Mystery of the Incarnation: A Conference Celebrating the Contributions of Dr Paul Blowers

We are delighted to announce this upcoming conference, co-sponsored by the Pappas Patristic Institute, honoring Paul Blowers (NAPS President 2009 and current Chair of the Administrative Board of the Pappas Patristic Institute). The conference celebrates Dr Blowers' contributions to the field of patristics and early Christian studies. It brings together scholars and graduate students from regional institutions to present papers engaging with themes from Dr Blowers' work, including early Christian exegetical traditions, the Cappadocian Fathers, and the development of Christian doctrine in late antiquity.

The conference will be held at Emmanuel Christian Seminary at Milligan University

(near Johnson City, Tennessee)

October 10-11, 2025

Visit tennesseepatristics.org for more details.

Program

Friday, October 10, 2025

9:00 AM - 10:15 AM

Registration/Coffee Hour—Seminary Library Conference Suite (Phillips Building) 

10:15 AM - 10:30 AM

Opening Welcome Dr Stephen Waers, President of Milligan University

10:30 AM -12:00 PM—Group A

Jordan Wood

Gregory of Nyssa’s Distinctive Influence on Maximus the Confessor

Alden Bass

The Gift of Tears: Augustine's Emotional Hermeneutics in Biblical Preaching

Jeanne-Nicole Mellon Saint-Laurent

Divine Feeding in Isaac of Nineveh

12-1:30

Lunch 

1:30 PM - 3:00 PM—Group B

Marcus Plested

Theology of History in St Maximus the Confessor: Footnotes to Paul Blowers

Alyssa Elliott

A Mansion of Futility and a Little House for the Soul: An Exhortation to the Virtuous Life in Gregory of Nyssa’s In Ecclesiasten Homiliae 3

Andrew Summerson

Bearing Dionysius’s Cross: Maximus as illuminator of Dionysius the Areopagite’s theologia crucis

3:00 PM - 3:30 PM

Coffee Break

4:00 PM - 5:00 PM—Group C

Mark Weedman

Nicene Trinitarianism in 2025: Rethinking the Structure of Pro-Nicene Thought

Clifton Ward

On Life-Writing and Clement of Alexandria

Daniel Edwards

Wounds of Love and the Sufferings of Christ: Apatheia in the Macarian Writings

5:30 PM - 7:30 PM

Dinner

7:30 PM - 9:30 PM

After Dinner Reception

Saturday, October 11, 2025

9:00 AM - 10:30 AM— Group D

David Eastman

Theatricality and the Creation of Heretics in Early Christianity

Cody Glen Barnhart

‘For Words Do Not Alter Nature’: The Timaeus Commentary Tradition and the Nicene Creed"

David Kiger

The Persians as the Christians Saw Them: (Re)-Locating Ephrem’s Context

10:30-11

Coffee Break

11:00 AM - 12:00 PM—Final Session

Marius Portaru

A Theological History of Cyril of Alexandria’s henosis kath'hypostasin'

Donnie DeBord

Apollinarian Christology: Formation, Rejection, and Revival