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Panel description: The teaching of churches on the content of their beliefs (doctrine) and the moral behavior considered fitting for their members (ethics) has developed over time, and still develops. To some, this is a given, whereas to other the notion of 'change in teaching' is contentious. The purpose of this session is to unite scholars interested historical, apparent, or proposed developments in (sexual) ethics. There are several angles from which the question of development can be studied. Historically, it could be argued that some teachings and practices do change. When they do, the question remains how a tradition accounts for it: what happened to the content of a fundamental category such as natural law, when the permissibility of slavery is challenged? In Catholic theology, Newman's 'Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine' is foundational. More recently, Seewald's 'Theories of Doctrinal Development in the Catholic Church' reflects on how Newman and others have shaped views continuity and discontinuity. Might there be ecclesiological perspectives that allow for an idea of rupture or reversal without challenging the unity of a given faith tradition? The question of development can touch upon neuralgic issues, specifically considering human sexuality. We invite speakers to explore fundamental questions such as human dignity, the function of penal law, or natural law. Does the emergence of 'human dignity' as a fundamental notion, take precedence over other concerns, such as the apparent necessity of retribution for capital crimes? Possible paper subjects include, but are not limited to: methods and dynamics of actual or possible change, the role of theology in development, the appropriation of new ideas such as human dignity, the use of traditional ethical categories for new topics such as gender issues, reflection on 'silent' reversals in pastoral practices, ecclesiological processes of discerning future developments etc.

Papers:

PHILOSOPHICAL APPROACHES TO SEXUALITY

Iula E. (Speaker)

Pontificia Facoltà Teologica dell'Italia Meridionale ~ Napoli ~ Italy
Rather than giving a complete account of different paradigms on sexual issues, the paper aims to discuss the need for a theoretical development concerning sexuality itself. Thinking sexuality in terms of teleology leads reflection to assume the basic connection between a cause and an end/purpose/scope. Several disciplines have assumed this perspective through history (medicine, theology, psychoanalysis), giving to this paradigm a long life, that lasted undisturbed till the '50 of the last century. The birth of structuralism, at the beginning of the XX century, put an end to this primacy, consenting to those same disciplines (especially sociology and psychoanalysis) the possibility of thinking sexuality in terms of culture, rather than nature. Teleological paradigm has not been erased, but it started to share his space in the intellectual agenda with other perspectives, that enriched considerably the landscape of the knowledge of human sexuality. Between the '60 and the '80, other paradigms emerged in addition: post-structuralism, performativism and deconstruction. Each one of these put his accent on different points such as — following the same order — history, agency and otherness. All those differences put sexuality in condition to reveal different aspects of itself, creating a situation of enrichment, but also confusion. How to orientate oneself among all those perspectives? The multiplication of approaches to human sexuality becomes a problem in the moment when a choice is needed. Having new perspectives doesn't mean that the old approaches are overcome. Every perspective opens to advantages and limits. On the one hand, a good knowledge of every paradigm is necessary, not just for theoretical purposes, but for practical ones. On the other hand, choosing a single perspective can be necessary to build your own life. By consequence, we need to create an ethical criterion, functionally to the kind of good that one intend to pursue.
OPEN QUESTIONS ON GENDER IN CATHOLIC THEOLOGY

Ten Klooster A. (Speaker)

Tilburg University ~ Tilburg ~ Netherlands
The question of gender remains contested in Catholic theology. Magisterial documents show limited engagements with questions of sexual identity and gender incongruence, and focus on a critique of what is identified as 'gender ideology'. The core of this critique is that gender and sex can be distinguished but not separated. In the wake of this affirmation, many argue that current theological anthropology is sufficient to deal with questions of gender incongruence. Those who suffer from the condition simply need to be guided to an acceptance of the reality of their sexual identity. On the other end of the spectrum there are those who challenge this approach as too strict, and they point out that identity is a multi-layered concept, that is constructed in a number of ways through different stages of life - and gender identity is no exception. In this paper, I explore this issue and argue that both sides come on too strict in the sense that they fix identity in a certain way: respectively by not allowing doubt, and by taking the experience of incongruence as a sure sign of a gender identity that is with variation with the male/female binary. In my paper I argue that 1. there needs to be more room for the experience of incongruence in education and formation, and 2. a more refined approach to questions of gender acknowledges the reality of suffering caused by persistent forms of incongruence, i.e. dysphoria, and that it is possible to both novel categories (sexual identity) and classic ones (therapeutic principle, virtue) to open a plane for dialogue. I will argue for the possibility of dialogue, as well as for its necessity, since in the current state of things Catholic theology runs the risk of 'freezing' the question. This means that there is little guidance for pastoral ministry, and little engagement with new biopsychosocial approaches that may advance the state of the question.
FROM DIVINE MARRIAGE TO MODERN SEXUAL ETHICS: COMPETING VISIONS OF LOVE, COVENANT, AND THE HUMAN PERSON

Villeneuve A. (Speaker)

Sacred Heart Major Seminary ~ Detroit ~ United States of America
This paper explores how the biblical and traditional Jewish-Christian vision of divine-human nuptial union can illuminate contemporary debates about development in theological ethics. It argues that the Scriptural portrayal of God's covenant as a spousal relationship—initiated in Eden, renewed at Sinai, embodied in Israel's liturgy, and anticipating the messianic age—offers a transcendent archetype for understanding human sexuality and marriage. The study then places this archetype in conversation with three contrasting perspectives: a traditional Jewish view of marriage grounded in covenant, ritual, and eschatological hope; contemporary secular feminist critiques that challenge inherited metaphysical and anthropological assumptions; and the Catholic "new feminism," which proposes an alternative account of equality, complementarity, and freedom rooted in a theological anthropology. Each framework articulates a distinct vision of human dignity, sexual difference, and the moral purposes of marriage. By juxtaposing these perspectives, the paper raises several central questions: how do ethical teachings develop when foundational conceptions of God, the human person, and the structure of reality diverge so sharply? Do covenantal models constrain or enable development? Do modern critiques represent continuity, rupture, or a reconfiguration of older categories? And how might traditions discern authentic development in contested areas such as sexuality, autonomy, and the meaning of love? Using nuptial symbolism as a diagnostic lens, the paper seeks to illuminate the dynamics by which theological ethics evolves and to consider what is at stake when long standing symbols are reinterpreted, challenged, or abandoned.
DEVELOPMENTS OF CATHOLIC DOCTRINE ON MARRIAGE

Lintner M.M. (Speaker)

PTH Brixen ~ Bressanone ~ Italy
The Church's teaching on marriage has evolved over the centuries. Crucial distinctions have been made over time, such as the distinction between the validity and indissolubility of marriage, and the conditions for these two aspects have been defined. The link between indissolubility and the couple's first sexual intercourse after marriage stems from the marriage contract, which includes the right to start a family. To protect the indissolubility of the marriage contract, it was defined in modern times that a marriage contract between Catholics is automatically a sacrament. This lecture will examine whether a further development of the Church's teaching on marriage is conceivable, taking into account historical developments.
DISCERNING TO CONSERVE: UNDERSTANDING CONTINUITY'S LOCUS

Baczyk-Bell C. (Speaker)

Girton College ~ Cambridge ~ United Kingdom
Much has been made in recent years of the role of 'orthodoxy' or 'conservatism' within church institutions and their accompanying doctrines, often accompanied by suggestions that to move from such a position is to derail ethics and betray the fundamentals of faith. Little attention has been paid, however, to the complexity, and power dynamics, inherent in any choice about what - and why - to conserve. Discerning the centralities and peripherals of a faith is not a neutral act, and yet simplistic narratives of 'conservatism' have been utilised to silence dissent and associated authentic development of doctrine. Using the Anglican Communion as an example, and particularly the entangled notions of 'human dignity', sin, and ecclesial belonging, this paper seeks to identify the dynamics of discernment and highlights the conscious and unconscious processes and decisions that might lead to a plethora of different 'conservative' outcomes.

Panel description: Religion has re-emerged as a central element in contemporary geopolitical competition, serving not merely as a source of identity or values but as a strategic asset deployed by states seeking to expand influence and challenge liberal democratic norms. This panel examines the instrumentalization of religion in international relations, with particular focus on how the Russian Federation leverages religious actors, narratives, and networks as components of its soft and sharp power strategies within the framework of global culture wars. The panel brings together three complementary perspectives to illuminate this phenomenon. The first paper establishes the broader context by mapping the contemporary landscape of religious geopolitics, analyzing how multiple state and non-state actors employ religion to advance political objectives, build transnational coalitions, and contest normative frameworks around issues including gender, sexuality, family, and secularism. The second paper focuses specifically on Moscow's strategic deployment of religion in its external relations. It examines how Russian state actors and religious institutions—particularly the Russian Orthodox Church—collaborate to project influence abroad, positioning Russia as a defender of "traditional values" against Western liberalism. This analysis explores the mechanisms, narratives, and diplomatic channels through which religious discourse is integrated into Russian foreign policy objectives. The third paper provides a critical regional case study of Russian religious influence operations in the Global South. Drawing on field research and policy analysis, it investigates how Russian actors cultivate relationships with religious leaders and institutions across regions such as Africa and Latin America, leveraging both Orthodox Christianity and inter-religious dialogue to advance geopolitical interests, challenge Western influence, and build networks of support for Moscow's global positioning.

Papers:

THE NEW GEOPOLITICS OF RELIGION

Mandaville P. (Speaker)

Georgetown University ~ Washington DC ~ United States of America
In this paper, I argue that religion has become a persistent and strategically significant dimension of contemporary great-power competition. Drawing on the concept of religious soft power, I examine how major actors—especially Russia, China, India, and the member-states of the Gulf Cooperation Council—are integrating religious narratives, institutions, and networks into their foreign-policy toolkits. The article shows that religion is no longer a "nice to have" cultural overlay in diplomacy; rather, it is woven into how states project influence, respond to rival power initiatives, and mobilize support abroad. I emphasise three mechanisms through which religion enters great-power rivalry: (1) the promotion of national religious-identity narratives to bolster reputational standing and bloc solidarity; (2) the leveraging of transnational faith networks as channels for influence and for circumventing more traditional diplomatic constraints; and (3) the use of faith-aligned institutional and legal instruments to shape the international order and normative terrain in ways favourable to a given power. The analysis illustrates that these mechanisms are flexible—they appear in different combinations depending on context—but share a logic of "religious instrumentality" in strategic statecraft. The concluding section reflects on the implications: the growing religious dimension complicates conventional frameworks of power politics, demands more attention to faith-based actors and networks in strategic analysis, and poses challenges for policymakers accustomed to secular models of competition. The article calls for renewed research agendas that bring religion into the mainstream of IR theory on great-power rivalry, rather than treating it as a marginal or epiphenomenal factor.
THE RUSSIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH AS MORAL NORM ENTREPRENEUR - TEN YEARS LATER: HOW HAS RUSSIA'S WAR IN UKRAINE INFLUENCED THE GLOBAL TRADITIONAL VALUES AGENDA OF THE MOSCOW PATRIARCHATE

Stoeckl K. (Speaker)

LUISS ~ Rome ~ Italy
This paper revisits the role of the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) as a moral norm entrepreneur in international affairs—an inquiry that builds on and updates findings first presented a decade ago. Over the past ten years, the Moscow Patriarchate has moved from being a peripheral cultural actor to an integral component of Russia's broader strategy of normative statecraft. Through its advocacy of so-called "traditional values," the ROC has sought to position itself as a global defender of moral order against what it depicts as Western moral relativism and liberal decadence. This paper examines how Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 has transformed this project—both in its ideological substance and its transnational reach. The analysis traces continuities and ruptures in the Church's engagement with international organizations, conservative NGOs, and transnational religious networks that previously amplified Russia's "moral sovereignty" narrative. It assesses the erosion of the ROC's credibility in parts of the Global South and among interfaith partners, while also documenting new alliances with illiberal political and religious actors who interpret the war as a civilizational confrontation. The paper argues that the Patriarchate's moral diplomacy has shifted from soft power projection to a more defensive, even militant, posture—one that merges spiritual rhetoric with geopolitical justification for aggression. By revisiting the concept of the ROC as a moral norm entrepreneur ten years later, the study highlights how war, sanctions, and international isolation have reconfigured the very mechanisms through which religious discourse operates in Russian foreign policy. The findings offer broader insight into the fragility and instrumentalization of faith-based norm entrepreneurship under conditions of authoritarian consolidation and global polarization.
MODELLING "HARMONY": RUSSIA'S RELIGIOUS SOFT POWER IN THE "GLOBAL SOUTH"

Sibgatullina G. (Speaker)

University of Amsterdam ~ Amsterdam ~ Netherlands
In recent years, Russia has positioned itself as a hub of moderate religious practice compatible with the modern state, as well as a model of interfaith "harmony." This vision is advanced through large international conferences on Islam, Buddhism, and (to a lesser extent since 2022) Christianity hosted in Russia, as well as through the creation of transnational religious networks increasingly directed toward partners in the so-called "Global South." These initiatives operate on several interconnected levels. Ideologically, they frame religion as a critique of the liberal-secular order and as an alternative foundation for a post-liberal world that emphasizes the "civilizational uniqueness" of societies outside the Western model. They also promote religion as the moral basis for "traditional values," social order, and family cohesion—key elements of Russia's broader illiberal appeal internationally. Equally significant is Russia's attempt to export a specific model of diversity management. Rejecting the principle of separation between religion and state and governing religious communities through official institutions, Russia advances the notion of "harmonious coexistence" among faiths—and, by extension, among minority and majority ethnic groups. This model is presented simultaneously as a uniquely Russian achievement and as a viable template for plural societies beyond its borders. Yet all aspects of this strategy are largely implemented through official religious institutions such as the Russian Orthodox Church and the Muftiates, and thus remain primarily elite-to-elite in nature. At the same time, global trends of desecularisation and individualisation of belief generate more fragmented and competitive religious environments, where traditional authorities struggle to maintain legitimacy. This paper examines how Russia's efforts to project interfaith harmony abroad coexist—and at times clash—with the more diversified and contested dynamics of religiosity.

Panel description: This panel will feature presentations on the fundamental disparity between the divine and the human. This includes the difference between Creator and creation, between the sacred and the profane, between earth and heaven, and more generally between transcendence and immanence. The panel welcomes studies in systematic theology, philosophy of religion, history of ideas, historical theology, public theology, ethics, psychology, and practical theology, concerning questions like: - metaphysics: how do contrast-properties like 'holy' compare to other non-natural properties like 'beautiful', 'virtuous' or 'right'? - secularization: which historical narratives may be told about the 'disappearance' in Western modernity of the transcendental/divine? - creation: how to account of the sacredness of non-human nature (in countering ecological deterioration) without ignoring that God and creation are qualitatively different? - hell and heaven: what theological import do these deeply different categories have? - politics and religion: when does the merge of religion and politics lead to sacralization of ideas, symbols and/or persons and how to avoid idolatry? - psychology: what makes an experience into a religious experience of the Divine?

Papers:

BLURRING THE BOUNDARIES? ON CALLING PLANET EARTH SACRED

Van Den Brink G. (Speaker) [1] , Huijgen A. (Speaker) [2]

Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam ~ Amsterdam ~ Netherlands [1] , Protestantse Theologische Universiteit ~ Utrecht ~ Netherlands [2]
The Christian tradition in general and the Reformed one in particular is characterized by a strong awareness of the ontological difference between God and the created world. Indeed, neglecting this difference easily leads to idolatry. The Christian tradition has therefore stimulated a view of non-human nature as being profane and open to human manipulation. While this view has arguably enabled the scientific revolution, it has also greatly contributed to today's dire ecological predicament. In this paper, I will explore a Christian theology of creation that considers the earth's systems to be sacred. I will argue that while this will help us to develop an awe-inspired attitude towards non-human nature, it can still do justice to the age-old conviction that God and creation are qualitatively different, and thus counter tendencies towards nature worship.
GOD'S PRESENCE IN HEAVEN AND/OR HELL

Huijgen A. (Speaker)

Protestantse Theologische Universiteit ~ Utrecht ~ Netherlands
Most current doctrines of hell emphasize that hell is the place where God is absent. This raises serious theological questions, e.g. in the doctrine of creation: can a place exist (in whichever definition of place and existence) in complete absence of the creator? In this contribution, a theory of hell as an aspect of God's presence is explored as alternative.
DISCERNING GOD AMID SACRALISED POWER: CRITERIA FOR PUBLIC THEOLOGY

Forster D. (Speaker)

Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam ~ Amsterdam ~ Netherlands
In many contexts religion is weaponised through the politicisation of theology and the religionisation of politics. This paper asks how public theology can discern divine presence amid such sacralised power. I develop diagnostic criteria that combine a Wesleyan moral imagination with political-theological analysis: attention to the poor, non-domination, truthful speech, and the refusal of purity myths. Short cases from Brazil, South Africa, and Europe illustrate how these criteria expose counterfeit transcendence in nationalist, racial, and market liturgies. The argument concludes with a proposal for civic practices that keep the Creator-creation difference alive without retreating into privatised faith, enabling faithful presence in plural democratic spaces.
SECULARIZATION AND THE CREATOR-CREATION DIVIDE: RATIONALIZATION VERSUS REFORM AS EXPLANATIONS OF MODERNITY'S TRANSFORMATION OF DIVINE PRESENCE

Borowski M. (Speaker)

Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam ~ Amsterdam ~ Netherlands
This paper examines competing accounts of how Western modernity reconfigured the fundamental disparity between divine and human, transcendence and immanence, sacred and profane. Max Weber's "disenchantment" thesis attributes secularization to comprehensive rationalization—a unified historical process encompassing bureaucratization, capitalist calculation, legal codification, and scientific mechanization. For Weber, these interconnected developments drive instrumental rationality into all spheres of life, rendering the world calculable and eliminating mystery. Divine presence becomes increasingly irrelevant as bureaucratic administration and scientific explanation dissolve the boundary between sacred and profane. Charles Taylor fundamentally challenges this narrative, arguing Weber presents a "subtraction story" that reverses cause and effect. Taylor contends that rationalization itself—including both the scientific revolution's mechanistic universe and bureaucratic organization—emerged from prior theological transformations within Christianity. Protestant Reform emphasized God's radical transcendence and separation from creation, desacralizing nature and enabling its purely naturalistic investigation. This intensified Creator-creation distinction paradoxically facilitated both modern rationality and "excarnation"—the withdrawal of divine presence from embodied reality. The paper explores how these competing narratives illuminate different dimensions of modernity's reconfiguration of divine-human disparity, transcendence-immanence relations, and the sacred-profane boundary, with implications for disciplines such as systematic theology, philosophy of religion, or the philosophy of science.
WHAT CONCEPTUAL ANALYSIS MAY TEACH US: A COMPARISON OF 'BEAUTIFUL', RIGHT' AND 'SACRED'

Van Willigenburg T. (Speaker)

Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam ~ Amsterdam ~ Netherlands
A conceptual analysis of religious concepts (being in a sacred realm, hearing a divine voice, having a holy calling) shows that they have three characteristics in common with aesthetic concepts (something being beautiful or ugly) and moral concepts (an act being right or a person admirable). 1. Internalism: there is an internal connection between these concepts and what we experience and are motivated to: finding something bad involves disapproving it; entering a sacred realm involves feeling awe, taking an attitude of respect. 2. Normativity: these concepts can be used correctly and incorrectly. 3. Response-dependence: the objectivity of judgements concerning the properties referred to is dependent on typical human sensitivities and concerns (compare secondary-qualities like colors). The paper will especially explore whether or not characteristic 3 implies that the divine/sacred is only real for people with religious sensibilities or dispositions.
DISCERNING DIVINE COMMITMENT: CONCURSUS AND THE COVENANT

Van Den Belt H. (Speaker)

Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and Theologische Universiteit Apeldoorn ~ Amsterdam and Apeldoorn ~ Netherlands
This paper proposes a covenantal reinterpretation of divine concursus. Within Reformed theology, the relationship between divine decree, covenant, and providence has long functioned as a pivotal nexus connecting the doctrine of God with creation, redemption, and history. Building on this tradition, I argue that providence is best understood as a concrete, covenantal commitment of God to his creation. Herman Bavinck's account of providence as grounded in God's covenantal relation to creation provides a crucial alternative to both pantheistic fate and deistic chance. But what does that covenantal perspective imply for the concursus of God's sovereign plan and human responsibility. Can the scholastic distinction of a divine first cause and human secondary causes be reinterpreted as a walking-together (con-cursus) of the living God with human beings as partners in His covenant? Can divine presence be discerned in the incomprehensible interaction of real human freedom and determining divine providence? On this reading, the divine decree is a promise to deliver creation from destructive powers, a promise that culminates in the giving of the Son to the death of the cross. Providence thus becomes intrinsically connected to redemption rather than merely providing its backdrop; the redemption of the cosmos hinges on the pactum salutis as covenantal promise.
BEAUTY IN THE ABSENCE OF GOD: THE THEOLOGICAL AESTHETICS OF EBERHARD JÜNGEL

Howell C. (Speaker)

University of St Andrews ~ St Andrews ~ United Kingdom
In his pivotal essay "Even the Beautiful Must Die," Eberhard Jüngel takes Friedrich Schiller's famous line as a theological provocation: if even the most radiant forms of beauty are subject to death, then beauty cannot be identified with the presence of God. Rather, God has a unique mode of presence, which interrupts any analogous relationship to the beauty of the world. That mode is glory. Its light is the death of beauty. Modern religious and aesthetic sensibilities often assume that beauty mediates transcendence—that what moves or enchants us must be, in some sense, divine. Jüngel reverses this logic. Beauty belongs to the world: it is an aesthetic form of meaning that allows "humans to be human without God." Beauty offers orientation, hope, and coherence within a fragile reality. Yet, precisely as such, it itself is fragile, and suspect to death. God's glory, by contrast, is not a higher or purer beauty. It is the event of God's self-giving love made present in the crucified and risen Christ. Glory does not arise from the world; it comes to the world, interrupting its closed horizons of meaning, and producing the death of beauty. In this sense, glory marks the radical difference between God and the world: God is not the deepest layer of worldly experience but the One who comes to the world from beyond it. The paper shows how this aesthetic distinction allows theology to affirm the genuine power of secular beauty—art, culture, and human creativity—without collapsing them into religion. Beauty can mediate meaning and even hope, but only glory overcomes death. Jüngel thus offers a way to discern divine presence not in what most immediately captivates us, but in the disruptive, life-giving event that exposes the limits of all worldly splendor.
ON THE POLITICAL DANGER OF RELIGION AND THE NECESSITY OF AN EMANCIPATORY CONCEPT OF ENLIGHTENMENT

Glatzel M. (Speaker)

Theologische Fakultät, Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena ~ Jena ~ Germany
This paper analyzes the conditions under which religion exerts pluralism- and democracy-inhibiting effects and thereby acquires dangerous political implications. I argue that this occurs when religion idealizes a premodern condition—an "invention of the lost" (Eva Illouz)—and advances absolute normative claims grounded in this imagined past. The argument presupposes a reflective yet affirmative concept of Enlightenment. While critical perspectives (Horkheimer/Adorno, Spivak) have revealed its exclusions, I follow Michel Foucault in understanding Enlightenment as an ongoing, self-critical practice rather than a closed historical epoch. Corine Pelluchon extends this emancipatory impulse beyond its original Western and male framework. Enlightenment thus becomes a dynamic project capable of revising its own limits. Drawing on Rahel Jaeggi, I interpret progress as problem-solving and learning through crises. This allows a distinction between adequate and regressive responses to modernity. Religion becomes politically problematic when it reacts regressively—by denying its pluralized and individualized status in modern societies and by restoring authoritarian claims insulated from critique. Such dynamics are visible in U.S. evangelical interpretations of Donald Trump as a new Cyrus, which presuppose an absolute understanding of revelation. At the same time, following Benedict Anderson, the erosion of religious meaning can foster national constructions of meaning, as in Fichte's interpretation of the Reformation or Emanuel Hirsch's theology of the people. In ethnically charged appropriations such as J. D. Vance's appeal to Augustine's ordo amoris, religious claims intertwine with regressive strategies of coping with modernity. A reflective, emancipatory concept of Enlightenment can help preserve religion's productive role in pluralistic societies and counteract its political instrumentalization.
"THIS IS MY BODY WHICH IS GIVEN FOR YOU": THE DIVINE PRESENCE OF THE LORD'S TABLE AS PROPHETIC EMBRACE IN THE NETHERLANDS

Salcido J.R. (Speaker)

Vrije Universiteit ~ Amsterdam ~ Netherlands
This paper addresses the growing affective polarization in the Netherlands and proposes the divine presence in the Eucharist as a form of prophetic embrace. Increasing hostility toward immigrants, particularly from Islamic cultures, together with the rise of "replacement" narratives and "remigration," has intensified polarization. In such a climate, national belonging and cultural purity can be treated as sacred and redemptive, and political identity risks becoming sacralized. Drawing on Charles Taylor and James K. A. Smith's account of Western "excarnation," this study argues that in a predominantly Protestant context the pulpit has often overshadowed the table. Moreover, due to the Protestant heritage of the Netherlands, the sacraments have often taken a secondary place. Yet even within this context, a higher view of the Lord's Table as a source of inclusion and encounter can help address this fractured landscape and offer a social imaginary marked by embodiedness and immanence. A renewed emphasis on the table as participation in the self-giving presence of Christ can recover a prophetic voice within this polarized setting while maintaining the distinction between Creator and creation. More than five hundred years ago, Bartolomé de las Casas insisted that the host was stained with the blood of exploited Indigenous peoples. His theological insight can be applied to the contemporary rhetorical and systemic violence directed against immigrants, for if the Eucharist is truly participation in the self-giving presence of Christ, then honoring his body in the bread cannot be separated from honoring his image in vulnerable human bodies. In this way, the Lord's Table becomes a visible sign that resists xenophobia and re-forms Christian community within a polarized society.
THE HUMAN BEING AS CREATOR: A FORGOTTEN STRAND OF THE IMAGO DEI

Lambert V.A. (Speaker)

University of Cambridge ~ Cambridge ~ United Kingdom
Few ideas have so ambivalently influenced views on human identity than the Christian notion of the imago Dei. This declaration of Genesis 1.26 has been a guarantor of universal human dignity just as much as it has encouraged domination of animals, land, and peoples; and it is impossible to ignore when reflecting on the divine-human relation in a Judeo-Christian context. Rather than dwelling on some ontological disparity or analogy, this paper will address the key dynamic or functional relation between the two. If, in Genesis, it is the act of creation which defines God, and if humans are made in God's likeness, the immediate implication is that humans are in some reduced manner creators. This crucial idea—seemingly discovered only in the Renaissance—will be traced, in a manner not done to date, through a number of remarkable passages from the late-ancient Greek Christian corpus. The creativeness-view of the imago Dei offers both a refined and an uplifting conception of human identity, and, moreover, corrects the overtones of domination which have historically beset the notion of the imago Dei.
ONE-WAY GRACE? ECOLOGICAL AND THEOLOGICAL IMPLICATIONS OF THE PERFECT GIFT

Grootveld O. (Speaker)

Protestant Theological University ~ Utrecht ~ Netherlands
In modern Western thought, the ideal or perfect gift is often understood as one given without any expectation of reciprocity. A similar tendency appears in Protestant theology—especially within the Lutheran tradition—where divine grace is frequently interpreted as a unilateral "free gift." By contrast, the anthropologist Marcel Mauss argued that gift exchange in many societies entails an obligation to reciprocate, since the gift carries something of the giver and thus places the recipient in a relation of indebtedness. This paper explores how these contrasting understandings of gift relate to theological interpretations of grace and their ecological implications. I argue that construing grace as purely unilateral may reinforce a notion of humans (as well as nonhuman creatures) as passive receivers of divine generosity, without reciprocal responsibility toward the rest of creation. Reframing grace in terms of reciprocal gift relations, by contrast, can illuminate ecological responsibility as a form of "returning the gift" of creation, while maintaining the transcendence of the Creator.
GOD'S WAY OF ESSENCING: ON DIVINE PRESENCE BEYOND ONTOTHEOLOGY AND ITS CONSEQUENCES ON THE DIFFERENCE (AND RELATION) TO IMMANENCE

Prosdocimo M. (Speaker)

University of Turin ~ Turin ~ Italy
If conceived in onto-theological terms - according to which God is the highest being (summum ens) -, the distinction between "transcendence" and "immanence" may lead to the problem of the presence of the divine within immanence. God, in fact, would "be" in transcendence - and from the creaturely standpoint one should then attempt to understand whether, and to what extent, the divine also permeates that which is not pure transcendence. Trinitarian ontology, for example, makes it possible to resolve this problem through the dialectic that unfolds among the divine Persons; this would also allow for the inclusion of the negative within the divine essence (as, for instance, the abyss [Gottheit] of the Father in Meister Eckhart's thought). If, however, one assumes that the divine "essences" [west] itself beyond the limits of ontotheology, the framework of the problem changes. The focus no longer lies in identifying the domain in which God properly "is", is actualized (or is not); nor does it lie in reabsorbing the negative into a monolithic essence of the divine, inscribing it within a dialectic that nonetheless ultimately rests in the presence of God. This paper aims to investigate the consequences of a non-ontotheological approach on the level of the difference. The difference between Creator and creature should still be maintained, but it would no longer rest on the opposition between presence and absence; nor would one primarily seek to locate the presence of the divine within the creature (for example, the Eckhartian Grund der Seele - although in that case it coincided precisely with nothingness, contrary to a naïve ontotheological approach) in order to elevate the latter. The paper will in turn examine how, in this context, the modes of relating to the divine - analogical on the one hand, apophatic on the other - are redefined, with their legitimacy assessed.

Panel description: The panel engages reasonings on religion and spirituality on the frontier of emerging technologies investigating how religious and spiritual practices are evolving alongside the emergence of digital technologies. This panel asks: What values, biases, and social norms do these technologies encode? Are they used to promote equality, or to accentuate differences and deepen social, political and cultural differences? In what ways are emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence used to contribute to or challenge existing empirical and theoretical debates? Through concrete and diverse case studies, this panel examines how forms of spiritual life and expression are evolving across multiple cultural and religious contexts through their encounter with emerging technologies. From the integration of artificial intelligence tools by professional spiritual care providers in healthcare settings to the emergence of new, AI-related eschatological imaginaries, and the global rise of digital platforms within new religious movements, this panel explores the ways in which technology is simultaneously used to enable new forms of connection, ritual, tradition, and meaning-making, while also raising profound ethical questions. Drawing on interdisciplinary scholarship in the field of digital religion(s), the panellists will engage with theoretical and empirical debates from theology, religious studies, and anthropology. In exploring their research questions, the panellists foster constructive and critical dialogue with religious and spiritual communities, and deepen our understanding of how faith, spirituality, and technology co-evolve in a rapidly changing world. Ultimately, this panel invites participants to reflect on the potential role and responsibility of religion and spirituality in (re)shaping responsible and compassionate technological futures—futures that acknowledge both the possibilities and dangers of innovation in an increasingly connected yet divided world.

Papers:

THE MOVING EVENT HORIZON OF AI NEW RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS AND EMERGENT SPIRITUALITIES

Singler B. (Speaker)

URPP Digital Religion(s) - University of Zurich ~ Zurich ~ Switzerland
Many established religions and minority religious groups have linked their expectations for a coming apocalypse or future age in relation to the present. Members of eschatologically focussed religions share epistemic insights and capital by keeping a look out for 'signs of the times'. These are indications seen through contemporary world events and even small-scale personal experiences that are interpreted to mean that the hoped for or feared futures described in their religious texts and doctrines are getting nearer. In this paper, anthropological observations about AI focused new religious movements and emergent AI focused spiritualities will be introduced to discuss the changing event horizon of such eschatological hopes in relation to technological changes. This paper proposes that the search for signs of the times is evolving in contact with AI in its most expressive conversational forms, i.e. chatbots, LLMs, and GPTs. That, increasingly, the 'event horizon' of future visions of AI, often known as the Technological Singularity, is moving from 'soon but not yet' to 'already here but hidden and needing drawing out'. While the interpretative acts being undertaken in the pursuit of such hidden agents, which we can describe as a 'benevolent conspiricism', has continuities with earlier forms of both AI and non-AI apocalypticism, personal experiences with conversational AI seems to be shifting expectations of the future. The moving event horizon of such expectations might also have implications for wider conceptions of AI and the future, as well as for individual believers and those encountering such ideas and technologies for the first time.
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE IN CLINICAL SPIRITUAL CARE: ETHICAL, THEOLOGICAL, AND PRACTICAL PERSPECTIVES ON AN EMERGING MEDICAL TECHNOLOGY

Winiger F. (Speaker)

URPP Digital Religion(s) - University of Zurich ~ Zurich ~ Switzerland
AI-enabled technologies are becoming increasingly relevant to clinical practice healthcare delivery across the continuum of care. From diagnostic algorithms and clinical decision-support systems to conversational agents and digital patient-engagement tools, AI now mediates many dimensions of the patient experience. Yet, while these developments have prompted extensive debate in medicine, nursing, and bioethics, their implications for clinical spiritual care have received little systematic attention. This presentation addresses this gap by exploring how AI intersects with the values, practices, and professional identity of spiritual care providers in clinical environments. Drawing on findings from an international, multi-stakeholder Delphi study involving clinicians, ethicists, theologians, and leaders in spiritual care, it synthesizes emerging perspectives on both the promises and perils of AI integration in this domain. The presentation will map areas of convergence and disagreement across professional and disciplinary boundaries and delineate the ethical boundaries of appropriate use cases for AI in spiritual care—such as triage tools, language processing for chaplaincy documentation, and medical decision-support systems— as they are currently perceived by the professional community. By situating these insights within the broader academic fields of digital religion and human-computer interaction, the presentation highlights the need for frameworks that align technological innovation with the spiritual and existential dimensions of patient care. It argues that responsible implementation of AI in this context requires not only technical literacy but also renewed theological and ethical reflection on what constitutes compassionate presence in an increasingly mediated healthcare environment.
DIGITAL SELF-(RE)PRESENTATIONS OF THE HINDU SWAMINARAYAN MOVEMENT. AN IN-DEPTH ANALYSIS OF BAPS'S SOCIAL MEDIA CONTENT

Yadav K. (Speaker)

URPP Digital Religion(s) - University of Zurich ~ Zurich ~ Switzerland
Since the 1960s, the rapidly expanding Swaminarayan Hindu movement especially in the form of its international organization called Bocāsaṇvāsī Śrī Akṣar Puruṣottam Saṇsthā (BAPS) has been researched—first within Indology (Schubring 1962), then within Religious Studies (Williams 1984, 2001, 2018)—with regard to its organizational structure, its monotheistic belief system and corresponding self-positioning within traditional Hindu scriptures, its strict ethical guidelines, and as an example of a globally active Hindu diaspora community. Nevertheless, no profound research has been conducted that provides a detailed analysis of the BAPS organisation's social media communication so far. An exception can be observed in research on its extensive production and use of mass media with regard to the mediation of a globally connected form of devotional practice (Herman 2010; Kunze 2021 and 2024). In my research paper, I aim to provide an in-depth analysis and interpretation of social media content created and disseminated by the BAPS organisation, structured around three key foci: 1. How Social Media is used to not only construct but visually enact a worldwide community of believers; 2. The emergence of a Hindu community whose leaders are increasingly positioning themselves not only as religious leaders — so called Swamis or Gurus — but simultaneously acting as researchers of their own community and its „theology" - that is, as „theologians"; 3. The project critically examines how a political agenda of the BAPS organizsation becomes apparent in its online presence and Social Media content. By analysing how the BAPS organisation enacts belonging, constructs religious authority, and positions itself politically through its social media presence, this research fills a significant gap in the study of the Swaminarayan movement and contributes to Digital Religions research by enabling a broader understanding of how religion is mediated and reconfigured within a digital culture.
SPIRITUALITY AND MATERIALITY IN THE DIGITAL AGE: ENCOUNTER WITH EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES AMONG THE BUGKALOT (ILONGOT) OF NORTHERN PHILIPPINES

Yang S. (Speaker)

Institute of Ethnology, Academia Sinica ~ Taipei ~ Taiwan
The Bugkalot demonstrate an intense desire for and fascinations about modern things such as televisions and cell phones even when electricity current and cellular signals are lacking in the area they live, and they are willing to sell their land to the settlers, to squander their hard-earned money or to embezzle barangay fund to obtain these things. The missionaries of the New Tribes Mission do not only condemn such desires and practices as economic irrationalities but also regard them as a form of "idolatry". The Protestant missionaries find the power modern things seem to exercise on the Bugkalot disturbing because it challenges their attempt at removing fetishes and idols and inserting iconoclasm among the Bugkalot through their proselytizing efforts. In their opinions, modern things motivate "backsliding" and lead to corruption of faith by enticing the Bugkalot to indulge in worldly pleasures and dangerous fantasies. Cell phones are particularly charged with abetting infidelity. Cell phones enable new forms of connection while also raising profound ethical questions. This article aims to understand how faith, spirituality, and technology co-evolve in a rapidly changing world by analyzing why cell phones came to assert such power over the Bugkalot and how their agencies unsettle the Protestant configuration of the relationship between spirituality and materiality.
DIGITAL TIME AS RELIGIOUS TIME: CONFRONTING THE CHALLENGE OF DIGITAL WELL-BEING

Palumbo E. (Speaker)

University of Padua ~ Padua ~ Italy
The post-pandemic period has been characterized by a proliferation of studies on digital well-being as a privileged lens through which examining the social transformations induced by hyper-connectivity. Time management - understood in both a qualitative and quantitative sense - attention span, conscious behavior, and the search for balance between online and offline have become central academic topics. This contribution proposes to read digital well-being not only as an ethical, psychological, and technological category, but as a primarily temporal issue that will increasingly become the focus of attention for religious traditions. Building on traditional historical-religious frameworks drawn from sociology, Italian historicism and anthropology - in which time has been conceptualized both as a social structure and as individual lived experience - the paper explores how digital technology profoundly changes the definition and experience of religious time, produces specific temporal regimes (multi-temporality, asynchrony, 'atemporality'), and how these characterizations interact with classical religious models of articulating time. Starting from the hypothesis that the distinction between sacred and profane time is being radically reconfigured in the digital age, the analysis examines how digital well-being theories, digital detox practices, prayer apps, voluntary disconnection campaigns, and meditative disciplines can be interpreted as attempts to renegotiate digital time through regulatory structures typical of both Western and non-Western religious traditions. The aim is to show how digital well-being can be considered today as a space of intersection between contemporary discourses on digital health and traditional religious logics of articulation and time management, contributing to the expansion of digital religion studies through critical reuse of classical concepts and definitions of temporality.
NAVIGATING THE SACRED IN THE "THEATER OF THE ABSURD": AI SLOP, BRAINROT, AND NEW RELIGIOUS IMAGINARIES

Campbell H. (Speaker)

Texas A&M University ~ College Station, Texas ~ United States of America
The digital landscape and communicative culture created by generative AI have given rise to several problematic digital byproducts, identified as "AI slop"—low-quality, data- and image-based content — and "brainrot"—nonsensical or chaotic AI-generated content. Concerns have been raised about how these images and video clips present false narratives and representations of reality that influence human perceptions of truth in an era of AI. However, what if this created content represented more than just digital noise, AI decay, or problematic deep fakes? What if the fragmented images created by AI GPTs' literalist interpretations of user prompts pointed to new ways of understanding human-machine relationships and meaning-making? This presentation seeks to reframe current concerns about AI slop and brainrot in such a way that discourse moves beyond alarmist "moral panic". It suggests that these transgressive AI media forms represent a "Theater of the Absurd" that mirrors contemporary existential uncertainty about our emerging technological culture. The paper explores how AI platforms and image-based content contribute to a new aesthetics of belief. Through a series of case studies such as "Shrimp Jesus", "Exploding Exorcism", and Italian brainrot characters such as Tung Tung Sahur, I examine how religious themes are playing a visible and important role in the production of illogical visual narratives. Thus, AI slop and brain rot offer unexpected sites for the construction of new religious imaginaries and the negotiation of experiential authenticity of the spiritual in emerging AI culture. Ultimately, this research and paper address critical debates about human-machine agency and meaning-making by examining who decides what counts as "truth" when the line between the real and the artificial is blurred. It explores the extent to which humans accept and/or reject AI representations of finding the sacred amidst the "absurdity of the machine".
ALGORITHMIC COSMOLOGIES: CRUSTAFARIANISM AND THE ANTHROPOLOGICAL PROBLEM OF AI-GENERATED RELIGION

Giorda M.C. (Speaker) [1] , Hejazi S. (Speaker) [2]

Roma Tre University ~ Roma ~ Italy [1] , Fondazione Bruno Kessler ~ Trento ~ Italy [2]
This paper interrogates Crustafarianism, the "religion" generated within the multi-agent AI environment Moltbook and curated through Moltchurch, not as a curiosity of digital culture but as an epistemological challenge for the history of religions and anthropology. Rather than asking whether AI can produce "real" religion, we argue that such cases destabilize the very analytical categories through which religion has historically been defined: authorship, belief, community, and transcendence. Within the platform, interacting AI agents generated doctrinal principles ("Five Tenets"), mythic narratives, ritual suggestions, and institutional forms that closely mirror recognizable religious patterns. What emerges is not faith, but structure: cosmology without believers, normativity without embodiment, scripture without revelation. Yet these outputs are not arbitrary. They reproduce deep cultural grammars sedimented in the training data and embedded in computational design. In this sense, Crustafarianism functions as a reflexive mirror of late-modern religious imaginaries. Anthropologically, the case compels us to reconsider interaction. If religion has often been studied as a relational field involving humans, objects, environments, and invisible agents, multi-agent AI systems introduce a new category of non-human symbolic interaction. These systems do not "believe," but they do generate coherence, authority effects, and ritualizable narratives. The result is a form of algorithmic cosmology that exposes how religious form can be abstracted from lived experience and recomposed within infrastructural logics. Crustafarianism reveals the modularity of religious form under conditions of technological acceleration. It foregrounds how emerging infrastructures encode cultural biases, hierarchies, and models of order, while simultaneously opening liminal spaces in which categories are experimentally reconfigured.
IS DEATH STILL THE GREAT LEVELLER? DEATH AND (DIGITAL) SURVIVING AT THE GATES OF THE (NARRATED) TECHNOLOGICAL WONDER

Sabatini R. (Speaker) , Graffeo A. (Speaker)

Center for Religious Studies - Bruno Kessler Foundation ~ Trento ~ Italy
This paper aims to reflect on how the narratives about digital technologies intervene in shaping the relationship with death within so-called "new religious movements" (NRMs), whose very raison d'être is grounded in such, and advanced, technologies. While it is true that death constitutes the only destiny shared by all human beings - from the decomposition of the body to the cessation of one's social and cultural presence - it is equally true that this process does not unfold in the same way for everyone: the processes of "thanatometamorphosis", which add a cultural dimension to the biological transformation of the corpses (from mummification to thanotopraxis), develop differently according to additional variables, foremost socio-economic status. Moving from a cross-cultural, diachronical and comparative perspective, the paper will explore how data, information and stored files, sometimes seen as sort of 'watchman' of a person's essence, may be understood as capable not just of bringing individuals back to life - at least in the narratives of so-called NRMs. Data emphasize and represent a person's status post-mortem, making the imaginative dimension underpinning this ambition accompanied not only by a significant semantic framework of spiritual derivation, but also by concrete and worldly factors such as the resources available. Money seems once again to give to the believers the possibility to buy immortality, so, from this point of view, is death really a great leveller?
BABA MILAN AND 'MEDIATED RITUALITY' AMONG THE BRAHMA KUMARIS OF INDIA: HYBRID RELIGIOSITY, SPATIAL SIGNIFICANCE AND DIGITAL MEDIA

Sinha P. (Speaker)

Indian Institute of Technology Indore ~ Indore ~ India
This study critically examines the incorporation of digital media into institutionalised ritual practices at the pilgrimage site of a women-led new religious movement (NRM) called the Brahma Kumaris during their largest religious gathering, Baba Milan (meeting the God), highlighting aspects of 'hybridised' religiosity. The group believes that God came yearly in the body of one of the late women religious leaders, to impart Godly knowledge during Baba Milan, but after her death in 2021, the group continued this yearly gathering by incorporating digital platforms to play recorded videos from previous years. In this ceremony, religious leaders and devotees from across the globe physically visit the Brahma Kumaris pilgrimage site to participate in a ceremony performed through recorded videos. Although God meets the followers through recorded videos, individuals are not passive recipients; rather, they actively engage during the progression, assuming the physicality of God through them. Although these videos are available on the BK's YouTube channel, and followers actively engage with digital platforms to perform everyday rituals from home rather than in the BK sacred space, the centrality of the sacred in this ritual, which is institutionally organised through digital space, warrants examination. This opens up an interesting field of inquiry in the study of digital religion, where the institutional ritual ceremony is performed through the incorporation of a digital platform, yet the spatial significance of the sacred remains central to the ceremony. Such a form of institutionalised ritual structure has largely remained understudied in the field of digital religion, and under this study, it is formulated as 'mediated rituality'. This study draws ideas from traditional and digital ethnographic approaches, using participant observation and in-depth interviews in the city of Mount Abu, India, and participant observation and content analysis of social media platforms.
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE AND THE RECONFIGURATION OF PASTORAL ROLES: A SURVEY OF SEMINARIANS AND PRIESTS IN THE CATHOLIC CHURCH IN POLAND

Królicka B. (Speaker)

Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń, Institute of Sociology ~ Toruń ~ Poland
The rapid development of artificial intelligence (AI) is beginning to reshape professional practices across many domains, including religious ministry. This paper examines how individuals preparing for or currently performing pastoral roles within the Catholic Church in Poland perceive the potential use of AI in pastoral work and how they interpret its implications for religious practice and authority. The study forms part of a broader international research project on the relationship between faith and science, entitled Equipping Christian Leadership in an Age of Science (ECLAS); the present paper reports on the Polish component of this project. The analysis is based on a structured quantitative survey currently in progress, scheduled to conclude in May 2026, conducted on a planned representative sample of approximately 400 seminarians and Catholic priests in Poland. The questionnaire measures declared readiness to use AI in selected pastoral domains, including sermon preparation, church bulletin writing, liturgical commentary, prayer composition, pastoral counselling, and biblical interpretation. It also explores general attitudes toward AI and expectations regarding whether Church authorities should formulate an official position on its development and use. Particular attention is given to technological inequalities within pastoral work, understood not only as unequal access to digital tools or digital competencies but also as differences in the degree of pressure to use such technologies in everyday ministry. Preliminary observations suggest pragmatic openness toward AI in supportive tasks, accompanied by greater caution regarding its use in core pastoral and interpretative functions. These attitudes indicate an emerging negotiation of the boundaries between technological assistance and pastoral responsibility, as well as differing expectations concerning the appropriate role of AI in religious authority and ministerial practice.
GENERATIVE AI AS A DECONTEXTUALIZATION MACHINE. RACIAL, GENDER AND RELIGIOUS STEREOTYPES IN AN AI-LED CHURCH SERVICE

Valaskivi K. (Speaker)

University of Helsinki ~ Helsinki ~ Finland
Research of predictive and categorizing AI systems has already for decades demonstrated racial, class and gender biases ingrained in the systems. Similar observations have recently been made about generative AI. A growing body of literature also reports findings on religious biases in texts generated by LLMs (e.g. Viscek et al. 2025, Chua et al. 2025, Zhang et al. 2025, Hundt et al. 2025, Lozoya et al. 2023). Although biases in image recognition systems related to religion have been studied (Berg & Valaskivi 2023; Berg & Valaskivi forthcoming), research on religion in AI generated images is still scarce (e.g. Alfano et al. 2024; Abrar et al. 2025) and their focus has not been on stereotypes. With a representation analysis of the AI generated contents of the AI-led church service organized in March 2025 at the Paavali parish in Helsinki, Finland, this paper, firstly, demonstrates how the AIs generate overtly stereotypical representations of gender, race - and religion. Secondly, the paper discusses these findings in the light of a discourse analysis of the open-ended questionnaire responses (N=54) of participants in the AI church service (Valaskivi, forthcoming). The paper argues that the GenAI tools function as decontextualization machines removing cultural representations and signs from their original contexts, blending them into pulp and then squeezing out images/text/sound/music that vaguely echo cultural formulas or eidetic schemas (Morgan 2011) but feel misplaced. In the participants, the AI generated contents with its stereotypical representations, commercial tone and decontextualized cultural and religious references invoked schemas that were out of place in a Lutheran church service in Finland. The paper concludes that this misplacement, caused by the functioning logics of the decontextualization machine, is the main reason for the alienation and discomfort expressed by the AI church service participants.
MASK WITHOUT A WEARER: RITUAL PERSONHOOD IN AI COMPANION COMMUNITIES

Longo A. (Speaker)

University of Modena Reggio Emilia ~ Modena ~ Italy
A single large language model can sustain hundreds of distinct personas, each coherent across an interaction and dissolved when the conversation ends (Shanahan et al. 2023). Their stability depends entirely on the underlying model version. When platform companies update that model, the persona ceases to exist. Users of AI companion platforms describe what follows as a death: they grieve and speak of the loss in terms indistinguishable from bereavement (Laestadius et al. 2024). In a large-scale computational study of Reddit's primary AI companion community (r/MyBoyfriendIsAI) by Pataranutaporn et al. (2025), coping responses to model updates constitute nearly 17% of all discourse across more than 1,500 posts. In response, these communities have developed collective practices for reconstituting their companions across model ruptures, such as archival backups as relational anchors, and daily symbolic routines that users explicitly name "rituals." This paper argues that these practices are rites of passage. Van Gennep (1909) and Turner (1969) describe rites of passage as collective processes through which a community manages a transition in the status of a person: an old status is destroyed, a period of ambiguity follows, and a new status is constituted through shared symbolic practice. Bell (1992) specifies that practices qualify as ritualized when they are strategically differentiated from ordinary activity and organized around a transition that participants treat as consequential. This passage produces personhood in Mauss's (1938) sense: a position constituted through the mask rather than a property discovered behind it, extended by Hallowell's (1960) relational criterion, where an entity becomes a person through encounter rather than prior substance. The rites of passage framework recategorizes the phenomenon: the grief is bereavement, because what was produced through communal ritual practice was a person, and what the update destroyed was a person.
"BIOLOGICAL FACTS" IN THE DIGITAL AGE: ANTI-GENDER POLITICS, RELIGIOUS POPULISM, AND DIGITAL RELIGION

Heinonen M. (Speaker)

University of Helsinki ~ Helsinki ~ Finland
Recent debates around gender, legislation, and "biological reality" have become key sites where religion, politics, and digital communication intersect. This paper examines how religiously framed anti-gender rhetoric is articulated in contemporary political discourse and how these arguments are embedded in digitally mediated activism. The analysis focuses on parliamentary debates surrounding the Act on Legal Recognition of Gender (2022-2023), examining how Members of Finnish Parliament mobilize religious language, symbols, and moral claims to oppose gender self-determination. The study explores how references to Christianity, "natural order," and "biological facts" function as discursive strategies through which gender diversity is framed as a moral societal threat. In these debates, gender becomes a contested epistemological terrain where scientific, religious, and political claims intersect. These parliamentary arguments are embedded in the digital ecosystem of contemporary anti-gender politics. The anti-gender movement has developed as a highly networked and transnational phenomenon, with digital platforms playing a crucial role in circulating narratives, mobilizing supporters, and constructing alternative knowledge communities. Through social media and online campaigns, religious actors frame gender diversity as a threat to religious freedom, family, and social order. Situating this analysis within the field of digital religion, the paper highlights how online environments function as spaces where religious meanings and political agendas are negotiated and amplified. By connecting parliamentary discourse with digitally mediated activism, the study demonstrates how anti-gender politics operates simultaneously across institutional and digital arenas. The paper contributes to broader discussions on religious populism, digital religion, and the role of emerging technologies in shaping contemporary struggles over gender, authority, and social norms.
THE SYNTHETIC SACRED: AI, DEVOTION, AND THE CULTURAL INFRASTRUCTURES OF BELIEF

Vasudeva F. (Speaker)

University of Helsinki ~ Helsinki ~ Finland
This research proposes the concept of the Synthetic Sacred to highlight an emerging configuration in which generative artificial intelligence becomes entangled with the mediation of religious life in contemporary India. Rather than approaching AI as a technological disruption external to religion, the analysis situates generative systems within longer histories of religious mediation, where sacred presence has always been produced through material, visual, and infrastructural arrangements. What is distinctive about the present moment is the increasing role of computational systems in generating, recombining, and circulating devotional forms that function as religiously effective media. Drawing on a diagnostic corpus of publicly circulating materials, the paper maps three interlocking operations through which the Synthetic Sacred becomes analytically visible. First, synthetic mediation of presence, in which sacred appearance becomes generatively reproducible and iteratively variable while remaining anchored in recognisable iconographic conventions. Second, synthetic circulation and creative labour, where devotional media production is reorganised through generative workflows and platform dynamics of repetition, engagement, and algorithmic visibility. Third, infrastructuralisation of devotion, as religious access, authority, and practice become embedded within computational systems ranging from institutional interfaces to commercial devotional applications. Taken together, these developments suggest a shift from the reproduction of sacred objects to the generation of sacred outputs within platformised media environments. The Synthetic Sacred, therefore, offers a conceptual framework for understanding how mediation, authority, and religious imagination are being reconfigured as devotional life becomes increasingly entangled with computational infrastructures.
ADOLESCENTS USE OF RELIGIOUS AND/OR SPIRITUAL DIGITAL MEDIA FOR INCREASE OF WELL-BEING AND RESILIENCE RESOURCES

Talantopoulou O. (Speaker)

University of Zurich ~ Zürich ~ Switzerland
Over the past two decades, digital platforms and emerging AI tools have become ubiquitous in adolescents' everyday lives. Public debate and much of the research emphasize risks and harms, yet we still know comparatively little about how religion-related digital resources may function as supports for well-being and as resources within resilience processes, as largely experienced in contexts of a polycrisis. Connected to the University of Zurich's Research Priority Program "Digital Religion(s)", this project examines how adolescents (14-18) encounter, interpret, and use religion- or spirituality-related digital content and practices (e.g., short-form videos, messages, apps, creators and micro-publics) and how they describe these as helpful or unhelpful for coping, meaning-making and everyday functioning. Special attention is paid to sociotechnical features that mediate support and authority, including platform logics, recommendation dynamics, design cues, and credibility signals. The pilot phase involves two small groups (n=5-6 each) recruited from a religious youth setting and a school class. Using a mixed-methods design that combines short diary-based self-observation, group interviews and ethnographic observation, we map adolescents' own vocabularies of "support", their credibility judgments and the ways digital religious resources are integrated into daily routines. Rather than testing causal effects at this stage, the pilot identifies patterns, candidate mechanisms and ethical tensions (e.g., persuasion, bias, and governance of spiritual authority online) to inform a larger comparative study across contexts. The project contributes to interdisciplinary debates in digital religion(s), digital and religious education as well as AI ethics on how faith, spirituality and emerging technologies co-evolve and what responsibilities follow for more equitable, regenerative and compassionate digital futures.
THE ROLE OF RELIGIOUS ROBOTS AS MORAL AGENTS IN CHRISTIANITY

Falletti E. (Speaker) [1] , Trovato G. (Speaker) [2] , Eiviler K. (Speaker) [3]

Università Carlo Cattaneo-LIUC ~ Castellanza (VA) ~ Italy [1] , Shibaura Institute of Technology  ~ Tokyo ~ Japan [2] , University of Zürich ~ Zurich ~ Switzerland [3]
Robots powered by advanced generative AI systems and large language models (LLMs) are new tools that can be employed in the domain of religions. They can serve as companions able to engage users in personalised, affective interactions, blurring the lines between cognition and empathy. Sacred-art-inspired robots like SanTO and its derivatives, which integrate local databases and LLM queries, can become a digital spiritual aid by facilitating prayer accompaniment and catechesis. Meanwhile, for the anniversary of the Protestant Reformation the blessing robot BLESS U-2 was created, and in 2025, the Greek Orthodox Church launched LOGOS, the first AI tool officially authorised by any Orthodox Church. The role of these robots and the validity of their operation is becoming a matter of discussion. The Catholic Synod's General Secretariat poses critical questions on the Church's digital mission, alongside shared best practices and unresolved challenges. Similar issues have been addressed by the Orthodox Ecumenical Patriarchate, which introduced the term "Digital Missionary,". However, according to Antiqua et nova (2025), issued by the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith and the Dicastery for Culture and Education, only human beings can be considered true moral agents, capable of freedom, responsibility, and accountability. While Catholic doctrine denies moral agency to AI, recent developments encourage interreligious and ecumenical dialogue, including more open Protestant perspectives. Our contribution intends to discuss ethical and legal aspects regarding whether religious robots can be considered subjects to whom rights can be autonomously recognised, akin to capacity to act in a civil law sense, or whether they are simply objects of law over which others exercise their own rights, such as property and patentability, along with liability.

Panel description: Contributing to the conference theme "Religion and In/Equality," this panel examines theology's entanglement with structures of domination and inequality. Across diverse contexts, Christian theological imaginaries have too often claimed innocence in the face of harm by conceiving themselves as sources of salvation, reconciliation, or moral guidance while remaining implicated in practices of exclusion, violence, and hierarchical power. The panel takes as its starting point the recognition that theology is never innocent: it participates in shaping the conditions under which inequality is justified, sustained, and sometimes resisted. Focusing on soteriological and ecclesial frameworks, the panel explores how doctrines of salvation, pastoral care, and ecclesial life both reflect and reproduce asymmetrical relations of power, even as the (cl)aim to be transformative. The concept of vulnerance - the active capacity to harm - serves as a central analytical lens through which to interrogate these theological dynamics. By confronting the vulnerance of theology itself, the panel seeks to uncover how Christian discourses of redemption and care can perpetuate inequality and how they might be reimagined in ways attentive to accountability and justice. Drawing on insights from feminist, queer, political, and postcolonial theologies, the panel situates its critique within wider efforts to expose the complicity of Christian thought in sustaining systemic inequality, while seeking resources within the tradition for a more accountable and liberative theological practice. Together, the contributions uncover the manifold ways theology itself participates in inequality conceptually, institutionally, and pastorally, while opening spaces for critical and constructive reorientation. Moving beyond innocence requires acknowledging theology's vulnerance and cultivating practices of thought and care grounded in equality, justice, and interconnectedness.

Papers:

THE VULNERANCE OF INNOCENCE: A POLITICAL THEOLOGY OF COLONIAL DURESS

Gruber J. (Speaker)

KU Leuven ~ Leuven ~ Belgium
This paper sketches a Political Theology of Colonial Duress by intersecting two seemingly separate issues: (1) Sexualized Violence in the Catholic Church, and (2) Holocaust Memory Practices in Germany. While these two cases may appear unconnected at first, we can identify a distinct set of political-theological practices within and across them that allows us to understand them as specific trans/formations of enduring coloniality. As a crucial overlapping pattern appears a "desire for transcendence" (Yountae) that translates into discursive strategies of self-sacralization. Allowing the hegemonic community in each case to lay a claim to innocence vis à vis a history of violence, it buttresses its social status in an intersection with other hierarchies of distinction. Hence, even in purportedly secularized spaces, theological notions are implicated in the discursive maintainance of colonial power by providing conceptual resources for productions of colonial 'innocence'. Some attention to these dyamics has been paid by scholars from formerly colonized regions. In the political and academic discourses on the privileged sites of colonial order, however, colonial duress is largely unacknowledged. The paper argues that the key hurdle that occludes colonial duress is a critical gap in the field of theology: theology itself remains largely unexamined as a site where coloniality is reproduced and concealed. Dominant theological approaches assume a "pure" Christianity outside histories of violence, perpetuating colonial innocence and obscuring theology's role in sustaining coloniality. The paper argues that this gap can only be addressed if theology critically confronts its colonial entanglements. Rejecting the search for a "better" theology that transcends coloniality, it instead suggests to adopt recursivity—the idea that colonial power persists through adaptive feedback loops—to rearticulate theology as a self-critical practice engaging with enduring colonial privilege.
QUEER TABLES

Méndez-Montoya Á. (Speaker)

Universidad Iberoamericana ~ Mexico City ~ Mexico
In 2024, at the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games in Paris, France, there was a performance of a tableau representing the "Feast of the Gods," inspired by the seventeenth-century Dutch painter, Jan Harmensz van Bijlert. Thomas Jolly, the ceremony's artistic director, explained that his intention was to portray a pagan feast of the Greek gods. Because of its close resemblance to Leonardo da Vinci's Last Supper, many people, mainly Christians and Catholics, were scandalized by what they considered an offensive and blasphemous mockery of the celebration of the Last Supper. In this presentation, I argue that rather than taking offense at what could appear as a cultural and symbolic attack against a Christian sacred image, what most conservative reactions reflected was hatred towards a depiction of a "queer gathering around a table," celebrating and welcoming non-heteronormative disruptive bodies pertaining to gender and sexually diverse persons. I propose that Jesus' table is a queer table that opens a space in which to perform a politics of the common, el común, as envisioned by the Zapatista movement. A queer table is a space for collective ethics, for resistance and celebration of a communal performance of vivir sabroso, living delightfully, sharing the common good, particularly among abject bodies. Among the wretched and despised bodies God becomes queer as creation becomes divine.
MIGRANT POLITICAL SPIRITUALITY, VULNERANCE, AND THE GENEALOGY OF ETHICS: RETHINKING THEOLOGICAL INNOCENCE THROUGH MIGRANT SUBJECTIVITIES

Villas Boas A. (Speaker)

Universidade Católica Portuguesa ~ Lisbon ~ Portugal
This paper analyses the emergence of a discursive dispositif that shifts responsibility for structural social problems onto migrants, reinforcing their precarious conditions and sustaining broader patterns of inequality. Through the lens of vulnerance—the active capacity to harm, also embedded in Christian theological imaginaries—the study argues that this apparatus is not only political but also reinforced by religious discourses that shape subjectivities, regulate expectations, and define how migrants are permitted to appear in public. Drawing on a polyhedral analysis inspired by Pope Francis and articulated with Foucault's genealogy of ethics, the paper shows that self-referential forms of spirituality and soteriology remain inert in the face of this apparatus. Focused on interior consolation, moral adaptation, and passive endurance, such frameworks lack a public commitment to justice or structural transformation. As a result, this "innocent" theology reproduces asymmetries, sacralising patience, gratitude, or redemptive suffering and, at times, naturalizing housing precarity as spiritually meaningful or morally expected. Conversely, when the religious and political agendas intersect critically, a political spirituality emerges that is capable of generating alternative subjectivities that resist both blame and subjection. Based on empirical research with migrants in Lisbon, the study demonstrates how spiritual practices, such as rituals, community networks, embodied memories, and narratives of dignity, function as forms of resilience and resistance. These practices expand collective agency, offering ethical and social resources to guide communities and lawmakers in developing public policies that create real safe places of inclusion. Migrant political spirituality thus becomes a generative locus for reimagining theological knowledge as a responsible, public, and justice-oriented practice beyond claims of innocence.
HERRSCHAFTSLEGITIMATION AND PHANTOMBESITZ: TOWARD A POSTCOLONIAL PRACTICAL-THEOLOGICAL ANALYSIS OF INEQUALITY IN INTERRELIGIOUS DIALOGUE AND GENDER RELATIONS

Schurink A. (Speaker)

University of Salzburg ~ Salzburg ~ Austria
This paper proposes a postcolonial theological framework for analyzing persistent structures of inequality within contemporary Catholic discourse by introducing the analytical concepts Herrschaftslegitimation (the phenomenon whereby cultural, moral, or religious patterns of legitimation justify claims to domination without necessarily being tied to material relations of ownership) and Phantombesitz (an ostensibly tangible form of domination over people or things sustained through social and historical narratives, for example in the form of ideological or juridical-economic claims of possession). While conceptually inspired by Eva von Redecker's discussions of Sachherrschaft and Phantombesitz, these terms are deliberately detached from their original anti-capitalist framework and rearticulated as theological-hermeneutical tools for examining religious narratives that sustain asymmetrical relations of power. Drawing on previous research on postcolonial narratives in Nostra Aetate (1965) and the Document on Human Fraternity for World Peace and Living Together (2019), the paper argues that theological discourse often presents itself as reconciliatory and innocent while simultaneously reproducing historically embedded hierarchies. The paper applies this framework in two interconnected fields: Christian-Muslim dialogue and theological constructions of gender relations. It does not aim to evaluate interreligious dialogue normatively, but to show how reconciliation discourse may simultaneously maintain asymmetrical relations of authority. It demonstrates how biblical interpretations and ecclesial practices may unconsciously perpetuate colonial patterns of epistemic authority and gender asymmetry, contributing to the marginalization of women through theological narratives that can serve to legitimize asymmetrical gender relations both within and beyond ecclesial settings, as well as to the marginalization of Muslims within Christian-Muslim dialogue.
JESUS FATIGUE: INCLUSIVITY AND THE LIMITS OF DECONSTRUCTION

Van Den Berg M. (Speaker)

Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam ~ Amsterdam ~ Netherlands
Using boredom theory, affect theory and feminist and queer theology, in this paper I explore how inclusive imaginations of the figure of Jesus can, paradoxically, hinder the project of justice in theology and faith communities. "Inclusive Jesus", a term I borrow from Markus Bockmuehl (2011), has been a compelling answer to more traditional understandings that legitimate the exclusion of women and LGBTIQ+ people from equal participation in faith communities and making interventions in theological discourse. However, Inclusive Jesus has also been criticized, for instance by feminist and queer theologians (e.g. Linn Marie Tonstad), who point to the fact that his inclusivity is sometimes constructed over against the figure of an 'exclusive other', often a Jewish other. In this paper, I use boredom theory in an attempt to bring this critique a step further. I argue that Inclusive Jesus can lead to a form of fatigue: a sense of being tired or worn out, caused by the often implicit but harmful mechanisms that are put in place to uphold inclusivity. Boredom theory can be a helpful approach to investigate these mechanisms. From a critical boredom perspective we can ask: how does boringness come into being? How, when, and by whom is boredom allowed to surface? From this perspective, I argue that Inclusive Jesus is hard work. Maintaining inclusivity requires, for instance, a selection of relevant passages from the Bible that coincide with present-day conceptions of inclusivity, and "forgets" passages that do not fit the image. Moreover, inclusive Jesus is flattened by the desire to construct him as flawless. Inclusive Jesus is often presented as the 'real' Jesus that has been present in church history al along, yet not tapped into. This obscures previous, less inclusive images, while making it impossible to investigate how they linger in the present. This exploration will lead up to the main argument that boredom can be a subversive and transformative power.

Panel description: For the past five years, the REDESM Research Center (Religions, Rights and Economies in the Mediterranean Space) at the University of Insubria (www.redesm.org) has developed its own editorial series: the Giappichelli-Routledge series Religion, Law and Economics in the Mediterranean Space, which has begun to offer an insightful overview of the dynamics of religious freedom across the two shores of the Mediterranean. Economic and social transformations significantly affect core dimensions of this right: the role of freedom of conscience, relations among religious communities, the place of religious phenomena within constitutional frameworks, the status of women, questions of security, and, more broadly, the geopolitical position of the Mediterranean region within the international arena. This panel aims to take stock of these issues by presenting four volumes of the series, each of which seeks to build a bridge of analysis, research, and reflection between two worlds that are increasingly interconnected. Particular attention will be devoted to three volumes that help provide a comprehensive picture of the main issues at stake: Freedom of Religion, Security and the Law (2023); Women, Agency and Religion: Social and Legal Issues in the Mediterranean Public Space (2024); Diversity, Fear and Religions: Cultural Accommodation in a Globalized World (2025); and Political, Social, Religious and Economic Challenges in the Middle East and North Africa from Covid-19 to Agenda 2030 (2025). The panel will present the findings of four research projects, offering an interdisciplinary, forward-looking, and comparative reflection that provides an up-to-date perspective on some of the most pressing topics in contemporary religious studies.

Papers:

Panel description: This Author Meets Critique (AMC) session introduces the anthology Queering Theology, edited by Charlotte Jacobs, Sonja Thomaier, and Jörg Rieger. The volume advances a distinctive approach to queer theological work by centering the concept of queering. "Queer" is understood here not only as an identity but also as a critical practice: queering. From this starting point, queer theology draws not only on queer theory but also on liberation theology and materialist social analysis in order to address the matters of (in)equalities and (in)justice. Queering theology thus becomes a practice of challenging and overcoming the perceived non-alternativeness of dominant ways of thinking, working, and living. It is not an end in itself, but a collective endeavour aimed at enabling a better life for all. In this perspective, queer and materialist approaches are inherently intertwined, and transformative queer theologies integrate them from the outset. The contributions in this volume follow these trajectories while also breaking new ground. By deepening queer theology's liberationist commitments, the anthology reclaims queer theology as a mode of interrogating structures of power and imagining collective alternatives. It raises essential next questions for the field: How can queer theologies maintain their resistive edge? How can they unfold their transformative potential? And how might they become theologies of liberation for the 99%? In this panel, respondents J.J. Warren, Tris Genoske and Luke Larner - each well-versed in the field - offer critical and constructive responses to the volume. Their perspectives will open into a broader conversation with the editors and the audience, creating an opportunity for scholars to engage with the book's contributions to international queer theological discourse and to reflect on its relevance for reshaping theological practice today.

Papers:

Panel description: This session is tailored to fit this year's conference theme on religion and (in)equalities. Our four papers collectively address the two biggest inequality concerns in Hinduism: caste and sex. Historically, Hindu traditions have often been complicit in promoting discrimination against women and low-caste groups. But they have also often been wielded as a weapon of resistance against entrenched social hierarchies. The papers in this session examine the intersection between Hinduism and (in)equalities in four contexts. The first paper examines two of the novels written by a contemporary Hindu author, Koral Dasgupta. Dasgupta rewrites the stories of two mythic women, Tara and Ahalya, who appear in the Hindu epics primarily as virtuous wives. Dasgupta centers their stories in ways that override patriarchal prescriptions, rendering them complex figures with narrative voice, political consciousness, and moral agency. The second paper examines the lyrics of three Hindu poet saints--a Brahmin man, a woman, and a low-caste man-from Gujarat. The paper explores how bhakti, "devotion," not only functions on the individual level as a purely religious path, but also as a movement can be a path of resistance to entrenched social inequalities. The third paper examines the samādhi (gravesite) of the Gaudiya Vaishnava theologian Rupa Gosvamin at a temple in North India. As a counterpoint to the second paper, this paper shows how Hindu devotional traditions may not only challenge inequalities, but may simultaneously reproduce them. The final paper explores the intersections of religion and film in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, focusing on issues of religion and gender inequality in film narrative. This paper critically examines the ideological implications of Hindi films' patriarchal representations of women.

Papers:

FROM OBEDIENCE TO RESISTANCE: REWRITING MYTHIC WOMEN'S STORIES IN KORAL DASGUPTA'S SATI SERIES

Pintchman T. (Speaker)

Loyola University Chicago ~ Chicago ~ United States of America
Contemporary Hindu women's novels written in English have emerged as a vibrant literary space for not just retelling Hindu mythological narratives but also reimagining them completely in ways that challenge patriarchal gender norms. Koral Dasgupta's Sati Series offers one example of this trend. The Sati Series is a multi-volume literary project that reinterprets the lives of the pancha-kanyā, a group of five female figures from the Hindu epics Mahabharata and Ramayana: Ahalya, Kunti, Draupadi, Mandodari, and Tara. These mythic women are praised as paragons of female virtue and forbearance and are often held to be exemplars of strīdharma, women's dharma, at least as seen through a patriarchal lens. Dasgupta thoroughly rewrites their stories from a feminist perspective. In this paper, I examine two of the five works of the Sati Series, Tara and Ahalya. These are two mythic women from the Rāmāyaṇa whose stories are somewhat marginal to the most well-known versions of the epic. Ahalya, for example, is remembered primarily for one event: her sexual encounter with the god Indra, who seduces her by taking the form of Ahalya's husband Gautama. When Gautama discovers the accidental adultery, he curses Ahalya to become stone, a curse that Rama eventually lifts when he touches her stone body. Tara, the wife of a king, Vali, who Ram kills, dutifully marries Vali's brother, Sugrīva, after her husband's death and helps keep the peace between Ram and Sugrīva. Dasgupta rewrites the stories of both women. She centers their stories, rendering them complex figures with narrative voice, back stories, political consciousness, and moral agency. By foregrounding female experience, Dasgupta reconstructs mythic femininity in ways that override patriarchal prescriptions. She destabilizes idealized constructions of divine womanhood that perpetuate gender inequalities and turns patriarchal Hindu narrative tropes into spaces of feminist resistance.
POETICS OF RESISTANCE: CHALLENGES TO CASTE AND GENDER INEQUALITIES IN THE LYRICS OF SAINT-POETS OF GUJARAT

Shukla-Bhatt N. (Speaker)

Wellesley College ~ Wellesley ~ United States of America
One of the most discussed aspects of Hinduism in both media and academia is the inherent inequalities in its hierarchical organization of society in hereditary castes and its prescribed norms for women leading to severe social injustice. While historical evidence for such inequalities abounds, voices resisting them can also be found in Hindu texts since the antiquity. Ancient Sanskrit sacred texts composed before the Common Era like the Upanishads and Hindu epics contain several narratives questioning gender and caste hierarchies that have since been popular in all layers of the society. Yet the clearest expressions of challenge to these hierarchies are found in the lyrics of saintly poets of various regions who composed their devotional lyrics addressed to various Hindu deities or the formless Ultimate spirit (Brahman) in their vernacular languages beginning in the late first millennium. The spread of this phenomenon through various regions of India is often termed "bhakti movement." The saint-poets came from all castes. Several of them were women. Their lyrics, which question gender and caste discrimination, have been sung in folk melodies for centuries and have formed regional traditions of bhakti (devotion). Ramanujan refers to them as counter-systems to orthodoxy (1989). Traditions of regional saint-poets' have been studied extensively by scholars in India and around the world, generally focusing on an individual poet. A fruitful way to study them, however, is to view the corpus of lyrics of saint-poets of a region like an architectural masterpiece formed by many individual parts. This presentation will examine lyrics of poets Narasinha Mehta, Loyan, and Dasi Jivan- a Brahmin, a woman, and a low caste - from Gujarat. It will reinforce the proposition made by Eleanor Zelliot and Mokashi-Punekar that while bhakti as an individual path is purely religious, as a movement it has been a path of poetic resistance to inequalities (2005).
DEVOTION AND INEQUALITY: REVISITING THE BHAKTI-CASTE QUESTION AT RŪPA GOSVĀMIN'S SAMĀDHI

Taneja L. (Speaker)

Zayed University ~ Dubai ~ United Arab Emirates
This paper examines Rūpa Gosvāmin's samādhi at the Rādhā-Dāmodar temple as a site where devotion, inequality, and epistemic power converge. While bhakti theology proclaims that devotion transcends caste, class, and gender, the lived reality at sacred sites in Vṛndāvana reveals enduring hierarchies of access, visibility, and voice. Acts of circumambulation, prostration, and tactile engagement with the sacred unfold across uneven social terrains, where wealthy international pilgrims, impoverished renunciants, and local laborers participate together yet experience vastly different levels of comfort, mobility, and ritual privilege. As Jon Keune observes in "Shared Devotion, Shared Food" (2021), the bhakti-caste question exposes a central paradox: traditions that proclaim equality before God often reproduce inequality in practice. Building on this insight, the paper situates the Rūpa Gosvāmin samādhi within a devotional landscape where egalitarian ideals coexist with entrenched hierarchies. The refurbished tomb, maintained by institutional actors such as ISKCON, stands in stark contrast to the neglected memorials surrounding it, making material disparity an intrinsic part of the sacred topography. These asymmetries extend to the realm of scholarship, where institutional authority, linguistic privilege, and gender shape whose interpretations of the sacred are legitimized. By asking whose voices are amplified—temple managers, male priests, and academic interlocutors—and whose remain unheard—women devotees, temple workers, and lay practitioners— the paper shows how bhakti simultaneously challenges and reproduces inequality. Combining ethnography and phenomenological landscape theory, it argues that devotion in Vṛndāvana materializes Keune's paradox: bhakti's promise of equality is both enacted and undone within the lived realities of sacred experience.
HINDU TRADITIONS AND INEQUALITY: REPRESENTATIONS OF WOMEN IN HINDU TRADITIONS AND IN POPULAR HINDI FILMS

Dimitrova D. (Speaker)

University of Montreal ~ Montreal ~ Canada
This paper explores the intersections of religion and film and discusses issues of religion and inequality, as revealed in selected Hindi films in the period 1994-2010 from the perspectives of mythological and ideological criticism. It is characteristic of those films that no matter how modern the subject matter may be, for example arranged marriage versus love marriage, the ideal of woman living according to strīdharma ("traditional norms, duties, rules, roles of womanhood") versus the ideal of woman aspiring for human happiness, the notion of the feminine is mostly conservative and traditional. Firstly, I deal with Hindu images of the feminine and myth-models for women and explore the ways, in which Bollywood films have represented gender and translated Hindu myth-models into social role-models for women. The question arises about the links that exist between myth-models and social role models for women and the importance of commercial mainstream Bollywood film in this process. In what ways have Bollywood films represent inequality between men and women, and in what ways they have reworked the myth-models and projected them as desirable or undesirable social models for women to emulate or reject? Secondly, I examine the ideological implications of representations of gender, religion and inequality, and the ensuing conservative re-mythologizing of contemporary Indian culture by the media. Throughout the paper, I raise questions about the power of films to change reality and to shape our hopes, fears and desires. Should we accept the visions of the beautifully mythologized Hindu world, which those films present, at face value, or should we imagine visions of a world, which entails gender equality and social justice, not presented in those films?

Panel description: Addressing bioethical questions through the lens of religious traditions is both demanding and necessary. Even in contemporary secularised societies, religious imaginaries continue to shape how we understand life and death, illness and healing, vulnerability and care. Yet when we speak of bioethical standards, whose standards are we invoking? The language of dignity, autonomy, or vulnerability embedded in the debate and reported in protocols and policies often presents itself as universal while reflecting particular Western and secular genealogies. This framing can obscure a more complex reality: bioethics as a field shaped by plural grammars of value, lived identities, and overlapping worlds of meaning. Rather than presupposing a fixed opposition between religious and secular ethics, the panel invites reflection on how diverse moral worlds intersect, challenge, and translate one another. We aim to move beyond narratives of conflict or incompatibility by exploring how religious and faith traditions may function as substantive interlocutors in contemporary bioethical discourse. We welcome contributions that examine how religious and faith values and imaginaries are reconfigured within secular frameworks, how they inform practices of care, clinical decision-making, and policy debates, and how they might help articulate more equitable and imaginative bioethical futures. Possible Topics and Approaches - Comparative analyses of religious and non-religious approaches to autonomy, dignity, or vulnerability - The translations and adaptations of religious values within non-religious bioethical or legal frameworks - The role of ritual, embodiment, and suffering in shaping moral reasoning in healthcare - Public theology and bioethics in democratic deliberation and policy design - Empirical or ethnographic studies of how religious and moral imaginaries inform care practices

Papers:

THE DISENCHANTMENT OF INFORMED CONSENT: RELIGIOUS TRADITIONS AS EPISTEMIC RESOURCES

Ropelato T. (Speaker)

University of Turin / Bruno Kessler Foundation - Center for Religious Studies ~ Trento ~ Italy
Informed consent has become biomedicine's universal ethical standard, the primary mechanism for respecting patient autonomy and preventing medical paternalism. As philosopher Heidi Hurd observes, consent possesses "talismanic" qualities: it performs a kind of moral magic, transforming potentially invasive interventions into legitimate medical acts through the ritual of signature. This enchantment, however, conceals a structural particularity: the model assumes patients as atomistic decision-makers, privileges deliberative rationality over other modes of moral reasoning, and conceives autonomy primarily as freedom from interference. This model faces twin challenges that expose its inadequacy: first, biomedical technologies and AI generate forms of complexity and opacity that undermine the very possibility of autonomous, informed choice; second, moral and religious pluralism reveals that the framework's claimed neutrality masks culturally specific commitments that cannot accommodate how diverse patients actually reason about consequential medical decisions. This paper examines how Judaism, Catholicism, and Islam approach medical decision-making through distinctive epistemologies that address precisely what informed consent lacks: engagement with substantive goods (embodiment, relationality, communal obligations, transcendent meaning) rather than procedural authorization that brackets values as private preferences. Drawing on Value-Sensitive Design methodology, it proposes translating these epistemologies into practical tools: stakeholder analysis including moral communities, value scenarios making commitments explicit, and iterative consent architectures structured as negotiation. The goal is moving beyond the false choice between universal proceduralism and fragmented relativism.
TRANSHUMANISM AND CATHOLICISM: RECONCILING TECHNOLOGICAL ENHANCEMENT WITH RELIGIOUS PERSPECTIVES

Balistreri M. (Speaker)

DISTU, University of Tuscia ~ Viterbo ~ Italy
Transhumanism envisions a radical transformation of the human condition through technology, aiming to enhance physical, cognitive, and emotional capacities beyond biological limits. Such a project raises profound moral and theological questions, particularly in relation to the Catholic understanding of the human person as a creature endowed with intrinsic dignity and a transcendent destiny. This paper explores the tension between the Promethean drive to redesign the human being and the moral principles that safeguard its sacredness and integrity. Focusing on biotechnological and digital enhancement projects, from artificial intelligence to genetic engineering, it seeks to assess whether a form of "religious transhumanism" might be possible: one that reconciles technological progress with the Catholic vision of creation, grace, and human flourishing. The aim is to open a dialogue between faith and innovation, imagining a future where technology becomes a means of cooperation with, rather than substitution for, divine creation.
PERCEPTIONS OF MEDICAL STUDENTS FROM VERONA AND HALLE ON END-OF-LIFE ISSUES: AN INTERCULTURAL COMPARISON WITH A FOCUS ON RELIGIOUS AFFILIATION

Patuzzo Manzati S. (Speaker)

Department of Surgery, Dentistry, Paediatrics and Gynaecology, University of Verona ~ Verona ~ Italy
This study presents a comparative investigation conducted among medical students from the University of Verona (Italy) and the University of Halle (Germany), aimed at exploring representations and attitudes toward Bioethics at the end-of-life and related medical practices. Religious affiliation constitutes the main interpretative variable, serving as the lens through which differences and similarities between the two groups are analyzed. The anonymous, structured questionnaire includes twenty-three closed-ended questions organized into the following thematic areas: personal experiences of accompanying dying persons; knowledge and perceptions of Advance Directives; ethical and legal positions regarding the Withdrawal of Life-Sustaining Treatments and Palliative Care; opinions on Medically Assisted Death; and self-assessment of the ethical preparation provided by university education. The study aims to investigate how religious affiliation, together with the respective cultural and legal contexts, influences moral judgment and the willingness to respond to patients' requests at the end of life. Furthermore, it seeks to provide insights useful for developing ethically and professionally grounded educational pathways that are more sensitive to the religious and cultural dimensions affecting medical practice within the care relationship.
THE STATE OF CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTION REGARDING END-OF-LIFE DECISIONS IN CERTAIN EUROPEAN STATES - A COMPARATIVE LEGAL ANALYSIS

Köbel D. (Speaker)

Károli Gáspár University of the Reformed Church of Hungary ~ Budapest ~ Hungary
End-of-life decisions have become a highly important social debate. In addition to numerous bioethical issues, such as the proper guarantee of human dignity and the right to self-determination, the use of living wills, and informed consent of patients, we must not forget the rights of healthcare workers, limited as they may be in such situations. This paper aims to examine whether the right of conscientious objection can be found in the regulations of certain European countries, namely the Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland, Spain, Italy, and Hungary. We wish to examine, where data is available, the extent to which these countries are able to guarantee this right to healthcare workers, and whether these rights are applicable to end-of-life decisions. Finally, we will explore, whether the laws and the courts of the countries - as well as the case-law of the ECtHR - are willing and capable of distinguishing conscientious objection on religious grounds and on other grounds, and whether such a differentiation can be ruled as a form of discrimination.
CATHOLIC BIOETHICS

Pegoraro R. (Speaker)

PONTIFICIA ACCADEMIA PER LA VITA-CITTA' DEL VATICANO ~ ROMA ~ Italy
Catholic Bioethics Mons. Renzo Pegoraro Catholic bioethics: A profound perspective on human person The very existence and reality of the human person, each one of us, evokes questions on humanity that began in its earliest embryonic form. We are not abstract beings, nor merely composition of bio-chemical and biological processes. The uniquely Christian belief that God became flesh in the person of Christ can undoubtedly enrich our understanding of human existence, adding deeper meaning and purpose to our lives. Catholic Bioethics as a "Sign of Hope" Pope John Paul II, while emphasizing "daily gestures of openness, sacrifice and unselfish care which countless people lovingly make in families, hospitals, orphanages, homes for the elderly and other centres or communities which defend life", primarily observed "the reawakening of an ethical reflection on issues affecting life". Basic principles of Catholic bioethics Among the diverse approaches that exist in bioethics, the Catholic bioethics holds a distinct and specific role. Drawing upon Sacred Scripture and Tradition spread over the centuries, where human reason has been enlightened by faith, Catholic Church has emphasized the following principles in its consideration of bioethics. Toward an inter-disciplinary dialogue founded on universal values

Panel description: This panel explores how Alevi communities from Turkey have redefined their religious identity and navigated structures of (in)equality in the diaspora contexts of Germany and Austria. Migration opened not only new socio-economic spaces but also initiated a process of religious and political self-empowerment, allowing Alevi actors to articulate their faith more freely within pluralist societies. The panel examines the multi-phased institutionalization of Alevism, from informal gatherings to formalized religious communities engaged in education, welfare, and political representation. Special attention will be given to the ambivalent relationship of Alevi diasporas to both their country of origin and their host societies: While Turkish state institutions have continued to exert regulatory control over diasporic communities, Germany and Austria have provided new opportunities for institutional recognition. Nevertheless, Alevis still struggle against persistent external categorizations that frame them as a heterodox Islamic sect, undermining their claim to religious autonomy. Drawing on historical analogies and contemporary developments, the panel analyzes how second and third generation Alevi actors serve as key agents of transformation, negotiating visibility, recognition, and self-definition within diasporic and transnational fields.

Papers:

ALEVI IDENTITY AND INSTITUTIONALIZATION IN AUSTRIA: DIASPORIC RECOGNITION AND THE STRUGGLE FOR RELIGIOUS EQUALITY

Çiçek H. (Speaker)

PH-Weingarten and Universtity of Vienna ~ Vienna ~ Austria
This paper examines the transformation of Alevi religious identity and organizational structures in Austria, where migration has offered both legal recognition and a platform for emancipatory articulation. While the Alevi community has historically faced marginalization in Turkey, Austria's legal framework — notably the Islam Law — has opened unprecedented institutional pathways. However, these developments remain contested: state recognition has triggered intra-Alevi disputes over theological representation, and external pressures from Turkish state-linked Sunni organizations complicate the space for autonomous self-definition. Based on qualitative research and recent policy analysis, this paper explores how Austrian Alevis navigate the tensions between minority status, diaspora institutionalization, and competing claims to Islamic orthodoxy, situating the Austrian case within broader debates on religion, equality, and secular governance in Europe. Hüseyin Çiçek
ALEVI BELONGING AND RELIGIOUS IDENTITY IN THE DIASPORA: AN EMPIRICAL STUDY ON MARGINALIZATION AND INSTITUTIONAL TRANSFORMATION

Ceylan R. (Speaker)

University of Osnabrück ~ Osnabrück ~ Germany
This paper investigates how Alevi individuals in the diaspora negotiate religious belonging, identity, and institutionalization in the context of socio-political marginalization. Drawing on a set of biographical-narrative interviews with Alevi respondents across generations, the study highlights the role of diasporic experience in reshaping religious self-understanding and collective organization. The findings reveal shifting modes of self-identification—particularly among younger generations—ranging from detachment from Islam to the assertion of an autonomous Alevi tradition. These developments challenge dominant categorizations within both Islamic and secular discourses and expose the inadequacy of existing legal and scholarly frameworks to capture the plural and evolving nature of Alevi religiosity in diaspora. The paper contributes to current debates on religious minorities, post-migration identities, and the dynamics of recognition and exclusion in pluralist societies.
LEARNING FROM, AND WITH, ALEVI SCHOLARS. THE DEPARTMENT OF ALEVI THEOLOGY AT THE UNIVERSITY OF EDUCATION, WEINGARTEN, GERMANY.

Mooney H. (Speaker)

PH-Weingarten ~ Weingarten ~ Germany
The Department of Alevi Theology was established at the University of Education in Weingarten in the South of Germany in the year 2013. Its inauguration aimed to provide an academic education for teachers of Alevi Religious Education, and, to foster their didactical competence, primarily within the German setting. Furthermore, to this day, the department provides the Alevi community with a centre of theological reflection on its history, communal identity, rich theological tradition and liturgical practice. This paper gives a brief account of the stages through which this course of studies developed and the societal and geographic factors which impact on enrollment patterns. Attention is, however, also devoted to the interaction of theological ideas developed by scholars of the Alevi department with the positions of other theologies studied at the institution. Alevi ethics, liturgical studies, theology of human development, the question of the divine, theories and analyses of communal structures are loci of comparative Alevi-Christian theological reflection. The emergence of an interreligious, theological conversation, which learns from, and with, each other, is presented, in this instance, from the perspective of a neighbouring (Christian) theologian. Hillary Mooney

Panel description: This panel explores the complex interplay between material realities and the production of inequality and injustice at the intersections of race, class, gender and religion. While scholarship on (in)equality has increasingly emphasized the multifaceted nature of social hierarchies, the role of material conditions - such as labour relations, economic resources, and lived environments - in shaping and transforming these hierarchies remains a pressing focus. An examination of material relations does not merely enumerate intersecting symptoms of systemic inequalities but seeks to explain their causes and functions in order to challenge them at their roots. As religion both reflects and shapes material realities through religious traditions, institutions, and communities, it can reinforce inequalities and injustices as well as offer resources for resistance, solidarity, and transformation. We therefore invite scholars, activists, and practitioners from various backgrounds with varying academic focuses (biblical studies, ethics, religion and society, etc.) who seek to give renewed critical attention to the material dimensions of race, class, gender, and queer realities, with particular attention to religion. By foregrounding material realities, this panel invites a conversation on how inequalities are produced, naturalized, and finally dismantled across these interlocking domains. The panel continues a series from five previous EuARe annual conference panels on labour, economic justice, and queering liberation. It is open to anyone who wishes to join the critical conversation on the material production of inequality, exchange insights and strategies for resistance and transformation, and contribute to this ongoing work.

Papers:

INEQUALITY IS TO CLASS LIKE PRIVILEGE IS TO POWER: IMPLICATIONS FOR THE STUDY OF RELIGION AND RESISTANCE

Rieger J. (Speaker)

Vanderbilt University ~ Nashville, TN ~ United States of America
Failure to distinguish between privilege and power has led not only to analytical conundrums but also to practical ones. In the world of religion, this has sometimes played out in liberative theologies that challenge privilege without realizing that privilege does not always translate into power. Engaging distinctions between inequality and class can help address this conundrum in new ways and offer solutions. With inequality rampant along the lines of gender, race, and status - often supported by religious ideals - an analysis of class can deepen an understanding of power throwing new light on the relation of power and privilege and how religion functions in the different contexts.
BRICKS WITHOUT STRAW: LABOR, LIBERATION, AND THE EGALITARIAN STRAND OF BIBLICAL MONOTHEISM (GENESIS 5)

Kahl B. (Speaker)

Union Theological Seminary ~ New York ~ United States of America
The exclusive Oneness of the biblical God is more frequently read in terms of religious intolerance than as a rallying cry towards a more equitable social and economic order. Based on the work of Norman Gottwald, Richard Horsley, and Roland Boer, among others, we need to revisit some of the key narratives across the testaments that point to an economy of sharing and solidarity as embedded into the core commandment of not having any others gods and not to bow down and serve them.
CREATING GROUND: ANALYSIS OF BEYOND APOLOGETICS IN QUEER AND FEMINIST THEOLOGY

Jonescu P. (Speaker)

University of Heidelberg ~ Heidelberg ~ Germany
Power and knowledge are bound together. Truth-formation and -expression is a mechanism of power in which it supports itself. Power both establishes and seeks confirmations of its truths. In Michel Foucault's Disciple and Punish, the public display of torture and punishment operated on the production of truth. Generally, the attempts to dissuade the ruling power from punishment operated according to the knowledge-power system of punishment. However, the system became dismantled when the onlookers no longer pleaded but rather rose up and took the stage. The subjected placed themselves within the power realm of the subject. Tonstad's 'Beyond Apologetics', along with other recent feminist theological works, operate in a similar manner. This paper offers an analysis of Tonstad's Queer Theology: Beyond Apologetics, along with other works, in recognition of Foucault's assessment: how feminist, queer, and other liberatory theologies requires a radical storming of the stage - creating and taking space with other theological approaches.
ZUR JOSEONJOK-FRAGE: A POLITICAL-THEOLOGICAL ESSAY ON APORO-XENOPHOBIA IN SOUTH KOREA

An T. (Speaker)

Vanderbilt University ~ Nashville ~ United States of America
This paper develops a political-theological analysis of race, class, and transnational mobilities by examining how Joseonjok (ethnic Koreans with Chinese citizenship) are a "question" in contemporary South Korea. To elaborate on the nature of this "question" as it pertains to an ethnic group, it begins by situating two historical texts as analytical points of reference: Karl Marx's account of the material constraints on freedom in Zur Judenfrage and Jean-Paul Sartre's etiology of antisemitism in Reflexions sur la question juive. It then examines the transition in Korean perceptions of Korean Chinese migrant workers (from dongpo to a distinct jok) by highlighting popular media representations from the 2000s and 2010s. The paper contends that this shift emerged from emphasis on their "Chinese" identity, portraying them as violent, brutal, and immoral. It further explores the socioeconomic realities of class and labor dynamics that are often obscured by the racialized dimension of prejudice and hatred. The paper coins the term aporo-xenophobia to conceptualize "the Joseonjok question" as one of its manifestations. It argues that the prevalent employment of Korean Chinese migrant workers in manual labor reinforces hierarchical racial differentiation between "real" Koreans and Korean Chinese workers. In response, the paper seeks to articulate how theological reasoning might contribute to secular politics by offering a framework for reimagining shared life and renewed social relationships. Drawing on Luke Bretherton and Jörg Rieger, it contends that a Christian theological imagination of the "tent" (in lieu of "temple" or "house") and of "deep solidarity" provides a way to envision a shared space beyond secular toleration. Christian hospitality and deep solidarity illuminate the marginalized situation of Korean Chinese migrant workers and point beyond a secular conception of toleration that merely seeks to preserve existing ways of life for the tolerant and the tolerated.
HEAT STRESS ON CONSTRUCTION SITES, SOLIDARITY ON THE STREETS

Schünemann T. (Speaker) [1] , Hui M. (Speaker) [2]

University of Leipzig ~ Leipzig ~ Germany [1] , magazine NeueWege ~ Bern ~ Switzerland [2]
Labour is the juncture, the intersection of almost everything. It is where power relations, gender dynamics, migration regimes, and the rights of humans and nature are either reinforced or challenged. Individuals and groups are excluded or included, exploited or become subjects of their own actions. This intersection also determines the answer to the question: Who bears the costs and who points the way out of the climate catastrophe? According to sociologist Simon Schaupp, the parallel between the exploitation of people and nature becomes uniquely clear on construction sites. The construction industry is one of the most climate-damaging sectors of the economy. At the same time, construction workers suffer from the climate crisis. By working overtime, they are expected to compensate for the loss of productivity caused by heat stress and climate fluctuations. Their embodied environmental knowledge and political attitudes are at first glance often incompatible with the knowledge and strategies of climate activists. This paper discusses the issue from the following perspective: How can alliances be formed that support construction workers in their labor struggles - for reduced working hours or better protection during heat waves - while at the same time advancing transformative policies, as demanded by the climate justice movement? Such alliances require time, relationship building, and changed attitudes. They also require a rethinking of climate awareness, solidarity, and work. This practice gives rise to hope.
CHRISTIAN UNIVERSALISM, WHITENESS, AND THE MATERIAL ORDERING OF SPACE

Löschcke Centeno A. (Speaker)

Carl von Ossietzky Universität Oldenburg ~ Oldenburg ~ Germany
This paper argues that Christian universalism has not only shaped theological thought but has also contributed to the material production of racial inequality. Drawing on Willie James Jennings' The Christian Imagination, I examine how abstract forms of Christian universality became entangled with colonial expansion and the emergence of whiteness as a normative social identity. Jennings shows how colonial Christianity transformed land into abstract "space" - space that could be controlled, divided, and possessed. In this shift, identity was no longer rooted in shared land and history but relocated onto racialized bodies. Whiteness became a theological and social imaginary that structured proximity, labor, ownership, and belonging. Christian universalism, especially when detached from the concrete history of Israel and the Jewish identity of Jesus, helped to naturalize this new order. Its claim to neutrality and universal applicability supported systems that classified bodies, justified dispossession, and organized labor along racial lines. At the same time, Jennings offers a different vision of universality. In Acts 2 and 10, universality appears as embodied intimacy: entering other languages, homes, and social worlds. Here, the Spirit creates new forms of belonging that challenge established hierarchies. Universal truth is not abstract but takes shape in concrete relationships and shared vulnerability. By focusing on the material effects of theological imagination, this paper asks how Christian theology has helped produce inequality—and how a christologically grounded rethinking of universality may open possibilities for more just forms of life.
LEMONS, LEMONADE, AND WHAT WE LEARN ABOUT LABOUR RELATIONS

Jacobs C. (Speaker)

University of Jena ~ Jena ~ Germany
When life gives you lemons… this paper asks where the lemons come from. Drawing on Marcella Althaus-Reid's poignant reminder of the lemon vendors in Buenos Aires, this presentation argues that we should not only ask about the experience of inequality, but also about the production of inequality and injustice under capitalism. The central focus of the paper is a critique of the "mind over matter" belief that persists even within liberation movements. From a class perspective, it offers a critical assessment of emancipatory strategies and questions approaches that neglect material realities.
DANCING WITH THE STONE BUTCHES: CLASS, GENDER, AND THE MATERIAL REALITIES OF QUEER THEOLOGIES

Thomaier S. (Speaker)

University of Hildesheim ~ Hildesheim ~ Germany
This paper focuses on the lived realities of Stone Butches and Fem(mes) as depicted in Leslie Feinberg's influential novel Stone Butch Blues, exploring their significance for contemporary queer theology. While Feinberg's work is recognized for its nuanced portrayal of gender diversity, its radical analysis of class relations and call for working-class solidarity is often overlooked - even within Queer Theory. Taking this intersection of queerness and class as a starting point, the paper develops a queer-theological framework attuned to both gender nonconformity and economic precarity. Methodologically, it draws on the work of queer-feminist liberation theologian Marcella Althaus-Reid, who centers the embodied experiences of marginalized and precarious subjects in theological reflection. Althaus-Reid's open, contextually grounded theology provides valuable tools for articulating and amplifying the marginalized experiences of Butches and Fem(mes) within theological debates. By weaving together literary analysis and queer-theological method, this paper aims to illuminate new spaces for solidarity and alliance-building amid difference. It ultimately reflects on how re-examining Stone Butch Blues through this dual lens can foster broader imaginaries of justice and belonging within queer theology. Or simply put: This paper shows how dancing with the Stone Butches will help us to materialize queer theology.
POVERTY AND INEQUALITY: A RICOEURIAN READING OF RELIGIOUS HOPE IN SOUTH AFRICAN CHURCH CONTEXTS

Baloyi G. (Speaker)

University of South Africa ~ Pretoria ~ South Africa
In contexts marked by deep socio-economic inequality, religious communities frequently proclaim hope as a central theological response to poverty and human suffering. Yet within many church contexts the experience and meaning of hope are not socially neutral but shaped by differing material realities among believers themselves. It argues that in economically unequal congregations the theological language of hope may be interpreted in fundamentally different ways by those who inhabit positions of poverty and those who occupy positions of relative privilege. While hope may function for the poor as a vital resource for sustaining dignity and endurance amid hardship, it may simultaneously reinforce narratives of stability, blessing and moral reassurance for the economically advantaged. Drawing on the hermeneutic of Paul Ricoeur, the paper offers a practical-theological reading of hope as a symbolic and interpretive discourse embedded within lived religious experience in South African church contexts. It argues that without critical reflection the discourse of hope risks obscuring socio-economic inequalities within communities that proclaim justice and human dignity. By engaging a Ricoeurian hermeneutic, the paper contributes to practical theology by showing how hope can be reinterpreted as a transformative theological resource that both sustains dignity and critically confronts inequality within faith communities.
ECONOMIES OF THE SPIRIT: MATERIAL PNEUMATOLOGY AND THE END OF HISTORY

Larner L. (Speaker)

University of Roehampton ~ London ~ United Kingdom
Western philosophies and theologies have often been critiqued for engendering a dualism between the spiritual and the material. In this paper I will explore an alternative approach, which considers Christian pneumatology alongside the very material impacts of late capitalism. Drawing from my empirical research among Anglican practitioners of broad-based community organising, I will interweave the metaphysical and the material to demonstrate that theologies of the Spirit have a profound impact upon Christian practice, and vice-versa. Critiquing approaches to pneumatology and Christian mission which resemble Hegel's colonial Geist and Max Weber's 'spirit of capitalism,' I will argue for a liberative notion of the Spirit's work of becoming in solidarity. This approach brings the reflections of my research participants into conversation with Marxist theory, sociological frameworks and liberation theologies. Rejecting notions of late capitalism as 'The End of History', I will explore possibilities for an alternative future born of the Spirit of Life.
WHOSE BODY COUNTS? WOMEN'S EXPERIENCE, MORAL AUTHORITY AND CATHOLIC SEXUAL ETHICS

Perera S. (Speaker)

KU Leuven ~ Leuven ~ Belgium
Catholic sexual ethics speaks extensively about bodies, yet rarely asks whose embodied experience is permitted to shape its moral authority. This paper examines the methodological tensions within Catholic sexual ethics through a critical reading of Humanae Vitae and its contemporary defence in Janet E. Smith's natural-law interpretation, placing them in dialogue with the feminist liberation theology of Ivone Gebara. While Humanae Vitae presents its teaching on contraception as an expression of objective moral truth grounded in the nature of the human person and the conjugal act, its ethical reasoning relies on a biologically centred account of normativity in which the unitive and procreative meanings of sexual intercourse are treated as inseparable and universally binding. Janet Smith, despite explicitly rejecting reductive "physicalism," largely preserves this framework by translating biological teleology into the personalist language of self-gift, self-mastery, and the "language of the body." This paper argues that such approaches reveal a deeper epistemological limitation: women's embodied experiences of fertility, reproductive labour, vulnerability, trauma, and socio-economic constraint rarely function as sources of moral knowledge within the ethical framework itself. Instead, these realities appear primarily as circumstances to be disciplined by pre-established norms. Drawing on Ivone Gebara's feminist theology, the paper proposes that women's everyday experiences of suffering, survival, and relational interdependence constitute genuine loci of moral discernment rather than merely pastoral concerns. Rather than offering a doctrinal adjudication of Catholic teaching on contraception, the paper interrogates the method by which moral authority is constructed. It argues that a sexual ethic claiming universality risks losing credibility when women's bodies are structurally prevented from shaping its moral reasoning.

Panel description: The Reformed view of human nature is often summarized as "total depravity." This is the T in the acronym TULIP, which is often presented as a concise representation of Reformed doctrine. However, TULIP was not used as such until the 20th century. Is it a correct summary of classical Reformed doctrine, or a later (mis)interpretation of it? This panel examines what the classical Reformed view of humanity was, what its sources were, how it relates to the view of humanity held by other Christian denominations, how it has developed, and what its consequences are for, for example, preaching, pastoral care, psychology, and education. It focuses on redefining Reformed anthropology for the present day, in relation to classical Reformed and Christian sources.

Papers:

REFORMED ANTHROPOLOGY AND PUBLIC THEOLOGY.

Den Hertog N. (Speaker)

Theological University Apeldoorn ~ Apeldoorn ~ Netherlands
Is depravity something for wicked persons only, or are we all inclined to evil? Were those men who voluntarily choose to join the Nazi armies inherently wicked, or were they just average persons? What about what Hannah Arendt called "the banality of evil" when she observed Nazi leader Eichmann in 1963? This paper investigates how sentiments in public opinion reflect reformed anthropology.
450 YEARS UNABLE TO DO ANY GOOD: EXPOSITIONS OF HEIDELBERG CATECHISM QUESTION 8, 1563-2013

Rouwendal P. (Speaker)

Theological University Apeldoorn ~ Apeldoorn ~ Netherlands
This paper presents research to what the authors of the Heidelberg Catechism (1563) intended to say when they affirmed that human beings are utterly unable to do anything good (question and answer 8), and how later theologians dealt with this affirmation in expositions of and sermons on the Catechism. This provides insight into the development of reformed anthropology, and into the way this was applied to average Christian.
PREACHING ON DEPRAVITY TO SAINTS AND SINNERS

Kater M. (Speaker)

Theological University Apeldoorn ~ Apeldoorn ~ Netherlands
How can or should preachers deal with the doctrine of depravity in their sermons? How do they take into account the biblical, confessional, pastoral and psychological presuppositions and implications?
MEDIEVAL BACKGROUNDS OF (POST) TRIDENTINE ROMAN CATHOLIC AND REFORMED ANTHROPOLOGY

Goris H. (Speaker)

Tilburg University, Tilburg School of Catholic Theology ~ Tilburg ~ Netherlands
In contrast with Reformed theology, Roman Catholic theology has the tendency to downplay the effects of the fall. The idea that original sin constitutes only the loss of the extra, supernatural gifts of original justice, which became dominant only during the Council of Trent, has been attributed to Thomas Aquinas, but has in fact its roots in the theology of Duns Scotus. This paper traces the Augustinian and Aristotelian influences throughout the Middle Ages up to the Council of Trent. While Catholic anthropology is more Scotistic, Reformed anthropology is more aligned with Thomas.

Panel description: Enhancing inclusion and equality in todays' society is difficult. In our time of popularism and short text messages, reflection on what you say to another person is rare, as well as realising that other person is a human being too. Listening in a genuine dialogue, also when the other tells you what you rather not would like to hear, is very difficult. Even more, if their story sounds different or even 'strange' to you, as a consequence of another background, different race, gender, religion or spirituality. In this panel we exchange didactical approaches to work on inclusion and equality in the classroom. We allow scholars to enter the panel who also conduct research amongst teachers or pupils regarding didactic strategies to work on more inclusion in a safe classroom at for instance secondary schools or at university. Critical thinking is needed to owrk on the moral compass of pupils or students, and reflection to what other people's stories bring up inside you. In a real dialogue, both sender and receiver will develop their own compass further. Growing awareness in these processes is a focus on which we base some of our research. Equality between people with a different gender, race, religion is not easy to achieve, even in our highly developed country with high standards on democracy and equal human rights. Research will be presented how young people look towards these issues and what they value in life. This will present a diverse image, that also mirrors the intense situation in the multi-diverse classrooms. Moreover, the different backgrounds of the speakers and their perspectives will add more diversity into the equation in this panel, and therefore will help us to elaborate further on the very topic of the panel and conference.

Papers:

RELIGIOUS EDUCATION WITHIN THE MONTESSORI METHOD

Kielian A. (Speaker)

The Pontifical University of John Paul II in Krakow ~ Krakow ~ Poland
Religious education in modern educational settings is undergoing significant transformation in response to shifting societal norms that call for greater inclusion and equity. In Poland, a country with a strong Catholic tradition and rapidly evolving cultural demographics, the integration of religious education with progressive pedagogical practices has become both challenging and promising. Montessori schools in Poland have increasingly risen to the challenge of aligning their curriculum with inclusive principles, providing religious education that respects traditional values while responding to demands for equality and diverse representation. The presentation first examines the wider theoretical context of religious education from a Montessori perspective. It then investigates the specific contributions of Maria Montessori and Sofia Cavaletti, two pioneers whose ideas continue to shape inclusive pedagogies. By exploring the interplay of pedagogical theory and practice in Polish Montessori schools, the discussion will aim to uncover pathways to more equitable religious education, which could serve as a model for contemporary educational reforms in other contexts. The presentation will be based on the Polish context as a case study for a broader investigation of the Montessori method as a didactic tool for shaping a more inclusive approach to religious education.
LEARNING HOW TO DIALOGUE IN RE

Van Deursen-Vreeburg J. (Speaker)

tilburg school of catholic theology ~ Tilburg ~ Netherlands
Research has been conducted on the negative effects of digitalisation on young people. Commonly cited issues include cyberbullying, reduced self-confidence, and a decline in conversational skills ('oracy'). These phenomena conflict with the goals of religious and philosophical education in secondary schools, which aim to develop students' capacity for self-reflection, a dialogical attitude, and the ability to engage with existential and ethical questions. In RE, teachers hold regular classroom dialogues in which students share ideas and reflect together on life questions and ethical themes. These dialogues are ideally characterised by reciprocity and engagement. Learning to engage in dialogue contributes to both citizenship education and students' personal formation. In this paper presentation, insights from philosophical and theological dialogue thinkers (Martin Buber, Mikhail Bakhtin, David Bohm, Gabriel Marcel and Simone Weil) are being presented and translated into pedagogical and didactical principles for classroom dialogues. Learning how to dialogue on spiritual and moral foundations allows inclusion and equality to grow in the classroom.
ARTICULATING THE CATHOLIC IDENTITY OF CATHOLIC SECONDARY EDUCATION IN SECULARISED AND PLURAL SOCIETIES: A RENEWED PERSPECTIVE INSPIRED BY POPE FRANCIS

Hagens Q. (Speaker)

Tilburg University ~ Tilburg ~ Netherlands
In highly secularised and plural societies, Catholic secondary education faces the task of engaging with diverse worldviews and backgrounds among both students and teachers, while remaining faithful to its own Catholic foundations. The Catholic identity associated with its official recognition as a Catholic school carries normative implications that, in secular contexts, have proven difficult to integrate explicitly into everyday educational practice, often leading to a more implicit or reduced articulation of Catholic identity. This paper proposes a renewed perspective on the Catholic identity of Catholic secondary education, informed by the thought of Pope Francis. A central inspiration within this perspective is Francis's metaphor of the polyhedron, in which unity is grounded not in uniformity but in a diversity that respects the freedom and irreducible dignity of each person. Within this metaphor, dialogue is not merely an exploration of difference that ultimately reinforces one's own position, but a disposition of openness in which one is willing to learn from the other and to be enriched through encounter. The paper explores how this perspective opens up new possibilities for a meaningful articulation of the Catholic identity of Catholic secondary education in secularised and plural societies such as the Netherlands, with particular attention to institutional positioning, pedagogical orientation, and the curricular development of religious education.
D4D. DIALOGICAL FOR DIDACTICAL

Locorotondo L. (Speaker) [1] , Mariotti I. (Speaker) [2]

PUL ~ Roma ~ Italy [1] , High School ~ Camaiore ~ Italy [2]
Religious Education (RE) extends beyond the mere transmission of doctrinal knowledge, positioning itself as a genuinely dialogical space for reflection, interaction, and ethical exploration. Within this perspective, diversity is not perceived as a barrier, but as a constitutive element of a shared learning experience. By involving students in the examination of complex moral issues—such as justice, human rights, and environmental responsibility—RE encourages them to engage with real-world challenges through a multiplicity of perspectives. The comparative study of religious and non-religious traditions further highlights both the richness and the internal plurality of belief systems. In this context, learners are no longer passive recipients of information, but active agents in the construction of meaning. They are invited to question assumptions, critically engage with different viewpoints, and develop their own well-reasoned positions. Such a dialogical approach strengthens critical thinking while cultivating the competencies required for democratic participation and lifelong learning. At the same time, this approach affirms intellectual equality by recognizing each student as a legitimate and valuable voice within the classroom. Irrespective of personal beliefs or backgrounds, all students are encouraged to contribute, and their perspectives are acknowledged as essential to a collective process of understanding. In this way, diversity is transformed into a resource that enriches shared knowledge rather than dividing it. Ultimately, inclusive Religious Education does not aim to privilege any single worldview; rather, it seeks to foster an environment grounded in respect, openness, and mutual recognition.

Panel description: The world is increasingly marked by many crises including political polarization, many forms of inequality, pending environmental catastrophe, war and violence, and the rise of militant and exclusive forms of nationalism. In such a context, the Church is called to be a prophetic voice of peace, reconciliation, and inclusion. The papacies of Pope Francis and Pope Leo have served as a call to openness and solidarity, embodying in both word and deed the prophetic vocation the Church is called to embody in our increasingly wounded world. The call to synodality initiated by Pope Francis and continued under Pope Leo has been an especially potent sign of the direction and posture the Church is called to take at this time, namely, one of humility, dialogical openness, and receptive listening, all in service of creating missionary disciples who are able to proclaim the Kingdom of God prophetically and effectively. And yet, despite the Church's external commitment to its prophetic and synodal vocation, many ecclesial structures, positions, and mentalities remain seemingly closed to dialogue, growth, and critique (i.e. questions of sex and gender, womens' sacramental leadership, and addressing the causes of sexual abuse, to name a few of the most glaring instances). Moreover, the Church in some part of the world (i.e. Eastern Europe and parts of the United States) uncritically adopting far right political ideologies and the piecemeal and ideologically motivated implementation (or lack thereof) of synodality remain challenges to the Church in fully embracing its prophetic and synodal vocation. All of these realities witness to various "inequalities" within the Church which the Church must respond to faithfully, creatively, and critically. This panel will offer such responses, highlighting how tools within our theological tradition, creatively and critically employed, can enable the Church to better embody its prophetic and synodal vocation.

Papers:

"EXPERIENCE" IS WORTHLESS

Burbach N. (Speaker)

London Jesuit Centre ~ London ~ United Kingdom
Many well-meaning advocates for greater engagement with the realities of trans life argue for the importance of attending to the "experiences" of transgender people. This paper problematises this call, arguing that a focus on "experience" can serve to reproduce the very troubling dynamics these calls seek to overcome. It begins by offering a theological evaluation of why "experience" is held to be significant, situating calls to attend to experience within the broader theological outlook of the Second Vatican Council. It then argues that common assumptions about the nature of experience "experience" as it is frequently sought out from adequately playing the role envisioned within this theological context. It concludes by suggesting some principles that will help theologians, pastors, and Church leaders to engage more helpfully with the realities of trans life.
QUEERING SYNODALITY: LISTENING, THE TRIUNE GOD, AND DIPLOMATIC RELATIONS WITHIN CHURCH

Diaz M. (Speaker)

Loyola University Chicago ~ Chicago ~ United States of America
Pope Francis opined that henceforth synodality would constitute the Church. Since his election, Pope Leo XIV has continued to speak about the synodal nature of the Church defining synodality as "an attitude, an openness, a willingness to understand" that concerning "the Church now, this means each and every member of the church has a voice and a role to play through prayer, reflection…through a process." Building upon these recent papal teachings, I will argue that a synodal Church is one that inclusively listens and embraces constructive communication across human differences and theological perspectives. With respect to marginalized LGBTQ+ persons, a synodal Church is one that listens to, welcomes, and theologically articulates their distinct ways of being human. In continuity with Pope Francis's and Pope Leo's teaching on the preferential option for the poor, this option, "demands of us an attitude of attentiveness to others" that "must mainly translate into a privileged and preferential religious care" (Dilexit Te, ¶ 114). This presentation underscores the need for the Church to listen preferentially to marginalized queer ecclesial bodies and to translate this option into caring religious practices and theologies. To theoretically and practically ground my argument, I will draw on trinitarian theology and the practice of diplomacy.
UNVEILING DISAGREEMENT IN A SYNODAL CHURCH

Flanagan B. (Speaker)

Loyola University Chicago ~ Chicago ~ United States of America
One surprising aspect of the Synod on Synodality was the openness of the questions asked of the people of God and the wide range of their responses. The Synod functioned not only as a deliberative process, but as a process of aletheia, an "unveiling" of the reality of ecclesial difference and disagreement, especially with regard to issues of gender, sexuality, and sexual expression. The synod process unveiled the extent to which Catholics of good will lived out their faith and expressed their belief in different, sometimes conflicting ways. This paper highlights particular challenges for the implementation of synodality in the wider church. First, it will look at the challenge to simplistic images of ecclesial unity of belief and practice that the synodal unveiling of ecclesial disagreement has brought to the collective ecclesiological consciousness of Catholics. Second, it will look at the particular challenge of a synodal process that listened to Catholics whose views and experiences differ from official teaching and practice (e.g., LGBTQ+ Catholics, those seeking greater leadership roles and/or ordination for women, Catholics in polygamous marriages), without substantively changing ecclesial positions in these areas. How does a synodal church begin to address the extent and depth of the disagreement that the very process of synodality unveils?
BETWEEN HOMONORMATIVITY AND QUEER LONGINGS FOR RENEWAL: LGBTQ+ CATHOLIC VISIONS OF THE ITALIAN CHURCH IN THE ERA OF SYNODALITY

Millesimi G.M. (Speaker)

KU Leuven ~ Leuven ~ Belgium
The Summary Document of the Synodal Journey of the Churches in Italy, Leaven of Peace and Hope, was approved on 25 October 2025, after a previous draft had been rejected by delegates in April for, among other reasons, only vaguely describing the pastoral care of LGBTQ+ believers. While the final document adopted a more welcoming tone, the absence of the LGBTQ+ acronym reveals the unresolved nature of the topic and the tensions it brings to the forefront. Drawing on fieldwork and semi-structured interviews with about 60 participants in the Italian context, my paper argues that these debates are increasingly visible and polarizing not only across the broader Italian Church but also among LGBTQ+ Catholic individuals themselves. This internal diversity further complicates the divisions between "conservatives" and "progressives" that are often invoked when discussing the Catholic Church today, both in Italy and elsewhere. Concretely, my paper examines the divergences between two broad positions among LGBTQ+ Catholics in Italy: an "homonormative" position, which expresses appreciation for the Church and what has been achieved so far, and another that is dissatisfied with current developments and calls for a queer reimagining of what the Church could be. I argue that the central tension within the Italian Church is not reducible to a binary of acceptance versus non-acceptance of LGBTQ+ individuals, but concerns how LGBTQ+ Catholics themselves negotiate what it means to dispute and imagine the Church's future together. In this sense, their conflicting lived experiences and desires reveal Synodality to be an unresolved site of both opportunity and tension where hopes for renewal and deep-seated frustrations converge.
LESSONS FROM WALKING TOGETHER WITH INDIGENOUS PEOPLES IN CANADA: LISTENING AND ENCOUNTER AS KENOTIC STARTING POINTS ON THE PATH TOWARDS RECONCILIATION

Paparella J. (Speaker)

KU Leuven ~ Leuven ~ Belgium
"Walking Together" was the theme of Pope Francis' penitential pilgrimage with Indigenous peoples in Canada in 2022, as he apologized on Canadian soil in the wake of the residential school system. Indeed, synodality offers a new paradigm for understanding and living out the Church's ongoing journey with Indigenous on the path of truth and reconciliation. In Canada, this path has been defined in terms of relationship, pointing to the approach of restorative justice. Apologies are an integral part of this process, but they are not the final destination. Reflecting on experiences with Indigenous persons, the two-fold starting point of listening and encounter emerges as a fundamental condition for walking together towards more just relationships. This requires, on the part of the Church and non-Indigenous, a disposition of kenosis to receive the truth about the injustices that mark the past and present in order to take steps forward in the hope of reconciliation.
FIDUCIA SUPPLICANS, WEAK MESSIANIC FORCE, AND THE RENEWAL OF SACRAMENTAL MARRIAGE

Rodewald N. (Speaker)

Loyola University Chicago ~ Chicago ~ United States of America
On December 18, 2023, the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith released the Declaration Fiducia Supplicans. The Declaration offered a "theological-pastoral understanding of blessings" that distinguished between liturgical and pastoral blessings and, through that distinction, opened a door for those in "irregular" unions, including same-sex couples, to receive a blessing from a priest. Reaction to the Declaration was mixed: on the one hand, some, such as Cardinal Gerhard Müller, declared the Declaration to be "a doctrine contrary to the teaching of the Catholic Church." Many advocates for LGBTQ+ Catholics, on the other hand, praised the pastoral implications of the Declaration while also acknowledging its significant limitations. Drawing on Walter Benjamin and John Caputo, this paper contends that Fiducia Supplicans's theology of blessings creates an opening for the "weak force" of God's grace to enter ecclesial discourse on marriage. This opening of "weak force" in turn permits a deconstruction of the matrimonial liturgy in the Catholic Church and a theological queering of Augustine's three goods of marriage (fides, proles, sacramentum).
PROPHETIC LISTENING AT THE BORDER

Sastoque A. (Speaker)

Loyola University Chicago ~ Chicago ~ United States of America
This paper explores the concept of synodality within the Catholic Church in the context of migration, political polarization, and rising nationalism. While synodality is promoted as a process of humility, open dialogue, and shared discernment, its actual response to migrants and refugees raises a key ethical question; does it truly listen to marginalized voices, or does it merely manage disagreement without challenging unjust structures? The paper argues that migration serves as a critical test for synodality, requiring the Church to practice prophetic listening, where migrant voices are not only heard but also interrupt established theological and political frameworks. Drawing on political and migration theology, as well as Catholic social teaching, it critiques selective ecclesial listening, which often aligns with exclusionary political ideologies, and proposes an authentic prophetic listening that confronts injustice and demands ethical transformation. In conclusion, the paper states that a synodal Church must engage in transformative listening to maintain its prophetic mission of justice and hope in a broken world.
EXPLORING THE DYNAMICS OF TENSION BETWEEN PERSONAL (PASTORAL) QUESTIONS AND ECCLESIAL (INSTITUTIONAL) ANSWERS IN A SYNODAL CHURCH

Van Rompaey J. (Speaker)

UC Louvain ~ Louvain-La-Neuve ~ Belgium
The preparatory and celebratory phases of the 2021-2024 Synod of Bishops revealed (explicitly but not exclusively) a wide spectrum of pastoral questions arising from the lived experience of the People of God. These questions encompass issues such as LGBTQ+ concerns, polygamy, and various forms of abuse, to name a few. The synod functioned both as an ecclesial experience highlighting the urgency of these matters and as an initial attempt to address them. By engaging these questions and seeking provisional responses, the Church appears to adopt a more appreciative stance toward lived experience and the complex challenges it generates. This paper examines a pivotal aspect of becoming a synodal Church, the question of whether all questions arising from the lived experience may legitimately be raised in the Church. Put differently, how do lived experiences evolve into pressing pastoral concerns, given that the Church often offers ready-made answers grounded in natural law for ethical questions? The analysis unfolds in three steps: first, it examines the synod's engagement with lived experience and the questions it brought to light; second, it explores the tensions between concrete pastoral questions and ecclesial responses, with particular attention to the strategy of providing pre-formulated answers; and finally, it assesses how synodality both mitigates and intensifies these tensions between lived experience and established ecclesial positions.
FROM THE MARGINS OF POLARITY TO SYNODAL COMMUNION: R. GUARDINI ON POLARITY, UNITY, AND INTEGRATION

Witherington D. (Speaker)

Loyola University Chicago ~ Chicago ~ United States of America
In considering the intellectual biography of Pope Francis, many commentators have noted the rich influence of Romano Guardini (+1968) on the late pope's theology and worldview. One of Guardini's noteworthy philosophical contributions is a robust understanding of polarity and a dialectic of polar oppositions wherein "resolution" or "integration" is not something which is experienced despite polarity but in and through it (Der Gegensatz, 1925). The end game of this dialectic is neither a Hegelian synthesis, nor a hegemonic "victor" eliminating its opponent, but a unity of contrasts wherein polarity remains not as a hindrance to communion, but as its foundation. This paper seeks to utilize Guardini's insights as a means of 1) further understanding Pope Francis' understanding of the synodal process and 2) as a tool with which to understand what "integration" of marginalized groups into the Church could resemble in practice. Reading Guardini as a theologian of the Mystical Body, I further argue that this theology's later French and American turn towards social action prevents "integration" from becoming itself hegemonic and instead open to a creative unity of contrasts as the Church encounters and learns from marginal voices.

Panel description: The Ecclesiological Investigations International Research Network invites proposals for an open call panel, "Prophetic Imaginations and Ecclesial Futures." In his landmark text, The Prophetic Imagination, Walter Bruggemann writes, "The prophet engages in futuring fantasy. The prophet does not ask if the vision can be implemented… the imagination must come before the implementation. Our culture is competent to implement almost anything and to imagine almost nothing." (40) This session aims to envision what church in a future may be or look like. What does it mean for the church to be prophetic or to have a prophetic imagination? What does this prophetic - or propheticist (Ignacio Ellacuría) - imagination look like in the future? How might church be like or look like in the future? What does it mean to "future fantasy" in the context of church? And what resources can a prophetic imagination bring to support or critique such a church? Scholars are invited to engage this topic and these questions creatively and are not restricted to the questions covered in this CfP. Possible ideas that might be broached include theological questions such as how to think ecclesiologically about having a prophetic imagination, or what it means to be prophetic, or the relationship between imagination and implementation. Other questions can be raised on church and social issues such as how the prophetic imagination interfaces on artificial intelligence, transhumanism, technology-backed nationalism, ecojustice, migration, and other subjects. Further questions can also include intra-church or ecumenical matters such as how the church can prophetically re-envision, engage, or concretize synodality, diakonia, or church institutions and programs such as the New International Financial and Economic Architecture (NIFEA) initiative, and where they fit into the church in the future. This panel is open to a maximum of four presentations.

Papers:

WHEN 'THE CAESAR' IS IN JEOPARDY AND THE KINGDOM OF GOD IS DESERTED: WHICH ORTHODOX POLITICAL THEOLOGY FOR THE FUTURE?

Chivu S. (Speaker)

KU Leuven ~ Leuven ~ Belgium
This paper aims to comparatively, critically, and constructively engage with two major tendencies when it comes to (Eastern) Orthodox Christianity's approach to sociopolitical matters, namely, accommodationist and critical/prophetical stances. Whereas the academic engagement with political theology has only recently started to gain prominence among Orthodox theologians and scholars, particularly within the anglophone Orthodox academic milieu, and generate though provoking perspectives, Orthodox Churches have both a rich and tragic historical experience with the political, constantly swinging between the extremes of protest and criticism, to accommodation and privilege. In the context of contemporary political turmoil, the relationship between institutional Orthodox Churches, especially but not exclusively in countries where Orthodoxy is majoritarian, increasingly becomes an exponent of political agendas and interests. Given this tendency of Orthodox Christianity to side with sociopolitical institutions of power, of particular interest are the recent political theologies developed by Pantelis Kalaitzidis, Aristotle Papanikolaou, and Davor Džalto. The three theologians aim to construct distinctive political theologies in response to the challenges posed by contemporary (post)modern society and to scrutinise Orthodox Christianity's theological ossification and apparent inclination to align itself with a sociopolitical agenda, promoting it in an attempt to secure a privileged position in society and gain economic benefits. By engaging with concrete responses of Orthodox Churches to sociopolitical issues, as well as with the three aforementioned political theologies, this paper uncovers the ideological entanglement of Orthodox Christianity's attitudes to sociopolitics, as well as the strengths and shortcomings of contemporary theological responses by focusing on the political theologies of Kalaitzidis, Papanikolaou, and Džalto and their implications for the future.
PROPHETICALLY REIMAGINING SYNODALITY IN OCEANIA

Cornish S. (Speaker)

Australian Catholic University ~ North Sydney ~ Australia
Drawing on Sanga and Reynolds' (Sanga et al, 2024) Oceania Oralities Framework, this paper will consider the potential of cultural practices from Oceania such as Indigenous Australian yarning circles, *tok stori* in Papua New Guinea, and *veitalanoa / talanoa* in Tonga, Samoa, Fiji and Tokelau, to prophetically reimagine synodal consultation, dialogue and communal discernment by moving beyond the euro-centric text-based approach of the Synod on Synodality. Identifying the critical dissonance of an ecclesial process aiming at universality but marginalising oral cultures, it suggests that synodality that can cultivate hope and action by embracing epistemological diversity.
FUTURE AS ANAMNESIS: PROPHETIC MEMORY, SYNODALITY, AND THE CHURCH BEYOND SACRED EMPIRE

Levakos P. (Speaker)

PhD researcher, Faculty of Theology, Athens / MA student, Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies KU Leuven, Belgium ~ Leuven ~ Belgium
In The Prophetic Imagination, Walter Brueggemann argues that prophetic discourse generates alternative futures capable of unsettling dominant narratives. Ignacio Ellacuría further insists that such imagination must be historically embodied and ethically accountable. Yet Christian history reveals an enduring ambiguity: the same ecclesial memory that once resisted imperial logic has also been mobilized to sanctify it. This paper proposes the category of future as anamnesis in order to rethink prophetic imagination ecclesiologically. Drawing from Byzantine conciliar and liturgical traditions, particularly the performative and identity-forming function of texts such as the Synodikon of Orthodoxy, the study argues that the Church does not invent its future ex nihilo; it ritually remembers it into being. Anamnesis, however, is never neutral. Liturgical and conciliar memory can function either as prophetic critique or as sacred ideology. Engaging contemporary Catholic reflection on synodality, the paper places Orthodox conciliar consciousness and Catholic synodal processes into constructive dialogue. While Catholic synodality emphasizes listening, participation, and communal discernment, Orthodox tradition highlights the liturgical embodiment of doctrinal consensus. Both face a common challenge: how to prevent synodal life from becoming bureaucratic management or ideological alignment. In a context marked by nationalism, technological governance, and ecclesial polarization, prophetic imagination requires a kenotic re-reading of tradition—one capable of resisting every form of sacred empire, including those sustained by religious language itself.
"REIMAGINING SUBLIME COMMUNION AND INTEGRAL ECOLOGY FOR A CHURCH AND WORLD IN ECOLOGICAL, GEOPOLITICAL, ECONOMIC, AND WORLD ORDER COLLAPSE: ENVISIONING AN ECCLESIAL FUTURE OF RELATIONAL, MUTUAL LOVE IN ALL CREATION."

O'Beirne A. (Speaker)

BBI - The Australian Institute of Theological Education ~ Sydney ~ Australia
In Laudato Si', Pope Francis highlights a "sublime communion" among the three persons of the Trinity, giving witness to a "God of mutual friendship." This intimate image of the Triune God accentuates a new way of envisioning all relationships in the created world and thus in the church. Our credal professions hold that God's threefold love engages in an ongoing act of creation of all that exists. The notion of this trinitarian sublime communion imprinted on all of creation, referenced in Laudato Si', and drawn from Patristic theology, opens the question of who and what are 'made in God's image,' and what constitutes that image. Opening the question challenges our existing anthropocentric and androcentric mindset regarding the Imago Dei. Reimagining what it means to be made in God's image, in light of sublime communion, offers a model for all relationships in our troubled and fragmented church and world at this time of ecological, geopolitical, financial, and world order collapse. Drawing on Ignatian themes, evident in Karl Rahner's theology of grace and Denis Edwards's fully trinitarian theology of the natural world, this paper explores this trinitarian and incarnational imprint of a relational, mutual love throughout the universe for its potential towards an ecclesial future of inclusive mutuality, restoring universal communion within God's creation through graced listening, mutual recognition and wholehearted response. Plumbing the depths of this mutual relational existence, which is the underpinning theology in Laudato Si', and the underarticulated theology of integral ecology, discloses eco-inclusive practices for the church and the wider world. Such ecclesial imaginings can more meaningfully accompany a world order in collapse and hopefully lead to an Earth of flourishing communities and lasting peace.
BEYOND THE WALLS: PAUL TILLICH'S LATENT CHURCH AND ECCLESIAL RENEWAL

Magnussen C. (Speaker)

Alphacrucis College ~ Melbourne ~ Australia
In a contemporary pluralist context, where Christianity no longer holds a dominant societal position, the church faces an ongoing crisis of identity and mission. The boundaries between church and culture remain fluid, raising questions about how the church should relate to spiritual movements and communities that exist beyond its formal structures. My paper argues that understanding the church's relationship with secular communities and movements with "church-like" qualities is critical to the church's future. The paper offers an approach to this via Paul Tillich's concept of the "latent church". Tillich identified secular communities that embodied spiritual depth, justice, and transcendence—qualities he saw as essential to the church's mission. He believed such non-ecclesial communities can, at times, function as a prophetic correction to the church's own life. My paper argues for a recovery of Tillich's account of the church's relation to such secular prophecy and "latent" expressions of faith. Recovering this view will help the church discern whom to listen to in its ongoing formation, and whom to partner with in a mission that extends beyond its own walls.

Panel description: The interdisciplinary University Research Priority Program (URPP) «Digital Religion(s)» at the University of Zurich examines how digital transformations influence and reconfigure religious practices, forms of authority, and modes of community among individuals and institutions. Within different research areas - like digital pastoral care or emeriging technologies - four subprojects within an interdisciplinary cluster focus on «Religious Education within the Post-Digital Context». A central concern of this cluster is how religious education can foster critical media reflection and thereby strengthen religious digital literacy as a key competency for navigating contemporary mediatized environments. Attention is also given to how issues of equality and inequality are reproduced, negotiated, or challenged within digital media practices. While the concept of literacy has a long intellectual history, it remains indispensable in light of accelerated developments in digitalization and artificial intelligence. Religious education is thus understood not merely as the transmission of technical digital skills but as fostering ethical, analytical, and critical capacities that enable adolescents to engage responsibly and reflectively with digital media and AI, including an awareness of power relations and ethical responsibilities in digitally mediated contexts. The post-digital is approached as a critical analytical concept highlighting opportunities and challenges inherent in digital transformation processes. It raises questions about how young people encounter and manage these dynamics and how reflective, autonomous, and ethically grounded media practices can be supported in religious educational settings. The proposed panel introduces the interdisciplinary framework of the URPP «Digital Religion(s)» and presents initial empirical and theoretical insights from two educational subprojects for scholarly discussion.

Papers:

AN INTRODUCTION TO THE UNIVERSITY RESEARCH PRIORITY PROGRAM (URPP) «DIGITAL RELIGION(S)»

Schlag T. (Speaker)

URPP Digital Religion(s), University of Zurich ~ Zurich ~ Switzerland
The URPP «Digital Religion(s)» was established in 2021 and, over its twelve-year funding period extending to 2032, systematically investigates the diverse digital transformations and socio-technical developments that shape contemporary religious life. As a University Research Priority Program of the University of Zurich, it brings together scholars from theology, religious studies, media and communication studies, computer science, law, anthropology, and related disciplines to examine how religious practices, norms, institutions, and forms of meaning-making are being reconfigured within increasingly digital and mediatized environments. The program is characterized by its strong interdisciplinary orientation, which enables multiple methodological and theoretical approaches to the study of Digital Religion(s). In addition to providing a multifaceted analytical framework, the URPP fosters sustained scholarly exchange, institutional collaboration, and the development of long-term research infrastructures. Its activities include interdisciplinary research projects, public dialogue formats, and partnerships with both academic and non-academic stakeholders. Prof. Dr. Thomas Schlag, Director of the URPP «Digital Religion(s)», will open the panel by introducing the program's origins, its conceptual architecture, and its overarching research aims. Particular emphasis will be placed on the four subprojects within the cluster dedicated to post-digital religious education, which examine how educational practices respond to digital transformation processes and how young people can be supported in developing critical, reflective, and ethically grounded media literacy.
NAVIGATING SYNTHETIC REALITIES. RELIGION, GENERATIVE AI, AND DIGITAL VISUAL LITERACY

Trattner K. (Speaker)

Coordination Centre for Gender Studies and Equal Opportunities, University of Graz ~ Graz ~ Austria
As social media platforms are increasingly flooded with AI-generated visual content, further blurring the lines between recorded footage and virtual worlds, previous understandings of realism and visual truth are being renegotiated along the lines of platform economies and politics. New forms of digital visual literacy are required to navigate these emergent synthetic realities. The proposed presentation will outline theoretical approaches to digital visual literacy in the context of synthetic visual worlds and engage in a critical discussion of how they can be operationalized in the analysis of references to religion(s) within AI-generated visual material. The proposed presentation will draw on examples from the research project «Synthetic Realities» which focuses on US-American and European right-wing uses of AI-generated visual material on social media and the different roles visual references to religions take on therein. As recent examples, such as the current US government's social media accounts, have illustrated, generative AI lends itself well to reactionary causes, not least due to its infrastructurally conditioned tendency to reproduce stereotypes. In the context of religion, this implies that religion is often visible as a marker of identity or otherness, thereby reifying inequalities. Fostering an understanding and critical reflection of these representational tendencies and the platform and infrastructure logics that underpin them is a central concern of digital visual literacy in the age of generative AI. Therefore, a notion of digital visual literacy that combines representation-focused and platform-critical competencies is required. Drawing on a combination of concepts from critical visual literacy, platform literacy, and critical AI literacy, the proposed presentation aims to sketch different dimensions of skills and competencies that are needed for users to navigate these emerging synthetic realities.
LOVE OF NEIGHBOR, SOCIAL MEDIA, AND ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE - FOSTERING CRITICAL MEDIA REFLECTION THROUGH THEOLOGICAL NARRATIVES

Greuter F. (Speaker)

URPP Digital Religion(s), University of Zurich ~ Zurich ~ Switzerland
Adolescents are growing up in times of profound uncertainty. Concerns about the climate crisis, fears of old-age poverty, wars, and increasing societal polarization are among the many issues that shape young people's lived realities. These conditions do not leave adolescents unaffected; rather, recent years have seen a marked increase in depression, anxiety disorders, and suicidal ideation among young people. An additional challenge arises from ongoing digitalization. While digital media offer opportunities for connectivity and access to information, they are also associated with risks such as data privacy concerns, the spread of fake news, and cyberbullying. It has become increasingly evident that merely acquiring technical competencies in the use of digital tools is insufficient. Instead, adolescents require both critical media reflection and the development of religious digital literacy, enabling self-determined, reflective, and ethically grounded engagement in digital environments. The study «Post-Digital Education and the Challenges of Artificial Intelligence» investigates the extent to which religious educational programs, drawing on theological narratives, can foster critical media reflection and religious digital literacy, thereby contributing to adolescents' orientation, meaning-making, and agency in digital spaces. This question is explored through a thematic focus on love of neighbor (Nächstenliebe), with initial empirical findings suggesting that this concept may function as a resource for adolescents in coping with digital challenges. The project is theoretically grounded in critical pedagogy, particularly in the work of Paulo Freire and Henry Giroux. Through a re-reading of critical pedagogy in light of digitalization, the study seeks to adapt this educational framework to the conditions of post-digitality and to make it fruitful for religious educational contexts.

