Austin Foley Holmes

Biography

Professor Austin Foley Holmes earned a B.A. in history at the University of Toledo, a Master of Theological Studies at Boston College, and a Ph.D. in theology at Boston College with a concentration in the History of Christianity. His primary research fields are Early Christianity (Greek and Latin Patristics), Historical Theology, and Ecology. He is the recipient of research fellowships from both the North American Patristics Society (NAPS) and the Hank Center for Research in the Catholic Intellectual Tradition (Loyola Chicago). Professor Foley Holmes has articles published or forthcoming in venues such as Oxford’s Journal of Theological Studies and Modern Theology. Current projects include revising his dissertation on Origen of Alexandria, as well as completing several articles on the pre-history of the first “Origenist Crisis” that erupted among the bishops and monks of Late Antiquity. Alongside and equal to this historical work, Professor Foley Holmes is actively engaged in contemplative and theological approaches to ecology and the natural world. Inspired by his relationship with the monks of St. Anselm Abbey, he hopes to initiate an ethnographic study of ecological spirituality and the reception of Pope Francis’s encyclical Laudato Si among North American monastic communities.