Press release
XVIII International Ecumenical Conference
The course of the conference desires to offer a space for a fraternal encounter between the various Christian Churches, for communion and sharing of their multiform spiritual traditions, as the announced participation of numerous monks and nuns witnesses
in collaboration with the Orthodox Churches
“Communion and solitude” is the theme of the 18th International Ecumenical Conference of Orthodox Spirituality, which will be held at the Monastery of Bose from 8 to 11 September 2010. Organized in collaboration with the Orthodox Churches, for almost twenty years now the conference represents an important occasion of dialogue on the essential themes of the spiritual life, where the traditions of Christian East and West intersect the profound expectations of today’s men and women. The course of the conference consists of four intense days of study and fraternal comparison, during which theologians, historians, philosophers, and official representatives at the highest level of the Orthodox Churches, of the Catholic Church, and of the Churches of the Reform will take part, together with numerous other participants.
The contraposition between individual and collectivity, often a source of conflict in modern times, can find in the Christian, and in particular in the Orthodox tradition a way of humanization in the vital tension between communion and solitude, two essential dimensions of the spiritual life.
By listening to Scripture and the teachings of the fathers (from Basil to Isaac of Nineveh, from the fathers of the desert to the fathers of Byzantine and Russian monasticism) and also by interrogating the theological and philosophical reflection of the Christian East and the wisdom of several great spiritual figures of Orthodoxy, the symposium wishes to rediscover the fertile relation of these two poles that constitute human living. The monastic experience is called to be a synthesis and irradiation of the spiritual dynamics between communion and solitude; to this an ample round table discussion is dedicated, an occasion to hear some of the most authoritative spiritual guides of contemporary monasticism in East and West.