On my return from Constantinople and the celebration of Prokrov (Protection of the Mother of God) in the Blacherna Church and my audience/lunch with Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, I spent several days with Metropolitan Kallistos of Diokleia at his residence in Oxford.  He has an enormous study/sitting room lined on three walls by floor-to-ceiling bookshelves built into the walls.  By rough estimate, there are 25 books per shelf, 10 shelves per case, and about 12 cases around the walls – totaling over 3000 books.  And those are the ones that can be SEEN – many shelves have a second row of books behind the first! 

His Eminence meets with students and parishioners in this room, and on this visit, I recorded several more videos of lectures on the topic of “Heaven on Earth:  The Inner Meaning of the Eucharist.”  The talks were wonderfully uplifting and educational.  I am so happy that we captured the essence of His Eminence’s keen wit, scholarship and theological understanding.  They will be a wonderful tribute to him for generations in the future.  These in particular, I feel are examples of his great ability to boil down complex theological principles and ideas of the Church Fathers into easily comprehensible chunks of the Faith.  I truly thank His Eminence for sharing them with me, and recording them for all to view and learn.  The first full lecture is available to view on www.oltv.tv and the complete set of six lectures are available to purchase from the online catalog of www.olconference.com as CD or DVD recordings for parish or personal use.