George E. Demacopoulos

Dr. George E. Demacopoulos is Fr. John Meyendorff & Patterson Family Chair of Orthodox
Christian Studies at Fordham University. He serves as chair of the Senior Fellows in Byzantine
Studies Dumbarton Oaks and as President of the Byzantine Studies Association of North
America. And he is the co-editor of the Journal of Orthodox Christian Studies.

Along with Aristotle Papanikolaou, Dr. Demacopoulos co-founded the Orthodox Christian
Studies Center at Fordham University, which was the first university-based center of Orthodox
Studies in the Western Hemisphere. In addition to the Journal of Orthodox Christian Studies, the
Center publishes three book series and the widely acclaimed online forum, Public Orthodoxy.

Dr. Demacopoulos has secured more than a dozen prestigious grants on behalf of the Orthodox
Christian Studies Center and for his own research, including a $2m National Endowment for the
Humanities matching challenge, a Henry Luce Foundation grant, two grants from Leadership
100, two grants from Open Society, a US-Russian Foundation grant, and a grant from the British
Academy.

PhD - Religious Studies, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
MA - Religious Studies, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
MTS - Theology, Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology
BA – University of Tennessee

Dr. Demacopoulos’ research and teaching interests are in the fields of Early Christian and
Medieval/Byzantine Church History. He specializes in the relationship between Orthodox and
Roman Catholics during the Middle Ages. His monographs have examined different topics,
including pastoral care, the early papacy, the Fourth Crusade, and themes of violence in
Byzantine hymnography. His current book project traces the fault-lines in the modern Orthodox
Church to unresolved disputes from the Byzantine period.

• Sacralizing Violence in Byzantium: Hymns, Empire, and the Narrowing of Christian Identity
  (Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks, 2025).
  
• Nicaea and the Future of Christianity, ed. by G. Demacopoulos and A. Papanikolaou (New York: Fordham University Press, 2025).
  
• Faith, Reason, Theosis, ed. by A. Papanikolaou and George Demacopoulos (New York: Fordham University Press, 2023).
  

• Orthodoxy and Fundamentalism: Contemporary Perspectives, ed. by D. Dzalto and G. Demacopoulos (New York: Fortress Academic, 2022). 

• Fundamentalism or Tradition: Christianity after Secularism, ed. by A. Papanikolaou and G. Demacopoulos (Bronx, NY: Fordham University Press, 2020). 

• Colonizing Christianity: Greek and Latin Religious Identity in the Era of the Fourth Crusade (New York: Fordham University Press, 2019). 

• Christianity, Democracy and the Shadow of Constantine, ed. by G. Demacopoulos and A. Papanikolaou (Bronx, Fordham University Press, 2016). *Winner of the Alpha Sigma Nu award for best book in Theology, 2017*

• Gregory the Great: Ascetic, Pastor and First Man of Rome (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2015). 

• The Invention of Peter: The Development and Reception of the Petrine Discourse at the Close of Christian Antiquity (Philadelphia:  University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013).