Fr John Behr, Regius Professor of Humanity at the University of Aberdeen, has published the first English-language translation of Gregory of Nyssa’s classic text On the Human Image of God (AKA de hominis opificio) since the 1800s. In this public lecture, Fr John will expound St Gregory’s anthropology and its ongoing relevance for the central question of what it means to be human.

Dr. Harry O. Maier, Professor of New Testament and Early Christian Studies at the Vancouver School of Theology, will offer a response to Fr Behr.

The lecture will be held in the Regent College Chapel (5800 University Blvd, Vancouver, BC V6T 2E4, Canada).

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Fr John Behr is Regius Professor of Humanity at the University of Aberdeen in Scotland, and was previously dean of St Vladimir's Orthodox Theological Seminary where he taught for twenty five years and edited the Popular Patristics Series. An avid translator and theologian, Behr has refreshed the texts of a number of seminal patristic works in new translations for contemporary English readers, including Origen's On First Principles, Irenaeus' On the Apostolic Preaching, and Athanasius' On the Incarnation. Among his books, articles, and other publications is his most recent book-length project, 2019's John the Theologian and his Paschal Gospel, which puts the ancient readers of John in conversation both with the latest in biblical scholarship and the French phenomenologist Michel Henry. Fr John is currently working on a new edition of the complete works of Irenaeus.

Dr. Harry O. Maier is Professor of New Testament and Early Christian Studies at the Vancouver School of Theology. In addition to his publications across a range of scholarly interests (the representation of violence in Antiquity; ancient and contemporary apocalyptic theology; ecotheology and the New Testament; and more), Dr. Maier has served two parishes of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada in Victoria and Delta, British Columbia.