Sixth International Colloquium on St. Maximus the Confessor: ‘St. Maximus the Confessor and the Mystery of Divine Revelation’
Belgrade, April 27-30, 2025
It is not often, in the international academic community, that scholarly events simultaneously demonstrate all the merits that distinguished the 6th International Colloquium ‘St. Maximus the Confessor and the Mystery of Divine Revelation’ held in Belgrade, Serbia, between April 27-30, 2025. The conference was dedicated to honoring Professor Paul M. Blowers and his extensive work, the fruit of a long-standing engagement with the study of St. Maximus the Confessor, on the occasion of his 70th birthday.
The International Colloquium on St. Maximus the Confessor was established during the last decade by prominent Maximian scholars of global recognition. Throughout these years it has become a worldwide recognized institution, as well as a reference in the study and research into the thought and works of this significant pillar in the Christian theological and philosophical tradition both of East and West. The conference gathered the leading scholars that have paved the way to the Maximian studies in the 21st century as well as promising early career researchers who have demonstrated a profound and resourceful dedication to the study of St. Maximus. As such, the Colloquium is well known among the scholars of late antiquity and early Christianity as providing erudite contributions in the study of the Confessor, combining high quality research in depth and breadth.
An additional distinctive element should be mentioned. That is, the direct connection of the research produced and presented in the Colloquia on St. Maximus the Confessor with the recently established Brepols series Subsidia Maximiana for the study of St. Maximus, edited by Alex Leonas and Vladimir Cvetković.
The 6th International Colloquium was organized thanks to the partnership of a triad of co-host institutions: the Institute for Philosophy and Social Theory at the University of Belgrade, the International Center for Orthodox Studies in Niš, and the Karoli Gaspar University of the Reformed Church in Hungary, Budapest.
Accommodating 35 high quality research papers and presentations within 3 conference days would have not have been an easy task, had it not been for the capabilities and experience of the organizers, Vladimir Cvetković, Fr. Aleksandar Djakovac, Daniel Heide, and Alex Leonas. Their collaboration is to be praised both for the successful completion of a tight-structured conference consisting of demanding presentations and engaging discussions throughout, and for the strong social component that was well organized and prepared.
After a guided tour in the astonishingly beautiful Memorial Cathedral Church of Saint Sava, a true masterpiece, the first Conference session with opening lectures by Paul Blowers and Torstein Tollefsen, took place in the splendid Crypt of the Cathedral, on Sunday afternoon April 27, 2025.
In his erudite lecture illuminating the nuanced nature of literal interpretation in the early Christian tradition, Blowers challenged the perception of a static sensus literalis of the Scripture and argued for a dynamism introduced by St. Maximus as overcoming the ‘standard’ of literal and spiritual distinctions. Through detailed reasoning, Blowers demonstrated the Confessor to be an active constructor of the literal meaning rather than passively uncovering it. Distinctive in Blowers’ explanatory approach were the five forms of the Letter: Biblical, formal (linguistic), obscure or missing parts, recovered letter, and metaphors, which also reveal the multifaceted identity of the Confessor as exegete.
Torstein Tollefsen’s lecture focused on bridging the theoretical with the practical by investigating into what St. Maximus would call ‘practical philosophy’, or what would appear in modern terms as ‘ethics’ and more precisely, ‘environmental ethics’. Tollefsen’s endeavour on how to read the created world as a proper ergon of the Uncreated God was a conscious recognition of the state of ‘potentiality’ of human nature, in which virtuous and contemplative life should not be taken for granted. It is by implementing the Divine Logoi of being and well-being in their proper way, that human beings become apt to actualize their capacity for becoming synergists of God’s will in the cosmos, rather than remain instrumental consumers of creation, isolated by the satisfaction of our desires.
During the next two days, eight sessions, each containing four presentations, building on the Colloquium topic, took place at the Institute for Philosophy and Social Theory, an excellent location suitably selected by the organizers, with a panoramic view of the Serbian capital. The papers complemented each other and functioned as tiles making up a wonderful contemplative mosaic of the Divine Revelation according to St. Maximus.
