Speakers

Aidan Hart, a member of the Greek Orthodox Church living in Britain, has been a full-time liturgical artist for over forty years. His passion is to create works and church interiors that reflect something of the beauty of life in Christ, and help people experience that union of heaven and earth that is the ultimate purpose of liturgical art. Aidan works in a wide variety of mediums, including egg tempera for panel icons, stone and wood carving, mosaic, and wall painting. He has works in over twenty-five countries of the world, commissioned by Orthodox, Roman Catholic, and Anglican cathedrals, monasteries, individuals, and royalty. For inspiration, Aidan draws on the Byzantine, Romanesque, Russian, and early Roman and British traditions. He also offers consultancy and church interior design, and lectures, teaches, writes, and has appeared on numerous radio and television programs. He has authored four books, the most recent being Festal Icons: History and Meaning and Face to Face: The Theology of the Icon (see below). He founded and teaches the Icon Painting Certificate program for The King’s Foundation School of Traditional Arts, as well as training people through apprenticeships. He is a Fellow of the Temenos Academy and a Research Fellow at the Institute for Orthodox Christian Studies in Cambridge, UK. For more information, visit https://aidanharticons.com/

Selected Publications:

Techniques of Icon and Wall Painting (Leominster, England: Gracewing Publishing, 2011)

Icons in the Modern World: Beauty, Spirit, Matter (Leominster, England: Gracewing Publishing, 2014)

Festal Icons: History and Meaning (Leominster, England: Gracewing Publishing, 2022)

Face to Face: The Theology of the Icon (Leominster, England: Gracewing Publishing, 2025)

Dr. Eve (Paraskevè) Tibbs is an Affiliate Professor of Theology at Fuller Theological Seminary, where she teaches Historical Theology, Systematic Theology, and Eastern Orthodox Theology. Her research and teaching interests include: the Holy Trinity and Personhood, Ecclesiology, Early Church History, and Doctrinal Development. Dr. Tibbs is a member of the Faith and Order Commission of the World Council of Churches, representing the Orthodox Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople. She served as Chair of the Eastern Orthodox Studies Group of the American Academy of Religion for six years and has served as a member of the Executive Steering Committee of the Huffington Ecumenical Institute at Loyola Marymount University since 2015.

Selected Publications:

A Basic Guide to Eastern Orthodox Theology: Introducing Beliefs and Practice (Ada, MI: Baker Academic, 2021)

Seeing the Gospel:  An Interpretive Guide to Orthodox Icons (Ada, MI: Baker Academic, 2025)

Dr. Peter Bouteneff teaches courses in theology, spirituality, and the arts at Saint Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary, where he is professor of systematic theology and founding director of the Institute of Sacred Arts. Dr. Bouteneff’s first degree is from New England Conservatory where he studied jazz and ethnomusicology. After two years living in Japan and traveling throughout Asia and Europe he landed at St. Vladimir’s Seminary, where he received his M.Div. degree in 1990. From there he went to Oxford and wrote his doctorate under the supervision of Metropolitan Kallistos Ware. For five years he was on the staff of the Faith and Order Commission at the World Council of Churches in Geneva. Since 2000 he has been bringing all these experiences to bear on his teaching, writing, and public speaking. 

Selected Publications:

Beginnings: Early Christian Readings of the Biblical Creation Narratives (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2008)

Arvo Pärt: Out of Silence (Yonkers, NY: SVS Press, 2015)

Elizabeth Theokritoff is an Associate Lecturer at the Institute for Orthodox Christian Studies, Cambridge. She completed her doctorate in liturgical theology at Oxford under the supervision of Metropolitan Kallistos (Ware) of Diokleia and spent many years as a theological translator, working on authors including Elder Vasileios of Iviron, Christos Yannaras, and John Zizioulas. She has had a particular interest in the intersection of theology and ecology since 1988-9, when she served as visiting Orthodox Tutor at the Ecumenical Institute, Bossey, Switzerland, for the Graduate School on 'Justice, peace and the integrity of creation' – an interest nurtured and deepened by collaboration with her palaeontologist husband George Theokritoff. She has given invited lectures, papers, and workshops on ecological themes at events in several countries, including the Symposium on Religion, Science and the Environment in Santa Barbara, California (1997), and Suprasl World Gathering of Orthodox Youth in Poland (2022, 2024). 

