Education and the Church Fathers: Two Talks at Holy Cross Brookline
- Feb 9
- 2 min read
Updated: Feb 12
On Monday, February 9, 2026, the Pappas Patristic Institute hosted two speakers to discuss Education and the Church Fathers: Vessela Valiavitcharska, from the University of Maryland, and Joshua Robinson, from Dumbarton Oaks in Washington, DC.
About our speakers
Vessela Valiavitcharska studies and writes about rhetorical education in Byzantium and the Slavic world in the context of the trivium: grammar, rhetoric, and logic. For her, Byzantine rhetoric represents “the road not travelled” by its classical Greek and Roman predecessors, a road which took a different turn in western Europe.
She is the author of Rhetoric and Rhythm in Byzantium: The Sound of Persuasion (Cambridge, 2014). which looks at a phenomenon known as “rhythm in prose” in Byzantine and Old Church Slavic literature. The book contrasts the modern separation between prose and poetry with the more integrated approach of the medieval literature of the Mediterranean and Slavic worlds. It highlights the role of rhythm as a tool for invention and a means of creating a shared emotional experience.
Professor Valiavitcharska has published articles on classical and Byzantine rhetoric, the ekphrastic tradition, scholia and rhetorical commentaries, medieval punctuation practices and performance, figurative language and emotion, and argument visualization. She teaches courses in the history of rhetoric and in medieval literature. You can read more about her work here.
Joshua Robinson holds a PhD in medieval studies from the University of Notre Dame and an MTS from Harvard Divinity School. He studies late antique and Byzantine theology and philosophy, especially the influence of Neoplatonism in the Byzantine world.
Dr Robinson's doctoral dissertation examined the relationship between the Neoplatonist Proclus and the twelfth-century Byzantine thinker Nicholas of Methone. He is the co-editor of Nicholas of Methone, Reader of Proclus in Byzantium: Context and Legacy (Brill, 2025), and the author of "Proclus as Heresiarch: Theological Polemic and Philosophical Commentary in Nicholas of Methone’s Refutation (Anaptyxis) of Proclus’ Elements of Theology," in Byzantine Perspectives on Neoplatonism (Brill 2017).
Dr Robinson's presentation at Holy Cross focused on the influence and role of Greek philosophy in the education and work of the Church Fathers and in the Byzantine tradition more generally.
The Pappas Patristic Institute was thrilled to be able to host these two distinguished speakers on the campus of Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology.
