Sacred Orthodox art and iconography will be under the spotlight in Cambridge this October at a conference focusing on Greece’s Holy Mountain, Mount Athos. Organised by the UK-based charity, the Friends of Mount Athos (FoMA), the conference features a distinguished panel of experts on such themes as monumental, panel and icon painting in the past and present, the theology of the icon, and the influence of sacred art on the world today.
Held across the weekend of 16-18 October 2026 at Madingley Conference Centre, the conference will feature eight illustrated sessions aimed at a non-specialist audience, including a lecture and practical icon painting demonstration by the celebrated British iconographer and former Athonite Aidan Hart.
Speakers include the renowned Mount Athos iconographer and monk, Father Loukas of Xenophontas (online presentation); Markos Kampanis who currently serves as curator of the Mount Athos Art Archives of the monastery of Simonopetra; and Thanasis Semoglou (online presentation), a member of Greece’s UNESCO Memory of the World Committee, Associate President of the European Centre of Byzantine Monuments and a member of the Committee for the Preservation of the Athonite Heritage.
Joining the conference from the UK are Professor Marcus Plested, the 1643 Chair of Divinity at the University of St Andrews; and distinguished historian, Robin Cormack, Emeritus Professor in the History of Art at the Courtauld Institute of Art, University of London.
The conference is being co-chaired by the V. Rev. Archimandrite Maximos Constas, Distinguished Professor of the Humanities at the University of Austin, Texas, who himself was for many years a monk on Mount Athos; and author and publisher, Dr. Graham Speake, a founding member and former Chairman of FoMA.
Dr. Graham Speake said, “We’re delighted to be able to host such a distinguished and diverse set of speakers from Greece and Mount Athos, the US and the UK. We feel this will be a unique opportunity to learn not just about the age-old practice of icon writingbut the theological significance of Orthodox holy art and its influence on the wider world.”
