June 16, 2010

Faculty changes at St. John Vianney Seminary

By Denver Catholic Register

The close of the 2009-10 academic year has brought changes to the faculty of St. John Vianney Theological Seminary, which is one of two seminaries the Denver Archdiocese operates.

After 11 years, Sister Mary Timothea Elliott, a Religious Sister of Mercy of Alma, Mich., who served as founding chair and professor of Old Testament Scripture, has taken a new position as director of the Christian Formation Office for the Diocese of Knoxville, Tenn.  Sister Elliott was instrumental in developing the seminary’s Scripture department. In 2005 she was presented with a papal award, the Cross Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice (Cross for the Church and the Pontiff), for her lifetime of outstanding biblical scholarship in service to the Church.

After 10 years as director of spiritual formation and director of the Spirituality Year, Father Christopher Hellstrom will now serve as adjunct spiritual director. Father James Thermos of the formation faculty will serve as the new director of the Spirituality Year, which is a time of prayer, contemplative reading and immersion into diocesan priestly spirituality for men discerning the priesthood. Christology professor Jesuit Father Raymond Gawronski is the new director of spiritual formation.

Anthony Lilles, who served nine years as academic dean for the seminary, is going on sabbatical. New academic dean is Scripture professor Father Andreas Hoeck. (On May 31, Father Hoeck, a native of Germany, became a naturalized citizen of the United States.)

St. John Vianney Theological Seminary is located at the John Paul II Center campus in south Denver.