methodius Byzantine Catholic Seminary, Pittsburgh, PA
• Mr. Elias Damianakis, Lecturer and Iconographer, Tampa, FL

The second conference will be held June 21-24 at the Pope John Paul II Cultural Center in Washington, DC.  The speakers will be:
• Metropolitan Jonah, Primate of the Orthodox Church in America
• Archbishop Donald Wuerl, Archbishop of Washington, DC
• Archimandrite Robert Taft, SJ, Professor Emeritus of the Pontifical Oriental Institute, The Vatican
• Archpriest Peter Galadza, Metropolitan Andrew Sheptytsky Institute, Ottawa, Canada
• Father Thomas FitzGerald, Holy Cross Theological School Boston, MA
• Mr. Elias Damianakis, Lecturer and Iconographer, Tampa, FL

The third conference will be held July 5-8 in Constantinople (Istanbul), Turkey with His All Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew giving the Welcoming Address.  Plenary speakers will include:
• Metropolitan Kallistos of Diokleia, Retired Lecturer of Eastern Orthodox Studies of Oxford University, England
• Archbishop Cyril Vasil’, SJ, Secretary of the Congregation for Eastern Churches, The Vatican
• Archimandrite Robert Taft, SJ, Professor Emeritus of the Pontifical Oriental Institute, The Vatican
• Archimandrite Job Getcha, Institute of Orthodox Theology, Chambésy, Switzerland and the Catholic Institute of Paris, France
• Sister Vassa Larin, University of Vienna, Austria
• Professor Richard Schneider, St. Vladimir’s Seminary, New York, NY
• Moderator – Bishop John Michael Botean, Romanian Greek Catholic Eparchy of St. George, Canton, OH

Each conference agenda will include plenary sessions by the speakers, ecumenical prayer services, and opportunities for fellowship among the participants.  Additional tours to Ephesus and Patmos are planned in Turkey.

For further details, call the conference office at 703-691-8862, or use our website (www.olconference.com) to download color brochures or register online.  Videos from previous conferences are available to view at www.oltv.tv.

I graduated from the University of Rochester with a bachelor’s degree in engineering in 1976.  I have only had a chance to visit a few times since then, the last visit being about 4 years ago to help the Catholic Newman Community (Catholic parish on campus for students) with strategic planning and fund raising to support their growing student population.

As a student, I was quite active in the Newman Community (or “club” as it was sometimes known back then) writing and typing and printing the weekly bulletin (I was involved in “publishing” even 35 years ago!), frequent attendance at Mass (in those days, every Sunday liturgy was a “Folk Mass” with guitars, etc.), and lots of other activities.  During my sophomore year, I attended Mass every day, which was an informal gathering of the chaplains (we had a full-time priest and nun assigned by the Diocese of Rochester) and a few students, at noon on M-W-F and 7:30 pm on T-R, much like a class schedule!

Even in my freshman year, I organized “Jack Figel’s Dixieland Band” to play dance music, including polkas, for the annual campus Mardi Gras that we held as a party on the Sunday before Lent.  I was a member of the parish council, a group of volunteers students who did most of the work running the parish, and in my junior year was elected to the five-member Executive Committee to help the chaplains even more extensively.  One year, I also organized a Byzantine Catholic priest from Harrisburg, PA (the closest parish of my Church at the time) to come and celebrate a Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom in English and expose all my Roman Catholic student friends to who I was as a Byzantine Catholic.  So, I did an awful lot back then, and wonder how I ever completed my engineering degree!

Early in January of this year, Father Brian Cool, the current chaplain, emailed me an invitation to visit the last weekend of February and participate in a panel discussion about Catholic-Orthodox relations today.  I was quite surprised that such an event was going to happen at my alma mater, and even more pleased to be invited to participate.  It was organized by the Newman Community and a newly formed (since my day there) Orthodox Christian Fellowship of students.  The other panelists were Father Curt Cadorette, a professor of Religious Studies at the university, and Father Patrick Cowles, a local Greek Orthodox parish priest.

So I flew up on Saturday morning and had lunch with the chaplains that I knew back during my years there, Father Jim Lawlor and Sister Joan Sobala.  It was great to see them both after so many years.  Father Jim is retired about two years, but still serving in his last parish, and Sister Joan is parochial administrator of a parish cluster where a priest comes to celebrate the sacraments, but she is the administrator.  Saturday evening, I drove out to Newark, NY about 50 miles east of Rochester and had a lovely dinner with Gail and Bruce Chambes.  Gail was assistant to the dean of engineering when I was a student, and we have kept in touch all these years.

On Sunday morning, Father Brian invited me to serve as Lector for the Mass and in my Byzantine style sticharion, chanted the Epistle in Carpathian style and gave a short reflection on myself as a Byzantine Catholic.  After Mass, the students held a pancake breakfast and I had the opportunity to chat with a number of students.  I did the same at the Sunday evening Mass.

The panel discussion was held at 5 pm Sunday with about 25 students and others attending.  We also shared various Lenten foods that the Orthodox students brought for the event — vegetables, fruit, chips, hummus, dips, etc.  I started the discussion laying out the early history of the Church and how the current dialogue was trying to heal the separation of 1000 years.  The three of us spoke briefly on our own background, and then responded to questions.  After a two-hour session, all seemed quite happy to with the discussion and we then went to the second Catholic Mass for the day.

It was a great weekend and I was very pleased to participate and see the interest among the students, and visit with old friends.

With two postponements from the previous week, the second week of the visit of Metropolitan Kallistos to America became quite filled with events.  The snowstorms had left there mark on the area, but we managed to not cancel a single event, and only delayed two — coincidentally the two Catholic venues were those postponed!

