Monticelloan Gets Degree from Balamand University

On August 31, 2017, Balamand University, located near Tripoli and Beirut, Lebanon, conferred a Master of Arts degree in Orthodox Theology on E.R. Lanier, a longtime resident of Monticello.

The degree was awarded at a special convocation at the Antiochian House of Studies in Ligonier, Pa., by Metropolitan Joseph (Al-Zehlaoui), the Primate of the Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese in America and himself a graduate of Balamand University.

The University of Balamand is a nonprofit and independent institution of higher education founded by Patriarch Ignatius IV, the Patriarch of the Antiochian Orthodox Christian Church which maintains its religious center in Damascus, Syria. The historical core of the University is Balamand Monastery, a Christian religious institute dating back to the 12th century.

More than 6,000 students are enrolled at the university which provides higher education in the fields of theology, arts and sciences, medicine, engineering, and business and management. Balamand is among the largest Christian universities in the entire Middle East.

The thesis submitted in support of the award of the degree centered on the integration of the principles of Orthodox Christian ecclesiology, canon law, and the principles of constitutional law in the United States which bear on religious freedom and the property rights of churches.

Mr. Lanier is Professor of Law Emeritus at Georgia State University and remains active in teaching on the faculty of the Savannah Law School in Savannah. He was Judge of the Monticello Municipal Court for about 10 years and continues to sit as a Judge of the Norcross Municipal Court in Norcross.

He took his bachelor’s degree in history at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and his doctorate in law at Emory University in Atlanta. He holds graduate degrees in law and history from the University of Georgia in Athens; Georgia State University in Atlanta; and Georgia College & State University in Milledgeville. He serves as General Counsel of the Orthodox Church in America, an Orthodox Christian jurisdiction headquartered in New York and administering dioceses and parishes in the United States, Canada, and Mexico.

He and his wife Patti Jordan Lanier make their home on College Street in Monticello.