July 3, 2025
Join us August 30th from 5:00pm to 9:00pm for our first of three symposiums in our Mysterium Encounter ! A ticket for the first installment is $25 and is free for clergy and religious. The event will include dinner, themed cocktails, talks given by three panelists, as well as a tinfoil hat competition! Our speakers include: Keynote Speaker, Dr. Paul Thigpen, PHD Paul Thigpen, PhD, is an internationally known speaker, award-winning journalist, and best-selling author of sixty books, including the Manual for Spiritual Warfare , The Life of Saint Joseph as Seen by the Mystics , and Extraterrestrial Intelligence and the Catholic Faith: Are We Alone in the Universe With God and the Angels? In addition, he has published more than five hundred journal and magazine articles in more than forty religious and secular periodicals. His work has been circulated worldwide and translated into sixteen languages. Paul graduated summa cum laude from Yale with a BA in Religious Studies. Awarded the Woodruff, Javitz, and Salvatori Fellowships for graduate study, he earned an MA and PhD in historical theology from Emory University. He was appointed to a term on the National Advisory Council of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and has served the Church as a theologian, historian, apologist, evangelist, catechist, and musician. Thomist, Scientific Respondent: Fr. Thomas Davenport, OP, PhD Fr. Thomas Davenport, O.P. is an American Dominican, physicist, and philosopher. Before joining the Dominican Order, he studied physics at the California Institute of Technology before going on to earn his doctorate in physics from Stanford University studying theoretical particle physics. The focus of his scientific research was writing and testing simulations for high energy particle colliders like the LHC at CERN. After joining the Dominicans in 2010, he studied philosophy and theology in preparation for his ordination to the priesthood in 2017. In addition, he earned a Licentiate in Philosophy from the Catholic University of America, focusing on the philosophy of science and natural philosophy. In 2020 he joined the faculty of philosophy at the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas in Rome, where he teaches philosophy of nature and epistemology – while working on his second PhD – this time in philosophy. He is a frequent speaker on topics related to the intersection of faith and science and a contributor to a number of projects in this area including, the Thomistic Evolution project, the Aquinas 101 – Faith and Science series, and the annual Thomistic Philosophy and Natural Science Symposium hosted by the Thomistic Institute in Washington, DC. In addition, he serves on the Board of Directors of the Society of Catholic Scientists. Eastern Christian respondent: Dr. Tikhon A. Pino, PhD A Cuban-American born and raised in northern New Jersey, Dr Pino holds a BA in Greek and Latin (Classics) from the Catholic University of America (2005), an MTS from Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology (2013), and a PhD from Marquette University (2021). He is the author of Essence and Energies: Being and Naming God in St. Gregory Palamas, published by Routledge in 2022, and translator of Against All Heresies by St Symeon of Thessalonica. He has published widely on the Greek theological tradition, including articles on hylomorphic theory in Aristotle and Plotinus, the doctrine of God in Philo of Alexandria, the Trinitarian theology of Basil of Ancyra and St Maximos the Confessor, and the anthropology of St Mark of Ephesos and Thomas Aquinas. He is especially interested in the intersection of metaphysics and mysticism in the Greek patristic tradition as well as the interaction between Byzantine and Scholastic Theology. An instructor of Liturgical Greek and other courses at Holy Cross, Dr Pino's work has appeared in the Journal of Theological Studies, the Journal of Early Christian Studies, the Heythrop Journal, Analogia, Franciscan Studies, Dionysius, Byzantinisches Archiv - Series Philosophica (De Gruyter), and the Greek Orthodox Theological Review. He served as Assistant Director of the Pappas Patristic Institute since 2021 and was appointed Director in 2024. Spots are limited, so register here today!
