2024 Keynote & Plenary Speakers
Keynote Speaker
The Right Reverend Gerasim, Bishop of Fort Worth
Auxiliary to the Diocese of the South (OCA)
Keynote Speaker
The Right Reverend Gerasim, Bishop of Fort Worth
Auxiliary to the Diocese of the South
Bishop Gerasim was born in 1961, in Torrance, California. He graduated from University High School in Irvine in 1979. He studied at both UC Irvine and UC Santa Cruz, focusing on Spanish literature. He speaks fluent English, Spanish and Russian.
He entered the St Herman of Alaska Monastery in 1981, was tonsured a monk in 1992, ordained to the priesthood in 1995, and elevated as Abbot of the monastery in 2000. He served as Abbot until August 2009.
In 2012 he graduated from St Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary magna cum laude with a Master of Divinity degree. He was the class valedictorian and also received commendations for contribution to community life and for his thesis, Russian Icons in a Native Church: Conflict in Culture in Western Alaska.
In 2013 Archbishop Benjamin elevated him as Archimandrite. Later that year he was assigned to Saint Seraphim Cathedral in Dallas, Texas, where he serves as cathedral dean. On May 18, 2021, the Holy Synod of Bishops of the Orthodox Church in America elected Archimandrite Gerasim as Bishop of Fort Worth, Auxiliary to His Eminence Archbishop Alexander and the Diocese of the South. He was consecrated to the episcopacy on Tuesday, June 29, 2021, at Saint Seraphim Cathedral in Dallas, Texas.
To read His Grace Bishop GERASIM’s extended biography with details of his journey to Orthodoxy and monastic life please visit, https://www.oca.org/holy-synod/bishops/the-right-reverend-gerasim
Medical Plenary Speaker
Rev. Dn. Sampson (Ryan) Nash, MD, MA
The Hagop S. Mekhjian, MD, Endowed Chair in Medical Ethics and Professionalism & Director of The Ohio State University Center for Bioethics and Medical Humanities
Medical Plenary Speaker
Rev. Dn. Sampson (Ryan) Nash, MD, MA
The Hagop S. Mekhjian, MD, Endowed Chair in Medical Ethics and Professionalism & Director of The Ohio State University Center for Bioethics and Medical Humanities
The Rev. Dn. Sampson (Ryan) Nash, MD, MA is the Hagop S. Mekhjian, MD, Endowed Chair in Medical Ethics and Professionalism and the Director of The Ohio State University Center for Bioethics and Medical Humanities. He also holds appointments as adjunct Professor of Christian Ethics at St. Tikhon’s Orthodox Theological Seminary and Professor of Medicine at St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary. In addition to being an active educator, administrator, and serving as a healthcare ethics and clinical bioethics advisor and consultant, Dr Nash continues to be active in Palliative Medicine caring for patients primarily with advanced cancer. Dr Nash’s scholarship focuses on practical, procedural, and policy issues related to Medicine, Clinical Bioethics and Palliative Medicine. He also explores ethics foundations at the nexus of medicine, ethics, theology, religion, and culture. Dn Sampson serves at St. Gregory of Nyssa Orthodox Church (OCA) in Columbus, Ohio. He is the grateful husband of Sarah and proud father of four daughters. He occasionally helps them run their small farm north of Columbus.
Dr. Nash received his medical degree from the University of Texas Medical School at Houston and his master’s degree in Bioethics from Trinity International University. He completed an internal medicine residency at the University of Texas Medical School, a fellowship in palliative medicine at the University of Alabama School of Medicine and was a fellow and visiting scholar at the MacLean Center for Clinical Medical Ethics at the University of Chicago’s Pritzker School of Medicine. Dr. Nash has been recognized as a Fellow of the American College of Physicians, Fellow of the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Care, and Fellow in the Academy of Fellows of the Center of Bioethics and Human Dignity. He has repeatedly been named to the “America’s Best Doctors” and “World’s Best Doctors” lists.
Theology Plenary Speaker
Rev. Fr. Calinic Berger, PhD
Parish Priest and Adjunct Professor of Dogmatic Theology at Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology
Theology Plenary Speaker
Rev. Fr. Calinic Berger, PhD
Parish Priest and Adjunct Professor of Dogmatic Theology at Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology
Fr Calinic Berger is the Associate Pastor of St George Antiochian Orthodox Christian Cathedral in Wichita, Kansas, and Adjunct Professor of Dogmatic Theology at Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology in Brookline, Massachusetts. He has also served as visiting professor of dogmatic theology at St Vladimir’s Seminary in New York. His teaching, research and academic publications have concentrated on Chalcedonian Christology and contemporary Orthodox dogmatic theology, most especially that of Fr. Dumitru Stăniloae. He is a graduate of Santa Clara University (1988), Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology (1994) and the Catholic University of America, where he obtained his Ph.D. in historical theology (2003). Prior to his ordination to the priesthood in 2006, he worked as an electrical engineer.
Psychology Plenary Speaker
Pia Chaudhari, PhD
Founding Co-Chair of the Analytical Psychology and Orthodox Christianity Consultation
Psychology Plenary Speaker
Pia Chaudhari, PhD
Founding Co-Chair of the Analytical Psychology and Orthodox Christianity Consultation
Dr. Pia Sophia Chaudhari holds a doctorate in theology from the department of Psychiatry & Religion at Union Theological Seminary in New York. She is the author of Dynamis of Healing; Patristic Theology and the Psyche (Fordham University Press 2019), as well as numerous articles, including on marriage and theosis, the unconscious and prayer, and healing and the Theotokos. Her research interests include theological anthropology, depth psychology, processes of healing, the feminine, aesthetics and beauty. She spent two years working as a chaplain intern in a psychiatric hospital, and has trained and worked extensively in Jungian psychoanalysis. She is a founding co-chair of the Analytical Psychology and Orthodox Christianity Consultation (APOCC) which was started in order to promote dialogue across the fields of Orthodox theology/pastoral care and analytical psychology after Carl Jung, and which has hosted several gatherings as well as having presented at OCAMPR in the past. Dr. Chaudhari served as a Steering Committee member of the Assembly of Bishops Mental Health Task Force.
