Rev. Dr. Robert Stephanopoulos Featured at Notre Dame College Eastern Churches Lecture

SOUTH EUCLID, Ohio—4 March 2008—Rev. Robert Stephanopoulos, Ph.D., Dean Emeritus at the Archdiocesan Cathedral of the Holy Trinity in New York, will speak at Notre Dame College’s ninth annual Eastern Churches Spring Lecture Thursday, April 3 at 7:00 p.m. in the College’s Clara Fritzsche Library. Fr. Stephanopoulos will address the topic, “Judaism and the Eastern Churches.”

The talk celebrates the ninth anniversary of the College’s Eastern Church Resource Center and is hosted by the Eleanor Malburg Eastern Churches Seminar Planning Committee. The seminar and its planners strive to build understanding and mutual respect among the churches of the eastern and western traditions. Participating churches include local Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and Byzantine Catholic Churches.

Fr. Stephanopoulos, a retired priest in the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America, returns to the Cleveland area where he served as Dean of Sts. Constantine and Helen Cathedral in Cleveland Heights from 1974 to 1982. He is a renowned ecumenist, theologian, lecturer and pastor who developed innovative social outreach programs in the greater Archdiocesan Cathedral community. Long active in inter-religious outreach and dialogue, he has served as Ecumenical Officer of the Archdiocese, and as the first Orthodox Christian and youngest person ever elected recording secretary of the National Council of Churches. Author of Guidelines for Orthodox Christians in Ecumenical Relations, he is a founding member of Orthodox Dialogues with Catholics, Anglicans, Evangelicals and Jews. He is an adjunct professor of Eastern Christian Thought at St. John’s University in New York.

Fr. Stephanopoulos, a graduate of Holy Cross School of Theology in Brookline, Massachusetts, received his Ph.D. in Ecumenics, Missions and World Religions at Boston University and studied at the University of Athens School of Theology. He resides in New York City with his wife, Nikki. They are the parents of four adult children: Mother Agapia, an Orthodox nun; George, chief Washington correspondent for ABC News and host of This Week; Marguarite, events coordinator for the Cleveland Clinic’s Bariatric and Metabolic Institute; and Andrew, a psychotherapist in Santa Monica, California.

Notre Dame College is located at 4545 College Road in South Euclid. For additional information contact Karen Zoller at 216.373.5267 or kzoller@ndc.edu.

About the Eastern Church Resource Center and Eleanor Malburg Eastern Churches Seminar:

In 1985 Notre Dame College sponsored a workshop with the hope that the traditions of Roman Catholic and Eastern Churches would be of interest to students and the surrounding community. From the success of that first seminar, and at the request of participating clergy, the Eastern Church Planning Committee was formed. The seminar, known as the Eleanor Malburg Eastern Churches Seminar, became an annual dialogue among the clergy and bishops of the Orthodox, Byzantine and Roman Catholic churches in the Greater Cleveland area.

Interest in the topic of church unity is growing, and ways to educate and involve lay people in the process are being discussed throughout the United States. Notre Dame College's annual eastern churches seminar is now being used as a prototype for a similar effort at the Catholic University of America.

The Eastern Church Resource Center was established in 1999 as the next step in fostering understanding among the groups. The Center maintains a collection of books, videos, journals, curriculum guides and audiotapes pertaining to Eastern Church studies and ecumenism, all made possible by the generosity of participating clergy and Planning Committee members. All are welcome to use the resources of the Center within the library.

For more information about the Eastern Churches Resource Center, contact Karen Zoller, library director, at 216-373-5267 or kzoller@ndc.edu; or Sr. Mary Ann Baran, SND, director of the Center for Pastoral Theology and Ministry, at 216-373-5389 or mbaran@ndc.edu.