Manatos has orchestrated efforts that set numerous records in the policymaking process of the U.S. Senate, House of Representatives and the Executive Branch as he moved clients’ issues forward. Over 27 years of demonstrated integrity and credibility, he has built relationships of trust with policymakers from both political parties. His unique knowledge of the nuances of Washington’s complex policy and political processes stems from his family who’ve been involved in high-level policy development for over 80 years.

In 2006, Manatos was appointed by His All Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew to the position of Archon of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, the oldest and highest honor in Christendom, given to a select few around the world. He was also appointed to serve on the Archdiocesan Council of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America; the Excutive Board of Trustees of Leadership 100, an organization of many of the most prominent and successful Greek-Americans across the country affiliated with the Greek Orthodox Church; and the Board of Directors of the National Hellenic Society, an organization of distinguished and accomplished Hellenes dedicated to preserving Hellenic heritage, values and ideals.

Manatos graduated from Princeton University in 1990 from the Woodrow Wilson School of Public Policy and International Affairs, with a major in Political Science and minor in Hellenic Studies. Born in Washington, D.C., Manatos has lived in the D.C. area all of his life. He is married to Laura Evans Manatos and they have three children – Sienna, Andrea and Lucas.

Congressman Gus M. Bilirakis is a Republican from Palm Harbor, representing Florida’s 12th Congressional District. He was first elected to Congress on November 7, 2006, and is currently serving his sixth term in the United States House of Representatives.

As a young boy, Bilirakis learned the importance of public service from his father, Michael Bilirakis, who represented Florida’s Ninth Congressional District from 1983 to 2006. The elder Bilirakis also instilled in his son a pride in the family’s Greek heritage, which he proudly carries into his career today. Bilirakis serves on the Energy and Commerce Committee and is Vice-Chairman of the Veterans’ Affairs Committee. He is Co-Chairman of the Military Veterans Caucus, Co-Chairman of the Congressional Hellenic Caucus and the Congressional Hellenic-Israel Alliance.

Bilirakis earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Florida in 1986 and a J.D. from Stetson University in 1989. He and his wife, Eva, have four sons – Michael, Teddy, Manuel and Nicholas.

Mr. Bozonelis is national secretary and Executive Committee member of the Order of St. Andrew the Apostle, Archons of the Ecumenical Patriarchate. He is vice chairman of the Order's Legal Committee and Chairman of the Order's Patriarchal Properties and Minority Concerns Committee, which assists the Ecumenical Patriarchate on legal issues for the return of confiscated properties and developing a legal status and standing for the Ecumenical Patriarchate in Turkey.

He received his bachelor's degree from Rutgers University and his J.D, Cum Laude, from George Washington University. He was nominated by the Governor of New Jersey and confirmed by the State Senate as a judge of the Superior Court of New Jersey in 1990. He served all divisions of the state judiciary until 2011. He was presiding judge in the Criminal Court, Equity and Family Divisions. In 2003, he was appointed as the assignment (chief) judge for Northern New Jersey Counties, where he oversaw the administration of the state courts and 56 municipal courts. In that capacity, Judge Bozonelis also served as a chairman and member of the State Judicial Council, which supervises the overall state judiciary.

He has served as a judicial master and instructor for Inns of Court, Institutes for Continuing Legal Education, and Judicial College retreats. Prior to his appointment as a state judge, he served as chairman of a State District Ethics Committee, a law clerk of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, Washington, D.C., and as an assistant U.S. attorney for the District of New Jersey. He also served as of counsel to the law firm of Graham Curtin in New Jersey, providing services in mediation, arbitration and special master matters.

He is married to Helen (Koutras) Bozonelis, an editor and author. They have two adult children, Justin and Lia.

Dr. George E. Demacopoulos is Fr. John Meyendorff & Patterson Family Chair of Orthodox Christian Studies at Fordham University. Along with Aristotle Papanikolaou, he is co-founding Director of the Orthodox Christian Studies Center and co-editor of the Journal of Orthodox Christian Studies.

Dr. Demacopoulos received his Ph.D. in Religious Studies from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2002. His research and teaching interests are in the History of Christianity during ancient and medieval periods. Although he has published on a wide-range of topics, his primary focus lays in the interaction between Eastern and Western Christian communities throughout history. He has written three books: Gregory the Great: Ascetic, Pastor, and First-Man of Rome (University of Notre Dame Press); The Invention of Peter: Apostolic Discourse and Papal Authority in Late Antiquity (University of Pennsylvania Press); and Five Models of Spiritual Direction in the Early Church (University of Notre Dame Press). He has also published dozens of scholarly articles in premier academic journals, including the Journal of Religion, the Journal of Late Antiquity, and Theological Studies.

In 2010, Dr. Demacopoulos became an Archon of Ecumenical Patriarchate, Order of St. Andrew, with the Offikiion, Didaskalos Tous Genous (“Teacher of the Nation”). He also serves on the National Council as Historian of the Order.

Anthony J. Limberakis, MD, an Archon of the Ecumenical Patriarchate since 1987 and a member of the Archon National Council since 1988 and National Commander since 1998, is a practicing radiologist in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. A 1978 graduate of Duke University School of Medicine, he is president and owner of Bustleton Radiology Associates, Ltd., a leading full service outpatient radiology practice in Philadelphia.

Active in the Greek Orthodox Church, Dr. Limberakis serves as the National Commander of the Order of St. Andrew, an organization comprised of the leading Orthodox churchmen in the United States whose mission is to defend and support the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, the spiritual center of the world's 300 million Orthodox Christians located in Istanbul, Turkey. To be invested as an Archon of the Ecumenical Patriarchate is the highest honor a layman may achieve in the Orthodox Church.

With the blessings of Archbishop Demetrios of America, the Exarch (or representative) of the Ecumenical Patriarchate in the United States, Limberakis has led the Order of St. Andrew in a major domestic and international religious freedom initiative for the Ecumenical Patriarchate, which is under heavy religious oppression by the government of Turkey. The Ecumenical Patriarchate traces its origin to the first called Apostle of Jesus Christ, St. Andrew, who was the brother of St. Peter. Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew is the 269th successor of St. Andrew and the First Among Equals (Primus Inter Pares) of all Orthodox Patriarchs and Pope Benedict XVI, the head of the Roman Catholic Church, is the 265th successor of St. Peter.

The Ecumenical Patriarchate, the Spiritual Center of worldwide Orthodoxy, is not able to exercise fundamental human rights and religious freedom due to the restrictive policies of the government of the Republic of Turkey. It is in this milieu of state sponsored religious repression that the continued existence of the Ecumenical Patriarchate is threatened. Under the leadership of Limberakis, the Archons in the United States have initiated an assertive, multifaceted religious freedom project enlisting the assistance of the federal government of the United States, the state legislative bodies of each of the 50 states of the United States, the European Union, the European Court of Human Rights and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) to convey the urgent message to the Turkish government to cease and desist the policies that constrict religious freedom, not only for the Ecumenical Patriarchate, but for all religious minorities including the Jewish , Roman Catholic and Protestant communities of Turkey. The Order strongly supports Turkey's candidacy to the European Union so long as it embraces the religious freedom standards of the EU and the Copenhagen Criteria.

In November 2009, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew and Archbishop Demetrios presented the Athenagoras Human Rights Award, the highest distinction of the Orthodox Church in America, to Limberakis in New York City for his leadership in fighting for religious freedom for the Mother Church, the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople. In June 2009 His Beatitude Patriarch Theophilos of Jerusalem named the Commander Cross-bearer (Stavrophoros) of the Order of the All-Holy Sepulcher Cross-bearers.

Limberakis is a member of the Archdiocesan Council of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America, the Board of Trustees of Hellenic College/Holy Cross School of Theology and has served on the governing board of several Greek Orthodox churches in the Philadelphia area. In May 2002, Limberakis received an Honorary Doctorate Degree in Humanities from Hellenic College, Brookline, Massachusetts, for his professional and community leadership. In May, 2000 he received the Ellis Island Medal of Honor in recognition of his contributions to the Greek American community.

