Graduate Profile: Sea Yun Joung, MTS '24 

How I've Changed  

I have grown significantly as a young scholar of historical theology. Increasingly growing through the profound "existential skin" in the questions scholars have asked, I have realized how importantly history and theology interact - not merely through "antiquarian" interest, but through the trends, continued reflection on sources, and embodied character of the history that is, for the Christian, inevitably a continuation of the Incarnation. 

Memorable Moment

My most memorable moment at HDS is each morning I come into HDS as I pass by everyone, shaking the occasional hand - and can remember being greeted so warmly by friends and colleagues with so many different points of view and backgrounds. 

Favorite Class or Professor 

My favorite class was the "Alexandria" class co-taught by Professor Stang (CSWR) and Professor Kosmin (Classics). It was a whirlwind of a class with very many readings and an almost intimidatingly sharp set of in-class presentations and papers. I was truly nourished to better appreciate the nature of history and the profound continuities between the classical and late-antique ideological, theological, and material landscape. But my favorite professor is Professor Andrew Teeter, who has been such a mentor figure for me at very many levels, even during his sabbatical year via Zoom calls and personal conversations ranging from the nature of the academy to minute details in the Hebrew Bible. 

Message of Thanks  

I would like to thank the benefactors of the Frank Knox Memorial Fellowship and Presidential Scholarship, which through some coordination I was permitted to hold coterminously during my time at Harvard. I would also like to thank my parents, whose love I grew upon, as well as my spiritual parents - Br. Martyn Paxton, Fr. Egil Mogstad, Fr. Matthew Power SJ, Fr. Andrew Hochstedler OFM, and Reverend Dr. Jeffrey Langan. I would also like to thank my closest group of friends, Sanghoon Eric Lee, Fabrizio Jonathan Nicoll, Clara Kimball Eloise Morrissey, Olivia Therese Owen-Sinclair, Ethan Giebmanns, Caroline and Hassan Ahmad, Elizabeth and Nicolas Wilson. Finally, I would like to thank my academic advisors and mentors - professors William Wood, Hindy Najman, Brendan Harris, Reverend Dr. Robert Wainwright, Reverend Dr. Akma Adams, Phil Booth, Annette Yoshiko Reed, Charles Stang, Andrew Teeter, Alexander Riehle, Paul Kosmin, and Ioli Kalavrezou. 

What I Hope to Be Remembered By 

I hope to be remembered as an historical theologian of the Early Church, with a wider knowledge and interaction with the whole ancient Mediterranean world. 

Future Plans 

Having won the Harding Distinguished Postgraduate Scholarship to the University of Cambridge (Clare College), I will be pursuing a PhD on the Sacramentality of Epistolary Friendship in the Letters of St Maximus the Confessor.