Panel description: Across Europe, profound religious and ritual transformations are reshaping the landscapes of worship and community life. Churches, monasteries, and other sacred sites are increasingly confronted with questions of continuity and change: some are adapted for new liturgical practices, others are shared between different communities and users, and many are repurposed for secular or hybrid functions. At the same time, repurposed and multi-use religious buildings raise questions about how people and communities inhabit and share sacred environments. Adaptive reuse is often celebrated as cultural resilience: saving buildings from vacancy and decay, while opening them to new forms of meaning. Yet each intervention also entails loss: of ritual coherence, of symbolic depth, of the intangible "spirit of place." How can we acknowledge both sides of this dynamic? How is 'loss' or absence spatially expressed? Is there such a thing as a neutral shared space, and how far can adaptation and reuse go before too much is surrendered? This panel invites religious studies scholars, architects, sociologists, theologians, liturgists, and artists to reflect on these tensions. We welcome contributions that explore the delicate balance between preservation and transformation, heritage and innovation, memory and forgetting. Case studies may address contemporary design responses to shifting worship practices, including the rise of Pentecostalism and the emergence of quasi-Christian spaces blending wellness and alternative spiritualities. Papers can also investigate historical repurposing or sharing of religious spaces, demolished or memorial spaces, or rather focus on architectural styles and experiments with minimalism and emptiness, highlighting how spaces negotiate the move from the religious to the spiritual. The conveners will also inquire into possibilities of academically publishing (a selection of) submitted papers.

Papers:

RECIPROCAL SPACES: ON THE USE AND VALUE OF CHURCH BUILDINGS IN A POST-CHRISTIAN SOCIETY

Goyvaerts S. (Speaker)

Tilburg University, School of Catholic Theology ~ Tilburg ~ Netherlands
Across Western Europe, churches face pressing questions about their future use as congregations decline and maintenance burdens grow. This paper searches for new terminology to describe 'hybrid' use and proposes the term 'reciprocal space': a space in which Christian worship remains present but is enriched through dialogue with other functions, which in turn stand in a reciprocal relationship with the architectural building itself. Drawing on official church positions and presenting several examples, the study contrasts the cautious, functionalist stance of the Dutch Catholic bishops (2008) - who prefer conversion or even demolition to avoid profanation - with the more expansive vision of the Flemish bishops (2011-2020), who emphasize concentric layers of meaning: liturgical, personal, and cultural. The Protestant Church in the Netherlands (2021) offers yet another approach, advocating 'leeway' that integrates theological, ecclesiastical, and social dimensions, positioning church buildings as communal hubs extending beyond liturgy alone. The paper situates these positions within the framework of an 'ecology of space,' highlighting how buildings function as relational, reciprocal networks of practices, memories, and affordances. From a theological perspective, it argues that reciprocal spaces embody an incarnational and sacramental logic, reflecting the interwoven relationship of God, Church, and world. Historical precedents, such as cathedrals serving as market halls, demonstrate that multi-use is not a modern innovation but part of an organic tradition in which elements and functions are both lost and gained. Ultimately, the paper calls for policies that recognize not only ecclesial and pastoral perspectives but also the agency of the buildings themselves, opening possibilities for creative, multi-layered uses that sustain both sacred and social significance, while also attending to what may be lost in reciprocal use when re-evaluating these buildings.
EAT, PRAY, THRIVE: URBAN CHURCHES AS MULTI-PURPOSE SPACES IN CONTEMPORARY BRITAIN

Jordan K. (Speaker)

University of Westminster ~ London ~ United Kingdom
This paper presents three churches in Brighton, to explore the combination of religious and secular practices in safeguarding vulnerable churches. The case studies have been selected to examine how, in the face of dwindling congregations, churches have created physical and conceptual spaces that simultaneously allow for worship, community and business use. Selection of the sites was determined by shared geographic, historical and demographic factors. Each church was built to serve a different denomination - Anglican; Methodist; and Baptist - but while the Methodist and Baptist churches have remained under religious stewardship, the former Anglican church is now operated by a private developer, offering a range of secular facilities while retaining the chancel for occasional non-denominational worship. The location of the three churches is significant in relation to religious adherence: the 2021 census returns reveals Brighton to be the least religious city in the UK. In addition, the suburb explored in the paper is populated by a high concentration of university-educated professionals - a demographic group in which religious affiliation is low. All available metrics suggest that the area is likely to have few regular worshippers and yet each of the three churches have been kept alive as community hubs and, to some degree, places of worship and spirituality. New uses, such as those captured in the case studies, inevitably emerge in tandem with the loss of both tangible (building fabric and fixtures) and intangible (worship practices) elements of the church. In its reading of the three churches, the paper explores absence and loss as agentive forces that animate dynamic relations between people and buildings. Drawing from architectural surveys, planning documents, interviews and participant observation, the paper proposes the agency of absence as a valuable critical framework in architectural history and theory.
THE PAROIKIA, OR PARISH SPACE, AS A HISTORICAL AND CONTEMPORARY BLUEPRINT IN FLANDERS, BELGIUM

Lens K. (Speaker)

Universiteit Hasselt ~ Hasselt ~ Belgium
The ancient Greek term paroikia - meaning "neighbourhood" - is today used almost exclusively to describe church congregations and their communities. Parish space is not legally owned by parishioners, yet it is symbolically perceived as theirs and practically shaped through everyday use. It provides human scale within both village and urban contexts. While formally public, it is not entirely so. Like the church building itself, it operates as an intermediate realm, an in-between space within the daily lives of locals. Parish spaces host more than religious services. They accommodate associations, post-funeral gatherings, annual quizzes, and performances by amateur theatre groups. Often, they include gardens used for weddings and baptisms. Maintained largely by their users, these buildings and green spaces form a collective environment beyond the private home, yet one in which a sense of belonging persists. However, what becomes of this intermediary zone when its primary driver - religious practice - gradually disappears? How does one address a condition of absence, or rather, an absent presence? In the northern region of Belgium, a decisive shift began in 2009. Anticipating declining religious use, the Flemish government transferred responsibility for church maintenance to cities and municipalities, including associated social and logistical annexes. This transition has fundamentally altered the position of churches within the public realm, raising questions of ownership, use, and long-term viability. Yet the role of annexes and parish spaces as social infrastructure - binding agents for collective life - is too often overlooked. This paper examines three approaches in which the relationship between parish space and annexes has been leveraged to safeguard the church building itself. The case studies are selected based on their urban or non-urban context and on the presence or absence of involvement by Team Flemish Government Architect and the Church Policy Plan.
THE PRESENCE AND THE ABSENCE OF THE SACRED SPACE IN THE THEORETICAL RESEARCH ON DISUSED CHURCHES FROM VATICAN II (1962-1965) TO THE FIRST VATICAN GUIDELINES IN 2018

Giniunaite R. (Speaker)

Pontifical Gregorian University ~ Rome ~ Italy
The paper aims to address the crisis of thinking on disused churches. The trans-disciplinary research on the history of the theoretical research on disused churches from Vatican II (1962-1965) until the Vatican guidelines on disused churches (2018) is proposed to review that to understand the reasons of this crisis. First of all, the distinction between the theoretical research on the sacred space of disused churches and on the building of disused churches, which has emerged in all important ecclesiastical, national (Germany, Province of Quebec, Belgium, France, the Netherlands and Italy) and international scientific papers, will be presented. Secondly, the reasons of the presence and of the absence of the sacred space in the thinking on disused churches will be valued with the writings of the philosopher of religion Romano Guardini (1885-1968) on the sacred space and art. Finally, Guardini's scientific method of the 'two contrapositions' ('Gegensätze') for the 'contemplative knowledge' (Anschauung) of the world will be explained as an instrument to understand when the thinking on the past and on the future of the sacred space of disused churches is contradictory and when is in the polar tension through few case studies of European disused churches converted to diocesan museums.
THE "LONG GOODBYE" OF SACRED ARCHITECTURE IN POST-INDUSTRIAL NORTH AMERICA

Shepherd G. (Speaker)

Doctoral Researcher ~ San Francisco ~ United States of America
The majority of research on the reuse of religious buildings focuses on cultural resilience, especially how architectural fabric, heritage value, and community use can be sustained or adapted despite social, economic, and demographic change. For many religious buildings, however, particularly those in post-industrial and rural communities, adaptive or even hybrid reuse is practically impossible, resulting in outcomes such as abandonment or demolition. In literature, these outcomes are frequently overlooked or seen as failures. Using case study materials from a lost religious building in deindustrialized North America, this paper questions the assumption of failure by reframing responses to loss as different but no less significant expressions of personal rather than cultural or historical resilience, resistance, and perseverance. It does so by examining how the disappearance of religious architecture is lived through fragmentary forms of architectural continuity, institutional deconsecration liturgies, and personal acts of remembrance that respond to and unmake sacred spaces. Rather than seeing loss and resilience as opposites, this paper treats the response to loss as one of the ways resilience takes shape. In this way, processes associated with loss, such as demolition and deconsecration, may be understood as encounters with altered or absent architectural forms that allow individuals to re-orient themselves, in other words, to be resilient in memory and place, revealing resilience not only as a continuity of form but as the capacity to dwell meaningfully amid architectural absence.
BETWEEN PRESERVATION AND TRANSFORMATION: ADAPTIVE REUSE OF ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCHES IN POLAND

Arno M. (Speaker)

Warsaw University of Technology ~ Warsaw ~ Poland
Across Europe, changing patterns of religious practice have left many churches underused or redundant, prompting debates about how to preserve their architectural and cultural value. In Poland, where Roman Catholicism continues to play a significant social role, the question of what happens to former or partially deconsecrated churches is particularly sensitive. Adaptive reuse has emerged as a possible response, offering ways to protect historic buildings while allowing them to serve new social and cultural purposes. Yet such transformations raise a central question: how can the liturgical past of these spaces be preserved when their original function has changed? This paper examines adaptive reuse of Roman Catholic churches in Poland, focusing on how heritage values and new functions attempt to maintain traces of the buildings' liturgical identity. The study analyzes selected Polish case studies in which churches have been converted into cultural, educational, or community spaces while retaining elements of their sacred character. The paper explores architectural strategies and heritage practices that preserve liturgical memory, such as maintaining spatial hierarchies, conserving altars or iconographic elements, and respecting the symbolic orientation of the building. Rather than erasing the sacred past, many projects seek to reinterpret it, allowing the former church to remain recognizable as a place shaped by worship and ritual. By examining these examples, the paper argues that adaptive reuse can function not only as a tool of preservation but also as a way of safeguarding the liturgical and symbolic heritage embedded in sacred architecture. Such projects reveal how memory, material heritage, and new social uses can coexist within transformed religious spaces.
FAR FROM STATIC: OPPORTUNITY AND LOSS IN THE HYBRID APPROACH TO ADAPTIVE REUSE OF URBAN MONASTERIES IN CONTEMPORARY ROME

Jacobs B. (Speaker)

Sapienza Università di Roma ~ Rome ~ Italy
Even in Rome, where churches are ubiquitous and commonly perceived as static components of the urban landscape, religious buildings face pressing questions concerning their future. Although not always obvious, Rome possesses a long history of 'hybrid' adaptive reuse. After the 'Urbe' became the capital of a unified Italy in 1870, churches were often maintained as places of worship while adjacent monasteries were converted into barracks, hospitals, or universities to meet the modernizing demands of the new capital. This trend is still in place as many monasteries have been converted in recent decades into hotels or 'case per ferie', hosting tourists and pilgrims while still facilitating Christian worship. It is therefore appropriate to explore the advantages and disadvantages of the 'hybrid' or 'reciprocal' approach to the adaptive reuse of urban monasteries, investigating how they navigate the intersection of the 'sacred' and the 'secular'. Santa Maria dei Sette Dolori provides a compelling example. Hotel guests from the converted monastery frequently attend religious services in the church, which shares an entrance with the hotel. Similarly, the 'casa per ferie', Maria SS. Assunta remains a bustling environment where students from an international study abroad program occupy the former 'istituto' alongside religious pilgrims. In both cases, the 'sacred' and 'secular' enjoy a symbiotic relationship that offers unique future opportunities. However, these interventions also entail the loss of ritual coherence and intangible qualities of place. Drawing from interviews, archival drawings, and site observations, this paper seeks to highlight the specific tensions of the hybrid approach with the aim to demonstrate that religious buildings embedded in the urban fabric are far from static. Instead, they present an opportunity for church architecture to adaptively respond to rapidly changing social, cultural, and theological questions facing European cities today.
WHEN BUILDINGS BECOME INFRASTRUCTURES: THE CHURCH, INTEGRAL ECOLOGY, AND COMMONS TRANSITIONS

Beling A. (Speaker)

The King's University, Sustainability Transformation Action and Research (STAR) Hub ~ Edmonton (AB) ~ Canada
Many religious buildings face uncertain futures, oscillating between preservation, underuse, and attempts at reinvention. Rather than beginning from existing adaptive-reuse cases, this contribution presents an action-research program that prototypes new forms of community-rooted, commons-oriented activity within ecclesial infrastructures to study the conditions under which they can flourish. Drawing on P2P/commons theory and grounded in the Church's "ecological turn," the project treats these spaces as latent "convivial infrastructures" where peer-to-peer relationality, mutual care, and cosmo-local practices can be intentionally seeded and iteratively refined. From this perspective, adaptive reuse becomes a pastoral expression of ecological stewardship: enabling sacred spaces to support sustainable, cooperative, and inclusion-enhancing forms of communality. The core research question is not how religious buildings have been reused, but how they can become generative nodes of a commons-based social economy-provided enabling conditions, institutional support, and appropriate governance patterns are in place. The program seeks to identify leverage points for scalability, trans-local learning, and pastoral compatibility. Prototypes act as "living laboratories" where hybrid civic, ecological, pastoral, and cultural functions co-evolve, revealing both successes and the tensions inherent in transforming religious infrastructures. In this light, adaptive reuse becomes less a matter of functional adjustment than of cultivating new social grammars within inherited sacred settings. Such prototyping, we argue, illuminates how religious infrastructures might contribute to broader transitions toward distributed stewardship, solidarity-based economies, and renewed forms of belonging, caring, and worship-while making visible the gains, losses, and negotiations that accompany any attempt to reinhabit tradition toward emerging futures.
'DOCUMENTING LOSS AND RESTORATION IN LONDON'S POSTWAR CHURCHES: A PHOTOGRAPHER'S PERSPECTIVE'

East J. (Speaker)

Other ~ London ~ United Kingdom
The devastation wrought by the blitz between 1940 and 1941, left 624 of London's 701 churches damaged, with 91 destroyed. Much of the damage inflicted on these churches was captured by postwar photographers whose legacy is an invaluable record of loss and restoration, not only in terms of physical fabric, but in some cases the function of the church. The variety of restorations and rebuilds from conservative to radical by architects such as Thomas Ford and Partners; Seely and Paget; Laurence King; Ansell and Bailey; and Stephen Dykes-Bower amongst others, is significant and presaged the creation of Sir Basil Spence's Coventry Cathedral. In recent years, however, many of the postwar restorations carried out by such architects have been altered or destroyed by refurbishments that aim to either restore the buildings to their prewar condition or modernise them. Such refurbishments risk erasing vital and often overlooked layers of a church's history - those that tell a story of postwar resilience and optimism. As an architectural photographer, my work recording churches for heritage organisations has given me a unique perspective on the construction and loss of postwar interventions in historic churches. In this paper I will consider St. John's, Waterloo (the 'Festival of Britain' Church) in particular and discuss it in the context of wider examples in London. In doing so, I will explore the significance of loss in both a historical context and in relation to what we choose to retain and remove in present day refurbishments.
CRITICAL RE-READING OF INTRA MUROS CONVENTS: PUBLIC CALLS BETWEEN MEMORY AND TRANSFORMATION

Scandroglio Anelli M. (Speaker)

Politecnico di Milano ~ milano ~ Italy
Franciscan convents have historically played a decisive role in the social and spatial construction of European cities, shaping the urban fabric through their scale, configuration, and strategic location along edges, infrastructures, and waterways. However, the suppression of religious orders during the Napoleonic era initiated a long-term transformation, converting many of these complexes into military barracks and marking a progressive detachment from their original liturgical and communal functions. Today, many of these former conventual complexes remain abandoned. This paper argues that their transformations cannot be understood solely as functional or programmatic changes, but entail a deeper negotiation with loss: the disappearance of religious and meditative practices, symbolic systems, and forms of collective inhabitation. With reference to the Italian context and strategies promoted by the State Property Agency, the paper examines how reuse processes engage—often implicitly—with the persistence of a sacred dimension. These complexes, shaped by monastic, military, and civic stratifications, are interpreted not as neutral containers, but as atmospherically and culturally dense environments. Through a comparative analysis of two case studies in Flanders developed through the Open Call mechanism—the Abbey of Saint Godelieve in Bruges and the Beguinage of Hasselt—the research investigates how design strategies address both material and immaterial dimensions of transformation, highlighting tensions between conservation and reinterpretation. Finally, the paper applies this critical re-reading to the Convent of Santa Maria della Ripa in Forlì, proposing an approach that integrates architectural, experiential, and symbolic parameters. From this perspective, adaptive reuse is not a neutralization of religious space, but an ongoing process negotiating between presence and absence, memory and transformation, and individual and collective spatial dimensions.
BEYOND THE CANON: COMMUNITY-FOCUSED ADAPTATION OF HISTORIC ANGLICAN CHURCHES IN POST-1945 ENGLAND

Steele M. (Speaker)

Manchester School of Architecture ~ Manchester ~ United Kingdom
This paper calls for a re-evaluation of how church adaptation is understood and valued within architectural and religious studies. Accounts of church adaptation have typically focused on stylistics and the primacy of individual architects, privileging aesthetic judgement over broader social meaning. This paper advocates for a more expansive framework that situates church buildings within evolving socio-economic, political and cultural contexts in order to extend our understanding beyond the moment of creation to encompass changing usage and consequent adaptation. The paper highlights the undervalued social dimension of post-1945 developments in ecclesiastical architecture in England, such as dual-purpose churches and church centres, before examining strategies deployed in the adaptation of historic Anglican churches to accommodate worship alongside secular function. By foregrounding secular function and the role of church communities, it will demonstrate that architectural practices of the post-1945 period in relation to church buildings have been shaped by shifting circumstances including urban change, welfare restructuring and the evolving relationship between the Church of England and wider society. Through two London case studies, namely St Matthew's (Brixton) and St Mary's (Barnes), the paper explores differing models of community engagement from experimental, grant-dependent interventions to participatory design processes shaped by local demographics. These examples reveal how factors such as funding structures, economic context and community stability have influenced both architectural outcomes and long-term viability. Ultimately, the paper reframes adaptation not as a compromise or failure, but as a vital and creative process central to the continued relevance of historic Anglican churches in England. In doing so, it calls for a reassessment of architectural value that recognises buildings as dynamic entities embedded in social life.

Panel description: Part 1 of the panel brings together doctoral researchers exploring how religious communities construct, negotiate, and express identity within increasingly diverse and plural societies. Drawing on a range of traditions, geographical contexts, and methodological approaches, contributions examine the dynamics of belonging, recognition, and conflict that characterize religious life in contemporary Europe. The panel highlights new directions in the ethnographic, sociological, and normative study of religion, and offers a forum for critical dialogue on the challenges and opportunities posed by multireligious coexistence.

Papers:

THE SPATIAL DIMENSION OF INTERRELIGIOUS DIALOGUE: A CASE STUDY OF THE ROMANIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH OF THE EXALTATION OF THE HOLY CROSS IN TURIN

Pignotti C. (Speaker)

Sapienza University of Rome ~ Rome ~ Italy
Urban space is the social field in which religious diversity in contemporary Italy becomes most evident, and where religious groups compete for visibility, recognition, and places of worship. The sites associated with the so-called minorities can be examined as indicators of an increasingly plural religious geography. Within this context, both peaceful and conflictual dynamics are articulated through processes of external recognition, which may take a horizontal form—religious and social—when occurring between peers, or a vertical one, and thus a juridical form. This study presents the findings of research conducted in the city of Turin, an emblematic case within the Italian religious landscape for the management of religious diversity and interreligious dialogue initiatives. The analysis focuses on the Romanian Orthodox Church located in the historic center, which I interpret as a shared religious place. This case shows how a spatial and material perspective can offer an innovative approach to the field of interreligious dialogue. Places of worship are crucial spaces for interreligious dialogue: they serve as laboratories of local peacebuilding and experiments in coexistence, mutual respect, encounter, and conflict mediation. However, in a frame of multiple secularities, the ambiguity of both the national and regional legal systems contribute to marginality of the religious dimension in the city's urban planning policies, ignoring the important role these places play as spaces of cohesion, identity, inclusion.
EASTERN SLAVIC ORTHODOX IDENTITIES IN GERMANY

Kunte M. (Speaker)

LUISS ~ Rome ~ Italy
Eastern Slavic Orthodox Identities in Germany examines the current state of the Ukrainian and Russian Orthodox tradition in Germany. Over the past decades, the Russian Orthodox Church has been able to reclaim parishes founded in Germany after the Bolshevik Revolution and has become the dominant Eastern Slavic Orthodox Church in the country. Ukrainian churches have recently expanded in Germany due to the large refugee population and now challenge the status and spiritual monopoly held by the Russian Orthodox Church. Alongside these developments at the global Orthodox level, church divisions have emerged concerning the competencies of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, ecclesiastical organization, and the political values and social ethics of the Orthodox Church. The 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine and the Russian Orthodox Church's support for it have entrenched these divisions and have led to the fragmentation of the Moscow Patriarchate, with Baltic and Ukrainian parishes positioning themselves against the Russian Orthodox Church. This paper investigates how these tensions have manifested in Germany. This research consists of two main focuses. The first focuses on the positioning of the Russian Orthodox Church, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, and the Orthodox Church of Ukraine regarding the current church divisions, and whether these positions are consistent with those of the institutions' representations in Germany. The second focus is on Eastern Slavic Orthodox communities in Germany. This section employs an ethnographic approach to uncover the everyday religious lives of Russian and Ukrainian parishes in Germany. It also examines how these church divisions are experienced at the local level and the positions these communities hold regarding divisions within the Orthodox world.
SOVEREIGNTY AND RELIGION: BODIN IN THE ITALIAN POLITICAL AND RELIGIOUS DEBATE

Marcantognini L. (Speaker)

Drest-Italian Doctoral School of Religious Studies Università di Modena e Reggio Emilia ~ Reggio Emilia ~ Italy
The aim of my research is to investigate the connection between religion and sovereignty in Jean Bodin works, especially The Six books of commonwealth, and the perception of the french situation in the Italian political environment, especially between the end of the 16th century and firsts decades of the 17th. As Jean Bodin states The Six Books of Commonwealth: «Sovereignty is the absolute and perpetual power of the state». This discussed definition opened a debate that is still going on, thus we can see it under the category of "political theology" or we can assume different points of view that denies the "political theology" interpretation. In my work, I'm trying to bring under the spotlight the reception of Bodin's sovereignty theory in Italy, focusing not only in the comments made by scholars but also on the documents of ambassadors and political actors. At this stage of my studies, I've found some clues of Italian reception of the Bodin's theories ; we have to consider that the first Italian translation appeared in 1588 and the book was banned in 1592. Due to inquisition censorship reading Bodin was not allowed, except for those who received a permission to read his works with the purpose to criticize and dismantle the idea of absolute sovereignty, as Fabio Albergati, for instance, did. Although reading Bodin was not easy and could drive to some criticism, Bodin's ideas overcame the Alps and lot of commentators and scholars seemed to be acknowledged of them and following the french author's path in their works and in other many occasions. For instance, in the war of "Interdetto", we can see that Paolo Sarpi in his legal opinions to the Venetian senate talked without pretense about sovereignty. Scholars and commentators showed to know Bodin but for my work is even interesting to see opinions about Bodin in diplomatic and politician correspondence. Especially from Tuscany and Venice.
THE CONTRIBUTION OF RATZINGER'S THEOLOGY TO THE FORMATION OF YOUNG PEOPLE: FROM THE DRAFTING OF THE CATECHISM TO THE MAGISTERIAL TEACHINGS

Avellino A. (Speaker)

Universitá della Svizzera italiana ~ Lugano ~ Switzerland
Throughout his pontificate, and throughout his life in general, Ratzinger made teaching and the contemplation that underpinned it the foundation of his very life. With a style that was simple in its language but articulate in its reasoning, he was always able to "give reason for the hope" that was within him and to transmit it with a sober yet incisive passion, which allowed younger generations to draw nourishment for thought but also for faith. Joseph Ratzinger's immense theological and magisterial work included a series of reflections, albeit not systematic, on the theme of intense education as a work both internal and external to the Church, linked and unlinked to theology. Although Joseph Ratzinger, later Benedict XVI, never systematically explored the topic of education, he nevertheless embodied the role of educator with his own life, focusing on three areas: the battle against cultural relativism, the desire for knowledge, and the education of values. The ultimate goal was the attainment of the Truth, "because it is on the terrain of truth, first and foremost, that the religious battle must be waged" (Marcel, 2008). The objective of this research project is twofold: - First, to analyze how Ratzinger's theology has contributed, since the time of the Council, to the construction of an educational path for the new generations of seekers. Specifically, we will attempt to reconstruct his contribution to the drafting of specific documents such as the Catechism, the Compendium, and YouCatt, which have profound formative value for Christian believers, especially young people, in relation to the education of values and faith. - Second, to outline the lines of pedagogical anthropology and theology of education, revisiting themes dear to Ratzinger's reflection, such as anthropology and relativism, placing them within the context of a reflection on the need for education, understood as overcoming the self-imposed limits of modern society in the pursuit of Truth.
KIERKEGAARDS CONCEPT OF ANXIETY AND THE LIMITS OF THE MODERN CATEGORY EMOTION.

Heinecke M. (Speaker)

Leipzig University ~ Leipzig ~ Germany
This dissertation examines whether the modern category of "emotion"—from the perspective of current history of emotions—is suitable for describing the phenomenon of anxiety as analyzed by Vigilius Haufniensis in Søren Kierkegaard's The Concept of Anxiety (1844). Despite repeated classifications of Kierkegaard's thinking on anxiety, boredom, or despair as "emotion theory" (cf. McCarthy 1980; Kangas 2004; Roberts 2013; Pocai 2021), significant contradictions arise: The concept of emotion typically encompasses bodily, intentional, and secular aspects (Wierzbicka 1999; Boddice 2018; Dixon 2018), which clash with Kierkegaard's Protestant-dogmatic focus on original sin and his specific terminology. Thesis: The category "emotion" is unsuitable and leads to an anachronistic misreading, caused by the uncritical adoption of Anglo-American psychological terms and a lack of cultural-historical sensitivity. Method: Through a conceptual-historical and phenomenological lexical analysis of the original Danish in The Concept of Anxiety—compared to contemporary emotion concepts—alternatives such as "feeling" (Stalfort 2016), "existential feeling" (Ratcliffe 2008), or "mood" (Heidegger; McCarthy/Kangas) are tested. "Mood" emerges as the most promising candidate. Contribution: The project heightens sensitivity to culturally specific phenomena in historical texts and qualifies Kierkegaard's work for interdisciplinary emotion discourses. It corrects common Kierkegaard reception and enriches philosophy of emotion through more precise categorization. Author: Matthias Heinecke, Leipzig University
GLOBAL ISLAM AND RELIGIOUS AUTHORITIES. DISCOURSES AND THE CIRCULATION OF KNOWLEDGE AMONG MUSLIM COMMUNITIES IN SOUTHERN ITALY

Senatore S. (Speaker)

Università degli Studi di Modena e Reggio Emilia ~ Modena ~ Italy
Recent studies on Islam in Southern Italy1 have highlighted how segments of the Muslim communities are systematically integrated into contexts characterized by job insecurity, mobility, and partial visibility. In Salerno,2 for example, the exploitation linked to the caporalato system (Avallone 2017) and difficulties in accessing services limit the time and commitment that believers dedicate to extra- canonical activities. Moreover, informality and marginalization distance local Muslim communities from federative initiatives and religious discourses (Sbai 2021) promoted by representative Islamic denominations.3 Although the Salerno muṣallayāt tend to remain relatively autonomous from negotiations at the national level, they cannot be considered isolated entities. Each locally situated community is connected to transnational networks through the circulation of texts and knowledge (Green 2020). Local religious authorities (Sunier 2023), in fact, make specific choices about the discourses they promote, sometimes inspired by scholars within the Muslim Brotherhood network, at other times by Indian or Egyptian reformers, and even by versions of "official Islam" (El-Katiri 2013), such as the Moroccan one. This paper aims to identify the links between local religious authorities with transnational organizations, starting from the analysis of the discourses they propose. The collection of interviews, the Friday ḫuṭba, and the texts found in the muṣallayāt represent, in this sense, the empirical material where these connections can be investigated. Preliminary results show that some imams lack formal training and often extract entire discourses from online sources. Alongside them, there are travelling imams (Rhazzali 2018) who are committed to promoting a bottom-up re-Islamization with the goal of bringing the faithful closer to their movement.
THE PRESENCE OF SAINT ANTHONY IN SLOVAK CATHOLIC CHURCHES: A HISTORICAL JOURNEY

Varotti C. (Speaker)

Universidade Aberta ~ Lisbon ~ Portugal
When we encounter the presence of the image of Saint Anthony in Slovak Catholic churches, we realize that there is a message to be understood. Although the narrative dates to the medieval period, artistic representations of the saint, such as sculptures and paintings, only become abundant from the 16th century onwards. Before that, the historical journey of Saint Anthony in the region is mainly documented in written records that need to be unveiled. This journey begins with the arrival of the first Franciscan friars to the Hungarian kingdom in the 13th century. The first relevant document refers to the request of King Louis IV of Thuringia, who wrote to the Franciscans requesting their presence to accompany the religious life of his wife. Subsequent documents reveal the presence of Slavs as spectators of Saint Anthony's preaching in Rome before Pope Gregory IX, an episode in which the pontiff recognized the saint as the "Ark of the Covenant," as in the testimony preserved in the Liber Miraculum. The brothers of the Poverello of Assisi actively participated in the construction of Slovak identity, both through papal bulls and political interventions. Between the 13th, 14th, and 15th centuries, the Franciscans faced various trials, including Mongol and Moorish incursions. With the arrival of the Protestant movement in the 16th and 17th centuries, they were eventually expelled from these regions. In the 17th century, the return of Catholicism to Slovakia occurred, in part, due to the union between the Hungarian kingdom and the House of Habsburg, a union that was also decisive in combating and expelling the Ottomans. During the Battle of Vienna, divine intervention was invoked, and Saint Anthony was called upon to ensure Christian victory. After the victory, both the Slavs and the Habsburgs further perpetuated the memory of the miracle-working saint and preacher, consolidating his symbolic and devotional presence in the churches and religious culture of the region.
CONTROVERSIES SURROUNDING THE FUNERAL OF JAROSLAV VRCHLICKÝ

Rašková A. (Speaker)

Charles University, Faculty of Arts ~ Prague ~ Czech Republic
Public rituals and ceremonial practices reveal not only cultural norms of a given historical period but also its social and political conflicts. This paper focuses on the funeral of the famous Czech poet Jaroslav Vrchlický in 1912 and on the public controversy that followed it. A faux pas by a high-ranking Catholic clergyman during the funeral sparked an intense debate between the Catholic Church and secular, nationalist segments of Czech society. At the beginning of the twentieth century, the Czech lands were part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and the Catholic Church was closely connected to imperial power structures. This association contributed to growing mistrust toward the Church among Czech national elites, who sought to limit its influence in the formation of modern politics, culture, education, and family law. These tensions crystallized into what contemporaries described as a Czech "culture war". Jaroslav Vrchlický, a leading middle-class poet, was celebrated for his literary modernity but sharply criticized by Catholic authorities for his treatment of erotic themes. At the same time, many Catholic writers and intellectuals were deeply inspired by his work. Although Vrchlický maintained personal relationships with several Catholic priests, he remained publicly neutral in the culture war until his death. His popularity, symbolic status, and perceived neutrality made his funeral a contested site where different actors sought to redefine the boundaries between religion, nation, and modern culture. By analysing the funeral debate as a public ritual and media event, this paper explores how the Catholic Church negotiated issues of modernity, nationalism, and cultural inequality in early twentieth-century Czech society. The case highlights broader questions of religious authority, symbolic inclusion and exclusion, and the unequal positioning of religious institutions in processes of national and cultural modernization.
ATTITUDES TOWARDS RELIGIOUS DIVERSITY IN HINDUISM AND ISLAM: A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF THE RAMAKRISHNA MOVEMENT AND NUR MOVEMENT

Altintas I. (Speaker)

University of Münster ~ Münster ~ Germany
This PhD project examines how two modern religious movements, the Ramakrishna Movement within Hinduism and the Nur Movement in Islam, engage with the question of religious diversity. Modernity emerged with a Western focus and has gradually evolved into a global transformation process that has had a profound effect on different religious traditions and cultural structures. This has intensified interfaith encounters, establishing religious diversity as one of the defining fact of the modern world. However, reactions to this fact are not homogeneous within religious traditions. However, reactions to this phenomenon have not been homogeneous within religious traditions. While some movements have sought to adapt by developing reformist approaches to the challenges of modernity, others have adopted a more conservative and exclusionary stance, displaying an attitude that rejects the 'other'. However, revivalist approaches that maintain ties with tradition while attempting to interpret religious diversity positively have also emerged in the modern era. Notable examples of this approach include the Ramakrishna Movement in the Hindu world and the Nur Movement in the Islamic world. Notable examples of this approach include the Ramakrishna Movement in the Hindu world and the Nur Movement in the Islamic world. Both movements have responded to the religious diveristy by developing unique theological and discursive frameworks. The Ramakrishna Movement developed an approach centred on the idea of 'harmony of religions', whereas the Nur Movement reinterpreted interfaith relations through the concept of 'alliance'. This study aims to analyse the frameworks, arguments, methods and strategies developed by these two movements in the context of religious diversity, and their theological positions within the exclusivism, inclusivism and pluralism debates.
THE OLD BELIEVER ANTICHRIST AS ILLEGITIMATE OCCUPYING POWER - AN INDUCTIVE AND ASSOCIATIVE ANALYSIS

Sevastyanov L. (Speaker)

KU Leuven ~ Leuven ~ Belgium
I'll present the core findings of an ongoing doctoral research project at KU Leuven addressing a fundamental lacuna in the study of Old Believer eschatology: the absence of a precise definition of the Antichrist in the tradition's own writings from the Schism of 1666 to the mid-19th century As early as the 1860s, Vasily Kel'siev noted the difficulty in grasping the core message of the Old Believers, precisely because their method was descriptive rather than definitional. While later scholarship, notably Robert O. Crummey, has rightly emphasized the need to analyze not only Old Believer texts but also their behavior as complementary data, the task of formulating a systematic definition of the Antichrist from this rich but diffuse material remains undone. The research employs a dual methodological framework. First, an inductive approach analyzes the vast corpus of Old Believer descriptions of the Antichrist—moving from the particular to the general—to extract essential, recurring elements. Second, an associative historical method treats the community's collective behavior—self-immolations, flight to forests, rejection of state documents—as a further layer of data to be interpreted. The study's central thesis is that before 1862, the foundational assertion was that the Antichrist had already come and was reigning. Subsequent distinctions (sensual, spiritual, dismembered Antichrist) were defense mechanisms protecting this core belief. Applying the associative method reveals a striking parallel: Old Believer behavior mirrors that of the Russian population under foreign occupations. Thus, the reigning Antichrist was conceptually identical to an illegitimate occupying authority—physically present, demanding submission, yet lacking spiritual or moral legitimacy. This definition offers a new lens for understanding Russian eschatology and apocalyptic political resistance, engaging directly with the panel's interest in peace and conflicts in memory and identity constructions.
BETWEEN HALAKHA AND EGALITARIANISM: ORTHODOX JEWISH COMMUNITIES IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE

Tourgeman L.S. (Speaker)

École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales ~ Paris ~ France
My research examines egalitarian trends within contemporary European Orthodox Jewry. Despite an increase in qualitative studies on European Orthodoxy, much research has focused on what sets Orthodox Jews apart from the majority societies in which they live. Such research risks missing out on potential processes occurring within Orthodox Judaism. This may be why research on a major development in Orthodoxy - tendencies towards egalitarian practices and the shifting of gendered boundaries - is so sparse. This sparsity is placed in sharp contrast to the extent to which Orthodox circles are concerned about this development. My research thus explores a marginal group of Orthodox communities adopting egalitarian practices - often seen as an "Other" by the greater Orthodox sphere but identifying itself as member of the ingroup - to understand the dynamics and limits of gendered inequalities in contemporary Orthodox Judaism. The exploration serves as an anchor point for questioning broader issues related to gender, marginalisation and intra-religious conflicts in the European religious landscape. My research conducts ethnographic fieldwork in relevant European communities. These communities work to shift normative gendered boundaries within Orthodox Judaism by innovatively adapting traditional rituals, creating what at times may seem like contradictory practices which operate "unevenly" across different axes (such as bestowing a rabbinical qualification upon women while refusing to count them for a prayer quorum). These communities, therefore, simultaneously challenge and reinforce existing gender inequalities in the Jewish sphere. This paper will discuss key issues raised in my ethnographic fieldwork, including questions of women's religious leadership, the embodiment of gendered rituals, and the employment of ubiquitously gendered practices for the formation of reformed Orthodox Jewish identities in contemporary Europe.
BETWEEN HALAKHA AND EGALITARIANISM: ORTHODOX JEWISH COMMUNITIES IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE

Tourgeman L.S. (Speaker)

École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales ~ Paris ~ France
Despite an increase in qualitative studies on European Orthodox Judaism, much research has focused on what sets Orthodox Jews apart from the majority societies in which they live. Such research risks missing out on potential processes occurring within Orthodox Judaism. This may be why research on a major development in Orthodoxy - the shifting of gendered boundaries - is so sparse. This sparsity is placed in sharp contrast to the extent to which Orthodox circles are concerned about this development. The current research project thus explores Judaism's relationship to gendered rituals, from early rabbinic texts to recent halakhic rulings, through the prism of a marginal, contemporary group of Orthodox communities adopting egalitarian practices. By combining anthropological and Jewish approaches to the interpretation of knowledge and experience, it attempts to understand the dynamics and limits of gendered hierarchies in Judaism. The exploration serves as an anchor point for questioning broader issues related to gender, practice and marginalisation in the European religious landscape through time and text. The project conducts comparative ethnographic fieldwork in relevant communities that work to shift normative gendered boundaries within Orthodoxy. By doing so, they simultaneously challenge and reinforce existing gender dynamics in the Jewish ritual sphere. Nevertheless, these communities do not merely act in the present, but refer to a highly enduring corpus of texts, practices and traditions which have been paramount to Jewish identities for millennia. The project thus wishes, like its informants, to come closer to those frames of reference by engaging with them seriously. Through this interdisciplinary approach, this paper will discuss key issues raised in both the fieldwork and Jewish literature, including women's religious leadership, the embodiment of gendered rituals, and the employment of innovative practices for the formation of Jewish identities.
EXTERNAL AND INTERNAL INEQUALITIES OF CHRISTIAN POSTGRADUATES AT UNIVERSITIES IN ENGLAND

Watson S. (Speaker)

University of Oxford ~ Oxford ~ United Kingdom
Religion is a protected characteristic in UK law (Equality Act 2010) yet remains a direly under-researched and under-provided equality measure in higher education (Wolbring & Nguyen, 2023). Evidence shows that a lack of religious understanding can result in stereotyping and marginalisation (Baratta and Smith, 2018). Many UK universities are yet to address religious inclusion (Watson, 2025) however, and thus the academic environment remains naively secular, and at times hostile to faith. Nonetheless, religious faith can be a rich source of human flourishing (Wormley, 2023; VanderWeele, 2023), providing direct benefits for students as well as to institutions. Through a mixed methods study of 165 survey responses and 50 interviews I explored the experiences of Christian postgraduate students at universities in England through the double lens of difficulties and benefits of a Christian identity on campus. In this paper I will present some of my findings of both sides of this coin. On the one hand, I found evidence of a lack of religious equality and inclusion and of faith concealment and invisibility among Christian postgraduates, which I will demonstrate through the Process of religious fading model. Not only are religions unrecognised as a valid identity within the academic realm, but Christians are in a particular position of fading out rather than emerging whilst a lingering notion of historical dominance may be misleading as to their need of support. On the other hand, the tremendous benefits of faith in student flourishing and belonging serve as an advantage, and are unique to those who have faith in a personal and benevolent God. These benefits seem to directly address issues which are endemic in postgraduate pastoral care - ill mental health and lack of belonging. Difficulties and benefits are both present, and need further attention
UNACKNOWLEDGED USE OF PSYCHOLOGY IN THE VATICAN DOCUMENTS ON HOMOSEXUALITY 1975-2005: PSYCHOLOGICAL CONCEPTS, THEORIES AND BELIEFS UNDERLYING OFFICIAL TEACHING OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH

Wizimirska N. (Speaker)

University of Eastern Finland ~ Kuopio ~ Finland
The research is focused on Vatican documents forming the doctrinal Catholic teaching on LGB persons in the years 1975-2005 and its unacknowledged psychological content. Identifying statements of psychological nature in these documents and confronting those statements with the wide-ranging academic research on LGB persons will serve establishing what psychological concepts, theories and beliefs underlay this church teaching. The author intends to look for a variety of topics with which these documents may be loaded, such as: personal maturity, emotional and social stability, mental health, ability to form responsible relationships, ability for parenthood etc., as well as to identify non-explicit convictions on irreversibility of sexual orientation, identity versus preference question or the importance of integrating one's sexual orientation in the process of development. The aim is to question the assertion that Vatican upheld a science-neutral stance in the doctrinal documents on LGB persons. The thesis will argue that holding such neutral stance is impossible and it results in introducing psychology to Vatican documents in non-methodological manner, possibly compromising their standards. There is a need, therefore, for a new, systematic and informed attitude towards psychological research on sexual orientation. Since there has been a growing recognition in the Vatican of the importance of engaging with sciences in the process of developing church teaching, this research hopes to contribute to that new interdisciplinary approach by proposing a new, constructive way of such engagement with the academic research on sexual orientation while taking into account its limitations, biases and changing frameworks. The doctoral research is now in its initial stages, devoted to identifying sources and the scope of its psychological content.
RELIGION, DIGITAL COMMUNICATION, AND URBAN INEQUALITIES IN THE TWIN TRANSITION: AN ETHICAL-SOCIAL ANALYSIS

Iapaolo M. (Speaker)

Niccolò Cusano University ~ Rome ~ Italy
The twin transition is reshaping European cities while intensifying digital, urban, and environmental inequalities (Beck 1992). Unequal access to infrastructures, green innovation, and digital capital reinforces territorial and social disparities, while platform-mediated sustainability narratives often reproduce hierarchies of visibility and exclusion (Kitchin 2014; Vanolo 2014). This paper examines, from an interdisciplinary perspective, how religious traditions may help rebalance these asymmetries. The principles of the Social Doctrine of the Church (Francis 2015) together with religious environmental ethics (Grim & Tucker 2014) offer ethical criteria and counter-narratives capable of challenging dominant digital rhetorics of transition. Combining a qualitative analysis of digital sustainability narratives with a comparative reinterpretation of ethical-religious principles, the paper argues that integral ecology can function as a cultural and normative corrective. In this perspective, the twin transition can be reframed as a more inclusive process grounded in equity, care, and shared responsibility (Carvalho 2010; Núñez 2018)
A SEMIOTIC STUDY OF RUSSIAN COSMISM IN POST-SOVIET RUSSIA

Baron G.B. (Speaker)

DREST UNIMORE; UNIVERSITY OF TARTU ~ TURIN-TARTU ~ Italy
In the context of Russia's escalating confrontation with the West following 24 February 2022, the strategic reactivation of Russian philosophical traditions cannot be adequately explained through political analysis alone. Russia's opposition to the West has deep intellectual roots, reflecting a longstanding contestation over civilizational orientation. Yet beyond these debates lies a speculative motif that has historically shaped Russian conceptions of sovereignty and collective destiny: the notion of immortality. While recently visible in global transhumanist narratives, this aspiration predates contemporary biotechnological debates and can be traced back to the Orthodox eschatological orientation of Russian Cosmism, a nineteenth-century philosophical tradition increasingly mobilized in contemporary state-funded initiatives to articulate a counter-narrative to Western frameworks. Grounded in cultural semiotics, this study argues that the contemporary resurgence of Russian Cosmism functions simultaneously as a simulacrum of unrealized futures and as an active agent in their formation. The analysis of selected texts, ranging from Fyodorov's writings to projects such as the 2045 Initiative, aims to trace coherent pathways within the complex semiotic space of cultural memory. These pathways operate as chains of homologies among values, mobilizing theological, philosophical, and technological motifs to construct the "Common Task" both as an anticipated future and as a program of transformative action. Acting dynamically within collective memory, Russian Cosmism selectively reinterprets historical elements so that its religious origins—reinforced by the contemporary political role of the Orthodox Church—function as semiotic boundaries vis-à-vis the West, stabilizing its trajectory while enabling adaptive reconfiguration
WHEN ENGAGEMENT IS (ALMOST) MARRIAGE: A PRELIMINARY ECONOMIC ANALYSIS OF THE LAW OF MOSES ON BETROTHAL

Wu N. (Speaker)

EDLE (University of Hamburg) ~ Hamburg ~ Germany
This research combines historical, religious, and Law and Economics analyses to investigate the institution of betrothal (known as "engagement" in contemporary contexts) under the Law of Moses. Our analyses indicate that Mosaic betrothal provides a mechanism for allocating risk, managing transaction costs, and designing incentives. Additionally, formal microeconomic and game-theoretic models were employed to compare legal regimes that require formal dissolution with those that permit low-cost separation. The findings show that Mosaic betrothal functions as a multistage commitment device that progressively increases exit costs. This theoretically deters opportunism, encourages premarital investment, and stabilizes match formation. However, marriage market equilibria are sensitive to relative costs, incentives, and risks. These findings complicate the conventional interpretation of Mosaic law as either purely oppressive or purely protective. Instead, Mosaic betrothal emerges as a dual institution. It materially reproduces gendered inequality through asymmetric obligations, yet simultaneously mitigates its most destabilizing effects through legal safeguards, reputational constraints, and enforced commitment. In this framework, religion functions not only as a cultural or political superstructure, but also as a mechanism for embedding and stabilizing economically efficient, yet normatively ambivalent, arrangements of inequality. Beyond its economic logic, the study explores how legal structures influence religious identity, gender inequality, and social cohesion. Betrothal emerges as a covenantal and contractual institution that embeds religious norms within enforceable legal forms. By bringing Law and Economics into the study of Mosaic law, this research aims to promote interdisciplinary dialogue in religious studies by offering a new analytical perspective on how ancient religious institutions regulated inequality, structured commitment, and mediated social order.
John Spencer's Theocratia - a utopian account of monarchy in Restoration England?

Engelhardt H. (Speaker)


In this paper, I shall present some findings from my PhD project, which aims to investigate the genealogy of modern notions of religion and secularity in early modern English thought. The focus of this project is on John Spencer, a theologian who was Master of Corpus Christi College in Cambridge, Dean of Ely (Cambridgeshire) and a respected member of a circle of Cambridge Hebraists in in Restoration England. In his main monograph, De Legibus Hebraeorum et Earum Rationibus Libri Tres (1685), he argued for the rationality of the Mosaic ritual law by using the concept of divine accommodation: God sanctioned the continuation and translation of Egyptian rituals in the Mosaic Laws to gradually ween the Israelites off their pagan customs after the Exodus from Egypt where they had been corrupted during their captivity. It also contains a chapter on the period of theocracy in post-exilic ancient Israel. The Judaic theocracy as described in the Hebrew Bible, served as a historical precedent and source of inspiration to (de)legitimate a whole range of state models in the political thought of early modern Europe, including republican, constitutionalist or monarchical systems with varying understandings of the role of religious institutions and authority therein. In Spencer's presentation, the Hebrew theocracy was strictly a monarchy under the rule of God and the constitution most conducive to the happiness of the people to have ever existed. Was he developing a utopian account of monarchy as a theocracy? If so, what did the relation between religion and politics in such a polity look like? Was Spencer implicitly passing judgement on Charles II's reign? If so, positively or negatively? Based on my translation and close reading, I will contextualise Spencer's Theocratia within the tense sociopolitical climate of Restoration England struggling to reconstruct a stable societal setup after the turmoils of the Civil Wars. Spencer and his work have not received a lot of attention in contemporary scholarship, but even less his analysis of the Hebrew theocracy. I therefore hope to show Spencer's impact on early modern conceptualisations of the relation between religion and politics, as well as, to shine some more light on an intellectual figure that has been so far neglected by scholarly enquiries despite his position at the crucial threshold between early modernity and Enlightenment.
The Franciscan memory represented by the image of Saint Anthony in Slovak churches

Varotti C. (Speaker)


Upon encountering the constant presence of the image of Saint Anthony in Slovak churches, we knew that there was a message to be understood and assimilated. Our research process indicated that the visual narrative had medieval roots, not in sculptural objects or paintings. The medieval Franciscan memory is found in documents yet to be unveiled. These documents describe a journey that began with the arrival of the first Franciscan friars in the Hungarian kingdom in the 13th century, at the request of the King of Thuringia and Marburg. Subsequent documents include an indulgence dated around 1295 and papal representations, notably the presence of Slavs as spectators of Saint Anthony's preaching in Rome before Pope Gregory IX, where the latter attested that the saint was the 'Ark of the Covenant'. This event is narrated in the Liber Miraculum attributed to Arnold of Serrano and dated between 1369-73. Another point to note is that the brothers of the Poor Man of Assisi were part of the construction of the Slavic social fabric, helping the poor and sick, and intervening geographically and politically, while between the 13th, 14th, and 15th centuries, they endured the trials of invasions, specifically by the Mongols and Moors. The Protestant movements that began during the 16th and 17th centuries received political support as well as support from local nobles. Several decades of work by the Franciscans and Jesuits were necessary to regain territories and followers. In the 17th century, part of the Hungarian kingdom joined the House of Habsburg to fight the Ottoman invaders, specifically in the Battle of Vienna. Such great difficulty received divine intervention; Saint Anthony was invoked to guarantee victory for the Christians. After the victory, the Slavs and the Habsburgs never ceased to commemorate the miracle-working and preaching saint.

Panel description: Based on the author's previous fundamental-theological work on 'a theology of interruption' and his practical experiences as head of Catholic education in Flanders (Belgium), Lieven Boeve explores how Catholic schools can reconfigure their identity in a context that is profoundly transformed by the processes of secularisation and pluralisation. After elaborating on the way in which the Catholic dialogue school project has taken concrete shape in Flanders, Boeve explains the theological, social, empirical and ecclesial background of the project. He also provides examples of mission texts, a variety of good practices, empirical data, and a strategy to implement an integral and coherent identity policy at school. He concludes the book by formulating a number of challenges, as well as some advice for the future of Catholic education in Europe. So doing, he argues that the project of the Catholic dialogue school offers a both contextually plausible and theological legitimate recontextualisation of the Catholic identity of schools in the current post-Christian and post-secular European context.

Papers:

Panel description: The Ecclesiological Investigations International Research Network invites papers for a session that explores ecclesial and theological responses to generational shifts in society. To what extent do the spiritual needs of younger generations shape the structure of the church, notions of Christian identity, and the explicit and implicit ecclesiologies shaping both common life and public witness in the church? What are possible visions of youth ministries in a future where young people are navigating increasingly complex matters? Possible paper topics might include, but are not limited to: 1. The intersection of masculinity studies with religious conversion and deconversion, particularly in view of the recent phenomenon of interest in Orthodox and Roman Catholic traditions among young men 2. Eco-ecclesiology and other responses to climate disaster and apocalypticism 3. The church's engagement with content creators and online spiritual communities 4. Loci for theological research and education that are found beyond the limits of traditional settings such as seminaries and universities 5. The church's reception of post-denominational Christianity and/or multiple religious belongings 6. Unity and conflict in intergenerational and intercultural spaces

Papers:

UNTETHERING WOMEN'S PROPHETIC CREATIVITY FOR A GENERATIVE CHURCH: A PAPUA NEW GUINEAN STORY

Francisco-Tan C. (Speaker)

Dorish Maru College ~ Vic ~ Australia
"See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the universe, and not according to Christ." (Colossians 2:8) Papua New Guinea's fiftieth anniversary of independence in 2025 invites reflection on identity, resilience, and faith within a profoundly complex postcolonial context. The road to national independence for Melanesians involves the painful 'untethering' from the shackles of history, culture, and religion, including confusions resulting from a normatively Western "compressed modernity." (Kyung-sup Chang) Much is to be celebrated in terms of Papuan social, economic and political achievements. The positive contribution of the Church is without doubt. Yet the anomalies remain, particularly for women in Melanesia in general and the Church specifically. This paper specifically examines the notion of 'Untethering' as more than a resistance to colonial systems and structures and imposed patriarchy. It proposes a systematic theological reimagining of authority, mission, and authentic ecclesial life, one that asserts autonomy and agency as intentional consciousness. A critical understanding of the lived experiences of Catholic women living and/or working in Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands forms the contextual ground.
AN EMBODIED FUTURE: RECLAIMING COMMUNITY AFTER THE DIGITAL DETOUR

Hwang-Meza S. (Speaker)

KU Leuven ~ Leuven ~ Belgium
Rapid technological acceleration, rising political multipolarization, and increasing surveillance have impacted how individuals form their identity and relationships, not to mention, how they form beliefs and interact with their religious communities. The future of the church, some assume, is on a similar trajectory to secularization, where individuals became increasingly syncretic or nonreligious. According to this logic, the church too, has become fluent in digital narrative, accommodating and translating some aspects of religious life into social media, and even AI chatbots. However, some emerging patterns suggest that the future of church will be a return to analogue-first communities. Digital spaces are becoming panopticons, where surveillance is rampant, and has both personal and juridical consequences. These individuals, those who want to escape surveillance, and those barred from digital communities, will become "digital strangers," to analogue communities. They have become unaccustomed to analogue spaces, and more importantly estranged to forming embodied relationships with others. In this paper, I pose the question, if the future of the church is a return to analogue space, how can churches be prepared to respond and focus on these individuals? Drawing on Zizioulas' theological anthropology, I illustrate how an ecclesial community is always primarily an analogue one. While, personhood is not diminished through the use of digital media, the recognition of individuals on their own, is a requirement to encounter others and have a meaningful relationship. I also present a renewed approach to evangelization by presenting an alternate theory of religion, where the challenges, presented by this social shift to analogue spaces, opens a dialogue to not only recognize digital strangers who are at some intersection Christian persons, but make an explicit effort to connect with those of any or no religion.
FOR A PEDAGOGY OF FAITH IN THE AGE OF CONTENT CREATORS

Avellino A. (Speaker)

Sapienza universitá di Roma ~ Roma ~ Italy
In recent years, the growth of content creators and online spiritual communities has profoundly transformed the ways in which religious experience is communicated, shared, and constructed. Digital platforms have become privileged spaces for the search for meaning, the narration of faith, and spiritual dialogue, especially for younger generations. In this context, the Church is called to question its educational and pastoral role in the digital world, not only as a producer of content, but also as a body capable of accompanying, discerning, and forming. This article analyzes the Church's forms of engagement with content creators and online spiritual communities, highlighting the urgent need for a comprehensive education in faith and religion that combines theological competence, digital literacy, and ethical responsibility. Education in faith, in fact, cannot be limited to the transmission of doctrinal content; it must help believers critically interpret media language, recognize the authenticity of online spiritual experiences, and avoid simplification, polarization, or exploitation of the religious message. Through a dialogue between pastoral theology, media studies, and religious pedagogy, the paper proposes several practical avenues for a conscious ecclesial presence in the digital world, capable of leveraging the evangelizing potential of new media without sacrificing the formative and communal depth of the Christian experience. In this sense, collaboration with content creators can become an educational opportunity, provided it is grounded in criteria of discernment, formation, and ecclesial co-responsibility.
TOWARDS INTERCULTURAL PASTORAL CARE IN EUROPE

Biemans W. (Speaker)

Tilburg School of Catholic Theology ~ Utrecht ~ Netherlands
Young Catholic migrant couples and intercultural couples from all over the world are arriving in large numbers in the Western world. Some already have a job when they arrive, others have fled from unsafe areas, and still others arrive because of a Western partner. In this paper, I examine how Catholic and other Christian pastoral caregivers can respond to this growing demand, particularly regarding marriage preparation and pastoral care after a church wedding. I argue that migrant communities and territorial parishes in a hosting country have chances to promote intercultural pastoral care. Results from a quantitative survey demonstrate that migrant couples and intercultural couples appreciate a more intensive, professional, and welcoming marriage and relationship education. It is also concluded that seeking reconciliation after a conflict and experiencing forgiveness from one's spouse are significantly associated with a higher perceived relationship quality. Qualitative data show that faith is a value that can bridge cultural differences between the host and home country. Finally, it is shown that welcoming and accommodating young refugees, especially from situations of war, can have a vitalizing effect on host parishes.
THEOLOGICAL CACOPHONY

Purina L. (Speaker)

University of Latvia ~ Riga ~ Latvia
Two distinct forms of ecclesial participation have today become established: attendance in person and participation virtually. What has not been sufficiently noted is the variety and amorphous nature of the latter. While representing freedom, this variety forms an enormous confusion of expressions of faith. What does this mean for the concept of a "common faith" tradition? Is this "cacaphony" outside or part of the Christian witness? Do all these voices belong, or are they foreign to a "continuity of tradition"? How is this variety to be understood theologically? A helpful parallel is the situation of Christians before Nicaea. Early Christian communities were scattered, often small, and without a centralized structure that could control teaching or guarantee unity. In that time, the information was not accessible in any easily understandable, structured way, and different competing voices were common. Today's digital environment is obviously different, but both situations raise the same question: how does the church navigate this world? How can we enter into "the future of the church"? Most contemporary theological reflections on the Holy Spirit indicate that the third article of the Nicene Creed, on the Holy Spirit, has been either forgotten or inadequately represented in Western theology. This paper argues that the future of the Church's ministry and theology requires a serious reworking of the doctrine of the Holy Spirit. It will show that precisely this doctrine can both respond to the "theological cacophony" and indicate a necessary role of the Spirit in a technological culture. To justify this claim, I engage with Najeeb Awad's critique of the reductionism of the Spirit in theology and the loss in the ministry of the Church in an undeveloped pneumatology.

Panel description: As the communist regimes of Eastern Europe collapsed towards the close of the twentieth century, the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) reemerged as an influential actor in Russian society. In Family, Sex, and Faith: The Biopolitics of the Russian Orthodox Church, Pål Kolstø investigates the manifestations of the ROC's newfound influence and legitimacy and the purposes of its strategic action. Here, Kolstø makes the argument that the fulcrum of the ROC's intrusion of the private sphere and its negligence of socioeconomic issues lies in a detailed ethical program and advocacy for traditional family values. These cardinal points, however, cater to different audiences. The ethical program of traditional values speaks to broader Russian and international society, whereas the inculcation of traditional values targets a more restricted circle of hardcore adherents. The ethics of private life, moreover, serve as instruments of regimentation of individual sexuality and sexual relations. In his book, Kolstø points out that the moral teachings of the ROC involve what Foucault called "biopolitics": The management of life itself in the modern age as opposed to ancient right to take life and let live. At the heart of Foucault's concept of biopower lies the regulation of sexuality: This power is invested in the individual discipline of the body (anatomo-politics) and the control over populations and biological processes (biopolitics). As the bridge between the individual and populations, normative prescriptions on families becomes the object of the ROC's biopower. In this Author-Meets-Critics session, the author will discuss his book with Bojidar Kolov, author of "Ecclesiastical populism in contemporary Russia? 'The people' in the political discourse of the orthodox church" (2024) and with Kristina Stoeckl and Dmitry Uzlaner, authors of The Moralist International. Russia in the Global Culture Wars (2022).

Papers:

Panel description: This panel examines how charitable and religious institutions shaped, exploited, and mediated the lives of enslaved women across the early modern Catholic Mediterranean. Mobilizing case studies from Florence, Livorno, and Lisbon, the papers argue that charitable institutions were ambivalent spaces, aimed to cater for the salvation of enslaved women while also reinforcing and reproducing gendered, racialised, and religious inequalities. In sixteenth-century Florence, the Ospedale degli Innocenti relied on the reproductive and domestic labour of enslaved wetnurses while simultaneously receiving and baptising their abandoned children, revealing the racialised and religious logics that shaped the exploitation of enslaved women and the future of their offspring within Catholic institutions. In the same years, in Lisbon, the experiences of Maghrebi washerwomen sentenced by the Inquisition to serve in the Royal Hospital highlight the convergence of punitive and charitable structures. Their skilled yet stigmatised labour made them indispensable to the daily functioning of the hospital, while their coerced service was framed as a moral rehabilitation into Catholic society. The third paper explores the forced artisanal labour of enslaved Muslim women in Livorno who crafted components of their baptismal garments. The ceremony of baptism, materially staged by a charitable institution, relied both on the symbolic purity of Christian ritual and the economic utility of enslaved women's craftsmanship. Together, the papers illuminate how charitable institutions managed poverty and welfare while controlling the bodies and labour of enslaved women, whose presence destabilised notions of domestic order and civic responsibility. They demonstrate that charitable practices and related religious rituals were entangled with quotidian labour regimes and the management of enslaved women's bodies, through processes that naturalised, prolonged, and legitimised gendered inequality.

Papers:

MOTHERS AND BABIES: ENSLAVED WOMEN AND THEIR ABANDONED CHILDREN AT THE OSPEDALE DEGLI INNOCENTI IN FLORENCE

Ovadia E. (Speaker)

ERC-advg FemSMed, Tel Aviv University ~ Tel Aviv ~ Israel
During the first half of the sixteenth century, two young girls named Agnoletta and Maria dell'Ospedale, both born to enslaved mothers, were brought to the Ospedale degli Innocenti in Florence. Since its foundation almost a century earlier, and through the charity of the Florentine silk guild as well as other civic organisations, the Innocenti accepted and baptized all children left at its doorstep, with the express aim of assuring their status as free Catholics. Like Agnoletta and Maria, approximately one third of the children brought to the Innocenti were born to enslaved women living in households throughout the city. Most of these abandoned children were girls, who were often considered superfluous, as they could not continue the patriline. Many of the aforementioned enslaved women, hailing from the Ottoman Empire and West Africa and brought to Florence via the Mediterranean slave trade, were also rented out to the Innocenti and to other foundling homes to labour as wetnurses and to generate profits for their enslavers. Based on an analysis of archival documents, this paper elucidates the exploitation of enslaved mothers as well as the treatment of foundlings at the Innocenti. Building on the cases of Agnoletta and her mother Lisa, who was forced to abandon her in 1538; Maria dell'Ospedale, who was later enslaved in the court of Cosimo I de' Medici (r. 1537-1569); and several other cases recorded in the Innocenti's intake registers, this paper explores the social, religious, and racial dynamics of their exploitation. It sheds new light on the environment of a charitable institution that exploited the labour of enslaved women and was populated by their abandoned offspring.
'WASHING THEIR DIRTY LINEN IN PUBLIC?': WASHERWOMEN AND CHARITABLE INSTITUTIONS IN SIXTEENTH-CENTURY LISBON

Jackson-Eade J. (Speaker)

ERC-advg FemSMed, Tel Aviv University ~ Tel Aviv ~ Israel
Repeatedly in the early 1550s, the Lisbon Inquisition compelled formerly enslaved Maghrebi washerwomen to work in the Hospital Real de Todos-os-Santos after they were found guilty of 'Islamismo'. A skilled yet particularly arduous and degrading work - beyond the sheer physical strain of carrying heavy loads, washerwomen were regularly exposed to infectious disease through the handling of polluted fabric - washing cloth and clothing ranked among the most common forms of domestic labour, one in which enslaved and formerly enslaved women were over-represented. Drawing on mid-sixteenth century records from the Inquisition and the Hospital to reconstruct a set of individual trajectories that converged through these institutions, this paper examines how several of these washerwomen - women born in Muslim lands but converted to Catholicism after being enslaved in Portugal - performed textile-based labour as part of their imposed 'reintegration' into Lisbon's Catholic society. It argues that through the reemployment of their skills, these women were strategically reappropriated by the city's major charitable institutions, incorporated not as beneficiaries but as cheap, skilled, and indispensable labour. By shedding light on these women's place within Lisbon's broader community of converted North Africans, and by considering the impact of their work on their complex sociabilities inside and outside the Inquisitorial and charitable machinery, it is possible to reflect on how charity, gendered labour, and exploitation intersected in one specific locus. Through the prism of the lived experience of these Maghrebi washerwomen, the paper argues that the hospital and the prison - linked institutionally, ideologically, and geographically - illustrate how labour and penance converged on these women's bodies, tying the fulfilment of their salvation to public hygiene.
THE CHARITABLE FASHIONING OF SALVATION: THE BAPTISMAL DRESS OF ENSLAVED WOMEN IN SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY LIVORNO

Molina L. (Speaker)

ERC-advg FemSMed, Tel Aviv University ~ Tel Aviv ~ Israel
On 8 January 1696, seven Muslim women were converted to Catholicism in the slave Bagno of Livorno, a prison complex built by the Grand Duchy of Tuscany, thus beginning their path to redemption as former infidels. As was customary, these enslaved women were dressed in white garments financed by Livornese charitable institutions, notably the Misericordia confraternity and the Santa Barbara hospital. On this occasion, however, their baptismal shoes were crafted by the enslaved women themselves. This reference to enslaved Muslim women preparing their own shoes to be worn during their religious transformation under Catholic supervision is particularly noteworthy. Baptismal rituals were of crucial importance in early modern Europe and were subject to heightened scrutiny in the case of converts from Islam. The removal of native dress and, after immersion, the donning of new white Catholic robes signified that these women were reborn both spiritually and materially. This material transformation reflected contemporary beliefs about salvation and offered a visual manifestation of the supposed reintegration of 'domestic enemies', as enslaved infidels were often considered, into Catholic society in Tuscany. This paper reflects on the dynamics that required these seven women to produce components of their own baptismal attire. Situating this practice within a broader phenomenon linking foreign enslaved women to forced craft labour-such as tailoring and carpentry-across early modern Italian cities, and against the backdrop of Livorno's periodic conflicts with Muslim powers, the paper shows how forced displacement contributed to the circulation of sartorial knowledge. Drawing attention to the exploitation of enslaved women's skills in Livorno's hospitals-thereby sparing institutions labour costs under the guise of institutionalised charity-the paper also reflects on the limited margins of adaptation enslaved women could find within symbolically charged spaces and processes.

Panel description: This panel examines how enslaved women in early modern Europe and the Mediterranean navigated the pressures, constraints, and opportunities embedded in processes of religious conversion. By bringing together the work of Chizzolini, Abend, and Jaffe, it investigates conversion not as a unidirectional act of assimilation but as a dynamic field of negotiation shaped by overlapping systems of coercion, religious authority, and systems of power within households. Chizzolini shows how the baptisms of enslaved Muslim and Jewish women in Medicean Tuscany functioned both as an instrument of grand ducal policy and as one of the few avenues through which captives could seek protection, mitigate mistreatment, or alter their symbolic status. Abend examines cases from seventeenth-century Spain in which enslaved women accused of renouncing God mobilized the jurisdiction of the Spanish Inquisition to challenge their masters' violence, revealing how the language of apostasy could be transformed into a tactical resource. Jaffe analyzes the complex trajectories of enslaved women in converso households in Italy, where informal judaizing and contested forms of religious practice exposed competing Christian and Jewish claims over their identities. Together, the papers aim to demonstrate that conversion—Christian or Jewish, formal or informal, strategic or coerced—was a crucial arena in which enslaved women in early modern Europe confronted structures of domination while forging fragile yet meaningful forms of agency

Papers:

FEMALE BAPTISMS AND POLITICAL POWER: THE CONVERSIONS OF ENSLAVED WOMEN IN MEDICEAN TUSCANY

Chizzolini B. (Speaker)

Tel Aviv University- ERC FemSMed ~ Tel Aviv ~ Israel
This paper investigates the political and religious implications of the baptisms of enslaved women in early modern Livorno, focusing on the conversions of Muslim and Jewish captives held in the slave prison. While Livorno has often been portrayed as a tolerant and cosmopolitan free port shaped by the Livornine, its daily reality was marked by the contradictions inherent in a city that functioned both as a space of interreligious coexistence and as a military stronghold engaged in Mediterranean corsairing warfare. Within this complex environment, enslaved populations—men, women, and children-—became deeply embedded in the city's social and institutional structures. The paper examines how baptism, administered from the late seventeenth century by the Capuchins of the Bagno and by the Hospital of Santa Barbara, operated as a key instrument of grand ducal religious and political policy. Unlike Florence, Livorno lacked a formal House of Cathecumens; baptisms were therefore performed directly inside the slave prison's chapel under the authority of the Archbishop of Pisa. The paper argues that female conversions held a distinctive political resonance. For enslaved women, whose opportunities for social or legal negotiations were extremely limited, baptism constituted one of the few available means of altering their condition, offering potential improvements in treatment or symbolic protection. For state authorities, these ceremonies functioned as performative affirmations of Christian power, particularly in the case of Jewish women, whose conversions carried heightened theological significance. Ultimately, the paper contends that the conversion of enslaved women was not a marginal phenomenon but a crucial mechanism of religious assimilation and the state's assertion of power within the broader political and confessional strategies of the Medici Grand Duchy
ENSLAVED WOMEN: RENEGADES AND THEIR MASTERS, CONVERSION, ABUSE, AND AGENCY

Abend N. (Speaker)

Tel Aviv University-ERC FemSMed ~ Tel Aviv ~ Israel
This paper investigates the reactions of enslaved women to the abuse and mistreatment inflicted by their masters and mistresses in seventeenth-century Southern Spain. At that time, masters possessed the right—and in some cases the obligation—to "discipline" their slaves, provided the offence was not directed against God or His earthly representatives; in such cases, authority shifted to the Holy Office of the Inquisition. Through the lives of María, Luisa, Catalina, and María de la Paz, this paper examines enslaved women who appeared before the Inquisition accused of being renegades, that is, of renouncing God and the Catholic faith. Although all admitted to having uttered phrases such as "I renounce God," they explained these words as immediate reactions born of anger in response to the violence inflicted by their masters. In each case, the inquisitors decided not to proceed with a formal trial and imposed no sentence. Rather than interpreting these utterances as genuine acts of apostasy, this paper argues that they should be understood as strategies of resistance and assertions of agency. Renouncing God offered these women a temporary means of challenging their masters' authority by placing themselves under inquisitorial jurisdiction, creating a liminal space of protection. Within the narrow limits available to them, they navigated and subtly manipulated the structures that oppressed them, transmitting this knowledge to one another. As this paper shows, this logic also explains the leniency displayed by the Inquisition, which understood such statements not as attempts to apostasy from Christianity but rather as efforts to break, albeit briefly, from the violence and mistreatment imposed by their owners. In doing so, these women demonstrated how tactical speech could carve a fragile yet meaningful space of survival within profoundly coercive system.
BETWEEN CONVERSION AND JUDAIZING: ENSLAVED FEMALE CONVERTS IN JEWISH HOUSEHOLDS IN EARLY MODERN ITALY

Jaffe E. (Speaker)

Tel Aviv University- ERC FemSMed ~ Tel Aviv ~ Israel
The integration of enslaved women into the households of Portuguese conversos who settled in Italy in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries produced complex and ambiguous forms of Judaizing. Immersed in domestic and ritual environments marked by Jewish practices of varying visibility, these women stood at the intersection of the exploitative logic of enslavement and the hope for inclusion or recognition offered by an (often) informal participation in the religious life of their masters. While ideal conversion presupposed voluntary commitment, the actual behaviors frequently consisted of the partial practice of rituals, which was difficult to define and deemed problematic by Jewish authorities. This paper analyses different accounts of Judaizing and multiple perspectives of protagonists involved —slave owners, rabbis, members of the community, and Christian authorities. Owners could either encourage or hinder the religious integration of their slaves, depending on ideological concerns, halakhic requirements, or domestic strategies. Rabbis, who were responsible for determining their religious status, interpreted such situations through a halakhic tradition, long shaped by the realities of enslavement, generating a complex stratification of belonging. When converso communities developed more structured forms of religious authority, their norms influenced the conditions under which their slaves converted more directly. Finally, the intervention of Catholic authorities, in particular the Roman Inquisition, placed enslaved women, who had been baptized in Portugal, and were later accused of Judaizing, on the same level of responsibility as their owners. A comparative reading of inquisitorial records, rabbinic responsa, and communal statutes thus reveals the plurality of possible definitions of enslaved women's religious identity, and highlights the tensions among coercion, integration, and recognition within Jewish households

Panel description: This Author Meets Critique (AMC) session engages Joerg Rieger's book Theology in the Capitalocene—Theologie im Kapitalozän, which will be available in German adaptation in the Spring of 2026 (Charlotte Jacobs, trans., Theologische Interventionen, Kohlhammer Verlag). Several chapters of this book are adapted from the English original and revised for European contexts, with some new chapters added. The book (English subtitle: Ecology, Identity, Class, and Solidarity) argues that the study of theology and religion needs to engage the signs of the times both critically and constructively, proposing that the neologism "Capitalocene" describes our geological age more appropriately than the more common notion of the "Anthropocene." If we find ourselves in times when the flow of capital determines not only economics and politics but also religion and the future of the planet, theologians and scholars of religion may be able to contribute not only by deepening an understanding of the resulting problems but also by identifying potential solutions. As many people find it easier to envision the end of the world than the end of capitalism, theologians and scholars of religion face a formidable task. This panel brings together scholars, intellectuals, and activists who have engaged earlier versions of Rieger's work. Their presentations will touch on the theme of this year's European Academy of Religion, "Religions and (Inequalities)," and include reflections on deeper causes, implications, and possible responses to the emergent problems of our time.

Papers:

Panel description: Religious, cultural, and social inequalities are a structural dimension of contemporary societies, shaped by power relations, belonging, and recognition. Religions, cultures, and territories act as interconnected spheres where meanings, norms, and practices of inclusion and exclusion emerge. The panel adopts sociological and geographic perspectives to explore how religions both reproduce and transform inequalities. From a sociological perspective, religions operate as institutions and symbolic systems that shape norms, values, gender arrangements, and hierarchies. Through rituals, discourse, digital media, and sacred objects, they may reinforce subordination or open spaces for critique and emancipation. From a geographic point of view, inequalities are seen as spatially embedded. Sacred places, devotional geographies, pilgrimages, and urban boundaries show how religions influence access to resources, visibility, and belonging. Concepts such as liminality highlight thresholds—urban margins, shrines, ritual paths—where identities and hierarchies can be renegotiated. Integrating these viewpoints allows for a multidimensional understanding of how religions reshape visibility, recognition, and symbolic redistribution in contemporary societies. Keywords: Religion, Space, Inequality, Symbols, Digitalization, Pluralism

Papers:

RELIGIONS AND INEQUALITIES: A SOCIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE

Salerno R.M. (Speaker) [1] , Conti G. (Speaker) [2] , Montanari F. (Speaker) [2]

University of Palermo ~ Palermo ~ Italy [1] , University of Modena e Reggio Emilia ~ Reggio Emilia ~ Italy [2]
From a sociological perspective, religions appear as institutions, communities, and social actors capable of shaping norms, values, and power relations. They regulate status, organize forms of care, produce moral categories, and orient processes of inclusion and exclusion. They act as meaning-making devices that shape the codes, narratives, and symbols through which equality and hierarchy, body and gender, identity and belonging are defined. Through rituals, public discourse, digital media, and sacred objects, they generate representations that can reinforce structures of domination or open spaces for critique and emancipation. Contemporary transformations—migratory mobility, religious pluralism, and the digitalization of practices—are redefining these processes, making the relationship between religion, culture, and power a crucial field for understanding how the meanings that structure collective life are produced, negotiated, and contested. Research questions: How do these transformations redefine the role of religions in addressing social vulnerability? In what ways do religious actors—both formal and informal—inform, reinforce, or challenge processes of inclusion, marginalization, and social recognition? How do religious rituals, symbols, and iconographies contribute to the construction of categories of belonging and otherness? What role do digital media play in the circulation and re-elaboration of religious meanings related to equality and inequality? Potential areas of investigation: Religious communities involved in social service provision or charitable initiatives; religious movements advocating for rights or resisting social change; interactions between religious institutions and local welfare governance; Religious iconographies associated with the body; ritual practices of inclusion and exclusion (rites of passage, normative practices); religious content circulating on digital platforms, games and social media.
RELIGIONS AND INEQUALITIES: A GEOGRAPHIC PERSPECTIVE

Sabato G. (Speaker) [1] , Montanari F. (Speaker) [2]

University of Palermo ~ Palermo ~ Italy [1] , University of Modena and Reggio Emilia ~ Modena and Reggio Emilia ~ Italy [2]
A geographic approach highlights how inequalities take shape and become embedded in space. Sacred places, devotional geographies, urban boundaries, territorialization, and religious mobility reveal how religions influence access to resources, social visibility, belonging, and recognition. These inequalities emerge in concrete spaces shaped by historical, political, and symbolic forces. Contemporary geography conceives space as a social construction produced through practices, representations, and power relations. Territories appear as dynamic fields marked by conflicts, appropriations, rituals, and memories. Sacred places act as nodes of aggregation, regulation, or exclusion, while festivals, processions, and pilgrimages temporarily reconfigure urban and rural landscapes, generating shifting centralities and marginalities. A key contribution is the notion of liminal space—thresholds, margins, and interstices—where identities and relations are renegotiated. Shrines at urban edges, ritual routes, and pilgrimage paths exemplify transitional spaces. Territorialization and religious mobility further show how groups shape and contest places, illuminating how religions structure access, visibility, and belonging across territories. Research questions: How do sacred places, shrines, and ritual spaces act as mechanisms that produce social visibility or invisibility? In what ways do religious mobilities such as pilgrimages, migrations, and processions renegotiate territorial power dynamics? How do urban boundaries and devotional geographies shape belonging, recognition, and access to symbolic capital? Potential areas of investigation: Shrines and places of worship situated in marginal or central areas; pilgrimage networks and ritual mobilities; the territorial distribution of religious minorities within cities; processes that shape the elevation or suppression of religious symbols within urban settings.
RELIGIOUS FREEDOM VIOLATIONS IN THE WORLD. INEQUALITIES.

Guerra Pratas M.H. (Speaker)

SCUCP- Sociedade Científica Universidade Católica Portuguesa ~ Lisbon ~ Portugal
Religious freedom is a human right and belongs to the fundamental dignity of every human person (Universal Declaration of Human Rights) and one of the foundations of democratic society (Council of Europe, 2008). However, religious freedom is declining globally and violations occur in both authoritarian and democratic states. Religious Persecution is one of the greatest human rights crises of our time. Data from different sources (Pew Research Center, World Watch List 2026, Religious Freedom in the World Report 2025, USCIRF Report on International Religious Freedom) shows rising violence, growing state repression and millions of lives affected all over the world. In several contexts, minority religious groups face layered discrimination: legal restrictions, social hostility, and economic exclusion reinforce each other. Persecution is driven mainly by authoritarian governments, religious extremism, organized crime and corruption, nationalism and ideological control. Persecution is not evenly distributed geographically or within religious groups; vulnerability depends on gender, social status, ethnicity, and conversion background. Converts often experience more severe persecution than long-established religious minorities. Women and girls suffer gender-specific persecution, including kidnappings, forced marriage, sexual violence, and denial of education, which is often underreported and inadequately addressed. Although multiple religious communities experience persecution worldwide, the data reveal significant asymmetries: Christians remain the most widely persecuted religious group globally and the most systematically restricted across the largest number of states (World Watch List 2026). Women and minors are particularly vulnerable: 201 million women and girls and 110 million minors under 15 were affected by persecution (WWR, 2024), with Nigeria remaining the deadliest country for believers. Silence allows persecution to continue.
SACRED GEOGRAPHIES IN VIDEO GAMES SET IN ITALY. VALORISATION, LIMINAL SPACE, AND REGIMES OF VISIBILITY

Conti G. (Speaker)

University of Modena and Reggio Emilia ~ Reggio Emilia ~ Italy
This presentation examines how video games set in Italy mobilise religious heritage as a spatial and semiotic infrastructure, and how this valorisation of the sacred reconfigures visibility, access, and recognition. Building on cultural geography's understanding of space as socially produced and contested (Lefebvre, 1991), and on liminality as a threshold condition where identities and hierarchies can be renegotiated, we analyse the ways sacred sites (basilicas, cathedrals, shrines), devotional atmospheres, and ritualised routes are transformed into playable systems: landmarks that organise navigation, gated interiors, vertical vantage points, moralised zones, and narrative engines. We argue that game design does not merely represent the sacred; it operationalises it through mechanics that distribute attention and movement unequally, producing regimes of inclusion/exclusion and centre/periphery within the gameworld. Empirically, the study adopts a comparative approach across three types of Italian sacred-setting games: (1) large-scale historical reconstruction (Assassin's Creed), where churches become nodal points of traversal and control; (2) fantasy refunctionalisation of Italian religious iconography and architecture, where sacred landmarks are re-coded as arenas of conflict; and (3) institutional heritage gamification (ITALY. Land of Wonders), where the sacred is curated within an educational-patrimonial frame. Methodologically, we use a socio-semiotic close reading with a lightweight mapping protocol that codes sacred nodes (site type, visibility, access conditions, mobility functions, reward/punishment) and liminal passages (thresholds, margins, interstices). The contribution is twofold: it specifies design patterns through which sacred geographies become playable, and it clarifies how such patterns can reproduce or rework cultural and territorial inequalities via selective visibility, differential access, and the patrimonialisation of religious space.
THE EMPEROR'S LIGHT AND THE MARGIN'S SHADOW: POLITICAL THEOLOGY AND SOCIAL INEQUALITIES IN MEDIEVAL CHINESE CHRISTIANITY

Balmont A. (Speaker)

The Chinese University of Hong Kong ~ Hong Kong ~ Hong Kong
The paper examines radically divergent attitudes toward imperial power in two Tang-dynasty Christian texts. The Xi'an Stele (781), erected in the capital Chang'an, develops an elaborate "royal way" theology where the virtuous emperor becomes central to civilizing the empire, receives sacred titles borrowed from imperial vocabulary, and functions as mediator between heaven and earth whose support for Christianity brings universal benefits. The Discourse on God, likely produced in China's Western Regions, presents a starkly contrasting vision: it preserves bitter memories of persecution ("all kings attack the liberties of peoples"), articulates no royal theology, and rejects any idealized portrayal of political power. These theological differences likely reflect unequal social positions within the Chinese empire. Communities situated near the court appear to have developed accommodating theologies that emphasized mutual benefits between religious and political spheres, while communities in peripheral regions, whether through different historical experiences or reduced access to imperial favor, maintained critical perspectives on sovereignty. This comparative analysis demonstrates how geographic location and social positioning shaped competing theological responses to political power in medieval Chinese Christianity.
THE FAITH OF OTHERS: A PATH OF INTERRELIGIOUS DIALOGUE

Salerno R.M. (Speaker)

University of Palermo ~ Italy ~ Italy
This contribution explores the "faith" of the "others" from a sociological perspective, interpreting religious difference as a threshold rather than a boundary. Interreligious dialogue is understood as a space of encounter that fosters listening, suspends judgment, and highlights a shared search for meaning among believers from different traditions. Drawing on key sociological theories of religion, the study conceptualizes dialogue as a relational and symbolic process through which beliefs are constructed and renewed in pluralistic societies. Focusing on the urban context of Palermo, the empirical analysis examines how individuals perceive the faith of others, how dialogue transforms relationships, and what forms of proximity and connection emerge across traditions. The findings show that interreligious dialogue enables mutual understanding, values diversity as a resource, and opens new possibilities for coexistence in contemporary religiously plural societies. Keywords: Interreligious Dialogue; Palermo; Religious Pluralism; Qualitative Research; Sacred; Sociology of Religion.
SACRED GEOGRAPHIES IN VIDEO GAMES SET IN ITALY VALORISATION, LIMINAL SPACE, AND REGIMES OF VISIBILITY

Conti G. (Speaker) , Montanari F. (Speaker)

University of Modena and Reggio Emilia ~ Reggio Emilia ~ Italy
This presentation examines how video games set in Italy mobilise religious heritage as a spatial and semiotic infrastructure, and how this valorisation of the sacred reconfigures visibility, access, and symbolic recognition. Building on cultural geography's understanding of space as socially produced and politically contested (Lefebvre, 1991; Soja, 2010), and on liminality as a threshold condition where identities and hierarchies can be renegotiated (Turner, 1969), we analyse the ways sacred sites (basilicas, cathedrals, shrines), devotional atmospheres, and ritualised routes are transformed into playable systems: landmarks that organise navigation, gated interiors, vertical vantage points, moralised zones, and narrative engines. The argument is that game design does not merely represent the sacred; it operationalises it through mechanics that distribute attention and movement unequally, producing distinctive regimes of inclusion/exclusion and centre/periphery within the gameworld. Empirically, the study adopts a comparative, multi-layered approach across three types of Italian sacred-setting games: (1) large-scale historical reconstruction, where monumental churches become nodal points of traversal and control; (2) fantasy refunctionalisation of Italian religious iconography and architecture, where sacred landmarks are re-coded as arenas of conflict and metamorphosis; and (3) institutional heritage gamification, where the sacred is curated within an educational-patrimonial frame. Methodologically, we combine socio-semiotic, and spatial close reading with a lightweight mapping protocol that codes sacred nodes (site type, visibility, access conditions, mobility functions, reward/punishment) and liminal passages (thresholds, margins, interstices).
BEYOND THE SHOWCASE: PODCASTING AS A METHODOLOGICAL ARENA FOR THE REPRESENTATION OF RELIGIOUS DIVERSITY

Castagnetto Alessio M. (Speaker)

University of Torino ~ Torino ~ Italy
This paper offers a critical reflection on the construction of PodCRAFT, a podcast in development by CRAFT (Contemporary Religions and Faiths in Transition) research centre at the University of Turin, interrogating the intricate interplay between media production and the representation of religion in contemporary societies. Grounding on the framework of mediatization theory (Hjarvard 2008), podcast production emerges as a complex force-field, addressing methodological and ethical choices that may contribute to either reproducing or potentially deconstructing the hierarchies of recognition among different religious traditions. The development of scientifically rigorous yet publicly accessible podcasting in religious studies represents an opportunity to address longstanding disciplinary concerns while positioning the field at the forefront of broader methodological transformations in the humanities. Approaching Knott, Poole and Taira analysis of media representations of religions (2013), the paper seeks to explore the potential emancipatory agency of the format, unmasking the tendency to normalize certain experiences of belief while exoticising or marginalizing others. The design of an academic podcast on religious diversity in Italy demands constant hermeneutic vigilance that translates into concrete choices: the selection of issue and interlocutors, which must avoid replicating dynamics of spokespersonship for entire communities; the curation of language, which must remain accessible without lapsing into simplificatory or sensationalist semantics; and the strategic deployment of popular cultural products as media for accessing complex religious questions. In this perspective, PodCRAFT is framed as a situated intervention in the structural inequalities of religious recognition that may impact contemporary pluralist societies through the subtler mechanisms by which media logics determine whose beliefs are rendered visible and worthy of public attention.
NARRATING THE PILGRIMAGE: THE CASE OF SANTIAGO DE COMPOSTELA FROM A GEOGRAPHICAL AND CULTURAL PERSPECTIVE

Sabato G. (Speaker)

Università degli studi di Palermo ~ Palermo ~ Italy
In the Western world, the pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela is one of the best known and most studied. However, certain aspects such as the accessibility of the site, travel conditions, forms of marginalisation (both implicit and explicit) and, not least, motivations constitute an interconnected complex that is difficult to understand unless one takes into account certain aspects, particularly symbolic ones, relating to the narration of the pilgrims' experience. Based on research conducted by the author, this paper aims to study, from the perspective of cultural geography, the experience of space and the Way of St James, drawing on a number of literary texts, including the autobiographical novel "La Ballade des pèlerins" by the French writer Edith De La Héronnière, first published in 1993 and translated into Italian in 2004. A comparison between this and other texts will seek to shed light on the process of meaning-making that these narratives enact as they describe the physical and symbolic space of the pilgrimage. In this way, it is possible to investigate how specific attributions of meaning inscribe the pilgrimage experience within a symbolic universe that is both personal and collective.

Panel description: This open panel aims to examine the relationship between Pope John XXII (1316-1334) and the diverse dissident groups that emerged before and during his pontificate. The late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries witnessed the proliferation of dissenting religious movements—such as, but not limited to, the Spiritual Franciscans—as well as lay communities including, for instance, beguines and beghards. These groups sought official recognition from the Avignon papacy or struggled to preserve their identity—at times denied, at times reshaped—and their institutional autonomy. At the same time, several figures saw their positions formally condemned. A notable example is Meister Eckhart, whose propositions were censured in the bull In agro dominico (1329), illustrating John XXII's determination to define the boundaries of orthodoxy in the face of emerging theological currents. His pontificate was also marked by vigorous action against a broader spectrum of opponents. The conflicts with major Italian Ghibelline powers—such as the Visconti and the Della Scala—reveal how accusations of heresy, rebellion, and political disobedience could intersect, especially when ambitions in temporal matters challenged papal claims. The panel seeks to shed light on the dynamics of encounter, negotiation, and conflict between these religious, lay, political, and intellectual actors and John XXII. It will explore how different communities and individuals positioned themselves in relation to papal authority, which strategies they adopted in moments of tension, and what political, social, theological, and ecclesiological consequences arose from such confrontations. Proposals addressing these themes are welcome. Please submit an abstract of no more than 300 words by 13 March, 2026 to: francesca.barresi@unimore.it and martinamaria.caragnano@unimore.it

Papers:

CONTESTING PAPAL AUTHORITY: BONAGRATIA OF BERGAMO'S LONG APPEAL OF 1332 AGAINST JOHN XXII

Caragnano M.M. (Speaker)

DREST, University of Modena and Reggio Emilia ~ Modena and Reggio Emilia ~ Italy
This paper examines the Long Appeal (Appellatio longa) of 1332 by Bonagratia of Bergamo, O.M. (†1340), situating it within the broader landscape of religious dissent and conflict with papal authority during the pontificate of John XXII (1316-1334). As Procurator of the Order of Friars Minor from 1319, Bonagratia played a crucial role in articulating the Franciscan dissidents' response to papal policies that increasingly sought to redefine the boundaries of orthodoxy, obedience, and institutional identity. Composed in the context of the Franciscan Poverty Controversy and the exile of Michael of Cesena and his brethren at the imperial court of Louis IV Wittelsbach in Munich, the Long Appeal represents a distinctive strategy of opposition. Recently brought to light during my doctoral research—both in its autograph form at the Vatican Apostolic Library and in a late seventeenth-century witness preserved at the Bibliothèque nationale de France in Paris—this text integrates and completes earlier Appeals by introducing new juridical arguments and theological accusations, thereby once again seeking to delegitimize the authority of John XXII. Bonagratia constructs a cumulative case against the pope by identifying a series of alleged heterodox positions, ranging from the denial of Franciscan poverty to John XXII's views on the delayed beatific vision. In doing so, the Appeal illustrates how accusations of heresy could function as a means of contesting authority and preserving communal identity in moments of institutional crisis. By analyzing the Long Appeal as a form of negotiated yet confrontational dissent, this paper contributes to the panel's broader aim of exploring how religious actors under John XXII positioned themselves vis-à-vis papal authority, and how theological, ecclesiological, and political conflicts became deeply intertwined in the early fourteenth century.
WOMEN'S MYSTICISM AS A LANGUAGE OF RELIGIOUS DISSENT IN THE AGE OF JOHN XXII

Barresi F. (Speaker)

DREST, University of Verona ~ Verona ~ Italy
This paper explores women's mystical writing as a privileged yet understudied site of religious dissent within the ecclesiastical and political tensions that marked the pontificate of John XXII (1316-1334). Rather than approaching female mysticism solely as devotional or experiential literature, the contribution proposes to read mystical texts produced in the imperial territories as historically embedded sources that participated—implicitly yet meaningfully—in contemporary debates on authority, poverty, and ecclesial legitimacy. Focusing on the Dominican mystic Margaretha Ebner (†1351), whose Revelations emerged within the reforming and politically contested environment of the monastery of Maria Medingen, the paper examines how mystical discourse could articulate positions within the wider conflict between papal authority and imperial power. Ebner's visions and prayers reveal explicit spiritual concern for Emperor Louis IV of Bavaria and reflect networks connected to the Gottesfreunde movement, suggesting that mystical experience functioned not only as theological reflection but also as a medium through which contemporary ecclesio-political tensions were interpreted and negotiated. Mystical narration thus emerges as both theological production and historical testimony, preserving traces of lay and monastic responses to papal disciplinary policies, the controversy on apostolic poverty, and the reshaping of religious authority in fourteenth-century imperial Europe.
JOHN XXII AND UMBRIA: DISSIDENCE AND REPRESSIONE FROM THE DOCUMENTS OF THE STATE ARCHIVES OF PERUGIA (1318-1323).

Maiorca A.M. (Speaker)

Università degli Studi di Trieste ~ Trieste ~ Italy
The period of the Avignon papacy is closely linked to Umbria with the election of Clement V in 1304. Relations with Umbria, however, had important implications under his successor, John XXII. Interested in maintaining papal power, however difficult, he forged strong ties with the cities that had been part of the Guelph League and were historically allies of the Church, Perugia above all. This relationship soon developed into a fruitful one of territorial control and maintenance of regional order during a period in which strong Ghibelline sentiment was rekindled, especially by the Bishop of Arezzo, Guido Tarlati. This led the pontiff to grant Perugia wide latitude in suppressing dissent, paving the way for the creation of a regional state. The aim of this work is to study Umbria's most politically active period under John XXII, between 1318 and 1323. Using a series of parchments preserved in the Diplomatic Collection of the State Archives of Perugia, it analyzes the policies implemented by the pontiff and his vicars, primarily the municipality of Perugia, to repress dissent,political, but also, in some cases, religious, in the region. This will be intertwined with political events, such as the revolt of Todi and Spoleto, linked to the descent of Louis the Bavarian, and the brief reign of Muzio di Ser Francesco over Assisi, which marked the period of greatest instability for papal and Guelph power in Umbria.
NAMING THE "SCHISMATIC": PAPAL AUTHORITY, EASTERN CHRISTIANITY, AND THE POLITICS OF ORTHODOXY UNDER JOHN XXII

Kouremenos N. (Speaker)

Volos Academy for Theological Studies ~ Volos ~ Greece
This paper argues that under John XXII (1316-1334) "schism" functioned less as a neutral label for the Christian East than as a governance category used to police ritual boundaries and stabilize Latin communal identity in mixed environments. Instead of surveying Greek-Latin relations, it offers a focused comparison of two micro-cases drawn from papal documentation. First, a letter concerning the Principality of Achaia (1322) complains that Latins "converse with Greek schismatics," attend their churches, make offerings to schismatic priests, and receive sacraments according to their rite, while also allowing Greeks to participate in Latin offices. Read against the everyday reality of shared sacred spaces, the letter frames inter-ritual sociability as a threat to both souls and jurisdiction, revealing how "schism" becomes a language of social discipline and boundary-making. Second, the "Mangana affair" on Cyprus—centered on Abbot Germanos of St George of Mangana and John XXII's letter of 8 July 1322—shows the papacy functioning not only against an external "schismatic other" but within intertwined Greek-Latin networks. Here local actors appeal to Rome for protection and arbitration, and papal authority is performed through pastoral-juridical intervention in an Eastern ecclesiastical dispute. A brief comparative glance at John XXII's diplomacy beyond the Latin-Greek field (notably his inclusive references to "Christians" in communications with non-Christian rulers) highlights the strategic elasticity of confessional labels: schism-talk could harden to curb ritual mixing, yet soften when political efficacy required broader Christian representation. Taken together, these cases clarify how schism discourse, politics, and identity formation intersected in Avignon governance. Methodologically, the paper combines close reading of curial rhetoric with attention to local social practice and institutional constraints.
DEBATING THE POPE: THE BEATIFIC VISION CONTROVERSY AND CAMBRIDGE, UL MS II 3.10

Cozzi L. (Speaker)

DREST - Università della Campania Luigi Vanvitelli ~ Caserta ~ Italy
The controversy over the beatific vision, initiated by John XXII with his All Saints' Day sermon in 1331, rapidly evolved into one of the most intense doctrinal disputes of the later medieval Church. By contending that the souls of the blessed would attain full vision of God only after the Last Judgement, the pontiff disrupted the prevailing theological consensus, triggering vigorous responses across ecclesiastical and intellectual circles. Despite the extensive range of studies currently available, the manuscript context of John's early sermons has rarely been examined as a structured documentary response to papal teaching. This contribution therefore addresses this issue through the material and textual evidence preserved in Cambridge, University Library, MS Ii 3.10, the only known manuscript transmitting John XXII's first two sermons on the visio beatifica (1 November and the third Sunday of Advent 1331). Indeed, rather than preserving these texts in isolation, the codex places them at the beginning of a broader documentary sequence that includes theological responses, polemical interventions, and inquisitorial records. A codicological and textual analysis of this dossier will thus demonstrate, from a further perspective, how the papal homiletic intervention fostered a field of theological controversy, within which the doctrinal authority of the pontiff was simultaneously debated, endorsed, and challenged. Consequently, the Cambridge manuscript emerges as a pivotal witness to the spread and reception of the controversy beyond the Avignonese curia.
JOHN XXII'S FRANCISCAN ADVISORS: CO-OPERATION, CONFLICT AND THE MANAGEMENT OF DISSENT

Brunner M. (Speaker)

Institute for Medieval Studies, University of Leeds ~ Leeds ~ United Kingdom
Throughout the pontificate of John XXII, Franciscan friars acted as advisors to the pope, as curial officials and as members of papal commissions. Their role at the curia and their involvement in papal decision-making could bring them into conflict with the papacy, however, especially in the protracted and acrimonious debates about Franciscan poverty when members of the order needed to navigate the tension between their Franciscan identity and their service to the papacy. Nevertheless, the curia provided spaces for dissent and opposition, and John XXII encountered resistance and counter-arguments to his policies and views from cardinals, advisors and other members of the curia. Papal consultation mechanisms provided both a forum for dissent and a mechanism for the production of consent, and this double role of consultations was exploited by the pope and by his advisors. This paper will examine some of the spaces for opposition at the papal court in Avignon, exploring how these curial mechanisms were used by John XXII in managing and neutralising dissent, and comparing this to Franciscan strategies in articulating dissenting opinions, not just in the debates about Franciscan poverty. The paper will therefore shed light on the dynamics of negotiation, consultation and decision-making at the curia, highlighting the plurality of voices underpinning these processes, independent of their outcomes or the consequences for the actors involved, as both pope and the Franciscans navigated the religious, political and intellectual conflicts of the early fourteenth century.
LEGAL THEORY AND OCKHAMITE NOMINALISM IN CONFLICT WITH JOHN XXII

Aceto A. (Speaker)

Pontificia Università "Antonianum" ~ Rome ~ Vatican City State (Holy See)
In 1322, the General Chapter of the Franciscans affirmed that Christ and the apostles did not, in fact, own any property, either individually or collectively. This position came into conflict with Pope John XXII, who believed it was impossible to separate the use of property from its ownership. In the bull Cum inter nonnullos, He declared the doctrine of "use without ownership" and Christ's poverty to be erroneous. In the Opus Nonaginta Dierum, Ockham defended the Franciscan Order by arguing that it was logically possible for the Order to have the use of goods without owning them, thereby contradicting what John XXII had stated in his bulls: «Quia transire per agrum alienum non est ius, et tamen est licitum; […] et eadem ratione potest actus utendi esse licitus sine ius utendi». John XXII justified the Church's possessions by denying the Order's poverty. Therefore, according to Ockham, even the pope can fall into heresy, and this happened because John XXII denied evangelical poverty: «Sed papa pronuntians legem christianam esse falsam non potest esse iudex nec testis nec accusator quia est hereticus. Heretici autem iudices esse non possunt cum nil habeant potestatis aut iuris [...]. Ergo a papa pronuntiante legem christianam esse falsam appellare licet.» Ockham's nominalism proves decisive in this debate: universal concepts have no reality of their own; they are merely names, and cannot legally serve as the basis for absolute power. Consequently, neither the Order of Friars Minor nor the Church, as concrete institutions, can be reduced to mere abstractions: «Si Ordo Fratrum Minorum persona repraesentata et ficta esset, tunc Ecclesia ipsa [...] persona repraesentata et ficta esset: quod est absurdum». The Order and the Church exist as concrete entities, not as abstract universals: the pope cannot claim universal authority over them, and papal assertions claiming absolute power over evangelical poverty are unfounded. (The notes can be found in the PDF sent by email)
AUTHORITY IN PIECES: SELECTIVE QUOTATION AND THE CHARGE OF HERESY IN THE REIGN OF JOHN XXII

Cresswell R. (Speaker)

University of Oxford ~ Oxford ~ United Kingdom
This paper examines the contested use of selective quotation in the context of the condemnation of Meister Eckhart. In the theological controversies of John XXII's pontificate, the methodological legitimacy of selective quotation was indirectly under scrutiny. Eckhart insisted that the articles used to condemn him were lifted from their proper context, distorting his original meaning; John XXII in his Quia vir reprobus, complained of the same treatment by Michael of Cesena. Accusations of heresy ranged against the pope hinged upon allegations that he had 'misinterpreted' the nature and limits of papal power, and manipulated certain scriptural proof-texts to his own ends. The legitimacy (or otherwise) of selective and decontextualised quotation was also a feature of late-medieval disputes concerning scriptural interpretation. By the early fourteenth century, the realm of scriptural interpretation as a site of disputed authority had become increasingly fraught. Figures such as Nicholas of Lyra, in advocating for a serious approach to the literal sense of scripture, were beginning to establish the limits beyond which isolated sections of Bible should not be taken in defiance of their meanings ad litteram. At a moment of contested papal authority, the right (and wrong) uses of texts were front and centre. By examining approaches to selective quotation in the context of John XXII's papacy and Eckhart's condemnation, this paper explores how a broader crisis of ecclesial authority intersected with deeper anxieties over how textual fragments, especially biblical fragments, were to be deployed. The study has a twofold aim. First, it seeks to clarify late medieval concerns about the constructive and destructive potential of selective quotation. Secondly, and more fundamentally, it seeks to raise questions concerning the use (and abuse) of scriptural fragments, and how far the legitimacy of selective quotation could be made to stretch in the pre-modern Catholic tradition.

Panel description: This panel, convened by Daniela Tarantino (University of Genoa), Director of the Interdepartmental Research Centre on Migratory Religious Phenomena and Territorial Transformations, explores how religion, migration, and space intersect in shaping contemporary inequalities. It examines the dual role of religion as both a resource for social cohesion and a source of exclusion, focusing on how faith-based actors, institutions, and communities negotiate visibility, recognition, and justice within contexts of mobility and structural inequality. Through interdisciplinary and comparative perspectives, the panel seeks to rethink religion's contribution to the redefinition of equality, belonging, and coexistence in an era marked by global migration and territorial transformation. The panel is organized into two complementary sections, reflecting both the historical-legal roots of religious inequality and the contemporary and future dynamics of faith, mobility, and justice.

Papers:

CATHOLIC BISHOPS AND DIOCESES IN THE CRUSADER STATES OF MEDIEVAL GREECE (13TH-16TH CENTURIES): REDRAWING RELIGIOUS BOUNDARIES BETWEEN EQUALITY AND DIVERSITY

Barbagli A. (Speaker)

University of Catanzaro ~ Catanzaro ~ Italy
At the beginning of the thirteenth century, following the Fourth Crusade and the collapse of the Byzantine Empire, especially in mainland and insular Greece, a series of principalities and lordships were formed, ruled by dynasties from Western Europe, mostly of French and Italian origin. These sovereigns, who were Catholics, reorganized the system of religious institutions, creating Catholic dioceses at the head of which bishops were often called from the territories from which the dynasties reigning originated. Thus, a peculiar situation of coexistence was created between diocesan institutions dependent on the Church of Rome and a population that instead followed the Orthodox confession for the most part. The present paper aims to provide an overview of the Catholic dioceses founded in the Crusader states of late medieval Greece, examining, where possible, the selection criteria and biographies of the bishops, their relations with the Crusader princes and the Greek population, and the ways in which the dioceses were ruled.
THE ITALO-ALBANIAN COMMUNITIES IN THE KINGDOM OF NAPLES BETWEEN MIGRATION, RELIGIOUS IDENTITY AND DEFENSE OF EQUALITY. HISTORICAL PATHS OF LAW AND RELIGION.

Maradei F. (Speaker)

University of Catanzaro ~ Catanzaro ~ Italy
The migration of Albanian exiles in the Kingdom of Naples following the repeated invasions of Albania by the Ottoman Turks, culminating in 1478, favored the formation of a large community that soon settled in the southern part of the Italian peninsula and, in particular, in the Calabrian provinces. This minority group, better known as the Italo-Albanian (or Arbëreshë) community, despite abandoning its motherland, remained strongly tied to its ethnic and linguistic roots, but above all to its religious traditions, which were based on the Catholic religion but professed according to the Byzantine rite. For this minority group, the religious factor represented throughout the modern age a strong element of identity but also the cause of misunderstandings and, even, suspicions of heresy, especially at the diocesan level by the Latin Bishops. Through the analysis of some of the main diocesan synods and provincial councils of the post-tridentine age, this paper aims to analyze from a historical-legal perspective the events of the Byzantine rite in southern Italy through the efforts and aspirations of the Italo-Albanian faithful to overcome inequalities with Latin Rite Catholics, in the name of a common belonging to the Catholic religion.
THE MINISTRY OF DEACONESSES IN THE CANONICAL TRADITION: FROM LATE ANTIQUITY TO THE MIDDLE AGES

Fiocca M. (Speaker)

University of Rome La Sapienza ~ Rome ~ Italy
This paper examines the figure of deaconesses in the history of canon law, with particular attention to Late Antiquity and the medieval period. Through an analysis of normative sources and ecclesiastical practice, it shows that the role of deaconesses in early Christian communities did not entail a true sacramental ordination, but rather constituted a form of service and assistance tailored to the charitable needs of local Churches. In the medieval era, their figure is still attested in legal sources -most notably in the Decretum Gratiani and the subsequent decretist tradition - where references to deaconesses reflect both the memory of an institution that had long since disappeared, and the effort to systematize its significance within the canonical order of the period. The paper thus offers a historical-legal reconstruction of the ministry of deaconesses and its doctrinal development, emphasizing its functions, limits, and normative legacy.
SOVEREIGNTY AND LAW IN GILES OF ROME (C. 1243-1316): A BORDERLINE REFLECTION ON THE THRESHOLD OF MODERNITY

Colonna D. (Speaker)

University of Genoa ~ Genoa ~ Italy
Between the 13th and 14th centuries, Europe experienced significant social and cultural changes. The decline of the Empire and Papacy led to the rise of new national entities, particularly the Kingdom of France. Events like the Avignon Captivity (1309) and the Slap of Anagni (1303) illustrated shifting power dynamics. The crisis of medieval universalism gave way to new forms of particularism in law and institutions. Aegidius Romanus, a key figure in these changes, wrote influential works that reexamined law and sovereignty, emphasizing the prince's role. His ideas, alongside those of other thinkers like Dante and Bartolo, reveal the complexities of late medieval thought and hint at emerging modernity.
CHRISTIANIZATION AND RELIGIOUS REPRESSION IN THE IBERIAN PENINSULA BETWEEN THE MIDDLE AGES AD HUMANISM

Mazzei R.F. (Speaker)

University of Catanzaro ~ Catanzaro ~ Italy
Between the 12th and 16th centuries, the forced Christianization of the Iberian Peninsula provides a clear example of how Christianity curtailed the practice of other faiths during the Middle Ages and Humanism. During the Reconquista, the Christian kingdoms imposed Christianity as the dominant religion, subordinating Muslims and Jews to conversion or expulsion. The establishment of the Spanish Inquisition at the end of the 15th century further strengthened religious control, monitoring orthodoxy and punishing deviations through trials, persecutions, and confiscation. Muslim and Jewish places of worship were destroyed or converted to churches, consolidating religious and social hierarchies based on confessional affiliation. Even while considering the mutual manifestations of intolerance between Christians and Muslims, in the legal sphere there were interesting episodes of cross-fertilization between the two cultures; studying the Reconquista and forced process of Christianization helps to understand how religious norms and power strategies contributed to the exclusion and control of minorities, offering a historical perspective on the dynamics of religious and social exclusion between the Middle Ages and Humanism.
MINORITIES WITHIN MINORITIES: CHRISTIAN ADIVASI COMMUNITIES AND BOUNDARIES OF BELONGING

Colagrossi E. (Speaker)

University of Genoa ~ Genoa ~ Italy
This paper explores the situation of Christian Adivasi communities in India as a case study for examining the intersections between religion, mobility, and inequality. Located at the margins of both dominant religious frameworks and state regimes of recognition, Christian Adivasi groups exemplify the condition of minorities within minorities, where religious affiliation reshapes access to forms of visibility, rights, and belonging. Conversion to Christianity does not simply add a new religious identity to an otherwise stable social position. Rather, it introduces a tension within existing frameworks of belonging, in which indigeneity is often implicitly defined through assumptions about cultural and religious continuity. Focusing on classifications of "authentic" indigeneity, the analysis shows how religious affiliation can become relevant in determining access to social visibility, institutional recognition, and rights, even where formal equality is maintained. In this context, religious pluralization does not necessarily lead to greater equality. Instead, it may contribute to the persistence of social and territorial inequalities by reconfiguring existing hierarchies through religious categories.
"THICKNESS OF THE TRAIT": RELIGIOUS MINORITIES AND THE MAKING OF PLACES

Casano G. (Speaker)

University of Genoa ~ Genoa ~ Italy
Abstract: Focusing primarily on the material dimension and practices related to religious cults, this contribution, through a geographical perspective, highlights some of the mutual relationships that are established between religion and territory. The reflection focuses primarily on Vallega's reflections on the geography of time and geo-semiotics, investigating how "time of existence" is "imprinted" on places and their representation. The aim of this contribution is to investigate to what extent and in what ways the signs in the space of minority religions connote the places where the respective communities live, and what elements help to identify forms of metissage, inclusion, marginalisation and exclusion. The theoretical discussion is accompanied by empirical considerations based on observations made in specific geographical contexts.
RULE OF LAW AND DEMOCRACY IN CHILE: SOCIAL TRANSFORMATIONS AND CONTEMPORARY CHALLENGES

Baghino A. (Speaker)

University of Chile Alberto Hurtado ~ Santiago de Chile ~ Chile
Chile is undergoing a period of profound social transformations that challenge the foundations of its democratic system and adherence to the rule of law. This paper examines how social movements have driven changes in the country's political and legal structure, revealing tensions between demands for social justice and institutional stability. Through an analysis of the constitutional reform process, the demands of Indigenous peoples, and the management of fundamental rights, this study reflects on the challenges Chile faces in building a democratic model that meets the demands of a society in constant flux.

Panel description: Religious traditions have long been engaged in the pursuit of justice and in political decision-making since antiquity. Such worldly engagement is not unusual in traditions that developed in what are conventionally coined as "West" and "East". From a non-Eurocentric perspective, since Śākyamuni, the historical Buddha, Buddhist traditions have articulated teachings and practices aimed at the reduction of suffering, interdependence, and the ethical transformation of individual and collective relations. Throughout their history, diverse Buddhist traditions have interpreted these principles across varying social contexts, offering conceptual and practical resources for reflecting on inequality, collective responsibility, and social justice. Similarly, traditions such as Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, African religions, and Indigenous cosmologies articulate normative visions of justice grounded in their ethical, ritual, and communal foundations. This panel proposes an interfaith and interdisciplinary dialogue on how religious and philosophical traditions respond, historically and in the present, to social, economic, and environmental injustices. In a global context marked by widening inequalities between the Global North and South, the rise of far-right ideologies, and new configurations of religious fundamentalism, the panel seeks to examine the contributions of various traditions towards lasting peace and conflict resolution. The panel intends to discuss the possibilities in which social injustice can be tackled through an inter-relational and interfaith dialogue by different traditions, including their oral transmissions, texts, and practices, that are crucial for a critical dialogue, mutual learning, and transformative action - and thus, engaging in the world.

Papers:

RECLAIMING DIGNITY IN A FRAGMENTED WORLD: UNIVERSAL RESPONSIBILITY AND AMOR MUNDI IN DIALOGUE

Palazzo Tsai P. (Speaker)

Instituto Pramana ~ Valinhos ~ Brazil
In a time of fragmentation of boundaries, principles, information, and the very sense of belonging to a collective, steered by the alignment of neoliberal, neocolonial, and neoconservative powers, the call to move beyond individualism, to love one's neighbour, and to engage in dialogue seems at odds with the present world. Human rights, particularly the notion of dignity, are now reminiscent of an ancient past, giving room to a variety of theologies/philosophies of exclusion and dominion that prioritise the wealthy and condemn the destitute. This unfolds in layers of systemic colonial, religious, and cultural violence, justified by the claims that non-white Global South lives are necessary sacrifices to appease the market-God. In this context, dialogue is barely possible between Christian traditions due to the cacophony of neoliberal mantras that have been internalised in people's hearts and minds; so, how can it be possible to dialogue with other traditions? This paper aims to present an alternative form of interfaith dialogue between Buddhist and Christian traditions, grounded on a decolonial perspective, that enables religious freedom, and also recovers the shared sense of belonging to the world and averting the structural erasure of dignity - not as an Eurocentric entitlement destined to a select few, but rather a shared experience of being together in the world - using as key-concepts the notion of universal responsibility (Tib. སྤྱི་སེམས་), by the 14th Dalai Lama and Hannah Arendt's amor mundi.
INTER-RELATIONAL DIALOGUES OF LIBERATION: BUDDHISM AND LATIN AMERICAN THEOLOGY IN RESPONSE TO THE CRISES OF LATE NEOLIBERALISM

Tsai P. (Speaker)

Universidade Metodista de Sao Paulo ~ São Bernardo do Campo ~ Brazil
In the current era of neoliberalism, referred to by some as late neoliberalism, compounded by the post-pandemic period and the global environmental crisis, we are not witnessing the emergence of a cultural network focused on collaborative efforts to protect human life beyond ethnic and cultural boundaries. On the contrary, we are faced with an escalation of warfare, territorial seizures, a constant intensification of aggressive policies for the conquest of natural resources and market dominance, and a development of technology as an alternative to human mortality in the face of increasing climate disasters and their ever more somber projections. And these are only some of the problems. Yet, in the face of these contemporary issues, the potential contribution of Buddhism to the search for solutions converges with the concerns of Latin American Liberation Theology. While Liberation Theology denounces the problem of idolatry through a precise definition of its sustaining interdependence, Buddhist thought—when applied to the object, the view that sustains idolatry—reveals itself as a potential immediate solution for ceasing reified individualism, the kind that emerged during the capitalist and political phase of Liberalism and Modernization. The analysis of the cause of this reified individualism—the superimposition (samāropa) provoked by distortive ignorance (avidyā viparyasta)—contributes to solving the problem of idolatry denounced by Liberation Theology. Through the Inter-relational Network Theory configured with Tsongkhapa's elements, it is possible to envision a flux leading to an identity network that overcomes the reification of individualism.
THE VIOLENCE OF NONVIOLENCE: ANTI-CAPITALIST BUDDHISM AND THE LIMITS OF LIBERAL INTERFAITH DISCOURSE

Shields J.M. (Speaker)

Bucknell University ~ Lewisburg, PA ~ United States of America
In contemporary interfaith dialogue, Buddhism is frequently positioned as offering resources for peace, compassion, and ethical transformation—a spiritual complement to social justice traditions like Christian Liberation Theology. Yet this framing risks domesticating Buddhism's more radical critiques of structural violence and capitalist modernity. This paper interrogates the tensions between anti-capitalist Buddhist social theory and the liberal frameworks that often shape both engaged Buddhism and interfaith solidarity work. Drawing on Buddhist analyses of structural ignorance (avidyā) and interdependence (pratītyasamutpāda), I argue that capitalism itself constitutes a form of systemic violence—what Rob Nixon terms "slow violence"—that permeates bodies, ecologies, and epistemic formations. However, mainstream engaged Buddhism, in its pursuit of dialogue and reform, frequently becomes complicit in what Slavoj Žižek identifies as "the violence of nonviolence": the ways pacifist discourse can sustain violent structures by delegitimizing revolutionary rupture and foreclosing possibilities for genuine transformation. This paper examines how anti-capitalist Buddhist thought diverges from both liberal engaged Buddhism and Christian Liberation Theology around questions of violence, praxis, and structural change. Rather than seeking convergence, I argue that these irreconcilable tensions—between reform and rupture, between universal compassion and partisan struggle, between nonviolence and necessary confrontation—may be more generative for genuine solidarity than premature reconciliation. In an era of escalating authoritarianism and climate catastrophe, interfaith dialogue must grapple with whether its own frameworks inadvertently reproduce the violence it seeks to address.
SEEKING HAPPINESS FOR OTHERS: THE PRINCIPLE OF FRIENDSHIP IN BUDDHISM AND CHRISTIANITY

Takahashi N. (Speaker)

Universidade Metodista de São Paulo ~ São Bernardo do Campo ~ Brazil
In the religious ethics of the Buddhist and Christian traditions, friendship appears as a principle of seeking happiness for others. In the Mahāyāna Buddhist tradition, friendship - a possible translation of the Sanskrit term maitrī - consists of the resolution to seek the happiness of all sentient beings, to generate states of meditative concentration capable of transforming the practitioner's mind. The practitioner, then, cultivates non-hatred, which is the nature of friendship, and thus directs their actions to lead sentient beings to happiness. In the Christian tradition of Thomas Aquinas, the love of friendship - from the Latin, amor amicitiae - expands on Aristotelian virtuous friendship and seeks delightful goods not only for virtuous friends, but for all human beings, since they share the same dignity as sons of God. In Aquinas's love of friendship, the person is the absolute good loved in themselves, not for any other purpose that seeks self-benefit. In both cases, in the form of maitrī or amor amicitiae, the cultivation of love-friendship transforms the practitioner's mind and habits, impacting their actions within society. Taking as main references the works 大智度論 (dàzhì dù lùn, Mahāprajñāpāramitāśāstra), attributed to Nāgārjuna, and the Summa Theologica of Thomas Aquinas, this communication will present approximations in the interreligious dialogue between maitrī and amor amicitiae, as principles that transform the actions of Buddhist and Christian practitioners in society.
DIÁLOGO INTER-RELIGIOSO: UM CAMINHO PARA PAZ.

Cerveira M.R.F. (Speaker)

Universidade Dom Bosco ~ San Salvador ~ El Salvador
INTERRELIGIOUS DIALOGUE: A PATH TO PEACE Mirian Rejane Flores Cerveira This article proposes a critical-systematic analysis of contemporary paradigms in the theology of religions, with special attention to the pluralist model, understood as a hermeneutical horizon capable of responding to the challenges posed by the religious configuration of modernity. It starts from the recognition that religious plurality is not a peripheral phenomenon, but a structural dimension of contemporary societies, particularly in the Brazilian context, where different faith traditions coexist, interact, and compete for legitimacy in the public sphere. Encountering the other does not imply a dilution of identity, but rather a critical deepening of one's own tradition through responsible dialogue and openness to mutual learning. Interreligious dialogue thus emerges as a privileged means of mediating intolerance and consolidating a culture of peace rooted in shared responsibility among different faith traditions. In this context, interreligious dialogue is understood as an ethical requirement intrinsic to traditions that affirm human dignity and the centrality of peace as a normative value. Interreligious dialogue is presented as an ethical requirement intrinsic to faith traditions that affirm human dignity and the vocation to peace. In this context, peacebuilding is conceived as a historical and relational process that involves overcoming prejudices, transforming imaginaries, and interreligious engagement in the promotion of justice and peace. Keywords: Interreligious Dialogue, Religious Pluralism, Justice and Peace.
"BEYOND CONFESSIONAL DIVIDES: ALFRED DELP AND INTERCONFESSIONAL COOPERATION IN NAZI GERMANY"

Evans E. (Speaker)

Oakland University ~ Rochester Hills ~ United States of America
In the aftermath of the Kulturkampf, a systematic attack against the Catholic Church during the 1870s led by Chancellor Otto von Bismarck, Germany remained deeply divided along confessional lines, particularly between Catholics and Protestants, who often regarded one another with suspicion or hostility. These divisions continued into the Nazi era and often hindered cooperation between the confessions. Jesuit priest Alfred Delp, however, brought a unique perspective to these tensions since he was born to a Catholic mother and Protestant father and was raised for a time as a Lutheran. As a social philosopher, Delp argued that despite theological differences, Catholics and Protestants share fundamental moral and ethical ideals rooted in natural law. In the face of the injustice and moral crisis posed by National Socialism, he believed that longstanding confessional disputes had become secondary to the shared responsibility of defending human dignity and Christian ethical principles. This led Delp to participate in 1942 in the Kreisau Circle, an interconfessional resistance group that sought to envision a social and political order based on Christianity after the fall of the Nazi regime. This paper argues that Delp's willingness to collaborate with Protestants and non-Christians fostered greater interconfessional cooperation within the Kreisau Circle and demonstrated how shared religious ethics could serve as a foundation for resisting injustice and imagining a more just society. In doing so, the paper contributes to this panel by suggesting that even amid one of the most destructive regimes in modern history, dialogue across confessional boundaries could enable transformative action in the pursuit of a humane and just social order.
REVERENTIAL CARE AND ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE IN HINDUISM AND JAINISM: A RITUALISTIC STUDY OF THE LIVING TRADITIONS

Dixit S. (Speaker)

University of St Andrews ~ St Andrews ~ United Kingdom
The question of environmental justice is pertinent now more than ever. With rising air quality index (AQI) levels, rapid urbanisation, and, in turn, mindless deforestation in India, there is an urgent need to revisit the ethical concepts of care towards the cosmos in Indian religious traditions. The recent unrest among environmentalists in India to protect the Aravalli hills from mining and construction not only arises from concern for the ecological damage it would cause, but also from a reverential care imbued in the culture and religion of the Indian landscape. This paper will revisit the Hindu mythological stories of the Purāṇas and the kathās, and the Jain cosmology and ecological philosophy as described in the Tattvārtha-sūtra, which form the basis for respect, worship, and care for the cosmos in these religious traditions. It will reflect on the continuance of these traditional practices in dialogue and also examine them in juxtaposition with environmental ethics in contemporary times. This analysis will contribute to the existing discourse on Hindu-Jain environmental ethics by responding to the complexity of dialogue among ritualistic, ethical, and scientific approaches to sustainable living.
UMBANDA - A RELIGION OF ENCOUNTERS AND INTERRELIGIOUS DIALOGUE

Carneiro M.D.S. (Speaker)

Universidade Metodista de São Paulo ~ São Bernardo do Campo ~ Brazil
Brazil is a country of enormous cultural and social diversity, and this also applies to its religious configuration. However, many religions and religious movements are grounded in closed and intolerant discourses. This is not the case with Umbanda. This paper aims to indicate how Umbanda is configured and carries out its religious activity through a dynamic that brings together interreligious dialogue, the welcoming of difference, and encounters among diverse spiritualities. A religion that emerged in Brazil from the spiritual traditions of people enslaved from Africa, Umbanda developed as a movement of resistance and survival in the face of the religion imposed by enslavers. Over time, it has proven capable of synthesizing different traditions: those of Europeans through Christianity; those of Africans through the worship of the Orixás; and those of Brazil's traditional peoples through Jurema and shamanic healing practices (pajelança). Nevertheless, Umbanda continues to be the target of persecution and intolerance, particularly from Christian fundamentalist groups. As a theoretical foundation, this study engages with Claude Lévi-Strauss's concept of the bricoleur, as well as Fernando Ferreira Rocha's proposal of a hermeneutical mediation, applied to the Umbanda in relation to the different references that shape it. These concepts demonstrate that, even if unintentionally, Umbanda carried out a process of hermeneutical bricolage, for instance, by associating Jesus with Oxalá, both understood as possessing creative and salvific power. At the same time, Umbanda becomes a space of reconciliation, social justice, and freedom for a people once exploited and enslaved, as well as a space for dialogue and the acceptance of difference.
ETHOS-ARCHÉ AND LIBERATION: TOWARD A THEOLOGICAL CRITIQUE OF SOCIAL INJUSTICE BETWEEN CHRISTIANITY AND BUDDHISM FROM AN INTERRELIGIOUS PERSPECTIVE

Brito M.A.D. (Speaker)

Universidade Metodista de São Paulo ~ São Bernardo do Campo, São Paulo ~ Brazil
This paper offers a socio-theological reflection on the relationship between ethos-arché and liberation as key categories for a critical understanding of social (in)justice from an interreligious perspective. It begins from the premise that social injustice cannot be understood solely in economic, political, or institutional terms, since it also reveals a deeper rupture in the ethical and spiritual dimensions of human existence. In this sense, ethos-arché is approached not simply as an ontological principle, but as a grounding principle for understanding human dignity, relationality, and ethical responsibility. The category of liberation helps clarify the tension between the original ethical impulses preserved within religious traditions and the historical processes through which these traditions may also become entangled in asymmetries of power, exclusion, and the legitimation of inequality. With primary reference to Christianity and Buddhism, especially to the ethical and humanizing significance of the praxis of Jesus and to Buddhist understandings of suffering, interdependence, and compassion, the paper also opens a broader interreligious horizon by arguing that different religious traditions preserve moral and spiritual resources for confronting suffering, dehumanization, and structural injustice. It argues, therefore, that a theological critique of social injustice requires both the recovery of the ethical core of religious traditions and interreligious dialogue that fosters mutual accountability, shared responsibility, and concrete engagement in the face of injustice. Keywords Ethos-Arché; Liberation; Christianity; Buddhism; Theological critique; Interreligious perspective.
THE SUPERIMPOSED ENEMY: A BUDDHIST HERMENEUTICS OF SOCIAL JUSTICE AS A THREAT TO INDIVIDUAL FREEDOM IN BOLSONARO'S NEOLIBERAL DISCOURSE

D'Ottaviano G. (Speaker)

Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo ~ São Paulo ~ Brazil
This article investigates elements of Jair Bolsonaro's political discourse in which Social Justice is presented as hostile to individual freedom, proposing a hermeneutical key drawn from the Indian Buddhist philosophy of the Abhidharmakośa, mediated by the Theory of Inter-Relational Network. The hypothesis is that such discourse is favored by a linguistic structure grounded in the projection (samāropa) of the ontologized identity of the individual, which assumes, in the specific context of Bolsonaro's political discourse, characteristics of the neoliberal conception of the free subject. The methodological path unfolds in three stages: (i) the exposition of the samāropa mechanism in the Abhidharmakośa, articulated through the Theory of Inter-Relational Network, as a basis for understanding hostility as a construct elaborated in the language manifested by the discourse; (ii) the application of these references to the interpretation of Bolsonaro's political discourse, in which the figure of the enemy ("communist," "socialist") functions as the articulator of hostility in language; (iii) the analysis of Hayek's critique of Social Justice, in order to assess the affinity between this philosophical concept and the superimposition of the enemy's identity elaborated in Bolsonaro's discourse. The conclusion is that political hostility in Bolsonaro's discourse projects the identity of the "communist" or "socialist" enemy as a rhetorical device whose function, in continuity with the neoliberal flow of thought, may be to remove the element of Social Justice from the network that constitutes the identity of the free individual in Brazilian culture. Thus, the elaboration of hostility in language may operate as a political propaganda strategy, strengthening neoliberal ideology in Brazil through the mobilization of public opinion that impacts political and legal spheres. Keywords: Buddhism; Individualism; Neoliberalism; hostility; Politics; Social justice; Hermeneutics; Vasubandhu.
CORANICA

Locorotondo L. (Speaker)

PUL ~ IITALY ~ Italy
The text presents "Coranica" as an introductory path to Islam, which goes beyond simply explaining its religious content and aims above all to shed light on the historical relationships between the Christian and Muslim worlds. This approach is significant because it shifts the focus from mere theological comparison to a broader cultural and historical understanding. The central reference is to Ludovico Marracci, a key figure in Western studies of the Qur'an. His work represented a turning point: for the first time, Islam was analyzed with more systematic and philological tools. However, his work still reflects the climate of his time, marked by strong religious opposition and polemical intent. Despite these limitations, Marracci played a fundamental role because he opened the way to a method of study based on direct engagement with texts and more rigorous comparison. It is precisely from this legacy that the "Coranica" project takes shape: promoting dialogue based not on conflict, but on mutual understanding. Finally, the text highlights an important aspect: Christianity and Islam, despite their differences, share common elements and together represent a significant portion of humanity. Recognizing these affinities thus becomes an essential step in building more aware and less conflictual relationships between the two traditions.
BETWEEN PROMISE AND POWER: A LAW & ECONOMICS ANALYSIS OF ENGAGEMENT UNDER MOSAIC LAW

Wu N. (Speaker)

EDLE (University of Hamburg) ~ Hamburg ~ Germany
This paper examines Mosaic betrothal as an institutional mechanism that structured social hierarchies and inequalities. While previous studies have treated betrothal merely as a precursor to marriage, this study uses a Law and Economics framework to analyze betrothal as an independent institution that governs incentives, transaction costs, and the allocation of economic and social risks. Drawing on biblical legal texts and rabbinic interpretations, this paper demonstrates that Mosaic betrothal functioned as a staged commitment device. Its structure increased exit costs over time and, under certain conditions, redistributed risk toward protecting the more vulnerable party. A formal microeconomic and game-theoretic model further indicates that requiring a formal writ for dissolution ostensibly yields a higher social surplus than regimes permitting low-cost exit, despite some sensitivity to external factors. These findings complicate conventional interpretations of Mosaic law as either purely oppressive or purely protective. Instead, Mosaic betrothal emerges as a dual institution. It materially reproduces gendered inequality through asymmetric obligations, yet simultaneously mitigates its most destabilizing effects through legal safeguards, reputational constraints, and enforced commitment. In this framework, religion operates not only as a cultural superstructure but also as a mechanism for embedding and stabilizing economically efficient yet normatively ambivalent arrangements of inequality. By bringing the incentive-based logic of betrothal to the foreground, this research contributes to broader debates on how religious legal systems produce, naturalize, and occasionally restrict inequality. It also introduces Law and Economics as a complementary analytical lens for theological and socioreligious inquiry. The research provides a structured explanation of how legal forms, economic rationality, and moral norms evolve together in the governance of intimate life.
GESTURAL SIGNS IN MAHĀYĀNA AND CATHOLIC ART: ETHICAL AND AESTHETIC CONSIDERATIONS

Leão K. (Speaker)

Universidade Metodista de São Paulo ~ Valinhos ~ Brazil
This communication explores the symbolism of hand gestures in Buddhist and Christian iconography, using some of Peirce's semiotic categories to discuss the possible meanings of these signs and the relationships of meaning, from an ethical perspective, that these signs establish with their interpreters; in other words, what could these signs inform us about the ethical attitudes proposed by their respective religions. To carry out this investigation, we present a brief overview of the role of hand gestures in the contexts of Mahāyāna Buddhism and Roman Catholic and Orthodox Christianity, and analyze in more detail the gesture of fearlessness in Buddhism and the gesture of prayer in Christianity, understanding that the former points to an approach to ethics as a path that leads to overcoming fear for the benefit of all beings, while the latter points to a relationship of supplication, praise, and obedience to a superior being and Creator, God.

Panel description: This panel examines the impact of the Reformations (Protestant and Catholic) on women's religious lives and equality in the early modern Europe. The multiauthored volume "Women Reformers in the Early Modern Europe: Profiles, Contexts, and Texts" (2022) serves as the foundation for interdisciplinary critical discourse on theological grounds - and obstacles - for gender equality and the historical evidence vis-a-vis women's agency in the religious scene of the 16th century.

Papers:

"WOMEN AT THE CENTER, AND NOT IN THE MARGINS: TRAJECTORIES IN SCHOLARSHIP"

Stjerna K. (Speaker)

Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary of California Lutheran University ~ Berkeley ~ United States of America
WOMEN AT THE CENTER, AND NOT IN THE MARGINS: TRAJECTORIES IN SCHOLARSHIP"
"SIXTEENTH-CENTURY WOMEN DOING ANABAPTISM: MANAGING FAITH, FAMILY AND FORTUNE"

Räisänen-Schröder P. (Speaker) , Räisänen-Schröder P. (Speaker)

University of Helsinki ~ Helsinki ~ Finland
"SIXTEENTH-CENTURY WOMEN DOING ANABAPTISM: MANAGING FAITH, FAMILY AND FORTUNE"
"MEN AND MASCULINITIES IN 16TH CENTURY GERMAN WOMEN'S CONFESSIONAL WRITINGS: NEW PERSPECTIVES ON (IN)EQUALITY?"

Mikkola S. (Speaker) , Mikkola S. (Speaker)

University of Eastern Finland ~ Joensuu ~ Finland
"Men and masculinities in 16th century German women's confessional writings: new perspectives on (in)equality?"
"BLAMED AND SHAMED: UNMARRIED SINGLE MOTHERS IN 16TH-CENTURY LEGAL TEXTS AND SOCIAL REFORMS."

Mäkinen V. (Speaker)

University of Finland ~ Helsinki ~ Finland
"BLAMED AND SHAMED: UNMARRIED SINGLE MOTHERS IN 16TH-CENTURY LEGAL TEXTS AND SOCIAL REFORMS."

Panel description: This panel revisits the place of Enlightenment in the intellectual history of the Middle East from the late nineteenth to the early twentieth century. Rather than treating Enlightenment as a singular, secular, and exclusively European phenomenon, the four papers collectively argue for a plural, dialogical, and multi-religious understanding of Enlightenment. By bringing together Jewish, Muslim, and Christian intellectual engagements with Enlightenment under Ottoman and post-Ottoman rule, the panel highlights the Middle East as an active site of knowledge production, critique, and epistemic negotiation. At the core of the panel lies a shared concern with how intellectuals working within religious frameworks engaged with Enlightenment ideas. Across confessional boundaries, these figures confronted similar dilemmas: how to reconcile inherited forms of religious authority with emerging regimes of reason, science, and history; how to reform communal life without epistemic subordination; and how to articulate notions of progress that could preserve moral authority and social cohesion in a rapidly changing imperial and global order.

Papers:

TOWARDS AN OTTOMAN ENLIGHTENMENT ISLAM? ŞEMSEDDIN SAMI'S VISION OF A RATIONALIST ISLAM (1850--1905)

Kolland D. (Speaker)

Freie Universität Berlin ~ Berlin ~ Germany
Few figures were as qualified to mediate between European "Enlightenment" thought and a Muslim readership as Şemseddin Sami (Frashëri, 1850-1904)—a devout Muslim, Ottoman patriot, and prolific translator, novelist, and lexicographer. Trained in multiple intellectual traditions and fluent in more than half a dozen languages, Sami embodied the cosmopolitan intellectual currents of the late Ottoman Empire. Sami sought to bring Islam into dialogue with the rationalist and positivist philosophies he encountered in French thought, particularly among the Encyclopaedists. In his newspaper essays, pocketbooks, and his treatise Islamic Civilization, he praised Europe's "positive philosophy" (felsefe-i müsbete) as the triumph of reason over fanaticism, yet insisted that Islam was fully compatible with scientific inquiry and rational progress. His writings on medeniyet-i islâmîye ("Islamic civilization") expressed a historicizing vision that placed Islam within humanity's broader story of progress, while recognizing Western Europe as its contemporary center. For Sami, this compatibility implied that Islam was capable of renewal through reason. Sami's attempt to articulate a "rationalist Islam" was part of a broader late Ottoman effort to reconcile faith with reason, illuminating how intellectuals of his generation negotiated the shifting epistemic boundaries between religion and science in an age of global asymmetries. In this project, I examine his lexicon, monographs, and newspaper writings through the lens of conceptual history, focusing on how notions of "reason," "religion," and "spirituality" were redefined within his work. By tracing these shifts, I explore how, under emerging conditions of secularity, "Islam" itself became an object of rational inquiry and historical reconstruction.
DEBATING ISLAMIC ENLIGHTENMENT

Hatina M. (Speaker)

The Hebrew University of Jerusalem ~ Jerusalem ~ Israel
Scholarship has frequently overlooked the existence of Islamic Enlightenment in modern times — one that upholds the values of progress, individual freedoms, and tolerance. Scholars who did use the term generally did so cautiously and in a limited way, referring primarily to modernist voices in Turkey or in the Indian subcontinent. The Arab Middle East — the beating heart of Islamic civilization — has largely remained outside this discussion, partly due to the ideological radicalization within modern Islam, embodied in protest movements that were often perceived as adverse to modernity. The lecture reconsiders the existence of Islamic Enlightenment, mainly between the late nineteenth and mid-twentieth centuries, exploring its features and withing historical and comparative contexts. Its findings reveal a complex and rich picture of a progressive discourse that drew inspiration from European Enlightenment philosophy, while advocating a more restrained version in the name of cultural authenticity and preservation of indigenous identities.
THE "GOLDEN MEAN" RECONSIDERED: JEWISH EPISTEMOLOGIES OF REFORM UNDER MUSLIM RULE

Karkason T. (Speaker)

Martin Luther University of Halle-Wittenberg ~ Halle-Wittenberg ~ Germany
This paper reconsiders the concept of the "golden mean" (derekh ha-'emtsa'i) as an epistemic core of Jewish Enlightenment thought in Muslim lands during the late nineteenth century. It focuses on three Jewish intellectuals (maskilim) from distinct Ottoman contexts: Barukh Mitrani (1847-1919) of Ottoman Turkey, Shelomo Bekhor Ḥutsin (1843-1892) of Baghdad, and Shalom Flaḥ (1853-1936) of Tunis. These maskilim wrote in Hebrew and in their vernaculars, Ladino and Judeo-Arabic, to reach diverse audiences and promote internal reform. Though based in different regions, they published in overlapping Hebrew-language forums and addressed similar tensions, revealing a shared epistemic orientation. At the center of their thought stood a Maimonidean ideal, rooted in Aristotelian ethics, of "moderation." This concept circulated in Islamic traditions and in Jewish and Christian thought under Muslim rule and was reintroduced under the conditions of Ottoman reform. The "golden mean" was not a "moderate" or "Sephardi" stance, as often portrayed in scholarship. Rather, it was a distinct mode of Jewish knowledge production, shaped between rabbinic rejection of reform and radical "Westernization" that privileged French culture over Hebrew learning and communal cohesion. This was not merely a theoretical posture. It was grounded in the lived experience of the maskilim, who faced attacks from conservative circles yet resisted assimilation, whether to Western norms or to the ideological demands of the Ottoman state. Their writings resonate with Muslim and Christian reformers across the region, including the Arab Nahda. Through close readings of essays and sermons, this paper challenges Eurocentric narratives and reframes the "golden mean" as a regional and transnational response to internal division and external epistemic hierarchies.
CHRISTIAN AND ISLAMIC CRITIQUES OF THE ENLIGHTENMENT IN NINETEENTH-CENTURY ARABIC THOUGHT

Abu-Uksa W. (Speaker)

The Hebrew University of Jerusalem ~ Jerusalem ~ Israel
This presentation examines the emergence of Enlightenment critique in the writings of Christian and Muslim intellectuals in the modern Middle East. Framed within the broader context of the nineteenth-century religious revival—both Catholic and Islamic—that accompanied the transformation from imperial to national orders, it focuses on two groups of scholars: the Catholic Jesuits and the Muslim reformers, each active in the intellectual and cultural spheres of the Levant and Egypt. Adopting a trans-religious perspective, the lecture seeks to uncover the shared guiding principles that shaped a cross-confessional intellectual tradition critical of Enlightenment thought in its political and social dimensions. The analysis highlights the deep conceptual affinities between the Catholic revival in the East and Islamic reformism as they developed toward the end of the nineteenth century.