Active at the Duke University Medical Center, Limberakis has served on its Board of Visitors and was past president of the Duke Medical Alumni Association and its major gift organization, the Davison Club. In addition, he has served as member of the Medical Alumni Council and as chairman of its Strategic Planning Committee, which provided the blueprint for the reorganization and revitalization of the Medical Alumni Association. He has been awarded the Charles A. Dukes Award, Duke's highest recognition for volunteer service to the University and is a member of the Founder's Society and the Century Cub. In November 1999, Limberakis was the recipient of the Duke Medical Center Distinguished Service Award that is given periodically to an alumnus who has demonstrated exemplary service to the Medical Center and School of Medicine. In March 2015, Limberakis was conferred the position of Distinguished Fellow of the Oxford Centre for the Study of Law and Public Policy at Harris Manchester College of the University of Oxford.

Limberakis, born in 1952 in Fresno, California the son of the late Rev. John A. Limberakis and Elizabeth Constantine Limberakis, served as a page in the United States Senate while in high school, and earned both his bachelor's and master's degrees in political science at the University of Pennsylvania in 1975. After graduating medical school from Duke in 1978, he completed his medical internship at the Graduate Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania and his residency in diagnostic radiology at the Thomas Jefferson University Hospital in 1983. He is married to Dr. Maria A. (Borden) Limberakis, a family practitioner, and together have three adult children, John, Anthony and Elizabeth and two grandchildren, Dakota and Anthony.

Andy Manatos is CEO of Manatos & Manatos, described by The Washington Post as “one of Washington's most powerful lobbying firms.” The firm contributes over one million dollars worth of pro bono work each year for clients and issues they support.

As the youngest staff director of a U.S. Senate committee, Manatos led the effort that invoked cloture on a filibuster for only the 13th time in U.S. history and moved the Congress to override the White House, for the only time in modern history, on a major foreign policy issue. After serving as the youngest assistant secretary in the Carter Administration, he and his father, a top White House aide to Presidents Kennedy and Johnson, opened Manatos & Manatos.

Today, he works alongside his son Mike and they have accomplished, among other things: securing the largest number of cosponsors for legislation establishing the Congressional Gold Medal for Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew; for 31 years, an annual meeting at the White House with each President of the United States; op eds in The Washington Post, Chicago Tribune and other publications; and for 16 years, co-hosts, with President Bill Clinton, a dinner for a charity they both helped create and support.

A tireless advocate for Hellenic and Orthodox causes, he played a significant role in the creation of a grass roots lobby that has been described by presidents as one of the most powerful in America. Manatos received the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America’s highest award, the Medal of St. Paul; serves as Archon Regional Commander for Washington, D.C. and the surrounding area, sits on the Archdiocesan Council and belongs to Leadership 100 and the National Hellenic Society.

Dr. Elizabeth H. Prodromou is Visiting associate professor of conflict resolution at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, Medford, Mass. She is a non-resident fellow at The Hedayah International Center of Excellence for Countering Violent Extremism (Abu Dhabi) and a Senior Fellow in National Security and International Policy at the Center for American Progress, Washington, D.C. In addition to her diplomatic service as vice chair and commissioner on the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (2004-2012), she served in an advisory capacity as a member of the U.S. Secretary of State’s Religion and Foreign Policy Working Group (2011-2015).

Her research focuses on religion and geopolitics, and she is a well-known expert on Orthodox Christianity and Islam. Her current research focuses on the security and human rights implications of Christian sustainability in a religiously plural Middle East, as well as on Greece as a critical case study of how mixed migration flows are reshaping the religion-security nexus in Europe.

Published widely in scholarly and policy journals and a frequent contributor and commentator in international media, she holds a Ph.D. and an S. M. in political science from MIT, an M.A.L.D. from The Fletcher School of Law & Diplomacy, and a B.A. in International Relations and History from Tufts University. She is co-editor and contributor for Eastern Orthodox Christianity and American Higher Education and of Thinking Through Faith: New Perspectives from Orthodox Christian Scholars.

His Eminence Archbishop Angaelos, who has served as General Bishop of the Coptic Orthodox Church in the United Kingdom since 1999, was enthroned this year as the first bishop of the new Coptic Orthodox Diocese of London. He is recognised for his extensive advocacy work, and as a result he was conferred the honor of Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire by Her Majesty The Queen for “services to international religious freedom.” Archbishop Angaelos has also been conferred the Lambeth Cross for Ecumenism by the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Coventry Cross of Nails for Reconciliation. With a pastoral ministry spanning two decades, Archbishop Angaelos specialises in youth ministry and travels around the world to speak at youth conferences.

Having commenced his pastoral ministry in the United Kingdom in 1995 as a parish priest, he was consecrated a General Bishop in 1999 by His Holiness, the late Pope Shenouda III, with whom he served as private secretary. His Grace was Proclaimed Bishop of the Coptic Orthodox Diocese of London by His Holiness Pope Tawadros II, Pope of Alexandria and Patriarch of the See of Saint Mark, and the Holy Synod of the Coptic Orthodox Church during a historic service at St. Bishoy Monastery in Wadi El Natrun, Egypt.

Archbishop Angaelos specializes in initiatives relating to advocacy, international religious freedom and development work, and is a member of numerous local, national and international bodies dealing with these matters. He is founder and convener of the Asylum Advocacy Group which works closely in partnership with the All Party Parliamentary Group on International Religious Freedom or Belief.

Archbishop Angaelos frequently issues statements and comments relating to current religious and minority issues , with his particular focus on dialogue, con ict resolution and reconciliation. His comments and views are frequently sought on matters of human rights, civil liberties and international religious freedom, particularly in relation to the situation in Egypt, the Middle East and North Africa. He has visited refugee camps in Greece, Lebanon, Kurdistan and Jordan. He continues to work tirelessly to promote collaboration across the whole spectrum of his official, ecumenical and inter-religious engagements to facilitate the support of and assistance to those in greatest need and su ering persecution and displacement.

Kristina Arriaga is the vice chairwoman of the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom.

For more than 20 years, Ms. Arriaga has worked on the defense of religious freedom internationally and domestically as Advisor to the United States delegation to the United Nations Human Rights Commission, an appointee to the U.S. Civil Rights Commission, and as the Executive Director of Becket Law, a U.S.-based public interest law firm that defends the free expression of all religious traditions. She was appointed to the commission on May 13, 2016 by Speaker of the House Paul Ryan for a two-year term expiring.

While at Becket, she launched the only religious liberty clinic in the United States, at Stanford Law School. She also led the firm while it secured the rights of Native Americans to use eagle feathers in their powwows, persuaded the U.S. Army to let a Sikh Bronze Star Medalist serve with his articles of faith, as well as protected the rights of a small order of Catholic nuns who take care of the dying elderly poor.

Since her appointment to commission, she has met with the Grand Sheik of Al-Azhar in Cairo, the Vice Minister of Islam in Riyadh, the Ecumenical Patriarch in Istanbul, among many other foreign government officials, religious leaders and human rights advocates. She also has testified before the U.S. Congress.

Ms. Arriaga is a sought-after speaker on religious freedom, on the intersection of religious freedom and women’s rights, and on human rights in Cuba. In addition to speaking at numerous academic conferences, the National Constitutional Center, the Council on Foreign Relations, and Georgetown University’s Berkley Center for Religion, Peace and World Affairs, among many others, she has appeared on several TV and radio programs on MSNBC, C-Span, FOX, CNN Español, EWTN, and National Public Radio. Her op-eds have been featured in publications such as the Wall Street Journal and Newsweek. She is the recipient of the 2017 Newseum’s Free Speech award.

She has a master’s degree from Georgetown University where she graduated magna cum laude.

The Most Reverend Archbishop Vicken Aykazian is the Diocesan Legate in Washington, D.C., and Ecumenical Director of the Eastern Diocese of the Armenian Church of America.

Born in Siirt, Turkey in 1951, he completed theological studies at the Armenian Patriarchate in Jerusalem and was ordained a deacon in 1968, a priest in 1971, a bishop in 1992 and elevated to archbishop in 2007.

His achievements include Country Director for the Fund for Armenian Relief in their Yerevan, Armenia, office; primate of the Diocese of the Armenian Church of Switzerland (1992-1996); pastor of the Armenian Church of Switzerland (1981-1992). He has participated in the World Council of Churches since 1981 and as a member of the Central Committee, representing the Catholicate of All Armenians from 1985-1991 and the Executive Committee since 2007.

In 2005, Archbishop Aykazian was elected president of the National Council of Churches in the United States. In 2007, he participated at the General Assembly of the World Council of Churches in Porto Alegre, Brazil, and was elected as a member of the WCC Executive and Central Committees.

