Annual academic conference opens at Kyiv Theological Academy and Seminary

Plenary session of the conference. Photo: the KDAiS press service

On March 10, 2026, the assembly hall of the Holosiiv Monastery hosted the opening of the fifteenth annual student conference entitled “Student Scholarship in a Theological School,” the KDAiS press service reports.

The plenary session was opened by the rector of KDAiS, Archbishop Sylvester of Bilohorod. He said that this year’s academic forum was dedicated to the 500th anniversary of the birth of Prince Vasyl-Kostiantyn Ostrožský and the 350th anniversary of the birth of Metropolitan of Kyiv Rafail (Zaborovsky).

Archimandrite Mitrofan (Bozhko) read out a message of greeting from His Beatitude Metropolitan Onuphry to the organizers and participants of the gathering. In his message, the Primate stressed that student scholarship holds particular importance for the future of the Church, since it helps form a new generation of pastors and theologians. He noted that the example of Prince Ostrožský shows that a Christian’s true strength lies in faithfulness to the Gospel and in preserving church unity.

During the plenary session, Archbishop Sylvester delivered a paper on the work of Metropolitan Rafail (Zaborovsky) as one of the Academy’s outstanding benefactors and builders. Other participants discussed Prince Vasyl-Kostiantyn’s church-educational labors, questions of biblical exegesis, and the stages in the formation of a unified Slavic biblical text. Participants also presented a liturgical-theological analysis of the rite of the consecration of chrism in the Kyiv Metropolia of the seventeenth century.

After the conclusion of the general session, the conference continued in eight specialized sections, where participants discussed questions of pastoral ministry, canon law, and the challenges of the modern age. The annual academic gathering of students is a long-standing tradition of the Kyiv Theological Schools.

Earlier, the UOJ wrote that monastic tonsures had been performed at the Kyiv Theological Academy.

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