Join us this Sunday for EMBCA’s "Journey and Reflections on Mount Athos, the Holy Mountain." Webinar Panel Discussion on Sunday, November 20, 2022 at 2 P.M. EST/ 9 P.M. Athens EEST. The panel discussion will be introduced and moderated by Lou Katsos EMBCA’s President who himself recently came back from a trip to Mount Athos. Our distinguished panel will include His Grace Bishop Athenagoras of Nazianzos; Byzantine/ Renaissance/Baroque Art Historian Dr. Emily L. Spratt; Byzantine Scholar Prof. Dr. Johannes Niehoff-Panagiotidis; Law Historian Anastasios Nikopoulos; Law and Ethics Prof. John E. Katsos; and IT Business Prof. Jeffrey Baker. Our panelists will take us on a journey to Mount Athos from different perspectives as they discuss their experiences and reflections of this unique place, from His Grace Bishop Athenagoras of Nazianzos who spent his young adulthood on Mount Athos as a monastic, to Emily L. Spratt on the artistic and cultural legacy of Byzantium, to Dr. Johannes Niehoff-Panagiotidis & Law Historian Anastasios Nikopoulos’s research work recently in the news relating to thousands of Ottoman era manuscripts found there that include the oldest of their kind in the world, to Prof. John Katsos and Prof. Jeffrey Baker’s recent backpacking trip to various monasteries and Sketes on the Holy Mountain.

Mount Athos , an autonomous polity within the Hellenic Republic, is a mountain and peninsula and an important centre of Orthodox monasticism under the direct jurisdiction of the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople. The community includes 20 monasteries and the settlements that depend on them. The monasteries house around 2,000 Eastern Orthodox monks who live an ascetic life and who are from the Hellenic Republic and other Eastern Orthodox countries, including Russia, Romania, Georgia, Serbia, Bulgaria, Moldova and Montenegro, and other nations around the world. The Athonite monasteries house a rich collection of well-preserved religious artifacts, rare books, ancient documents, and artworks of immense historical value. Mount Athos has been listed as a World Heritage Site since 1988.

EMBCA is an organization exempt from Federal Income Tax under Internal Revenue (IRC) Section 501(c)(3), classified as a public charity, and qualifies to receive tax deductible bequests, devises, transfers or gifts under Section 2055, 2106, or 2522 . Donors can deduct contributions they make under IRC Section 170. Thank you all again for your continuing enthusiasm and support of our events !!