Perhaps the most venerable speaker at the Conference to represent the Eastern Orthodox Church was Bishop Kallistos Ware, Bishop of Diokleia in the Orthodox Archdiocese of Thyateira and Great Britain and, as will be evident from his talk, a speaker of great power and charm.

Bishop Ware's talk includes a portion in which he focuses on defining the term "the heart" as indicated in Christian scriptures, and it is this portion that we have excerpted here. He points out that from the traditional point of view, "the heart" does not indicate the seat of emotions (as is the case for most modern usages) in the human being, but is the "spiritual center of the whole person," "the inwardness of our human personhood in its full spiritual depth," or "that which gives us spiritual vision." These very important precisions, necessary to understanding what traditional sources mean when referencing "the heart," emphasize the "wholeness" or the "totality" of the concept and not the limited, shallow concept most often understood in modern parlance.