In 2009, he was appointed to President Obama’s Advisory Committee on Faith Based Initiatives, the first Armenian clergy member ever appointed to the position. He is a recipient of the Ellis Island Medal of Honor. In 2013, he was elected as president of Christian Churches Together, an organization representing Catholic, Protestant, Evangelical, Orthodox and other historic peace churches. He is the first Armenian elected as a board member for Habitat for Humanity International. In 2013, he was elected as the president of Habitat for Humanity Europe, Africa and Central Asia.

He has worked tirelessly to defend the rights of Christian minorities in the Middle East and Asia. Over the past 15 years, he has traveled to Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Jordan, Egypt, Israel and Palestine and met with high level religious and political leaders from all faiths.

He earned a doctorate in history from the Armenian Academy of Sciences’ Department of History in 1999. He also received a Ph.D. at Fribourg Catholic University in Switzerland for a second doctorate in theology and is continuing work on his doctoral dissertation at Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. He received a Bachelor of Divinity degree from Kings College at London University in England, studied pastoral theology at St. Augustine’s College, Canterbury, England, and attended the Armenian Theological Seminary in Jerusalem and the Holy Cross Armenian Seminary in Istanbul, Turkey. He is fluent in English, Armenian, French and Turkish.

Fr. Isaac Crow has served as a priest in the Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of North America for twenty-seven years. He is currently the presiding priest at Ss. Peter and Paul Antiochian Orthodox Church in Potomac, Maryland. He was born in Beirut, Lebanon, the youngest child of an American father and Lebanese mother. His undergraduate and graduate studies were undertaken at the American University of Beirut in the fields of anthropology, religious studies, and Middle East history.

Fr. Isaac has lived for over thirty-two years in Lebanon and the Middle East and has traveled extensively in the region visiting Syria, Jordan, Palestine, Egypt, Turkey, Greece, Cyprus, and Iran. From 1976-1978, he taught at the University of Isfahan in Iran. In Beirut, he worked as a translator and documentalist for the Middle East Council of Churches. Following an encounter with Metropolitan Georges (Khodr), the Antiochian Bishop of Mt. Lebanon, he began to study Orthodox theology and became involved in the Antiochian Orthodox Youth Movement.

In 1982, he entered the Balamand Patriarchal Seminary (The St. John of Damascus Orthodox Institute of Theology) as a student of the Diocese of Mt. Lebanon. He graduated in 1987 and remained at the Balamand following the completion of his theological studies serving for three years as the Librarian of the Institute. In 1989, at the height of the Lebanese Civil War, Fr. Isaac was received into the Antiochian Archdiocese of North America and ordained to the priesthood on September 10, 1989. He has served parishes in Montreal, Canada; Lowell, Massachusetts; and Providence, Rhode Island.

Fr. Isaac has pursued post-graduate work in the field of early Christian Studies, at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary. Alongside of his pastoral ministry, his interests include: the writings of the Christian Church fathers, Eastern Christian liturgical art, the study of theological anthropology and contemporary culture; Syro-Byzantine music, Christian ecology, and inter-faith dialogue (particularly Christian Muslim relations).

He is married to Dolly Shwayri, a native of North Lebanon. They are parents of Basil Crow.

Sidney H. Griffith is Ordinary Professor Emeritus in the Department of Semitic and Egyptian Languages and Literatures in the School of Arts and Sciences at the Catholic University of America, where he earned the doctorate. In 1977 with a thesis entitled, “The Controversial Theology of Theodore Abū Qurrah (c.750-c.820 AD): A Methodological, Comparative Study in Christian Arabic Literature.”

His areas of interest and academic responsibility are Syriac Patristics, Christian Arabic Literature, the history and culture of the Christian Churches in the Middle East, and the history of Christian/Muslim relations, especially within the World of Islam and in the Early Islamic period.

In addition to numerous conference presentations, public lectures, book reviews, and articles on topics in his areas of interest, his publications include: Yayā ibn ‘Adī, The Reformation of Morals: A Parallel Arabic-English Edition (2002); The Church in the Shadow of the Mosque: Christians and Muslims in the World of Islam (2008); The Bible in Arabic: The Scriptures of the ‘People of the Book’ in the Language of Islam (2013).

More recent publications include the following: “Christians and the Arabic Qur’ān: Prooftexting, Polemics, and Intertwined Scriptures,” Intellectual History of the Islamicate World 2 (2014), pp. 243-266; “Paul of Antioch,” in Samuel Noble & Alexander Treiger (eds.), The Orthodox Church in the Arab World 700-1700: An Anthology of Sources. DeKalb, IL: Northern Illinois University Press, 2014. Chap. 10, pp. 216-235, 327-331; “The Qur’ān’s ‘Nazarenes’ and Other Late Antique Christians: Arabic-Speaking ‘Gospel People’ in Qur’ānic Perspective,” in S.H. Griffith and S. Grebenstein (eds.), Christsein in der islamischen Welt: Festschrift für Martin Tamcke zum 60. Geburtstag (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2015), pp. 81-106; “St. Ephraem’s Theological Adversaries: Readings in Hymns against Heresies: Madrāshê 22-24,” in Thomas FitzGerald (ed.), A Ministry of Reconciliation: Essays in Honor of Metropolitan Maximos Aghiorgousis (Brookline, Massachusetts: Holy Cross Orthodox Press, 2015), pp. 121-141; “Disclosing the mystery: the hermeneutics of typology in Syriac exegesis,” in Mordechai Z. Cohen & Adele Berlin (eds), Interpreting Scriptures in Judaism, Christianity and Islam: Overlapping Inquiries (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016), pp. 46-64; “St. Ephraem the Syrian, the Qur’ān, and the Grapevines of Paradise: An Essay in Comparative Eschatology,” in Sebastian Günther & Todd Lawson (eds.), Roads to Paradise: Eschatology and Concepts of the Hereafter in Islam (2 vols.; Leiden: Brill, 2017), vol. II, pp. 781-805.

Ms. Hioureas is a counsel in Foley Hoag’s International Litigation and Arbitration practice and chair of the United Nations Practice Group. She has experience in international investment treaty claims, international commercial arbitration and litigation, treaty drafting and interpretation, energy law and pricing disputes, international environment laws, and international human rights.

She has been recognized in Global Arbitration Review, Legal 500 and Chambers & Partners. She was elected to the Council on Foreign Relations as a term member in 2016. Ms. Hioureas has served as an adjunct professor of law at Fordham University School of Law and is on the teaching staff of the University of Piraeus in the Energy Strategy, Law and Economics Program.

Nathaniel Hurd has been a policy advisor at the Helsinki Commission since October 2014. His portfolio includes international freedom of religion and humanitarian emergencies. Previously, he was senior policy advisor for Conflicts and Disasters at World Vision and held similar positions at the International Rescue Committee and Mercy Corps. His 17-year career has mostly focused on international humanitarian and human rights crises, including those resulting from religious persecution, and his expertise includes the United Nations.

Mr. Hurd has interviewed and spent time with many survivors of violence – in Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Ethiopia, and Somalia – who were forced to flee from their homes and seek refuge in other countries as refugees or were internally displaced in their own. These survivors include those targeted for their faith.

He is the lead staffer for H.R. 390, the Iraq and Syria Genocide Emergency Relief and Accountability Act, authored by Helsinki Commission Co-Chairman Congressman Chris Smith. Mr. Hurd accompanied Congressman Smith during his mission to Erbil in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq just before last Christmas, at the invitation of the Chaldean Catholic Archbishop of Erbil Bashar Warda, to meet with Christian genocide survivors, Catholic and Orthodox bishops, and press American and UN officials to provide assistance to the survivors.

Mr. Hurd holds a Bachelor of Arts in international relations from Hamilton College and Master’s of International Affairs from the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University.

His Eminence Mor Dionysius is Archbishop and Patriarchal Vicar of the Syriac Orthodox Archdiocese of the Eastern United States.

Born in Damascus, Syria, Archbishop Mor Dionysius (John Kawak) studied extensively in various locations and schools throughout his life. He studied economics for four years at the School of Economics at the University of Damascus. In 1980, he graduated with his bachelor’s degree in Theological Studies from St. Ephrem, the Syriac Theological Seminary in Ma’arat Saydnaya in Syria. In 1993, he earned his master’s degree in Eastern and Oriental Liturgy at the Pontifical Oriental Institute in Rome, Italy. In 2002, he held Intensive University Training on Peace-Building at the Summer Peace-Building Institute at the Eastern Mennonite University in the state of Virginia.

