Message from the Dean of the Saint John of Damascus Institute of Theology Right Rev. Archimandrite Jack Khalil
The St. John of Damascus Institute of Theology stands in the vicinity of the Patriarchal Monastery of Our Lady of Balamand, in a continuation of a long Antiochian tradition of spirituality and education over the centuries. In past times, numerous monasteries flourished around the Metropolises of the Antiochian See. Each monastery and convent gathered a multitude of monks and nuns who sought to devote their lives to prayer, spiritual labor, and the Holy Scripture. Historical sources corroborate that these monastic communities functioned daily as schools, where the people of God learned about the Holy Bible as divine knowledge and holy Christian living.
In consistence with this tradition, the Institute of Theology at the University of Balamand stands as a lighthouse of Christ’s knowledge, where each member of the faculty, administration, and student body seeks inspiration and enlightenment from the wellspring of the Apostolic Orthodox Tradition and strives amidst the contemporary theological, spiritual, and social challenges to spread the proclamation of the Divine Revelation as light and life to humanity in our world today.
In this academic year 2020-2021, the Institute celebrates its Golden Jubilee of higher education and spiritual vibrancy. For the last fifty years, since its inception, it has been bearing witness to its mission through the vibrant lives of its many graduates, toiling in the Lord’s vineyard and sowing seeds in the Lord’s field, and through the quality assurance of its undergraduate, graduate, postgraduate, and e-learning programs. Its students and graduates, with their foremost being His Beatitude Patriarch John X of Antioch and All the East who graduated in 1978, are spread throughout the Antiochian Archdioceses. They have become fishers of men, ministering as hierarchs, presbyters, deacons, theologians, and educators, serving in the Arab world and abroad.
May the Lord God, through the intercession of our patron Saint, John the Damascene, protect His Beatitude and Their Eminences the Hierarchs of the Antiochian See, in guiding the work of the Institute and promoting its prosperity for the glory of God’s Church.
Right Rev. Archimandrite Jack Khalil
Dean of the Saint John of Damascus Institute of Theology
University of Balamand
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