Date / time: 15 July - 17 July, All day
Ecclesiastical History Society Summer Conference: Creeds, Councils and Canons | University of Edinburgh | 15–17 July 2025
Tuesday 15 July
11.00–13.00 (committee members only) EHS Committee Meeting.
13.00–14.00 Registration and Lunch.
14.00–15.30 Welcome and Plenary 1.
Chair: Canon Prof. Michael Snape.
Dr Sara Parvis (incoming president), ‘The “Creed of Nicaea” and Catholicity: Historical Synodality in Practice’.
15.30–16.00 Coffee Break.
16.00–17.30 Communications I.
Session Ia.
Ana Biočić, ‘The Split Council of 925 in the Context of Church and State Circumstances’.
Anna Elisa Tryti, ‘Traces of early Conciliarism in the Archdiocese of Nidaros, 1280–1351’.
Francisco Laguna Álvarez, ‘Sevicia, Divorce, and Ecclesiastical Judicial Practice: Comparing Canonical Procedures in Eighteenth-Century Mexico and Spain’.
Session Ib.
Scott Spurlock, ‘Defining and Contesting the Kirk in Early Modern Scotland’.
Martin Wellings, ‘“One of the most wonderful and far-reaching facts of ‘the wonderful century’ now hasting to its close”: The Free Church Catechism of 1899’.
David M. Thompson, ‘How does a Non-Hierarchical Church Declare its Faith? The Congregational Church of England and Wales in 1967’.
Session Ic.
Jeremy Morris, ‘Conflict, Contingency and Consensus: An Anglican Observer at the Second Vatican Council’.
Kateryna Budz, ‘The Ecumenism that Failed: The Reactions of the Ukrainian Greek Catholics to the Second Vatican Council’.
Jeffrey Peterson, ‘From Missionary Forum to Indigenous Voice: The Tekakwitha Conference and the Reforms of Vatican II (1965–90)’.
18.00–19.00 Dinner.
19.00–20.30 Communications II.
Session IIa.
Gyula Homoki, ‘Constructing the “Montanist” Heresy in the Context of Post-Nicene Trinitarian Controversies’.
Lisel Joubert, ‘Mary becoming the Arian Jesus’.
Antonio Pio di Cosmo, ‘Faces of the Council: A Visual Semiotic Approach to the Representative Tradition of Nicaea Across Time’.
Session IIb.
Elizabeth Tingle, ‘Councils of Church and of State: The French Clergy and the Estates General during the French Wars of Religion’.
Chris R. Langley, ‘“Touching the convocation of Synods”: Royal Power, National Assemblies and Church History in Mid-Seventeenth-Century Scotland’.
Joseph Dunlap, ‘Ecumenical Authority and British Protestantism, c.1638–62’.
Session IIc.
Hilary Carey, ‘The Great Duty of the National Church to all Creeds: The Missions to Seamen, 1856–1900’.
George Palmer, ‘An Anglican Answer to the Free Church Council? The Mobilisation of the “Church Vote” in England in the Early Twentieth Century.’
Paul C. Fine, ‘Made in the Image of God: The New Creed of American Anti-Communist Spirituality’.
20.30–23.00 Bar Open.
Wednesday 16 July
7.30am Holy Communion.
8.00–9.00 Breakfast.
09.00–10.30 Communications III.
Session IIIa.
Michael Dormandy, ‘Conciliarism before Nicaea: Tertullian as a Case-Study’.
Samuel Brooke, ‘Priest, Prophet, Episcopus: Cyprian of Carthage’s Charismatic-Conciliar Process as a Verification of the Divine Will in Time of Crisis’.
Andrew Roushdy, ‘Original Sin before Augustine: Theology of the Fall in Nicene and Pre-Nicene Christianity’.
Session IIIb.
Mark Elliott, ‘Denys the Carthusian (1402–71) on Acts 15: Refusing to be Dionysian’.
David Truschel, ‘“These Councils Were the Most Christian of All”: The Council and the Holy Roman Emperor in the Early Luther’.
Matthew C. Baines, ‘Conciliarism in the Dutch Republic: Gisbertus Voetius’ (1589–1676) Defence of Synodical Government and Constitutional Monarchy’.
Session IIIc.
David A. I. Martin, ‘Ecumenical Discipline and Dissent in Anglican South India, 1836–51’.
Donghyuk Kim, ‘Beyond the Official Record: Uncovering Concealed Voices at the Edinburgh Missionary Conference 1910’.
