We live in the New Testament Church, but the roots of what we have today come from the so-called Old Testament Church, which was founded after the exodus from Egypt when the people of Israel came to Mount Sinai and God made His covenant with them. For over a year the world has been witnessing the most vicious round to date of the long Israeli–Palestine conflict. What should we as Orthodox Christians think about this? The world is troubled by the terrible plight of the people of Gaza, the West Bank, and now Lebanon. But if “God blesses those who bless Israel,” as many Evangelical Christians claim, then isn’t it only right to support the state of Israel? In this talk we will look at what Israel is in the Bible, what the Old Testament promise of the land means today, and most importantly, how the Church is really the true Israel of God.
Father Peter studied at The University of Adelaide and the Presbyterian Theological College of Victoria. In 1991 he commenced post-graduate studies at The University of Melbourne, undertaking advanced studies in Hebrew and Syriac with the eminent philologist and lexicographer, Takamitsu Muraoka. He went on to complete a research degree (part-time) with a thesis on the Commentary on Habakkuk by the medieval Syriac commentator Dionysius Bar Salibi, and then a PhD (also part-time) on St Luke 1–11 in the Syriac Ḥarklean version of the Seventh Century; producing the first modern critical edition of any part of the Ḥarklean Gospels.
In 1998 they and their family were received into the Orthodox Church. Having worked as a Presbyterian minister from 1985 to 1998, Father then had several jobs before becoming a Lecturer in Learning and Teaching at UniSA in 2006. In 2009, he was awarded an Australian Endeavour Award and was Visiting Professor in Learning and Teaching at the American University of Beirut. After a period of consultancy work in 2011–13, he was appointed to a fractional position as Senior Lecturer in the Scholarship of Learning and Teaching at Central Queensland University until June 2017.
Ordained deacon in 1999, and priest in 2000, Father Peter first served at the Exaltation of the Holy Cross Church, Hobart. On moving back to SA, he was appointed assistant priest in late 2004 at St Nicholas Church, Wayville, where he served until 2010. At the end of 2010, he became rector of St Patrick Orthodox Mission, currently based in the Adelaide suburb of Kilburn.
He has published a number of articles in peer-reviewed journals and volumes, and presented at numerous Australian and international conferences, in the fields of the textual criticism of the NT and the Syriac versions, Church History, and Learning and Teaching. He also edited and published a book of Orthodox prayers, Lift Up Your Heart. He has had considerable experience in field-based manuscript studies, mostly in Syria, Lebanon and Turkey, and is a Fellow of the Royal Asiatic Society and a member of the Society of Biblical Literature. In 2017, with the blessing of His Eminence Metropolitan Hilarion, First Hierarch of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia, he was appointed the inaugural Institute Director. In November 2019, he was elevated to ‘Archpriest’, for service to the Church.
