The fifth International Triennial Conference of the Centre for Early Christian Studies, Australian Catholic University, "Prayer and Spirituality in the Early Church" was held in conjunction with the annual conference of Western Pacific Rim Patristics Society at St. Patrick's campus of the university in Melbourne, Australia, from 9-12 January, 2008. The theme of the conference was "Poverty and Riches." Our thanks go to Lawrence Cross once again, and his team for convening this conference.

 

We were delighted to have Prof. Miyako Demura, a member of the Society, from Tohoku Gakuin University, Sendai, Japan, as one of the three keynote speakers at this conference speaking on Clement of Alexandria and Origen. The other keynote speakers were William Loader from Murdoch University, whose presentation was entitled "'Good news for the poor' and Spirituality in the New Testament: A Question of Survival" and Samuel Rubenson from Lund University with his paper "Power and Politics of Poverty in Early Monasticism."

 

Not only were the Japanese members of the Society well represented among the presenters and participants at the conference, but it was wonderful to see several South Korean scholars join us as well. This augurs well for the future. During the conference a meeting of the members of the Society was held at which it was decided that a name change would be beneficial in order to reflect the Society's nature and objectives better. So Western Pacific Rim Patristics Society (WPRPS) gives way to Asia-Pacific Early Christian Studies Society (APECSS).