The papers covered various perspectives on the mystery of divine revelation, including theology, philosophy, patristics, systematic and historical approaches, theory and praxis, cosmology, ontology, epistemology, and ethics, St. Maximus’ origins, predecessors, and legacy. Thus, the following topics were presented: Gregory Nazianzen and Will (Claudio Moreschini, Pisa), Maximus and Philo on Revelation (Alex Leonas, Budapest), Paul, Proclus and Maximus’ Ecclesial Cosmology (Daniel Heide, Belgrade), The Lord’s Prayer as Divine Self-Revelation (Katherine Painter, Oxford), The World as Text (Dionysios Skliris, Athens), Phantasia and Nēpsis (Thomas Cattoi, Rome), Memory and Mind Perfection (Lyubomira Stefanova, Sofia), From Practice to Theory (Sotiris Mitralexis, London), Ascetic Psychology in Ad Thalassium (Fr. Michael Bakker, Nijmegen), Incarnational Desire in Epistle 8 (Sea Yun Pius Young, Cambridge), The Logic of the Exchange Formula (Paul Gavrilyuk, St. Paul, Minnesota), The Male-Female Differentia (Sebastian Mateiescu, Delft), Kataphasis, Apophasis and Theology (Georgi Kapriev, Sofia), Revelation and Concealment (Fr. Oskari Juurikkala, Rome), Challenges in Uttering the Ineffable (Fr. Milan Djordjević, Skopje), Liturgical Foundation of Revelation in Mystagogia (Panagiotis Pavlos, Oslo), Images and Symbols in Mystagogia (Karolina Kocháńczyk-Bonińska, Cracow), Symbolic Epistemology in Mystagogia (Fr. Alexandru Atanase Barna, Bucharest), The Mother of God as the Foundation of Virginity (Fr. Ivan Bodrožić and Maja Rončević, Split), Philanthropia and Vision of God (Thomas S. Drobena, Massachusetts), Pseudo-Maximus (Milesa Stefanović Banović, Belgrade), Maximian Exegesis and the Lateran Council (Márk Besztercei, Budapest), St. Maximus and the Filioque (Mikonja Knežević, Belgrade), St. Maximus Legacy: Palamas and Akindynos (Mihailo Milenković, Belgrade), St. Maximus and the Ferrara-Florence (Justin Smith, Notre Dame, IL), Maximus in Orthodox Iconography (Miguel Gallés Magri, Barcelona), Maximian Eschatology in the 20th century (Bogna Kosmulska, Warsaw), Resurrection and Disability (Marius Portaru, Rome), Mindfulness and Christian Spirituality (Fr. Jan Wojciechowski, Warsaw), St. Maximus and St. Justin Popović (Petros N. Toulis, Thessaloniki).
The conference closing lecture was by Fr. Nikolaos Loudovikos (Ioannina), who successfully applied the main Maximian ideas and ontological investigations, especially in the Four Centuries on Love, to the pressing issues of the so-called ‘Age of Posthumanism’. The speaker, well known for his ability to expand his versatility into the three-dimensional mode of contemplation, the theological-philosophical-psychological triplet, succeeded a rapprochement of the Confessor’s ontological validation of agape with modern existential and post-existential definitions and contextualization of identity and the self. It should be noted that Fr. Loudovikos recently completed the first modern Greek edition of the Four Centuries on Love, preceded by a detailed introduction, and followed by a slightly edited original text supplied with an extensive commentary.
The significance of the Conference could be also proven by the fact that high-profile Institutions were variously engaged in securing its successful implementation. The patronage of the Serbian Orthodox Church was evident during the first conference day at St. Sava Cathedral, which concluded with a welcome dinner in the presence of Bishop Ilarion of the Serbian Patriarchate, and throughout the Conference. The Serbian Ministry of Science contributed by providing state recognition and support. Acknowledgments should also be extended to the International Association of Patristic Studies (AIEP-IAPS) and the Guerrand-Hermès Foundation for Peace. The overseas sponsorship was provided by the International Orthodox Theological Association (IOTA) and the Orthodox Christian Studies Center, Fordham University, New York. IOTA’s motto — “synergy between the Academy and the Church” — was constantly visible throughout the Colloquium and manifested in the convergence of goals between IOTA and the Sixth International Colloquium, thanks to the presence of its Founding President Paul Gavrilyuk. The Colloquium was supported through the newly established IOTA Colloquia Program. As a participant in the Sixth International Colloquium in Belgrade I can testify how indispensable for its success Paul’s dedicated engagement was.
The Seventh International Colloquium on St. Maximus the Confessor will be held in 2026 in Poland.
Panagiotis G. Pavlos
Research Fellow, Department of Philosophy, University of Oslo
