The lecture, on one of the most intriguing and political mystics of the Christian church, comes in tandem with the speaker’s soon-to-be-released translation text and commentary on Symeon’s renowned ‘Hymns of Divine Eros” (SVS Press. New York 2025). It was designed, albeit somewhat late, to mark the saint’s millennial anniversary (2022). The talk aims to give an introduction to the life and turbulent times of this aristocrat-turned-monk and his longstanding clash with emperor Basil II (Bulgaroktonos), with a short notice of the several poetic accounts of luminous visions of Christ recorded in the Hymns of Divine Eros. Symeon’s writings had little effect on his contemporaries, but received a great stimulus of interest from the 18th century Philokalic movement, and have become an important factor in contemporary Orthodox spirituality.

Speaker: The Very Reverend Professor John McGuckin is the Nielsen Emeritus Professor of Early Christian and Byzantine Church History at Union Theological Seminary and Columbia University, USA.