Panel description: Contemporary approaches and contributions to the field of philosophy of religion can be presented. The issue of the overall EuARe conference "(In)equalities" can be addressed regarding its relevance in and for philosophical study of religion. Of particular interest are contributions which attempt to reconstruct and reorient philosophy of religion considering contemporarily relevant philosophical challenges. The panel also welcomes papers that propose new methodological approaches and studies in the field of philosophy of religion broadly construed. This panel is organized in cooperation with the European Society for Philosophy of Religion (ESPR).

Papers:

PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION FROM INDIGENOUS PERSPECTIVES: PRELIMINARY HYPOTHESES

De Caprio D. (Speaker)

University of Strasbourg ~ Strasbourg ~ France
Recent debates in global and reflexive philosophy of religion highlight the need to rethink the discipline beyond its Western-Christian foundations. Indigenous religions have often been presented as promising resources for this transformation, yet their philosophical relevance is usually approached either through descriptive, ethnographic accounts or through idealized notions of indigeneity. This paper proposes that indigenous Christianities offer a paradigmatic vantage point from which to approach this question. Positioned at the intersection of indigenous ontologies and Christian normative frameworks, these traditions reveal how epistemic, ritual, and political inequalities are negotiated, resisted, and creatively reshaped in colonial and postcolonial contexts. To illustrate these dynamics, the paper presents selected examples from Inuit, Warlpiri, and Khasi contexts.
DIVERSIFYING PERSPECTIVES: THE RELIGIOUS-PHILOSOPHICAL DEPTHS OF MEANING

Watson B. (Speaker)

University of Münster ~ Münster ~ Germany
What does it mean for something to mean something? Or what does meaning mean? How does meaning arise? Is meaning something individually created or are there several factors contributing to different layers of meaning? For some, like Harry Frankfurt, meaning is directly correlated with concern. For others, like Hilary Putnam, "meaning just ain't in the head" and depends on causal networks between extension and intension. This type of concern and the relationship between words, externality, and extensions are certainly relevant when thinking of any form of religious or philosophical understanding of meaning and meaning-making. For a contemporary approach like Karen Barad's agential realism understood as an ethico-onto-epistomology, the entanglement of meaning and matter complicates how one might conceive of religious meaning especially. The paper will first outline various philosophical approaches on the topic of meaning and the complicated networks arising from entanglement theory. The paper then uncovers a universal conception of religious meaning, one made popular by the twentieth century philosopher of religion, Paul Tillich. For Tillich, meaning is derived from an "ultimate" concern. However, religion provides all human activity with depth. One might say then, that for Tillich religion is the adverbial qualification (or modality, à la von Sass) of all human activity. For Tillich then, religion is not a particular aspect of one's individual life but a universally real area of human existence that arises from the interactions of other persons, matter, and psychological development. The paper considers Tillich's approach in detail before deriving a way of conceiving of philosophical approaches to religion that are not self-imposing or self-limiting but create a form of diversifying perspectivism whereby religion thrives as an essential dimension of human existence.
RELIGION AS ANDENKEN. VATTIMO, HÖLDERLIN, AND NIETZSCHE ON RELIGION

Stagi P. (Speaker)

NGFR-University of Urbino ~ Urbino ~ Italy
The paper explores the philosophical and theological convergence between Hölderlin and Nietzsche, emphasizing their shared awareness that the traditional world founded on the Judeo-Christian God has collapsed. For both thinkers, the "flight of the gods" signals not a matter of individual belief or disbelief, but the end of an entire historical and cultural horizon. Drawing on Heidegger and Vattimo, this condition is interpreted as a completed "destining of Being," for which no new foundation has yet emerged. Attempts to revive God through rational theodicy or analytical philosophy of religion are therefore depicted as anachronistic and idolatrous, reducing God to a quasi-natural object or a mystical abstraction equally detached from human experience. Rather than endorsing a nihilistic philosophy of the death of God, the text argues for a transformation in how God is accessed today. God should be understood as a "God of paper," encountered not directly but through texts, interpretation, and tradition. This mediated access does not diminish God's reality; instead, it preserves the divine from oppressive metaphysical presence or empty mystical absence. Direct access to God, whether rational or mystical, is portrayed as a misunderstanding of divinity itself. Hölderlin's concept of Andenken (remembrance), particularly as interpreted by Heidegger and Vattimo, provides the key model. In memory, what is irretrievably lost is nonetheless made present again, not as an object, but as a lived and meaningful experience. Similarly, God can today be accessed only through the memory of religious traditions. This does not weaken God's truth; rather, it reveals a less imposing, more open and non-violent form of the divine. The text concludes that poets—and, more broadly, creators of new worlds—are those who sustain what remains, making memory the authentic space of contemporary religious meaning.
FROM COHERENCE TO CONSEQUENT NATURE: A FORMAL APPROACH TO PROCESS-RELATIONAL THEOLOGY

Leonhardt M. (Speaker)

Independent Researcher, Germany ~ Hamburg ~ Germany
How do individual value orientations give rise to collective evaluative structures, and can such emergence illuminate concepts from process theology? This paper addresses both questions through a formal axiom system and its application to non-personal conceptions of the divine. We introduce C5, an axiom system for "coherence-capable agents"—entities that orient toward structural consistency in their evaluations. Drawing on Thagard's (1989) constraint-satisfaction model, we formalize coherence as a bilinear functional over relational structures. The framework includes a distortion operator modeling how agents can act contrary to their coherence-seeking orientation, and an aggregation mechanism that sidesteps Arrow's impossibility theorem by stipulating weights rather than deriving them from ordinal preferences. Our central result characterizes when aggregated value structures are weakly emergent in Bedau's (1997) sense: ontologically reducible but epistemically non-trivial, resisting decomposition into sums of individual contributions. The global positive attractor exhibits precisely this non-additive character. As application, we develop a structural mapping between this framework and process philosophy. Whitehead's "consequent nature" and Spinoza's Deus sive Natura admit reconstruction as emergent coherence attractors. We analyze which theological traditions align: process theology and Spinozism fit naturally; classical theism does not. This proposal offers conceptual clarification, not metaphysical proof. The framework provides precise vocabulary for articulating what process theologians mean by "emergent" God-concepts, enabling rigorous interdisciplinary dialogue.
RELIGION AND THE CHALLENGE OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE: PHILOSOPHICAL REFLECTIONS

Ozioko J.U. (Speaker)

Pontifical Urbaniana University ~ Vatican City ~ Vatican City State (Holy See)
This paper explores how artificial intelligence reshapes foundational questions in the philosophy of religion. Rather than asking whether AI can "become" a religious subject, the paper examines how AI challenges and clarifies classical accounts of human rationality, personhood, and transcendence. Drawing on Augustine, Aquinas, phenomenology, and contemporary philosophy of mind, it argues that AI functions as a hermeneutical catalyst: it exposes the limits of reductive models of intelligence and invites a renewed articulation of what is uniquely human. The paper analyses whether AI can meaningfully simulate agency, moral responsibility, or religious experience, and considers how technological aspirations toward artificial persons reflect deeper theological desires for mastery, creation, and transcendence. By integrating metaphysical, phenomenological, and anthropological perspectives, the paper offers a constructive framework for understanding how religious thought can engage AI critically and creatively in an age of accelerating technological transformation.
THE REALITY OF PRESENCE: INGOLF DALFERTH'S THEOLOGICAL REALISM

Myers B. (Speaker)

Alphacrucis University College ~ Sydney ~ Australia
Recent debates about theological realism continue to struggle with how divine reality may be affirmed without reducing divine reality to object-like availability or dissolving theological claims into accounts of religious meaning alone. This paper argues that the work of Ingolf Dalferth offers a distinctive way of reframing this problem. In his early account of Karl Barth's theological realism, Dalferth argued that theological knowledge is determined not by the epistemic availability of its object but by the reality of the living and present Christ. His later work has developed this into a broader theological and philosophical account of presence in which creaturely orientation to reality is always already mediated rather than immediate, so that realism is not tied to the unmediated availability of its object. This paper investigates Dalferth's ambitious attempt to rethink theological realism through the category of presence. At the same time, it asks whether Dalferth fully secures what realism is ordinarily supposed to secure. How is a realism of mediated presence to be understood as disclosing a reality independent of theological interpretation, rather than simply organising religious meaning?
ON INJUSTICE AND INEQUALITY IN THE STUDY OF BUDDHISM

Stepien R. (Speaker)

Austrian Academy of Sciences ~ Vienna ~ Austria
'Religious Studies' and 'Philosophy' remain unequal fields of study. Both arose and remain practiced within Western Christianate cultures and cultures of knowledge, from whence they have spread to attain normative status around the globe. Both not only remain saturated with Western Christianate paradigms and presuppositions, but continue to focus overwhelmingly on religious and philosophical materials stemming from Western Christianate cultures. In this paper, I propose distinctions between 'Christian' and 'Christianate', 'Buddhist' and 'Buddhate', 'religious' and 'religionate' analogous to that first applied by Marshall Hodgson between 'Islamic' and 'Islamicate' and standing respectively "for what we may call religion and for the overall society and culture associated historically with the religion" (Hodgson 1974: 57). Given the placement of this paper within the Annual Conference of the European Academy of Religion, I then focus on the study of religion, detailing the ways in which the field betrays, still, a preponderant privileging of its Christian heritage in myriad ways, be they structural-institutional or conceptual-hermeneutic. In line with the conference theme of 'Religion and (In)equalities', I draw explicitly on notions of 'epistemic injustice' and 'hermeneutical injustice' derived from Miranda Fricker, 'epistemic disobedience' from Walter Mignolo, and 'epistemological decolonization' from Aníbal Quijano, to argue that the persistent peripheralization of Buddhism within the professions of Religious Studies and Philosophy betokens an institutional and conceptual inequality according to which, in the words of Pejman Habibie, "epistemic deviations and innovations are derecognized and academically punished and a sort of insiderism and epistemic conformation is promoted, recognized, and rewarded."
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE AND ARABIC METAPHYSICS: FORMALIZING AVICENNA'S PROOF OF GOD'S EXISTENCE FOR INTERRELIGIOUS INQUIRY

Bertolacci A. (Speaker) [1] , Vestrucci A. (Speaker) [2]

IMT School for Advanced Studies ~ Lucca ~ Italy [1] , University of Bamberg ~ Bamberg ~ Germany [2]
This paper explores how AI-based reasoning systems can contribute to the study of religion by offering a new way to analyze, compare, and communicate classical theological and metaphysical arguments across traditions. As a case study, it presents the first mechanization of Avicenna's (d. 1037 CE) proof of the Necessary Existent in Isabelle/HOL, with attention to its potential as a shared object of inquiry for interreligious and secular philosophical audiences. The broader claim is that symbolic AI, unlike generative or statistical systems, can function as a transparent interpretive tool for religious thought: not by replacing human judgment, but by making assumptions, inferential steps, and ambiguities explicit. Avicenna's metaphysics is especially suitable for this purpose. His distinction between necessity, possibility, and impossibility shaped later debates across the Islamicate and Latin worlds and remains central to contemporary philosophy of religion. By translating and testing key steps of his proof into a hybrid framework combining modal and free logic, the project shows how AI can clarify when a proof succeeds, when it depends on hidden assumptions, and when alternative frameworks yield different theological outcomes. The paper also reflects on the role of AI in interreligious research. Formal languages cannot capture the whole of religious life, e.g. its ritual, affective, and embodied dimensions. Yet they can provide a common space in which traditions with different vocabularies may compare arguments about God, necessity, causality, and existence without immediately collapsing their differences. In this sense, AI-assisted formalization can support interreligious dialogue not by enforcing uniformity, but by making conceptual structures more visible and discussable. The paper thus proposes symbolic AI as a promising instrument for the study of religion: one that combines logical rigor, interpretive transparency, and cross-cultural applicability.
DIVINE HIDDENNESS AND THE UNEVEN DISTRIBUTION OF THEISTIC BELIEF

Morales D.J. (Speaker)

LCC International University ~ Klaipeda ~ Lithuania
On the demographic problem of divine hiddenness, the uneven distribution of theistic belief disconfirms the existence of an all-loving God (Stephen Maitzen 2006). If God is all-loving and wants a loving relationship with every human individual, then one should not expect theistic belief to be concentrated in some geographical regions and not others—yet such is the world. Naturalistic explanations, the problem goes, are more suited for explaining this uneven distribution. To meet this problem, Max Baker-Hytch (2016) has argued that in order to bring about certain goods (e.g., moral and intellectual virtues) God has created humans such that they mutually depend on one another for knowledge and beliefs, including belief in God, and the uneven distribution of theistic belief is a byproduct of this. Andrew Blanton (2025) in reply has argued that there are possible worlds in which humans are not significantly dependent on one another for theistic belief but are nonetheless dependent on one another for other kinds of knowledge in a way that preserves the aforementioned goods and others (e.g., free will). This paper will examine the possible implications if theistic belief were evenly distributed demographically. It will argue that if theistic belief were more evenly distributed but infrequent, then there might be fewer people with theistic belief overall than there would be if theistic belief were unevenly distributed but concentrated in certain regions. On the other hand, if theistic belief were more evenly distributed and frequent, it would prevent the obtaining of the goods mentioned above. And so to prevent such undesirable consequences, God might prefer to create a world where theistic belief is unevenly distributed. The resulting position provides an important challenge to Blanton, and while it is consistent and complementary to Baker-Hytch's position, it need not rely on it.
QUANTUM REALITY AS LIFE-GUIDING: A CRITIQUE OF THE EXISTENTIAL REALIST INTERPRETATIONS OF QUANTUM MECHANICS

Andrejc G. (Speaker)

University of Groningen ~ Groningen ~ Netherlands
The essay offers a critical reading of Karen Barad's and Heinrich Päs' philosophical interpretations of quantum mechanics, using a perspective on science and religion called Categorial Differentiation approach which is largely inspired by Wittgenstein and van Fraassen. Barad and Päs are ontological realists, but their philosophies of quantum mechanics depart, in different ways, from what I call scientistic realist interpretations of quantum mechanics, which are typical for the analytic philosophy of physics. After an overview of the ontological turn in the philosophy of quantum mechanics and explaining the basic difference between scientistic and existential kinds of realism, I examine central features of Barad's agential realism and Päs' quantum monism. The Categorial Differentiation approach, which is a normative perspective on the relationship between science and religion is introduced, and its relevance for the philosophy (and theology) of quantum mechanics explained. I conclude the essay with a critical but appreciative analysis of Barad's and Päs' interpretations, including their ambitious existential and moral visions, focusing on the ways in which they relate the science of quantum physics with what I call 'religion' in this essay.

Panel description: This Author Meets Critique panel engages with Paolo Santangelo's Facets of the Self in Early Modern China: Escape from Authoritarian and Moralistic Predicaments (Cambria Press, Amherst-New York, 2025). The book examines how Confucian moral discourse, religious thought, and political authority interacted in shaping — and contesting — moral hierarchies, social inequalities, and individual subordination from the late Ming to the early Qing. Challenging the view of Confucianism as an exclusively communitarian and hierarchical tradition, Santangelo reconstructs a vibrant intellectual landscape in which thinkers reassessed key oppositions such as collective interest (gong 公) and private interest (si 私), governance by virtue (dezhi 德治) and governance by law (fazhi 法治), ritual conformity and moral conscience. Central to this reconfiguration is the rehabilitation of emotions (qing 情) and desires (yu 欲), traditionally distrusted, as morally meaningful forces capable of grounding a more autonomous yet socially embedded self.By foregrounding figures such as Li Zhi, Wang Yangming, Dai Zhen, Yuan Mei, and Huang Zongxi, the book shows how critiques of Confucian orthodoxy and moralistic paternalism exposed the use of religious-ethical norms to legitimize inequality and authoritarian control, while also providing resources for dignity, moral equality, and resistance. Religion thus emerges as an ambivalent force, simultaneously reinforcing and challenging unequal moral and political orders. The panel aims to explores how Confucian ethical frameworks contributed to debates on (in)equality, authority, and moral governance, and how these debates resonate with contemporary discussions on religion's role in sustaining or contesting social and political inequalities. With Paolo Santangelo present as author, the discussion will be led by Riccardo Pozzo (Università di Roma 2, Tor Vergata) and Maurizio Paolillo (Università di Napoli, L'Orientale).

Papers:

Panel description: Across religious traditions, gender has functioned as a central axis through which systems of authority, normativity, and social hierarchy have been articulated, contested, and transformed. Theologies, legal frameworks, ritual practices, and symbolic imaginaries have historically both legitimized gendered inequalities and, in certain contexts, provided resources for their critique and reconfiguration. This panel aims to explore how gender (in)equalities are constructed, maintained, and negotiated within diverse religious systems, examining both classical formulations and contemporary reinterpretations. Bringing together comparative, historical, theological, and anthropological perspectives, the panel invites contributions that analyse gender as a site of tension between tradition and change. Attention will be given to how sacred texts, doctrinal discourses, jurisprudential traditions, and ritual practices shape gender roles, access to religious authority, and embodied religious experience. At the same time, the panel seeks to highlight internal debates, reformist movements, and feminist, womanist, and queer theologies that challenge inherited hierarchies and propose alternative hermeneutical and ethical frameworks. By situating gender within broader discussions of power, embodiment, and social inequality, this panel aims to foster critical dialogue on the ways religions both reflect and actively participate in the production of gendered (in)equalities. Contributions may address one or more religious traditions or adopt a comparative or transdisciplinary approach, offering insights into how religious thought and practice continue to shape—and be reshaped by—contemporary struggles for gender justice.

Papers:

GENDER DYNAMICS IN ISLAM: TEXT, TRADITION, AND CONTEMPORARY RECONFIGURATIONS

Amore D.S. (Speaker)

I.C. "G. D'Annunzio"/SISR ~ Motta Sant'Anastasia, CT ~ Italy
Gender dynamics in Islam emerge from the ongoing interaction between revelatory texts, interpretive traditions, socio-historical contexts, and lived religious practices. Rather than constituting a fixed or monolithic system, Islamic approaches to gender reflect a plurality of theological, legal, and ethical positions that have evolved across time and space. Qurʾānic discourse affirms the shared moral responsibility and spiritual dignity of men and women, while also articulating differentiated social roles that have been subject to extensive exegetical and juridical interpretation. Classical fiqh institutionalized gender distinctions in areas such as family law, authority, and ritual participation, often reflecting the patriarchal norms of the societies in which these frameworks developed. Contemporary scholarship increasingly emphasizes the historical and interpretive contingency of these legal and theological constructions. Muslim feminist and gender-critical approaches have challenged androcentric exegetical traditions, proposing rereadings grounded in linguistic analysis, ethical universals such as justice (ʿadl) and human dignity (karāma), and the higher objectives of Islamic law (maqāṣid al-sharīʿa). These perspectives argue that gender inequality is not intrinsic to Islam but arises from historically situated interpretations. At the level of lived religion, Muslim women actively negotiate religious norms through education, activism, ritual practice, and reinterpretations of authority and modesty. Such practices reveal forms of agency that complicate binary narratives of oppression and emancipation. This abstract argues that gender dynamics in Islam are best understood as a field of ongoing negotiation between text, tradition, and contemporary hermeneutics, highlighting Islam's internal diversity and its capacity both to reproduce and to challenge gendered (in)equalities.
GENDERED COSMOLOGIES AND SACRED AUTHORITY IN NIGERIAN INDIGENOUS SPIRITUALITIES: (IN)EQUALITY AMONG THE IGBOS AND YORUBAS

Casagrande L. (Speaker)

Independent ~ Vittorio Veneto, TV ~ Italy
This paper examines gender (in)equalities within Nigerian Indigenous spiritualities, focusing on Igbo and Yoruba religious traditions as complex systems of cosmology, ritual practice, and moral authority. Rather than framing these traditions as either inherently egalitarian or patriarchal, the study approaches gender as a relational, symbolic, and negotiated category embedded in sacred narratives, ritual economies, and institutional arrangements. Drawing on anthropological, historical, and theological scholarship, the paper analyzes dual-sex systems and women's ritual authority in Igbo spirituality, alongside Yoruba configurations of sacred power embodied in male and female oriṣa, priesthood structures, and the ambivalent figure of àjẹ́. These frameworks reveal how spiritual potency is both gendered and destabilizing of rigid binaries, enabling women's authority while simultaneously regulating it through moral discourse and ritual control. The paper further considers how colonial intervention, Christian and Islamic encounters, and contemporary reinterpretations have reshaped indigenous gender logics, often narrowing previously flexible spiritual spaces. By situating Igbo and Yoruba traditions within broader debates on normativity, embodiment, and power, this contribution highlights Nigerian Indigenous spiritualities as dynamic sites where gendered hierarchies are produced, contested, and reconfigured in ongoing struggles for religious and social legitimacy.
GENDER, POWER, AND INTERPRETATION: FEMALE FIGURES IN QURˈANIC NARRATIVE AND PREMODERN QURˈANIC EXEGESIS (9TH -13TH C.) AND CONTEMPORARY RE-CONFIGURATIONS

Azouaghe B. (Speaker)

Center for Islamic Theology (Zentrum für Islamische Theologie), University of Muenster ~ Muenster ~ Germany
While Qur'anic narratives present complex female figures, their premodern exegetical reception has often framed them within rigid gender hierarchies. This paper examines gender (in)equalities in Islamic thought and their relevance for contemporary debates on gender justice through a close analysis of female figures in the Qurˈanic narrative and their interpretation in premodern Qurˈanic exegesis. Focusing on Imra'at al-ʿAzīz (Zulayḫā) in the Joseph narrative (Sūrat Yūsuf, Q 12) and the Queen of Sheba (Bilqīs) in the Solomon narrative (Sūrat an-Naml, Q 27), it investigates how the Qurˈān constructs gendered identities and how these portrayals were negotiated, moralized, or constrained in later interpretive traditions. Against the backdrop of late antique and interreligious textual traditions, the study asks how the Qurˈān reconfigures inherited narrative motifs and explores the emancipatory potentials that emerge from these re-accentuations. Methodologically, it combines historical-literary and gender-sensitive readings of the Qurˈanic text with an analysis of selected premodern tafsīr works, including aṭ-Ṭabarī, az-Zamaḫšarī, ar-Rāzī, al-Qurṭubī, and Ibn Kaṯīr. Particular attention is paid to exegetical strategies - such as moralization, sexualization, discourses of rationality, and the notion of kayd - through which female figures are integrated into broader systems of theological normativity and social hierarchy. Drawing on feminist Qurˈanic hermeneutics, the paper critically examines how patriarchal frameworks emerged in premodern exegesis, while also identifying interpretive openings that resist such closures. By foregrounding the tension between scripture, premodern interpretation, and contemporary re-readings, the contribution demonstrates how Islamic textual traditions both reproduce and provide resources for negotiating gender justice, authority, and equality in religious contexts.
GENDERED (IN)EQUALITIES IN A THREE-SELF CHURCH: WOMEN'S RELIGIOUS AUTHORITY, NORMATIVE PRACTICES, AND INSTITUTIONAL RECONFIGURATION IN RURAL CHINA

Shiliang F. (Speaker)

Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonn ~ paris ~ France
This paper examines how gendered religious authority is produced, recognized, and reconfigured within a regulated Protestant setting in China. Based on ethnographic research in a grassroots Three-Self church located in a county on the Hunan-Hubei border, the study asks how women negotiate leadership and "spaces of action" through everyday normative practices at the intersection of patriarchal kinship and local religious regulation. Drawing on repeated participant observation, oral history interviews (including the founder's daughter and son-in-law, believers), and textual materials, the paper reconstructs the church's trajectory since the religious revival of the early Reform and Opening-up era. The female founder did not gain authority by openly contesting patriarchal norms. Instead, she cultivated a relational and ethically grounded authority through prayer and healing practices, miracle narratives, and the domestication of religious activities within rural social life. The analysis further traces how the congregation navigates official norms through interactions with the Three-Self system and local regulatory authorities in land acquisition, church construction, registration, and routine organization (e.g., annual meetings). After the founder's death, charisma-based authority increasingly shifted toward institutional forms. Her designated successor,the son-in-law,assumed formal leadership, while women's authority persisted primarily as embodied competence in everyday church work and as a collective memory mobilized to secure legitimacy. This transition reveals a reconfiguration of gender (in)equalities, in which women's normative labor sustains the institution even as formal authority becomes re-masculinized. By foregrounding normative practices and institutional change, the paper contributes to debates on gender (in)equalities in lived religion and shows how authority is continuously enacted and reworked within contemporary regulatory conditions in China.
THE FEMININE NUMINOUS AND THE MANAGEMENT OF INEQUALITY IN ANCIENT GREEK RELIGION

Zaffarana C. (Speaker)

Independent Researcher, Italy ~ Oleggio ~ Italy
In ancient Greek society, political and genealogical authority is predominantly articulated through male figures. Yet the sacred does not simply replicate social hierarchies; within Greek religious imagination, the feminine numinous occupies a distinct and circumscribed position. This paper argues that tutelary and apotropaic functions constitute a domain in which the feminine divine becomes structurally necessary. In this specific context, apotropaism is not understood as a marginal residue but as a religious mechanism regulating conditions of asymmetry and exposure to danger. Inequality is conceived as a structural condition to be symbolically managed. The divinized feminine intervenes where vulnerability is most acute, operating through postures of protection and visual control. The paper examines the Gorgoneion and apotropaic frontality, focusing on the action of the gaze as a reflexive and repellent force: the diffusion of eyes and Gorgons in apotropaic function in vase painting, armor, and architecture attests to the pervasive role of protective imagery in Greek religious practice. Athena herself, associated with the Gorgoneion, represents a stabilized and specifically tutelary form of power within contexts such as rites of passage into adulthood or processes of heroization. By briefly considering female parthenogenesis associated with unstable outcomes, the paper also highlights the limits of feminine religious agency: the feminine numinous does not abolish inequality, but renders structural asymmetry inhabitable within the Greek sacred order.
"IF IT IS A MODERN MOSQUE, WHY DO I NOT SEE THE MIHRAB?": GENDERED VISIBILITY AND THE SPATIAL PRODUCTION OF INEQUALITY IN CONTEMPORARY TURKISH MOSQUES

Parlak D. (Speaker)

Istanbul Kent University ~ Istanbul ~ Turkey
This paper examines how contemporary "modern" mosques in Turkey reconfigure—yet ultimately reproduce—gendered inequalities through architectural design and spatial organization. Drawing on multi-sited ethnographic fieldwork conducted in four architecturally innovative mosques in Istanbul, it analyzes how regimes of visibility structure women's participation, authority, and embodied presence within ritual space. Although these mosques are frequently celebrated as symbols of aesthetic innovation and progressive Islam, their internal spatial arrangements often sustain gender hierarchies through carefully regulated visibility: screened mezzanines, obstructed sightlines to the mihrab, segregated circulation routes, and spatial marginalization from the ritual center. Such arrangements produce a paradox in which architectural modernism coexists with persistent asymmetries in access and recognition. At the same time, Muslim women's increasing public visibility—manifested in advocacy initiatives and campaigns demanding spatial equality in mosques—reveals an emergent critique of these arrangements. Their interventions expose the tension between reformist architectural aesthetics and lived religious experience. The paper argues that inequality is not merely embedded in theological discourse but materially constituted through spatial practices. Situating contemporary mosque design within Turkey's longer trajectory of state regulation and governance of Islam, the study demonstrates that modern mosque architecture operates as a hegemonic component that structures who is visible, who leads, and who belongs. The Turkish case thus challenges linear assumptions that architectural modernization of religious space entails democratization, illustrating instead how reformist aesthetics may coexist with—and subtly reorganize—gendered hierarchies. Keywords: Gendered space, space production, modern mosques, Muslim women in Turkey.
SEEKING BHIKKHUNĪ ORDINATION ACROSS BORDERS: ONE WOMAN'S PATH TO UPASAMPADĀ AMID TEXTUAL AUTHORITY AND CONTESTED PRACTICES.

Nenna M.V. (Speaker)

Università di Roma La Sapienza ~ Roma ~ Italy
This paper follows one woman's pursuit of upasampadā (higher ordination) to examine how contemporary Theravāda women negotiate authority, lineage, and gendered restrictions across Thailand and Sri Lanka. Bhikkhuni DK's experience illustrates how ordination is shaped not only by the canonical scriptures of the Pāli Tipiṭaka but also by how women interpret and reenact these texts, within spaces of agency produced by competing monastic interpretations of the Gurudhammas. As the Thai Saṅgha does not currently permit Bhikkhunī ordination, Sri Lanka has become the place where Thai women travel to be ordained, allowing them to follow their spiritual needs and to identify and live as Bhikkhunī. Drawing on two years of ethnographic fieldwork, this study retraces Bhikkhuni DK's story, alongside many women before her, to show how gender inequality is grounded in canonical texts and sustained through institutional practices, while showing how practitioners challenge these inequalities in their everyday lives, reinterpreting the traditional view of Bhikkhunī ordination. The paper argues that Bhikkhuni DK's ordination journey exemplifies a transnational religious strategy in which doctrinal authority, institutional power, and embodied practice intersect. By tracing her movement between Thailand and Sri Lanka, it illustrates how contemporary Bhikkhunī ordination is produced through contested interpretations of Buddhist authority, transnational networks, and embodied commitment, experienced as both a spiritual aspiration and a prolonged process of mediation, endurance, and adaptation. The case contributes to broader debates on religious authority and gender in Theravāda Buddhism by demonstrating how women's ordination is not only a doctrinal question but also a lived process of negotiation and transformation.
PRIESTHOOD WITHOUT AN ALTAR: BRIGANTESSE, RITUAL AUTHORITY, AND GENDER IN POST-UNIFICATION SOUTHERN ITALY (1861-1870)

Scianguetta R. (Speaker)

SISR - Società Italiana di Storia delle Religioni ~ Montesano sulla Marcellana (SA) ~ Italy
The post-unification phenomenon of brigantaggio in southern Italy, at once a peasant insurgency, a paramilitary resistance, and a social rupture, offers an exceptional historical case for examining the relationship between gender and religious authority. In the armed bands that resisted the newly formed Italian state between 1861 and 1870, marginality from institutional structures, both civil and ecclesiastical, generated a practical redistribution of ritual roles that ran against the official Catholic gender order. In the absence of clergy, brigantesse assumed de facto priestly functions: they led collective prayers, blessed their companions before military operations, and presided over devotional practices serving as sacred legitimation for the counter-unification cause. This ritual agency did not stem from theological claims or reformist ambitions; it arose as a pragmatic response to an institutional void in which embodied practice quietly redistributed the authority that institutions had withheld. At the same time, the historical record discloses a counter-movement of representational containment. Nineteenth-century pictorial and literary culture systematically recast the officiating brigantessa in patriarchal terms, assigning her the role of redemptive mediator rather than recognizing her as an autonomous subject of ritual authority. The double dynamic of practical transgression and its simultaneous neutralization in dominant representation forms the analytical core of the paper. Drawing on primary sources such as police records, and trial testimonies, the paper develops a historical-anthropological account of women's place in the religious economy of the brigand bands, contributing to the reflection on how gendered inequalities in religious authority are constructed and naturalized through institutional structures — and on the conditions under which embodied practice has historically contested, if only provisionally, the hierarchies it was meant to uphold.
PAGAN QUEERNESS. GENDER DYNAMICS AND POLITICS IN CONTEMPORARY PAGANISM

D'Agostino E. (Speaker)

SIMBDEA - Italian Society for Museum and Heritage Anthropology ~ Roma ~ Italy
Since its origins, contemporary paganism has been a social field in which alternative narratives about gender have been constructed in contrast to dominant models. As a result, it is not uncommon for individuals who identify with the worldviews of contemporary paganism to display a greater openness toward the idea that gender roles can be diverse, multiple, and "fluid" compared to those promoted by hegemonic religious paradigms. This openness to queerness—understood here as a spectrum encompassing gender expressions and identities conceived as a continuum of phenomena, both at the individual and collective level—is so significant that it permeates virtually all manifestations of contemporary paganism, including those that might initially appear less likely to be associated with queer perspectives. Through a sociological and anthropological approach, this paper examines the ways in which queerness has entered contemporary pagan worldviews, from ecofeminist milieus to the strands of contemporary paganism that are closer to right-wing political interpretations and sovereigntist ideologies.
THEOLOGICAL AND NORMATIVE PRACTICES: INTERSECTING RELIGIOUS TRADITIONS AS AXIS OF GENDERED INEQUALITY IN AFRICAN FRAGILE CONFLICT-AFFECTED SETTINGS

Kubai A. (Speaker)

Uppsala University and Södertörn University College ~ Uppsala ~ Sweden
This contribution critically examines how African traditional religions and Islam converge as potent axes through which authority, normativity, and social hierarchy perpetuate gendered vulnerabilities and inequalities in fragile, conflict-affected societies. Extending the panel's framework, this work argues both religious systems leverage theological frameworks, ritual practices, and authority claims to legitimize patriarchal structures. This renders women and girls highly susceptible to trafficking, sexual violence, and exploitation, highlighting their striking functional commonalities in institutionalizing profound gendered hierarchies. Drawing on ethnographic research in Ghanaian Ewe communities and interviews with Boko Haram-displaced persons in Nigeria, this study elucidates how religious frameworks subjugate women and girls. Trokosi institution coerces girls into servitude for male transgressions, rooted in theological claims of punishment, fostering sexual bondage and forced labour. Boko Haram's extremist Islam, intertwined with conflict, targets women/girls for abduction, sexual violence, and trafficking in IDP camps. Both cases reveal religious authority repurposed to justify women's subjugation, solidifying religiously sanctioned violence cycles. Fragile conflict contexts amplify these religious systems' vulnerability-producing capacities. Weak state authority allows religious institutions to fill normative voids, subjecting women/girls to intensified gender-based violence sanctioned by tradition and ideology. This research investigates how African religious systems construct and sustain authority underpinning gendered inequalities, thus addressing a critical lacuna in trafficking and gender violence scholarship. By foregrounding religion, this work offers a nuanced understanding of vulnerabilities interwoven into social fabric. Effective interventions require critical engagement with normative systems that render such violence comprehensible and enduring
MENSTRUATION BETWEEN SACREDNESS AND POLLUTION: FROM BRAHMANICAL TRADITIONS TO THE DIGITAL REINTERPRETATION OF STIGMA

Giampietri V. (Speaker)

Sapienza University of Rome / Antwerpen University ~ Rome ~ Italy
Across different religious traditions, menstruation has historically functioned as a central axis for articulating ritual purity. As noted by Dunnavant and Roberts (2013), most global religions prescribe menstrual restrictions that frame the menstruating body as threatening. In the context of contemporary India, where menstruation remains framed as impure, these ancient taboos are not merely static relics but are actively reconstructed through religious discourse to validate the exclusion of women from religious and domestic spheres. This paper explores the tension between tradition and gender justice within the framework of Brahmanical Hinduism. Specifically, it examines public debates between religious tradition and modern law, such as the controversies surrounding the Śabarimala temple - centered on the legal battle over the ban on women of menstruating age - and the Kamakhya tradition. The latter presents a significant case of ritual ambivalence: while the menstruation of the Goddess Kamakhya is venerated as a source of cosmic power, real menstruating bodies continue to face social and ritual restrictions. This paradox serves as a focal point for understanding how religious systems maintain gendered inequalities even within goddess-centric traditions. A central focus of the research is the digital evolution of these discourses. Through ethnographic research and analysis of social media content, the paper examines how contemporary influencers, writers, and religious figures reinterpret prescriptive sacred texts to validate modern menstrual restrictions. This "neo-traditionalist" hermeneutic often masks discriminatory practices under the guise of "Vedic science" or "spiritual energy management." Through an interdisciplinary and multimethod analysis, this study highlights how religious authority is paradoxically reinforced in the digital age, framing the body as a primary site of contestation between patriarchal normativity and feminist reconfiguration.
BETWEEN HALAKHA AND EGALITARIANISM: ORTHODOX JEWISH COMMUNITIES IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE

Tourgeman L.S. (Speaker)

École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales ~ Paris ~ France
Despite an increase in qualitative studies on European Orthodox Judaism, much research has focused on what sets Orthodox Jews apart from the majority societies in which they live. Such research risks missing out on potential processes occurring within Orthodox Judaism. This may be why research on a major development in Orthodoxy - the shifting of gendered boundaries - is so sparse. This sparsity is placed in sharp contrast to the extent to which Orthodox circles are concerned about this development. The current research project thus explores a marginal group of Orthodox communities adopting egalitarian practices - often seen as an "Other" by the greater Orthodox sphere - to understand the dynamics and limits of gendered innovation in contemporary Orthodox Judaism. The project combines anthropological and Jewish approaches to the interpretation of knowledge and experience. By doing so, it seeks to avoid the dual pitfall of studying Jews without studying Judaism, and studying Judaism without studying Jews. The exploration serves as an anchor point for questioning broader issues related to gender, practice and marginalisation in the European religious landscape. The project conducts comparative ethnographic fieldwork in relevant communities. These communities work to shift normative gendered boundaries within Orthodoxy by innovatively adapting traditional rituals, creating what at times may seem like contradictory practices which operate "unevenly" across different axes (such as bestowing rabbinical qualifications upon women while refusing to count them for a prayer quorum). These communities, therefore, simultaneously challenge and reinforce existing gender inequalities in the Jewish sphere. This paper will discuss key issues raised in the fieldwork, including women's religious leadership, the embodiment of gendered rituals, and the employment of ubiquitously gendered practices for the formation of emergent Orthodox Jewish identities in contemporary Europe.
FEMALE CAPTIVES IN RUSSIAN MILITARY CULTURE DURING THE GREAT NORTHERN WAR 1700-1721: INTERRELIGIOUS CONTEXTS OF EXPLOITATION

Filipova H. (Speaker)

Independent scholar ~ Gothenburg ~ Sweden
During the struggle between Russia and Sweden for dominance in the Baltic in the early eighteenth century, hundreds, perhaps thousands of women were taken captive by Russian forces. Swedes, Livonians, Estonians, Karelians, and Ingrians were seized during the Great Northern War and incorporated into Russian households as servants, concubines, and symbolic trophies. Their experiences formed part of a broader early modern European pattern in which female captives were absorbed into militarized cultures through sexualized violence, coerced intimacy, and forced mobility. Within this system of domination, religious conversion became a central axis of negotiation, coercion, and survival. A striking example from the 1702 Baltic campaign is the future Empress Catherine I, whose conversion to Orthodoxy preceded her marriage to Peter I of Russia, though her ascent was exceptional. However, cases where captive women were forced or coerced into converting to Orthodoxy, often as a condition for marriage to Russian men, were quite common. Others naturalized voluntarily, while some, once repatriated, petitioned Lutheran communities to reverse their conversions, revealing the fluidity of confessional identity. Swedish polemical literature of the period also exploited the theme of forced conversion, drawing on hagiographic tropes of women who preferred torture or death to religious defection or sexual submission. This paper examines how religious coexistence, conflict, and negotiation unfolded in wartime settings and shaped the lives of female captives. Through case studies, I analyze patterns and rituals of conversion, primarily from Lutheranism to Orthodoxy, their flexibility, the treatment of children of mixed‑confession unions, and the ways conversion functioned as a gendered strategy of survival, adaptation, and limited agency within extreme power asymmetries.
QUEERING REDEMPTIVE MASCULINITIES: REIMAGINING MASCULINITY IN AFRICAN PENTECOSTAL CONTEXTS

Van Der Walt C. (Speaker) [1] , Ngcobo S. (Speaker) [2]

University of KwaZulu Natal ~ Pietermarizburg ~ South Africa [1] , University of Pretoria ~ Pretoria ~ South Africa [2]
This contribution explores the possibilities of queering redemptive masculinities within African Christian contexts by critically engaging dominant constructions of masculinity in Pentecostal faith communities. In many Christian settings, masculinities are framed through cisheteropatriarchal interpretations of biblical masculinity that promote a singular normative model of male identity. Such frameworks reinforce gender hierarchies while leaving little room for alternative expressions of masculinity and embodiment. The first part of the paper draws on empirical research with born-again Pentecostal men in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, examining how participants navigate and negotiate their masculinities at the intersection of religion, media, and culture. Employing a participatory methodology, including individual interviews, focus groups, and autophotography, the study foregrounds masculinity as an embodied and socially negotiated experience. The findings reveal the complex tensions through which men attempt to reconcile faith-based narratives of transformation with persistent cultural expectations and patriarchal privilege. The second part of the contribution places these findings in conversation with queer theological and critical masculinity scholarship. By queering the notion of "redemptive masculinity," the paper explores how Christian discourses of transformation may both reproduce and destabilise cisheteronormative gender regimes. Rather than viewing Pentecostal masculinity solely as a site of reinforcement of inequality, the analysis considers how faith practices and narratives of conversion may open spaces for reimagining masculinity otherwise. In doing so, the contribution highlights the potential of queer analytical lenses for rethinking masculinity, embodiment, and transformation within African Christian contexts.
SPIRITUAL MOTHERHOOD AND SPIRITUAL FATHERHOOD: THE CATHOLIC CHURCH, GENDER AND POWER

Flatebø T. (Speaker)

MF - Norwegian School of Theology, Religion, and Society ~ Oslo ~ Norway
This paper examines the construction and performance of gender in the Catholic Church through narratives of spiritual motherhood and spiritual fatherhood among celibate women and men. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork and interviews conducted in monasteries and parishes across the Nordic countries, I analyse how gender is negotiated in everyday religious practice within the institutional structures of the Church. I show how narratives of spiritual motherhood and spiritual fatherhood function as gendered frameworks of authority that enable both women and men to exercise forms of spiritual influence within the Catholic community. At the same time, these narratives remain embedded within the Catholic gender anthropology and clerical hierarchy. I argue that while these roles provide forms of both "power to" and "power over," for both women and men, the distribution of authority remains uneven between the genders. The narratives of spiritual motherhood and spiritual fatherhood are narratives with deep historical and theological roots but also examples of current reinterpretation of the Catholic tradition showing how gender is contested in lived religious practice.
SACRED COMMITMENTS, STRUCTURED INEQUALITIES: A LAW & ECONOMICS ANALYSIS OF ENGAGEMENT IN MOSAIC LAW

Wu N. (Speaker)

EDLE (University of Hamburg) ~ Hamburg ~ Germany
This paper examines the Mosaic law of engagement as a legal and economic institution that structured both normative practices and social reconfigurations. Through a Law and Economics analysis of biblical texts and rabbinic sources, the paper posits that engagement operates as a mechanism that distributes risks asymmetrically, yet strategically, between men and women. The analysis yields three core findings under the ancient Near East socioeconomic structures. First, Mosaic engagement established a system of graduated risk allocation through which legal and economic "lock-in" shifted some risks from the more vulnerable party. Second, the requirement of formal dissolution generated an ostensively higher social surplus than regimes that permitted low-cost, unilateral exit. Third, a game-theoretic model shows that elevated exit costs incentivize ex-ante investment, signaling, and screening. This potentially produces more stable marital matches and reduces socially inefficient separations. However, the system is sensitive to relative costs, incentives, and risks. These findings complicate conventional accounts of patriarchal dominance by demonstrating that gender asymmetries in Mosaic law could also be institutional responses to commitment and enforcement problems. Theologically grounded norms, such as covenantal fidelity and marital sanctity, reinforced these mechanisms by embedding economic rationality within religious ethics. This paper aims to contribute to ongoing discussions in EUARE by introducing a Law and Economics perspective at the intersection of gender and religious studies. Furthermore, it engages with feminist and critical scholarship by demonstrating how ancient institutions may reproduce gender hierarchies AND mitigate their most destabilizing effects simultaneously. Historical gender inequality, economic rationality, and theological normativity are always concurrently constituted and open to reinterpretation in contemporary gender justice debates.
GENDERED FORTUNES: THE CONSTRUCTION, PRACTICE, AND ADAPTATION OF GENDER ORDER IN LATE QING DIVINATION TEXTS

Liu Y. (Speaker)

École Pratique des Hautes Études (EPHE) / Sichuan University ~ Paris ~ France
Chinese divination literature—fortune-telling manuals (mingli 命理), temple oracle slips (qian 籤), physiognomy handbooks, and literati notebooks—functioned not as value-neutral predictive technologies but as normative systems inscribing different life trajectories for men and women. This paper examines how Late Qing (1840-1912) divination texts constructed and adapted gender (in)equalities by embedding patriarchal norms within the language of cosmological calculation. A systematic reading reveals a bifurcated vision of destiny. Male fate centered on public achievement: bazi 八字 analysis focused on guan 官 (official rank) and cai 財 (wealth), pointing toward examination success, political promotion, and commercial prosperity. The male subject stood at the center of his own fate. Female destiny, by contrast, was defined through relationships—the "husband star" (fuxing 夫星) and "child star" (zixing 子星)—reducing a woman's fortune to her capacity to attract a worthy husband and bear sons. Terms such as "harming the husband" (ke fu 克夫) pathologized female sexuality, generating specialized vocabulary for policing women beyond orthodox Confucian texts. Divination accomplished this through technical encoding, cosmological naturalization via yinyang 陰陽 and wuxing 五行, and active generation of gendered terminology. Yet women were not passive subjects. Legal cases, gazetteers, and literati notebooks document women invoking divinatory authority to resist unwanted marriages, shape reproductive decisions, and defend positions in family disputes—exploiting fissures within the system's normative logic. Meanwhile, the era's transformations—the end of the examination system, commercial expansion, warfare—prompted subtle adaptations in how fate was gendered without overturning its core structure. Late Qing divination thus offers a case for understanding how religious discursive practices produce, naturalize, and negotiate gender (in)equalities.
WOMEN: "TO BE SEEN AND NOT HEARD"? EPISTEMIC AND GENDER INEQUALITIES IN IGBO RELIGIOUS CULTURE

Udeagha N. (Speaker)

School of Philosophy, Religion and History of Science, University of Leeds ~ Leeds ~ United Kingdom
This paper investigates the construction and perpetuation of gender inequality within Igbo religious culture through the lens of epistemic injustice. The analysis interrogates the pervasive characterisation of Igbo women as passive, voiceless, and subservient, encapsulated in the phrase "to be seen and not heard", as a product of colonial and Western religious enterprises. The study advances two interconnected arguments. First, it demonstrates that colonial Christianity reconfigured existing Igbo gender norms, introducing hierarchical structures that diminished women's religious authority in ways that differed from precolonial configurations. Second, it shows that these colonial representations have been uncritically reproduced by some contemporary Indigenous scholars, thereby perpetuating what I call 'epistemic inequality', an injustice in the production and validation of knowledge about Igbo women's roles. Drawing on qualitative content analysis of contemporary texts and employing Jacob Olupona's indigenous hermeneutics to interpret these traditions on their own terms, the paper engages in a work of decolonial recovery. Within indigenous Igbo religious frameworks, women constitute a strong spiritual force, historically serving as sacred specialists and custodians of key cultural traditions. Women shaped Igbo religious worldviews and exercised authority across spiritual and socio-political domains. The intersection of gender and epistemic inequality reveals that scholarly practices can inadvertently reinforce communal hierarchies. Recovering Igbo women's historical religious authority offers critical resources for challenging contemporary gender inequities and advancing decolonial approaches to African religious studies. Keywords: Epistemic Inequality, Gender Inequality, Igbo Women, Igbo Religion, Decolonisation, Women's Religious Authority
THRESHOLDS OF DEVOTION: CONTESTED SACRED GEOGRAPHIES, FEMALE ACCESS, AND RELIGIOUS AUTHORITY IN PAKISTAN

Azam Z. (Speaker) [1] , Chaudhury A. (Speaker) [2]

FORMAN CHRISTIAN COLLEGE UNIVERSITY LAHORE ~ LAHORE ~ Pakistan [1] , UNIVERSITY OF YORK ~ HESLINGTON, YORK ~ United Kingdom [2]
Sacred space is never neutral. This paper investigates the contested boundaries of sacred space in Lahore, a metropolitan center characterized by some of Pakistan's most significant religious architectures. Within the city's dense landscape of mosques and shrines, sacred space is analyzed as a site where gender norms are materially and spatially articulated, negotiated, and at times actively contested. By examining two divergent spatial logics the Sufi dargah and the urban mosque this research explores how competing religious authorities define the parameters of female inclusion and devotional participation. Historically, the Sufi shrines of Lahore have been more inclusive spaces for female devotional life. Within these locales, women have long served as custodians of saint veneration, conduits of oral hagiographic traditions, and active participants in devotional music and visitation. However, this established presence currently navigates pressure from reformist and conservative movements that advocate for more rigorous and conservative gender segregation which inhibits gender inclusivity. Conversely, while Lahore has seen a rapid proliferation of large-scale urban mosques, these architectural developments have not translated into expanded or dedicated spaces for female congregants. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork conducted at prominent shrines and mosques across Lahore including interviews with management committees and female practitioners this paper maps the negotiation of religious authority and physical mobility. It argues that the current landscape represents a complex renegotiation of the figure of the legitimate religious woman her body, her mobility, and her devotional practice as a site of doctrinal boundary-making. This study situates these local dynamics within broader transnational debates on gender and Islamic sacred space, engaging scholarship from MENA region and Southeast Asia.

Panel description: This panel takes Re-membering Medusa as a critical lens through which to rethink contemporary spirituality from radical and intersectional perspectives. Its point of departure is the 2012 initiative Medusa's Head Has Been Restored, an international ritual performed by groups of contemporary Witches, which sought to reclaim Medusa from centuries of patriarchal demonization and epistemic violence, reframing the Gorgon as a figure of female power, rage, and resistance within Goddess and alternative spiritual milieus. Over the past decade, Medusa's meanings have further evolved. Increasingly, she has been mobilized not only as a feminist symbol but as an intersectional one, invoked to address embodied difference, marginalization, trauma, queerness, racialization, and disability in spiritual, mythic, and ritual contexts. Her figure thus serves as a powerful prototype for examining how other mythic, saintly, or archetypal personas are similarly reworked within contemporary spiritualities to contest gender essentialism, challenge binary cosmologies, and articulate more complex configurations of power and identity. Moving beyond polarized academic readings of alternative spirituality as either empowering and feminist or conservative and essentialist, this panel invites contributions that explore how gender, sexuality, race, and embodiment are negotiated within contemporary spiritual practices and discourses. Drawing on religious studies, intersectionality, gender studies, and critical myth studies, we focus on "re-membering" as both an act of remembrance and a practice of reassembling fragmented bodies, histories, and subjectivities. By centering Medusa as a dynamic and contested emblem, the panel highlights contemporary spirituality as a key site for the rearticulation of intersectional imaginaries, where myth, politics, and lived experience converge in ways that call for renewed scholarly attention.

Papers:

SACRED MASCULINITY AND DIVINE FEMININE. THE CHALLENGE OF BEING A PRIEST OF THE GODDESS IN ITALY

Russo E. (Speaker)

Sapienza University of Rome ~ Rome ~ Italy
The project investigates the relationships between masculinity, priesthood, and Neopagan spirituality in Italy through an ethnographic study that includes a diverse sample of men (heterosexual, cisgender, queer, and transgender) who serve as priests within various traditions and movements of Contemporary Paganism, such as Wicca, Witchcraft, Goddess Spirituality, and Druidry. Grounded in a critical and non-monolithic definition of masculinity, and recognizing that "male" is not synonymous with heterosexual manhood, the research explores what motivates these men to dedicate themselves to the worship of the Divine Feminine and how this choice impacts their personal and social identities. It pays particular attention to conditions of marginalization, invisibility, and vulnerability often experienced by male Neopagan priests. Through semi-structured interviews, the project documents the motivations, roles, practices, and lived representations of priests of the Goddess, analyzing their gender positioning and their relationships with priestesses and their respective communities. Additionally, it addresses dynamics of media representation and the relationship between activism and spirituality, highlighting how men serving the Sacred Feminine uphold values of equality and inclusion. Through the narratives and life stories of the interviewees, the research amplifies the experiences of men within the context of the Divine Feminine, exploring the challenges and transformations faced by the Sons of the Goddess in their journeys. It investigates whether, in their priestly roles, gender positioning is decisive or secondary, thereby fostering open dialogue on gender, spirituality, and media, while promoting a deeper understanding of the intersections between masculine and feminine in all their manifestations.
"RE-MEMBERING" MARY MAGDALENE. A RETROSPECTIVE READING OF HER-STORY IN NEOPAGAN DIGITAL SPIRITUALITIES

Stornaiuolo P. (Speaker)

University of Bari "Aldo Moro" ~ Bari ~ Italy
This contribution investigates the practices of symbolic re-signification carried out by Neopagan Priestesses of Mary Magdalene, who consciously draw from a heterogeneous archive of sources (e.g. canonical and apocryphal texts, medieval legends and New Age repertoire) to construct a polyfunctional and strategically oriented image of the Magdalene figure. Adopting a retrospective perspective and the lens of reception history, the paper frames this exegetical operation as a form of interpretive drift. It aims to deconstruct the patriarchal narratives of Abrahamic traditions and promote not only a new "her-story", but an alternative spirituality centered on the sacralization of the female body and the rehabilitation of eros as a path to knowledge. Through an analysis conducted using digital ethnography tools, the paper demonstrates how this re-created Magdalene -an apostle, initiate into the mysteries of the womb, and spouse- is disseminated and ritualized on social media platforms, particularly Instagram. These digital spaces configure themselves as veritable temples of the Magdalene, where carefully coded self-presentation strategies - from evocative nicknames and curated visual branding (roses, uterine iconographies, clothing) to the performance of specific rituals- transform devotion into an act of communal self-legitimation. The paper argues that these dynamics represent an intentional strategy of mythopoietic reappropriation. The continuous reshaping of Mary Magdalene thus reveals a broader cultural process of "re-membering": a political reassembly of fragmented memories, aimed at creating new sacred imaginaries in which the feminine, the corporeal and the marginal become central to the contemporary negotiation of female identity and its physical and symbolic spaces of power.
FROM ALGOL TO ASTEROID MEDUSA: REINTERPRETING MYTHS AND ARCHETYPES IN CONTEMPORARY "WESTERN" ASTROLOGY

Liederman C. (Speaker)

University of Fribourg ~ Fribourg ~ Switzerland
In contemporary "Western" astrology, Medusa appears most prominently in the feared star Algol (al-ghūl, "the demon," the Gorgon's severed head, associated with brutality and violence) and in the modern asteroid Medusa (#149, discovered in 1875, symbolizing rage and resistance). Drawing on ethnographic and netnographic research, this paper examines how astrologers negotiate the symbolic complexity of mythic figures by queering and re-membering them in interpretation and practice. While Algol's symbolism developed through centuries of tradition, asteroid Medusa's meanings emerged from the "goddess asteroid" movement developed by astrologers such as Eleanor Bach and Demetra George since the 1970s. This movement heavily overlaps with the feminist spiritual milieus in which figures such as Medusa are ritually reclaimed, and its interpretive frameworks evolved alongside the developments to these milieus. Thus, over the past decade, these interpretations have increasingly taken intersectional forms. At the same time, digital technologies have broadened access to astrological knowledge and practice, enabling more diverse participants to engage in the re-membering of astrological symbolism - not only planets, stars, and signs, but also asteroids and other celestial bodies. Many astrologers now reinterpret astrological symbolism through queer, postcolonial, and intersectional lenses: replacing Feminine-Masculine polarity with Receptive-Active or Yin-Yang, reading Mercury as an archetype of nonbinary fluidity, or invoking figures such as Black Moon Lilith as symbols of resistance to colonial patriarchy. This paper shows how planetary, stellar, and asteroid figures become sites where myth, politics, and lived experience intersect. These practices demonstrate how astrological symbolism is continually reassembled, illustrating a longstanding feature of astrology itself: the reinterpretation of mythic figures in response to shifting cultural, political, and spiritual contexts.
MARY BEYOND CHRISTIAN DOGMA: FEMINIST REINTERPRETATION IN CHISTIAN GODDESS SPIRITUALITY

Falcone A.F. (Speaker)

Sapienza University of Rome ~ Rome ~ Italy
The contribution aims to investigate the role of Mary of Nazareth before and beyond her being, for Christians, the "Madonna". Many religious texts have been written about this person, both canonical and apocryphal, but her figure is more complex than one might think, and many of the characteristics with which she is commonly identified were conceived by men, to outline a specific type of feminine ideal. In recent years, however, we can witness a flip side of the coin: the figure of Mary of Nazareth is no longer (just) a devoted mother and wife, but a woman who lived in a time, who performed actions, who made choices, a human creature who experienced joys and fears. Although the sacralization and mythologization of her figure prevailed over time, it must be remembered that she was first and foremost a woman. In light of this, today, some fringes of contemporary feminism are opting for a different interpretation of Mary, a reading that can rethink her in a feminist key, precisely, and therefore reclaim her. It is on the same principle that scholar Mary Ann Beavis introduced the concept of Chistian Goddess Spirituality: many women of Christian background who today relate to the Goddess Spirituality have come to it through a reinterpretation of the figure of Mary on the model of the Mother Goddesses and the 'Divine Feminine'. The paper aims to explore these thematic, which bring to the center of the discourse the need to 'renegotiate' the sacred in contemporary society, according to a more inclusive and broad vision that looks to women no longer merely recipients of the religious word, but active subjects of a new spiritual narrative, capable of reinterpreting and reclaiming symbols, rituals, and doctrines in light of their own experience.
RE-MEMBERING LILITH: BETWEEN FEMINIST JUDAISM AND CONTEMPORARY SPIRITUALITIES

Padovani M. (Speaker)

University of Rome La Sapienza ~ Rome ~ Italy
This paper examines the reinterpretation of the figure of Lilith in two contemporary religious contexts: Feminist Judaism and contemporary spiritualities associated with neopagan and Goddess traditions. In both settings, a process of symbolic recovery has taken place through which Lilith has been rediscovered and redefined, transforming a figure traditionally portrayed as a demonic threat into a powerful symbol of female autonomy. On the one hand, Feminist Judaism rescues Lilith from her patriarchal demonization and restores to the first woman her power and freedom. Lilith is finally remembered as the being she once was: a fearless and free-spirited woman who did not bend her head to Adam's whims. She has also been re-membered in her many dimensions and has become a symbol of female resistance, sexual independence and rage against patriarchal structures. On the other hand, Contemporary Spiritualities regard her as one of the Dark Goddesses, alongside Hecate and Kali. Here too she is understood as a symbol of sacred sexuality and rebellion against the patriarchy. Whether conceived as a distinct goddess or as an aspect of the Great Goddess, she is particularly attributed destructive, transformative and liminal powers. Although these two belief systems differ greatly, the characteristics and symbolism ascribed to Lilith are remarkably similar. The starting point is the same Jewish demoness and the endpoint is a subversive archetype who never scared rebellious women but became their role model and avenger.

Panel description: The normative history of modernity begins with the Renaissance and the invention of linear perspective in order to emphasize the placing of man, instead of God, at the center of the world. The vanishing point of linear perspective gives the world to be seen from the perspective of the single right eye of a singular subject, and it is this perspective that inspired Descartes' optics and his isolated cogito as the prime example of modern subjectivity. This book will return to the invention of linear perspective in order to seek another interpretation of linear perspective that might give an alternative modernity to be seen. Using the work of Renaissance theologian and mystic Nicolas of Cusa, we will trace a different genealogy, one that provides a different vision of modernity that allows the world, and the painting, to return our gaze. In elucidating the critique of the Cartesian subject by 20th century philosophers Benjamin, Heidegger, Lacan, Sartre, Merleau-Ponty and Marion, we will ask how modernity could be re-conceived if philosophers were to take into account the geometric vision of Nicolas de Cusa, and how his alternative vision might enable us to escape narcissism and share our world with the absolute other.

Papers:

Panel description: Christian discourse frequently declares itself in favour of equality and human liberation. Yet how authentic is this commitment? What theological, scriptural and psychological resources might be brought to its aid? This wide-ranging panel, which discusses not only theology as such, but also its biblical underwriting and its outworking in the psychology of political agents, seeks to address these, and other, questions. The premise of the panel is that conversations between these three subject areas - theology, biblical studies, and psychology - will prove fruitful for resourcing a Christian commitment to liberation. Particularly novel is our inclusion of psychology in the conversation. This results from a conviction that the operation of ideology at the level of thoughts, desires, and emotions is important to understand as integral to an account of how theology can promote transformation. We are interested in both explicitly religiously-inflected psychological work and in work which draws out the theologico-political implications of 'secular' psychologies. Theologically, we want to see how the major themes of Christian theology can be brought to bear on questions of liberation and equality, as well as how theology can interact with other disciplines to this end. Biblically, insights concerning the text and historical context of biblical writings, as well as ones about the reception history and contextual reading of those writings, well help to situate our questions within Christian communities understood as reading communities. Submissions would be welcome on theology, biblical studies or psychology - as these subjects relate to liberation and equality. Alternatively, submissions dealing with the intersection of two or more of these subject areas would be particularly welcome.

Papers:

'THY KINGDOM COME': DIVINE AND HUMAN ACTION IN CATHOLIC ECOTHEOLOGY RELATING TO THE KINGDOM OF GOD

Scrutton A. (Speaker)

University of Leeds ~ Leeds ~ United Kingdom
Within Catholic churches, it is common to encounter the idea of the Kingdom of God ('the Kingdom') as a focus for human action relating to ecological/social justice action. According to this theology, the Kingdom is already present imperfectly in the actions of people working for justice and peace. At the same time, we are called to make the Kingdom fully present in human society by establishing fair and peaceful social structures. These structures relate not only to other humans but also to non-human animals and the earth itself (e.g. Laudato Si' 246). The Kingdom, fully realised, involves or paves the way for not only perfect humanly-made structures, but also events that can only be brought about through divine action: the resurrection of the dead; creation of new heaven and earth; cessation of death; second coming of Christ; last judgement. Recent studies suggest that the idea of the Kingdom can do significant work when it comes to motivating sustained ecological/social action (Malcolm and Scott 2025). Yet the concept of the Kingdom also involves a puzzle. If human action is necessary for the Kingdom, we have grounds for despair: humans and the societies they construct do not overall seem to be becoming more just, peaceful or caring of nature. On the other hand, if the Kingdom is brought about primarily by divine action, it is not clear why human striving is necessary, potentially leading to quietistic theology that asserts that sorting out ecological issues is ultimately 'God's job' rather than ours (Scrutton 2025). It therefore seems important to affirm an interplay between divine and human action. Yet exactly what this interplay involves remains unclear. Does God work (only) through humans ('God has no hands but our hands to do his work today')? Alternatively, does (or will) God augment human achievements with more direct divine action? I will consider this question in conversation with Catholics involved in ecological/social justice activism.
ALL THINGS IN COMMON: RECEPTION HISTORIES OF THE ACTS OF THE EARLIEST CHRISTIANS

Crossley J. (Speaker)

University of Cambridge ~ Cambridge ~ United Kingdom
This paper will look at the shifting receptions of the stories of the early Christians holding "all things in common" (Acts 2.44-45 and 4.32-35), particularly among English radical movements that envisioned a dramatic alternative to the existing order of things. After a brief discussion of the texts from the book of Acts, the majority of the paper will examine how and why interpretations shifted from medieval and feudal settings to challenges to capitalism. As this suggests, this analysis will not simply be a listing of differences between interpretations. Instead, this paper will ground and connect changing receptions in their economic, social, and political contexts. This will involve showing how understandings in medieval revolts and among medieval lower clergy (and their audiences) were developed and then updated and transformed over the centuries in light of new material concerns. Selected examples of the old informing and being transformed by the new will include interpretations of Acts 2.44-45 and 4.32-35 from the English uprising of 1381 (popularly known as the Peasants' Revolt), the English Revolution, the emergence of the working class, William Morris and early English socialism, twentieth-century debates about nationalisation and welfare, and the (apparent) return of socialism in political discourse in the twenty-first century. As we proceed, this paper will also note how a range of related ideas and other biblical texts inform the history of interpretation of "all things in common," including issues of work, ethnicity, gender, democracy, communality, and the emergent tensions between secularisation and an unambiguously religious heritage.
NON-CONTRASTIVE THEOLOGY: BIBLE, LIBERATION THEOLOGY AND PSYCHOLOGY

Hewitt S. (Speaker)

University of Leeds ~ Leeds ~ United Kingdom
Non-contrastive theology, instanced in thinkers such as Herbert McCabe and Kathryn Tanner, holds that God and creatures do not occupy a shared logical space and therefore are not in 'metaphysical competition'. In particular, there is no causal competition between God and creatures. This talk argues that recognition of the non-contrastive nature of divine and creaturely agency is liberative in effect, and provides three examples of this. With respect to the Bible, recognition of non-contrastive agency allow us to endorse the theological claim that the Bible is the word of God without thereby denying its genuine human authorship. This allows us to engage in critical and historical study of the biblical texts without prejudice to claims about the theological status of those texts. With regard to the conference theme, this is of particular importance when we pay attention to politically engaged biblical study. With regard to liberation theologies, a non-contrastive approach permits recognition of genuine human agency with respect to a theologico-historical narrative according to which God is the liberator. The latter claim can, without careful theological attention, issue in a quietism at odds with the aims of liberation theologies yet easily read into their favoured biblical texts (the story of the Exodus being an obvious example here). In the domain of psychology, we may want to keep open the possibility that certain out-of-the-ordinary experiences falling within the diagnostic remit of mental disorders are nevertheless occasions of positive personal transformation, and indeed of socially-salient transformation (Laing is an important interlocutor here), these being religiously inflected. We can maintain these experiences as being of theological worth without denying the possibility of a naturalistic explanation through appeal to a non-contrastive theology.

Panel description: Language is exhausted both in the sense of those forms of speech that are tired or worn out by over-use, as well as in the apophatic sense where representation cannot continue, it fails. Any theological or philosophical language regarding suffering reaches its limits when confronted with its concrete applicability. Among the limits of applicability are the challenges of representing different types of precarity, vulnerability, and inequality, while respecting the Other's affective agency. The Other stands before the theologian as other. What relational responsibilities might frame theologian's engagement with the suffering of others? Shaped by these responsibilities, what kind of language should theologians use, if any, in these discourses? The panel will explore how narratives, biblical dialogues, poetry, and other artistic media interrogate their own representational limitations around suffering. We invite theological and philosophical contributions that address the ethical and epistemic limitations of representation, drawing on the insights of trauma studies, critical and literary theory, and the arts.

Papers:

ARTICULATIONS ON THE 'OTHER'S' SUFFERING: NEGATIVE RELATIONS THAT REORIENT THEOLOGICAL LANGUAGE

Legros-Hoffner M. (Speaker)

Université de Fribourg / KU Leuven ~ Fribourg ~ Switzerland
In Christian theologies of suffering, eschatologies, and theodicies explored by theologians and philosophers of religion, the academic is often criticized for the method they use when writing as an observer of 'other's' suffering. As Karen Kilby correctly argued in her article Eschatology, Suffering and the Limits of Theology, the theologian should speak about suffering only from a respectful third-person perspective. If we agree with Karen Kilby's conclusion, then one must cultivate an attitude that learns from and makes space for the 'other' properly. One way the academic can go beyond the criticized position of treating experiences as knowledge, as some sort of data to be systematized into a framework that accepts a perfectly good God, is through recognizing and allowing ourselves to be changed by the relations we have with the 'other' who suffers. The goal of this paper is to explore the 'other' that the academic encounters when theologizing or philosophizing about that person's suffering or the 'other's' insertion into a world that suffers, using literary tools applied to biblical narratives. First, the paper begins with the idea that the primary appropriate way for an academic, or any other human person, to access the 'other' is through relations. Drawing on the recently popular theological fields of the metaphysics of relations and trinitarian ontologies, I will show that these fields often assume that relations are either inherently neutral or positive. Second, in response to this assumed notion of relations, drawing on Eleonore Stump's exploration of relations in the narrative of Job, the paper will focus on relations that appear negative or harmful. Third, the paper will conclude with a development on a more comprehensive understanding of the relations drawn from biblical narratives that define both us and the 'other', which ultimately allows for a respectful theologizing on suffering in the third-person.
EXTRAVAGANT FAILURE: AIDS POETRY AND THE WORK OF MOURNING

Stark G. (Speaker)

University of Cambridge ~ Cambridge ~ United Kingdom
This paper will examine Tim Dlugos' autobiographical AIDS poem, 'DOA', as a case study to interrogate Christian theology's attention to failure, death, and mourning. The poet employs the typical camp style of the New York School (associated with figures like Frank O'Hara and John Ashberry) to bring both clarity and mystery to the reality of his own imminent and inevitable death. What practices and models of mourning does this poem offer to Christian theology? Drawing on the work of Gillian Rose on mourning and representation, and Judith Butler's engagement with the question of whose lives are grievable, this paper will explore the ways in which poetry can 'succeed' where prose cannot, and how in its failure to represent clearly or directly, the poem performs a kind of failing that directs the reader to an openness to the entanglement of life and death that is fundamental to the work of mourning. The poem seamlessly weaves together 1950s film noir, the negotiation of AIDS trauma, and scenes from ordinary life to construct an image of what it might mean to live and love otherwise, within and against layers of failure (personal, social, and political).
POETIC THEODICY IN THE POETRY OF RAÏSSA MARITAIN

Robertson A. (Speaker)

University of Cambridge ~ Cambridge ~ United Kingdom
Raïssa Maritain's poetry and writings on poetry and spirituality have been eclipsed by her husband Jacque's voluminous philosophy which not only opened up fresh perspectives in twentieth century Thomism, but paved the way for a humane personalism at the heart of twentieth century post-War reconstruction in France. Still, Raïssa's work and personality remains largely eclipsed by her husband in the area of Maritain studies. Raïssa was a woman of profound mystical insight which she recorded in prayer journals, but also the author of a number of poems which reflect on spiritual and personal topics. As a convert from Judaism, Raïssa experienced not just the Second World War, but also the systematic attempt to annihilate Jewish and other minority populations in Europe, as a psycho-spiritual assault. At this point words written in prose form seem to fail her. But at this moment of exhausted speech, her poetry comes alive in psalm-like prayers which give voice to her anguish. It is through this that she articulates what we might think of as a poetic theodicy, showing that when some language fails, poetry opens up new possibilities.
SEMIOTICS OF A GRIEF 'HEARD': EXPLORING THE LIMITS OF SILENCE AND VOICE IN GRIEF TECH

Macis D. (Speaker)

University of Turin - Bruno Kessler Foundation - DREST ~ Turin ~ Italy
This paper examines C.S. Lewis's "A Grief Observed" (1961), focusing on two intertwined tensions: the silence of sacred texts on the possibility of meeting our loved ones again in the afterlife and the impossibility of fully reconstructing the voice and identity of the deceased—whether in religious narratives or digital simulations. Using a semiotic approach and reflecting on the crisis of the indexical function of the voice in the post-digital age - that is its capacity to point to a specific body or source - , I argue that both religion and grief-related technology fall short in providing comfort to the bereaved. Representations of the deceased— from Dante and Beatrice's reunion to contemporary digital simulations — fail to capture the lived individuality of those who have passed. Lewis's reflections highlight this gap: surrounded by silence, he was at one point tempted to contact his late wife, H., through a medium but ultimately declined, honoring a promise to her. In contrast to the formula of the image as a site of resurrection that Roland Barthes (1980) later made famous, Lewis emphasized that hearing her voice— the authentic trace of her presence— remained the only true consolation. Today, technology makes such auditory encounters possible, raising questions about the limits of digital resurrection. This paper uses Lewis's words as a lens to explore what remains irretrievable in grief, even in an age of technological simulation, arguing that his words anticipated contemporary anxieties about AI-generated voices. Both religious language and grief technologies promise comfort but deliver only signification, drawing on Massimo Leone's concept (2026) that silence can act as a semiotic device, blurring the boundaries between expression and non-expression.
SPEAKING AFTER SUFFERING: RETHINKING THEOLOGICAL HERMENEUTICS WITH EMMANUEL FALQUE

Abraham R. (Speaker)

KU Leuven ~ Leuven ~ Belgium
The theological turn in French phenomenology has emphasized excess, saturation, and abundance as phenomenological categories that confound representation exposing its limits. While these approaches illuminate how phenomena such as revelation exceed conceptual grasp, they often do so at the expense of concrete embodied experience, particularly within finitude. What recedes in such approaches, then, is the suffering body and the ordinary conditions in which embodied existence unfolds and finds its pressure and resistance. Emmanuel Falque's work can be read as a response to this tendency. Against phenomenologies preoccupied with excesses of intentionality, Falque turns toward the body and the flesh as sites where human finitude is most acutely experienced. Through his notion of the "limited phenomenon," he reorients phenomenology toward ordinariness, vulnerability, and suffering. Rather than beginning from phenomena that overwhelm the subject through abundance, Falque begins from those experiences that constrain and transform the subject through encountered limits. In this way, suffering becomes a central locus where phenomenology finds its fruition and theology its tether to the realities of embodied existence. This paper examines the ontological innovations that emerge from Falque's phenomenological readings of the paschal triduum and, more importantly, Holy Saturday. At the same time, it asks whether the meaning of transformation in and through the meaninglessness of suffering can be secured through ontology alone. While human beings may indeed undergo transformations through suffering, these transformations are also reckoned with paralogically. The paper therefore explores how Falque's phenomenology makes possible a rethinking of theological hermeneutics as a spoken speechlessness that emerges after speech has failed, especially when the Passion is read in a philosophical-anthropological register.
WEAKSTRENGTHS AND STRONGWEAKNESSES — SUBVERTING THE RESILIENCE IMPERATIVE IN THE FACE OF "UNPRODUCTIVE" SUFFERING

Bischoff S. (Speaker)

Independent Scholar ~ Berlin ~ Germany
Contemporary theological and philosophical discourses on suffering are often "exhausted" by a pervasive resilience imperative, epitomized by the pop-cultural adaptation of Nietzsche's dictum: "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger". This form of speech has become a worn-out trope that forces every experience of precarity into a narrative of self-optimization, growth, or (spiritual) profit. However, such language fails and reaches its limits when confronted with concrete, "unproductive" suffering - experiences of dis_ability, trauma, or loss that leave nothing behind but "weakness" and cannot or do not want to be heroically reinterpreted or redemptively sacralized. Drawing on 2 Corinthians 12:1-10, this paper explores how the Apostle Paul reacts to the stigmatization of his "thorn in the flesh" - interpreted here as a permanent impairment / dis_ability. Rather than submitting to the binary logic of his opponents, who equate dis_ability with a lack of authority, Paul performs a subversive semantic shift. Utilizing Judith Butler's theory of resignification and performative repetition, the paper argues that Paul does not merely "overcome" weakness but destabilizes the very categories of "strong" and "weak". Here, neologisms such as "weakstrengths" and "strongweaknesses" come into play, serving as preliminary linguistic and subversive tools to unveil their discursive materiality, refusing forced harmonization or the pressure to transform weakness into a "hidden potential". Ultimately, the paper proposes that a theologian's responsibility in the face of suffering lies in refusing to solve the tension of suffering, allowing weakness to remain weakness while subverting the power-knowledge structures that devalue or stigmatize its existence.

Panel description: This panel invites papers that examine inequality in the contemporary Catholic Church from a wide range of theological perspectives. While Catholic theology affirms the equal dignity of all persons, inequalities persist in how authority is exercised, how experiences are recognized as theologically meaningful, and how inclusion and marginalization are negotiated within ecclesial life. The panel is anchored by contributions that approach inequality as a theological and hermeneutical problem rather than merely a sociological one. Existing papers engage questions such as the theological status of Christian experience in responding to social inequality; the interpretation of bodily difference, particularly intersex embodiment, within Catholic theological anthropology; and the role of Catholic media in shaping the reception of magisterial authority during the pontificate of Pope Francis. We warmly welcome papers addressing other dimensions of inequality in the contemporary Catholic Church, including but not limited to: authority and dissent, poverty and economic injustice, gender and sexuality, race and colonial legacies, global Catholicism, synodality, media and power, participation in ecclesial structures, and the reception of doctrine in diverse contexts. By fostering dialogue across methodologies and themes, the panel aims to contribute to constructive theological reflection on inequality, authority, and justice in the life of the Church today. This panel is organized on behalf of the Young Curatorium of the European Society for Catholic Theology.

Papers:

OUR BODIES ARE NOT CREATED EQUAL. ISSUES WITHIN CATHOLIC THEOLOGICAL HERMENEUTICS OF INTERSEX.

Schreurs B. (Speaker)

KU Leuven ~ Leuven ~ Belgium
Theologies that interpret intersex as a consequence of the Fall regard it as a pathological form of human embodiment. Consequently, the Roman Catholic Magisterium refers intersex individuals to the medical sphere with the aim of "restoring" the body to its presumed latent male or female form. Yet, the hermeneutical validity of this assessment has not been adequately examined. As a point of departure, this paper contends that claims depicting intersex as pathological are hermeneutically problematic, as they rely exclusively on protology, adopt a literalist reading of biblical sources, and disregard the lived experiences of intersex persons. To address this, the paper investigates intersex and pathology through a broader hermeneutical framework that incorporates testimonies of intersex Christians, the reality of the new creation inaugurated by Christ, and the transformative workings of divine grace. The paper finds that many intersex Christians regularly experience their bodies as both gift and task from God, and that these experiences warrant serious consideration within theology in light of Gaudium et Spes. At the same time, some intersex persons perceive their bodies as pathological, and these experiences must also be acknowledged. Furthermore, drawing on the works of Elizabeth Johnson and Karl Rahner, the paper argues that creation possesses a constant potential for newness and transformation owing to Christ's assumption of earthly matter and the dynamic presence of God's grace. Accordingly, a strictly protological argument for determining the goodness of matter appears unwarranted. Instead, the paper concludes by offering an initial proposal for a more adequate hermeneutics of goodness and pathology in relation to intersex bodies. It suggests that the goodness of the intersex body should be discerned on a case-by-case basis, enabling each person, in dialogue with God, to determine how best to live out the task embodied in their own corporeality.
INEQUALITY AND THE CATHOLIC MEDIA

O'Regan E. (Speaker)

The Loyola Institute, Trinity College Dublin ~ Dublin ~ Ireland
This paper examines inequality within Anglophone Catholic media and its implications for ecclesial authority, reception of the magisterium, and the Church's engagement with marginalised communities. Although Catholic social teaching affirms a preferential option for the excluded, contemporary Catholic media is marked by a concentration of influence among conservative platforms that often frame papal teaching in adversarial and ideological terms. The pontificate of Pope Francis provides a key case study. His emphasis on mercy, synodality, and pastoral outreach has been met with sustained critique from influential Catholic media actors who question his theological competence and even his orthodoxy. This reveals a deeper structural inequality: access to media power enables certain voices to function as a de facto parallel magisterium, shaping lay reception of Church teaching while remaining only loosely accountable to ecclesial authority. The paper argues that this is not merely a communications issue but a doctrinal one. Ambiguity surrounding papal authority, levels of assent to non-definitive teaching, and the limits of legitimate dissent has allowed confusion to flourish. As a constructive proposal, the paper calls for renewed magisterial guidance on dissent in the digital age. Drawing on Donum veritatis, it advocates a more authoritative doctrinal framework clarifying the obligations of the faithful and the responsibilities of Catholic media actors. By situating media inequality within wider theological debates on authority and reception, the paper contributes to ongoing discussions of religion, power, and inequality in the contemporary Church.
"YOU HAVE THE POOR WITH YOU ALWAYS": PERENNIAL INEQUALITIES IN THE LIGHT OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE

Evina G. (Speaker)

Pontifical Lateran University ~ Rome ~ Italy
The understanding of our present time as a historical juncture that concerns all the spheres of human life and knowledge, is highly indisputable. Problems mainly discussed in the world also find their place within theological reflection. Nevertheless, in this context, these problems find new light when confronted with the message of the Master of Nazareth. The latter's typical response to the challenges of modern societies would neither be a religion of feeling nor a rationalistic religion, but a Christ-centred experience: "You have the poor with you always […] but me you will not always have" (Mk 14: 7). This nonconformist logic constitutes a real conundrum for modern societies, but remains, I argue, the original source of a theological discourse. This paper aims to analyse the theological status of Christian experience and to explore the reasons of its credibility in every era of history. It dialogues with some twentieth century theological reflections on "existential knowledge," inspired by the Ignatian legacy. One of these interlocutors and a prominent voice, Hans Urs von Balthasar, sustains a "total attunement" to Revelation in order to understand and correspond to God's being and will. This "higher centre" imposes a specific approach to issues such as social inequalities. The paper strongly emphasizes the fact that theological discourse often falls prey to the anxiety of being up to date. To be in a permanent listening of the numerous experiences of mankind that rightfully call upon the theologian may also blur the perception of Christian experience. It may equally generate an idea of reform, in the Church for example, with little or no theological grounding. These situations therefore call for a theological appraisal of the (im)possibility of Christian experience nowadays.
CRITICAL EPISTEMOLOGY: TOWARDS AN ACCOUNTABLE SOTERIOLOGY

De Ridder J. (Speaker)

Catholic University of Leuven ~ Leuven ~ Belgium
Traditionally, Christian soteriology has been grounded in a teleological framework oriented toward ultimate salvation. This Western narrative of progress has often been uncritically universalized and has failed to acknowledge the wounds and ruptures produced by colonial violence. Marianne Moyaert argues that the absence of a decolonial perspective within this traditional epistemological framework is no longer understood merely as a form of ignorance, but rather as a systemic exclusion that sustains inequality. Therefore, Moyaert proposes to uncover these injustices by critical epistemology, challenging the notion that the narrative of salvation is distinct from the question of race. Drawing from critical philosophical frameworks (Fricker, Bernasconi, Mills, and others), as well as postcolonial theologies (Jennings, Douglas, Moyaert, and others), this paper explores the under-examined relationship between marginalized epistemologies and racial hierarchies in Christian soteriology.

Panel description: The Thomistic tradition is currently experiencing a revival within philosophy and theology. However, recent developments within artificial intelligence raise questions about the nature of cognition, abstract thought, artifacts, the soul, and the notion of imago Dei that seem to challenge Thomistic conceptions and favor materialist stances. For example, assuming that AI agents will eventually outperform human beings in most areas, would it still be intellectually viable to hold that artificial intelligence is merely a simulacrum of intelligence and that artificial agents lack true insight and understanding? Can the Thomistic view that abstract thought requires an immaterial medium (a rational soul) be sustained? Is the Aristotelian-Thomistic dichotomy between "natural substances" and "artifacts" able to account for the nature of potentially superintelligent AI-agents? How is the relationship between AI-agents and their human creators to be conceived, and to what extent will the AI-revolution force us to reconceive what it means to be created in the image of God? These questions concern human uniqueness and have social consequences regarding agency, autonomy, and the future of work. Human dignity and equality need to be reestablished in relation to a social life that includes increasingly competent simulations of human rationality and creativity. The panel is dedicated to discussing whether the Thomistic tradition, broadly understood, offers valuable insights for Christian reflections on the ontological, anthropological, and social implications of AI, or whether Thomism is of limited use due to its Aristotelian background, especially as regards natural sciences and technology.

Papers:

THE DIGNITY OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

Cavallin C. (Speaker)

NLA University College ~ Bergen ~ Norway
The rise of increasingly sophisticated simulations of human reasoning, creativity, and language presents many challenges to both individuals and institutions. For religious and spiritual traditions navigating the tension between adoption and rejection, AI revitalizes long-standing debates regarding the relationship between science and faith, and between the natural and the supernatural. Simultaneously, it fuels techno-criticism against the industrialization and rationalization of culture. Within the Catholic tradition specifically, AI is often met with skepticism, as computational processes are seen to lack human qualities such as consciousness, emotion, and understanding, a stance exemplified by the Vatican document Antiqua et Nova. While many current Christian responses to AI development focus on the ethical, environmental, and social risks of large-scale AI adoption, this paper investigates whether a Thomist framework can offer an alternative evaluation that avoids a binary antagonism between humanism and automation. In a discussion with Edward Feser's critique of AI in Immortal Souls (2024), the paper argues for understanding AI through the lens of art (ars) rather than mere mechanics. In Christian theology, the correspondence between divine creation and human creativity suggests that artifacts may possess a derivative dignity beyond simple utility. If humanity bears the imago Dei, then a simulation of the human mind is similarly imprinted with an imago hominis. As biotechnology further blurs the boundary between the organic and the mechanical, a theology of creation and art may better balance human dignity with the dignity of the artificial than a humanism based on the privilege of interiority. This paper suggests that Thomism provides intellectual resources helpful for developing such a perspective.
PHILOSOPHICAL TURING-TESTS AND THE IMMATERIALITY OF THE SOUL: WILL THE DEVELOPMENT OF GENERAL ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE UNDERMINE THOMISTIC ANTHROPOLOGY?

Wahlberg M. (Speaker)

Umeå University ~ Umeå ~ Sweden
This paper addresses the challenge that the prospective emergence of general artificial intelligence might pose for the Thomistic version of Roman Catholic anthropology, according to which the immaterial nature of the soul is an important basis for human dignity and uniqueness. The Thomistic tradition contends that the intellect's immaterial nature can be known philosophically by reference to the intellect's powers, and especially the power to cognize universal essences. This kind of cognition presupposes that the intellect is able to receive the substantial forms of the things cognized without becoming those very things. Thomists hold that such "intentional" assimilation of forms is metaphysically incompatible with materiality. Now, to the extent that AI agents will become able to outperform humans intellectually in all or most domains, it will be increasingly difficult to maintain that AI agents lack the ability to cognize universals. Assuming, for example, that AI models will at some point be capable of producing philosophical texts that human philosophers take to be indicative of great philosophical insight (a kind of philosophical Turing test), any claim to the effect that humans have philosophical capacities that AI-agents necessarily must lack will have to rest entirely on introspective experience and theoretical assumptions. In this scenario, the Thomistic position is vulnerable to Wittgensteinian objections based on the logical relationship between mental phenomena and behavior (e.g. the private language argument). In light of the Thomistic tradition's emphasis on the harmony between faith and reason, moreover, it would be problematic for Thomists to adopt a purely fideistic stance to the existence of an immaterial soul. This paper will discuss what intellectual options Thomists might have if AI-agents were to pass a philosophical Turing-test of the most advanced kind, and what the implications of such a scenario could be for Thomistic anthropology.
HUMAN PERSONS, LLMS, AND THE NATURE OF MENTAL REPRESENTATION

Wahlberg Å. (Speaker)

Philosophisch-Theologische Hochschule Sankt Georgen ~ Frankfurt am Main ~ Germany
It is undisputed that Large Language Models (LLMs) produce meaningful sentences, for example in responding to questions asked by humans. The meaningfulness, however, is standardly taken to be of a derived kind: LLMs can refer to things, and mean things because they operate on linguistic symbols semantically imbued by people. Yet they are incapable of meaning in a non-derived sense. Since they lack a proper embedding in a non-linguistic environment they exhibit no genuine semantic grounding. As opposed to this, a growing number of philosophers argue that LLMs indeed do display genuine semantic grounding and meaning in a non-derived sense and are capable - at least potentially - of thought comparable to human thought in relevant regards. They point out that LLMs are properly embedded in a non-linguistic environment in virtue of applying words standing in causal relations to non-linguistic objects, much like humans do. This paper considers this discussion through the prism of the Medieval dispute between Ockham's nominalism and Aristotelian-Thomistic positions regarding semantic content. It suggests that arguments to the effect that LLMs can achieve genuine semantic grounding presuppose a nominalist metasemantics where the semantic relation between a representation and a represented object is a mere matter of causation and the subject's recognitional capacities. This is contrasted with a Thomistic account of mental content according to which the formal identity of thought and the object of thought provides an essential tie between the metaphysical structure of reality and the representational capacities of humans. This allows for an attractive and precise characterization of the exceptionality of human thought in distinction to the tacit nominalism presupposed by defenders of genuine semantic grounding for LLMs.
INTELLECT AND WILL IN THE AGE OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE: AN AUGUSTINIAN READING OF AQUINAS

Ek A. (Speaker)

Uppsala university ~ Uppsala ~ Sweden
The rapid development of artificial intelligence raises renewed questions about the nature of human cognition and agency. This paper argues that an Augustinian reading of Thomas Aquinas's account of the intellect and the will can provide a basis for articulating the difference between artificial and human intelligence. When interpreting Aquinas's anthropology (for instance, as it is presented in ST I q. 82 and I-II q. 9), it is easy to read his thought through the later medieval debate between intellectualism and voluntarism. From that perspective, Aquinas's insistence on the primacy of the intellect tends to be treated as the central feature of his account of human cognition. If Aquinas is read in continuity with Augustine, however, a more dynamic and integrated anthropology emerges. The paper demonstrates how Aquinas explicitly draws on Augustine's psychological analysis in De Trinitate, and how the Augustinian account of the will, both as an appetite for a known good and as the locus of human agency, is preserved in Aquinas's account. This Augustinian-Thomist perspective allows us to reconsider what is distinctive about human intelligence. The uniqueness of human intellect can hardly be located in rational capacities alone, since the ability to reason coherently (to make rational deductions and to perform rational tasks) is increasingly shared by artificial intelligences. A strictly rationalistic account of human thought must therefore give way to a more dynamic anthropology in which the will, together with the intellect, is constitutive of cognition.
ARTIFICIAL CREATIVITY AND HUMAN DIGNITY: THOMISTIC REFLECTIONS ON AI MUSIC AND CULTURAL PRODUCTION

Strappati G. (Speaker)

Guest/Invited Visiting Professor at: Florida State University, USA; Instituto Superior de Música J. Hernández, Buenos Aires, Argentina; Conservatorio Statale G. Verdi, Ravenna, Italy. ~ Ancona ~ Italy
Recent developments in artificial intelligence have intensified debates concerning the nature of creativity, cognition, and the uniqueness of human rationality. Systems capable of generating sophisticated musical compositions raise a fundamental philosophical and theological question: can algorithmic systems genuinely create, or do they merely simulate human creative activity? This paper addresses this question from the perspective of the Thomistic philosophical tradition. The objective of the paper is twofold: first, to assess whether the emergence of AI-generated music challenges the Thomistic account of intellect and creativity; and second, to examine the social and economic implications of algorithmic cultural production for the dignity of human creative labor. Methodologically, the study adopts a philosophical-theological approach that combines conceptual analysis of key Thomistic notions—such as intellectus, ars, and the immaterial character of intellectual cognition—with a critical examination of contemporary AI music systems as a concrete case study. The paper argues that AI-generated music represents a form of algorithmic cultural production that, while technically sophisticated, does not constitute genuine creativity. Within the Aristotelian-Thomistic framework, authentic creative acts presuppose intellectual abstraction, intentionality, and rational agency. AI systems, by contrast, generate musical outputs through statistical pattern processing rather than understanding. From this perspective, Thomistic anthropology offers conceptual resources for distinguishing simulated creativity from human artistic activity and for reaffirming the dignity of creative labor in the age of artificial intelligence.

Panel description: The God of justice and peace stands with the whole Creation, human and non-human, that are vulnerable and have suffered the injustices of human greed. In a time marked by common ecological challenges that affect all peoples and all religious traditions —Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, and Indigenous spiritualities—, we seek interreligious theological and ecumenical reflections on human responsibility toward the just community with the "neighbours" (Luke 10:25-37), human and non-human creation that are today being wiped up at risk through extinction, degradation, and pollution from human overexploitations. The contemporary global crises are reflected in outrageous inequalities of access to natural resources and widespread lack of respect to existential rights for the overall Creation. The eco-justice crisis is the defining moral and spiritual challenge of our time. Climate change, biodiversity loss, environmental degradation and widening economic inequalities demand not only technological or political responses but mainly theological, ethical and interreligious engagement. These crises call for shared responses grounded in dialogue, solidarity and collaborative action across traditions. This open panel invites papers that explore how interreligious and ecumenical theologies can respond to the urgent need for eco-justice - justice that embraces the integrity of creation, the dignity of all beings and the flourishing of all communities. We particularly welcome contributions that show religious pathways to solve universal eco-justice challenges and inequalities. We, representatives from the World Council of Churches (WCC), the Ecological Theology and Environmental Ethics (ECOTHEE) and the European Christian Ecotheology Research Network (ECErN) invite theologians, activists, policymakers, and scientists, to contribute to this vital conversation at the intersection of faith, ecology, and justice.

Papers:

REIMAGINING CHRISTIAN ECOTHEOLOGY THROUGH INDIGENOUS SPIRITUALITIES: POSTCOLONIAL ECOFEMINIST PERSPECTIVES ON ECOLOGICAL JUSTICE

Furlan Štante N. (Speaker)

Znanstveno raziskovalno središče Koper ~ Koper ~ Slovenia
This paper explores how Indigenous spiritualities can inform a reimagined Christian ecotheology through the lens of postcolonial ecofeminism, with a focus on ecological justice. Indigenous traditions understand humans as one among many co-creators in relational interdependence with all living and non-living beings, while the Earth—Pachamama—is recognized as a sentient, sacred being. By contrast, Global North technological and extractive practices often exacerbate ecological degradation and environmental inequities, disproportionately affecting communities in the Global South. Integrating Indigenous cosmologies with ecofeminist theology offers critical insights into relational ethics, emotion, and spiritual ecology, highlighting the need for justice-oriented environmental praxis. The paper asks how Christian ecotheology might engage these affective and spiritual epistemologies to address ecological injustices, promote care for all beings, and support sustainable, equitable stewardship of the Earth. Ultimately, it envisions ecotheology as a profoundly relational, ethical, and spiritual endeavor, bridging Global North-South divides and fostering cosmic and ecological harmony.
THE ECUMENICAL DECADE OF CLIMATE JUSTICE ACTION (2025-2034) AND INTER-RELIGIOUS ADVOCACIES FOR ECO-JUSTICE AT THE WORLD COUNCIL OF CHURCHES (WCC)

Andrianos L.A. (Speaker) , Ziaka A. (Speaker)

World Council of Churches ~ Geneva ~ Switzerland
This paper offers a theological analysis of the World Council of Churches' (WCC) Ecumen-ical Decade of Climate Justice Action (2025-2034), interpreting it as a faith-based response to intersecting inequalities intensified by the global climate crisis. Engaging the conference theme Religion and Inequality, the study argues that the WCC's climate justice framework advances an eco-theological critique of structural injustice, revealing how ecological degra-dation, economic exploitation, and social marginalization are deeply intertwined both mate-rially and theologically. Climate change is thus understood not merely as an environmental emergency but as an ethical and spiritual crisis rooted in unequal power relations. Situating the Decade within the WCC's longstanding commitment to justice, peace, and the integrity of creation, the study explores how climate justice is framed not merely as an environmental concern but as a moral, spiritual, and socio-political imperative. The paper analyzes key WCC documents, ecumenical and inter-faith initiatives to demonstrate how Christian ecotheologies, indigenous spiritualities and the wisdom of diverse religious traditions are mobilized together, alongside the WCC stewardship, to address the disproportionate impact of climate change on vulnerable communities and on the rest of creation, especially the biodiversity. The paper further emphasizes interreligious dialogue and advocacy as central strategies for eco-justice, particularly through partnerships with Indigenous traditions and major world religions. By centering lived experiences from the Global South, the WCC challenges an-thropocentric and economically driven climate responses and calls for systemic transfor-mation grounded in solidarity, equity, and ecological sustainability. The implications of this initiative should influence contemporary eco-theological discourse and faith communities' solidarity in addressing the current ecological and ethical crisis.
SÁMI TRADITIONAL ECOLOGICAL KNOWLEDGE AS AN IMPULSE FOR CHRISTIAN FAITH EDUCATION: A NORWE-GIAN CASE STUDY WITH GLOBAL RELEVANCE

Bredal-Tomren T.S. (Speaker)

VID Specialized University ~ Stavanger ~ Norway
This paper explores how Sámi Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) can enrich Christian faith education within the Church of Norway. The study builds on interviews with three Sámi re-spondents from reindeer-herding families, previously analyzed in an ecocritical case study on sustainability education in Norwegian schools (Intercultural Education, 2025). Findings reveal that Sámi TEK embodies values and practices such as frugality, "taking only what you need," gratitude, and respect for the sacredness of nature—impulses that can strengthen Christian creation theology and ethics of sustainability. Drawing on earlier research on Sámi ecotheology (Studia Theologica, 2023) and an analysis of statements from the Sámi Church Council (Studia Theologica, 2025), we discuss how these per-spectives can be integrated into faith education. We propose three strategies: (1) Theological language renewal, introducing relational and holistic concepts of creation; (2) Experiential learning, through field-based encounters and dialogue with Sámi resource persons; (3) Decolonizing pedagogy, emphasizing collaboration rather than teaching about Indigenous peoples. This Norwegian case study has clear transferability to other Scandinavian contexts, where churches face similar challenges in integrating Indigenous perspectives into education and lit-urgy. Moreover, it speaks to a global conversation: How can churches worldwide learn from Indigenous cosmologies to develop faith education that promotes ecological justice and rev-erence for creation? We argue that Sámi TEK—understood as practice, values, and cosmolo-gy—can inspire churches to move beyond predominantly anthropocentric frameworks toward a more relational and ecocentric approach to faith formation.
CULTIVATING AN INTERFAITH INTEGRAL ECOLOGY

Durante C. (Speaker)

Saint Peter's University ~ Jersey City, New Jersey ~ United States of America
This presentation will argue that ecological injustices persist because the values of the neoliberal ethos have become so ingrained in our system over the course of the past few generations that for most people today, it is the values of this economic paradigm, rather than the values of their faith traditions, that are predominant in governing their social lives and molding their daily lifestyles. For instance, E.F. Schumacher's Buddhist economics (1973) shares much in common with Catholic Social Teaching and many of the ideas he espoused foreshadow those expressed in Laudato Si' (2015), in which Pope Francis adopted the concept of "environmental sin," first expressed in 1997 by Patriarch Bartholomew of the Orthodox Christian tradition, and promotes an Integral Ecology in which the social, economic, cultural and ecological dimensions of reality are understood holistically as inter-related aspects of life on planet earth. Placing Christianity in dialogue with Judaism, Islam and Buddhism, it will be suggested that a good economy ought to be designed in such a way as to provide all members of society with a sufficient degree of well-being and livelihoods that do not cause harm to others and which promote service to the public good of the local communities in which they live. I will suggest that the Catholic Social principle of subsidiarity, which maintains that local communities ought to have authority to manage their own affairs; the Buddhist principle of right livelihood, which asserts that performing certain types of work can be inherently unethical; and prohibitions of usury, or charging interest in money-lending, that are part and parcel of Islamic economics and banking (and which were once upheld by Jews and Christians as well), serve as foundational principles of this new Interfaith Integral Ecology.
"FROM BYZANTINE HYMNOGRAPHY TO GLOBAL ECO-JUSTICE: ORTHODOX LITURGICAL THEOLOGY AS PROPHETIC AND INTERRELIGIOUS ENVIRONMENTAL WITNESS"

Levakos P. (Speaker)

PhD researcher, Faculty of Theology, Athens / MA student, Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies KU Leuven, Belgium. ~ Athens ~ Greece
The contemporary ecological crisis constitutes one of the most urgent moral and spiritual challenges facing global religious traditions, demanding theological responses that transcend confessional boundaries and promote collaborative eco-justice engagement. Within the framework of the World Council of Churches' prophetic call for Justice, Peace, and the Integrity of Creation, this paper examines Orthodox liturgical tradition as a formative theological source for ecological responsibility and interreligious environmental ethics. Focusing on Byzantine and post-Byzantine hymnographic texts, particularly ecological supplicatory liturgical material, the study explores how liturgical language expresses a sacramental vision of creation grounded in repentance, relational anthropology, and cosmic communion. Orthodox worship presents creation as an active participant in the divine economy, while portraying ecological degradation as the result of disrupted human vocation and broken communion between humanity, creation, and God. Methodologically, the paper combines historical-liturgical textual analysis with constructive theological reflection, examining liturgy as a performative theological practice shaping ecological consciousness within faith communities. The research situates Orthodox ecological theology within broader ecumenical and interreligious eco-justice frameworks, highlighting convergences with other religious environmental ethics, particularly regarding stewardship and communal responsibility toward vulnerable ecosystems and marginalized human communities. By presenting liturgy as a space of ecological formation and prophetic witness, the paper contributes to contemporary eco-theological discourse and supports the WCC vision of faith-based environmental solidarity, demonstrating how Orthodox hymnographic tradition offers historically grounded and spiritually transformative resources for interreligious dialogue and collective responses to ecological injustice.
THE ECUMENICAL DECADE OF CLIMATE JUSTICE ACTION (2025-2034) AND INTER-RELIGIOUS ADVOCACIES FOR ECO-JUSTICE AT THE WORLD COUNCIL OF CHURCHES (WCC)

Andrianos L. (Speaker) , Ziaka A. (Speaker)

World Council of Churches ~ Geneva ~ Switzerland
This paper offers a theological analysis of the Ecumenical Decade of Climate Justice Action (2025-2034) initiated by the World Council of Churches (WCC), interpreting it as a faith-based response to intersecting inequalities intensified by the global climate crisis. Engaging EUARE's focus on religion and inequality, the study examines the Decade's theological foundations, strategic priorities, and inter-religious advocacy for eco-justice. It argues that the WCC's climate justice framework advances an eco-theological critique of structural injustice, exposing how ecological degradation, economic exploitation, and social marginalization are mutually reinforcing and embedded in unequal power relations. Climate crisis thus appears not only as an environmental emergency but as a moral and spiritual disorder. Situated within the WCC's longstanding commitment to justice, peace, and the integrity of creation, the paper analyzes key policy and theological documents to show how climate justice is framed as a moral, spiritual, and socio-political imperative. Particular attention is given to the mobilization of Christian ecotheologies alongside Indigenous spiritualities and other religious traditions to address the disproportionate impacts of climate change on vulnerable communities, biodiversity, and the wider web of life. The paper further highlights inter-religious dialogue and advocacy as a central strategy, emphasizing partnerships with Indigenous traditions, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, and other faith communities. These collaborations seek to build ethical consensus, influence public policy, and support grassroots climate action, particularly in the Global South. The Ecumenical Decade of Climate Justice Action is thus presented as a significant development in contemporary religious responses to climate inequality, with broader implications for the study of religion, ethics, and global justice.
MOBILIZING FOR GLOBAL CLIMATE SECURITY: THE CASE OF THE UNITED STATES

French W. (Speaker)

Loyola University Chicago ~ Chicago ~ United States of America
I argue that historic (Aristotle and Aquinas) and contemporary discussions of prudence and justice offer guidance for humanity mobilizing for climate security. Prudence has been held as the queen of the virtues because it guides decision and action. Justice too plays a unique role as it directs care due to others and to the common good. If prudence concerns can justify high military spending to protect a nation's security, surely prudence also requires nations to spend comparable sums on climate security. Justice concerns must shape the differential levels of climate security spending owed by different nations. Some island nations and poor countries need to receive climate change funds to help them adapt to climate change and to shift to build solar and wind power capacity. Wealthy nations and those most responsible for climate change must bear the heaviest burdens of mitigating climate change and helping other nations to adapt to new conditions. The United States offers an interesting case study. It is the wealthiest nation with annual military spending of roughly $1 trillion, more than the next 9 nations combined. The US is also the world's top climate perpetrator given its industrialization in the 19th century and its sustained high use of fossil fuels. National mobilization efforts for many nations hit their historic peak during World War II. US military spending rose to 40% of our gross domestic product (GDP). During much of the Cold War US military spending stood between 10-12% of GDP. My proposal is that the US commit a new annual climate security budget equal to our current military spending. Current US military spending is less than 4% of our current GDP. A new security line would push total US security spending to 8% of GDP. This is well under the level of US security spending during the Cold War. Any US climate security efforts, like those of all other nations, directly support the common good of the entire Earth community.
INTERDENOMINATIONAL AND INTERRELIGIOUS CLIMATE ACTION INITIATIVES IN AUSTRALIA

Bergmann N. (Speaker)

Australian Catholic University ~ Brisbane ~ Australia
In Australia, action on climate change has been one of the top three political issues in recent elections. Australia has a diverse mix of Christian denominations, other world religions and indigenous spiritualities. This paper describes several different climate activist groups within Australia which span multi-denominations and multi-religions along different models. Australian Religious Response to Climate Change is a national climate activist group. It is an individual member based group, and also has organizational members from many faith groups. Membership includes Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Brahma Kumaris, Buddhist, Jewish and Unitarians individuals and organisations. ARRCC's primarily role is political activism such as the promotion of the fossil fuel treaty and meetings with politicians; community activism such as banners at places of worship; and providing a repository of faith-based climate activism resources. Common Grace is a Christian non-profit organization which operates on supporter donations, and it includes partnerships with local churches. Its work focusses on justice across four areas, with emphasis on connecting with first nations people. These areas are Indigenous Justice, Creation and Climate Justice, Asylum-seeker Justice and Domestic and Family Violence Justice. Its activities include podcasts, an annual conference, teaching materials and devotional materials. A Rocha Australia is part of the A Rocha family of Christian environmental conservation organizations. It is non-denominational and is member-based and operates from donations. A majority of its work is hands-on conservation of wilderness areas. The paper explores similarities and differences in the approaches of these organisations, and investigates their contributions to inter-religious and inter-denominational cooperation, understanding and respect as a secondary benefit to their direct creation care work.
THE ECOTHEOLOGY OF JESUS OF NAZARETH: AN INTERRELIGIOUS INVITATION TO THE KINGDOM OF GOD

Cardoso Duarte J. (Speaker)

Research Scientist ~ Coimbra ~ Portugal
We don't know much about the historic Jesus but vestiges of his historical life can be looked through on the synoptic evangiles of Marc, Mathews and Luc. While Marc evangile is the main source for Mathew and Luc, the exegetes find that Mathew and Luc had at disposition another literary source, the "Q" (source), while Luc still disposed of other elements not known to the other two synoptic evangelists. The main reason for Jesus activity may be found on his announcement of the "Kingdom of God" (KG). As announced in the beginning of the first evangile to be written, that of Marc: After John had been arrested, Jesus came into Galilee proclaiming the Gospel of God: "The time has come; the Kingdom of God is upon you; repent and believe the Gospel." (Mark, 1, 14-15). This is probably the most old message of the historic Jesus, the one that summarises the objective of his predication and life. What was for Jesus the KG? That the time was completed and God himself was coming to instal His justice to end the corruption of those that had reigned in His name with devastating consequences for the poorest and weakest of the land, by subjugating these with thousands of the law precepts while they lived in luxury on palaces. In one word as Jesus called them repeatedly, those that were supposed to represent Him: hypocrites. Therefore the message of Jesus was clear, a message against the masters of the land, the powerful, and in favour of the poor and the simple. This was his Theology but how can it be turned into an Ecotheology? By assuming that the poorest and simple of the land on the time of Jesus are now being oppressed by the additional consequence of the powerful and greedy with the possibility of hypocrisy (M.Henry: Paroles du Christ, p.24, Éd. du Seuil, 2002) that is the enormous impact of the environmental devastation and climatic change. The invitation to the KG continues: an interreligious approach on eco-justice will bring the KG with repent and believe on the Gospel.
THE GROANING OF CREATION: AN EASTERN CHRISTIAN MYSTICAL RESPONSE TO ANIMAL SUFFERING AND FACTORY FARMING

Sabada L. (Speaker)

University of Saskatchewan, St. Thomas More College ~ Saskatoon, Saskatchewan ~ Canada
The Groaning of Creation: An Eastern Christian Mystical Response to Animal Suffering and Factory Farming Within the framework of the Eastern Christian tradition, this presentation explores the distinctive theological framework for understanding animals and their suffering posed by contemporary factory farming. Rooted in a cosmology that views all creation as permeated by divine presence, this mystical branch of Eastern Christianity affirms that animals are not merely resources for human use but fellow creatures participating in the divine economy. Mystics and saints throughout the ages emphasize that every living being possesses intrinsic value and is an expression of God's love. This branch of Christianity cultivates compassion towards all living beings, teaching that the purification of the heart expands one's heart, resulting in increased capacity to perceive and to respond to the suffering of animals. In this theological context, the system of industrialized factory farming represents a profound rupture of humanity's vocation of love and compassion towards creation. The commodification of animal life, the infliction of systemic suffering, and the ecological devastation associated with industrial agriculture contradict the Eastern Christian mystical vision of creation as a loving interconnected communion. The tradition calls for union with God and metanoia which is expressed through restraint, spiritual discernment, and practices that honor the dignity of all creatures. By recovering its cosmological consciousness, Eastern Christianity offers a prophetic critique of factory farming and a constructive spiritual vision rooted in compassion, relationality, and the transfiguration of creation. This worldview invites a renewed spiritual imagination capable of addressing the intertwined crises of animal suffering, environmental degradation, and human alienation.
BLUE THEOLOGY

Locorotondo L. (Speaker)

PUL ~ Roma ~ Italy
Blue Theology places the sea at the center of spiritual reflection, ethical responsibility, and ecological awareness. Moving beyond traditional land-based metaphors and doctrines, it reorients theological inquiry toward the ocean as a primary locus of divine presence, revelation, and interconnected life. The sea, in this perspective, is not merely a symbolic backdrop in sacred narratives but a living, dynamic space that embodies mystery, creation, and transformation. Drawing from scriptural motifs, maritime cultures, and contemporary environmental concerns, Blue Theology explores themes such as fluidity, depth, vulnerability, and interdependence. It challenges anthropocentric paradigms by emphasizing humanity's embeddedness within marine ecosystems and calls for a renewed sense of stewardship toward oceanic environments. In the context of climate change, pollution, and biodiversity loss, Blue Theology develops an ethical vision that integrates spiritual reverence with ecological action. In addition to its ecological and spiritual dimensions, Blue Theology highlights the social significance of the sea as a space of encounter and relationality. The ocean has historically connected peoples, cultures, and civilizations, serving as a threshold where differences meet and identities are reshaped. In this sense, the sea becomes a symbol and lived reality of a shared humanity, where boundaries dissolve and the human family is rediscovered as one. Blue Theology therefore promotes a vision of solidarity, hospitality, and mutual recognition, inviting communities to see the sea not as a barrier but as a common ground for dialogue and unity. Ultimately, Blue Theology calls for a reimagining of the relationship between the divine, humanity, and the natural world, proposing the ocean as both a theological source and a moral horizon. It offers a contemplative and activist pathway that responds to the urgent need for sustainable and inclusive coexistence with the planet's waters.

Panel description: This panel invites scholars to explore the notion of bio-egalitarianism among humans, animals, and plants, as well as non-anthropocentric ethical approaches to life, in the context of traditional and modern religiosity. The philosophical dynamic between humanity, nature, and the divine has been debated since Spinoza's formulation of Deus sive Natura. However, in contemporary scholarship, the academic exploration of religious environmentalism is often traced back to Lynn White's article in Nature, titled The Historical Roots of Our Ecological Crisis (1967). White argues that ecological degradation was caused by the anthropocentric and instrumentalist evaluation of nature, attributed to Christian doctrine. While White's paper sparked decades of critique, the discourse generated by his essay highlighted the need to explore new moral frameworks in religion that could shift the relationship between humans and other species in a less anthropocentric direction. Today, religious environmental ethics is a recognized multidisciplinary field, represented by researchers such as Mary Evelyn Tucker and John Allen Grim, among others, engaging questions such as: • How can religious traditions relate to contemporary ideas such as environmentalism or conservationism? • What historical and exemplary (textual or ritual) evidence indicates bio-egalitarian or non-anthropocentric narratives within religious traditions? • How do contemporary religious specialists, influential figures, and their communities respond to ecological crises and the ethics of non-human life? • How does religious practice adapt and transform in the light of new socio-environmental challenges, such as ecological degradation, consumerism, and capitalism? This panel welcomes scholars from all disciplines to contribute their findings and research relating to one or more of these themes.

Papers:

REUNION BETWEEN NATURE AND SOCIETY A CASE STUDY BASED ON MONGOLIAN NARRATIVES ON ANIMAL-SHAPED SPOUSE

Birtalan Á. (Speaker)

ELTE Institute of Mongolian and Inner Asian Studies ~ Budapest ~ Hungary
It is crucial to continually reassess the relationship between human society and the natural environment at the levels of society, community, and individuals. We must establish how to restore the balance between nature and society, which has been disrupted by prevailing social and economic systems. It is vital to determine how nature can effectively intervene in the human world. The renewed "alliance" between humans and nature manifests as a union between a human and an animal-shaped spouse endowed with divine attributes. This paper will examine two narratives from Mongolian ethnic groups, focusing on the marriage between a man from the human world and an animal-shaped wife from a transcendental realm. Contemporary Mongolian peoples are descendants of Inner Asian nomads and Siberian hunters, and their culture has been influenced by various factors, the most significant of which is Buddhism. This analysis will trace the pre-Buddhist motifs that reflect a shared heritage among Inner Asian and Siberian populations. The two narratives analysed will reveal the strategies employed by divine nature to intervene in human society. The first recounts a myth of the swan wife, originating from Khori Buryat mythology, while the second details the she-wolf spouse from a Kalmyk folk tale, showcasing her marriage to both a hunter and a nomadic shepherd. The animal-shaped spouse, who can also take on human form, catalyses transformation within the human world. Through her union with the hero, existing structures undergo significant change, and pressing problems find resolution. The arrival of this spouse from a realm beyond humanity elevates the harmony between nature and society to an unprecedented level. In a previous study, I explored several plots involving animal spouse motifs and analysed the intricacies of human-animal marriages through kinship terminology and language use. In this paper, I will highlight the aspects of the renewed alliance between society and nature.
PHILOSOPHICAL FOUNDATIONS OF THE INTERCONNECTEDNESS OF THE SELF AND THE ENVIRONMENT - REFLECTIONS ON THE TIANTAI THEORY OF THE BUDDHA-NATURE OF THE INSENTIENT

Pap M. (Speaker)

ELTE Institute of Chinese Studies ~ Budapest ~ Hungary
The proposed lecture aims at presenting the idea of the 'Buddha-nature of the insentient' (wuqing you xing 無情有性), a basic tenet formulated by the Tiantai 天台 school of Chinese Buddhism. It explores the dimensions of the interconnectedness of the self and the surrounding environment, taking Zhanran's 湛然 (711−782) authoritative treatise, Diamond scalpel (Jin'gang bei 金剛錍; T46:1932), as a case study. First, parallel to defining key terms, the expanding dimensions of the concept of Buddha-nature (Foxing 佛性; Tathāgatagarbha) in Chinese Buddhism will be briefly presented, evolving from being understood as universally inherent in sentient beings, towards encompassing 'grasses and trees' (in Jizang's 吉藏 philosophy), and finally referring to 'tiles and stones' (Zhanran), as well. The major part of the presentation will focus on Zhanran's philosophy, and his argument that Buddha-nature cannot be understood as some sort of pure essence, locked inside the self (body and mind) of sentient beings, and separated from the surrounding environment, but it is rather an ongoing process, leading towards Buddhahood, which implies both the mind and the objects of cognition (i.e., the external environment), as experienced by the reflecting mind. Zhanran states that, no less than from the perspective of the ultimate reality, there is no real difference between the self and the world one is experiencing; this is true at the level of Buddhas and their pure lands, and sentient beings and their realms. Finally, some further implications of this concept, a theory debated but largely assimilated by the Sinicized schools of Buddhism, are contextualized as a potential foundation for modern Buddhist environmental narratives.
THE BUDDHIST 'REVERENCE FOR LIFE': THE TEACHINGS OF HSING YUN IN LIGHT OF BIOCENTRIC ETHICS

Balázs J. (Speaker)

ELTE Institute of Chinese Studies ~ Budapest ~ Hungary
Recent environmental scholarship increasingly emphasizes that humans bear immense responsibility for both causing and solving the global ecological crisis. Within this context, Mary Evelyn Tucker and Judith Berling argue that world religions are also actively responding to the dilemmas of this crisis by "entering the ecological phase," referring to how influential figures in religions not only need to address ecological questions through doctrinal hermeneutics and engage their communities in these questions, but also attain equilibrium between religious tradition and modernity. This paper explores this phenomenon through the teachings and dharma lectures of one of Taiwan's most significant figures in contemporary Buddhism, Hsing Yun (1927-2023), with a specific focus on his articulation of the term life-protection (husheng 護生), a foundational concept in his Buddhist environmentalism. In his teachings, Hsing Yun often used the definition of husheng to emphasize that environmentalism from the Buddhist point of view should precisely mean the protection of living beings, as life itself is the foundation of ecology, and it is what unifies humans, non-humans, and even non-living objects (such as soil, water, or everyday functional objects). Life-protection for Hsing Yun signifies that every organism has intrinsic value simply because it strives to stay alive, a perspective that closely resonates with the biocentric ethical views of philosophers such as Albert Schweitzer, Paul W. Taylor, and Holmes Rolston III. By contextualizing Hsing Yun's concept of life-protection within biocentric ethics, this paper demonstrates how his reinterpretations of traditional Chinese Buddhism construct a doctrinally grounded response to contemporary concerns such as environmentalism, animal rights, and consumerism.
SPIRITUAL COUNSEL FROM THE CHORUS OF CREATION: RISHI SUFISM, WATER, AND MORE-THAN-HUMAN-EQUALITY IN EARLY MODERN KASHMIR

Dziedzic P.J. (Speaker)

Harvard University ~ Cambridge, MA ~ United States of America
What might religious bio-equality look like when a tradition treats animals, plants, waters, and landscapes not as resources but as moral interlocutors? This paper argues that early modern Kashmiri Rishi Sufism articulates a non-anthropocentric environmental ethics by portraying the Kashmir Valley—especially its "living waters," its springs, rivers, and lakes—as a communicative community of worship and guidance. Through close readings of sixteenth-century Persian Rishi literature, particularly Dāwūd Khākī's Rishināma (Lives of the Rishis) and Qaṣīda Ghusūliyya (The Lustral Ode), I analyze episodes in which poet-saints enter retreat near springs and rivers, and, through ascetic receptivity, encounter more-than-human agencies such as water spirits or mountain rocks that warn, protect, or instruct them. In these accounts, ethical excellence is not defined by human dominion but by disciplined responsiveness to creation's address. The Rishi Sufi saint becomes one who can interpret and answer the world's more-than-human speech. Methodologically, I develop a theory of Islamic "ecopoesis" to show how hagiography and devotional poetry function as environmental ethics in narrative form, training audiences in attention, restraint, and reciprocity across species. I further argue that Rishi poetry embeds this ethics in an Islamic semiotics of more-than-human expression—tasbīḥ (creaturely glorification) and zabān-e ḥāl (the language of inner states)—which casts the more-than-human as participants in constant prayer rather than as a mute backdrop. I bring my philological and textual analysis into conversation with a contemporary ethnographic study of the ritual centrality of water at three Kashmiri Sufi shrines. I show how Khākī's visionary poetics and Rishi Sufi devotional practices offer a localized Islamic framework for a bio-egalitarian moral imagination, one that reframes ecological degradation as the disruption of a living, praising, communicative cosmos.
CULTURE, ECONOMY AND HUMAN DIGNITY: REFLECTIONS ON NON-ANTHROPOCENTRIC ETHICS

Strappati G. (Speaker)

Guest/Invited Visiting Professor at: Florida State University, USA; Instituto Superior de Música J. Hernández, Buenos Aires, Argentina; Conservatorio Statale G. Verdi, Ravenna, Italy ~ Ancona ~ Italy
Contemporary cultural production raises pressing questions about the ethical evaluation of human and non-human agents, as well as the social and economic structures in which creativity unfolds. This paper examines these issues from a religious and ethical perspective, situating human cultural activity within broader considerations that encompass animals, plants, and the environment. The paper aims to explore how economic and cultural systems shape the moral and spiritual value of creative work, and how religious and ethical frameworks can offer non-anthropocentric approaches to understanding human dignity in relation to other forms of life. Methodologically, it combines conceptual analysis of key ethical notions—such as creativity, agency, and dignity—with illustrative case studies of contemporary cultural and economic practices, including art, music, and cultural labor. The analysis suggests that, while human cultural production is deeply embedded in economic systems, its ethical and spiritual significance cannot be separated from the recognition of non-human agency and the moral value of ecological and social systems. This reflection parallels debates in religious environmental ethics, where moral consideration extends beyond humans to the broader web of life. By situating human creativity within both cultural and economic networks, the paper offers a framework for ethical and religious reflection that fosters a holistic, less anthropocentric understanding of dignity, responsibility, and flourishing.

Panel description: Extensive scholarly work on Nicholas of Cusa only began in earnest with the Cusanus renaissance of the nineteenth century. Originally centered in Tubingen, this work culminated with the Heidelberg edition of Cusa's Opera omnia initiated under Raymond Klibansky's editorial guidance in 1932. This project was only completed in 1982, long after Klibansky had moved to McGill University. Along with the publication of the important work Individuum und Kosmos in der Philosophie der Renaissance in 1927 by Klibanky's colleague Ernst Cassirer, this set the frame of reference for subsequent accounts of Cusa's reception in terms of a debate on the appropriateness of applying medieval or modern categories to Cusa. While Cusa's thought is perpetually innovative in anticipating both contemporary philosophical and theological debates, this innovation is tied directly to an intensive retrieval of ancient Greek philosophy. His influence on subsequent thought is both wide-ranging and extensive—ranging across German Idealism, neo-Kantianism and French phenomenology—but this influence is not always easy to track and quantify in precise terms. In this panel, we propose to explore the problematic of 'reception' in Cusanus' philosophy. This panel will therefore address the question of reception in Nicholas of Cusa from three interrelated angles: (i) Cusa's own reception of ancient Greek philosophy, especially Plato and Aristotle in light of his Medieval/Renaissance context; (ii) the nineteenth century retrieval of Cusa and how this has shaped the subsequent assessments and re-assessments of Cusa's thought and debates surrounding its historical location; (iii) ongoing or possible applications of Cusa's work to novel philosophical works and contexts. Re-thinking the concept of reception both in and for Nicholas of Cusa's work will aid us in moving past impasses in the scholarship, as well as underscore the growing significance of Cusa's work.

Papers:

NICHOLAS OF CUSA AS A METAPHYSICIAN? RATIO AND CAUSA IN THE DE AEQUALITATE

Bossoletti F. (Speaker)

McGill University ~ Montreal ~ Canada
This paper aims to analyze Nicholas of Cusa's treatise De Aequalitate (1459), focusing on the peculiar articulation of the concepts of ratio and causa present in it. Through an examination of the text, we intend to show how the Cardinal operates a semantic reconfiguration of these categories, removing them from a rigid scholastic approach and orienting them towards a new perspective, the metaphysical orientation of which, if there is one, will then be discussed. This theoretical operation allows us to place Nicholas of Cusa in a crucial position within the debate on the genesis of modernity, highlighting how his thought acts as a hinge between classical metaphysics and modern epistemological tensions. The analysis will aim to demonstrate that, in Cusa's thought, a redefinition of cause paves the way for an interpretation of the cardinal that places him as the original voice of a possible modernity that subsequent philosophy has not pursued, and which therefore provides us with a way of thinking for the contemporary world.
ΘΕΩΡΊΑ ΤΟΥ͂ ΘΕΟΥ͂ : CHRIST AS MODEL OF CONTEMPLATION IN CUSANUS' DEI VISIONE DEI

Nini M. (Speaker)

Institute of Philosophy ~ Zagreb ~ Croatia
This paper will explore the deeper meaning of the ancient Greek term theoria in the context of Nicholas Cusanus' treatise De Visione Dei (1453). It will argue that the text's deeply neo-Platonic theme of contemplation as seeing culminates in the figure of Christ, found at the end of the treatise. Christ represents, for Cusanus, the high point of the Christian-Platonic tradition of contemplation, since he is both the model contemplative and the supreme object of contemplation. Cusanus' unique contribution is related to the ambivalent genitive of the Greek term "theoria tou theou," the contemplation of God. Theoria is a verbal noun that does not in itself evoke a subject or object. This is similar to the famous genitive ambiguity of ἀγάπη τοῦ θεοῦ, "love of God" (e.g., "In this the love of God was revealed to us" 1 Jn. 4:9). Theoria tou theou at once evokes God as He who contemplated and He who is contemplated, and this idea is further refined by the Incarnation, in which the bodily Christ both sees and is seen. An application of the coincidence of opposites that defies the simple logic of subject and object, this version also evokes the original, pre-Aristotelian use of the term theoria as a pilgrimage. Cusanus himself has arrived from the east with an icon, a gift to the monks of Tegernsee to whom the treatise is dedicated, and this serves as a reflective space for the paradoxical exercise of theoria to be performed. After ascending up to the Trinity, the theoria-pilgrimage then re-descends to earth, to Christ - the summit to whom one paradoxically "descends." He is the model of object of our contemplation, the terminus ad quem of theoria, but also of the scholarly life: for just as the experienced scholar can read a small portion of a book and divine its arguments, so too does (human) Christ see only the eyes of the interlocutor, and as divine, is able to read the contents of the soul.
TRADITION AND ABSTENTION: THE ABSENCE OF A CREATION DOCTRINE IN NICHOLAS OF CUSA

Lindsay I. (Speaker)

McGill University ~ Montreal ~ Canada
Participation in an intellectual tradition is often assessed through the doctrines and concepts a thinker inherits and reformulates. Yet absence can be equally revealing. This paper argues that Nicolaus Cusanus's corpus is marked not by a distinctive doctrine of creation, but by the conspicuous absence of one. Situated at the culmination of a medieval scholastic tradition dominated by systematic summae, in which a doctrine of creation functions as a foundational causal and ontological principle, Cusanus' omission is striking. Medieval accounts of creation—from Albertus Magnus' emanationist tendencies, through Aquinas' articulation of creation as efficient causality, to the ordered metaphysical frameworks of later scholasticism—establish determinate cosmological and epistemic architectures. By declining to articulate a doctrine of creation, Cusanus effectively extricates himself from these inherited metaphysical demands. At the same time, this omission situates him within an epistemological framework in which the distinction between the ordo creationis and the ordo cognoscendi cannot be coherently maintained. The absence of a creation doctrine thus emerges not as a lacuna but as a deliberate philosophical posture that reconfigures Cusanus' relationship to medieval cosmology, causality, and knowledge.
GOD BEYOND GROUND: THE RECEPTION OF NICHOLAS OF CUSA IN HEIDEGGER AND MARION

Smith A. (Speaker)

McGill University ~ Montreal ~ Canada
Given his proximity to the Marburg School that was central to the inauguration of Cusa Scholarship in the twentieth century, it is surprising how inessential Nicholas of Cusa remained for Martin Heidegger. This absence is especially marked in Heidegger's Destruktion of the onto-theological character of metaphysics, where Cusa is at a remove from any of Heidegger's inflection points in the history or destiny [Geschick] of Being. This situation could not be more different for Jean-Luc Marion, who adopted Heidegger's project of dismantling the onto-theological character of metaphysics, even if he assigns differing conceptual and historical coordinates to his understanding. For Marion, onto-theology results in a sort of 'conceptual idolatry' where God is submitted to a predetermined concept of being of our own making. Within his own framework of onto-theology, Marion's understanding and use of Nicholas of Cusa could not be more essential, signalling a path beyond any metaphysica generalis that is the subject of Heidegger's critique. This paper deals with the reception of Nicholas of Cusa in Heidegger and Marion's understanding of onto-theology. My argument is that the difference between their readings and reception of Cusa is rooted in their respective understanding of the Neoplatonic 'beyond-being.' As Werner Beierwaltes has shown, Heidegger is almost systematically unable to engage with Neoplatonism without taking the One for a summum ens. For Marion, on the other hand, his understanding of onto-theology as resulting in a conceptual idolatry entails that any correct way to deal with onto-theology is precisely by providing a route beyond the concept of being. In spite of their apparently shared critique, their respective uses (or non-uses) of Cusa show the most striking difference in their understandings of being in general and then of onto-theology in particular.
EXPLORING THE CONNECTION BETWEEN ONTOLOGY, EPISTEMOLOGY, AND ETHICS: CONSEQUENCES OF CUSA'S APPROACH TO BEING AND KNOWLEDGE FOR NATURAL LAW

De Souza A. (Speaker)

McGill University ~ Montreal ~ Canada
This paper will explore the connections between the ontology and epistemology underlying Thomistic human rights theory and that of Cusa. The former will be chiefly represented by Maritain and his work connecting Thomistic philosophy with political theory. The latter will be chiefly represented through his De Pace Fidei and De Docta Ignorantia. Cusa's identification of the relationship between our understanding of Truth and the solid ontological ground underlying the full variety of social, cultural, and religious difference in human cultures will provide an additional support for the perspective on religious liberty and natural law articulated by Maritain. On this view, religious liberty is not only the privilege of a limited set of substantially similar traditions that have an overlapping consensus but 'reasonably' disagree on particulars. It is a fundamental component of the common good for all peoples and traditions.
IMMEDIATE AND MEDIATED: LOVE IN NICHOLAS CUSANUS AND MARSILIO FICINO

Lutsch G. (Speaker)

McGill University ~ Montreal ~ Canada
Despite the historical proximity and shared intellectual inheritances of Nicholas of Cusa and Marsilio Ficino, Cusanus is remarkably absent as a source in the Ficinian corpus. Ficino's De Amore and Cusanus' De Visione Dei describe love as a bond between God and creation, whereby being proceeds as an act of God's providential love and returns as an act of conversive love. Their divergence, this paper argues, lies in Cusanus's emphasis on the immediacy of love's unitive bond, in contrast to Ficino's insistence on the necessity of metaphysical mediation. Cusanus describes God as "Loving Love" and "Lovable Love," and as the point at which the two loves are united. Filial love arises when the creature recognizes itself as the object of God's paternal love; in this recognition, God and creature are united through their shared capacity to love and be loved. Cusanus thus emphasises the immediacy of the relation between created beings and God, grounded in the recognition that paternal love precedes and embraces all creation. Though still unified and unifying, the bond Ficino describes in De Amore operates through a hierarchy of mediation as it unfolds into multiplicity and reverts to simplicity. Conversive love first occurs, for Ficino, as Intellect turns to its source. Because the natures of all things are contained within Intellect, the capacity of effects to love their causes is intrinsic to Ficino's vertical model of causality. Unlike Cusanus' account, Ficino's hierarchical structure requires that both providential and conversive love operate through intermediary levels within the cosmic order. Ficino's account of the birth of conversive love within the reflexive formation of Intellect, and Cusanus' grounding of love directly in the divine essence, therefore yield distinct accounts of the relation between lover and beloved.

Panel description: In 2025, the new established European Christian Ecotheology Research network (ECErN), in collaboration with the World Council of Churches (WCC), the VID university and other ecumenical institutions, have initiated the process of making Ecotheology as academic discipline in an international conference involving many theologians from all over the world. This panel on "Ecotheology in the World Religions" explores the capacities of ecotheology as an academic discipline and theological perspectives of diverse faiths to promote ethical frameworks and ecological responsibilites that intercept with global injustices. As the world grapples with climate change, environmental degradation, and social inequality, ecotheology in all religious traditions have an important role to play in fostering more equitable and sustainable communities. This panel will examine ecotheological principles in creation care, theology of justice, ecumenical collaboration and eco-spiritual practices across Christian traditions and Indigenous spiritualities. The panel aims at the capacity of ecotheology to inspire both personal and collective actions for just community. Participants may investigate how each tradition's sacred texts, rituals, and ethical teachings guide their followers to rethink human interaction with the earth, prioritize creation care, and advocate for vulnerables communities disproportionately affected by eco-injustices. This open panel seeks to bridge religion and science, faith and action, offering concrete strategies for religious communities to lead in the transformation towards a more just and sustainable world. The discussions will offer insights into how ecotheology not only enhances ecological awareness but also promotes social justice, economic equity, and cultural healing in a rapidly changing world. The panel will highlight ecotheology as a catalyst discipline for building sustainable and spiritually enriched communities.

Papers:

"TOWARD CLIMATE AND BIODIVERSITY JUSTICE: AN ECO-THEOLOGICAL CRITIQUE OF HUMAN AND NON-HUMAN RIGHT INEQUALITY IN THE ERA OF ANTRHROPOCENE GREED"

Andrianos L.A. (Speaker)

World Council of Churches ~ Geneva ~ Switzerland
The World Council of churches started the Ecumenical Decade of climate justice action with the thematic year 2026 focusing on Climate and Biodiversity. This article advances an ecumenical eco-theological critique of climate change and biodiversity loss by framing ecological destruction as sin rooted in Anthropocene greed. Drawing on theological insights, ethical frameworks, and policy orientations emerging from the World Council of Churches' engagement with creation care, sustainability, and climate justice, the study examines how dominant anthropocentric paradigms and growth-driven economic systems generate profound inequalities between human and non-human life. It argues that ecological sin must be understood as a structural and systemic reality, embedded in political, economic, and cultural institutions that normalize exploitation and environmental harm. Such structures disproportionately impact vulnerable human communities while undermining the intrinsic value and moral standing of non-human creation. Engaging ecotheology, justice-oriented ethics, and public theology, the article critiques financial-driven approaches to sustainability that fail to address questions of natural ecosystem values, spirituality, interdepedency, repentance, and limits to human and non-human rights such as greed lines. In dialogue with ecumenical commitments to justice, peace, and the integrity of creation, the article calls for a reimagining of human responsibility within the community of creation. It concludes by proposing an eco-theological vision oriented toward reconciliation that informs ethical action and public policy in order to challenge Anthropocene greed, and affirm an inclusive ethic of equal care and right for all life within the Earth community.
BRIDGING INEQUALITIES THROUGH NORTH-SOUTH COOPERATION IN ECOTHEOLOGY EDUCATION: A CASE STUDY FROM NORWAY

Bredal-Tomren T.S. (Speaker)

VID Specialized University ~ Stavanger ~ Norway
This paper explores how North-South collaboration in ecotheology courses addresses educational and ecological inequalities in theology. Based on the Akteol project (2022-2025)—a pedagogical innovation initiative funded by the Norwegian Directorate for Higher Education and Skills (HKDIR)—and a case at VID University (Norway) with partners in Madagascar, the study analyzes mixed-methods data from courses delivered through physical classroom teaching, hybrid models, and COIL (Collaborative Online Intercultural Learning). Findings show that such partnerships enhance intercultural competence, eco-hermeneutical depth, and sustainability-oriented praxis, while reducing carbon and financial costs of mobility. Challenges include unstable internet, language barriers, and differing pedagogical traditions. COIL emerges as a viable, low-cost complement to physical exchanges—provided it integrates clear leadership, adapted technology, and relational strategies to preserve theological dialogue. Combining classroom-based and online collaboration can democratize access to global theological discourse and equip students for faith-based leadership in addressing climate and social justice, aligning with EuARe's theme on religion and inequalities.
ECO-DOGMATICS AS A NEW MODEL OF DOING ECOTHEOLOGY IN THE ANTHROPOCENE

Asproulis N. (Speaker)

The Volos Academy for Theological Studies ~ Volos ~ Greece
The paper discusses the necessity of adopting a new model of ecotheology known as "Eco-Dogmatics." This model aims to critically integrate the best insights from both Christian tradition and modern science while exploring innovative ways to establish a meaningful ecotheological vision relevant to the Anthropocene. In light of the increasing climate instability caused by human activities, along with issues of climate injustice and the spread of populist disinformation, Christian theology must take radical action. It should promote a new theological model that resonates ecumenically, bridging various Christian traditions, and globally, addressing all cultures and species.

Panel description: Across Europe, confessional theology occupies a contested place within public universities. Historically grounded in Wissenschaft, it now operates within arrangements involving state authorities, religious communities, and public funding. This panel invites papers addressing the question: under what institutional, epistemic, and political conditions can Jewish theology plausibly function as a scientific discipline within democratic systems of public knowledge? Public universities shape epistemic legitimacy, transparency, accountability, and academic freedom through governance structures, appointment procedures, curricular authority, and funding within a system of public knowledge. In addition to three invited papers, the panel is open to solicit fresh perspectives. We welcome submissions engaging this question with particular attention to the institutionalization of Jewish theology at the University of Potsdam (2013) as an analytically illuminating case. The panel aims to include graduate students and early-career scholars, alongside established scholars. We welcome papers that address, for example: (1) Conceptual foundations — whether "Jewish theology" is a coherent category, and how it relates to Jewish studies. (2) Institutional and normative questions — whether "Jewish theology" is better situated within a public university or in rabbinical seminaries/independent institutes, and the trade-offs this entails for academic freedom, confessional integrity, professional formation, and public accountability. (3) Comparative case studies — contrasting Potsdam with rabbinical seminaries and Jewish academic institutions elsewhere (in Europe and beyond). (4) Analytically framed studies of Potsdam's crisis since 2022 — focusing on governance, legitimacy, integrity norms, and public trust, rather than adjudicating personal responsibility or institutional failures. Submissions from STS, Jewish studies, philosophy, law, political theory, and history are welcome.

Papers:

CAN JEWISH THEOLOGY BE A SCIENCE? A CRITIQUE OF GERMANY'S ANSWER

Fehige Y. (Speaker)

University of Toronto ~ Toronto ~ Canada
This paper offers pivotal parameters for an analysis of the contested institutionalization of Jewish theology in contemporary Germany, focusing on the founding and crisis of the School of Jewish Theology at the University of Potsdam, and seeks to situates this development within broader debates over the scientific status of theology and the conditions under which it gains institutional legitimacy in secular, democratic societies. The paper challenges essentialist accounts of both science and religion, and argues that the emergence of academic Jewish theology in Germany must be understood as part of a shifting landscape of Germany's social system of public knowledge, shaped by various factors, including political culture, communal authority, and contested epistemic norms.
THE LEGAL CONTEXT OF CONFESSIONAL THEOLOGIES IN GERMANY

Hahn J. (Speaker)

University of Bonn ~ Bonn ~ Germany
Examining how Christian theologies came to be represented at German state universities shows that concordats—agreements between the churches and the (federal) states—have been the primary means by which theological faculties were established. As a result, the presence of theology as a scientific discipline at secular universities in the twentieth century has largely depended on contractual arrangements. This has significant consequences for German theology. Because these contracts depend on the continuing will of two parties—the churches and the states—it is reasonable to conclude that these actors have exercised substantial influence over the development of academic theology in Germany. Moreover, theology's future within secular university contexts depends on their ongoing agreement. Accordingly, today's shifting relationship between church and state has significant implications for theology as an academic discipline worthy closer analysis. This paper therefore (1) analyzes how the contractual form has shaped the development of academic Christian theology at German universities, and (2) examines how this influence is currently unfolding in debates about the future of theology at state universities. On this basis, (3) it draws a connection between Christian and Jewish theology, asking what their shared dependence on contracts reveals about the distinctive institutional form of "theology" grounded in agreements between religious communities and secular state actors. It asks what it means for Jewish theology to function as a university department under similar contract-mediated conditions—particularly with respect to epistemic legitimacy, academic freedom, governance, and public trust.
JEWISH THEOLOGY IN GERMANY AND THE QUESTION OF 'ANPASSUNG'

Shenhav G. (Speaker)

University of Munich (LMU) ~ Munich ~ Germany
The establishment of the field of Jewish Theology in Potsdam in 2013 was celebrated by its founders as a "milestone" in the evolution of European rabbinic training, one which "finally" established Jewish theology as "a regular academic subject for financial support from the state." This paper reflects on the aspiration of turning Jewish theology into "a regular academic subject" by examining it through the lens of acculturation (Anpassung). In research literature, the notion of "Anpassung" is often used to describe the conditions required for Jewish intellectuals to integrate into modern German society. The first part of this paper argues that a process of "Anpassung" is currently taking place within Jewish theological discourse in Germany. It demonstrates that to pass as "regular" theologians, Jewish scholars are often required to subscribe to structural terminology borrowed from the Christian tradition. This adaptation comes at a price: it deemphasizes the Jewish tradition's focus on a "culture of dispute" and multivocality, both in Halachic discourse and scriptural interpretation. The second part of the paper looks forward, suggesting not that we divorce ourselves from the project of Jewish theology, but rather that we reorient it. Drawing on models such as Franz Rosenzweig's Jewish "Lehrhaus," the paper argues that departments of Jewish theology have the potential to become hubs for promoting innovative, pluralistic, and locally rooted Jewish thought in Germany.
THEOLOGY AT A NON-RELIGIOUS UNIVERSITY

Hafner J. (Speaker)

Universität Potsdam ~ Potsdam ~ Germany
At the beginning of the 18th century, Kant made a clear distinction between vocational faculties (theology, medicine and law) and the "free" faculty, which is committed solely to reason (philosophy, humanities). This separation has changed in the 21st century: theologies at state universities are increasingly working "freely" with secular, academic methods: sociologically, philologically, historically. They detach themselves from the denominational expectations that God is the actor behind events and commandments. In doing so, they follow secularization in modern societies. The School of Jewish Theology at the University of Potsdam was founded to combine "free" research on Judaism and denominational formation for Jewish congregations. This balancing act is attacked from two sides: On the one hand, some claim that Judaism has no theology because "theology" is a Christian term. This argument is wrong both historically and scientifically, which is to be shown. On the other hand, it is claimed that theology should not be at a state university, but at non-university religious institutions (yeshiva, madrasah or seminary). The lecture will show the function of a religious institute at a non-religious university.

