Telepneff

Rev Dr Gregory Telepneff: Rev Gregory studied biology at Yale University before switching to history and political science. By his fourth year of studies, he had developed a strong interest for theology and philosophy. Rev Gregory then studied at St Vladimir's Orthodox Theological Seminary in New York, at the St Sophia Ukrainian Orthodox Theological Seminary in New Jersey, and at the New Brunswick Theological School at Rutgers University, earning two masters degrees. He then obtained a PhD at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, where he was a Newhall Fellow. There he taught Ancient Greek philosophy and wrote a dissertation on the "Concept of Personhood and Free Will in Neo-Platonism and Greek Patristic Thought". After ordination to the priesthood, pastoral work became Rev Gregory's primary calling though he remained involved in academic pursuits. After several years in academic administration, he combined this work with adjunct teaching in Christian Origins, Philosophy and Ethics, Biomedical Ethics, Patristics, and Comparative Religion. Rev Gregory also spent a year as a visiting scholar at Harvard University studying the relationship between Syrian Christian hesychasm and Early Islamic (Sufi) mysticism. Rev Gregory has published about a dozen papers in scholarly journals, written and/or co-translated a few books, and has been an invited speaker on several occasions, with topics including Patristic Thought and Bioethics as well as Orthodoxy and Science in a more expansive sense.
Interview in English by Miriam Asliturk-Rabkin