Catherine Pickstock – ‘Mystagogy and the liturgical chronotope’
Advanced studies’ seminar on sacred space hosted by Eric Parry Architects, 24 January 2023. With Professor Catherine Pickstock (University of Cambridge):
00:00:00 Peter Newby
00:02:03 Catherine Pickstock – Keynote presentation
00:34:02 José de Paiva
00:43:40 Peter Newby
00:50:08 Christian Frost
00:54:17 Peter Carl
00:57:42 Catherine Pickstock
01:01:34 Eric Parry
Synopsis: Through a brief discussion of the liturgical theology of Maximus, we will consider how the vertical unity of the heavenly with the earthly is mapped onto the horizontal axis in Orthodox mystagogical tradition, with e.g. the nave representing the terrestrial and corporeal, the sanctuary representing the celestial and the noumenal. In this sense, a narrative and progressive element is incorporated into an otherwise overwhelming emphasis on transcendence and immediate presence. This will be contrasted with certain contemporary choronotopic theories.
Catherine Pickstock: In 1999, I co-founded a critical international theological movement, Radical Orthodoxy (with John Milbank and Graham Ward), recently dubbed ‘the Cambridge School’. This movement began as an essay collection Radical Orthodoxy: A new theology (London: Routledge 1998), 2 book series (Radical Orthodoxy, Routledge, and Illuminations, Blackwell), several series of workshops and conferences, an online journal, a research centre; there have been countless published and online responses. I am also engaged in collaborations with researchers from a range of disciplines, including English, modern and medieval Languages, International Relations, architectural theory, comparative literature, history and philosophy of science, as well as projects with composers, stone letter-carvers and liturgists.
