STAFF
CEPHAS staff are motivated by the shared desire to create a space for a renewal of philosophy and theology – as a vital and living tradition – in the U.K.
Prof George Corbett
Director and Workshop Leader
George is Professor of Theology at the School of Divinity, University of St Andrews. Previously, he held positions as Junior Research Fellow, Trinity College, and affiliated lecturer , University of Cambridge. He received his BA (double first), MPhil (distinction), and PhD (AHRC-funded) from the University of Cambridge. He has also studied in Pisa (as an Erasmus-Socrates exchange scholar at La Scuola Normale Superiore), Rome (Institutum Pontificium Alterioris Latinitatis), and Montella (Vivarium Novum).
He teaches and researches in historical and systematic theology (with specialisms in medieval theology, Aquinas’s theology and its influence, and Catholic theology) and theology and the arts (with specialisms in Dante studies, sacred music, and theological aesthetics).
He is the author of Dante’s Christian Ethics: Purgatory and Its Moral Contexts (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020) and Dante and Epicurus: A Dualistic Vision of Secular and Spiritual Fulfilment (Oxford: Legenda, 2013), and is co-editor of Vertical Readings in Dante’s Comedy, 3 vols (Cambridge: Open Book Publishers, 2015-17), an international collaboration by thirty-four scholars on a reappraisal of the whole poem. He has also published on Aquinas, sacred music, medieval theology, and the arts.
Sister Valery Walker, O.P.
Workshop Leader
Sr Valery is a Dominican Sister with the English Congregation of St. Catherine of Siena (Stone, U.K.). In the early 1970s, she was introduced by Fr Romuald Horn O.P. to a particular method of studying the Summa Theologica of St Thomas Aquinas.
Since then, she has run numerous S Thomas study days and weekends.
Sr Magdalene Eitenmiller, O.P.
Workshop Leader
Sr. Magdalene is a Dominican sister with the English Congregation of St. Catherine of Siena (Stone, U.K.), based in Cambridge. She received a Master’s degree in Theology (Ave Maria University, Florida), the Licentiate in Sacred Theology in Thomistic Studies (Dominican House of Studies, Washington, D.C.), and a doctorate from the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas (the Angelicum) in Rome.
Among other publications, she is the author of “On the Separated Soul according to St. Thomas Aquinas,” Nova et Vetera 17.1 (2019):57-91 and “Grace as Participation according to St. Thomas Aquinas” New Blackfriars (2017): 689-708.
Sr. Magdalene is a lecturer at the Blackfriars Oxford Sudium, and at Allen Hall Seminary (London). She has developed a website called Thomisticstudies.org, as well as a Youtube channel, Facebook, and Instagram pages.
Stefan Kaminski, Ph.B., S.T.L
Director of the Christian Heritage Centre
Since 2019, Stefan Kaminski has been the director of the Christian Heritage Centre, overseeing the charity’s development of in-person and online content, both theological and spiritual, to support adult Catholics, lay and ordained, in their mission in the UK. Prior to joining the CHC, Stefan served as Head of Theology at Blanchelande College, Guernsey, having previously served numerous schools and parishes around the UK in catechetical, teaching, chaplaincy and governor roles.
Stefan has organised a number of Catholic formation initiatives in the UK, including symposiums and online formation programmes on the Theology of the Body. Together with his wife, Eleonora, he provides marriage preparation courses and continuing theological formation for catechists, teachers and diocesan leaders.
Stefan gained a licentiate in sacred theology (STL) from the John Paul II Institute for Studies in Marriage and Family Life, Rome, specialising in the theological anthropology of the sexual complementarity. He obtained a Bachelors in Sacred Theology and a Bachelors in Philosophy from the Pontifical Gregorian University, Rome.
Revd Dr Simon Gaine OP
Keynote Speaker and chaplain (Cephas 2026)
Fr Simon is a Dominican friar of the English Province. He studied theology in Oxford before joining the Order in 1995. He has served as both Prior and Regent of Blackfriars, Oxford. Before coming to Rome, he was a member of the Faculty of Theology and Religion in the University of Oxford.
Fr Simon is currently the Pinckaers Professor of Theological Anthropology and Ethics in the Angelicum Thomistic Institute, of which he is also the Director.