Wednesday, May 20, 2026 | School of Theology, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens
The Event
On Wednesday, May 20, 2026, the Audiovisual Hall of the School of Theology at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens hosted the 3rd Annual "Metropolitan of Pergamon John Zizioulas" Lecture — a series the Department of Theology established as a tribute to one of the School's most distinguished alumni and doctoral graduates.
This year's speaker was Fr. Alexis Torrance, Professor of Byzantine Theology at the University of Notre Dame and Protopresbyter of the Ecumenical Throne. His lecture, delivered in English before a wide academic audience, was titled The Gift of Reason and the Future of Orthodox Theology.
Official Greetings and Representations
Ecumenical Patriarchate: By order of His All-Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, the representative was Archimandrite Fr. Isidoros Katsos, Assistant Professor at the School of Theology. Fr. Isidoros delivered the Patriarch's full written greeting, which presented the late Metropolitan Zizioulas as a voice that theologized within the bounds of the Church — one who opened the path of what the Patriarch called "faithful memory of the future."
Church of Greece: A message from His Beatitude Archbishop Hieronymos II of Athens and All Greece was read by Archimandrite Cheruheim Moustakas. The Archbishop offered his blessing to the Chair of the Department, the speaker, and all involved, characterizing reason as "a gift, a charisma, and an exceptional privilege" in an era of dialogue.
School of Theology, NKUA: Dean Prof. Emmanouel Karageorgoudis spoke of Zizioulas as "a genuine child of the School" — it was here that he took his degree and defended his dissertation, before becoming one of the most influential figures in modern Orthodox theology. The Dean traced the heart of Zizioulas's theological legacy: the ontology of communion developed in Being as Communion, where the person is understood as a relational and dialogical mode of existence, the Holy Trinity as the ground of any authentic anthropology, and the Eucharist as the place where the Church is constituted not as a historical institution but as an eschatological event. He described Fr. Torrance as "one of the most promising voices of the new generation of Orthodox theologians in the English-speaking world."
Department of Theology, NKUA: Department Chair Prof. Ioannis Ant. Panagiotopoulos welcomed those present and spoke of the lecture series as a living expression of the academic and ecclesial spirit the Department strives to embody.
The Lecture
Fr. Torrance took up a question he sees as pressing for the future of Orthodox theology: what role does reason properly play, and what happens when anti-intellectual and anti-rational tendencies gain ground in Orthodox circles? Drawing on Nemesius of Emesa, St. Maximus the Confessor, and St. John of Damascus, he argued that reason is not theology's adversary but its instrument — a gift of God to be exercised within an ascetically shaped theological method, not set against experience and prayer but integrated with them.
Fr. Torrance held up the late Metropolitan of Pergamon as a model of exactly this posture: a theologian who "reasons within the bounds of the Church," in the phrase from St. Gregory the Theologian that Zizioulas himself was fond of quoting. The lecture closed with a call for a renewed culture of theological education, captured in the Latin phrase intellectus quaerens unionem — "faithful understanding that seeks communion."
The lecture was followed by a response from Prof. Dimitrios Moschos.
The Speaker
Fr. Alexis Torrance took all his degrees in Theology — undergraduate, postgraduate, and doctoral — at the University of Oxford. Before joining the Faculty of Theology at the University of Notre Dame in 2014, he held research fellowships at the Notre Dame Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton's Seeger Center for Hellenic Studies, the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, and Harvard's Dumbarton Oaks. His books include Repentance in Late Antiquity and Human Perfection in Byzantine Theology, both published by Oxford University Press. He was ordained to the priesthood in Constantinople in 2020 and holds the rank of Protopresbyter of the Ecumenical Throne. He serves as the Orthodox Co-Secretary of the Joint International Commission for Theological Dialogue between the Orthodox and Roman Catholic Churches.
About the Lecture Series
The "Annual Lectures Metropolitan of Pergamon John Zizioulas" series is organized by the Department of Theology of the School of Theology, NKUA, in honor and in memory of the late Metropolitan of Pergamon — alumnus and doctoral graduate of the School. Each year, a scholar of international standing is invited to deliver a lecture that engages with the theological vision and intellectual legacy of Metropolitan John Zizioulas.
For information: Department of Theology, NKUA | tel. (+30) 210 727 5889 | theol.uoa.gr
