FOR RELEASE: Monday, April 10, 2017
2017 Templeton Prize Laureate to be announced on Tuesday, April 25
47th winner of £1.1 million annual prize for spiritual progress
Event: Announcement of the 2017 Templeton Prize Laureate
Date: Tuesday, April 25, 2017, 8:00 AM EDT (New York) / 1:00 PM BST (London)
Venue: Online at www.templetonprize.org; via email to journalists; Twitter via @TempletonPrize; #TempletonPrize2017
The winner of the 2017 Templeton Prize will be announced on Tuesday, April 25 at 8:00 AM EDT (New York) / 1:00 PM BST (London), online at www.templetonprize.org, via email to journalists, and on Twitter via @TempletonPrize.
The Prize, which will be formally awarded at a ceremony in Chicago on September 24, annually honors a living person who has made an exceptional contribution to affirming life’s spiritual dimension, whether through insight, discovery, or practical works.
Established in 1972 by the late global investor and philanthropist Sir John Templeton, the Templeton Prize is a cornerstone of the John Templeton Foundation’s international efforts to serve as a philanthropic catalyst for discoveries relating to the deepest and most perplexing questions facing humankind. The Foundation supports research on subjects ranging from complexity, evolution, and emergence to creativity, forgiveness, and free will.
“Sir John created the Templeton Prize when he realized that many of his friends and colleagues thought of religion as uninteresting and old-fashioned, or even obsolete,” says Heather Templeton Dill, President of the John Templeton Foundation. “He decided that a prize to single out people who were responsible for, in his words, the ‘marvelous new things going on in religion,’ would help them become more well known, not so much for their own benefit, but for the benefit of people who might be inspired by them.”
The 2017 Templeton Prize Laureate will join a distinguished group of 46 former recipients. Last year’s Laureate was Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks, the former Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth, who has spent decades bringing spiritual insight to the public conversation. He was preceded in 2015 by Canadian philosopher and theologian Jean Vanier, founder of L’Arche, the international network of communities where people with and without intellectual disabilities live and work together as peers. Czech priest and philosopher Tomáš Halík was awarded the Prize in 2014, Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa in 2013, and the Dalai Lama in 2012.
Press materials on the 2017 Templeton Prize Laureate will be available in advance under strict embargo until Tuesday, April 25, 8:00 AM EDT / 1:00 PM BST. Please contact:
Don Lehr, The Nolan/Lehr Group, Media Relations and Public Affairs Consultant for the Templeton Prize
tel: +1.212.967.8200 mob: +1.917.304.4058 email: dblehr@cs.com.
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