We are very pleased indeed to welcome a new member of our writing staff, Prof. Kyle Washut of Wyoming Catholic College, as our first contributor specializing in the Byzantine Liturgy. Prof Washut has already given us some interesting articles in the past few months, on the pre-festal days of Christmas and the Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts. Here is his own account of himself and his academic career thus far.
Kyle Washut is a Wyoming native who had every intention of growing up to be a cowboy. Having worked in
nuclear missile silos, coal mines, landscaping, wilderness trail grooming, street performer venues, and finally earning several collegiate degrees, he finds himself as far away from that goal as ever. He pursued an Associate of Arts in Political Science and another Associate in Spanish at Casper Community College (Wyoming), where he was inducted into the Phi Theta Kappa National Honor Society and graduated in 2003. He received his B.A. in Liberal Arts from Thomas Aquinas College (California) in 2007. More importantly, he also he met his beautiful Canadian bride, Erin, while studying at TAC. In 2010, the International Theological Institute of Austria awarded him the canonical S.T.B. and the Austrian Magister Theologiae, summa cum laude, after his submission of a master's thesis entitled Philokalia: The Theological Tradition of the Eastern Catholic Churches of the Byzantine Tradition in the Documents of the Fathers of the Second Vatican Council. In 2013 he was granted an S.T.L, summa cum laude, from the International Theological Institute’s Center for Eastern Christian Studies after the acceptance of his licentiate thesis, Priestly Purity or Prophetic Transformation? The Early Church and Sexual Asceticism. Having served as the inaugural Assistant Dean of Students, he currently is an instructor of theology at Wyoming Catholic College. He continues to pursue his doctoral research on the complimentary between the practice of the married priesthood as explained in the early Christian East, and the differing practice of the Western Church as interpreted by St. Thomas Aquinas. As a Ukrainian Catholic, Kyle is especially interested in the differences and similarities of the Eastern and Western theological traditions, and to that end has concentrated especially in the history and theology of the Early and Late Patristic era, and the theology and exegesis of St. Thomas Aquinas. He currently lives on the edge of Lander, Wyoming in an old, rustic (not to say falling apart) house, with his wonderful wife, three (at least by June) mostly mild mannered children, and one definitively not mild-mannered mutt. When not studying, commuting six hours to Divine Liturgy, or fixing his house, Kyle likes to think of himself as a hunter and outdoor adventurer. His hunting record being what it is, however, it is a good thing that Byzantines don’t eat meat that often.
Kyle Washut is a Wyoming native who had every intention of growing up to be a cowboy. Having worked in
