New associate researcher Alexander Zanemonets

Dr. Alexander Zanemonets will join IVOC as an associate researcher.

Zanemonets, born in 1976, is a Byzantinologist. He received his master's degree from Moscow State University in 1998 (“Gennadius Scholarius, Patriarch of Constantinople: Texts and Politics”). In 2004 he obtained his PhD in Byzantine Church History (“Logos Antirrheticos of John Eugenecus and the Reception of the Union of Florence by the Patriarchate of Constantinople, 1439-1456”). After this he held several postdoc positions, mainly in Paris.

As of 2005, he lived in Israel and has lectured in Byzantine history and Eastern Christianity at the University of Haifa and several Israeli colleges. He has since written a number of books about the European and Russian Christians in the Holy Land and their interrelationships and history. In 2007 he was ordained a deacon (under the jurisdiction of the Ecumenical Patriarchate) and in 2021 a priest of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. In 2021-2022 he taught Ancient Greek at Moscow State University of Linguistics.

Due to his origins (although born in Moscow he has Ukrainian roots), affiliation and the political conflicts after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, he resigned. He has been living in Finland since March 2022, helping the Finnish Orthodox Church in its work with Ukrainian refugees.

As an associate researcher and fellow of the IvOC, Dr. Zanemonets will investigate the Byzantine sources for the Eastern Orthodox teachings on war and peace. For the project titled “A pacifist tradition or 'Christianity's original sin'? – War and peace in the Eastern Christian tradition, in and after Byzantium: Exploration of relevant sources”, which was developed in consultation with IvOC, Dr. Zanemonets has been awarded a scholarship from the Sormani Fund.