Fordham University and members of the Orthodox Christian community celebrated a milestone on Nov. 18 with the installation of Aristotle Papanikolaou, Ph.D., as Fordham’s first Archbishop Demetrios Chair in Orthodox Theology and Culture.

“I am honored to be the inaugural chair holder and I hope my work extends the remarkable legacy of Archbishop Demetrios,” said Papanikolaou, a professor of theology and the senior fellow and co-founder of Fordham’s Orthodox Christian Studies Center.

The chair is the result of a $2 million gift from Mary and Michael Jaharis, of the Jaharis Family Foundation, Inc., which provides grants to arts, cultural, and religious institutions. Its establishment marks a first for Orthodox studies in the Western Hemisphere and ensures the discipline’s perpetuity at Fordham.

“This is the first chair in Orthodox theology at any university in the country,” said George Demacopoulos, Ph.D., professor of theology and co-founding director of the center. “This chair is in many ways one of the cornerstones of the Orthodox Christian Studies Center, so its holder will always be fully integrated with the work and mission of the center.”

Moreover, by virtue of its existence within Fordham, the chair will promote ecumenism and strengthen dialogue between the Eastern and Western Christian churches—a central mission of the center, which includes such events as the Patterson Triennial Conference in Orthodox/Catholic Relations.

“To have the first chair in Orthodox theology housed in a Jesuit Catholic institution is important symbolically and practically as a sign of advancement for Orthodox-Catholic dialogue,” Demacopoulos said.

The chair is named for His Eminence Archbishop Demetrios, primate of the Greek Orthodox Church in America. Archbishop Demetrios presented the inaugural lecture when the annual Orthodoxy in America Lecture Series began in 2004, and, in 2007, received an honorary doctorate of humane letters from Fordham.

In addition to being leader of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese’s 1.5 million members in America, he is a distinguished scholar of Orthodox Christian studies. Trained at Harvard and the University of Athens, he was the Distinguished Professor of Biblical Studies at Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology, where he met and taught Papanikolaou.

“Having him as a student created quite a heavy workload for me,” Archbishop Demetrios said. “He’s a person with a sharp mind, intuition, and was ruthless in asking questions. But it was also a joy. He is someone who has shown what it means to advance knowledge, communication, and a real human ecumenical spirit.”

A 1988 Fordham College at Rose Hill alumnus, Papanikolaou is a prolific author and eminent scholar. He is a senior fellow at Emory University’s Center for the Study of Law and Religion and the recipient of a Louisville Institute Sabbatical Grant for Researchers, which he used to explore how Eastern Christian notions of virtue address the plight and healing of traumatized combat veterans.

“Aristotle is one of those theologians who has the ability to interpret culture in a profound way and tie it into the faith,” said Father Alex Karloutsos, protopresbyter of the ecumenical patriarchate and a longtime friend of the Papanikolaou family. “He understands the medium he has to use in order to convey certain truths.”

As the Archbishop Demetrios Chair, Papanikolaou will work to advance the study of the historical relationship between Orthodox Christianity and Hellenism. His inaugural lecture at the installation ceremony focused on how Eastern Christian thinking on virtue offers resources for illuminating and transfiguring the human experience of violence.

Founded by Papanikolaou and Demacopoulos in 2007, the Orthodox Christian Studies Center is the first university-based site for Orthodox Christian Studies in the Western Hemisphere. Last year, the Center received a prestigious challenge grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), one of the country’s largest funders of humanities programs. The $2 million endowment raised by a 3-to-1 matching grant will fund the center’s Distinguished Scholar-in-Residence program and Dissertation Completion Fellowship program.

“This [center]is where the two faiths—the Orthodox East and Christian West—come together as they do nowhere else,” said Joseph M. McShane, S.J., president of Fordham. “They come together not only to think, exchange, and engage in dialogue, but also to model for the world how the Christian family can and should be, with and among itself. And it’s made possible because of the dream Telly and George had and the support of Michael and Mary Jaharis and others.”

“I am honored to be the inaugural chair holder and I hope my work extends the remarkable legacy of Archbishop Demetrios,” said Papanikolaou, a professor of theology and the senior fellow and co-founder of Fordham’s Orthodox Christian Studies Center.