In 2013, he attended the Diakonia and Church Development three-month program in Artus, Denmark. In 2015, Patriarch Aphrem II appointed him as the P:atrical Delegate for the Archdiocese and on May 27, 2016 he was enthroned as the Patriarchal Vicar. Archbishop Mor Dionysius resides in Paramus, New Jersey.

Anna Koulouris, originally from Syracuse, N.Y., is communications advisor and journalist for the Patriarchate of Jerusalem, where she writes articles for various publications, gives lectures to institutions in the Holy Land and abroad, and coordinates projects under the direction of Patriarch Theophilos III.

She graduated from Syracuse University in 2010 with a dual degree in Newspaper and Online Journalism and Middle Eastern Studies. In 2009, she participated in an interfaith trip to the Holy Land through Syracuse University and the same year was chosen to participate in a Carnegie Foundation journalism boot-camp in Cairo and Doha, where she wrote an investigative piece for the Huffington Post, “Booming Islamic Antiquities Market in the Gulf leads to thefts in Cairo mosques.” Upon graduating, she returned to Jerusalem on an International Patriarchate of Jerusalem Studies grant from the U.S. Department of Education, and wrote for the PalestineIsrael Journal. She published a policy paper for the EU Peace Education through Media Project, “Media Guidelines for Covering MidEast Conflict.”

In 2011, she returned to Doha for a year of Arabic language study at Qatar University, while still assisting the Patriarchate. There, she became more familiar with the Patriarchate’s on-going work to build a church in Qatar, with the help of the former American ambassador, and witnessed this initiative open the way for hundreds of thousands of Christian expatriates to freely practice. She participated in conferences at the Doha International Center for Interfaith Dialogue and presented “Expatriate Dialogue in Local Media.” Upon returning to Jerusalem in 2013, Anna has written “A Concise Guide to the Patriarchate of Jerusalem,” various papers on the role of the Patriarchate, approaching conflict in the Holy Land, neutralizing religious fundamentalism, demining the Jordan River Baptism Site, and has given lectures at various institutions in Europe, the U.S. and Middle East. She has also helped coordinate projects such as the de-mining of the Baptism Site with The HALO Trust, President Trump’s historical visit to the Holy Sepulcher Church, the restoration of the Aedicule of the Holy Sepulcher, and the visit of Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew and Pope Francis to Jerusalem for the 50-year anniversary of the lifting of the anathemas between East and West. She is also assisting the Orthodox Initiative, Patriarch Theophilos’ initiative in conjunction with the Middle East Council of Churches, which is currently aiding tens of thousands of Syrian and Iraqi refugees in Jordan.

After serving four years in the U.S. House of Representatives, Lankford was elected to the U.S. Senate to complete an unexpired term on November 4, 2014 and re-elected to a full six-year senate term on November 8, 2016.

Personal faith, local decision-making, and opportunity for every person, regardless of their background, are core values for Senator Lankford. Before his time in Congress, from 1995 to 2009, James served as Director of Student Ministry at the Baptist Convention of Oklahoma.

James lives in Edmond with his wife Cindy. They have been married for 25 years and have two daughters: Hannah and Jordan.

Mr. Johny Messo obtained his propaedeutics in Theology at the Evangelical Theological Higher Education in Veenendaal near Utrecht (1999) and his B.A. degree in Hebrew and Aramaic Languages and Cultures from Leiden University (2007). For the past 20 years, he has been actively engaged with the Aramaic (Syriac) Christians and he has worked for different organizations, including the Foundation Study Center Aramea between 2003 and 2008.

From October 2008 onward, Mr. Messo has been defending and promoting the human rights and interests of the Aramean (Syriac) people as the president of the World Council of Arameans (Syriacs). Since 1983, this is the worldwide umbrella organization of the Arameans (Syriacs) that, moreover, has been recognized in 1999 as an NGO in special consultative status with the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations.

Mr. Messo has published many articles and has given numerous speeches and lectures across Europe, America, Australia, India and the Middle East concerning past, present and future questions pertaining to the Aramean (Syriac) people. His latest book appeared in November 2017 and is entitled “Arameans and the Making of ‘Assyrians’: The Last Aramaic-speaking Christians of the Middle East.”

For more information, see www.johnymesso.com.

Professor Mark L. Movsesian is the Frederick A. Whitney Professor and Director of the Center for Law and Religion at St. John’s University, Queens, New York.

His scholarship has appeared in the Harvard Law Review, the Oxford Journal of Law and Religion, the American Journal of International Law, and many others, and he regularly writes for opinion journals like First Things and Law and Liberty, and for the Center’s blog, the Law and Religion Forum.

Professor Movsesian graduated summa cum laude from Harvard College and magna cum laude from Harvard Law School, where he was an editor of the Harvard Law Review and a recipient of the Sears Prize, awarded to the two highest-ranking students in the second-year class. He clerked for Justice David H. Souter of the Supreme Court of the United States and served as an attorney-advisor in the Office of Legal Counsel at the United States Department of Justice.

He has been a visiting professor at Notre Dame and Cardozo Law Schools and has delivered papers at numerous universities in the United States and Europe.

Kate Nahapetian is Executive Director of the Armenian Legal Center for Justice and Human Rights, which ghts to redress human rights violations emanating from the Armenian Genocide. Prior to her posting, she was the Government A airs Director for the Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA), where she advocated for Armenian American concerns before members of Congress and the administration and her work included helping coordinate efforts to file amicus briefs for life insurance class actions emanating from the Armenian Genocide.

In addition to experience as an attorney litigating complex class actions, Ms. Nahapetian has worked for the U.S. Department of Justice, then Senator Joseph Biden, the Carnegie Endowment for International, and Mental Disability Rights International.

Ms. Nahapetian received a J.D. with a focus on international and human rights law from the University of California at Berkeley School of Law, which was partly funded through the prestigious Paul and Daisy Soros Fellowship for New Americans. After graduating magna cum laude with a degree in International Studies from American University, Ms. Nahapetian received a Konrad Adenauer Foundation Fellowship to pursue graduate studies in Germany.

Her publications include, “Confronting State Complicity in International Law” in the UCLA Journal of International Law and Foreign A airs and “Selective Justice: Prosecuting Rape in the International Criminal Tribunals of the Former Yugoslavia and Rwanda” in the Berkeley Women’s Law Journal.

Ms. Nahapetian is a member of the Bar in California, New York and Washington, D.C.

Gene Policinski is chief operating officer of the Newseum Institute, which includes the Religious Freedom Center, the First Amendment Center, and NewseumED.

One of the founding editors of USA Today, he oversees all programs of the Newseum Institute and also is a longtime proponent of diversity in journalism as an essential element of a free press. A veteran multimedia journalist, he also writes, lectures and is interviewed regularly on First Amendment issues.

In 1996, he began working at the Freedom Forum, the foundation that is the principal funder of the Newseum and Newseum Institute. He hosts a variety of online audio and video programs produced by the Newseum Institute, including the “Journalism/Works” podcast, and is co-author of the bi-monthly, nationally distributed commentary “Inside the First Amendment.”

Rabbi Schneier founded the Appeal of Conscience Foundation in 1965, an interfaith coalition of business, religious and foreign policy leaders that promotes religious freedom, human rights, peace and tolerance.

Recipient of the Presidential Citizens Medal from President Bill Clinton for “his service as an international envoy for four administrations and as a Holocaust survivor, devoting a lifetime to overcoming forces of hatred and intolerance” and Department of State Special Recognition Award for “his ecumenical work in favor of mutual understanding, tolerance and peace.” The U.S. Senate honored him for hisworkonbehalfofreligious freedom and interreligious cooperation. Pope Francis conferred on him the papal knighthood of St. Sylvester for “his unceasing work to promote peace and mutual understanding.”

Since 1962, he has been the Senior Rabbi of the 128-year old Park East Synagogue, one of New York City’s historic landmark houses of worship where in 2008 he hosted Pope Benedict XVI, the first Papal visit to a synagogue in the U.S., as well as the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew and Patriarch of Moscow Alexy.

Convened six international conferences with Catholic, Muslim and Serbian Orthodox religious leaders from the former Yugoslavia to call for an end to the bloodshed and advance conciliation.

