The Rumi Forum presented “In Search of a Sacred Landscape: St. Paul and the Religious History of Asia Minor” with Father Francis V. Tiso Associate Director, Secretariat for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs, US Conference of Catholic Bishops.
Pope Benedict XVI has announced the celebration of the two thousandth anniversary of the birth of St. Paul the Apostle, from June 28 2008 to June 29 2009. St. Paul was a Jew from Tarsus in Cilicia (Acts 21: 39) who studied in Jerusalem under the great Jewish legal scholar Gamaliel. Encountering the Risen Christ in a vision on the road to Damascus (Acts chapter 9), Paul became a baptized Christian and preached in what was then called Asia Minor at Antioch of Seleucia, Iconium, Lystra, Derbe, Antioch of Pisidia, Ephesus, Attalia, Pergamum, Troas, as well as on the European side of the Bosphorus. The anniversary celebration offers us an opportunity to reflect on the complex religious history of Asia Minor, including Hellenistic, archaic, and Persian (in the Qur’an, the Magians) aspects. In my imaginary pilgrimage, I would like to focus on the continuities that I find between St. Paul and his Christian successors in Asia Minor, who had a decisive impact on the future development of Christianity- far more decisive than that of the so-called “gnostic gospels”. Among these figures we have St. Policarp, St. Ignatius of Antioch, and St. Abercius of Phrygia. If we have time, I would like to revisit the medical saints of Asia Minor, Ss. Cosmas and Damian (called the *Anargyroi* because they gave medical care free of charge), and the legend of the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus, which appears in the Qur’an in Surah 18 (The Cave). Under the Byzantine Empire, Asia Minor was a center of intellectual ferment giving rise to the great ecumenical councils such as Nicea (325), Chalcedon (451), and Ephesus (439) that shaped the formulation of the Christian creed that is an enduring part of the intellectual history of Western civilization. Our pilgrimage of the imagination then takes us to the era of Byzantine mysticism, concluding with its tantalizing encounter with the great figure of the poet Rumi of Konya (Biblical Iconium).
Father Francis V. Tiso is Associate Director of the Secretariat for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, where he serves as liaison to Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, the Sikhs, and Traditional religions as well as the Reformed confessions.
Before coming to the USCCB, Father Tiso was assigned to the Archdiocese of San Francisco where he served as Parochial Vicar of St. Thomas More Church and Chaplain at San Francisco State University and the University of California Medical School. He was also Visiting Professor in the archdiocesan School of Pastoral Leadership, where he taught courses in Foundational Theology. He was also Parochial Vicar in Eureka, CA and in Mill Valley, CA.
A New York native, Father Tiso holds the A.B. in Medieval Studies from Cornell University. He earned a Master of Divinity degree (cum laude) at Harvard University and holds a doctorate from Columbia University and Union Theological Seminary where his specialization was Buddhist studies. He translated several early biographies of the Tibetan yogi and poet, Milarepa, for his dissertation on sanctity in Indo-Tibetan Buddhism. He has led research expeditions in South Asia, Tibet and the Far East, and his teaching interests include Christian theology, history of religions, spirituality, ecumenism and interreligious dialogue.
Father Tiso is a priest of the Diocese of Isernia-Venafro, Italy, where he holds a Canonry in the Cathedral. He was Diocesan Delegate for Ecumenical and Inter-religious Affairs from 1990 to 1998 and rector of the Istituto Diocesano delle Scienze Religiose. He was also chaplain of the well-known Hermitage of Saints Cosmas and Damian at Isernia.
In 1995 Father Tiso was invited to accompany Cardinal Francis Arinze, then head of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, to a dialogue with Buddhist leaders in Taiwan. He has traveled extensively in India, Nepal, Tibet, Thailand, Japan, and Bangladesh. Father Tiso has written and lectured widely. He is the recipient of grants from the American Academy of Religion, the American Philosophical Society, the Palmers Fund in Switzerland, and the Institute of Noetic Sciences in Petaluma, CA. He is a musician and paints in acrylics and watercolors.