Orthodox Studies Minor

With a thriving Orthodox Studies minor and Orthodox Christian Fellowship, the Orthodox Christian Studies Center supports academic study, scholarship, and student worship services.

Professor George Demacopoulos teaches a theology class in Duane Library at Fordham’s Rose Hill Campus.Fordham University is the only university in the United States that offers a minor in Orthodox Christian Studies, supported by the Orthodox Christian Studies Center. The center’s mission is to foster intellectual inquiry by supporting scholarship and teaching in a way that is relevant to the ecclesial community, public discourse, and the promotion of Christian unity. The center serves as the locus of all curricular, research, and outreach activities related to the interdisciplinary study of Orthodox Christian traditions.

The Orthodox Studies Minor is an interdisciplinary minor focusing on the faith, history, and cultural significance of the Orthodox Christian tradition. No matter your major, critical study of the Orthodox Christian tradition offers insights and context for understanding some of the world’s most significant issues:

  • You’ll find a rich trove of artistic, cultural, historical, literary, philosophical, and religious resources for exploring the human condition past and present.
  • Orthodox Christian studies acts as a cultural bridge, connecting religious traditions from throughout Asia Minor, the Balkans, Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and Russia.
  • You’ll gain a greater familiarity with the range of modern Orthodox cultures—from Moscow to Baghdad —that is essential for success in today’s global environment.
  • Students are required to take Byzantine Christianity and can choose from elective courses* across several disciplines, including art and music history, classics, history, modern languages and literature, philosophy, and theology. Courses could include:
    • Byzantine and Western Art
    • Understanding Historical Change: Medieval
    • Russian Short Fiction
    • Byzantium and the West
    • Hospitality and Cosmopolitanism
    • The Crusades
    • Art of Prayer in Eastern Christian Mysticism
    • Sex, Gender, and Sexuality in Early Christianity
    • Philosophy after Constantine
    • Introduction to Coptic, Introduction to Syriac
    • Medieval Jerusalem
    • The Russian Icon
    • Early Christian Art in Context
    • Christian Ecologies East & West

*Courses that meet general college requirements or other major/minor requirements may be applied toward the completion of the Orthodox Studies minor. For example, THEO 3316, Byzantine Christianity, currently fulfills the sophomore theology core
requirement.

For more information contact Orthodox Christian Studies Center faculty George Demacopoulos (Rose Hill) at [email protected] or Aristotle Papanikolaou (Lincoln Center) at [email protected].