Brian Stanley, ‘The Ghana Assembly of the International Missionary Council 1957–8: Integration and Disintegration in the Ecumenical Movement’.
10.30–11.00 Coffee Break.
11.00–12.30 Plenary 2.
Chair: Dr Sara Parvis.
Prof. Alberto Camplani, ‘Nicene Canons in Oriental Dress: Diffusion and Translation of the Canons of the Council of Nicaea in Late-Antique Near East and North Africa’.
12.30–13.30 Lunch.
13.30–15.00 Communications IV.
Session IVa.
Hiu Ki Chan, ‘Creed, Canons, and Control: Institutional Masculinity at the Council of Nicaea (325)’.
Szilveszter Füsti-Molnár, ‘Performing Faith, Negotiating Power: The Nicene Creed as a Constitutive Act’.
Sangdo Choi, ‘From Nicaea to Korea: Power Struggles and Collaborative Dialogues in the Evolution of Christian Authority’.
Session IVb.
Sean P. Barrett, ‘Councils Remembered, Authority Contested: Sermonic Memory at the Council of Basel’.
Simon J. G. Burton, ‘Mysticism and Apocalypticism in Basel Conciliarism’.
William P. Hyland, ‘Conciliarism and Exegesis: Bishop Thomas Livingston (1390–1461)’s Discourses in Defence of the Council of Basel’s Deposition of Pope Eugenius IV’.
Session IVc.
Baiyu Andrew Song, ‘Joseph Kinghorn and Baptist Reception of the Fathers in the Eighteenth Century’.
Nicole Starling, ‘“Not a modern invention”: Patristic Precedent and the Nineteenth-Century Revival of Deaconess Ministry’.
Benjamin Phillips, ‘The 1917 Cardiff Convention and the Formation of the Church in Wales’.
15.00–15.30 Afternoon Tea.
15.30 Ecclesiastical History Society AGM.
17.00–17.45 (optional) Meet the Editors Session.
18.00–19.00 Dinner.
19.00–20.30 Plenary 3.
Chair: Dr Sara Parvis.
Prof. Emma Wild-Wood, ‘Unity, Equality and Inclusion: Ecumenical Councils and Churches in Congo in the Twentieth Century’.
20.30–23.00 Bar Open.
Thursday 17 July
7.30am Holy Communion.
08.00–09.00 Breakfast.
09.00–10.30 Communications V.
Session Va.
Ethan Cathrow, ‘Trent as a Council of Reform: The Martyrological Efforts of Francisco Maurolico’.
Alan Ford, ‘The Irish Confession of Faith of 1615: Life after Death’.
Gemma King, ‘Teaching the Creeds and Confessions: The Development of Catechetical Texts at the Westminster Assembly in the 1640s and Beyond’.
Session Vb.
Angela Berlis, ‘The Appeal to the truly Ecumenical Council as an Ecclesiastical Identity Marker in the Old Catholic Opposition to the First Vatican Council (1869–70)’.
Ivan Broisson, ‘A Christian Thinker between Two Councils: Étienne Gilson (1884–1978)’.
10.30–11.00 Coffee Break.
11.00–12.00 Communications VI.
Session VIa.
Kathleen McCulloch, ‘The Reception of the Constantinopolitan Creed (381) in Non-Chalcedonian Traditions’.
István Pásztori-Kupán, ‘Only One Creed: A Common Platform for Theological Unity or Dissension?’
Session VIb.
Callum Jamieson, ‘“By our common judgment and that of our brother bishops”: The Role of English Church Councils in the Fulfilment of Delegated Papal Justice, c.1130–c.1160’.
Nicholas Ringwood, ‘Incorrigibly Scandalous: Combatting Recidivist Sexual Misbehaviour in Late Medieval English Church Courts’.
Session VIc.
Alison Zilversmit, ‘The Southern Rhodesia Missionary Conference and “Land Hunger” in Colonial Zimbabwe 1920–30’.
Deborah Gaitskell, ‘Christian Reconstruction and Multiracial Citizenship: Ecumenists confronting War and Apartheid in 1940s South Africa’.
12.00–13.00 Lunch.
13.15 Bus to New College.
14.00–15.30 Plenary 4.
Chair: Dr Sara Parvis.
Prof. David Fergusson, ‘Creeds and Confessions in Scotland: Reformed and Ecumenical Perspectives’.
15.30–15.45 Close of Conference.