PITTSBURGH, PA - On October 24, 2000 Carnegie Samuel Calian of Pittsburgh Theological Seminary was awarded an honorary doctorate (Doctorem Honoris Causa) by the University of Sibiu in Romania on recommendation of the Faculty of Theology for his academic and ecumenical contributions through publications and dialogue on Eastern Orthodoxy.

This is only the second time that a Protestant scholar has been so honored by the University of Sibiu and its Theological Faculty. The University of Sibiu, founded in Transylvania, Romania in 1786, is the oldest graduate Divinity School in Romania, a country whose population of 22 ½ million people are predominately adherents of the Romanian Orthodox Church.

Since 1981, Dr. Calian has served as President and Professor of Theology at Pittsburgh Seminary. He is an ordained minister of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). Among his writings on Orthodoxy, the best known are Icon and Pulpit: The Protestant-Orthodox Encounter, Theology Without Boundaries: Encounters of Eastern Orthodoxy and Western Tradition, and Berdyaev's Philosophy of Hope (the latter work is based on his doctoral dissertation from the University of Basel, Switzerland). He is also a member of the official international Orthodox/Reformed Dialogue sponsored by the Ecumenical Patriarchate in Constantinople (Istanbul) and the World Alliance of Reformed Churches in Geneva, Switzerland.