Selected Publications:

Genesis and Creation: Towards a Debate (with George Theokritoff; Saint Vladimir's Theological Quarterly 46(4): 365-390, 2002)

Living in God’s Creation: Orthodox Perspectives on Ecology (Yonkers, NY: Saint Vladimir's Seminary Press, 2009)

Liturgy, cosmic worship and Christian cosmology, in Chryssavgis, J., Foltz, V., eds. Towards an Ecology of Transfiguration: Orthodox Christian Perspectives on Environment, Nature and Creation (New York: Fordham University Press, 295-306, 2013)

Hearing the words of creatures: contemplative knowledge in the Orthodox tradition, in Barreto, R., McGeoch, G., and Pereira da Rosa, W., eds. World Christianity and Ecological Theologies. Vol. 6 (Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg Fortress Publishers, 229-248, 2024)

Fr. David John Williams is an historian of Byzantium, currently the Inaugural Fellow of the Huffington Ecumenical Institute at Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology and a Research Fellow at the Institute of Orthodox Christian Studies, Cambridge. His research and teaching span the history of Christianity, interfaith encounters, and the theology of sacred space. He is co-editor of Sacred Mobilities in Byzantium and Beyond (2024), and currently teaches courses at the Reuben Welch School of Theology and Christian Ministry at Point Loma Nazarene University (PLNU).

Selected Publication:

Sacred Mobilities in Byzantium and Beyond (Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill Academic Publishers, 2024)

Dr. Andrew Nosal is an Associate Professor of Biology at Point Loma Nazarene University (PLNU). He is an Eastern Orthodox Christian and a member of Saint Gregory of Nyssa Greek Orthodox Church, as well as its Parish Council President. Dr. Nosal is a marine biologist whose research expertise is in the behavior, ecology, and conservation of sharks and rays. He has published 18 peer-reviewed scientific articles on these topics, as well as a recent peer-reviewed article on the theological implications of 'offensive' animals, in the Zygon Journal of Religion and Science (see below). Dr. Nosal has a longstanding interest in the intersection of science and Christian faith, especially the topics of evolution and environmental stewardship, and commissioned and fundraised for the new Transfiguration of Creation icon.

Selected Publication:

Theological Implications of the Existence of 'Offensive' Animals and the Ascetical Opportunities They Provide (Zygon Journal of Religion and Science 60(1): 228-247, 2025)

Michael Roeder is a native San Diegan, graduating Valedictorian of USIU's last class on Point Loma in 1973, before Pasadena College arrived. Michael’s graduate work at USC included studying the "brainwashing" techniques of religious cults. He worked as a youth director at Lutheran and Presbyterian churches, before becoming an author and editor for David C. Cook Sunday School curriculum. He shifted into writing, editing, and managing editorial teams for automotive service manuals and mathematic textbooks. His wife, Laurie, taught PE at Point Loma Nazarene University from 1980 to 1992, when they moved to England for a year. 

Michael purchased his first icon in 2006. Over the past 20 years, he has acquired roughly 200 icons ranging in age from the 15th to 21st centuries. Having traveled through many countries during his career, including Russia, Europe, Scandinavia, China, and Japan, Michael first met Aidan Hart in 2013 at the Monastery of Saint Anthony & Saint Cuthbert, in Wales. Michael commissions icons and liturgical music, and participates in icon workshops with a variety of iconographers. He has created more than 50 icons in acrylic and tempera media, and provides custom icons to recent converts to Orthodoxy at St. Anthony the Great Antiochian Orthodox Church, where he serves as a Subdeacon. Michael believes that God used icons to draw him and his wife into Eastern Orthodoxy 10 years ago.