Co-sponsored with the Ecumenical Patriarch Peace and Tolerance Conferences on South East Europe, Kosovo, Central Asia. Appointed by U.N. Secretary General to the “Alliance of Civilizations,” ambassador of the U.N. Alliance of Civilizations, U.S. alternate representative to the U.N. General Assembly and chairman, U.S. Commission for the Preservation of America’s Heritage Abroad. One of three religious leaders appointed by President Clinton to start the first dialogue on religious freedom with Chinese leaders. Initiated U.N. Resolution for the Protection of Religious Sites.

Recipient of high honors from France, Albania, Austria, Croatia, Germany, Hungary, Morocco, Italy, Poland, Russia, Spain, City of Vienna; Guru Nanak Interfaith Prize; Athenagoras Award. Received eleven honorary doctorates from U.S. and foreign universities; his alma mater, Yeshiva University established the Rabbi Arthur Schneier Program for International A airs. Member, Council on Foreign Relations, Asia Society; Vice President, World Jewish Congress; U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, Committee on Conscience.

Born in Vienna, Austria, in 1930; married to Elisabeth Nordmann Schneier.

Timothy Samuel Shah is research professor of Government at Baylor University’s Institute for Studies of Religion; director for International Research at the Religious Freedom Research Project at Georgetown University’s Berkley Center for Religion, Peace and World Affairs; and Senior Director of the South and Southeast Asia Action Team with the Religious Freedom Institute, a new non-profit organization headquartered in Washington, D.C. He is a political scientist specializing in religious freedom as well as in the broad relationship between religious and political dynamics in theory, history, and contemporary practice.

He is author of Even if There is No God: Hugo Grotius and the Secular Foundations of Modern Political Liberalism (Oxford University Press, forthcoming in 2018) and, with Monica Duffy Toft and Daniel Philpott, of God’s Century: Resurgent Religion and Global Politics (W.W. Norton and Company, 2011). He is also editor of numerous volumes, including, with Allen Hertzke, Christianity and Freedom: Historical Perspectives and Christianity and Freedom: Contemporary Perspectives (both with Cambridge University Press, 2016); with Thomas Farr and Jack Friedman, Religious Freedom and Gay Rights (Oxford University Press, 2016); and with Alfred Stepan and Monica Duffy Toft, Rethinking Religion and World Affairs (Oxford University Press, 2012). Shah’s volume co-edited with Jack Friedman, Homo Religiosus?: Exploring the Roots of Religion and Religious Freedom in Human Experience, is forthcoming in 2018 with Cambridge University Press. His articles on religion, religious freedom, and global politics, in history and in the contemporary world, have appeared in Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, the Journal of Law and Religion, the Journal of Democracy, the Review of Politics, Fides et Historia, and elsewhere.

Shah received his A.B. magna cum laude with Highest Honors in Government in 1992 and a Ph.D. in Political Science in 2002, both from Harvard University. His doctoral dissertation in political theory won the 2003 American Political Science Association’s Award for Best Dissertation on Religion and Politics. In 2009, he was awarded one of the first Joseph R. Crapa Fellowships with the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom.

He resides in Rockville, Maryland, with his wife Rebecca Samuel Shah, a specialist in religion and economic development and a research professor with Baylor University’s Institute for Studies of Religion, and their five children.

James C. Skedros is the Michael G. and Anastasia Cantonis Professor of Byzantine Studies at Hellenic College and Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology, Brookline, Massachusetts, and currently serves as dean of Holy Cross. He has been on faculty at Holy Cross since 1998.

He received his undergraduate honor’s degree from the University of Utah in Political Science and Middle Eastern Studies (Arabic). Professor Skedros received his Th.D. from Harvard Divinity School in the History of Christianity. From 1996 to 1998 he was assistant professor of Orthodox Studies at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, California. His teaching and research areas include popular religious practices in Late Antiquity, Byzantine Christianity, the lives of early Christian and Byzantine saints, and Christian-Muslim relations. He is also Lecturer on New Testament Greek at Harvard Divinity School where he has been teaching Greek since 2001.

In addition to his book on the historical development of the veneration of the early Christian martyr Demetrios (St. Demetrios of Thessaloniki: Civic Patron and Divine Protector, 4th-7th c. CE), he has published several journal articles as well as entries in important references works (The Cambridge Dictionary of Christianity; The Encyclopedia of Eastern Orthodox Christianity; The Orthodox Christian World) and in several books dealing with the veneration and commemoration of saints.

His article “Byzantium and Islam in the Mediterranean World” (Blackwell Companion to World Christianity, 2016) traces the interaction between Islam and Byzantine society. He recently received an innovation teaching grant from the Association of Theological Schools for a new graduate course Jews, Christians, and Muslims Interacting, a course that brings students of the three faiths together for theological and historical studies.

He is a double recipient of a Fulbright Fellowship, both for the study of Byzantine saints in Thessaloniki, Greece.

Samuel Tadros is a Senior Fellow at the Hudson Institute's Center for Religious Freedom where he researches Middle Eastern politics, Islamist movements and Religious freedom.

Mr. Tadros is a professorial lecturer at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies, and a Distinguished Visiting Fellow in Middle Eastern Studies at the Hoover Institution. He resides in Centreville, Virginia.

He is the author of Motherland Lost: The Egyptian and Coptic Quest for Modernity (Hoover 2013), and Reflections on the Revolution in Egypt (Hoover 2014). Mr. Tadros’ articles have appeared in The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, National Review, the Weekly Standard and Current Trends in Islamist Ideology. He has received his master’s degree from Georgetown University and his bachelor’s degree from the American University in Cairo.

Ambassador Patrick Nickolas Theros retired as president of the U.S.-Qatar Business Council in July. He had joined the Council in March 2000 after a 36-year career in the United States Foreign Service. He joined the Foreign Service in 1963. Prior to his appointment as Ambassador to the State of Qatar in 1995, he served as Political Advisor to the Commander in Chief Central Command; Deputy Chief of Mission and Political Officer in Amman; and Charge d’affaires and Deputy Chief of Mission in Abu Dhabi; Economic and Commercial Counselor in Damascus. He also served as the Director of Politico-Military Affairs at the Department of State, political advisor to the Commander in Chief of U.S. Central Command as well as earlier assignments in Saudi Arabia, Nicargaua and Lebanon. Before his appointment to Qatar in 1995, Ambassador Theros served as Deputy Coordinator for Counterterrorism, responsible for the coordination of all U.S. Government counterterrorism activities outside the United States. He currently manages Theros & Theors, LLP, a consulting firm.

During his career, he earned four Superior Honor Awards. In 1990, he was accorded the personal rank of Minister Counselor. In 1992, he received both the President’s Meritorious Service Award and the Secretary of Defense Medal for Meritorious Civilian Service. The Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem honored him with the honor of Knight Commander Order of the Holy Sepulcher. In 1999, His Highness Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifah Al-Thani awarded Ambassador Theros Qatar’s Order of Merit. He speaks Spanish, Arabic and Greek fluently.

He is a member of the Middle East Policy Council, Council of Foreign Relations, Center for Contemporary Arab Studies at Georgetown University School of Foreign Service, Arab American Bankers Association of America, Institute of Foreign Affairs, Washington Institute for Foreign Affairs, American Academy of Diplomacy and Churches for Middle East Peace. He is also representative to USA of the Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem and an Archon of the Order of St. Andrew.

Born in 1941 in Ann Arbor, Michigan, he graduated from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service in 1963 and has done advanced studies at the American University in Washington, D.C., the Universidad Centroamericana in Managua, Nicaragua, the Armed Forces Staff College at Norfolk, Virginia, and the National Defense University in Washington, D.C.

William J. Antholis serves as Director and CEO of the Miller Center, a nonpartisan affiliate of the University of Virginia that specializes in presidential scholarship, public policy, and political history. He has decades of government, non-profit, and academic experience.

Prior to joining the Miller Center, Antholis served as Managing Director of the Brookings Institution. Previously he was Director of Studies at the German Marshall Fund of the United States. He worked at the White House, where he was Director of International Economic Affairs of the National Security Council and served as Deputy Director of the White House Climate Change Task Force. Antholis worked at the State Department on the policy planning staff and in the Bureau of Economic Affairs, where he was a member of the team responsible for developing responses to world financial crises.

Antholis holds a Ph.D. in politics from Yale University and a B.A. in government and foreign affairs from the University of Virginia. He is the author of numerous articles, essays and lectures, as well as two books.

Dr. George E. Demacopoulos is Fr. John Meyendorff & Patterson Family Chair of Orthodox Christian Studies at Fordham University. Along with Aristotle Papanikolaou, he is co-founding Director of the Orthodox Christian Studies Center and co-editor of the Journal of Orthodox Christian Studies.

