The Père Paul Symposium (2025)
An in-Person and Online Event
Sponsored by
The Hidden Pearl Institute,
The Hidden Pearl Press,
and The Institute for the Study of Eastern Christianity
✓ 2:00 PM–7:30 PM, Friday, September 19, 2025
✓ Caldwell Auditorioum
Caldwell Hall
The Catholic University of America
✓ The Père Paul Lecture (5:00 pm–6:15 pm)
✓ Scholarship Award (6:15 pm–6:30 pm)
✓ Light Dinner (6:30 pm–7:30 pm)
✓ Live Streamed on Facebook
The Père Paul Lecture
Presented by
Jack Tannous
Chair, Committee for the Study of Late Antiquity;
Director, Program in Hellenic Studies
Associate Professor of History and Hellenic Studies
I am interested in the cultural history of the eastern Mediterranean, especially the Middle East, in the Late Antique and early medieval period. My research focuses on the Syriac-speaking Christian communities of the Near East in this period, but I am interested in a number of other, related areas, including Eastern Christian Studies more broadly, Patristics/early Christian studies, Greco-Syriac and Greco-Arabic translation, Christian-Muslim interactions, sectarianism and identity, early Islamic history, the history of the Arabic Bible, and the Quran. I am also interested in manuscripts and the editing of Syriac and Arabic (especially Christian Arabic) texts.
I am working on a book about the history of Syriac in the late antique and early medieval period. I have edited and translated the Syriac letters of George, Bishop of the Arab Tribes (d. 724) as well as the Karshuni life of Theodota of Amid (d. 698) and hope to eventually publish these.
This lecture will survey the enormous destruction and loss that Syriac literature has experienced over the past 1800 years and argue that the history of Syriac literature can be seen as a proxy for the history of the archives and collectors that have preserved the portion of it that has survived. Understanding what has been lost from Syriac literature will not only help us understand better what remains but also give us a better grasp of the history of the communities that have transmitted the Syriac heritage to the present.
Jack Tannous
The Père Paul Symposium
Guest Speakers
Elizabeth Anderson
Ph.D. Candidate
The Catholic University of America
Envisioning the Manichaean Elect Against the Backdrop of Early Syriac Asceticism
2:00 pm–2:35 pm
Alex Lopez
Ph.D. Candidate
The Catholic University of America
“The Poets also Construct Fables”:
Conceptions of Poetry in Ephrem
2:40 pm–3:15 pm
Andrew Litke
Research Fellow
The Catholic University of America
Redeeming a Flawed Hero
in Narsai’s “On Samson”
3:20 pm–4:00 pm
Leb Weitz
Associate Professor of History
The Catholic University of America
Christian Sharia:
Ibn al-Tayyib on East Syrian Law
4:05 pm–4:40 pm
2025 Scholarship Award
Emy Merin Joy
PhD Candidate and Researcher
Department of Historical Studies
Central European University (Vienna, Austria)
Awarded $5,000
Dissertation: The Paravur Dialogues: Introducing the First Inter-religious Dialogues from Early Modern Kerala
Ms. Joy’s research focuses on the historical, theological, and socio-cultural dimensions of Christian manuscripts written in Garshuni Malayalam and Syriac from early modern Kerala, examining their role in shaping religious identity, authority, and cross-cultural interactions among Jews, Christians, Muslims, and Hindus. She is particularly interested in inter-religious dialogues, Jesuit missionary activities in South Asia, and the transmission of anti-Jewish polemics and European intellectual traditions to India. Her work engages with vernacular church histories, translation studies, and the impact of Catholicism on Syriac Christian communities in the Indian context.