Between 2-7 April 2013, a group of undergraduate and graduate students from the Theological Schools of the University of Liverpool Hope (UK) and Katholike Universiteit Leuven (Belgium), headed by professors Reimund Bieringer, Dominika Kurek-Chomycz, and Malou Ibita visited Northern Greece on an educational trip, which focused on the Apostle Paul’s ministry in Macedonia. The students visited the cities of Philippi, Thessaloniki, and Veria, in which the Apostle Paul established churches in the middle of the first century AD. They also visited the archaeological sites of Dion and Vergina.
    At the end of their journey on 6 and 7 April, the students, accompanied by a group of undergraduate and graduate students from the Theological School of Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and Lecturer Aikaterini Tsalampouni, traveled to Volos to attend the Volos Academy for Theological Studies’ conference on Nikos Nissiotis. The next day, the group attended Divine Liturgy at the Holy Church of the Ascension and was then received then by Metropolitan Ignatius of Demetrias and the Director of the Academy, Dr. Pantelis Kalaitzidis, at the Academy, where they had the opportunity to learn about the work of the Metropolis of Demetrias and the Volos Academy.
    The students (who, apart from Greece, hailed from countries such as China, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Australia, the USA, Nigeria, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Poland, Romania, the Netherlands, and Belgium) had a frank and productive discussion with the Metropolitan Ignatius and Dr. Kalaitzidis on issues such as the Church’s witness to the modern world, Orthodox spirituality, the place of the Bible (and particularly the letters of St. Paul) in the life of the Orthodox, the Church’s stance toward the economic crisis, relations between Church and state, religious freedom and pluralism, the role of women in the Orthodox Church, and much more.