Next Thursday, March 5th at 7 PM in the Guild Hall at the Eastern Diocese of the Armenian Church of America, the Zohrab Information Center will hold its next event in the Winter/Spring 2020 Series on the Environment: Dn. Alex Calikyan, a recent graduate of the St. Nersess Armenian Seminary will present a talk, Armenian Christian Approaches to Creation: Being or Doing?

The talk is the second presentation in the series on the environment. In recent years, the idea of environmental theology or “eco-theology” has been developed by many of the major Christian denominations. Though the Armenian Apostolic Church, with its unique method of interpreting Scripture, highly developed ideas about the transformative effect of Christ’s Incarnation, and beautiful liturgical services including blessings of fields and water, surely has something to offer this ecumenical conversation about environmental theology, this line of thinking has not yet been fully explored in the Armenian Apostolic Church. To that end, the Winter/Spring 2020 Series on the Environment hopes to propel the possibility of Armenian environmental theology forward.

Dn. Alex Calikyan, who attended the Halki Summit III in Istanbul, a conference on “Theological Formation and Ecological Awareness: A Conversation on Education and the Enviornment” organized by the Ecumenical Patriarchate, will explore the practical application of an Armenian environmental theology. How should Armenian Christianity approach God’s creation, practically speaking? What do we do with an environmental theology? These practical questions of education, application, and lived spiritual experience are at the heart of Dn. Calikyan’s presentation.

Alexander Calikyan is an ordained deacon of the Armenian Church and a lifelongservant of the Armenian Church of the Holy Martyrs in Queens, New York. He recently completed his studies at St. Nersess Armenian Seminary and St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary and received a Master of Divinity Degree in Spring 2019. He attended the Halki Summit III in Istanbul last year, convened by the Ecumenical Patriarchate to address the topic, “Theological Formation and Ecological Awareness: A Conversation on Education and the Environment.” He currently working at the VA as a Chaplain Resident.