Rescheduled Online Lecture
George Demacopoulos:
“SOSON, KYRIE, TON LAON SOU”:
THE SACRALIZATION OF VIOLENCE IN ECCLESIASTICAL TEXTS
Thursday, March 9, 2023, 7:00 p.m. (Athens time)
The postponed lecture of Dr. George Demacopoulos, Professor and Co-Founding Director of the Center for Orthodox Christian Studies of Fordham University (New York, USA) will take place on Thursday, March 9, 2023, 7:00 p.m. (Athens time). The topic of the lecture will be “‘Soson, Kyrie, ton laon sou (Save, Lord, your people)’ and the sacralization of violence in ecclesiastical texts”. It is the second event of the series of online lectures “Time for Action”. The lecture will be in English with interpretation into Greek and the discussion will be moderated by Dr. Niki Tsironis, byzantinologist, Research Associate of the Hellenic National Research Center. The link for accessing the lecture, through Zoom, is
https://us06web.zoom.us/j/87270640611
In this talk, Professor Demacopoulos will trace the surprising history of the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross (September 14), focusing especially on the reign of the Roman emperor Heraklios who likely commissioned the Feast’s troparion “Soson, Kyrie, ton laon sou (Save, Lord, your people)”, which marked a profound shift in the way that Christian hymns treated violence.
Prof. George E. Demacopoulos holds the Fr. John Meyendorff & Patterson Family Chair of Orthodox Christian Studies. He is Co-Founding Director of the Orthodox Christian Studies Center in the same university and Co-Founding Editor of the Journal of Orthodox Christian Studies. A native of Tennessee, Dr. Demacopoulos came to Fordham in 2002 after receiving his PhD in Religious Studies from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Along with Aristotle Papanikolaou, Dr. Demacopoulos co-founded Fordham’s Orthodox Christian Studies Center, which is the only research university Center of Orthodox Christianity in the United States. The Center facilitates, funds, and publishes scholarly work related to the Orthodox Christianity broadly understood. On behalf of the Center, Drs. Demacopoulos and Papanikolaou have won a number of grants from prestigious institutions, including the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Henry Luce Foundation, the British Council, and Leadership 100.
