ST THEOSEVIA CENTRE FOR CHRISTIAN SPIRITUALITY
WELCOMES YOU TO TWO OPEN STUDY DAYS IN HILARY TERM 2025
All are welcome to the Study Days, no preparation or registration is required. The topics fall into the broad area of Christian spirituality and theology, often drawing on different Christian traditions and particularly promoting dialogue between the West and the Orthodox East. The days are free for students. Non-students please pay £5 cash on the door. Free tea and coffee are available from 10 am, and in the lunch break which runs from 1 – 2 pm. You are welcome to bring a sandwich lunch, or explore the nearby eateries in North Parade.
If you can help serve coffee you are offered a free place – please email david.Rytz@exeter.ox.ac.uk, or just leave a message on 01865 310341 and then please arrive by 09.50.
Do sign up for the termly Newsletter (email or post) and consider sending a Newsletter Subscription to cover general costs and postage, suggested subscription £5 p.a., in cash, or a cheque to ‘St Theosevia Trust’, to: Newsletter, St Theosevia House, 2 Canterbury Rd, OX2 6LU; or for bank details please ask David Rytz.
Director: Revd Dr Liz Carmichael, liz.carmichael@sjc.ox.ac.uk
Assistant Director of Studies: David.Rytz@exeter.ox.ac.uk
Landline phone at St Theosevia House (leave messages): 01865 310341.
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Letter from the Director, introducing Hilary Term 2025:
Dear Friends of St Theosevia’s,
Welcome to AD 2025! We had two very thoughtful Study Days last term, one on the architectural and pastoral responses to human mortality, and the other exploring the many facets of the contestation of the Holy Land down the ages. To follow up on the Holy Land, you may like to know that on Wed 5 Feb at 7.00 pm in the Old Library the University Church will host ‘Towards Peace in the Middle East’, speakers include Brian Klug’s brother Tony and film maker Dr Imad Karam from Gaza.
Then to mark to mark 1700 years since the Council of Nicaea (AD325) the University Church will host a lecture in the Old Library by Rev. Canon Prof Andrew Davison, the new Regius Professor of Divinity, on Thurs 13 Feb 7.30-9.00 pm, and a colloquium on the Council with various speakers on Sat 22 Feb. 10.00 – 12 noon. All these events are open and free, no registration required.
Coming to this term’s St Theosevia Study Days: On Saturday 1 February we welcome the Revd Dr Simon Cross, who advises the Church of England and its Bishops in the Lords on AI, and naval officer Commodore Rachel Singleton who wrestles with ethical questions at the Ministry of Defence. They will speak and lead discussion on the theological and ethical issues raised by Artificial Intelligence. See below for more details.
Then on Saturday 8 March the Revd Dr Jane Baun and Dr Elena Narinskaya lead a day on the life and work of Mother Maria of Paris, who as a prisoner in Ravensbrück Concentration Camp went to the gas chamber in place of a young mother on 31 March 1945. This day will be multi-media and interactive, with talks, film, slides and discussion, exploring St Maria’s life and witness, her thought and poetry (in Russian and in translation), embroidery, drawings, and paintings.
Let us continue to pray for just and lasting peace, in the Holy Land and Ukraine and wherever people are suffering from violent conflict.
LIZ CARMICHAEL
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Study Day on Saturday 1 February, 10.30 am – 4 pm:
Artificial Intelligence – What Does it Mean to be Human? Navigating the Theological and Ethical Challenges
Rev Dr Simon Cross and Commodore Rachel Singleton
This Day will feature both talks and discussion exploring some of the many issues raised by artificial intelligence and its rapid spread. Here are some thoughts on AI from The Guardian:
“Artificial intelligence has the power to transform lives for the better, but without careful and ethical deployment, it could wreak havoc and suffer what the physician and author Siddhartha Mukherjee has called an “AI Fukushima”, a catastrophe that derails its potential. AI made headlines in 2024 for delivering precision forecasts for flash floods, heatwaves, and the climate more broadly, but its huge energy consumption could hinder crucial efforts to combat the climate crisis.”
