Successful completion of the presentation of the book by Mrs. Maria Pavlou on Basil the Great

On Thursday 31 October 2024, the presentation of the book by Mrs. Maria Pavlou, “Basil the Great and Greek Education”, which was released in July 2024 by Ennaia Publications, took place in the Hall of Events of the THSEC.

The event opened with a greeting from the Director of the ThSEK, Prot. The book was presented by Archim. Grigorios Ioannidis, Associate Professor of Liturgy at the THSEK, and Mr. Stefanos Efthymiadis, Professor of Byzantine Studies at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. This was followed by a brief intervention by the Director of Ennonia Publications, Mr. Dimitris Baliatsas, and a response by the author, to whom, as a token of honour, the ThSEC presented the icon of the School in which the Holy Trinity is depicted.

The event concluded with a reception in the courtyard of the ThSEC.

From the back cover of the book

M. Basil’s work To the Young People as if they were Greek scholars, which deals with the attitude that Christians ought to adopt towards Greek education, has always been one of the best known texts of the Cappadocian Father. Although the numerous studies of the work give the impression that it is a trivial and largely ‘settled’ subject, To the Young still today continues to be a challenge, as key issues such as its precise targeting, its epistemological classification, its immediate recipients and its chronology remain open and controversial. This book attempts, on the one hand, to revisit and redefine these issues and, on the other hand, to raise new questions about the language and rhetoric of the work, which have not received due attention in the past. His greatest contribution, however, lies in his attempt to make Sitz im Leben’s To the Young People more explicit and to approach the kingdom work in relation both to the positions of earlier Christian writers, such as the Apologists and Clement of Alexandria, and to other Christian ‘models’ of education emerging in the fourth century, such as that of the ‘illiterate ascetic’.