The Orthodox Christian Studies Center at Fordham University is delighted to present the next episode of its webinar series highlighting the scholarly insights and academic careers of female scholars whose research and writing explore some facet of the history, thought, or culture of Orthodox Christianity. The broadcast will be livestreamed and open to all who have pre-registered. The event will include some time for live audience questions. For those who miss the live event, the Center will archive each episode on its website and YouTube channel.

This episode features a conversation with Katherine Karam McCray and Ashley Purpura whose bio can be found below.

“My research investigates how a variety of global Christian movements have represented disability, as symbol of divine ability or as a representation of global fallenness. Most moral philosophies shape human nature around perfection: how odd that we are both naturally perfect and striving to achieve perfection. Is perfection human nature or the ultimate goal— is it packaged with our humanity or a result of our lifelong efforts? If the human being is oriented toward perfection as the aim of our abilities, then disability correspondingly comes to represent failure, a lack of ability, and imperfection. Disability has historically represented punishment for sin or, conversely, represented supreme ability, what critical disability scholars refer to as the super-crip stereotype.

Theological anthropologies which amplify perfection as the goal of the good life correspondingly denigrate disability as its inverse, that disability is a sign of a poor or lessened quality of life or at the most extreme a sign of sin or fallenness. Where human nature is framed as independent or autonomous, disability is castigated as dependent and diminished. I present alternative options from global Christianities for understanding disability as a core aspect of human nature, searching for positive representations of disability in ordinary life.

If Christ embodies every element of humanity the way St Athanasius explains, in what way is Christ disabled? I turn to Christ’s passibility, or the ability to be acted upon, as a location for embodying disability outside of representations of sin. If Christ represents sinless human nature, then Christ’s own contingency and dependence on environmental and social factors opens an important alternative space for discussions of disability and human nature. If the only sinless One was contingent, dependent, and able to be acted upon by exterior forces, then disability framed through these attributes cannot be associated with sin. Such representation positions disability at the core of theological anthropology instead of on the periphery. Extended states of dependency, then, are not inversions of human nature but instead represent an aspect of human ontology, revealing that in an Orthodox iconographic representation, dependency on one another prefigures dependency on Christ. In this reframed anthropology, interdependency, not autonomy, defines human nature.”

The Russia Question is a book talk series devoted to all things Russia, hosted by Russian program director at Fordham University (LC) Prof. Michael Ossorgin, with generous support from the Orthodox Christian Studies Center.

Join us for a book talk with Serhii Plokhy on his recent book The Russo-Ukrainian War.

Book Description: Despite repeated warnings from the White House, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 shocked the world. Why did Putin start the war—and why has it unfolded in previously unimaginable ways? Ukrainians have resisted a superior military; the West has united, while Russia grows increasingly isolated. Serhii Plokhy, a leading historian of Ukraine and the Cold War, offers a definitive account of this conflict, its origins, course, and the already apparent and possible future consequences. Though the current war began eight years before the all-out assault—on February 27, 2014, when Russian armed forces seized the building of the Crimean parliament—the roots of this conflict can be traced back even earlier, to post-Soviet tensions and imperial collapse in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Providing a broad historical context and an examination of Ukraine and Russia’s ideas and cultures, as well as domestic and international politics, Plokhy reveals that while this new Cold War was not inevitable, it was predictable.

Ukraine, Plokhy argues, has remained central to Russia’s idea of itself even as Ukrainians have followed a radically different path. In a new international environment defined by the proliferation of nuclear weapons, the disintegration of the post–Cold War international order, and a resurgence of populist nationalism, Ukraine is now more than ever the most volatile fault line between authoritarianism and democratic Europe..

Link to preorder book

The Russia Question is a book talk series devoted to all things Russia, hosted by Russian program director at Fordham University (LC) Prof. Michael Ossorgin, with generous support from the Orthodox Christian Studies Center.