Ian Sample, Science Editor, The Guardian, email to Guardian subscribers, 7 Jan 2025.
Imago Dei, or ‘imago AI’?
Rev Dr Simon Cross
It is commonly claimed that “artificial intelligence is calling into question what it means to be human.” Why is this so? And why does artificial intelligence enable such a broad range of interpretations; helpmate; vehicle for transhumanism; total existential destruction? This talk will consider the pros and cons of artificial intelligence from a theological perspective. Beginning with the genesis of the term “Artificial intelligence” it will explore some of the pros and cons of AI in their wider social and philosophical setting concluding that we are in the midst of a bigger battle for self-understanding between the imago Dei and an imago AI.
Rev Dr Simon Cross works for the Bishop of Oxford offering policy support and advice to the Church of England’s Faith in Public Life team on technology ethics, specialising in artificial intelligence. He works with the 26 Anglican bishops in the House of Lords on government technology regulation and with a consortium of civil society organisations advocating for beneficial tech and campaigning against tech harms.
Implementing Artificial Intelligence in a military context
Rachel Singleton (MOD)
This talk will explore the opportunities and challenges associated with the exploitation of Artificial Intelligence within military capabilities, with particular focus on the ethical challenges of AI in a Defence context, and practical steps that can be taken to manage these challenges.
Rachel Singleton is a serving military officer whose current role is to lead the Defence Artificial Intelligence Centre, charged with accelerating exploitation of AI in the UK Ministry of Defence.
Study Day on Saturday on 8 March, 10.30 am – 4 pm
Mother Maria Skobtsova, St Mary of Paris (1891-1945): appreciating the many facets of her life, work and witness
Revd Dr Jane Baun, Dr Elena Narinskaya
‘There will be lots of pictures, poetry reading, and films, so it will be a multi-media, interdisciplinary, and interactive day.’ So Dr Jane Baun introduces this Study Day in which she and Dr Elena Narinskaya will lead us in an exploration of this remarkable, creative, gifted personality, canonised in 2004: a Russian noblewoman, poet, nun, thinker and member of the French Resistance during World War II.
St Maria was born Elizaveta Yurievna Pilenko in 1891 in Riga, was married twice, had three children, moved from atheism to Orthodoxy and took monastic vows in Paris in 1932. Her confessor was the theologian Fr Sergei Bulgakov. She moved in intellectual theological circles and worked with the poor. Under occupation, she assisted Jews to escape. Imprisoned in Ravensbrück, she took the place of a fellow-prisoner who was a young mother, and was sent to the gas chamber in March 1945.
Mother Maria was one of several Russian women of her era who fulfilled radical vocations to Christian service. Her legacy continues today in multiple ramifications among Orthodox, Catholics, Anglicans, and Protestants;
she has a growing profile online. One talk will explore her political, cultural and spiritual witness in relation to the Russkiy Mir ideology;
The Revd Dr Jane Baun is an Anglican priest and Chaplain of Wadham College, and a member of the Faculty of Theology and Religion. A Byzantinist by training, before Oxford she worked in Moscow, and taught Late Antique and Byzantine History at New York University. She has published widely on the religious culture of the Byzantine and medieval Slavic churches, Mother Maria of Paris has been a constant presence in her life since the early 1980’s, when one evening after Vespers she discovered Fr Sergei Hackel’s Pearl of Great Price on the bookstall of St Nicholas Orthodox Cathedral (OCA) in Washington, DC.
Dr. Elena Narinskaya specializes in Scriptural Studies and Biblical Exegesis within Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. She has studied extensively in Jerusalem, Cambridge, and Durham, earning a PhD and completing postdoctoral work. She is the founding director of Women’s Ministries Initiative, an educational forum for the general public.
Advance notice: Fri 25 April, a day on Ethiopian Orthodox Marian devotion, joint with SS Gregory & Macrina, Regent’s Park and others.
