Past Events

On November 10-11, 2017 the Vatican sponsored an international conference on nuclear disarmament in cooperation with the United Nations and with over 300 Nobel-laureates, activists, scholars, and representatives of non-governmental organizations (NGO's).  Jack Figel, founder and chairman of the Orientale Lumen Foundation, was invited by Cardinal Peter Turkson to attend and represent Global Zero, a "grass roots" movement to achieve worldwide nuclear disarmament by 2030.  Father Andrew Summerson wrote a full-page feature story in Horizons, the diocesan newspaper of the Byzantine Ruthenian Catholic Eparchy of Parma, OH (Cleveland).  The full article can be found on the following link.

Horizons article on Vatican Conference

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Quotes from OL XI Plenaries:

Metropolitan Kallistos of Diokleia – The Holy Icon is a means of access into the age to come. It is a point of meeting and encounter with the communion of saints.  So the icon as a door fulfills a mediating function. The icon makes persons and events present to us. Through the icon we meet the person that is shown to us whether that is Christ the Savior, the Mother of God, one of the Angels, one of the saints.  Through the icon, we participate in the mystery that is depicted.

Metropolitan Gerasimos of San Francisco – Our first documented evidence of icons is found in the mid-second century, apocryphal Acts of John, which seems to have come from the region of Ephesus.  Early Christians chose to adopt an artistic style that diverged from that of classical Greek works.  They followed the conventions used to depict pagan gods such as Suchos, Isis, and Heron. These models were a bit more stylized than the more lifelike statues, notably in (1) their more static, frontal poses; (2) lack of anatomical detail under their clothing; (3) engaging eyes; (4) circular haloes; and (5) abstract surroundings.  These characteristics are still present in Byzantine icons produced today.

Archimandrite Robert Taft – For the Byzantines, liturgy filled the gap between the life-giving finger of God and the outstretched finger of the reclining Adam in the famous creation scene in Michelangelo’s 1513 fresco in the Sistine Chapel.  This perceived connection between heaven and earth, realized in the mysteries of the Trinity and Christ, and in Church services, icon worship, and the system of images, had its theological basis in the mystery of the Incarnation.  What had once been seen as an unbridgeable gulf between the Divinity and humankind had, for Christians, been bridged by the eternal Word of God made flesh in the God-Man Jesus.

Father Thomas Loya – Iconography is the official art of the Church, east and west.  It always has been.  In the west, it took on its own kind of development, but when you look at that development you see a telescoping source of western art in iconography.  Iconography is not a craft.  It’s not a lacquer box.  It’s not something you stick on the wall.  It’s not even a holy picture.  Rather the wall was made for the icon.  Iconography needs to be rescued from a certain aspect of the popularity that it is enjoying now, and put back in its context.  Iconography is the quintessential, integrated artform.

Quotes from OL X Plenaries:

Archbishop Hovnan Derderian - We cannot separate the preaching from practice.  Preaching the word of God should be deeply rooted in our daily actions and reflected in our relationship with our faithful and our unconditional love, care and compassion for our brothers and sisters.  It is not permissible for a Christian to say “I can pray for you, but cannot pray with you.”

Bishop Kallistos - I see a group such as Orientale Lumen as fulfilling an important task in this mutual knowledge and mutual love. Part of the function of Orientale Lumen is to build up ecumenical friendships. And if we are to make progress in the ecumenical movement we do need personal friendships, not simply reports by experts, but human contact.

Bishop John Michael Botean - How can you be “catholic” with the Pope, and “orthodox” at the same time?  When you are a “Greek Catholic” or an “Eastern Catholic” of some kind, it calls into question a whole lot of things, beginning with the very nature, or function, or purpose, or vocation, or destiny of the Church. It calls people to reflect on their own religious positions individually and communally, the position of their Church, their Church’s loyalties, and their own personally loyalties.  When you are an Eastern Catholic, you find out very quickly that what you assumed, if you’ve chosen this, is to be  a lightening rod for hatred.

Father George Gallaro - We are ever more aware that since the early attempts at reconciliation among Christians, the subsequent realization that the Spirit of the Lord is always at work, the Spirit of Unity,  Indeed the ecumenical movement has its origins as the Holy Spirit.  The Holy Spirit imparts strength by His presence, comforts and enlightens in every difficult moment.  The Spirit is always active in the movement precisely because He inspired and made the movement of unity,  all the work toward