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Dr. Alice-Mary Talbot will present the fourth annual Father John Meyendorff Memorial Lecture on the campus of Saint Vladimir’s Seminary here on Friday, September 15, at 7:00 p.m. Dr. Talbot is the Director Emerita of Byzantine Studies at Dumbarton Oaks, a prestigious research institute of Harvard University, located in Washington, DC. She also serves as Editor of the Byzantine Greek series, Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library. Her presentation will center on her forthcoming book on Byzantine monasticism and Mount Athos.
Dr. Talbot is one of the world’s foremost scholars of Byzantium, the Roman Empire in the eastern Mediterranean that endured for almost a thousand years after its eclipse in the west, until the fall of its capital, Constantinople, to the Ottoman sultan in 1453. Her contribution to the study of middle and late Byzantine social and religious history in general, and women and religious culture in Byzantium in particular, has been immense.
Dr. Talbot is one of the editors/translators of Holy Men of Mount Athos [Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library 40], which presents the lives of Euthymios the Younger, Athanasios of Athos, Maximos the Hutburner, Niphon of Athos, and Philotheos, who lived on Mount Athos at different times from the ninth to the 15th centuries and were known for their asceticism, clairvoyance, and in most cases, the ability to perform miracles. The book illuminates both the history and the varieties of monastic practice on Athos, individually by hermits as well as communally in large monasteries. The work also demonstrates the diversity of hagiographic composition and provides important glimpses of Byzantine social and political history.
Dr. Talbot first met Protopresbyter John Meyendorff, who retired as Dean of Saint Vladimir’s Seminary on June 30, 1992, just a few months before his repose, when he coincidentally and suddenly substituted for another member of her Ph.D. dissertation committee while she was earning her degree in Byzantine and Ottoman History at Columbia University in New York. “I was thrilled that he was on the jury for my Columbia dissertation defense in 1970, and I was able to benefit from his comments in my revision of the thesis for publication,” Dr. Talbot remarked.
The Father John Meyendorff Memorial Lecture is free and open to the public. An open reception will follow the presentation.
Additional information may be found on the seminary web site or by calling 914-961-8313.
