Reverend Professor John Behr FBA

Early Christian theology, especially scriptural interpretation, Christology, and anthropology, together with the intersection of issues arising from this field with contemporary hermeneutics and phenomenology; modern Eastern Orthodox theology
Headshot of Reverend Professor John Behr FBA
Fellow type
UK Fellow
Year elected
2025

Summary

John Behr is, since 2020, the Regius Chair of Humanity at the University of Aberdeen, having previously taught at St Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary, New York (1995–2020), where he was ordained as a priest of the Orthodox Church in America and served as Dean for a decade; he is also a part-time Professor of Orthodox Theology at Radboud University, Nijmegen, Holland.

He read Philosophy at Thames Polytechnic (now the University of Greenwich), then Eastern Christian Studies at the University of Oxford with Kallistos (Ware) who also supervised his doctoral research.

He served as the editor for the Popular Patristics Series for St Vladimir’s Seminary Press and is now an editor for Oxford Early Christian Studies and Oxford Early Christian Texts.

He works in early Christian theology, preparing editions and translations of early Christian texts (including, so far, Origen, Athanasius, Gregory of Nyssa, and the fragments of Diodore of Tarsus and Theodore of Mopsuestia) and exploring questions of scriptural interpretation, anthropology and Christology, as well as the intersection of these themes with contemporary hermeneutics and phenomenology.

He currently serves as a priest of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of Thyateira and Great Britain.

Current post

University of Aberdeen Regius Chair of Humanity

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