Dr. Demacopoulos received his Ph.D. in Religious Studies from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2002. His research and teaching interests are in the History of Christianity during ancient and medieval periods. Although he has published on a wide-range of topics, his primary focus lays in the interaction between Eastern and Western Christian communities throughout history. He has written three books: Gregory the Great: Ascetic, Pastor, and First-Man of Rome (University of Notre Dame Press); The Invention of Peter: Apostolic Discourse and Papal Authority in Late Antiquity (University of Pennsylvania Press); and Five Models of Spiritual Direction in the Early Church (University of Notre Dame Press). He has also published dozens of scholarly articles in premier academic journals, including the Journal of Religion, the Journal of Late Antiquity, and Theological Studies.

In 2010, Dr. Demacopoulos became an Archon of Ecumenical Patriarchate, Order of St. Andrew, with the Offikiion, Didaskalos Tous Genous (“Teacher of the Nation”). He also serves on the National Council as Historian of the Order.

Lauren Green currently serves as Fox News Channel’s (FNC) chief religion correspondent based in the New York bureau. She joined FNC in 1996.

Most recently, Green reported live from Rome in 2013 on the election of Pope Francis, as well as on the retirement of Pope Benedict XVI. Additionally, she provided live coverage of the beati cation of Pope John Paul II from Rome in 2011 and Pope Benedict XVI’s visit to the United States in 2008.

Prior to joining FNC, Green served as a weekend news anchor and correspondent at WBBM-TV (CBS-2) in Chicago, IL. From 1988 to 1993, she was a general assignment reporter at KSTP-TV (ABC-5) in St. Paul, Minnesota.

Outside of her career at FNC, Green is a reputable concert pianist with a degree in piano performance from The University of Minnesota. She has interviewed some of the most prominent people in the classical music world including Placido Domingo, Pierre Boulez, Joshua Bell and has covered such events as the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition and opening night of The Metropolitan Opera. In 2004, she released her debut album, “Classic Beauty.”

A graduate of Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, Green was named Miss Minnesota in 1984 and was the third runner-up in the 1985 Miss America contest.

Dr. Elizabeth H. Prodromou is Visiting associate professor of conflict resolution at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, Medford, Mass. She is a non-resident fellow at The Hedayah International Center of Excellence for Countering Violent Extremism (Abu Dhabi) and a Senior Fellow in National Security and International Policy at the Center for American Progress, Washington, D.C. In addition to her diplomatic service as vice chair and commissioner on the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (2004-2012), she served in an advisory capacity as a member of the U.S. Secretary of State’s Religion and Foreign Policy Working Group (2011-2015).

Her research focuses on religion and geopolitics, and she is a well-known expert on Orthodox Christianity and Islam. Her current research focuses on the security and human rights implications of Christian sustainability in a religiously plural Middle East, as well as on Greece as a critical case study of how mixed migration flows are reshaping the religion-security nexus in Europe.

Published widely in scholarly and policy journals and a frequent contributor and commentator in international media, she holds a Ph.D. and an S. M. in political science from MIT, an M.A.L.D. from The Fletcher School of Law & Diplomacy, and a B.A. in International Relations and History from Tufts University. She is co-editor and contributor for Eastern Orthodox Christianity and American Higher Education and of Thinking Through Faith: New Perspectives from Orthodox Christian Scholars.

First elected to the Senate in 2006, Senator Cardin currently serves as Ranking Member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Cardin has a deep interest in foreign affairs and has worked across party lines to further our national security and protect universal human rights. He has fought to ensure that anti-corruption, transparency and respect for human rights are integrated our foreign policy. He has been a commissioner on the U.S. Helsinki Commission since 1993, serving as chairman of the Commission in the 111th and 113th Congress. In 2015, he was named as the Special Representative on Anti-Semitism, Racism, and Intolerance for the 57-nation Organization Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) Parliamentary Assembly. He has served as the Ranking Member of the SFRC East Asia, the Pacific, and International Cybersecurity Policy Subcommittee and previously was the Chairman of the International Development and Foreign Assistance Subcommittee.

From 1987-2006, Cardin represented Maryland's Third Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives and served for 17 years on the Ways and Means Committee. A 1967 graduate of the University of Maryland School of Law (1st in his class), he earned his B.A. degree in 1964 from the University of Pittsburgh (cum laude). Senator Cardin is married to Myrna Edelman Cardin and his daughter Deborah and son-in-law Jonathan Willis have two daughters, Madeline and Julia.

His Eminence Archbishop Demetrios (Trakatellis), Geron of America and Exarch of the Ecumenical Patriarchate was elected Archbishop of America on August 19, 1999 by the Holy and Sacred Synod of the Ecumenical Patriarchate in Constantinople and was enthroned on September 18, 1999 at the Archdiocesan Cathedral of the Holy Trinity in New York.

A graduate of the University of Athens School of Theology, he received his Doctorate Degree “with distinction” from the Harvard School of Arts and Sciences and a second Doctorate “with distinction” from the University of Athens. He is the recipient of thirteen honorary degrees, a member of the prestigious Academy of Athens, and the namesake of three endowed chairs in his honor at prestigious American Universities.

As Archbishop of America and head of the Eparchial Synod of the Archdiocese, as well as Chairman of the Assembly of Canonical Orthodox Bishops of the United States of America, Archbishop Demetrios has traveled extensively throughout the U.S. and globally, officiating at services, consecrating churches, ordaining clergy, participating in religious, humanitarian and academic conferences, and extending the scope of the work of the Greek Orthodox Church in America. He has led the Church in responding to national and international issues and crises, including the tremendous challenges confronting the Ecumenical Patriarchate, the terrorist attack of Sept. 11, 2001 and the destruction and rebuilding of St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church and National Shrine at the World Trade Center in New York City, the Macedonian issue, and the Cyprus issue. He has initiated numerous philanthropic responses to natural disasters nationally and globally. In 2012 and 2013 when financial crises in Greece and Cyprus took immense proportions, the Archbishop initiated and led a rigorous campaign for humanitarian assistance to the people of Greece and Cyprus. Both efforts continue to date. In recognition of his efforts on various endeavors he has received the highest honor of the Republic of Cyprus, the medal of the Great Cross of the Order of Archbishop Makarios III, and the Great Cross of the Order of Phoenix, the highest honorary distinction of the Hellenic Republic.

An Orthodox hierarch for more than 50 years, a theologian, statesman, author and biblical scholar of international recognition, His Eminence has faithfully demonstrated the healing power of Christ’s truth and compassion. His message has been one of unity, genuine relationships, and an ever-increasing commitment to God and to service in the name of Christ. He has manifested the effectiveness of God’s grace in establishing peace, tranquility, stability and trust both within the Church and throughout the world.

Dr. Ekonomou currently serves as senior counsel to both the American Center for Law and Justice in Washington, D.C., and the European Centre for Law and Justice in Strasbourg, France, where he participates in human rights and religious liberties cases in which these institutions are involved worldwide.

He was educated at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, where he received his B.A. magna cum laude in philosophy in 1970, a master’s in Medieval History in 1971, and a Doctor of Law degree from Emory University School of Law in 1974, and a Ph.D. in Medieval and Byzantine History in 2000. His doctoral dissertation was published as “Byzantine Rome and the Greek Popes” in 2007.

He also had many other writings published including “St. John Chrysostom: Preacher and Politician: A Bibliographic Essay,” “St. Anselm and His English Contemporaries,” “A Women’s Monasticism in the Sixth Century West: Caesarius of Arles and the Rule for Nuns,” “Pope Boniface VIII: Clericis Laicos and the Con ict with Philip the Fair: A Historiographic Essay,” and “Monastics and Ecclesiastics in Late Antique Egypt.”

Dr. Ekonomou has served as legal counsel to the majority leader of the Georgia House of Representatives, assistant United States attorney general and chief of the Criminal Division in the Northern District of Georgia, acting United States attorney, special assistant attorney general, special deputy insurance commissioner of Georgia, and assistant commissioner of securities. He also has been an adjunct professor of law at the Atlanta Law School, lecturer in modern Greek at Georgia State University, and is now a lecturer in Byzantine history and literature at Emory University.

Hank Hanegraaff serves as president and chairman of the board of the North Carolina–based Christian Research Institute. He is also host of the nationally syndicated Bible Answer Man radio broadcast, which is heard daily across the United States and Canada—and around the world via the Internet at equip.org.

