Risto Saarinen (FIN)

is since 2001 Professor of Ecumenics at the University of Helsinki. He is Dr.theol. (1988) and Dr.phil. (1994) at the University of Helsinki. From 1994-1999 he served as Research Professor at the Institute for Ecumenical Research, Strasbourg, and from 2003 to 2007 as visiting professor there. He is member of the Finnish Academy of Arts and Sciences (since 1999) and has conducted his own research team in the Centre of Excellence Programme of the Finnish Academy from 2002 to 2007 (a new period is granted from 2008 to 2013). He is advisor of the Council of the Lutheran World Federation and vice-chair of the global Lutheran-Orthodox Joint Commission. His five most relevant publications are: Faith and Holiness: Lutheran – Orthodox Dialogue 1959-1994(Göttingen 1997);God and the Gift. An Ecumenical Theology of Giving(Collegeville 2005); Moral Philosophy on the Threshold of Modernity (ed. Jill Kraye and Risto Saarinen. Dordrecht 2005); North European Churches from the Cold War to Globalisation (with Hugh McLeod and Aila Lauha) (Tampere 2006);Lutheran Ecclesiology(London: Routledge 2008).