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| John Anthony McGuckin
Ane Marie and Bent Emil Nielsen Professor in Late Antique and Byzantine Christian History
Professor of Byzantine Christian Studies, Columbia University
John McGuckin was installed as the first Ane Marie and Bent Emil Nielsen Professor in Late Antique and Byzantine Christian History in 2008. He is a Stavrophore priest of the Orthodox Church (Patriarchate of Romania) who came to New York from England in 1997 where he was formerly a Reader in Patristic and Byzantine Theology at the University of Leeds. He studied Philosophical Theology at Heythrop College, a Pontifical Athenaeum, from 1970-72, and from there read for a Divinity degree at the University of London, graduating with First Class Honors in 1975. To earn his Ph.D. from Durham University (1980), he researched the politics and theology of the early Constantinian era, with a thesis on the thought of Lucius Caecilius Lactantius, the Emperor Constantine's Christian tutor and later political advisor. In 1979 Dr. McGuckin was awarded a Certificate in Education from Newcastle University. An M.A. in Educational Studies followed later, in 1986, from Southampton University. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts in 1986, and a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society in 1996.
Dr. McGuckin is the author of 20 books of historical theology including: The Transfiguration of Christ in Scripture and Tradition (1986); St. Cyril of Alexandria: The Christological Controversy (1994); At the Lighting of the Lamps: Hymns from the Ancient Church (1995, and repr. 1997); St. Gregory of Nazianzus: An Intellectual Biography (2000; Nominated for the 2002 Pollock Biography Prize); Standing in God's Holy Fire: The Spiritual Tradition of Byzantium (Orbis, 2001); The Book of Mystical Chapters (Shambhala, 2002); The Westminster Handbook To Patristic Theology (2004); Ancient Christian Doctrines: Volume 2: Patristic Christology (IV Press, 2006; One of a series of five volumes); and The Orthodox Church: Its History and Spiritual Culture (Blackwells, Oxford, 2007). He has published over 100 research articles, in scholarly journals ranging in subject matter from New Testament Exegesis to Byzantine Iconography, though mainly centered on the thought of Origen of Alexandria, and the Fourth to Fifth Century Greek Christian theologians. In 1994, he published a small volume of poetry, Byzantium and Other Poems.
Professor McGuckin was awarded the prestigious Henry Luce III Fellowship in Theology for 2006. His research project, completed at the end of 2006, is a large-scale book on the history and culture of Eastern Christianity, entitled, The Orthodox Church: Its Theology and Spiritual Culture. Dr. McGuckin’s scholarly activities have included serving as manuscript assessor (Early Christian Studies) for Routledge Publications, as advisor to the Catholic University of Australia for the Center for Early Christian Studies (Sydney) and its series of scholarly monographs, as a member of the Editorial Advisory Board for the Journals Pro Ecclesia, and Maria, and as an active member/fellow of numerous professional societies, including the Royal History Society, American Society of Church History, and International Society for The Promotion of Byzantine Studies.
Dr. McGuckin has served as visiting professor and guest lecturer in many universities and colleges in England, Ireland, Greece, Romania, Ukraine, Italy, and the United States. In 2003, he was invited by the Royal Norwegian Academy to serve as an International Research Fellow at the Academy's 'Center For Higher Studies' in Oslo. There he formed part of a team of international specialists considering the elaboration and development of principles of Aesthetics in early Christian culture formation.
In 2005, Prof. McGuckin was a Keynote speaker at a conference in Belfast Ireland, on “Salvation in the Context of Roman and Byzantine Thought,” subsequent to which he was invited onto BBC Radio Belfast for a Public Radio discussion on the meaning of salvation in contemporary thought and life. In the same year, Westminster John Knox Press commissioned Prof. McGuckin as Editorial Advisory Board member, for a new and large series it was about to launch on Fundamental Sources of the Christian Tradition. There will be a projected thirty volumes in this series, each one dealing with a core topic in Theology (God, Ethics, the Church, etc.) The texts chosen will range from the Patristic period to contemporary thought, and are intended to serve as basic text books for undergraduate theology teaching.
In 2007, Prof. McGuckin was awarded the Order of Stephen the Great, the Gold Cross of Moldavia and Bukovina, for priestly and academic Service. He is currently working as part of an international team of scholars on a project charting the relation of Christianity and social law. His research (forthcoming with OUP) will be concerned with Byzantine Ecclesiastical Law as an important source of European civilisation. He is also currently working with Co-Director Norris Chumley on a feature film about monastic prayer life, entitled: 'Sophia Secret Wisdom.' In 2007 he was on site filming extensively in Sinai, the Egyptian desert, and the monasteries of Transylvania. Learn more about the film at sophiasecretwisdom.com.
| Faculty
Mary C. Boys
Euan K. Cameron
David M. Carr
Chung Hyun Kyung
James H. Cone
Alan Cooper
Samuel Cruz
Gary Dorrien
Esther J. Hamori
Serene Jones
Brigitte Kahl
Paul F. Knitter
Barbara K. Lundblad
Daisy L. Machado
Tyler D. Mayfield
John Anthony McGuckin
Troy Messenger
Christopher L. Morse
Su Yon Pak
Hal Taussig
Mark C. Taylor
Ann Belford Ulanov
Janet R. Walton
John B. Weaver
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