Widely regarded as one of the world’s leading Christian authors and apologists, Hank is deeply committed to equipping Christians to be so familiar with truth that when counterfeits loom on the horizon, they recognize them instantaneously. Through his live call-in radio broadcast, Hank equips Christians to mine the Bible for all its wealth, answers questions on the basis of careful research and sound reasoning, and interviews today’s most significant leaders, apologists, and thinkers.

Hank is the author of more than twenty books, with more than a million copies in print. The Complete Bible Answer Book—Collector’s Edition, Revised and Updated, is a compendium of the most common, and the most difficult, questions regarding Christianity, culture, and cults that Hank has received over the past three decades. Answers to such questions as “How can Christians legitimize a God who orders the genocide of entire nations?” “Does the Bible promote slavery?” and “What happens to a person who dies without ever hearing of Jesus?”

Christianity in Crisis and Resurrection each won the Gold Medallion for Excellence in Christian Literature awarded by the Evangelical Christian Publisher’s Association (ECPA); Counterfeit Revival and The FACE That Demonstrates the Farce of Evolution each won ECPA’s Silver Medallion—the latter published in the condensed Fatal Flaws: What Evolutionists Don’t Want You to Know.

Other noteworthy volumes include The Prayer of Jesus, which rose to number one on the Christian Marketplace Bestseller list October 2002, while the DVD curriculum won a nationally recognized Angel Award for content and creativity. Through his ground-breaking The Apocalypse Code: What the Bible Really Teaches about the End Times and Why It Matters Today, as well as the thriller Fuse of Armageddon and historical fiction The Last Disciple Series, Hank exposes the dangers of both Christian and secular Zionism. In Has God Spoken? Hank provides memorable proofs of the Bible’s divine inspiration.

Additional works include The Legacy Study Bible, The Covering: God’s Plan to Protect You from Evil, The Creation Answer Book, and AfterLife: What You Need To Know about Heaven, the Hereafter and Near-Death Experiences. His newest book is the forthcoming M-U-S-L-I-M: What You Need to Know about the World’s Fastest Growing Religion.

He is a regular contributor to the award-winning Christian Research Journal and an articulate communicator on the pressing issues of our day, having spoken in leading churches, conferences, and on college campuses throughout the world (including such faraway institutions as the University of Tehran, Iran, and the University of Hong Kong).

Hank and his wife, Kathy, live in Charlotte, North Carolina, and are parents to twelve children.

Hollister is a member of Chapter 209, Middletown, Ohio. He has served AHEPA in numerous leadership positions, including most recently, supreme secretary and as an executive board member on the AHEPA National Housing Corporation. As supreme president, Hollister’s responsibilities include being the chief executive officer, and principal spokesperson, of the entire AHEPA domain, which includes the United States, Canada, and chapters in Europe.

Hollister is president of L.M. Kohn & Company, an Investment Advisory and Brokerage firm in Cincinnati, Ohio, managing 60 branch offices with more than $3.5 billion in client assets. With more than 20 years of experience in the Securities Industry, the supreme president holds a Master’s Degree in Finance from Webster University and a Bachelor’s Degree in Economics from Grove City College.

In addition, Hollister is a retired U.S. Army Major with 21 years of active and reserve service, of which, 17 years were in Special Operations with tours of duty in Central America and Central Asia. As commander of the Khost Provincial Reconstruction Team, Afghanistan, he was awarded the Bronze Star in 2005 for distinguished achievement. Hollister received noteworthy accolades in the Book “Counterinsurgency in Eastern Afghanistan 2004-2008” authored by Robert Kemp.

Hollister, his wife, Cynthia, and daughter, Alexandra, are members of Saints Constantine & Helen Greek Orthodox Church, Middletown, where he served as parish council president. Cynthia is a Daughters of Penelope Past District 11 Governor and Alexandra currently is Maids of Athena District 11 Governor. The supreme president is proud of his Ikarian heritage and is a cousin of former U.S. Representative Zack Space of Ohio.

Anthony J. Limberakis, MD, an Archon of the Ecumenical Patriarchate since 1987 and a member of the Archon National Council since 1988 and National Commander since 1998, is a practicing radiologist in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. A 1978 graduate of Duke University School of Medicine, he is president and owner of Bustleton Radiology Associates, Ltd., a leading full service outpatient radiology practice in Philadelphia.

Active in the Greek Orthodox Church, Dr. Limberakis serves as the National Commander of the Order of St. Andrew, an organization comprised of the leading Orthodox churchmen in the United States whose mission is to defend and support the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, the spiritual center of the world's 300 million Orthodox Christians located in Istanbul, Turkey. To be invested as an Archon of the Ecumenical Patriarchate is the highest honor a layman may achieve in the Orthodox Church.

With the blessings of Archbishop Demetrios of America, the Exarch (or representative) of the Ecumenical Patriarchate in the United States, Limberakis has led the Order of St. Andrew in a major domestic and international religious freedom initiative for the Ecumenical Patriarchate, which is under heavy religious oppression by the government of Turkey. The Ecumenical Patriarchate traces its origin to the first called Apostle of Jesus Christ, St. Andrew, who was the brother of St. Peter. Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew is the 269th successor of St. Andrew and the First Among Equals (Primus Inter Pares) of all Orthodox Patriarchs and Pope Benedict XVI, the head of the Roman Catholic Church, is the 265th successor of St. Peter.

The Ecumenical Patriarchate, the Spiritual Center of worldwide Orthodoxy, is not able to exercise fundamental human rights and religious freedom due to the restrictive policies of the government of the Republic of Turkey. It is in this milieu of state sponsored religious repression that the continued existence of the Ecumenical Patriarchate is threatened. Under the leadership of Limberakis, the Archons in the United States have initiated an assertive, multifaceted religious freedom project enlisting the assistance of the federal government of the United States, the state legislative bodies of each of the 50 states of the United States, the European Union, the European Court of Human Rights and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) to convey the urgent message to the Turkish government to cease and desist the policies that constrict religious freedom, not only for the Ecumenical Patriarchate, but for all religious minorities including the Jewish , Roman Catholic and Protestant communities of Turkey. The Order strongly supports Turkey's candidacy to the European Union so long as it embraces the religious freedom standards of the EU and the Copenhagen Criteria.

In November 2009, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew and Archbishop Demetrios presented the Athenagoras Human Rights Award, the highest distinction of the Orthodox Church in America, to Limberakis in New York City for his leadership in fighting for religious freedom for the Mother Church, the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople. In June 2009 His Beatitude Patriarch Theophilos of Jerusalem named the Commander Cross-bearer (Stavrophoros) of the Order of the All-Holy Sepulcher Cross-bearers.

Limberakis is a member of the Archdiocesan Council of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America, the Board of Trustees of Hellenic College/Holy Cross School of Theology and has served on the governing board of several Greek Orthodox churches in the Philadelphia area. In May 2002, Limberakis received an Honorary Doctorate Degree in Humanities from Hellenic College, Brookline, Massachusetts, for his professional and community leadership. In May, 2000 he received the Ellis Island Medal of Honor in recognition of his contributions to the Greek American community.

Active at the Duke University Medical Center, Limberakis has served on its Board of Visitors and was past president of the Duke Medical Alumni Association and its major gift organization, the Davison Club. In addition, he has served as member of the Medical Alumni Council and as chairman of its Strategic Planning Committee, which provided the blueprint for the reorganization and revitalization of the Medical Alumni Association. He has been awarded the Charles A. Dukes Award, Duke's highest recognition for volunteer service to the University and is a member of the Founder's Society and the Century Cub. In November 1999, Limberakis was the recipient of the Duke Medical Center Distinguished Service Award that is given periodically to an alumnus who has demonstrated exemplary service to the Medical Center and School of Medicine. In March 2015, Limberakis was conferred the position of Distinguished Fellow of the Oxford Centre for the Study of Law and Public Policy at Harris Manchester College of the University of Oxford.

Limberakis, born in 1952 in Fresno, California the son of the late Rev. John A. Limberakis and Elizabeth Constantine Limberakis, served as a page in the United States Senate while in high school, and earned both his bachelor's and master's degrees in political science at the University of Pennsylvania in 1975. After graduating medical school from Duke in 1978, he completed his medical internship at the Graduate Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania and his residency in diagnostic radiology at the Thomas Jefferson University Hospital in 1983. He is married to Dr. Maria A. (Borden) Limberakis, a family practitioner, and together have three adult children, John, Anthony and Elizabeth and two grandchildren, Dakota and Anthony.

