Dr Jonathan Zecher
Associate Professor / Principal Research Fellow
Institute for Religion and Critical Inquiry
Areas of expertise: Patristics; Early Christianity; Ancient Medicine; History of Emotions; Byzantine Christianity; Medical humanities; Health humanities; Greek
Phone:+61 (03) 92 308 373
Email: jonathan.zecher@acu.edu.au
Location: ACU Melbourne Campus
ORCID ID: 0000-0002-8704-1221
I completed my BA in Liberal Arts at St. John’s College (Santa Fe) in 2003, and then my MA and PhD at Durham University in Patristics and Historical Theology in 2012. From 2011 until joining ACU in 2017 I taught full-time in the Honors College at the University of Houston—Greek, Latin, ‘Great Books,’ Religious Studies, and ancient medicine.
My work embraces Christian asceticism, the medical cultures of late antiquity, and traditions of prayer and spiritual practice in Late antique, Byzantine, and Eastern Orthodox Christianity. My first book (2015) explored The Role of Death in the Ladder of Divine Ascent and the Greek Ascetic Tradition. My second, Spiritual Direction as a Medical Art in Early Christian Monasticism, exposes the medical logic of early monastic practices of confession, penance, and submission.
My interest in medicine extends to clinical practices in late antiquity and their applicability to questions of clinical relationship and care being explored in the health/medical humanities today. As part of this work, I serve as co-director of ReMeDHe, an international working group for scholars interested in “Religion, Medicine, Disability, and Health in Late Antiquity,” and editor of the series, Religion, Medicine and Health in Late Antiquity (Routledge). I also work with the founders and directors of the new group, Religion, Health, and Humanities Researchers, to foster emerging conversations between religious scholars and medical humanists.
My next project interrogates Byzantine pretensions to “tradition” through the materiality of compilations (like florilegia), pseudepigrapha, and scholia. This project develops work on the history of “emotion-lists” and the reception of the Corpus Dionysiacum and the Ladder.
Select publications
[Monographs]
- 2022 Spiritual Direction as a Medical Art in Early Christian Monasticism. Oxford Early Christian Studies (Oxford University Press).
- 2015 The Role of Death in the Ladder of Divine Ascent and the Greek Ascetic Tradition. Oxford Early Christian Studies (Oxford University Press).
[Translations]
- 2025 The Philokalia. A Selection. Translated by Jonathan L. Zecher with Andrew Louth. Introduction by Andrew Louth. Penguin Classics (Penguin)
[Edited Collections]
[Peer-Reviewed Journal Articles since 2018]
- 2025 “The Fate of the Dead between Origen(ism) and Orthodoxy in Gaza,” Harvard Theological Review DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0017816025000057 (open access)
- 2022 “Medical Metaphors in Byzantine spiritual Direction”, The Journal of Religion, 101:529—54. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1086/721356
- 2021 “Myths of Aerial Tollhouses and Their Tradition from George the Monk to the Life of Basil the Younger”, Dumbarton Oaks Papers 75:297—318. DOI: https://www.jstor.org/stable/27107159
- 2020 “Medical Art in Spiritual Direction: Basil, Barsanuphios, and John on Diagnosis and Meaning in Illness”, Journal of Early Christian Studies 28:591—623. DOI: 10.1353/earl.2020.0044
- 2018 “The Reception of Evagrian Psychology in the Ladder of Divine Ascent: Cassian and Nazianzen as Sources and Conversation Partners”, Journal of Theological Studies, 69:674—713 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/jts/fly125
- 2018 “The Meaning of ΚΛΥΣΤΑΣ and the Value of a MAXAIRION: Vita Dosithei (BHG 2117) and Healthcare in Gazan Monasteries”, Analecta Bollandiana 136:43—55
Projects
Accolades
- University of Houston Teaching Excellence Award, 2015
- Student Governing Board Outstanding Service Award, 2015
Appointments
- Associate Professor/Principal Research Fellow, Institute for Religion and Critical Inquiry
- Co-Director, ReMeDHe: Working Group for Religion, Medicine, Disability, and Health in Late Antiquity
Editorial roles
Public engagement activities
- 9 April 2025“Sharing Traditions with Melbourne’s Way of the Cross,” walking tour with Prof. Russell Gilbourne (University of Melbourne) and the Melbourne Public Humanities Initiative
- 25 Nov 2024“Getting to Know the Melbourne Gospels,” series of workshops at the National Gallery of Victoria, as part of the “Being Human” Festival / Melbourne Public Humanities Initiative
[Articles]
- “Digital technologies have made the wonders of ancient manuscripts more accessible than ever, but there are risks and losses too,” The Conversation, 9 February 2024 (available)
- "What makes a martyr? The proclamation of Patriarch Kirill and the question of sacred violence," ABC Religion & Ethics 17 October 2022 (available)
- "How the Ukraine war is dividing Orthodox Christians," The Conversation, 8 March 2022 (available)
- "Acedia: The Lost Name for the Emotion We're All Feeling Right Now," The Conversation 26 August 2020 (available)
[Public and Media Appearances]
- “Habits and the Spiritual Life,” Soul Search with Dr Meredith Lake, ABC Radio National, aired 15 March 2024 (available)
- Menil Collection Public Program. In Dialogue: On Acedia and "Specters of Noon," with Niki Kasumi Clements (Rice University) and artists Jennifer Allora and Guillermo Calzadilla, 3 March 2021 (available)
- "What Monks Knew about the Emotions of Isolation," Soul Search with Dr Meredith Lake, ABC Radio National, aired 4 October 2020 (available)
- "Ukraine and Russia: religion and the politics of war," God Forbid, ABC Radio National, aired 21 Mar 2022 (available)
- "The Different Dimensions of Loneliness," God Forbid, ABC Radio National, aired 16 Feb 2022 (available)