The chair is the result of a $2 million gift from Mary and Michael Jaharis, of the Jaharis Family Foundation, Inc., which provides grants to arts, cultural, and religious institutions. Its establishment marks a first for Orthodox studies in the Western hemisphere and ensures the discipline’s perpetuity at Fordham.

“This is the first chair in Orthodox theology at any university in the country,” said George Demacopoulos, Ph.D., professor of theology and co-founding director of the center. “This chair is in many ways one of the cornerstones of the Orthodox Christian Studies Center, so its holder will always be fully integrated with the work and mission of the center.”

Moreover, by virtue of the its existence within Fordham, the chair will promote ecumenism and strengthen dialogue between the Eastern and Western Christian churches—a central mission of the center, which includes such events as the Patterson Triennial Conference in Orthodox/Catholic Relations.

“To have the first chair in Orthodox theology housed in a Jesuit Catholic institution is important symbolically and practically as a sign of advancement for Orthodox-Catholic dialogue,” Demacopoulos said.

The chair is named for His Eminence Archbishop Demetrios, primate of the Greek Orthodox Church in America. Archbishop Demetrios presented the inaugural lecture when the annual Orthodoxy in America Lecture Series began in 2004, and, in 2007, received an honorary doctorate of humane letters from Fordham.

In addition to being leader of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese’s 1.5 million members in America, he is a distinguished scholar of Orthodox Christian studies. Trained at Harvard and the University of Athens, he was the Distinguished Professor of Biblical Studies at Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology, where he met and taught Papanikolaou.

“Having him as a student created quite a heavy workload for me,” Archbishop Demetrios said. “He’s a person with a sharp mind, intuition, and was ruthless in asking questions. But it was also a joy… He is someone who has shown what it means to advance knowledge, communication, and a real human ecumenical spirit.”

Aristotle Papanikolaou, Ph.D., professor of theology and senior fellow and co-founder of Fordham’s Orthodox Christian Studies Center Photo by Chris Taggart

A Fordham alumnus (FCRH ’88), Papanikolaou is a prolific author and eminent scholar. He is a senior fellow at Emory University’s Center for the Study of Law and Religion and the recipient of a Louisville Institute Sabbatical Grant for Researchers, which he used to explore how Eastern Christian notions of virtue understand the plight and healing of traumatized combat veterans.

“Aristotle is one of those theologians who has the ability to interpret culture in a profound way and tie it into the faith,” said Father Alex Karloutsos, protopresbyter of the ecumenical patriarchate, and a longtime friend of the Papanikolaou family. “He understands the medium he has to use in order to convey certain truths.”

As the Archbishop Demetrios Chair, Papanikolaou will work to advance the study of the historical relationship between Orthodox Christianity and Hellenism. His inaugural lecture at the installation ceremony discussed how Eastern Christian thinking on virtue offers resources for illuminating and transfiguring the human experience of violence.

Founded by Papanikolaou and Demacopoulos in 2007, the Orthodox Christian Studies Center is the first university-based site for Orthodox Christian Studies in the western hemisphere. Last year, the Center received a prestigious challenge grant from the National Endowment of the Humanities (NEH), one of the country’s largest funders of humanities programs. The $2 million endowment raised by a three-to-one matching grant will fund the center’s Distinguished Scholar-in-Residence program and Dissertation Completion Fellowship program.

“This [center]is where the two faiths—the Orthodox East and Christian West—come together as they do nowhere else,” said Joseph M. McShane, S.J. president of Fordham. “They come together not only to think, exchange, and engage in dialogue, but also to model for the world how the Christian family can and should be, with and among itself. And it’s made possible because of the dream Telly and George had and the support of Michael and Mary Jaharis and others.”

Robert F. Taft, S.J., a former professor of Eastern liturgy at the Pontifical Oriental Institute in Rome, said that the rift between the churches was sustained primarily by offensive actions—not theological differences.

“The main problem that we Catholics and Orthodox face in our ecumenical dialogue is not doctrine but behavior,” Father Taft said. “The issue is not that Catholics and Orthodox do not know how to pray and believe and live Christianity in the right and true apostolic way. The problem is that we do not know how to act.”

Father Taft delivered “Perceptions and Realities in Orthodox-Catholic Relations Today,” on June 28 at the Rose Hill campus.

He pointed to Catholic “uniatism”—aggression against another church—as a major problem blocking fruitful dialogue between the religions. He added that although the Orthodox faith has been victimized, it also refuses to admit its own misdeeds.

