The international conference “Maximus the Confessor: The Salvation of Nature (7th International Colloquium on St. Maximus the Confessor),” organized by the Faculty of Philosophy, University of Warsaw, will take place on April 27-29, 2026, at the Faculty of Liberal Arts, University of Warsaw, at Dobra Street 72 in Warsaw. See the program below.

PROGRAM

Monday, April 27, 2026  

Faculty of ‘Artes Liberales’ (Dobra 72)

14:00 – 15:00 Registration

15:00 Opening of the conference

Prof. Paweł Łuków, Dean of the Faculty of Philosophy of the University of Warsaw; Bp Prof. Michał Janocha;

Rev. Father Pantalejmon (Paweł Karczewski), PhD, Christian Theological Academy in Warsaw;

Ivan Dmitrijević, PhD, Faculty of Artes Liberales of the University of Warsaw

Claudio Moreschini (Pisa, Italy): Human nature before and after the fall

16:30 – 17:00 coffee break

17:00 – 18:40 Session 1 (Chair: Torstein Theodor Tollefsen)

Georgios Siskos (Thessaloniki, Greece): Simultaneous creation and fall in Saint Maximus the Confessor? The antecedent interpretation in Theodore of Mopsuestia

Sebastian Mateiescu (Bern, Switzerland): Two trees in Paradise – St. Maximus the Confessor on the primordial state of human being  

Aleksandar Djakovac (Belgrade, Serbia): Universalism and Particularity Revisited: A Maximian Ontological Perspective

Daniel Heide (Belgrade, Serbia): The Transformation of Monē: St. Maximus’ Christian Doctrine of Procession and Return

Bogna Kosmulska (Warsaw, Poland): Garments as Metaphors of Natures in Maximus the Confessor’s Ad Thalassium 4, Ad Thalassium 12, and Ambiguum 10

Tuesday, April 28, 2026  

Faculty of ‘Artes Liberales’ (Dobra 72)

9:00 – 10:40 Session 2 (Chair: Ivan Christov)

Lyuba Stefanova (Sofia, Bulgaria): Maximus the Confessor: On the salvation and the favorable holiday of the human souls

Panagiotis G. Pavlos (Oslo, Norway)

On Essential and Gnomic Aptitude: Opposition or Synergy in the Movement Toward Deification?

Nikolai Liapunov (Cambridge, UK): Aspects of Theosis in Maximus the Confessor

Alex Leonas (Budapest, Hungary): The early history of natural contemplation

Tomasz Stępień (Warsaw, Poland)

The Living Cosmos Transformed: Pseudo-Dionysius and the Christian Reception of Neoplatonic Cosmology

10:40 – 11:10 coffee break

11:10 – 12:30 Session 3 (Chair: Aleksandar Djakovac): Sotiris Mitralexis (Athens, Greece): Notes on Mystagogia chapter 5: From νοῦς to λόγος and beyond

Sea Yun Joung (Cambridge, UK): Logoi in the Epistolary Salutations and Valedictions of St. Maximus the Confessor

Vladimir Cvetković (Belgrade, Serbia): Circles of Salvation: Geometrical Analogy and the Redemption of Nature in Maximus the Confessor

Karolina Kochańczyk-Bonińska (Warsaw, Poland): Four elements in Nemesius of Emesaand Maximus the Confessor

12:40 – 14:45 lunch break

Old University Library (Krakowskie Przedmieście 26/28, room 107)

14:45 – 16:25 Session 4 (Chair: Daniel Heide)  

Torstein Theodor Tollefsen (Oslo, Norway): St. Maximus on the Natural and the Written Law

Oskari Juurikkala (Rome, Italy): Maximus the Confessor on the Natural Law in Ambiguum 10

Paul M. Blowers (Milligan, TN, USA): Exploring the Dialectics of Nature and ‘Graced’ Nature in Maximus

Thomas Cattoi (Rome, Italy): Intermediary or obstacle? The ambiguous character of natural contemplation in Maximos the Confessor’s Epistle 9 and Quaestiones ad Thalassium 61

Andrew Jackson (Cambridge, UK): Towards a Maximian philosophy of nature and evolutionary theodicy

16:25 – 16:50 coffee break 

16:50 – 18:30 Session 5 (Chair: Sebastian Mateiescu)  

Paul L. Gavrilyuk (St. Paul, MN, USA): Ambigua 7 and a ‘natural desire for the supernatural end’: Maximus the Confessor and Henri de Lubac in Dialogue

Dionysios Skliris (Athens, Greece): The eschatological cosmology of Saint Maximus the Confessor

Thomas S. Drobena (Worcester, MA, USA): Pivotal Priesthood: The Human as Animal-lover and Mediator in Maximus the Confessor

Marta Przyszychowska (Pego, Spain): Maximus the Confessor’s interpretation of the Gregory of Nyssa’s concept of apokatastasis

Nikolaos Loudovikos (Ioannina, Greece): Maximus’ Dialogical nature, Intermeaningfulness, and D.B.Hart’s Monistic Christology

Wednesday, April 29, 2026  

Faculty of ‘Artes Liberales’ (Dobra 72)

9:00 – 10:40 Session 6 (Chair: Alex Leonas)

Katherine Painter (Oxford, UK): Remembrance and Restoration: Purifying Memory in SS Maximus the Confessor and Isaac of Nineveh

Milan Đorđević (Skopje, North Macedonia): The Reception of Maximus the Confessor in Nicholas Cabasilas’ ‘De Vita in Christo’

Antoni Źrebiec (Warsaw, Poland): Christ and Nature as Symbols. The Similarities in Approaches of Maximus the Confessor and Hugh of Saint Victor

Vitali Michalczuk (Warsaw, Poland): The Entelechy of the Cosmos. The Altar in the Mystagogy of Maximus the Confessor and Byzantine Rites of Temple Consecration

Marius Portaru (Rome, Italy): Disability and Biblical Exegesis in Maximus the Confessor

11:15 – 11:45 coffee break

11:45 – 12:45 Session 7 (Chair: Vladimir Cvetković)

Ambrose Inlow (Syracuse, NY, USA): Mental Health According to St. Maximos the Confessor. The Deification of the Natural Rational and Noetic Powers of the Soul

Ivan Christov (Sofia, Bulgaria): Maximus the Confessor on the Dualism of Manichaeans and Massalians as a Challenge for the Orthodox Theology of Revelation

Jan Wojciechowski (Warsaw, Poland): Rorik Hrothgar (Toronto, Canada): Salvation of nature as healing the desire. Maximus’ and Buddhist Account of salvation seen in context of active and passive principles of creation 

12:45 – 13:15 Conference Closing lecture:

Pascal Mueller-Jourdan (Angers, France): Geometrical Words and Schemes of the Cosmology of Maximus the Confessor

13:15 – 13:30 Conference Closing