Date: June 18-20, 2026, Neamț, Romania 

Organized by the Institute for the Study of Values and Spirituality and Palamas Seminar, in collaboration with University of Bucharest and Alexandru Ioan Cuza University of Iași

Organizing Committee:

Dan CHIȚOIU (ISVS Institute & Alexandru Ioan Cuza University, Romania)

Corina DOMNARI (ISVS Institute & Alexandru Ioan Cuza University, Romania)

Constantinos ATHANASOPOULOS (FHEA, UK)

Savu TOTU (Bucharest University, Romania)

Marian VILD (Bucharest University, Romania)

Alexandru BARNA (Bucharest University, Romania)

Topics of particular interest include (but are not limited to):

– Gregory Palamas` Anthropological Doctrine Between Tradition and Novelty

– Human Knowledge and Divine Light

– Participation of the Body in Deification

– Vision through Self Transcendence and Spiritual Perception

– Orthodox responses to Post-Humanism and AI visions of Humanity

– The Pneumatological Dimension Man: Experiential Traits in the Palamite Tradition

– Reality and Beyond: Epistemological vs. Anthropological Approaches to the Palamite Doctrine

– Rereading Palamas: St. Dumitru Stăniloae’s Retrieval of the Palamite Antropology for the 20th Century

KEYNOTE SPEAKERS

Norman RUSSELL (University of Oxford, UK) – How are We to Understand the Transfiguration? The Challenge Posed to Palamas in the Last Phase of the Hesychast Controversy

Mircea DUMITRU (Vice-President of the Romanian Academy) – Palamas in his own time and now, from a modal metaphysical standpoint (Follow-up)

John FARINA (George Mason University, USA) – Protestant Evangelicalism, Transhumanism, and AI in Dialogue with Palamas

Inigo BOCKEN (Titus Brandsma Institute / Radboud University Nijmegen / KU Leuven, Netherlands) – Nicholas of Cusa and the Recovery of Participatory Metaphysics: A Western Parallel to the Hesychast Controversy