The year 2025 marks the 150th anniversary of the birth of Evelyn Underhill, the agnostic-turned-Anglican writer on worship and mysticism. Underhill’s expansive vision of the Christian life was rooted in pagan and Christian Neoplatonism and, especially, the Christian mystical tradition, which was often found most clearly in the “monastic system.” She argued that the “mystic way” was available to all Christians and was rooted in the sacramental life of the parish church and in personal spiritual disciplines, especially retreats. Underhill’s practical mysticism brings the monastery into the parish, arguing that the Christian life is the monastic life.
The 2025 James Lloyd Breck Conference on Monasticism and the Church seeks to investigate Underhill’s mystical theology to discover how she understood the role of monasticism in the history and spirituality of the Church and how every Christian can be a single-minded mystic.
Fr. Greg Peters joined Nashotah House in 2018 and oversees the annual James Lloyd Breck Conference on Monasticism and the Church and teaches courses in monasticism and ascetical theology. His research interests include the history and theology of Christian monasticism, the history of Christian (especially monastic) theology, and ascetical theology. He has presented papers regularly at the International Congress on Medieval Studies and the Evangelical Theological Society annual meeting. His published articles have appeared in the American Benedictine Review, Cistercian Studies Quarterly, Tjurunga: An Australasian Benedictine Review, and the Journal of Spiritual Formation and Soul Care, alongside articles in other peer-reviewed journals and edited volumes. His most recently published books are Thomas à Kempis: His Life and Spiritual Theology (Cascade Books, 2021) and The Monkhood of All Believers: The Monastic Foundation of Christian Spirituality (Baker Academic, 2018).
Fr. Peters is also Professor of Medieval and Spiritual Theology in the Torrey Honors College of Biola University and a Research Associate at the Von Hügel Institute, St Edmund’s College in the University of Cambridge. In the past, he has also served as a visiting professor at St. John’s School of Theology. He serves (since 2012) as vicar of the Anglican Church of the Epiphany in La Mirada, California. Ordained in 2009 in the Anglican Church of North America (ACNA), he served from 2009-2012 in part-time ministry at the Diocese of Western Anglicans’ All Saints Cathedral, Long Beach, and until 2020 as a diocesan examining chaplain.
Dr. Robyn Wrigley-Carr is Associate Professor in Spirituality and Spiritual Care at the University of Divinity in Australia. Her PhD (University of St. Andrews, Scotland) examined Baron Friedrich von Hügel as a spiritual director. Subsequent research has focused upon the writings of Evelyn Underhill, one of von Hügel’s spiritual directees. Dr. Wrigley-Carr is the author of The Spiritual Formation of Evelyn Underhill (2020) and Music of Eternity: Meditations for Advent with Evelyn Underhill (The Archbishop of York’s Advent Book, 2021). She discovered and edited Evelyn Underhill’s Prayer Book (2018). Alongside an extensive list of journal publications in highly ranked journals, Dr. Wrigley-Carr has been a guest on Renovaré podcasts (USA), Church House (UK) and ABC’s God Forbid (Australia). Dr. Wrigley-Carr is a spiritual director who leads spiritual retreats in Australia and England and she led The Evelyn Underhill Association’s Quiet Day in Washington,D.C., in 2024. She is a member of the Executive Committee for the International Network for the Study of Spirituality and on the editorial board and book reviews editor for the Journal for the Study of Spirituality.
Pre-Conference: $150 per person
Conference: $225 per person
REGISTRATION COMING SOON
The annual Breck Conference on Monasticism & the Church is made possible by a generous endowment granted to Nashotah House in 2017, extending the legacy of The St. Benedict Servants of Christ into perpetuity for the advancement of the Religious Life, especially within Anglicanism.
