{"id":49091,"date":"2016-12-06T06:26:06","date_gmt":"2016-12-06T06:26:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/malankaraorthodox.tv\/?p=49091"},"modified":"2016-12-06T06:26:06","modified_gmt":"2016-12-06T06:26:06","slug":"dr-martin-tamcke-friend-of-oriental-christianity-honoured-by-federal-republic-of-germany","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/malankaraorthodox.tv\/?p=49091","title":{"rendered":"Dr Martin Tamcke, Friend of Oriental Christianity, Honoured by\u00a0Federal Republic of Germany"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"photo-7\"<\/a>\"drmartintamcke\"<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Fr. Dr. K.M. George<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0Prof. Dr. Dr. Martin Tamcke, Director and professor at the\u00a0 Department of Ecumenical and Inter-Cultural Theology\u00a0 and Oriental Church- and Mission History at Goettingen University, Germany, has received\u00a0 the prestigious Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany conferred by the Federal President. This is an occasion for great rejoicing in all ecumenical circles particularly in the Oriental Churches in the Middle East, in India, and elsewhere. Dr. Tamcke is an acclaimed friend and committed promoter of the tradition of Oriental \u00a0Christianity, particularly the Churches of Syriac liturgical and patristic heritage. A reputed academic in the German university of Goettingen, professor Tamcke has generously extended his academic and pastoral care for a large number of young scholars and theologians from the Oriental churches. He has become a close friend of many church leaders and professors in churches and academic institutions .<\/span><\/p>\n

His academic engagement began with his study of St. Ephrem in the 1980’s when he was guided by great professors like Dr. Hage and Prof. Strothmann. In 1975 he met in Jerusalem a Syrian monk from Tur Abdin, the once stronghold of Syriac Orthodox tradition. With this \u00a0meeting began his long and very fruitful \u00a0involvement in the cultural history, liturgical wealth, and the existential predicament of\u00a0 the Christian minorities in the Islamic countries of the Middle East. In addition to his heavy academic and pastoral work in Germany, Dr. Tamcke travelled widely to the Middle East, to India, and to other Asian countries upholding the cause of Oriental Christianity. With his deep knowledge and commitment to Oriental traditions he served on official German government delegations to visit\u00a0 countries of the Middle East\u00a0 for the cause of peace, reconciliation and help for the people who suffer due to political upheavals. As the recent crisis in Iraq, Syria, Egypt \u00a0\u00a0and other places generated the \u00a0flood of millions of refugees in Germany and western Europe, professor Tamcke boldly stands for all efforts to offer hospitality and refuge to the displaced people.<\/span><\/p>\n

Initiating academic programmes on Inter-cultural Theology, as well as on Euro-culture in the university setting, Dr. Tamcke facilitated very creative encounters among research scholars and other students coming from different countries in the world. His firm emphasis on interreligious co-existence, intercultural hermeneutics, and East-West relations has been well-substantiated by his numerous publications of books, journal articles, seminar presentations, and visiting lectures in and outside Germany. He established exchange programmes with several Orthodox and Protestant faculties\u00a0 in various countries. One of his research scholars, Mr Lukas Pieper already spent a few months in India researching in the writings of Metropolitan Paulos Mar Gregorios in association with the Dr Paulos Mar Gregorios Chair<\/em> at the Mahatma Gandhi University, Kottayam, Kerala. Another young scholar Mr Ilija\u00a0 Jovic is currently in Kottayam\u00a0 as part of his research.<\/span><\/p>\n

Dr Tamcke is \u00a0a unique German professor who is able to live in and bring together different world cultures at the same time while maintaining his academic and Christian integrity with deep compassion and openness. So for all his students and friends across the world, Prof. Tamcke personifies a new human culture characterized by deep friendship, hospitality, and intellectual-spiritual sharing.<\/span><\/p>\n

