And I mention all this (I hope) not to say hey-look-at-me-I-got-to-travel, but to remind everyone how absolutely warping North American & British theological conversations can be. We really aren’t the center, and we certainly aren’t the answer, and that’s easy to forget.

And while we American academics might boast about writing books, I met the woman (Antonia Moropoulou) who saved both Hagia Sophia & the Holy Sepulchre (she supervised the restoration, a heroic act of diplomacy). “We were protecting the tomb, but the tomb protected us,” she said.

The irony of this island conference was that it exposed the raw insularity of the conversations I’m used to. I met a serious lay Dominicans who can’t bear American Catholics who troll for converts. I met Armenian Orthodox Christians for whom Miaphysite theology is a living faith.