“Western Christianity’s historic defects of imperialism, power and domination led to the crimes for which Pope John Paul II asked pardon in Rome on the first Sunday of Lent in 2000,” Father Taft said. “Metropolitan Kallinikos of Piraeus—an official spokesman of the Orthodox Church of Greece—responded … by declaring there was nothing for which Orthodoxy had to ask pardon.”

Father Taft advocated a system of “ecumenical scholarship and theology”—a new way to study Christian tradition that seeks to reconcile and unite, rather than to confute and dominate. To accomplish this, the Catholic and Orthodox churches must recognize one another as historic apostolic sister churches, he said.

“For Catholics, such an ‘ecumenical theology’ must mean an end to declarations on the nature of the priesthood that exalt the celibate clerical state of the Latin tradition in a way that is demeaning to the thousands of legitimately married eastern clergy,” he said.

“It might also mean Catholic theologians realizing that Latin scholastic theology of the Eucharist is ‘a’ theology and not ‘the’ theology.”

The point of this new ecumenical theology is not that Catholics and Orthodox never disagree. “What it does mean, is that at the official level, disagreements can be discussed truthfully and courteously, without invective, rudeness and slander,” Father Taft said.

His was the first keynote at “Orthodox Constructions of the West,” a three-day conference that examined how Orthodox authors created artificial categories of “East” and “West” and then used that distinction as a basis for self-definition.

The event was supported by the Patterson Triennial Conference Endowment for Orthodox/Catholic Relations as well as several units at Fordham University, including the Center for Medieval Studies and Orthodox Christian Studies Program.

Joseph McLaughlin

In almost every news cycle, religious fundamentalists can be heard raising their voices on a range of social issues. The purpose of the Faith and Public Policy Roundtable is to provide a non-fundamentalist voice of faith in the American public square.

“It has been a long time since prophetic voices in the tradition of Heschel and Niebuhr have been heard in American civic life,” said Rabbi Abraham Unger, Ph.D., rabbi of Staten Island’s Congregation Ahavath Israel and Jewish chaplain at Wagner College.

“We want to serve as a think tank that joins the concerns of faith to the concerns of society,” said Pastor Gary Mills, assistant to the bishop for global and multicultural administration to the Metropolitan New York Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America. “It is high time for mainstream, non-fundamentalist religious leadership and scholars to re-emerge in the American conversation on issues like the economy, education, war and peace, and healthcare, to name just a few.”

Unger and Mills, founding co-chairmen of the Faith and Public Policy Roundtable, spoke on the release of their group’s first white paper: “Statement on the Economy,” which addresses the moral dimension of economic justice. The paper emphasizes several points, including the following: The economic crisis is a moral issue. Poverty persists and deepens because of a disengagement of the financial sector from civil society. Our civic and public institutions have weakened as checks on institutional gluttony. Our personal and collective responsibilities to each other — locally, nationally, and globally—are rooted in our belief in the sacredness of human life. The public message of faith today calls on every American to become more profoundly engaged in our nation’s civic life through service and advocacy, to demand deeper accountability of our public and private institutions.

The “Statement on the Economy” has been signed by 33 clergy, scholars, and ecclesiastical officials to date, ranging from the Roman Catholic community to the Lutheran community and the Orthodox, Conservative, and Reform Jewish movements. Joseph M. McShane, S.J., president of Fordham, is among the signatories.

“This economy has opened up a window for discussion of the common values and texts that bind us together as Americans and as members of the human family,” said Patrick Ryan, S.J., the Laurence J. McGinley Professor of Religion and Society at Fordham, and a founding steering committee member of the Faith and Public Policy Roundtable. “Our task is to articulate those values and provide thinking on their civic and spiritual dimensions.”

To follow up on the release of their white paper on the economy, the Roundtable has organized a Call to Action Weekend involving more than 200 New York area houses of worship for Nov. 20-22, the weekend before Thanksgiving, which will feature:

1.    Thematically coordinated sermons among the houses of worship participating in this Call to Action
2.    Charitable advocacy calling on religious leaders to encourage their parishioners to seek out charitable organizations and other means by which those persons in need are offered sustainable aid.
3.    A lifting up of community-based service programs already in place, and story-telling within our communities relating to social and economic justice.