Dear Colleagues in the fields of Early Christian Studies and Patristics:
This is the first official newsletter for the newly formed west Pacific Rim Patristics Society. The information below is divided into three categories:
1. Conferences
2. Positions vacant and filled
3. Miscellaneous: Including membership notices, recent publications, etc.
If you wish to submit any information to be included in the next newsletter about upcoming events or positions vacant, please email them to me.
Once again, let us thank the organisers of our inaugural conference at the University of the Sacred Heart Tokyo, for their efforts in bringing us together for a very successful and enjoyable first meeting, most especially Prof Shinro Kato and Kazuhiko Demura. We hope there will be many more such gatherings in the future.
Some information and photos from the event may be found at the Centre for Early Christian Studies website: http://www.cecs.acu.edu.au/apecss.htm.
The next gathering of WPRPS is listed under “Conference” below.

Bronwen Neil
Burke Lecturer in Ecclesiastical Latin
Centre for Early Christian Studies, Australian Catholic University

1. Conferences

* The 19 th World Congress of the International Association for the History of Religions will be held on 24-30 March 2005, at the Takanawa Prince Hotel, Shinagawa, Tokyo. Details of the programme may be found online at http://www.l.u-tokyo.ac.jp/iahr2005/

**The Canadian Society of Patristic Studies will hold its annual meeting at University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, May 29-31, 2005. The Congress theme is “Paradoxes of Citizenship: Environments, Exclusions, Equity”. For further details please contact the programme coordinator: g.dunn@mcauley.acu.edu.au

***The Catholic University of America, The Center for the Study of Early Christianity, is hosting an International Conference on "Early Christian Studies and the Academic Disciplines" at CUA, Washington DC on 5-8 June 2005. Further details can be found on the Center and Program Website: http://arts-sciences.cua.edu/ecs

****North American Patristics Society Anuual Meeting at Loyola University , Chicago , on 2-4 June 2005. Registration details can be found at http://t100g.com/naps/

*****Prayer and Spirituality in the Early Church. The fourth International Conference in this series will be held at St Patrick’s Campus, Australian Catholic University , Melbourne , on 6-9 July 2005. Proposals for papers on the theme “The Spiritual Life” are invited. Please send abstracts and titles to Wendy Mayer, at w.mayer@mcauley.acu.edu.au by 29 April 2005 . For further information see www.prayerspirit.com.au

******The second gathering of the Western Pacific Rim Patristics Society will be held within the Prayer and Spirituality in the Early Church conference this July (see above). We will have a general meeting of members on the afternoon of Thurs. 7 July. All members are invited to attend and read a paper at the Prayer and Spirituality conference. The third meeting of the society has been scheduled for late September 2006, and will be held in Japan at a venue yet to be decided.

*******The annual Australasian Society for Classical Studies conference will be held in February 2006 at the University of Tasmania , Hobart , Australia. An invitation to present papers will be issued shortly.

2. Positions Vacant and Filled

I know of no positions that are currently available, as several closed at the end of last year. Any information on this subject from our Asian members would be greatly appreciated.

Positions filled:
i. Dr Kim Power has recently been appointed as the Blackman Fellow in Early Christian Studies at Trinity College in Melbourne. She will be research assistant to the Rev. Dr. Andrew McGowan, a patristic scholar who works in the second-third centuries on early Christian liturgy, especially Eucharist.
ii. Dr Bronwen Neil has been appointed to the Burke Lectureship in Ecclesiastical Latin, a new endowed position at Australian Catholic University .

3. Miscellaneous

*Membership notices
A ll members of WPRPS are encouraged to join AIEP (International Association for Patristic Studies) through their local delegate: Wendy Mayer for Australia/NZ, and Kazuhiko Demura for Japan. All PhDs may apply for membership through an existing member, at an annual fee of $AUS25. Membership dues are currently being collected for 2005.

**Recent Publications
- Congratulations to Kazuhiko Demura of Okayama University on the recent 2004 publication of his monumental Japanese translation of Peter Brown’s Augustine of Hippo. A Biography (Faber, 2000).
- Congratulations also to Raymond Canning of ACU on his forthcoming translation of Augustine’s De catechizandis rudibus in New City Press.
- Vol. 15 of the series Byzantina Australiensia, entitled Feast, fast or famine: Food and drink in Byzantium , eds W. Mayer and S. Trzcionka is about to be published in Brisbane (it can be ordered from early.christian@mcauley.acu.edu.au).
- Adam Cooper’s book The Body in St Maximus the Confessor: Holy Flesh, Wholly Deified (Oxford Early Christian Studies, 2005) has just appeared in Oxford University Press.
- If you have had a recent publication that you would like flagged here, please let me know.

***Alia
A reminder that the next International Conference for Patristic Studies will be held in Oxford in August 2007.