Join us for an illuminating conversation with New York Times Editorial Board Member and Pulitzer-Prize-winning reporter Serge Schmemann as he takes a retrospective look at his acclaimed memoir Echoes of A Native Land: Two Centuries of a Russian Village, released in 1999 just as Putin was rising to power. We will discuss how the current Russo-Ukrainian War reflects the historical turmoil that scattered banished Russians across the globe following the Bolshevik Revolution, about which Schmemann has written at length.

Schmemann’s poignant memoir is a deeply moving meditation on his complex relationship with Russia across distance and time. This captivating work of non-fiction explores culture, faith, and the delicate threads of identity – a must-read for those seeking a connection to their roots. Born in Paris after his family fled the Soviet Union, Schmemann grew up steeping in Russian heritage. Through vivid vignettes of his Years as a New York Times Correspondent in the Soviet Union, familial legends, and ancestral voices, he pieces together fragments of a severed identity. Interwoven with the powerful stories of his grandparents, Schmemann contemplates the indelible imprint of the language and culture of a “native land” ” in which he was not raised. Visits back to an unfamiliar homeland after the Soviet collapse further complicate Schmemann’s tenuous link to Russia. Ultimately, in elegant prose, he explores the poignant meaning of homeland for émigrés who carry ephemeral yet enduring echoes of their native land within. Join us for what is sure to be an engaging and timely dialogue.

Link to purchase book

The main thesis in this lecture is that we ought to (re)affirm human freedom, rights and democracy, and that this (re)affirmation needs to be done beyond, above, and against the predominant ideological systems that are usually called “Liberal-Democracy,” (Neo)Conservatism, various types of Authoritarianism or Techno-Totalitarianism (acknowledging the existence of many overlaps between them). Despite all the differences, these political-ideological systems also share some similarities: the embrace of capitalism as a broader ideological setup, and their hostility (to various degrees) toward more authentic freedom, democracy and human rights (except for rhetorical/propaganda purposes). A change needs to begin within the existing systems, by trying to pierce the solid fabric of the existing ideological bubble(s), in order to create a situation in which today’s oppressive madness (often called “normality,” even “freedom” and “democracy”) will be seen, by a bigger number of people, as an oppressive madness, that needs to be dismantled in order to expand the horizons of human freedom.

*This event is supported by funding from the Henry Luce Foundation.

This episode features a conversation with Nicholas Denysenko and Catherine Wanner whose bio can be found below.

How did religion contribute to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine? Heated disputes and alienation among Orthodox Christians in Ukraine and Russia contributed to Russian aggression in Crimea and Donbas in 2014, and the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. This book examines attempts from the early twentieth century to the present day to liberate the Ukrainian Orthodox Church from Russian control. It explores the causes of bitter alienation, Russia’s use of soft power to maintain control, the development of hate speech used to discriminate against independent-minded Ukrainians, and the transition from soft to hard power from 2014 to the present.

In 2002, the Yad Vashem in Jerusalem officially recognized the significant contributions of two key leaders of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church during the Holocaust. The Metropolitan of Plovdiv Kiril and the Metropolitan of Sofia Stefan were honored as Righteous Gentiles for their crucial roles in rescuing Bulgarian Jews. As we mark the 80th anniversary of their courageous actions, along with those of other clergy and laity, it is essential to reflect on how their collective efforts thwarted the deportation and saved countless Jewish lives in Bulgaria.

This year, attention turns to the writings of Metropolitan Stefan, whose personal archives are being published for the first time. 

A panel of distinguished scholars will delve into the role and influence of the clergy, the Synod, and prominent figures within the Bulgarian Orthodox Church in the rescue mission. The panel comprises 

• Professor Roumiana Preshlenova, Director of the Institute for Balkan Studies with the Center of Thracology at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences; 
• Dr. Stamenka Antonova, a historian at the same institute; 
• Professor Joseph Benatov, Associate Director of the Jewish Studies Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at the University of Pennsylvania.