ST THEOSEVIA CENTRE FOR CHRISTIAN SPIRITUALITY
OPEN STUDY DAYS, HILARY TERM 2023
at St Theosevia House, 2 Canterbury Road, Oxford OX2 6LU
An Ecumenical Centre for Christian Spirituality in Oxford
Life, Worship, and Architecture:
Churches in Oxford Diocese, AD1000 – 1900
Dr David Boswell, Revd Prof. William Whyte
Saturday 4 February 10.30 am – 4 pm
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Understanding Ukraine: past, present, and the Orthodox Church
Dr Nadiya Ivanenko, Fr Oleksandr Nosenko
Saturday 4 March 10.30 am – 4 pm
All welcome, no registration reqd. Free for students; non-students £5.
Tea and coffee provided. You are welcome to bring a sandwich lunch. From the Director: Revd Dr Liz Carmichael, St John’s College.
Liz.Carmichael@sjc.ox.ac.uk . St Theosevia House (messages): 01865 310341. Asst. Director of Studies: Alberto.Ravani@exeter.ox.ac.uk
January 2023
Dear Friends of St Theosevia’s,
I hope you had a good Christmas and New Year. Thank you for your support of the Study Days last term, on Thomas Merton and the Blessed Virgin Mary, and thanks to Esther de Waal and Sebastian Brock for their organising.
On Saturday 4 February we welcome Revd Professor William Whyte and Dr David Boswell, for an intriguing exploration of western Christian worship down the ages as illustrated in the history and architecture of the churches around us in this Diocese of Oxford, the three counties of Oxfordshire, Berkshire and Buckinghamshire. How have developments in worship and society shaped and interacted with church architecture, from Saxon times to the Victorian period?
On Saturday 4 March we turn to Ukraine and to understanding its history and present situation. We welcome Dr Nadiya Ivanenko, a linguist who came to Oxford in 2022 as a refugee, welcomed by Merton College and the Department of Education, and Fr Oleksandr Nosenko, Ukrainian priest and a seminary teacher for 15 years, currently at Campion Hall doing a Master’s on the theology of St Maximus the Confessor. We look forward to seeing you on both of these varied days! Please look out for our new website.
With best wishes, LIZ CARMICHAEL
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Free tea and coffee are available at Study Days from 10 am and in the lunch break 1-2 pm. Bring packed lunch, or find food nearby in North Parade. If you are willing to help serve coffee you will have a free place – please leave a message on 01865 310341 or email Asst Director of Studies Alberto.Ravani@exeter.ox.ac.uk
It will be appreciated if you can send a Newsletter Subscription, for costs and postage, suggested gift £5 pa. Send cash, or cheque made out to ‘St Theosevia Trust’, to: Newsletter, St Theosevia House, 2 Canterbury Rd, OX2 6LU. For bank transfer details please ask Alberto.
For the Oxford Centre for Spiritual Growth (OCSG), including a Quiet Day with Margaret Silf , Sat 29 Apr 10.00 – 4.00 at the Friends’ Meeting House, see https://www.ocsg.uk.net/ or contact Ben Simpson at info@ocsg.uk.net
Saturday 4 February 10.30 am – 4 pm
Life, Worship, and Architecture:
Churches in Oxford Diocese, AD 1000 –1900
with Dr David Boswell and Revd Professor William Whyte
This day takes us to exotic Oxfordshire and its neighbouring counties, for a fresh look at the churches we see around us and how they have related to God and their local communities down the ages. Our speakers are Dr David Boswell and the Revd Dr William Whyte. David will give two illustrated talks in the morning, William one in the afternoon.
After reading History at Cambridge, David’s spent a career in research and teaching social sciences and social policy at the Open University and University of Malta. He did further research on the activities of a Leeds family of artists and architects in the West Riding of Yorkshire and Sicily. Since 1981 he has presented a wide range of courses on architectural history for Rewley House, Oxford’s Department of Continuing Education. David is an Anglican and attends St Giles.
In his first talk, Worship and clerical and secular uses of medieval parish churches, and their architectural development, David takes us back to Norman times and some local survivals from the Saxon period, and on through the high Middle Ages to the Reformation. Moving to The Church of England after the Reformation he explores how forms of worship and related furnishings changed and developed, in old and new parish churches, from the Sixteenth to the early Nineteenth centuries.
The Revd Dr William Whyte is a Professor of Social and Architectural History, Fellow and Tutor in History at St John’s College, and a non-stipendiary assistant priest at St Peter’s, Wolvercote. His most recent book, Unlocking the Church: the lost secrets of Victorian sacred space (OUP, 2017) explored the hundreds of churches built by the Victorians across the English-speaking world, and their influence on the shape of worship. William completes the day’s exploration with his talk on: How the Victorians invented the modern Church. Often seen as mere revivalists, the architects and patrons of the nineteenth century in fact radically transformed not only how churches were seen but also how they were understood. This talk will seek to explore both the causes and the consequences of that revolution in church architecture.
Saturday 4 March 10.30 am – 4 pm
Understanding Ukraine: past, present,
and the Orthodox Church
Dr Nadiya Ivanenko, Fr Oleksandr Nosenko
This day begins with an illustrated Introduction to the history of Ukraine by Dr Nadiya Ivanenko, currently based at Merton College and a Research Fellow in the Department of Education. With a doctorate in Comparative Linguistics, Dr Ivanenko was until last year an Associate Professor teaching English in the Germanic Languages and Teaching Methodology Department, Central Ukrainian State University, in Kropyvnytskyi, a regional city about 300 km south of Kyiv. She is Chairperson of the English-Speaking Union, Ukraine. With her young daughter she became a refugee in 2022 and found her way back to Oxford, where she had spent a year as a doctoral student. Among other programmes Dr Ivanenko has participated in the UNESCO project ‘Education as a Humanitarian Response’; the American-Ukrainian project ‘Education for Democracy’; two internships at Durham University; and an internship for teachers of EFL at Shakespeare’s Globe.
Our second speaker, who will give two talks covering the history and present situation of the Orthodox church in Ukraine, is Fr Oleksandr Nosenko, currently doing a master’s at Campion Hall on ‘The idea of obedience, choice and freedom in the controversies of Maximus the Confessor with Monothelites.’ Fr Oleksandr taught systematic theology, patristics, and liturgical theology.at Poltava Theological Seminary for 15 years (2006 – 2021). Last year at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary his MA thesis was on peculiarities of late Byzantine sacramentology and John Calvin’s teaching on Baptism and the Eucharist.
Fr Oleksandr is a priest of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, which parted from the Moscow Patriarchate and became autocephalous in May 2022. He will speak before and after the lunch break, on the history of the church in Ukraine, which is closely bound up with national history, and the intricacies of the present ecclesiastical situation.
