Madingley Hall is a grand sixteenth-century country house 3 miles west of Cambridge. It belongs to the university and serves as a designated conference centre. With its 50 single rooms and 13 shared (all with en-suite facilities) it provides comfortable accommodation for up to 76 delegates. It offers ample car parking in its grounds of 7 acres.

The Friends of Mount Athos have chosen this as the venue for their first residential conference. Between dinner on Friday 28 February and lunch on Sunday 2 March there will be a series of six talks presented by Orthodox theologians of international renown keen to make their topics accessible to a broadly based audience. Their collective aim will be to demonstrate the role of the Holy Mountain as the spiritual heart of Orthodoxy from Byzantine times to the present day. The programme is as follows:

Fr Nikolaos Hadzinikolaou (Simonopetra): Distinctive Elements in Athonite Spirituality

Andrew Louth (University of Durham): St Gregory Palamas and the Holy Mountain

Bishop Kallistos Ware (Oxford): St Nikodimos of the Holy Mountain and the Philokalia

Abbot Ephraim (Vatopedi): Elder Joseph the Hesychast

Fr Nikolai Sakharov (Tolleshunt Knights): St Silouan and Archimandrite Sofrony

Fr Alexander Golitzin (Simonopetra and Marquette University): Abbot Aimilianos

Proceedings will commence on Friday 28 February with dinner at 19:15 and conclude after lunch (13:00) on Sunday 2 March.