News and Events - September 2011
NEWS AND EVENTS - Friday, September 2, 2011

ATHONITE ABBOT, WORLD-KNOWN THEOLOGIAN TO SPEAK AT CHICAGO CATHEDRAL

Chicago, IL - The Very Venerable Archimandrite Fr. Vasileios Gontikakis, Abbot of the Mount Athos monastery of Iveron and world-renowned Orthodox Christian theologian and author, will visit Holy Resurrection Serbian Orthodox Cathedral in Chicago on Monday, September 12th, and speak to parishioners on the theme "Orthodox Worship as Love in Action." This engaging presentation and discussion will begin at 7:30 PM.

athHis Grace Bishop +Longin of New Gracanica-Midwestern America, and guest hierarch His Grace Bishop +Maxim of Western America, will also be present at the gathering.

Archimandrite Vasileios' presentation on “Orthodox Worship as Love in Action,” which will be translated into Serbian and English, will explore the centrality of liturgical life in general, and the Divine Liturgy in particular.

"We are very honored to welcome Archimandrite Vasileios of Iveron Monastery, to hear his words and to receive the blessings of the Holy Mountain," said Fr. Darko Spasojevic, Cathedral Dean.

In his book Hymn of Entry (SVS Press), Fr. Vasileios maintains that the purpose of true theology is not to develop more knowledge but to love better, and that the focus in this process is on the community -- the joy of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Bishop Kallistos Ware, in his brief article on the revival of monastic life in Mount Athos and the role of Fr. Vasileios, commented that “the quality that characterizes this remarkable book is above all a sense of organic wholeness, such as may be found in St Maximus the Confessor. The unity of the divine and the human in the incarnate Christ, the unity ofheaven and earth in the Divine Liturgy, the unity between theology and spirituality, between theology and life-such are the author's master themes. For Fr. Vasileios theology is by its very essence liturgical: not a "philosophy" or a "system"-any more than the Bible is philosophical or systematic-but the expression of the Church's mystical life.”

Furthermore, the book seeks to answer many fundamental questions, such as: “What is theology? What is the Church? What are the practical, living implications of the dogma of the Holy Trinity?”

Archimandrite Vasileios' visit to the Serbian Cathedral in Chicago will be the second time this year that our community has been visited by a Mount Athos abbot, following the January visit of Archimandrite Methodius of Hilandar Monastery.
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