Posted on

Mark Your Calendars

The Youngstown-Warren (Ohio) chapter of the Society of St. John Chrysostom is featuring one of my favorite speakers, preachers, writers, and scholars. It’s Father Mark Gruber, Benedictine monk, anthropologist, and expert on all things Coptic. Father Mark will be speaking on “The Monastic Desert and the Ecumenical Impulse: How Desert Spirituality May Provide a Basis for Deeper Communal Discourse among Apparently Divided Christians.” It takes place Tuesday, September 9, at 7 p.m. at St. Paul Monastery, 9531 Akron-Canfield Road, (Route 224) Canfield, Ohio.

SSJC promotes ecumenical dialogue of the east-west variety. Most members belong to Orthodox or Catholic churches, but everyone’s welcome to the event, and admission is free.

Father Mark is author of Journey Back to Eden: My Life and Times Among the Desert Fathers and Sacrifice in the Desert: A Study of an Egyptian Minority Through the Prism of Coptic Monasticism, among many other books. My review of Journey Back to Eden is right here.