Resources from Living Stones
A Living Stone – Selected Essays and Addresses of Michael Prior CM
Please email the editor for details on acquiring this book for £20 plus postage, and other titles, including printed copies of the annual Living Stones Yearbook.
“The Bible, in its land tradition, is part of the problem, but the Bible also, in its Gospel message, is part of the solution—provided that people such as Macpherson and ourselves, take up Michael Prior’s challenge.” Professor Gregory Heille OP.
“…a very challenging and necessary book. Duncan Macpherson deserves enormous praise and credit for the way he has painstakingly edited this book, bringing together a lifetime of work by Michael Prior. It is indeed a lasting memory to Michaela and should be a constant challenge to all biblical scholars and students.” Martin O’Kane.
A Review by Professor Mary Grey
“Duncan Macpherson’s biographical introduction charts the fascinating evolution of this Cork-born, humorous Scripture scholar, lover of story and song alike, from academic to Palestinian activist and advocate. Not that Michael ever lacked causes: I remember him – in the early eighties–bringing the entire gypsy community from Ealing into the splendid drawing room of St Mary’s College to plead their cause. But the book takes off when he begins to argue the Palestinian case and engage in a Biblical critique. The first section on ‘New Testament Scholar’ is interesting more with hindsight, when we realise what he would make of his biblical scholarship. For example, ‘Perspectives on Luke’ (1976) would be developed into his ‘Jesus the Liberator’ (1995) when he interprets Luke as challenging us to subvert all oppressive patterns in society, a perspective also discussed in ‘Jesus and the Evangelization of the Poor’. Prior is humble as to the length of time needed for him to experience a conversion as to what the real situation of Israel-Palestine meant in terms of injustice. (I sympathise with this, as my own moment of conversion was not until 1997, when I was asked to write a document for the theology commission of the International Council of Christians and Jews on their justice policy, but not allowed to mention Palestine!).”
Read the full review here
Books by, or about, Michael Prior
KENNETH CRAGG:
CHRISTIAN SPIRITUALITY
AND MUSLIM MYSTICISM
An Encounter of Souls
DAVID DERRICK
The Revd Dr Richard Sudworth OBE
Secretary for Inter Religious Affairs to the Archbishop of Canterbury and National Inter Religious Affairs Adviser for the Church
of England, author of Encountering Islam Christian-Muslim Relations in the Public Square (2017).
‘Kenneth Cragg was among the most sensitive and influential Christian interpreters of Islam in the twentieth century. By “sifting” (to use a favourite Craggian metaphor) the passages on Sufism from Cragg’s prolific writings on Islam, comparing Cragg’s approach to that of the Catholic Islamicist Louis Massignon, and highlighting UN Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld’s status as Cragg’s spiritual exemplar, David Derrick has brought out the hitherto neglected note of mysticism in Cragg’s thought. In so doing, he has demonstrated the theological value of biography and produced a work that will be of interest to anyone interested in the modern Christian-Muslim encounter.’
Dr Fitzroy Morrissey, Associate Professor of Islamic Studies and Law, University of Oxford,
author of A Short History of Islamic Thought (2021), Sufism and the Scriptures (2021), Sufism and the Perfect Human (2020).
‘Kenneth Cragg was one of the most influential Christian scholars of Islam and Christian-Muslim relations In the twentieth century. In this volume, Derrick
offers new insights into the theological foundations of Cragg’s extensive writings, with a previously understudied focus on Cragg’s use of wide-ranging sources to
consider how different approaches to mystical traditions within Christianity and Islam, and particularly in Sufism, contribute to Christian-Muslim theological
encounter. This work is an invaluable and original contribution to an understanding of Cragg’s contribution to Christian-Muslim relations and positions him in
a much broader theological landscape than the “evangelical prism” in which he was sometimes been placed.’
Revd Dr Andrew Ashdown, author of Christian-Muslim Relation in Syria: Historic and Contemporary Religious Dynamics in a Changing Context (2020) and Coordinator for Africa for the Methodist Church in Britain.
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Specifications
138 × 216mm, 364 pages, paperback
ISBN 978 1 9168979 6 0 Published November 2024 Price £20.00 plus postage and packing
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FELLOW SEEKERS OF THE TRUTH
BENEDICT XVI’S ECCLESIOLOGY
OF INTERRELIGIOUS DIALOGUE
Rocco Viviano
Benedict XVI exemplifies the fruitful synergy of theological thinking, Church Tradition and magisterium, and the true challenges of the contemporary context. By pointing to deep, theological, and ecclesiological foundations of interreligious dialogue, Benedict XVI confirmed it authoritatively as a legitimate, necessary, and integral aspect of the Church’s identity and mission. Without such grounding, interreligious dialogue is destined to remain, de facto for most Catholics, ultimately dispensable. This will not change unless interreligious dialogue is firmly rooted in the faith and the identity of the Church. Benedict XVI provided such grounding.