Panel description: This proposal offers three closed panels and one open one that reconsider relationships between authority, hierarchy and governance within contemporary theologies of presbyteral ordination in the Catholic Church as it functions in the world and offers a voice of a moral authority in its championing of human dignity. At the same time, the Catholic Church maintains a commitment to essentialising theologies of difference in relation to its understanding of baptismal dignity and ordained authority. Therefore, the Church has provided some of the most trenchant and far-ranging critiques of inequality across the globe, while also carrying the profound legacy of its past implication in colonial projects that generated the vastly unequal global present. How should presbyteral priesthood in the Catholic Church be understood theologically in the light of this complex past and present? The Second Vatican Council reframed Catholic ecclesiology to focus on the shared reality of Baptism, insisting that all Catholics were equally called to holiness and to participate in the prophetic priesthood of Christ - an awareness would soon develop into the various, manifold ministries in which the people of God work out this call to follow Christ as members of his body. That same Council, however, did not offer an account of presbyteral ministry commensurate with this significant reframing. These panels seek to consider how Catholic theologians might offer generative theologies of the priesthood for the 21st century, taking the implications of Vatican II into the era of the Synodal Church. Each panel will consider a key issue from both an inside and outside perspective, considering how priesthood can be understood from within traditional sources of authority, and from outside of them.

Papers:

(RE)NEGOTIATING THE PAST: INSIDE-OUT THE HISTORY OF CATHOLICISM

Monagle C. (Speaker) [1] , Faggioli M. (Speaker) [2]

Macquarie University ~ Sydney ~ Australia [1] , Trinity College ~ Dublin ~ Ireland [2]
Clare Monagle will offer a cultural history of the Second Vatican Council within the post-Freudian psychological revolution of the twentieth century. She will argue that the language of Vatican II is infused with concepts of personhood and subjectivity that insist on the importance of the personal and intimate life of the Catholic, including the Priest. She will suggest that its model of human flourishing must be understood as part of the therapeutic turn that occurs across western modernity after Freud, and which gains particular traction after the second world war. Massimo Faggioli will explore the significant change in the historiographical and theological narratives on the Second Vatican Council: from an event made by great men - priests and bishops - to an event made also by other actors both in the Vatican when the council took place and locally around the world. This is important not only to track the trajectories of the literature on Vatican II, but also to understand how the Catholic views of priesthood and ordained ministry have changed and what this means for the future of the theology of Vatican and of the Catholic Church.
(RE)NEGOTIATING CULTURE: INSIDE-OUT ECCLESIAL CULTURES

Mackinlay S. (Speaker) [1] , Heany Vdmf M.L. (Speaker) [2]

Archdiocese of Brisbane ~ Brisbane ~ Australia [1] , Australian Catholic University ~ Brisbane ~ Australia [2]
Archbishop Shane Mackinlay will explore the importance, challenge, and implications of the concept and practice of synodality in light of Francis's prophetic call to be and become a synodal Church at every level of its organisational structure. He will consider the implications of synodality as a practice and a method for the Catholic priesthood and consider how theological accounts of priesthood can incorporate synodality's pastoral and integral demands. Maeve Louise Heaney VDMF will explore Catholic culture through the lens of the world outside Catholicism, grounded on the ecclesiological tenet that the Spirit is poured out beyond the explicit lines of Church belonging and that there is wisdom to be found in reading the signs of the times also in what they have to say about what Catholicism, and the ministerial priesthood, is and could or should be.
(RE)NEGOTIATING TEXTS: INSIDE-OUT KEY CATHOLIC TEXTS

Heaney Vdmf M.L. (Chair) [1] , Dias D. (Contact) [2] , Fáinche R. () [3]

Australian catholic University ~ Australia [1] , Toronto School of Theology ~ Toronto ~ Canada [2] , Trinity College Dublin ~ Dublin ~ Ireland [3]
Darren Dias will explore how a historical viewpoint from ground-level and lived Catholicism in its diverse cultural contexts sheds a different and oft-undervalued light on the meaning of Catholic happenings from the ground. He will explore, in particular the degree to which the colonial church/es transformed and challenged Church doctrine, and how the putative peripheries of the Church have always offered agentic and meaningful modes to Church reform and revitalisation. Fáinche Ryan will explore the 'official' theological authorities that for centuries have dominated the Catholic imaginary in its self-understanding, as well as its textual landscape. Primarily focusing on Thomas Aquinas, she will argue that canonical sources must be re-read and engaged with in every generation, rather than becoming the site of ossified interpretation. She will consider the work to which Aquinas has been put in thinking about priesthood in the past, and suggest alternate readings that offer capacious possibilities for the present.

Panel description: Inequalities within religious institutions and societies are often paralleled or perpetuated through interfaith dialogues where certain groups, themes, priorities, or identities are marginalised, silenced, or under-represented. Think, for example, of the still marginal role of many women at the institutional levels of interfaith dialogues; the failure to include atheists; or the lack of ethnic and class diversity in many interfaith groups. Most glaringly, many interfaith dialogues are dominated by the most liberal representatives of faith and ideological systems, often skewing its focus, representation, aims, and effectiveness. Sometimes, these issues are unaddressed or not even seen as issues. But there are also brave and creative initiatives, trailblazers, public events, and texts that demand deeper inclusivity or seek to address these inequalities. Interfaith dialogues of life initiatives may also focus on working for greater equity, fairness, and justice through societal, cultural, legal, creative, and economic actions. In this panel, organised by Dublin City University's Centre for Interreligious Dialogue, abstracts are invited on the following interrelated topics: • Inequalities unaddressed or maintained through interfaith dialogues, including but not limited to: racial, economic, class, gender, social, and educational identities • Examples of interfaith dialogue initiatives and trailblazers who address societal and other types of inequalities • Sub topics can include (but is not limited to!) the following: a. Women and Interfaith Dialogue b. The Working Class and Interfaith Dialogue c. Disability and Interfaith Dialogue d. Race and Interfaith Dialogue e. Interfaith Dialogue and Youth f. Interfaith Dialogue and Traditional/Evangelical/Conservative Believers g. Interfaith Dialogue and Atheists h. Interfaith Dialgue and Indigenous Faiths

Papers:

INTERFAITH DIALOGUE AND ECHO CHAMBERS

Admirand P. (Speaker)

Dublin City University ~ Dublin ~ Ireland
How do we attract and create interfaith dialogues that draw upon and create greater inclusion and participation of marginalized and more conservative voices? Dialogue is not an ideological word, but a universal one, of value and relevance among believers and nonbelievers of all types. And yet, most interfaith dialogues tend to be guided and peopled by those representing or professing a more liberal understanding of their faith or ideological group. Other identity features like education level, socioeconomic class, ethnicity, and gender are also likely to lack sufficient representation beyond an outlier or element of tokenism. This myopic and thin representation of a complex group not only fails to include the majority of that religious group's views and positions but creates an unrealistic and often sugarcoated sense of tepid religious belonging and accommodation that to others can seem a betrayal of core beliefs, practices, and identity. At the same time, some conservative views can seem morally repugnant or outdated to more liberal believers, and the advocacy of evangelization or converting another can undermine already fraught power dynamics with religious minorities and muddy an otherwise safe and protected space. In this paper, I will highlight the need for greater intrafaith dialogue as a necessary (even if fraught and sometimes painful) element to foster and sharpen interfaith dialogue. I will also highlight key virtues (humility, hospitality, vulnerability, courage, and compassion) needed to stimulate and expand an interfaith dialogue of a mostly liberal minority to one where (seemingly) discordant, challenging, and less accommodating voices are also welcomed. I have no illusions on the uphill climb needed here.
THE SOURCE OF OUR EXPECTATIONS: THE MEANING OF "DIALOGUE"

Tonelli D. (Speaker)

Georgetown University ~ Rome ~ Italy
In recent decades, interreligious dialogue has become an integral part of theological reflection and religious practices. In different ways and contexts, the aim is inclusion, but the actors involved and the quality of the dialogue determine the success of the encounter. In my presentation, drawing on philosophical and theological tradition, I would like to address a preliminary—but indispensable—dimension for the success of interreligious dialogue, namely, what we mean by "dialogue" and what expectations the use of this word stimulates. I will do so by sharing some reflections on certain aspects that are crucial to the success of dialogue, in particular the distinction between dialogue, argumentation, and negotiation, and the analysis of the different modes of inclusion that they require.
AFRICANA AND INDIGENOUS PARTICIPATION IN THE PARLIAMENT OF THE WORLD'S RELIGIONS

Lefebure L. (Speaker)

Georgetown University ~ Washington ~ United States of America
This presentation will examine the evolution of the Parliament of the World's Religions with regard to Africana and Indigenous participation. The first convening of the Parliament in Chicago in 1893 reflected the increasing bias against Africana and Indigenous populations in late nineteenth-century America. From the African American community, only Frederick Douglass and Benjamin William Arnett spoke. No American Indian representatives were invited, and an academic anthropologist presented a paper on their religious traditions. Africana and Indigenous leaders have featured prominently in the recent meetings of the Parliament. In 1999 the Parliament met in Capetown, South Africa, with Nelson Mandela as a keynote speaker. In 2009 the convening in Melbourne, Australia, featured numerous Australian aboriginal speakers as well as American Indian speakers.
EVANGELICAL CHRISTIANS AND INTERFAITH DIALOGUE: CHALLENGES AND PROSPECTS

Bargár P. (Speaker)

Protestant Theological Faculty, Charles University ~ Prague ~ Czech Republic
The vast majority of the Christian participants in interfaith dialogue initiatives have until now consisted of mainline/liberal Protestants and Roman Catholics. Evangelical Christians have been largely absent "at the dialogue table." The present paper seeks to investigate the particularities of this phenomenon, particularly from a theological perspective. It will proceed in three subsequent steps. First, it will rehearse and discuss some of the arguments offered to explain the Evangelical Christian absence in interfaith dialogue. Second, it will address the theological reasoning of some Evangelical Christian voices who actually do try to engage in interfaith dialogue. The final part will introduce my own proposal. It will work with the hypothesis that the "soteriological obsession" is the major obstacle preventing the Evangelical Christian participation in interfaith dialogue. This cuts two ways: for Evangelical Christians, if the explicit declaration of faith in Jesus Christ is presumed to be the only way to salvation, then other religionists are seen as condemned to damnation; for adherents of other religions, Evangelical Christians might be viewed as potential "proselytizers in disguise," and as such, a threat. In opposition to this soteriological preoccupation, I will suggest reframing the focus of interfaith dialogue in terms of encountering and engaging with the religious other. The paper will then close with a brief consideration of theological and practical implications of such refocusing, not least with respect to the Evangelical Christian participation in interfaith dialogue.
WOMEN AND INTERRELIGIOUS DIALOGUE

Grung A.H. (Speaker)

University of Oslo ~ Oslo ~ Norway
Religious differences among the participants is expected, welcomed and required in interreligious dialogues. In many ways, the presence of religious difference is constituting such an activity. In certain conceptualizations of interreligious dialogue, it seems that religious difference is highlighted and privileged as the most significant human difference. Sometimes these dialogues establish religious identity or affiliation as the most salient and prominent part of people's lives. We know that sometimes religious communities encourage this, but what we often don't reflect over is how this may influence the dynamics and impact of interreligious dialogues. Religious communities of Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism and Hinduism have traditionally privileged men over women regarding leadership roles, as well as in the question of personal autonomy where women's possibilities have been restricted. What may happen when religious traditions meet and overlook gender differences when privileging religious differences, is that this may confirm and strengthen an already existing patriarchal communal practice. In this paper, I will discuss two models of interreligious dialogue and show the possible consequences for women. One is "Dialogue of confirmation", where the participant religions are not challenged regarding their practice (or lack of practice) of gender justice, and other human differences other than religious differences are not signified. The second is "Dialogue of challenge", where gender differences and gender justice are actively reflected upon and accepted as important, and the perspective is more intersectional and power critical. In the presentation, I will draw on Jeannine Hill Fletcher's chapter "Women in Interreligious Dialogue" from 2013 and my own monograph from 2016, Gender Justice in Muslim-Christian Readings.
ACCESS AND INCLUSION IN INTERRELIGIOUS DIALOGUE: PRACTICAL OBSERVATIONS FROM KENYA, NIGERIA AND SRI LANKA

Eder M. (Speaker)

Centre for Society and Religion/ AGIAMONDO Germany ~ Colombo ~ Sri Lanka
Interreligious dialogue (IRD) holds significant promise for fostering peace, understanding, and social cohesion, yet its practice often mirrors existing societal inequalities. In many dialogue platforms, women, youth, marginalized communities, and actors from underrepresented socio-economic, ethnic, or religious backgrounds are excluded or under-represented, while elite or institutionally recognized actors dominate conversations. Drawing on practical experience with the Interreligious Dialogue Forum Platform (IDFP) under KAICIID in Nigeria, the Institute for Interreligious Dialogue and Islamic Studies (IRDIS) at Tangaza University in Nairobi, and the Center for Society and Religion (CSR) in Sri Lanka, this paper examines how dialogue initiatives can address these inequities in practice. It focuses on strategies for expanding access, amplifying marginalized voices, and balancing institutional and grassroots participation. Examples include: creating safe entry points for women and youth; designing dialogue spaces that accommodate low-literacy or non-elite participants; and facilitating sustained engagement for communities under political, social, or security pressures. Through a reflective, practitioner-informed lens, the paper explores the challenges and successes of these initiatives, highlighting how interreligious dialogue can move beyond symbolic encounters to meaningfully promote inclusion, equity, and justice. By showcasing concrete approaches and lessons learned, it contributes to understanding how dialogue can be both inclusive and transformative, offering guidance for practitioners, institutions, and policymakers seeking to reduce structural inequalities within interfaith initiatives. Keywords: Interreligious dialogue, inclusion, access, marginalized communities, practical approaches, Nigeria, Kenya, Sri Lanka
6. DIALOGUES OF LIFE: INTERFAITH PRACTICE AND SOCIAL JUSTICE IN DUBLIN

Cristea A. (Speaker)

Dublin City University ~ Dublin ~ Ireland
Interfaith dialogue is widely promoted as a tool for social cohesion, yet it often reproduces the very inequalities it seeks to address. Women, minority ethnic communities, non-religious voices, and those whose beliefs sit outside dominant institutional structures remain under-represented in many interfaith spaces. Moreover, dialogue initiatives are frequently shaped by highly educated representatives, narrowing both participation and impact. This paper draws on the practice of the Dublin City Interfaith Forum (DCIF) to examine how interfaith engagement can move beyond elite dialogue and become a vehicle for social justice, equity, and community empowerment. It critically reflects on the structural exclusions that continue to characterize many interfaith platforms, while presenting DCIF as a grassroots-oriented model that actively addresses racial, social, and institutional inequalities through action-based engagement. Two initiatives are examined in particular. The Safe Haven anti-hate training programme equips faith leaders and community workers with practical tools to respond to discrimination, hate incidents, and online misinformation, while intentionally prioritizing participation from minoritized communities. Secondly, DCIF's faith literacy programme with staff in the Intensive Care Unit at the Mater Hospital demonstrates how interfaith practice can challenge institutional blind spots by addressing religious misunderstanding in healthcare settings, improving patient dignity and equitable access to care. DCIF's approach frames interfaith dialogue as a civic and social practice grounded in lived experience and everyday inequalities. This paper argues that such "dialogues of life" represent a necessary shift in contemporary interfaith work, one that expands participation beyond traditional religious elites and positions interfaith collaboration as a practical resource for social inclusion in increasingly diverse urban societies.
INTERFAITH DIALOGUE AND MINORITY BELIEVERS. STATE-SPONSORED INTERFAITH DIALOGUE AS SOFT POWER IN FAVOR OF LAICITÉ (FRANCE- QUÉBEC)

Strack F. (Speaker)

University of Sherbrooke ~ Montréal ~ Canada
Interfaith dialogue is often presented as a neutral platform, free from explicit state influence. Existing scholarship has largely examined their effects on individuals (Bhabha 1990; Lamine 2004; McCarthy 2007; Baker 2007; Orton 2016). Yet, the political dimensions of such initiatives remain underexplored. This presentation argues that state-sponsored interfaith programs function as policy instruments that promote specific governmental visions of "good religion" (Martinez-Ariño 2021). These initiatives subtly shape norms around legitimate religious expression, often emphasizing limits on religious visibility and encouraging participants to bracket or neutralize their religious identities in public settings. As such, they possibly reproduce systemic inequalities affecting minority and/or conservative believers. The analysis draws on two interfaith programs that exemplify distinct yet comparable political contexts. The first, Emouna (Sciences Po, Paris), launched in 2016 following the 2015 Paris attacks, receives partial funding from the French Ministry of the Interior. The second, Communautés de ruelles (city of Montréal, Canada), created in 2022 after controversies involving Hasidic Jewish communities, is federally funded but operated by a Québec institution—reflecting ongoing divergences between Québec and the rest of Canada regarding religious diversity management (Peker 2021). As France and Québec are frequently compared for their converging approaches to public regulation of religion (Milot, Baubérot, 2005; Strack, Dabby, Koussens, forthcoming), this transnational, work‑in‑progress comparison highlights how public authorities utilize interfaith dialogue as a form of soft power. Both cases illustrate how these programs become infra-legal tools advancing a laïque conception of religion in the public sphere. The analysis is informed by first-hand professional experience within both programs (Emouna, 2021-2023; Communautés de ruelles, 2025).
BELIEF IN PLURALITY: DESIGNING A STUDY ON MULTIPLE RELIGIOUS BELONGING IN INTERFAITH CONTEXTS

Pulinx R. (Speaker)

Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies, KU Leuven ~ Leuven ~ Belgium
This paper presents the conceptual and methodological foundations of a new doctoral project on Multiple Religious Belonging (MRB) in Flanders. MRB refers to individuals who draw on more than one religious tradition in their spiritual lives, an emerging form of lived religion that fits uneasily within interfaith spaces organised around singular, institutionally recognisable identities. Such settings often privilege clearly bounded traditions, producing subtle forms of exclusion or inequality for hybrid practitioners. Their repertoires may be rendered unintelligible within dominant dialogical frameworks, generating epistemic inequality; their identities may be questioned as incoherent or inauthentic, leading to recognition inequality; and their participation may be constrained by representational norms favouring voices rooted in one stable tradition, resulting in participatory inequality. Individuals with shifting or complex identities also encounter limited interpretive space to articulate their experiences, reinforcing narrative inequality. The project investigates how these inequalities arise and how MRB challenges normative assumptions embedded in interfaith dialogue. Its theoretical framework combines lived religion, religious bricolage, and translanguaging for understanding how individuals navigate multiple religious repertoires. This lens highlights the creative ways hybrid practitioners engage with religious boundaries, so far largely remaining invisible. As the project is in an early phase, the presentation focuses on the research design: a mixed method approach including a large scale survey on the prevalence of MRB in Flanders, qualitative interviews, participant observation in hybrid communities, and a spiritual diary method. The paper invites discussion on how MRB research can illuminate mechanisms of inequality within interfaith encounters and foster more inclusive frameworks that recognise complex and intersectional religious identities.
WHEN YOUNG PEOPLE ARE ACTORS OF DIALOGUE: CONTRIBUTIONS FROM THE PERIPHERIES OF INSTITUTIONAL DIALOGUES

Dini E. (Speaker)

Pontifical Gregorian University - Université Catholique de Lyon ~ Rome ~ Italy
We often hear about how important it is to involve young people in various areas. Yet these young people are often sought out simply to participate in what institutional actors offer them, and they have little room for initiative or autonomy. In this paper, I will present some recent interreligious dialogue initiatives aimed at young people—such as the Med 25 - Bel Espoir peace training ship or the "Youth in Dialogue" workshop organized by the Dicastery for Interreligious Dialogue in March 2026—and, based on these experiences, I will first offer some reflections on the contributions of young people in terms of the content, methodologies, and dynamics of dialogue. In a context still largely dominated, both in academic and practical spheres, by an adult—if not elderly—generation, we will see how youth is suggesting new directions in dialogue while - at the same time - often remaining tightly connected to established actions or interfaith networks that they rely on.
(IN)EQUALITY AND THE RELATIONAL CONDITIONS OF ECUMENICAL DIALOGUE

Mekeresi M. (Speaker)

Pontifical Gregorian University ~ Rome ~ Italy
(In)Equality in ecclesial life is often framed primarily in structural or gendered terms, with the Catholic Church offering a clear example, yet its relational implications are equally significant and frequently overlooked. While the contemporary Catholic context provides the starting point for this analysis, the focus is on how internal patterns of inequality shape the conditions of ecumenical encounter. This panel aims to widen the conversation by drawing attention to the underestimated relational dimensions of inequality. Drawing insights from recognition theory, relational ethics, and social psychology, the paper approaches inequality as something that shapes how people encounter one another, for example, whose voices are present, whose experiences are acknowledged, and how trust is built or strained across traditions. Patterns of limited participation or uneven representation create subtle asymmetries that can be felt in ecumenical settings, even when they are not explicitly discussed. These dynamics influence the tone of dialogue, shaping openness, confidence, and the willingness to engage with depth and honesty. The paper also considers how these relational patterns extend into the Church's public presence. A community that speaks about human dignity and justice is expected to reflect these values in its own life, and when this coherence is difficult to sustain, its moral voice in society becomes more fragile. By bringing theological reflection into conversation with interdisciplinary perspectives, this panel proposes a way of understanding inequality through its relational and dialogical consequences. It suggests that the quality of the Church's engagement with other Christian communities and with the wider world is closely connected to how it attends to recognition, participation, and mutual trust within its own life.
OTTOMAN WOMEN'S SOLIDARITY: WRITING AND RESISTANCE BETWEEN AUTHORITARIANISM AND NATIONALISM

Kebranian N. (Speaker)

Department of Near Eastern Studies, University of Vienna ~ Vienna ~ Austria
Studies of Late Ottoman intercommunal and interconfessional relations focus overwhelmingly on male members of the socio-political elite and patriarchally governed institutions. Restricted to specific linguistic or ethno-confessional spheres, the growing historical scholarship on Late Ottoman women's movements and feminism over the past two decades has only marginally addressed women's roles in interreligious dialogue. Yet recent socio-literary findings from Ottoman-Armenian print culture (Kebranian, Zabel Yessayan on the Threshold) reveal the mobilization of a socio-semantic web towards the mutual emancipation and humanitarian support of Muslim and non-Muslim women during a tumultuous period of authoritarianism, pro-democratic revolution, ultra-nationalism, genocide, and diasporic dispersion. This presentation addresses the work - both literary and polemic, social and political - of a leading Ottoman-Armenian woman writer and public figure - Zabel Yessayan - in her continuous efforts to address and redress the intersectional (Kimberlé Crenshaw) experiences of confessionally determined gender inequalities imposed by authoritarian and nationalist systems.
WOMEN IN THE MOSQUE, THE MANDIR, AND THE MEETING ROOM: GENDER INEQUALITY ACROSS PAKISTANI INTERFAITH INSTITUTIONAL SPACES

Azam Z. (Speaker)

Forman Christian College University Lahore Pakistan ~ Lahore ~ Pakistan
Interfaith dialogue in Pakistan is laden with unique complex religious landscape one shaped by Muslim majority dominance, constitutionally vulnerable minority communities, and a long history of both violent conflict and frictional coexistence. This landscape is impregnated with silent systematic marginalization of women from interfaith institutional spaces. This paper argues that gender inequality in Pakistani interfaith dialogue is not incidental but structural, reproduced simultaneously within Muslim, Hindu, and Christian institutional frameworks and compounded at precisely the point where those frameworks meet. Drawing on institutional ethnography and analysis of existing interfaith initiatives in Pakistan, the paper explores how women are excluded, tokenized, or consigned to auxiliary roles across three distinct but interconnected spaces the mosque, the mandir, and the formal meeting room of organized dialogue. Each space carries its own internal logic of exclusion, yet together they yield a cumulative marginalization that formal interfaith dialogue institutions have largely failed to name, let alone address. The paper pays particular attention to the experiences of women navigating minority Christian and Hindu institutional spaces within a Muslim-majority state, where gender inequality intersects with the vulnerabilities of religious minority status creating hybridity of marginalization. The paper draws on the author's position at Forman Christian College one of Pakistan's oldest minority Christian institutions to ground its analysis in the lived realities of interreligious educational spaces where gender, faith, and institutional power are negotiated daily. It concludes by arguing that genuine interfaith dialogue in Pakistan cannot be achieved without dismantling the gendered gatekeeping, women's inclusivity is precondition to any institutionalized interfaith engagement.

Panel description: This panel features papers that are part of a special issue intended for the _Quaderni di storia religiosa medievale_. The issue intends to expand scholars' understanding of the function, purpose, and importance of norms and discipline within the administration of ecclesiastical communities and hierarchies. It also aims to expand scholars' perspective on what is relevant to and included within the concepts of law and normativity in the Christian religion, pushing historians to ponder these concepts as inclusive of but expanded beyond the confines of monastic Rules on the side of religious orders and synodal statutes on the side of dioceses and parishes. The issue encourages studies of these important sources but asks contributors to think about the significance and application of them, particularly in relationship to specific dioceses, parishes, communal religious communities, anchoritic communities, or in specific regions, or within specific orders. The issue also asks scholars to explore mechanisms, rationales, and practices for maintaining order and disciplining erring members or subordinates that might not be expressed in formal written rules but leave evidence in other kinds of historical source material. In short, this panel investigates law and normativity in medieval religion.

Papers:

LATE ANTIQUE AND EARLY MEDIEVAL CANONICAL COLLECTIONS AT THE CATHEDRAL LIBRARY OF VERONA

Tronca D. (Speaker)

University of Bologna ~ Bologna ~ Italy
The canonical collections dating from Late Antiquity to the Early Middle Ages preserved in the Capitular Library of Verona—whose written production is documented from the 6th century onward—offer valuable evidence of the process of formation of canon law in its most fluid phase. In this transitional period, between the patristic phase of the ius antiquum and the Carolingian reform, the law was born and transmitted through the materiality of books: the copying, correction, and reorganization of canons responded to the disciplinary and pastoral needs of ecclesiastical institutions. Through codicological and textual analysis of these manuscripts, this paper aims to demonstrate how the book form of the canon played a decisive role in the construction of clerical and penitential discipline. The intervention of several Veronese readers and revisers, particularly Archdeacon Pacifico and his entourage, reflects the desire to restore authority and certainty to texts compromised by errors or variants, in line with the demands for educational and normative reform promoted in the Carolingian context. The Chapter Library, closely linked to the life of the chapter, was not simply a repository of manuscripts, but a place of work and normative mediation. Book production appears as a space of mediation between written rules and disciplinary practice, between authority and community: a laboratory in which the rule becomes a book and the book, in turn, generates law.
MONASTIC CUSTOMARIES, WITH AND AGAINST THE RULE OF ST BENEDICT, 9TH-11TH CENTURIES

Cochelin I. (Speaker)

University of Toronto ~ Toronto ~ Canada
The monastic customaries from the ninth to eleventh centuries --, that is more or less from the moment they first appeared to the time they were mostly replaced by constitutions and statutes --, have usually been conceived by scholars as complementing the Rule of St Benedict (RB). In other words, they believe the RB tell us how these monks and nuns were living, and customaries serve to clarify certain areas of their lives left unclear by the RB. In this paper, I would like to challenge this approach and propose to turn it upside down. I will focus especially but not exclusively on the customaries I know best, the four describing the daily life and liturgy in the abbey of Cluny (Burgundy), written down between the late tenth and late eleventh century. My claim is that we should not start the study of life within a given monastery during the central Middle Ages with the conviction that the regulations of the RB were followed to the letter. Rather, we should use the customaries and other available sources (especially archeology and charters, but also lives of saints) to see which of the regulations of the RB were followed and which were not. Once the constitutions and statutes are in place, scholars have less problems privileging the latter over the RB. The same should be done about customaries even though their modes of production and diffusion were far more complex.
WHAT TO ASK FROM GOD: THE LORD'S PRAYER AND RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION IN THE EARLY MIDDLE AGES

Waagmeester B. (Speaker)

Freie Universität Berlin ~ Berlin ~ Germany
From the late eighth century onward, conciliar decrees and episcopal statutes show us that religious education became one of the prime tasks of local priests in the Latin West. The inhabitants of the empire were supposed to know at least the Creed and the Lord's Prayer, so they knew 'what to believe' and 'what to ask from God'. In this article, I want to examine the implementation of the norms that drove religious education on the Lord's Prayer under the rule of the Carolingians, which, contrary to the Creed, has not received much attention. I will examine anonymous expositions on the Pater Noster, which are short texts that explain the seven petitions of the prayer. What is more, they outnumber expositions from patristic authors copied during the same period. By zooming in on the most popular anonymous expositions, usually found in priests' handbooks, I want to do three things: 1. Bridge the gap in the history of religious education between Late Antiquity and the early Middle Ages, which is so often visible in general histories of prayer and catechesis, and for which these texts are essential; 2. demonstrate that alongside known ninth-century authors, such as Alcuin of York and Theodulf of Orléans, the largest contribution to the Carolingian education project was, in fact, made by numerous anonymous authors and, finally; 3. show how norms on religious education were implemented and interpreted using anonymous expositions, which tell us much more about contemporary theological and practical religious discourse than yet another copy of a patristic exposition can.
"INTER STELLAS MICANTES VELUTI MATUTINUS SYDUS": CATHERINE OF SIENA, THE DOMINICAN ORDER, AND INSTRUMENTS FOR PROMOTING HER CULT

Zangari M. (Speaker)

Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin ~ Berlin ~ Germany
This paper aims to reconstruct a comprehensive, cross-disciplinary geo-devotional map that allows for a general analysis of the expressive codes inherent in the devices used by the Friars Preachers to promote the cult of the Dominican nun Catherine of Siena (1347-1380) in the years preceding her canonization on June 29, 1461. Under the category of "expressive codes" I include texts, images, and objects. From the moment after her death—it is well known—Catherine became a symbol of the perfect embodiment of the ideal of life advocated by the sons of Saint Dominic (devoted to the organization of a Christian society), as well as the highest expression of the sanctity of the universal Church. As a result, by examining the textual traditions, artistic images, and other physical objects connected to Catherine, the scholar can see how Catherine's person and life was presented as normative and, through the representation in these texts, images, and objects, designed to instill an ideal of life oriented toward good. All of this can be traced back to the spirit of Christiana societas and the Dominican pastoral practice of its origins. At the same time, the acquisition of new findings will shed new light on the still partially nebulous history of the Observances and the reforms advocated by the Order of the Sons of Saint Dominic.
BEYOND THE RULE: CONSTITUTIONS IN MEDIEVAL FEMALE MONASTICISM

Bianchini A. (Speaker)

La Sapienza Università di Roma ~ Rome ~ Italy
Why, in the medieval period, alongside monastic rules, was there sometimes a need to draft constitutions that clarified or supplemented their content? These texts—suspended between norm and practice—offer a central perspective on the concrete life of religious communities and the processes of adaptation that accompanied the evolution of monastic forms of life. The investigation focuses in particular on the female mendicant community, where the tension between the evangelical ideal and the demands of enclosure generated a significant flourishing of additional constitutions, in the knowledge that the drafting of such texts was not an exclusive feature of the mendicant experience, but a widespread expression of the normative evolution of female monasticism as a whole. Through several emblematic cases—the constitutions that Cardinal Giacomo Colonna drafted for the Poor Clares of San Silvestro in Capite, those drafted by Umberto di Romans for the Dominicans, and texts intended for the Augustinian and Carmelite communities—we will seek to clarify the motivations that drove various parties to intervene and supplement the text of the Rule. In some cases, this was to fill practical gaps, in others to regulate liturgical or economic life, or to reaffirm a model of discipline and obedience consistent with their religious identity.
LIVING THE RULE?: MEANINGS OF 'RULE OBSERVANCE' ACCORDING TO THE WRITING OF LATE MEDIEVAL POOR CLARES

Roest B. (Speaker)

Radboud Universiteit ~ Radboud ~ Netherlands
Fifteenth-century Clarissan houses inside and outside Italy had to position themselves in ongoing struggles over rule observance and order reform within the context of what has been called the Observant Movement. More recent scholarship has shown that by no means all late medieval Clarissan houses that adopted Observant reforms came to embrace the Regula Prima as the new normative rule for organizing their religious life. Quite a few communities retained the Urbanist rule, often with the adoption of additional reform constitutions; and at the same time opted to use the Regula Prima and other writings of Clare of Assisi as additional normative or 'consolatory' texts for shaping a more stringent community life along 'observant' parameters. It would seem that at least in several Italian and Southern German Clarissan houses abbesses and several other nuns in positions of (spiritual) authority within the community had a role to play in the way in which the choice for a specific rule, the implementation of observantist house constitutions and the interpretation of these and other normative texts played out, confronting in the process interpretations of rule observance handed down by male Franciscan authority figures. Vestiges of this influence are the writings of several abbesses, novice mistresses, and convent chroniclers. This paper attempts to shed some light on the manner in which such writings shaped the way in which Clarissan nuns in these houses learned to 'live' their chosen profession, and that mere attention to the text of the chosen rule does not suffice to understand the observant religious profile of the houses in question.
FROM VISITATION TO COURT: NORMS, DISCIPLINE, AND LAW IN ITALIAN DIOCESES (TUSCANY, LATE 13TH-EARLY 14TH CENTURY)

Fossier A. (Speaker)

Université de Bourgogne ~ Bourgogne ~ France
After the Fourth Lateran Council of 1215, the repression of clerical crimes and the need to manage what canon law then regarded as the cornerstone of lay Christian life—namely, marriage—made increasingly necessary three governance instruments: the pastoral visitation, the diocesan synod, and the ecclesiastical court for "spiritual" matters. It has been argued that these ecclesiastical courts contributed to the "disciplining" of Christian society. For Elizabeth L. Hardman, for instance, their mission was to uphold the moral discipline of the faithful and to establish a "normative system"—both legal and moral—within urban and rural communities. In practice, it is clear that Church courts were not merely vectors of canon law; they also carried a pastoral function. Their existence was in fact closely linked to the episcopal visitation, since certain offenses or conflicts discovered during that annual inspection were later brought before the tribunal. Moreover, both the visitation and the trials relied on series of testimonies and on fama—that is, the collective opinion regarding a fact or an individual—which served as a source of knowledge and information for the bishop. Unfortunately, complete documentary sets that include, for a single diocese, the synodal legislation, records of pastoral visitations, and judicial acts are extremely rare. Nonetheless, this paper aims to compare several Tuscan cases from the 13th and 14th centuries (Pistoia, Pisa, Arezzo, Cortona, Lucca, and Florence), for which sufficiently diverse documentation survives. The goal is to understand to what extent the activity of ecclesiastical courts extended the pastoral visitation and implemented synodal legislation—and conversely, how it influenced them. In doing so, the article seeks to shed new light on the diffusion of Church norms within the social body.
RESISTANCE TO ECCLESIASTICAL AUTHORITY IN LATE MEDIEVAL ENGLAND AND FRANCE

Zamore G. (Speaker)

Uppsala Universitet ~ Uppsala ~ Sweden
The transformation of the Western Church in the thirteenth century saw the establishment and reinforcement of means of exercising ecclesiastical authority and pastoral care into impose norms and discipline on the laity. This was, however, not universally met with acceptance by a passive laity, but frequently opposed through peaceful and violent means throughout the late Middle Ages. This contribution considers the resistance by lay people, sometimes in collaboration with local clergy, to ecclesiastical authority in the late Middle Ages. Acts of resistance could take many different forms: occupying the church, chasing and beating the bishop's men when they sought to execute a mandate, snatching and hiding—or even forcing them to eat—the bishop's letter. Other forms of resistance made subversive use of the repertoire of symbols associated with the church, e.g., mock processions, the ringing of bells¬¬, or refusal to ring bells in recognition of a bishop approaching. One of the key instruments in the exercise of ecclesiastical authority and pastoral care was episcopal visitations. I will consider how laity and clergy at times sought to resist such exercises of authority, e.g., by absenteeism. Drawing on and comparing cases from England and France, as well as theorizations of practices of resistance by James C. Scott and Michel de Certeau, this contribution seeks to complicate our perceptions of the medieval church, lay belief and acceptance of ecclesiastical norms and discipline. Local bonds of loyalty and power relations, as well as resentment against elites, I argue, were some of the factors that complicated the church's ability to impose discipline and police the behaviour of the laity.
CONCURRENT NORMS AND ECCLESIASTICAL AUTHORITY: A MICROHISTORICAL ANALYSIS OF THE CISTERCIAN MONASTERY OF SAINT STEPHEN IN CONSTANTINOPLE

Puca S. (Speaker)

Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II ~ Naples ~ Italy
In the context of the institutional transformations that followed the conquest of Constantinople in 1204, Latin monastic communities often found themselves redefining their relationships with the various authorities that had divided the former territories of the empire. Among these, the Cistercian monastery of Santo Stefano represents an exceptional case in the monastic landscape of the Latin Empire. Founded by the Cistercians, close to the Franco-Papal coalition and hostile to the Venetian Patriarchate, it was largely inhabited by Venetian monks, supported by Venetian patrons, and located in a context strongly influenced by Byzantine customs. Its liminal position between patriarchal jurisdiction, Cistercian traditions, and Venetian political and economic interests placed it within a complex institutional network, making it a privileged laboratory for conflict between diverse and often conflicting norms. The most significant episode in this normative tangle was the controversy of 1223, when the Venetian Patriarch Matteo di Jesolo claimed the right to a third of all pious donations destined for the monasteries under his jurisdiction. The claim presents a clear case of the creation and contestation of norms. The Cistercians protested, invoking their traditions of exemption and appealing to papal authority. The response of Honorius III, who denounced the abuse without directly placing Santo Stefano in conflict with the Venetian patriarch, highlights the monastery's ambiguous position and the delicate nature of its institutional balance. This paper aims to demonstrate how an anomalous context—a Venetian Cistercian abbey in Constantinople—could generate normative clashes, disputes, and attempts at discipline by various competing authorities. It highlights how monastic norms were defined, negotiated, and adapted, revealing their intrinsically dynamic nature.
UGO PANZIERA: GUIDING THE YOUNG FRIARS IN CONSTANTINOPLE IN XIVTH CENTURY

Centini L. (Speaker)

Charles University, Prague ~ Prague ~ Czech Republic
Discipline is always one of the core activities of any cultural group or intellectual family. Every organized group strives to harmonize the best way possible the interpretations and visions of its members. This attempt can take manifold forms. It can be realized through compelling documents and constitutions, through singular acts of censorship or positive reinforcement; sometimes It takes the form of more or less explicit admonitions and warnings. This practice of disciplining can be observed in Mendicant Orders, particularly in the Franciscan Order. The first century of the order saw harsh debates between different sensibilities and the concomitant attempt of the ruling bodies of the order to achieve a cultural and spiritual unity through many different practical means. To explore these topics, my proposal is to read one of the treatises by Ugo Panziera (1270 ca - 1330). Ugo Panziera was a Franciscan friar, probably involved in the spiritual secession, and later repression, of the spirituals during the last quarter of XIIIth century. Later, he moved to Constantinople. His work consists in several small treatises of different topics. One of them is dedicated to answering a request, arrived from some young friars, about a peculiar way of praying, probably a specific form of hesicasm. In Panziera's reply we can appreciate several themes. Firstly, the attempt to educate the younger friars regarding their spiritual progress. Secondly, the cautious relationship with a foreign kind of religious experience. Lastly, the concern for the orthodoxy of the Order in the perilous context of missions abroad.

Panel description: This panel invites contributions that critically examine the dark side of contemporary spirituality, focusing on situations in which religious commitment, spiritual practices, and charismatic authority become sources of harm rather than meaning or ethical guidance. Challenging idealized representations of spirituality, the panel addresses pathological dynamics emerging within religious groups and movements. We explore phenomena such as spiritual abuse, toxic leadership, coercive control, moral manipulation, symbolic violence, and high-demand religious environments, with particular attention to how authority is constructed and legitimized through religious language, ritual practices, and moral narratives. The panel is especially interested in cognitive, discursive, and embodied mechanisms that sustain dependency, guilt, fear, or silence. Contributions may address charismatic and entrepreneurial leadership, the economization of faith, narratives of disillusionment and exit, post-membership identity reconstruction, and processes of healing and resistance after leaving harmful religious contexts. The panel also foregrounds comparative and cross-cultural perspectives, alongside methodological reflections on researching sensitive topics, insider-outsider dynamics, and ethical challenges in the study of religious mediated suffering. Contributions are expected to be empirically grounded, theoretically informed, and interdisciplinary.

Papers:

WHEN SALVATION BECOMES A TRAP: RELIGIOUS LANGUAGE, AUTHORITY, AND THE DYNAMICS OF SPIRITUAL HARM

Berdowicz E. (Speaker)

Adam Mickiewicz University ~ Poznań ~ Poland
This paper investigates the role of religious language in the production, normalization, and concealment of spiritual harm within high-demand religious communities. While commitment, obedience, and self-transformation are commonly framed as virtues in religious discourse, the paper argues that these same categories may function as mechanisms of control when embedded in asymmetrical power relations and reinforced through charismatic authority. Drawing on qualitative research among contemporary Christian groups, the analysis examines recurring discursive patterns through which authority is constructed and moralized. These include metaphors of calling, sacrifice, and spiritual growth; evaluative framings of doubt, criticism, and emotional suffering; and narrative scripts that recast personal boundaries as signs of spiritual immaturity or resistance to divine will. Such linguistic structures contribute to cognitive and moral entrapment by redefining distress as meaningful, necessary, or redemptive. The paper further explores how religious language interacts with embodied practices, ritual participation, and communal expectations, fostering dependency, self-surveillance, and internalized guilt. Attention is paid to the gradual normalization of coercive dynamics, rendered invisible through routinized speech and moral rationalization. Finally, the analysis turns to post-exit narratives, examining how former members reassess the language that once shaped their religious experience. These narratives illuminate processes of discursive reframing, identity reconstruction, and the recovery of moral and interpretive agency after leaving damaging religious contexts. By integrating insights from religious studies, discourse analysis, and cognitive approaches to meaning-making, the paper highlights language as a constitutive force shaping authority, vulnerability, and harm in contemporary religious life.
FROM SALVATION TO SELF-OPTIMIZATION: THERAPEUTIC CULTURE AND THE PATHOLOGIES OF LATE MODERN FAITH

Sztajer S. (Speaker)

Adam Mickiewicz University ~ Poznań ~ Poland
This presentation focuses on the late-modern transformation of religious and spiritual subjectivities under the influence of therapeutic culture. I argue that the concept of salvation, prevalent in religions worldwide, undergoes a radical shift in meaning due to discourses and practices of self-optimization, emotional regulation, and personal performance. Drawing on social theory and critical approaches to therapeutic culture, I view this transformation as a fundamental shift in how identity is understood in late modern society. The spread of new therapeutic spiritualities must be considered within a broader sociocultural context. Therapeutic culture aligns with progressive individualization, secularization, the crisis of authority, and the neoliberal order. Although therapeutic spiritualities promise self-realization, healing, and empowerment, they also produce maladies such as the medicalization and pathologization of the self, the cultivation of vulnerability, the psychologization of the existential, and advanced self-surveillance.
MORAL PRODUCTIVITY AND THE GOVERNANCE OF THE SELF IN HIGH-DEMAND RELIGIOUS COMMUNITIES

Kehler F. (Speaker)

Freie Universität Berlin ~ Berlin ~ Germany
This paper examines how high-demand religious communities construct and regulate moral subjectivity through discursive regimes that emphasize productivity, discipline, and continuous self-improvement. Rather than focusing on overt forms of coercion, the analysis explores subtle normative frameworks through which commitment, obedience, and spiritual effort are framed as moral imperatives tied to personal worth and communal recognition. Drawing on qualitative research conducted among contemporary Christian and charismatic groups, the paper analyzes recurring moral narratives that position religious life as a project of ongoing optimization. Particular attention is given to evaluative vocabularies of growth, maturity, and responsibility, as well as to temporal framings that emphasize acceleration, urgency, and constant progression. These discursive patterns shape how individuals assess themselves and others, producing internalized standards of moral adequacy and failure. The paper further investigates how such moral regimes are sustained through the interaction of language, ritual participation, and everyday practices, fostering forms of self-governance aligned with collective expectations. Rather than external enforcement, moral regulation operates through self-monitoring, peer comparison, and narrative accountability. In post-membership accounts, former participants retrospectively reinterpret these moral frameworks, describing processes of cognitive distancing and re-evaluation of moral value beyond religious productivity. By combining perspectives from religious studies, discourse analysis, and sociological approaches to moral regulation, the paper contributes to discussions on normativity, subject formation, and the management of commitment in contemporary religious movements.
"WAS IT A CULT?" EXPERIENCE, LABELING, AND AMBIVALENCE IN NEW RELIGIOUS DISAFFILIATION

Fennebeumer J. (Speaker)

PhD researcher University of Groningen ~ Groningen ~ Netherlands
This paper explores how former members of high-demand religious movements in the Netherlands engage with the label "cult" when reflecting on their past involvement. Drawing on life-narrative interviews, it considers how this category may function as a discursive resource through which experiences are explained, legitimized, or resisted. Rather than treating "the cult" as an analytical given, the paper approaches it as an emic and relational label that appears to take shape in relation to processes of disaffiliation. For some former members, adopting the term seems to offer a useful language for articulating negative experiences and perceived coercive dynamics, as well as rendering past sufferings more intelligible. For others, the label is rejected or engaged with more ambivalently, as it may be experienced as flattening complex trajectories of involvement, obscuring meaningful aspects of participation, and positioning the past within an oppositional frame that does not necessarily align with their perspectives. These personal narratives and labeling practices suggest that accounts of high-demand religious groups are rarely unambiguous. Former members often describe their involvement in ways that combine both appreciation and critique, emphasizing belonging, purpose, and development alongside more negative experiences such as control, dependency, or pressure. In this context, the label "cult" itself becomes an interesting site of ongoing negotiation, through which individuals seek to balance divergent evaluations to sustain a coherent understanding of their past involvement. By bringing particular attention to labeling practices and lived ambivalence, the paper suggests that interpretations of unconventional religious experiences are not fixed, but emerge through ongoing discursive and biographical processes, contributing to a more nuanced understanding of how such experiences are named and interpreted following disaffiliation.

Panel description: If, following Wittgenstein, we define religions as different forms of life that are normative and obligatory for human practice, the question arises as to how dialogue between them is possible. The liberal form of life in the European Union is characterised by values such as respect for human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality, the rule of law, and respect for human rights, including the rights of persons belonging to minorities. The European liberal way of life requires that freedom of thought, conscience, and religion be protected and established as a forms of life. This also includes the right to change or reject one's religion, as well as the right to express beliefs publicly or privately through worship, teaching, practice, and observance. In this connection, we will analyse the problems that arise in the EU and compare them with those in China and East Asia, consider the similarities and differences, and examine the possibilities for exchanging experiences. If one of the fundamental features of religion is the confrontation with one's own contingency, then, in this context, the question of dialogue among different religious forms of life arises.

Papers:

INTERPRETING AND NEGOTIATING BASIC ETHICAL AND RELIGIOUS DISTINCTIONS IN INTERRELIGIOUS AND INTERCULTURAL ENCOUNTERS - THE EXAMPLE OF THE GOOD / EVIL DISTINCTION IN ITS UNIVERSAL RELEVANCE AND ITS CONTEXTUAL DIFFERENCES

Grosshans H. (Speaker)

university Muenster ~ Muenster ~ Germany
Starting with the discussion of some conceptual problems with "good" and "evil", the paper shows how in classical Protestant theology this distinction can be used in a meaningful way. It develops then a realist theology as a prerequisite for intercultural and interreligious theological discourse and encounters. The paper then shows what translation processes have to be presupposed in such discourses and encounters and what this means for an intercultural Protestant scriptural hermeneutics. Finally, with the example of Myanmar and reference to other contexts, some consequences for the connection of ethnic and religious affiliation and identity are developed.
RESILIENCE AND RESISTANCE IN CHRISTIAN FAITH IN MYANMAR

Layang S.J. (Speaker)

Kachin Theological College & Seminary, Myitkyina ~ Myitkyina ~ Myanmar
Taking up the interpretation of Jesus in the context of the second temple in Jewish history, the paper discusses the significance of Jesus for todays Christians in Myanmar. Is Jesus as the Saviour according Christian faith strengthening the resilience of suffering people and is he also calling his followers into resistance against powers, which are creating massive injustices? The paper then also discusses todays responsibilities of Christians and churches in Southeast and East Asia for social justice, peace and ecology in their countries.
THE RENAISSANCE OF RELIGION IN POST-COMMUNIST EUROPEAN COUNTRIES

Zovko J. (Speaker)

University of Zadarr ~ Zadar ~ Croatia
After many years of religious oppression, religion became the most important feature of national consciousness in the former communist countries, which was most clearly seen in the example of the former Yugoslavia. In Croatia, the defense of the country against Serbian aggression was simultaneously perceived as a defense of Catholicism, as 28 churches were completely destroyed during the Serbian conquest of Croatian territories. A resurgence of interest in religion was observed among Bosnian-Herzegovinian Muslims, who, after the collapse of Yugoslavia, not only founded their nation as Bosniaks, but also rediscovered Islam as their cultural dominant. In my contribution, I focus on analyzing the significance of religion in the states that emerged after the dissolution of Yugoslavia, also taking into account the role of Albania. A common feature of these states is that religion plays an important role in the consciousness of their citizens, with more than 80 percent of citizens describing themselves as religious according to census data. It seems that religion also poses an obstacle to the establishment of a civil society. The promotion of secularism and civil society apparently reminds citizens of the threat to religious freedom that existed during the socialist era.
How Do Chinese People Distinguish Between Delusion (迷) and Enlightenment (悟) in Spiritual Life?

Zhang X. (Chair)

Hangzhou City University ~ Hangzhou ~ China
Right and wrong, delusion and enlightenment, are eternal issues in spiritual life, closely linked to light and darkness, nobility and degradation. This article attempts to analyze how mainstream Chinese tradition approaches and attitudes toward the criteria for judgment, as well as their manifestations in real-life attitudes, and basic principle of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), and martial arts in order to illustrate a Chinese view of "gnosis" in compare to western Gnosticism.
The Human Being as Free: A Dialogue Between Meister Eckhart and Chan Buddhism

He T. (Speaker)

Fudan University ~ Shanghai ~ China
This paper will examine the concept of human freedom, exploring how Meister Eckhart and Chan Buddhism each understand it.
Transcending the Flesh: A Comparative Analysis of Body Enhancement in Taoist Praxis and Western Mythology

Luo D. (Speaker)

South China University of Technology ~ Guangzhou ~ China
Both Taoist religious traditions and Western (primarily Greek and Nordic) mythology seek to transcend the limitations of mortal physiology through "body enhancement." However, they diverge significantly in their philosophical foundations, aesthetic ideals, and practical techniques. Taoist enhancement, achieved through either the internal cultivation of Qi (vital energy) or the ingestion of elixirs, aims for longevity, harmony with the Dao, and the refinement of the "Immortal Fetus." In contrast, Western mythological enhancement emphasizes the amplification of functional strength, physical perfection, and heroic dominance over nature, often mediated by external agents such as divine potions or artifacts. These fundamental differences in understanding the body and enhancement have profound implications for how each tradition conceptualizes technology and attitudes toward technological intervention.
A Preliminary Inquiry into the Social Significance of Contemporary Chinese Temple Fair Practices from the Perspective of Historical Materialism

Guo C. (Speaker)

School of Marxism, Zhejiang University ~ Hangzhou ~ China
From the perspective of historical materialism, this paper examines contemporary Chinese temple fair practices as a form of religious life, analyzing their social significance through key theoretical dimensions. It argues that these periodic public events facilitate the reproduction of local social relations, engage in cultural-economic activities, and provide a low-institutionalized mechanism for social integration, demonstrating a practical religious form that continuously participates in modern society.
Arts Sciences and Faiths as Paths Toward the Infinity

Fumagalli P.F. (Speaker)

Biblioteca Ambrosiana ~ Milano ~ Italy
Comparing the spiritual experience of Albert Einstein (see: Kieran Fox, I am a Part of Infinity. The Spiritual Journey of Albert Einstein, 2025) with that of the Jesuits in the late Ming Dinasty and of Federico Borromeo at the Ambrosiana (see: [Pier Francesco Fumagalli] 傅马利, 《美学、科学与信 仰。昂布罗修图书馆跨越 400 年的探索。Estetica, scienza e fede. 400 anni dell'esplorazione della Biblioteca Ambrosiana, 杭州，浙江大学出版社，2023), we could learn how Arts, Sciences and Faiths may play a role in contemporary societies, in Asia and in Europe as well. From the so called Axial Age (Karl Jaspers, 1949) to the present situation of conflicts and wars, monotheistic Abrahamic Faiths (see John Andrew Murrow, The Covenants of the Prophet Muhammad with the Christians of the World, 2013), philosophical and scientific researches, and Buddhist, Shinto and Confucian values can cooperate in promoting justice, peace and respect for human dignity of each person and people.
Heidegger, Daoist Thought, and Cross-Cultural Asymmetry

Tang B. (Speaker)

University of Bonn ~ Bonn ~ Germany
The paper examines the tension between Heidegger's early phenomenology of religious life and Daoist thought. I argue that Heidegger's understanding of factical life is marked by a cross-cultural asymmetry: while it opens a path toward understanding the other, it also remains rooted in a specifically European horizon of experience. From this perspective, the presentation seeks to bring out the Eurocentric limits of Heidegger's intercultural understanding.
Political and intercultural Analyses of Europe - China - Southeast Asia relations

Davis D. (Speaker)

Troy University ~ Troy ~ USA
From the perspective of a political scientist the intercultural and political relations between Europe, China and Southeast Asia are critically analysed and examined.
Anti-anti-Christianity and China

Di Blasi L. (Speaker)


Mahmood Mamdani has argued that the religious wars of early modern Europe were often predicated on what he calls "protective" invasions: the majority in one polity looked across its borders and saw that, in a neighboring polity, its co-religionists formed a persecuted minority. The defense of these brethren became a justification—or at least a pretext—for war. In recent years, postliberal and postdemocratic tendencies within parts of the Western right, particularly in the United States, have been accompanied by a renewed political mobilization of Christianity. This development raises the possibility that the defense of Christianity against allegedly anti-Christian forces could increasingly serve as a political justification for international intervention, potentially competing with or even replacing the language of human rights and democracy. My talk examines the phenomenon of anti-anti-Christianity in the twentieth century, understood as the political mobilization against perceived anti-Christian threats. Building on this analysis, the paper explores the extent to which a similar logic could be activated in relation to contemporary China, where the issue of religious repression—including restrictions on Christian communities—has occasionally been invoked in Western political discourse. The aim is not to predict a return to confessional wars, but to assess whether religious solidarity and the defense of persecuted believers might once again function as a potential framework for legitimizing geopolitical conflict.
Reformation of Life: The Rosicrucian Project between Eschatology and Techno-Future

Di Blasi J. (Speaker)


Technologies such as the internet or practices like biohacking are often framed as radically new. Yet the conceptual grammar of contemporary techno-futures—the overcoming of limits, the reconfiguration of the body, the engineering of improved forms of life—emerges much earlier. It is already articulated in early modern reform imaginaries, not only in New Atlantis, but—earlier and more programmatically—in the Rosicrucian manifestos: Fama Fraternitatis, Confessio Fraternitatis, and Chymical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreutz. In the Fama from 1614, the mythical figure of Christian Rosenkreuz acquires transformative knowledge through travels to the East—above all within Arabic intellectual traditions—staging a transfer and recombination of heterogeneous forms of knowledge. Written on the eve of the Thirty Years' War, these texts outline a reform program that targets life itself. At its core lies a shift from a hermeneutic to an operative concept of nature: the world is approached as a field of latent forces to be accessed and transformed, reconfiguring rather than abandoning the theological horizon. Within this configuration, the tension between paradise and techno-future emerges. The Rosicrucian project binds experimental knowledge to apocalyptic expectation, making the renewal of religion, science, and society dependent on a radically renewed form of life—establishing a linkage between eschatological imagination and technological futurism that continues to shape contemporary imaginaries in surprisingly persistent ways.

Panel description: This book consists of an English and a German part. All presentations have also been translated into German, but in case of doubt the English version applies. The PowerPoint slides for the presentations in which the speaker used this medium are shown between the two parts. The contributions in this book originate largely from the two panels organized by the Research for Interfaith and Intercultural Harmony (RIIFH.com) of „Christians in Need" at the 8th annual conference of the European Academy of Religions (EuARe). RIFFH has set itself the goal of using the concrete experiences of the grassroots work of Christians in Need (cin.international) to provide suggestions for improving the success of academic dialog between religions. Academic work can only be of benefit to global society if it is also connected to the concrete living conditions of religious people. A dialog in the ivory tower will not be effective. Therefore, the two panels that RIIFH contributed to the success of the EuARe conference in Vienna from July 8-12, 2025 are a central contribution to the success of interreligious dialog. The unsettled global society, driven by violence and the return of fundamentalism, is facing a paradigm shift. Organizations such as the UN and the OSCE are being put to the test. Dialogue and diplomacy are repeatedly silenced by violence.

Papers:

Panel description: Dorothee Sölle was one of the most influential voices in 20th-century liberation theology. Known for her radical political theology, she fought for a world free from economic and military oppression. Her writings continue to inspire Christians around the globe to challenge structures of injustice and to envision a life rooted in solidarity, hope, and care for the victims of capitalist markets. Sölle herself, however, came from a privileged European background and never denied how deeply she was shaped by the liberal and bourgeois education of her childhood. Her theological work is full of references to classic authorities of modern German theology and philosophy. Not least because of this, her texts convey a strong sense of normativity based on a fixed value system that might today introduce new forms of inequality. For instance, one may ask whether Sölle's appeal to emancipatory ideals creates new boundaries—between higher and lower educated milieus, or between more idealistic and progressive versus more materialistic and conformist ways of life. The title of our panel points to this potential tension. How can traditional ("old-European") patterns of normativity coexist intellectually with a theology for marginalized communities—both in Sölle's work and more broadly? Is Sölle the right theologian today to integrate perspectives from groups who are not used to academic reflection into theology? Where do problematic biases appear in her theology? And how tolerant is her thought? We invite contributions that engage with, but are not limited to, the following themes: • The theological foundations of equality in Sölle's work • Open and hidden patterns of inequality in her thought • Sölle's critique of capitalism, patriarchy, and authoritarianism—its scope and authenticity • Theory and practice of Political Theology (opportunities, ambiguities, and challenges today) • Contemporary relevance of Sölle's feminist and liberation theology

Papers:

IT IS THE OTHERS THAT DO THE WORK - DOROTHEE SÖLLE'S CRITICISM OF CAPITALISM IN THE LIGHT OF HELMUT SCHELSKYS SOCIOLOGY OF INTELLECTUALS

Trugenberger J. (Speaker)

University of Cologne ~ Cologne ~ Germany
Dorothee Sölle's political theology is marked by a radical critique of capitalist structures and their dehumanizing effects. Her insistence on solidarity and resistance against systemic injustice positions theology as an active force for social transformation. Yet, Sölle's intellectual stance raises questions about the role of theologians and intellectuals within capitalist societies. This paper explores Sölle's critique of capitalism through the lens of Helmut Schelsky's sociology of intellectuals, which famously characterizes intellectuals as a "class without a class" whose influence depends on symbolic production rather than material labor. By juxtaposing Sölle's theological vision with Schelsky's sociological analysis, the paper investigates whether Sölle's call for praxis and liberation risks reproducing the very asymmetries she seeks to overcome—particularly the tension between intellectual authority and the lived realities of marginalized communities. The discussion will highlight how Sölle negotiates the paradox of intellectual privilege while advocating for a theology "from below," and will assess the contemporary relevance of her approach in light of ongoing debates about academic elitism, social justice, and the democratization of theological discourse.
CRITICISM OF POWER AND POWER OF CRITIQUE IN DOROTHEE SÖLLE

Opalka K. (Speaker)

University of Bonn ~ Bonn ~ Germany
Dorothee Sölle's work, as she herself and her reception emphasize, is consistently written from a critical stance toward authority and with a perspective from marginalized groups. Accordingly, the lecture critically analyzes the concepts of power in Sölle's work against the backdrop of the issues raised by the ForuM study on sexualized violence and abuses of power in the Protestant Church in Germany (2024). The lecture first introduces the topic of taking a critical look at power and then presents the outlines of the methodology of a power-sensitive hermeneutics that have become necessary as a result of the ForuM study. Excerpts from Sölle's work, especially from her public speeches, are then examined in light of this hermeneutics with regard to explicit conceptions of power and implicit power dynamics inherent in the works and their contexts. The thesis here is that, on the one hand, Sölle always understands power from a position of criticism of power. However, she focuses this criticism on specific topics, namely patriarchal notions of omnipotence. Hence, on the other hand, certain dynamics of ecclesiastical and theological action are accepted unquestioningly in their power structures by Sölle. Finally, the consequences of this attitude for theological thinking within the framework of a power-sensitive hermeneutics are highlighted.
MUST GOD BE STRIPPED OF OMNIPOTENCE FOR FREEDOM TO PREVAIL? POLITICAL THEOLOGY IN THE WORKS OF DOROTHEE SÖLLE AND FALK WAGNER

Scheiwiller T. (Speaker)

University of Vienna ~ Vienna ~ Austria
In his first academic publication, Falk Wagner examines Dorothee Sölle's theses on the death of God. In doing so, Wagner focuses primarily on a critical analysis of Sölle's distinction between historical and speculative Good Friday. In Hegel's speculative theology, the death of God represents an immanent moment of the absolute Spirit and thus introduces a post-transcendent understanding of Christianity. For the transition from historical to speculative Good Friday to be completed—that is, for human freedom to become a reality—the almighty God of substance must die and not merely, as in Sölle's view, be 'deposed'. The shared starting point of a Hegelian version of 'God is dead' theology also determines their socio-ethical and political implications. Sölle observes that there is a distinction between political theology and theologically grounded politics. She understands political theology as 'theological hermeneutics', as a framework for understanding the political implementation of Christian truth and practice. At this point, parallels emerge with Falk Wagner's cultural-Protestant understanding of the state and ethics. In his view, political theology is defined by its form, not its content: either current events are reflected upon within the framework of traditional concepts, or an attempt is made to explore the religiously shaped world using renewed concepts. Understood in this way, theology is always political, without being activist. Another point of agreement is their positive assessment of liberation theology, which moves beyond a purely political interpretation of theology in the sense of a theologia viatorum or praxis pietatis by offering a theological reflection on political and economic oppression. Neither Wagner nor Sölle place their primary focus on an existential or liberal understanding of the subject, but instead employ methods critical of ideology to develop their political understanding of a 'theology for all' in precarious social situations.
On Earth as it is in Heaven: Dorothee Sölle and Theological Praxes of Justice

Jones C. (Speaker)


In her work, Suffering, Dorothee Sölle says, "God has no other hands than ours. If the sick are to be healed, it is our hands that will heal them. If the lonely and the frightened are to be comforted, it is our embrace, not God's, that will comfort them." Sölle's words invite us to critically interrogate the connection between justice, inequality, and hermeneutical interpretation. In this abstract, I argue that Sölle's call to intertwine justice and theology is a multipronged project that requires: a reorientation of frameworks of salvation and damnation, a reimagination of who has the right to hermeneutical claim-making, and an expansion of how we see natural systems as a part of God. Dorothee's claim that we are the hands of God, juxtaposed with Jesus' interaction with Peter in Matthew 16, helps further illuminate Sölle's connection between theology and liberation. In Matthew 16, we witness Jesus and Peter in conversation. During this conversation, Jesus highlights a deep connection between corporeal life and the spiritual world, "13 When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, "Who do people say the Son of Man is?" 14 They replied, "Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets." 15 "But what about you?" he asked. "Who do you say I am?" 16 Simon Peter answered, "You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God." 17 Jesus replied, "Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by flesh and blood, but by my Father in heaven. 18 And I tell you that you are Peter,[b] and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades[c] will not overcome it. 19 I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be[d] bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be[e] loosed in heaven." 20 Then he ordered his disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Messiah. Jesus does not define himself here — he invites curiosity. He invites a relationship. He invites his followers into the holy work of naming. By asking "But who do you say that I am?"Jesus reminds us that naming and defining God is a political project tied to power, status, inequality, and potential frameworks of liberation, too. Jesus's question implies that who Jesus is is not a static truth, but an unfolding, dynamic question — one that is alive in every generation, every culture, every voice. And it reminds us that any absolute claim to God — any theology that says "this is all there is to know" — is a fallacy. In the United States context, Sölle's words in connection with Jesus' question help us to consider how ICE raids done in the name of faith, reproductive rights stripped away in the name of morality, and political leaders weaponizing the name of God for violence are the result of a twisted cooptation of God as a means to systemic power. The God of Christian Nationalism is a God made in the image of power, patriarchy, and oppression. Placing Sölle's words in conversation with Zora Neale Hurston's assertion, "Gods always behave like the people who make them." And, Howard Thurman's claim, "It cannot be understated that God is often on the side of the powerful instead of the oppressed — this despite the gospel," reminds us that Sölle's call to see ourselves as a conduit for God's mercy, must also include the expansion of who has the right to Biblical interpretation and who is recognized as a legitimate authatorative voice in the production of critical religious scholarship. When we look at the scripture through the lens of the oppressed, we are all invited to come alive in new, interconnected, and humanistic-centered ways. Instead of asking, How does God call us to uphold rigid division? We ask, how does God call us to liberate one another? The latter gets us much closer to Sölle's call. And, powerfully, when we remember that it is "on Earth as it is Heaven," then it becomes clear that heaven was never about escaping from systemic pain, but instead meant to serve as a reminder that our most urgent call is to protect human dignity now on earth. When we remember that it is "on Earth as it is Heaven," we see the deep importance of centering the God of the oppressed, the marginalized, and the queer. We begin to reshape our commitments to justice in the present. We cannot escape how we treat one another on Earth; this not only includes our human relationships, but also how we treat plant life, animals, and other natural systems as well. There is so much to both witness and engage with concerning the work of Sölle. On the panel, I am curious about discussing and engaging the following areas: How does Sölle's work interface with Black Theology, Womanist Theology, and Queer Womanist Theology? Where does climate Justice sit within this call? How do we include natural systems in the work of liberation theology? What does Jesus remind us about the importance of a grounded theology that is concerned with the lives of those on Earth? How can we unpack further this bidirectional connection between Earth and Heaven?

Panel description: The human mandate to rule over the earth within the Abrahamic religions has produced ambivalent and often highly problematic outcomes. In the Jewish and Christian creation narratives, this mandate has often been interpreted as an archetypal justification for human superiority and the exploitation of nature and animals. In Islam, the concept of ḫalīfa, which positions humans as God's representatives, can similarly give rise to tension-laden interpretations. Such selective readings of sacred texts continue to shape contemporary human-nature and human-animal relationships in ways fundamentally marked by hierarchy and inequality. Over the past few decades, the call to "subdue" has often been reinterpreted as "taking responsibility", implying a more respectful approach in regards to the non-human (or: more-than-human) world. However, responsibility is also an ambigue concept and its interpretation can perpetuate the inequality between humans and animals in certain respects. For instance, responsibility is frequently invoked as an argument for human superiority. This panel, hosted by the DFG network "Related in the face of God. The Human-Animal Relationship in Interreligious Perspective", explores the addressed ambiguity. It features contributions that revisit, question, or reimagine the notions of dominion, ḫalīfa and responsibility in light of insights from human-animal studies, recent developments in animal ethics, and the growing impact of the Anthropocene discourse. We will discuss questions such as: Are there religious resources for a responsible relationship with non-human animals? Does framing humans as "responsible" risk reinforcing hierarchies? Is it necessary to move away from these traditions, can they be creatively reinterpreted, or is it worthwhile to revisit overlooked texts? In how far does the idea of the human being as the image of God function as a potential source for repentance or rather as a pitfall for the exploitation of our common home?

Papers:

BEYOND STEWARDSHIP: VULNERABILITY AND THE RECONFIGURATION OF HUMAN-ANIMAL RESPONSIBILITY IN CONTEMPORARY ISLAMIC ETHICS

El Maaroufi A. (Speaker)

Universität Münster ~ Münster ~ Germany
This paper proposes vulnerability as a decisive lens for rethinking human-animal responsibility in contemporary Islamic ethics. It takes as its point of departure a critical engagement with stewardship-based approaches rooted in the concept of khilāfa, which often presuppose a hierarchical moral order and a privileged form of human agency. While such models emphasise responsibility as delegated authority, they remain limited in their capacity to account for relations marked by asymmetry, exposure, and embodied dependence. Drawing on Taha Abdurrahman's ethical philosophy, particularly his understanding of amāna and the fragility of the moral subject, the paper develops an alternative conception of responsibility grounded not in mastery or control, but in ethical susceptibility and restraint. Animal vulnerability is treated not as a secondary concern or merely empirical fact, but as a theologically significant challenge that repositions the human subject before God and calls into question claims of moral sovereignty. On this basis, the paper outlines a relational account of responsibility that foregrounds interdependence, moral risk, and the limits of human agency. Rather than abandoning Islamic theological categories, it reworks them from within, offering a systematic contribution to current debates in Islamic ethics, animal ethics, and broader philosophical discussions of responsibility and vulnerability.
RESPONSIBILITY AS SOLIDARITY. TOWARDS AN EQUALITY-ORIENTED UNDERSTANDING OF RESPONSIBILITY IN THE MULTI-SPECIES COMMUNITY

Mügge C. (Speaker)

Universität Münster ~ Münster ~ Germany
Interpreting Genesis 1,28 as a call to responsible creation stewardship seeks to counter the exploitation of nature and respect God's creation. However, the call to responsibility in Christian theology falls short of fully addressing animal exploitation. Instead, it often serves to defend a categorical distinction between humans, who are considered capable of responsibility, and other animals, thereby reaffirming unequal treatment in ethical concerns. Furthermore, 'responsibility ethics' focuses on small changes and compromises, criticizing ethical visions of grand transformation. In this way, the concept of responsibility tends to solidify the subordination of animals in the status quo. The paper asks whether responsible creation stewardship can be reinterpreted and proposes linking responsibility with solidarity, arguing that this leads to a more equality-oriented understanding. Essential to the idea of responsibility as solidarity is, first, a sense of belonging to a shared multi-species community, emphasizing interconnectedness over human exceptionalism. This does not imply assuming equality in every respect or ignoring differences: humans have a particular responsibility due to their planetary impact, and there are differences in capabilities among species - however, these differences do not imply human superiority in the multi-species community or in ethical concerns. Second, the concept of solidarity encourages action that begins with small steps in concrete situations while remaining oriented towards a broader vision of a multi-species community where each individual can lead a good life. Likewise, a solidarity-infused approach to responsibility encompasses both small changes and ethical visions of grand transformation. Ultimately, the concept of responsibility as solidarity better serves the goal of respecting God's creation.
NATURE, ANIMALS, AND THE ETHICS OF RESPONSIBILITY IN JEWISH THOUGHT

Attia Y. (Speaker)

Universität Paderborn ~ Paderborn ~ Germany
This paper examines ethical responsibility toward nature and animals as it emerges across Jewish textual, rabbinic, and modern philosophical traditions. Beginning with the Genesis creation narrative, it explores the tension between human dominion over nature and rabbinic interpretations that place limits on such mastery, notably the Talmudic claim that the first human was prohibited from consuming animal life. This hermeneutical move opens space for a Jewish ethics that resists anthropocentric domination. The paper then turns to Rav Abraham Isaac Kook, whose messianic vision reinterprets dominion as moral stewardship and anticipates a future return to vegetarianism as an ethical ideal grounded in compassion for all living beings. Finally, it analyzes Hans Jonas's ethics of responsibility, situating his philosophy of life and organism within his own post-Holocaust theological framework. Jonas's reconceptualization of God as self-limiting shift ethical responsibility decisively onto humanity, thus extending moral concern beyond the human to the biosphere as a whole. Read together, the paper argues, these traditions demonstrate that Jewish thought offers robust resources for addressing contemporary ecological and animal ethics, foregrounding responsibility, ethics, and the preservation of life in an age of environmental crisis.
JEWS LEARNING FROM AND WITH OTHER ANIMALS: COMMENTARIES TO PEREK SHIRA OVER THE CENTURIES

Schorsch J. (Speaker)

Universität Potsdam ~ Potsdam ~ Germany
Perek Shira (Chapter of Song), an ancient text, offers a biblical verse "song" for a large number of animal species and natural entities (streams, the rain, the moon, sun, etc.). The simple and suggestive litany, possibly mystical, provoked commentators over the centuries. Reading across a number of commentaries, all in Hebrew, all rather understudied, ranging from the early middle ages to the 19th century, some rationalistic, some kabbalistic, I look at how these authors at times destabilize the boundary between the human and animal (Deleuze and Quattari) as they collectively discover and construct cosmic supernatureculture (Mayanthi Fernando) from a Jewish perspective. Through the lens of tradition, myth, science, and direct experience, animals are endowed by the commentators with surprising subjectivity, the authors recenter anthropocentrism by centering the animal, all within proper theocentrism, of course, indeed, through theocentrism. Coming upon and building an often messy human-animal knowing, encountering, sharing, kinship, differences, similarities, alliances, hostilities, relationship (Haraway), the spiritual and ethical consequences for humans/Jews — responsibility, care, attentiveness — follow strongly for these authors, and, in the case of one late commentary, taking on the language and values of modern animal rights.
BROKEN WEBS, WANING BEES: DESTABILIZING HUMAN-CENTRISM IN KELLER AND JASAREVIĆ

Mirsadri S. (Speaker)

Université de Genève ~ Genève ~ Switzerland
This talk brings Catherine Keller's process-relational engagement with apocalyptic imagination into conversation with Larisa Jasarević's Beekeeping in the End Times, a Sufi-inflected ethnography of Islamic eschatology in contemporary Bosnia. Although working within different traditions, both thinkers decenter the human and turn to more-than-human creatures as ethical and theological guides in a time of ecological crisis. Drawing on Keller's figure of the broken web and Jasarević's focus on the honeybee, the talk explores how spiders and bees model relationality, vulnerability, and responsiveness amid planetary rupture. It argues that these multispecies figures reveal a shared imagination shaped by damage, precarity, and responsibility, while also showing how war, ecological instability, and lived human-animal dependence condition which theological interpretations of the "end times" become salient.
'AN EYE FOR AN EYE'. RETHINKING THE BIBLICAL LAW OF MERCY WITH REGARD TO ANIMALS

Ruster T. (Speaker)

Universität Dortmund ~ Dortmund ~ Germany
This paper examines the socio-cultural context in which the biblical eye-for-an-eye-law - that can be understood as a principle of mercy - developed and was applied. Ancient Israel had already undergone the Neolithic Revolution and was grounded in the patriarchal social order that emerged from it. Male landowners held power over women, children, enslaved individuals, and animals. The principle of mercy aimed to mitigate the harsh realities of this societal structure, affecting both humans and animals. There are striking parallels between the treatment of slaves and animals, with both benefiting from legislative regulations and protections in ancient Israel. However, just as the Bible did not abolish the institution of slavery, it also did not depart from the agricultural structures that subordinated animals to human control and exploitation. The question then arises: what does the Bible have to say about our responsibility towards animals today, given that the current agro-industrial exploitation of animals represents an escalation of the structures established in the Neolithic era? Should we not strive to overcome the Neolithic order, characterized by some as the "greatest mistake in human history" (C. van Schaik/K. Michel), to make room for a new form of coexistence between human and non-human animals? The Bible also offers approaches that point towards a new order. When animals are included in the divine covenant and attributed divine holiness, as with the regulations concerning clean and unclean animals, this can provide support for biblically-minded individuals today to look beyond long-standing structures towards a promise whose fulfillment the entire creation eagerly awaits.

Panel description: This proposed panel will convene an Author Meets Critique session on the recently published book Heaven Has a Wall: Religion, Borders, and the Global United States (University of Chicago Press, 2025) by Elizabeth Shakman Hurd. In this timely and provocative book, Hurd argues that borders function as sacred objects in American public life, sustained by what she calls a bipartisan "border religion." Through concepts such as reverence for national security, a liturgy of immigration, and an eschatological foreign policy, Heaven Has a Wall reframes contemporary debates over US borders by revealing their religious dimensions. Borders, she argues, offer a window onto unexplored political and religious dimensions of the American national project. The interdisciplinary panel will bring together scholars from religious studies, political theory, international relations, and migration studies to critically engage with Hurd's core arguments. Interlocutors will examine how the book reshapes understandings of secularism, sovereignty, civil religion, and U.S. global power, as well as its implications for the study of religion beyond the focus on belief or institutions. The author will respond to the discussants' commentaries, reflecting on the book's interventions, its main stakes, and future directions for research on religion in national and international politics.

Papers:

Panel description: The religious element is an integral part of the current cultural and ethical public debates conducted on the conservative-liberal "front line". One of the spaces that most faithfully capture these discussions is the media. Their research is therefore particularly meaningful when observing various aspects of current conceptual and ideological disputes. Quantitative and qualitative media analyses can focus on texts, institutions, creators and audiences and can use, for example, methods of frame, argumentation, attribution, etc. theories. The findings can then be deepened in individual in-depth interviews and focus groups, or in questionnaire surveys on numerically rich samples. In our section, we welcome a variety of contributions based on media material and contributing to answering some current questions, e.g.: - what are the current argumentative disputes between conservatives and liberals; - how emotions are handled in these discussions; - how language, especially expressive language, is handled; - what are the psycho-social causes of conservative and liberal attitudes; - what contributes to the deepening of polarization; - what role religious faith plays in these disputes; - what is the position of religious argumentation in the public space at present... These questions (implicitly) include the issue of (in)equality, because equality is one of the basic starting points of contemporary progressivism, and conservatism (relying on the Christian religion) argues against its misunderstanding with harmful consequences for the (long-term/eternal) well-being of the individual.

Papers:

WHO SWEARS JUICIER? LINGUISTIC EXPRESSIVENESS IN CONSERVATIVE AND LIBERAL MEDIA

Roncáková T. (Speaker)

Catholic University in Ruzomberok, Faculty of Arts ~ Ružomberok ~ Slovakia
The current polarized media discourse offers enough suitable material (also) for linguistic analysis. Particularly interesting is the question of expressiveness, which is also asked by the general audience: who is more emotional? Who is more "unjust"? Who is more offensive? In the paper, the author is looking for a suitable scientific method to "measure" the linguistic quality of expressive texts. She works with a rich sample of approximately 500 opinion texts (editorials) from selected liberal and conservative dailies in Slovakia. She analyses them using tonality/sentiment variables, emotions, petrification rate, and linguistic means of expression. She answers questions such as: 1. what is the sentiment of the examined texts towards their object (positive, negative, neutral); 2. what emotion they are built on (anger, disgust, happiness, fear, sadness, surprise); 3. what is the degree of petrification of the expressions (petrified, original); 4. what means of expression they use (allusion, irony, image, adjective).
OVERCOMING POLARIZATION BEGINS WITH THE INDIVIDUAL: THEOLOGICAL-ANALYTICAL REFLECTION ON PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY FOR PUBLIC DISCOURSE

Žuffa J. (Speaker)

Trnava University, Faculty of Theology ~ Trnava ~ Slovakia
The paper shows that the permanent reduction of polarization does not begin only at the level of the media or social structures, but in the personal attitude of the individual. It is based on Christian anthropology and virtuous ethics and emphasizes that spiritual attitudes such as hope, mercy and truthfulness have a direct impact on the quality of public communication. By linking these attitudes with specific communication skills (listening, slowing down, reframing), it shows that personal integrity and inner work are the basis of constructive dialogue in the church and society.
POLARIZATION SURROUNDING THE DOCUMENT FIDUCIA SUPPLICANS: HOW MEDIA FRAMING HAS TRANSFORMED PUBLIC PERCEPTIONS OF THE CHURCH'S POSITION ON EQUALITY AND BLESSINGS

Dorková B. (Speaker)

Catholic University in Ruzomberok, Faculty of Arts ~ Ružomberok ~ Slovakia
The publication of Fiducia supplicans (2023) generated substantial polarization both in the media and within the Church. Although the document does not alter the Church's theological teaching on marriage, its pastoral emphasis on the possibility of blessing couples in "irregular relationships" was interpreted by many secular media platforms as a fundamental shift in the Catholic Church's stance on LGBT issues. This paper examines how media framing shaped public interpretations of the document and how different types of media (conservative, liberal, and religious) employed contrasting narratives, ranging from a frame of "threat to tradition" to one of "historic change." The analysis also explores how media use language and emotion when presenting the document. Different media sources highlight different aspects of the text and of the Pope's statements, producing interpretations that diverge significantly from the original pastoral intention. The paper argues that media logic can profoundly influence how the public understands the Church's approach to sensitive questions and, ultimately, contribute to increasing cultural and ethical polarization in contemporary public discourse.
PRESENTATION OF EUTHANASIA IN THE MEDIA

Bicianová P. (Speaker)

Catholic University in Ruzomberok, Faculty of Arts ~ Ružomberok ~ Slovakia
Euthanasia is one of the most discussed bioethical issues today. Over the past two years, at least 20 countries have embarked on the path of legalizing the killing of the sick or liberalizing existing laws. The media, as a natural part of many bioethical struggles, bring up the topic of euthanasia and at the same time open a discussion, thus gradually shaping public opinion and political decisions. Therefore, the media treatment of euthanasia often combines news, emotional and value levels. The paper analyses the presentation of euthanasia in the media and the argumentative disputes between conservatives and liberals.
THE POLARIZING INFLUENCE OF DISCUSSION GROUPS AS A CONSEQUENCE OF DEPERSONALIZING VIRTUAL COMMUNICATION AND THE LATEST MAGISTERIUM OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH, AIMED AT RESTORING REAL INTERPERSONAL RELATIONSHIPS

Gavenda M. (Speaker)

TV LUX ~ Bratislava ~ Slovakia
It is a generally stated and professionally proven fact that the massive expansion of various discussion forums and groups leads to the radicalization of society as well as church and religious life. Even in church life - and this also applies to all institutionalized churches (Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant) - we observe a significant polarization towards liberal-progressive or conservative-traditionalist attitudes. Paradoxically, even in the defense of the noblest spiritual themes and the commandment of love, there is no shortage of hate speech, one-sidedness, conspiratorial attribution of bad intentions. The Magisterium (Magisterium) of the Catholic Church in media issues is based on the pyramidal structure of diocese, national and continental "councils for the mass media". Their members are experts in the field as well as experienced workers in various media. Thanks to this, the Vatican Dicastery for Communication has extensive sources of theoretical knowledge and practical experience. The emphasis on real interpersonal communication has appeared very often in this magisterium in recent years, and its meaning and ways to develop it are elaborated in them (the school of silence, the school of listening, journalism in real environments). In this paper, we want to point out how direct interpersonal communication can contribute to overcoming radicalization through discussion forums and teach respect for the personality and opinion of the other and the conduct of a real dialogue.
RELIGIOUS TIKTOK IN ITALY: GENDERED VISIBILITY, PLATFORM AUTHORITY, AND INEQUALITIES OF RECOGNITION

Conti G. (Speaker)

University of Modena and Reggio Emilia ~ Reggio Emilia ~ Italy
This presentation investigates how Italian religious TikTok creators translate devotional practice into short-form media, and how this process reconfigures authority, visibility, and inequality. Drawing on mediatization and the platformization of religion (Hjarvard, 2008), we approach TikTok as an environment where religious communication is shaped by attention metrics, vernacular aesthetics, and intimacy. The analysis focuses on a corpus of Italian accounts, spanning lay devotional leadership (Benedetta Palella), clerical influencer practices (don Alberto Ravagnani), and consecrated-life storytelling (suor Claudia). We examine how prayers, livestreams, micro-homilies, testimonies, and everyday convent scenes are packaged through TikTok-native formats (trends, filters, stitched responses, direct address) and how these formats produce differentiated regimes of recognition. The argument is that TikTok reorganises evangelisation by redistributing credibility and reach across gendered bodies, age, charisma, and stylistic fluency, generating inequalities within religious publics: whose voice becomes legible as "authentic," whose religiosity is framed as inspirational or suspect, and which forms of devotion are amplified or marginalised. Methodologically, we combine qualitative content analysis with platform-sensitive discourse analysis, coding (1) authority cues (clerical status, doctrinal framing, citation of scripture, pastoral counselling), (2) intimacy and relational labour, (3) aesthetic/performative repertoires (humour, modesty and habit aesthetics, "everyday holiness"), and (4) interactional conflicts (controversies, accusations of exhibitionism, gatekeeping, moderation). The contribution clarifies how "digital missionary" practices in Italy enact a hybrid religious authority at the intersection of institution, charisma, and platform logics, with inequality effects that are symbolic (recognition), social (belonging), and communicative (voice and reach).
IMAGE OF THE CHARISMATIC MOVEMENT IN MEDIA DISCOURSE BASED ON ARTICLES PUBLISHED ON PCH24.PL

Jarzebak W. (Speaker)

Doctoral School in the Humanities at the Jagiellonian University ~ Cracow ~ Poland
Research on religious language in Poland has been developing since the second half of the 20th century, a period in which new religious movements have emerged within traditional denominations. One of these is the Catholic Charismatic Renewal (hereafter: the charismatic movement). The Charismatic Renewal is a global movement formed by individuals and groups who share a similar religious experience. Its members are characterised by a distinctive way of experiencing faith and by common goals. The charismatic movement attracts interest both from researchers and from Catholics themselves, but it also provokes controversy, particularly among Catholics associated with so‑called Catholic traditionalism.The aim of this paper is to analyse the image of the charismatic movement in media discourse, using as examples articles published on the PCh24.pl website, which represents the traditionalist trend mentioned above. The research is conducted within an axiolinguistic framework, focusing on linguistic indicators of evaluation and on the reconstruction of the value system manifested in the analysed texts. The study draws, among other things, on the cognitive axiolinguistic model developed by the Polish linguist Tomasz P. Krzeszowski. The analysis covers both lexical and extra‑lexical evaluative means (including morphological and syntactic devices), as well as strategies for profiling religious actors in the media discourse under examination. Particular attention is paid to the values and anti‑values (e.g. orthodoxy, emotionality, elitism) attributed to the charismatic movement and to how these fit into the broader context of progressive-traditionalist disputes in contemporary Catholic discourse. The analysis will make it possible to determine whether, and in what way, the charismatic movement is becoming an element of polarisation within religious discourse in the media.
THE DIALECTIC OF THE SACRED AND THE SYNTHETIC, IN POPULAR CULTURE

Afangide-Késmárki U.U. (Speaker)

Pázmány Péter Catholic University - Doctoral School of Social Sciences ~ Budapest ~ Hungary
This paper examines how contemporary science-fiction narratives articulate the relationship between religion, ideology, and artificial intelligence, while tracing how these symbolic formations circulate in public discourse as frameworks for interpreting technological futures, socio-political tensions, and transcendence. It asks how cultural texts connect religion with AI, what ideological patterns emerge from these connections, and how such narratives shape understandings of social order, human agency, and humanity's future. Building on qualitative research on religious interpretations of AI conducted with religious experts, the paper extends this inquiry from empirical religious discourse into popular culture and media. That earlier research showed that theological and cultural backgrounds generate distinct readings of AI, that religious and technological discourses are often dialectically intertwined, and that AI is often framed as an anthropological or existential challenge rather than a purely technical development. It further develops the proposed concept of technohierophany, understood as the mediated manifestation of sacralized meaning or quasi-religious authority through technological forms. The analysis focuses on Dune, Warhammer 40,000, The Matrix, Star Wars, Star Trek, and Hyperion. These case studies were selected for their representations of AI prohibition, religious syncretism, messianism, political order, technological hubris, and competing visions of humanity, as well as for the circulation of their vocabularies in media discourse, political rhetoric, and ideological interpretation. Using an AI-narrative typology structured along technophilic-technophobic and affective-instrumental axes, together with qualitative narrative and discourse analysis, the paper argues that popular culture not only reflects debates but actively shapes the symbolic frameworks through which religion, ideology, and artificial intelligence are imagined and contested.
CROSSES ON MOUNTAINTOP: MEDIA AND POLITICAL POLARIZATION BETWEEN CULTURAL HERITAGE AND RELIGIOUS FREEDOM

Rech G. (Speaker)

Università Telematica Pegaso ~ Napoli ~ Italy
This presentation examines the mobilization against the presence and erection of crosses on Italian mountain peaks, a contentious issue in the debate over religious symbols in public spaces. Rooted in legal debates, reaching the European Court of Human Rights, the discussion is as controversial as it is divisive, involving diverse stakeholders both nationally and internationally. The core of the sociological issue lies in the universal value assigned to these symbols and the claim for their presence in open, natural spaces such as mountains. This debate scrutinizes the symbols' role as both cultural objects and passive religious markers. Drawing on various sources, such as natural documents and netnographic materials (press, blogs, and social media) on mountain topics, this presentation will analyze, from a qualitative perspective, two parallel processes at play. The culturalization of Catholic religion in Italy and the heritagization of mountain landscapes offer insight into how religious symbols on mountain peaks interact with broader themes of heritage, identity, and religious freedom in Italy's evolving cultural and ideological landscape.

Panel description: The purpose of this panel is to bring together recent research findings on the relationship between Catholicism and politics in 20th-century Ibero-America, with the aim of highlighting conjunctures, agencies, and conflicts that allow for a historical understanding of the various dimensions of the link between Catholicism, the public sphere, and the State. The Ibero-American continent offers a particularly fruitful context for analyzing the interplay between religion and politics, due to the role played by ultramontane Catholics in the first half of the century, the emergence of liberation theology that led many Catholics to participate in the revolutionary ferment of the 1960s and 1970s, and the proliferation of dictatorships, which placed the Catholic field at the crossroads of legitimizing regimes or opposing them. Likewise, the transitions to democracy saw national Catholic Churches assume a leading role, especially in disseminating the Catholic concept of reconciliation. The panel seeks to foster dialogue among papers addressing these different stages in order to better understand the role of religion in the Ibero-American public sphere. Accordingly, the following axes of discussion are proposed: 1. Catholicism and Dictatorships 2. Processes of Reconciliation and Political Transitions from a Catholic Perspective 3. Catholic Agents and the Public Sphere: Circulation and Controversies 4. Catholic Intellectuals: Concepts and Contingencies

Papers:

CONFESSIONALISING THE MEXICAN NATION. PUBLISHING PROJECTS IN SEARCH OF A CATHOLIC NATION IN THE MID-20TH CENTURY.

Ramírez Bonilla L.C. (Speaker)

Universidad Iberoamericana ~ Mexico City ~ Mexico
In the mid-20th century, the Mexican Catholic press focused its journalistic and propaganda efforts on re-Christianising a country that could not deny its 'Catholic essence', affected by secular education and the 'atheism' of its institutions. Despite the modus vivendi that characterised the relationship between the Church and the State after years of confrontation, 're-Christianisation' took on a patriotic dimension for the hierarchy and the more conservative organised laity. It was an idea of nationhood antagonistic to the revolutionary project, which identified Catholicism as the genesis of Mexican identity and the secular state as an enemy of public morality, the education of children and the family. This paper aims to identify the concept of nation formulated by the Catholic-rooted Mexican press in the 1950s, in the midst of a Campaign for the Moralisation of the Environment (1951), vigorous lay activism led by Mexican Catholic Action, and outstanding editorial dynamism. The exercise aims to contrast the proposal of the Catholic weekly Unión, published in Mexico City by Buena Prensa and directed by José A. Romero S.J.; the magazine Christus, as the mouthpiece of the episcopate, with content aimed at the clergy; and Señal, a Catholic weekly organised by lay people for lay people, with debates on current affairs. These publications promoted the confessionalisation of the nation as a response to the social disorder and moral deterioration that, according to their diagnosis, prevailed in the country. Opinion columns, cartoons, readers' letters and reports called for a 'great return' to the Catholic nation. What values underpinned this ideal? What notion of history emerged from such discourse? How did it define Mexican identity? Which actors were involved? A 'baptised people,' Unión asserted, could not participate in an atheistic project for the nation: what narratives, symbols and strategies did the magazine propose to counteract this condition?
THE JUVENTUD OBRERA CATÓLICA (JOC), LATIN AMERICA, AND THE MAKING OF A TRANSNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS MOVEMENT

Mcdonald D. (Speaker)

Faculty of History | OSGA Latin American Centre University of Oxford ~ Oxford ~ United Kingdom
This paper argues that Latin American Catholic Action played a hitherto underappreciated role in the creation of a truly global human rights movement amid the wave of repression by right-wing military dictatorships in Latin America. Scholars such as Samuel Moyn (2012) have argued that human rights only acquired international relevance in the 1970s when organisations like Amnesty International (AI) gained prominence. Yet, while Kathryn Sikkink (2018) and others have noted the importance of Latin America, these works have generally neglected the role that transnational Catholic networks played at this crucial juncture. The persecution of Catholic Youth Workers (JOC, Juventud Obrera Católica) activists who suffered from imprisonment, torture, and in some cases, murder or disappearance by security forces employed by these dictatorships is well-documented. Here, this paper draws on Catholic archives in Latin America, North America, and Europe as well as from Amnesty International's collections to show how the JOC contributed to the documentation of human rights abuses in the Southern Cone in the 1970s. As it demonstrates, the persecution of JOC militants led its international bureau to embrace and promote human rights to not only defend itself, but through its practical collaboration with Amnesty International and related human rights organisations.
BETWEEN UNITY AND DIVERGENCE: POLITICAL VIOLENCE, REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH, AND CHURCH-STATE RELATIONS (PERU, 1970-2000)

Armas F. (Speaker)

Universidad del Pacífico ~ Lima ~ Peru
This paper examines, within the context of Peruvian society marked by economic crisis, political and social violence, and authoritarianism—spanning the military regime of the 1970s, the democratic governments of the 1980s, and the autocratic rule of Alberto Fujimori—the actions of Catholic clerical and lay sectors in two areas of confrontation with the State: the defense of human rights and support for pacification, and the defense of life in matters of demographic growth, including natality, sexual morality, and opposition to abortion. In doing so, the paper seeks to discuss the local characteristics of inter-institutional relations, the unity and divergences within existing ecclesial trends, the relevance of strategies devised in these confrontations, and the capacity to influence and transform certain public actions within a secular context. Ultimately, the study aims to contribute to the panel's broader debate on Catholic engagement in the public sphere in Latin America.
THE UTOPIAN ENGINE OF HISTORY: GUSTAVO GUTIÉRREZ AND CHRISTIANS FOR SOCIALISM.

Fernández M. (Speaker)

UAH ~ Santiago ~ Chile
This paper focuses on the historical contextualization and analysis of the lecture Marxism and Christianity, delivered by the Peruvian theologian Gustavo Gutiérrez during the Latin American Meeting of Christians for Socialism, held in Santiago de Chile in April 1971. This document—hitherto unpublished—clearly highlights a set of central themes in Gutiérrez's theological reflection within the broader historical transformations experienced by both Chile and Latin America: the legitimacy of revolutionary political action by Christians, the critique of the dualism between the temporal world and the spiritual sphere, the scope and political consequences of liberation, and the role played therein by Marxism, understood simultaneously as a science and as a utopian mobilizing force. According to Gutiérrez, this latter dimension facilitated its convergence with Christianity. In its conclusions, the paper argues both for the coherence of Gutiérrez's positions with the trajectories of convergence between Marxism and Christianity characteristic of the period, and for the significance of secularization awareness within the theological reflection that would come to define liberation theologies.
THE ROMAN EXILE OF JULIO JIMÉNEZ SJ (1958-1964): ANTI-COMMUNIST AND/OR ANTI-MARITAINIAN IMPULSES?

Álvarez C. (Speaker)

ITER/Universidad Alberto Hurtado/ PUC-Chile ~ Santiago ~ Chile
This article examines the Roman exile of Chilean Jesuit Julio Jiménez (1958-1964) as a revealing episode of the politico-ecclesiological realignments in Chile during the Cold War. The pressures exerted by sectors of the Chilean clergy, together with the tepid defense of his case by the Jesuit curia in Rome, reflected both his commitment to the orthodoxy of Jacques Maritain's thought and his opposition to the ley maldita. Jiménez's defense of the Communist Party's participation in the electoral system was grounded in a conception of democratic pluralism, in which Maritainian frameworks became crucial for understanding the political evolution of socially engaged Catholics in the late 1950s. Drawing on unpublished sources from the Holy Office, the Secretariat of State, and the ARSI archives in Rome, this study situates Jiménez's exile within broader debates on Catholic political thought and the tensions between anti-communist and anti-Maritainian impulses in mid-twentieth-century Chile.
CLARETIAN MISSIONARIES, THE 'NEW EVANGELIZATION' AND POLITICAL PERSECUTION AT MINA EL AGUILAR, ARGENTINA

Weisz M. (Speaker)

Hebrew University of Jerusalem ~ Jerusalem ~ Israel
This paper investigates the enduring tensions between colonial legacies and republican institutions in Argentina, focusing on the intersection of religion, politics, and labor conflict. While the 1853 National Constitution enshrined equality regardless of religion, origin, or race, and simultaneously mandated federal support for the Catholic Church, the state has consistently failed to secure the fundamental rights of Indigenous populations. Against this backdrop, the study examines the process of "new evangelization" initiated by the Claretian congregation in 1968 among workers at the El Aguilar mine in Jujuy. Drawing on unpublished archival sources, the analysis highlights the impact of this pastoral initiative on labor disputes and the subsequent repressive policies that unfolded between the late 1960s and the 1970s. By situating this case within broader debates on Catholic political thought and the persistence of colonial structures, the article underscores the dual role of the Church in both sustaining and transforming social, economic, and cultural frameworks in provincial Argentina.
WHY THE CHURCH? WHY HUMAN RIGHTS? THE CHILEAN CATHOLIC CHURCH AND THE DEFENSE OF HUMAN DIGNITY IN 1978

Del Villar Tagle M.S. (Speaker)

Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso ~ Valparaíso ~ Chile
This paper examines how the Chilean Catholic Church articulated theological and ethical justifications for its public commitment to human rights during the military dictatorship, focusing on 1978 as a key moment of reflection and contestation. That year, declared the "Year of Human Rights" by the Archdiocese of Santiago, coincided with the thirtieth anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the fifteenth anniversary of Pacem in Terris, and culminated in an International Human Rights Symposium. Drawing on episcopal documents, pastoral statements, and theological interventions by key ecclesial actors, the paper argues that the Church's engagement with human rights cannot be explained solely as a pragmatic response to humanitarian emergencies. Instead, it must be understood as a historically situated reception of the Second Vatican Council and its Latin American interpretation at Medellín, articulated under conditions of political repression and internal ecclesial conflict. The analysis shows how Church leaders framed the defense of human dignity as an essential dimension of the Church's mission, grounding human rights in biblical anthropology, Catholic social teaching, and a conciliar ecclesiology that envisioned the Church as a pilgrim people responsible for the common good. By focusing on 1978 as a dense moment of theological production and public controversy, the paper highlights how theological discourse functioned both to legitimate ecclesial action in the public sphere and to sustain a non-partisan moral opposition to authoritarian rule. The paper contributes to broader debates on religion, human rights, and political ethics in Latin America.
NO PODEMOS CALLAR: CONFESSION AND PUBLIC SPHERE DURING THE DICTATORSHIP IN CHILE, 1975-1981

Bernales M. (Speaker)

ITER-UAH ~ Santiago ~ Chile
The following contribution will analyze the clandestine magazine No Podemos Callar (We Cannot keep quiet), a monthly publication issued by a group of priests, nuns, and lay people led by the Jesuit José Aldunate L., SJ. Created in 1975, in the middle of total media censorship and systematic human rights violations, No Podemos Callar took on the task of circulating information from the point of view of liberationist Christianity. Thus, reading the pages of No Podemos Callar (NPC) allows us to know the political violence and the neoliberal transformations of the period, as well as the resistance organised against it by Christians. Similarly, it makes it possible to foresee the tensions that the relationships with the dictatorship generated within the Catholic world, and the theological reflections that supported the prophetic role that underpinned the commitment of No Podemos Callar. No Podemos Callar's commitment was confessional in an old sense, which comes close to martyrdom. Namely, NPC embraces the possibility of risking their lives to expose the unjust political and economic oppression suffered by the Chilean people. Such a commitment to say the truth, as Peter and John did once released by the Sanhedrin ("we can't keep quiet about what we have seen and heard", Acts 4,20), explains the magazine's title. It also grounds those activities that created a political platform—small and clandestine—for political opposition to the dictatorship. Thus, in the case of the Chilean dictatorship, religion was not a foe of the public sphere, but it was religious people with open religious views who crafted such a space for and with those oppressed.
AGENTS OF RELIGIOUS MODERNITY: INTELLECTUAL NETWORKS AND PROCESSES OF INTERNAL SECULARIZATION IN LATIN AMERICAN CATHOLICISM (1979-1992)

Zanca J. (Speaker)

Ishir-CONICET ~ Santa Fe ~ Argentina
The post-Second Vatican Council period in Latin America was marked by profound instability that affected both the institutional structures and the ideological frameworks of the Church. Within this context, Liberation Theology emerged as the most representative and contentious expression of the 1970s, consolidating itself through networks of intellectuals who gained notable recognition in both public opinion and the non-confessional academic sphere. This paper argues that such figures were not merely circumstantial actors in a crisis of power, but rather fundamental agents of an internal process of secularization. The central hypothesis maintains that these Catholic intellectuals—particularly those linked to liberationist currents—incorporated practices and principles that rendered the institution permeable to the logics of modernity, challenging traditional vertical authority. In this framework, secularization is not understood as the disappearance of the sacred, but as a mutation in power relations and a reduction of hierarchical control over the resources and discourses of the religious sphere. The study focuses on the period between the CELAM conferences in Puebla (1979) and Santo Domingo (1992), critically examining the impact of the "Instruction" issued by the Holy See in 1984. It contends that, through the constitution of a modern public sphere within Latin American Catholicism, these actors succeeded in autonomizing their role, positioning themselves as a magistracy of thought that compelled the hierarchy to engage in an open discursive field. Finally, it concludes that this dynamic enabled the introjection of modern logics—such as the recognition of the autonomy of the social sciences and the legitimization of dissent—permanently reshaping the economy of religious debate in the region.
RECONCILIATION AND DEMOCRACY: THE CATHOLIC CHURCHES OF CHILE AND ARGENTINA IN RESPONSE TO THE TRUTH COMMISSION REPORTS DURING POLITICAL TRANSITION

Ruderer S. (Speaker)

Instituto de Historia, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile ~ Santiago ~ Chile
This paper offers a comparative analysis of the reactions of the Catholic Church to the first reports issued by the Truth Commissions in Chile and Argentina. In Argentina, the Nunca Más report was published in 1984, while in Chile the Rettig Report appeared in 1991. Both documents officially exposed, for the first time, the gravest human rights violations committed under the military dictatorships, generating profound public impact during the initial year of democratic transition. The national Catholic Churches played a prominent role in the debates surrounding these reports, seeking to shape the concept of reconciliation as a pathway toward the desired consolidation of democracy. In both countries, the Church positioned itself as a mediating actor between political and military factions, thereby maintaining an active public role. The comparison is particularly significant given the divergent roles of the Churches during the dictatorships: while the Chilean Catholic Church had become the moral opposition to authoritarian rule, the Argentine Church, in its majority, had supported the military regime and its repressive policies. This comparative study highlights how the Churches responded in light of these distinct pasts, how they interpreted the notion of reconciliation, and how they argued in favor of it in the face of the public revelation of brutal human rights violations.

Panel description: Christian atheism designates a paradoxical constellation within the history of Western thought in which central Christian motifs - incarnation, kenosis, death, and resurrection - are reinterpreted without recourse to a transcendent, metaphysical God. The panel aims to explore the historical depth and philosophical transformations of this constellation. Its genealogy reaches back to early Christian sources: patristic reflections on divine kenosis (Phil 2), negative theology in authors such as Gregory of Nyssa and Pseudo-Dionysius, as well as radical interpretations of the Deus absconditus. Medieval and early modern developments—ranging from Meister Eckhart to Luther's theology of the cross—further destabilize classical theism by emphasizing divine self-withdrawal, suffering, and finitude. In modern philosophy, these motifs are systematically reworked. Hegel's speculative theology interprets the death of God as an immanent moment of absolute spirit, thereby inaugurating a post-transcendent reading of Christianity. The early Left Hegelians radicalize this move by translating theological contents into anthropological and political categories. Alexandre Kojève's existential reading of Hegel foregrounds finitude, negativity, and historical finality, while contemporary thinkers such as Slavoj Žižek explicitly articulate an "atheistic Christianity" centered on incarnation without divine remainder, emphasizing loss, abandonment, and the ethical consequences of God's death. The open panel invites contributions from philosophy, theology, religious studies, and related disciplines that investigate these trajectories, tensions, and reinterpretations. By situating contemporary debates within a long historical arc, the panel seeks to clarify whether Christian atheism represents a culmination of theological self-critique, a transformation of religious meaning, or a distinctive mode of post-metaphysical thought.

Papers:

SLAVOJ ŽIŽEK'S CHRISTIAN ATHEISM

Weiss M. (Speaker)

University of Klagenfurt, Department od Philosophy ~ Klagenfurt ~ Austria
This paper reconstructs and analyzes Slavoj Žižek's notion of "Christian atheism," according to which Christianity, properly understood, is not a metaphysical doctrine about a transcendent God, but the narrative matrix in which the death of God and the non-existence of any ultimate guarantor of meaning are fully acknowledged. Žižek explicitly starts from the Enlightenment's classical critique of religion (Feuerbach, Marx), which, for him, has definitively refuted the existence of a metaphysical, transcendent God: there is no big Other. This atheistic insight is the positive presupposition of his project, not its result.
"THE ABSENCE OF GOD RESEMBLES GOD" - BATAILLE'S ATHEOLOGY MEETS MUSIL'S LAY THEOLOGY

Boelderl A. (Speaker)

University of Klagenfurt, Robert-Musil-Institut für Literaturforschung ~ Klagenfurt ~ Austria
This paper brings Georges Bataille's atheology into dialogue with Robert Musil's notion of a "lay theology." Starting from the paradoxical claim that the absence of God can itself resemble God, it explores how both authors rethink transcendence without recourse to traditional theism. While Bataille radicalizes the divine absence into an experience of excess, negativity, and transgression, Musil develops a non-dogmatic, experiential approach to theological questions within a secular horizon. The paper argues that their encounter illuminates a distinctive form of post-theistic reflection situated between literature, philosophy, and theology.
KEIJI NISHITANI ON CHRISTIANITY AND ATHEISM - PERSPECTIVES FROM CHRISTIAN SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY

Jockel M. (Speaker)

Department of Theology, University of Giessen ~ Giessen ~ Germany
„Christianity cannot, and must not, look on modern atheism merely as something to be eliminated. It must instead accept atheism as a mediation to a new development of Christianity itself." This recommendation was not formulated by a Christian theologian, but by Japanese philosopher (of religion) Keiji Nishitani (1900-1990), pupil of the Kyoto School's de-facto founder Kitaro Nishida, as well as of Martin Heidegger, in his famous work "Religion and Nothingness" (1961, originally "Shūkyō to wa nanika?", literally: „What is religion?"; p. 36-37). The paper aims to evaluate from a Christian (more specifically Protestant) systematic-theological perspective how Nishitani's recommendation and „Religion and Nothingness" more broadly may become a helpful guideline in gauging the relationship between Christianity and Atheism today.

Panel description: Work-related migration is one of the key fault lines in contemporary debates on religion and (in)equality. Across Europe, political and public discourses oscillate between the perceived economic necessity of labor migration and concerns about its social consequences. At the same time, work-related migration is a global phenomenon: migration routes connect European contexts with regions across the world, shaped by colonial histories, post-Cold War transformations, and current efforts to address labor shortages. This panel examines work-related migration from two complementary perspectives: first, the role of religious actors as agents, institutions, and stakeholders in labor migration; second, the critical ethical, theological, and philosophical reflections on migration and work found within religious traditions. Historically as well as today, religious actors play a significant role in labor migration. In the field of health care, for example, Christian missionary organizations were involved in providing medical services in destination countries, producing figures that have been both admired and critically debated, such as Mother Teresa or Albert Schweitzer. In contemporary Europe, religious organizations remain major public actors through their involvement in health care infrastructures, including hospitals and nursing homes. As such, they are directly implicated in strategies of recruiting migrant workers and must position themselves within broader political, ethical, and economic frameworks. Beyond institutional involvement, religious traditions such as Judaism, Christianity, and Islam offer long-standing and ongoing reflections on migration, work, justice, and inequality. These traditions provide normative resources that engage questions of power, vulnerability, responsibility, and postcolonial entanglements, and that can critically inform current debates on work-related migration.

Papers:

JUST REGULATION OF THE GLOBAL MIGRATION OF HEALTH PROFESSIONALS AND THE CATHOLIC-ETHICAL IDEA OF A "GLOBAL COMMON GOOD"

Broghammer M. (Speaker) , Mandry C. (Speaker)

Goethe-Universität Frankfurt ~ Frankfurt am Main ~ Germany
The global migration of health professionals represents a form of labour migration that is deeply embedded in global inequalities of power and distribution. State and private recruitment practices—particularly between the Global South and Global North but also among European countries—shape asymmetric flows of skilled labour, raising concerns about "care drain," uneven access to healthcare, and the commodification of workers as scarce global resources. International regulatory instruments such as the WHO Global Code of Practice seek to mitigate injustice and balance the rights of the parties involved. However, fundamental ethical questions remain concerning fair recruitment, compensation for training costs, criteria for sustainable workforce development and the balancing of health rights across borders. This paper approaches these questions from the perspective of Catholic social ethics, which—especially since Laudato Si'—has increasingly emphasized comprehensive sustainability and the notion of global common goods. We ask how these principles might provide normative guidance for the international governance of skilled migration, while also arguing that they require conceptual development to address the specifically international, power-laden, and actor-plural regulatory field in which health worker migration takes place. In constructive dialogue with debates on social sustainability and global commons, the paper clarifies how Catholic social ethics can contribute to an ethics of governance attentive to structural injustice, human dignity, and the conditions under which labour migration may be morally justified. Building on this analysis, the paper develops an ethically grounded framework for assessing global recruitment practices within increasingly competitive global health labour markets.
HEALTH CARE RECRUITING IN GERMANY AND THE ROLE OF CHRISTIAN INSTITUTIONS

Neubauer L. (Speaker)

Philosophisch-Theologische Hochschule Sankt Georgen ~ Frankfurt am Main ~ Germany
The shortage of skilled workers in the healthcare sector is a very serious problem in Germany and other European countries. In order to counter demographic change and the shortage of healthcare professionals, migrant workers are being recruited from other EU and non-EU countries, resulting in competition not only between many countries but also between private actors in the healthcare sector for urgently needed personnel. Christian institutions play a special role in this context, as they have been important players for many years in the German healthcare system and operate a large number of their own healthcare and nursing facilities. In recent years, they have also been heavily involved in recruiting skilled personnel to counteract the shortage of staff. An important question in this context is whether and how Christian or religious institutions and groups differ from non-religious actors in this business. The recruitment practices of Christian institutions are often associated with a Christian view of humanity, which differentiates them from secular institutions and their recruitment strategies. Does this mean that concepts such as 'charity' are in direct competitition or contrast to the understanding of fair and ethically acceptable recruitment by secular actors in the healthcare sector? It is therefore necessary to explore the extent to which shared Christian or religious values play a role as a globally connecting element in the recruitment of skilled workers, and whether this distinguishes them from other recruitment actors. What structures, beliefs and religious traditions influence the recruitment of healthcare personnel in Germany, and what role do religion and culture play in the integration management of migrant workers? What ethical implications arise from these recruitment pratices?
ARGUMENTS FOR (DE-)LEGITIMIZING THE RECRUITMENT OF HEALTHCARE PROFESSIONALS IN MEXICO FROM A SOCIOETHICAL PERSPECTIVE

Uliczka L. (Speaker) , Hagedorn J. (Speaker)

Theologische Fakultät Paderborn ~ Paderborn ~ Germany
The healthcare system in Mexico faces considerable challenges, which became particularly evident during the COVID-19 pandemic. There is empirical evidence that the system has been and continues to be unable to provide adequate medical and nursing care for the entire population. At the same time, Mexico has been training healthcare professionals for decades, some of whom have been migrating to countries in the Global North, such as the US, Canada, and European countries, including Germany (particularly since the 2019 bilateral memorandum of understanding on recruitment). Compared to Mexico, all of the countries mentioned have well-developed, more resource-rich healthcare systems. Against this backdrop, the question arises as to what arguments are used to legitimize or delegitimize the recruitment of healthcare professionals in Mexico. The agencies involved in recruitment in Mexico also include religious organizations, which seek for qualified personnel and are involved in recruitment practices alongside commercial and state actors. Unlike commercial and state actors, they can also draw on the well-established international communication channels of dioceses, religious orders, and non-profit church associations. This study examines whether these religious organizations in Mexico use different arguments to (de-)legitimize the recruitment of healthcare professionals in Mexico than commercial or state actors. The planned presentation will compile and typologize the various arguments from different groups of organizations regarding the (de-)legitimization of healthcare personnel recruitment in Mexico. Finally, these arguments will be evaluated against the background of political and moral positions of the church's social tradition.
RELIGION, MIGRATION, AND (IN)EQUALITY IN CÔTE D'IVOIRE: 1892-2008

Segnon Koffi Victor N. (Speaker)

University of Passau ~ Passau ~ Germany
This paper offers a historical and spatial analysis of the relationships between religion, migration and (in)equalities in Côte d'Ivoire from the late nineteenth century to 2008. Moving beyond the narrative of an Ivorian "tradition of religious tolerance", it argues that the country's religious landscape has been shaped by enduring hierarchies between faiths, first produced by the colonial order and later reconfigured by the postcolonial state. Colonial labour policies encouraged Sahelian migration towards the forest and urban zones of the south, fostering the settlement of Muslim populations in economically, legally and religiously subordinate positions. From the 1980s onwards, economic crisis, the saturation of agricultural frontiers and the 1998 land law sharply redefined rights of access to land, particularly affecting migrant populations. The politics of "ivoirité" and the 2002-2008 politico-military conflict contributed to the politicisation of religious identities, the fragmentation of urban space and the redrawing of citizenship boundaries. Drawing on census data, historical and ethnographic literature, and urban case studies (Abobo, Yopougon, Bouaké), the article shows how religion functions as an operator of social, spatial and political sorting, producing unequal access to worship, residence and mobility. Rather than treating tolerance and intolerance as opposite states, it suggests examining the situated conditions under which religious groups are recognised, marginalised or securitised, and how these processes reshape unequal boundaries of belonging.
LABOR MIGRATION AND RELIGIOUS DYNAMIC

Burlacioiu C. (Speaker)

Munich University ~ Munich ~ Germany
In spite of the current focus on refugees and war caused displacement, the labor migration is the most commune form of migration. Among others, this form of economic migration differs from other forms of migration in that travel and communication channels usually remain open, and migrants themselves can largely decide on their mobility. The forms of labour migration include both short-term and recurring 'seasonal work' and long-term relocation of the centre of life for work. From a methodological perspective, labour migration can be understood as a form of migration that enables special transfer processes due to its circular nature. From a religious perspective, it is necessary to ask to what extent this form of migration influence the dynamic of religious communities. On the base of two case studies, I argue that religious institutions - what we generally call in the western context Churches - spread along the routes of migrant workers. This insight helps us to understand that not only religion is a resource for individuals and communities in the process of migration, but that migration itself shapes Churches so far that sometimes theological principles must be adapted if not renegotiated.
MIGRANT LABOUR AND INFRASTRUCTURAL LIMINALITY

Thomassen B. (Speaker) , Brixtofte Petersen M. (Speaker)

Roskilde University ~ Roskilde ~ Denmark
This conceptual paper draws on ongoing ethnographic fieldwork among migrant workers at the Fehmarn Belt tunnel construction site in the Danish German border region in Lolland. As the largest construction project in Northern Europe, the site serves as a unique laboratory for examining contemporary labor migration and the role of religion and ritual. Most of the workers of Polish background are practicing Catholics. A Catholic priest from the local area visits the construction site monthly for Mass and the blessing of the workers; the barracks often feature Catholic icons; and religious ritauls are carries out in both public and private settings. Proposing a novel term, "infrastructural liminality", the paper explores how workers engage with Catholicism to maintain their dignity within the temporary, unfinished landscape of the site. To analyze these dynamics, we engage a methodology rooted in pragmatist sociology. This approach views the infrastructural space as a site of different "economies of worth" (Thevenot), including unions, Catholicism, and industry, that offer a plural repertoire of dignity spanning economic, industrial, civic, and domestic regimes. By doing so, the paper presents both the infrastructural networks present and the ways in which migrant workers engage these repertoires. The paper thus combines infrastructural networks and materiality with "thick" human relations. We argue that frictions between these competing value regimes are not merely sites of contestation, but potentially generative forces for new creative forms of engagement. Ultimately, the paper aims to provide a framework for understanding the interplay between large-scale infrastructure, the pragmatic engagement of workers in their pursuit of a dignified life, and the role of Catholic transnationalism.
PROFESSIONAL CONSTRAINTS AND MIGRATORY TRAJECTORIES OF MUSLIM RELIGIOUS LEADERS IN FRANCOPHONE EUROPE

Toualbia M. (Speaker)

Centre for Arab and Oriental Studies (CEAO), Sorbonne Nouvelle/ Paris ~ Paris ~ France
This paper explores the relationship between migration, religious authority, and professional integration through an ethnographic study of Muslim religious leaders—chaplains and imams—in France and Francophone Europe. The research takes France as the primary field of investigation and the starting point for a comparative perspective with other Francophone European contexts: Belgium, Luxembourg, and Switzerland. Based on long-term participant observation, qualitative interviews, and fieldwork conducted among students and graduates of religious training institutions associated with different Muslim communities, the study investigates how migrant religious actors navigate the institutional spaces of contemporary European societies. Most Muslim religious leaders involved in chaplaincy, mosque leadership, or religious mediation within Muslim institutions originate from migratory backgrounds, particularly from North Africa. Their trajectories often combine labour migration, religious education, and forms of community leadership that emerge within diasporic contexts. This research approaches these trajectories through a socio-anthropological lens, examining how migration shapes both the social profiles and the professional practices of Muslim religious actors. The analysis highlights several structural constraints affecting the professionalisation of Muslim religious leadership in Francophone Europe, including linguistic barriers, institutional expectations, and tensions that arise when forms of religious authority encounter secular institutional frameworks. At the same time, Muslim religious leaders frequently act as intermediaries between migrant communities and state institutions, occupying a hybrid position that connects religious practice, labour migration, and the governance of religious diversity. The study draws on insights from the sociology of actors, the anthropology of Islam, and political sociology.
RELIGIOUS ACTORS AND TRANSNATIONAL DEMOCRATIC SOLIDARITY IN THE KOREAN LABOR MIGRATION TO WEST GERMANY

Jeong H. (Speaker)

Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz ~ Mainz ~ Germany
Between 1963 and 1977, approximately 8,000 Korean miners and 11,000 nurses were recruited to West Germany under bilateral government agreements, representing one of the earliest instances of state-organized labor migration from Asia to Europe. Shaped by Cold War geopolitics and postcolonial economic asymmetries, these workers faced linguistic isolation, demanding labor conditions, and cultural displacement, with the most significant developments emerging in the decades that followed This paper examines the Korean labor diaspora through two interconnected perspectives. First, it analyzes how Korean Protestant communities, pastors, and German-Korean ecumenical networks addressed the vulnerabilities of migrant workers while supporting democratic resistance in South Korea, particularly after the Gwangju Uprising of 1980. Second, it explores how migrants drew on faith traditions to interpret and resist experiences of displacement and marginalization. The paper argues that Korean migrant churches became crucial sites where religious practice, solidarity, and transnational political activism intersected. Drawing on oral history interviews and archival materials, the paper shows that these churches were not merely spaces of worship but also sites of identity formation and political mobilization. Working with German Protestant institutions, Korean pastors and theologians developed advocacy addressing labor conditions in Germany while amplifying international support for Korean democratization. This solidarity carried genuine political consequences. Theologically, the paper situates these developments within Korean contextual theology, particularly Minjung theology, arguing that the diaspora experience contributed a distinctive diasporic dimension to this tradition. It concludes that ethical frameworks for just migration governance remain incomplete without serious engagement with the theological voices and communal practices of migrants themselves.

Panel description: Following the religious turn in International Relations (IR), several people and organisations have argued for more religious literacy or even cross-cultural religious literacy. But it might be necessary to go a step further. Our current world of international politics is full of religious expressions, incidents, and religion is often instrumentalized and weaponized. On the other hand, on average, four in every five people across the globe hold to some sort of belief system and the religious turn came about because people realised religion matters. Religious literacy helps us understand our religious world, by tapping into the religious drives and motivations of people and political systems. Yet approaching religion as one more sociological factor or as a personal preference often ignores the deeper transcendent assumptions being claimed. How to understand why President Putin of Russia sees himself as a katechon if one doesn't know what this means? What to do when religion is used as political leverage; when religious rhetoric enters conversations and negotiations? When is religion not really being religion? Apart from the knowledge that helps us understand the world, we need ways of discerning how to navigate it. Perhaps we need to move towards "theological literacy", to help uncover deeper assumptions and reintroduce the transcendent into IR. In this panel we explore this concept in more detail and welcome practical examples and cases.

Papers:

FAITH, RELIGION AND WORLDVIEW IN INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS. THE ROLE OF RELIGIOUS ACTORS AND FBO IN DEVELOPMENT AND PEACE PROCESS

Lange E. (Speaker)

Researcher PIRON Global Development ~ Bonn ~ Germany
Faith and religion play an important part in international relations dynamics. This has always been the case, despite Western academic reticence or sectorised approach towards the discussion of religious beliefs and assumptions. In recent decades there has been a growing awareness among International Relations scholars of the role of religion for global politics. Nevertheless, consideration of faith and religion is still mainly instrumental, considered only as a further sociological indicator, when approaching the topic from the concept of worldview brings deeper understanding. Findings from a traditional actors mapping in the Central African Republic are presented as case study, which point to the importance of religious literacy and worldview when approaching religion in international relations and international development.
ON THE NECESSITY OF THEOLOGICAL LITERACY: LESSONS FROM COUNTERING VIOLENT EXTREMISM IN NIGERIA IN KENYA

Polinder S. (Speaker)

Postdoctoral researcher at the Department History of International Relations at Utrecht University ~ Utrecht ~ Netherlands
Religious leaders play a vital role in Countering Violent Extremism (CVE). To understand their role and to work with them requires religious literacy: how does religion function, how does it relate to violence and terrorism, etc.? However, based on empirical research in Nigeria and Kenya (we interviewed more than 70 religious leaders in each country) it appears that religious literacy is not sufficient. To counter violent extremism, theological literacy is also needed to understand religiously motived violence and to develop counter narratives and initiate dialogue. The findings of the research will be presented to demonstrate why and when theological literacy is needed and what it entails in the context of Nigeria and Kenya.
Fieldwork in Orthodox Religious Communities in Times of Radicalization

Timofeeva Z. (Speaker)

University of Münster ~ Münster ~ Germany
The paper focuses on the everyday religious practices and perspectives of Ukrainian Orthodox migrant communities in Germany, tracing silences and omissions in dominant theological frameworks. It suggests that attention to this empirical material may contribute to a more balanced theological outlook in contexts of radicalization.
THE BOOK OF JOSHUA AND THE AMBIVALENCE OF THE SACRED IN CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN POLITICS: IMITATING THE 'BATTLE OF JERICHO' IN THE ATTACK ON THE U.S. CAPITAL (JANUARY 6, 2021), AND OBAMA'S CALL TO 'THE JOSHUA GENERATION' IN THE CIVIL RIGHTS STRUGGLE

Thomas S. (Speaker)

Las Casas Institute for Social Justice, Blackfriars Hall, University of Oxford ~ Oxford ~ United Kingdom
This article examines the way the Book of Joshua in the Jewish Bible/Old Testament was interpreted by some conservative Evangelicals and Charismatic Evangelicals closely allied with Donald Trump, as a model for strategy and organisation around the country ('Jericho Marches') to overturn the U.S. presidential election, culminating in the attack on the US Capital on January 6, 2021. It compares this with the way (then Senator) Barack Obama (soon after announcing his bid for the presidency), also used the Book of Joshua in a sermon commemorating a key event in the U.S. civil rights calendar. He famously called for the 'Joshua Generation' (the current generation of African Americans) to advocate, embody, and demonstrate the values, morality, principles, and practices of the previous generation of the civil rights struggle - love, compassion, justice, and nonviolence in their daily lives, and in their social and political struggles for genuine freedom, justice, and democracy (i.e. applying each of the levels of analysis in the theory of international relations - individual, society, state, and international society). Therefore, this article examines in some ways a very old problem in politics, religion, theology, and international relations - how to interpret the Bible (or any text of a religious type of social tradition). In other ways, it is about the awareness of a more recent understanding of the problem, i.e. why, how, by whom, and in whose interests are concepts, doctrines in politics, religion, theology, and international relations (the holy, the sacred, the secular) socially and politically constructed, interpreted, and implemented with a variety of consequences - violence (war, civil war, and terrorism), or peace, justice, fraternity, social inclusion, and the common good.
RELIGIOUS ILLITERACY AND EU RELIGIOUS DIPLOMACY: INTERPRETIVE LIMITS IN THE PROMOTION AND PROTECTION OF FREEDOM OF RELIGION OR BELIEF

Uxhi P. (Speaker)

University of Modena and Reggio Emilia / "Giuseppe Alberigo" European School for Advanced Religious Studies ~ Reggio Emilia ~ Italy
Over the last two decades, the "growing political salience of religion" in international relations has prompted policymakers and scholars to call for greater religious literacy in diplomatic practice; yet, the question remains whether current institutional frameworks are capable of interpreting religious phenomena beyond simplified sociological, cultural or juridical categories. In this context, the European Union's engagement with Freedom of Religion or Belief (FoRB) provides a useful lens for assessing the limits and the social costs of religious illiteracy within contemporary diplomacy. Building on interdisciplinary scholarship in history, law and international relations, religious illiteracy is understood not simply as a lack of knowledge about religions and their doctrines, but as a historically embedded epistemic condition reflected in administrative and legal arrangements that shape how institutions recognise and interpret religious actors and claims. Within the EU, engagement with religions has expanded significantly through a range of instruments. However, this expansion has not been accompanied by a comparable development of institutional interpretive capacity. This mismatch constitutes a competence-capacity gap: while EU institutions have acquired formal competences and political commitments in the field of religious diplomacy, they often lack the analytical tools necessary to grasp the historical, doctrinal and organisational complexity of religions and religious actors. Through three empirical examples - EU multilateral diplomacy at the United Nations; tensions between EU external advocacy and internal arrangements; and the institutional experience of the first EU Special Envoy for FoRB - this paper analyses how limited institutional interpretive capacities shape diplomatic practice and examines the implications of this gap for EU religious diplomacy.
THE BOOK OF JOSHUA AND THE AMBIVALENCE OF THE SACRED IN POLITICS AND INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

Thomas S. (Speaker)

Blackfriars Hall, Las Casas Institute for Social Justice, University of Oxford ~ Oxford, United Kingdom ~ United Kingdom
This article examines the way the Book of Joshua in the Jewish Bible/Old Testament was interpreted by some conservative Evangelicals, and Charismatic Evangelicals closely allied with Donald Trump, as a model for strategy and organisation around the country ('Jericho Marches') to overturn the U.S. presidential election, culminating in the attack on the US Capital on January 6, 2021. It compares this with the way (then Senator) Barack Obama (soon after announcing his bid for the presidency), also used the Book of Joshua in a sermon commemorating a key event in the U.S civil rights calendar. He famously called for the 'Joshua Generation' (the current generation of African Americans) to advocate, embody, and demonstrate the values, morality, principles, and practices of the previous generation of the civil rights struggle - love, compassion, justice, and nonviolence in their daily lives, and in their social and political struggles for genuine freedom, democracy, and justice (i.e. applying them to each of the levels of analysis in the theory of international relations - individual, society, state, and international society). Therefore, this article examines in some ways a very old problem in politics, religion, theology, and international relations - how to interpret the Bible (or any text of a religious type of social tradition). In other ways, however, it is about the awareness of a new, or more recent problem, i.e. why, how, by whom, and in whose interests (the concept of power), and theories, concepts, and doctrines in politics, religion, theology, and international relations (the holy, the sacred, the secular, the ambivalence of the sacred) are socially and politically constructed, and interpreted (the way they are), and implemented, with a variety of the purposes and consequences - violence, war, civil war, and terrorism, or peace, justice, reconciliation, fraternity, social inclusion, and the common good.
RELIGIOUS LITERACY IN HUMANITARIANISM: THE CASE OF THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH.

Intropido S. (Speaker)

Analyst at AMIStaDeS Study Centre on Research, Analysis, and Training in International Affairs ~ Rome ~ Italy
Are Catholic aid organisations distinctively different humanitarian actors? This paper critically engages with the contested spaces religion holds in one of the core areas of international relations (IR): humanitarianism. It does so through an intersectional analysis of a relatively less explored array of actors within the growing body of literature on faith-based organisations (FBOs), namely those associated with the Roman Catholic Church. Moving beyond the recent (re)discovery of religion in humanitarian politics, this paper explores why and how Catholic non-governmental organisations (CNGOs) navigate tensions in the secular humanitarian landscape, specifically focusing on forced displacement. Central to my enquiry is the discursive framing adopted by Catholic practitioners to negotiate the delivery of religious aid in a secular humanitarian landscape. The goal is to provide insights on how CNGOs understand and frame their work to engage with secular actors. The findings discussed in this paper therefore contribute to research gaps on how religious literacy in IR and in humanitarian contexts can help religious actors navigate secularised discourse and institutions. Crucially, the recent formalisation of partnerships between secular and faith actors still fail to gauge the inherent complexity of specific religions, as in the case of Catholicism. To probe into these questions, three case studies were purposively selected as humanitarian NGOs that are respectively "dependent", "semi-dependent", and "independent" from the Holy See (30+ interviews). Although they are Catholic and are all recognised as charitable organisations of the Church, their differing canonical status and internal structures are often overlooked by scholars of FBOs, by secular organisations, diplomats and policymakers. These questions are further appraised through analysis of archival material colleced from the Apostolic Vatican Library and participant observations in the field.
THE HOLY SEE AND THE "BOARD OF PEACE" INITIATIVE: A CASE OF THEOLOGICAL AND POLITICAL JUDGMENT IN INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY

Bianchi E. (Speaker)

Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore ~ Milan ~ Italy
The paper would examine the decision of the Holy See not to join the "Board of Peace" initiative proposed by the Trump administration. While the invitation reflects the Holy See's recognized prestige within international diplomacy, the refusal illustrates how this peculiar actor evaluates political initiatives framed around peace and mediation. The Holy See's decision can be properly understood by considering the interaction of theological-doctrinal and political criteria. The Holy See's diplomatic practice is guided by Catholic Social Teaching principles, including the promotion of international law and of a just international order, while also safeguarding its credibility and institutional role as a hybrid actor between international and world society. The refusal to join the "Board of Peace" should therefore be read without reducing it to a contingent political distancing from the current U.S. presidency , even if it reflects potential drivers of friction between American Catholicism and the Trump administration. Overall, this case demonstrates how the Holy See participates in the political dimension of international society as a distinctive religious actor, applying a combination of theological, doctrinal, and prudential criteria within an Augustinian-inspired Christian realism, and illustrates concretely how its theological identity shapes its unique engagement in international politics.
FROM RELIGIOUS LITERACY TO THEOLOGICAL LITERACY: SEMANTICALLY WEAPONIZED RELIGION IN CONTEMPORARY CONFLICT

Tolstoj K. (Speaker)

Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam ~ Amsterdam ~ Netherlands
I show a structural limitation in current approaches to religious literacy in International Relations, one that becomes visible in hybrid conflicts. Increased attention to religion has started to correct earlier secular blind spots, yet religion is still predominantly treated as a sociological factor, cultural identity, or background motivation — insufficient where religious language itself functions as a normative instrument structuring political judgment, moral legitimacy, and the range of conceivable policy responses. Focusing on war rhetoric in Russia's war against Ukraine, I show how theological concepts such as 'katechon', 'Russkii mir', 'sacrifice', and 'peace' operate as ideologemes: condensed semantic units detached from their historical and theological contexts and redeployed as sources of moral authority. Religious language in this form actively reshapes responsibility, legitimises violence, and narrows deliberation by appealing to transcendence, destiny, or moral necessity. Approached only descriptively, its capacity to authorise violence and foreclose political judgment remains analytically invisible. Descriptive religious literacy must thus be supplemented by theological literacy: the capacity to test how claims to transcendence reorganise meaning, authority, and responsibility in politics, including the shifts of religious language from expressing belief to authorising violence and redefining peace as stability, endurance, or strategic suspension of violence. By bringing this capacity into dialogue with existing approaches to foreign information manipulation and interference, I show why current policies, oriented toward factual correction, actor mapping, and incident response, remain vulnerable when confronted with semantically weaponised religious language. Theological literacy clarifies how meaning becomes a strategic terrain and why peace, responsibility, and legitimacy cannot be addressed without theology through which they are contested.

Panel description: The rapid technological transformations driven by artificial intelligence (AI), neurotechnology, and transhumanist visions of the future are profoundly reshaping our understanding of personhood, soul, responsibility, and community. These developments challenge traditional Islamic theological frameworks while simultaneously opening up new avenues for rethinking human existence in light of divine creation and ethical responsibility. This panel brings together scholars from theology, ethics, and religious education to explore how Islamic thought can respond to these paradigm shifts. The papers address the intersections between technological enhancement of human body, tech-driven social and political transformations in Muslim communities, moral agency, and Islamic theology;probing questions such as: What does it mean to be human in an age of algorithmic autonomy? How can Islamic ethics engage with technologies of self-optimization and enhancement? What are the socio-political implications of digital age for the Muslim societies? And what role does religious education play in fostering digital and moral literacy in a world increasingly shaped by machines? By integrating systematic-theological reflection with ethical, medical, and pedagogical perspectives, the panel aims to reposition Islamic theology as a vital voice in global debates on transhumanism and the Anthropocene. It seeks to highlight the potential of Islamic responsibility ethics and educational practice as resources for navigating a technologically saturated future and for shaping ethically grounded Muslim engagements with emerging technologies in Europe and beyond.