The lecture on the theme of ”Lent: Our Personal Journey” took place on Sunday evening, February 14, at Epiphany of Our Lord Byzantine Catholic Church in Annandale, VA.  Nearly 100 persons attended the reception in the parish center followed by the lecture in the church.  Bishop William Skurla of the Eparchy of Passaic, the diocese of Epiphany Church, also attended the lecture and welcomed Metropolitan Kallistos.

On Monday, we traveled to Toms River, NJ where His Eminence attended Great Compline for the first day of the Great Fast at St. Barbara Greek Orthodox Church that evening.  Nearly 400 persons were present for the service and his lecture on the same theme as at Epiphany, “Lent: Our Personal Journey”.  A large receptions was held in the parish social hall, and a long line of people eagerly waited to have copies of his books signed.  The next morning we returned to Washington.

On Tuesday evening, an ecumenical prayer service was conducted by the student board of the Washington Theological Consortium, a group of theological education institutions around Washington, DC.  At the prayer service, the annual Ecumenism Award was bestowed upon Metropolitan Kallistos.  After a short reception, Metropolitan Kallistos delivered the Second Annual Figel Lecture in Ecumenism to a group of over 100 persons gathered in the Happel Room of Caldwell Hall on the campus of The Catholic University of America.  His Eminence gave “An Insider’s View of the Catholic-Orthodox Dialogue Today.”  A lively Q&A discussion followed with many interesting points raised.  Father Mark Morozowich, Associate Dean of CUA, Father John Crossin, Executive Director of the WTC, and Father Paul McPartlan, Professor of Ecumenism at CUA and member of the International Catholic-Orthodox Dialogue Commission, all made remarks welcoming Metropolitan Kallistos.  As the financial sponsor of the event, I also made a few remarks, and told of my first encounter with Metropolitan Kallistos some 18 years ago (perhaps subject of a future blog posting?!)

The last scheduled event of His Eminence’s visit was a lecture at St. George Greek Orthodox Church in Bethesda, MD on Wednesday, February 17.  Over 200 persons attended the Liturgy of Presanctified Gifts and the lecture entitled “Trinity:  Heart of Our Life.”  A Lenten dinner buffet was served between the liturgy and lecture.  After the lecture, a line again formed for many to have their books signed.

I obtained copies of the Metropolitan’s most popular works to have available for people to buy at all the events, and we sold over 100 copies of each.  They included:  The Orthodox Church, The Orthodox Way, and The Inner Kingdom.  We are now carrying all three titles in our catalog and on our website:  www.ecpubs.com.

All of the lectures from this week are also available from OLTV, and a combo pack of all the lectures has been specially priced.  You can order online at www.olconference.com or call 703-691-8862.

After a grueling schedule, and speaking to nearly 1000 persons at 8 venues, Metropolitan Kallistos returned to the UK on Thursday morning.  We especially scheduled his return on the “day” flight that leaves the US in the morning and lands in London the same evening, avoiding having to sleep overnight on a “red eye” flight.  At the age of 75, His Eminence deserves all the comforts possible!

But in the end, I believe he returned home with a renewed vigor and enthusiasm for his ministry of teaching and lecturing, given the great response he received everywhere and the thousands of people he has touched with his wisdom and insight.  Many years, O Master!

Despite two record-setting snowstorms in the Washington area, Metropolitan Kallistos arrived from the UK safe and sound on Monday evening.  Dulles Airport was opened just long enough for his scheduled flight to arrive only 3 hours late.

However, because of the snow on the ground (over 2 feet!), the Washington Theological Consortium postponed their Ecumenical Lecture one week and rescheduled it for Tuesday, February 16.  This was done soon enough to get the word out, and to allow His Eminence and I to drive to Richmond, VA a day early for his lecture there.  Richmond was not expecting the great amount of snow as in Washington, and over 200 people turned out for the Wednesday evening event at Sts. Constantine and Helen Greek Orthodox Cathedral.  He spoke about “Athens and Jerusalem: Hellenic Paideia and the Greek Fathers” followed by a social reception where His Eminence signed many copies of his books.

With the second storm dumping another 2 feet + on Washington, we likewise postponed the lecture at Epiphany Byzantine Catholic Church from Thursday evening to tonight, February 14.  So we were able to stay over a second night in Richmond and have a more leisurely return in the afternoon.  Having left Washington on Tuesday before the snow, and returning after the storm was over, we missed the storm entirely, except finding over 5 feet of snow on the ground when we returned, the most ever in Washington history.

Despite all this, over 100 persons attended the lecture at St. Katherine’s Greek Orthodox Church in Falls Church on Friday evening to hear His Eminence speak about “Salvation in Christ: the Meaning of the Cross.”  A small social reception was also held for attendees to meet Metropolitan Kallistos and get copies of his books autographed.

On Saturday, St. Mark’s Orthodox Church in Bethesda, MD was the host parish for three lectures throughout the afternoon.  Metropolitan Jonah, Primate of the Orthodox Church in America, was present and introduced His Eminence to the 150+ persons attending.  Metropolitan Kallistos gave three lectures on various aspects of “Our Transfiguration in Christ:  The Message of the Philokalia”, in particular linking the feast of the Transfiguration with the image of the Holy Cross.  Refreshments were served in the parish social hall throughout the afternoon, and a small dinner was hosted that evening at a nearby restaurant for the two Metropolitans and invited guests.

On Sunday morning, Metropolitan Kallistos was the main celebrant at the Divine Liturgy at St. Mark’s Church, along with several priests, deacons, servers, and the parish choir singing choral arrangements in English.

All the lectures by Metropolitan Kallistos, and the Divine Liturgy, are available as CD or DVD recordings from OLTV through the online catalog at www.olconference.com or by calling 703-6912-8862.