Professor Eliot SOREL, a catalyzer in promoting Romania’s culture

We are happy to announce that Professor Eliot SOREL, the Honorary President of SANABUNA International Congress, communicated to us that the Institute for European, Russian, and Eurasian Studies (IERES), The Elliott School of International Affairs, The George Washington University, Washington, DC, organized on April 9, 2015 the event: “Between Byzantium and Brussels: The Politics of Orthodox Churches in the European Union.” The event (co-sponsored by World Youth Democracy Forum) was moderated by the Professor Eliot SOREL, the special invitee being Dr. Lucian Leustean, Senior Lecturer, Aston University (United Kingdom). Dr. Lucian Leustean is a Senior Fellow at the Transatlantic Academy, the German Marshall Fund of the United States, Washington DC, and Senior Lecturer in Politics and International Relations at Aston University, Birmingham, United Kingdom. According to the presentation made by IERES, Dr. Lucian Leustean is the founding editor of the Routledge Book Series on Religion, Society and Government in Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet States, he was also the principal investigator on a 2010-2011 ESRC Research Grant entitled ‘The Politics of Religious Lobbies in the European Union.’ His publications include The Ecumenical Movement and the Making of the European Community (Oxford University Press, 2014), Eastern Christianity and Politics in the Twenty-First Century (Routledge, 2014, editor), Orthodox Christianity and Nationalism in Nineteenth Century Southeastern Europe (Fordham University Press, 2014, editor), Representing Religion in the European Union: Does God Matter? (Routledge, 2012, editor) and Orthodoxy and the Cold War. Religion and Political Power in Romania, 1947-65 (Palgrave, 2008), and he has been awarded the George Blazyca Prize in East European Studies from the British Association for Slavonic and East European Studies.

It is also worth to remember, within this context, that the distinguished Professor Eliot Sorel (also well-known as a catalyzer in promoting Romania’s culture in the United States of America: the Romanian monasteries, food, crafts, music and dance) initiated and led the so-called „Opening the Gates to Romania” project at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival in Washington, in 1999. On that occasion, a wooden Maramures church was also build piece by piece on the National Mall in the center of Washington as part of the year 1999’s Festival. The world’s largest museum and research complex, the Smithsonian (founded in 1846), is a true steward and ambassador of cultural connections, its generous work wisely promoting understanding of world cultures.