Rocco Viviano, a missionary priest of the Society of St Francis Xavier for Foreign Missions (also known as Xaverian Missionaries), has dedicated over twenty-five years to interreligious dialogue ministry and study. He gained his master’s degree and a doctorate (2013) from the University of London. He has worked the Philippines for many years and has been stationed in Japan since 2014. Currently, he serves as the Interreligious Dialogue Coordinator for the Xaverian Missionaries in Japan, chairs the Catholic Archdiocese of Osaka-Takamatsu Commission for Interreligious Dialogue, directs the Xaverian Missionaries Asia Study Centre (CSA), and is a Research Associate at the Nanzan Institute for Religion and Culture at the Nanzan University.
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Specifications
138 × 216mm, viii + 425 pages, paperback
ISBN 978 1 9168979 7 7
Published November 2024
Price £20.00 plus postage and packing
Living Stones of the Holy Land Trust
(registered charity no. 1081204)
Registered Address:
c/o 114 Mount Street,
London W1K 3AH www.livingstones.ngo
THEARMENIAN CHURCH
STUDIES IN MODERN HISTORY,
THEOLOGY AND ECCLESIOLOGY
Vrej Nersessian
The Revd Dr Nerses (Vrej) Nersessian was born in Tehran in 1948. He was educated at the Armenian College in Calcutta, the Gevorgian Theological academy in Holy Etchmiadzin (Armenia), and King’s College, University of London. He has a degree in theology and a doctorate in Armenian Church history. In 1975 he joined the British Library as curator responsible for the manuscripts and printed books of the Eastern Christian cultures and traditions of West Asia, a post which he held until his
retirement in August 2011.
He was ordained a priest in 1983, elevated to archpriest in 1991 by Vazgen I Catholicos of all Armenians of Blessed Memory, and in October of 2022 he was awarded the distinguished medal of Saint Nerses Shnorhali by His Holiness Garegin II, Catholicos of all Armenians, for his distinguished career as a scholar, his curatorship of Eastern Christian collection at the British Library and devoted services to the Armenian Church.
This volume of collected papers by Vrej Nersessian, a leading scholar of the Armenian Church, offers a significant contribution to its modern history, ecclesiology and theology. These studies provide an overview of the distinct Armenian Church’s perspective on Christology, on the question of ecumenism and on the continuing significance of the ‘mystic’ and poet of the Armenian Christian tradition, Grigor Narekatsi (Gregory of Narek). Dr Nersessian outlines in detail the complex context for Armenian Church relations with the Tsarist Empire, church-state relations in Soviet Armenia and the impact of the Genocide upon the Church. The author describes further the rich and multi-layered thought of Armenian theologians in New Julfa in the Safavid Empire and Mik’ayel Ch’amch’ian’s Shield of Faith. The contributions brought together in this collection bear testament to Nersessian’s scholarly endeavour and his abiding commitment to promoting a deeper understanding of the Armenian Church in history and for today.
Contents
Preface by Robin Gibbons
Foreword
Selected Bibliography of works of Vrej Nersessian
The Legacy of Ecumenism in the Armenian Orthodox Church
Grigor Narekatsi, Mystic and Poet: the soul’s search for immediacy with God.
Christology of the Armenian Church
The impact of the Genocide of 1915 on the Armenian Orthodox Apostolic Church
Church-State relations in the Soviet Republic of Armenia during the Catholicate of Gevorg VI Ch’orekch’ian
(1945–1954) and his successor, Vazgen I Palchian (1955–1994).
The Armenian Church under the Sceptre of the Tsars, 1828–1905.
The Impact of the New Julfa-‘New Geneva’ School of Theologians against the Crisis of Proselytisation and
Apostasy in Safavid Iran
The juridicization of doctrine at the expense of theological scholarship. The case of Mik’ayel Ch’amch’ian’s
Shield of Faith.
To obtain your copy, please email: admin@livingstones.ngo
Specifications
138 × 216mm, 425 pages, paperback
ISBN 978 1 9168979 8 4
Published February 2025
Price £20.00 plus postage and packing
Living Stones of the Holy Land Trust
(registered charity no. 1081204)
Registered Address:
c/o 114 Mount Street,
London W1K 3AH www.livingstones.ngo