Timothy Patitsas: Beauty Heals

Timothy G. Patitsas has been the Interim Dean of Hellenic College since January of 2020 and the Assistant Professor of Ethics at Holy Cross since the Fall of 2005. From 2006 until 2021, he has held the main responsibility for the St. Helen’s Pilgrimage, which is the annual study abroad program for MDiv seniors in Greece, Constantinople, Mount Athos, Israel, and Palestine.

In 2019 he published The Ethics of Beauty, an attempt to recover one of the most ancient emphases of Orthodox spirituality, which is the firm priority given to combating the sensual rather than the intellectual passions. The book shows how this translates into a consoling and liberating Beauty-first approach to Orthodox ethics and life. The work also presents ethical, theological, and scriptural definitions of traumatic experience with a view to aiding recovery.

His Ph.D. dissertation, “The King Returns to His City: An Interpretation of the Great Week and Bright Week Cycle of the Orthodox Church,” combined interests in organic order, liturgy, and the economic and political writings of Jane Jacobs, whom Dr. Patitsas had the great joy of knowing personally. His current research centers on themes including liturgy and its relationship to moral agency; synodality and rhetoric as “bloodwork”; and macroeconomic theory in the light of new definitions of economic development.

Prof. Patitsas serves on the boards of The Russian Orphan Opportunity Fund and The Pappas Patristic Institute. He is also the co-founder of Beauty First Films and the co-designer of its annual Liturgical Seasons Calendar.