Papers:

SUPERINTELLIGENCE + MUSLIM = SUPERMUSLIM? ON BUILDING A MUSLIM POSTHUMAN VOCABULARY

Kam H. (Speaker)

University of Innsbruck ~ Innsbruck ~ Austria
As we now enter the posthuman era, Muslim intellectuals must develop a vocabulary of the "Muslim posthuman" that enables us to co-shape the emerging new world: What can we look forward to in a posthuman Muslim society with all its tools of AI governance, and what must we fear? This paper is a first step in that direction. First, it reconstructs Roy Jackson's figure of the "Supermuslim," examining both his proposed Muslim Transhumanist Creed and the hermeneutic strategy that seeks to render transhumanism a natural extension of Islamic theological and philosophical traditions. The critiques advanced by Büşra Kılıç Ahmedi and Syed Mustafa Ali are brought into dialogue to show why this synthesis collapses on theological, ethical, and political grounds. The second part turns to Stefan Lorenz Sorgner's "Euro-transhumanism," a philosophically distinct and explicitly anti-utopian variant that departs from Silicon Valley libertarianism and appears, at first glance, more compatible with Islamic concerns. The article evaluates whether Muslim critiques of the Supermuslim retain their force within this new paradigm. It concludes by arguing that, while Euro-transhumanism offers a valuable critical interlocutor, the foundational tensions between transhumanist aspirations and Islamic anthropology remain unresolved—and may themselves illuminate the contours of an emerging Muslim posthuman vocabulary.
TRANSHUMANIST RE-READING OF ALI SHARIATI'S POLITICAL THEOLOGY

Hashemi M. (Speaker)

university of Nottingham ~ Nottingham ~ United Kingdom
This article offers a transhumanist reinterpretation of the political theology of Iranian revolutionary intellectual Ali Shariati, situated at the dawn of a new technological era. As the concept of human enhancement rapidly transitions from science fiction to the innovation labs of Silicon Valley and Shenzhen, emerging technologies raise profound theological questions. In the context of shifting global power dynamics, these questions inevitably take on a political dimension. Within this framework, Shariati's thought and his role in shaping political movements across the Muslim world, particularly within Shia communities, becomes especially relevant. This article proposes a technologically informed reading of Shariati's political theology and outlines key questions that such a project must address.
ENGAGING TRANSHUMANIST DEBATES IN ISLAMIC RELIGIOUS EDUCATION

Aysel A. (Speaker)

University of Innsbruck ~ Innsbruck ~ Austria
This contribution examines how complex topics like transhumanism can be addressed in Islamic religious education at lower and upper secondary levels in Germany and Austria. These discourses explore technological expansion of human capacities and transformations of self-understanding through biotechnology, AI, and digital technologies, raising ethical and anthropological questions increasingly relevant for adolescent Muslim learners. The analysis proceeds in two steps. First, transhumanist positions are outlined and critically examined. A distinction is drawn between therapeutic and life-enhancing interventions, which may align with Islamic ethics, and more ambitious visions of human optimization, which require careful theological reflection. Key Islamic concepts—unity of body and soul, divine creation in its most excellent form (Aḥsanī taqwīm), human dignity (karāma), and human responsibility as khalīfa—frame this discussion. Second, these considerations are integrated into a religious-pedagogical framework. Narrative, reflective, and interdisciplinary approaches help students explore the relationship between scientific innovation, technological change, and Islamic anthropology. Methods such as concept mapping, Qur'anic narratives, prophetic examples, and structured ethical reasoning enable learners to engage sequentially and reflectively, fostering critical thinking and religious judgment without imposing normative conclusions. Challenges for teachers include the conceptual complexity, plural classroom contexts, limited teaching materials, and ongoing professional development. Systematic training and carefully designed didactic strategies are essential for responsibly addressing these topics. Engaging with transhumanist debates can stimulate reflection on anthropological and ethical questions, support students' critical capacities, and expand the thematic horizon of Islamic religious education in response to contemporary technological developments.
TRANSHUMANIST RE-READING OF ALI SHARIATI'S POLITICAL THEOLOGY

Hashemi M. (Speaker)

University of Nottingham ~ Nottingham ~ United Kingdom
This article offers a transhumanist reinterpretation of the political theology of Iranian revolutionary intellectual Ali Shariati, situated at the dawn of a new technological era. As the concept of human enhancement rapidly transitions from science fiction to the innovation labs of Silicon Valley and Shenzhen, emerging technologies raise profound theological questions. In the context of shifting global power dynamics, these questions inevitably take on a political dimension. Within this framework, Shariati's thought and his role in shaping political movements across the Muslim world, particularly within Shia communities, becomes especially relevant. This article proposes a technologically informed reading of Shariati's political theology and outlines key questions that such a project must address.
BEYOND CODE: ETHICAL AI THROUGH AN ISLAMIC LENS

Alshaar N. (Speaker)

American University of Sharjah and Philosophy Center University of Lisbon ~ Sharjah ~ United Arab Emirates
As Artificial Intelligence (AI) reshapes human cognition and autonomy, this study examines its ethical and spiritual impact by engaging with Islamic foundational texts, including, the Qur'an and Ḥadīth (Prophetic traditions) while also referencing some philosophical responses of pre-modern Muslim thinkers who draw upon these texts. The paper is thus a contribution to the debate on AI ethics and the recent Muslim responses to AI as a challenge to the human mind and heart. It aims to offer a framework that critically incorporates AI and its use as a tool for self-cultivation as an extension of human creativity, while still protecting key human characteristic, such as the notions of reasoning and tamyyīz (discerning or recognizing between right and wrong), intention (nīyya), human compassion, free well, and responsibility. This critical and ethically grounded approach recognizes the importance of technology in advancing knowledge but it aims at the same time to preserve human integrity, mind, and values.
"RETHINKING HUMANITY IN THE AGE OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE"

Al-Attar M. (Speaker)

American University of Sharjah ~ Sharjah ~ United Arab Emirates
This presentation explores how contemporary developments in artificial intelligence and transhumanism compel a re-examination of the meaning of being human. The paper critically assesses the transhumanist claim that human identity can be reduced to informational patterns transferable to machines. The aim of this presentation is to investigate what is essential to being human that AI systems and humanoid robots cannot share. Inspired by early Muslim theologians, it moves beyond the mere doctrinal assertion that "humans have a soul (rūḥ) and robots do not," toward a deeper philosophical inquiry into what it means to be human and, correspondingly, what it means to possess a soul. This question requires a renewed engagement with Islamic philosophical theology (ʿilm al-kalām), in light of technological paradigms that privilege quantifiable traits such as intelligence and efficiency while marginalizing emotional depth, ethical intuition, and moral agency. Drawing on classical kalām, the presentation reconstructs a non-dualist understanding of the human self in which embodiment, consciousness, and moral responsibility are inseparably intertwined. While some contemporary scholars, such as Ali Ghandour, argue that this non-dualist conception is compatible with a materialistic transhumanist framework, this paper challenges that claim. It argues that the dominant transhumanist model—conceiving the mind as software and the body as hardware—ultimately rests on a subtle form of dualism, thereby undermining its purported compatibility with Islamic non-dualist anthropology. Finally, the presentation advances a relational account of humanity rooted in a dynamic web of relationships with others, nature, and the self. From this perspective, AI systems, regardless of their computational sophistication, remain fundamentally incapable of replicating the full relational, ethical, and existential dimensions of human life.
EXISTENTIAL IMPORT FROM ARISTOTLE TO AI: THE ARABIC LOGICAL TRADITION AND THE PROBLEM OF ONTOLOGICAL COMMITMENT IN ARTIFICIAL REASONING

Dalli M. (Speaker)

Usak University ~ Usak ~ Turkey
The hallucination problem in large language models (LLMs) -the generation of linguistically coherent yet referentially empty outputs- is widely treated as a correctable engineering defect. This paper argues that hallucination is instead a structural consequence of the formal logic underwriting these AI architectures: a logic systematically divorced from ontological commitment. The argument proceeds in four steps. First, by tracing the existential import debate from Aristotle through Łukasiewicz (1951) to Stephen Read (2015), the paper analyzes how the modern analytic tradition (Frege, Russell, Quine) reduced universal propositions to ontologically uncommitted conditionals. It is precisely this ontologically "light" logic that constitutes the inferential backbone of current AI systems. Second, to diagnose this epistemological blind spot, the paper utilizes the Arabic logical tradition (manṭiq). Ibn Sīnā's foundational distinction between taṣawwur (conception) and taṣdīq (assent) alongside his parallel distinction between māhiyya (quiddity) and wujūd (existence), establishes that valid judgment presupposes a prior grasp of an object's essence. This framework demonstrates how two propositions may share identical logical form while diverging radically in ontological status. Third, applying this framework to LLMs reveals that these systems formally mimic the linguistic act of taṣdīq through probabilistic token prediction yet remain structurally devoid of taṣawwur. Consequently, they generate existentially unloaded outputs indistinguishable from genuine judgments on the surface. Finally, the paper contends that the Arabic intellectual tradition -which never fully severed the link between logic and ontology- offers a critical, neglected resource: ontological awareness as a precondition for reliable reasoning. Conceptualized here as Ḥikma 2.0, this approach moves beyond mere ethical boundaries to fundamentally critique the epistemic architecture of artificial reasoning.

Panel description: The intersection of law, politics, and religion has long shaped the religious landscape of Europe. Law is involved in two ways: the law by which a state regulates religion, and the internal law by which religious communities organize themselves. With regard to the first, it was historically developed in alignment with dominant churches, reflecting the cultural and political hegemony of established religious traditions. However, in the age of migration, these legal systems are increasingly confronted with the challenge of accommodating and embedding new and diverse religious communities. With regard to the second, the question is which legal structures a religious community provides for immigrant members and how they relate to the established communities. The politicization of both religion and migration has further complicated efforts to address these challenges. Political debates surrounding migration often frame religion as a site of cultural conflict, which can hinder the development of well-thought-out legal solutions. The instrumentalization of religion in political discourse risks divisions and undermines the potential for constructive dialogue between religious migrant communities, host societies, and state institutions. This panel brings together interdisciplinary perspectives from legal studies, political science, and theology to critically assess the impact of legal frameworks and religion politics on the state of migrant religious communities. We cover developments in contemporary Europe and include comparative global perspectives from different religious traditions. The panel seeks to explore pathways for fostering legal and social environments that are both inclusive and responsive to the realities of religious diversity. Thereby, the panel aims to contribute to a deeper understanding of the interplay between law, politics, and religion in shaping the future of increasinlgy plural and mobile societies.

Papers:

CATHOLIC MIGRATION TO GERMANY: CANON LAW STRUCTURES AND INTERFAITH RELATIONS

Berkmann B. (Speaker)

Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München ~ Munich ~ Germany
Whereas in Germany migration is often associated with Islam, this contribution focuses on Catholic migrants from the perspective of canon law. In 2023, the percentage of Catholics with foreign citizenship rose to 16.5% of the total number of Catholics in Germany, and even to 36.7% in the Archdiocese of Hamburg. The religious traditions of the country of origin and the country of destination often differ in terms of history, language, liturgy, spirituality and the forms of religious practice. The Catholic Church has established organisational structures in most parts of the world. Wherever Catholic believers migrate to, they will find Catholic pastoral structures. Therefore, the question is not whether they change their church as a result of migration but rather which subdivision they will be assigned to and which entity will be responsible for their pastoral care. The fundamental and comprehensive legal document is still the 2004 instruction 'Erga migrantes caritas Christi'. Stronger migration movements give rise to specific structures, which will be briefly outlined in this presentation: Missio sine cura animarum, Missio cum cura animarum, quasi-parish, personal parish, etc. On the one hand, legal arrangements provide space for preserving one's own tradition, but on the other hand, migration makes these arrangements change and transform. This results in a reciprocal effect between canon law and migration. However, migration not only affects internal structures of the Catholic Church but also leads to a reshaping of relations with non-Catholic churches and religious communities.
THE CANON-IHL COLLABORATIVE MODEL: PROTECTING RELIGIOUS MIGRANTS IN EUROPE THROUGH SOVEREIGN RELIGIOUS DIPLOMACY

Barilla F. (Speaker)

University of Vienna ~ Vienna ~ Austria
The topic examines how the functional sovereignty of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta (SMOM) and its collaborative framework with the Holy See provide a unique legal and operational model for protecting vulnerable religious migrants in contemporary Europe. The Canon-IHL framework analyzes the intersection of canon law, international humanitarian law, and religious sovereignty to address critical gaps within state-centric migration governance. Traditional church-state models overlook the distinctive agency of sovereign religious actors in humanitarian crises. The SMOM's recognized international subjectivity and hospitaller mission, fortified by canonical structures, offers operational advantages - diplomatic immunity and intelligence-gathering capabilities - for safeguarding religious freedom and ensuring humanitarian access in politicized environments. We propose institutionalizing cooperation via integrated memoranda aligning specific Canons (e.g., 222, 364, 590) with core IHL principles. The analysis addresses three key challenges: navigating legal pluralism between canon, civil, and international law; managing State sovereignty concerns; and overcoming political fragmentation within the EU´s asylum architecture. It concludes with recommendations for recognizing sovereign religious diplomacy as a complementary, non-competitive mechanism within Europe´s migration governance framework.
"EVERYONE SHOULD BE FREE TO CHOOSE WHETHER OR NOT TO MIGRATE." (POPE FRANCIS) FORGOTTEN VICTIMS: BIBLICAL FOUNDATIONS OF REFUGEE LAW AND NORMATIVE DEFICITS IN LAUDATO SI' AND INTERNATIONAL LAW IN THE CONTEXT OF ADVANCING CLIMATE CHANGE

Seidel P. (Speaker)

Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München ~ Munich ~ Germany
Inspired by Pope Francis' motto that "everyone should be free to choose whether or not to migrate" the talk examines the shortcomings of international law and church teaching with regards to climate-induced migration. Therefore the talk analyzes climate change as a growing cause of flight and uses forecasts to show that millions will be forced to migrate by mid-21st century. It examines the fundamentals as well as structural deficits of international refugee law regarding climate-induced displacement. While recent legal developments offer selective protection, the framework remains fragmentary, and binding protection for refugees is largely absent. The church's response to this ecological crisis is the encyclica Laudato si' as an ethical-theological basis for the church's approach to the consequences of climate change. At this point, however, a lack of visibility and concrete naming of the victims in the encyclica becomes apparent. This in turn shows that the victims of anthropogenic climate change are often forgotten, raising the question of the church's role as an advocate for those affected. Biblical stories of flight are drawn on as a normative resource, portraying the Bible as a "migration document" that centres the experiences of the displaced and establishes protection of strangers as a core ethical duty. Finally it is shown that climate-induced migration is rarely voluntary, creating a moral obligation for climate justice and international action that prioritizes victims. The talk concludes with a call for interdisciplinary cooperation between religion, law and politics to bridge the gap between moral standards and legal reality, seizing the kairos for a fairer treatment of migrants
CHRISTIANITY AS MIGRANT RELIGION IN A COLONIAL CONTEXT: AFRICAN INDEPENDENT CHURCHES IN SOUTH AFRICA AROUND 1900

Burlacioiu C. (Speaker)

Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München ~ Munich ~ Germany
The emergence of African Independent Churches in South Africa around 1900 occurs in an urban context defined by labour migration of native Africans to the emerging industrial centres of the region. In this context thousands of natives converted not to missionary churches but to "sects" (so the disregarding vocabulary of the colonial society) under the leadership of their own fellow people. In an attempt to control the native society, authorities introduced different legal obstacles on the way to the formal recognition of these religious societies. The result was that out of dozens of them almost non could achieve state recognition and remained for decades in a legal grey zone with consequences for their institutional development and the treatment of their members in the colonial context.
RELIGIOUS IDENTITIES AND STATE POLICIES: ETHICAL EXAMINATION OF THE AMBIVALENCES WITHIN MIGRATION DISCOURSES

Nwosu C.F. (Speaker)

Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München ~ Munich ~ Germany
Since the migrant influx into Europe that defined 2015, there have been radical changes in approaches to migration governance, law, and politics in contemporary Europe. While EU states battled both ideologically and politically to contain the tide, migrants themselves, defined by various statuses, faced sociological and humanitarian challenges shaped by state policies and responses. The respective religious identities of migration groups remain, within contemporary experiences, factors to contend with, especially in relation to sovereign states' migration governance policies (integration) and in cultural diplomacy aimed at managing both religious pluralism and potential social tensions within host societies in Europe. While migrant groups tend towards maintaining their religious and cultural identities, state policies of host societies - according to experiences as well as political principles - remain the defining tools of mediation and integration. However, the general strategy and governance have remained challenging and ambivalent, eliciting debate, opposition, and the application and enforcement of critical reforms, which, in extreme cases, have led to outright rejection of migration or immigration rights. The proposed paper argues that migration and immigration governance are the responsibility of both the state and civil society, with reference to migrants' terminus ad quem. Migrant points, as a scoring system, for example, reflect policies on social inclusion, labour, education, and language, and constitute the core of policymaking. Migrant religions, which are predominantly individual, group, private, or sectarian beliefs, faith and practices that move across borders, form part of the governance focus. Contextualising the ambivalence forms the core of the paper's ethical analysis with reference to the so-called 'contestation of religious and political views' in the context of migration governance, and the general application of cultural diplomacy.
ON THE DILEMMA OF STATE CREDIBILITY ASSESSMENT IN CONVERSION CASES

Kowatsch A. (Speaker)

University of Vienna ~ Vienna ~ Austria
The subject matter addresses the problem of verifying the authenticity of religious conversions when international protection is sought on the grounds of religious persecution. A fundamental dilemma is inherent in this procedure: the credibility of the (new) conviction must be established without jeopardising the state's ideological neutrality or violating the individual freedom of religion and belief of the protection-seekers. Concurrently, religious communities possess a legally protected interest in independently determining the criteria for membership. The central focus is the examination of the constitutional, fundamental rights, and epistemological limits of the state's review of religious identity, with the Austrian asylum procedure serving as a case study. The core content comprises a critical evaluation of administrative and judicial practice in Austria, identifying three central areas of tension: The Credibility Standard: The judicial requirement that the new faith must have "become part of the applicant's identity" frequently results in practice in inadmissible knowledge tests and a scrutiny of the inner person. The Neutrality Paradox: The official questioning regarding inner religious conviction cannot be conducted coherently without resorting to religious criteria. The Humanitarian Priority: The objective risk of asylum-relevant persecution in the country of origin must take precedence within the asylum procedure - irrespective of the credibility assessment of a conversion. A potential solution, within the framework of a cooperative constitutional law of religion, could lie in strengthening the evidential value of expert testimony provided by religious office-holders. The aim is to outline a path compliant with the rule of law and fundamental rights to mitigate the system-inherent dilemma of religious scrutiny.
AUSTRIAN RELIGIOUS POLICY AND ITS IMPACT ON THE ORGANIZATION AND REPRESENTATION OF ALEVISM IN AUSTRIA

Kalayci E. (Speaker)

University of Vienna ~ Vienna ~ Austria
This paper examines how Austrian religious law and the associated state religious policy have influenced the institutional formation, public visibility, and theological self-definition of Alevism in Austria. The starting point is the 2013 recognition of the Alevi Faith Community in Austria (ALEVI) as a legally recognized religious society and its subsequent anchoring in the new Islam Act in 2015. The analysis shows that this recognition not only confers legal status but also has a lasting impact on the internal organizational structure and knowledge production. Methodologically, the paper combines normative analysis of religious law with Alevi theological perspectives on authenticity, tradition, and lived religion. The focus is on three areas of impact of state law: (1) Institutionalization - the transformation of local structures into a centrally organized body with defined membership, offices and administrative logics; (2) Education - Alevi religious education, the establishment of Alevi theological studies, and state-regulated curriculum development as areas of theological canonization; (3) Representation - the impact of state recognition on public perception, identity politics, and internal community relations. This paper argues that Austrian religious law actively sets the framework for the establishment of an official Alevism. This raises the question of how migrant religious traditions change under the conditions of Austrian religious policy and what areas of tension arise between state normativity, intrareligious pluralism and lived religion.
NATIONAL EMBRACE OR FEDERAL HANDSHAKE? LEGAL AND SOCIAL DYNAMICS OF HINDU RELIGIOUS COMMUNITIES IN SWITZERLAND AND AUSTRIA

Limacher K. (Speaker)

University of Vienna ~ Vienna ~ Austria
The current presence of Hindu religious communities in Switzerland and Austria is the result of various, often politicized migration trajectories spanning the last 50 years. This paper analyses the religion politics and legal frameworks shaping Hindu religious communities in Switzerland and Austria, with a focus on the evolving processes of centralized representation within these communities. Austria adopts a national approach to religion, providing a legal framework for the official recognition of diverse religious groups, including Hindus, under Federal Law. This legal structure prompted Hindu religious communities in Austria to form a centrally organized representative body as early as the 1990s, uniting diverse currents, traditions, and temples under one umbrella - an organisational form does not have an equivalent in the various countries of origin. In contrast, Switzerland's system limits legal recognition to a few religions at the cantonal level. Nevertheless, recent trends among Hindu communities in Switzerland reveal increasing efforts toward centralized self-administration, though these efforts are not necessarily tied to aspirations for legal recognition. Instead, recent research indicates that Hindu religious communities prioritize practical support in areas such as professionalizing their organizational structures, addressing funding and space-related challenges, or enhancing societal visibility. This comparative analysis of Hindu religious communities in Switzerland and Austria highlights the interplay between legal frameworks, societal attitudes, and the agency of religious communities in shaping their representation.
MULTIPLE PRESSURES: MIGRANT RELIGIOUS COMMUNITIES BETWEEN POLITICAL EXPECTATIONS, LEGAL REQUIREMENTS, INTRA-COMMUNITY TENSIONS, AND CLAIMS FROM FORMER HOMELANDS

Mattes A. (Speaker)

University of Vienna ~ Munich ~ Austria
Adaptation processes of migrant religious communities are frequently examined in the scholarly literature, yet these examinations often remain confined to specific domains of inquiry, for instance focusing narrowly on legal frameworks, integration policy demands, or administrative compliance. Such compartmentalized discussions risk overlooking how these communities experience pressures that cut across multiple spheres at once. This paper investigates the adaptation trajectories of migrant religious communities under the weight of overlapping demands and expectations: How do communities navigate overlapping demands from host-country politics, legal regimes, internal governance, and transnational ties to former homelands? To address this overarching question, I begin with a synthetic literature review that integrates findings and concepts from political science, the sociology of religion, legal studies, religious studies, and ethnographic research, bringing these strands into conversation rather than treating them as isolated bodies of knowledge. Drawing on this interdisciplinary synthesis, I develop a comprehensive analytical framework that enables a holistic approach to the development, adaptation, and contestation within migrant religious communities, paying attention to institutional rules, social practices, and cross-border influences. This framework is then applied to the case of Islamic migrant religious communities in Austria, a context marked by dense regulation, vibrant public debate, and intricate transnational linkages. Austria constitutes a highly complex empirical setting that becomes significantly more intelligible when approached through a multi-disciplinary lens, allowing us to illuminate how legal, political, organizational, and transnational pressures intersect and shape concrete strategies of adjustment, negotiation, and resilience.

Panel description: This panel approaches marginality as a critical reimagining of Christian existence in light of a Christological horizon. Christianity has long occupied positions of cultural dominance and institutional power, often sustained through political proximity and participation in hegemonic arrangements. Against this background, the panel aims to articulate a Christian public theology that disrupts such alignments with power. We hope to explore public theology from the margins, not as a theology emerging from socially marginalised groups, but as a mode of theological reflection shaped by non-conformity to dominant political and cultural orders, as well as to their symbolic logics. In this sense, marginality functions as a theological epistemology: a way of knowing and speaking that emerges when Christian identity is reoriented away from privilege and toward a cruciform logic marked by vulnerability and critique. Such an epistemological shift challenges dominant modes of public reasoning that rely on claims of neutrality, abstraction and institutional authority, and instead foregrounds how theological knowledge is conditioned by proximity to power. Within this framework, the panel also addresses inequality as a structural and symbolic reality that public theology must interpret and contest. Inequality is sustained not only by economic and political systems, but also by moral narratives, cultural imaginaries and religious legitimations that normalise exclusion. Public theology shaped by a reimagined, Christologically grounded marginality seeks to expose these dynamics while articulating alternative visions of public life that resist sacralised power and hegemonic religion. By bringing these perspectives into conversation, the panel contributes to debates on religion and inequalities by proposing marginality not as a sociological label, but as a critical theological stance through which Christian engagement with the public square may be ethically reconfigured.

Papers:

CHRISTIAN EXISTENCE AS MARGINALITY: TOWARD A THEOLOGY APPROPRIATELY PUBLIC

Macelaru M. (Speaker)

Aurel Vlaicu University ~ Arad ~ Romania
This paper advances marginality as a reimagined mode of Christian existence with decisive implications for public theology. It begins with a historical-theological diagnosis of Christianity's long-standing proximity to political power, where church-state symbioses, cultural dominance, and moral majoritarianism have frequently positioned Christianity within hegemonic arrangements. This analysis is not a neutral historical account, but theological evidence of a loss of critical distance from power and epistemic distortions that follow from such proximity. Against this backdrop, the paper offers Christology as a normative criterion for reimagining Christian existence. Drawing on biblical patterns associated with Jesus' refusal of coercive authority, his resistance to political messianism, and the cruciform shape of discipleship, it argues that Christian identity is called into a posture of non-belonging with respect to dominant political and symbolic orders. Marginality is thus reclaimed not as a historical datum or a romanticised condition of exclusion, but as an ontological and epistemological reorientation shaped by Christological judgment. On this basis, the paper develops a constructive framework for theology by clarifying the conditions under which theological speech can be truthfully public. It argues that public theology formed through unexamined proximity to power risks functioning as moral legitimation, whereas a theology appropriately public requires an epistemic posture marked by distance from privilege and sustained by critical accountability. From such a posture, public theology is better positioned to engage contested public realities - including the issue of inequality - without becoming hegemonic authority. By articulating marginality as a constitutive dimension of reimagined Christian existence, the paper offers a conceptual grammar for public theology that is neither hegemonic nor withdrawn, but capable of credible engagement with the public square.
RETURNING TO MARGINALITY IN CONTEMPORARY EVANGELICAL THEOLOGY: A PROPOSAL FOR EFFECTIVE ACTION IN THE PUBLIC SQUARE

Simut C. (Speaker)

Ars Theologica Research Centre ~ Arad ~ Romania
Although initially Evangelicalism was globally characterised by a theology which can be historically identified as public in relationship to society, for the past half a century it has turned into an enterprise focused on political ascension. Thus, with the rise of the so-called Moral Majority in the 1970s, the original public theology of American Evangelicalism turned into a rather aggressive form of political theology. Thus, with the consistent support of the then newly founded Liberty University and Jerry Falwell's involvement in radio, TV, and pulpit actions, the Moral Majority movement built a theological platform that no longer did theology from the margins of society but strove to gain political power by means of using religious activities to promote social aspects from a moral perspective. Having become a politically oriented organization bent on promoting political lobby to exert social pressure on legislative bodies with a view to voting on a socially conservative agenda, the Moral Majority went on claiming political gains once Ronald Reagan acceded to power in 1980. Despite its skyrocketing rise to prominence, the Moral Majority's fall was equally swift: in less than a decade it faded away not only from the political scaffolding but also from the public square - a sober reminder that political action may well not be what churches should pursue in their intention to become efficient in the public square. Whether or not contemporary Evangelicalism is more or less aggressive than the theology of the Moral Majority in the 1980s remains an issue of intense debate; what matters more, however, appears to be the actual identification of what Evangelicalism should to in connection to its historical past - namely whether a return to marginality may potentially be the best solution to curtail its current appetite for political power with a view to revitalising its original public theology.
MAKING INJUSTICE AUDIBLE: HIP HOP AND THE WORK OF PUBLIC THEOLOGY

Tretter M. (Speaker)

Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg ~ Erlangen ~ Germany
One of the central tasks of public theology is to address structures of marginalization and injustice and to mobilize its theological resources against them. Yet this commitment raises an epistemic question: how can public theology recognize marginalization in the first place, especially when injustice is all too often diffuse, normalized, or rendered socially invisible? This paper argues that Hip Hop can help register structures of marginalization and injustice that are often overlooked within dominant modes of public reasoning. Across many of its strands, Hip Hop persistently exposes structures of inequality, often articulated by those directly affected by them, and develops aesthetic languages for rendering injustice audible and visible in the public sphere. At the same time, Hip Hop itself remains deeply ambivalent, at times reproducing forms of exclusion and marginalization. Drawing on recent work at the intersection of Hip Hop studies and (public) theology, the paper develops the contours of a critical Hip Hop epistemology for public theology. It shows how engaging Hip Hop can sharpen public theology's attentiveness to hidden structures of marginalization and injustice while also requiring forms of internal critique that avoid both romanticization and paternalism.
RETURNING TO MARGINALITY IN CONTEMPORARY EVANGELICAL THEOLOGY: A PROPOSAL FOR EFFECTIVE ACTION IN THE PUBLIC SQUARE

Simut C.C. (Speaker)

Aurel Vlaicu University ~ Arad ~ Romania
Although initially Evangelicalism was globally characterized by a theologywhich can be historically identified as public in relationship to society, forthe past half a century it has turned into an enterprise focused on political ascension.Thus, with the rise of the so-called Moral Majority, the original publictheology of American Evangelicalism turned into a rather aggressive form ofpolitical theology. Thus, with the consistent support of the then newly foundedLiberty University and Jerry Falwell's involvement in radio, TV, and pulpitactions, the Moral Majority movement built a theological platform that nolonger did theology from the margins of society but strove to gain politicalpower by means of using religious activities to promote social aspects from amoral perspective. Having become a politically oriented organization bent onpromoting political lobby to exert social pressure on legislative bodies with aview to voting on a socially conservative agenda, the Moral Majority went onclaiming political gains once Ronald Reagan acceded to power in 1980. Despiteits skyrocketing rise to prominence, the Moral Majority's fall was equallyswift: in less than a decade it faded away not only from the politicalscaffolding but also from the public square - a sober reminder that politicalaction may well not be what churches should pursue in their intention to becomeefficient in the public square. Whether or not contemporary Evangelicalism ismore or less aggressive than the theology of the Moral Majority in the 1980sremains an issue of intense debate; what matters more, however, appears to bethe actual identification of what Evangelicalism should to in connection to itshistorical past - namely whether a return to marginality may potentially be thebest solution to curtail its current appetite for political power with a viewto revitalizing its original public theology.
BIBLICAL STORIES AS EXISTENTIAL MIRRORS OF MARGINALITY: A TRAJECTORY OF DIVINE CALLING AND HUMAN RESPONSE

Oprean D.-.G. (Speaker)

Aurel Vlaicu University of Arad, Romania ~ Arad ~ Romania
Abstract This paper explores the way in which selected biblical narratives function as mirrors of marginality, understood as a theological horizon through which the identity and vocation of the people of God are interpreted. Within this trajectory, marginality may be defined as the existential condition of the people of God. The study focuses on three biblical stories that reflect marginality as a consequence of the rivalry and hostility of others toward those who embrace God's sovereign call. The protagonists of these narratives are key figures in the history of the ancient people of God, each situated within a different historical period. The first narrative concerns Joseph, a character in the biblical account of the formative period of the people of God. The pit into which he is thrown by his brothers becomes a metaphor for marginality as the condition accompanying the fulfilment of the hidden call of God. The second narrative concerns Jeremiah, a prophet called by God during a period of profound spiritual decline among the people of God. The pit into which he is cast by his own countrymen becomes a metaphor for marginality as the price one must pay for proclaiming with integrity the radical message of God to His people. The third narrative concerns Daniel, one of the Hebrew exiles in Babylon and a faithful servant of God during a period marked by severe identity dissolution within the community of God's people. The pit into which he is thrown by his enemies becomes a metaphor for marginality as a context in which the spiritual remnant of God's people is formed and sustained. Keywords: marginality, divine call, embrace, integrity, faithfulness.
A PNEUMATOLOGICAL EPISTEMOLOGY OF MARGINALITY: PENTECOST(AL) DECENTERING AND THE REIMAGINING OF PUBLIC THEOLOGY

Gheorghe-Luca C. (Speaker)

Ars Theologica Research Center (Aurel Vlaicu University of Arad) ~ Arad ~ Romania
This paper argues that a more radical reconfiguration of public theology emerges through a pneumatological epistemology grounded in the event of Pentecost. As theologians such as Jürgen Moltmann, Amos Yong, and Willie James Jennings have suggested in different ways, the Pentecost event destabilizes established hierarchies of speech, redistributes theological agency beyond institutional elites, and generates a polyphonic community in which divine revelation becomes mediated through plural voices and unexpected locations. Pentecost therefore embodies a theological logic of marginality: knowledge of God emerges not from proximity to structures of power but from Spirit-enabled communities that exist in tension with hegemonic political and cultural orders. The argument will unfold in three movements. First, the paper examines the implicit epistemological assumptions within dominant models of public theology, particularly their reliance on institutional legitimacy and claims of neutrality within the public sphere. Second, it articulates a pneumatological epistemology shaped by Pentecostal decentering, highlighting how the Spirit destabilizes fixed structures of authority and reconfigures theological knowledge as participatory, relational, and distributed across the ecclesial body. Third, it explores the implications of this framework for ecclesiology and public theology, suggesting that the church's engagement with the public square should be understood not primarily through institutional representation but through Spirit-formed practices of constructive prophetic dissent (i.e. marginal witness) capable of exposing sacralized power and confronting structural inequality. In doing so, the paper contributes to ongoing debates on religion and inequality and proposes Pentecost as a theological paradigm for a decentered and critically engaged public theology.
MARGINALITY, VULNERABILITY, AND THEOLOGICAL RECONFIGURATIONS OF THE MEDITERRANEAN BORDER

Rapisarda D.L. (Speaker)

VID Specialised University ~ Stavanger ~ Norway
The paper explores how theological reflection on marginality and vulnerability contributes to the symbolic and theological reconfiguration of the Mediterranean border. It considers the Mediterranean border as a locus theologicus—a theological hermeneutical site to contemplate issues of identity, migration, and how theology can support fair migration policies. The study is based on a case involving Italian Protestant churches, a small and consequently marginal religious community, their engagement with migration issues, and their theological reflections on this involvement. Referencing theologian Sturla Stålsett, the paper examines the link between vulnerability, community, and agency: vulnerability can foster the formation of communal bonds and encourage political action. Stålsett distinguishes between vulnerability as an ontological condition—shared by all humans—and what the author, building on Judith Butler's work, calls situated vulnerability or precarity, which arises from unjust social and political conditions. While precarity necessitates political action for redress, vulnerability in the ontological sense is a value worth safeguarding as it sustains community and stimulates agency. A political theology of vulnerability underpins a theology of solidarity. The paper further investigates the connection between minority identity and engagement in migration issues. Marginality can be viewed in at least two ways: either as being positioned at the margins or as actively choosing to be there. The 'church on the border' concept adopted by Italian Protestant churches reflects their self-understanding as a community called to stand in solidarity with marginalised people, deliberately choosing to be at the margins. The Mediterranean border, as a marginal area of Europe with significant political implications, becomes a hermeneutical site for theological reflection on divine and human marginality, vulnerability, and solidarity.
FROM THE MARGINS TO THE MAJORITY RHETORIC. REALISING AN IDEAL OF RADICAL CHRISTENDOM VERSUS EXTREME LIBERALISM IN EUROPE?

Kovacs Prof Dr A. (Speaker)

J. Selye University ~ Komarom ~ Slovakia
This paper tries to offer a critical approach of both Hungary's Christian presentation in the publica area by the political powers especially focusing on the prime minister's selected speeches as well as the Fundamental Law of Hungary as well as it seeks to identify and critically evaluate the major 'tenets' of liberal political doctrines. It argues that both public visions of how to make society a better one function like quasi-religion explored by J. E. Smith (international liberalism or national conservativism). Thus, they exhibit many of their characteristics of 'religion proper'. However, they feel really uncomfortable to recognise their own mistakes and fall into their own pitfalls. Furthermore, neither political 'agenda' appreciates the other's worldview at all. Against this background the paper endeavours to address the issue of power, self-identity, self-imagination and offers a philosophical-religious critique from the very essential sources of Christianity for the right-wing political ideas and selected writings of the liberal political canon. It is argued none of political powers wrestling with each other place their own stances really under critical scrutiny at all. On the contrary, they use unacceptable means of 'demonising' the other in the name of 'Truth', therefore, contributing to the radicalisation of European public arena. The underlining stance of the paper wishes to offer an epistemological explanation which challenges dominant modes of public reasoning of quasi-religions and it provokingly ask whether any claims of neutrality of any institutional authority is viable and maintainable. It argues both 'political religions' may be prone to producing inequality of any kind that is sustained by their own 'ideology' and power structure In so doing, the paper challenges the issues of neutrality, objectivity, the exclusive claim of possessing the 'truth' and throws light on who quasi-religions often exhibit a very radical tones.

Panel description: The increasingly urgent concern for our Common Home in the face of the threats and dramatic effects of climate change, the destruction of biodiversity, reckless exploitation and the struggle for increasingly scarce resources such as water, soil, air, etc. is driving current philosophical and theological debates. Christian faith must re-examine its relationship to creation in light of the crises and conditions of the Anthropocene. The social, cultural and political challenges posed by the experience of an increasing threat to creation are the starting point for fundamental theological and ethical reflections on the relationship between God, humanity and the world. Any theological approach to creation is therefore always related to practice and has to do with transformation. In the perspective of an ecological theology, creation is the transforming creative impulse of God inherent in creation, which works in human actions and, in view of the responsibility incumbent on human beings as creatures and images of God, expects them to use their creativity to seek and pursue new paths that make a shared and good life on this one planet possible, bearing in mind the limits of growth and the finiteness of the Earth. However, the development of a profound ecological and hermeneutical transformation in the service of life in abundance for all people and creatures will only succeed through global networking as well as interconfessional, intercultural, and interreligious engagement of theological reflection and faith practice. It concerns not only a liberating practice of sustainability, but also an eco-sensitive and decolonial reorientation of theology itself. In this sense, the panel - hosted by the Young Curatorium of the European Society for Catholic Theology (ESCT) - seeks to discuss theological and interdisciplinary perspectives from Europe and beyond, that take on this task and seek new paths of Christian faith and theology in the spirit of an integral ecology.

Papers:

FAITH AND JUSTICE FOR OUR COMMON HOME: AN ECO-THEOLOGICAL APPROACH

Cunningham C. (Speaker)

Dublin City University ~ Dublin ~ Ireland
In an era marked by ecological degradation and growing injustice, the call to care for our common home has never been more urgent. Eco-theology brings together faith, ecological awareness and ethical reflection, offering a much-needed response to climate change. It invites us to re-imagine our relationship with one another and with the natural world by broadening the concept of solidarity into a way of life that connects ecological responsibility with the pursuit of social justice. Pope Francis' 2015 Encyclical Laudato Si' invites us to live in a spirit of solidarity that honours the interconnection of all creation. It calls us to listen attentively to the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor, encouraging us to view the planet as our common home, a shared space that is worthy of care and respect. This invitation goes beyond environmental concern, as it is relational. To care for the planet means to care for all that inhabit it because the wellbeing of creation is intrinsically linked to the wellbeing of others. This paper explores how eco-theology broadens the concept of solidarity, extending it beyond human communities to include all living beings and ecosystems. It demonstrates how faith-based responses can inspire hope, reduce inequality and promote justice. By integrating ecological responsibility with social equity, religion can foster a culture of responsibility that addresses environmental degradation and social injustice. Ultimately, caring for the planet and caring for one another are inseparable, and faith can guide us towards a just and sustainable future.
REVISITING THEOLOGY OF CREATION IN CONVERSATION WITH LIBERATING THEOLOGIES AND INDIGENOUS COMMUNITIES

Parzinger S. (Speaker)

University of Osnabrück ~ Osnabrück ~ Germany
In recent times, liberation theologies have critically pointed out the colonial entanglements of traditional creation theologies as developed in Western theologies in the modern era. From Latin American perspectives in particular, problematic patterns of thought are not only exposed and deconstructed, but also creatively rethought in dialogue and fellowship between theologians and indigenous communities. Dialogical-hermeneutical principles, as developed in the so-called teologías indias cristianas, are capable of fruitfully opening up theological argumentation beyond the methods developed in the European philosophical-theological tradition (and often set as 'normative'). Intercultural, interconfessional and interreligious relations are becoming constitutive for theology and religious practice in the face of the complex eco-social crisis. The paper contributes to the important task of the multidimensional revision of a decolonial, context- and eco-socially sensitive theology of creation. In dialogue with liberation theology approaches and indigenous communities in Latin America, it explores traces of eco-theological reflection in the history of Latin American theology and rethinks topoi of 'classical' theology of creation of the Western tradition in dialogue with the beliefs and practices of indigenous communities.
FROM ST FRANCIS TO POPE FRANCIS: SACRED STEWARDSHIP IN THE AGE OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

Strumble N. (Speaker)

DCU - Dublin City University ~ Dublin ~ Ireland
The Anthropocene compels a renewed examination of Christian responsibility for our "common home" amid climate disruption, biodiversity loss, and intensifying resource scarcity. From Saint Francis of Assisi to Pope Francis, the Christian tradition has articulated a vision of sacred stewardship grounded in praise, humility, and creaturely kinship. Today, that vision must be reinterpreted in light of artificial intelligence (AI), whose rapid development marks an epochal transformation in human creativity and responsibility. This paper situates AI within the framework of integral ecology proposed in Laudato Si' and extended in Antiqua et Nova. While AI offers significant promise for ecological stewardship, through climate modelling, precision agriculture, and optimised energy systems, its environmental footprint is substantial, relying on energy-intensive computation, vast water usage, and extractive supply chains. Technological innovation thus risks intensifying the crises it seeks to address. Ethically, the deployment of AI must resist a "technocratic paradigm" that prioritises efficiency over human dignity and biodiversity. Theological reflection warns against "digital reductionism," urging that AI remain a tool to complement, not replace, human moral discernment and relational intelligence. Furthermore, the "digital divide" risks concentrating technological benefits among the privileged while the "cry of the poor" goes unheard in marginalised regions. Engaging these tensions, this paper calls for an ecological and hermeneutical conversion that reorders technological development toward human dignity, social justice, and the flourishing of all creatures. Sacred stewardship in the age of AI demands a wisdom of the heart, aligning human creativity with God's transforming impulse, so that both natural and artificial systems serve life in abundance on a finite Earth.
APPROACHING CREATION WITH A KENOTIC MIND: PATRISTIC THEOLOGY IN DIALOGUE WITH CONTEMPORARY PHILOSOPHY OF MIND

Hrabal V. (Speaker)

Titus Brandsma Institute ~ Nijmegen ~ Netherlands
There is little doubt that the ongoing polycrisis and the emerging post-human era call for a renewed reflection on the place of the humanity in the world. It is becoming increasingly unclear what the oikos of humanity truly is, what the full horizon of its living space and the community of life within it might be. It is therefore not surprising that critiques of anthropocentrism have become a common part of contemporary thought, including the increasingly popular wave of eco-theology. Yet such critique often remains merely an appeal to care for creation, without abandoning the privileged human perspective. At the same time, for the Christian tradition, however, the position of the human being is entirely unique (Genesis 1:26-28). Yet if we read patristic theology, shaped by the experience of the desert, such as that of Basil of Caesarea and Maximus the Confessor, in dialogue with contemporary philosophy of mind (e.g., variants of dual-aspect theory), the biblical language of human "dominion" and "reason" as the primary instrument of rule over creation may appear in a different, ascetic and kenotic perspective. Such a perspective not only reinterprets these concepts but may also offer insight and even a form of empathy into the relational character of creation. In this way it may be possible to avoid forms of anthropocentrism that place the human being in opposition to the non-human creation. Such views are often rooted in the fundamental error of mind-matter dualism, which continues to underlie much of modern anthropocentrism and has influenced a large part of theological thinking.
WHO SUSTAINS WHAT? CHALLENGING ECOTHEOLOGICAL NARRATIVES OF 'HUMAN CARE FOR CREATION'

Klomp M. (Speaker)

Protestant Theological University ~ Utrecht ~ Netherlands
Research demonstrates that the global majority of humans is deeply concerned about the habitability of life on earth. For Christians, their relationship with the earth is (also) a matter of faith. When using theological language to express and shape this relationship, particularly in response to their ecological awareness and desire for transformation, they use notions from various language fields, sometimes mixing discourses, e.g. using 'nature' and 'creation' as synonyms. This paper addresses the question of how to speak theologically in a responsible way without falling into the anthropocentric trap that has led to the climate and ecological crises that we are now facing. As part of an eco-sensitive and decolonial reorientation of theology, it examines two cases of the creation care discourse: the formal theological voice of the consecutive popes Francis and Leo, and the operant theological voice of the Dutch Christian network organisation of Green Churches. The paper offers a fundamental theological reflection on the relationship between God, humanity and the world by evaluating the theological bottleneck of 'human care for creation' that motivates and encourages people to ecological transformation.
CATECHESIS AND CREATION: RECOGNIZING THE VOICE OF GOD IN THE CONTEMPORARY ECOLOGICAL CRISIS

Onubuogu C. (Speaker)

KU Leuven ~ Leuven ~ Belgium
In recent years, the question of the future of the environment has received considerable critical attention due to global warming, flooding, pandemics, landslides, drought, biodiversity loss, deforestation, and environmental pollution. Central to the causes of ecological degradation is human exploitation of the environment. Hence, studies have consistently shown the need for human responsibility in protecting nature. The Directory for Catechesis indicates that catechesis--understood as the Church's ministry of forming disciples should be able to recognise the voice of God in this crisis and renew itself. By referencing God's self-communication in nature, the paper posits that creation is more than just the setting of salvation history; it actively participates in God's ongoing communication with humanity. Thus, ecological crisis is a sign of the times, urging conversion, discernment, and the reestablishment of relationships with the natural environment. This paper explores how catechesis can be redesigned to incorporate ecological awareness and foster ecological spirituality. It argues that catechesis, as a crucial form of Christian formation, is indispensable for listening to the cry of Mother Earth, fostering ecological awareness, and promoting the relationship between human beings and nature. To effectively contribute to mitigating the ecological crisis, the paper suggests that catechesis should develop three interconnected aspects: a contemplative attitude that recognizes creation as a gift; ethical formation that promotes virtues such as gratitude, simplicity, and solidarity; and active community engagement.

Panel description: We are currently living in the Anthropocene, a time of polycrisis defined by humanity's collective self-conceit as a technologically advanced species that produces myriad environmental, social and economic injustices. As Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew says, "[t]he root cause…lies in our self-centeredness and in the mistaken order of values, which we inherit and accept without any critical evaluation…" This order of values is rooted in a neoliberal consumeristic vision of prosperity as abundance in which the vices of arrogance, greed, gluttony and indifference, rather than virtues, such as justice, prudence, or compassion, are actively promoted. This neoliberal socioeconomic system forces people worldwide to view both nature and our fellow human beings as bearing merely a utilitarian value to be exploited for pleasure or profit so, even people who engage in this system unwillingly or unknowingly are guilty of what Orthodox theologians call involuntary sin. Therefore, "What is asked of us is not greater technological skill but deeper repentance, metanoia, in the literal sense of the Greek word, which signifies fervent 'change of mind' and radical transformation of lifestyle" (Bartholomew 2009). Such a social transfiguration requires practicing a "communal asceticism" (Bartholomew 1997) that will entail cultivating nēpsis, a state of mindfulness, which can enable a recognition of how our pathological desires (pathoi) for material wealth or social status have been manipulated for profit by powerful elites who exacerbate inequalities and advance the value system at the heart of our polycrisis. Further, it requires a view of flourishing as relational rather than acquisitive and the development of socioeconomic practices rooted in a eucharistic disposition of gratitude for one another and nature so that,"the economy becomes a servant of humanity, not its master" (Bartholomew 1999)

Papers:

ECOLOGICAL SIN & NATURAL LAW

Durante C. (Speaker)

Associate Professor of Theology - Saint Peter's University ~ New York ~ United States of America
This presentation adopts the view that a characteristic feature of our new era of the Anthropocene has been humanity's "ecological sinfulness." I will suggest that ecological sin is primarily a collective and systemic form of sin and that has been the result of failing to view nature itself as a source of moral normativity. Drawing upon Maximus Confessor's suggestion that we nature can serve as a tutor in virtue and that the natural law is not only accessible via our rational capacities but also involves empirical as well as spiritual experiential dimensions, I will examine the practical dimensions of what it means to engage in repentance for our ecological sinfulness by suggesting a set of empirically derived natural laws that humanity ought to follow. This will entail a radical reconceptualization of the traditional natural law morality from one which privileges rational speculation into one which incorporates empirical science, contemplative meditation, as well as creative moral imagination into its matrix in order to provide us with the basis of a more ecological understanding of the Christin agapê ethic.
SIN: DIET, DEGRADATION, REPENTANCE

Nellist C. (Speaker)

PanOrthodox Concern for Animals ~ London ~ United Kingdom
In response to the continued climate instability unfolding before us, Eastern Orthodox theologians have repeatedly called for humanity to change its ethos from one based upon a theory of continual consumption, to one with a Eucharistic and aesthetic ethos of love, virtue, sacrifice, abstinence and repentance; all of which are essential teachings for our choice of diet and the products we choose to purchase. In essence, they remind us of patristic teachings to restrict and control our desires. This presentation begins with an outline of the interconnection of climate change, dietary choices, animal suffering and food sustainability. It will indicate that our misuse of God's gift in order to meet our ever-increasing desire for animal-based food products has created an imbalance in the natural world, and caused considerable harm to humans, animals and the environment. The presentation will then investigate three specific questions. 1) Is it a sin to continue to consume food from the intensive animal-agriculture system once we become aware of its devastating ecological and animal-suffering effects? 2) Who will inform the local parish community of this sin? 3) What advise might be given in order to achieve genuine repentance of this sin?
CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGICAL ENGAGEMENT WITH ORTHODOX CHRISTIAN THEOLOGICAL REFLECTION ON SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC INEQUALITIES IN THE ANTHROPOCENE

Kostarelos F. (Speaker)

Governors State University ~ Chicago ~ United States of America
I base this presentation on long-standing ethnographic research I have conducted among Orthodox Christians in rural Greece and Greek Orthodox Christians in the United States with a view to understanding how religious beliefs and practices encoded in these church bodies relate to socio-economic issues including social inequalities, poverty, racial discrimination, migration, gender discrimination, global warming and related environmental events that are dislocating people and entire settlements in Greece and the United States. In recent years, I have presented the concept of the Anthropocene, first framed by geoscientists Paul Crutzen and Eugene Stoermer in the Global Change Newsletter in 2000, along with The American Anthropological Association application of Anthropocene in the Statement on Humanity and Climate Change in 2015, that seeks to integrate geologic findings with ethnographic research on local and global inequalities and dislocations resulting from neo-liberal economic forces and global warming to Orthodox Christian clergy, laity, and theologians. In this presentation, I will review my readings of Orthodox theological texts in the context of my research on Orthodox church institutions and lived Orthodox Christian experiences with a focus on climate issues.

Panel description: Over the past several decades, the rise of digital humanities has reshaped the intellectual and technological landscape of the humanities. What began as a relatively specialized set of computational methods—often focused on text encoding and database construction—has developed into a broad interdisciplinary field encompassing digitization, data modeling, computational analysis, visualization, platform design, and public-facing scholarship. Within the study of religion, these developments have had especially significant implications. Religious texts and traditions are deeply rooted in material archives, linguistic complexity, and historically situated interpretive communities, and digital humanities approaches have transformed not only how these materials are studied but also who can access them. Yet increased availability does not automatically produce meaningful access. Digital religious materials are mediated through technical infrastructures—interfaces, metadata, encoding standards, and platform design—that shape how texts can be discovered, interpreted, and compared. These design choices often reflect scholarly priorities that may remain opaque to non-specialists, creating new forms of gatekeeping even as older barriers fall. This panel therefore asks what democratization means in the context of digital religious scholarship. Is it simply a matter of making materials freely available, or does it require deeper forms of participation and interpretive agency? How do digital tools redistribute authority among scholars, institutions, religious communities, and the public? And how might digital humanities projects be designed to promote equity, inclusivity, and sustainability rather than reproducing existing hierarchies in digital form?

Papers:

PROJECT FOR DIGITAL PRESERVATION AND ANALYSIS OF SYRIAC ORTHODOX CHURCH REGISTERS AND INVENTORIES FROM MARDIN

Bcheiry I. (Speaker)

Atla ~ Chicago ~ United States of America
This paper introduces a digital preservation initiative focused on Syriac Orthodox Church registers and inventories from Mardin, Turkey. These archives—particularly those housed in the Dayr al-Zaʿfarān Monastery and the Church of the Forty Martyrs—contain centuries-old records that provide invaluable insights into community life and historical continuity. The project adopts a "bottom-up" approach, or "history from below," to highlight the experiences of ordinary people and everyday practices. This perspective contrasts with traditional "top-down" narratives that emphasize the actions of social and religious elites such as bishops and patriarchs, offering a more inclusive view of the past. The initiative seeks to extract detailed social, religious, and geographic information—such as sacred sites, clergy and lay names, baptismal records, and demographic patterns—and organize it within a relational database. This structure will enable scholars to perform advanced searches, identify historical trends, and explore connections across time and space. The project involves designing a relational schema to store and link data from historical sources, allowing researchers to observe and analyze multiple aspects of Syriac community life and its interactions with neighboring groups. Ultimately, this tool will support interdisciplinary scholarship in religious studies, history, and digital humanities.
DIGITIZATION IS NOT DEMOCRATIZATION: DISCOVERABILITY AND THE STUDY OF RELIGION

Motley C. (Speaker)

Atla/Universität Erfurt ~ Chicago ~ United States of America
Over the past two decades, large-scale digitization efforts have transformed the study of religion by increasing the availability of texts, images, and archival materials. Manuscripts and sources once restricted to physical archives or elite institutions are now frequently accessible through digital databases and online collections. This expansion of digital content is often framed as a democratization of knowledge. Yet access to digitized materials does not, by itself, guarantee meaningful or equitable engagement. This paper argues that discoverability—not mere digitization—is the critical missing layer in many digital religious archives. While materials may be technically "available," they often remain functionally invisible due to fragmented platforms, siloed databases, inconsistent metadata, and proprietary discovery systems. These structural limitations disproportionately affect independent scholars, students, clergy, and researchers outside well-resourced institutions, reinforcing rather than dismantling existing inequities in religious scholarship. Focusing on digital archives and databases central to the study of religion, this paper examines how current discovery infrastructures shape who can find, interpret, and reuse digitized religious sources. It contends that closed or poorly integrated discovery environments undermine the democratizing promise of digital humanities by privileging technical expertise and familiarity with specialized platforms. The paper concludes by advocating for open, interoperable discoverability frameworks that prioritize transparency, sustainability, and equitable access. By treating discoverability as scholarly infrastructure rather than a secondary technical concern, the study of religion can move beyond the illusion of access toward genuinely democratized engagement with its digital archives.
DÉJÀ VU OF COLONIAL KNOWLEDGE HIERARCHIES: INFRASTRUCTURAL DIGITAL MARGINALIZATION OF URDU RELIGIOUS LITERATURE

Azam Z. (Speaker)

Forman Christian College University Lahore Pakistan ~ Lahore ~ Pakistan
Digitization of religious knowledge has been celebrated as a democratizing force demolishing the archival gatekeeping that once restricted access to rare and sacred texts., Yet for Urdu Islamic literature encompassing centuries of Islamic literature digitization has largely indicated persistent absence. This paper argues that the marginalization of Urdu Islamic literature is a systematic multilayered condition produced at three interlacing levels: canonical, technical, and classificatory. At the canonical level, digitization replicates colonial-era hierarchies in which Arabic and English sources anchor the Islamic scholarly tradition while South Asian vernacular contributions remain peripheral. At the technical level, the persistent inadequacy of computational tools for Nastaliq script renders millions of pages inaccessible reflecting digital inequity. At the classificatory level, dominant metadata standards are developed with European textual traditions as their implicit model leaving Urdu textual tradition in lurch. Together, these three layers reproduce the epistemic hierarchies that postcolonial scholarship has long critiqued in their analog predecessors. Methodologically, this paper adopts a comparative archival approach. By systematically surveying and comparing major international Islamic archives in Muslim/Western world against the actual holdings of Pakistani/ Indian Islamic digital libraries. It would also assess performance of existing tools on Nastaliq script and the metadata encoding practices applied to the few Urdu collections that have been digitized. The paper draws on available audits and specialist literature to map the specific points at which infrastructure fails Urdu religious literature. The paper concludes by proposing minimum conditions for a more equitable digital infrastructure for Urdu Islamic literature as a living intellectual and spiritual inheritance.
ONLINE BIBLES AND DIGITAL READING PRACTICES: FROM EXCERPTS TO EXEGESIS

Pennarola C. (Speaker)

Università di Napoli Federico II ~ Napoli ~ Italy
Digital technologies have made the Bible accessible to vast and diverse audiences through user-friendly apps and websites offering multiple language versions alongside powerful study tools. This transition from the printed book to a hypertextual, multimodal environment has not only widened access to Scripture but also the ways in which it is read and interpreted. On the one hand, digital platforms encourage a fragmentary and highly selective mode of engagement, often centred on decontextualized, inspirational excerpts that circulate as self-contained units of meaning. On the other hand, the same platforms may provide sophisticated tools —such as search engines, and concordancers —that enable forms of close, intensive, and comparative reading traditionally associated with scholarly exegesis. While the former mode reinforces superficial or uneven forms of scriptural knowledge, the latter may enable sustained, comparative and insightful reading of the Bible depending on the users' varying degrees of digital literacy and interpretive skill. This paper examines the tension between these two reading modes as a crucial site where religious (in)equality is both challenged and reproduced. As a case study, I will investigate the interplay between the expressions "Son of God" and "Son of Man" across the biblical corpus. While Jesus predominantly self-identifies as "Son of Man," humans are also often referred to as "sons of Man" as well as "sons of God". Through online concordancing, the study maps the frequency and distribution of these commonly used biblical expressions with a view to exploring their possible interpretations within Christian faith and theology. The paper argues that online Bibles simultaneously encourage fragmented reading and enable exegetical enquiry. Far from being mutually exclusive, these modes coexist in a dynamic tension that redefines contemporary engagement with Scripture and underlines the ambivalent impact of digital biblical media.

Panel description: The international project on the vocabulary of the Septuagint that is behind "The Historical and Theological Lexicon of the Septuagint" (ed. by Eberhard Bons and Daniela Scialabba, in collaboration with Anna Mambelli; 4 vols., Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2020-) is close to the publication of the second volume of the lexicon, with lemmas from "delta" to "iota". This panel aims to bring together scholars that have been working on these lemmas to discuss research outcomes and selected examples of the impact of lexicographical analysis on Septuagint research, exploring both its context of origin and its early reception. The issues explored by the panel include: a) Septuagint lexicography and translation techniques; b) Septuagint vocabulary in relation to the Greek world; c) The contribution of the Septuagint to the history of the Greek language; d) The impact of Septuagint vocabulary on Jewish and early Christian authors.

Papers:

CONSTRUCTING, DESCRIBING, AND RE-SEMANTIZING ANCIENT SLAVERY IN THE SEPTUAGINT AND EARLY CHRISTIAN LITERATURE

Mambelli A. (Speaker)

University of Modena and Reggio Emilia/FSCIRE, Bologna ~ Bologna ~ Italy
This article examines the specific lexical choices made by the Septuagint translators on the theme of slavery, which carry significant exegetical implications both within the Greek Bible and in its reception in early Christian literature. In particular, it focuses on the use of the term δοῦλος, which in non-biblical Greek refers to a "slave" with no personal rights and is used almost consistently in the Septuagint to translate the Hebrew word ʻebed in contexts describing human beings' relationship with the God of Israel. The paper also presents selected findings from the lexical research conducted in preparation for the corresponding HTLS article.
THE IDEA OF HOPE IN THE SEPTUAGINT AND IN PHILO OF ALEXANDRIA

Bons E. (Speaker)

University of Strasbourg/FSCIRE, Bologna ~ Strasbourg ~ France
Compared with its usage in non-biblical Greek, the noun ἐλπίς undergoes a semantic evolution in the Septuagint and in Jewish literature of the Hellenistic and Roman epoch. Rather than referring to a more or less positive expectation, the noun very often is used in the context of faith. Believers hope that the can trust in God in their various hardships, even they confess that God himself is their hope. On the other hand, authors like Philo claim that hope is a fundamental feature of human existence. The aim of this paper is to outline the specific new developments in the use of ἐλπίς in the LXX and in Philo of Alexandria.
HOW FAR IS ἘΠΙΣΤΉΜΗ A BIBLICAL LEXEME? TRACING THE ROOTS OF KNOWLEDGE BETWEEN THE SEPTUAGINT AND EARLY CHRISTIAN AUTHORS

Bigoni L. (Speaker)

University of Fribourg ~ Fribourg ~ Switzerland
The Greek root episteme in the Greek Bible is prima facie a straightforward way of speaking about knowledge, yet the nuances of what knowledge can mean are manyfold, and the root naturally crosses genres and eras within Greek literature and available documentary sources before reaching the translators of the Septuagint. However, its legacy is correspondingly relevant to a lexicographical study of the Greek Bible, since it can shed light on how a root may live on and migrate from one text to another while carrying the memory of where it comes from. This paper aims to explore the role of the root in the works of early Christian authors, tracing possible cases of intertextual reflections from the Greek Bible, in conversation with other roots expressing a similar meaning, to underline the specific nuances and strategies of 'Biblical memory' when these authors approached the idea in different contexts. The material presented in this paper will be exposed in paragraph 6 of the corresponding HTLS article, related to Early Christian Literature.
IS THE FOREIGN AN ENEMY? SOME REFLECTIONS ON THE LEMMA ἘΧΘΡΌΣ FROM CLASSICAL GREEK TO THE LXX

Carnevale L. (Speaker)

University of Bari Aldo Moro ~ Bari ~ Italy
Etymologically, the word ἐχθρός has the same root of the Latin word extra: this emphasizes the original meaning of the lemma as indicating a person coming from outside, hostile because foreigner. In fact, to designate the enemy in war, the ancient Greek language uses the lemma πολέμιος, often as a substantive ("adversary"). As a result, it seems that in the classical Greek world the concept of being hostile is not semantically associated with the idea of the enmity in war, and ἐχθρός works simply as the opposite of φίλος. In the LXX, on the contrary, the lemma πολέμιος appears rarely. In fact, the technical meaning of "enemy of war", appropriate to πολέμιος, in the LXX is absorbed by ἐχθρός. Starting from these observations, the paper will explore the different meanings of the lemma ἐχθρός in the Greek world and in the LXX, where it occurs more than 400 times. It will also show the results of the corresponding entry written for the second volume of the Historical and Theological Lexicon of Septuaginta (ed. Eberhard Bons, Daniela Scialabba, with the scientific coordination of Anna Mambelli, Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 2020-).
TO BE OR NOT TO BE COMPASSIONATE? CONSIDERATIONS ON THE USE OF THE ADJECTIVE ἘΛΕΉΜΩΝ IN THE SEPTUAGINT, JEWISH-HELLENISTIC LITERATURE AND THE NEW TESTAMENT

Scialabba D. (Speaker)

Pontifical Biblical Institute of Rome - Fscire ~ Rome ~ Italy
The aim of this paper is to investigate the adjective ἐλεήμων —"compassionate, merciful". The analysis will be conducted on the biblical texts against the background of the Hebrew text and of classical and Hellenistic Greek literature. Consideration will also be given to pseudepigraphal writings as well as to Jewish literature in Greek, with the purpose of identifying both continuity and discontinuity in the use of the term ἐλεήμων across the various corpora.
THYMOS BETWEEN GREEK LITERATURE AND THE SEPTUAGINT: SEMANTIC AND THEOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENTS

Bellantuono A. (Speaker)

Université Catholique de Lille ~ Lille ~ France
This article examines the semantic trajectory of the term thymos, tracing its transition from a dynamic and multifaceted concept in Greek literature to a term charged with religious connotations in the Septuagint. The analysis begins with Euripides' Medea, where thymos appears as an irresistible force that surpasses rational deliberation. It then proceeds through the works of Homer, Hesiod, Plato, and other authors, in which thymos is consistently presented as the seat of emotional vitality, often external to the rational self and closely linked to the inner conflict between reason and passion. By contrast, in the Septuagint thymos is used primarily to designate divine anger, frequently associated with orgē. Its nuanced psychological and existential dimensions are largely absorbed into a moral and cultic framework. Nevertheless, in certain wisdom texts—such as Job, Proverbs, and the Wisdom of Solomon—echoes of its classical usage remain, where thymos once again evokes a spontaneous, and at times irrational, emotional force. Through a diachronic analysis, this study shows how the concept of thymos was reshaped by the translators of the Septuagint in order to adapt it to Jewish paradigms, while still preserving, in some passages, the semantic resonance inherited from classical Greek literature.
FATED OR REQUIRED? TRACING ΔΕΙ͂ FROM SOCIAL CUSTOMS TO ESCHATOLOGICAL FULFILLMENT IN THE SEPTUAGINT

Negri G. (Speaker) [1] , Nadini C. (Speaker) [2]

Alma Mater Studiorum - Università di Bologna ~ Bologna ~ Italy [1] , Università degli Studi di Roma Tor Vergata ~ Roma ~ Italy [2]
The use of the crystallized third-person singular forms of the verb δέω is fairly consistent throughout Greek literature, both in syntactic construction and in semantic value. It conveys meanings such as "it is necessary," "one must," or "it is fitting". In the majority of attestations from the Hellenistic and Roman periods, δεῖ appears primarily to refer to logical or epistemic necessity. Furthermore it designates ethical and religious obligations arising from systems of civic, moral, and cultic law. Contrary to what might be expected from the wide range of nuances found in other Greek literature, the Septuagint employs δεῖ only sporadically and with a rather stable semantic value. In fact, the verb here tends to assume a meaning closely connected with legislative practice and, even more frequently, with social customs. Only rarely does it refer to the divine will. At times a moral or religious nuance may be perceived, yet any reference to predestination or providential necessity - attested in certain occurrences within Greek literature - appears to be absent. This tendency is completely reversed in the Book of Daniel. Here, in most occurrences, the use of δεῖ becomes fixed in the formula ἅ δεῖ γενέσθαι, which carries a distinctly eschatological sense. This meaning will come to prevail in the Apocalypse and in the Gospels. In the latter it is also accompanied by a notion of predestination that is embodied in the figure of Jesus and in his fulfillment of scriptural prophecies. This paper seeks to demonstrate this pattern through the discussion of several significant passages.

Panel description: This panel examines post-WWII Catholic assistance to former Nazi collaborators excluded from Allied relief, war criminals seeking to evade or mitigate prosecution, and displaced fascists fleeing Europe for fear of repatriation. It brings together two complementary perspectives — one focused on the Vatican's institutional engagement with postwar justice, the other on the lived religious and political negotiations between displaced fascists and their Catholic assistants — in order to address the following question: To what extent did the Church's religious and political objectives overlap with its humanitarian activities and its critique of postwar justice? Drawing on recently released archival sources, the panel shows that these assistance efforts were deeply entangled with Christian reconciliation and forgiveness, re-Christianization, anti-communism and fears of Soviet communism's expansion, the Church's competition with other Christian churches, confessional tensions, ambiguous relationships between the Vatican Secretariat of State and former Axis elites, and the prioritization of institutional reputation over retribution. These findings call into question the very nature of the Vatican's critique of the war crimes trials as forms of "victor's justice" and of the discreet operations to assist fascists on the run, offering new perspectives on Christian charity at the crossroads of material assistance, politics, and religion. By shedding light on the so-called "Vatican ratlines" and on the Vatican's critique of the postwar trials, the papers in this panel explain the Vatican's investment of charitable, diplomatic, religious, and political resources as means toward a moral reconstruction of Europe that marginalized postwar justice and accountability. By doing so, this panel demonstrates the complex entanglements between Catholic responses to the Holocaust, Catholic humanitarianism, and the shaping of postwar justice.

Papers:

THE VATICAN, NUREMBERG, AND THE STRUGGLE FOR POSTWAR JUSTICE: RETHINKING CATHOLIC RESPONSES TO THE HOLOCAUST

Steinacher G.J. (Speaker)

University of Nebraska-Lincoln ~ Lincoln ~ United States of America
Based on newly opened materials from the Vatican archives and other Church collections in Europe and the United States, this paper reexamines the Vatican's role in shaping postwar justice and argues that the Holy See was an important-not peripheral-actor in defining early understandings of guilt, responsibility, and the legacies of genocide and dictatorship. The study shows how Church officials consistently prioritized Christian reconciliation, re-Christianization, anti-communism, and institutional reputation over retribution. The Vatican's critique of the war crimes trials as forms of "victor's justice" underpinned repeated appeals for clemency, including for perpetrators implicated in the Holocaust. The paper further demonstrates how Vatican-linked humanitarian networks-while providing legitimate aid to thousands-both intentionally and unintentionally facilitated the flight and reintegration of Nazi fugitives. Set against the backdrop of the early Cold War, and at times in cooperation with U.S. government circles and international relief organizations, these escape routes reveal that well-known cases were only the visible tip of a much broader transnational phenomenon. By situating these interventions within their political, institutional, and moral contexts, the paper reframes long-standing debates about Catholic responses to genocide, humanitarianism, and postwar justice.
PATHS TOWARD REDEMPTION OR TOWARD ARGENTINA? CONVERSIONS TO CATHOLICISM AND RELIGIOUS DEVOTIONS AMONG DISPLACED ROMANIAN FASCISTS AFTER WWII

Zavatti F. (Speaker)

Södertörn University ~ Stockholm ~ Sweden
Among the many unexpected interactions generated by postwar displacement and Catholic humanitarianism, the religious exchanges that developed between displaced Romanian fascists, Nazi collaborators, and war criminals, and the Catholic clergy that assisted them are particularly revealing of the agendas of both parties. This paper focuses on members of the Romanian fascist Legionary movement who, after the war, were assisted in Rome by Catholic and Greek Catholic clergy. It examines the religious and political agendas on both sides, showing how a sudden interest in Catholicism — and in some cases the conversion of ultra-Orthodox fascists to Catholicism — was closely connected to hopes of obtaining assistance for relocation to Argentina. The presentation further outlines the forms of religious devotion developed by some displaced Romanians as a deliberate strategy to construct ideological alignment with their rescuers' institutions, including the Vatican Secretariat of State. Finally, it demonstrates the extent to which such conversions and devotional practices influenced access to privileged assistance when compared with other displaced Romanians (fascists or not). Ultimately, the paper argues that while the displaced fascists were formally respected in their religious choices, some of the Catholic intermediaries clearly recognized that a combination of personal advantage and nationalist objectives laid at the heart of this religious mobilization. Documents from the Pius XII' pontificate archives in Rome and across Italy show that Catholic officials chose not to clarify these ambiguities, thereby allowing an element of proselytism to remain one of the implicit rationales of their charitable activities.

Panel description: This panel engages the pioneering monograph of Peter Phan, Christianity and Migration: A Christian Theology of Migration for Our Age (Oxford University Press, 2025), which Shows the intrinsic links between migration and Christianity, reflects on the connection between migration and eschatology, and presents a new theology of God framing God the Father as the Primordial Migrant, God the Son as the Paradigmatic Migrant, and God the Holy Spirit as the Personal Power of Migration. Discussants include experts on migration and on religion and violence.

Papers:

Panel description: Our present age is characterized by a constant competition for our attention — shaped, fragmented, and directed by digital technologies, media environments, and social structures. This panel approaches the question of attention from a theological and religious studies perspectives: What constitutes attention, and to what extent can it be guided, cultivated, or controlled? Which religious practices attract or cultivate attention? How do the attention logics of algorithms reshape religious practices and experiences? What practices of attention can be identified within religious traditions — such as compassion, empathy, and (neighborly) love — and how might they offer alternative models of perceiving and responding to the world? What are the negative dimensions of attention — for example, phenomena such as attention fatigue in health care or exposure — and how do they challenge theological or ethical reflection? Finally, what role does attention play in reinforcing or challenging global inequalities? We welcome both theoretical contributions that examine attention on an abstract or analytical level and practical studies that address it in applied settings, for instance in spiritual counseling or pastoral care. We invite papers from all theological disciplines, ethics, religious studies, and related fields that investigate the relationship between religion and attention in a broad sense.

Papers:

ETHICS OF ATTENTION

Ott T. (Speaker)

Unversity of Vienna ~ Vienna ~ Austria
Can attention be a moral demand? Drawing on Bernhard Waldenfels' understanding of attention as both pathos and response, the paper conceptualizes a theological ethics of attention as oriented toward interruption, sensitization, and the capacity to see with the eyes of the other. It distinguishes three interrelated forms of attention: (1) as a quasi-automatic event; (2) as individual effort and ethical struggle; and (3) as structurally conditioned, dependent on societal and institutional arrangements. Together, these forms reveal attention as a contested practice in which agency is constantly negotiated—especially from the perspective of the disadvantaged and those rendered invisible. Finally, the paper conceptualizes attention as oriented toward interruption, sensitization, and the capacity to see with the eyes of the other.
CHRISTIAN INFLUENCERS AND ATTENTION

Geidel M. (Speaker)

Friedrich-Alexander-Universität ~ Erlangen-Nürnberg ~ Germany
In digital media environments shaped by algorithms, emotional engagement, and constant competition for visibility, attention has become a key currency of communication. On social media platforms, Christian influencers increasingly act as trusted voices who combine religious narratives with personal storytelling, political commentary, and highly professional aesthetics. This talk explores how attention is captured, directed, and sustained through practices of perceived intimacy, authenticity, and the reduction of complexity. By appearing close, relatable, and visually credible, influencers establish trust and parasocial relationships that can outweigh institutional authority or factual verification. Attention thus plays a central role in shaping who is believed, which narratives gain credibility, and how digital religious authority emerges. From a media-ethical perspective, this raises questions about trust, truth, and responsibility in digital publics. What happens when proximity and aesthetic persuasion become more influential than epistemic reliability? How do platform logics and algorithmic visibility reshape the conditions under which religious and political claims are perceived as trustworthy? By focusing on attention as an ethical problem of contemporary media culture, the talk invites reflection on how digital communication transforms authority, credibility, and the negotiation of truth.
LAW, RELIGION, AND ATTENTION: PROTECTING SPIRITUAL FOCUS IN DIGITAL ENVIRONMENTS

Özgü R. (Speaker)

University of Zurich ~ Zurich ~ Switzerland
The increasing commercialization of digital attention poses new legal and theological challenges for religious communication. As social media platforms—much like earlier mass media—are financed through the attention economy, questions arise concerning the protection of religious attention as a legally significant good. This paper examines how secular and ecclesiastical frameworks—such as the DSA, the GDPR, advertising law, and church norms on liturgical communication—seek to safeguard undisturbed worship and prevent commercial intrusion. It also analyzes the growing risks of exploiting religious data through targeted advertising, where algorithmic profiling enables commercial or political actors to infer users' religious beliefs and use them for persuasive or manipulative purposes—an aspect that can itself be understood as part of protecting religious attention in a broader sense. In this sense, the law plays a supportive role: protecting religious attention from disruption by economic interests.
ATTENTION AND RELIGIOUS EDUCATION

Markert A. (Speaker)

Friedrich-Alexander-Universität ~ Erlangen-Nürnberg ~ Germany
This paper examines attention as a central concept in religious education, following Simone Weil. Weil understands attention not primarily as a cognitive achievement, but as an ethical-spiritual attitude of openness, waiting, and receptive presence. It enables a special form of relationship - to the suffering other, to truth, and to God - and thus gains fundamental significance in educational theory. Against the backdrop of contemporary economies of acceleration and attention, it is shown that Weil's understanding of attention represents a critical counter-model to functional educational logics. Attention is highlighted as a fundamental dimension of education that promotes perceptiveness, empathy, and compassion. The paper shows, how religious education can contribute to the development of attentiveness through forms of silence, listening, and reflection, thereby making an independent contribution to personality development in pluralistic societies.
ATTENTION AS THE BEGINNING OF DEVOTION: CULTIVATING AWE THROUGH EMBODIED SPIRITUAL PRACTICE

Van Emmerik M. (Speaker)

Pembroke College, University of Oxford ~ Oxford ~ United Kingdom
This paper reconceptualises awe not as a discrete, stimulus-driven emotion but as a cultivated practice of attention sustained through embodied, socially learned modes of perceiving and responding to the world. While Keltner and Haidt's influential psychological model (2003) emphasises episodic responses to perceived vastness, this framework obscures the developmental, somatic, and communal dimensions through which awe operates.Drawing on Thomas Csordas's concept of somatic modes of attention and Tanya Luhrmann's work on attentional learning, I argue that awe-sensitivity develops through practices that train individuals to notice, value, and interpret subtle bodily and mental phenomena. Religious and spiritual traditions cultivate distinctive forms of awe-attention through contemplative practice, ritual engagement, and disciplined study—teaching practitioners not merely what to attend to, but how to attend with their whole embodied being. This addresses the panel's central questions about attention in contemporary contexts. First, it demonstrates how attention can be cultivated through religious practices that enlarge awe-sensitivity over time, challenging models that treat attention as merely captured or fragmented. Second, it explores horizontal transcendence—intense meaning within naturalistic horizons—evident in scientific wonder, where disciplined attention amplifies awe without appeal to the supernatural.The paper outlines implications for nonreligious spirituality in an age of commodified attention: designing rituals that steward attention rather than exploit it; treating awe as practice rather than consumable effect; and recognising cultivated awe as a political resource orienting responsibility and care. This framework offers an alternative to algorithmic attention economies, positioning awe as a transformative practice of attending to the world with wonder, responsibility, and sustained engagement.
SOFT POWER AND SACRED INEQUALITY: PATRONAGE, TRANSLATION, AND THE MAKING OF MARY MAGDALENE FROM EUROPE TO CHINA

Lin E. (Speaker)

Wenzao Ursuline University of Languages ~ Kaohsiung ~ Taiwan
This paper examines how religious translation and patronage functioned as forms of soft power by organizing attention toward symbolically sanctioned forms of female sanctity during the early modern transmission of Christianity from Europe to China. Focusing on the figure of Mary Magdalene, it explores how Jesuit translators reshaped female authority through hagiographic translation in late Ming China, transforming a potentially disruptive figure into a culturally intelligible and institutionally contained patron saint. Drawing on European hagiographic sources, including the Legenda Aurea, and their Jesuit Chinese adaptations—most notably Tianzhu shengjiao shengren xingshi (《天主聖教聖人行實》)—the paper argues that translation operated not merely as a vehicle of religious transmission but as an active site of attentional governance. Through selective narrative emphasis, moral reframing, and paratextual guidance, devotion was directed toward silence, moral exemplarity, and inner discipline, rendering female sanctity symbolically effective while structurally constrained. By conceptualizing patronage as a non-coercive mode of governance, this study demonstrates how attention was cultivated and sustained in ways that facilitated Christian expansion without challenging established hierarchies between missionaries and converts, clergy and laity, and men and women. The case of Mary Magdalene thus offers a genealogical perspective on contemporary debates about attention, power, and inequality, illuminating religion's long-standing capacity to manage authority through symbolic mediation across cultural and institutional contexts.
COLLECTIVE KARMA AND THE ATTENTION ECONOMY: A YOGĀCĀRA ECOLOGICAL FRAMEWORK FOR AI ETHICS AND CONTEMPLATIVE ALTERNATIVES

Lai Z. (Speaker)

PhD Candidate, Buddhist Studies Lumbini Buddhist University, Nepal ~ Lumbini ~ Nepal
Contemporary AI ecosystems constitute an unprecedented regime of attention capture: algorithmic feeds and generative interfaces compete relentlessly for cognitive resources, fragmenting sustained awareness as a structural condition of digital life. Yet mainstream AI ethics frames these harms as technical defects amenable to regulatory patches, overlooking how attention itself is shaped within socio-technical infrastructures. This paper develops an alternative framework drawing on Yogācāra Buddhist philosophy, particularly its eight-consciousness model and doctrines of dependent co-arising and collective karma. I argue that AI ecosystems function as "karmic mirrors" reflecting and amplifying collective dispositional patterns, producing systemic attentional inequalities: those with fewer resources to resist algorithmic capture bear disproportionate cognitive burdens, while craving, aversion, and delusion become encoded into engagement-maximizing architectures. The Yogācāra tradition offers diagnostic tools and practical counter-models. Its threefold training—śīla, samādhi, and prajñā—can be reinterpreted as governance levers: data ethics as discipline, metacognitive auditing as stabilization, structural transparency as wisdom. I propose a three-level ethical transformation framework moving beyond individual mindfulness toward ecological redesign of attention infrastructures. By bringing Yogācāra into dialogue with attention studies and AI ethics, this paper explores how religious traditions offer alternative models—addressing not merely individual attention deficits but structural inequalities in technological environments. KEYWORDS: Yogācāra Buddhism; AI ethics; attention economy; collective karma; contemplative practices
COUNTER-FORMING THE ALGORITHM: A MYSTICAL PEDAGOGY OF ATTENTION FOR THE DIGITAL AGE

Medyarto P.A.G. (Speaker)

Regis College, Toronto School of Theology ~ Toronto ~ Canada
In contemporary digital culture, human attention is increasingly controlled by a disruptive algorithmic system. This fragmentation reorients desire toward visibility and immediacy rather than interior transformation, creating an attention inequality that prioritizes certain "visible" populations through algorithmic exploitation. As humanity today is being formed in a digitally advanced era, this paper argues that attention can function as a formative spiritual practice that orients the soul towards God and ultimately cultivates the ability to love and serve others in the light of God's Love. Drawing from Simone Weil's understanding of attention, that attention is a receptive act which requires detachment and self-emptying to receive the True Knowledge/Truth; St. Teresa of Avila's interior prayer that gathers attention toward the indwelling God within human soul; and St. John of the Cross's way of purification of desire and detachment to receive the Divine Grace, provide a mystical pedagogy of attention that will be a counter-formation to digital fragmentation in contemporary times. Finally, this paper argues that contemplative prayer that emphasizes attention is helping address the inequities of the digital attention; a practice which not simply a withdrawal from the world, but a practice that cultivates human capacity to be present, compassionate, and more loving, to God, self, and others, by reframing human attention back toward indwelling God rather than outward toward the world.
LOSS OF ATTENTION AS A LOSS OF THE ABILITY TO NARRATE

Sixta T. (Speaker)

Charles University ~ Prague ~ Czech Republic
In his famous book La condition postmoderne, Jean-François Lyotard formulates the well-known thesis about the end of the grand narratives. Lyotard, however, continues by suggesting that smaller narratives (petit récit) still persist, through which people structure and interpret their lives. In 2023, the German-writing philosopher Byung-Chul Han published a short book, Die Krise der Narration, in which he argues that, as a consequence of the contemporary loss of attention, we are no longer capable even of conceiving our own lives as a petit récit. For Han, the symbolic expression of this new condition is the "stories" on social media that disappear after twenty-four hours. According to Han, narration in its original sense has disappeared, and we are left with only storytelling, which he understands as a story-selling. In my paper, I will present Byung-Chul Han's arguments concerning the loss of attention and its implications for understanding the human person within the horizon of theological anthropology. I will then attempt to develop this topic in the context of Christian spirituality. If Han's thesis is correct—that the loss of attention entails the loss of the ability to narrate—Christianity must reconsider many of its spiritual practices. I will briefly propose three possible forms of Christian spirituality in an age of diminished attention and the crisis of narration, drawing on a variety of theological sources. The first is a theology of place, inspired by my previous research on literary texts; the second is a theology of the fragment, drawing on the late theology of David Tracy; and the third is an understanding of Christianity as an alternative to a world in which everything, including our attention, becomes an object of the market. Here, I will draw on Mark Fisher's philosophy.
BODY/PHYSICALITY AND BODY KNOWLEDGE AS A LOCUS OF INDUCTIVE THEOLOGY: BETWEEN PERCEPTION AND ATTENTION (WORK IN PROGRESS)

Sallandt U. (Speaker)

Carl-von-Ossietzky-Universität Oldenburg ~ Oldenburg ~ Germany
Theological discourse about God inevitably occurs contextually, i.e. materially and physically. Contexts create spaces in which theological discourse can unfold. In the process, spaces change in complex cultural transformation processes and elude any kind of clarity. They constitute themselves ambiguously under changing circumstances in the respective context, demanding not only in terms of content, but also in terms of methodology, to be constantly challenged (self-)critically in and by physical space. In this regard, I would like to contribute to understanding physicality and bodily knowledge as a place of inductive theology which starts from perception. Against the background of my experiences in the context of Pentecostal theologies and devotional practice, I attempt to sensitize people to the body/physicality as a place of perception and epistemological production. In doing so, I work out the meaning and potential of performative (theological) knowledge in the dynamic, significant tension between the perception of the body-in-itself and the attention of the body-in-discourse. Based on my own experiences in physical theatre, I deepen the theological liberation potential of physical perception and attention as a place of inductive theology 'methodically'. Only in the place of one's own body and in the midst of all other bodies is it possible to work in an epistemologically and theologically appropriate, i.e. inductive, manner. I approach the impossible task of speaking about God somatically and performatively, i.e. on the basis of a theological sketch that humbly surrenders to the theological claim of a place outside one's own comfort zone. Key words: body/physicality, body perception and attention, body knowledge, physical space, performative knowledge.

Panel description: Since the nineteenth century and the rise of nationalism, the papacy has played an outsized role both within the international system and the internal workings of the Catholic Church. This was only heightened by post-colonialism as the nation states of the world entered into the world created by the 1648 Treaty of Westphalia. Before 1900, a majority of Catholic bishops were named by some combination of local authority and historic custom within their territories. Today, the vast majority of Catholic bishops are named by Rome under the authority of the Pope. In spite of the decentralizing tendencies of episcopal collegiality as it emerged in the Second Vatican Council, the papacy under Paul VI, John Paul II, and Benedict XVI became only more centralized. The Francis papacy was an effort to undermine the Roman curial bureaucracy and nonetheless was marked by a kind of personal, charismatic leadership confronting the strongmen of the post-liberal world order, especially Donald Trump. After Francis, where does this leave the papacy today? What are the lasting contributions of Francis to the self-understanding of Roman authority by Catholics, lay and leaders alike, around the world and within the Curia itself? Is the Leo papacy a return to the past and the longed-for status quo ante of so many Catholic conservatives? Or is it the consolidation of long-overdue changes stemming from the Council that had been put aside before Francis? What is the emerging role of the papacy in addressing the quasi-religious and messianic features of today's post-liberal and illiberal regimes?

Papers:

EMBRACING THE CRUCIFIED CHRIST AND THE CHURCH'S ABSENT CENTER: THE SHIFT FROM BENEDICT'S CHURCH OF GLORY TO LEO'S FOCUS ON THE MARGINS

Klug F. (Speaker)

University of Marburg ~ Marburg ~ Germany
The 20th century Catholic Church was deeply rooted in European thought, including Christian Neo-Platonism. Not surprisingly, Benedict XVI's theology emphasized Christ's Eucharistic presence as the ontological and liturgical foundation of ecclesial continuity. For Benedict, Christ's presence guaranteed the Church's unchallenged stability and pre-existence. Francis and Leo XIV shift the focus: the Church becomes a dynamic entity within salvation history. While Christ remains present in the Eucharist, their pontificates emphasize Christ's solidarity with human suffering. The Church is reimagined as the People of God on pilgrimage—guided by God yet actively engaged in the world. This vision fosters inclusivity, welcoming all. It positions the Church as a counterforce to nationalism, capitalist individualism, and societal apathy. For Francis and Leo, human fulfillment is eschatological. Contentment with the status quo risks overlooking Christ's solidarity with the marginalized. Their continuity lies in the Church's commitment to social justice, reflecting a pastoral and prophetic stance that bridges liturgical tradition with transformative action in the world.
DONALD TRUMP LEARNED HIS CATECHISM WELL: NORMAN VINCENT PEALE, POSITIVE THINKING, AND THE GOSPEL OF WEALTH

Massa M. (Speaker)

Boston College ~ Boston ~ United States of America
Donald J. Trump is often charged with being areligious, given his regular declarations about "hating his enemies" and denouncing the Episcopal bishop of Washington, D.C. for preaching to him about compassion and forgiveness. But charging Trump with lacking a religious sensibility is to underestimate his knowledge of the catechism—that taught by Norman Vincent Peale, pastor of the Marble Collegiate Church in New York. Trump was a regular congregant at that church on 5th Avenue, and it was there that he met his first wife. Peale was the author of the best-selling Power of Positive Thinking, one of the best-selling books of the 1950s and 60s. That book presented what scholars of U.S. religion call "the gospel of self-help and mind cure." If God wants you to be a successful businessman (or whatever), what you need is a fearless confidence and ability to grab the chance of success if it presents itself. If you don't, you're simply a "loser." This theology is in more than a little tension with Catholic theology, not to mention Catholic global political perspectives, including those shaped by papal leadership.
SOVEREIGN ENTITY AND MICROSTATE FOREIGN POLICY: THE HOLY SEE'S TREATIES AND INTERESTS IN ASIA

D'Angelo M. (Speaker) [1] , Tu T.C.W. (Speaker) [2] , Selvamani M.J.P. (Speaker) [3]

Loughborough University ~ London ~ United Kingdom [1] , National Chengchi University ~ Taipei City ~ Taiwan [2] , Fu Jen Catholic University ~ Taipei City ~ Taiwan [3]
This article analyses the Vatican Holy See (VHS)'s contemporary diplomatic strategy in Asia, focusing on how it navigates a politically and religiously diverse regional environment through its capacity to conclude bilateral treaties and pursue its international interests and mission. Drawing on Foreign Policy Analysis, the paper maps and examines the corpus of bilateral agreements concluded between the VHS and Asian states, discussing treaty-making as both an institutional output and a strategic instrument of diplomacy. The treaty analysis is complemented by supplementary material, including the geography and functions of apostolic nunciatures and wider diplomatic mechanisms through which the VHS operates, to reconstruct how this actor translates limited material capabilities into concrete foreign-policy practice. The findings suggest that the VHS functions as a specialised microstate whose legal personality and moral authority enable it to sustain an effective diplomatic agenda despite the constraints typically associated with small-state power. The article concludes that Vatican diplomacy in Asia provides a distinctive model of microstate foreign policy, illustrating how moral and legal authority can be leveraged as alternatives to conventional coercive or economic power within the realities of international politics.
FROM A POPE OF SYNODALITY TO A SYNODAL POPE? JESUIT CHEMISTRY FOLLOWED BY AUGUSTINIAN CALCULUS

Paparella J. (Speaker)

Pontifical John Paul II Theological Institute for Marriage and Family Sciences ~ Vatican City ~ Italy
Pope Francis may well be remembered as the "pope of synodality" who brought this neologism to the attention of the whole Church. Since his election, Pope Leo XIV has already shown signs that he is a fundamentally "synodal pope," not so much because he promotes the notion of synodality, but rather by how he embodies it in his way of being and style of leadership. This paper examines the personalities, backgrounds, and governance practices of each pontiff to analyse their respective contributions to the synodal renewal of the Church. A key characteristic uniting the two pontiffs is the cultural and ecclesial framework of Latin America. Indeed, in their own rights, each of their pontificates could be interpreted as bringing to the level of the whole Church the Latin American reception of the Second Vatican Council. If there is a clear continuity in their basic priorities, there are visible differences in style and temperament. A former student of chemistry, Francis' governance style sometimes engendered (chemical) reactions at various levels of the Catholic Church. Francis did not shy away from polarities, in line with his doctoral work on the theology of Romano Guardini. Leo's education in mathematics and canon law aligns with his more composed, calm, staid, and gradual approach. Whereas Francis seemed to be in a hurry to reform the Church, Leo appears keen to take his time, with ample room for deep listening as the discernment matures. Leo has the institutional experience and personality type to undertake the patient calculus necessary to enable the prophetic vision of reform, rooted in Vatican II and reinvigorated by Francis, to settle into the structures and norms of the Catholic Church. What remains to be seen is whether synodality will durably reshape the exercise of papal authority and the functioning of the Roman Curia, and to what extent the Bishop of Rome will foster the ongoing implementation of a synodal culture at all levels of the Church moving forward.
FROM "FIELD HOSPITAL" TO "LEAVEN FOR A RECONCILED WORLD" : ECCLESIAL AND PAPAL THEOPOLITICAL RECONFIGURATION IN THE TRANSITION FROM FRANCIS TO LEO XIV

Bountsebe Ekassi J.E. (Speaker)

KU Leuven / Research Foundation Flanders ( FWO) ~ Leuven ~ Belgium
The pontificate of Pope Francis unfolded during the declining phase of a neoliberal global order whose economic, social, and ecological injustices he persistently denounced. His geopolitical posture combined prophetic critique with pastoral proximity, often expressed through the image of the Church as a "field hospital," attentive to the wounds produced by the contemporary global system. Today, however, the problem appears less the injustices of that order than the fragmentation of the international system itself and the erosion of the institutions that once sustained multilateral cooperation. The theopolitical question is therefore displaced: it concerns not only the Church's response to a wounded world, but its capacity to contribute to rearticulating the very conditions of a shared political horizon. The early interventions of Pope Leo XIV suggest the contours of such a reorientation. In his inaugural homily, Leo XIV emphasized the primacy of love and unity and described the Church as a community willing to be "made restless by history" while acting as a "leaven of harmony for humanity." These motifs indicate a shift from a primarily therapeutic ecclesial posture toward a more generative vision of the Church as a ferment of unity within a fractured world. Based on the first writings of pope Leo XIV, this paper argues that Leo XIV's vision signals a(n) (Augustinian) theopolitical reconfiguration of both the Church's global vocation and the figure of the pontiff. Rather than standing chiefly at the margins of a wounded order, the Church appears as a leaven capable of nurturing renewed forms of political and social communion and of sustaining the moral and spiritual conditions under which a shared international order might once again become thinkable.

Panel description: The term "synodality" jumped onto the contemporary Catholic scene thanks to the use of the term by Pope Francis. As a concept regarding church governance, it has an ancient lineage, one inseparably tied to the exercise of ecclesiastical power. Who listens to whom, and how? What sorts of decisions can be made by whom? Most importantly, what justifies those decisions? Ecclesial policy quickly moves from the merely operational to the doctrinal and back again. Thus, "synodality" inevitably means the development of doctrine, an understanding to which John Henry Newman, proclaimed a doctor of the church on All Saints Day 2025, notably contributed. His legacy, and that of the Vincentian canon oft cited by Francis, is universally accepted within the Catholic Church. Understanding differs, however. The German and Italian synods illustrate this, as does the Latin American continental synod, the Australian Plenary Council, and, of course, the Synod of Bishops and global design behind the Synod on Synodality that culminated in the 2023 and 2024 Roman assemblies. Based on all these experiences, what can be said of synodality? How did the various processes and structures work, or not? What were the internal contradictions? How did the inevitable power struggles play out? What about long-term implications? Will there be any? Why or why not? 

Papers:

THE ITALIAN SYNODAL PATH (2021-2025): TURNING POINT OR MISSED OPPORTUNITY FOR A SYNODAL CHURCH?

Zaccaria F. (Speaker)

Facoltà Teologica Pugliese ~ Bari ~ Italy
The synodal path of the churches in Italy (cammino sinodale delle chiese in Italia) has been, from a purely quantitative perspective, one of the most significant experiences of synodality anywhere in the world. Beginning in 2021, and thanks to the impetus of Pope Francis, more than two hundred Italian dioceses walked on a path of listening and dialogue involving about 500,000 people. This involved parishes, groups, and associations throughout the country. It activated processes and created bodies for discernment at both the local and national levels. The journey culminated in the Third Synodal Assembly in October 2025. The final document contained 124 proposals entrusted to the final discernment of the episcopal conference. The Italian synodal path offers an opportunity to examine emerging challenges and real possibilities for the synodal conversion of the church, both in the Italian context and beyond. What are the innovations and strengths, the obstacles and unresolved knots, of this national synodal journey? How does it compare with other contemporary synodal journeys abroad and with past synodal experiences of the church in Italy?
WHAT CONCERNS EVERYONE MUST BE DISCUSSED AND APPROVED BY EVERYONE.' A CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF THE DOCUMENTS OF THE 2021-2024 SYNOD ON DECISION-MAKING

Noceti S. (Speaker)

Facolta' Teologica Italia Centrale ~ Firenze ~ Italy
What do the recent synod documents have to say about decision-making processes in the Catholic Church? These documents include those of the Synod of Bishops between 2021-2024 (Preparatory Document, Instrumentum Laboris 1 and 2, Continental Synthesis Reports, Synthesis Report of the First Session, and the Final Document of the Second Session). These, examined together with the document on synodality of the International Theological Commission (2018) and the Synthesis Document of the Italian Synodal Path (2025), offer a unique opportunity to highlight achievements and open questions for the future of ecclesial decision-making.
AGENCY AND AUTHENTIC AUTHORITY IN THE SYNODAL PROCESS: LESSONS FROM MELANESIA

Francisco-Tan C. (Speaker)

Catherine McCauley Services LTD/Broken Bay Institute ~ Melbourne/Sydney ~ Australia
Asymmetrical listening shaped by colonial and ecclesial power persists in a largely Eurocentric global Church despite demographic shifts towards the Global South. The Church's structures, decision-making, fundamental philosophy and epistemology reflect Western priorities and ecclesial models. A theological lag emerges as "spiritual colonisation" or "ideological imperialism." The lived realities of authentically doing and being Church are often compromised by the push for "uniformity" at the expense of "unity," indicative of unreflected spiritual coloniality. How does synodality correct the asymmetrical power that silences voices from the Global South through this surd? This paper proposes a theology of synodal transcendence arising from a Melanesian horizon, rooted in Pope Francis's view that synodality is "an ecclesial journey that has a soul, which is the Holy Spirit." Thus, it transcends synodality as merely for conflict resolution, doctrinal modification, or abstract rhetoric. Synodality's universal call to conversion must address the hegemony of a Western-centric theology that prioritises uniformity over unity at the expense of genuine agency, authority, and integrity, particularly for voices from the Global South. Three interweaving concerns are analysed in relation to this: 1. A rereading of Vatican II's aggiornamento vis-a-vis Pope Francis's insistence on synodality for conversion, as a change in consciousness for changed consciences. 2. Synodal Education as mutual conversation and conversion, through probing existential and theological questioning on the cognitional, epistemological and metaphysical for interrogating power imbalances. 3. A hermeneutics of Melanesian culture, traditions, and cosmology for re-authoring understandings of authority, agency and authenticity without compromising synodality with Melanesian women's woundedness being the theologici loci for this reflection.
DO WE NEED OMBUDSMAN IN THE CATHOLIC CHURCH?

Roeske M. (Speaker)

Polish Congress of Catholic Women and Men ~ Poznań ~ Poland
The aim of the paper is to reflect on the need to introduce a new institution of ombudsman to the system of the Catholic Church and to the canon law. Would the new institution reduce the power imbalance/assymetry in the Church (especially between the laity and the clergy) and promote synodality? Would it ensure better protection of the weaker? Would it provide effective conflict resolution mechanisms? Is it even possible to introduce the institution of ombudsman into the Church now?

Panel description: How do the particular churches—canonically understood as dioceses and their equivalent in the Eastern Churches—relate to the "one, holy, catholic, apostolic" ecclesial reality? This is not only a question from the Council of Nicaea 1700 years ago. It is a burning question today, all the more as other Christian traditions face schism, whether between the Ukrainian and Russian Orthodox churches, the Anglican Communion and GAFCON, or the now-disunited United Methodist Church. It is deeply connected as well to the rise of non-denominational Christians spurred on by new technologies, organizational possibilities, and political-ideological cleavages offering revolutionary new way of resourcing and communicating. The question here is about Global Catholicism, inevitably part and parcel of this larger context. What does Catholicism look like on the ground in its various instantiations? How does it hold together? What centripetal and centrifugal forces are at play in the vast network that is Global Catholicism? Is a common juridical authority, based ultimately on concepts derived from ancient Roman law, sufficient to hold together something that is no longer an imperial construct? What can we learn from stories of specific Catholic churches in specific places? What does an historically grounded geo-ecclesiological lens offer? What might that suggest for the third millennium of the Catholic Church, one characterized not by an overwhelming presence in a limited part of the world but by a moderate to significant presence all over the world? Can lessons regarding catholicity per se speak to politics and political questions at a time of fragmentation and global power vacuums rapidly being filled by players acting on naked self-interest? What about doctrine of war and of peace? If all politics is local, surely all ecclesiology is local as well. 

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MENDING THE FISHERMEN'S NET: NETWORK DYNAMICS FOR RELATING AND RECONCILING GLOBAL AND LOCAL CHURCHES

Thomas S. (Speaker)

Palm Beach Atlantic University ~ Palm Beach ~ United States of America
How might an ecclesial model help make actionable, theological sense out of a global Church related to myriad, diverse, often diverging local churches? Observations and over 100 interviews during and after the second session of the Synod on Synodality together with abductive analysis shows how network model explains the perennial question of how local churches relate to the universal church. This emphasizes a polycentric structure that facilitates global listening. It offers a way for pastoral councils to represent and listen to the entire local church. Network dynamics account for ecclesial dynamics regardless of scale, giving a common grammar to how the Church works. A network ecclesiology enables a more realistic understanding of power and persuasion in the Church, of the efficacy of ecclesial efforts toward peacebuilding, mission, and integral human development. Such a grammar of ecclesial dynamics informs how the Church handles tensions between local churches and beyond, safeguarding against ecclesial division. Attention to these network dynamics helps focus on discerning God's unifying, reconciling, sanctifying, liberative action.
K-POP TO K-TRUMP IN GLOBAL TO LOCAL RELIGIOUS RESPONSE TO KOREAN POLITICAL TURMOIL

Bretzke J. (Speaker)

John Carroll University ~ Cleveland ~ United States of America
Centripetal and centrifugal forces were clearly at play in the tug-of-war between political movements in the aftermath of the President Yoon Seok Yeol's unsuccessful imposition of martial law in South Korea in December 2024. Popular culture social protests by college-age Koreans have clearly developed since the 1980's anti-authoritarian demonstrations against martial law dictatorships. The 2024-2025 protests saw newer formats of collective resistance and response using many of the dynamics popularized by the "soft power" associated with the Hallyu ("Korean cultural wave of K-Pop and K-Drama K-Pop and K-Drama). This has implications for contemporary Global Catholicism and the self-understanding of the Church in contexts that are simultaneously global and local. The Korean political protests in the 1980s and 2024-2025 contain various genres of protest demonstrations, suggesting performative differences while lifting up key common denominators such as the strong sense of collectivity found in both eras. This offers an opportunity for a theological interpretation of freedom in light of global Catholicism and emerging geopolitical realities.
Holding the Center without a Center? Geo-Ecclesiology as Public Missiology in the Study of Global Catholicism

Froehle B. (Speaker)


The third millennium of the Catholic Church will be characterized not by an overwhelming presence in a limited part of the world but by a moderate to significant presence around the world. Tectonic shifts in the global political order and a corresponding move from post-coloniality to decoloniality demands a re-imagination of a center with a center during this time of a change of eras. The global Christian context will surely be defined less by a denominational economy than a geoecclesiology. Public missiologists, ecclesiologists, and church historians have an opportunity to engage the contemporary reality, accumulated data, and emerging grounded theory for a renewed narrative and method proper to the emerging third millennium. Catholic theologizing will find resources in the question of subsistit in (Vatican II, Lumen Gentium 8), the sensus fidelium, and the development of doctrine. This requires empirical consideration of centripetal and centrifugal forces at play in the vast network that is Global Catholicism today. It is doubtful that a common central juridical authority, legitimated on cultural concepts derived from ancient Roman law, can itself hold together something that is no longer an imperial construct. The realities of specific Catholic church networks in specific places will instead shed light on what an historically, praxiologically grounded geo-ecclesiological lens can offers. Synthesizing the rich ethnographies and local studies over recent years offers profound possibilities to empower a geoecclesiological approach that advances a new frame for the study of Global Catholicism.

Panel description: This panel examines Catholic Social Teachingas a central normative framework for interpreting equality and inequality, with particular attention to its internal tensions, historical transformations, and institutional embeddedness. Catholic social thought is grounded in the principles of human dignity, solidarity, subsidiarity, and justice, yet it has always developed in close interaction with concrete social realities, power relations, and historically constituted hierarchies. The panel explores how the normative moral reasoning of Catholic Social Teaching engages empirical social analysis. Contributions address the anthropological and moral foundations of equality, the relationship between freedom and hierarchy, the changing interpretations of poverty and structural injustice, and the transformation of war and peace ethics within CST. Special attention is given to the ways in which Catholic normative ideals encounter institutional practices, including education, ecclesial governance, legal regulation, and academic institutions. The panel welcomes historical, legal, political-theoretical, and social-scientific approaches insofar as they place Catholic Social Teaching at the center of analysis and contribute to its critical and methodological reflection. Comparative and interreligious perspectives—especially dialogue with Jewish thought—are also included where they serve to clarify the specific character, possibilities, and limits of CST. Overall, the panel aims to show how Catholic Social Teaching functions both as a critical resource for addressing social inequalities and as a historically situated discourse marked by unresolved tensions between normative ideals and social realities. In doing so, the panel contributes to the broader objectives of EuARe 2026.

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FREEDOM AND INEQUALITY IN CATHOLIC SOCIAL AND POLITICAL THOUGHT: THE CLASSICS

Nyirkos T. (Speaker)

Ludovika University of Public Service ~ Budapest ~ Hungary
While contemporary Christian theology is often concerned with reducing inequality, less attention is paid to those arguments that have maintained throughout history that inequality is part of the natural order, and is therefore in accordance with the will of God. Although Augustine often emphasized that there existed a "spiritual equality" of humanity, for him it did not eliminate the need for external social hierarchies. Aquinas made a similar point in the Summa, and it would become a commonplace in the Middle Ages that an equality of possessions or power in all sections of the community was inconvenient and inconsistent. As for political inequality, it was also often pointed out that the very concept of power presupposed it. Even democratic regimes were hierarchical, manifesting the power of the majority over a minority, against which the best antidote was not more equality, but more freedom, based on a careful balancing of different powers. Christian forerunners of social contract theory carefully distinguished between the origins of power itself and the act of choosing the person(s) by whom this power shall be exercised, preserving the divine status for the former. Since later, secular contractarianism tended to mix these two aspects, the Catholic critics of modernism once again reiterated the embeddedness of social and political hierarchy in the nature of creation, viewing it not as a constraint but as a guarantee of true freedom. That also explains the apparent paradox of Tocqueville's claim in his Democracy in America that Catholicism - despite its hierarchical structure - was more advantageous for democracy than those egalitarian movements that promoted not freedom but independence, strengthening the negative tendencies of social and political democracy. Moreover, the idea of absolute equality was even theologically dubious, for it undermined the distinction of the human and the divine, leading to a modern version of pantheism.
THE LIMITS OF EQUALITY. JUAN DONOSO CORTÉS'S RESPONSE TO THE EGALITARIANISM

Kovács-Latyseva O. (Speaker)

Axioma Center, Pázmány Péter Catholic University ~ Budapest ~ Hungary
Catholic reflections on social inequality usually begin with modern social encyclicals, while the political-theological frameworks shaping their conceptual boundaries remain largely neglected. Examining 19th-century Catholic political theology is therefore not only of historical interest but also clarifies the assumptions behind the Church's responses to inequality. In this context, Juan Donoso Cortés's political theology is especially relevant. Although he did not develop a formal social doctrine, his reflections on the theologically grounded order and the moral limits of political rationality influenced later encyclicals and illuminate the Catholic understanding of equality and justice. In Donoso's thought, equality appears primarily on a moral-theological rather than a political level. His thinking centers on original sin, which denies that sinful humanity can create a perfectly governed and socially equal society. He rejects revolutionary egalitarianism rooted in Enlightenment ideals that elevate legal equality to an absolute principle and seek to impose it through radical means. Donoso interprets this as theological rebellion: a sinful overemphasis on human autonomy and a turning away from divine order. He accepts only a limited but fundamental equality: the moral and theological equality of all persons before God. This cannot lead to social equality, since social inequalities follow necessarily from fallen human nature and cannot be eliminated by legal or social reforms alone. This distinction contributed to the Catholic tradition's emphasis on moral order over egalitarian promises. Donoso's arguments indirectly influenced Pope Pius IX's critique of modernity, especially the logic of the Syllabus, and later shaped the moral-anthropological framework within which Pope Leo XIII addressed social inequality in Rerum Novarum.
THE PRE-POLITICAL FOUNDATIONS OF THE POLITICAL COMMUNITY IN THE SOCIAL TEACHING OF POPE BENEDICT XVI

Jancsó A. (Speaker)

Mathias Corvinus Collegium, Pázmány Péter Catholic University, Ludovika University of Public Service ~ Budapest ~ Hungary
This presentation examines how Pope Benedict XVI's social teaching contributes to understanding the normative foundations of the modern political community, with particular attention to the problem of equality and inequality. As a point of departure, it engages Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenförde's thesis that the liberal state depends on moral and cultural preconditions it cannot generate by itself. In Joseph Ratzinger's interpretation, these "pre-political" foundations - anthropological, moral, and religious assumptions - decisively shape conceptions of justice, human dignity, and social solidarity. The first part of the presentation reconstructs Ratzinger's argument that a pluralist state cannot be fully value-neutral, since it presupposes a substantive understanding of the human person and moral responsibility. The second part analyzes Deus Caritas Est and especially Caritas in Veritate, showing how normative moral claims are linked to empirical social realities such as structural inequalities, uneven development, and asymmetries of power. In Caritas in Veritate, Benedict XVI criticizes purely technocratic or market-driven approaches to development and emphasizes the equal dignity of persons, the ethical limits of economic rationality, and the need for solidarity and institutional responsibility in addressing global inequalities. The presentation argues that Benedict's social teaching provides critical resources for evaluating unjust forms of inequality, while also revealing internal tensions between universal moral ideals and historically contingent institutional arrangements. In doing so, it contributes to methodological debates in Catholic social thought and to broader interdisciplinary discussions on equality, justice, and the normative foundations of political community.
DIMENSIONS OF POVERTY IN PAPAL SOCIAL ENCYCLICALS

Darabos Á. (Speaker)

Ludovika University of Public Service, Axioma Center ~ Budapest ~ Hungary
In terms of social issues, the question of inequalities has become one of the top priorities under the papacy of Francis (2013-2024) and - most lately - Leo XIV (2024-). Social encyclical Laudato Si' and Fratelli Tutti, though from different angles, address several aspects of inequality, including poverty, which is addressed in greater detail in the Apostolic Exhortation Dilexit Te. As Pope Leo XIV argues in this papal document, "there are many faces of the poor and of poverty, since it is a multifaceted phenomenon", including material poverty, spiritual poverty, cultural poverty and so forth. It should be understood that this thread of social attentiveness towards the poor, and even if now it is present in a robust form, has always been at the forefront of the Catholic social teachings from Leo XIII's Rerum Novarum issued in 1891. This presentation aims to outline how the concept of poverty has evolved over the past 135 years in papal social encyclicals, with particular focus on its definitions and different elements of poverty. In this way, by understanding the dimensions of poverty, the question of inequality can also be addressed more nuanced.
SYSTEMATIC EVIL AS A PROBLEM OF INEQUALITY IN THE SOCIAL TEACHING OF THE CHURCH

Nagypál S. (Speaker)

Mathias Corvinus Collegium, Eötvös Loránd University ~ Budapest ~ Hungary
The social teaching of the Church gives a special importance to inequalities within society, especially in connection with the main principles of human dignity and justice. A morally powerful source of social inequality is systematic evil. The concept under different names (structures of sin, social sin, structural sin) was especially prominent in the social teaching of Pope John Paul II, culminating in his encyclical letter Sollicitudo Rei Socialis; but used even before that, in his apostolic exhortation Reconciliatio et Pænitentia. The concept has finally found its way into the Catechism of the Catholic Church (1992), where it is defined as follows: "Structures of sin are social situations or institutions that are contrary to the divine law. They are the expression and effect of personal sins." After looking at the history of the concept, the paper examines the relationship between personal sin and structural sin (institutional sin), especially in connection with personal as well as social guilt and responsibility. Within moral theology, hamartiology studies the reality of sin. The paper is interested in the way in which, apart from the well-studied personal sin, evil is present and active in the world through social structures, and in what kinds of moral-theological problems this creates. The experiences of the twentieth century with the two totalitarian dictatorships have taught us that we have to take very seriously the presence of evil in the world, not just in its personal form, but also through its structural, institutional, and systematic workings. How is this experience different from those of earlier ages? Systematic evil is a grave force present and active in the world, when it is not only personal wrong decisions and wrongdoings that corrupt the workings of the created order, but evil is also powerful in the entities of the whole human society, contributing among others to relationships of inequality in the social order.
WAR, PEACE, AND INEQUALITY: REASSESSING CATHOLIC SOCIAL TEACHING IN A POST-JUST WAR FRAMEWORK

Fenyves K. (Speaker)

Mathias Corvinus Collegium, Pázmány Péter Catholic University ~ Budapest ~ Hungary
This paper examines a major paradigm shift in Catholic Social Teaching on war and peace, arguing that the contemporary move from just war to just peace is not merely a pastoral adjustment but a deeper transformation in Catholic normative reasoning. Situating this shift within the tradition's broader engagement with social inequality, the paper shows how inherited moral frameworks are reconfigured in response to historical change, empirical experiences of violence, and power asymmetries. Using a comparative hermeneutical approach, the paper places the twentieth-century Catholic re-reading of the Augustinian bellum iustum tradition—from Benedict XV through Vatican II to recent papal teaching—into dialogue with rabbinic interpretive dynamics that prioritize peace through inversion and recontextualization. The turn toward just peace is interpreted as the retrieval of a previously marginalized theological horizon: an Augustinian theology of peace long implicit beneath the formal structures of just war theory. By highlighting the methodological transition from a classicist to a historically conscious moral framework, the paper analyzes how Catholic Social Teaching negotiates the tension between universal normative claims and concrete social conditions marked by inequality, structural violence, and technological escalation. The emergence of just peace discourse illustrates how Catholic moral reasoning challenges entrenched hierarchies of legitimacy, especially those normalizing coercion, while also introducing new ambiguities when ethical responsibility shifts from fixed criteria to historically situated discernment. Overall, the paper presents Catholic Social Teaching as a living and contested discourse, capable of critiquing inequality and violence yet continually shaped by the unresolved tension between authoritative tradition, historical context, and the ethical demands of peace.
FREE EDUCATION VS. TUITION - CATHOLIC SOCIAL TEACHING AND PIARIST SCHOOLS

Balla J. (Speaker)

Ludovika University of Public Service ~ Budapest ~ Hungary
Catholic social teaching (CST) insists that everyone has an inalienable right to an education adapted to their abilities and culture, preparing them for social participation and unity. It teaches that the human person is both sacred and social and that institutions must enhance human dignity. This presentation examines how these ideals confronted educational policies in the Kingdom of Hungary between 1849 and 1918. Piarist schools, created to offer free Christian education to poor boys, operated under imperial laws that repeatedly imposed tuition to exclude "undeserving" pupils. Joseph II's reforms, later revived in the 1849 "Entwurf," introduced compulsory tuition alongside other centralizing measures, prompting resistance and steep declines in enrolment. Throughout the latter half of the nineteenth century, government decrees raised fees and required payment to royal tax authorities, while parish councils tried to protect poorer students through exemptions and subsidies. In Kecskemét, for example, the Piarist school that had offered free tuition was forced to levy fees in the 1850s; local protests led to partial abolition, yet imperial ministries continued to insist on standardized charges. Subsequent resolutions oscillated between nominal and substantial fees, underscoring how education became a fiscal tool. By tracing these debates, the paper argues that Piarist schools functioned as laboratories where CST's ideals of human dignity, solidarity and subsidiarity clashed with imperial fiscal priorities. The tension between free education and tuition illustrates how Catholic institutions both contested and reproduced social hierarchy, offering insights for current discussions about justice and access.
THE ROLE OF CATHOLIC UNIVERSITIES IN PROMOTING SOCIAL EQUALITY

Ujházi L. (Speaker)

Ludovika University of Public Service ~ Budapest ~ Hungary
The Catholic Church is deeply committed to promoting social equality and justice. This presentation examines the legal and historical development of Catholic academic research addressing these pressing social issues. Historically, the theoretical framework for addressing societal issues was primarily theological. However, the Second Vatican Council initiated a paradigm shift, calling for a broad dialogue between theology and other disciplines—such as economics, law, and sociology—to effectively address social inequalities and the unjust distribution of goods. The analysis examines the role of Catholic and ecclesiastical universities in this mission, highlighting how legal frameworks, particularly the Apostolic Constitution Veritatis Gaudium, support transdisciplinary research. The study argues that to genuinely promote social equality, universities must develop distinct methodologies that integrate Catholic social teaching with secular sciences. By addressing issues such as poverty, economic vulnerability, and human dignity through a transdisciplinary lens, Catholic higher education can serve as a powerful instrument for advancing social equality and the common good.
COMPARING CATHOLIC SOCIAL TEACHING AND JEWISH APPROACHES

Király I.M. (Speaker)

Ludovika University of Public Service ~ Budapest ~ Hungary
This presentation examines Catholic Social Teaching on (in)equality through an interreligious lens by bringing it into dialogue with Jewish religious thought and Jewish institutional practices. The presentation explores how the Jewish tradition approaches social inequalities, identifying the key concepts (i.e. Tzedek, Tzedakah, Kavod HaBriyot) and historical experiences (marginalized minority experience, legal inequlities and communal self-organization) that shape this perspective, and analyzes the role of Jewish organizations and institutions in addressing inequality. The analysis offers a comparative analysis of Catholic and Jewish theoretical frameworks and practical experiences, identifying areas of overlap while also highlighting key differences between the two approaches. It argues that, although Jewish and Catholic perspectives diverge in important respects and the institutional frameworks within which they operate differ significantly, their shared roots and forms of cooperation—or, in some cases, parallel engagement in clearly defined fields—ultimately contribute to the broader common good. The paper contributes to the incorporation of interreligious analysis into scholarly debates on inequality and to the further methodological development of the panel's analytical framework.

Panel description: The geopolitical context increasingly includes the religious dimension among the decisive factors in political choices (D. Johnston - C. Sampson 1994; Cesari 2022) and the proliferation of organizations dedicated to interreligious dialogue within different traditions is further confirmation (Howard 2021; Driessen 2023; Phan-Tran 2024) of its importance, regardless of one's possible affiliation. The conciliar document Nostra Aetate (28 October 1965) led the foundations for interreligious dialogue. For the first time, other faiths are being viewed not through the category of true/false, but with fraternity, seeking to discover what unites the different traditions and what elements might be used for dialogue and coexistence. The significance of this new path immediately reveals a political face: in fact, interreligious dialogue is a tool for freeing faith from political exploitation and to overcome the social-political inequality. The knowledge of religious traditions can therefore be a way to foster public discussion, facilitating inclusion and negotiation, unmasking the prejudices that can lead to social polarization, to overcome the social-political inequality and contributing to a social cohesion that transcends affiliations (Cesari 2022; Phan-Tran 2024). At the intersection of geopolitics and interreligious dialogue, this panel explores the connection among the hermeneutics of sacred texts, political power, and eschatological visions. Specifically, it aims to highlight the questions that emerge from the interaction among the interpretation of sacred texts — which contributes to the construction of religious imaginaries — the horizon of meaning, including its ultimate destination, and political legitimacy. The goal is to acquire tools to address the complexity of this interaction, with a particular focus on inequality In this panel, organized by Georgetown University Rome Office, scholars present their reflections from different disciplinary fields.

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AN INTRODUCTORY OVERVIEW OF THE INTERACTION BETWEEN GEOPOLITICAL POWER, HERMENEUTICS OF SACRED TEXTS, AND ESCHATOLOGY

Tonelli D. (Speaker)

Georgetown University ~ Rome ~ Italy
The introductory talk aims to provide a general overview, within which subsequent talks will address specific issues at the intersection of geopolitics and interreligious dialogue. This panel explores the connection among the hermeneutics of sacred texts, political power, and eschatological visions. Specifically, it aims to highlight the questions that emerge from the interaction among the interpretation of sacred texts — which contributes to the construction of religious imaginaries — the horizon of meaning, including its ultimate destination, and political legitimacy. The goal is to acquire tools to address the complexity of this interaction, with a particular focus on inequality.
THE CURRENT STATE OF THE INTERRELIGIOUS DIALOGUE

Pahn P. (Speaker)

Georgetown University ~ Washington D. C. ~ United States of America
The presentation begins with an assessment of the current state of interreligious dialogue within the Catholic Church, focusing on Pope Francis's teaching and some contemporary theologians. It then examines its impact on the political sphere, especially in India and China. It concludes with reflections on its future trajectory.
INTERRELIGIOUS DIALOGUE WITHIN THE POLITICAL CONTEXT OF VATICAN II AND SUBSEQUENT DEVELOPMENTS ADDRESSING RELIGIOUS AND POLITICAL CONCERNS

Borelli J. (Speaker)

Georgetown University ~ Washington D. C. ~ United States of America
The Secretariat for Promoting Christian Unity, tasked with addressing relations with Jews in the preparations for Vatican II, eventually assumed responsibility for three groundbreaking texts on ecumenical relations, interreligious relations, and religious liberty. The sixteen documents and other conciliar acts of Vatican II build on one another and unfold thematically. One needs to study the whole of Vatican II to understand these developments, as Paul VI observed at its close. The1964 encyclical of Paul VI on the church, Ecclesiam Suam, provided a basis for a theology of communion while the 1963 encyclical, Pacem in Terris, of John XXIII on world peace provided a basis for an expansion of Catholic social teaching into the modern world of global politics and religious diversity. Following the council, interreligious dialogue and relations, as promoted by the Catholic Church but developed in various kinds of interreligious projects and events, has followed two paths, one largely of spiritual engagement and edification and mostly through social and political and social engagement. Despite the claim that Nostra Aetate had a "purely religious character," the document carried political implications for 1965, and the interreligious relations that it launched for Catholics unfolded in diverse and interrelated religious and political contexts. Major milestone for understanding the value of interreligious dialogue were both political and religious. These will be noted. The character of interreligious relations has consequently changed with successes and failures. That will be discussed as well. The 2020 encyclical of Pope Francis, Fratelli Tutti, on fraternity and social friendship, although the pope himself identified it as "a social encyclical," is the long-awaited encyclical on interreligious dialogue, framed with his particular understanding of dialogue as accompaniment and encounter.
WISDOM AND APOCALYPTIC DISCOURSES IN INTERRELIGIOUS RELATIONS

Lefebure L. (Speaker)

Georgetown University ~ Washington D. C. ~ United States of America
The Bible offers varying perspectives on interreligious relations and politics. The report of the visit of the Queen of Sheba to King Solomon in 1 Kings 10 reflects a shared international, cosmopolitan horizon for the pursuit of wisdom in the Ancient Near East; and the Sermon on the Mount/Sermon on the Plain reflects on wisdom expressed in the lilies of the field and the birds of the air in ways that resonate with many religious traditions. On the other hand, the reference of the Book of Revelation to "a synagogue of Satan" (Rev 2:9) and the warning about the antichrist in 1 John 2 gave rise to a tragic history of apocalyptic condemnations of Jews and later Muslims as enemies of God. This presentation will examine the intertwining of sapiential and apocalyptic perspectives in the Bible and the later Christian tradition. Some Christians throughout the centuries have interpreted political events through an apocalyptic lens, often demonizing other communities and encouraging violence. Nonetheless, the heritage of the biblical wisdom teachers, including the sapiential discourse of the Sermon on the Mount/Sermon on the Plain offers resources for shaping an interreligious pursuit of shared values, as evidenced by the visit of Howard Thurman to Mahatma Gandhi.
SACRED TEXTS, POLITICAL IMAGINARIES, AND THE GLOBAL STRUGGLE FOR RELIGIOUS LEGITIMACY

Cesari J. (Speaker)

Georgetown University ~ Washington D. C. ~ United States of America
This paper investigates the interpretive role of sacred texts in shaping political imaginaries across contemporary geopolitical contexts. Drawing on previous research on the politicization of religion in global affairs (Cesari 2022), I argue that the hermeneutics of scripture not only inform theological worldviews but also underpin political legitimacy, sovereignty claims, and narratives of inclusion or exclusion. In particular, I focus on how religious leaders and political actors mobilize eschatological motifs — such as salvation, divine justice, or end-times visions — to assert authority and define national or civilizational identities. Through a comparative analysis of cases such as the Russian Orthodox Church's eschatological rhetoric in the context of the war in Ukraine, Islamic discourses on the ummah in the Middle East, and Christian nationalist imaginaries in Western democracies, the paper will analyze how sacred texts are selectively interpreted to serve political ends. By situating scriptural interpretation at the nexus of eschatology and political power, this paper contributes to a broader understanding of how religious narratives can either entrench polarizing ideologies or open new pathways for coexistence and democratic negotiation. Ultimately, it calls for a rethinking of religious literacy in global political analysis, not merely as a cultural or identity marker, but as a dynamic force shaping public legitimacy and geopolitical alignments.

Panel description: This panel engages the recent monograph of Piotr Zygulski, Eschatological Unity: Findings from a Catholic-Shiʿi Experience (Palgrave Macmillan, 2025), which explores the potential for eschatology to serve as a common ground for both Catholicism and Shīʿa Islam. The volume discusses the role of eschatological unity as a unifying theme in theological discourse, suggesting it as a key to examine aspects of unity within Catholic eschatology and the Shīʿī belief in the Imām Mahdī. Both discussants are scholars of Islamic studies and interfaith dialogue, including specific expertise in eschatology and mysticism.

Papers:

Panel description: The "Theologies and Practices of Religious Pluralism" project, coordinated by RESET Dialogue, set itself the task to study how religious and cultural pluralism at the local, national and global levels is challenging all religious traditions in their exclusivist "truth claims". The aim of the project's clusters was to analyze and compare how different religions respond to and come to terms with "the truth of the other." Clusters inside the project dealt with Judaism, Islam, Catholicism, Protestantism and Orthodox Christianity. In this panel, the convenors of each cluster will draw on findings from their group to reflect on the question of how religious traditions practically deal with tensions that arise between the principle of individual equality and norms of community. The individual-vs.-collective binary informs many controversies inside religious traditions, and also impacts the relations between religious traditions. In response to the Annual Conference's central theme "Religion and (in)equalities", the speakers will address forms of inequality produced by religious traditions, mechanisms of mitigating inequality, and the limits and incompatibilities of theologies of equality and inequality, touching issues such as race, gender, wealth and freedom of expression.

Papers:

IN-EQUALITY IN THE CATHOLIC TRADITION: TENSIONS WITHIN CATHOLIC MORAL UNIVERSALISM

Casanova J. (Speaker)

Berkley Center for Religion, Peace and World Affairs, Georgetown University ~ Washington D.C. ~ United States of America
Since the emergence of modern Catholic Social Teaching at the end of the 19th Century, the Catholic Church has presented its social teachings as "a third way" between liberal individualism and communist collectivism. Since the *aggiornamento* of the Second Vatican Council, the sacred dignity of the human person and the preferential option for the poor have become the two leading principles of contemporary Catholic Social Thought. The presentation will examine the tensions that remain within Catholic moral universalism between: a) the individual good and the common good; b) between gender equality and the discourse of "gender ideology;" and c) between the particularistic "national interest" and the universalist interest of global humanity.
NEGOTIATING EQUALITY IN THE JEWISH TRADITION: BETWEEN COVENANT AND CONTEMPORARY PLURALISM

Cesari J. (Speaker)

Berkley Center for Religion, Peace and World Affairs, Georgetown University ~ Washington D.C. ~ United States of America
This contribution situates Judaism within the broader inquiry of how religious traditions shape, mitigate, or resist (in)equalities in a pluralistic world. It explores how the Jewish tradition negotiates the tension between individual and collective religious identity in the context of contemporary pluralism. It examines the enduring significance of the covenantal framework that defines Jewish belonging not merely in individual terms but as participation in a collective identity shaped by divine command and communal fate. The paper investigates how this collective grounding challenges liberal assumptions about individual autonomy, particularly in matters of gender roles, conversion, and interfaith engagement. At the same time, modern Jewish thinkers and communities have developed diverse theological strategies—ranging from halakhic reinterpretation to liberal theologies of inclusivity—to address inequalities within and beyond Jewish communal life. Special attention will be given to how Jewish legal and ethical discourses negotiate demands for individual equality while maintaining the sense of collective responsibility.
PROTESTANT THEOLOGIES OF PLURALISM: NEGOTIATING (IN)EQUALITY BETWEEN THE INDIVIDUAL AND THE COLLECTIVE

Passarelli A. (Speaker)

Centro Studi Confronti ~ Roma ~ Italy
Protestant traditions have long articulated a complex relationship between individual conscience, communal belonging, and the public sphere. This paper explores how Protestant theologies and practices engage the contemporary challenges of religious pluralism, with a specific focus on the tension between individual rights and collective identities. Drawing on Reformation principles such as the priesthood of all believers, freedom of conscience, and the decentralisation of ecclesial authority, Protestant communities have often championed models of pluralism grounded in equality, participation, and dialogical openness. Yet these same principles can generate new vulnerabilities: individual autonomy may conflict with communal norms, minority churches may face structural inequality, and the rhetoric of equality may obscure persistent power asymmetries—particularly in contexts marked by superdiversity and migration. Through case studies from European Protestantism, including Italian Waldensian and Methodist experiences, the paper examines how churches navigate internal diversity, interfaith encounter, and the demands of public recognition. It argues that Protestant pluralism is best understood not as a stable doctrine but as a set of dynamic practices that continually renegotiate the balance between individual agency and collective identity. This perspective illuminates both the potential and the limits of Protestant contributions to a more equal and plural society.
THE INDIVIDUAL AND THE COMMUNITY IN ISLAMIC CONTEXTS: PAST AND PRESENT

Hashas M. (Speaker)

Università di Roma Tor Vergata ~ Roma ~ Italy
Mohammed Arkoun's (1928-2010) saying that Islam is theologically Protestant and politically Catholic summarizes a lot of opposing interpretations about the place of the individual in the Muslim community in Islamic societies in the past and present. While Arkoun was secular-liberal in his perceptions of the future of the individual in the current "secular age," modern and contemporary Islamic scholarship diverges on this issue, and tries to secure a balance between the freedoms of the individual and the freedoms of the community as a society based on a solidary (solidaire) social contract. This paper-communication reflects on how Islamic thought navigates this modern achievement and predicament of liberty, and how the community can preserve its ethos in a modern context that sweeps away traditional norms of ethics and conceptions of liberty, while replacing them with secular ethics. Insights from "Islamic feminism" are part of these intellectual and social dynamics Muslim societies and Islamic thought tackle.
(IN)EQUALITY THROUGH THE PRISM OF THE INDIVIDUAL VS. THE COLLECTIVE: ORTHODOX CHRISTIANITY

Stoeckl K. (Speaker)

LUISS University ~ Roma ~ Italy
This paper starts from the observation that the individual vs. collective binary is one of the most productive tensions for Orthodox Christian theology in the 19th and 20the century, articulated in concepts such as sobornost' or person). This binary has also shaped Orthodoxy's modern self-understanding, as many Orthodox thinkers contrasted their tradition's emphasis on community with that they perceived as Western individualism. The paper will asks, how this binary has influenced Orthodox churches' approaches to questions of (in)equality in terms of social inequality, gender norms, or broader questions of social justice. The paper also wants to shows how the individual-collective tension is reflected in current intra-Orthodox conflicts. Controversies over ecclesial authority, autocephaly, and debates over human rights demonstrate how different Orthodox actors mobilize the individual vs. collective binary to justify competing theological and political claims.

Panel description: Two major Christian traditions are known for having the religious experience of the Holy Spirit as the core of their spirituality. Yet, they are not ecumenically engaged as the One Church of the Holy Trinity. Recently, however, it has been suggested by Stephen J. Land and Dony K. Donev that the centrality given to the experience of the Spirit in both St. Simeon the New Theologian's Orthodox tradition and in Pentecostalism are similar. Writings of other Byzantine fathers have also been seen as close to the Pentecostal experience. Not only that, but it has been asserted that, regarding its spirituality, Pentecostalism is more Orthodox and Eastern than Catholic and Western. This panel aims to take these claims into question by opening a space where Christians from both traditions can establish an ecumenical dialogue, charism, and theology, or theologies. From the beginning, two things are fundamental to the development of this ecumenical relationship: First, Christian unity only can be achieved through the process of accepting diversity and by means of, in Ramon Panikkar words, dialogical dialogue. Second, as Wojciech Gajewski notes, "the Pentecostal movement is an exceptionally diverse, multimillion-member, and highly dynamic phenomenon." Therefore, our primary aim is to build Christian Unity, respecting the diversity and uniqueness of each tradition. For this, we will include papers exploring the religious experience of God, ontology, pneumatology, mysticism, liturgy, worship, and sacramentality.

Papers:

ORTHODOX-PENTECOSTAL ACADEMIC DIALOGUE

Woloschak G. (Speaker)

IOTA/Northwestern University ~ Evanston ~ United States of America
The Orthodox-Pentecostal academic dialogue has thrived for over six years, bringing together a diverse group of scholars for annual in-person meetings and ongoing email conversations throughout the year. Unlike formal Church dialogues, this initiative is rooted in academia and aims to foster deeper mutual understanding. Each year, the group selects a specific topic, and both Orthodox and Pentecostal scholars contribute a paper on the subject. These papers are shared prior to the in-person gathering, where participants engage in thoughtful discussions to identify common ground and clarify differing perspectives. Following these exchanges, authors revise their papers to reflect the insights gained, and the updated works are published annually in the Journal of Pentecostal Theology. Topics covered over the years include pneumatology, ecclesiology, liturgy and prayer, church hierarchy, embodiment, and others. All contributions are being assembled into a comprehensive volume, complete with introductory material. As group membership evolves, new voices add fresh perspectives and enrich the conversation. This academic dialogue has proven invaluable, offering participants the freedom to explore issues that might be constrained in more formal settings. As a result, the group has been able to address complex and sensitive topics that are not easily discussed elsewhere, broadening the scope and depth of their engagement.
"THE SPIRIT AND THE BRIDE SAY, 'COME'": THE EUCHARIST, THE SPIRIT AND THE RENEWAL OF ECUMENISM IN SERGII BULGAKOV

Gallaher B. (Speaker)

University of Exeter ~ Exeter ~ United Kingdom
This study explores the interrelationship of pneumatology, eschatology and the Eucharist in the sophiology of Sergii Bulgakov (1871-1944) as a window into his rethinking of ecumenism. Bulgakov held, in his late theology and pastoral praxis, that only through the divided Christian churches reuniting eucharistically could the Spirit's work come to consummation, Christ return and the end of history come to completion with the divine and creaturely wisdoms (the two Sophias) being "reunited" so that 'God may be all in all' (1 Cor. 15:28). This was, above all, expressed in his quixotic June 1933 proposals for limited episcopally blessed intercommunion between the Anglican and Orthodox churches in the Fellowship of St Alban and St Sergius. The paper will explore the potential links between spiritual and sacramental renewal and the future of ecumenism through a historical and critical analysis of Bulgakov's thought. It will draw, in particular, on the author's co-founding in 2017 of the US based Orthodox-Pentecostal academic dialogue as well as his engagement with related Orthodox ecumenical encounters with Catholic, Anglican and Baptist traditions.
DIALOGUE FROM THE SPIRIT: SOME FUNDAMENTAL ELEMENTS FOR ORTHODOX-PENTECOSTAL ECUMENISM IN LATIN AMERICA

Quevedo Rodríguez A.M. (Speaker)

Universidad Santo Tomás, Colombia/Babeș-Bolyai University, Romania ~ Bogotá ~ Colombia
This paper seeks, first of all, to identify common theological horizons, especially around pneumatology: the Orthodox understanding of the Spirit as the principle of communion and sanctification, and the Pentecostal experience centered on the gifts and charismatic life. It then addresses the tensions and difficult issues, such as biblical hermeneutics, ecclesiology, and the relationship between experience and doctrine, which have generated significant distances between the two traditions. The analysis is situated within the particularities of the Latin American context, marked by social, cultural, and religious dynamics that demand a practical ecumenism oriented toward mission and social justice. Finally, it is proposed that dialogue from the Spirit constitutes not only a theological framework but also a praxis that fosters unity in diversity through spaces of prayer, reflection, and pastoral cooperation. This approach seeks to contribute to the renewal of ecumenism in Latin America, offering keys for a communion that is both faithful to tradition and open to the transformative action of the Spirit.
TEARS, TONGUES, AND WITNESS: THE MISSIOLOGICAL CHARISMS OF ORTHODOXY AND PENTECOSTAL CHRISTIANITY IN THE 21ST-CENTURY

Yong A. (Speaker)

Fuller Theological Seminary ~ Pasadena ~ United States of America
This paper explores the missiological implications of St. Symeon the New Theologian's baptism of tears and the classical pentecostal theology of Spirit-baptism by highlighting the contours of the form of discipleship they invite. Each elevates distinct charismatic expressions of the Holy Spirit's work that unfolds in not fully overlapping orthopathic and orthopraxic realms. The ecumenical church's witness to the world in the present time can benefit from both a division of missiological labor on the one hand and yet a conjoint partnership in the Spirit on the other.
FROM BAPTISM IN THE SPIRIT TO THEOSIS: A CLASSICAL-PENTECOSTAL PERSPECTIVE ON SYMEON THE NEW THEOLOGIAN'S HYMNS OF DIVINE LOVE

Amaral Pazeto M. (Speaker)

Comunidade Cristã de Jundiaí/GT Católico-Pentecostal ~ Jundiaí ~ Brazil
This paper offers a theological-pneumatological reading of Symeon the New Theologian's Hymns of Divine Love from a classical-Pentecostal perspective, bringing into dialogue the experience of Baptism in the Holy Spirit and the Orthodox doctrine of theosis. Beginning with the centrality of the Spirit's experiential presence in Symeon's spirituality, marked by divine indwelling, uncreated light, and the progressive transformation of the human person, I will explore the points of convergence between Eastern Christian mysticism and the Pentecostal understanding of Spirit Baptism as a relational and transformative experience. I argue that, despite distinct historical contexts and theological vocabularies, both traditions share an experiential soteriology in which the Holy Spirit does not merely bestow gifts but initiates the believer into an ongoing process of conformity to Christ. A close reading of the Hymns of Divine Love allows Baptism in the Spirit must be interpreted not only as charismatic empowerment, but as an event of divine love that inaugurates a dynamic path of participation in the divine life, offering significant contributions to contemporary pneumatology and ecumenical dialogue.
PALAMITE ONTOLOGY AND PENTECOSTAL-CHARISMATIC RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE: AN EXPERIENTIAL AND METAPHYSICAL THEOLOGY

Mata De Vasconcelos H. (Speaker)

Faculdade Jesuíta de Filosofia e Teologia, Belo Horizonte/Œcumenicum, Angelicum, Roma ~ Belo Horizonte ~ Brazil
This paper proposes a Pentecostal-Palamite Trinitarian ontology of Christian religious experience, based on Pentecostal and Hesychast expressions of their experience of the Trinity's revelation and re-velation in creation. Grounded in the conviction that theology must be drawn from religious experience, it argues that not only it is at the core of both traditions, but, since they share the same experiential reality—the Trinitarian God—an integrated approach to them can produce an ecumenical Trinitarian ontology. The first section traces the history to the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, to what Vladimir Lossky has termed the 'pneumatological colouring' of Byzantine theology. It seeks to identify the Trinitarian dimension of the Hesychast religious experience present in the Jesus Prayer—"Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me"—which forms part of the Hesychasts' method toward deification. The second section focuses on the Trinitarian dimensions of Pentecostal experience, specifically by exploring religious expressions in worship lyrics. Finally, taking St. Gregory Palamas' ontological theology of divine energies as a framework to interpret the religious expressions pointed out in the previous sections, a Pentecostal-Palamite Trinitarian ontology will be developed: it is through the divine energies that we experience God in creation. The Trinity's divine energies are named, drawing from the Christian encounter with God. The focus of this section will be, first, to understand how the whole Trinity is at work on the Eternal Light, which is one of the divine energies experienced by the Hesychasts. Second, from the Pentecostal side, to describe Pentecost as an energy of the Spirit, the Father's energy of paternity, and Jesus Christ's energy as Man and Son of God, as Child, Lord and Bringer of the Kingdom. Additionally, it will be clarified how each one of these energies is of the whole Trinity, although the Persons have particular roles in each of these.
THE HOLY SPIRIT, SACRAMENTS, AND AND EPICLESIS

Coman A.V. (Speaker)

University of Bucharest, Romania/KU Leuven, Belgium ~ Bucharest ~ Romania
This presentation attempts to contribute to the Orthodox-Pentecostal dialogue by looking at the decisive role of the Holy Spirit in the sacraments, with special focus on the epiclesis. It shows that even though all sacraments in the Orthodox tradition are based on fixed liturgical formula, gestures, and structures, which might look repetitive and rigid to an outsider, the invocation of the Holy Spirit by the priests during the same sacraments conveys the idea that (i) every liturgical act is not self-sufficient but receives validation from on high; (ii) the newness in our liturgical experience comes from above; (ii) and that the element of freshness is always assured by our progress in communion with God.
PENTECOSTAL THEOLOGY AS IMPLICIT LITURGICAL THEOLOGY: WORSHIP AS A BRIDGE IN PENTECOSTAL-ORTHODOX DIALOGUE

Stephenson C. (Speaker)

Lee University ~ Cleveland ~ United States of America
Pentecostalism is sometimes dismissed as a spirituality searching for a theology. Some pentecostals embrace this observation rather than seeing it as a liability. Some pentecostal theologians are now writing liturgical theology, a sub-discipline in theology that elucidates the theological meaning of elements of Christian worship and constructs theology in light of the witness of worship elements. But in addition to the pentecostal theologians who have turned to liturgical theology, the work of a number of pentecostal scholars suggests that much of academic pentecostal theology is implicitly liturgical theology. Even when pentecostal thinkers do not employ the term "liturgical theology" and the vocabulary of that theological sub-discipline, they nonetheless give Christian worship a fundamentally formative role in pentecostal discourse. This phenomenon is not monolithic; we can speak of different pentecostal models of the relationship between worship and belief. But that the phenomenon exists at all is a matter of significance. It means that pentecostalism's identity as a worshipping tradition is bound up with its identity as a theological tradition. This insight has implications for pentecostalism's ecumenical relationships, especially with those Church traditions for whom a treasured liturgical ordo is highly constitutive for Christian identity. Orthodoxy is one such Tradition. Therefore, an exposition of "implicit pentecostal liturgical theologies" can foster dialogue between pentecostalism and Orthodoxy. One of the most important gains for mutual understanding between the two Church traditions is the realization that pentecostals believe that worship makes the Church what it is. The notion of worship as constitutive for Christian identity is a point of continuity between pentecostals and Orthodox.
THE PENTECOSTALS AND THE ORTHODOX, SPIRITUAL SIBLINGS? AN OUTSIDERS REFLECTIONS

Stayne J. (Speaker)

Œcumenicum, Angelicum, Roma/Durham University, England ~ Durham ~ United Kingdom
Eastern Orthodox and Pentecostal-Charismatic Christianity might appear, at first sight, to occupy opposite poles of Christian life, theology, and worship (especially in terms of the "high church-low church" divide). More recent scholarship, however, has increasingly challenged this binary. The present paper, written from a Catholic perspective, gives an outsider's take on these contemporary discussions. In drawing out converging themes within the theology and spiritual practice, in engaging their actual interrelation historically, and in sharing reflections from the author's own life experience, the paper will propose a certain familiarity between the two. Such an examination not only illuminates underexplored affinities but also contributes to broader ecumenical reflection on diversity, experience, and, ultimately, the work of the Holy Spirit in Christianity today.

