It gives us great pleasure to announce that the accomplished Orthodox theologian and philosopher, Nikolaos Asproulis will join Pan Orthodox Concern for Animals as its new Chair. Dr Christina Nellist will remain President and relinquish the Chair, to become its new Treasurer, following the death earlier this year of Father Simon Nellist.
Our Charity began in 2017 not only with the blessing of the then Archbishop Gregorios, but with the blessing, involvement, and patronage of Met. Kallistos of Diokleia. We have achieved a great deal since then – see our 2023 and 2022 reviews on our website panorthodoxconcernforanimals.org, and with this new appointment, we believe the Charity will go from strength to strength. Met. Isaias of Tamasou and Orinis in Cyprus remains our Patron, and Fr John Chryssavgis and Archimandrite Jack Khalil remain our theological advisors.
To give you a brief background, Nikolaos Asproulis is currently Deputy Director (2017- today) of
the Volos Academy for Theological Studies, Volos, Greece, and Lecturer at the Hellenic Open
University, Patras, Greece. He graduated in Theology (University of Athens, 1997). He
obtained MTh (2007) and PhD degrees (2016) in Theology at Hellenic Open University.
Asproulis’ research focuses on the history and development of contemporary Orthodox
theology (20st – 21st century), a field in which he approached several research avenues:
systematic theology, ecclesiology, political theology, spirituality, hermeneutics, and animal
theology. During his doctoral research, he specialized in the study of contemporary Orthodox
theology with a special focus on the neo-patristic movement and its main figures (Florovsky
and Zizioulas). His dissertation was entitled “Creation, History and Eschaton in Contemporary
Orthodox Theological Hermeneutics: From Georges Florovsky to John D. Zizioulas.”
He published articles in peer-reviewed journals like the Review of Ecumenical Studies,
Communio Viatorum, Participatio, et. al., while he serves as reviewer in journals like Critical
Research on Religion (Sage), Open Theology (De Gruyter) and Review of Ecumenical Studies
(De Gruyter).
Asproulis was an academic associate of the official scholarly theological journal of the
Orthodox Church of Greece, Theologia (2009-2016). He is currently an official representative
of the Church of Greece in CEC thematic group on Economic and Ecological Justice (2017-8,
2019-2023), Coordinator of the Network of Ecumenical Learning in Eastern and Central Europe
(Nelcee – http://www.nelcee.org/); WP5 Volos Academy Team member of RESILIENCE
(https://www.resilience-ri.eu/) ; and project manager of the Ecotheological project and
activities of the Volos Academy for Theological Studies
(https://churchgoesgreen.acadimia.org). Furthermore, he is competent in Greek (native),
English (excellent), French (reading, understanding). Despite the demanding work to organize more than 15 international conferences at Volos Academy between 2009 till today, Nikolaos has not ceased publishing since the start of his doctoral trajectory with the resulting list of numerous contributions to international journals and book chapters. Nikolasos has published over 73 articles, written 5 books, edited, or coedited 15 books and translated 7 books. He is expected to publish in 2025, a first systematic contribution to Animal Studies from an Orthodox perspective under the title: Eastern Orthodox Christian Animal Theology: God, Animals and Creation in Dialogue (Lexington Books, forthcoming 2025).
We are sure you will agree that this is an excellent appointment and join us in congratulating
him on his appointment.