With the blessing of new College Dean, Archbishop Makarios of Australia, St Andrew’s College held its third biennial Theology Symposium on September 20-21, 2019.
The theme of this year’s Symposium was: ‘The Importance of Christology for the 21st Century’ and the two keynote speakers were, Professors Demetrios Bathrellos and Gerald O’Collins.
Whilst Archbishop Makarios was not able to be present, due to prior overseas commitments, he asked that a warm and cordial welcome be conveyed on his behalf to all present, together with his delight that the College symposia are able to reach out and seek to dialogue, in a spirit of shared witness to Christ, with scholars from different Christian Churches.
The Symposium was officially opened with prayer by Metropolitan Basilios, from the Antiochian Orthodox Archdiocese of Australia, New Zealand and the Philippines, who is also Lecturer in Christian Spirituality at St Andrew’s. Following this, the first keynote speaker, Professor Demetrios Bathrellos, who teaches at the Greek Open University in Patra and the Cambridge Institute of Orthodox Christian Studies, delivered his keynote address entitled, “The Sinlessness of Christ: an Ancient Dogma and its Contemporary Significance” to the eighty participants present.
Professor Gerald O’Collins SJ, Research Professor and Writer-in-Residence at the Jesuit Theological College, University of Divinity, was the second keynote speaker. The title of his paper, “New Testament Scholarship Supports Christology” focused on presenting the New Testament evidence, which identifies Christ not only as being truly human, but also, and equally importantly, truly divine. Fr Gerald reminded the audience that the Scriptures are unequivocally clear in showing, amongst other things, that Jesus was attributed with the divine title of Lord putting Christ on par with God the Father; that He worked miracles; taught in his own name; and as Son of Man was decisive for the final salvation of the world.
Source: sagotc.edu.au