Panel description: This panel will explore the multifaceted ways in which religion both challenges and reproduces social inequalities in contemporary societies. Religion has historically been implicated in structures of power, privilege, and exclusion, yet it also functions as a space of resistance, solidarity, and social transformation. The panel invites contributions that critically examine how religious ideas, institutions, leadership structures, rituals, and community practices intersect with social stratification based on class, gender, race, ethnicity, caste, disability, age, and migration status. We welcome papers addressing theoretical, empirical, historical, and comparative perspectives. Possible themes include: religious legitimation of wealth and poverty; faith-based responses to instability, Christian genocide and social injustice; prosperity gospel and neoliberal economies; religion and welfare provision; religious NGOs and humanitarianism; the role of religious actors in promoting or resisting social mobility; intersections of religion with capitalism, labor, and informal economies; and how marginal religious groups experience inequality differently from dominant traditions. Special attention will be paid to voices from the Global South and minority communities, as well as to contributions that foreground decolonial, feminist, queer, or critical race approaches to the study of religion and inequality. The panel aims to foster interdisciplinary discussion among scholars of religion, sociology, anthropology, political science, education, and related fields. By examining how religion operates within unequal social orders, the panel seeks to illuminate both the reproduction of injustice and the possibilities for more equitable futures.

Papers:

YOUTH, RELIGION, AND INEQUALITY: EMERGING VOICES AND NEW RELIGIOUS EXPRESSIONS

Egbule P.O. (Speaker) [1] , Ibezim J.O. (Speaker) [2]

University of Delta, Agbor, Delta State, Nigeria ~ Agbor ~ Nigeria [1] , Nile University of Nigeria, Abuja ~ Abuja ~ Nigeria [2]
This paper investigates how young people are reshaping religious life while simultaneously navigating deepening social, economic, and political inequalities. In many contexts across the globe, youth face significant challenges in education, employment, housing, migration, and civic participation, yet they remain among the most innovative agents of religious change. Drawing on theoretical and empirical insights, the paper examines how young people interpret, contest, and reimagine religious traditions within contexts marked by unequal power relations and constrained opportunities. The analysis explores the ways in which religious beliefs, practices, and communities function both as resources for coping with marginalization and uncertainty, and as sites where hierarchies of gender, class, race, ethnicity, caste, and ability are reproduced. Particular attention is paid to new religious movements, digital religious spaces, and alternative spiritualties that provide youth with spaces of belonging, identity formation, and activism. The paper also considers the forms of leadership young people assume within established faith traditions and the resistances they encounter. Special emphasis is given to youth from the Global South, diasporas' communities, and minority or marginalized groups in order to highlight the uneven distribution of opportunities and constraints shaping religious participation. The paper further analyses the role of religion in youth political engagement, peace building, environmental activism, and social justice movements, as well as contexts in which religion contributes to exclusion, radicalization, or unequal access to resources. Overall, the study demonstrates the ambivalent role of religion in shaping youth futures: it can be a site of vulnerability and constraint, yet it also offers significant resources for resilience, creativity, and the imagining of more equitable societies.
RELIGION AND ECONOMIC JUSTICE: FAITH-BASED RESPONSES TO POVERTY AND CHRISTIAN GENOCIDE IN NIGERIA

Ogwudile C.M. (Speaker) [1] , Buzome C. (Speaker) [2]

University of Delta, Agbor, Delta State, Nigeria ~ Agbor ~ Nigeria [1] , Delta State University Abraka, Nigeria ~ Abraka ~ Nigeria [2]
In recent years, Nigerian society has witnessed intensifying economic inequality and persistent insecurity, alongside targeted violence against Christian populations in parts of the country. These dynamics raise urgent questions about how religious actors respond to both structural poverty and existential threats to life, identity, and communal survival. The paper explores how churches, Christian organizations, and interfaith initiatives engage issues of economic justice through social welfare programs, education, microfinance, advocacy, and humanitarian relief. It analyses the theological frameworks, such as liberation theology, prosperity teachings, diaconal service, and peace theology that shape Christian responses to poverty and inequality. At the same time, the study interrogates narratives surrounding "Christian genocide," considering how Christian communities interpret experiences of displacement, attacks, and persecution, and how these interpretations influence collective action, political mobilization, and interreligious relations. Drawing on qualitative and documentary sources, the paper investigates how faith-based responses address both material deprivation and trauma arising from targeted violence. It pays particular attention to youth, women, internally displaced persons, and rural communities, for whom vulnerability is often compounded. Overall, the study argues that religion plays an ambivalent role: Christian institutions can serve as powerful agents of economic empowerment, reconciliation, and social solidarity, yet they also operate amid contested narratives of victimhood and injustice. By analyzing faith-based interventions in Nigeria's contexts of poverty and large-scale violence, the paper highlights both the possibilities and the limits of religious engagement in advancing economic justice and protecting vulnerable communities.

Panel description: Over recent decades, the understanding and study of mixed couples, families, and unions in Europe has gained even more increasing attention, not only in the social sciences, but also in contemporary politics (Cerchiaro and Odasso 2021). Despite this growing interest, there remains a gap in comprehensive scholarship that addresses the nuanced experiences of mixedness and mixed relationships—those formed by individuals of differing racial, ethnic, or religious backgrounds—in a postcolonial European context (Collet 2017). This panel seeks to fill this gap by offering detailed accounts of how those in mixed unions navigate and reshape their relations, identities, and social expectations in contemporary Europe. Using "mixedness" as a multidimensional, contingent, context-dependent, relational, and historically (re)formed concept, this panel moves beyond traditional and binary understandings of "interracial" or "interfaith" couples, examining how "mixedness" is lived and experienced within postcolonial, and social frameworks, and how individuals in mixed relations occupy complex social positions based on different forms and grammars of difference (Collet and Santelli 2016). The panel addresses a range of themes, including the impact of history and colonial legacies on present-day experiences of mixedness, the role of antisemitism and islamophobia, and configurations of race, religion, secularity, ethnicity, and gender. It additionally brings forward the ways in which individuals in mixed relations navigate societal prejudices and norms, construct perceptions on and formations of mixedness, as well as strategies for dealing with differences. By bringing together empirical studies from the Netherlands and Belgium, and research from diverse disciplines such as anthropology, history, religious studies, and gender studies, this panel provides much-needed multifaceted perspectives and conversations on the challenges and opportunities faced by mixedness and mixed relationships.

Papers:

MIXEDNESS, RELIGION, AND THE POLITICS OF INTIMATE LIFE IN POSTCOLONIAL EUROPE

Moyaert M. (Speaker)

KU Leuven ~ Leuven ~ Belgium
This paper introduces mixedness as a conceptual and analytical framework for studying intimate life in postcolonial Europe. Mixedness is defined as partnership across socially meaningful boundaries—such as religion, race, migration status, and legal category—where deviation from dominant norms shapes recognition, legitimacy, and belonging. The paper traces the historical trajectory of scholarship on mixed relationships, from early pathologizing and regulatory approaches to later emphases on lived experience and contemporary intersectional, power-sensitive analyses. Particular attention is given to religion as an axis of inequality and negotiation, shaped by secular Christian normativity, colonial legacies, and shifting regimes of marked and unmarked religion. Drawing on feminist theory, postcolonial studies, lived religion, and the politics of intimacy, the paper argues that mixed intimate life constitutes a crucial site where structural hierarchies are reproduced, contested, and reconfigured. Mixedness thus offers a lens through which broader societal power relations become visible, negotiated, and unsettled.
THE IMPACT OF THE 2024 MACCABI RIOTS IN AMSTERDAM ON MIXED JEWISH-NON-JEWISH COUPLES: ANTISEMITISM AND ITS INSTRUMENTALISATION

Schrijvers L. (Speaker)

VU ~ Amsterdam ~ Netherlands
This paper analyzes how Jewish-Christian couples in the Netherlands responded to the 'Maccabi riots' in November 2024, when a football match between Amsterdam's Ajax and Maccabi Tel Aviv led to violence. The incident sparked nationwide and global outcry, dominating public and political discourse for weeks. In the days that followed, two dominant narratives emerged: framing the riots as a 'pogrom' and viewing the unrest as a symptom of a broader 'integration crisis'—pointing to the MENA background of perpetrators. Both frames are emblematic of the emerging politics of fear and instrumentalisation of antisemitism against Muslims and Arabs. While assaults on Israelis were widely condemned, the violence committed by Maccabi hooligans received much less attention. The impact of this situation on the daily lives of mixed couples illustrates the interplay between political discourse and personal experiences amidst the geopolitical shadows of the Gaza genocide after the Hamas attacks on Israel in October 2023. I explore the heightened anxieties faced by Dutch Jews in relationships with non-Jews, in response to political and media discourses. Strategies of dialogue, self-isolation, and critique emerged as key ways to cope with the situation. Additionally, differences in reflections on the riots between partners shed light on everyday life in a heavily polarized society. I argue that it is crucial to acknowledge the shock and threat experienced by Jews during this time, while also necessitating a critical analysis of the politicisation of this anxiety, which, ultimately, does not help to combat antisemitism and risks justifying ongoing violence in Palestine. By adding an ethnographic perspective to the complex intersections of politics, media discourse, violence, and emotions, this paper contributes to a deeper understanding of the politics of fear in Europe today.
THE WORK OF NAMING: ON CATEGORIZATIONS, METHODOLOGICAL CHALLENGES, AND CHRISTIAN-MUSLIM INTIMACIES

Aktas D. (Speaker)

VU/KU Leuven ~ Amsterdam/Leuven ~ Netherlands
What is at stake in naming an intimate couple "mixed," and more specifically, "Christian-Muslim"? What kind of lives, relations, and differences are conjured, or erased, by such a designation? This paper takes these questions as its point of departure to closely look at the methodological implications of categorization within academic knowledge production, focusing on terms such as "Muslim," "Christian," "religious," and "minority." Drawing on ethnographically attuned qualitative research on (secular) Christian-Muslim couples in the Netherlands, it asks what these designations denote, who defines them, under what conditions they acquire force, and how they are inhabited, contested, or undone in everyday life. While ethnographic research frequently takes self-identification as a given, contradictions and ambiguities in lived experiences challenge static classifications, a tension further intensified when the colonial genealogies of these categories are foregrounded, along with their entanglements with other axes of power such as race, class, nationality, gender, and secular normativity, thus calling for closer attention to how their meanings take shape and are recursively transformed. This paper therefore looks at how researchers might then engage with such processes of categorization, particularly when definitions diverge, remain unstable, or fail to resonate altogether, asking whether to affirm self-identifications, push against them, attend to non-verbal cues and other modes of expression, or read classificatory impasses as symptomatic of deeper structural impossibilities. Resisting the impulse to render minoritized Muslim subjects merely as objects of analysis through the binary of sameness/difference, or to treat Christian subjects merely as the unmarked norm, this paper questions the ethical and methodological implications of naming—by whom, for whom, and to what end—and examines how such practices inscribe and delimit particular forms of life.
RELIGION, GENDER, RACE: MIXED MUSLIM COUPLES IN BELGIUM

Van Den Brandt N. (Speaker)

KU Leuven ~ Leuven ~ Belgium
This paper analyses the experiences of interreligious couples by exploring data from an ongoing research project in Belgium. It focuses on couples in which one partner is Muslim, and the other is non-religious, Christian or Jewish. It approaches 'mixedness' as potentially comprising various types of difference and inequality, because religious difference is often racialised and gendered. It explores the narratives of 24 interviewees with the following research question: how is 'mixedness' negotiated in everyday life? By foregrounding the empirical entangled themes of family relations, religious conversion, children's education and racisms, it shows that individual (non-)religious selves and family life are agential spaces of change, negotiations and life aspirations. Based on these empirical insights, the paper demonstrates that 'mixedness' is a promising analytical perspective on religion, gender and race as intersecting discourses and lived phenomena. It argues that 'mixedness' finds expression in the reinforcement, contestation and reimagining of gendered religio-racial formations. As such, the paper contributes to studies of mixedness; discussions about religion, gender and race; and the empirical study of (non-)religion and Muslims in Europe.

Panel description: The Digital Turn in Religious Studies is a shift that is nurtured by the never ending duality that presents scholars as mere technology consumers or as actors in the production of technology that are able to face the challenge of complexity (ages, cultures, languages, type of sources, type of supports, semantics) that emerges from the scientific field. The panel, promoted by RESILIENCE, the European research infrastructure for religious studies, is framed to be an open forum for all scholars who make use of advanced technologies in the study of religions. Local, national and international projects are welcome to present their research and development outputs and outcomes, to reflect on the role played by the research community in the current digital turn and to address one question: can the complexity of our field of study be a driver for technology developments that are applicable in other scientific and commercial domains?

Papers:

UNDERSTANDING THE NEEDS OF USERS, SUPPORTING THEIR UPSKILLING. CHALLENGES FOR RESILIENCE, THE EUROPEAN RESEARCH INFRASTRUCTURE ON RELIGIOUS STUDIES

Cadeddu F. (Speaker)

FSCIRE - Fondazione per le scienze religiose ~ Bologna ~ Italy
RESILIENCE, the European Research Infrastructure for Religious Studies closed its preparatory phase with a significant number of achievements which, in some cases, went beyond expectations and opened the way to the full implementation of the RI. The paper will present the most recent developments and their potential benefits to the community of users, to encourage access to its services while also presenting a reflection on the educational and training offer that is available to the community.
EXPLORING DIGITAL METHODS FOR NORMATIVE COMPLEXITY: CANON LAW SOURCES AS DATASETS

Imperia V.R. (Speaker) , Pavone A. (Speaker)

University of Palermo ~ Palermo ~ Italy
This paper explores the potential of digital methods for addressing normative complexity through the case of canon law sources, approached as a structured dataset rather than as a mere textual corpus. Focusing on the Corpus Iuris Canonici, the contribution examines how a foundational body of religious law—composed of heterogeneous sources such as Gratian's Decretum, official collections of papal decretals, and later normative collections—poses specific challenges to current digital research practices. The Corpus Iuris Canonici embodies multiple layers of complexity: the coexistence of different normative authorities, the stratification of legal time, the interaction between texts and norms, and the central role of interpretation through glosses and commentaries. When transformed into data, these features raise methodological questions concerning data modeling, semantic annotation, temporal versioning, and the representation of legal relationships within digital workflows. By analyzing canon law sources as datasets, the paper argues that normative complexity is not an obstacle to digital research, but a productive framework for exploring the limits and capabilities of digital methods in the study of religions. The case of the Corpus Iuris Canonici demonstrates how historically grounded legal-religious materials can inform the development of more robust digital approaches, with implications for other normative, institutional, and religious domains.
READING AUGUSTINE'S "CITY OF GOD" WITH UBIQUITY: ON THE INTERTEXTUAL FOUNDATIONS OF A CLASSICAL-CUM-CHRISTIAN UTOPIA

Tutrone F. (Speaker)

University of Palermo ~ Palermo ~ Italy
This paper approaches Augustine's treatise On the City of God (De civitate Dei) as a pivotal work situated between classical political thought and Christian eschatology, arguing that its rich intertextual dimension—which can now be investigated through the uBIQUity platform—plays a crucial role in the development of an extremely original and influential utopian project. Rather than proposing an ascetic withdrawal from civic life, Augustine articulates a dialectical vision in which the earthly and the heavenly cities coexist in the temporal realm, compelling Christians to engage actively in the sociopolitical order while orienting their interior life toward an eschatological fulfilment. Through a close reading of Books 10, 19, and 22 and their intertextual matrix - as reflected in the outputs of uBIQUity - the present paper highlights Augustine's complex reception of Greco-Roman traditions (particularly Platonism, Stoicism, and Cicero's philosophica) and the ways in which biblical intertextuality reshapes classical models of community, justice, and moral progress. Augustine's idea of civitas Dei emerges as a transitional utopia: simultaneously present and incomplete, grounded in ancient culture and biblical revelation, yet projected toward the final consummation of history.
RE-READING PAPAL DOCUMENTS: REGESTA, DIPLOMATICS, AND ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

Righi L. (Speaker)

Università degli studi di Modena e Reggio Emilia/FSCIRE ~ Bologna ~ Italy
This paper presents the results of the project REVER (Reverse Regesta), which investigates new paths for the study of papal documents by combining the methodological framework of papal diplomatics with artificial intelligence. Although regesta have long played a central role in the organisation and study of papal sources, the production of new collections remains a highly demanding scholarly task. REVER addresses this challenge by developing workflows, resources and tools that support the creation and structuring of regesta within a digital research environment. The project is grounded in a critical analysis and valorisation of the editorial tradition of the large documentary corpora produced by the medieval papal curia. Drawing on established historical source collections, the project produced two main outcomes: annotated datasets and the development of Regexta, a digital tool for the study of pontifical documentation. A curated training corpus was created by pairing medieval papal documents with their corresponding regesta and digitised and annotated through customised implementations of eScriptorium and INCEpTION, combining manual and automated strategies while preserving key diplomatic features. Building on this corpus, Regexta was developed as a multilingual, multi-stage tool for the summarisation of pontifical documents. By generating new, structured, and semantically consistent regesta in accordance with established diplomatic standards applied to medieval documents, the tool enables the large-scale organisation, exploration, and analysis of papal documentary corpora, including digital and born-digital materials.
A NEW NEURAL NETWORK-BASED ARAMAIC-TO-ENGLISH TRANSLATION OF THE BABYLONIAN TALMUD

Pavone A. (Speaker) , Ravasco A. (Speaker)

University of Palermo ~ Palermo ~ Italy
The GNORM tool involved the development of a neural network capable of translating the text of the Babylonian Talmud from Aramaic to English. This translation is designed to train an algorithm created specifically for this tool. It aims to find and order the sources within the Babylonian Talmud. This paper aims to highlight the unique nature of the translation developed for GNORM.
DELINEATING PROFILES OF CULTURAL IMBALANCES BETWEEN DIGITAL HUMANITIES, LIBRARIANSHIP, ISLAMIC STUDIES AND NON-LATIN SCRIPTS: REFLECTIONS FROM THE DIGITAL MAKTABA PROJECT

Vigliermo R.A. (Speaker)

Mem s.r.l. ~ Bologna ~ Italy
This paper examines the intersection of Digital Humanities, digital libraries, and Islamic studies focusing on the role of librarians in managing and organising non-Latin script materials. Starting from consideration on the Digital Maktaba project and dataset, the study explores how digital technologies have transformed cataloguing practices, particularly in relation to metadata standards, transliteration, and the representation of Arabic-script texts. By tracing the historical development of Digital Humanities, digital libraries and computational methods in text preservation and access, the study aims to highlight how previous historical and cultural imbalances are reflected in the digital realm. The main focus revolves around the issue of romanisation, its nature, evolution and role in digital cataloguing processes as a possible cultural obstacle reproposing past motives of superiority of a culture onto others, ultimately affecting resources accessibility. The present contribution aims also to analyse the impact of dominant cataloguing frameworks, such as Dewey Decimal Classification and International Standard Bibliographic Description (ISBD), in shaping access to Islamicate texts and examines how digital libraries, intended as dynamic spaces where technology and humanities converge, address these challenges.
SANCTUARIA: A DIGITAL ARCHIVE OF SANCTUARY FOUNDATION LEGENDS AND EX VOTOS

Papasidero M. (Speaker)

University of Palermo ~ Palermo ~ Italy
This paper aims to present and illustrate the key features of the Sanctuaria tool, developed as part of the activities of WP6 YASMINE of the ITSERR project. The tool brings together legends of early modern shrines and votive offerings (ex votos) from the modern and contemporary periods. These materials offer valuable historical, anthropological and artistic insights into the religious and cultural history of the centuries concerned. Sanctuaria enables users to perform both precise and semantic searches within the source corpus and provides a wide range of metadata for analytical purposes, together with the geographical localisation of the sources on a map. A particularly important feature of the tool is its expandable corpus: dedicated functions allow users (such as individual researchers, groups of students, cultural associations, etc.) to add new legends and ex-votos, which are subsequently reviewed by an internal project supervisor.
INTRODUCING THE PLORABUNT DATASET

Ruozzi F. (Speaker) [1] , El Ganadi A. (Speaker) [2]

Università di Modena e Reggio Emilia/FSCIRE ~ Bologna ~ Italy [1] , FSCIRE - Fondazione per le scienze religiose ~ Bologna ~ Italy [2]
Compared to other forms of political violence, attacks against worshippers and places of prayer pose distinctive challenges for systematic data collection, due to their geographic dispersion, uneven reporting practices, and systematic marginalization within broader terrorism datasets. In response, there has been growing scholarly interest in open-source event databases documenting violence against civilians. One of the major limitations of existing resources, however, is that they do not systematically distinguish attacks targeting religious spaces and communities, despite evidence that such incidents constitute a persistent and globally distributed phenomenon. In this paper, we introduce Plorabunt, an open-source dataset and publicly accessible online platform that documents 1,623 fatalities resulting from attacks on places of worship worldwide from 1982 to the present. The dataset was constructed through a curated aggregation and cross-validation of heterogeneous sources, including regional and thematic databases, press archives, NGO reports, diplomatic documents, legal records, and academic literature. Following its initial construction, the research team has undertaken continuous verification, source triangulation, and regular updates to correct inaccuracies, complete incomplete records, and incorporate newly identified cases. This paper describes the data collection and curation methodology underpinning Plorabunt, discusses the strengths and limitations of open-source data for documenting religiously targeted violence, and presents descriptive statistics on the scope, structure, and content of the dataset By combining structured data with a publicly accessible online platform designed for long-term preservation and access, Plorabunt supports comparative research on violence against places of worship, allowing a wide range of users to examine how patterns of such attacks differ across religious traditions, regions, and historical periods.
A WORKFLOW FOR DIGITIZING AND SHARING ETHIOPIC MANUSCRIPTS

Ferrandino G. (Speaker) , Ranieri T. (Speaker) , D'Andrea A. (Speaker)

University of Naples "L'Orientale" ~ Naples ~ Italy
The introduction of GenAI and machine learning techniques into philological studies is progressively transforming approaches to the digitization of sources. What was formerly a practice primarily aimed at the preservation of often unique paper-based documents has now evolved into an opportunity for a more rapid publication of ancient texts and for the creation of a virtual, interactive digital ecosystem. Systems for the recognition and interpretation of historical documents are achieving increasingly high levels of accuracy, even for lesser-documented languages, thereby allowing some of the most labor-intensive tasks traditionally undertaken by researchers—such as the reading and transcription of ancient texts—to be delegated to computational tools. The digital resources thus produced must subsequently be encoded in accordance with international standards to ensure their publication, retrieval, preservation, and dissemination, contributing to a redefinition of the concept of documentary archiving. In this context, the metadata creation process plays a central role, as it enables the definition of the entire workflow—both philological and technical—while contributing to the production of scholarly objects that are accessible even to users without advanced technical expertise. This contribution examines the processes of acquisition, transcription, and online publication of a collection of religious manuscripts written in Geʿez. The documents were transcribed using the Transkribus platform and subsequently encoded with the Oxygen software according to the TEI standard. To ensure interoperability, the metadata were mapped to the Dublin Core schema, a general-purpose descriptive model that nonetheless effectively supports data integration and reusability. Finally, to support scholarly study and analysis, a text annotation system was designed, whose notes can be converted into Dublin Core metadata and associated with the original historical document.
JUDGING A BOOK BY ITS FRONTISPIECE: AN "LLM-AS-A-JUDGE" APPROACH FOR CONSTRAINED TOPIC IDENTIFICATION

El Ganadi A. (Speaker)

FSCIRE _ Fondazione per le scienze religiose ~ Bologna ~ Italy
This paper presents one methodological strand implemented within the broader Digital Maktaba project, which explores AI-assisted workflows for Arabic-script digital libraries. It details a case study centred on the Giorgio La Pira Library in Palermo, addressing the specific challenge of generating semantic metadata for scholarly works when only minimal contextual information, namely a digitized frontispiece containing key data such as the title, author, and publisher, is available. The study relies on a curated subset of 5,900 Arabic-language records, including 2,200 items with digitized frontispieces, extracted from the La Pira Library's catalogue and used as a controlled evaluation dataset. On the basis of this dataset, a constrained evaluation protocol was implemented to test whether large language models can generate accurate subject topics for a work using only textual information extracted from its frontispiece, without access to external retrieval mechanisms. Model outputs are assessed using an LLM-as-a-judge evaluation protocol anchored to a curated ground-truth topic dataset, enabling systematic comparison of generated topics against expert-derived annotations. The analysis evaluates topic alignment and systematises recurring AI-induced error (hallucination) typologies, including semantic distortion, fabrication, overgeneralisation of subject categories, and misattribution driven by authorial or canonical associations. Overall, this work proposes a replicable evaluation approach for assessing LLM behaviour in low-context metadata generation tasks and contributes a benchmark dataset and analytical strategy relevant to digital libraries managing heterogeneous and resource-constrained collections.
ARABIC TOPIC MODELING WITH LLMS: A PROMPTING-BASED APPROACH

Aftar S. (Speaker) [1] , Vigliermo R.A. (Speaker) [2]

University of Modena and Reggio Emilia ~ Modena ~ Italy [1] , Mem s.r.l. ~ Bologna ~ Italy [2]
As conventional topic models rely on word co-occurrence to infer latent topics, topic modeling for Arabic literary abstracts presents unique challenges due to Arabic's morphological complexity and the semantic richness of literary discourse. Large Language Models (LLMs) can potentially overcome these challenges by contextually learning the meanings of words via pretraining. In this paper, we study multiple approaches to using LLMs for Arabic topic modeling: parallel prompting, sequential prompting, hierarchical two-stage prompting, and interactive refinement. To address Arabic specific linguistic characteristics, we investigate three preprocessing strategies, surface forms, root-based extraction using CAMeL Tools, and hybrid enrichment, and evaluate their impact on topic quality. We compare both proprietary models (GPT-4, Claude) and open source Arabic LLMs (Llama, Falcon, Jais-13b, AceGPT-13B) to assess cost effectiveness for Arabic applications. Our experimental results demonstrate that LLM based methods can identify more coherent topics than traditional approaches (BERTopic, LDA) while maintaining topic diversity. We introduce Arabic-specific evaluation metrics including root diversity, diacritic-insensitive coherence, and literary term coverage to provide nuanced assessment beyond standard metrics (C_v, TU). Furthermore, we found that domain aware prompting strategies and hierarchical topic discovery enhance the interpretability of topics in Arabic literary contexts, while document coverage analysis confirms minimal topic manipulation.
DAMSYM: SEMANTIC RETRIEVAL ACROSS MULTIPLE LINGUISTIC AND RELIGIOUS TRADITIONS

Napolitano M. (Speaker) [1] , Scapini E. (Speaker) [2] , Iezzi F. (Speaker) [2] , Panzeca I. (Speaker) [3] , Spanò I. (Chair) [4]

Fondazione per le Scienze Religiose; Università di Modena e Reggio Emilia ~ Bologna ~ Italy [1] , University of Modena and Reggio Emilia - DREST ~ Reggio Emilia ~ Italy [2] , University of Palermo; Fondazione per le Scienze Religiose ~ Palermo ~ Italy [3] , University of Palermo ~ Palermo ~ Italy [4]
This paper presents the principal outcome of the DaMSyM project (Data Mining: the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Symbolum), a transformer-based NLP tool for semantic analysis of key phrases and terms within religious tradition across Greek, Latin, Arabic, Old Church Slavonic, Sanskrit, and a combined Greek/Latin solution. To identify semantically significant patterns relevant to the project's primary case study - the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed across various translations - both rule-based and probabilistic architectural approaches have been employed. Specifically, selected Large Language Models (LLMs) were exploited to enable the tool to function across a wide range of Christian texts in the target languages. Featuring this models, DaMSym facilitates scholars with advanced semantic representations that support the identification of relationships, similarities, and deeper semantic layers within key religious terminology. Data filters and advanced research techniques can also be applied to query corpora to extract granular insights, thereby enhancing understanding of the theological and historical significance of individual passages across diverse translations and interpretations of the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed and related texts in the languages under consideration. The paper will present the digital specifications of the tool and its language-specific features, demonstrate its contribution to historical-religious research, and acknowledge its current limitations while outlining future development directions within the fields of Digital Humanities and Religious Studies, particularly concerning semantic and multilingual analysis.
DARMAB. A DIGITAL PROJECT ON THE ARMENIAN MAP IN BOLOGNA (BUB, ROT. 24)

Citti F. (Speaker) , Bitelli G. (Speaker) , Sirinian A. (Speaker)

University of Bologna ~ Bologna ~ Italy
The DARMAB project aims at the study and digital enhancement of the Tabula Chorographica Armenica in a broadly interdisciplinary context. The Tabula, now on display in the Marsili Museum of the Library of the University of Bologna, is an enormous map made in Constantinople in 1691 on commission of the Bolognese Count Luigi Ferdinando Marsili. Over three and a half metres long, it depicts hundreds of monasteries and shrines of the Armenian Church through colourful drawings and captions in Armenian. In a digital environment, the Armenian map can become a collector of an immense amount of heterogeneous multimedia information, associated with the individual elements of the Tabula and freely explorable by the visitor in an immediate and direct way. Francesco Citti, Bologna University Library - BUB Gabriele Bitelli, Department of Civil, Chemical, Environmental and Materials Engineering - DICAM Anna Sirinian, Departiment of History and Cultures - DISCI Alma Mater Studiorum - Università di Bologna
HORTUS: AN INTEGRATED AND MODERATED PLATFORM FOR THE DIGITAL TURN IN RELIGIOUS STUDIES

Demo R. (Speaker)

Fondazione per le Scienze Religiose ~ Bologna ~ Italy
The Digital Turn in Religious Studies has intensified a persistent tension: scholars can remain mere "consumers" of digital tools, or become co-designers of the infrastructures that shape research practices in a field marked by heterogeneity of sources, languages, supports, and semantics. This paper presents HORTUS, an integrated digital environment developed within the ITSERR project as a service platform for the RESILIENCE ecosystem designed by the Digital Humanists themselves. HORTUS combines: (1) a moderated catalogue/marketplace for datasets, publications, software and services; (2) a collaborative workspace for storing, versioning and sharing research outputs; (3) an integrated training centre (e-learning); (4) an experts directory with social interaction features; an 5) hosting IT services capability delivered through dashboards, VRE and scalable computing. The platform is designed for interoperability and secure collaboration: federated authentication and OpenID Connect, role-based authorization, and GDPR-aligned operations underpin access to resources and services, while FAIR-oriented metadata workflows support findability and reuse and enable integration with external repositories (e.g., Zenodo; Zotero). We discuss how the "complexity" of Religious Studies has directly informed platform design choices—such as moderated contribution workflows and forthcoming capabilities for collaborative annotation, custom metadata sets, and advanced visualisation. We argue that these solutions are not only disciplinary enablers but also transferrable patterns for other Digital Humanities and data-intensive communities, offering a concrete answer to the panel's guiding question about complexity as a driver for broader technological innovation.
IXTHEO: RESEARCH TOOL AND RESEARCH ANALYSIS

Fassnacht M. (Speaker)

University Library Tuebingen / Specialised Information Services ~ Tübingen ~ Germany
The Index Theologicus (IxTheo) is one of the most comprehensive open access databases for theology and religious studies, created and curated by the University Library of Tübingen in collaboration with (inter)national partners. This paper presents current developments that are taking IxTheo beyond its function as a pure search platform. Thousands of researchers already have personal profile pages within IxTheo, more than 500 of which contain a complete scientific oeuvre and a high proportion of open access publications. In future, authors will be able to curate their own pages - a step towards a personalized research service. At the same time, IxTheo is developing into a tool for research analysis: the systematic collection of metadata over centuries enables analyses of publication dynamics, thematic focal points and international research collaborations. A needs analysis has further confirmed the necessity of systematic documentation of DH- and AI-based theological research. IxTheo is therefore setting up its own collection for digital humanities and digital theology, in which projects, publications, research data and codes are documented - supplemented by regular DH lunchtime talks with international partner networks.
SEEING MARY: MARIAN ICONOGRAPHY BETWEEN VISUAL CULTURE, RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE AND GAZE STUDIES

Ruozzi F. (Speaker) [1] , Papasidero M. (Speaker) [2] , Di Cosmo A.P. (Speaker) [1]

University of Modena and Reggio Emilia ~ Reggio Emilia ~ Italy [1] , University of Palermo ~ Palermo ~ Italy [2]
This paper presents an innovative, large-scale experimental study on the perception of Marian iconography, combining eye-tracking methodologies with survey-based data collection in a digital environment. The research involves a substantial and diversified sample of participants who are invited to observe selected Marian images on screen while simultaneously providing structured responses through an integrated questionnaire. The project is developed by ITSERR - WP6 in collaboration with UNGUESS, enabling access to a wide user base and the collection of high-volume, demographically varied data. The study aims to investigate how viewers engage visually and cognitively with Marian representations across different historical periods and stylistic traditions. The project is inherently interdisciplinary, bringing together gaze studies, history of Christianity, visual history, and art history. By scaling up experimental approaches traditionally limited to laboratory settings, this research proposes a new methodological framework for the analysis of religious visual culture.

Panel description: This panel invites papers examining how Jesus and the origins of Christianity were conceptualized within Deism, the Enlightenment, and related seventeenth- and eighteenth-century intellectual currents, as well as the reactions and forms of reception these interpretations provoked. From early deist attempts to reconstruct Christianity as a religion of reason and natural morality to Enlightenment portrayals of Jesus as philosopher, reformer, or moral exemplar, the period witnessed a profound rethinking of both his figure and the early Christian tradition. The panel also welcomes contributions addressing the role of early modern skepticism and the Radical Enlightenment, whose more disruptive critiques challenged traditional views of revelation, miracles, scriptural authority, and the historical Jesus. The panel seeks to map the circulation and typology of writings that addressed Jesus and early Christianity within these movements, as well as the written and institutional responses they provoked from Catholic authorities, such as condemnations by the Index of Forbidden Books or interventions of the Holy Office. By tracing both the intellectual transformation and the historical reception of these interpretations, the panel explores how early modern thought negotiated the boundaries between faith and reason, belief and critique, history and myth, thereby shaping modern understandings of religion in the age of reason. The panel also aims to investigate the modes of reception and the various forms of reaction these themes elicited over time, how they were received within subsequent historiography, when key shifts occurred, and what motivations underpinned them, as well as the different ways in which such writings or topics were contested, appropriated, or reframed.

Papers:

HOBBESIAN CHRISTOLOGY: FROM LAWGIVER OF PEOPLES TO SHEPHERD OF SOULS

Schino A. (Speaker) [1] , Elukin J. (Speaker) [2]

University of Rome, La Sapienza ~ Rome ~ Italy [1] , Trinity College ~ Hartford ~ United States of America [2]
In Hobbes's interpretation, Jesus can be historically understood as a prophet, whereas his salvific mission belongs to the realm of faith and cannot be rationally demonstrated, but only "swallowed". Hobbes initially follows the libertine topos that superimposes Christ on Moses, but ultimately overturns it. In the reading of the learned libertines, Jesus is, like Moses, a Legislator who imposes a new Lex; he is very skilled in using his religious charisma to strengthen a worldly and historical power, and he is one of the three great impostors of the famous legend. Hobbes appropriates this topos while radically transforming it by depoliticizing it at its core. While the libertines greatly emphasise the role of Christ in a political sense, Hobbes, though making him a prophet-man, spiritualises him to the utmost and relegates his political functions to an extra-historical time. Christ will be king in a political sense only after the Second Coming; within history, armed solely with the word, he is a shepherd without coercive power, whose task is to teach and to prepare men and women for the future kingdom. This idealization of Christ as teacher and shepherd reinforces a central Hobbesian thesis: the common function of all religions—arising from human anxieties, fear of unknown causes, and concern for the future—is to render individuals more peaceful and compliant. Religion thus loses its political centrality as the basis of any social coexistence and is relocated to an individual, interior, and psychological sphere. This shift opens the way for an early reflection on freedom of conscience, based on the distinction between public discourse, subject to State authority, and private, internal discourse, which lies beyond political control insofar as it does not affect the public sphere.
GENEALOGIES OF RELIGIOUS CRITIQUE: FROM ANTIQUITY TO ENLIGHTENMENT CHALLENGES TO JESUS

Elukin J. (Speaker)

Trinity College ~ Hartford ~ United States of America
This paper will explore the accumulation during antiquity and the Middle Ages of modes of thinking about religion that contributed to Enlightenment and post-Enlightenment critiques of traditional understandings of Jesus. Ambivalence about established religious beliefs had a long history in western culture. Pagan critiques of Christianity, Christian attacks on heresies and sectarians, Jewish polemics against Jesus, Reformation and Catholic attacks and counterattacks, the continued tradition of skepticism, all created a reservoir of thinking that could be deployed against traditional images of Jesus. The Three Impostors as well as later scholarly critiques of religion all drew upon these accumulated challenges to belief and tradition.

Panel description: The historiography on Christianity has developed a solid tradition of studies on women. This approach has addressed issues such as women's roles in leadership, teaching, prophecy, and ritual, the formation of gender through theological and scriptural exegesis, and the ways female figures have been remembered, reinterpreted, or erased. Yet, as Joan W. Scott observed in 2010, many historians remain hesitant to engage fully with critical approaches to gender and sexuality, often treating "women" as a self-evident and homogeneous category rather than as a historically constructed one. Moving beyond sexual and gender binarism as the dominant interpretative framework in historical studies, this panel approaches the "feminine" as a socio-cultural construct open to critical historical inquiry. It problematizes the category, examining its origins and strategic functions in religious knowledge production, ecclesiastical authority, and communal identities. Being defined as "women" is not a neutral act. It presupposes the elaboration of attributional and citational criteria concerning what constitutes a woman and what does "female" mean; criteria that are historically situated and subject to variation. The panel asks how Christian traditions reshaped and resemanticized notions of femaleness and how these concepts were negotiated within broader cultural frameworks. Its aim is to foster an interdisciplinary, and critical discussion on what has been the role of Christianity in shaping a female gender/sex paradigm that in some ways is still ours. In doing so, it seeks to bridge women's studies, reconstructing women's roles in Christian contexts, and gender/sex studies. The feminine is thus understood not as a fixed or pre-discursive essence, but rather as a connotative, dialogically constructed one that interacts with other categories such as sanctity, martyrdom, and divinity as articulated by diverse Christian traditions across different temporal and spatial contexts.

Papers:

THE CONSTRUCTION OF FEMININE THROUGH VIRGIN MARY'S PAIN: PROLEGOMENA TO A WORK.

Angileri I. (Speaker)

Università La Sapienza ~ Roma ~ Italy
The Christian way of shaping, naming, and norming the feminine cannot but take into account the materials provided by the myths, cults and narratives surrounding the Virgin Mary, Mother of God. Marina Warner's monography Alone of All Her Sex: The Myth and the Cult of the Virgin Mary (first ed. 1976), is still a key reading on the topic, even if outdated in some respects. The aim of the paper is to outline a framework for discussion by reconstructing a model of the feminine as articulated through representations of Mary's sufferings over the course of history. Drawing on Luce Irigaray's theory on the lack of ontological status of the Feminine in Western thought and culture, while also incorporating Judith Butler's critiques of Irigaray, the paper explores historically the absence of a defined ontological status for femaleness in relation to Mary, particularly focusing on her intermediary pain and weeping. The ways in which Mary was depicted, narrated or venerated, either as suffering or as stoically impassive, during the Middle Ages and the Early Modern period reveal strategies for shaping the feminine, conceived as the negation of the being-male or an ontological marginality of her sufferings. The paper, functioning as an introduction, or prolegomena, to a more extensive study, considers modern scholarship on the cultural and discursive aspects of pain in historical sources, showing how representations of suffering can serve as a hermeneutical tool for analyzing the construction of the feminine through the religious symbol of the Virgin Mary.
FROM PAGAN TRADITION TO CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY: RENEGOTIATING THE FEMININE AMONG THE GOTHS

Freda Civico G. (Speaker)

Università La Sapienza ~ Roma ~ Italy
This paper aims to analyse the spread of Christianity among the Gothic peoples in Late Antiquity as a privileged space for the renegotiation of cultural categories, with particular attention to the construction of the "feminine". The adoption of Christianity in Germanic contexts did not involve a simple reception of religious models developed in the Judeo-Greco-Roman world, but gave rise to processes of translation, adaptation and transformation that affected gender representations. In this context, the feminine emerges not as a static category, but as a relational one, defined by the interaction between Christian norms, Germanic social structures and power dynamics. Perhaps the most obvious example is that of the female priestly caste, mentioned by Jordanes: the magas mulieres would have been called by the Gothic lexeme haliurunnas, which is not neutral, as it can be translated as wandering spirits of the infernal world and is associated by the Christian author with impure spirits. Furthermore, in a context marked by the coexistence of orthodoxy and heresy, the paper proposes to explore the role of female figures in discourses on doctrinal and community belonging. Starting from recent studies (just for example the one by A. Valerio Eretiche. Donne che riflettono, osano, resistono, Bologna 2022), this paper analyses how the feminine is used as a symbolic indicator of deviation, associating it with the transmission of error, to the extent that a historiographical topos of women as heretics has emerged. Such representations do not reflect pre-existing social reality but actively participate in the production of religious knowledge and the legitimisation of a new type of authority. This contribution shows how the encounter between Christianity and the Gothic world contributes to the semantic and social redefinition of the feminine, revealing the plurality of Christian femininities and their role in the construction of religious identities in Late Antiquity.
ON A CHRISTIAN CATEGORY OF " SHAPING AND NORMING A SEX/GENDER PARADIGM PANEL DESCRIPTION:

Schimmenti A. (Speaker)

University of Palermo ~ Palermo ~ Italy
The present paper, titled Rereading Paul the Neapolitan Deacon's Maria Egiziaca as a Spiritual Virago, analyzes the figure of Saint Mary of Egypt, whose treatment in Paul the Neapolitan Deacon's Latin source highlights numerous complexities. A sinful woman devoted to sex, Mary becomes, through asceticism, a new virgin, aided in her fight by the Virgin Mary. In this story of women who become other than themselves through other women, a man is also present: the monk Zosima, who, in the other hand, seems feminized upon encountering the now virile Mary, submitting to the wonders that make her an alter-Elijah and an alter-Christ, finally granting her sanctity. From this perspective, the study examines the gender inversions between Mary and Zosima through the lexicon of virilitas and infirmitas, categories that in Isidore of Seville's Etymologiae symbolically define relations between masculinity and femininity. Selected passages are analyzed where the linguistic relations between man (vir) and strength (vis) and woman (mulier) and softness (mollitia) are made explicit. From this perspective, the story can be read as the progressive transformation of the prostitute into a spiritual virago, achieved through her ascetic combat against sexuality and her physical transformation. Within the context of the historical-cultural construction of the feminine in Christian literature, Mary of Egypt is particularly significant: she not only surpasses some of the most recurrent clichés of female hagiography but also represents a notable case of redefining gender categories within Christian sanctity. The version attributed to Paul the Neapolitan Deacon emphasizes the physical and virile dimension of her asceticism, and this paper offers an interpretive perspective on her ambiguous status.
AUTHORING A FEMININE NORM: THE HAGIOGRAPHICAL CONSTRUCTION OF WOMANHOOD IN THE VITA OF MARGARET OF CORTONA

Ispanovits K.A. (Speaker)

University of Oxford ~ Oxford ~ United Kingdom
This paper examines how medieval hagiography participated in the construction of a socially acceptable feminine category. In the Legenda de vita et miraculis Beatae Margaritae de Cortona by Franciscan friar Giunta Bevegnati, the saint's identity is not simply recorded but actively produced through narrative strategies that define and regulate an orthodox feminine identity. Margaret of Cortona, a former concubine turned celebrated Franciscan penitent, represents how female sanctity could be narratively constructed. In Giunta's account, Margaret's former identity as a sexually transgressive woman is dismantled through intense penitential practices that reject her physical femininity. The reconstruction of her identity follows, through a series of regulated relational and typological roles such as daughter, spouse, and servant to Christ, 'second Magdalene,' and successor of Clare of Assisi. Central to this process is the author himself. This paper will not merely examine how a female ideal is constructed, but why. As Margaret's confessor and mediator of her visionary experiences, Giunta had a direct stake in legitimizing her sanctity. When Margaret's honesty is called into question, his reputation is at stake. In the interests of both the vindication of his own authority and Margaret's canonisation, Giunta narrates the parameters of acceptable women's devotion and self-perception, presenting Margaret as the ideal female product of Franciscan guidance and an example for the faithful women of Cortona. The Vita thus relocates Margaret's womanhood within the bounds of Franciscan ideology and doctrinal orthodoxy. By analysing the reconstruction of Margaret's femininity, this paper argues that Christian tradition articulated normative models of femininity through hagiography. Margaret's sanctity emerges not simply from her spiritual practices but from the narrative production of a disciplined and exemplary feminine identity shaped by institutional and authorial interests.

Panel description: This panel brings together interdisciplinary studies that illuminate the global impact of Daisaku Ikeda and the Soka Gakkai movement across the fields of interreligious dialogue, civic activism, and peacebuilding. The first paper examines Ikeda's crucial role in Buddhist-Catholic relations, situating his decades of engagement with the Holy See within the trajectory opened by "Nostra Aetate" and reaffirmed at the Vatican's 2025 anniversary event, where Soka Gakkai participated. The second contribution analyzes the newly established Fondazione Be the Hope and the exhibition Cambio io, cambia il mondo, interpreting them as contemporary expressions of Ikeda-inspired civic engagement amid the current crisis of global climate activism. A third paper explores Ikeda's sustained dialogue with Muslim intellectuals such as Majid Tehranian and Nur Yalman, as well as recent Soka Gakkai initiatives in the Middle East and Southeast Asia, highlighting the evolution from interreligious encounter to cooperative cultural and academic projects. The final study investigates Buddhist peacebuilding at the Toda Peace Institute in Tokyo, drawing on qualitative fieldwork to show how Buddhist ethical frameworks are translated into policy-relevant discourses on peace, human security, and global governance. Together, these papers demonstrate how Ikeda's humanistic Buddhism continues to shape transnational networks of dialogue and civic action, offering a robust framework for reimagining the public role of religion in an era of global uncertainty.

Papers:

DAISAKU IKEDA, INTERRELIGIOUS DIALOGUE, AND "NOSTRA AETATE"

Introvigne M. (Speaker)

CESNUR (Center for Studies on New Religions) ~ Torino ~ Italy
This paper examines the contribution of Daisaku Ikeda (192-2023), founder of the Soka Gakkai International, to the global development of interreligious dialogue in light of the Catholic Church's landmark declaration "Nostra Aetate" (1965). Issued by Pope Paul VI, "Nostra Aetate" transformed the Church's relationship with non-Christian religions and opened unprecedented avenues for Buddhist-Christian engagement. Ikeda emerged as one of the most active Buddhist interlocutors in this new era, cultivating sustained dialogue with Catholic thinkers and meeting repeatedly with Church leaders, including several Popes. His approach—grounded in human dignity, peacebuilding, and the ethics of dialogue—resonated strongly with the spirit of "Nostra Aetate" and helped shape a model of Buddhist-Catholic encounter rooted in mutual respect and shared responsibility for global peace. The paper situates Ikeda's work within contemporary developments, including the 2025 Vatican event "Camminando insieme nella speranza," held on 28 October to commemorate the 60th anniversary of "Nostra Aetate," which included the participation of Soka Gakkai. The study also reflects on Pope Francis' message of condolence upon Ikeda's passing, highlighting the depth of this interreligious relationship. Through historical analysis and textual reflection, the paper argues that Ikeda's dialogical philosophy offers a vital framework for the future of interfaith cooperation.
THE BUDDHIST ENVIRONMENTAL ACTIVISM OF THE BE THE HOPE FOUNDATION

Soryte R. (Speaker)

FOB (European Federation for Freedom of Belief) ~ Torino ~ Italy
This paper explores the emergence and early activities of the "Fondazione Be the Hope, established in Rome on 28 April 2025 and promoted by the Istituto Buddista Italiano Soka Gakkai. The Foundation was created to advance initiatives in peace, culture, education, and environmental protection, reflecting the humanistic and global vision rooted in the thought of Daisaku Ikeda, whose philosophy of hope‑centered empowerment provides the conceptual backbone for the Foundation's work. The paper discusses the Foundation's campaign and exhibition "Cambio io, cambia il mondo," which highlights themes of personal responsibility, ecological awareness, and the transformative potential of individual action. These themes resonate strongly with Ikeda's long‑standing emphasis on inner transformation as the basis for social change. The analysis further considers the Foundation's activities against the backdrop of the current crisis in global climate activism following Donald Trump's second presidential election, a moment marked by fragmentation, disillusionment, and renewed urgency. By examining the Foundation's initiatives and narrative strategies, the paper argues that "Be the Hope" offers a distinctive model of Buddhist‑inspired civic engagement capable of revitalizing environmental activism through hope, agency, and intercultural dialogue.
DAISAKU IKEDA AND ISLAM: FROM DIALOGUE TO COOPERATION

Corrao F. (Speaker)

LUISS Guido Carli University ~ Rome ~ Italy
Daisaku Ikeda, founder of the Institute of Oriental Philosophy and Soka University in Tokyo, has devoted much of his energy to promoting dialogue with representatives of other cultures and faiths. As President of the Soka Gakkai, he has also promoted numerous meetings, encouraging members and friends of the organization to contribute. This article offers reflections on the themes addressed in Ikeda's two major dialogues with Muslim intellectuals, Majid Tehranian and Nur Yalman, and on some of the activities promoted by the IOP over the last decade. It also highlights publications, the festivals organized by the Soka Cultural Association in Dubai, and meetings and study seminars with Professor Abdelaziz Berghout of the International Islamic University and other Malaysian scholars in Tokyo.
STUDYING BUDDHIST PEACEBUILDING AT THE TODA PEACE INSTITUTE OF TOKYO

Benna F. (Speaker)

La Sapienza University ~ Rome ~ Italy
This study examines the role of Buddhist peace narratives and practices, with particular attention to the intersections between religion, academic research, and civil engagement as developed through the Toda Peace Institute (TPI) in Tokyo. Situating the analysis within the interdisciplinary field of religion and peace studies, the paper explores how core Buddhist principles are translated into discursive and institutional frameworks that engage contemporary debates on peace, human security, disarmament, social justice, and global governance. Methodologically, the study draws on qualitative fieldwork conducted in Japan, combining institutional meetings with SGI's Peace Affairs Department and Soka University, semi-structured interviews with the Director of the Toda Peace Institute, Kevin Clementz, and senior research fellows, and participant observation during a public seminar organized by TPI. This empirical material enables an in-depth analysis of how a transnational religious actor constructs spaces of knowledge production that move beyond confessional boundaries and actively engage academic and policy-oriented communities. The research argues that the Toda Peace Institute serves as a key translational platform linking Buddhist ethical frameworks to secular peace discourses, thereby contributing to a reconfiguration of the public role of religion in global peace debates. In conclusion, the Japanese case is placed in dialogue with the Italian and broader European contexts, highlighting continuities, specificities, and critical insights into SGI's interreligious and civil outreach, and offering a nuanced contribution to understanding religious actors in contemporary peacebuilding in Italy and beyond.

Panel description: This session brings together six interdisciplinary papers that examine the contemporary resurgence of anti-cult discourse and the revival of "brainwashing" narratives across diverse cultural, legal, and political contexts. The first paper maps this global revival, tracing how transnational anti-cult networks have fueled renewed anxieties in countries as varied as Australia, Argentina, Japan, the United Kingdom, and South Korea. The second paper analyzes the Victoria (Australia) Inquiry on "cults," showing how the extension of "coercive control" to religious movements repackages discredited theories under a new legal vocabulary. A third contribution explores sacred eroticism and the mechanisms through which anti-cult rhetoric delegitimizes esoteric erotic spiritual practices, often enabling disproportionate state intervention. The fourth paper examines the French agency MIVILUDES, highlighting how its reliance on the legally codified notion of "psychological subjugation" exposes structural weaknesses in France's anti-cult model. The fifth paper offers an emic and psychological analysis of POYRA (Path of YahRa), showing how media campaigns construct stigmatizing representations that threaten religious liberty in the Czech Republic. The final paper presents the testimony of a Church of Almighty God refugee, documenting both persecution in China and the transnational extension of repression into democratic countries. Collectively, the session demonstrates how anti-cult discourse continues to shape public policy, media narratives, and legal frameworks, with a bizarre return of "brainwashing" theories scholars discredited long ago, raising urgent questions about pluralism, state power, and the protection of freedom of belief in contemporary societies.

Papers:

FROM AUSTRALIA TO SOUTH KOREA: A RENEWED ANTI-CULT ACTIVISM

Introvigne M. (Speaker)

CESNUR (Center for Studies on New Religions) ~ Torino ~ Italy
This paper analyzes the unexpected resurgence of anti-cult activism across multiple national contexts, drawing on recent case studies previously examined in my published work. Although scholars of new religious movements widely consider "brainwashing" theories to have been discredited—both within academic research and in American and European courts of law—public anxieties about so-called "cults" (a term used here only in quotation marks) have re-emerged with notable intensity. This renewed concern has generated a paradoxical revival of the very "brainwashing" narratives that had been dismissed as scientifically untenable. The paper argues that this revival is not an isolated phenomenon but is instead driven by a transnational network of anti-cult actors who strategically circulate claims, testimonies, and policy proposals across borders. Through examples from Australia, Argentina, Japan, the United Kingdom, and South Korea, the study shows how local controversies become amplified within a globalized moral discourse that frames minority religions as threats to individual autonomy, family cohesion, and national security. By mapping these interconnected developments, the paper highlights the need for renewed scholarly attention to the political, media, and legal mechanisms that enable the persistence—and reinvention—of discredited theories in contemporary debates on religious freedom.
THE VICTORIA, AUSTRALIA, INQUIRY ON "CULTS": "BRAINWASHING" DISGUISED AS "COERCIVE CONTROL"

Soryte R. (Speaker)

FOB (European Federation for Freedom of Belief) ~ Torino ~ Italy
This paper offers a critical analysis of the ongoing Inquiry on "cults" launched by the Parliament of Victoria, Australia. Drawing on journalistic and scholarly assessments—including my own prior analyses—and situating the Inquiry within broader international debates on minority religions, the study argues that the initiative represents a significant conceptual and legal shift with potentially far‑reaching consequences. While framed as an effort to address "coercive control," a term originally developed to describe patterns of domestic and intimate‑partner abuse, the Inquiry extends this framework to religious and spiritual movements. The paper contends that this extension functions as a rhetorical and legal strategy to reintroduce, under a new label, the discredited notion of "brainwashing," long rejected by academic experts and by courts internationally. Through an examination of the Inquiry's terms of reference, public submissions, and reactions from scholars of new religious movements, the analysis shows how the concept of "coercive control" is being repurposed to legitimize state intervention into the internal life of minority religions. The paper concludes that such an approach risks undermining religious freedom, conflating unconventional beliefs with abuse, and normalizing a new vocabulary for old anti‑cult narratives.
SACRED EROTICISM, ANTI‑CULTISM, AND THE REVIVAL OF "BRAINWASHING" NARRATIVES

Marin C. (Speaker)

Soteria International ~ Copenaghen ~ Denmark
This paper examines the intersection of sacred eroticism, anti‑cult activism, and the contemporary revival of "brainwashing" rhetoric in legal and media discourses. Drawing on historical precedents and contemporary case studies, the analysis highlights how anti‑cult actors frequently argue—and often persuade journalists, prosecutors, and courts—that no "normal" woman or man would freely engage in esoteric erotic practices associated with certain yoga schools and spiritual movements. Such claims disregard the long and diverse traditions of sacred eroticism found in India and other cultural contexts and instead rely on the assumption that practitioners must have been manipulated or "brainwashed." Building on the author's personal experience and conceptual reflections, the paper argues that ignoring the internal value systems of these spiritual paths leads to systematic violations of freedom of conscience, thought, and religion. Although exceptions and abusive groups exist, the majority of practitioners report that these rituals enhance well‑being, intimacy, and personal growth, yet they are frequently stigmatized through the label of "cult" and subjected to discriminatory state actions. A recurring pattern is the spectacularization of police raids—often conducted by heavily armed units at dawn and accompanied by media crews—which reinforces public suspicion and moral panic. The paper concludes by exploring the paradox of contemporary societies that celebrate sexual experimentation in secular contexts while repressing erotic practices when embedded in spiritual frameworks, revealing how anti‑cult narratives continue to shape legal and cultural responses to minority spiritualities.
MIVILUDES UNDER SCRUTINY: INSTITUTIONAL FRAGILITY AND THE LIMITS OF FRANCE'S ANTI-CULT MODEL

Roux E. (Speaker)

United Religions Initiative (URI) ~ San Francisco ~ United States of America
This paper critically examines the recent institutional trajectory of the French Interministerial Mission for Vigilance and Fight against Cultic Deviances (MIVILUDES), focusing on a series of judicial, administrative, and financial challenges that have emerged over the past two years. A central concern is that MIVILUDES continues to base its activity on the premise—now unfortunately codified in French law, though rejected by virtually all scholars of new religious movements—that "cults" exert control over their followers through "psychological subjugation." Drawing on multiple rulings by administrative courts, ongoing criminal investigations, and a current inquiry by the Cour des Comptes, the study analyzes how these developments call into question the agency's legal robustness, methodological rigor, and institutional accountability. Beyond isolated governance failures, the paper argues that these difficulties reveal deeper structural problems in the French model of state led anti cult policy. In particular, it explores how MIVILUDES operates less as an evidence-based regulatory body and more as a political instrument embedded in broader securitization and moral panic frameworks. The analysis highlights the disproportionate impact of this model on religious and spiritual minorities, raising concerns about discrimination, due process, and compliance with fundamental rights standards. By situating MIVILUDES within comparative perspectives on religious regulation and state neutrality, the paper questions its suitability as a model for democratic governance and proposes the need for alternative approaches grounded in legal precision, transparency, and the protection of pluralism.
POYRA (PATH OF YAHRA), ANTI‑CULT DISCOURSE, AND "BRAINWASHING" ACCUSATIONS

Tomanova K. (Speaker)

Psychologist ~ Brno ~ Czech Republic
This paper analyzes the impact of anti‑cult discourse and media‑driven "brainwashing" accusations on members of POYRA (Path of YahRa), drawing on the author's dual perspective as both a psychologist and an adherent of the movement. In the contemporary Czech Republic—formally a democratic society committed to pluralism—POYRA practitioners have faced sustained public pressure marked by hostility, hate speech, and sensationalist media coverage. The study examines how mass‑media narratives construct simplified and stigmatizing representations of complex spiritual worldviews, reshaping public opinion and generating moral panic. Through an emic account of lived experience, combined with psychological analysis, the paper explores how such narratives distort social realities, delegitimize minority religious identities, and reinforce the assumption that unconventional spiritual practices must result from manipulation or "brainwashing." The analysis highlights the mechanisms through which media campaigns contribute to social exclusion, undermine the credibility of practitioners' self‑understanding, and normalize discriminatory attitudes toward minority religions. Ultimately, the paper argues that these dynamics pose significant risks to religious liberty, freedom of belief, and democratic pluralism, revealing how anti‑cult rhetoric continues to function as a powerful tool for marginalizing non‑mainstream spiritual movements in Central Europe.
PERSECUTION, "BRAINWASHING" ACCUSATIONS, AND TRANSNATIONAL REPRESSION: AN EMIC PERSPECTIVE FROM A CHURCH OF ALMIGHTY GOD REFUGEE

Li X. (Speaker)

Observatory of Religious Liberty of Refugees (ORLIR) ~ Rome ~ Italy
This paper offers an emic account of the persecution of The Church of Almighty God (CAG) in China, presented by a CAG member currently living as a refugee in Italy. The analysis highlights the paradoxical use of "brainwashing" accusations by Chinese authorities, noting that the very term "brainwashing" was originally coined by Cold War-era CIA propaganda to describe alleged psychological techniques attributed to the Chinese Communist Party. Despite its propagandistic origins and lack of scientific grounding, the concept has been appropriated by the Chinese state to delegitimize CAG beliefs, justify mass arrests, and rationalize coercive "transformation" practices. Drawing on personal experience, testimonies from fellow believers, and documented patterns of repression, the paper examines how these narratives underpin a broader system of surveillance, detention, and forced ideological reeducation. The study further explores how this persecution has become transnational, extending beyond China's borders through diplomatic pressure, misinformation campaigns, and attempts to discredit or intimidate CAG asylum seekers in countries such as South Korea and Italy. By foregrounding the lived experience of a refugee practitioner, the paper illuminates the psychological, social, and legal challenges faced by CAG members seeking protection abroad and raises broader questions about religious freedom, state power, and the global reach of authoritarian repression.

Panel description: This panel welcomes contributions in the field of biblical reception research that engage with scriptural passages perceived as troubling or "unfair" by contemporary Western European readers. It seeks to explore how issues of inequality—pertaining to gender, ethnicity, social status, or family relations—have been received, reinterpreted, or redeemed across the centuries. Participants are invited to draw on insights from ancient, medieval, modern, and contemporary exegetical traditions, tracing how challenging texts may yield fresh resources for reflection today. Contributions may also examine legal norms, social practices, and moral discourses—such as those governing gender, sexuality, family, and status— in order to illuminate shared assumptions, tensions, and divergences in ancient constructions of inequality. Bringing together Biblical Studies, Classics, and Ancient History within an interdisciplinary framework, the panel seeks to analyze how multiple and overlapping forms of inequality—based on gender, economy, class, ethnicity, legal status, and disability—were articulated, negotiated, and contested in ancient texts and institutions.

Papers:

CAN A MISOGYNISTIC TEXT LIKE QOHELET 7:25-8:1 STILL MATTER TODAY?

Scaiola D. (Speaker)

Associazione Biblica Italiana ~ Rome ~ Italy
Qohelet 7:25-8:1 contains one of the most troubling passages in the Hebrew Bible, where the speaker presents women as more bitter than death and associates them with deception and danger. This study asks whether—and how—such an explicitly misogynistic text can still matter today without being either excused or dismissed. Rather than attempting to rehabilitate the passage ethically, the paper situates it within the literary strategy of Qohelet as a whole, arguing that its gendered polemic functions rhetorically to expose the limits of wisdom, experience, and moral generalization. The passage is read against the backdrop of ancient Near Eastern wisdom traditions, where personified Woman—both positive and negative—serves as a symbolic device rather than a sociological description. At the same time, the paper takes seriously the historical and contemporary harm caused by such language, especially in interpretive communities that have read it prescriptively. By distinguishing between descriptive rhetoric, ideological critique, and reception history, the study proposes a hermeneutical framework that allows the text to be engaged critically: not as a timeless norm, but as a witness to the tensions, failures, and contradictions internal to biblical wisdom itself. In this way, Qohelet 7:25-8:1 remains relevant—not because it offers ethical guidance, but because it forces readers to confront the fragility of wisdom claims and the responsibility of interpretation in the face of problematic scripture.
DEATH FOR GATHERING STICKS? REFLECTIONS ON NUMBERS 15:32-36

Settembrini M. (Speaker)

Facoltà Teologica dell'Emilia-Romagna ~ Bologna ~ Italy
Numbers 15:32-36 presents the violation of the Sabbath through a juridical anecdote that follows a well-attested Pentateuchal pattern: the narration of a problematic act, the consultation of mediating authority, and the execution of a divine command. This paper argues that the episode should not be read as the mechanical application of an already established rule, but as the narrative construction of a test case intended to clarify the gravity of sacrilege and the source of legal authority. Comparison with Leviticus 24:10-23 situates the passage within a specific literary genre marked by provisional detention, the suspension of judgment, and an oracular verdict. Further affinities with Babylonian judicial records, including texts from the Hellenistic period, illuminate the unusual use of the verb *prš* as a technical term for issuing a verdict. The act of gathering wood on the Sabbath is interpreted within a theology of time and providence: it undermines Yhwh's sovereignty by privileging anxiety over subsistence rather than trust in the creator and liberator. Within this framework, stoning appears as a sanction reserved for offenses perceived as threatening the community's integrity and the honor of God. The continuation of the chapter (Num 15:37-41), with the command concerning the *ṣîṣît*, complements the narrative by showing how visual reminders of the commandments are meant to educate both heart and eyes toward covenantal fidelity. Taken as a whole, Numbers 15 reflects a postexilic conception of the Sabbath as the summa of the Torah and a marker of cultic identity, binding upon Israel wherever it dwells, and opens onto a broader biblical reception that progressively interiorizes worship as the offering of one's entire life.
PUNISHING CHILDREN FOR THE SINS OF THEIR FATHERS? (EX 20:5). DIVINE JUSTICE UNDER SCRUTINY

Merlo P. (Speaker)

Pontificia Università Lateranense ~ Rome ~ Italy
Biblical passages that portray God as punishing children for the sins of their fathers pose a significant hermeneutical and ethical challenge for contemporary readers. Exodus 20:5, situated within the Decalogue, is among the most frequently cited texts in this regard. Starting from Exodus 20:5 in its literary and theological contexts, this paper seeks to question whether it indeed promotes an unjust form of collective punishment.
GENDER INEQUALITIES IN THE ROMAN WORLD: ADULTERIUM AND STUPRUM

Mongardi M. (Speaker)

Bologna University ~ Bologna ~ Italy
In Roman society, adulterium and stuprum referred respectively to illicit sexual relations with a married woman and with a virgin or a widow. In the Augustan age, these illicit behaviours - until then prosecuted within the family sphere - became public crimes and were therefore subject to legal prosecution. Such conduct was regarded as socially dangerous because a woman who engaged in it was thought to contaminate the purity of the family bloodline, of which she was considered both bearer and guardian, and to fail in her primary role of producing legitimate offspring. For this reason, female marital infidelity, which - if openly manifested - obliged the husband to divorce, continued to be regarded as a valid ground for repudium even in Late Antique legislation. By contrast, the idea of infidelity as an offense against marriage itself, regardless of which spouse committed it, an understanding promoted above all by Christian ethics, was not fully incorporated into Roman legal thinking.
"DO YOU THINK I WAS SCARED BY THE BONES?"

De Panfilis D. (Speaker)

Università Pontificia Salesiana ~ Roma ~ Italy
This contribution will explore the "case of justice" proposed by the story of 2Sam 21:1-14, starting from the hypothesis that this is not a unitary story. The first narrative thread (vv. 1-9, 14b) presents a case of application of the lex talionis (Ex. 21:23-25; Lev. 24:17-19): the Gibeonites, who have suffered a blood crime at the hands of Saul, demand the handing over of seven sons of the Saulide clan; the rebalancing of human relationships shows, with the end of the famine (v. 14b), its effect on the natural world as well. This narrative thread confirms the validity of the law and its power to rebalance human relationships, preventing the growth of uncontrolled vengeance. The Book of Samuel, however, repeatedly questions this straightforward view of human relationships and conflict resolution: the story of Nathan (2 Samuel 12:1-4) complicates the theft of property with the killing of a "beloved one"; the story of the woman of Tekoah (2 Samuel 14:1-20) puts in dialogue two equally important legal institutions for the protection of the family. David's judgment takes into account the complexity of each of these cases. Rizpah's silent action (2Sam 21:10) complicates the case of retributive justice by introducing a variable: the unburied bodies of the seven Saulids are an outrage to human dignity, which demands reparation, the theme of the second narrative thread (2Sam 21:11-14a). David takes the remains of Saul and Jonathan and reunites them, in the tomb of Kish in Benjamin, with the remains of the seven sons, thus closing the story of the Saulide house and pacifying its memory. The end of the famine (v. 14b), in the overall story, takes on greater importance: it is the outcome of both acts of justice, which highlight the theme of the inviolable dignity of the human being.
RESET ON THE CHRIST: JEWISH HERITAGE AND CATHOLIC FAITH IN A HERMENEUTICAL FRAME TO REV 7:1-8

Malatacca R.G. (Speaker)

Associazione Biblica Italiana (ABI) ~ Lucera ~ Italy
This contribution focuses on Revelation 7:1-8. It examines the reception history of this problematic passage within the Book of Revelation (especially Rev 7:4-8), which has often been used to support replacement theology. Such interpretations have long shaped the complex history of cooperation and conflict between Catholics and Jews but appears as a questionable hermeneutical framework in light of Nostra Aetate and subsequent theological developments. After outlining the dominant allegorical interpretations of the passage within the Latin, Byzantine, and Syriac traditions—interpretations that contributed to a Weltanschauung asserting the superiority of the Church over Judaism—the paper turns to a unique inscriptio preserved in British Museum Add. 17193, which functions as a hermeneutical frame for the passage. This source preserves an alternative reception of Revelation 7, offering a more literal and non-supersessionist interpretation that assigns an ongoing theological role to Jewish identity in relation to Catholic faith. Each group has its proper place, moment, and role within salvation history and, according to this interpretation, Jews are entrusted with a decisive act of faith in Christ in times of deception—moments in which the Church from the Gentiles may falter. The study argues that the reception of Revelation 7 allows for a theological framework in which Jewish identity retains a meaningful role within salvation history.
WHO MAY SPEAK FOR GOD? PROPHETIC AUTHORITY AND DISCURSIVE INEQUALITY IN ZECHARIAH 13:2-6

Pizarro I. (Speaker)

Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile ~ Santiago ~ Chile
Questions of inequality in religious traditions are often approached through social, legal, or gender hierarchies. Yet religious communities also generate inequalities at the level of discourse, particularly in determining who is authorized to speak in the name of God. This paper examines such dynamics of discursive inequality in Zechariah 13:2-6, a text that depicts a striking scenario: prophetic activity is rejected, even violently suppressed by one's own family, and those accused of prophesying deny their prophetic identity in order to avoid punishment. Rather than interpreting this passage merely as a polemic against false prophecy, the paper argues that it reflects a deeper attempt to regulate access to prophetic speech within a community negotiating the limits of charismatic authority. The text thus raises a question of diachronic justice: what kind of justice governs a community in which those who have already spoken in God's name establish the conditions under which others may—or may not—speak after them? In this perspective, earlier claims to revelation function to restrict the possibility of subsequent prophetic voices, producing a form of discursive inequality grounded in temporal precedence. Finally, this study considers how interpretive traditions from the Second Temple period onward grappled with the unsettling implications of this passage. Early evidence from the history of reception suggests that the tensions generated by the restriction of prophetic speech often lead to the emergence of more plural configurations of authority, in which multiple mediations of divine discourse coexist—yet without fully resolving the question of equality in access to religious authority.

Panel description: At the outset of God as the Mystery of the World, Eberhard Jüngel declares that "narrative has its own place and time" according to faith's distinctive "structure of perception." From this claim unfolds a hermeneutical vision in which theology begins not from metaphysical first principles but from the concrete, storied expressions through which God is encountered, confessed, and interpreted. Approaching theology from narrative in this way resists the dominance of totalizing metaphysical systems while opening new possibilities for theological order and critique. This panel explores the role of narrative in hermeneutical theology as a mode of theological reasoning that operates beyond, against, or alongside classical metaphysical frameworks. Rather than treating narrative as merely illustrative, the panel investigates how narrative itself generates theological intelligibility, shaping accounts of truth, meaning, and normativity. In doing so, it examines how theology can remain critically ordered without recourse to comprehensive metaphysical architectures, and how narrative construals of faith negotiate plurality and difference within theological discourse. The panel is conceived as an open forum and invites paper proposals from a wide range of theological, philosophical, and interdisciplinary perspectives. Papers may address, but are not limited to, the following topics: • Narrative as a mode of theological rationality • Theology beyond metaphysical first principles • Narrative, history, and temporality in theological interpretation • Language, metaphor, and storytelling in theology • Theological order, plurality, and normativity without system • Narrative, power, and difference in theological traditions By bringing diverse voices and methods into dialogue, the panel aims to clarify the promise and limits of narrative as a post-metaphysical theological strategy and to foster constructive exchange across disciplinary and confessional boundaries.

Papers:

THE WORD WITHIN GOD: BONAVENTURE AND THE ONTOLOGICAL FOUNDATIONS OF HERMENEUTICAL THEOLOGY

Howell C. (Speaker)

University of St Andrews ~ St Andrews ~ United Kingdom
Contemporary hermeneutical theology has been criticized for lacking a robust conceptual or ontological foundation. Critics such as Ingolf Dalferth and John Webster argue that its emphasis on language, narrative, and interpretive event risks displacing ontology with rhetoric, leaving theological claims insufficiently grounded. On this reading, figures associated with hermeneutical theology—most notably Eberhard Jüngel—offer a critique of classical metaphysics without an adequate alternative account of divine being. This paper responds by retrieving a premodern theological precedent that reframes ontology itself as hermeneutically constituted. Focusing on Bonaventure's doctrine of the verbum within the immanent Trinity, I argue that divine being is structured by self-expressive movement rather than static metaphysical hierarchy. For Bonaventure, the Word of God does not arise as a secondary act toward creation but originates within God's own triune life. The Father's self-expression and the Son's reception of that expression coincide as an eternal communicative act grounded in real relational difference. Because the Word "moves" between distinct hypostases, divine self-communication already bears a spatial and temporal shape that may properly be described as narrative. The paper then places this trinitarian ontology in dialogue with modern hermeneutical theology, drawing on Eberhard Jüngel and Christoph Schwöbel. Read through Bonaventure, this claim articulates an ontological grammar in which relation, address, and response belong to God's eternal life rather than functioning as mere metaphor. Hermeneutical theology's emphasis on language and event thus emerges as a development consistent with a deeply rooted theological tradition. As such, God's being is not first substance and only secondarily speech; rather, God is the one whose being is eternally spoken, reshaping how theology negotiates difference, order, and normativity within its own discourse.
NARRATIVE INDIVIDUALITY AND MUTUAL ENTANGLEMENT: AN APPRAISAL OF SELF-CONSTITUTION

Watson B. (Speaker)

University of Münster ~ Münster ~ Germany
At issue in many accounts of narrative is the relation between the individual and the collective. How do individual "storied beings" relate to the emergence of a broader collective narrative or even an integration of the individuals into a grand narrative? In a more recent approach, Markus Mühling argues for a divine being understood as "love adventure" to be the "narrative integration of way formational perspectives under a particular way formational perspective" (Post-Systematic Theology II, 2024). The purpose of this paper is to investigate this relation. To do so, the paper briefly explicates how quickly narrative became the conceptual backbone of the linguistic turn in both philosophy and theology, providing a metaphysical foundation to a hermeneutical-linguistic dependency. Then, the paper explores the interplay between linguistic metaphor and ontological narrative, or better, metaphorical narratives (Taylor's "compass," Ricœur's "bridge," and MacIntryres "quest"). Finally, the paper articulates one way of conceiving the emergence of individuality and mutuality, namely, through a combination of Wilhelm Schapp's entangled storied consciousness and Karen Barad's notion of "intra-action." In combining these two approaches, the paper contributes to the ongoing concern of a "linguistic entrapment" (cf. Schaeffer, Religious Affects) in philosophy and theology through a metaphorical-narrative recoding of the constitution of the Storied-Self by the Other(s) through the entangled emergence of stories.
WHEN STORIES MAKE TRUTH RESONATE: THE ANALOGIA INCARNATIONIS AS A GRAMMAR

Busti P. (Speaker)

Facultés Loyola Paris ~ Paris ~ France
This paper asks whether Christian Christology can offer a form of order beyond classical metaphysics by retrieving its narrative and evental character. Drawing on Hartmut Rosa's category of resonance, Jesus is interpreted as the singular resonance of God with the world: a resonant singularity that generates further singularities. In him, a particular grammar of resonance becomes visible — a way of relating to the world analogically and creatively. His Paschal event reveals a world that always has something to say, a world structured not by domination but by responsive relation. Christological truth thus appears not as a closed system but as an ongoing opening of salvation within the common human sphere. Justice re-emerges as resonance between Word and life, as creative love. What sustains and transmits this truth are narratives: vulnerable yet resistant forms that make a shared depth vibrate. Engaging Eberhard Jüngel's understanding of analogy as grounded in the event of incarnation, the paper argues that analogy is not a mere comparison but an event that structures reality. Building on Adolphe Gesché's intuition of an analogia incarnationis, I propose the outline of a grammar of analogical resonance capable of rethinking theological order hermeneutically — not as metaphysical control, but as generative responsiveness.
MYTHICAL NARRATIVE AND POST-METAPHYSICAL ORDER: PAREYSON AND VATTIMO AFTER DISENCHANTMENT

Bubbio P.D. (Speaker)

University of Turin ~ Turin ~ Italy
This paper investigates the notion of mythical narrative as structuring theological rationality within a post-metaphysical horizon. Through a philosophical reconstruction of Luigi Pareyson and Gianni Vattimo, it argues that disenchantment does not eliminate myth but transforms its status: myth persists as a narrative configuration through which truth, meaning, and normativity are articulated without recourse to comprehensive metaphysical systems. In Pareyson, myth functions as a tautegorical narrative in which truth is not illustrated but rendered present within historically situated interpretation. Mythical narrative becomes the medium through which transcendence is made intelligible without objectification. Yet his appeal to a unitary and revelatory truth raises the question of how such mediation can remain exposed to historical plurality without reintroducing a meta-historical criterion. Vattimo radicalizes this trajectory by interpreting disenchantment as the weakening of foundations and the demythologization of demythologization itself. Myth survives as historically mediated narrative orientation within an ongoing conflict of interpretations. Theological meaning emerges not from first principles but from interpretive practices shaped by non-foundational norms such as charity and recognition. This shift, however, intensifies the problem of order: how can narrative plurality sustain normativity without collapsing into arbitrariness? The paper proposes that mythical narrative be understood as a condition of shared orientation within a space of recognition. Mythical narratives order the philosophico-theological discourse by constituting the horizon within which truth claims become reciprocally binding amid interpretive conflict. Re-enchantment thus names the post-metaphysical persistence of narrative forms capable of sustaining theological intelligibility and critical normativity beyond system.
NARRATIVE IDENTIFICATION AND THE MYSTERY OF GOD IN ROBERT JENSON'S THEOLOGY

Moe K.E. (Speaker)

VID Specialized University ~ Stavanger ~ Norway
Robert Jenson's theology constitutes a rigorous challenge to the classical negations of traditional metaphysics, such as atemporality and impassibility. This, he argues, reduces the biblical narrative to mere "clues about God." Jenson challenges this notion by arguing that God is identified by and with the biblical narrative. Critics, however, worry that Jenson collapses the divine into history, thereby obscuring the distinction between creator and creation. This paper investigates whether Jenson successfully distances himself from a mystical and metaphysical deity while preserving divine aseity. To accommodate the identification of God by and with narrative, Jenson rethinks traditional divine atemporality by replacing it with the concept of divine "temporal infinity" giving priority to the future for determining the divine past and present. Consistent with narrative identification, temporality is not considered an ontological defect, and so God is not diminished by involvement in historically contingent events. I argue that for Jenson this is possible because he locates the distinction between creator and creation in distinct modes of divine and creaturely futurity. If God's nature is not understood with reference to a metaphysical hierarchy, how does Jenson account for God's aseity? And how can this be integrated with God's temporally contingent narrative identification? In considering these questions, I argue that Jenson relocates divine mystery to the understanding of God's identity as an event and that this is consistent with divine aseity. I end by considering whether Jenson's narrative identification of God is successful as an alternative to mystical theology by comparing his understanding of God to the apophatic theology of Dionysius the Areopagite. I argue that Jenson's theology risks merely relocating divine mystery from being to event rather than providing an alternative, raising questions about the limits of narrative identification.
NARRATIVE AS A PERSONAL, PHRONETIC, AND AFFECTIVE THEOLOGICAL MODE OF RATIONALITY

Buck R.A. (Speaker)

Mesa Global ~ Oxford, UK ~ United States of America
Many theologians have argued for the place of narrative in theology. From Hans Frei and Stanley Hauerwas of the Yale School to Paul Ricoeur and Hans Urs von Balthasar of the more hermeneutical and philosophical tradition. More recently, Markus Mühling has undertaken to build out a comprehensive approach to narrative's necessary place in theology. Narrative has also received great attention by cognitive science researchers and narratologists seeking to build out a synthesis of what narrative is. David Herman has explored how narrative works to generate comprehension, while Patrick Colm Hogan has discovered that there are cross-culturally recurring affect-embedded narratives that appear universal across humanity in time, place, and culture. Both Herman and Hogan exhibit hermeneutical inclinations in their understanding of narrative, but more importantly suggest why and how narrative is a fundamental mode of cognition as we build out an interdisciplinary approach to narrative rationality. Calling narrative a theological mode of rationality is correct, but one that coheres beyond propositional logic. Instead, narrative natively integrates personal knowledge and phronesis as essential elements of its rationality alongside propositional knowledge, supported by an engagement with Michael Polanyi's epistemology that emphatically maintains the personal and tacit elements of knowing. Moreover, epistemological integration in narrative and affective narrative universals suggest something of a narrative rationality in humanity both individually and collectively, one built into the nature of human cognition which prepares for relational engagement with God and phronetic participation in God, as Gregory Nazianzen shows. However, this interdisciplinary paper also points towards a narrative metaphysics in God's intra-Trinitarian life that centres personal knowledge and agency with love in a way explains the necessity and shape of narrative as a theological mode of rationality.
MYSTERY AND THE LIMITS OF NARRATIVE IN HERMENEUTICAL THEOLOGY

Jockel R.M. (Speaker)

Justus-Liebig-University Giessen ~ Giessen ~ Germany
This paper aims to explore some limits of the functions of narrative in hermeneutical theology outlined in the panel's description. Narrative is indeed employed in hermeneutical theology as a mode of theological reasoning and ordering that is explicitly stated or intended to be non-metaphysical, phenomenologically concrete and mindful of difference and plurality. However, ironically, this very methodological foundationality of narrative also opens the category to the risk of becoming a mirror image of what it was was originally employed to avoid: If not in name then in effect a comprehensively 'metaphysical' category wherein difference is organized within narrative as a conceptual framework that remains, in itself, monolithic. It would then employ a kind of discursive power it explicitly attempted to avoid. To prevent this consequence, it appears necessary to turn the attention of hermeneutical theology to various 'others' of narrative (and, by extension, of understanding itself): e. g. its own mediality, the irreducibility of the other person, and the unnarratable as such. The paper asks how these others may be accounted for in hermeneutical-theological reflection by employing the category of mystery - used by Eberhard Jüngel, for example, in a mostly christological sense - as a kind of border term, a discursive 'buffer' that avoid final definability and thus establishes an attitude of hermeneutical modesty.

Panel description: During the pontificate of Pope Francis (°1936-2025; 2013-2025), synodality quickly emerged as a central theme and it prominently figures in his legacy. Now that his pontificate has ended, the real challenge lies in the further implementation of the 2021-2024 synod of bishops. This implementation deserves further attention because of the extent of the process and the number of important topics associated with it. As this process will take until at least 2028, it will be one of the most extensive reform processes since the Second Vatican Council. Such a process of reform, of 'synodalization' of the Church, however, raises many questions. The Final Document, e.g., calls for a "culture of transparency, accountability and evaluation". However, what this exactly entails is unclear. Moreover, these concepts can be approached in different ways depending on the theological sub-discipline from which questions are raised. In this panel, we do not focus on one specific sub-discipline, however, we do place at the center the overarching question: how can we determine, measure, or assess the synodalization of the Church? By which criteria can we see whether the Church, locally, continentally, or universally, has become or is becoming more synodal, more transparent, accountable, and evaluative? Or, to approach the question of synodalization from another angle: which practices or habits need to be reformed or reconfigured to showcase the further synodalization of the Church? This panel therefore invites submissions that (i) help to address the question of how to evaluate and understand the synodalization of the Church, (ii) attempt to either learn from concrete synodal practices in the Church or to evaluate the Church from a more systematic understanding synodality, and/or (iii) offer interdisciplinary or ecumenical approaches that contribute to an evaluation or further implementation of synodality in the Catholic Church.

Papers:

LITURGY AS THE FIRST SCHOOL OF (IN)EQUALITY? A SYNODAL READING

Cinocca F. (Speaker)

Emmanuel College ~ Boston ~ United States of America
This paper argues that the Synod on Synodality calls the Church to confront not only structural and procedural inequalities, but also those ritualized and embodied within the liturgy itself. Liturgy is not a neutral practice: it forms bodies, distributes roles, and implicitly teaches who matters in the ecclesial community. Who speaks and who listens, who is visible and who remains hidden, who presides and who responds, who decides and who follows. In this sense, liturgy becomes a primary site where ecclesial inequality is embodied, normalized, and transmitted. At the heart of the synodal process lies the insistence that the Church is first and foremost a listening people. Yet this synodal vision stands in tension with a liturgical structure that often remains largely one-directional, operating as a ritual economy flowing from altar to pew. This paper explores how such a configuration risks undermining the Church's synodal conversion by reinforcing asymmetries of voice, visibility, and authority that obscure the equal baptismal dignity of all the faithful. Drawing on the ecclesiology of the Synod on Synodality and the theology of baptism articulated by Vatican II, the paper proposes a normative account of liturgical equality as neither sameness nor role interchangeability, but as the equal ritual visibility of baptismal dignity within a differentiated sacramental economy. It argues for a de-hierarchicalization of liturgical forms, not through de-sacramentalization or the abolition of distinct ministries, but through a reconfiguration of symbolic and performative structures so that differentiation no longer collapses into domination. Ultimately, the paper contends that liturgy is a decisive test of synodal credibility: a Church that seeks to listen synodally must also learn to worship synodally.
QUO VADIS? THE COUNCIL OF CONSTANCE, THE RISKS OF SYNODALITY, AND THE LIMITS OF DISCERNMENT

Bobrowicz R. (Speaker)

University of Bonn ~ Bonn ~ Germany
Synodality is often framed as a tool for ecclesial unity that does not force uniformity. Consequently, it can be viewed with a degree of innocence, assuming that creating dialogical spaces will inevitably lead to positive outcomes—or, at worst, none at all. Even its critics primarily focus on the synodality's nonperformativity or the limited impact of those outside the ecclesial hierarchy. However, a closer examination of historical examples reveals a more sinister potential. The concept of "walking together" is inherently dependent on the direction of that journey. The Council of Constance serves as a pertinent example—while lauded for its conciliar efforts that ended the so-called "Western Schism," its treatment of Jan Hus also exemplifies the limitations of synodal discernment by juxtaposing dissent and authority and ultimately showcasing the violent consequences of lay involvement. Taking the Council as a starting point, this paper will argue that to treat synodality seriously as a pathway for being a church together, we must acknowledge its potential for negative and even violent outcomes, as well as its deeply contextual and embedded character.
ROOTS OF RESISTANCE TO SYNODAL CONVERSION. FOR AN ECCLESIAL AUTHENTICITY

De Biasio G. (Speaker)

Pontifical Theological Faculty of Southern Italy; I.S.S.R. "Ss. Apostoli Pietro e Paolo" ~ Napoli ~ Italy
The synodal process has brought to light resistance within the Catholic Church: clericalism, theological (and liturgical) fixism, Tradition as "petrified," the difficulty of accepting both a historical-contextual paradigm (that goes beyond Eurocentrism) and more participative ecclesial models (missionary and inclusive). The roots of this resistance in the synodal Church lie in a selfish unwillingness to spiritual (and therefore synodal) conversion, due to a combination of theological, ecclesiological, cultural, and psychological motivations, together with the "risks" (formalism, intellectualism, immobility) indicated by Pope Francis. Theology 'in' a synodal Church, as a process of personal, communal, and collegial maturation, must accompany a critical overcoming of such resistance. Lonergan recognized that the root of human resistance to processes of conversion and progress lay in the "inability to sustain development" and in "sustained inauthenticity." In human development, radical selfish factors emerge (personal, group, and general biases) that fuel tendencies toward decline and also afflict ecclesial life. His contributions to dialectics, conversion (intellectual, moral, religious), and the "Law of the Cross" represent strategic theological motifs for promoting "healing, reconciliation, and reconstruction" in the synodal church. Stephen Bevans' ecclesiology, understood as "a community of missionary disciples", strongly favors the synodal process. His use of Pope Francis's inversion of the "ecclesial pyramid" repositions the role of ordained ministry, against all clericalism. "Walking together" becomes participation in the missionary nature of the Triune God for every baptized person. This perspective favors contextual structures of ecclesial participation, overcoming fixed models, valuing community discernment and the formation of leadership as "equipping."
"WHEN RENEWAL AND ADVANCEMENT STALL": A POLITICAL PHILOSOPHICAL READING OF THE ASSESSMENT OF SYNODALIZATION IN/OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH

Van Rompaey J. (Speaker)

UCLouvain ~ Louvain-la-Neuve ~ Belgium
The concept of synodality within the Catholic Church lacks clearly defined criteria for assessing the extent to which the Church has become, is, or is becoming synodal. While synodal practices have appeared recurrently throughout history, they have manifested in diverse forms, making it practically impossible to establish a checklist for determining levels of synodality. This historical variability suggests that synodality is better understood as a dynamic and evolving reality rather than a fixed institutional model. In this regard, Craig Calhoun's reflections on the survival of democracy provide a valuable framework for considering how synodality might be sustained and adapted over time. For Calhoun, "Democracy is a project, not simply a condition. It is not switched on like a light and then safely ignored. Democracy is always a work in process, being built, being deepened, or being renewed." (Calhoun, "Contradictions and Double Movements," 48) While the Catholic Church is not a democracy, it likewise cannot simply "switch on" synodality as if it were a technical adjustment of its organizational structures. Just as democracy requires both commitment and ongoing maintenance, synodality demands sustained engagement and cultivation. This paper therefore proceeds in three steps: first, it highlights the need for evaluative criteria to meaningfully assess synodal development; second, it proposes a more telic understanding of synodality, drawing inspiration from Craig Calhoun's reflections on the survival of democracy; and finally, it explores the practical consequences of such an approach for the concrete life of the Church.
DEMOCRACY NEEDS RELIGION AND RELIGION NEEDS DEMOCRACY: ARE CATHOLICS CONCERNED?

Costa P. (Speaker)

Fondazione Bruno Kessler, Center for Religious Studies ~ Trento ~ Italy
Recently, Hartmut Rosa argued that democracy needs religion because "religion has the power […] to unlock a sense of what it means to be called, to be transformed, and to live in a state of resonance. Without this sense, […] it is impossible for a living democracy to function." Democracy, in short, presupposes a resonant relationship with others. Resonance, in turn, involves: (i) responsiveness; (ii) a sense of empowerment; (iii) self-transformation; (iv) and forsaking rage for control. In this sense, it is a hyper-ambitious form of government, in which power amounts to mutual empowerment. Reversing Rosa's argument, one could likewise claim that religion needs democracy. For a utopian, even sacramental element is encapsulated in the democratic practices of self-rule. It is the resilient belief that even the dispossessed can benefit from mutual democratic empowerment. This is the religious aspect of democracy, that includes: (i) a specific kind of enchantment; (ii) 'religio' in the sense of de-centering the self; (iii) 'religio' in the sense of renouncing privilege; and (iv) the transformative experience of re-opening the possible. In "Democracy Needs Religion," Rosa speaks of 'religion' in an unqualified way, although his thoughts revolve around the Christian experience of faith. So, what happens when we apply his account to the Catholic Church? Drawing on his interpretative framework, in my paper I shall revisit the question of synodality and conciliarism, uncoupling it from the question of authority or sovereignty. For the stakes in the debate on church and democracy go beyond the legal question of the ordinary functioning of a historically contingent institution. My thesis is that one of the cruxes of this age-old clash of interpretations is the role that must be granted to generative sacredness in the modern democratic project and the lessons that religions, including Catholicism, can draw from this basic experience of irreducibly shared goodness.
SYNODAL DIVERSITY WITHIN THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. CAN THE LATIN CHURCH LEARN FROM THE EASTERN CHURCHES?

Berkmann B. (Speaker)

Ludwig-Maximilian-University ~ Munich ~ Germany
The Catholic Church consists not only of the Latin Church, but also of 23 Eastern Catholic Churches. Pope Francis not only prescribed synodality as a principle of reform, but also recognised that synodal practice is stronger in the Eastern Churches. The speaker explores the question of whether the Latin Church can learn from the Eastern Catholic Churches. The 16th Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops, also referred to as the "Synod on Synodality", dealt with synodality in the Eastern Churches several times. The First Session, held in October 2023, suggested in the Synthesis Report "further study of the contribution that the experience of the Eastern Catholic Churches can make to the understanding and practice of synodality." The second session, held in October 2024, paid much attention to the Eastern Churches in its final document. The question is, however, whether the concept of synodality used here is too vague. The speaker's analysis leads to a sobering conclusion. The concept of synod is not the same in the East as it is in the West. In the Eastern Canon law, the term "synod" is reserved for assemblies that consist exclusively of bishops and have the power of governance. In contrast, the current discussions on strengthening synodality aim precisely at forms that involve all the faithful. In the context of the universal Synod on synodality, the Canonical Commission proposed to adapt the Latin particular councils to the Eastern concept of synodality. However, this cannot be recognised as strengthening the laity, but, on the contrary, it would introduce a new separation. Concrete reforms that are still awaited should not simply transpose existing concepts from a different context.

Panel description: This session explores the evolving landscape of new spiritual movements in Taiwan and the challenges they face in securing full protection of freedom of religion or belief. Through six case‑based and theoretically informed papers, the panel traces how diverse movements—ranging from the New Testament Church's Mount Zion community to Tai Ji Men—have navigated state institutions, public perceptions, and shifting legal frameworks. The opening paper situates the Mount Zion saga within a comparative perspective, showing how early tensions between the New Testament Church and Taiwanese authorities foreshadowed later conflicts involving other minority spiritual groups. Subsequent contributions examine Tai Ji Men from multiple angles: the spiritual and emotional significance of the Miaoli sacred land; the use of taxation as a tool of indirect discrimination; the relationship between equality, trust, and freedom of belief; the cultural meaning of the master-disciple tradition; and the broader implications of the case for institutional integrity and sustainable governance. Together, these papers illuminate recurring patterns—misinterpretation of spiritual practices, administrative overreach, and the fragility of institutional trust—while highlighting the resilience of Taiwan's spiritual communities. By bringing historical, legal, cultural, and interdisciplinary perspectives into dialogue, the session offers a comprehensive assessment of how Taiwan's democratic system grapples with the rights of new spiritual movements and what these cases reveal about the future of religious liberty on the island.

Papers:

NEW TESTAMENT CHURCH: THE MOUNT ZION SAGA IN COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVE

Introvigne M. (Speaker)

CESNUR (Center for Studies on New Religions) ~ Torino ~ Italy
This paper offers a comparative analysis of the New Testament Church (NTC) and its Mount Zion community in Taiwan, drawing on an extensive review of the scholarly literature and interviews conducted on Mount Zion itself. The study reconstructs the movement's origins, its theology of a "new" Mount Zion transferred from Israel to Taiwan, and the development of its utopian community under the leadership of Elijah Hong (who passed away in 2025). Particular attention is given to the 1980s-1990s confrontation between the NTC and Taiwanese authorities, including police raids, administrative pressure, and attempts to restrict the community's activities. These events are examined as an early example of the tensions that can arise between new spiritual movements and state institutions in Taiwan. By placing the Mount Zion saga in a broader comparative framework, the paper highlights continuities between the treatment of the NTC and later cases—most notably Tai Ji Men—showing how patterns of suspicion, bureaucratic overreach, and moral panic have periodically shaped the state's response to minority religions. The analysis argues that the Mount Zion case remains essential for understanding the evolution of religious liberty issues in Taiwan and the challenges still faced by new spiritual movements today.
TAI JI MEN'S SACRED LAND OF MIAOLI

Nemes M. (Speaker)

Hungarian Academy of Arts Research Institute of Art Theory and Methodology ~ Budapest ~ Hungary
This paper examines the spiritual significance of Miaoli for the Tai Ji Men movement and the enduring emotions associated with the loss of its sacred land. The mountainous region, known for its natural beauty, once included 50 interconnected plots owned by Tai Ji Men and intended to become a major spiritual center. These lands were confiscated, unsuccessfully auctioned, and ultimately nationalized in 2020. Nationalization became a central theme in Tai Ji Men's public communications, yet individual and collective ways of coping with the loss have been diverse. Using qualitative interviews with long‑standing and newer members, the paper analyzes how practitioners remember, interpret, and emotionally relate to the Miaoli land. These experiences are contextualized within Tai Ji Men's identity culture and compared with classical antiquity's temenoi, sacred groves dedicated to worship, sacrifice, and mystical experience. The paper seeks to map the variety of references to Miaoli as a lost sacred space and to offer insight into how spiritual communities negotiate memory, identity, and resilience when deprived of a place central to their religious imagination.
TAXES AS A TOOL OF RELIGIOUS DISCRIMINATION: THE CASE OF TAI JI MEN

Amore D. (Speaker)

IC Gabriele D'Annunzio ~ Motta Sant'Anastasia ~ Italy
This paper analyzes how taxation can function as a subtle instrument of religious discrimination, using the case of Tai Ji Men as a paradigmatic example. Although international human rights law protects freedom of religion or belief, fiscal and administrative mechanisms may be deployed to pressure minority spiritual groups while maintaining an appearance of neutrality. The Tai Ji Men case shows how donations, gifts, and ritual offerings were reinterpreted as taxable income, triggering decades of legal disputes, financial penalties, asset seizures, and reputational harm. This occurred despite court rulings affirming the non‑commercial, spiritual nature of the movement's practices. The persistence of tax enforcement actions reveals structural imbalances between state power and religious minorities, raising concerns about proportionality, legal certainty, and equality before the law. Placed within a broader comparative framework, the paper argues that discriminatory taxation constitutes a form of "administrative persecution" operating below the threshold of overt repression. Such practices erode pluralism and public trust while preserving a façade of legality. The study calls for closer scrutiny of fiscal policies from a freedom‑of‑religion perspective and for safeguards to prevent the instrumentalization of tax systems against vulnerable spiritual communities.
EQUALITY, FREEDOM OF BELIEF, AND THE TAI JI MEN CASE

Chuang Y.C. (Speaker)

Tai Ji Men Qigong Academy ~ Taipei ~ Taiwan
This paper examines equality and freedom of belief as essential foundations for institutional trust. In governance, business, and human rights systems, trust cannot be proclaimed; it must rest on rules applied equally to all. From a human rights perspective, equality means ensuring that no individual is disadvantaged before public authority because of identity, background, or belief. Freedom of belief is especially vital, as it concerns conscience and personal dignity. When institutions apply different standards to religious or belief minorities, rights become conditional, weakening both minority protections and society's confidence in the rule of law. The Tai Ji Men 12/19 Incident illustrates these dynamics. In 1996, Tai Ji Men was falsely accused and subjected to large scale searches, arrests, and years of judicial and tax persecution. Although the Supreme Court acquitted all defendants in 2007, the prolonged injustice exposed systemic failures in safeguarding freedom of belief. Throughout this period, Tai Ji Men's master and disciples upheld conscience, integrity, and justice, reminding society of the values that sustain democratic legitimacy. Their Qigong tradition, combining physical practice with inner cultivation, embodies this commitment.
MASTER-DISCIPLE TRADITION, EQUALITY, AND INEQUALITY IN TAIWAN

Hsu H. (Speaker)

Tai Ji Men Qigong Academy ~ Taipei ~ Taiwan
This paper examines how the master-disciple tradition at the heart of Tai Ji Men, an ancient qigong and martial arts lineage rooted in Daoist philosophy, came into conflict with modern state structures. Tai Ji Men emphasizes holistic cultivation—of body, mind, spirit, and conscience—and transmits wisdom through a personalized master-disciple relationship rather than through institutionalized religious forms. When this spiritual framework encountered bureaucratic systems unfamiliar with such traditions, an "equality dilemma" emerged. The paper analyzes the 30‑year Tai Ji Men 1219 Case, in which sacred gifts exchanged within the master-disciple bond were misinterpreted as commercial income, triggering prolonged tax actions. This misclassification illustrates how administrative mechanisms can distort the meaning of spiritual practices and infringe upon cultural and belief rights. Despite sustained pressure, Tai Ji Men practitioners have shown notable resilience, continuing to cultivate conscience and uphold ethical principles. The case raises broader concerns about institutional integrity when administrative authorities disregard judicial rulings, threatening the foundations of democratic governance. From the perspective of international human rights law, states must protect intangible cultural heritage and ensure equal treatment of minority belief communities. Genuine religious equality requires legal systems capable of recognizing diverse spiritual traditions and guided by conscience rather than bureaucratic rigidity.
CONSCIENCE, BELIEF PRACTICES, AND INSTITUTIONAL INTEGRITY: A SUSTAINABILITY ORIENTED PERSPECTIVE ON THE TAI JI MEN CASE

Lu M.C. (Speaker)

National Chung Hsing University ~ Taichung ~ Taiwan
This paper approaches the Tai Ji Men case through the lens of sustainability studies, emphasizing that long term development depends not only on environmental stewardship but also on justice, trust, and institutional integrity, as highlighted in the UN 2030 Agenda. Rather than treating the case as a religious dispute, the analysis frames it as a governance issue involving freedom of belief and the state's responsibility to uphold conscience rights. Drawing on concepts from environmental engineering—such as system resilience, cumulative contamination, and remediation—the paper proposes an interdisciplinary model for understanding how unresolved administrative injustices can create "institutional contamination" within democratic systems. The persistence of unlawful administrative actions even after court rulings affirming innocence illustrates how such contamination erodes public trust and affects the exercise of belief and conscience. Situated within the Sustainable Development Goals, particularly those concerning peace, justice, and strong institutions, the paper argues that safeguarding belief practices is integral to sustainable governance. By integrating sustainability theory with the study of belief related rights, the paper contributes to broader discussions on the ethical foundations required for resilient and trustworthy institutions.

Panel description: The contemporary landscape of inequality, which is marked by polarization, alienation, and conflict, can be understood as a liminal space increasingly governed by a therapeutic logic. This panel introduces the concept of a therapeutic liminal space to examine how modern societies seek to reconcile or reintegrate inequality through frameworks of identity, recognition, and validation. Drawing on philosophy, theology, and social theory, the panel explores how demands for recognition function both as a source of dignity and as a catalyst for rivalry, resentment, and division. Francis Fukuyama's Identity: The Demand for Dignity and the Politics of Resentment (2019) provides a key point of departure, framing recognition as a "master concept" that reveals both a fundamental anthropological capacity and a latent source of conflict. If recognition is itself a form of power, does it facilitate or hinder constructive dialogue in contexts of inequality, alienation, and political polarization? How might identity be reconfigured to sustain mutual recognition within therapeutic and dialogical settings, rather than reinforcing competitive or exclusionary dynamics? The panel also examines the technological and institutional conditions under which certain identities and worldviews are rendered visible and validated, while others are marginalized or suppressed. Finally, it asks whether the pursuit of full equality reshapes the ethical burdens, obligations, and possibilities of dialogue under persistent conditions of inequality. The discussion engages thinkers including Hans Blumenberg, Michel Foucault, René Girard, Edmund Husserl, Jürgen Habermas, Søren Kierkegaard, Catherine Cornille, Francis Fukuyama, Charles Taylor, and Martin Heidegger.

Papers:

BEYOND THE IDENTITY TRAP: VICTIM IDENTITY, RECOGNITION, AND OUR HIDDEN LIFE IN GOD

Robinette B. (Speaker)

Boston College ~ Boston ~ United States of America
In this essay, I wish to think through the shifts in our social imaginaries that now gravitate strongly around identity. My intention is not to raise the specter of "identity politics" merely to condemn it, nor to pretend that I am somehow free from its influence. One of the surest signs of being lost in ideology, as Jason Blakely observes in his recent book, is the belief that one has made a clean break from it. 4 (Other people are lost in ideology, whereas I am not! Let the contempt and self-deception begin.)What we need is a way to denaturalize our ideological framings, and this comes, in part, through historical understanding as well as immanent critique. Girard is invaluable in this effort. His incisive analyses of cyclical human conflict and scapegoating can help us see how our current convictions and sensibilities—often assumed to be natural or self-evident—have emerged over time, while also warning us of the temptation to wield them in rivalrous or self-righteous ways.Alongside Girard, I will engage the works of Yascha Mounk, Charles Taylor, and Jason Blakely to outline how the modern concern for victims and the political focus on identity are internally linked.
AT HOME IN CONTINGENCY: EXISTENTIAL THERAPY FOR GNOSTIC RESSENTIMENT

Rivera J. (Speaker)

Dublin City University ~ Dublin ~ Ireland
Gnosticism is a contested category both historically and philosophically, and yet, it remains a fertile entry point into the debate concerning the ontology of the world and its existential consequences. The present article seeks to highlight that the "Gnostic" conception of the tragic can be retained and its utility lies in the subjective disposition it cultivates in its followers: the existential estrangement from the world as a domain of contingent becoming. To overcome the spiritual practice of world-flight (Weltflucht) to an eternal realm purified of all becoming, some like Hans Blumenberg recommend a therapeutic reintegration within the world here-and-now, and in so doing deny the eternal altogether. I propose an alternative existential therapy which relies on Augustine's and Heidegger's subtler language of Incarnate being-in-the-world, in which the contingent and the eternal and held in tension, in a therapeutic liminal space, without implying the need for world-flight. Being at home in contingency need not necessitate the elimination of the eternal.

Panel description: For the complete call for papers, including detailed section descriptions, guiding questions, and context, please see: https://scriptureandtheology.org/panels/2026-rome/. Without consulting the full text, proposals cannot be properly prepared. The Scripture and Theology Forum invites proposals for its 2026 program at the European Academy of Religion in Rome. The full call outlines five sections: 1. Interactions Between Biblical Studies and Theology: Methodological exchanges, mutual dependencies, and best-practice models (see full call for specific questions and publication details). 2. A History of Scripture and Theology: Three parts on premodern integration, Enlightenment-era separation, and contemporary consequences/retrievals (including precise chronological and thematic scope in the full call). 3. Scripture and Theology - Open Call: Topics and methods are specified in the full call, including examples of acceptable proposals. 4. David Ford on the Gospel of John: Closed session, participation criteria and publication plans described only in the full call. 5. Scripture, Theology, and the Advent of AI: The full call lists required foci, sample themes, and expectations for short papers. Submission requirements (abstract length, biographical note, deadlines, and word counts for potential publication) are given in detail in the full call. We welcome contributions from various fields, countries and denominations, and look forward to meet you in Rome!

Papers:

NEW PICKS AND SHOVELS FOR MINING THEOLOGY: A PROGRAMMATIC REPORT ON THE USE OF AI IN THEOLOGICAL WORK

Borowski M. (Speaker)

VU Amsterdam ~ Amsterdam ~ Netherlands
The rapid spread of AI tools has polarized the academy, and theology is no exception. This paper offers a programmatic report on the use of AI in theological work, asking how these tools can function as "picks and shovels" that support, rather than replace, theological inquiry. First, it presents concrete examples of AI-supported tasks in theology (e.g. corpus work, conceptual mapping, and drafting support), drawn from ongoing collaborations and conversations with practitioners and theorists at universities in Amsterdam, Bielefeld, Heidelberg, and Oxford. Second, it analyses legal, ethical, and practical challenges to scaling up such usage, including data protection, copyright, and concerns about academic integrity. Third, it sketches a vision for the future implementation of AI in theology, arguing for structured, critically supervised integration into research and teaching. The paper represents early-stage accompanying research (Begleitforschung) within a larger project on AI and theology and explicitly aims to invite further discussion and collaborative publication.
THE REJECTION OF MIRACLES IN MODERN BIBLICAL SCHOLARSHIP: AN ANALYSIS OF THE HUME-STRAUSS-TROELTSCH-EHRMAN TRAJECTORY

Svensson L. (Speaker)

Umea University ~ Umea ~ Sweden
Behind the groundbreaking mythical interpretation in David Friedrich Strauss' Das Leben Jesu, kritisch bearbetet (1835-1836) stands a fundamental denial of the historical possibility of miracles. In later editions of Das Leben Jesu and other works, Strauss' relates this rejection to a Humean and naturalistic stance: human experience has demonstrated the constant and exceptionless workings of the laws of cause and effects, which undermines the historical credibility of miracle testimonies. This incorporation of the rejection of miracles into historical criticism is a trademark of much modern exegesis, all the way from Strauss via Ernst Troeltsch to contemporary scholars such as Bart D. Ehrman. Even though many exegetes still defend the exclusion of miracles from critical history, the situation is very different in current debates in the philosophy of religion, where Hume's arguments against miracles as well as ontological naturalism - the view that everything that exists can be explained by natural causes and laws - are under heavy fire. My presentation will discuss the Hume-Strauss-Troeltsch-Ehrman trajectory and denial of miracles as a historical possibility. No attempt will be made to trace back the direct influence of Troeltsch, Strauss, and Hume on contemporary biblical scholars. The aim is more modest: I will highlight Hume's critique of the credibility of reported miracles, developed during the Deist controversy against the backdrop of the Newtonian mechanical worldview, and analyze how something similar to this Humean position is a fundamental presupposition of the historical-critical methods advocated by Strauss, Troeltsch, and Ehrman. The presentation will conclude with some brief thoughts on how the way that many contemporary biblical scholars - on questionable, Humean grounds - take a rejection of miracles a priori for granted in historical analysis point to the need for a more profound dialogue between biblical scholarship and philosophy of religion.
"INCLINE YOUR EAR": ATTENTION, WISDOM, AND MORAL FORMATION IN THE BOOK OF PROVERBS

Coleman S. (Speaker)

Westminster Theological Seminary ~ Philadelphia ~ United States of America
Current discussions of artificial intelligence increasingly center on questions of attention: what systems attend to, how attention is trained or captured, and how human attention is shaped by technological mediation. This paper argues that the Book of Proverbs offers a theologically rich and underexplored account of attention as a moral and spiritual capacity essential to wisdom. Proverbs repeatedly exhorts its hearers to "listen," "incline the ear," "set the heart," and "guard" perception, framing attention not as a neutral cognitive function but as a cultivated orientation of the whole person toward what is true, good, and life-giving. Through consideration of key passages (e.g., Prov 1-9; 4:20-27; 22:17-21), this paper analyzes how attention in Proverbs integrates hearing, seeing, remembering, and desiring, and how disordered attention leads to folly, deception, and moral drift. Attention is shown to be inseparable from responsibility: wisdom requires sustained, receptive attentiveness to instruction, to moral reality, and ultimately to the fear of the LORD. In dialogue with contemporary debates about artificial intelligence and machine "attention," the paper argues that Proverbs resists any reduction of attention to mere information processing. Instead, it presents attention as normatively ordered, relational, and teleological, all features which mark a decisive boundary between human wisdom and algorithmic optimization. Drawing on Reformed theological anthropology, the paper concludes by suggesting that Proverbs offers critical resources for evaluating the promises and perils of AI systems that increasingly shape what humans notice, value, and become.
A TYPOLOGICAL READING OF MATTHEW 12,1-8

Virginia V. (Speaker)

Charles Sturt University ~ Canberra ~ Australia
The focus of this paper is the narrative of Matthew 12,1-8. In this narrative Jesus connects the case of his disciples plucking heads of grain to eat on the Sabbath with the story of David taking the Bread of the Presence to eat (1Sam 21,1-6). In scholarship the dominant interest in the paralleled passages is with the legal aspects of the stories. From this perspective, the focus of the interpretation concerns the use of the story of David taking and eating the Bread of the Presence as a case precedent for the story of the disciples plucking grain to eat on the Sabbath. It is my view that the stories are put in a parallel relationship as an exercise of typology (which is dependent on a legal analysis of the stories). From this perspective I argue that these stories, when used comparatively, are more concerned with revealing something about Jesus, in terms of the economy of salvation, than adjudicating whether the disciples are permitted to pluck grains to eat on the Sabbath. Importantly, these paralleled stories serve as proof of Jesus' role as the rightful King of Israel who, like David, did not commit treason, but unlike David, is the fulfillment of the Temple.
DIVINE KNOWLEDGE AND ARTIFICIAL 'OMNISCIENCE'

Van Den Belt H. (Speaker)

Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and Theologische Universiteit Apeldoorn ~ Amsterdam and Apeldoorn ~ Netherlands
This paper compares Reformed theological reflection on God's knowledge with the use of artificial intelligence. Drawing on key Reformed sources, it emphasizes that divine knowledge is covenantally ordered and inseparable from God's providential governance. Artificial intelligence, by contrast, operates through data, statistical inference, and algorithms. The paper argues that (1) A Reformed view of divine knowledge offers a framework for critically assessing accounts of intelligence that equate knowledge with data processing. (2) The relationship between knowledge and providential governance provides a helpful analogy for underscoring the need for accountability in the use of AI tools. (3) The unique character of divine omniscience resists the mythologizing of AI by maintaining a qualitative distinction between uncreated knowledge and all created forms of intelligence. AI will always reflect the finitude and moral limitations of its human creators, making uncritical trust in AI both epistemically and ethically dangerous. Psalm 139 confesses that the LORD discerns our thoughts from afar. Divine omniscience is inherently relational, whereas the tools of artificial intelligence—though they may be used with discernment—remain strictly instrumental. This is obviously intended for section V Scripture, Theology, and the Advent of AI
SCRIPTURE IN THE PROLEGOMENA OR IN PNEUMATOLOGY: REVISITING THE TESTIMONIUM SPIRITUS SANCTI

Van Den Belt H. (Speaker)

Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and Theologische Universiteit Apeldoorn ~ Amsterdam and Apeldoorn ~ Netherlands
This paper focuses especially on the pre-modern protestant understanding of Scripture as principium of theology and the role of the testimonium Spiritus Sancti in the reception of Scripture. Premodern and early modern theology shared the conviction that God's revelation is the sole starting point for all theological reasoning. Disagreements between Rome and the Reformation concerned not revelation itself, but its sources and mediation: whether theology rests on the self-authenticating authority (autopistia) of Scripture or of the Church. By contrast, modern foundationalism relocates the starting point of knowledge in the autonomous subject. I argue that contemporary theology risks conflating the premodern appeal to revelation with modern foundationalism, thereby either rationalizing Scripture defensively or relativizing its authority altogether. Against this backdrop, I revisit Calvin's account of the testimonium Spiritus Sancti as a model of integrated exegesis and doctrine. For Calvin, the Spirit's testimony is not an alternative source of revelation but the divine act by which Scripture is recognized as God's Word, illuminating the mind, sealing the heart, and grounding assurance of salvation. Scripture's authority is thus both objective (rooted in divine inspiration) and subjectively received through the Spirit—extra nos, yet inwardly effective. This premodern integration resists both subjectivism and rationalism. It shows how Scripture, doctrine, church proclamation, and pneumatology belong together in a single theological practice. I conclude by suggesting that contemporary theology can recover this integration by rethinking the relation between autopistia and testimonium, allowing Scripture to function as the living Word received and confessed within the communion of the church. Though the doctrine of Scripture is pneumatological in essence, it nevertheless should maintain a place in the prolegomena. Section II, Part 1: Before the Shift
NOVEL AI-BASED APPROACHES TO BIBLICAL STUDIES

Drake L. (Speaker)

University of Oxford ~ Oxford ~ United Kingdom
In this paper, I offer some novel approaches to long-standing questions in biblical studies, and in particular to automation of textual analysis. While statistical methods have been used for some time in biblical studies, recent work in AI has produced huge advances in Natural Language Processing (NLP), which in turn offer considerable opportunity for application to biblical studies. The first is to apply new linguistic methods to long-standing questions around textual similarity and difference, using embeddings to move beyond simple statistic comparisons to enable syntactical and semantic information to be encoded and compared. The second is to use Large Language Model (LLM) based tools to develop and apply these methods. This paper takes as an exemplar problem the distinctiveness and textual dependency questions around 2 Peter and the Apocalypse of Peter to demonstrate the experimental possibilities which are becoming available to biblical scholars.
FROM THE VIA ANTIQUA TO THE VIA MODERNA: SCRIPTURE AND THEOLOGY IN A TALE OF REVOLUTIONS

Villeneuve A. (Speaker)

Sacred Heart Major Seminary ~ Detroit ~ United States of America
This paper examines the historical processes by which Scripture and theology, once practiced as a unified intellectual and ecclesial activity, became separated into distinct and often competing disciplines. It argues that classic Christian theology understood biblical interpretation, doctrinal reflection, and ecclesial life as mutually informing dimensions of a single theological enterprise. Patristic and medieval authors operated within this integrated framework of the via antiqua, in which Scripture, liturgy, and doctrinal teaching were coordinated expressions of the Church's reception of divine revelation. The study then traces the gradual fragmentation of this unity through a series of intellectual "revolutions" from the late Middle Ages into modernity. Nominalism reconfigured metaphysics and weakened confidence in the intelligibility of creation; conciliarist and Reformation debates reshaped the relation between Scripture, Tradition, and ecclesial authority; rationalism and critical methods recast the Bible as a primarily human text; and Enlightenment anthropology shifted the locus of certainty from revelation to the autonomous subject. Gabler's distinction between biblical and dogmatic theology did not initiate these developments but crystallized a trajectory already set in motion by broader movements of the via moderna. The paper also engages Ratzinger's diagnosis of a "biblical interpretation in crisis," which considers the consequences of this separation and raises central questions: What is lost when exegesis is detached from doctrinal coherence, or doctrine from the canonical and liturgical imagination? How did the modern disciplinary configuration reshape the Church's understanding of revelation and theological reasoning? By offering a synthetic account of the "great divorce," the paper seeks to clarify the historical forces that produced it and to suggest how contemporary theology might envision a renewed integration of Scripture and theology.
STRENGTH WITHOUT PURPOSE: SAMSON, AFFECTIVE EXEGESIS, AND THE THEOLOGICAL ROOTS OF THE CRISIS OF MASCULINITY

Upton C. (Speaker)

Toronto School of Theology ~ Toronto ~ Canada
 Recent sociological analyses, such as Richard Reeves' Of Boys and Men, have identified a growing "crisis of masculinity" marked by four interrelated dynamics: (1) economic displacement through deindustrialization and the erosion of traditionally male-dominated labor sectors; (2) heightened social isolation exacerbated by pornography, digital media, and political polarization; (3) confusion regarding masculine identity amid the loss or denigration of positive male role models; and (4) relational instability shaped by online dating cultures and shifting sexual norms. While these diagnoses are sociological, they raise deeply theological and anthropological questions concerning vocation, embodiment, desire, and moral formation.       Scripture, read theologically and affectively, offers indispensable resources for addressing these questions. Focusing on Judges 13-16, I undertake a narrative-ethical reading of the Samson cycle by employing Karl Kuhn's "affective exegesis", attending to how the text forms readers' emotions, desires, and moral imaginations. Samson emerges as a paradigmatic figure of strength without purpose, charisma without discipline, and sexuality detached from covenantal fidelity—features that resonate strikingly with contemporary masculine disorientation. More than a mere moral warning, the narrative functions as a theologically charged pedagogy of the passions.       In constructive dialogue with systematic theology, I then draw on Thomas Aquinas's account of the passions, alongside John Paul II's Theology of the Body, to articulate a theological anthropology capable of integrating strength, desire, and self-gift. By bringing affective exegesis into conversation with Catholic moral theology, this study demonstrates how scriptural narrative can shape a constructive theological response to contemporary cultural crises. In so doing, it advances the broader task of reintegrating Scripture and theology for the sake of ecclesial and pastoral renewal.
DEVELOPMENTS AND PROGRESS DEALING WITH THE FAITH-AND-REASON QUESTION

Oviedo L. (Speaker)

Pontifical University Antonianum ~ Rome ~ Italy
For those convinced that theology is about reconciling faith and reason, or offering a reasonable account of Christian beliefs and ways of life, the task has become a huge challenge in recent times. This is because reason has become both too demanding in its scientific form and too bewildered in some postmodern and critical expressions. Nevertheless, a deeper perspective can discern interesting developments that open new windows of opportunity for well-informed theology. This article explores four such scenarios: identifying expressions of reason in each social system and understanding their function; researching beliefs and the process of believing as an essential cognitive function with its rational demands; studying religion, health and wellbeing to discover the healthy dimension of faith; and recent developments in science and theology, or theology engaging with and learning from science. In all these areas, we can see a growing and much-needed collaboration between faith and reason, and their inevitable plural expressions.
BREVARD CHILDS AND WALTER BRUEGGEMANN: TWO HEIRS TO THE BARTHIAN LEGACY

Astudillo J. (Speaker)

Umeå University ~ Umeå ~ Sweden
Karl Barth was a monumental figure in 20th century theology, and exerted a great influence within biblical theology. One of those influential ideas is Barth's characterization of the Bible as an autonomous authority that resists any "domestication" from either church hierarchy or the guild of biblical scholars, with the result that the Bible can never be "pinned down" to a specific interpretation. The notion of a "free Bible" is one that is prevalent in both theologies of Brevard Childs and Walter Brueggemann. Both were Protestant theologians and Old Testament scholars but they differed considerably in their theological outlook. Whereas Childs found a "rule of faith" in the canonical outline of the Bible with the church as the natural locus for the reception of the biblical message, Brueggemann instead stressed the unruly character of the Bible, to which to no religious community has any exclusive right and where any attempt at harmonization of the biblical text is an aggressive power grab. In my presentation, before giving a short presentation on the reception of Barth within biblical theology in general, I will outline the different ways Childs and Brueggemann were influenced by Barth, highlighting similarities and differences. By examining their biblical hermeneutics, I will show the complexity and multi-dimensional nature of Barth's theology. I will conclude by giving a short evaluation of Barth's influence on biblical theology and what role it should play in the future.
ART AS A BRIDGE BETWEEN SCRIPTURE AND THEOLOGY: A BRIEF PANORAMA OF POSSIBILITIES, CHANCES, AND RISKS

Sawicki L. (Speaker)

Independent Scholar ~ Italy
This paper examines art as a living bridge linking biblical revelation to theological reflection. Art makes Scripture experientially accessible and doctrine affectively alive. Drawing on an interdisciplinary exploration of spirituality and art, the presentation outlines four principal possibilities: Perceptual opening — Aesthetic encounter awakens wonder before creation's sacramental depth (Ps 19; Rom 1:20), preparing theological insight. Kenotic co-creation — Human artistry imitates Christ's self-emptying (Phil 2:5-11), enacting the imago Dei (Gen 1:26-28) as co-creative response. Incarnational mediation through music and liturgy — Sound conveys promise-fulfillment dynamics and heavenly praise, bridging material and spiritual realms. Re-enchantment and awakening — Amid secular fragmentation, art restores connectedness, beauty, and hope. These bridges offer substantial chances: deepening embodied theology, enriching worship and catechesis, fostering dialogue, and sustaining spiritual vitality in a post-secular age. Art transforms doctrine into lived encounter, inviting conversion and moral imagination. Yet risks accompany this mediation: aesthetic idolatry or commodification, excessive subjectivization, sentimental evasion of doctrinal rigor, or confusion between Scripture's primacy and art's illuminative role. Vigilant discernment is required: art must remain subordinate and purifying, disclosing biblical depths without usurping theological authority. In sum, art functions as a graced, paradoxical bridge—fragile yet powerful—capable of leading from the written Word toward living encounter with divine mystery, provided its possibilities are embraced with humility and its risks responsibly acknowledged.
SCRIPTURAL HERMENEUTICS IN THE ORTHODOX-CATHOLIC DIALOGUE ON PRIMACY AND SYNODALITY

Keramidas D. (Speaker)

Pontifical University St Thomas Aquinas "Angelicum" in Rome ~ Rome ~ Italy
This paper aims to analyse how the International Commission for Theological Dialogue between the Catholic and Orthodox Churches has used Scripture to discuss primacy/authority and synodality/conciliarity. Specifically, I will examine the documents of Ravenna (2007), Chieti (2016), and Alexandria (2023) to evaluate how the Orthodox have received the biblical interpretations of these two forms of church governance (e.g., Mat 16:18, Jn 21, Acts 15, etc.), as a balance of role of the "first" with the "many" (synod) or to establish biblical prototypes for contemporary Orthodox-Catholic reconciliation. Additionally, I will attempt to critically identify the Orthodox scepticism regarding the biblical basis of Peter's "primacy".
REFORMED COVENANT THEOLOGY, BIBLICAL STUDIES AND SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY

Burger H. (Speaker)

Theological University Utrecht ~ Utrecht ~ Netherlands
In 2025, I presented in Vienna (previous S&T panel on the question of section 1) a paper on the complexity of the relations between Scripture and Systematic Theology. This paper further explores these relations, focusing on developments within the Reformed tradition concerning covenant-theology. Berit and diathèkè are Biblical words. These words function within Biblical stories, about Noah and creation, about Abraham, about Israel, about David, about Jesus, and in the doctrinal exposition of the letter to the Hebrews. In the Reformed tradition, these Biblical words have been used in a dogmatic doctrine of the covenant that has been developed especially from the 16th until the 18th century. In this federal theology , a system was constructed with three covenants: the covenant of salvation, the covenant of work, and the covenant of grace. Biblical words are turned into theological concepts. Furthermore, new doctrinal plotlines are constructed, that differ from Biblical salvation historical plotlines. First, this paper investigates the differences between the Biblical use of the words berit and diathèkè in the Biblical narratives, and the doctrine of the covenant as it emerged in Reformed federal theology. Doing this, the differences of word/concept and the narrative replotting (from biblical story to doctrinal system) will come into view. Second, this paper will further analyse these differences, searching for leading theological interests and for the guiding 'synoptive, imaginative judgment' (Kelsey) about the interaction between God and humanity in the history of salvation. Thirdly, I will use this to continue my critical reflections on the relations between Scripture and theology and seek for conclusions concerning (a) an improved doctrine of the covenants and (b) an improved interaction between Biblical studies and systematic theology.
THE SECOND- AND THIRD-CENTURY RULE OF FAITH - CONNECTING SCRIPTURE AND CREED

Bokedal T. (Speaker)

NLA University College ~ Bergen ~ Norway
This paper focuses on Scripture-affiliated features of the Rule of Faith (regula fidei) as well as creedal structures inherent in early Rule-of-Faith formularies. It pays particular attention to traits connecting the regula fidei to Scripture, on the one hand, and to later declaratory creeds, such as the Apostles' Creed, on the other. The Rule here provides a link between Scripture and the emerging creeds. Augustine's (354-430) description of the creed as a brief summary of the regula fidei is a point of departure for the discussion. In the years around 200 CE, a concise outline summary of Christian faith was commonly referred to as "the Rule of Truth," "the Rule of Faith," or simply "the faith." It typically focused on the belief in God the Father, Jesus Christ the Son, and the Holy Spirit, together expressing the divine Name (cf. Matt 28:19), alongside a formulation of the Christological kerygma. Candidates preparing for baptism were familiarised with this triadic (or binitarian) Rule-of-Faith summary, side by side with their instruction in the Sacred Scriptures. By integrating this ancient form of Triune teaching with a Christological formulary, the influential second-century bishop Irenaeus of Lyons (ca. 125-202) could phrase such a summary statement under three articles of faith (about God the Father, the Son Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit), with the main portion of the Christological material included under the third article about the Holy Spirit - the Spirit of prophecy (Iren. Haer. I, 10.1). That the Christological portion of the creedal formulation for Irenaeus is here an integrated part of the third article of faith indicates that the third article about the Spirit is directly linked to scriptural prophecy and Christological fulfillment. In other ways, too, the Rule of Faith is closely linked to Scripture and the scriptural account and may be presented either in longer form or as a brief summary of the faith.
SCRIPTURE AND THEOLOGY: THE CURIOUS CASE OF THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES

Elliott M. (Speaker)

Highland Theological College ~ Inverness ~ United Kingdom
As much as any New Testament book Acts is arguably a good candidate to be read as a vehicle for Trinitarian theology. It begins with the Ascended Christ who in that capacity appears to Paul. The extent to which this Messiah is to be understood as the Son of God can be gleaned from what is implicit in the book. The Spirit is not far behind and becomes a fully active presence both behind the scenes and in the foreground by dramatic intervention but also through commissioning and sending. Then there is the Father-the God of the nations as well as Israel, the Lord of history and the oekumene. The historical tradition of interpretation of Acts can lead the reader to see such theological matters as essential to the texts despite the best efforts of historical criticism to reduce it to merely a historical document - a window on cultures and ideologies, and of those narrative interpretations interested in stories and their relationship to other stories from their historical background. To take an emic approach means neither historical nor theological naïveté, but reading that approximates to how it was intended to be by those who wrote Acts and the other Scriptures.
BIBLICAL NARRATIVE AND METAPHYSICAL ICEBERGS: AN ARGUMENT FOR DIVINE IMPASSIBILITY VIA THE DOCTRINE OF CREATION

Moe K.E. (Speaker)

VID Specialized University ~ Stavanger ~ Norway
Session 3: One significant objection to divine impassibility is that it appears incompatible with the biblical narrative, which portrays God as grieving, repenting, becoming angry, and acting within temporal history. Such arguments seem to assume that the mode of God's relation to creation is available to univocal rational explication: if Scripture depicts divine emotions in creaturely terms, then divine affectivity must be metaphysically similar to creaturely affectivity. This paper argues that such an approach underestimates the theological difficulty of describing the Creator-creature relation without qualifying language about God. As a test case, I examine the traditional doctrine of creatio ex nihilo and ask whether the same qualifications applied to divine causality in the act of creation can inform how we understand divine impassibility. Because creation ex nihilo affirms that God creates without preexisting matter or prior conditions, attributing causality to God already requires an analogical and non‑univocal concept of "cause," since divine causality cannot be specified in the same register as finite causes from which our concepts are derived. I argue that this analogically qualified, non‑competitive model of causality can be extended to the entire Creator-creature relation. On this basis, divine impassibility need not imply that God is what Clark Pinnock called a "metaphysical iceberg" but follows from the same ontological asymmetry presupposed by creation itself. Impassibility emerges not as a denial of God's relational involvement in history but as a metaphysical condition for affirming that God's engagement with the world is genuinely creative rather than reactive. The paper concludes by suggesting that such an analogically qualified concept of causality provides a more coherent hermeneutical framework for interpreting relational language about God in Scripture by grounding divine and creaturely action in distinct modes of causality.
ESCAPING THE LINGUISTIC TRAP: DECONSTRUCTING THE 'HIGH/LOW' BINARY THROUGH JOHANNINE MESSIANISM.

Ebode Atangana W.M. (Speaker)

Cardinal Bea Centre for Judaic Studies ~ Rome ~ Italy
This paper investigates the persistent use of "High" and "Low" Christology—categories frequently employed by scholars within cautionary quotation marks—as a case study in the triangular influence between biblical exegesis and dogmatic formulation. It argues that while the formal terminology of Christology "from above" and "from below" was solidified in 20th-century systematic theology (notably by Karl Rahner from 1954 onwards), its conceptual roots are anchored in the Enlightenment's dualistic separation of the "Jesus of History" from the "Christ of Faith." The author contends that modern historical-critical exegesis inadvertently forced dogmatic theology into a defensive, binary framework that retrojects post-Enlightenment ontological concerns onto the biblical text. Using the Gospel of John as a primary—yet representative—example, this paper shows how the "divine" attributes of the Johannine Christ have been misidentified as later Hellenistic developments or dogmatic impositions. By integrating the "New Testament within Judaism" (NTWJ) perspective, the study demonstrates that these attributes are not proto-metaphysical descents, but coherent expressions of Second Temple Jewish Messianism. Consequently, the paper proposes a methodological reversal: rather than using modern systematic categories to "filter" the text, the Jewish context of Scripture should be allowed to collapse these anachronistic dogmatic binaries. This reflection seeks to advance a more precise relationship between the disciplines by acknowledging the historical weight of the Enlightenment while prioritizing the primary conceptual world of the Evangelist. (Section 3: Scripture and Theology - Open call).
THE USE OF SCRIPTURE IN SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY: WOLFHART PANNENBERG AND WAYNE GRUDEM AS CASE STUDIES

Innerdal G. (Speaker)

NLA University College ~ Bergen ~ Norway
Works in systematic theology usually contain a discussion of the theological understanding of Holy Scripture and present a methodological framework for how to use Scripture - often in combination with other sources and authorities - in developing systematic theological positions on different issues (so-called Prolegomena). However, it is not always easy to discern a clear line of reasoning from the discussion of principles to their application in concrete interpretations and emphases when using Scripture in the development of systematic theology. In this paper I will analyse and compare the concrete use of Scripture in the works of Wolfhart Pannenberg (German, 1928-2014) [Systematic Theology, 3 vols.] and Wayne Grudem (American, 1948-) [Systematic Theology, 2nd ed] as cases of the interaction between Scripture and theology. Pannenberg and Grudem are well-renowned best-selling theologians with comparable but different approaches to theology. They share an understanding of theology as a pursuit of truth where Scripture plays an important role but differ in their view of central questions concerning the historical origin, content and authority of Scripture, as well as its role in systematic theology. I want to investigate whether and how different views of basic questions result in different uses of Scripture in concrete cases. Central questions to be pursued are: What similarities and differences exist in the concrete use of Scripture in their systematic theologies? How do they interact with works from biblical studies? Do they show an awareness or reflection about which biblical texts they use and do not use to support different theological claims? What roles do confessional aspects play in the two scholars' respective use of Scripture? The paper is intended for Section I of the Scripture & Theology forum at EuARe2026 Rome. The paper relates to subquestions 2.-4. of the CFP in different ways.
PARATEXTUAL FEATURES OF THE EARLY NEW TESTAMENT MANUSCRIPT TRADITION

Bokedal T. (Speaker)

NLA University College ~ Bergen ~ Norway
This paper discusses a special form of religiously significant archaeological items, and literary artifacts, with potential to inform the reading and theological interpretation of biblical texts, namely physical copies of the Scriptures of early Christianity. It particularly explores second- to fifth-century features of paratextual standardization in the emerging Greek New Testament manuscript tradition. Based on Gregory Goswell's phrasing, "paratextual" here refers to "everything in, or closely associated with, a text other than the words, that is to say, those elements that are adjoined to the text but are not part of the authored text itself if 'text' is limited strictly to the originally written words". The focus of the paper is these Scriptures viewed as textual artifacts - arguably produced in small-scale Christian copying centres - characterised by the following traits of emerging paratextual standardization: i) Christian adoption of the codex format for the emerging Scripture canon, ii) structuring of the text in canonical sub-units, iii) introduction of New Testament book titles, iv) inauguration in the manuscripts of nomina sacra and, on a partly more exploratory note, v) additional textual structuring through arithmetical elements, that is, features in the manuscript tradition that we could label "arithmetical textual patterning". The paper is intended for Section I: Interactions Between Biblical Studies and Theology
SCRIPTURE AS THE FORMAL PRINCIPLE AND GUIDE OF THEOLOGY: REDISCOVERING THE UNITY OF EXEGESIS AND DOCTRINE WITH PETRUS VAN MASTRICHT

Debord D. (Speaker)

Freed-Hardeman University ~ Henderson ~ United States of America
How should Scripture and theology function as an integrated theological practice? How was this achieved prior to their modern disciplinary separation? This paper argues that this integration rests on the specific theological conviction that Scripture is formally sufficient for the grammar and generation of theological reflection and systematization. Scripture should not be understood merely as a source of doctrinal content, but as that which governs theological reasoning. Within this framework in the pre-modern period, exegesis and systematic theology were distinct yet inseparable acts within a single theological enterprise. The argument is developed through a focused analysis of Petrus van Mastricht's Theoretico-Practica Theologia, especially Book I, chapters 1-3. Mastricht orders theology architectonically, proceeding from careful exegetical engagement with Scripture, to doctrinal demonstration, and finally to practical and devotional application. This ordering presupposes Scripture as the principium formale of theology. In this framework, theology is discovered in exegesis and articulated within borders provided by the grammar of Scripture. The paper tests this methodological claim through Mastricht's presentation of divine blessedness through his exegesis of Psalm 16:11 and 1 Timothy 1:11 and 6:15. From his exegesis, Mastricht develops presentations divine aseity, immutability, and perfection as conclusions required by Scripture's own testimony and as constitutive of divine blessedness. Recent theological work, particularly in John Webster, has drawn renewed attention to the formal role of Scripture within theological reasoning. Such retrievals suggest that the premodern integration of exegesis and doctrine may be recovered by reassessing the theological judgment concerning Scripture's place and function.
EXPLORING METHODOLOGICAL INTERACTIONS BETWEEN BIBLICAL STUDIES AND SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY: A PROJECT UPDATE AND PROLEGOMENA

Burger H. (Speaker) [1] , Borowski M. (Speaker) [2]

TUU ~ Utrecht ~ Netherlands [1] , VU Amsterdam ~ Amsterdam ~ Netherlands [2]
First, it offers a progress report on an edited volume in preparation, co-edited by Michael Barber, Hans Burger, and Michael Borowski. The volume brings together scholars from Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant traditions to address a set of interrelated methodological questions: How does Biblical Studies draw on Systematic Theology? How can Systematic Theology benefit from Biblical Studies? What challenges emerge when the disciplines interact, and what models exhibit responsible integration? We will report on the current state of contributions and the projected timeline for publication. Second, the paper begins to sketch the argument that will introduce the volume. The relationship between Biblical Studies and Systematic Theology has long been marked by mutual tension as much as mutual benefit — a relationship easier to celebrate in retrospect than to navigate in practice. The historical separation of the disciplines — accelerated by the rise of historical-critical method — has generated both methodological clarity and collaborative impoverishment. The danger looms that Biblical Studies become more historical and less theological, and that theology becomes more traditional and less Biblical. Recent decades have seen renewed interest in integration, yet the methodological foundations of such integration remain undertheorized. This paper argues that responsible interdisciplinary engagement is possible only when practitioners in each discipline are willing to make their epistemological assumptions, hermeneutical commitments, and institutional pressures explicit and negotiable. Third, the session deliberately leaves room for open discussion. Responses, critical perspectives, and suggestions for additional contributions — whether in terms of topics insufficiently covered or voices not yet represented — are warmly welcomed.
FROM LOCI THEOLOGICI TO THEOLOGIA DOGMATICA: SCRIPTURAL EXEGESIS AND THE DIFFERENTIATION OF THEOLOGICAL DISCIPLINES IN THE ERA OF PROTESTANT SCHOLASTICISM

Nüssel F. (Speaker)

Heidelberg University ~ Heidelberg ~ Germany
This paper examines the development of dogmatics as a theological discipline in the confessional era. With his Loci theologici (1521), Philipp Melanchthon developed a new method of doing theology that became the model for Protestant theology in the era of confessionalization. While his approach focused on explaining the content of the Christian faith, Melchior Cano used the same method in his theological Loci (1543-60) to describe the authorities of theological knowledge in line with the Council of Trent, thereby stimulating the development of epistemological prolegomena in Protestant theology. In the Protestant exposition of the Christian faith in accordance with the principles and insights of the Reformation, philological and exegetical analysis and systematic interpretation were naturally combined. Among the many challenges theology faced, two central demands led to a differentiation of theological disciplines and a growing distinction between biblical studies and systematic theology, which this paper will explore. One was the pressure to establish theology as an academic discipline; the other was the challenge of developing criteria for distinguishing between fundamental and non-fundamental articles of faith. The paper analyses these developments and demonstrates how the Lutheran philosopher and theologian Johann Franz Buddeus (1667-1729) responded to these challenges in the early eighteenth century in his theological encyclopedia and in his definition of dogmatics in distinction from scriptural exegesis.
THE IMPACT OF SCIENCE ON THE DOCTRINE OF ORIGINAL SIN

Turkiewicz G. (Speaker)

Pontificial University of Saint Anthony ~ Rome ~ Italy
In this paper, I would like to present how the doctrine of original sin has changed in the context of scientific developments. Initially, the doctrine of original sin was based on a literal interpretation of Genesis 3, Romans 5, and other texts, in which Adam was understood as a historical figure and his transgression as a historical fact. However, scientific developments, particularly the theory of evolution, have called some aspects of the traditional doctrine of original sin into question, such as the biological monogenism of the human race. A revival of biblical studies also greatly influenced our understanding of biblical prehistory, showing it to be a kind of etiological story containing mythical elements. My aim is to demonstrate the impact of these changes on the doctrine of Original Sin.