Reince Priebus serves as the president and chief strategist for Michael Best & Friedrich LLP, as well as chairman of the Board of Advisors for Michael Best Strategies LLC, the firm’s government relations and public affairs group.

He most recently served as White House Chief of Staff under President Donald Trump, supporting the president, managing the White House staff, and collaborating with members of Congress and other key policymakers in advancing the President’s agenda.

Prior to managing the White House staff, Priebus enjoyed a great deal of success as the longest-serving chairman of the Republican National Committee in modern history.

He is an Archon in the Order of St. Andrew the Apostle since 2011 with the title of Nomophylax or “Keeper of the Law.” He received his law degree from the University of Miami School of Law.

Wilbur Ross was sworn in by Vice President Mike Pence as the 39th Secretary of Commerce on February 28, 2017. Secretary Ross is the principal voice of business in the Trump Administration, ensuring that U.S. entre-preneurs and businesses have the tools they need to create jobs and economic opportunity.

Secretary Ross is the former Chairman and Chief Strategy Officer of WL Ross & Co. LLC and has over 55 years of investment banking and private equity experience. He has restructured over $400 billion of assets in the airline, apparel, auto parts, banking, beverage, chemical, credit card, electric utility, food service, furniture, gypsum, homebuilding, insurance, marine transport, mortgage origination and servicing, oil and gas, railcar manufacturing and leasing, real estate, restaurant, shipyard, steel, textile and trucking industries. Secretary Ross has been chairman or lead director of more than 100 companies operating in more than 20 different countries.

Named by Bloomberg Markets as one of the 50 most influential people in global finance, Secretary Ross is the only person elected to both the Private Equity Hall of Fame and the Turnaround Management Hall of Fame. He previously served as pri-vatization adviser to New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and was appointed by President Bill Clinton to the board of the U.S.-Russia Investment Fund. President Kim Dae-jung awarded Secretary Ross a medal for helping South Korea during its financial crisis and, in November 2014, the Emperor of Japan awarded him the Order of the Rising Sun, Gold and Silver Star.

As a philanthropist, Secretary Ross has served as Chairman of the Japan Society, Trustee of the Brookings Institution and Chairman of its Economic Studies Council, International Counsel Member of the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris, Trustee of the Blenheim Foundation, President of the American Friends of the Rene Magritte Museum in Brussels and Director of the Palm Beach Civic Association. He also was an Advisory Board Member of Yale University School of Management.

Secretary Ross is a grad-uate of Yale University and Harvard Business School (with distinction). He and his wife Hilary Geary Ross have four children, Jessica Ross, Amanda Ross, Ted Geary and Jack Geary.

Now serving his 13th term in Congress, Chairman Royce serves California's 39th Congressional District, which encompasses parts of Orange, Los Angeles, and San Bernardino Counties.

For the 114th Congress, Royce was selected to be Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee and he has held that position since January 2013. As chairman, Royce is a leader in the global fight to advance human rights, free and fair elections, and solutions to promote security and economic growth.

Royce is one of our nation's premier representatives to foreign governments around the world, and is a strong advocate of a foreign policy that keeps the American homeland safe. Immediately prior to becoming Chairman of the Committee, Royce served as Chairman of the Subcommittee on Terrorism, Nonproliferation, and Trade and a member of the Subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific.

Chairman Royce has built a strong record as an effective legislator and common-sense conservative. In 2014, he spearheaded bipartisan congressional opposition to the Iran nuclear agreement – warning that the deal fails to shut off the regime’s path to a nuclear weapon. Today he continues to lead efforts to hold Iran accountable for its dangerous and provocative acts, while also pushing for robust policies to take the fight to radical Islamist terrorists both on the ground and over the Internet.

A California native, Royce is a graduate of the California State University, Fullerton, School of Business Administration. Royce and his wife Marie have been married for 30 years and are longtime residents of Orange County.

Since arriving in the Senate in January 2011, Rubio has fought against the Washington establishment’s big government vision. With assignments on the Special Committee on Aging, the Committee on Appropriations, the Committee on Foreign Relations, the Select Committee on Intelligence, and the Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship, Rubio is focused on reforming our government and keeping Americans safe. He is committed to working with members of both parties on commonsense solutions, and whenever necessary, standing alone as a check and balance.

Rubio has spent most of his life in West Miami, and lives there today with his wife Jeanette and their four children. He earned his bachelor’s degree from the University of Florida in 1993 and his juris doctor from the University of Miami Law School in 1996 and felt drawn to serve through public office.

Jay Alan Sekulow is chief counsel of the American Center for Law and Justice and the European Centre for Law and Justice. He is also a member of President Trump's legal team. An accomplished and internationally respected judicial advocate, he has presented oral arguments before the U.S. Supreme Court in numerous cases in the defense of constitutional freedoms, especially those involving religious liberty.

The National Law Journal has twice name him one of the 100 most influential lawyers in America. He is the author of numerous publications and legal articles. His most recent book, Rise of ISIS, reached number one on The New York Times bestseller’s list. In 2014, Dr. Sekulow was honored by the Greek Orthodox Order of St. Andrew the Apostle with the prestigious Athenagoras Human Rights Award. Previous recipients of the award include Presidents Jimmy Carter, George H.W. Bush and Archbishop Desmond Tutu. In 2014, he was appointed a Senior Fellow at Emory University School of Law.

He received his Ph.D. from Regent University, with a dissertation on American Legal History, is an honors graduate of Mercer Law School, where he served on the Mercer Law Review, and an honors graduate of Mercer University. Sekulow completed an Executive Program at Vanderbilt University’s Owen School of Management. He was appointed a Visiting Fellow of Oxford University at Harris Manchester College where he lectured on Middle East Affairs and International Law. He completed postdoctoral studies at Oxford University’s History, Politics and Society program on Religion and the Middle East. He has also served as a faculty member for the Office of Legal Education at the United States Department of Justice and has lectured around the globe. Immediately following graduation from law school, he served as a tax trial attorney in the Office of Chief Counsel for the Internal Revenue Service, U.S. Department of the Treasury.

Jordan Sekulow is the Executive Director of the American Center for Law and Justice and cohost of Jay Sekulow Live, a nationally syndicated radio program providing cutting analysis of today’s political and legal landscape.

Mr. Sekulow has an extensive background as a grassroots political organizer. He served as the National Youth Director for the Bush-Cheney 2004 presidential campaign and as a consultant to former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney’s 2008 presidential campaign. Most recently, he served as a Senior advisor on Jeb Bush’s 2016 campaign for president.

He regularly appears as a guest commentator on Fox News, Fox Business and other national media outlets. In 2014, Mr. Sekulow was appointed a Visiting Fellow of Oxford University at Harris Manchester College. He is a graduate of Regent University School of Law and George Washington University. He earned his Master of Laws degree (LL.M.), focusing on International Human Rights, from Georgetown Law.

John Zavitsanos has been a trial lawyer in Texas for over 25 years. He is the managing partner of AZA, one of the premier litigation firms in the country. His peers have repeatedly voted him one of the top 100 lawyers in Texas and one of the Best Lawyers in America. He is rated by the prestigious international rating service Chambers and Partners, among many other distinctions.

In 2007, Mr. Zavitsanos was selected to serve on a five-member committee by the Ecumenical Patriarch to investigate the possibility of initiating human rights litigation against the government of Turkey before the European Courts of Human Rights in Strasbourg, France. As a member of the committee, Mr. Zavitsanos worked with numerous internationally known human rights lawyers, including lawyers from the American Center for Law and Justice, the European Center for Law and Justice, and some prominent human rights lawyers from Turkey. He was a member of the Archdiocesan Council of the Greek Orthodox Church in America, president for three years of his local parish (Annunciation Cathedral) as well as a member of the National Council of the Order of St. Andrew.

As an attorney, his cases have been featured in the Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The National Law Review, The American Lawyer, The Texas Lawyer, and many other national publications. He has tried more than 75 cases to a verdict in a multitude of areas of the law including financial services, construction, oil and gas, complex commercial disputes, director and officer liability, non-compete/trade secret disputes, and business torts. He is also the primary author of “O’Connor’s Texas Rules” – widely regarded as the leading reference manual for litigators in the state of Texas.

Mr. Zavitsanos and his wife, Joni, have been married for more than 25 years and have four children.