19 September, 2024
We are deeply honoured to welcome Dr Ephrem Aboud Ishac, a Principal Investigator of the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) project ‘Identifying Scattered Puzzles of Syriac Liturgy Manuscripts’ at the Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna, to lead a session of the Eastern Christianity in Interfaith Contexts Reading Group.
Here are the details of this fascinating event.
Title: Dialogue and Fire in a Fragmentary Syriac Martyrdom Narrative
Abstract: The presentation will explore the fragmentary Syriac text of the Martyrdom of Alexander and Theodulus, found in the Syriac manuscript of the British Library Add. 14,654 and the Syriac Yerevan fragment no. 7. It focuses on the dramatic dialogue between the steadfast Christian Alexander and the Roman Emperor Aurelian. Their confrontation centers on Alexander’s unwavering faith in the face of persecution, echoing the biblical motif of the fiery furnace where divine protection shields the faithful from destruction. Aurelian demands Alexander renounce his faith and reveal Christian secrets, but Alexander’s responses challenge the emperor’s authority and expose the limits of earthly power. The text, rich in biblical imagery and liturgical language—particularly the symbolism of fire as both a purifying and destructive force—highlights the power of faith in the face of oppression and the ultimate triumph of the Christian God.
Speaker’s Biography: Dr Ephrem Aboud Ishac is a Researcher and Principal Investigator of the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) project “Identifying Scattered Puzzles of Syriac Liturgy Manuscripts” at the Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna. He held research fellowships at Yale University, the Religious Studies Foundation in Bologna, and the University of Graz, focusing on the Syriac liturgical texts and Synods, in addition to cataloging projects of the Syriac manuscripts and fragments at the Matenadaran (Armenia) and the Syrian Orthodox Patriarchate (Syria/Lebanon). He has also taught at the University of Salzburg and the Central European University.
More information is available at this link: https://homepage.uni-graz.at/de/ephrem.aboud.ishac/
Chair: Professor Sebastian Brock, FBA, University of Oxford, UK.
Date: 19 September, 2024
Time: 17:00-18:00 BST | 9:00-10:00 PDT | 12:00-13:00 EDT
Venue: online
If you would like to join the Eastern Christianity in Interfaith Contexts Reading Group, please sign up here.
Dr Ephrem Aboud Ishac’s Publications:
Corpus Christianorum Conciliorum Oecumenicorum Generaliumque Decreta V. 1, The Synods of the Syrian Orthodox Church, with Alberto Melloni, Brepols, Turnhout 2023.
Corpus Christianorum Conciliorum Oecumenicorum Generaliumque Decreta V. 2, The Synods of the Church of the East, with Alberto Melloni, Brepols, Turnhout 2023.
Related Sessions:
- Dialogue and Fire in a Fragmentary Syriac Martyrdom Narrative
- The Origins of the First Anti-Jewish Good Friday Hymns
- Finding a Home: The West Syriac Context of the Clementine Epistles on Chastity
- Who was Mary, the Blessed Virgin and Mother of God? A Byzantine hagiographical narrative by the ninth-century Monk Epiphanios
- Nikos Kazantzakis and Orthodox Christianity
- The Miracle of Pilgrimage: A Coptic Journey to the Holy Land During the Ottoman Period
- Setting the Stage: The Rose of Performance in Studying Late Ancient Hymnody
- Ephrem the Syrian and a New Beginning in Syriac Poetry
- A Jew Reads the Gospels in Syriac: Azariah de Rossi’s Critique of the Vulgate (1577)
- The Manuscript Project at the Coptic Monastery of St Paul the Hermit at the Red Sea, Egypt
- Mary’s Ordeal: A Syriac Narrative Poem on Many and Joseph
- Resurrection of the Human Body according to John of Dara’s Mimro I:4
- Gregory of Nyssa: On the Human Image of God
- ‘Conception by ear’ and Redemption of the Human Sensorium in Ephrem’s Thirty-fifth Madrasha on the Church
- From Edessa to South Arabia and Back: The Syriac Story of Bishop Paul and Priest John and Models of Sanctity in the Medieval Middle East
- Wrestling with Calculating-Thoughts: Mental Training according to Evagrius of Pontus
- Returning the Ticket: God and Evil in the Brothers Karamazov
- Ecumenical Patriarch Athenagoras: an Orthodox Dialogue with Islam
- Matta el-Meskin/Matthew the Poor: a ‘Contemporary Desert Father’ on Christian Unity
- Signs of Miraculousness: The Inimitability of Jacob of Serugh’s Teaching
- Epistolary Style in Coptic Letters from the Late Third Century to the Early Fifth Century
- Sarah and the Akedah: a Syriac Narrative Poem on Genesis 22
- The Paterik of the Kyivan Caves Monastery: Monk Polikarp in Discourse 14
- Jacob of Sarug on the Canaanite Woman (Mt 15:21-28, Mk 7:24-30): Biblical Storytelling and Models of Faith
- Commemorating the saints at Turfan: Mart Shir and Mar Barshabba
- The Opening Prayers of Saint Gregory of Narek’s Book of Lamentations
- Alexander Schmemann on Theotokos vis-à-vis Kali a Hindu Mother Goddess
- Enoch and the Fallen Angels in the Ethiopian Tradition
- Narsai on the Virgin Mary
- An Anonymous Syriac Dialogue between Mary and the Angel
- Dadisho of Qatar: Questioning the Desert Fathers
- George the Athonite on Matters of Faith and Rite, According to the Life of St George the Hagiorite
- Temple, Shekhinah and Prayer in Isaac of Nineveh’s III.VIII
- St. Ephrem’s Commentary on Genesis Ch.3
