Professors’ colloquium
Zilele Şaguniene 9th edition on November 28, 2025
During the conference organized with the blessing of His Eminence Father Laurențiu, Archbishop of Sibiu and Metropolitan of Transylvania, two papers were presented: “What Romanian Orthodoxy Can Teach Christian Thinkers about Nationhood” by Prof. Dr. John Burgess and “IMAGO: How do images speak? The dynamics of figures, metaphors and symbols in Christian discourse and beyond” by Fr. Assoc. Prof. Dr. Constantin Horia Oancea, Dean of the Faculty of Theology in Sibiu. "This session is intended to make known the research of the professors at the Faculty of Theology, especially among themselves, because each one describes the project they are working on. Today we had two presentations, one by Professor John Burgess, with his research interest on Orthodox Churches and nation states, and in the second communication I presented the project I am working on as project director, together with Professor Dragoş Boicu and Father Radu Gârbacea. This project is carried out within a consortium formed by three research teams, a team from Switzerland, from the University of Bern, a team from Romania, from the Faculty of Theology of the "Lucian Blaga" University in Sibiu and a team from Bulgaria, from the Faculty of Theology of the University of Sofia. The project investigates the way in which images speak, the dynamics of figures of speech, the dynamics of images, metaphors, symbols in Christian discourse and more. The project runs over a period of four years, and the team in Sibiu will focus on exploring images related to the body, the organic world and the inorganic world that have their origins in the Holy Scripture and then on the way in which these biblical images are later received in the writings of the Holy Fathers, in Byzantine hymnography, in Byzantine painting and in Byzantine homilies. I had the opportunity to present during today's session some examples from my work so far on the project on how to work with metaphors in Biblical Theology and then how we can apply theories about metaphors in working with hymnographic texts that receive biblical images”, said Fr. Assoc. Prof. Dr. Constantin Horia Oancea. The participants in the communication session had the opportunity to ask questions and discuss the topics presented during the conference.
