Book Panel: *Eastern Catholic Theology in Action: Essays in Liturgy, Spirituality and Ecclesiology* (Catholic University of America Press, 2024)

The Eastern Catholic Churches, comprising two dozen communities belonging to different traditions (Armenian, Byzantine, Coptic, Chaldean, Syriac, Syro-Malabar, Syro-Malankara), live on a fault line: between East and West, between Orthodoxy and Catholicism, and between competing understandings of identity. Caught in the cross hairs of centuries-long conflict, and often considered a stumbling block to ecumenical dialogue, they challenge petrified confessional borders and categorizations. Due to a liminal status within global Christianity and ever-increasing visibility through immigration and globalization, however, Eastern Catholic religious traditions provide a unique set of vistas and vantage points. They in turn merit the cultivation of research within a distinct field of the Academy, even as such naturally experiences cross-pollination with units such as Eastern Orthodox Studies, Middle Eastern Christianity or Catholic Studies. Our proposed session aims to explore the interest and possibility of establishing an Eastern Catholic Studies Unit, through a pre-arranged panel on the forthcoming volume, *Eastern Catholic Theology in Action: Essays in Liturgy, Spirituality and Ecclesiology* (Catholic University of America Press, 2024). This book provides a critical introduction to themes in Eastern Catholic history, theology and canon law, on the 60th anniversary of the Vatican II "Decree on the Eastern Churches," *Orientalium ecclesiarum.* The book is the inaugural volume in a new series for Catholic University of America Press: "Eastern Catholic Studies and Texts." The panel will feature volume editor Andrew Summerson (University of St. Michael’s College, Toronto/Lumen Christi Institute, Chicago); series editor and contributor Yury P. Avvakumov (Notre Dame), contributor Khaled Anatolios (Notre Dame) along with respondents Ashley Purpura (Purdue University) and Jaisy Joseph (Villanova University). Among themselves, the panelists represent a spectrum of Eastern Catholic traditions (Ukrainian, Ruthenian, Melkite and Syro-Malabar) as well as Greek Orthodoxy. The goal of the panel will be to discuss the themes of the volume, offer constructive critique, and identify areas for future research. The theology of the Catholic East is categorically underrepresented in contemporary ecclesial reflection and practice. While a cursory look at the priorities of the Catholic Church in its recent world-wide synodal gatherings reveals a modest appreciation for Eastern Christian approaches to global pastoral issues such as synodality, marriage, and liturgical inculturation, Eastern Catholics themselves are more often talked about than included as partners in such discussions. This is due, at least in part, to the lack of published materials articulating their respective theologies. Such a situation is regrettable because Eastern Catholics occupy a privileged ecclesiological space: as heirs to the theological patrimony of the Christian East, these communities are full beneficiaries of what the Second Vatican Council calls “the divinely revealed and undivided heritage of the undivided Church” (*Orientalium Ecclesiarum,* 6). As such, they give witness to phenomena not infrequently marginalized by the Roman/Latin Church, not to mention by Protestantism. Moreover, because of their acknowledgement of the Petrine ministry as expressed in the Papacy, and their communion with both the See of Rome and each other, Eastern Catholics employ a unique set of hermeneutics to critically and honestly address the theological and disciplinary issues that frustrate restoration of full communion between the Catholic Churches and their apostolic brethren, whether from the Assyrian Church of the East, or the disparate families of the Oriental Orthodox or Eastern Orthodox. More than a bridge between East and West, Eastern Catholics can be effective exegetes of the patrimonies in question, effectively interpreting within and across discrete demographics. There is as of yet nothing comparable to the present tome, that is, one that sounds Eastern Catholicism as a whole with both breadth and depth. While there is a burgeoning literature on the historical and geographical origins of various Eastern Catholic communities, this book proposes a rigorous introduction to the intellectual tradition of the Churches. To this end, it has gathered a series of essays featuring an international array of Eastern Catholic theologians. The editors prudently have also invited several leading Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox scholars to provide an outsider’s view on the past, present and future of those formerly known as "Uniates," to wit, those "united" or "uniting" for the sake of a unity without uniformity, a diversity without division. The themes of the book are manifold, but given thematic coherence according to the criteria stipulated in the *Code of Canons for the Eastern Churches* with respect to a Church *sui iuris* ("according to its own law"): liturgy, theology, spirituality, discipline, and culture (cf. Can. 28.1).