BROOKLINE, MA – Students at Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology have several new opportunities to broaden their intellectual and spiritual knowledge this spring semester by learning from distinguished visiting scholars.

His Grace Bishop Maxim (Vasiljevic), the Bishop of Los Angeles and the Western American Diocese of the Serbian Orthodox Church, will offer an elective course in the area of dogmatic theology titled Theology, Economy, and Liturgy: Trinitarian Theology and the Economy of Salvation. His Grace holds a PhD in Dogmatics and Patristics from the University of Athens. He has taught at the University of Belgrade, the University of Sarajevo, and the School of Orthodox Theology in Libertyville, Illinois. His Grace is also an artist and iconographer who has studied painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Paris.

His Grace is offering this course thanks to the encouragement of His Eminence Archbishop Elpidophoros of America, to whom the entire HCHC community is grateful for forging this connection.

A second elective course, Christian Morality and Bioethics, will be taught by Professor Matthew Scott Vest. Professor Vest holds a PhD in Theology and Religious Studies from the University of Nottingham (UK), where he also taught courses in bioethics. While his primary academic appointment is at Ohio State University’s Center for Bioethics, he also teaches at St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary. Holy Cross is grateful to the Chancellor and Dean of SVOT for allowing Professor Vest to welcome our students into his course. As Professor Vest states in his course description, the aim of the course is “not to develop a list of ethical norms or theoretical principles external to the Church but rather to seek moral-ascetical paths of virtue amidst the challenges and opportunities of highly technologized modern medicine.”

Also during the spring semester, Georgios Theodoridis, an outstanding chanter, musician, and composer, will be assisting Rev Dr. Romanos Karanos in the teaching of Byzantine chant. Theodoridis is the Protopsaltis at St. Sophia Cathedral in Washington, DC, a position he has held since 2012. He is a graduate of the Conservatory of Athens, and has chanted as a Protopsaltis and Lambadarios at churches and theological schools throughout Greece and Europe. He has also organized and directed numerous Byzantine choirs and concerts, including a 2006 performance at the Vatican. Theodoridis was an adjunct instructor of Byzantine chant at Holy Cross in the spring of 2018, and has served on the examination committee of the Holy Cross Byzantine Music Certificate Program.