Press release

The work of the conference will begin with an inaugural lecture by the prior of Bose, Enzo Bianchi, and by the talk of the Serbian bishop Irinej of Ba?ka (Novi Sad) on Church and monastic experience. The specific Christian understanding of community as a dimension of the spiritual life and of the essential solitude of the meeting with God will be treated in its Biblical roots (Petros Vassiliadis, Thessalonica) and in its development in the patristic tradition (Michel van Parys, Chevetogne) and in the eastern monastic (Kriton Chryssochoidis, Athens; Tat’jana Karbasova, Tat’jana Rudi, St Petersburg; Gleb Zapal’skij, Moscow) and in the western (Armand Veilleux, Scourmont).

The development that Orthodox thought gives to the concept of person and of communion (Konastantinos Agoras, Athens; Konstantin Sigov, Kiev) will introduce then a reflection on what the pair “communion and solitude” means today. This will continue with a presentation of the experience of two contemporary hermits, father Cleopa of Silastria (1912–1998) and father Porfyrios of Kafsokalyvia (196–1991), by metropolitan Serafim of Germany and Athanasios N. Papathanassiou and with the Round Table dedicated to contemporary monastic experience, To live in communion, to live in solitude, in which will take part, among others, archbishop Feognost of Sergiev Posad, superior of the Lavra of the Holy Trinity of St Sergius, bishop Nazarij of Vyborg, superior of the Lavra of the Holy Trinity of St Alexander Nevskij (St Petersburg), igumen Damaskinos (Gavalas) of the Monastery of the Prophet Elias (Santorini), igumena Makrina (Eskaf) of the Panaghia Monastery (Sayde), and father Andrej (?ilerdži?) of the Monastery of the Holy Archangels (Kovilj).

The final day will look at greater depth at the importance of the solitary and community dimensions of the spiritual life for today’s men and women in the talks of archimandrite Kirill (Hovorun) and of metropolitan Kallistos of Diokleia, delagte of the Patriarch of Constantinople Bartholomew I.