During our recent OCMS staff team day at Yarnton Manor (just outside Oxford), marking the start of the year, we were reminded once again that behind our research, programmes, and partnerships are people whose journeys of upbringing, faith, and scholarship shape the work we do at OCMS. Over coffee and conversation, it was a welcome opportunity to catch up with one member of our wider team: Rev. Dr Calum Samuelson, Research Associate with OCMS on our Ethiopian Orthodox Project.
Introducing Calum
Calum brings a distinctive combination of pastoral ministry and academic research to his role. An ordained Methodist minister, he has served congregations, trained church leaders, and taught theology in Africa, Europe, and the United States. Alongside this, he has developed deep scholarly expertise in the spiritual and theological traditions of the Ethiopian Orthodox Täwaḥǝdo Church. This focus lies at the heart of OCMS’s Ethiopian Research Project, undertaken in collaboration with Sankt Ignatios College, a centre of excellence for Orthodox studies.
His engagement with Ethiopian Orthodoxy was inspired after meeting our own Dr. Ralph Lee while studying at Cambridge. Ralph is an OCMS Faculty member and leader of our Ethiopian Orthodox Project. Ralph introduced Calum to the richness of the Ethiopian Orthodox tradition which captured Calum’s intellectual curiosity. What began as academic interest soon became a passion that shaped his doctoral research and ongoing work.
Calum completed his PhD last year at the Institute for Orthodox Christian Studies (IOCS). His thesis explored expressions of theōsis — participation in the divine life — in Ethiopic monastic literature, working closely with texts written in Gǝʿǝz and placing them in conversation with Greek and Syriac traditions. Alongside his doctoral work, and continuing since its completion, he has served as a Research Associate with OCMS, contributing to a collaborative exploration of the theology and lived practice of the Ethiopian and Eritrean Orthodox Churches.
The Ethiopian Orthodox Project
The Ethiopian Orthodox Project, spearheaded by Ralph Lee and supported through grants including Fuller Theological Seminary and the Canadian Bible Society, seeks to do much more than merely advance specialist scholarship. It aims to deepen understanding between Christian traditions and to engage seriously with one of the world’s oldest continuous expressions of Christian faith. As Calum has reflected in his own public writing, the Ethiopian Orthodox Church offers global Christianity a rich theological and spiritual inheritance — shaped by scripture, liturgy, poetry, and monastic practice — that remains very relevant for contemporary christian challenges and questions. (This article jointly penned with Ralph offers a closer look into Ethiopian Orthodox theology and tradition).
A particular emphasis of the project is engagement with and learning from Ethiopian and Eritrean diaspora communities, including those in Sweden. In this way, historical and textual research is held together with living communities of faith, ensuring that scholarship remains attentive to the church’s ongoing witness and mission.
Calum’s own life story reflects the global nature of this work. Originally from Seattle, he grew up in a missionary family and has lived in eight different countries. Before joining the Ethiopian Research Project team, he and his wife Andrea spent three years in Kenya, where Calum taught at Africa Nazarene University and engaged deeply with African Christian theology and practice, before moving to their current base in Sweden.
For OCMS, Calum’s role is invaluable. By bridging academic research and innovative mission practice, he helps ensure that our engagement with Täwaḥǝdo Orthodoxy is both intellectually rigorous and deeply rooted in lived Christian communities. We are grateful for his active participation and presentations at key international gatherings, including the International Orthodox Theological Association (IOTA) in Rome in June, the Lausanne Orthodox Initiative (LOI) consultation in Egypt in October and the Annual Meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature (SBL) in Boston in November, where both Ralph and Calum presented the Ethiopian project to a wider audience. As the Ethiopian Orthodox Project continues to develop, Calum’s contributions will play a key role in shaping how OCMS engages in this important area of global Christian scholarship.
Note
You can watch the conference proceedings of the IOTA conference in Rome, Italy on their Youtube Channel
The LOI Consultation in Wadi El Natrun, Egypt has published details, photos and recordings on its website.