AHOS 2026 OAS Summer Symposium — Opening Remarks | V. Rev. Fr. Michel Najim

Opening Remarks by V. Rev. Fr. Michel Najim, President of the Antiochian House of Studies, at the Ninth Summer Symposium of the Orthodox Academic Society. Theme: "Faith and Reason in the Patristic Mind — From Creed to Controversy: The Fathers' Intellectual Defense Against Heresies" Saturday, 30 May 2026 · Via Zoom In this opening address, Fr. Michel Najim lays the intellectual foundation for the symposium, recalling the patristic teaching that every person possesses both a rational and a noetic faculty — the nous, the "eye of the soul." The Fathers, he stresses, never rejected reason; rather, they taught that reason must be illumined and guided by the purified nous. Drawing on a rich gallery of witnesses — St. Basil the Great, Justin Martyr, St. Justinian, St. John of Damascus, and St. Photios the Great — Fr. Najim shows how the Fathers refuted heresy through reasoning and apologetics, logic and philosophy, law, and scientific inquiry, employing both the noetic and the logical faculties to teach the truth and confront error. — — — 📖 Read the full symposium report: https://ahos.edu/orthodox-academic-so... 🌐 OAS Website OAS.AHOS.edu 🌐 Antiochian House of Studies AHOS.edu #OrthodoxChristianity #AntiochianHouseofStudies #PatristicTheology #ChurchFathers #FaithAndReason #OrthodoxTheology