18th Australian Association for Byzantine Studies Conference

On 28-30 November 2014, the 18th Australian Association for Byzantine Studies Conference was held at the University of Queensland in Brisbane. The topic of the conference was Byzantine Culture in Translation.

On Saturday 29 November, Mr Mario Baghos (Associate Lecturer in Church History) presented a paper entitled ‘Constantinople as an Imago et Axis Mundi: Approaching the New Rome through the Lens of the History of Religions.’ He also presented Protopresbyter Dr Doru Costache’s (Senior Lecturer in Patristic Studies) paper ‘The Philokalia and Its First Translation into a Modern Language’ on the latter’s behalf.

The conference was convened by eminent scholars Dr Bronwen Neil, FAHA (Australian Catholic University, Centre for Early Christian Studies, Banyo QLD) and Dr Amelia Brown (Lecturer in Greek History and Language, University of Queensland). The keynote speaker was the renowned Professor Maria Mavroudi (University of California, Berkeley). Dr Neil is of course a well known friend of St Andrew’s; she was a keynote speaker for two of our Patristic Symposia (2011 and 2014), has contributed to Phronema and participated in our 2013 Round Table on St Maximus the Confessor.

Other friends of the College present at the conference include Dr Anna Silvas, FAHA (University of New England, School of Humanities, Armidale NSW), Professor Pauline Allen, FAHA (Director of the Centre for Early Christian Studies, ACU), and Professor Alanna Nobbs (Co-Director of the Ancient History Documentary Research Centre at Macquarie University), to name a few. Mr Baghos was honoured to meet them again, and will provide an extended reflection on the experience for the VEMA newspaper soon.