As a long-time friend and admirer of Martin, I have \u00a0pleasure to witness to his radiant personality and Christian commitment. Almost\u00a0 a quarter century ago, he was invited to lead a seminar at the\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Bossey Ecumenical Institute, \u00a0Geneva where I was then teaching. Ever since, we had numerous occasions to meet in India and elsewhere in various events of academic and \u00a0theological nature. Above all his love for India and its ancient heritage of St. Thomas Christians made him visit and travel widely in India. Two years ago, he came to our town of Kottayam, Kerala as a resource person at the Syriac Congress organised by the St. Ephrem Ecumenical Institute. When we met there, he told me that he had some of his research students with him, and that they would visit me in my house. I simply assumed that it would be a social visit, so I prepared some coffee and snacks, and hoped that we would have some small talk and exchange of pleasantries over coffee. One afternoon Martin came with twelve of his research scholars. As soon as we were seated, he started a discussion beginning with the intercultural and interreligious questions in India. Soon I discovered that the students had come well-prepared on a number of theological and ecumenical questions.\u00a0 \u00a0When almost one and a half hours of intense discussion elapsed, I realized to my surprise that it was a proper academic seminar session, very well planned and\u00a0 orchestrated by Prof Tamcke.<\/span><\/p>\n

I quoted this incident later in some of our academic circles saying that it was a good model of the creative Guru-Sishya<\/em> (teacher-disciple) relationship . Here is a professor who has seriously planned to make use of the time of his students in the most productive and intellectually stimulant\u00a0 way in the pretext of a social visit.<\/span><\/p>\n

After a year, I received an invitation from Goettingen through his research student Mr Stanislau Paulu to give some lectures there and lead a seminar of \u00a0doctoral candidates in the Ecumenical Research Forum of European students in Hamburgh. When I arrived there, Martin gave an enormous lot of time for me, showed me around the university and the town with great hospitality and love. When we were in the lecture hall, I was excited to see a large number of students and some of my senior friends and former colleagues in the World Council of Churches like Bishop Dr Rolf Koppe and\u00a0 Dr Beate Stierle. Seeing students from other faculties and apparently non-Christian religions I was a bit embarrassed and told Martin that I had prepared my lecture for theological students. But\u00a0 he encouraged me to speak to all without any restriction. So I did. However there were \u00a0very \u00a0enthusiastic responses from students in the form of questions and remarks.<\/span><\/p>\n

With his luxuriant white beard and shining compassionate \u00a0eyes, the German professor has an Oriental patriarchal aura that naturally came to him over the many\u00a0\u00a0 decades of dedicated\u00a0 study, research, writing, travel\u00a0 and\u00a0 committed involvement\u00a0 in the great spiritual culture of the Orient. He is also deeply concerned about the painful experience that we all share as we witness the\u00a0 wiping out of this ancient culture from its homelands. Martin’s friends, students, and all who are acquainted with him across the world \u00a0felicitate him most heartily on the\u00a0 honour conferred on him by his own fatherland. We wish him many more years of creative engagements in the world of letters as well as in the life of the churches and cultures\u00a0 in the Orient.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Fr. Dr. K.M. George \u00a0Prof. Dr. Dr. Martin Tamcke, Director and professor at the\u00a0 Department of Ecumenical and Inter-Cultural Theology\u00a0 and Oriental Church- and Mission History at Goettingen University, Germany, … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":49094,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-49091","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-awards-honours","category-ecumenical-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/malankaraorthodox.tv\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49091","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/malankaraorthodox.tv\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/malankaraorthodox.tv\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malankaraorthodox.tv\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malankaraorthodox.tv\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=49091"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/malankaraorthodox.tv\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49091\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":49095,"href":"https:\/\/malankaraorthodox.tv\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49091\/revisions\/49095"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malankaraorthodox.tv\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/49094"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/malankaraorthodox.tv\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=49091"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malankaraorthodox.tv\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=49091"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malankaraorthodox.tv\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=49091"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}