The Orientale Lumen XVI Conference this year will be held June 18-21, 2012 at the Washington Retreat House in Washington, DC on the theme of “Theology of the Laity.” We will be honored with the presence of several outstanding speakers, including:

Metropolitan Kallistos of Diokleia (Orthodox)
Professor Emeritus of Oxford University, Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople
Archimandrite Robert Taft, SJ (Greek Catholic)
Professor Emeritus of the Pontifical Oriental Institute, Boston, MA
Father Gregory Gresko, OSB (Roman Catholic)
Benedictine Abbey, Richmond, VA
Sr. Dr. Vassa Larin (Orthodox)
Associate Professor, University of Vienna, Austria
Carl Olson (Greek Catholic)
Lecturer, Editor and Best-Selling Author, Springfield, OR
Frederica Mathewes-Green (Orthodox)
Lecturer and Commentator on PBS and NPR, Baltimore, MD
Bishop John Michael Botean, Moderator (Greek Catholic)
Romanian Greek Catholic Diocese of Canton, OH
Dr. Michael Root, Panelist (Roman Catholic)
Ordinary Professor, The Catholic University of America, Washington, DC

More details about the conference and online registration can be found at the Future Conferences page http://www.olconference.com/OL_FutCon.html. We plan two local church visits for an Orthodox and Eastern Catholic Divine Liturgy.

We are also planning podcasts of the plenary sessions on OLTV, Ancient Faith Radio, Catholic Radio International, and Orthodox Christian Network that will be available shortly after each one (the Q&A discussion will not be recorded or broadcast).

Note that the registration fee is still available at a discount of $295/person through Sunday, April 1, and will increase to $345/person after that date (the fee includes lunch and dinner and receptions each day; accommodations for overnight are still available).

Pass the word to your friends and associates. The topic of the role of the laity in the Church promises to be a new and exciting topic for this year’s OL Conference! I look forward to seeing many old and new friends in June.

Jack

Interesting ... I wasn't aware that Dr. Root had become Catholic.

This makes me wonder: if he hadn't, would he not be invited to speak at OL? (Just thinking out loud here.)

I would love to be there. Alas, DC might be a bit far in June. I will watch the proceedings with interest, though from a distance.

Just to set the record straight, Dr. Root is coming to be a member of the panel discussions as a CUA professor, not as a plenary speaker. I only first met him at a Washington Theological Consortium event earlier this year through a mutual Orthodox friend, and found he had a great deal of ecumenical experience and academic credentials relevant to our topic. So I invited him to be on the panel. At the time, all I knew of him was his academic credentials, and not his past or present religious affiliation. So being Catholic or not had nothing to do with his being invited to participate in the OL conference.

Jack

Dr. Root's conversion occurred within the past two years...part of the ongoing recent exodus of many of the best and brightest from the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America,including Leonard Klein, Phillip Johnson, and Richard Ballard (to Rome) and Jay Rochelle (to Orthodoxy).

Thanks for that clarification.

Those who made it to the conference, any thoughts you'd like to share?

At long last, I'm happy to announce that the audio recordings of the OL XVI plenary sessions are now available FREE to listen to on Ancient Faith Radio at the following link:

http://ancientfaith.com/specials/orientale_lumen_xvi_conference

Many thanks to them for hosting these. Apologies that we took so long to get them done and uploaded.

Next year's conferences:

OL XVII -- Washington, DC -- June 17-20 -- Theme: TBD
OL EuroEast IV -- Constantinople -- July 8-10 -- Theme: probably "Cyril and Methodius: Ecumenical Ecumenism"
Group tour to Thessaloniki on July 4-7 led by Metropolitan Kallistos

Details for Constantinople are subject further discussions at my private audience with Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew scheduled for October 8.

Jack

Wonderful! Thank you, Jack! And thank you, Ancient Faith Radio!