Dr. habil. Cătălin-Ștefan Popa, General Director of the Institute for Advanced Studies in Levant Culture and Civilization, participated in the conference “BODY and MIND / MIND and HEART,” dedicated to the psycho-cardiovascular health of young people due to the increasing presence of the digital environment in everyday life. The event was organized by the Romanian Academy, through its Section of Medical Sciences (June 17–19, 2026).
At the opening of the conference, the vice-presidents of the Romanian Academy Academician Mircea Dumitru, Academician Nicolae-Victor Zamfir, and Academician Wilhelm Dancă, , as well as Prof. Dr. Maria Dorobanțu, corresponding member of the Romanian Academy and coordinator of the conference, offered their speeches. Prof. Dr. Maria Dorobanțu is also one of the authors of the volums “The Post-Pandemic World Between War and Peace,” edited by the Institute for Advanced Studies in Levant Culture and Civilization. Her contribution entitled “From the Great Pandemics of Past Centuries to the COVID-19 Pandemic. Medicine and Society in Times of Turning Points,” co-authored with Nicoleta-Monica Popa-Fotea was published in the chapter “A Romanian Perspective on the Post-Pandemic World”.
The conference “BODY and MIND / MIND and HEART” is part of a broad interdisciplinary project, included in a European competition, bringing together specialists in medicine, molecular biology, chemistry, psychology, artificial intelligence, and anthropology. The topics addressed concern the relationship between digital environments, cognitive capacity, psychological balance, and early disorders of the cardiovascular system.
Starting from the observation that stress is not merely a modern biomedical concept, but a universal human experience present across all cultures and historical periods, Dr. habil. Cătălin-Ștefan Popa presented the way Eastern medical and spiritual traditions have understood the relationship between body and mind, drawing on the legacy of Galen of Pergamon, which was adopted in Eastern Christian anthropology through the process of translation from Greek into Syriac and Arabic during Antiquity.
Evagrius Ponticus analyzed the mechanisms of disturbing thoughts (logismoi), identifying physical conditions that today could be compared to burnout. Isaac of Nineveh proposed reading Scripture as a method of reorganizing attention and reducing inner anxiety, while Dadishoʿ Qaṭraya developed the concept of šelya, the deep stillness of the soul, close to modern ideas of emotional self-regulation.
In addition to classical literature, Dr. habil. Cătălin-Ștefan Popa also presented the results of a population-based study conducted by the American Bible Society together with the National Opinion Research Center (NORC) at the University of Chicago, which showed that people who read the Bible at least once a week report lower levels of stress, anxiety, and loneliness, and higher levels of hope and psychological well-being.
The study does not demonstrate causality, but it highlights a significant association between the practice of spiritual reading and psychological health.
Another study, conducted on the population in a war-affected region of the Middle East, confirms that stress produces major biological and psychological effects. The results showed that 346 participants (58%) met the criteria consistent with PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder). These values significantly exceed the prevalence reported in the general population of Western countries (4–10%) and the values observed in most studies conducted after the end of armed conflicts (15–20%).
Within the same conference, Dr. habil. Cătălin-Ștefan Popa moderated a section dedicated to the topic “European Funding Opportunities in the Health Domain: Present and Future.”
Through this participation, the Institute for Advanced Studies in Levant Culture and Civilization contributes to the interdisciplinary dialogue between medical sciences, anthropology, the history of ideas, and the study of Eastern traditions, within an academic framework devoted to one of the most relevant contemporary topics: the relationship between body, mind, vulnerability, and the digital environment.
