On Friday, April 12, 2024, at 5:00 PM, the inauguration ceremony of the Academic Year 2023/2024 of the Sophia University Institute will take place. Massimiliano Marianelli, Full Professor of History of Philosophy at the University of Perugia, will deliver the opening address. His Eminence Cardinal Giuseppe Betori, Archbishop of Florence, and Dr. Margaret Karam, President of the Focolare Movement, will also speak.
Watch the live stream
The election of the new Rector was awaited to celebrate the inauguration of the Academic Year 2023-2024, the 16th, at the Sophia University Institute in Loppiano (Figline and Incisa Valdarno – FI). The theologian Declan O’Byrne, Irish, acting Rector since August 2022, was elected by the academic council in January 2024 and officially appointed last March.
“After fifteen years of activity, the Sophia University Institute finds itself enriched by the legacy of work from the first group of professors, with new challenges to face and perspectives to develop,” he explains. “Though aware of living in a dramatic historical moment, we want to be a place where the human capacity to build lasting peace is witnessed. We want to study and teach to see those ‘seeds’ that already today express the possibility of resolving the crises we are experiencing.”
The ceremony officially opening the academic year 2023-2024 will be hosted in the Auditorium of Loppiano, the international citadel of the Focolare Movement, on Friday, April 12, 2024, starting at 5:00 PM.
The celebration will be attended by the Grand Chancellor His Eminence Cardinal Giuseppe Betori, Archbishop of Florence, the Vice Grand Chancellor Dr. Margaret Karram, President of the Focolare Movement, and representatives of the student community. Following this, there will be the inaugural address by the Magnificent Rector Declan O’Byrne and the keynote speech given by Massimiliano Marianelli, Full Professor of History of Philosophy at the University of Perugia, entitled: “Sophia, rediscovering the human in the ‘in-between’.“. Professor Marianelli’s research focuses on models of relationality in the history of contemporary thought.
The inauguration ceremony is open to the public, and access to the Auditorium will be allowed until 4:45 PM. Simultaneous translation into English will be available.
The event will be livestreamed on YouTube through the links accessible from the website: www.sophiauniversity.org.