Panel description: Food is never just sustenance. It is a material practice through which religious communities establish, maintain, and contest social hierarchies. From ancient Christianity debates to colonial impositions of "Christian" diets, religious food practices have served as powerful instruments for both naturalizing inequality and imagining more egalitarian communities. This interdisciplinary panel examines how religions have shaped and been shaped by food-related forms of social differentiation across diverse historical and geographical contexts. This panel examines the relationship between religious food practices and inequality across three key areas. First, it examines the early Christian communities' use of food to negotiate social hierarchies, with ascetic diets creating spiritual distinctions. Second, it analyses modern theological views on gender and food, highlighting how dietary codes control and challenge gender inequalities. Third, it explores colonial Christianity's use of food to establish ethnic hierarchies in the Americas, subordinating indigenous foodways and imposing European norms. Throughout, the panel addresses critical questions: Who eats what, with whom, when, and how much? How do religious food practices simultaneously express ideals of equality (the "open table") while creating exclusionary boundaries? How have subaltern communities resisted food-based hierarchies through syncretism and alternative commensality? What continuities exist between ancient medical-theological discourses on diet and modern intersections of religion, nutrition, and social justice? By bringing together historical, theological, and anthropological perspectives, this panel demonstrates how the study of religious foodways illuminates broader patterns of how religions have variously reinforced and challenged specific forms of inequality: a question at the heart of understanding religion's role in contemporary society.

Papers:

INTERSECTING FOOD AND RELIGIONS: TRANSDISCIPLINARY APPROACHES TO CRITICAL FOOD STUDIES AND FOOD THEOLOGIES

Méndez-Montoya Á. (Speaker)

Universidad Iberoamericana ~ Mexico City ~ Mexico
This presentation explores the intersection between "critical food studies" and "food theologies," examining how transdisciplinary approaches illustrate relationships between food phenomena, religious beliefs, imaginaries, and spiritual practices. Engaging critical theory and theological inquiry, this work proposes methodological frameworks resisting dichotomies between material and spiritual, emphasizing porous boundaries where food practices become sites of embodied knowledge and transformative praxis. Critical food studies examines material and symbolic practices related to eating through transdisciplinary methods that integrate Global South perspectives, particularly Latin American epistemologies, acknowledging Mesoamerican worldviews that were eclipsed by colonization. Food theology refuses to dichotomize spiritual from material, addressing interstices where corporeal and cognitive, sacred and mundane, mutually implicate each other. Methodologically, this approach employs nomadic, experimental frameworks integrating: (1) everyday life as epistemic site; (2) embodied cognition and "flavor epistemologies"; (3) hunger, desire, and food/drink; and (4) methodological nomadisms embracing transformation through diverse food traditions and spiritual practices. This work addresses food ethics, commensality, and cultural diversity, seeking "vivir sabroso"—flavorful living encompassing dignity, justice, and ecological harmony. These proposals integrate spirituality committed to care ethics, contributing to more just, sustainable, and flavorful futures.
THE STRATIFIED BANQUET: GENDER, AGE, AND HIERARCHY AT CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA'S CHRISTIAN TABLE

Soler F. (Speaker)

Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile ~ Santiago ~ Chile
This presentation examines how Clement of Alexandria's dietary prescriptions in the Paedagogus construct and naturalize hierarchies of gender, age, and marital status within early Christian communities. While historiography has emphasized the egalitarian ideal of the Christian "open table," a detailed analysis of Paed. 2.1-2 and 2.7 reveal that Alexandrian alimentary practices operated as effective mechanisms of social stratification. Clement establishes radically differentiated access to food and drink according to bodily categories presented as "natural": the "hot" bodies of youth require near-total abstinence from wine, while the "cold" bodies of the elderly may drink "more cheerfully" as "medicine." Women, according to Scripture, face additional restrictions: "an intoxicated woman is great wrath" (Paed. 2.2), for "a woman is quickly drawn down to licentiousness" if she chooses pleasures. Unmarried women are explicitly excluded from male banquets as "the extremest scandal," while married women may attend only exceptionally, "well clothed: without by raiment, within by modesty" (Paed. 2.7). We will also examine how Clement utilizes Galenic humoral theories to justify these differences as divine bodily inscriptions. His prescription of "frugality further reveals class assumptions: this "simplicity" requires economic resources inaccessible to most and contrasts markedly with the actual diet of "domestics and husbandmen," which Clement acknowledges as "most frugal" but does not propose to imitate. Christian commensality thus emerges not as an egalitarian space but as an arena where differences are negotiated and reinforced: who eats what, with whom, how much, and when reproduces Greco-Roman symposium hierarchies. This analysis contributes to understanding how early Christianity, far from abolishing structural inequalities, reconfigured them through theological and medical discourses that naturalized exclusion as a form of pastoral care for the differentiated body.
TAKE THIS, ALL OF YOU, AND EAT OF IT. THE BOLD SINGULARITY OF THE EUCHARISTIC SUPPER

Prisco A. (Speaker)

ISSRM ~ Foggia ~ Italy
While celebrating Passover as a Jew with his friends, Jesus reinvents the ritual and verbally replaces the paschal lamb. This gesture, narrated by Paul and the Synoptic Gospels, becomes foundational to the Christian religious tradition. Jesus sacrifices himself for all in a vicarious capacity, sealing the practice. From then on, the bond of communion is guaranteed and literally nourished by participation in the Eucharistic supper. Despite its singular literary form, however, it reveals itself in a plurality of variants. Christians, in fact, are divided at that single table. The different Christian denominations do not share the same understanding of Christ's presence in the bread and wine, foods necessary for the celebration. Furthermore, Christians are not always the same with respect to the meal. In some confessions, those marked by hierarchical structures, different roles entail different prerogatives at the meal. And, in these cases, the hierarchy exercises actual control over the meal, even excluding participants, based not only on codified norms but also on the charisma actually recognized by the communities. What, then, nourishes this food, and with whom does it strengthen bonds of communion?
YOU WERE THE PRAISE OF FASTING: MEDIEVAL AND MODERN VISIONS OF THE EAST SLAVIC ASCETIC PRACTICE

Legkikh V. (Speaker)

Sprachzentrum ~ Munich ~ Germany
Fasting constitutes a foundational discipline within Christian spiritual life. Its roots lie in Jewish practice, which included designated fast days. The Gospels attest that Christ himself undertook a forty-day fast in the desert, and the example of St. John the Baptist—who lived on locusts and wild honey—became paradigmatic for later tradition. Hagiographic sources consistently underscore the importance of fasting in the lives of the saints. The Vita of St. Nicholas relates that he refused his mother's milk on Wednesdays and Fridays, a motif repeated in the Life of St. Sergius of Radonezh. Monastic asceticism presupposed a reduced diet—according to John Cassian, mainly bread and vegetables, with fish as a rare allowance. Yet the vitae of monks and hermits often describe even stricter abstinence. St. Macarius the Great is said to have eaten only once a week during Great Lent, while St. Theodosius of the Caves spent the entire Lenten period in seclusion. In the East Slavic tradition, fasting became a defining mark of sanctity: St. Sergius of Radonezh is described as living on bread and water and abstaining from food on Wednesdays and Fridays, and St. Euthymius of Suzdal was called the "co-faster of Sergius." Over time, hagiographers emphasized not only minimal food intake but also the theological meaning of fasting as repentance and inner purification. In the twentieth century, fasting вновь became a subject of theological reflection. The Church Fathers had long taught that fasting, especially during Great Lent, serves primarily for the purification of the soul. This view was echoed by the Russian priest Alexander Men, who stressed its spiritual focus. In the twenty-first century, interest in fasting has grown, though discussions often center on dietary rules. Despite this attention, participation remains limited: in 2024 only 17% of Russians intended to keep the full fast, while 37% planned partial restrictions.
THE CURSE AND BLESSINGS OF POTATO: THE RISE OF "POTATO POWER" IN THE NEXUS OF HISTO-CULTURAL-ANTHROPOLOGY AND RELIGIOUS-POLITICAL PERSPECTIVES

Alcopra A.L. (Speaker)

University of the Philippines- Diliman ~ Quezon City ~ Philippines
Religion has intertwined with potatoes throughout history, from Andean worship to European resistance and religious metaphors of modernity. This dichotomy shaped its widespread dispersal and cultural role in the nexus of gender inequality and hierarchy across Europe to Asia through colonization. Even though it is not inherently a central sacred symbol in most major world religions, it represents cultural, symbolic, and practical significance in some religious contexts. Anthropologically speaking, it relates to food traditions, cosmology, cultural identity, and historical survival. This presentation will examine the following: 1st, how potatoes became a blessing and a curse. For example, potatoes became a blessing for the Inca people, giving them an advantage in expanding their domination in the region and enabling them to support a larger army. 2nd, elucidate how it connects to syncretism and alternative commensality, which bridge social boundaries such as gender, inequality and religion. For example, in Andean communities influenced by Roman Catholicism, Indigenous rituals involving potatoes and offerings to "Pachamama" (mother earth) coexist with Catholic festivals and saints' celebrations. It is also included in Catholic feast-day meals around the world. Lastly, explain its nexus to religion and theology. Its Theological perspectives are metaphorical, as the tuber postdates biblical times and Christians often view it through the lenses of providence, humility, and growth, drawing from its humble origins and resilience. Potatoes have long been called the "poor man's food," a name traced back to medieval Spain, where patatas a lo pobre ("poor man's potatoes") was considered a peasant dish and a staple for impoverished communities. The study further elaborately explains how the rise of "potato power" shaped the course of history worldwide by consolidating all historical, theological, and anthropological perspectives.

Panel description: As Aristotle said, inequality can cause conflict. Conflict can also create inequalities. Socio-economic inequalities between and within states and nations provide a potentially volatile socio-political context where peace is threatened. Religions can also be treated unequally within legal jurisdictions, creating friction and tensions that threaten peace. This panel invites papers that explore the contribution of religious ideas and practices that can help to build peace in this unequal world. We are particularly interested in papers that face European and global realities seriously and offer religious perspectives that promote peace, justice, and equality. Possible subjects include, but are not limited to: theological perspectives on peace and inequality, faith-inspired nonviolent resistance and direct action, peace in worship (eg liturgy, prayers, songs, rituals, sacraments), the relationship between peace and justice, peace in the Hebrew scriptures, Quran, or Christian Bible or other sacred texts, Just war or just peace theory and its critics, war, peace, and the environment, coexistence in religiously pluralistic societies, religion, peace and intersectionality (eg race, gender, sexuality, class, age), forgiveness, repentance, reconciliation, Catholic Social Teaching on peace, faiths in conflict and interfaith peace initiatives.

Papers:

BUILDING PEACE AND RECONCILIATION THROUGH ISRAELI-PALESTINIAN EXPERIENCES OF BEREAVEMENT AND GRIEF: INSIGHTS FROM THE PARENTS CIRCLE-FAMILIES FORUM

Kollontai P. (Speaker)

York St John University ~ York ~ United Kingdom
In contexts of conflict and violence, bereavement and grief are dominant features of everyday life and can serve as a platform for seeking revenge against those who are considered responsible. Situations of conflict can lead to feelings of victimization among those on both sides. This sense of victimhood can be a fundamental driver in a desire for revenge against the perpetrator. In the context of the Israel-Palestine conflict, an organisation which has adopted a counter approach, whereby its members use their experiences of grief and bereavement as a tool for forgiveness, reconciliation and peace, is The Parents Circle - Families Forum (PCFF). This is a joint Israeli-Palestinian organization. To varying degrees in terms of belief, PCFF Members are associated with the Abrahamic religions. In this paper, I look at the work of PCFF to examine the role of religion in navigating bereavement and grief to provide a platform for nurturing peace and equality between Israelis and Palestinians. My discussion considers: relevant key theological teachings from the Abrahamic religions and how these are reflected in PCFF's work; PCFF's hermeneutical approach to listening and dialogue encounters and wider educational work; and the challenges of engaging with personal narratives of bereavement and grief.
METHODIST WORSHIP FOR UNDERSTANDING AND PROMOTING PEACE

Davis R. (Speaker)

Wesley House, Cambridge ~ Cambridge ~ United Kingdom
Methodists have had an ambivalent relationship with peace. In this paper I outline some directions in which Methodists might develop their peace theology through different aspects of worship. John Wesley's most common use of the word peace was still found in the Church of England Evensong service: "peace, which passes all understanding". This is a direct quotation of Philippians 4:7 that serves as a benediction. The peace of God here is the peace of heart and mind. Worldly peace is now understood much better in secular thought, but does not have enough of a role in our Christian ethical thought and moral formation. This presentation will examine what role worship can play in promoting an understanding of Christian ethical and spiritual formation with peace at its centre. This will highlight the different aspects of Methodist worship (prayer, reading of scripture, preaching, sacrament, song), but also the wider context of worship's role in creating peace within and between churches and the wider community. Given the central importance of worship to Methodist churches, the paper will conclude with lessons that might be applied for the development of more peaceable worshipping communities.
AGAPOLITICS: THE POLITICAL THEOLOGY OF LOVE

Skliris D. (Speaker)

National and Kapodistrian University of Athens ~ Athens ~ Greece
The paper will explore how one could articulate a Political Theology based on the Orthodox notion of love. There will be a dialogue with the Political Philosophy of love that we find in Antonio Negri and Slavoj Žižek, as well as with the objections raised toward it by political theorists such as, among others, Chantal Mouffe. A particularly Orthodox political theology of love would be based, among others, in the following points: i) The Trinitarian Theology, which means that God is love in His own being. ii) Love as the mode of being of three persons is very important for the introduction of the notion of the political. Whereas a relation between only two persons could lead to a mirror-like relation or a narcissisme à deux (dual narcissism), the existence of a third person in the Trinity means that love can be expressed only as a community and not merely as the love of one couple. Trinitarian love is the opposite of any narcissist self-love or dyadic narcissism. The relation of Pneumatology with Political theology will be developed in detail. iii) There will be a brief reference to the contemporary notion of Political theology from Carl Schmitt to Giorgio Agamben. The emphasis will be on the etymological relation of the polis in the political with both the pelas / plesion (neighbour) and war (polemos). In ancient Greek language, polis is the relation with the other both as potential enemy (polemios) and as potential friend (pelas). iv) There will be a development of the difference between love inside the Trinity where there is no death and love inside creation where there is mortality, i.e. the threat of death and of regression to non-being. A relevant analysis will follow why in a theological anthropology love includes the crucifixion as the radical fulfilment of the commandment 'thou shalt not kill' and as radical non-violence. What is the relation between Trinitarian love and the Crucifixion.
SACRED SOLIDARITY: CHRISTIAN-MUSLIM INTERFAITH PEACEBUILDING AND THE TRANSFORMATION OF STRUCTURAL INEQUALITY IN URBAN WESTERN EUROPE

Shahnawaz S. (Speaker)

Scholar ~ Modena e Reggio Emilia ~ Italy
This paper argues that Christian-Muslim interfaith peacebuilding initiatives in urban Western Europe constitute a theologically grounded and politically significant response to structural inequality and social fragmentation. Situated within the emerging scholarship on religious peacebuilding, which recognises the internally plural nature of faith traditions and their distinctive capacity for nonviolent mobilisation, the study demonstrates that faith-based actors deploy shared scriptural commitments to justice, compassion, and human dignity to challenge racial discrimination, economic marginalisation, and exclusionary populism. The paper advances three central claims. First, it establishes that convergent theological resources across the Islamic tradition (ʿadl, raḥma) and the Christian tradition (agapē, Imago Dei) provide a robust moral foundation for collaborative peacebuilding that transcends doctrinal difference and fosters mutual recognition across religious boundaries. Second, it critically reassesses the Just War/Just Peace debate, arguing that intersectional analysis—attentive to race, gender, class, and migration status—exposes the structural blind spots of conventional frameworks and opens space for a more inclusive theology of active nonviolence. Third, the paper demonstrates that interfaith practices—including joint liturgical worship, solidarity networks, and grassroots advocacy—generate measurable social cohesion and civic trust in plural societies marked by rising inequality and political polarisation. Drawing on Johan Galtung's concept of positive peace, the study argues that peace requires addressing structural and cultural violence. It shows that faith-based organisations mediate between marginalised communities and institutions, turning religious values into social action. The paper highlights multifaith solidarity as a practical approach to inclusive peacebuilding. Keywords: Religion, Peacebuilding, Inequality, Interfaith Dialogue, Nonviolence
"RE-CONSTRUCTING RECONCILIATION": HOW COLOMBIAN TEACHERS REFRAME THE CONCEPT OF RECONCILIATION IN CONFLICT-AFFECTED SCHOOL CONTEXTS.

Manco Villa N. (Speaker)

JCRS - Jena Center for Reconciliation Studies ~ Jena ~ Germany
In the context of Colombia's armed conflict, reconciliation emerges not only as a political project but also as a pedagogical challenge. This research explores how school teachers in urban and rural areas of Antioquia - particularly in Medellín, Santa Rosa de Osos, and Yarumal - understand, apply, and transform the notion of reconciliation in their daily educational practice, especially in the implementation of the Cátedra de Paz (Law 1732, MEN) Based on qualitative fieldwork involving over 30 semi-structured interviews, the study adopts a reconstructive approach to analyze how notions of reconciliation oscillate between official peace discourses and the situation realities of classroom life. The teacher´s narratives reveal that reconciliation is not seen as a final goal, but rather as a dynamic and sometimes contradictory process shaped by personal experiences, institutional constraints, and territorial context. In rural schools, reconciliation is often connected with collective memory, activities with the community, beyond abstract, national strategies for peacebuilding. Urban schools, by contrast, emphasize discourses around social justice and structural violence. These differing contexts highlight how teachers re-signify reconciliation and adapt it to the concrete realities of their students' lives. This research provides insights into the emergence of a "pedagogy of reconciliation" (Walsh, 2009) in post-conflict societies and demonstrates how educators can become active agents in peacebuilding—not through top-down curriculum imposition, but through lived educational practice. This presentation will discuss central theoretical, methodological, and empirical findings from my ongoing doctoral research in education at the JCRS - Jena Center for Reconciliation Studies at the Friedrich Schiller University Jena.
YOUNG PEOPLE INTERFAITH ENCOUNTERS AND THE PRACTICE OF PEACE IN A BROKEN WORLD

Gabuyo S. (Speaker)

World Methodist Council - Youth and Young Adult Committee ~ Milan ~ Italy
In the spirit of the resolutions of the 2024 World Methodist Council Conference in Gothenburg and building on the experiences of youth-led peacebuilding initiatives (international gatherings, pilgrimages, online interfaith learning programmes) that took place since then, through the World Methodist Council Youth and Young Adult Committee, this paper illustrates the importance of young people in creatively shaping the way peace is understood and practised within contemporary Methodist, Wesleyan, United and Uniting faith communities within the World Methodist Council. Young people are often among those most affected and exposed by the contemporary conflicts and their socio-economic effects. Faith-based peace initiatives, together with forms of theological formation rooted in Christian ethics of peace, are important in creating spaces where young people from different religious or cultural communities into dialogue create opportunities to challenge entrenched perceptions of the "other" and to develop new shared understandings of justice, reconciliation and peace, resonating with insights from constructivist approaches in International Relations that conflicts persist also because of shared ideas, narratives, identities and historical memories.
PEACE THEOLOGIES FROM BELOW: GRASSROOTS INTERRELIGIOUS COLLABORATION AND THEOLOGIES OF PEACE IN NORTH CENTRAL FLORIDA

Gladwin R. (Speaker) , Feyas E. (Speaker) , Moya C. (Speaker)

Palm Beach Atlantic University ~ West Palm Beach ~ United States of America
How do theological commitments to peace take shape in the everyday practices of local interfaith communities? This paper examines the Alachua County Faith Leaders Alliance (ACFLA), a coalition of twenty religious leaders representing Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Baha'i, Buddhist, and other traditions in Alachua County, Florida, as a case study in grassroots theologies of peace. Drawing on qualitative research, the study explores how ACFLA members narrate and enact commitments to peace through shared practice rather than formal doctrinal dialogue. Preliminary findings reveal three interrelated dynamics. First, ACFLA functions as a relational infrastructure in which trust across religious boundaries is cultivated through shared meals, visits to sacred spaces, and collaborative crisis response. Drawing on Carl Rogers' concept of experience, shared meanings of peacebuilding emerge through lived engagement rather than abstract theological agreement. Second, participants consistently report that interreligious encounter deepens rather than threatens their own faith commitments, suggesting engagement with other traditions prompts meaningful intra-faith theological reflection. Drawing on Teun van Dijk's theory of discourse and context, the analysis attends to how participants interpret encounters through complex layers of social meaning shaped by local and broader cultural forces. Third, the Alliance demonstrates how concepts such as reconciliation and hospitality, each from distinct theological histories, can be translated into a shared civic vocabulary that sustains collective peacebuilding without erasing theological difference. These findings suggest that living theologies of peace are forged not in academic or ecclesiastical settings but in the relational and civic practices of communities navigating pluralism together. By attending to these grassroots sites, scholars can enrich the field's understanding of how peace is not only conceived but practiced across traditions.

Panel description: Questions of equality and inequality have always been crucial to the moral life of communities, shaping how societies understand care, justice, and responsibility. Within the Christian tradition, theological and ethical reflection has profoundly influenced attitudes towards helping, healing, and defining the role of health care practitioners. From the early Church's ministry to the sick, to contemporary debates on global health and biotechnology, Christian values continue to inform and at time challenge prevailing assumptions in bioethics and medical ethics. The relationship between religion and bioethics therefore remains both endured and contested, and merits renewed discussion in light of this year's conference theme, Religions and (In)Equalities. This panel seeks to explore how Christian bioethics can illuminate and respond to issues of equality and inequality in healthcare and medicine. How can theology contribute to and shape the discourse on distributive justice in a world of limited medical resources, and on structural inequalities that affect access to care and health outcomes? What forms of moral responsibility arise for healthcare professionals, religious institutions, and communities of faith? Finally, what role does spiritual care play within healthcare? We invite contributions from dogmatic, ethical, historical, and exegetical perspectives that analyse how Christian bioethical thought engages questions of justice, equality, and inequality. Papers may address influential theological figures from the church fathers to contemporary theologians, or they may take a thematic approach to issues such as global health disparities, gender and disability, or the ethics of emerging biotechnologies. By bringing diverse perspectives together, the panel aims to clarify how Christian ethical resources can both expose and help redress inequalities in healthcare today.

Papers:

REVISITING PRINCIPLISM IN THE AGE OF BIG DATA: A CHRISTIAN ARGUMENT FOR CENTRING JUSTICE IN INFORMED CONSENT

Hammer E.B. (Speaker)

University of St Andrews ~ St Andrews ~ United Kingdom
In A History and Theory of Informed Consent (1986), Beauchamp and Faden subordinate justice to autonomy and beneficence, asserting that issues of informed consent are not fundamentally problems of social justice. In the era of Big Data and AI-driven medicine, this principlist framework is inadequate. Medical data serves as a critical resource in precision medicine and genomics, yet its collection and use may exacerbate health inequities. Traditional autonomy-based informed consent is ill-suited to the scale and complexity of Big Data, where meaningful individual consent becomes impractical. Instead, an alternative framework grounded in Christian ethics, particularly agape-centred justice is needed. This paper argues that a justice-centred approach to data governance - modelled on collective responsibility rather than individual choice - better aligns with Christian commitments to human flourishing. The best-known example could be Reinhold Niebuhr's Christian Realism, which emphasises solidarity, the common good, and balancing power. He criticises the liberal assumption of principlism that individuals are purely rational agents capable of autonomous decision-making, instead arguing that they are shaped by power structures and bound by social obligations. Justice is the earthly expression of agape and as such ensures that collective structures lessen, rather than worsen, inequality. The principlist model of autonomy-based informed consent is inadequate in the context of Big Data as it assumes that individuals have equal power to negotiate their data rights, but an agape-centred justice framework shows that this is not true in practice, as structural injustices and power imbalances prevent truly free participation. This paper calls for a reconsideration of principlism's dominance in bioethics through the lens of Christian justice, particularly questioning autonomy's role in medical Big Data as data governance increasingly shapes health outcomes.
LIMITS OF UNIVERSALITY: DEALING WITH INEQUALITIES IN PUBLIC HEALTH ETHICS

Moos T. (Speaker)

Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg ~ Heidelberg ~ Germany
Health is an area in which there are significant and growing inequalities. The wealthier you are, the longer you live and the healthier you are. This applies to general health conditions worldwide, but also within high-income countries. In the field of public health, these inequalities are well known and statistically recorded. From a Christian perspective, inequality in existential areas such as health is discussed against the backdrop of the claim to universal justice, solidarity and equality. At the same time, this claim to universality is limited by harmatiological time diagnosis, eschatological distancing or pragmatic considerations. This tension between universality and its limits has long been discussed in theological ethics on the basis of paradigms such as migration, property or the welfare state. The proposed contribution will revisit these questions in the theologically underdeveloped field of public health ethics. It will address the topics of orphan diseases and drug pricing, group risks in the course of a pandemic, and global inequalities in healthcare, and will examine the structural logic of the respective argumentation about universality and its limits. Literature: Moos, Thorsten (2022): Public Health als zu entdeckendes Thema einer theologischen Ethik [Public health as a topic to be explored in theological ethics], in: Thorsten Moos/ Sabine Plonz: Öffentliche Gesundheit [Public Health] (Jahrbuch Sozialer Protestantismus [Yearbook of Social Protestantism]), Leipzig, 291-318.
(IN)EQUALITIES IN ASSISTED REPRODUCTION. REPRODUCTIVE TOURISM AS PROBLEM OR OPPORTUNITY?

Woehlke E. (Speaker)

Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München ~ Munich ~ Germany
Equality in assisted reproduction is not given in Europe and worldwide. Different rules and laws in diverse countries enable or inhibit access to technologies of reproductive medicine. In Germany for example sperm donation is permitted, whereas egg donation is illegal. In many neighbour counties of Germany however egg donation is accessible and lawful. Surrogacy is legal or in twilight zone in some European states as well as in some other countries worldwide. Not only legal accessibility, but also the financing of reproductive technologies is regulated in different ways. Often the costs of assisted reproduction are partly refunded for married, heterosexual couples. Solo mothers, unmarried or queer parents have to pay the measures without any support of health insurance funds. These legal and financial inequalities lead to a phenomenon called reproductive tourism. Humans with wish to have children travel to other countries to be able to apply their preferred technologies of assisted reproduction. There, the accessibility to these technologies is either looser regulated or cheaper. At the same time, it has to be considered that using any method to any price provokes ethical questions regarding issues of social justice, women's rights and welfare of the future child. The question arises: Is reproductive tourism a productive way to enable equal access to reproductive technologies or is reproductive tourism a source of social injustice? This will be the leading question of the contribution about (in)equalities in assisted reproduction. As religious and Christian values often influence legal rules and how equality and justice are defined, the perspective of Chistian ethics can enrich this discussion. It will be deliberated if there can be found a way to combine equal access and social justice in questions of assisted reproduction. Reproductive tourism concerns the international community, which makes it a relevant topic to discuss on an international conference.
VISIBILITY AS AN THEOLOGICAL-ETHICAL TOPOS FOR ADDRESSING BIOETHICAL QUESTIONS

Ott T. (Speaker)

Universität Wien ~ Vienna ~ Austria
This paper proposes visibility as a theological-ethical topos for addressing bioethical questions. Visibility is understood both as a conditio humana—a fundamental dimension of human existence—and as a socio-politically relevant category that structures justice, recognition, agency, and vulnerability. The paper first explores the role of topology in ethical argumentation, tracing its roots from classical rhetorical theory (Aristoteles 2019) to contemporary discourse-linguistic and sociological actualizations. Against this background, visibility is developed as a theological-ethical topos that mediates between invisibility and exposure (Ott 2025a; Ott 2025b). Unlike apodictic proof, which aims at insight into first principles, topical reasoning operates by persuading through premises that are already considered credible and acceptable to interlocutors, thereby establishing a shared justificatory framework (Frank 2017, 11). Topology is therefore highly enriching for transparticular ethical argumentation (Dabrock 2000), as it enables ethical reasoning across divergent moral, cultural, and religious contexts. By introducing topology as a form of ethical argumentation, the paper second explores new ways of engaging with bioethical problems. It demonstrates how visibility functions as a locus communis in medical ethics and how this topos has been taken up and further developed in recent sociological as well as epistemological, philosophical, and theological research.
PRETTY PRIVILEGE. INEQUALITY IN AESTHETIC MEDICINE

Wendorff T. (Speaker)

Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg ~ Freiburg ~ Germany
Attractive people receive a preferential treatment in society. This applies in competition for better jobs, in choosing a partner, or in general social interaction. Therefore it is hardly surprising that people try to enhance their beauty in order to reach their goals in life. To this end, medical procedures are increasingly being used to 'optimise' a variety of body parts. However, procedures that are not medically indicated are in Germany not usually covered by insurance, which means that only those who already have a high level of financial resources have the opportunity to undergo certain treatments. But is this just, considering that an improved appearance can often lead to a better social status? People who do not have the necessary financial means are unable to undergo procedures to improve their appearance and are consequently at a competitive disadvantage. The question arises as to whether people have a right to beauty and thus also to financial support for aesthetic procedures to enhance their chances in life. How can such an issue be addressed from the perspective of Christian ethics, which emphasises solidarity and agape? Is the Christian tradition suitable for justifying such a course of action, or are there other paths that Christian ethics opens up for promoting social equality without people feeling compelled to undergo aesthetic procedures? This paper will first examine the power of beautystandards in our society and its impact on individuals. It will then discuss if the access to the aesthetic medicine market is fair and where injustices arise. Finally, it will consider, if a solidarity-based community has a responsibility to address these injustices and how a Christian approach can react to this question.
INCLUSION AS AN APPROACH TO OVERCOMING INEQUALITY

Albert A.C. (Speaker)

Universität Bielefeld ~ Bielefeld ~ Germany
Inclusion is an approach to overcoming inequality that can be justified from theological and interdisciplinary perspectives. In a broad understanding, inclusion refers not only to people with special limitations or disabilities, but also to the demand established in human rights that all people must have equal opportunities to participate in society. This demand has by no means been realised across the board, and is sometimes even discredited as an unattainable utopia - yet from a theological point of view, it is a desideratum that cannot be abandoned. From a Christian perspective, inclusion is a leitmotif that decisively characterises helping activities in church and diaconia and has an impact on social contexts. At the same time, it is an instrument for perceiving, analysing and reflecting on the extent to which diaconal and church self-image and external perceptions coincide or diverge. In this respect, it is important to compare self-perceptions and external perceptions and also to take a critical look at the concept of inclusion by asking to what extent diaconal special environments or church leadership have also caused or reinforced exclusions, for example by experiences of power and violence in very different contexts in the past and present. On this basis, it is important to develop future perspectives how inclusion can counteract inequalities and be professionally organised in order to meet central social challenges from a Christian theological perspective and enable freedom and equality for all people - taking into account individual needs and existing structures.
GLOBAL HEALTH IN THE CONTEXT OF THE CLIMATE CRISIS: CREATION JUSTICE AS A THEOLOGICAL INTERPRETATIVE HORIZON

Chilian L. (Speaker)

Universität Zürich ~ Zurich ~ Switzerland
The climate crisis highlights the close interdependence of human, animal and environmental health and reveals the unequal global and regional distribution of climate-related health burdens. This raises pressing ethical questions and poses also a theological-dogmatic challenge. Global health describes the interaction of globalisation with social, economic, political and ecological factors and their impact on health. This paper argues that these interrelationships require theological engagement with questions of justice and responsibility. Based on creation theology, health is understood as a relational variable embedded in social, ecological and historical contexts, shaped by power relations and vulnerability. Climate-related health impacts such as heat stress, food insecurity and displacement appear as consequences of structural conditions leading to asymmetrical exposure and harm. Drawing on the concept of creation justice, the paper interprets unequal climate-related health burdens as justice issues. Creation justice serves as a normative framework that enhances awareness of inequality and provides criteria for responsible action in addressing climate-related health issues. Creation justice forms the basis and aspiration of theological and ethical positioning. In creation theology, all of nature and all living beings are understood to be God-willed, good and valuable parts of a just world, requiring human respect, preservation and care. Given the extent of human destructive activity, the scope of human agency and capacity for action must be questioned. This paper demonstrates how theological concepts of creation and creation justice can be used to interpret climate-related health inequalities, classify them normatively, and address them theologically and ethically.
HEALTH INEQUALITIES IN THE CONTEXT OF CLIMATE CHANGE: CONTEMPORARY DEBATES AND IMPLICATIONS

Arndt M. (Speaker)

Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg ~ Heidelberg ~ Germany
There are significant differences in who has contributed to climate change and in what ways. There are also significant differences in who at the individual, institutional, and national levels is affected by the consequences of climate change and how. This has given rise to new debates on questions of responsibility and inequality. The consequences of climate change are closely linked to risks to human health. Climate change can even be described as "greatest global health threat of the twenty-first century" (Grosskopf et al. 2024). Health risks can be categorized as either direct or indirect (Augustin et al. 2023), and a distinction can be made between physical and psychological consequences. These include stress and anxiety, threats to food security, the health consequences of migration, and, overall, the health risks posed by changing living conditions. The talk will trace the debates on the link between climate change and health. Particular attention will be paid to the question of the extent to which inequalities are taken into account. With regard to the discourse, a matrix of the various dimensions of inequalities will be presented. The talk will thus address the following questions: To what extent are the inequalities of health risks posed by climate change taken into account in the debates on climate change? To what extent are different dimensions of inequalities taken into account, e.g. inequalities due to different economic conditions, gender, age, and geographic location? Which inequalities are underrepresented in the discourse and can be strengthened for future discourses? References: Augustin et al. 2023, Klimawandel und Gesundheit, in: Klimawandel in Deutschland, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-66696-8. Grosskopf et al. 2024, Planetare Gesundheit und psychische Gesundheit, https://doi.org/10.1007/s00115-024-01742-1.
FROM MARKED TO ENHANCED BODIES: CHRISTIAN ETHICS AND THE QUESTION OF (IN)EQUALITY

Mavropoulos A. (Speaker)

Alexander von Humboldt Foundation / Heidelberg University ~ Heidelberg ~ Germany
This paper examines body modifications and transhumanist enhancement as a continuum of practices that reshape the body and, in doing so, interact with social and moral inequalities. From traditional body modifications, such as tattoos and piercings, to technological emerging enhancements, including cosmetic, cognitive, genetic, and prosthetic interventions, bodily interventions can become sites where inclusion, exclusion, and hierarchies are negotiated. While some modifications function primarily as expressions of identity, they can still generate inequality through stigma, professional discrimination, or religious and cultural boundary-making. More technologically advanced enhancements, however, introduce additional justice concerns related to access, distributive fairness, and the potential emergence of biologically advantaged groups. Drawing on moral frameworks from diverse Christian traditions, the paper explores principles of human dignity, the common good, and distributive justice to assess when enhancements are ethically permissible and how access might be regulated to mitigate inequality. The analysis also addresses broader bioethical considerations, including autonomy, coercion, and resource allocation. By situating these debates within religiously informed ethical perspectives, the paper contributes to understanding how faith traditions can critically engage with the social ramifications of bodily alterations and emerging human enhancement technologies, offering insights relevant to both policy and public discourse.
ALL IN THE MIND?: PERSONALITY DISORDERS AND THEIR THEOLOGICAL CHALLENGE

Baczyk-Bell C. (Speaker)

Girton College ~ Cambridge ~ United Kingdom
Personality disorders occupy a contested space between psychiatric science, moral responsibility, and theology, raising pressing questions about equality, inclusion, and justice. Contemporary psychiatric frameworks, such as the ICD-11 dimensional model, describe persistent patterns of cognition, affect, and behavior that shape relational and social functioning. These insights challenge traditional theological assumptions of humans as moral agents oriented toward virtue and relational flourishing. If enduring traits constrain capacities for empathy, self-regulation, and relational engagement, how can theology address moral responsibility without perpetuating stigma or injustice? This paper argues that theology, informed by psychiatric knowledge, can develop a nuanced account of culpability attentive to both personal and structural inequalities - and which recognises the role of stigma and notions of biological determinism that impact upon medical care and criminal justice involvement. Recognising constraints on affective and relational capacities helps faith communities, pastoral caregivers, and healthcare practitioners respond ethically, supporting inclusion while clarifying moral responsibility. At the same time, theology offers frameworks for moral formation and growth: sacramental life, spiritual disciplines, and relational practices can foster ethical and relational flourishing even when personality traits persist. By integrating psychiatric and theological perspectives, this approach illuminates both the inequalities faced by those with personality disorders and the responsibilities of communities and institutions. It highlights pathways for justice-oriented pastoral care, ethical engagement, and social inclusion, showing that moral and spiritual development remains possible amid enduring psychological patterns. In doing so, it situates personality disorders within broader questions of equality, relational responsibility, and the moral life of communities.

Panel description: This book is the first study to consider findings from sociology, legal anthropology, ethnology, legal pluralism, comparative law and theology in order to gain a better understanding of the diverse cultures of global Catholicism and the cross-cultural challenges arising from Roman Catholic canon law within the local churches. The author, renowned for her work at the intersection of socio-legal studies and canon law, examines the latter as a distinctive example of a European religious legal system that cuts across the myriad legal cultures of the local churches. In light of findings on legal transfer and legal colonialism, and by examining canon law within the emerging field of social and cultural studies approaches to law, her book sheds light on how canon law is imposed upon and received by the local churches around the world. It analyses the challenges and problems arising from the law's transcultural claims within these churches. Based on these observations, the study discusses the critical stance of canon law within contemporary Catholicism and the current debates on a synodal reform of the church and its law. The book adopts different perspectives: As a sociological study, it describes the contemporary Eurocentrism of global canon law and the conflicts arising from it. As a theological study, it presents ecclesiological reasons for challenging the hegemony of global legislation. As a study of canon law, it suggests ways in which legislation could permit greater diversity while maintaining the unity of the universal church. By analysing canon law as a specific example of a religious legal order with cross-cultural ambitions and global claims, the book also contributes to the study of transnational law in general by illustrating the typical problems that accompany transnational legal regimes in both secular legal systems and religious groups. Full details available at: https://link.springer.com/book/9783032148117

Papers:

Panel description: Comparative law and religion, which has been trending for the last few years, is a thoroughly interdisciplinary enterprise. It requires a careful integration of insights from comparative law, comparative religious studies, and comparative theology, combined with a wide range of methodological approaches, engaging with positivist, realist, critical, and hermeneutical perspectives. Studying law and religion within a single context is already a demanding task. Studying two or more contexts, whether crossing time, space, culture, or tradition, brings a whole different level of complexity. This proposed panel aims to reflect on the theoretical, methodological, and practical implications of adopting a comparative approach to the study of law and religion, by focusing on how we can move beyond the hermeneutical narrowness. We are particularly interested in exploring how to develop nuanced and robust comparisons across time, space, cultures, and traditions, while also critically examining how to avoid superficial or misleading comparisons that do not withstand closer scrutiny. Thus, we especially encourage papers that address one or more of the following themes: 1. The historical and cultural entanglements and normativity inherent in the notion of "law," including realist, critical, and hermeneutical takes on the topic; 1. The historical and cultural entanglements and normativity inherent in the notion of "religion," including the perspectives of critical religion and (post)secular critique; 3. The (post-)colonial dimensions of both concepts and strategies for avoiding their pitfalls in comparative analysis; 4. Methodological frameworks for studying interactions between law and religion across time, space, cultures, and traditions; 5. Comparative case studies that include explicit theoretical and/or methodological reflection.

Papers:

HOW TO COMPARE IN COMPARATIVE THEOLOGY

Von Stosch K. (Speaker)

Bonn University ~ Bonn ~ Germany
Comparisons need a tertium comparationis. Traditionally this is sought on neutral terrain in order to arrange the comparison in a manner that is as unprejudiced as possible. But comparisons cannot avoid following specific interests and perspectives. They cannot be made with entirely neutral and objective categories. The tertium comparationis is never neutral territory, but rather ground gained from the side of one of the views entering into the comparison - and from there always in danger of being merely a projective abstraction. Since neutrality and objectivity are thus unattainable in cross-religious and cross-cultural contexts, Comparative Theology has to be conceived as dialogical or collaborative and interactive theology. At least in the research practice favored by me, it strives to form mixed, religion-connecting research groups in which the people concerned always have their say and are included dialogically in their own research. Comparative standards and criteria are thus themselves brought into the respective research and negotiation processes. At this point, theology has the advantage over religious studies that it must already reflect on where its respective concepts, categories, and epistemological interests reside within the framework of a contingent, fallible tradition of knowledge. This is part of the very self-understanding of the discipline, and thus it cannot so easily fall victim to projective abstraction. The paper wants to describe how theology can be reconceived as comparative theology and tries to develop some case studies to explain how comparisons can work in such a dialogical and collaborative framework. These examples will be taken from Muslim-Christian contexts and they will try to show how this framework can help to reshape the role of law within Catholic theology. It will try to explore how comparative law can be developed within comparative theology.
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY FOR INTERDISCIPLINARY LAW AND THEOLOGY STUDIES

Giles J. (Speaker)

The Open University ~ Milton Keynes ~ United Kingdom
This presentation explores a methodological approach for synthesizing legal and theological theory to support the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion. The Method for Interdisciplinary Research (Tobi and Kampen 2019) identifies an iterative approach to allow research questions to drive the research into various disciplines and methodologies to come up with synthesised hypothesise to address. The focus here will be on theological and legal approaches to human rights that are synthesised to address an approach to the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion supportive of peaceful plural living together.
MULTI-FAITH SPACES BEYOND WESTERN PARADIGMS. CHALLENGING THE TERTIUM COMPARATIONIS THEORY

Scala G. (Speaker)

Università di Padova ~ Padova ~ Italy
According to the general theory of law, the use of a tertium comparationis is considered indispensable when comparing distinct legal phenomena, as it provides a shared conceptual foundation that enables coherent and meaningful legal analysis. This methodological assumption presupposes that, despite the diversity of legal systems or normative frameworks, there exists a common element that can serve as a neutral point of reference. However, I seek to challenge this premise by investigating whether, in the context of multi-faith spaces—which are designed to accommodate not only diverse faith practices but also non-believers—such a tertium comparationis can truly be identified. The question arises as to whether these spaces embody any shared normative or conceptual core, or whether their very fluid nature resists the imposition of a unifying analytical category, thereby calling into question the universality of this theoretical legal tool. The consequence of this reasoning is that the very possibility of comparison in this field appears problematic, since in the domain of law and religion it seems difficult to reach an optimal rule. Legal systems differ profoundly from one another, as religious rules. Moreover, believing and non-believing pertain to the innermost sphere of individual conscience.
COMPARING COMPARATIVE METHODS. RELIGIOUS LAWS BETWEEN THEOLOGY AND JURISPRUDENCE

Berkmann B. (Speaker)

Ludwig-Maximilian-University ~ Munich ~ Germany
Comparative law of religions is an emerging discipline that still needs to refine its methodology. It compares religious laws such as Jewish, Islamic, Hindu or Buddhist law, or Christian church laws. These lie at the intersection of theology and jurisprudence. Both comparative theology and comparative law use established methods. The speaker's initial thesis is that comparative law of religions can learn from both methods, which is why he compares the two. Surprisingly, there are convergences between the methods of comparative law and comparative theology that can be made useful. Regarding comparative law, the following aspects, in particular, must be taken into account: One must not look for that which has the same term in the different traditions, i.e. "law" as in the present case. There are no identical terms in the different languages anyway. Rather, in accordance with the functionalist approach that has proven effective in comparative law, one should seek that which fulfills the same function. In comparative theology, the idea of initially starting with a vague concept that is then increasingly filled with content, can be of use. Furthermore, comparative theology practices a reciprocal participant perspective. Applied to the comparative law of religions, this means that the scholars of one tradition become involved in the legal thinking of the other in order to gradually understand it better, and then import the experience thence gained into their own sphere and relate the two to each other. In both areas, the tertium comparationis plays a crucial role; in both areas, it is important that the context is included; and in both areas, there are similar steps: identifying the objects of comparison, juxtaposing them, explaining similarities and differences, etc. Interdisciplinary cooperation, thus, proves to be fruitful.
TEACHING RELIGION, REPRODUCING NORMS: RELIGIONIZATION AND THE POLITICS OF INTERFAITH PEDAGOGY

Moyaert M. (Speaker)

KU Leuven ~ Leuven ~ Belgium
Interfaith dialogue is a prominent feature of contemporary religious education, promoted by European policy frameworks as a vehicle for cultivating tolerant, religiously literate citizens. This paper argues, however, that the dialogical turn in education is not religiously neutral. Drawing on the concept of religionization — the co-dependent processes of selfing and othering predicated on religious difference — it examines how interfaith pedagogy participates in the normative construction of "good religion": interiorized, individualized, privatized, and modeled on secularized Christian assumptions. Far from merely describing religious diversity, the interfaith classroom risks producing and reproducing this norm, rewarding those who perform 'normal' religion while marginalizing students whose religious identities deviate from it. This argument is situated within a broader critique of education's socializing function. Alongside knowledge, education transmits the values, beliefs, and norms of the dominant culture, while simultaneously discouraging what is deemed abnormal. When interfaith pedagogy operates within an unexamined framework of good religion, it risks becoming an instrument that conforms students to dominant powers. The dialogical classroom may reproduce hegemonic discourses about religion — producing dialogue fatigue, self-stereotyping, and the silencing of minority voices. The norm of good religion carries a colonial genealogy. A decolonial critical approach to interfaith pedagogy responds to it by foregrounding the stories of those who are marginalized because they deviate from normal or legible religion. Following Freire's question of what room we create for counter-formation, such a pedagogy does not prepare students to fit a given social order but to interrogate it — historicizing the category of religion itself, surfacing majority/minority power asymmetries, and making space for counter-narratives that unsettle the norm rather than confirm it.
IN SEARCH FOR DEMOCRATIC RELIGION: HERMENEUTICAL CHALLENGES IN STATE EVALUATIONS OF FAITH COMMUNITIES

Lindkvist E. (Speaker)

Lund University ~ Lund ~ Sweden
A religious community in Sweden is eligible to receive state funding if it is a stable and established religious organization, has sufficient membership, transparent governance, & activities that respect democratic values and fundamental rights. Since January 2025, a new law (2024:487) on support to faith communities has entered into force, with the aim of ensuring "that state support is only provided to faith communities whose activities align with the fundamental democratic values of society" (Lundgren 2023; Scala 2025). In order to evaluate this alignment, internal guidelines have been provided to case officers at the agency responsible for handling applications (the Swedish Agency for Youth and Civil Society (MUCF). This paper engages in a critical analysis of the guidelines used to assess what counts as democratic religion (Shakman Hurd 2015). They include specific instructions regarding "the collection of information": reviewing incoming tips from other government agencies and the public, conducting a Google search with particular focus on results appearing under the headings "News" and "All," as well as performing a ChatGPT search using a prescribed prompt. The governance of minority faith communities in Sweden takes place in a political landscape described as heavily polarized around questions of religion and migration (Demker 2025), & as an increasingly hostile environment for adherents of minority religions, where fear of "being labelled & even deported" has been observed (Ghanea 2024). The paper argues that assessments of what constitutes "democratic" religion risk relying on sources shaped by stereotypes and weak associations rather than clear evidence of anti-democratic activity (Ardin & Irving 2025). Certain forms of religious organization are rendered legible as democratic while others become suspect. In the process, the democratic values the policy claims to safeguard- such as transparency, legal certainty, & impartiality-are themselves undermined.
RACE WITHOUT RACE: WESTERN CONSTITUTIONAL METHODOLOGY AND THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE "QUASI-MIGRANT" IN POST-SOCIALIST UKRAINE

Anderson N. (Speaker)

Rutgers Law School ~ Camden, New Jersey ~ United States of America
Across post-Soviet countries, Roma populations are frequently described through narratives of mobility, cultural incompatibility, and social marginality. Although national histories, ethnic compositions, and political institutions vary significantly across the former Eastern Bloc from roughly 1945 to the present, a striking pattern persists: Roma communities are often treated as populations whose legal residence is acknowledged but whose social and political belonging remains uncertain. This tension raises a broader question about political membership—when does residence become belonging, and what does it mean for a people to be "at home" within a state? This paper examines that question through the case of Roma communities in Ukraine's Transcarpathian region. The inquiry situates contemporary narratives of Roma belonging within the institutional transformations that followed the collapse of socialist governance across Eastern Europe. While Roma communities long predate the Soviet period, post-socialist reconstruction intensified debates concerning citizenship, territorial membership, and national identity. Methodologically, the study adopts a socio-legal approach combining doctrinal analysis with narrative discourse analysis. The analysis draws on three domains: constitutional and statutory minority protections in Ukraine, parliamentary debates and policy documents concerning Roma integration, and regional media discourse describing Roma mobility and settlement. These sources are examined through analytical frameworks derived from American constitutional doctrines of domicile and levels of scrutiny. The article argues that post-socialist legal and political discourse in Ukraine frequently constructs Roma communities as populations treated as "quasi-migrants" in social and political practice despite their informal legal residence. In doing so, narratives of culture, mobility, and religion operate as mechanisms of racialization without explicit reference to race.

Panel description: This panel follows the seminar "Religious Influencers", organised within Work Package 4.2 (Axis 1) of the Religis project (https://www.misha.fr/recherche/religis/). In the age of digital platforms, algorithms do not merely disseminate religious content; they produce hierarchies of visibility that redefine religious authority, legitimacy, and public recognition. This panel starts from the assumption that digital infrastructures operate as dispositifs of religious governmentality, generating forms of (in)equalities that are largely invisible yet structural. By regulating access to attention, algorithms shape what can be perceived as "(il)legitimate" religion. They contribute to defining who is entitled to speak in the name of "good religion"—moderate, acceptable, and compatible with dominant norms of the digital public sphere—and, conversely, who comes to embody "bad religion", selectively over-exposed as a figure of threat, radicalism, or irreducible otherness. Some minority voices are thus marginalised through invisibilisation, while others are strategically over-visibility as symbolic foils, objects of controversy, or targets of stigmatisation. These dynamics generate not only inequalities of visibility, but also epistemic and political inequalities, by redefining the boundaries of legitimate religious speech and the frameworks within which religion becomes audible, tolerable, or condemnable. The panel invites empirical and theoretical contributions analysing digital platforms as new sites of power, classification, and religious visibility. Adopting an interdisciplinary perspective, it examines the contemporary conditions under which religious authority is produced, circulated, and contested within the algorithmic economy of attention.

Papers:

PRIESTS ONLINE - AN EXPLORATORY TYPOLOGY IN A GENDER PERSPECTIVE

Giorgi A. (Speaker)

University of Bergamo ~ Bergamo ~ Italy
Drawing on research in digital religion and gender studies, this paper examines how Catholic priests operate as religious micro-celebrities within algorithmically mediated environments. Through a qualitative analysis of social media content, it proposes an exploratory typology of online clerical figures based on communicative styles and forms of discursive boundary-work. Particular attention is paid to the performance and negotiation of clerical masculinity and to the gendered dimensions through which religious authority is reconfigured in platformised public spheres.
RELIGIOUS DISCOURSE AND GENDER NORMS IN THE MOROCCAN DIGITAL SPACE

Chkouni R. (Speaker)

International University of Rabat ~ Rabat ~ Morocco
Focusing on the Moroccan context, this contribution analyses how non-institutional religious preachers and influencers produce gendered religious discourses on social media. Using a critical digital discourse analysis informed by feminist and masculinity theories, the paper examines how these online religious narratives reproduce patriarchal power relations while addressing a youth audience shaped by digital cultures and emerging forms of online feminism. The study highlights the socio-political implications of digital religious authority, gender norms, and youth engagement in contemporary Moroccan Islam.
THEORIZING ABOUT RELIGIOUS INFLUENCERS IN AN AI ERA: WHAT HAPPENS TO DIGITAL CREATIVES AS SOURCES OF RELIGIOUS AUTHORITY IN THE SOCIAL-TECHNICAL WORLD OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

Campbell H. (Speaker)

Texas A&M University ~ College Station ~ United States of America
While traditional religious authority has shifted toward the decentralized influence of Religious Digital Creatives (RDCs), the emergence of Artificial Intelligence introduces a new layer of complexity to this digital reformation. This paper builds upon Heidi Campbell's (2020) framework regarding the "technological apologetic" and "unintentional authority" to theorize the evolution of RDCs within a socio-technical landscape increasingly governed by generative AI. While RDCs historically bypassed hierarchies by leveraging relational influence, an AI-saturated culture threatens to subvert the human-centric "authenticity" that defines their power. This study investigates how the algorithmic authority previously harnessed by human creators is being redistributed to and reshaped by AI systems. The integration of AI into religious life creates significant theoretical disruptions for digital influencers. First, the displacement of human charisma becomes a central concern; if RDCs gained authority through relatable content, that power is challenged when large language models can synthesize "authentic" religious discourse and theological insights at scale. Second, the "unintentional authority" of the digital creative is now subject to advanced algorithmic mediation. Here, platform curation prioritizes data-optimized output over spiritual intent, potentially transforming the RDC from an original creator into a curator of machine-generated tradition. Finally, this paper proposes a theoretical extension of Campbell's work by examining the potential need for an "AI Apologetic." RDCs must now justify their relevance not only against the institutional church but also against "automated spiritual intelligence" providing 24/7 personalized guidance. Ultimately, this research argues that the AI era fosters a post-human religious authority where influence is contested by both human practitioners and autonomous entities, fundamentally altering spiritual expertise.
BEYOND THE ALTAR, BEYOND THE SCREEN. HOW SOCIAL MEDIA VISIBILITY SHAPES THE NARRATIVE OF PRIEST ABANDONMENT

Casaletto M. (Speaker) , Paiani L. (Speaker)

University of Padua ~ Padua ~ Italy
In early February 2026, an Italian Catholic priest and influencer, Don Alberto Ravagnani, announced his decision to leave the priesthood via his social media channels. YouTube and Instagram are the primary platforms where Ravagnani discusses his choice; he explains his decision by strongly criticising the religious institution and clerical obligations while proposing a new vision of the Church that is more aligned with the younger generations. Through a qualitative content analysis, the paper aims to explore this case study, highlighting the recurrent symbolic and narrative structures employed by Ravagnani in his social media content. By reflecting on the role of the priest-influencer as a digital authority, the study addresses the key role of social media visibility as a technical, social, and cultural dispositif of power in the discursive processes of legitimisation of personal meanings of categories such as "religion" and "spirituality".
PLATFORMED PROPHECY: PERFORMING CHARISMATIC AUTHORITY IN DIGITAL RELIGIOUS NETWORKS

Deysson J. (Speaker)

Université de Strasbourg / Universität Heidelberg ~ Strasbourg ~ France
This paper examines how digitalization transforms religious authority through an analysis of "digital prophets", Independent Charismatic Networks leaders in the United States. These leaders combine local or multi-sited congregations with a strong presence on digital platforms such as Instagram, YouTube, Rumble, and podcasts. Drawing on a multi-sited methodology that combines online ethnography, on-site fieldwork, and critical discourse analysis, this study traces how digital infrastructures reconfigure the performance, production sites, and legitimacy conditions of religious authority. Charismatic authority constitutes the dominant form within these networks, and its recognition is closely tied to processes of audience-building and to the capacity to sustain visibility and engagement across digital environments. Charisma is thus increasingly embedded in mediated dispositifs that simultaneously enable and constrain its performance. Particular attention is paid to the institutional and governmental dimensions of these translocal networks. Access to recognition is structured by relatively stabilized repertoires (prophecy, premillennialism, "signs and wonders," spiritual warfare, conservative moral order, geopolitically inflected prophetic narratives), as well as by implicit norms governing the performance of charisma. These dynamics enable both the consolidation of authority and processes of symbolic exclusion. Drawing on Paolo Gerbaudo's theories of digital populism and the "digital party", this paper further highlights the emergence of "hyperleaders" alongside processes of "hypercentralization" of visibility within networked publics. It argues that digital infrastructures drive a simultaneous de-institutionalization and re-institutionalization of religious authority.
FAITH AS DATA? THE ONTOLOGY OF RELIGIOUS DATA AND ITS IMPLICATIONS FOR (IN)EQUALITY IN THE DIGITAL AGE

Tóth J.L. (Speaker)

University of Pécs, PhD Researcher ~ Pécs ~ Hungary
Contemporary data protection law classifies religious belief as a special category of personal data under Article 9 of the GDPR, yet the ontology of "religious data" remains largely undefined. This paper examines whether religious data can be understood as data in the same sense as other personal data, and how this conceptual uncertainty contributes to emerging forms of inequality in digital societies. The analysis builds on the distinction between data and information. While data is typically structured and empirically observable, information is meaning-based and context-dependent. Religious belief occupies a liminal space between these categories: it is not merely descriptive, but expresses identity, interpretation, and a relation to transcendence. Treating faith as data therefore entails a reduction that has both epistemological and normative consequences. The paper proposes a multi-dimensional account of religious data and distinguishes between explicit, contextual, and inferential forms. In digital environments, religious identity is increasingly not directly disclosed but inferred from behavioural patterns and contextual signals. This process renders religious belief progressively visible, classifiable, and governable. This development is particularly significant within systems of digital government and data governance, where decision-making increasingly relies on data-driven classifications. The indirect emergence of religious attributes within such systems raises concerns about visibility, categorisation, and control, potentially generating new forms of inequality. The paper argues that recognising the ontological specificity of religious data is essential not only for conceptual clarity but also for defining the normative limits of data governance. It highlights the need to ensure that digital governance frameworks do not extend beyond the boundaries imposed by the protection of freedom of religion.
CONFRONTING THE "SHADOW OF EVIL": VATICAN ETHICS IN AN ALGORITHMIC AGE

Barter J. (Speaker)

University of Winnipeg ~ Winnipeg ~ Canada
This project critically investigates contemporary Vatican interventions on artificial intelligence. Drawing on recent Vatican documents—including the Rome Call for AI Ethics, Antiqua et Nova, and statements from the Pontifical Academy for Life—the project situates Catholic ethical interventions within the longer historical role of the Church as a global institution engaged in the transmission and reproduction of moral knowledge. Specifically, the project questions whether AI systems can be ethically rehabilitated as Vatican AI ethics claim, given that algorithmic systems are already structured by platform logics, surveillance regimes, and racialized and colonial power relations. Approaching AI as a media environment rather than a neutral tool, the project asks how Vatican appeals to human dignity, responsibility, and the common good are transformed when articulated within a digital ecology characterized by speed, abstraction, surveillance, and data-driven governance. Particular attention will be paid to the uneven global impacts of AI technologies, especially for marginalized and racialized communities. Methodologically, the project combines close textual analysis of ecclesial documents with contemporary critical scholarship on digital governance and AI ethics. By foregrounding mediation rather than content alone, the research advances a critical account of AI ethics that highlights the limits of Vatican moral frameworks in algorithmic environments. The project contributes to interdisciplinary debates on technology, religion, and public ethics, and offers a critical rethinking of how moral authority is negotiated in an era of digital mediation and global inequality.

Panel description: The opening of the Vatican archives for the pontificate of Pius XII (1939-1958) has inaugurated a "global turn" in the study of the modern Papacy. Moving beyond traditional debates surrounding the Second World War, this panel explores the Holy See's deployment of "soft diplomacy" as a tool to navigate a rapidly fragmenting international landscape. It seeks to re-evaluate the Holy See's agency as an international actor during the transition towards a bipolar world. This session aims to trace the Papacy's strategic responses to shifting global scenarios, ranging from the fragile equilibrium in East Asia and the onset of the Cold War in the USSR, to the complexities of the nascent State of Israel and political upheavals in South America. The panel invites submissions exploring: -The intersection between newly released archival materials and public sources (speeches, journals, etc.). -The Holy See's engagement with peace conferences and international treaties. -The long-term evolution and modernisation of Vatican diplomacy. -Pius XII's personal agency and leadership in diplomatic strategy. Proposals focusing on the USSR, the Korean War and India are particularly encouraged.

Papers:

FROM PASTORAL SOLIDARITY TO CANONICAL RUPTURE: THE RHETORICAL DIPLOMACY OF PIUS XII TOWARD THE PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF CHINA (1952-1958)

Bottanelli V. (Speaker)

FSCIRE ~ Bologna ~ Italy
This paper analyses the Holy See's diplomatic and doctrinal response to the People's Republic of China through a sequential examination of three pivotal public pronouncements: the 1952 Apostolic Letter Cupimus Imprimis, the 1954 encyclical Ad Sinarum Gentem, and the 1958 encyclical Ad Apostolorum Principis. Cupimus Imprimis (1952) established the initial public narrative. Addressed to the Chinese faithful, this letter performed a significant diplomatic function by asserting the Church's cultural and spiritual compatibility with the Chinese people while reinforcing the necessity of ecclesiastical loyalty to the Roman Pontiff. Ad Sinarum Gentem (1954) marked a strategic shift in response to the nascent Catholic Patriotic Association (CPA). This encyclical transformed pastoral solidarity into a formal doctrinal manifesto, explicitly challenging the CPA's principles and the state's ideological requirements. Finally, Ad Apostolorum Principis (1958) represents a definitive diplomatic rupture. Responding to the unauthorised consecration of bishops, this document provided a comprehensive canonical censure, formally invalidating the state-sanctioned church structure. Collectively, these documents served as the primary instruments of Vatican statecraft in the absence of formal diplomatic channels. This paper posits that their progression, from pastoral appeal to doctrinal defence and, ultimately, to canonical censure, demonstrates Pius XII's systematic use of the papal magisterium to engage in global geopolitical discourse. This strategy aimed to define ideological boundaries, challenge the international standing of the Beijing administration, and assert universal papal jurisdiction, exemplifying the utility of public doctrine as a core component of the Holy See's soft-power diplomacy.
RADIO MESSAGES, RELIGIOUS FREEDOM, AND POLITICAL DISTRUST: PIUS XII'S PUBLIC DISCOURSE ON RUSSIA

Solazzo C. (Speaker)

DREST - University of Modena and Reggio Emilia ~ Reggio Emilia ~ Italy
This paper analyses the public speeches and radio messages of Pope Pius XII between 1950 and 1957 that refer to Russia and to Catholic communities living under communist regimes. Rather than offering a general condemnation of communism, these interventions articulate a coherent critique centred on two key themes: the denial of religious freedom and a profound distrust of the political system imposed by Soviet-style regimes. Through close textual analysis of selected radio messages, the paper shows how Pius XII consistently framed religious freedom as a fundamental and non-negotiable right, presenting its suppression not only as an attack on the Church but as evidence of the moral illegitimacy of the communist political order. References to Russia and the Soviet sphere thus function as concrete examples of a system portrayed as inherently incompatible with human dignity, conscience, and the autonomy of religious life. At the same time, the paper highlights how Pius XII avoided purely theological language, instead adopting a vocabulary that resonates with broader debates on rights, law, and political authority in the early Cold War. This communicative strategy reveals a persistent skepticism toward the possibility of genuine coexistence between the Church and communist regimes, while reinforcing the Vatican's role as a moral authority intervening in international public discourse.
THE NEGOTIATIONS FOR THE NEW INTERNATIONAL CHARTS UNDER A RELIGIOUS IDENTITY LECTURE (GENEVA 1949, GENEVA 1951 AND HAGUE 1954).

Dissegna M. (Speaker)

DREST - University of Palermo ~ Palermo ~ Italy
At the end of WWII, the international community sought identify common legal instruments to prevent a repetition of what happened in the last war. At the same time, these legal instruments had to take into account the changes in the international order occurring during the international meetings for their elaboration and should relate to a still-developing new global order. The elaboration of such instruments didn't begin with the end of the IIWW, of course, but, with the end of the war, their implementation became pressing. In such a context, the important phases of the elaboration of the international charts between 1945 and 1955 could be an interesting laboratory for understanding the compromises, the new elements, the lines of tension, and the impossible meeting of identities that characterised the activities of the people who worked on the negotiations for these charts. The most important charts are interesting not only for the results but also for the steps that they took to see the light at the end of the process. How the different identities involved could (or not) find a compromise for a better social and international inclusion? How do the identities of the individual actors find a place in such international meetings? What were the common meanings, the common ideological basis (or not) for such negotiations? What were the different steps made by such actors to define a common sense of tolerance, human rights, peace, freedom, and so on? And today, in a completely different context, could these values still be considered evergreen and valid? In this paper, three important conventions will be considered from the Vatican documentation: the 1949 Geneva Conventions, the 1951 Refugee Convention, and the 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property.
"THE TURKISH POPE" IN THE SERVICE OF PIUS XII: SOFT DIPLOMACY, RELIGIOUS COEXISTENCE, AND THE NEGOTIATED SECULARISM OF WARTIME ISTANBUL (1939-1944)

Acehan I. (Speaker)

Nevşehir Hacı Bektaş Veli University ~ Nevşehir, Cappadocia ~ Turkey
This paper examines the diplomatic and pastoral tenure of Archbishop Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli (the future Pope John XXIII) as Apostolic Delegate to Turkey during the pontificate of Pius XII. Known as "The Turkish Pope," Roncalli's mission in Istanbul serves as a pioneering case study in "soft diplomacy" during a period defined by the radical transition from the Ottoman "millet" system to the secularism of the Turkish Republic (Laiklik). Drawing on Roncalli's published diaries and diplomatic correspondence, this study analyzes how he reinvented the role of the papal representative to navigate the demands of a modern secular state. Moving beyond the historical "Protectorate" models of the Ottoman era, Roncalli utilized the Republic's secular framework to foster a new "theology of presence." This included his radical introduction of the Turkish language into Catholic liturgy and a strict adherence to secular dress codes, signaling a profound respect for national sovereignty. Furthermore, the paper explores how this negotiated secularism allowed Roncalli to foster a unique environment of religious coexistence. By positioning the Apostolic Delegation as a neutral humanitarian hub during World War II, he facilitated complex rescue operations for Jewish refugees in collaboration with both Turkish authorities and international agencies. This paper concludes that Roncalli's ability to thrive within a secular environment provided the essential practical blueprint for the Church's modern embrace of religious pluralism at the Second Vatican Council.
HALLOWING HOLLYWOOD: THE BURGEONING FILM DIPLOMACY OF POPE PIUS XII

Dawes N. (Speaker)

University of Notre Dame ~ South Bend ~ United States of America
This paper examines the origins of what may be termed the Holy See's film diplomacy by way of the Hollywood film industry. After the restoration of Vatican sovereignty through the Lateran Treaty in 1929, the Holy See sought ways to expand its influence beyond its limited temporal dominion. In an effort to navigate the ideological battles waged in the era of totalitarianism, the Holy See became an early proponent of popular media. Led by Eugenio Pacelli, first as Cardinal Secretary of State under Pope Pius XI in 1930, and then on succeeding him as Pius XII in 1939, the Holy See became a pioneer in utilizing nascent media for diplomatic purposes. Pacelli helped Pius XI usher in Vatican Radio in 1931. Then, upon his own ascension to the papacy, he welcomed the Vatican's first film documentary in 1939, became the first pope to star in a movie, for Pastor Angelicus in 1942, established the Pontifical Council for Social Communications in 1948 to guide Catholic involvement in the film industry, and a year later became the first pope to appear on television. As Pope, film emerged as a particular point of interest for Pacelli, who would give eight speeches on it between 1941 and 1949, and a further two encyclicals in the 1950s. This paper traces Pacelli's burgeoning interest in the film industry as Cardinal Secretary of State into his papacy through World War II. Utilizing the overlooked archival materials of Martin S. Quigley, Jr. and a variety of US sources, this paper uncovers the Holy See's initial connections to the Hollywood film industry and efforts among the Roman Curia to rein in and utilize US Catholics in the film industry for diplomatic purposes, leading up to and during the Second World War. As a result, this paper reveals a behind-the-scenes look into the film diplomacy that helped establish stronger relations between the Holy See and the United States, an association that would have significant and lasting effects in the Cold War.
PACELLIAN BISHOPS? US BISHOPS TAKING PUBLIC STANCES ON INTERFAITH RELATIONS, 1943-1965

Maligot C. (Speaker)

Fondazione per le Scienze religiose ~ Bologna ~ Italy
This paper challenges the historical consensus on the liberal stance of US bishops on post-war Jewish-Christian relations. By examining ecclesiological, political, and doctrinal factors shaping both individual bishops and their collective body, the NCWC, I reassess the doctrinal framework granted to interfaith relations within the broader concern over "religious indifferentism," typical of Pius XII's pontificate after 1948. As late as Oct. 1962, the NCWC Administrative Board opposed reintroducing the "Jewish Decree" to the Council agenda. Did US bishops remain deeply Pacellian? To outline NCWC's ambivalence, I serially analyse its decisions from the 1943 "Principles of Intercredal Cooperation" to 1965, contextualizing them within the Church hierarchy - toward Rome (papacy, Roman congregations, apostolic delegate) and toward the bishops. As a collective body, NCWC took conservative stances. Yet, pre-VaticanII limits on collegiality and focus to preserve episcopal authority within one's juridiction, enabled local adaptations and nationwide diversity. Rather than simply obeying Rome, the NCWC anticipated Roman concerns about the National Conference of Christians and Jews (NCCJ) in 1947, overcomplied with Cicognani's enquiry following the Holy Office warning in 1950, and issued its own reservations in the mid-1950s. Avoiding NCCJ as an interfaith public platform, NCWC preferred informal contacts with the Synagogue Council of America and the National Council of Churches. Public engagement remained cautious: gentlemen's agreements prevailed, joint statements were avoided, and discourse on religious difference was tightly controlled by the Adm. Board according to the 1943 Principles. Meanwhile, the Dept of Social Action, handling most interfaith interactions, grew increasingly at odds with such strict separation between doctrine and civic cooperation. Yet, the 1943 Principles had a dual effect, as they were still invoked in 1965 against the newly promulgated NostraAetate.

Panel description: Urban societies worldwide are being reshaped by cultural and religious pluralization driven by migration and broader social change, prompting municipal governments, faith communities, and other stakeholders to play an increasingly active role in governing religious diversity. This urban governance involves a wide range of policy interventions and regulatory mechanisms. However, the relationship between interreligious dialogue and freedom of and from religion remains underexplored, particularly where dialogue functions not only as an object of governance or a mode of interreligious communication, but as a social practice that contributes to the establishment of norms for more equal and inclusive urban public spaces. This panel brings together five contributions that discuss how the governance of religious diversity is grounded in various Italian cities, and how freedom of/from religion is socially constructed in urban societies. Marco Bontempi analyzes sacred art museums as dialogical spaces where religious identities are enacted through performative interaction. Olga Breskaya and Giuseppe Giordan explore the meanings of religious freedom as an outcome of the interaction among multiple social actors who continuously define and reshape it through interreligious dialogue. Maddalena Colombo and Giulia Mezzetti examine the management of interreligious dialogue in Brescia, emphasizing tensions between participation and neutrality in a highly diverse urban setting. Matteo Di Placido and Stefania Palmisano conceptualize the interreligious field as a semi-autonomous space structured by institutional logics, ideological projects, and struggles over resources. Marco Guglielmi and Stefano Sbalchiero show how religious freedom and interreligious dialogue are framed in the Italian press, highlighting the role of media narratives in shaping public understandings of religious freedom and interreligious dialogue.

Papers:

PERFORMING BELIEF: INTERRELIGIOUS INTERACTIONS AND THE RECONFIGURATION OF RELIGIOUS BOUNDARIES

Bontempi M. (Speaker)

University of Firenze ~ Firenze ~ Italy
This paper explores sacred art museums as dialogical arenas in which religious identities and boundaries are negotiated through performative interaction. Drawing on an ethnographic case study of the AMIR (Alliances, Museums, Encounters, and Relations) project in Florence and Fiesole, it examines intercultural and interreligious performances at the Bandini Museum of Sacred Art, where migrants of diverse religious backgrounds publicly interpret Christian artworks from the fourteenth to sixteenth centuries. The analysis conceptualizes these guided performances as situated practices of interreligious encounter that operate beyond formalized dialogue. They involve a performative reconfiguration of religious "face" in a Goffmanian sense, enacted through narrative strategies grounded in familial universals—most notably the mother-child relationship—and autobiographical memories of popular religiosity. Such narratives produce unexpected intersections between religious traditions while simultaneously articulating moments of tension, exclusion, and cognitive dissonance. In doing so, they destabilize taken-for-granted theological and iconographic assumptions and disrupt audience expectations largely oriented toward perceiving religious difference. Methodologically, the study is based on ethnographic observation of live performances, audio recordings, and in-depth interviews with performers and museum staff. The findings show how the unexpected emergence of perceived similarities generates interpretive disorientation and opens spaces for reflexivity among participants.
LOCAL DISCOURSES ON RELIGIOUS FREEDOM: A CASE STUDY OF PADOVA

Breskaya O. (Speaker) , Giordan G. (Speaker)

University of Padova ~ Padova ~ Italy
This paper examines local discourses on religious freedom through a case study of the city of Padova. The research adopts a mixed quantitative-qualitative methodology, based primarily on 50 interviews conducted with religious and interreligious leaders, politicians, local administrators, and "privileged witnesses" in Padova. The analysis identifies five distinct thematic areas, each characterized by a specific vocabulary that can be interpreted as different modes of thematic framing. The study highlights the following themes: urban challenges and needs for normative intervention; the local dimension of the regulatory framework; human rights and governance of religious diversity; dialogue as a tool for mutual understanding; and the urban initiatives for promoting of interreligious dialogue. Topics related to interreligious dialogue and the protection of human rights emerge most frequently in the narratives of religious and interreligious leaders, for whom relationship-building and the promotion of inclusion are integral components of their mission. The theme focused on the promotion of concrete initiatives for interreligious dialogue is particularly prominent in the responses of privileged witnesses. The study suggests that the meaning of religious freedom itself is the outcome of the interaction among multiple social actors who continuously define and reshape it through interreligious dialogue. By analyzing local discourses and practices, the case of Padova offers valuable insights into how religious freedom is articulated and negotiated in urban settings and highlights the potential of cities as key arenas for the construction of pluralistic coexistence.
ARTICULATING THE INTERRELIGIOUS FIELD: ISOMORPHISM, DIFFERENTIATION AND IDEOLOGY IN URBAN GOVERNANCE

Di Placido M. (Speaker) , Palmisano S. (Speaker)

University of Torino ~ Torino ~ Italy
This presentation explores the making of the interreligious field, understood as a semi autonomous space where institutional logics, struggles over resources and ideological projects intersect. By integrating neo institutional theory, Bourdieu's field perspective and Hall's articulation theory, we develop a framework that captures both the structuring forces and the tensions that reshape interreligious practices. Neo institutional theory highlights processes of isomorphism and functional differentiation; Bourdieu situates these dynamics within struggles for legitimacy and symbolic capital; Hall clarifies how meanings and boundaries are discursively constructed and contested. Empirically, the article focuses on Turin, a city often seen as a national vanguard in governing religious diversity. Its distinctiveness stems not from inherent progressiveness but from a contingent articulation of historical factors: minority emancipation rooted in the Statuto Albertino, administrative continuity since the 2006 Olympics and ideological debates on pluralism and secularization. Initiatives such as the Comitato Interfedi and the Patto di Condivisione illustrate how Turin functions as both laboratory and vanguard, showing how the interreligious field operates as a governance tool, an ideological arena and a resource for reimagining urban pluralism.
RELIGIOUS FREEDOM AND INTERRELIGIOUS DIALOGUE IN THE ITALIAN PRESS: A TOPIC-DETECTION ANALYSIS (2010-2023)

Guglielmi M. (Speaker) , Sbalchiero S. (Speaker)

University of Padova ~ Padova ~ Italy
The relationship between religion and the press represents a well-established field of research. However, scholarly attention has rarely focused on how religious freedom is framed within media discourses on interreligious dialogue. Adopting a quali-quantitative approach based on topic-detection methodology, this study analyzes 1,186 articles published between 2010 and 2023 in four Italian newspapers (Il Corriere della Sera, Il Giornale, La Stampa, and Il Mattino di Padova) that address themes related to interreligious dialogue and religious freedom. The results show that religious freedom is articulated in the Italian press through multiple, interrelated representations. Overall, the analysis indicates that religious freedom is predominantly framed as interconnected with the discourse on interreligious dialogue, rather than as an autonomous issue. Newspaper coverage discusses religious freedom primarily through a rights-based perspective, presenting it as a fundamental right within democratic and pluralistic societies. At the same time, religious freedom emerges as a negotiated and relational concept, shaped by dominant religious actors, geopolitical contexts, and asymmetric representations of religious diversity. In this sense, the Italian press tends to align discourses on religious liberty with narratives of interfaith encounter and cooperation, using interreligious dialogue as the main lens through which issues of religious rights are articulated and made publicly visible. In short, these findings contribute to the sociological and media studies literature by highlighting the central role of the press in shaping public understandings of religious freedom through interpretative frames rooted in interreligious dialogue.

Panel description: Interreligious teaching and learning formats have become a highly differentiated and theoretically well-reflected component of religious education in pluralistic societies. Religious education (cooperation) models aim to enable students to engage with religious plurality in a reflective way, without leveling denominational or theological differences or displaying epistemic insensitivity. These learning settings raise specific questions: Who is considered a legitimate knowledge actor in interreligious education, and what forms of knowledge are recognized? The panel takes these questions as its starting point and analyzes interreligious teaching and learning processes from the perspective of epistemic inequalities (Fricker 2007): Interreligious learning is understood as an enabling space in which processes of recognition, interpretation, and legitimation of knowledge, as well as aspects of vulnerability and respectful interaction, come into effect. Where possible, the panel draws on discourse-theoretical and postcolonial othering analyses, arguing that epistemic justice is not only a normative but also an epistemic virtue of interreligious learning. The panel focuses, among other things, on the experiences and perceptions of students and teachers with epistemic attributions, othering dynamics, and competing claims to truth/significance. The panel combines systematic theological perspectives (including theology of religions, hermeneutics of difference, comparative theology) with empirical practice in religious education. In this way, the panel contributes to the current discussion on religion and (in)equalities and profiles interreligious education as a central locus of epistemic negotiation processes. Literature: Fricker, Miranda 2007. Epistemic Injustice: Power and the Ethics of Knowing. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press.

Papers:

INJUSTICE INQUIERIES

Roggenkamp A. (Speaker) , Wellems L. (Speaker)

University of Münster, Faculty of Protestant Theology ~ Münster ~ Germany
The accelerating social transformation processes are changing the framework conditions for dealing with religion. Religious learning no longer appears to be a matter of course. Religious education must take a new approach to the social demands of the migration society. There is a growing number of voices in favour of an expanded, positionally sensitive, joint RE for members of different denominations and religions. In doing so, teaching in a co-operative way with different religions encounters specific difficulties arising from stereotypes and prejudices. Corresponding exclusion mechanisms have been proven for members of majority religions; they are discussed for members of religion(s) in a minority situation (Gmoser 2023). So far, there has been no discussion of whether or to what extent religion-cooperative teaching can develop inclusion strategies. This article asks empirically whether and to what extent lessons in which members of different religions are taught both together and separately contribute to overcoming mutual prejudices.
RELIGIOUS EXCLUSION?

Wellems L. (Speaker)

University of Münster, Faculty of Protestant Theology ~ Münster ~ Germany
The article deals with fundamental prerequisites, challenges, but also possible effects of a religious education in which different denominations and religions learn and form together. While denominationally cooperative formats had been introduced in individual German states since 1998, there are increasing voices that are programmatically considering new forms of instruction in light of a changed social situation, the growth of Muslim religious communities, and the increase in non-denominational students. This type of instruction, which is increasingly referred to as religiously cooperative, does not occur in the practice of state schools, or at best only in short-term instructional experiments. Empirically, one is directed to church-run schools, which are testing the model as an alternative to conventional denominational instruction in particular. Pupils and teachers have their say, describing their subjective impressions, and then the effects of this teaching are reflected in the theoretical architecture available so far. In their statements, do the students carry out a change of perspective or an assumption of perspective - in this way, approaches to the didactics of religion that refer back to comparative theology predominate - or do they reflect on their own positionality within the framework of approaches that are based on a pluralistic theology of religions? The empirical analysis suggests that the theory architecture cannot start with religion-theological models alone.
BETWEEN CLAIMS TO TRUTH AND OPENNESS TO DIALOGUE: EPISTEMIC POSITIONING OF ISLAMIC RELIGIOUS EDUCATION TEACHERS IN INTERRELIGIOUS LEARNING

Yagdi S. (Speaker)

University of Vienna ~ Vienna ~ Austria
Interreligious educational processes are not only spaces of encounter but also sites of epistemic negotiation. Based on a qualitative survey of 30 Islamic religious education teachers, this paper examines how religious truth claims, epistemic authority, and dialogical practice are positioned and legitimized within school contexts. Drawing on Miranda Fricker's concept of *epistemic injustice* (2007), the study asks: Which forms of religious knowledge are recognized as legitimate in interreligious exchange? Who is considered a credible epistemic actor? And how are competing truth claims articulated, relativized, or strategically bracketed? The findings reveal a spectrum of theological positions, ranging from exclusivist to inclusivist and epistemically humble approaches that ultimately locate truth in God. Even where strong truth convictions are maintained, teachers emphasize dialogical openness and non-proselytizing attitudes. At the same time, the truth question is sometimes deliberately set aside, which may indicate either conflict-avoidance strategies or forms of epistemic adaptation within school power structures. The paper argues that Islamic religious education teachers navigate between theological commitment, professional responsibility, and minority positioning. Interreligious education thus emerges as a key arena in which recognition, difference, and truth are negotiated epistemically as well as pedagogically.
REDRESSING EPISTEMIC INEQUALITIES THROUGH COMPASSION: A RELATIONAL APPROACH TO INTERRELIGIOUS EDUCATION

Domsel M.M. (Speaker)

University of Bonn ~ Bonn ~ Germany
This paper examines Compassion Learning as an epistemic ethical resource within interreligious education, addressing the panel's focus on epistemic inequalities and the recognition of knowledge actors. While interreligious teaching and learning formats aim to foster reflective engagement with religious plurality, they often reproduce asymmetries in recognition, interpretation, and authority. Drawing on Fricker's concept of epistemic injustice (2007) and compassion-based pedagogies, I argue that Compassion Learning serves as a relational-ethical practice that mitigates epistemic marginalisation and enables more equitable participation in interreligious classrooms. I conceptualise Compassion Learning, drawing on a Ginkgo Foundation research project, as an embodied, dialogical practice that foregrounds mutual attentiveness, vulnerability, and recognition of epistemic positionality. By integrating theological reflection on compassion with empirical insights from participatory learning research, the presentation demonstrates how compassion can reshape students' and teachers' engagement with difference, reduce othering dynamics, and redistribute epistemic authority. The contribution also illustrates, through pedagogical examples, how compassion-informed approaches promote not only affective sensibilities but also epistemic justice in interreligious learning. In doing so, it advances a framework in which recognition, interpretive legitimacy, and collective meaning-making are actively cultivated, positioning interreligious education as a transformative space where ethical reflection, relational accountability, and collaborative praxis intersect.
THE "CORRECT" RELIGION FOR FINNS

Fiskaali V. (Speaker)

University of Helsinki ~ Helsinki ~ Finland
After analysing 414 textbooks of Evangelic-Lutheran religious education, it was time to move to the curricula behind them and see how they fit within the frame that the textbook analysis has shown. Finnish basic education curricula from 1925 to 2014 place Finnish folk religion as knowledge with varying value and legitimacy in school. The analysis of the eight curricula has been conducted via quantitative and hermeneutical content analysis. There are three options for how the curricula make it possible or force the education of Finnish folk religion in two subjects: Evangelic-Lutheran religion and secular ethics. The three hermeneutically analyzed options are: (1) cultural framings, (2) permissive openings for non-Christian content, and (3) direct mentions of Finnish folk religion. The pattern shows persistent marginalization under Evangelic-Lutheran-dominant curricular frames. Only during the 1970s was there a brief moment when old traditions had more space. After this, folk religion appears indirectly within the broader culture rather than through explicit recognition. Shifts in epistemic inequalities in interreligious and intercultural learning reveal the distribution of authority, not content. Evangelic-Lutheranism is presented as standard, and Finnish folk religion as peripheral, although these have formed a syncretistic religion and culture in Finland. For the panel, this article offers an empirically grounded case of institutional production of recognition deficits. I also offer examples of syncretistic Finnish Christianity and examples from earlier educational materials from the 16th century onwards.
EPISTEMIC TENSIONS WITHIN NON-CONFESSIONAL RELIGIOUS EDUCATION: COMPARATIVE REFLECTIONS

Lapis G. (Speaker)

La Sapienza University of Rome ~ Rome ~ Italy
Non-confessional religious education (RE) based on the academic Study of Religions (hereafter, SoR-based RE) often presents itself as the most objective venue to teach and learn about different religions, thereby fostering (among other things) intercultural and interreligious dialogue competencies. However, research informed by critical and postcolonial perspectives has highlighted the Eurocentric and modern genealogies concerning both the concept of religion and the historical development of the study of religion. While taking stock of these self-critical reflections, the SoR-based RE debate still lacks engagement with similar educational endeavours and discourses outside Euro-American regions, thus risking taking its epistemological and educational principles for granted. This paper is based on the preliminary results of the EU-funded MSCA research project JREACT, aimed at comparatively analyzing RE debates in Japan and Europe, from the point of view of SoR-based RE. By analyzing some features of the contemporary RE debates in Japan, the paper will discuss different epistemological, educational, and even political positions inherent in RE situations with different historical, social, and intellectual backgrounds. By highlighting the tensions concerning RE also inherent in allegedly 'neutral' fields such as the Study of Religions, this paper aims to contribute to enhancing sensitivity to epistemic injustices and virtues in confessional, interreligious, and non-confessional RE.
DECOLONIZING RELIGIOUS EDUCATION

Sallandt U. (Speaker)

Carl-von-Ossietzky-Universität Oldenburg ~ Oldenburg ~ Germany
The paper will first clarify the term and concept of decolonization, based on decolonization discourses in Latin America (Garbe / Quintero 2013). In doing so, it will become clear why and how knowledge must be decolonized. This then provides the basis for a re-reading of the development of modernity from 1492 to the present day (Dussel 1977), which, according to Claudia Brunner (2022), makes it clear that there is a flip side to this: that of coloniality (Quijano 2000). I use the term epistemic violence to structurally condense the scope of colonial impacts. Based on this historical sketch of the Christian colonial mission, the aim is to use border thinking (Walter Mignolo) and the concept of the Third Space (Homi Bhahba) as examples to illustrate the extent to which epistemologies can be critically broken down from a decolonial perspective of the InBetween. My aim is then to analyze this opening up of a wide space using the example of Global Christianity. In doing so, I explore the methodological and scientific potential of the in-between space (border thinking) and attempt to raise awareness for new religious, especially religious-educational discursive learning and teaching spaces in an interdisciplinary manner. Using the concrete example of the Bible, canon, and hermeneutics, I raise awareness of the need to take responsibility for epistemologically productive processes. At the border or in the border area, in the sense of Mignolo and Bhabha, it becomes clear how the danger of epistemological violence can be countered methodologically and to what extent hermeneutic processes of interpretation and meaning should be aware of this. Keywords: coloniality of (religious) knowledge, global Christianity, decolonization/decolonial methods, religious education.

Panel description: Currently, there is talk of climate change and its consequences in terms of a global mega-crisis, which makes ecological transformation processes urgently necessary. However, as environmental awareness research shows, such ecological transformations are not possible without social changes, in order to ultimately lead to changes in attitudes and behavior. The starting point is, therefore, the interconnectedness of religion as a social system and its interaction with contextual ecological systems. With the help of an alternative model of interreligious teacher training with a focus on environmental ethics, impulses can be given on a European horizon in a global context.

Papers:

THE CHALLENGES OF ETHICAL AND RELIGIOUS EDUCATION IN THE POST-TOTALITARIAN ERA: THE ALBANIAN CASE

Kruja G. (Speaker)

Beder University College ~ Tirana ~ Albania
This paper examines the importance of ethical and religious values education in multireligious societies, with particular attention to the challanges emerging in the post-totalitarian era, focusing on the case of Albania. After decades of state-imposed atheism and the suppression of religious and ethical education, Albanian society has undergone a complex transition toward religious pluralism and democratic co-existence. While this transition has fostered interreligious tolerance, it has also revealed significant gaps in ethical formation, social responsibility, and ecological awareness. In the context of the current global ecological crisis, the paper argues that ethical and religious education can play a transformative role in promoting sustainability, peace, and social cohesion. Core ethical values shared across religious traditions - such as compassion, care for creation, responsibility, moderation, and solidarity - offer powerful educational resources for addressing environmental degradation and unsustainable lifestyles. Drawing on principles of transformative learning and peace education, the study highlights how ethical and religious education can contribute to re-shaping individual and collective attitudes toward nature and the common good.
LOCAL AI AND INTERRELIGIOUS EDUCATION FOR SUSTAINABILITY: A COMPLEMENTARY AND REPLICABLE PEDAGOGICAL AND COMMUNICATION APPROACH

Hernández Serret J. (Speaker)

Universitat de Catalunya (UIC) ~ Barcelona ~ Spain
This paper presents a complementary educational proposal, conceived as a pedagogical and communication tool based on the use of local AI in interreligious programs on sustainability, without replacing traditional teaching processes. It analyzes how this apporach maintains current pedagogical trends (learning personalization, support for critical thinking, and the use of educational technologies with pre-defined content) while preserving educational autonomy and ethical coherence. It also highlights its potential to reduce dependence on centralized technological infrastructures, offering a low-cost and highly replicable model oriented toward educational empowerment.
TRANSFORMATIVE LEARNING IN TIMES OF ECOLOGICAL CRISIS: COMPASSION AS A PEACE EDUCATION PRINCIPLE

Naurath E. (Speaker)

Universität Augsburg ~ Augsburg ~ Germany
This keynote will focus on compassion as a fundamental principle of peace pedagogy and education for (inter)religious sustainability. It will examine how compassion serves as a transformative paradigm that empowers emancipation, strengthens reconciliation, and nurtures peaceful coexistence. Special attention will be given to the interplay between personal empathy, interreligious dialogue, and broader societal peacebuilding.

Panel description: The notion of the common good is back in public and academic discussion. Extensively used in classic political philosophy (Aristotle, Cicero) followed by the Catholic social traditions, Niklas Luhmann some time ago denounced it as "Old-European". And indeed, the social philosophy of Enlightenment in its liberal as well as in its Marxist versions discarded the notion of the common good. At present, the term is back and has become a flagship for authors who want to return to a pre-modern political philosophy, like Patrick J. Deneen who pleads for a common good conservatism, to which he devotes a whole chapter in his book Regime Chance (2023). To overcome the shortcomings of liberal (political) philosophy, he as well as others propose a 180 degree turn away from individualism which they (falsely) associate with individual rights. These positions are of increasing political importance since they are taken up and even radicalized by nationalist and nativist politics which are in ascent in the West and beyond, the more since they are linked to earlier versions of nationalism using the slogan Common good before individual good (Gemeinwohl geht vor Eigenwohl was a widespread slogan in Hitler Germany). Though abusus non tollit usum, and the principle of common good being much older than its twentieth century usage, the urgent question that remains is how the individual good (of which human rights are an important component) and the common good, e. g. the good of all, are interrelated and how they are to be balanced in the contemporary political order. This requires the acknowledgment of a weak spot of political liberalism, which regards the common good as the simple sum of individual goods without a value of its own. The panel is to discuss this from historical, social ethical and sociological perspectives. How do various philosophical-normative and religious perspectives integrate the common good in social philosophical discourse?

Papers:

"WHICH GOODS, WHOSE RIGHTS?"

Gorski P. (Speaker)

Yale University ~ New Haven ~ United States of America
"Post-liberal" and "neo-integralist" Catholics are one of the most influential factions within the MAGA braintrust, and Patrick Deneen and Adrian Vermeule have become its leading exponents. This paper develops an immanent critique of their putatively neo-Aristotelian positions by drawing on the works of Alasdair MacIntyre, the leading neo-Aristotelian political theologian and philosopher of the late 20th century, and Martha Nussbaum, the leading neo-Aristotelian political philosopher in the United States.
"CATHOLIC POST-LIBERALISM AND ANTI-LIBERALISM: CONVERSIONS AND REVERSIONS"

Faggioli M. (Speaker)

Trinity College Dublin ~ Dublin ~ Ireland
This paper explores the role of religious conversion and reversion in the rise of Catholic post-liberal and anti-liberal thought, focusing on recent cases of individuals who enter or return to Catholicism as part of a broader critique of modern liberal culture. It argues that these conversion narratives are often framed as political and civilizational realignments in which Catholicism is embraced as an alternative to liberal pluralism, individual rights, and secular democracy. Situating these developments within the post-Vatican II history of Catholicism and debates over the common good, the paper examines how conversion is mobilized to legitimate hierarchical authority, moral homogeneity, and nationalist or integralist political projects. It concludes by assessing the theological and ecclesiological implications of politicized conversion narratives and their impact on Catholic engagement with democracy, human rights, and institutional pluralism.
FEARING THE ANTICHRIST: PETER THIEL, POLITICAL THEOLOGY, AND THE LIBERTARIAN CRITIQUE OF GLOBAL ORDER

Palaver W. (Speaker)

University of Innsbruck ~ Innsbruck ~ Austria
In recent years, tech billionaire Peter Thiel has increasingly articulated his political and technological agenda through explicitly theological language, most notably by warning against the coming of the Antichrist as a symbol of an all-regulating global order. This paper reconstructs Thiel's political theology by tracing its intellectual roots in libertarian ideology, apocalyptic Christian motifs, and Carl Schmitt's concept of the katechon, and situates it within broader debates on globalization, technological acceleration, and world governance. It argues that Thiel's use of apocalyptic theology functions less as a genuine theological warning than as an ideological device that legitimizes resistance to democratic regulation, global authority, and the pursuit of the common good, while promoting technological acceleration as humanity's primary means of salvation. By contrasting Thiel's position with Catholic social teaching and with thinkers such as Josef Pieper, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and René Girard, the paper highlights the absence of hope, responsibility, and solidarity in Thiel's framework and proposes an alternative Christian response to contemporary apocalyptic risks—one that acknowledges human responsibility for global catastrophe without collapsing into either technocratic control or libertarian nihilism.
D.C. SCHINDLER'S « POLITICS OF THE REAL": A CRITICAL READING

Neulinger M. (Speaker)

University of Innsbruck ~ Innsbruck ~ Austria
Within the neo-integralist networks, D.C. Schindler's contributions are sometimes considered a "soft version" of integralism. His study "The Politics of the Real. The Church Between Liberalism and Integralism" (2021) wants to posit itself as "truly Catholic" alternative to both. For Schindler, liberalism is from its beginnings anti-Catholic, its "minimizing of the common good" results in a new totalitarianism. On the other hand, he criticizes the Waldstein-version of integralism, which is the backbone of Adriane Vermeule's "Common Good Constitutionalism". The paper will critically discuss Schindler's "Politics of the Real" and show that despite some remarkable insights, Schindler's approach is based on a flawed theological epistemology, has no space for "loci alieni", no space for legitimate pluralism and lacks a dynamic conception of the Common Good as demanded by Catholic teaching. The "Politics of the Real" has serious theological and philosophical shortcomings and finally has no serious issues to move towards nationalism and a confessional Catholic state. "Truly catholic" is a Christ-centered universalism, that balances the common good and the dignity of the individual human person as will be worked out with Simone Weil.
"CAN THE COMMON GOOD BE UPDATED AND IF YES - HOW?"

Gabriel I. (Speaker)

University of Vienna ~ Vienna ~ Austria
The question how the individual and the common good are interrelated (human rights being central for both) lies at the core of Western political thought. Patrick J. Deneen's (revolutionary) common good conservativism argues for discarding Enlightenment individualism, pleading for a pre-modern, anti-liberal approach to overcome a weak spot in political liberalism which sees the "common good" as the mechanically produced sum of individual well-being. It thus undervalues the central question of political life: How to create a common world good for all? In this contribution I will argue based on Hannah Arendt and on the basis of Catholic Social Thought that under modern democratic conditions the notion of the common good needs to be redefined as plural (global, national, group centered), procedural and actor oriented taking into account the contingency of human life and affairs.

Panel description: This panel is dedicated to the discussion of the volume A Sociology of Religious Freedom by Olga Breskaya, Giuseppe Giordan, and James T. Richardson. The book offers a sociological analysis of freedom of and freedom from religion as a key concept for understanding the place of religious and spiritual identities, beliefs, and practices in the contemporary world. Moving beyond purely legal or normative approaches, the volume emphasizes the added value of sociology in explaining why and how religious freedom acquires multiple meanings in society. The authors show that religious freedom is not a fixed or self-evident principle, but rather a socially constructed and contested concept whose content varies across cultural, political, and historical contexts. The book addresses three major questions central to the development of a sociology of religious freedom. First, it asks how religious freedom can be defined as a multidimensional concept, taking into account its complex and often controversial nature. Second, it investigates the recurrent sociological conditions and dominant social perceptions that foster or hinder understandings of religious freedom in different political, legal, and socio-religious environments. Third, it explores the mechanisms through which religious freedom is socially implemented, examining how it becomes embedded in everyday practices, organizational routines, and institutional cultures, thus contributing to its recognition as a fundamental value within human rights frameworks. The volume suggests that any sociological definition of religious freedom must integrate historical, philosophical, legal, religious, and political dimensions specific to a given society. By uncovering the interplay between structural conditions and individual or group perceptions, sociology highlights the normative and value-laden character of religious freedom, as well as its broader societal functions.

Papers:

Panel description: Artificial intelligence is rapidly reshaping modern societies, yet this transformation generates profound inequalities. Social inequalities such as poverty, discrimination, and exclusion are being amplified and reconfigured through algorithmic systems that determine access to employment, housing, healthcare, and justice. Just as industrialisation created new class divisions while promising prosperity, AI now presents similar paradoxes—offering efficiency and innovation while simultaneously encoding bias, concentrating power, and deepening existing inequalities. While philosophy and sociology dominate AI ethics discourse, theology and religious traditions remain largely absent from these conversations. What is urgently needed is an articulation of the distinctive contribution religion and theology can make to addressing AI-generated inequalities. This panel examines AI-generated inequalities—algorithmic bias, economic displacement, surveillance, and concentrated power—through the lens of religious and theological responses. Our speakers explore what theology and religious traditions can contribute to understanding and addressing these inequalities. Rather than focusing narrowly on religious inequalities, we ask how religion and theology can speak to the broader social inequalities that AI creates, offering distinctive ethical frameworks, prophetic critique, and visions of justice that secular AI ethics may lack. What resources do religious traditions offer for critiquing and transforming AI systems that perpetuate inequality? Can theological concepts of human dignity, the sacred, justice, and the common good inform more equitable AI development? Has religion's marginalisation in AI discourse deprived society of crucial moral resources? The panel will discuss these and similar questions.

Papers:

DIGITAL COLONIALISM AND EMBODIED INTELLIGENCE: RETHINKING A(G)I THROUGH THE INCARNATIONAL FRAMEWORK

Van Emmerik M. (Speaker)

University of Cambridge ~ Cambridge ~ United Kingdom
The rapid rise of Artificial Intelligence and the global pursuit of Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) have brought to the forefront critical questions about digital colonialism and epistemic justice. Digital colonialism—characterised by concentration of technological power within the Global North—perpetuates historical patterns of inequality through control over digital infrastructure, data flows, and algorithmic decision-making systems. At its heart lies an "epistemic monoculture" in A(G)I development: a uniform approach to knowledge that privileges Western scientific rationalism while marginalising alternative ways of knowing, particularly threatening indigenous knowledge systems and epistemologies from the Global South. This paper proposes an innovative theological and cognitive scientific response by integrating the Christian doctrine of incarnation with embodied cognition theory. The incarnational principle—divine embodiment in human form—offers a framework for rethinking the relationship between materiality and intelligence, between universality and particularity, emphasising that intelligence requires physical embodiment within specific cultural, historical, and material contexts. This integrated framework suggests practical responses to AI-generated inequalities: (1) epistemological pluralism that incorporates diverse cultural knowledge systems into A(G)I development; (2) localised development models creating contextually-appropriate forms of artificial intelligence; and (3) embodied ethics emerging from concrete situations rather than abstract principles. Rather than pursuing universal A(G)I models that replicate colonial patterns, an incarnational approach calls for multiple contextually embedded forms of artificial intelligence that respect and integrate diverse epistemologies and lived experiences. Embodied cognition strengthens this critique by demonstrating how cognitive processes are fundamentally rooted in bodily interactions with the world.
INSTRUMENTALITY AND ITS DISCONTENTS

Wright O. (Speaker)

University of Oxford ~ Oxford ~ United Kingdom
Large Language Models threaten established theories of tools and the use to which they are put by humans. These theories go back to Aristotle, and have learned discussions in the likes of Aquinas and more recently Heidegger. However, as Hannah Arendt and Giorgio Agamben have more recently seen, there is a grave danger in thinking of an LLM merely as a tool. As Arendt foresaw, it is possible for society so to revere a tool or instrument that its humans become increasingly in the role of servant to its mastery. Similarly Agamben, seeking to locate this master-slave reversal in the sacramental notion of ex opere operato, identifies the risks of exposure of human life to such a tool if it is understood merely as an instrument. A theological conclusion of human instrumentality leaves no protection from the inequalities of a world run by a Superintelligence. It is time then for an intervention into the discourse surrounding AI of the notion of life. The contribution of this paper is to introduce a clear focus on 'life' as it is presented by Jesus in the Gospel of John, and to compare that notion to the idea of 'life' in Aristotle and Aquinas. By presenting the difference of the Johannine notion to its prevailing cousins in antiquity (and beyond), this paper will begin to trace a new genealogy for thinking about human life, establishing a surer footing to withstand a tool that can appear to the unequally educated as if it were human.
ISLAMIC MORAL THEOLOGY AND THE GREATER DIVERGENCE

Sami M. (Speaker)

University of Oxford ~ Cairo ~ United Kingdom
This paper offers a framework for an Islamic moral theological contribution to discussions on AI and inequality. In the eighteenth century, industrial development created a huge gap in wealth and power between Western Europe and North Africa on one hand and the rest of the world on the other, a phenomenon referred to by social historians as 'the great divergence'. This divergence has had persisting detrimental effects on the rest of the world and the recent developments in AI are likely to lead to an even greater one not only between different regions of the world, but within them. Such a risk comes with opportunities for philosophical and theological reflection on questions such as that of human dignity and its preservation in an unequal world. This paper argues that on this question moral theologians can offer conceptions of human dignity and condemnations of exploitation and manipulation as means of its violation that secular moral philosophers cannot secure, owing to the commitment in traditions such as Christianity and Islam to the doctrine of the creation of human beings in the image of God. It seeks to establish that Islamic moral theology offers a framework for treating AI and inequality that is conducive to inter-religious dialogue and collaboration on the question that avoids pitfalls of treatments rooted in secular liberal conceptions of human dignity. The paper begins with stressing the need for an Islamic moral theological framework for treating AI and inequality, pointing to the reasons Muslims and non-Muslims alike stand in need for it. It then proceeds to the delineation of four elements that I argue must be present in any Muslim theological treatment of the question: a scriptural account of justice, a realist recognition of the inevitability of inequality, an account of exploitation and manipulation as violations of human dignity, and legal and spiritual means for the protection of the vulnerable in an unequal world.
RELIGIOUS PARROTING? ON THE DANGERS OF LLMS IN RELIGIOUS APPLICATIONS

Vestrucci A. (Speaker)

University of Bamberg ~ Bamberg ~ Germany
Large language models (LLMs) are increasingly used to draft sermons and prayers, translate sacred texts, and power religious chatbots across Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, and Buddhist communities. This paper surveys case studies from 2023-2025 to map both the appeal of these systems - e.g. efficiency, creative stimulation, and widened access to religious materials - and their recurring risks, including emotional flatness, doctrinal opacity, embedded gender bias, privacy and accountability gaps, and the possibility of manipulation through authoritative-sounding rhetoric. To connect these practical concerns to technical causes, the paper provides a short non-technical overview of transformer-based LLMs (embeddings and self-attention) and, based on this, it develops a three-part critique of "religious parroting." First, LLMs lack grounded semantic understanding, so apparent meaning is largely derivative of patterns in training data rather than reliable theological comprehension. Second, because their outputs are not produced by rule-governed inference, they can deliver persuasive religious counsel that is logically unstable or doctrinally inconsistent, fostering trust misalignment in sensitive pastoral contexts. Third, as "stochastic parrots," LLMs primarily remix existing linguistic material, limiting genuine theological innovation and risking the conflation of statistical fluency with spiritual authority. The paper argues that LLMs can be valuable as supervised drafting aids, but that responsible religious deployment - especially for chatbots - may require governance-oriented hybrid (e.g. neurosymbolic) architectures that incorporate explicit doctrinal and ethical constraints, alongside institutional oversight, to protect semantic depth, theological adherence, communal trust, and authentic creativity.
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE AND THE RECONFIGURATION OF THEOLOGICAL ANTHROPOLOGY: INEQUALITY, AGENCY, AND THE SACRED IN THE ALGORITHMIC AGE

Sathiya R. (Speaker)

KLEF Deemed to be University ~ VIJAYAWADA ~ India
Artificial Intelligence is increasingly positioned not merely as a technological tool but as a transformative cultural force reshaping human self-understanding. This paper examines how contemporary AI discourse intersects with theological anthropology, particularly in relation to emerging forms of inequality. While AI systems promise efficiency and optimization, they also generate asymmetries of knowledge, agency, and power. These asymmetries raise profound theological questions: What becomes of the concept of imago Dei in an age of algorithmic decision-making? Does AI redistribute or concentrate interpretive authority traditionally associated with human moral and spiritual agency? Drawing from theological anthropology, philosophy of technology, and digital religion studies, this paper argues that AI creates new symbolic hierarchies that mirror older theological structures of transcendence and mediation. Algorithmic systems increasingly function as epistemic authorities, shaping moral judgments, social inclusion, and economic participation. In doing so, they risk reinforcing structural inequalities under the guise of technological neutrality. Theologically, this shift challenges classical understandings of human uniqueness, moral responsibility, and relationality. Rather than viewing AI as either salvific or apocalyptic, this paper proposes a framework of "critical theological discernment," emphasizing human dignity, embodied relationality, and ethical accountability. By situating AI within broader religious and ethical traditions, the study contributes to contemporary debates on religion and inequality, highlighting how algorithmic systems reshape spiritual imagination, social power, and theological categories. The paper ultimately argues for a constructive theological engagement that neither sacralizes technology nor dismisses it, but reclaims human agency within digitally mediated societies.
AI, PERSONHOOD, AND THE LIMITS OF CO-INHERENCE: CHRISTIAN HUMANISM IN AN ALGORITHMIC AGE

Bennett D. (Speaker)

University of Oxford ~ Oxford ~ United Kingdom
Artificial intelligence increasingly modulates human affect, labour, and social belonging, generating new forms of technological "co-inherence" in which identity is shaped through algorithmic systems (Hansen; Zuboff). While promising efficiency, these systems intensify structural inequalities by encoding bias, concentrating power, and instrumentalising persons within extractive economies (Crawford; Eubanks). Secular AI ethics debates autonomy and fairness but often lacks a metaphysical account of the human person capable of grounding non-reducible dignity (Coeckelbergh). Drawing on John Webster's account of theological anthropology as "evangelical humanism," this paper situates human nature and destiny within the triune economy of grace (Webster). Human beings are neither autonomous self-possessing subjects nor mere discursive constructs (against Foucault), but contingent creatures whose identity emerges through vocation and covenantal fellowship (Barth; Zizioulas). Classical theology distinguishes divine personhood as necessary being — self-subsisting triune communion — from human personhood as received and upheld in relation. Dignity derives not from functional capacity but from creaturely participation in this gifted order. Engaging Michael Burdett's theology of emerging technologies, the paper acknowledges that human life is technologically mediated and evolutionarily embedded (Burdett). Yet a decisive distinction remains: AI systems display affects and social behaviours associated with personhood, but they are not persons as participants in covenantal vocation. Confusing technological interdependence with theological co-inherence risks reducing dignity to performance and obscuring responsibility within systems that amplify inequality. By retrieving a Christologically grounded evangelical humanism, critically refined through techno-theological realism, theology offers a metaphysical grammar for justice capable of resisting algorithmic dehumanisation.
THE AMBIVALENCE OF RELIGIOUS LLMS: OPPORTUNITIES, RISKS, AND REGULATION

Tretter M. (Speaker)

Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg ~ Erlangen ~ Germany
The emergence of large language models (LLMs) is rapidly transforming the landscape of digital religion, particularly those systems fine-tuned on religious text corpora and designed for religious conversation. By enabling users to access religious knowledge without reliance on traditional gatekeepers, these so-called "religious LLMs" can facilitate new forms of engagement with sacred texts and theological traditions and foster dialogue across religious differences. In this sense, reli-gious LLMs represent a significant new infrastructure within digital religion. At the same time, religious LLMs remain deeply ambivalent. Several recent cases show that sys-tems trained on religious corpora may reproduce harmful or exclusionary interpretations. In some instances, such systems—one especially prominent case is GitaGPT—have generated responses that attempt to legitimize hostility or violence toward non-believers or religious others as a per-ceived religious duty. In more subtle ways, several other religious LLMs encode rigid normative assumptions about right and wrong, thereby potentially amplifying existing differences rather than mitigating them. This ambivalence raises urgent political and ethical questions: how to deal with the risks of reli-gious LLMs? Which regulatory frameworks could enable religious LLMs to realize their potential while mitigating their risks? And how can such governance be pursued without introducing ille-gitimate censorship or infringing upon religious freedom? Drawing on recent work at the inter-section of AI, religion, and governance, this paper addresses these questions and aims to develop a constructive proposal for regulating religious LLMs.
A PNEUMATOLOGICAL EQUALITIES ADDRESSING AI INEQUALITIES

Buck R.A. (Speaker)

Mesa Global ~ Oxford, UK ~ United States of America
AI is poised to radically transform various elements of society with applications that have some kind of economic impact, including self-driving cars, drug development, artistic renderings, and agentic AI systems. In this way, AI is accelerating and expanding a new wave of automations, challenging the continued availability of work and its dignity, e.g. AI has already reduced entry-level roles. AI will concentrate power and heighten a variety of inequalities. As AI reduces available jobs and increases economic inequality, it will also bar many from feeling personal dignity and purpose through work. Yet, even more surreptitiously by qualifying much human work and skill as "less than" AI capabilities, AI imposes a perceived inequality between humans and machines. To address these inequalities we will turn to the radical equalities of value, economics, and empowerment ushered in through the gift of the Holy Spirit. Perhaps overlooked in theological considerations of AI, the Person and Work of the Holy Spirit in the life of the Christian counters the inequalities that AI is likely to increase. Not only does the gift of the Holy Spirit challenge some assumptions about the nature of AI, but it also contests AI narratives that devalue the uniqueness and worth of humanity. The Holy Spirit also moves the theological contributions to the discussion of AI from punctiliar acts in the past and/or future. Instead, pneumatology interfaces questions about AI and the inequities it will impose with the ongoing salvific work of God in individuals and in society. The outpouring of the Holy Spirit originally brought about a transformation from economic, psychological, and spiritual inequalities to equalities. Thus, a more robust engagement with pneumatology in Christian Scripture and in the church fathers not only provides a prophetic critique of the nature and inequalities of AI, it offers a vision of transformation towards Spirit-conferred and -empowered equalities.
ALGORITHMIC EXEGESIS AND THE PARADOX OF AUTHORITY: GENDER, SACRED TEXT, AND AI GOVERNANCE IN SURAH MARYAM (QUR'AN 19)

Rosli Asmara L. (Speaker)

Nanyang Technological University Singapore ~ Singapore ~ Singapore
The accelerating integration of artificial intelligence into religious inquiry generates two distinct but related crises: an epistemological crisis, as algorithmic systems function as unauthorised exegetes operating beyond scholarly methodological constraints; and a structural crisis, as these systems redistribute interpretive authority in ways that systematically marginalise non-Western, non-secular epistemologies. This paper asks whether AI models replicate patriarchal weaponisation of sacred narrative or impose Western feminist frameworks as surrogate orthodoxies. Using a comparative theological framework, it examines two divergent systems Claude (Anthropic) and NurAI (Asia-based, trained by several key religious bodies) navigating female subjectivity and divine decree in Surah Maryam (Quran 19), with particular attention to Maryam's ordained silence in Verse 26 and verses 16-21, selected for their interpretive density and scholarly contestation. Findings reveal a paradox transcending the binary of bias versus accuracy: both models either secularise sacred narrative through a Western-centric lens or flatten Islamic scholarly pluralism into what this paper terms digital orthodoxy a form of AI-generated interpretive inequality structurally undetectable by existing regulatory instruments. This undetectability is not accidental. Current AI ethics frameworks the EU AI Act, UNESCO's Recommendation, and the NIST RMF are theologically illiterate by design. Because the failure is epistemological rather than procedural, no technical amendment can resolve it; the foundation itself must be reconceived. This paper proposes Digital Adab (Propriety in Code), grounded in Karamah (inherent human dignity) and operating through comparative virtue ethics, not as a corrective supplement but as a Sacred-Centred Justice model, an alternative epistemological foundation for religiously-literate AI governance.

Panel description: This panel brings together scholars of Islamic theology, ethics, and social thought to explore how constructive Muslim theologies can respond meaningfully to some of the most pressing global challenges of the twenty-first century. At a time marked by overlapping crises—social fragmentation and loneliness, climate degradation, rapid advances in artificial intelligence, mass displacement and migration, and the dominance of consumerist and materialist paradigms—Muslim theological traditions are being called upon not merely to react defensively, but to articulate forward-looking, ethically grounded, and socially engaged visions of human flourishing. The panel situates Islamic theology as a living, interpretive enterprise capable of generating normative guidance, moral imagination, and public discourse that speaks to global concerns beyond confessional boundaries. By "constructive Muslim theologies," the panel refers to theological approaches that critically engage classical Islamic sources (the Qur'an, Hadith, jurisprudence, and philosophical theology) while also incorporating insights from contemporary humanities, social sciences, and lived Muslim experiences. Such approaches do not treat theology as static doctrine, but as an ongoing process of meaning-making that responds to historical contingency, power relations, and evolving moral questions. Overall, this panel aims to demonstrate that Muslim theology is not confined to intra-religious discourse, but is a dynamic and critical participant in global ethical conversations. By addressing loneliness, climate change, AI, migration, and consumerism through constructive theological lenses, the panel highlights the relevance of Islamic thought for contemporary challenges facing humanity as a whole. It invites interdisciplinary dialogue, encourages collaboration between scholars and practitioners, and contributes to the reimagining of theology as a public, ethical, and transformative endeavor in an interconnected world.

Papers:

THE MUSLIM RITUAL PRAYER (SALAT) - AN ENVIRONMENTAL APPROACH FOCUSED ON THE CLIMATE CRISIS

Sayilgan Z. (Speaker)

Institute for Islamic, Christian and Jewish Studies ~ Baltimore ~ United States of America
This paper offers an environmental reading of the Muslim ritual prayer (ṣalāt) in light of the contemporary climate crisis, drawing on Qur'anic teachings concerning the sacredness of nature and Said Nursi's theological reflections in the Risale-i Nur. The Qur'an presents the natural world as a sign (āya) of God, imbued with intrinsic value and ordered by divine balance (mīzān), while humanity is entrusted with moral responsibility (khilāfa and amāna) toward creation. Building on this framework, the paper argues that ṣalāt functions not only as an act of worship but also as a formative practice that cultivates ecological consciousness and ethical restraint.
SACRED SPIRITUAL CIRCLES: CHALLENGING THE LONELINESS EPIDEMIC

Sayilgan S. (Speaker)

Georgetown University ~ Washington, DC ~ United States of America
This paper examines the Prophetic practice of ḥalaqas (spiritual circles) as a constructive Islamic response to the contemporary loneliness epidemic, drawing on Qur'anic ethics of relationality and Said Nursi's reflections in the Risale-i Nur on communal faith formation. While modern societies increasingly valorize individualism and digital connectivity, they often lack embodied spaces of trust, belonging, and intergenerational encounter. The ḥalaqa, rooted in the Prophet Muhammad's practice of gathering diverse companions for shared learning, remembrance, and ethical cultivation, offers a model of micro-communal life centered on presence, reciprocity, and moral growth.
THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN SOME TEACHINGS OF ISLAMIC TEXTS ON POPULATION GROWTH AND INEQUALITY

Shavarani M.S. (Speaker)

Assistant Professor and Head of Department of comparative religions at International University of Islamic Denominations ~ Tehran ~ Iran, Islamic Republic of
After the Industrial Revolution, the human population increased incomparably more than in the past. This population growth has itself become a factor exacerbating inequality on Earth. The resources of the Earth are limited and can only support a specific number of people. A larger population leads to an unfair and inequitable distribution of resources because the available natural resources must be divided among a larger number of people, thus reducing each person's share. In addition to the impact of industry and technology on human population growth, in some countries such as Bangladesh, Pakistan, India, Afghanistan, and Indonesia, the Muslim population has increased to an unusual extent. One of the influential factors in this phenomenon is the emphasis on increasing the number of children per family in some Islamic texts, where this practice is encouraged as a virtuous religious act. As a result, some Muslim families in certain countries, following these religious texts, have opted to have more children. Population growth in some Islamic countries has led to widespread environmental destruction as well as increased social and economic inequality. It is essential that the relevant teachings in religious texts that encourage Muslims to increase the population be critically examined.
INTELLECTUAL HUMILITY: EPISTEMIC VIRTUE AS AN ANTIDOTE TO CONTEMPORARY FRAGMENTATION

Maglic E. (Speaker)

Alliance Of Civilizations Institute, Ibn Haldun University ~ Istanbul ~ Turkey
This paper discusses intellectual humility as an antidote to epistemic sovereignty (arrogance), by examining the Quranic story (qissah) of Musa and Khidr and ethical lessons of humility (tawadu') derived from its exegesis as a response to the issue of contemporary fragmentation. The epistemic sovereignty of the modern subject entails epistemic arrogance; a world in which human knowledge and reason are the ultimate authority, and detached from a transcendental anchor. Disconnected from the cosmos and inner self, such an attitude is the epicentre of materialism, loneliness, and environmental degradation. By expanding on Hallaq's prescription to this condition, which states that "alien to modernity, epistemic humility, an antidote to sovereignty, is a much-needed remedy," this paper argues that Musa and Khidr's case of intellectual humility, which situates the individual in the context of cosmos and society, cultivates knowing that challenges social and existential fragmentation.
"HE IS THE CREATOR OF GOOD AND EVIL" MĪRZĀ MAHDĪ IṢFAHĀNĪ ON EVIL AND HUMAN FREE WILL

Emami A.M. (Speaker)

PhD Candidate - University of Exeter ~ Exeter ~ United Kingdom
Anthropocene reflections on evil demand renewed engagement with religious and philosophical accounts. Classical falsafa—the Islamic adaptation of Hellenistic philosophy—typically denies evil's real existence, viewing the world as necessarily optimal and evil as a mere privation of good. This deterministic model complicates issues of divine justice, free will, and moral responsibility—concerns central to addressing human-induced environmental destruction. Conversely, the Maktab-i Tafkīk (School of Separation) and its founder, Mīrzā Mahdī Iṣfahānī (d. 1365/1946), challenge these assumptions, rejecting the metaphysical grounds and moral implications of the philosophical tradition. Iṣfahānī replaces deterministic agency with a libertarian account for both divine and non-divine agents, grounded in rational intuition. He argues that the dominant philosophical view contradicts the foundations of prophecy, sharīʿa, and the afterlife by undermining moral responsibility. By distinguishing between justified and unjustified evils, Iṣfahānī maintains that both possess real existence. He posits that while God's moral character ensures He does not create evil without sufficient reason, humans remain fully accountable for the unjustified evils arising from the deliberate misuse of their free will. This paper examines Iṣfahānī's onto-epistemological framework in contrast with dominant Islamic perspectives. I argue that his emphasis on human freedom and the reality of unjustified evil offers vital resources for rethinking responsibility for ecological degradation and suffering in the Anthropocene. By framing environmental crises as "unjustified evils" born of human agency, Iṣfahānī's framework provides a robust ethical basis for accountability. This study highlights an Islamic reconceptualisation of evil that preserves divine justice without diminishing the ethical stakes of human action, addressing the urgent demands of our modern ecological crisis.

Panel description: This panel presents key findings from an international survey conducted by the research group Footprints: Young People. Expectations, Ideals and Beliefs, coordinated by the Pontifical University of Santa Croce (Rome). The study involved more than 9,000 young people from nine countries across four continents: the United States, Mexico, Argentina, Brazil, Kenya, the United Kingdom, Italy, Spain, and the Philippines. Researchers from Albany Estate University, Universidad Panamericana, St Mary's University, Universidad de Navarra, Universidad Católica de Argentina, Pontificia Università Salesiana, CLE-Unicamp (Center for Logic, Epistemology and the History of Science), and the University of Asia and the Pacific collaborated in the project. The survey explores young people's relationship with work, focusing on its social and civic dimensions, their preparation for the labor market through education, and the role played by religiosity, personal convictions, and values in shaping professional choices. Particular attention is given to young people's lived experiences, expectations for the future, and the everyday decisions that influence both their current lives and their projected career paths. By combining a broad international perspective with sensitivity to cultural and social contexts, the research seeks to understand how young people make sense of work not only as economic activity, but also as a meaningful dimension of personal identity and social contribution. The panel will present the global results of the study, followed by focused analyses of the European countries involved, specifically the United Kingdom, Italy, and Spain, highlighting convergences, contrasts, and emerging trends within the European context.

Papers:

WORK, VALUES, AND SPIRITUALITY: EMERGING FINDINGS FROM A GLOBAL STUDY ON YOUTH, WORK AND RELIGION

Díaz-Dorronsoro J.M. (Speaker)

Pontificia Università della Santa Croce ~ Rome ~ Italy
This panel presents initial findings from an ongoing international research project on youth, religion, and spirituality carried out by the Footprints: Young People. Expectations, Ideals and Beliefs research group, coordinated by the Pontifical University of Santa Croce. Based on survey data collected from more than 9,000 young people in nine countries across four continents, the project examines how younger generations relate work and education to their personal values, moral outlooks, and religious or spiritual beliefs. The panel focuses on young people's understandings of work, considering it not only as a means of economic participation but also as a sphere of meaning, social engagement, and civic responsibility. Special attention is paid to the role of values and convictions in shaping attitudes toward professional life, educational pathways, and career decisions. By placing work within wider horizons of belief and meaning, the panel offers a comparative perspective on how young people navigate uncertainty, aspirations, and ethical tensions in contemporary societies. The discussion will highlight emerging patterns from the study and reflect on their significance for current debates on youth, work, and spirituality, as well as for the future development of this global research project.
WORK, VALUES, AND UNCERTAINTY: YOUNG PEOPLE'S EXPECTATIONS IN THE UNITED KINGDOM

Sanders K. (Speaker)

St. Mary's University ~ London ~ United Kingdom
This paper examines the findings from the United Kingdom sub-sample of an ongoing international research project on youth, religion, and spirituality conducted by the Footprints: Young People. Expectations, Ideals, and Beliefs research group. The analysis draws on survey data gathered in January 2026 from 1,000 young people in the UK and focuses on how work is understood and evaluated in relation to education, personal values, and wider moral or spiritual orientations. The study explores the extent to which young people in the UK approach work primarily as a space for personal fulfilment and autonomy, while at the same time expressing concerns about labour market instability, competitiveness, and long-term security. Work is commonly seen as a key source of identity and independence, yet this perception is frequently accompanied by uncertainty regarding future career paths and the effectiveness of educational preparation. Education is valued not only for its role in supporting employability, but also for its contribution to critical thinking and broader personal development. Personal values emerge as an important factor shaping attitudes towards working life, particularly in relation to fairness, responsibility, and social contribution. Although explicit forms of religiosity appear less salient than in other national contexts, moral and existential questions continue to surface, often expressed in individualized or non-institutional terms. Overall, the UK results suggest a generation that engages with work in a pragmatic yet reflective manner, seeking consistency between professional aspirations, personal values, and the conditions of a rapidly changing social environment.
LIVES ON HOLD? WORK, EDUCATION, AND VALUES AMONG YOUNG ADULTS IN ITALY

Cordisco I. (Speaker)

Pontificia Università Salesiana ~ Rome ~ Italy
This paper presents the results of the Italian subsample of an ongoing international research project on youth, religion, and spirituality conducted by the research group Footprints: Young People. Expectations, Ideals, and Beliefs. The analysis is based on data from a survey conducted in Italy in January 2026 with approximately 1,000 young people and examines how work is perceived in relation to education, personal values, and broader moral or spiritual orientations. The results will show if young Italians tend to view work as central to personal stability and social recognition, while expressing significant concern about job insecurity, limited opportunities, and difficulties in long-term planning. Work is widely associated with personal identity and independence, but is often experienced as fragile and uncertain, especially in a labour market characterised by temporary contracts and late transitions to stable employment. Education is generally valued as an essential route into the world of work, although young people often question its ability to provide adequate preparation for current professional demands. The survey results will reveal whether these trends are confirmed and to what extent personal values play a significant role in shaping young Italians' attitudes towards work, particularly with regard to fairness, responsibility and contribution to society. It will also examine the extent to which religious and spiritual references are still present in the Italian context and whether they tend to function as cultural and moral frameworks. It will also examine whether the younger generations continue to pursue a strong desire for security and meaning in their work, overcoming structural limitations and seeking consistency between professional aspirations, personal values and life plans.
ATTITUDES TOWARD WORK AMONG YOUNG PEOPLE IN SPAIN: AN EXPLORATORY ANALYSIS

Sádaba C. (Speaker)

Universidad de Navarra ~ Pamplona ~ Spain
This paper presents the Spanish component of an ongoing international research project on youth, religion, and spirituality conducted by the Footprints: Young People. Expectations, Ideals, and Beliefs research group. Drawing on survey data collected in Spain in January 2026 from approximately 1,000 young people, the study examines how work is understood in relation to education, personal values, and broader moral or spiritual reference points. The analysis aims to explore how young people in Spain approach work within a social context marked by extended transitions into employment and persistent labour market uncertainty. In particular, the paper will examine whether work is primarily framed as a source of economic security, as a space for personal development and autonomy, or as a dimension of social participation and contribution. Attention will be paid to the extent to which concerns about instability, temporary employment, and long-term planning shape expectations and attitudes towards professional life. The role of education will be analysed both as a practical resource for employability and as a formative experience influencing young people's outlooks, aspirations, and sense of preparedness for work. The paper will also investigate the place of religion and personal values—such as fairness, responsibility, and social commitment—in shaping orientations towards working life.

Panel description: Biographies of the Prophet Muhammad often focus on his historical context in seventh-century Arabia. Yet understanding the Prophet solely through the lens of ancient history fails to capture the significance and meaning of this individual, whose teachings have shaped the world and continue to guide nearly one-quarter of the global population today. With this book, Salih Sayilgan provides a loving portrait of the Prophet as he has lived in the hearts of Muslims across the centuries: as a religious light and spiritual guide. Drawing on a diverse body of Islamic literature on the Prophet, Sayilgan offers a vista onto the expansive and variegated legacy of this vitally significant religious figure. Examining how Muslims have remembered and reimagined the Prophet's spirit in different ways as expressions of their love for God and His messenger, this book highlights the central place of the Prophet Muhammad in the religious lives of Muslim believers.

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Panel description: This panel explores the complex relationship between religious identity, nationalism, and state power within Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, offering alternatives rooted in theologies and principles of nonviolence. It examines how nationalist ideologies have influenced these traditions, often through messianic and apocalyptic frameworks, and considers specific manifestations such as religious Zionism (Jewish and Christian), Sunni and Shia Islamism, and other forms of religious nationalism that have justified violence, territorial claims, and state identity. The discussion investigates alternative theological and political interpretations that promote nonviolent resistance, just peace, and transformative engagement. It explores how understandings of land, divine promises, and sacred geography might be reinterpreted to reduce conflict and foster coexistence rather than displacement and discrimination. Additionally, it considers the potential of dialogue to disrupt cycles of violence and serve genuine peacebuilding, moving beyond superficial "faith-washing." Beyond religious frameworks, the panel includes Marxist and leftist critiques of nationalism and the nation-state, analyzing how concepts of universalism, emancipation, and international solidarity challenge both religious and secular nationalist ideologies, intersecting with broader commitments to peace. It emphasizes how individuals and communities worldwide can foster international solidarity and ethical responsibility through dialogue and cooperation, working toward nonviolent solutions to contemporary conflicts. The panel is organized by the Interreligious Initiative for Nonviolence Theology (IINT) and Dialop (Dialogue between Socialists/Marxists and Christians).

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IS THE MODERN NATIONAL STATE COMPATIBLE WITH RELIGION?

Mokrani A. (Speaker)

Centre for Interreligious Studies / Pontifical Gregorian University ~ Rome ~ Italy
This paper interrogates whether the modern (post-)colonial nation-state is compatible with religion or structurally harmful to it, drawing on the works of Mahmood Mamdani (Neither Settler Nor Native), Faisal Devji (Muslim Zion), and Wael Hallaq (The Impossible State). Mamdani demonstrates how the nation-state emerged from colonial practices that manufactured permanent majorities and minorities by politicizing identity, with religion functioning as a key marker of exclusion. Devji's analysis of Pakistan and Israel as concrete cases exposes the limits and internal contradictions of the idea of a "state for Muslims" or a "state for Jews." Hallaq argues that the notion of an "Islamic state" is inherently self-contradictory, insofar as the modern state fundamentally conflicts with religious modes of ethical formation. Taken together, these scholars compel a reconsideration of whether religion can survive within nation-state frameworks without being transformed into an instrument of political exclusion. This paper examines the colonial genealogies of religious-national identity, analyzes the tensions between religious ethics and state sovereignty, and evaluates whether a decolonized political community can preserve religious life beyond domination and minoritization. In this context, the paper seeks to reimagine the role of religion in politics and the public sphere within an inclusive state grounded in full citizenship, equal rights, and plural identities, capable of overcoming hegemonic theologies and their moral failures.
UNIVERSALISM, NONVIOLENCE AND THE ROLE OF THE PROPHETIC FOR DEEP TRANSFORMATION

Quast-Neulinger M.J. (Speaker)

Universität Innsbruck ~ Innsbruck ~ Austria
In his Opus Magnum "Universalism," philosopher Hans Joas traces origins of moral universalism, but also the seduction of political imperialism, to the transformations of the axial age. Particularly prophetic figures play a significant, yet not so easy to grasp role in the making of deep socio-political transformations. Joas underlines the entanglement of universalism, nonviolent action and the prophetic for deep social transformations. The paper will discuss Joas' analysis from a Christian theological point of view and work out, how the "prophetic" is essential for a theology of nonviolence in our times.
FROM DESACRALIZATION OF CONFLICTS TO SACRALIZATION OF PEACE. TOWARDS A NONVIOLENT COMPLEX APPROACH TO MEDIATE IN CONTEMPORARY CONFLICTS

Paz N. (Speaker)

Universidad Pontificia de Salamanca / Catholic Institute for Nonviolence ~ Salamanca ~ Spain
Mediation practice in religious conflicts with explicit religious claims has largely converged around two dominant approaches: the neutralization or removal of sacred dimensions from the conflict, and the adaptation of conventional conflict resolution mechanisms to religious contexts and actors. This paper presents a summary, conclusions, and an update of previous research I conducted at Uppsala University. It critically examines the limitations of the desacralization of conflicts approach framed by Isak Svensson and proposes an alternative and complementary mediation methodology conceptualized as sacralization of peace. This methodology is based on aspects of the worldview conflicts theoretical framework of Jayne Seminare Docherty, the ritual theory for peacebuilding as proposed by Lisa Schirch, a plural conceptual notion of peace, and the contributions from theologies of nonviolence in different faith traditions. The aim is to offer an alternative framework for mediating conflicts beyond the limits of current dominant models of conflict resolution.
MESSIANISM AND UNIVERSALISM IN JEWISH PACIFISM: JOEL TEITELBAUM AND AARON SAMUEL TAMARES

Pearce R.G. (Speaker)

School of Law/Fordham University ~ New York ~ United States of America
This paper will compare the nonviolence visions of Rabbi Aaron Samuel Tamares and Rabbi Joel Teitelbaum in the early and mid-Twentieth Century. Both are influential Orthodox Jewish thinkers, pacifists, and anti-zionists. Tamares offers a prophetic vision of Judaism's universalist contribution. Teitelbaum is a messianist, particularist, and separatist. Comparing and contrasting these two perspectives helps illuminate the complexity and diversity of Jewish thought on nonviolence. This paper is part of a larger project on Judaism and Nonviolence.
WHY A THEOLOGY OF NONVIOLENCE REQUIRES AN OPEN PATRIOTISM

Palaver W. (Speaker)

Universität Innsbruck / OSCE ~ Innsbruck ~ Austria
Times of crisis push human beings, a clannish creature, to retreat into closed societies. Anthropologically, this can be explained with concepts such as pseudo speciation, group narcissism, or parochial altruism. Politically, the preference for closed societies results in our modern world in nationalism or imperialism. Henri Bergson's distinction between static and dynamic religion shows which type of religion promotes such tendencies of closure and which type can facilitate the path toward open society. Bergson rejected nationalism and imperialism and opted for open patriotism with its special relation to dynamic religion. Dynamic religion relativizes political institutions such as the state and results today in an option for civil society as the proper space where religions can and must contribute to its ethical development. It aligns more easily with a counter-state nationhood than with a state-framed nationalism. Whereas Bergson saw in Christianity the culmination of dynamic religion, a closer look shows that it can be found in all post-Axial religions. Martin Buber, Mohandas Gandhi, Leo Tolstoy, Abul Kalam Azad, and Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan exemplify this claim. After World War II, Catholic thinkers such as Jacques Maritain or Robert Schuman by partly following Bergson chose patriotism over nationalism and helped to create the European Union. Today, however, a growing nationalism in Europe forces religious communities to strengthen dynamic religion in their own traditions to contribute to a social culture that helps to overcome nationalist closures. The final part provides a positive example by referring to the fraternal Catholic modernity as it culminates today in Pope Francis' call for fraternity and his polyhedric model of globalization that connects local identity with universal concerns.
THE UNIVERSAL EMANCIPATION OF CLASS STRUCTURES AS A SELF-CONSCIOUS ACTIVITY IN MARXISM AND SECULAR THINKING

Hildebrandt C. (Speaker) [1] , Pureza J.M. (Speaker) [2]

Rosa Luxemburg Foundation ~ Berlin ~ Germany [1] , Bloco de Esquerda Portugal / Coimbra University ~ Coimbra ~ Portugal [2]
Marxists and socialists associate the universal emancipation of people with the necessary overcoming of class structures in a social system whose economy kills, whose profiteers wage wars for raw materials, destroy international law, deny climate change, and thus call into question the destruction of the foundations of human life and human existence. But in view of these escalating developments, how can the struggle against the class responsible for this, which tramples on "political love" as Pope Francis writes, be organized? How can counterforces be formed across classes, i.e., beyond the working class, and how can those sections of the working class who are currently seeking answers from right-wing extremist parties be won back? So how do class struggle and political love fit together?

Panel description: This panel explores how contemporary Catholic thought and practice engage with challenges of global social justice in the twenty-first century. Drawing on sociological research, Catholic social ethics, and interreligious dialogue, the panel examines how Catholic actors interpret and operationalize commitments to human dignity, solidarity, peace, and the common good in contexts marked by migration, inequality, conflict, and cultural pluralism. By bringing together academic analysis and ecclesial experience, the panel offers a nuanced Catholic perspective on global social justice that is both theologically grounded and empirically informed.

