Under the auspices of the Embassy of the Hellenic Republic in Slovakia and the Dean of the Faculty of Arts at UKF Nitra, the international scientific conference ´Parallels between ethical values in Byzantium and current European value context´ was held on October 7th and 8th, 2019. It was organized by the Department of Philosophy, Department of General and Applied Ethics and the Institute for the Research of Constantine and Methodius’ Cultural Heritage at the Faculty of Arts at UKF Nitra together with Aristotle University in Thessaloniki, the Patriarchal Foundation for Patristic Studies in Thessaloniki, the Hellenic Institute for Byzantine and Post-Byzantine Studies in Venice, the Centre of Aristotle Studies and Research of the Ancient Stagira, the Historical and Folklore Organization of Halkidiki, the Slovak Philosophical Association at the Slovak Academy of Sciences in Bratislava.

The conference was held as part of the research project ´Study of the Byzantine value system and its reflection in the Slavic cultural environment´ (No. APVV-16-0116).

The highlights of the conference included ethical and cultural values in Byzantium, bringing Byzantine values to Slavic countries, contemporary European values, comparisons of Byzantine values with contemporary values, Byzantine-Slavic relations, Old Slavonic and Church Slavonic literature as part of the European cultural heritage, the issue of an ethically neutral state and tolerance, and the crisis of Christianity in an intercultural context.

The conference was opened by Prof. Ján Zozuľák. He welcomed professors and associate professors from Greece, Spain, Slovenia, Austria, Poland, Russia, Ukraine, the Czech Republic and Slovakia. The Vice-Rector for International Relations, Martina Pavlíková, welcomed the participants on behalf of the Constantine the Philosopher University (UKF) in Nitra. She stressed the importance of the conference for further international scientific cooperation.

In her speech, the Dean of the Faculty of Arts at UKF, Assoc. Prof. Jarmila Maximová, stressed the timeliness of the conference topic. Then, the Charge d'Affaires, the Deputy Head of Mission at the Embassy of the Hellenic Republic to the Slovak Republic, Mr Nikolaos Fouyas, highlighted the long-term cooperation between Aristotle University in Thessaloniki and UKF in Nitra and appreciated the activities of Prof. Zozuľák which support scientific cooperation with Greek universities and promotion of Greek culture and language in Slovakia.

During the 2 days of the conference, 37 lecturers delivered their speeches, and two monographs – closely related to the topic of the conference – were introduced. The author of Pseudo-Dionizy and Grzegorz Palamas. Bizantyjska synteza wschodniej patrystyki (published in Warszawa, 2018) is Agnieszka Świtkiewicz-Blandzi, a co-worker at the Polish Academy of Sciences. ´Letters of Nectarios, Patriarch of Jerusalem, 1650 – 1672´ (published in Thessaloniki, 2019) were written by Anna Karamanidou from Aristotle University in Thessaloniki, Greece.

Text and photo: prof. ThDr. Ján Zozuľak, PhD., Department of Philosophy, Faculty of Arts