Father John Meyendorff Memorial Lecture – September 15 – 2017

SVOTS – July 2017

St. Vladimir’s Seminary
575 Scarsdale Road
Yonkers, NY 10707

Dr. Alice-Mary Talbot will present the fourth annual Father John Meyendorff Memorial Lecture on our campus, Friday, September 15, at 7 p.m. Dr. Talbot is the Director Emerita of Byzantine Studies, Dumbarton Oaks, a prestigious research institute of Harvard University, located in Washington, D.C., and is also Editor of the Byzantine Greek series, Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library. Her presentation will center on her forthcoming book on Byzantine monasticism and Mount Athos, which remains as the most famous spiritual center of Orthodox Christianity today.

Dr. Talbot is one of the world’s foremost scholars of Byzantium, the Roman Empire in the eastern Mediterranean which endured for almost a thousand years after its eclipse in the west, until the fall of its capital, Constantinople, to the Ottoman sultan in 1453. Her contribution to the study of middle and late Byzantine social and religious history in general, and women and religious culture in Byzantium in particular, has been immense.

Dr. Talbot is one of the editor/ translators of Holy Men of Mount Athos (Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library 40), a book that presents the Lives of Euthymios the Younger, Athanasios of Athos, Maximos the Hutburner, Niphon of Athos, and Philotheos—five holy men who lived on Mount Athos at different times, from the 9^th to the 15^thcenturies; all were known for their asceticism, clairvoyance, and, in most cases, the ability to perform miracles. The book illuminates both the history and the varieties of monastic practice on Athos, individually by hermits as well as communally in large monasteries. The Lives also demonstrate the diversity of hagiographic composition and provide important glimpses of Byzantine social and political history.

Dr. Talbot first met Protopresbyter John Meyendorff when he coincidentally and suddenly substituted for another member of her Ph.D. dissertation committee, while she was earning her degree in Byzantine and Ottoman History at Columbia University in New York. “I was thrilled that he was on the jury for my Columbia dissertation defense in 1970, and I was able to benefit from his comments in my revision of the thesis for publication,” she remarked.

And, we are thrilled to welcome Dr. Talbot to our campus! Please join us for this fascinating free and public lecture, with open reception following.

Read an oral history interview with Dr. Talbot regarding her association with Dumbarton Oaks, undertaken by Jeanne-Nicole Saint-Laurent.

Read the laureation of Dr. Talbot, given by Dr. Tim Greenwood, upon the occasion of the bestowal of the degree of Doctor of Letters, honoris causa, upon her at the University of St. Andrews.

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