Past Event: “But When You Pray” Eastern Christian Praying with Tears

But when you pray - praying with tears poster for event

This event has passed.

Location: Miller Hall
406 Prospect Street
New Haven, CT 06511

Open to: General public

Admission: Free

Event description: While much work has been done on specific forms of prayer by scholars of liturgy (e.g. the prayer over bread and wine in the Eucharist, or the praying of the psalms in the daily office), the concept of praying as emotionally expressed by tears deserves more sustained attention. The theme of this fellows event, organized by ISM fellow, Ephrem Aboud Ishac, includes the concept of praying with tears according to the diverse traditions of the Christian East. The presentations will be live streamed, recorded, and made available online afterwards. The purpose of this symposium is to attain an innovative understanding of what the concept is of “Praying with Tears” in Eastern Christianity.

Conference Schedule

  • 1:00-1:10 - Welcoming Words and Introduction, Ephrem Ishac
  • 1:10-1:50 - Robert Kitchen, Tears of Prayer in Syriac Asceticism: The Book of Steps and John of Ephesus
  • 1:50-2:30 - Roberta Ervine, Some Comments on Tears in 12th Century Armenian Writer
  • 2:30-2:50 Coffee Break
  • 2:50-3:30 - Arsenius Mikhail, “I remembered the sins of my ignorance, so I let go of my tears and wept”: Tears of Repentance in the Coptic Late-Medieval Hymnography of the Great Lent
  • 3:30-4:10 - Basilius Bert Groen, Contrite Prayer and Weeping in the Byzantine-Greek Tradition
  • 4:10-4:20 - Concluding Remarks about the Concept of Praying with Tears in the Patristic and Liturgical Eastern Christian Rites, Ephrem Ishac
  • 4:20-4:55 - Tala Jarjour, Tears, Intimacy and Value: Intersections of Faith and Affect in Musical Emotionality
  • 4:55-5:00 Final Closing Words (Ephrem Ishac)

Speakers and Bios

Arsenius Mikhail is Professor of Liturgical Studies at St. Athanasius & St. Cyril Theological School (California). He obtained a PhD in Liturgical Studies from the University of Vienna (2017) and has since completed postdoctoral fellowships at Yale Institute of Sacred Music and at the University of Regensburg (Germany). He has published numerous books and articles on Coptic liturgical history, including The Presentation of the Lamb (Aschendorff 2020) on the evolution of the Coptic prothesis rite, and Guides to the Eucharist in Medieval Egypt (Fordham 2022).

Robert Kitchen is a retired United Church of Canada minister, living in Regina, Saskatchewan. He read for the D.Phil at the University of Oxford in Syriac Language & Literature, and has published several translations of Syriac monastic texts. Currently, he is a Resident Scholar at the Collegeville Institute, St. John’s University, Collegeville, Minnesota.

Basilius J. Bert Groen (born in 1953 in the Netherlands) is an emeritus professor of liturgical studies and sacramental theology, as well as a former UNESCO professor for intercultural and interreligious dialogue in Southeast Europe, at the University of Graz. Presently, he is Visiting Professor at the Pontifical Oriental Institute in Rome and the Catholic University of Leuven. In 2011/12, he was a Senior Research Fellow and Visiting Professor at Yale Institute of Sacred Music. He served as president of the international scholarly ‘Society of Oriental Liturgy’ (2012-14) and is a member of many other international academic and ecumenical associations. In addition, he is the editor-in-chief of the Dutch periodical on icons, Eikonikon. His special fields of interest are Eastern Christian, liturgical and ecumenical studies. For lists of his publications and teaching experience, see his website.  He has published about a wide variety of subjects, such as the anointing of the sick, liturgical language, and Catholic-Orthodox theological dialogue. Recently, he finished the manuscript of his new book titled ‘Ascent and Struggle for Freedom: Nikos Kazantzakis and Greek Orthodoxy’. He is married to Anna Grabowska and has a daughter and two grandchildren.

Tala Jarjour is a scholar of music, religion and anthropology who is particularly curious about connections between politics, cultural practice, religious life, and belief. Her academic research has a focus on musics from the Middle East and the Arab world, in the region and beyond. Dr Jarjour’s academic training and teaching include social anthropology, ethnomusicology, historical musicology, violin performance, theology, and psychology. As a Cambridge Gates Scholar, she wrote her PhD on Syriac chant in the Syrian city of Aleppo. She is currently Visiting Research Fellow at King’s College London and Associate Fellow of the Yale College. Dr Jarjour’s writing and research interests include emotion, identity, aesthetics, cultural heritage, minority, society and performance, survival, power, conflict and trauma, peace studies, as well as migration and integration. In addition to academic outlets, her writings appear regularly in cultural and international mass media concerned with the Middle East. Her book, Sense and Sadness, Syriac Chant in Aleppo, was published by Oxford University Press. Dr Jarjour consults locally and cross-nationally for ecclesiastical, interreligious, educational, nonprofit, as well as private and public sector entities in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe, and the Middle East.

Dr. Roberta Ervine, a Professor of Armenian Christian Studies at St. Nersess Armenian Seminary, New York, where she has been lecturing since 2001 on topics related to the history of Armenian Christianity and Armenian Christian thought. She holds a PhD from Columbia University. Her Dissertation research led her to Jerusalem, where she lived in the Armenian Monastery of St. James. She taught for the Holy Translators Academy; she also lectured for several other institutions in Jerusalem, including the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. She has published on several topics of Armenian spirituality, such as a volume titled: The Blessing of Blessings: Grigor of Narek’s Commentary on the Song of Songs.