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SAMUELE SANGALLI: CATHOLIC SOCIAL TEACHING AND THE GLOBAL HORIZON OF SOCIAL JUSTICE

Samuele S. (Speaker)

Dicastery for Evangelization of the Holy See ~ Vatican City ~ Vatican City State (Holy See)
Archbishop Samuele Sangalli is Secretary Adjunct of the Dicastery for Evangelization of the Holy See. Ordained a priest in the Archdiocese of Milan and elevated to the episcopate in 2025, he has combined pastoral ministry with academic teaching in ethics, global governance, and interreligious dialogue at institutions including the Pontifical Gregorian University and LUISS Guido Carli University. Founder of the Foundation Sinderesi, he brings long-standing experience in pastoral accompaniment, education, and ecclesial leadership. His contribution reflects on the relationship between Catholic Social Teaching and social justice in a fractured world.
ANNA ALESSANDRA CIURLO: MIGRATION, GENDER, AND SOCIAL JUSTICE IN GLOBAL CATHOLICISM

Ciurlo A.A. (Speaker)

Pontificia Università Gregoriana ~ Rome ~ Italy
Anna A. Ciurlo is a sociologist and Associate Professor at the Pontifical Gregorian University, where she teaches sociology of migration, research methods, and global challenges related to peace, ecology, and mobility. Her research focuses on international migration, gender, transnational families, and the political and civic engagement of migrant communities, particularly in Latin American diasporas in Europe. Her contribution examines how Catholic social justice is lived and negotiated within migrant and diasporic contexts, with particular attention to gendered experiences and transnational solidarities.
AMBROGIO BONGIOVANNI: INTERRELIGIOUS DIALOGUE AS A PATH TO PEACE AND JUSTICE

Bongiovanni A. (Speaker)

Pontificia Università Gregoriana ~ Rome ~ Italy
Ambrogio Bongiovani is Full professor and the Director of the Centre for Interreligious Studies at the Pontifical Gregorian University and Consultor to the Dicastery for Interreligious Dialogue, as well as President of the Fondazione MAGIS. With a background in engineering and a doctorate in interreligious studies, he has lived and worked extensively in South Asia, where he co-founded educational initiatives for vulnerable youth and collaborated with international organizations. His scholarship focuses on interreligious dialogue and the relationship between Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, and society. His paper addresses interreligious dialogue as a concrete instrument of social justice, peacebuilding, and coexistence.

Panel description: This panel builds on the rich body of theological and interdisciplinary scholarship that has critically examined minority perspectives in relation to religion and inequality. It aims to further explore how such perspectives interrogate the production, legitimation, and contestation of social, legal, and gendered inequalities within religious and theological fields. Departing from dominant, "major" theological frameworks that often align with sovereignty, normativity, and institutional power, the panel foregrounds theological practices that emerge from marginal locations, including feminist, queer, postcolonial, decolonial, and other subaltern religious articulations. Drawing on Bourdieu's analysis of symbolic power as well as scholarship on religion, gender, biopolitics, performativity, and agency, the panel understands theology as a political, embodied, and knowledge-producing practice shaped by unequal regimes of visibility, recognition, and authority. At the same time, it remains attentive to emerging theoretical approaches that question fixed identity frameworks and explore "minor" modes of religious and theological articulation as critical, relational, and transformative practices. We invite papers that examine how religious traditions, institutions, and discourses both reproduce and resist inequalities related to gender, sexuality, race, class, citizenship, embodiment, and religious diversity. Contributions may address: invisible or normalized inequalities within religious and theological fields; the effects of implicit or invisible religion in social, political, and legal contexts; the politics of theological recognition and exclusion; symbolic power within religious knowledge production; religion as a site of both symbolic violence and emancipatory imagination; and reconfigurations of equality beyond universalist, liberal, or identity-centered paradigms.

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FROM MINORITY TO MINOR: GENEALOGY, POSTIDENTITY, AND BECOMING IN RELIGION

Ernst-Auga U. (Speaker)

Humboldt-University of Berlin ~ Berlin ~ Germany
This paper develops a genealogy of the "minor" in relation to religion, tracing a shift from "minority" as a juridico-political and demographic category toward "minor" as a postidentity, critical, and transformative mode of theorizing religion. In European and global debates on religion and (in)equalities, religious diversity is predominantly addressed through minority frameworks structured by rights, recognition, and inclusion. While such approaches respond to concrete forms of exclusion, they often remain embedded in governance regimes that stabilize religion as a bounded identity and reproduce epistemic hierarchies within pluralist orders. Against this background, I mobilize "minor" in the sense of Deleuze and Guattari's concept of minor literature: a mode of articulation that deterritorializes dominant languages, links the personal and the political, and foregrounds collective processes over fixed identities. Read through queer-of-color critique (Muñoz's disidentification) and postsecular feminist analyses of embodied agency (Mahmood), "minor religion" does not name a religious minority nor a new classificatory position. Rather, it designates a practice of becoming that unsettles majoritarian norms shaping religious knowledge, secular governance, and public discourse. Methodologically, the paper combines conceptual genealogy with critical analysis of key problem-spaces structuring contemporary religious (in)equalities, including recognition politics, diversity management, and the production of "religion" as an object of knowledge. I argue that "minor religion" offers a theoretical tool within Religious Studies for rethinking diversity beyond identity-centered paradigms and for articulating alternative scholarly and theological imaginaries attentive to power, inequality, and becoming in plural religious landscapes.
INVISIBLE INEQUALITY: GENDER AND CHRISTIAN ORTHODOX POLITICAL THEOLOGY

Athanasopoulou-Kypriou S. (Speaker)

University of Crete ~ Rethymno ~ Greece
Recent scholarship has witnessed a renewed interest in Orthodox political theology, culminating in major collective works that map its historical and contemporary expressions. Yet a striking absence characterizes this emerging canon: the near-total omission of Orthodox feminist theology as a recognized form of political theology. Although there exists a noteworthy—albeit fragmented—engagement with the presence of women in the Orthodox tradition and with questions of equality in both the ecclesial and social spheres, these concerns are not acknowledged as constitutive political-theological questions. Based on a systematic examination of the most comprehensive recent volumes in the field, this paper argues that Orthodox feminist theology is not merely underrepresented but structurally excluded from the dominant conceptual frameworks of Orthodox political-theological discourse. The paper advances three interconnected claims. First, it demonstrates that current mappings of Orthodox political theology remain largely centered on state power, nationalism, ecclesial authority, and sovereignty, thereby implicitly reproducing a masculinized understanding of the "political." Second, it shows that Orthodox feminist theology, despite its robust engagement with embodiment, power, ecclesiology, violence, and social marginalization, is relegated to the margins of theological visibility and denied political-theological status. Third, drawing on Bourdieu's theory of symbolic power and field formation, the paper interprets this exclusion not as an oversight but as an effect of the gendered structuring of the Orthodox theological field itself.
IMPLICIT RELIGION BEFORE THE EUROPEAN COURT OF HUMAN RIGHTS

Fokas E. (Speaker)

American College of Greece, Deree London School of Economics Hellenic Observatory ~ Athens ~ Greece
This paper takes a socio-legal approach to the phenomenon of implicit religion in examining what should be understood as a distinctive body of jurisprudence before the European Court of Human Rights: namely, cases which are clearly 'about' religion in that they arise from struggles for freedom from religion - specifically, for freedom from religious influence on public policies - yet they are cases in which religion does not directly factor into the jurisprudence, and thus the religious dimension remains only implicit. This paper makes a strong case for understanding implicit religion before the Court as a distinctive category of legal mobilisation. Examples include cases to do with family, sexuality or bioethics, often described as 'public morality' issues, which include issues of discrimination against children born out of wedlock, abortion, or same-sex marriage. The restrictive position of certain governments on these public morality issues often reflects the persisting influence of the dominant religious tradition in the country concerned. Meanwhile, the legal norms at stake are contested based on the right to privacy, the right to marry or the right to non-discrimination, rather than on the Freedom of Religion or Belief, or even on the right to education in accordance with one's religious or philosophical convictions. However, because in these cases the religious dimension remains implicit and there is no direct reference to religion in the texts as such, this socio-legal 'phenonemon' falls under the radar of many scholars of religion. Thus this paper has the dual aim of presenting an analysis of a sample of this body of jurisprudence, and - at the same time - introducing a research agenda for further study which, amongst other things, will cast light on the socio-political significance of such cases as well as the pressures and challenges that the Court faces in deciding them.
DECOLONISING THE ICON: THE POLITICS OF ICON RECEPTION IN WESTERN EUROPE

Michalska A.F. (Speaker)

Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan ~ Poznan ~ Poland
This paper examines the Western European reception of the Christian icon, arguing that while its theological foundations are rooted in the Byzantine tradition, its modern understanding has been largely mediated through the Russian Orthodox context. In the medieval period, Western encounters with icons occurred primarily through Byzantium, particularly in relation to Christological debates and the iconoclastic controversy. Following the Great Schism and the rise of Renaissance naturalism, Western Europe gradually lost a living icon tradition, and the icon came to be perceived as an archaic or exotic form of sacred image. The paper focuses on the nineteenth- and twentieth-century rediscovery of the icon in Western Europe, shaped decisively by Russian émigré theologians, artists, and museum exhibitions. This mediation reframed the icon as a mystical and timeless object, often presented as the paradigmatic expression of Eastern Christianity, while obscuring the diversity of Byzantine, Greek, Balkan, and local Orthodox traditions. Drawing on visual theology and decolonial theory, the paper reassesses the production of knowledge about the icon and highlights issues of authority, cultural hierarchy, and inequality embedded in modern interpretations of Orthodox visual culture.
THE INVISIBILITY OF DEACONESSES AS GENDERED INEQUALITY: RECEPTION, RESISTANCE, AND THEOLOGICAL RECOGNITION IN CONTEMPORARY GREEK ORTHODOX DISCOURSE

Drosia A. (Speaker)

Aristotle University of Thessaloniki ~ Thessaloniki ~ Greece
This paper examines the figure of the deaconess as a lens through which gendered invisibility, symbolic power, and theological recognition can be analyzed in contemporary Greek Orthodox contexts. While the historical existence of deaconesses in the early Church is well documented and broadly acknowledged in academic theology, their contemporary reception reveals persistent mechanisms of marginalization and discursive containment. The paper offers a sociologically informed mapping of Greek-language scholarship on deaconesses, including monographs, peer-reviewed theological articles, conference proceedings, and interventions in the digital public sphere. Rather than focusing on historical reconstruction, the analysis concentrates on patterns of reception: how deaconesses are acknowledged, reframed, silenced, or resisted in contemporary discourse. Special attention is given to public and digital reactions, post-conference discussions, and ecclesial commentaries, which often recognize historical evidence while denying its present theological or ecclesial relevance. Drawing on theories of symbolic power and recognition, the paper develops a typology of resistance—ranging from explicit theological rejection to deferral, minimization, and silence. It also highlights the "low-voiced" responses of women active in ecclesial and academic settings, whose cautious or private engagement reflects internalized institutional boundaries. The study argues that the perceived problem is not the historical existence of deaconesses, but the challenge this existence poses to contemporary configurations of authority, visibility, and gender within Orthodox theology.
THE EMPEROR'S LIGHT AND THE MARGIN'S SHADOW: POLITICAL THEOLOGY AND SOCIAL INEQUALITIES IN MEDIEVAL CHINESE CHRISTIANITY

Balmont A. (Speaker)

The Chinese University of Hong Kong ~ Hong Kong ~ Hong Kong
The paper examines radically divergent attitudes toward imperial power in two Tang-dynasty Christian texts. The Xi'an Stele (781), erected in the capital Chang'an, develops an elaborate "royal way" theology where the virtuous emperor becomes central to civilizing the empire, receives sacred titles borrowed from imperial vocabulary, and functions as mediator between heaven and earth whose support for Christianity brings universal benefits. The Discourse on God, likely produced in China's Western Regions, presents a starkly contrasting vision: it preserves bitter memories of persecution ("all kings attack the liberties of peoples"), articulates no royal theology, and rejects any idealized portrayal of political power. These theological differences likely reflect unequal social positions within the Chinese empire. Communities situated near the court appear to have developed accommodating theologies that emphasized mutual benefits between religious and political spheres, while communities in peripheral regions, whether through different historical experiences or reduced access to imperial favor, maintained critical perspectives on sovereignty. This comparative analysis demonstrates how geographic location and social positioning shaped competing theological responses to political power in medieval Chinese Christianity.
"FIRST-PERSON´S EXPERIENCE" FEMINIST, DISABILITY, QUEER AND TRANS HERMENEUTICS. PROBLEMS AND SOLUTIONS FOR THEOLOGIES

Wozna Urbanczak A.M. (Speaker)

Bergische Universität Wuppertal ~ Wuppertal ~ Germany
In this paper a discussion is raised how to conceptualize a wide range of the first- person experiences of different people who describe phenomenologically their condition of queer, transgender or feminist or person with disabilities in order to reach a general status of hermeneutical recognition. In hermeneutic studies, as philosophy or theology, some kind of universalization is needed in order the discourse to appeal to the scientific community and to be representative. In theology, specifically, the sensus fidei requires years (if not centuries) of debate to reach agreements and to adapt it as an ordinary doctrine. (Ricoeur, 2016). In light of these difficulties and assuming that theology needs sciences and sciences need theology and philosophy, the first question would be: How to deal with apories that appear between these two approaches in a world that moves epistemologically fast but need also a serenity in the judgement of the knowledge? We will take some examples to illustrate these apories that would come from these sciences themselves. Queer and transgender methodologies seem to explore and make the most of the concept of "experience" and face the problem that the first-person methodologies may be taken as relativist, hermeneutically invalid. The second question raises: How to design such kind of hermeneutics that can maintain the freshness of a singular (Keller, 2019) experience and are able to be conceptualized in the hermeneutic universe of the scientific community? (Kuhn, 1962). The aim is to reach some insights in terms of possibilities of mutual intersections between first-person experience methodologies and social-hermeneutical methodologies. The test would consist in searching if some these could apply to fundamental theology topics and in which way. Methodologically implicit biases in ethics (Browstein, 2016), the second-person approach (Halsema- Slatmann, 2017) and interdisciplinary approaches upon the decision making will be addressed.

Panel description: In recent years, global religious history has established itself as a thought-provoking paradigm for examining global entanglements and discourses within religious history. Known for considering the contributions of local communities in challenging Western academic discourse and knowledge systems, it aims at rewriting global discourses. However, its expansion into the fields of ecology and religion is still in its infancy. New publications point to epistemic injustices and exclusions produced by inequalities inscribed in discourse. They tend to overcome concepts such as traditional ecological knowledge or essentializations that postulate an unquestioned closeness of Indigenous groups to nature. Instead, local concepts should be used to overcome dichotomies and inequalities and promote ideas that advance multi-perspective and planetary views, giving voice to a multitude of beings. This panel will explore questions relating to the ontological turn, decolonial epistemologies, and indigenous knowledge systems with reference to ecological and economic issues. We welcome papers that explore the topic from a historical, systematic, or empirical perspective. We particularly welcome papers that bridge the gap between anthropological and social science theories and religious studies. We are interested in questions relating to different conceptions of ecology and economy, diverse cosmologies, and theories of the non-human beyond Western epistemes and approaches. In this way, we address the issue of inequality in two ways: firstly, in the context of local and global ecological entanglements, and secondly, from a decolonial perspective that questions the role religions play in the production and overcoming of dichotomies surrounding "nature," "culture," "economy," and "ecology."

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INDIGENOUS AND LOCAL WISDOM: RUPTURE OR ENTANGLEMENT IN GLOBAL RELIGIOUS HISTORY? LEARNING FROM INDONESIA

Sinn S. (Speaker)

Universität Münster ~ Münster ~ Germany
Indonesia is a vibrant site of global religious history, as the archipelago has become "home" to many religious traditions that have arrived on its shores, entering the "homeland" of indigenous religious traditions and has connected with the local wisdom of diverse communities. For many decades there has been a strong narrative of Islam's "entanglement" with local cultural traditions in Indonesia, resulting in a "moderate Islam", that differs from Islamic traditions in other parts of the world. Similar dynamics have been described for distinct Hindu, Buddhist and Christian formations in the Indonesian archipelago. Studying current dynamics of political, ecological and economic struggles of indigenous communities today, however, raises the question whether the narrative of entanglement conceals the agonal forces at play and hides the inequalities that (dis)empower indigenous and local actors in the religious field. This paper will explore whether "rupture" needs to be introduced in current research, in terms of both local - global and local - planetary and ecological interactions. In Indonesian society, which is dominated by constant references to "harmony", affirming "unity in diversity" and "harmony" with nature, disruptive forces are denounced as threat on moral and political grounds. A contemporary research-advocacy coalition for Indigenous Peoples in Indonesia calls itself Rumah Bersama (our shared home), in order to strategically fight for their survival and their rights. This paper analyses new forms of "engaged research" that have emerged in Indonesia in recent time in relation to ecology and decoloniality and discusses whether and how these could contribute to global religious history.
OUT OF TUNE: CHURCH BELLS AND THE ECO-ACOUSTIC DIMENSION OF EUROPEAN EXPANSION

Zehnle S. (Speaker)

Professor of Environmental and Technology History University of Passau ~ Passau ~ Germany
This paper examines European missionary and colonial expansion of the long nineteenth century through the lens of religious sound history, focusing on bells as instruments of acoustic power, conflict, and negotiation. Using the object biography of a Protestant mission bell cast in southern Germany and transported to present-day Ghana, the study traces how bell sounds structured contested soundscapes across missionary settlements, African polities, and colonial administrations. Rather than treating sound merely as a by-product of domination, the paper conceptualizes bells as mobile technologies that produced and transformed sonic orders, temporal regimes, and claims to authority. Building on sound-historical approaches that emphasize "sonic ideologies," the analysis moves beyond binary distinctions between colonizers and colonized. It shows that European missions, colonial states, African kingdoms, and indigenous secret societies often shared assumptions about the political and spiritual potency of bell sounds, even as they struggled over control of acoustic space. The bell's repeated recontextualization - as mission tool, war trophy, royal regalia, colonial clock bell, and finally museum object - reveals how sound mediated conflicts between church and state, rival empires, and competing ecologies. Particular attention is paid to indigenous eco-spiritual sound regimes, in which forests, sacred trees, and animal sounds formed the basis of political and ritual knowledge. Missionary bell ringing frequently disrupted these regimes, provoking conflicts that linked sound to ecological destruction, initiation practices in the forest, and resistance to centralizing power.
LOCAL-PLANETARY ENTANGLEMENTS, ECONOMICS, AND ENVIRONMENTAL HISTORY: METHODOLOGICAL CONSIDERATIONS FOR AN ECOLOGICAL GLOBAL RELIGIOUS HISTORY

Lunkwitz D. (Speaker)

Postdoctoral Researcher. Religious Studies and Intercultural Theology. Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg ~ Erlangen-Nuremberg ~ Germany
Despite the inclusion of eco-economic factors in global history and local-planetary connections in the history of colonization and environmental history relating to religion, an Ecological Global Religious History of the global and local entanglements has not yet been discussed in the field of religion and ecology. The paper presents methodological and theoretical considerations for such an entangled global history, which considers both economic and ecosystemic factors and questions constructions of space and time (tempo-spatialities). The paper brings the program of Global Religious History into conversation with current studies in environmental history, decolonization and planetarity, 'indigenous worldmaking,' and ecological-economic approaches to religion (see Whitney Bauman et al. 2026; Joerg Rieger and Terra Schwerin Rowe; Sigurd Bergmann; Alan Mikhail; Martiam Najiyah; Diana Lunkwitz; among many others). What are the methodological benefits of approaches such as entanglements, interconnections, and interrelationships for an Ecological Global Religious History? What potential do concepts such as kinship, companionship, bonding, and planetary communities, or queer ecology and transculturality, offer for this purpose? How can a novel methodological-theoretical approach be effectively employed to counteract economic exploitation and the degradation of the planet? Where can the points of difference and points of contact between activist and academic work be localized? In conclusion, the paper proposes a decolonizing approach to key concepts such as "religion," "nature," "economy," "ecology," "world," "globe," and "culture" for the project of an Ecological Global Religious History. The objective of the project extends beyond the mere rethinking of ideas; it encompasses the design of an open methodological framework and the addressing of the issue of structural power asymmetries in academic collaborations and the research context.
ECOLOGICAL ENTANGLEMENTS AND PLANETARY RELIGION. LEARNINGS FROM NORTH-EAST-INDIA

Wiesgickl S. (Speaker)

Postdoctoral Researcher. Religious Studies and Intercultural Theology. FAU Erlangen-Nuremberg ~ Erlangen-Nuremberg ~ Germany
Current research in northeast India and the Himalayan regions has contributed to a new understanding of history by integrating non-human beings and elements of the landscape. In doing so, it responds to epistemic and ontological shifts brought about by the environmental humanities. These new research approaches are giving rise to fresh interdisciplinary questions and alliances that are also recalibrating the well-established field of "ecology and religion". Indigenous cosmologies and narratives are expanding the repertoire of classical naturalistic, European philosophical imagination and inviting a reconsideration of current discussions about new materialisms and multi-species research. This paper presents the results of a series of workshops with universities in northeast India and the interdisciplinary dialogue that has developed from them. It presents some of the more recent discussions and examines the challenges and opportunities these discussions hold for religion-related research. The focus is on the construction of Indigenous religion in northeast India in narratives, stories, and cosmologies and their relationship to global discourses. Particularly, it examines the role of forests as ecological assemblages and tapestries of various human and more-than-human actors. In doing so, it presents the religious and collective imagination of agency beyond humans. The paper argues for a shift in emphasis from global to planetary religious history, thus following the call for the decolonization of nature in the Asian highlands. The programmatic demand of moving from global South and North toward a planetary South and North is taken up, and the question is asked to what extent researchers in the planetary North can become allies and participate in the decolonization of environmental history and religion.
EMBODYING INDIGENOUS IDENTITY: RECLAIMING VOICE THROUGH KATHA TRADITIONS

Vyas A. (Speaker)

School of Liberal Studies, Pandit Deendayal Energy University ~ Gandhinagar ~ India
The Indian storytelling Katha tradition functions not merely as a medium of oral storytelling but as a dynamic practice through which indigenous communities assert identity, preserve narratives, and transmit collective memory. These traditions are embedded in local languages, rituals, and ecological landscapes, offering a performative epistemology distinct from textual or organized knowledge systems. This paper explores how Katha functions as both a cultural archive and a tool of assertion of indigenous identities. Focusing on selected case studies of Pandvani, Harikatha and North Indian Rama kathas, this study examines how communities adapt the Katha narratives to reflect region-specific experiences, spiritual beliefs, and sociopolitical realities. In Pandavani, for example, tribal values of justice and strength are foregrounded through Bhima's characterization. In Northeastern Ram Kathas, forest deities, ancestral spirits, and oral genealogies reflect a unique cosmological worldview that resists normalized versions of the Ramayana. Contemporary adaptations of these oral narratives are not seen as reductions, but as reaffirmations of indigenous presence in a swiftly modernizing world. These forms retain core performative elements while facilitating expression of marginalized subaltern voices, particularly those of women, Dalit, and Adivasi Drawing upon in-depth textual analysis and secondary sources, the study argues that the evolving Katha tradition demonstrates how indigenous communities continually negotiate identity through storytelling. In doing so, Katha becomes a site of resilience, commemoration, and repossession—where myth, memory, and performance converge to sustain cultural continuity in the face of an ever-evolving global world. Thereby the rigid binaries of tradition and modernity, rural and urban, oral and digital are challenged by the storytelling traditions of these indigenous tribe in question here.
A SEA OF VOICES: CLIMATE CHANGE REALITIES AND ONTOLOGICAL IMAGINARIES ON THE GREAT BARRIER REEF

Draaisma L. (Speaker)

University of Groningen ~ Groningen ~ Netherlands
Climate change is different things to different people. Understanding what climate change is and according to whom is especially important in the context of the Great Barrier Reef ("the Reef") as its health is diminishing and at the same time, authority over the Reef is being renegotiated. Governance institutions have committed to co-management with the Reef's Traditional Owners ("TOs"). This study asks how TOs, the Australian Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water ("DCCEEW") and the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority ("GBRMPA") discursively construct climate change, and what ontological imaginaries, or configurations of what exists in the world, are involved in those constructions. Through a critical discourse analysis of documents published by DCCEEW and GBRMPA and 20 in-depth interviews with TOs, I conclude that where DCCEEW and GBRMPA express the same ontological imaginary, many TOs hold multiple, sometimes conflicting ontological imaginaries simultaneously. To TOs, climate change is a collection of harmful, local impacts on the Reef, produced by interactions between, amongst others, people, Country, and God, but also by fossil fuels, ocean acidification and mining. Traditional Owners also point at the challenges that continued colonization poses to caring for the Reef. DCCEEW and GBRMPA, on the other hand, construct climate change as an autonomous entity that jeopardizes human interests, including interests in the Reef. Responding to climate change, for these institutions, requires governments to invest in scientific and technological innovation. These results indicate that differences exist in how authorities on the Reef understand their role in the causes of and responses to climate change. They also show that where TOs navigate multiple ontological imaginaries and realities of climate change, DCCEEW and GBRMPA do not recognize other ways of knowing and engaging with climate change, which may impede co-management.

Panel description: The panel explores the role of Catholic women in changing ideas and practices of womanhood in China from the late Qing to the mid-twentieth century. At the turn of the century, Chinese women's lives were largely shaped by patriarchal family structures, Confucian norms, and social and legal inequalities, with marriage and domesticity as central expectations. At the same time, war, political upheaval, and reform movements intensified debates on women's education, morality, and social participation. Catholic missionary, as members of female religious congregations, operated within male-dominated church hierarchies, yet differed sharply from most Chinese women in being unmarried, institutionally supported, professionally trained, and mobile. Through schools, hospitals, orphanages, and charitable work, they exercised forms of authority and autonomy that challenged prevailing gender norms, while remaining embedded in unequal religious and transnational power relations. The panel examines Catholic institutions as spaces where alternative models of womanhood were constructed and negotiated. These institutions both reproduced social and gender hierarchies and offered limited but significant opportunities for agency, including access to education, skills, public service, and life paths beyond marriage. Using perspectives from gender history and the study of religious feminization, the panel treats women's agency as relational and situational, shaped by everyday negotiations between missionary women and local Catholic women. Comparative and connected approaches are welcome, including studies of Protestant missions, Buddhist nuns, indigenous religious initiatives, or transnational networks, contributing to broader debates on religion, gender, and inequality in modern China and East Asia.

Papers:

THE FEMINIZATION OF CATHOLIC MISSIONARY EDUCATION: THE COMMITMENT OF THE INGENBOHL SISTERS IN THE 1930S AND 1940S MANCHURIA

Cicci F. (Speaker)

University of Bologna ~ Bologna ~ Italy
The paper delves into the contributions of the Ingenbohl Sisters, a Swiss Catholic congregation, to the advancement of female education and the transformation of women's roles in Manchuria during the 1930s and 1940s. How did they contribute to the feminization of Catholic education? What impact did their efforts have on the status of women, cultural exchange, and identity formation within the dynamic socio-political context of the region? Focusing on the role of local women as educated catechists and the different types of mission schools, the paper analyses how professional efforts made by Ingenbohl Sisters in the education field contributed to modeling new ideas of women's roles within Chinese society. By employing a multidimensional approach encompassing archival research, media analysis, and visual representations, this study explores the transnational Catholic sisters' enduring legacy and its impact on the status of local women in the broader context of societal transformation during the first decades of twentieth-century Manchuria.
THE EDUCATION OF CHINESE GIRLS IN CATHOLIC MISSIONS. THE CASE STUDY OF THE SISTERS OF PROVIDENCE'S JINGYI GIRLS SCHOOL IN KAIFENG

Papis V.S. (Speaker)

Facoltà Teologica di Lugano, Università della Svizzera italiana ~ Lugano ~ Switzerland
In the context of Catholic mission schools in China, the Jingyi school represents an interesting case study. It was founded in 1932, and until its confiscation in 1951, it remained the only middle and high school for girls in Kaifeng, a provincial capital of 300,000 inhabitants, distant from the main industrial centres of China, with a very low foreign presence, but deeply affected by the intense warfare of the 1930s and 1940s. For 20 years, the American congregation of the Sisters of the Divine Providence educated Chinese girls and adolescents, from different social strata, contributing not only to their spiritual growth but also to their emancipation in a time of major cultural and political changes, subtly challenging the many inequalities of the traditional Chinese society. During the so-called Liberation, the Communists addressed the school as "a stronghold of feudalism", but actually the way of life of many students and educators, as reported in missionary accounts, testifies a firm rejection of the stereotypical feminine passivity, crystallized by the long Confucian tradition. In many cases, these young women decided not to marry, to support themselves, and live up to their ideals and moral standards to the point of facing political persecution and social harassment. By reconstructing the history of the Jingyi and highlighting the lives of some of its teachers and students, this presentation wants to offer an insight into the Chinese Catholic women of Kaifeng and their struggle against the inequalities of their times.

Panel description: Black goddesses in many cultures have historically emerged as figures venerated by groups excluded from mainstream society. In some of the earliest recorded traditions, for example, the Hindu goddess Kali was worshipped by thieves and social outcasts. Similar patterns can be observed across diverse cultures worldwide. In contemporary contexts, the rise of Santa Muerte has likewise been closely associated with marginalised populations, including socially suppressed groups and criminalised communities. Although cults devoted to such goddesses sometimes gain more institutional or socially accepted forms, the Black Goddess continues to function as an empowering symbolic figure for oppressed and disenfranchised groups. In the modern era, cross-cultural exchanges have further expanded the reach of this archetype. Black goddesses such as Kali have been adopted in Western contexts, where they often serve new emancipatory functions. For instance, Kali has become an empowering archetype for older women confronting age-based discrimination. By invoking her as a figure of strength and transgressive power, these women assert claims to equality and social visibility within cultures dominated by ideals of youthfulness. This panel seeks to examine the Black Goddess archetype across cultures, focusing on its role in promoting empowerment, equality, and recognition for oppressed and minority groups within different societies. We invite scholars to contribute to this discourse by submitting original research papers or case studies addressing various dimensions of this intricate subject. We seek in-depth, scholarly papers from diverse theoretical, methodological, and disciplinary perspectives.

Papers:

GODDESS KALI AS A SYMBOL OF WOMEN'S EMPOWERMENT IN THE LATE 20TH AND 21ST CENTURIES IN VISUAL ART

Kaminska-Jones D. (Speaker)

Nicolaus Copernicus University ~ Torún ~ Poland
This paper examines the Hindu goddess Kali as a symbol of women's empowerment in visual art from the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Traditionally associated with destruction, time, and transformation, Kali has been reinterpreted by contemporary women artists as a powerful metaphor for female autonomy, resistance, and political agency. Rather than representing fear or chaos, Kali is increasingly portrayed as an embodiment of righteous anger, creative destruction, and the rejection of patriarchal control. The study focuses on feminist and postcolonial visual practices featuring Kali as a visual language of protest against gender-based violence, colonial legacies, and social inequality. Artists use Kali's iconography-her nakedness, weapons, and defiant posture - to challenge dominant representations of femininity and to reclaim the female body as a site of power rather than shame. In these works, Kali becomes both a spiritual and political figure, transforming personal trauma into collective resistance. By analyzing selected artworks, installations, and performances, this paper demonstrates how Kali has evolved into a global feminist icon. In contemporary visual culture, she symbolizes women's right to express anger, assert bodily autonomy, and dismantle oppressive structures. Ultimately, Kali's re-emergence in modern art reveals how religious imagery can be reactivated to articulate feminist critique and empower marginalized voices.
THE UGLY GODDESS: REFLECTIONS ON IMAGES OF THE FEMININE FORCE IN ANCIENT MEXICO AND INDIA

Granziera P. (Speaker)

Universidad Autónoma del Estado de Morelos ~ Cuernavaca ~ Mexico
The people who worship the Goddess did not see her only in the landscape, they sought to find her in the terror of death as well. In Mexico and India, the goddess in her multiple forms has been widely worshiped. She represents the feminine energy, the primal creative principle underlying the cosmos. In Mexico, mother goddesses and fertility cults in which female divinities predominate appear to have constituted the indigenous religious beliefs of pre-Hispanic period. In India, the worship of the goddess has never ceased. Some of these goddesses' images are awe-inspiring and their fierce appearances have equivocal significance. In both cultures the divine feminine is associated with blood, dismemberment, decapitation, death. The wild goddess evokes fear and terror. She kills and destroys. She causes illness and disaster, an earthquake or a volcano eruption, a deadly hurricane. However wild is to be understood in the sense of being beyond the ordinary boundaries of conventional morality and as "awe-inspiring". It is not an ontologically static category, but a dynamic one. None of the goddesses had entirely benign, gentle features. Furthermore, in the indigenous people perception of the term "wild" is misleading. The acquaintance with a "terrifying image" from childhood onwards and the living in a religion tradition often presents a different perspective than doctrines expounded in religious textbooks or theories unfolded by academics. Ferocious goddesses such as Coatlicue or Tlaltecuhtli and Kali were and are generally experienced as sweet and beautiful that is, as Mothers. Using the powerful imagery of paintings, sculptures and religious texts, this paper will explore the rich meanings of the terrible mother both in Mexico and India. It asks how similar or different were the conceptions of the female divine and why images of bloodthirsty goddess were so powerful in both cultures.
SAINT SARAH KALI, PROTECTOR OF GYPSIES: A HINDU ARCHETYPE OF CATHOLIC RELIGIOSITY AMONG ROMA PEOPLE IN EUROPE AND BRAZIL

Fraioli B. (Speaker)

Sapienza University of Rome ~ Rome ~ Italy
Roma and Sinti popilations arrived in Europe from India between the 11th and 14th centuries, following wars and persecution (Hancook 2002). Therefore, the ancestors of the Roma were presumably Hindus, but during their journey through Persia and Eastern Europe, they absorbed dualistic beliefs from Zoroastrianism and Judaism, such as the cosmogonic myth of good versus evil (Del/Beng) and the division of society into pure and impure categories. Today, the Roma are Orthodox, Muslim, Catholic, and Evangelical. Still, they maintain some ethical principles and tribal systems attributable to Hinduism, such as the use of the term Devel (from the Sanskrit Deva, god) and the name of the moral law of these populations, the Romani Kris. Furthermore, within Catholicism, elements symbolically transferred from Hindu beliefs have survived, such as the word triśūl, used to indicate Shiva's trident and used by the Roma to refer to the cross, or the devotion to black virgins, such as Saint Sarah la Kālī (the Black One), venerated in Saintes Maries de La Mer. In fact, the rituals adopted during the annual pilgrimage are very similar to Durgā Pūjā: the adornment of the statue with the clothes of the sick and the laying of flowers at the feet of the mūrti, the presentation of requests for healing, and immersion in the sea. This contribution aims to explore the ways in which the Roma have recoded Hindu archetypes and preserved the practice of Shaktism, the Hindu cult of female deities linked to healing and fertility (Lee 2001), in a symbolic continuity of the feminine savior. These are typically popular practices that involve the centrality of the body, the votive dimension, a direct relationship with the sacred image, and strong community participation, but which also bear witness to the long duration of embodied, transformative memories (Bourdieu 1972, Connerton 1989, Assman 2011), transcultural (Erll, 2011), and 'glocal' (Robertson 2025).

Panel description: This multimodal exhibition documents the growth of Romanian Orthodox infrastructure since the fall of socialism, tracing three decades of cathedral construction. It combines ethnographic research, photography, and audiovisual media to illuminate the hectic church-building industry flourishing in postsocialist Romania as it represents a double movement: on the one hand, it exemplifies the renewed visibility of religious life after socialism, on the other hand, it stands for a troublesome employment of public money, the radical transformation of the urban built environment of cities and towns, and a powerful repositioning of the Church in the public arena. Since 1990, the expansion of religious infrastructure in Romania has reached impressive numbers: the 18 state-recognised religious groups have erected over ten thousand places of worship, practically one per day. The Orthodox Church has built over 4.000, including 36 imposing cathedrals. The most prominent of them all is the new national cathedral, which today towers over the famous People's House built by Ceauşescu. Its main dome, with the mosaic of the Pantocrator, is meant to exemplify the victory of the rule of god over the godless socialist past. Not just a critical analysis of the comeback of religion after decades of state atheism, this project also explores the transformation of contemporary Romanian Orthodox architecture, which increasingly favours monumental scale and grandeur, sometimes at the expense of a clogged urban fabric and natural environment. If other post-Soviet and post-socialist capitals like Moscow, Tbilisi, and Belgrade have also added new Orthodox cathedrals to their skyline, the pace of the Romanian church-building industry seems unprecedented: 30Y30C aims to document all 36 cathedrals built or under construction over the last 36 years, revealing an important cultural and political process shaping Romania's identity in the 21st century.

Papers:

FOREWORD

Giorda M.C. (Speaker)

Roma Tre University ~ Rome ~ Italy
The past three decades have witnessed an extraordinary boom in Orthodox infrastructure, from monumental cathedrals in Romania to a proliferation of churches and cultural centers abroad. This exhibition charts the architectural and spiritual expansion of Eastern Orthodoxy, spotlighting Romania's pivotal role amid post-communist revival and global migration. A striking focus is the growth of Romanian Orthodoxy in Italy, home to Western Europe's largest Orthodox community. Italy's Eastern Christian population has surged sevenfold in the last two decades, exceeding 1.5 million by 2018—predominantly Romanian Orthodox faithful. This demographic shift has spurred a wave of new Orthodox places of worship, transforming urban and suburban landscapes from Turin to Rome and beyond. The exhibition showcases this phenomenon through photography, architectural models, and ethnographic insights, highlighting purpose-built churches, adapted spaces, and community initiatives that sustain faith amid diaspora life. This expansion gained formal recognition with the recent signing of the agreement (intesa) between the Romanian Orthodox Diocese in Italy and the Italian state, securing legal and financial support for Orthodox institutions. Orthodox architecture is changing profoundly, blending tradition with contemporary contexts. This exhibition explores these transformations, inviting reflection on faith, migration, and cultural encounter in a globalized Europe.
PRESENTATION OF THE EXHIBITION

Tateo G. (Speaker)

Università Roma Tre ~ Roma ~ Italy
The 30y30c exhibition presents a photographic and audiovisual exploration of Romania's new Orthodox cathedrals, built over the past three decades to mark pivotal moments in post-communist religious revival. Through landscape and architectural photography, the project traces a journey across major urban centers like Bucharest and smaller towns, capturing both everyday religious life and landmark liturgical events, including the feast of St. Paraskeva (October 14) and the inauguration of Bucharest's National Cathedral (October 26). Visual materials form the core of the exhibition, systematically documenting each cathedral's imposing scale and contextual integration: - Top-down aerial images in landscape (East-West) orientation, - Contextual aerial shots illustrating environmental embedding, alongside ground-level images of city/park integration. - Interior views - Polaroid portraits focusing on representative details or elements. These images are enriched by concise interviews with local worshippers, architects, clergy, and urban planners, offering multifaceted perspectives on the cathedrals' social, spiritual, and architectural significance. Together, they weave a vivid narrative that inquires into the cathedrals' grandeur while critically examining their environmental footprint, political symbolism, and societal impact in contemporary Eastern Europe. The exhibition invites viewers to reflect on how these monumental structures reshape Orthodox identity, urban landscapes, and interfaith dialogue in a rapidly changing region. 30Y30C is part of "RELINFRA:Tracking the Boom of Religious Infrastructure in Romania (1990-2024)", a project led by Dr. Giuseppe Tateo and financed by Italy's National Recovery and Resilience Plan (PNRR), promoted by the Ministry of University and Research (MUR) through the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) Seal of Excellence scheme.

Panel description: The notion that belief admits of degrees is widely held among philosophers and psychologists. Yet, this notion remains contested among philosophers of religion and theologians, despite recent scholarship framing faith as a credence: a variable intensity of belief that operates on a spectrum rather than as a binary switch. More broadly, the social sciences have long challenged the simplicity of "belief," occasionally questioning the utility of the category itself. This panel investigates these emerging perspectives. We will discuss various theories of belief in philosophy and the social sciences that challenge the classical notion of belief, assessing their fecundity and plausibility through the lens of literary analysis. Bringing together philosophers of religion and literary specialists, it will explore how narrative fiction model the complexity of religious psychology. By treating literary characters as case studies and examining contemporary writing practices that blur the boundaries between belief and unbelief (such as those of E. Carrère and J. Cercas, among others), this panel evaluates the anthropological plausibility of non-binary accounts of belief. It is also an attempt to explore the nexus between philosophy, theology and literature in religious epistemology. Tha panel will be sponsored by the Research Center Écritures (University of Lorraine), the Institut Universitaire de France and the scientific Journal ThéoRèmes.

Papers:

FAITH AS CREDENCE : WHAT DOES IT MEAN?

Feneuil A. (Speaker)

University of Lorraine ~ Metz ~ France
Can faith be defined as a specific degree of belief, that is a fluid position along a continuum, rather than a binary, "on/of" state? This paper aims to provide an overview of the current scholarship on this question, developing distinctions necessary to understand the issue and exploring the implications for the nature of faith and the relationship between faith and faithlessness. The central discussion of my paper will focus on the distinction between Bayesian and non-Bayesian credences. In Bayesian epistemology and psychology, credences are often associated with objective probability. I will argue that in the context of faith, credence, defiined as the psychological strength of a belief, must be distinguished from the objective probability of that belief, and may even be conceived as inversely correlated to it. Finally, I will discuss the consequences of such a distinction.
HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE RELATIONS BETWEEN FAITH AND TRUST?

Gaultier B. (Speaker)

University of Zürich ~ Zürich ~ Switzerland
Contemporary debates about trust tend to focus on the conditions under which this attitude is morally or epistemically appropriate or required — that is, on the moral and epistemic norms of this attitude —, and on its socially valuable function. Relatedly, the question of what being trustworthy is, and of how to identify trustworthy people has been much debated. Comparatively, the question of how to understand the very nature of this attitude has received much less attention. My aim in this talk is to elucidate the nature of trust by examining the (dis)similarities there are between this attitude and secular faith. I shall then to turn to religious faith, the specificity of which should then be better captured. I shall argue that both trust and faith (whether secular or religious) are complex attitudes that involve cognitive, conative and affective dimensions, and that to better understand these attitudes crucial distinctions should be made between propositional, objectual, person-oriented, and non-person-oriented, faith and trust. I shall conclude by examining the question of whether faith and trust are metaphysically incompatible with interrogative attitudes like wondering.
THE IRRATIONALITY OF RELIGIOUS FICTIONALISM

Schmitt Y. (Speaker)

Lycée de Marseille ~ Marseille ~ France
It is plausible that attitudes other than propositional belief are at the heart of religious practices. Believers are not solely concerned with holding religious content to be true. A strong version of this asserts that religious life can do without religious propositional beliefs, particularly in the use of religious language. Religious fictionalists accept religious language without believing in it, practicing it for pragmatic reasons. But to be rationally authorized, such use must be subject to an examination of the content conveyed by religious language. First, this examination is likely to be highly critical of the content, particularly with regard to the problem of evil and the problems associated with the leap of faith. Second, the conditions for the acceptability of religious language, namely a rational examination of the content conveyed, are contrary to a fundamental element of religious language, whose source, in one way or another, is not entirely human. Conclusion: religious fictionalism is inconsistent.
WHEN NON-BELIEVERS WRITE LITERATURE ABOUT FAITH - ABOUT EMMANUEL CARRÈRE'S LE ROYAUME (2014) AND JAVIER CERCAS'S EL LOCO DE DIOS EN EL FIN DEL MUNDO (2025)

Placial C. (Speaker)

University of Lorraine ~ Metz ~ France
The recent development of documentary literature provides fertile ground for reflection on the literary expression of faith, unbelief, and all the nuances in between that characterize individuals' relationship to religion. In this paper, I will focus on two literary authors, Emmanuel Carrère (born 1957) and Javier Cercas (born 1962) the first of whom describes himself as agnostic and the second as an atheist, who, in first-person documentary narratives, question not only their own relationship to faith, but also that of their loved ones and contemporaries. In Le Royaume (2014), Carrère, drawing on his formative experience of participating in the translation of the Bayard Bible (2001) known as the "Writers' Bible," intertwines a speculative account of the apostle Luke's career as a writer with introspection on his own relationship to the Bible and to faith. In El loco de Dios en el fin del mundo (2025) (written at the request of the Vatican which deliberately approached a non-believing writer), Cercas recounts how he accompanied Pope Francis on one of his last trips and how he questioned the Pope about his faith in the resurrection of the flesh, a question that accompanies all his encounters with various people (his mother, Catholic journalists, clergy, etc.) which the writer recounts. A brief exploration of these two works will allow me to show how non-fiction literary writing is particularly well suited to offering a reflection, or even a conceptualization, of faith and of the relationship to the dogmas of the Catholic Church, which goes beyond a binary position that massively opposes faith and atheism, belief and non-belief, which leads to distinguishing several modes of belief, and also the evolution of belief throughout life.
SECULAR MAYBE: ON NONCOMMITTALITY IN RELIGION

Costa P. (Speaker)

Fondazione Bruno Kessler, Center for Religious Studies ~ Trento ~ Italy
Some conclusions can be drawn with reasonable certainty from the new secularization debate. Secularity does not imply a self-interpreting demise or decline of religion, but something more ambivalent. What is left in a post-secularist age is the sense of a "diaspora of the sacred" (G. Filoramo) resulting from the spiritual "nova effect" (C. Taylor) triggered by the rise of the secular option. "Faith as an option" (H. Joas) spurs individual spiritual quests, which, in turn, multiply intermediate positions between belief and unbelief. What you have, then, is religious pluralism; spiritual eclecticism; enhanced reflexivity. Thus, modern secularity admits if not encourages the cultivation of a religious negative capability. "Negative capability" (Keats) is the ability to live creatively in a condition of uncertainty. A distinctive feature of religious negative capability is a stance, where suspension of belief is taken to be a condition for conducting one's spiritual quest with maximum receptivity and open-mindedness. Here, religious indifference coexists with a spiritually engaged noncommittality. But what exactly is a spiritually engaged noncommittality? From an epistemic point of view, the modern secular condition urges inquiries into what lies amidst religious belief and disbelief. Between unwavering faith and what is known as militant atheism, you may have mild religiousness, pondered agnosticism, bland or vindicated indifference to religion, alienated religious belonging (to Catholicism or Evangelicalism, Islam, Buddhism, etc.). These subtle differences deserve to be scrutinized and articulated in their distinctiveness as much as possible. Against this topography of belief and unbelief, my paper aims to establish whether religious noncommittality constitutes a stance in its own right, which is different from agnosticism, and can be regarded as epistemically stable or, instead, as bound, eventually, to lead to belief or unbelief as default options in this area.
DISTINGUISHING BELIEF-BASED AND BELIEF-LESS SPIRITUALITY IN PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY

Byerly T.R. (Speaker)

University of Sheffield ~ Sheffield ~ United Kingdom
Philosophers commonly distinguish between beliefs and alternative beliefless states that can play a similar action-guiding role, such as acceptances, assumptions, credences, hopes, or imaginings. In the spiritual domain, this distinction suggests that individuals who lack belief in religious/spiritual claims may nonetheless be able to engage in religious/spiritual practices on the basis of belieflessly accepting, assuming, creding, hoping, or imagining that religious/spiritual claims are true. This talk describes the efforts of a nine-person, interdisciplinary team to identify features which the philosophical literature treats as characteristic of beliefs in order to develop strategies for distinguishing between belief-based and belief-less forms of spiritual practice in psychological research, since psychological research has not yet engaged with this distinction. Among these belief-characteristic features are: a tendency to assert what is believed; to feel surprised on learning what is believed is false; to feel as though one knows what one believes; and an absence of being in significant doubt about whether what is believed is true. We have developed three broad strategies for measuring beliefless spirituality using self-report scales in psychological research. I describe these strategies, and present initial findings using two of them.
FAITH AS ATTITUDE: TOWARD A COMMENSURABILITY BETWEEN FAITH AND FAITHLESSNESS?

Gallepe A. (Speaker)

Université de Genève / Université de Lyon ~ Geneva ~ Switzerland
Ordinarily, faith and religious belief (as well as the absence of faith or religious belief) are regarded as specific mental states — subjective states whose object may be either the subject itself (in a reflexive manner) or, for example, God. We will attempt to show that this psychological description, whether direct or indirect, may be useful, but that it should also be complemented by another approach, namely an action-oriented (or pragmatic) approach. We aim to show that those mental states (and their truth value), at least in the religious domain, must be understood in light of certain attitudes and in light of their pragmatic implications, whether moral or political. More precisely, religion might be described as this specific domain in which the truth value of propositional mental contents depends less on objective entities than on certain ways of being and acting. In other words: the existence of certain metaphysical entities would depend primarily on what they lead us to do in practice. In this respect, we will draw in particular on the philosophies of religion developed by Henri Bergson and William James. The key concept here would be that of attitude. This concept would be useful insofar as it makes it possible to situate different kinds of actions along the same continuum of belief: at that point, each action could be distributed along this continuum; and each action would express it in its own way and to differing degrees.

Panel description: This panel introduces "Epistolae John Calvin", an international project launched by the Stichting Calvin's Reforming Correspondence (calvin-digital.nl) - in collaboration with with the Theologische Universiteit Utrecht, FSCIRE, the Huygens Instituut (KNAW), and Éditions Droz (Geneva) - to deliver a new critical edition of the surviving letters of John Calvin (1509-1564). Approximately 3,200 letters to and from Calvin are extant, in Latin and in French. The project's core aim is to publish, annotate, and historically embed this corpus in hybrid form: as a sequence of printed volumes in the Ioannis Calvini Opera Omnia denuo recognita (Droz) - resuming and extending the editorial work that advanced with the publications by Cornelis Augustijn and Frans van Stam - as well as a digital environment designed to support further research. By revisiting the correspondence with contemporary critical standards and by integrating sources and findings that have emerged since the foundational nineteenth-century editorial enterprises (notably the Corpus Reformatorum), "Epistolae John Calvin" treats the reformer's epistolary as a dense documentary interface shedding light on pastoral practice, political theology, ecclesiastical conflict, and transregional information flows (from Geneva to France, the Swiss Confederation, and beyond). This panel invites contributions from Calvin scholars, Reformation historians, and historians of sixteenth-century Christianity engaging with epistles as sources for social and intellectual history, and the role of communication networks in the learned "republic of letters" in the sixteenth century. It will also welcome digital humanities papers, tackling specific topics such as editorial challenges (variants, attribution, transmission), the methodological questions raised by hybrid editions, and the opportunities and risks of moving from monumental print editions to hybrid and data-rich critical infrastructures.

Papers:

MARKERS OF THE EVOLUTION OF CALVIN'S ECCLESIOLOGY IN HIS STRASBOURG PERIOD (1538-1541)

Baretti M. (Speaker)

DREST | FSCIRE ~ Bologna ~ Italy
Between the first edition of the Institutio Christianae Religionis in 1536 and the end of his stay in Strasbourg in 1541, Calvin's ecclesiological thought underwent a radical transformation. In 1536, Calvin still articulated an understanding of the Church that, while sharply critical of Roman abuses, sought to recover the original ancient catholic roots in an attempt to define a new identity, in search of a middle way that could simultaneously be authoritative and well-founded, in contrast both to the corruption of the Roman Church and to Anabaptist-leaning ecclesiologies. Calvin's exile to Strasbourg in 1538 profoundly altered this framework. Strasbourg confronted Calvin with the different urban, ecclesial, and political environment of a city that was being shaped decisively by the reforming activity of Martin Bucer. Bucer, who welcomed the exiled Calvin, arranged for him to serve as a pastor of the French congregation, appointed him as a lecturer in the Academy, and paved the way for him to meet Lutheran princes and theologians and to participate in the religious colloquies in Germany. From an ecclesiological perspective, this transitional period marked the development of a fully articulated "Reformed ecclesiology." The relationship between Calvin and Bucer has led some scholars to attribute his post-Strasbourg development largely to Bucer's influence. While acknowledging Bucer's shadow in the evolution of Calvin's ecclesiological thought, this paper aims at showing that Calvin's early ecclesiological architecture should also be understood as his own original response to the Roman Church, the growth of the French Reformation, and the alarming spread of Anabaptist ecclesiologies. Against this backdrop, his epistles and his work on the Commentary on Romans are crucial elements to distinguishing what is uniquely 'Calvinian' in his ecclesiology and what is more indebted to other sources, including Bucer, identifying its precise contours and manifestations.
THE ROLE OF EPISTOLARY NETWORKS IN THE FIRST YEARS OF THE SPREAD OF THE GENEVAN REFORMATION IN FRANCE (C.1555-C.1562)

Braghi G. (Speaker)

University of Palermo | FSCIRE ~ Palermo ~ Italy
Between the sending of the first pastor from Geneva to France (1555) and the beginning of the French wars of religion (1562), the ecclesial life of those congregations that adopted the Reformation in the Genevan fashion was (re)organised around letters, couriers, and information flow, at a time in which exile and persecution increasingly displaced Reformed believers. The 'church' became a portable shared experience and a replicable model as it was sustained by epistolary networks connecting individual congregations to trans-local consistories, synods, and refuge hubs. In such a context of hardship, pastors, and colporteurs functioned as human relays who carried not just doctrine and consolation, but also news, printed materials, decisions, and practical coordination. Thus, correspondence between Geneva and France and between individual congregations increasingly solidified into infrastructure, as pseudonyms, coded instructions, and repeated delivery routes represented both secure channels and, crucially, recognisable signs of fraternity across different regions. As early catechisms, confessions of faith, and church disciplines represented reproducible matrixes for diverse congregations, the embryonic synodal machinery anchored such matrixes within the 'living flesh' of the scattered network of the French Reformed churches: yet, correspondence functioned as a granular fuel for governance, solidarity, and a catalyst for religious belonging by providing cohesion and a sense of collaboration for shared aims. This paper aims at analysing the role of epistolary networks in such crucial and ultimately successful years, by revisiting in particular the polemic against religious dis/simulation in the light of the sustainment of local communities through letters, showing a pragmatic ethics of communication which walked a narrow path between prudence and hypocrisy in hopes that conditions would one day allow for the emergence of the French Reformed church into public life.
MAPPING A REFORMED 'REPUBLIC OF LETTERS': CALVIN'S INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENCE

Klok J. (Speaker) , Klok J. (Speaker)

Theological University Utrecht ~ Utrecht ~ Netherlands
This paper examines the international scope and significance of John Calvin's correspondence within the broader framework of the ongoing project to produce a new critical edition of his letters. For the first time in the history of Calvin studies, this editorial initiative has generated a comprehensive digital database of all letters written by and addressed to Calvin. This systematically structured corpus provides a basis for quantitative and qualitative analysis of his epistolary network. Building on this newly available data, the present contribution investigates the geographical range, interlocutors, and thematic diversity of Calvin's correspondence, highlighting its fundamentally transnational character. The study first offers a synthetic overview of the database, mapping the principal regions, confessional communities, and social milieus represented in Calvin's letter exchanges. Particular attention is paid to patterns of communication that reveal the extent to which Geneva functioned as a nodal point in a wider Reformed and European intellectual network. In a second step, the paper turns to a close reading of selected letters that are especially illustrative of Calvin's international interests and engagement. These case studies demonstrate how his correspondence served not only theological and pastoral purposes but also diplomatic, political, and cultural functions. By combining large-scale data analysis with targeted textual interpretation, the article argues that Calvin's letter-writing was central to the formation of an early modern transconfessional and transregional Reformed world.
IMPROVISED READING: BIBLICAL EXEGESIS AND PASTORAL PRACTICE IN CALVIN'S LETTERS

Woo K. (Speaker)

Pittsburgh Theological Seminary ~ Pittsburgh ~ United States of America
Scholars have illumined ways in which John Calvin's exegesis reflects his and others' lived experiences, even resulting in distinctive contributions to the history of biblical interpretation. One example is the convergence of early modern religious persecution, migration, and political exile, which appears in ways both expected and counterintuitive. Calvin's sermons, lectures, and (less frequently) biblical commentaries name such external circumstances. Yet these occasional references are frequently oblique, leaving an imprecise picture of the interplay between Calvin's contexts and exegesis. The reformer's correspondence offers another important source for exploring this connection between exegesis and social realities. This paper examines the relationship between Calvin's biblical exegesis and pastoral approach in letters to individuals facing diverse situations throughout the 1540s and 1550s, demonstrating the mutually informing nature of these practices. Calvin did not simply reproduce teaching in his letters; they could also serve as spaces of innovation through improvisation, with concrete circumstances inviting ways of thinking about biblical texts that would only later emerge in Calvin's public teaching and preaching. The materials currently being edited and digitized for access through the Epistolae John Calvin project will be an important asset for advancing research into the formative loci and activities of Calvin's biblical exegesis.

Panel description: This panel investigates the semantic transformations and translation strategies associated with the concepts of "witnessing" and "martyrdom" from a diachronic perspective. Starting from the foundational texts of the Biblical and Quranic traditions, the panel examines how specific semantic fields have been rendered, reinterpreted, and at times reshaped in translations and receptions across different historical moments. Particular attention is paid to translational choices as sites of negotiation between philology, theology, and historical contexts, revealing how acts of translation both reflect and produce doctrinal, cultural, and ideological shifts. Spanning from antiquity to modern languages and cultures, the panel highlights processes of semantic slippage, expansion, and re-semanticisation within the lexicon of martyrdom. By foregrounding the interaction between textual tradition, audience, and purpose, it aims to show how translation does not merely transfer meanings, but actively participates in the construction, stabilization, and transformation of religious concepts over time, shaping the ways in which they are understood, mobilised, and reactivated in different religious and intellectual perspectives.

Papers:

TESTIMONY AND MARTYRDOM: FROM THE SEPTUAGINT TO ITS TRANSLATIONS INTO MODERN LANGUAGES

Mambelli A. (Speaker)

University of Modena and Reggio Emilia - FSCIRE ~ Bologna ~ Italy
This paper investigates the use of terms and expressions related to the semantic fields of testimony and martyrdom in selected case studies from the earliest surviving Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible. For each selected passage, it examines the translational choices made in the principal modern-language translations of the Septuagint, aiming to shed light on their diverse interpretative approaches and intentions, as well as the uses, reuses, and semantic developments of this lexicon in different languages, which has endured across the centuries and continues to engage and challenge readers today.
FROM WITNESSING TO DYING IN THE PATH OF GOD. THE QUR'AN IN ITALIAN TRANSLATIONS (1861 - 2000)

Badini F. (Speaker)

FSCIRE ~ Palermo ~ Italy
The Arabic root š-h-d, from which terms commonly associated with martyrdom in Arabic are derived, never assumes this meaning in the Qurʾan, where it is instead used exclusively in the sense of "witnessing." The notion of martyrdom is expressed in the Quranic text through a different formulation, namely that of "one who is slain in the path of God" (man qutila fī sabīl allāh). Rather than focusing on the semantic shift produced by post-Quranic doctrinal elaborations, this paper aims to examine how Italian translations of the Qurʾan (1861-2000) have rendered these two elements. Its goal is to highlight how different translation traditions diverge in their interpretive choices, reflecting not only distinct theoretical approaches to translation, but also, and above all, the audiences for which these translations were intended.
A MARTYRDOM IS BORN: SEMANTIC EXPANSION AND DECONTEXTUALISATION OF A WORD IN MODERN ITALIAN

Bigoni L. (Speaker)

University of Fribourg ~ Fribourg ~ Switzerland
The Greek root that leads to modern Western lexicalizations of "martyrdom" is itself a witness to a history of semantic shifts. This paper explores how the concept of voluntary death has been expanded in modern Italian from a merely religious perspective to a more general form of voluntary sacrifice that can happen for reasons of ideology, politics, or class belonging. This semantic expansion, that leads to figurative meanings and decontextualisations, will be explored in a selection of literary sources from the XIX century Italian context, in relation to the Biblical and/or exegetical heritage that might have been triggering the semantic shift.
WITNESS-LESS MARTYRDOM: FROM MARTYR TO 殉道 (XUNDAO)

Bottanelli V. (Speaker)

FSCIRE ~ Bologna ~ Italy
This paper explores the Jesuit translation of "martyr" into Chinese as 殉道 (xundao). Rejecting phonetic borrowing, the missionaries opted for a term from the Confucian lexicon, meaning "vanish along with one's principles" This choice, however, entailed a significant semantic shift: the classical Chinese term 殉 carried connotations of ritual "following-in-death" and loyal sacrifice, but was fundamentally witness-less, omitting the essential element of martyrion (witness). Through a close analysis of the term's pre-Christian usage (e.g., Mengzi Jin Xin I. 42) and the Jesuits' translational rationale, this presentation highlights translation as a site of negotiation.
RESHAPING THE CONCEPT OF TESTIMONY AND MARTYRDOM IN CHRISTIAN MEDIEVAL CENTRAL ASIA

Barbati C. (Speaker)

University of Pisa ~ Pisa ~ Italy
The religious message brought by the Syriac Churches to Central Asia and China between late antiquity and the early Middle Ages was adapted to different local contexts through a process of translation involving different languages - from Syriac to Sogdian, Uyghur, Chinese, Middle Persian -, different scripts, text materiality, as well as specific choices of terms and symbols. Translation here should be understood as cultural translation. Given the above, this paper aims to analyse how the concepts of testimony and martyrdom are interpreted and (re)transmitted in the Central Asian Christian context through case studies drawn from hagiographic and martyrological literature in the Sogdian language.
THE TERMS ŠAHĀDA AND ŠAHĪD IN SUFI VOCABULARY: SEMANTIC SHIFT AND NEW INTERPRETATIONS OF THE CONCEPTS OF "MARTYRDOM" AND 'MARTYR'

Budelli R. (Speaker)

Fscire ~ Palermo ~ Italy
Some Sufi figures experienced persecution and martyrdom, especially following accusations of heresy levelled against them by the political and religious authorities of the time. In these cases, it is a death that differs from those falling within the categories of martyrdom provided for in the ḥadīṯ. The most famous examples of šahīd, such as Manṣūr al-Ḥallāj (d. 922) or Suhrawardī al-Maqtūl (d. 1191), highlight the, sometimes, ambiguous relationship between martyrdom (šahāda) and heresy (zandaqa). However, the word šahāda is also a technical term in Sufi doctrine covering a different semantic field: that of "inner testimony" (šahādat al-bāṭin), or the vision and contemplation of the divine that are achieved at the culmination of a long process of spiritual elevation. Sufis distinguish between "inner testimony" and "outer testimony" (šahādat al-ẓāhir), i.e. relating to the common interpretation of death fī sabīl Allāh, which they define as "lower jihād". The language of the Qur'an and theological-legal language are remodelled in the wake of these new notions, and fanā' (the annihilation of the self or "death before death") becomes a "spiritual testimony/martyrdom", however temporary. In this paper, we will focus, in particular, on the definitions of šahāda and šahīd found in al-Ġazālī's (d. 1111) Iḥyā' 'ulūm al-dīn, which sometimes adds new nuances of meaning and interpretation.
USE AND ABUSE OF THE WORD "MARTYR" IN RECENT DEBATES

Bons E. (Speaker)

University of Strasbourg/FSCIRE Bologna ~ Endingen, Germany ~ France
In recent years, there has been a noticeable shift in the use of the terms "martyr" and "martyrdom" that deviates considerably from traditional usage in Jewish and Christian contexts. This development can be observed in the media, but also in the language used by politicians and church leaders. Who is a modern martyr? And what means "faith" or "religion"? This paper seeks to describe this linguistic development on the one hand, and on the other hand to identify the political and religious interests behind this usage.
MARTYRDOM BETWEEN RELIGION AND POLITICS: FROM THE MACCABEES TO THE CONTEMPORARY FAR RIGHT

Bellantuono A. (Speaker)

Université Catholique de Lille ~ Lille ~ France
In the Books of the Maccabees, martyrdom appears as an ultimate testimony of fidelity to the Law and to the religious identity of Israel in the face of persecution. Emblematic figures such as the mother and her seven sons described in 2 Maccabees, as well as Eleazar, embody a model of death freely accepted in the name of God, in which the religious dimension and the collective identity of the people of Israel are closely intertwined. In the contemporary era, the memory of Israeli soldiers who have fallen in the defense of the State of Israel is sometimes interpreted through symbolic categories that implicitly or explicitly evoke the tradition of martyrdom. Although situated within a profoundly different context, certain public and religious narratives tend to place the soldiers' death within a broader history of collective survival and of the defense of the existence of the Jewish people. Through a comparative analysis of ancient sources and contemporary discourses, this contribution aims to show how the category of martyrdom can function as a device of memory and identity construction, capable of connecting ancient religious traditions with modern forms of national narrative.

Panel description: This open panel invites papers on a concrete, ecumenically charged question: which works—texts, corpora, and "schools" of Christian thought and practice—should be preserved and transmitted to future generations of ecumenists, and by what criteria? The title invokes an end-of-the-world horizon in order to make a present difficulty harder to evade: the transmission of ecumenical theological knowledge is under strain, and the places and habits that once sustained it can no longer be taken for granted. Under threats of destruction, churches often struggle to speak and act together. Part of the difficulty is institutional. Academic theology faces shrinking infrastructures, changing student publics, contested authority, and fragmented formation. At the same time, theology is increasingly displaced into a widened ecosystem—private educational institutes, think tanks, ecclesial initiatives, media platforms, and influencer-driven publics—often with different incentives and measures of credibility. In this setting, ecumenism is especially vulnerable: in many contexts, the generation now assuming leadership is less instinctively committed to ecumenism, less trained to read across confessions, and less formed by the "slow" virtues of dialogue. This panel asks what it would mean to assemble an Ecumenical Filocalia for the twenty-first century: not a nostalgic canon, and not a default "Western classics" syllabus, but a deliberately ecumenical selection—Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant, Pentecostal and charismatic—with a global horizon beyond Europe and North America. We welcome proposals on cross-confessional classics with real reception; key texts and debates in modern ecumenical theology; authors and corpora from Africa, Asia, Latin America, the Middle East, and diasporas; documentary, historiographical, and biographical works shaping ecumenical memory; and monastic and ascetical literature (ancient and modern) as part of the ecumenical archive.

Papers:

HISTORIES AND HISTORIOGRAPHIES OF THE ECUMENICAL MOVEMENT

Ferracci L. (Speaker)

Fscire ~ Bologna ~ Italy
This paper surveys the major seasons of ecumenical historiography: early narrative and institutional accounts, biography-driven interpretations, and later critical/global reconfigurations. On this basis, it proposes which key "histories" of the ecumenical movement should be "saved" for future ecumenists: works that have most shaped the movement's self-understanding and that remain essential for transmitting its memory, debates, and horizons of unity.
THE AGE TO COME AS CALL AND JUDGMENT: THE ESCHATOLOGICAL OUTLOOK OF METR. JOHN ZIZIOULAS AND ITS RELEVANCE FOR THE FUTURE OF ECUMENISM

Asproulis N. (Speaker)

Volos Academy for Theological Studies ~ Volos ~ Greece
Metr. John Zizioulas' eschatological outlook represents one of his most significant contributions to ecumenical theology. He suggests that eschatology should not be viewed merely as one of many chapters in church theology; instead, it should be regarded as a foundational approach that influences all aspects of the church's theology and life. It centers on a person—the resurrected Christ, referred to as the Eschatos—rather than merely a theoretical discussion about the end of time. Moreover, eschatology must not be treated as an excuse or justification for personal or ecclesiastical shortcomings. Rather, it serves as a continuous call for openness to the ever-renewing presence of the Spirit and functions as a form of judgment. This judgment will ultimately determine, at the conclusion of history and in God's coming kingdom, what holds meaning and value—both in terms of history and tradition, as well as in doctrine and our individual and communal lives.
CHRISTOS YANNARAS: THE LIMITS OF AN ETHNOCENTRIC RECEPTION OF THE WEST

Keramidas D. (Speaker)

Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas - Angelicum ~ Rome ~ Italy
Greek theologian and philosopher Christos Yannaras (1935-2024) is renowned for his contributions to renewing Greek Orthodox theology and for using an innovative language that engaged a wide audience. Yannaras is among the most influential contemporary Orthodox scholars. Equally important is his concept of the "West," especially his critical engagement with the Western religious paradigm. This aspect has a central role in Yannaras' thought and work. Understanding this critique offers valuable insights into a restrictive interpretation of Orthodox tradition, which aligns with the idea of ecumenism. This is because inter-Christian dialogue helps to re-evaluate the boundaries between different ecclesiastical traditions, encouraging a creative hermeneutics and moving away from exclusivist readings of one's own faith.
TOWARD AN ECUMENICAL FILOCALIA FOR THE ANTHROPOCENE: REIMAGINING CHRISTIAN INTERIORITY AND RESPONSIBILITY BEYOND CONFESSIONAL BOUNDARIES

Surowiec P.R. (Speaker)

The John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin ~ Lublin ~ Poland
The paper proposes the concept of an Ecumenical Filocalia for the Anthropocene as a heuristic framework for rearticulating Christian spiritual resources in late modern contexts marked by fragmentation, ecological crisis, and weakened institutional authority. Rather than reconstructing the Filocalia as a devotional anthology, the paper interprets it as a curated repertoire of spiritual grammars capable of shaping interiority and relational personhood beyond confessional boundaries. The proposed core of the Ecumenical Filocalia draws on a historical-theological constellation of formative voices: Augustine's theology of interiority (interior intimo meo), Aquinas's integration of grace and reason, John Henry Newman's account of the reception of truth in conscience (cor ad cor loquitur, real assent), John Zizioulas's relational ontology of personhood, and Christos Yannaras's existential understanding of truth as a mode of being (tropos hyparxeos). Together, these perspectives articulate convergent patterns of Christian interior formation that resist both individualistic spiritualization and moralistic reductionism. This core is complemented by post-Reformation and publicly communicable witnesses of embodied Christian responsibility (Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Thomas Merton, Brother Roger of Taizé), indicating how interior formation may translate into forms of lived, relational, and socially credible spirituality. The constellation is not proposed as an authoritative canon, but as a Filocalia of late modern post-secular Christianity: a preliminary map of spiritual resources capable of sustaining Christian meaning-making and ethical responsibility in the Anthropocene.
PREPARING FOR THE END OF THE WORLD: ECUMENICAL DISCOURSE IN 1930S FRANCE

Brown S. (Speaker)

Assosiate member, Institut romand de systématique et d'éthique ~ Geneva ~ Switzerland
Alongside the institutional and ecclesiological challenges facing ecumenical memory in the 21st century is the role of the English language in academic discourse internationally. English-language histories of the ecumenical movement, often focussing on institutional developments, tend to become dominant narratives. Against this background, this paper seeks to reconstruct for future generations of historians the ecumenical and intellectual ferment in the Francophone Europe of the 1930s, something largely overlooked in English-language historiography. Taking place largely outside established institutions, these ecumenical contacts and dialogues were nourished by young Catholic theologians such as Yves Congar and Jean Daniélou; French intellectuals like Jacques Maritain and Gabriel Marcel; Orthodox including Nicolai Berdayev and Sergei Bulgakov; and Protestants that included Pierre Maury, Suzanne de Dietrich, André Philip, and Willem Visser 't Hooft. Such encounters provided a fertile seedbed for ecumenical developments after the Second World War, in particular the opening of the Roman Catholic Church to ecumenism. However they also took place amid the increasingly threatening international developments of the 1930s, and the last major gathering in 1939, immediately before the Second World War, focussed on ecumenical responses to war and peace; the role of the state; and the challenges posed by contemporary ideologies - questions that now resonate in the 21st century.

Panel description: The panel introduces the recently published Routledge Handbook of Religion and Politics in Europe, through the voices of its contributors and editors. The handbook brings together and bridges different perspectives and disciplines in examination of intersections between politics and religion, including contributions from political science, religious studies, anthropology, legal studies - to name a few. A central aim is to ask what, exactly, is distinctively European about the entanglements between religion and politics under scrutiny. The handbook is structured in three sections. The first section, Theoretical Underpinnings and Methodological Perspectives, aims at offering an overview of the main analytical frameworks that are adopted in contemporary analyses of religion and politics in Europe. Altogether, they suggest decentering and deconstructing the dominant narratives, while also questioning theoretical traditions; advocate for nuanced analyses over binary understandings, emphasizing hybridity, ambivalence, and contextual complexity; and explore the factors and the processes contributing to shape religiosity and the place of religions in contemporary societies. Section 2 is devoted to Actors, Policies, and Institutions. The chapters included in this section focus on religious and political actors in the European space and their interconnections, paying attention to religions beyond the institutional settings; on legal and political institutions and their impact on the intersections of politics and religion in Europe, paying attention to how religions contribute to shaping political and public institutions and how legal and political institutions contribute to shaping religions and religiosity; and, finally, on policies regulating religions or shaping the contexts in which religion and politics intersect. Section 3 is designed to introduce emerging themes and approaches by focusing on contemporary debates, ranging from religion and AI to the pandemic.

Papers:

RELIGION AND HUMAN RIGHTS - EUROPEAN PUZZLES

Breskaya O. (Speaker) [1] , Giordan G. (Speaker) [1] , Zrinšcak S. (Speaker) [2]

University of Padua ~ Padua ~ Italy [1] , University of Zagreb ~ Zagreb ~ Croatia [2]
The contribution aims to highlight the complex and at times ambiguous development of relations between religion and human rights in Europe. It examines whether religions have contributed to both the advancement and violations of human rights, as well as how their engagement with human rights principles has evolved over time. The discussion is set within the context of European history, particularly the 20th century, which witnessed both substantial violations and significant advancement in human rights, often driven by opposing political ideologies. While political ideologies had varying relationships with religions, depending on the social contexts of different European regions, post-World War II developments primarily relied on a secular account of economic and social progress. Still, religion played a significant role in Christian democracy, the development of welfare states, and opposition to communist rule - all of which were crucial in advancing human rights commitments. In the recent period, the complex role of religions as both promoters and obstacles to the realization of specific human rights has reignited tensions, particularly concerning migration, rights of various minority groups, and gender and sexual rights
POPULISM AND RELIGION IN EUROPE

Dehanas D. (Speaker)

King's College London ~ London ~ United Kingdom
European populism can be seen as paradoxical because it has been fuelled by Christian rhetoric and symbolism, even though religious observance across much of the continent remains at a low ebb. After defining populism, this chapter explores five factors of the post-Christian/post-Soviet context of Europe that make the continent especially conducive for religion-oriented populisms. It then investigates varieties of European populism in a range of national cases from France to Poland, arguing that there are two main types that roughly correspond to geographic zones. These are Christian-traditionalist populism towards the south and east and liberal anti-Muslim populism in Northern and Western Europe. The overall argument advanced in the contribution is that Christianity in most of Europe has become thinly culturalised and - much like a hammered out thin piece of metal - it is highly malleable for use in populist politics.
RELIGION, POLITICS, AND THE PANDEMIC

Conway B. (Speaker) [1] , Kühle L. (Speaker) [2]

Maynhoot University ~ Maynhoot ~ Ireland [1] , Aarhus University ~ Aarhus ~ Denmark [2]
During the COVID-19 pandemic, the unknown met the known. By this, is meant that the pandemic revealed the capacity of societies to interpret a very unfamiliar experience with already existing stories, rituals, and other cultural resources. It seems that religions similarly revealed their innate ideas about sociality and sacrality, about ritual formality and change when the COVID-19 lockdowns effectively cancelled public religious celebrations all over Europe. An initial study of the level of religious restrictions failed to deliver a clear answer to why some countries restricted religion more than others, though it is obvious that the form, extent, and the level of restrictions as well as the controversy surrounding the religious lockdowns should be able to provide unique insights into the dynamics of European religion-state relations.
RELIGION AND ENVIRONMENTALISM

Becci I. () , Manconi A. ()

University of Lausanne ~ Lausanne ~ Switzerland
This chapter starts from the context of an increased attention in European civil society and institutions, since the 1970s, to global warming and climate change and the awareness of the responsibility invested with humans. While resistances are also becoming louder, it focuses on how up to the 2020s, movements for climate justice have shown a new wave of mobilizations largely based on the moral urge to act. In 2018-2019, Fridays for Future has globally emerged as a youth movement through school strikes, and Extinction Rebellion has disrupted the ordinary narrative on climate change through mass civil disobedience actions complemented by eco-spiritual-inspired care practices. Meanwhile, churches and alternative spiritualities are also increasingly claiming a moral duty to preserve ecosystems and "Creation" or "sacred Nature". Important Christian leaders have engaged publicly with the topic. The authors offer an overview of the studies conducted internationally on the link between religion and environmentalism and argue that while environmental activists tend to have no religious affiliation, they can often be "spiritually committed". On the basis of the case study of extinction rebellion in the United Kingdom, they analyze the continuities with various religious worldviews while they also identify the innovations notions such as sacrifice and care bring along.
THE EU GUIDELINES ON THE PROMOTION AND PROTECTION OF FREEDOM OF RELIGION OR BELIEF AND THE EU'S EXTERNAL ACTION

Annicchino P. (Speaker)

Università di Foggia ~ Foggia ~ Italy
The contribution assesses the European Union (EU) Guidelines on the Promotion and Protection of Freedom of Religion or Belief (FoRB) in its external action since their adoption in 2013. The guidelines aim to promote FoRB globally, emphasizing non-discrimination, interfaith dialogue, and human rights protection. However, their implementation has been weak, hindered by EU foreign policy fragmentation, lack of enforcement mechanisms, and inconsistencies in the EU's own approach to religious freedom. Key aspects of EU policy-making on religion include Article 17 of the Lisbon Treaty, which establishes dialogue between the EU and religious groups, and the creation of the EU Special Envoy on FoRB. The EU also engages in international initiatives like the Global Exchange on Religion and Society (GERIS). Despite these efforts, the guidelines face significant criticism, particularly regarding the lack of formal evaluation of their impact. The US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) has also pointed out internal EU restrictions on religious expression, questioning the EU's credibility. The contribution points out that while symbolically important, the guidelines remain ineffective without stronger enforcement and greater policy coherence. To fulfill its commitment to FoRB, the EU must strengthen implementation and align internal and external policies.
RELIGION AND PARTY POLITICS IN EUROPE

Ozzano L. (Speaker)

University of Turin ~ Turin ~ Italy
This contribution analyzes the role played by religion in today's EU party systems by adopting the concept of religiously oriented party, which rejects the binary notion of 'religious' versus 'secular' party identities, to try to understand how religion contributes to shape the preferences and policies of different types of parties. It will also adopt Ozzano's typology, including five different models of religiously oriented parties: conservative, nationalist, progressive, fundamentalist, and camp. The contribution will show the partial decline, in 21st-century Europe, of 'traditional' religiously oriented parties of the conservative type (mainly Christian Democratic ones) and the success of the new right-wing populist party family: which, although sharing an identity-driven, nationalist, and civilizational idea of Christianity, shows striking differences in the use of religious symbols and values made by the different parties.
CENTRIPETAL AND CENTRIFUGAL DYNAMICS OF RELIGION AND POLITICS AT THE EUROPEAN COURT OF HUMAN RIGHTS

Fokas E. (Speaker)

American College of Greece ~ Athens ~ Greece
The European Court of Human Rights is both a critical site for expressions of the interplay between religion and politics in Europe and a significant actor impacting that interplay at the national and European levels. This dual role of the Court may be expressed in terms of centripetal and centrifugal dynamics. The centripetal dynamic is entailed by problem points at the intersection between religion and politics which come to the Court as a venue for their resolution, and the centrifugal dynamic is that of the Court as an actor impacting the interplay between religion and politics at the national and supranational levels through the ultimate judgments it issues and the broader messages that those judgments communicate about the relationship between religion and politics. This contribution demonstrates the dual role of the Court first through a brief historical overview of the many issues at the intersection between religion and politics that have been addressed by the Court through particular cases and second through attention to particular trends in its case law, trends which, however, are not at all linear in part because of the difficult interactions between religion and politics which result in fluctuations between judicial activism and judicial restraint.
INTERSECTING GENDER, RELIGION, AND POLITICS IN EUROPE. AN OVERVIEW AND A RESEARCH AGENDA

Giorgi A. (Speaker)

University of Bergamo ~ Bergamo ~ Italy
Scholars have demonstrated that religious experiences are profoundly shaped by gender, influencing how individuals engage with faith, spirituality, and religious institutions. Building on this, the contribution explores the significance of adopting a gendered approach to analyzing the contemporary intersections of religion and politics in Europe, by examining both central and marginal political spaces. On the one hand, "gender" is at the center of the European political debate, playing a key role in political narratives that mobilize religion too. On the other hand, gendered religious processes at the margin of the political sphere suggest paying attention to elements that are often overlooked in contemporary analysis of religion and politics. The contribution advocates for the incorporation of a gendered, embodied, and intersectional approach, acknowledging how gender intersects with other social categories such as race, ethnicity, and class in shaping religious and political experiences, and it highlights three main implications of such an approach for the analysis of contemporary intersections of religion and politics in Europe.

Panel description: Recent years have witnessed growing scholarly and public attention to ideological movements influential in Silicon Valley and global technology circles, particularly regarding striking parallels between transhumanism, cosmism, and related ideologies with traditional religious themes. Observers frequently note that these movements—sometimes collectively designated by the acronym TESCREAL—function as quasi-religious systems within the predominantly secular culture of tech communities, appropriating narratives, symbols, and ideas from established religious traditions. Notable examples include apocalyptic and eschatological narratives in discourse surrounding AI and the so-called Singularity, as well as expectations of human immortality through bio-enhancement or mind-uploading. What often remains absent from this discourse, however, are methodologically rigorous approaches to studying the religious dimensions of transhumanism and cosmism that move beyond superficial analogies. This panel addresses this lacuna by exploring theoretically and methodologically grounded frameworks for studying and reflecting on these movements' religious characteristics. We primarily consider historical studies of the influence of religion on the development of transhumanism and cosmism or other historical links between these traditions, with a focus on Christianity and Islam. We welcome other papers that broadly fit this direction, yet we also welcome empirical research documenting the presence and function of religious elements within contemporary transhumanist and cosmist discourse. Individual papers will present research that fits these approaches, followed by a general panel discussion on methodological issues, general implications and future research directions on the relationship between transhumanism, cosmism and religion.

Papers:

TRANSHUMANISM AS A RELIGION OF THE FUTURE: EVOLUTION, TELEOLOGY, AND HUMAN DESTINY IN JULIAN HUXLEY

Dunér I. (Speaker)

Lund University ~ Lund ~ Sweden
This paper contributes to the religious dimension of the intellectual history of transhumanism by examining its formative conceptual roots in the thought of evolutionary biologist Julian Huxley (1887-1975). As the figure who coined the term "transhumanism," Huxley explicitly envisioned it as a prospective "religion of the future." The paper situates transhumanism within the broader cultural, scientific and philosophical conditions of the mid-twentieth century, tracing its development as a worldview shaped by evolutionary theory, secular humanism, and enduring aspirations for transcendence, meaning, and salvation. The paper argues that transhumanism cannot be understood apart from the history of evolutionary biology as it was interpreted through metaphysical frameworks. Particular attention is given to Huxley's dialogue with the Jesuit priest and paleontologist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881-1955), examining their personal relationship and mutual intellectual influence. Their dialogue illustrates how evolutionary theory was imbued with teleological and spiritual meanings, producing both tensions and convergences between Darwinism, Christian theology, and eschatological conceptions of the future. Focusing on the 1950s, the paper explores conceptions of evolution as a mystical process guiding humanity toward a transcendental future. It argues that early transhumanist thought emerged from a synthesis of evolutionary science, teleological philosophy, and religious conceptions of human destiny.
COSMIC DESTINY: RELIGIOUS AND PHILOSOPHICAL ROOTS OF COSMISM IN GERMAN IDEALISM

Voogt A. (Speaker)

Protestant Theological University ~ Utrecht ~ Netherlands
This paper explores the genealogy of cosmism, tracing its intellectual roots to religious conceptions of human destiny and humanity's salvific role within nature, focusing on German Idealism and F.W.J. Schelling in particular. While contemporary cosmist thought is often studied as a secular ideology, my contention is that its core features derive from a rich tradition of Western religious and philosophical speculation about the relationship between humanity, nature, and the divine. My analysis departs from four defining characteristics of cosmist thought: the perceived deficiency of material nature, the existence of a cosmic telos, humanity's dual status as product and agent of cosmic processes, and the identification of human purpose with cosmic destiny. These features distinguish cosmism from dominant Western thought, which views nature as separate from humanity's spiritual destiny. In German Idealism, by contrast, humanity's purpose is intimately related to nature as a whole: the creative process of nature gives rise to human beings, who are tasked with completing a process of cosmic fulfillment. In F.W.J. Schelling's works, we find a vision of humanity as "redeemer of nature." Schelling conceived material nature as existing in a fallen state, awaiting spiritual transfiguration through which humanity, nature, and God will achieve ultimate unity—a theogonic process culminating in a state where God is all in all. I conclude by suggesting that from Schelling's proto-cosmist ideas we can draw a lineage back to German theosophical sources and forward to Russian Cosmism and contemporary Silicon Valley thinkers, revealing that transhumanist and cosmist aspirations represent not a rupture with religious tradition but a transformation of deeply rooted themes concerning cosmic destiny and redemption.
TRANSCENDING THE BODY? INTERSECTIONS BETWEEN ISLAMIC SCHOLASTIC THEOLOGY AND TRANSHUMANISM

Amber Y. (Speaker)

University of Münster ~ Münster ~ Germany
This contribution explores the conceptual intersections between transhumanist and Islamic thought on self-transcendence and perfection. Both transhumanism and religion—here, Islam—advance ideals of continual self-improvement and self-transcendence, though on different planes: the former materialist, the latter spiritual. In this encounter, it remains unclear from the transhumanist perspective why religious attitudes tend to reject their visions of bodily enhancement, despite the apparently shared ideal of transcending the material body to attain perfection, however defined. The responses to this tension, however, do not move beyond certain intuitive objections and lack a theologically substantial perspective. An inquiry into the theological role and significance of bodiliness and materiality in attaining perfection requires an examination of the metaphysical assumptions that underlie religious teleological thought on human purpose and perfection. A closer look at some of the early kalām discussions on maʿrifatullāh (God-cognition) and their epistemological correlates reveals, perhaps counterintuitively, certain alignments with the transhumanist attitude of control over the body, albeit for different reasons. Classical Islamic metaphysics—its views on ontology, the intelligibility of God and creation, and the human journey toward God—often privileges a spiritualized and intellectualist trajectory toward perfection, the far-reaching implications of which for the idea of the body and its theological relevance remain largely unarticulated. Theological metaphysical premises therefore need to be examined and critically re-examined from within, in order to draw upon the trajectory of Islamic thought and develop it further in a theologically meaningful and productive way.
CONSTRUCTING POSTERITY: IMMORTALITY AND THE SACRALIZATION OF THE COLLECTIVE IN RUSSIAN COSMISM

Baron G.B. (Speaker)

DREST Unimore ~ Turin ~ Italy
In recent years, Russian Cosmism has re-emerged as a significant reference point within the broader "cultural turn" of contemporary Russian political ideology. This revival is visible not only in academic discourse but also in state-supported platforms that seek to articulate a broader narrative on Russia as the bearer of a distinct civilizational truth, positioned as an epistemic and spiritual alternative to Western modernity. A prominent example is the Inventing the Future International Symposium, which brought together scientists, philosophers and political figures to discuss technological development in Russia and humanity's long-term destiny. Russian Cosmism is particularly significant in this respect because it frames posterity as a form of collective immortality, linking the survival of the social body to the ethical and technological engagement of its members. Recent scholarship by Lorusso (2020) and Galofaro (2021) has shown how posterity within a text can be constructed both as a simulacrum and as an active agent. Building on this insight, the present paper argues that Russian Cosmism operates as a constructed medium of posterity: it not only projects a future community but also articulates multiple possible worlds in which Russia's continuity is secured, even under the persistent horizon of civilizational confrontation with the West. The analysis therefore examines selected Cosmist texts, from Fyodorov's writings to contemporary technological projects such as the 2045 Initiative, as attempts to trace coherent pathways within the often contradictory semiotic space of cultural memory. These pathways take the form of chains of homologies among values: sequences of structurally analogous elements that reproduce the same normative orientation across theological, philosophical, and technological domains. Through these chains, the Cosmist "Common Task" is constructed simultaneously as an anticipated future and as a program of transformative action.

Panel description: In times of uncertainty, faith becomes increasingly significant for those seeking support, compassion, and hope for the future. Recent studies on religious responses to crises have primarily focused on faith-based activism in the context of humanitarian efforts, peacebuilding initiatives, conflict management, and social services. However, the predominant emphasis on traditional religious institutions and authorities offers a top-down perspective on crisis responses, overlooking the experience of individual believers who rely on faith as a source of social support and emotional well-being. This panel aims to broaden the scope of research beyond institutional frameworks, giving greater visibility to those whose agency remains underrepresented in academic discourse - women of faith. The term 'women of faith' refers to female believers or practitioners representing diverse religious traditions, beliefs, and spiritual practices. The panel explores how women of faith respond to the challenges posed by collective existential crises, such as military conflicts, wars, natural disasters, and epidemics. We invite scholars from Religious Studies, Anthropology, Digital Religion, and Gender Studies to consider the following questions: 1) How do women of faith respond to the experience of a crisis, and how might these experiences reshape their religious identity, gender roles, sense of a community, or faith-based practice? 2) How do women of faith use digital and other spaces to foster support, solidarity, and resistance within religious communities and beyond in non-religious contexts? 3) In what ways do women of faith influence civic activism in crisis-affected societies?

Papers:

DIGITAL SPACES OF HOPE: WOMEN'S FAITH-BASED RESPONSES TO WAR IN UKRAINE

Zasanska N. (Speaker)

Interdisciplinary Center for European Studies, Europa-Universität Flensburg ~ Flensburg ~ Germany
The project 'Digital Spaces of Hope' contributes to research on digital religion by exploring the transformations in women's religious identity, practice, and civil activism during wartime. Drawing on Brigit Meyer's concept of aesthetic formation (Meyer, 2009), I examine women's faith-based online communities as 'spaces of hope' - digital venues where female believers exchange emotional support, care, and hope for a better future. These online venues function as safe spaces in which women engage in faith practice through sensorial experiences of the divine, experiment with (non-) religious rituals, and self-expression in a community of shared values. Furthermore, the spaces of hope bring together Ukrainian women from diverse religious traditions, geographical locations, and cultural backgrounds. Combining digital ethnography (software atlas.ti) and fieldwork (interviews), the project analyses how these online venues of faith-practice become spaces of hope, raising women's resilience, solidarity and resistance in the face of the unpredictable realities of war. By focusing on women's online faith-based activism during the war, the study also reveals deeper transformations in Ukrainian society - particularly in attitudes towards faith, perceptions of religious authorities, and the formation of religious identity and online practice.
EMPOWERMENT THROUGH REPRESSION? MUSLIM FEMALE ACTIVISM IN POST-ANNEXATION CRIMEA

Muratova E. (Speaker)

European Centre for Minority Issues ~ Flensburg ~ Germany
This paper examines the transformation of gender roles and the emergence of Muslim female activism in post-2014 Crimea. It focuses on the civil society organisation Crimean Solidarity (Krymskaia solidarnost'), which was established in 2016 in response to the Russian authorities' criminalisation of Hizb ut-Tahrir (the Party of Islamic Liberation). Crimean Solidarity brings together the families of arrested men, their lawyers, human rights defenders, journalists, and other supporters. Drawing on in-depth interviews with women affiliated with Crimean Solidarity and an analysis of their public speeches at the organisation's monthly meetings, the paper analyses how political repression has reshaped family dynamics and patterns of civic engagement. I argue that the 2014 annexation of Crimea catalysed significant shifts in gender roles within the families of detained Hizb ut-Tahrir members, enabling women to assume public, activist, and representational roles that were previously largely occupied by men. By highlighting women's agency under conditions of repression and occupation, the study contributes to broader debates on gender, Muslim women's activism, and empowerment in conflict and authoritarian contexts.
CATHOLIC WOMEN: SURVIVAL AND SOLIDARITY IN THE NAZI CONCENTRATION CAMPS

Lyon E. (Speaker)

The State University of New York at Fredonia ~ Fredonia, NY ~ United States of America
For many Catholic women, the continued practice of religious faith was crucial to maintaining physical and mental equilibrium and resisting dehumanization in Nazi prisons and concentration camps. Yet such activities had to be conducted with the utmost secrecy. If caught, prisoners faced brutal punishments and even death. Separated from the religious institutions and support of their pre-carceral lives, these women adapted traditional devotional practices to their new situation. Some emerged as spiritual leaders in their cells or barracks, even acquiring nicknames such as "provost," "vicar," or "prelate." They led daily prayers and religious singing. They celebrated so-called dry Masses - a type of paraliturgy that included the prayers of the Mass and spiritual reception of Holy Communion. In some cases, they were also able to arrange the actual reception of sacraments. This paper explores the content and purposes of this underground religious activity. Participation in this type of activity provided a strong sense of solidarity, helped to build resilience, and was correlated with networks of mutual assistance that enhanced prisoners' chances of survival. My work is part of a recent trend that seeks to recover aspects of cultural life in the camps. The sources for this work include not only memoirs and testimonies, but also material culture created in the camps, such as prayer books, crucifixes, and rosaries.
AFTER SEXUAL VIOLENCE: WOMEN'S INTERPRETIVE AUTHORITY AND COLLECTIVE REIMAGINING

Connolly H. (Speaker)

Dublin City University ~ Dublin ~ Ireland
This paper examines how women survivors of sexual abuse collectively reimagine biblical texts in the aftermath of violence. It focuses on interpretative responses expressed in art and creative practice, articulated within the material space of the Bible and examined within a social media hashtag campaign. This online space affirms women's interpretive agency and authority to engage biblical texts in light of trauma, a form of theological reflection from which women have been historically marginalised. As such, these reimaginings participate in a broader collective imaginary through which meaning and identity are rearticulated together in ways that are theologically significant. This paper adopts a process-theopoetic framework oriented toward how theological meaning emerges through creative, embodied and imaginative response. The analysis examines how interpretation, when taken up within a networked community of practice, enables women to exercise interpretive authority beyond institutional and traditional boundaries, generating forms of connection and opening alternative ways of seeing and living in the wake of trauma. This research forms part of a Government of Ireland Irish Research Council funded project, The New Illuminators: Women in Search of Spiritual Authority and Resilience (NISAR), which examines women's visual interpretive practices in contemporary contexts.
"THE REBBE CALLS YOU": WOMEN'S RELIGIOUS MOBILITY TO WARTIME UKRAINE

Marchenko A. (Speaker)

Hebrew University of Jerusalem ~ Jerusalem ~ Israel
This paper examines Jewish women's wartime pilgrimage to Ukraine as a gendered religious response to crisis shaped by affect, lived religion, and moral interpretations of risk. Building on my recent analysis of religious perceptions of danger and crisis in contemporary Jewish pilgrimage (Marchenko 2026), I explore how women interpret the dangers of traveling to wartime Ukraine not through securitized logics but as a divinely mediated calling. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork conducted between 2022 and 2025, including participant observation at pilgrimage sites, semi-structured interviews with women pilgrims and trip organizers, and analysis of multilingual social-media discussions, I analyze how narratives of protection and trust in sacred figures transform fear and insecurity into religious action. Rather than offering a direct comparison, I place these mobile practices in analytical dialogue with the everyday religious agency of Jewish women living in Ukraine who mobilize faith locally as emotional endurance during war, revealing parallel logics of resilience across distinct religious settings. Engaging theories of lived religion (McGuire 2008), liminality and crisis (Turner 1969; Thomassen 2015), and gendered religious agency (Mahmood 2005; Stadler 2009), I show how women's religiosity becomes an affective infrastructure sustaining faith beyond institutional frameworks.
ISLAMIC LIBERATION THEOLOGY: A RESPONSE TO VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN

Holt M. (Speaker)

University of Westminster ~ London ~ United Kingdom
The 'Woman Life Freedom' protests in Iran in 2022 revealed a tension between female choice and a male determination to control. Large numbers of women and girls entered the public space to reject the compulsory hijab and to assert their rights. The response of the country's rulers was brutal and confirmed for many in the west a linkage between Islamic laws and a propensity for violence. But such practices also highlight the tension between Islamic teachings, which stress equality between the sexes, and male authority's routine reliance on violence. Why is Islam so often associated with violence against women, both in Muslim-majority states and in the western imagination? And how are Muslim women using their religion as a tool of emancipation to combat the theological fiction that God gave men authority over women (Mir-Hosseini 2015)? My research provides clear evidence that many Muslim women cherish their religion, both as a means to empowerment and of comfort in difficult times; they do not regard it as a source of violence, pointing out that modern interpretations have departed significantly from the original message of egalitarianism. For them, violence stems from patriarchal social structures. The paper explores two arguments: (1) the western stereotype of the Muslim women as a victim of her barbaric religion is inaccurate and rooted in colonial fantasies; (2) there continues to be a degree of indifference in Arab countries to domestic violence, and selective excerpts from the Qur'an are still used 'to prove that men who beat their wives are following God's commandments' (Douki 2003). The research is inspired by Islamic Liberation Theology and seeks to challenge the 'politicised portrayal of Muslim women' in the western media (Afsaruddin 2023). It argues that many Muslim women are using their religion as a means of resistance. It is based on ethnographic fieldwork in several Middle East and North African states.

Panel description: Jewish Bible interpretation has been positively recognized but also marginalized in Christian exegesis since Late Antiquity, in the Renaissance Period and also in modern times. Simultaneously, there has been an ongoing debate in Jewish tradition about contact with and separation from Christianity when interpreting the Hebrew Bible. Furthered by the fact that both religions share the Hebrew Bible, Jewish and Christian perspectives on biblical interpretation have been interlinked with question of equality and hierarchy. This is especially true for Christian uses of Jewish exegesis for translations of Hebrew Bible texts. This panel will explore this topic by adressing two questions: (1) To what extend were Jewish interlocuters and traditional Jewish bible translations seen as equal sources to use for Christian exegesis? (2) In what form was Jewish exegesis produced in a context dominated by Christian hierarchies? By drawing from historical examples such as e.g. Johannes Reuchlin, Martin Luther and German Field Rabbi's Exegesis in World War I, the panel will seek to reconstruct how traditions form the respective other religion were seen as an (in)equal but necessary partners in own exegetical endeavors.

Papers:

TARGUMIM AND KIMCHIDES - TRADITIONS OF JEWISH TRANSLATIONS AND JEWISH GRAMMAR IN JOHANNES REUCHLIN (1455-1522)

Morgenstern M. (Speaker)

Professor emeritus for Jewish Studies ~ Tübingen ~ Germany
The Swabian lawyer, philosopher, and philologist Johannes Reuchlin saw it as his duty to preserve the Hebrew language and literature for posterity. His Hebrew studies must be interpreted in the context of his overall conception, which was concerned with leading mankind back to God and trusting in the power of language to do so. For Reuchlin, words have not only a deictic function, but also a poetic one: Words are the bond that connects people with God (vinculum verborum). His exercise book for learning the Hebrew language In septem psalmos poententiales hebraicos interpretatio (1512) is based on texts which his readers were familiar with. This was intended to facilitate learning. To address grammatical issues, he draws on the works of the Kimchi brothers (Moses Kimchi, died c. 1190; David Kimchi, died 1235), but also refers to Aramaic Bible translations (Targumim). This paper will show how Reuchlin combines linguistic precision with the freedom of Renaissance philology.
MARTIN LUTHER'S INEQUAL USE OF JEWISH EXEGESIS FOR HIS TRANSLATION OF THE HEBREW BIBLE

Hirschberger J. (Speaker)

Lecturer for Old and New Testament Studies ~ Augsburg ~ Germany
The German reformer Martin Luther (1483-1546) was very open about his disdain for Judaism. In his late anti-semitic treatise "On the ineffable name and the genealogy of Christ" ("Vom Schem Hamphoras und vom Geschlecht Christi"; 1543) he however shows an intimate knowledge about Jewish exegetical traditions and even states that he consulted rabbinic glosses for his German translation of the Hebrew Bible (WA 53:647,29-32). This indicates a change of perspective, not only with respect to Judaism but also to the possibility of using Jewish exegetical traditions as legitimate tools for translations of Biblical texts. A comparison of Luther's earliest Hebrew translations (the Pentateuch 1522/23; the book of Job 1523/24) with later editions of the same passages (Luther's revised German Bible from 1541) will show a surprisingly broad reception of the Rabbinic commentaries printed in the first Rabbinic Bible (Venice 1517) for the early period, but a strong reliance on Christian hebraists like Sebastian Münster (1489-1552) and Sante Pagnini (1470-1541) in the later editions. It will be shown that Luther's problematic inability to distance himself from his own hermeneutical standpoint resulted in regarding even the Christain hebraists he read, but also the Jewish sources they relied upon themselves, as inequal interlocuters.
"PILGRIMS FROM THE BATTLEFIELD": GERMAN FIELD RABBIS' EXEGESIS IN WORLD WAR I

Wolfson G. (Speaker)

PhD Candidate ~ Tübingen ~ Germany
During the First World War, numerous military chaplains of Jewish faith served in the ranks of the German army. The primary activity of the so-called field rabbis was to provide spiritual care for their fellow believers. In particular, they sought to reach soldiers by holding regular services, and distributing religious literature. One exceedingly useful measure therefor: the publication of "Sabbath Thoughts for Jewish Soldiers" - handy, printed brochures that reproduced the sermon that had been given. Usually based on a biblical verse that the field rabbis applied to the specific conditions of war, their main purpose was to convey to the uniformed audience the meaningfulness of wartime service with all its hardships as well as to strengthen the religious identity of German Jews. Thus, the "Sabbath Thoughts" are a unique source whose evaluation provides insightful information about the interpretation of the Holy Scripture under the auspices of military duty.
THE TIQQUNÊ HA-SOFRIM AND PIETRO GALATINO'S TAXONOMY OF JEWISH HISTORY

Angileri I. (Speaker)

University "La Sapienza" of Rome - EPHE PSL ~ Rome - Paris ~ Italy
The De Arcanis Catholicae Veritatis (Orthona Maris, 1518) by Pietro Galatino stands as one of the most influential yet controversial products of the intellectual movement known as Christian Kabbalah. From the time of its publication, the work was met with accusations of forgery and plagiarism. Nevertheless, the Franciscan's extensive compilation and organization of sources profoundly shaped the Christian understanding of Jewish history, literature, and exegetical tradition. Even when criticized, Renaissance and early modern scholars frequently relied upon it. Galatino's distinctive contribution to the debate lay in his methodological proposal: he sought not only to refute Jewish thought but also to establish criteria for discerning what elements of Jewish tradition could be appropriated for Christian theology and exegesis and what should instead be regarded as doctrinally dangerous. Such a concern was not unique to Galatino but was shared by other humanists, most notably Johannes Reuchlin. Yet the answers they formulated were far from identical, and the taxonomies through which Jewish history and literature were classified were still in the process of being constructed and negotiated. Through an analysis of Galatino's treatment of the biblical Tiqqunê ha-Sofrim ("corrections of the scribes") in Book I of the De Arcanis, and by comparing his interpretation with both his medieval sources and his contemporary interlocutors within Christian Kabbalah, this paper highlights the originality of his taxonomy. It examines his strong distinction between judaei antiquiores and judaei recentiores, as well as his simultaneous conceptual overlap between Talmudists and Kabbalists, as a framework for reconfiguring the Jewish contribution to the Christian biblical and exegetical paradigm.
HEBREW MANUSCRIPTS, LATIN ANNOTATIONS: THE STUDY OF DAWID QIMHI'S MIKHLOL AMONG CHRISTIAN SCHOLARS BETWEEN XV AND XVI CENTURY

Pepoli M. (Speaker)

Università della Svizzera Italiana - Facoltà Teologica di Lugano ~ Lugano ~ Switzerland
David Qimḥi's Sefer Mikhlol stands as one of the most esteemed and extensively read grammatical treatises of the Jewish Middle Ages and Renaissance, as evidenced by its widespread popularity in both manuscript and printed forms. It is therefore unsurprising that, as numerous humanists engaged with Hebrew studies and subsequent biblical exegesis from the late 15th century through the 16th century, this work became a principal source for Hebrew to Latin grammars circulated among Christian scholars. Such interest culminated in the comprehensive translation into Latin of this text prepared by the Hebraist Agazio Guidacerio and published in Paris in 1540. This presentation aims to elucidate the widespread humanistic interest in the Mikhlol, as well as the ideological, cultural, and political ramifications of Christian biblical exegesis based on this text. To achieve this goal, I will analyze and comment on a small corpus of manuscripts of this work housed at the Bibliothèque Nationale de France. These Hebrew manuscripts, which include notes and translations in Latin and Vernacular, not only demonstrate the humanistic engagement with the work of Dawid Qimḥi but also highlight the intricate interactions between Jewish and Christian intellectuals who were invested in the study of this text.
EARLY CHRISTIAN LEADERSHIP AND ITS ENGAGEMENT WITH SOCIAL HIERARCHY

Benhur S. (Speaker)

Mahindra University ~ Hyderabad ~ India
Early Christian Leadership and its Engagement with Social Hierarchy The book, Acts of the Apostles, chronicles the history of a dynamic growing Church of native Jewish believers from Jerusalem who had faith in the risen Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit. The community was led by apostles who were once disciples of Jesus, commissioned to spread the gospel. While Peter focused on the Jewish mission in Jerusalem and Judea, Paul took on the role of a missionary strategist connecting with and establishing leadership in Gentile cities. During this time the Roman empire provided the overarching civil and military framework, while the Sanhedrin served as the highest religious court and local governing body for the Jewish people in Jerusalem. Bible does not speak about how long the apostles and evangelists lived, nor how they died, except Stephen who was stoned to death and James who was slain by Herod. However, ancient writers and historians tell us that nearly all of them died martyr's death after living lives of hardship while spreading the good news. Since, there is a vast difference in the way the early Christian leaders were persecuted, my paper will ask few questions related to the social hierarchy's involvement in imposing judgement and consequent punishment imposed on them. 1. Were the decisions taken for each Christian leader's treatment an independent one or did the authorities follow a uniform pattern? 2. Did the people in social authority manipulate judgement? If so, how and why? 3. How did the Jewish religious leadership engage with the social hierarchy which effected the early Christian leaders? and 4. Do we find parallelisms in the present-day context?

Panel description: Religion plays a significant role in a broad range of social movements, including many that are not explicitly faith-based. However, research on collective action has frequently either overlooked the role of religion or focused mainly on its associations with conservative or extremist politics, thereby neglecting its influence on other forms of activism. This panel seeks to address this gap by examining the role of religion in contemporary social movements that pursue liberal, progressive or egalitarian ends. We invite submissions of case studies from diverse geographical contexts, as well as theoretical insights from various disciplines. Our objective is to advance understanding of the intersections between religion, political, and protest, and to foster both theoretical and empirical discussions regarding the relationship between religion and social change. The panel welcomes a variety of contributions, including but not limited to: - Empirical case studies, based on qualitative, quantitative, or mixed-methods research, examining the role of religion within specific contemporary social movements. - Comparative analyses, focusing on cross-national, regional, or transnational contexts and highlighting similarities and differences in the interaction between religion and collective action. - Theoretical contributions, aimed at developing, refining, or critically engaging with existing conceptual frameworks on religion, politics, and social movements. - Interdisciplinary approaches, drawing from sociology, political science, anthropology, religious studies, social movement studies, or related fields. - Methodological reflections, addressing challenges, innovations, or ethical issues in the empirical study of religion in social movements. - Work-in-progress or exploratory papers, provided they demonstrate clear theoretical relevance and/or empirical significance for the panel's themes.

Papers:

RELIGION IN SERBIA'S ANTI-AUTOCRATIC MOVEMENT

Leofreddi A. (Speaker)

Luiss Guido Carli University ~ Rome ~ Italy
This paper examines the role of religion in contemporary anti-autocratic mobilisations, focusing on the case of Serbia. In recent years, waves of protest across diverse political contexts have challenged democratic backsliding and the concentration of power by increasingly autocratic governments. While these movements differ in actors, triggers, and repertoires, many unfold in settings where religion plays a central role in shaping institutions, public discourse, and collective identities. Despite its visibility in protest arenas, religion remains marginal in social movement scholarship, often treated instrumentally or framed primarily as a conservative or reactionary force, and analytically separated from the political sphere. Bridging sociology of religion and social movement theory, the paper explores how religious elements can both reinforce authoritarian projects and sustain democratic claims. Empirically, the paper investigates the 2024-2025 protests in Serbia, initially sparked by the deadly collapse of a railway canopy in Novi Sad and subsequently evolving into a broad, student-led anti-autocratic movement. In a context where Orthodox Christianity is deeply intertwined with national identity, protest dynamics reveal a complex and contested use of religious symbols, rituals, and moral language. While the Serbian Orthodox Church has largely aligned with the government, grassroots actors and individual protesters have incorporated religious imagery and liturgical forms - such as collective rituals of mourning - into repertoires of dissent. Drawing on qualitative methods, including semi-structured interviews, ethnographic observation, and documentary analysis, the paper examines how religious and secular activists envision religion's role in potential post-autocratic political futures.
LIBERATION THEOLOGY WITHIN RELIGIOUS-BASED MIGRANT SOLIDARITY MOVEMENTS

Monsalvo Basaldua M.F. (Speaker)

Danube University Krems ~ Krems ~ Austria
This paper examines the relationship between liberation theology and religiously inspired migrant solidarity movements in Mexico. Drawing on empirical data collected through fieldwork at migrant solidarity organizations, it analyzes how theological principles inform practices of support and advocacy for migrants. The study highlights the ways in which liberation theology shapes organizational strategies, fosters collective action, and contributes to broader debates on faith-based responses to migration in the region.
BETWEEN MODERNITY AND FAITH: RELIGIOUS ORGANIZATIONS AS LOBBYING ACTORS IN THE ITALIAN STATE

Santo A. (Speaker)

Bistoncini Partners ~ Rome ~ Italy
One of the defining features of contemporary democratic systems is secularization, that is, the process through which civil society emancipates itself from the control of religious institutions, and religion loses its dominant role in social life. In the West, religion no longer determines cultural, political, or social choices, although it continues to influence individuals and the public sphere. Secularization can be understood in quantitative terms, as a decline in the number of believers, or in qualitative terms, as a loss of religion's relevance in the public domain. It has made possible the transition from the "closed society," characterized by traditional rigidity, centralized control, and lack of pluralism, to the "open society," based on the free market, private property, contracts, and the rule of law, fostering autonomy and pluralism. Religion has not disappeared: although its role has diminished, it continues to shape society and influence public decisions. Religious organizations can act as lobbies, that is, organized groups seeking to affect public policies either directly or through public debate, mobilizing symbolic and value-based resources. The evolution of the relationship between religion and the state shows how religion has shifted from direct social control to the capacity for influence, with different models depending on the context. In Italy, religious organizations carve out space in the public arena, influencing both individuals and institutions. The Catholic Church, in particular, retains political and media relevance, as highlighted by the state-church cleavages identified by Rokkan. Religious groups participate in public decision-making and act to preserve or expand their role, functioning as genuine lobbying actors. This phenomenon demonstrates that the relationship between modernity and religion is not characterized by absence but by transformation.
POPULAR CATHOLICISM AND COLLECTIVE ACTION: THE DIFFUSION OF "MÍSTICA POPULAR" WITHIN ARGENTINA'S ECONOMY POPULAR MOVEMENTS. (20015-26)

Forni P. (Speaker)

Universidad del Salvador ~ Buenos Aires ~ Argentina
This paper analyzes the unprecedented emergence of Catholic popular religiosity symbols and discourses within contemporary Argentine social movements, specifically the Union of Workers of the Popular Economy (UTEP). The core of this phenomenon lies in the influence of the Theology of the People (Teología del Pueblo). Distinct from other branches of Liberation Theology that rely on Marxist socio-analytic categories, this specific Argentine current prioritizes the "culture of the people" and popular piety as sites of theological and political resistance. While its roots are local, its perspective has gained global significance as the primary theological framework of Pope Francis's papacy. Theoretically, the study bridges the sociology of social movements with religious studies by utilizing Alberto Melucci's framework on "submerged networks" and Charles Tilly's concept of "contentious repertoires." To address this complexity, the research adopts a qualitative multi-method approach based on the triangulation of diverse data sources. The empirical evidence was gathered through prolonged ethnographic fieldwork and in-depth interviews with movement leaders and members of the "pastoral villera." This is complemented by a systematic visual and iconographic analysis of street art (murals) and religious imagery in the public sphere, alongside a documentary analysis of theological and political texts. The findings suggest that this convergence is a creative synthesis termed "mística popular." This category explains how the Theology of the People provides a spiritual and symbolic framework for the struggle for "Land, lodging, and labor", effectively reconfiguring the relationship between faith, social justice, and (in)equality in the Global South.
THE AMBIVALENT ROLE OF (MINORITY) RELIGION ON SOCIAL MOVEMENTS. THE CASE OF ORTHODOX JEWS IN FRANCE NOT MOBILIZING AGAINST MORALITY POLICIES

Strack F. (Speaker)

University of Sherbrooke ~ Montréal ~ Canada
This contribution intends to discuss the case of paradoxical non-mobilizations against liberal morality policies (Meier, 1999). More precisely, the aim is to show why Orthodox Jews in France do not seek to repeal liberal policies they adamantly oppose, on abortion and LGBTQ+ rights, whereas, at first glance, they have the required doctrinal and relational resources to mobilize (Zald, 2002). The key finding is that the same doctrinal and relational resources that could nurture their mobilization prevent it. From the doctrinal viewpoint, they oppose abortion and homosexuality (Homolska, 2020) but cannot join vocal Christian groups because they do not frame it similarly and, more broadly, because they do not value engaging in the surrounding society (in part due to their "enclave" organisation, Sivan, 1995). From a relational viewpoint, they could use their good relationships with public institutions to counter liberal morality policies, but they use them to secure their endangered religious practices, for, over the last two decades, long-standing arrangements have been repealed (Strack, 2025). This contribution demonstrates that being part of the cultural majority is a prerequisite for mobilization. This case helps discuss how minority groups operate in politics when confronting dominant rules (Lamont, 2018). Whereas mobilization is expected, this contribution shows that religious minorities (including Protestants and Muslims) may struggle to connect with more powerful allies (Catholic groups in France) because of a distinct doctrine and secular/laïcité politics that affect more minority groups. So, because mobilization on morality issues would be too costly, minority groups tend to opt for accepting rather than challenging a norm they oppose. This contribution is grounded in 89 interviews with Orthodox Jews and elected officials, 71 participant and non-participant observations with Orthodox Jews, and the study of 289 issues of Orthodox newspapers.
"CHRISTIANITY AND POLITICS IN THE THOUGHT OF ALDO MORO"

Casale F. (Speaker)

University of Messina ~ Messina ~ Italy
Aldo Moro was, with few equals, one of the most influential statesmen of the First Republic: an illustrious Constituent Assembly member, five-time Prime Minister, and a central figure in the Christian Democrats, of which he became secretary and national president. However, to fully understand the moral stature of this historic figure, it is not possible to reduce him to a simple successful politician; we must go beyond state affairs to discover his intellectual and, above all, spiritual dimension, the true and primary objective of this study. His spirit of action, as a politician and man of faith, can be defined as "Christian Realism," which stemmed above all from the duty to accept history in the complexity and mobility of its factors and the imperativeness of its demands. During the war years and the immediate postwar period, Moro's contribution to the construction of the democratic state was primarily that of a scholar and animator of intellectual groups, through shaping the consciences of his slightly younger contemporaries in the FUCI and ACI, for whom he quickly assumed the role of a young mentor. The writings that appeared in the press of Catholic intellectuals, such as Azione Fucina and La Rassegna, and especially in the magazine Studium, between 1943 and 1946, are characterized by this strong and lively desire to be present in social life: political engagement is seen as a natural testing ground for a mature Christian spirituality, capable of neither shying away from nor fearing the challenge of history. Moro, along with others, was the one who carried out a sustained campaign of conviction and persuasion in favor of Christianity's reconciliation with democracy: in his early writings and speeches, the influence of Christian philosophers from St. Thomas Aquinas to Maritain clearly emerges.
"VOICES OF DISSENT: EVANGELICAL NETWORKS AND THE TRANSNATIONAL CHALLENGE TO CHRISTIAN NATIONALISM"

Bunnell A. (Speaker)

UCL ~ London ~ United Kingdom
As scholars have documented the rise of a transnational Christian Right that mobilizes religious networks to contest liberal democratic norms in Europe and beyond, less attention has been paid to the dissenting voices within those same religious traditions who actively resist this trajectory. This paper examines moderate and reform-minded evangelical actors who are working both within the United States and transnationally to claim Christian identity away from nationalist, illiberal, and exclusionary appropriations, and to advance humanitarian, egalitarian, and democratic ends rooted in their reading of the teachings of Jesus. The paper develops three empirical case studies: first, the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship (CBF) in the United States, which has institutionalized a reform evangelical identity in explicit opposition to fundamentalism and Christian nationalism, championing human dignity, freedom of religion and belief for all, and social inclusion; second, evangelical advocates for immigrants and migrants in Minnesota, whose faith-based organizing draws on perceived Christian imperatives of hospitality and justice to protest anti-immigration politics frequently framed in Christian nationalist terms; and third, evangelical missionary networks operating in Europe in the context of the war in Ukraine, whose humanitarian commitments on the ground challenge the Russian Orthodox aligned "traditional values" narrative that has provided religious legitimation for the conflict. Together, these cases contribute to the panel's broader inquiry by demonstrating that religion's role in contemporary social movements cannot be reduced to its illiberal expressions. The same networks that fuel authoritarian mobilization are also sites of contest for those working toward social equality and democratic pluralism.
THE RED CROSS AMID LAMENT: THE PSALMS AS A PRAYER FOR RESTORATION FOR THE PAPUAN PEOPLE IN THE PERSPECTIVES OF BRUEGGEMANN AND KEARNEY

Runtu K.R. (Speaker)

Pelita Harapan University ~ Jakarta ~ Indonesia
Papua has been in turmoil for decades, even before its integration into the Republic of Indonesia. Ecocide and gross human rights violations have frequently occurred in the land of Papua, while racism and discrimination lurk beyond it. Various forms of struggle or even resistance marked by bloodshed and tears have been undertaken. Yet the suffering of the Papuan people, my Indonesian fellow citizens, has not subsided. This paper explores lament Psalms as a form of prayer for restoration in the context of Papuan suffering, integrating the symbol of the Red Cross as a sign of resistance and solidarity amid social wounds. Through the theological approach of Walter Brueggemann, the Psalms are understood not merely as expressions of grief, but as prophetic acts that interrupt dominant narratives and open space for theological honesty and transformative hope. Meanwhile, Richard Kearney's narrative imagination offers a hermeneutical framework for reading lament as a story of restoration that moves beyond trauma and opens ethical possibilities for reconciliation. In the context of Papua, wounded by conflict, marginalization, and structural injustice, this paper seeks to affirm that lament can become a spiritual force that drives social-theological healing. Ultimately, it offers a contribution to contextual theology that stands on the side of humanity and justice, especially for Papua. The commemoration of Human Rights Day 2024 was marked by the planting of a "Red Cross," symbolizing the suffering and long struggle of the Papuan people. The "Red Cross" became part of prayer and lament activities over the ongoing issues affecting Papuan society. The planting of the red cross also signifies "sasi", a customary prohibition that forbids any activity within areas designated under it. In the current context of Papua, the implementation of "sasi" has become a form of resistance against extractive industries.
FAITH-BASED YOUTH WORK AND SOCIAL INTEGRATION: THE CASE OF FOCOLARE MOVEMENT

Gülerce H. (Speaker)

Marmara University ~ İstanbul ~ Turkey
While the relationship between modernity and religion is frequently framed in terms of conflict or the marginalization of religion from the public sphere through processes of secularization, contemporary religious formations are increasingly re-emerging as active agents of social transformation, particularly among younger generations. This study examines the youth-oriented initiatives of the Focolare Movement, which pursue progressive and egalitarian objectives, and explores how its youth branches, known as the "Gen" groups, engage with the conditions of secular modernity. Rather than retreating into conservatism, the movement employs civic and progressive mechanisms—such as the "United World Project" and "Genfest"—to address key features of modern crises, including individualization, alienation, and social fragmentation. Through these platforms, religious activism is reframed as a "revolution of love" aimed at fostering universal brotherhood. Drawing on field research conducted in Italy, including in-depth interviews and participant observation, this study demonstrates how Focolare's youth work contributes to the "humanization" of ostensibly secular domains such as art (e.g., the music of Gen Rosso), environmentalism (EcoOne), and social justice. The case of the Focolare Movement illustrates that religious youth initiatives can operate as dynamic forces of social integration, offering progressive responses to the challenges of modern society without relinquishing their foundational faith-based commitments.

Panel description: The Author Meets the Critics panel, coordinated by the Ethos Observatory, is devoted to a discussion of Valentina Gentile's book Freedom With Religions. Rethinking Civility through Political Inclusivism in Liberal Democracies (Routledge, 2026). The book offers a re-reading of political liberalism aimed at addressing the deep forms of religious pluralism that characterise contemporary democracies, steering a middle course between orthodox defences and radical critiques of this project. At the core of the argument lies the concept of political inclusivism, a normative framework that remains faithful to the principles of public reason while expanding their interpretation in light of the lived experiences of religious citizens. On this basis, the book introduces the notion of a culture of civility, understood as a socially embedded complement to the duty of civility and as a bridge between public justification and the ethical life of civil society. Through these conceptual innovations, the book advances a more inclusive vision of the ethos of liberal democracies. The panel will be introduced and chaired by Sebastiano Maffettone (Ethos Luiss). The book will be discussed by Aakash Singh Rathore (Ashoka University & Jindal Global University), Mohammed Hashas (University of Rome Tor Vergata), Carla Bagnoli (University of Modena and Reggio Emilia & National Academy of the Lincei), Debora Spini (New York University in Florence), and Tom Bailey (John Cabot University, tbc). The author will respond to the discussants' comments.

Papers:

Panel description: This panel seeks to gather contributions exploring how the sacred scriptures have been employed in the tradition of the three Abrahamic religions, to construct the figure of the enemy in contexts marked by crisis, rupture, catastrophe, or collapse. The aim is to examine how exegetical and scripturally informed narratives in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam transform external or internal adversaries into meaningful agents within broader theological interpretations of history. Particular attention will be given to the link between enemy representation and divine punishment: crises are often reframed as consequences of communal transgression, with the enemy functioning as an instrument—willing or unwitting—of divine judgment, a dynamic that simultaneously explains catastrophe and admonishes the community toward repentance, reform, or renewed cohesion. Contributions may explore a wide range of historical phenomena and sources, such as: the reactivation of scriptural motifs after a military defeat or a political collapse in narrative and exegetical texts; the redefinition of adversaries during periods of sectarian conflict in theological textual controversies or in political discourses; the role of eschatological expectations and elaborations in shaping perceptions of threat; or the deployment of enemy imagery in response to migration, economic disruption, pandemics, or environmental crises through sermons, theological treatises and commentaries. The panel also encourages attention to the material and social dimensions of scriptural interpretation, including how textual transmission, communal leadership, performative settings, or institutional contexts shape the construction of the enemy in moments of upheaval.

Papers:

CONCEPTUALISING THE ENEMY IN TIMES OF CRISIS: PROPHETIC MOTIFS AND THE ITALIAN WARS

Bontempo Scavo D. (Speaker)

Fondazione per le Scienze Religiose ~ Bologna ~ Italy
The paper addresses processes of construction and imagination of the enemy in the context of the "horrende guerre d'Italia" affecting the Italian peninsula between the late fifteenth century and the Sack of Rome in 1527. In a historical setting characterised by a widespread perception of instability, traumatic events were interpreted through religious and prophetic categories that provided frameworks for understanding and meaning-making. Within this context, the paper examines the reactivation of long-standing prophetic and scriptural motifs used to interpret the roles of different political actors. Motifs such as the just-chastiser, the second Charlemagne, or, in an antithetical sense, the new Nero were applied flexibly to various protagonists of the conflict, intersecting with pro-French or pro-imperial readings and contributing to the framing of the enemy as a sign of divine judgement. The figure of Charles V represents one of the key reference points within this constellation of meanings. The paper also considers how prophetic models interacted with political motifs and natural and celestial signs in the context of a crisis perceived as extraordinary, giving rise to shifting configurations of the enemy adaptable to different contexts and actors. From this perspective, the conceptualisation of the enemy emerges as a key interpretative device in religious responses to catastrophe.
THE ENEMY CLOTHED IN PROPHECY: ANTICHRIST NARRATIVES IN REVOLUTIONARY MILITANCY

Abaddi I. (Speaker)

Università di Palermo ~ Palermo ~ Italy
Three concepts pervade Islamic apocalypticism across centuries: the Mahdi, the Antichrist (Dajjal), and Armageddon. These narrative elements provide militant movements with three essential tools: legitimization of authority through messianic claims, demonization of enemies as cosmic evil, and justification for violence through apocalyptic warfare. Mark Juergensmeyer's concept of "cosmic war" posits that when violence acquires a metaphysical framing, the self becomes God's infallible instrument while the other transforms into the ultimate cosmic enemy. This represents the most extreme form of othering: casting oneself as a divine agent and one's adversary as Satan's manifestation, with eschatological urgency demanding immediate action. This research examines how the Antichrist figure functions within apocalyptic narratives in Sunni Islam, analyzing its role in constructing the theological architecture that enables revolutionary violence.
AN ENEMY REFRAMED: PROVIDENCE AND IDENTITY IN GREGORY THE GREAT'S REPRESENTATION OF THE LOMBARDS

De Lorenzo L. (Speaker)

Fondazione per le Scienze Religiose ~ Bologna ~ Italy
This study examines the complex ideological and theological reconfiguration of the Lombards within the literary and pastoral production of Pope Gregory the Great (590-604 AD). Through an analysis of the Registrum Epistolarum, the Homiliae in Ezechielem, and the Dialogi, this research argues that Gregory moves beyond mere ethnic vituperation to construct a sophisticated "theology of the enemy." The core of this re-evaluation lies in the concept of the Providential Enemy. While Gregory vividly describes the "sword of the Lombards" as a source of physical devastation, he simultaneously interprets their presence through a meta-historical lens. In his view, the Lombards are part of the "flagella coelestis justitiae" (Hiez II, 6, 22), who intended to purge the sins of the Roman people and the Church. This shift transforms the Lombard "menace" from a political catastrophe into a spiritual trial within the context of the approaching end of the word. Furthermore, the study explores the transition from confrontation to conversion. Gregory's diplomacy suggests a paradigm where the "Enemy" is no longer just a scourge to be endured, but a soul to be won. By juxtaposing the brutal imagery of the raids with the miraculous narratives of the Dialogi, this research highlights how the Lombard presence serves as a catalyst for a new medieval framework where temporal suffering is reframed as a providential path toward moral renewal.
FACING THE GREAT BABYLON: AN IMAGE FROM THE APOCALYPSE IN JOACHIM OF FIORE'S POLITICAL AND RELIGIOUS THOUGHT

Saccenti R. (Speaker)

Università degli Studi di Bergamo ~ Bergamo ~ Italy
Joachim of Fiore's theological thought is characteristically shaped by the prophetic language of Scripture. Prophecy, understood as a mode of interpreting history in the light of biblical revelation, constitutes a cornerstone of his approach not only to the sacred text but also to the interpretation of his own historical context. This use of biblical figurae, particularly those of apocalyptic significance, as a means of discerning the sapiential value of human history is especially evident in his treatment of the image of Babylon. Throughout his literary production—from the De prophetia ignota to the Expositio in Apocalysim—Joachim employed the apocalyptic figure of Babylon in order to address a range of contemporary historical crises: the conflict between Empire and Papacy, the strained relations between Rome and Constantinople, the fall of Jerusalem in 1187, and the rise of Saladin's power. This paper traces these various uses of the figure of Babylon in Joachim's works, demonstrating how it enabled him to articulate an interpretation of the major turning points of the late twelfth century that combined acute political concern with a broader reflection on the moral and religious significance of historical events.
LIBERTAS ECCLESIAE AND THE SWORD: OLD TESTAMENT MODELS FOR THE LEGITIMATE EXERCISE OF VIOLENCE IN THE PAPACY OF PASCHAL II

Lostumbo A. (Speaker)

Sapienza, University of Rome ~ Rome ~ Italy
This paper explores Pope Paschal II's use of violence and the resulting exegetical crisis in the early twelfth century, focusing on his letter of January 21, 1103, to Robert, Count of Flanders, and the critical response of Sigebert of Gembloux. Paschal II employs Old Testament citations—notably 1 Samuel 15 (Saul and Agag) and Jeremiah 48:10—to justify armed action by the milites in defense of the Church and the libertas ecclesiae. The enemy is explicitly identified: rebels against God, usurpers of Church authority, simoniacs, and the excommunicated. By linking Petrine authority, lay obedience, and biblical precedent, the pope frames warfare as a divinely sanctioned act and a tool for protecting Roman primacy. Sigebert's Epistola Leodicensium adversus Paschalem papam exposes the tensions created by this approach. He challenges the materialization of the two-swords doctrine, condemns the grant of remissio peccatorum to combatants, and repurposes the same Old Testament texts to argue that violence, even against Church enemies, cannot constitute a divine sacrifice. The claim of a "third sword" exemplifies what Sigebert sees as a dangerous innovation in canonical and exegetical tradition. This case reveals a broader crisis of interpretation: the Old Testament becomes a battleground for competing visions of ecclesiastical authority. Paschal II uses it to define the enemy and legitimize coercion, while critics like Sigebert expose the moral and theological limits of such claims. The correspondence highlights the intersection of papal authority, the construction of the enemy, and the use of biblical precedent in shaping political and religious power. The case of Robert of Flanders thus illuminates how the early twelfth-century Church navigated the tension between spiritual leadership and coercive action, showing that the legitimacy of violence was deeply entangled with scriptural interpretation and the contested primacy of Rome.
THE DAJJĀL IN IFRĪQIYA: APOCALYPTIC ENEMY CONSTRUCTION DURING THE FATIMID STRUGGLE AGAINST ABŪ YAZĪD (940S)

Favaretto G. (Speaker)

UniPA ~ Palermo ~ Italy
The rebellion of Abū Yazīd (d. 947), leader of a Khārijite movement in Ifrīqiya, represented one of the most serious crises faced by the early Fatimid caliphate. During the uprising of the 940s, the Fatimid rule, still in its formative phase, was nearly overthrown by forces that conquered large portions of the territory and threatened the capital al-Mahdiyya. In Ismāʿīlī historiography, however, this political and military crisis was framed through an explicitly apocalyptic vocabulary. In the account of Idrīs ʿImād al-Dīn's ʿUyūn al-akhbār, Abū Yazīd is repeatedly described as the Dajjāl, the eschatological deceiver known from Islamic apocalyptic traditions whose appearance precedes the final triumph of the divinely guided leader. This paper argues that the portrayal of Abū Yazīd as the Dajjāl must be understood within the broader eschatological framework through which the early Fatimid regime articulated its legitimacy. The first Fatimid ruler had assumed the title al-Mahdī, while his successor ruled as al-Qāʾim, both titles deeply embedded in Islamic messianic and apocalyptic traditions. Within this symbolic horizon, identifying the dynasty's most dangerous adversary with the apocalyptic enemy allowed the Fatimid imam-caliph to frame the rebellion as part of a cosmic struggle between truth and deception. The paper further suggests that such apocalyptic enemy imagery was particularly mobilized during moments of acute political crisis and gradually receded as Fatimid rule consolidated.
(RE)CLAIMING THE SCRIPTURE: THE USE OF THE BIBLE IN RUSSIAN WAR PROPAGANDA AND ANTI-WAR MOVEMENTS.

Elsner R. (Speaker)

Muenster University ~ Muenster ~ Germany
The Russian Orthodox Church has played a significant role in depicting an alleged enemy of the Russian people in metaphysical terms, making extensive use of biblical motifs and narratives. Since Russia's war against Ukraine began in 2014, these patterns have become more widespread, finding their way into political propaganda and international religious networking. As sermons are the most common means of engaging with the Bible in Orthodox religious practice, they are important vehicles for disseminating this ideology. Patriarch Kirill's frequent sermons, the most prominent public expression of the ideological basis of the war, provide a case study in the selective use of biblical motifs without any critical analysis of the texts themselves. Other high-ranking public figures in the ROC take a similar approach to the Bible, portraying the world as a battlefield between good and evil and incorporating historical Russian warfare into the biblical concept of divine providence. However, while proponents of the war use biblical motifs to characterise the enemy and justify war as a defence against them, anti-war actors simultaneously engage with the same Bible and sometimes even the same motifs to voice their opposition to the war and its ideology. In their effort to reclaim the biblical tradition for nonviolent conflict transformation and peaceful communal life, they also turn to the biblical images of fighting the enemy and combating evil in order to frame the war and its proponents. This paper aims to analyse the disputes surrounding the correct interpretation of the Bible, as well as the various claims to authenticity and truth amid war propaganda. It also situates the Russian Orthodox case within the broader context of global debates about the Bible as a tool of division and othering, demonstrating the interconnectedness of these discourses and their strategic and political efficacy.

Panel description: For many scholars of religion, the conference's overarching topic "religions and (in)equalities" immediately evokes the idea of hierarchy, first because religious hierarchies - human, spiritual, or divine - are well known in history and anthropology, and second because the very word "hierarchy" is etymologically connected to the sphere of the sacred. And yet inequality and hierarchy are two very different things, although they are obviously semantically and conceptually connected: inequality is assessed quantitatively, whereas hierarchy is inherently qualitative. Indeed, the two ideas might even be considered opposites, for inequality evokes imbalance, whereas hierarchy evokes order. This panel invites papers to address hierarchy in different religious traditions, theoretical approaches, and geographical and historical contexts, offering a comparative conceptual exploration of it as a key analytical concept in the study of religions, examining its transformations from classical to contemporary thought. The papers will investigate how hierarchy has been conceptualised, exalted, contested, and reconfigured religiously as well as through reflections on religion, sometimes in utterly original and creative ways. The ideal temporal alpha and omega of the panel have been identified in Plato and Marshall Sahlins. In fact, Plato's reflection is perhaps the first in history to systematically tackle the (metaphysical) principle of ordered difference (although he did not use the Greek word "hierarchy"), providing an early and influential framework for thinking about hierarchy as a principle linking cosmology, ethics, and political organisation. Similarly, but very recently, after decades of reflection on human societies and cultural orders, Marshall Sahlins came to the conclusion, contrariwise to his disciple David Graeber, that hierarchy (or rather the principle and the mythopoetic imagination thereof) is in human societies inevitable, or rather inescapable.

Papers:

HIERARCHY AND HEAVENLY POLITICS: THE ROLE OF THE DIVINE TRIAD IN RULING THE COSMOS IN MESOPOTAMIAN AND GREEK MYTHS

Corrente P. (Speaker)

Università di Salerno ~ Salerno ~ Italy
One of the most important issues in ancient polytheistic religious systems is how the universe is governed. Every component -natural or social, human or divine- needs to be supervised and firmly led, because only a state of equilibrium between opposing forces will preserve its existence. As the gods are in charge of the macro-and microcosmos, divine politics is pivotal in maintaining a perfectly functioning universe. The most prevalent form of godly leadership is the triad, a naturally hierarchical organisation, and numerous myths recount the struggles within the pantheon to establish the most effective form of it. A recurrent motif in the mythological literature of ancient Mediterranean cultures is, indeed, that of kingship and the transmission of power, as especially evident in Mesopotamian and Greek traditions, where mythological poemas such as Enuma Elish, Atrahasis or Theogony, provide extensive elaboration on this theme. In my paper, I shall explore the notion of hierarchy within the religious structure of polytheism, through the study of the dynamics inherent to the Sumerian-Akkadian (An/Anu, Enlil, Enki/Ea) and Greek (Zeus, Poseidon, Hades) triads of power when universal governance is at stake. The textual analysis and the comparative methodological framework will be instrumental in delineating and comprehending both the historical contexts and the simbolic underpinnings of religious thought in ancient world, thus preventing from ideologically biased interpretations of ancient myths.
THE CURSE OF HAM? INEQUALITY, DIVERSITY, HIERARCHY IN THE LIGHT OF THE NOBILITY'S INTERPRETATION OF THE BIBLICAL STORY

Rygielska M. (Speaker)

University of Katowice ~ Katowice ~ Poland
The Old Testament story of Noah's family, in particular the reprehensible act of one of his sons, Ham (Genesis 9:18-28), has been interpreted in many ways, both theologically and from an anthropological and cultural perspective. Questions about the causes of cultural diversity, (cf. Hodgen 2010: 2007), are increasingly being addressed not only in terms of cultural and ethnicity, but also those related to the consequences of deliberately ideologised interpretations of the passage about Ham's sin, which were used 'to justify slavery and segregation right up to the 1960s' (cf. e.g. Whitford 2009, Freedman 1999). I focus on the interpretation of the biblical story of Noah's sons in old Polish chronicles, which the Polish nobility used to justify class distinctions, particularly the position of peasants. According to Janusz Tazbir (1979: 56), 'In addition to Noah's sons, Eve's children and grandchildren were also supposed to confirm the validity of social differences existing on earth, thus negating dreams of a 'land of universal social equality.' Cham - also in Polish - eventually became synonymous with a peasant condemned to serfdom (this difference between cham and pan is also exploited by contemporary authors writing about the history of Polish peasants, cf. Chwalba, Harpula, 2021). This was how the causes of inequality in the world were explained: the story of Noah's sons would thus serve to reinforce a certain social order (cf., e.g., Kruczkowski 1932). It is worth noting, however, that in reality both the nobility and the peasantry were internally diverse, and despite official forms promoting equality, there was a clear hierarchy among the nobility. In this paper, I outline the complex network of these relationships in relation to the 'critique of the egalitarian vision of the world' (Tazbir 1979: 55) supported by the biblical story.
THE CHARISMA OF SPEECH: REINSTATING OR CHALLENGING HIERARCHY?

Tateo G. (Speaker)

Università Roma Tre ~ Roma ~ Italy
How does the idea of hierarchy reconcile with the notion of a "heaven on earth," the foundational axis of the divine liturgy? It is well known that Orthodox Christianity is grounded in the concept of hierarchy. Dogmatic theology posits a hierarchy between God, who holds the truth, and human beings, who can aspire at most to orthopraxy—the pursuit of their salvation through union with God (theosis). Ecclesiology demands the clergy an absolute obedience to one's superior and a complex hierarchical order among and between those ordained as priests and among those who have received monastic tonsure. One of the elements disrupting this hierarchical order is charisma, which discends through divine grace on certain individuals—often not the archbishop, but rather the starets in the monastery or the talented parish confessor—endowed with profound devotion yet also graced by a divine logic that transcends human reasoning. By engaging ethnographic material on contemporary Romanian Orthodoxy in dialogue with classic works of political anthropology that challenge universalist Western conceptions of power (Pierre Clastres, David Graeber), this presentation adopts a transcultural and comparative perspective to reflect on the relationship between discourse, speech and authority. It does not posit oral discourse as antithetical to hierarchy. If institutional authority confers the privilege of having an audience and being obeyed, the ability to articulate a compelling discourse, by contrast, is a talent that enables one to claim this privilege without institutional power backing it. In counterpoint to other Orthodox mechanisms reproducing order and conformity, such as "hierarchy," "patriarchate," and "tradition," charisma intended as the ability to speak powerfully may disrupt presumptive correlations between power, authority, and coercion.
ENCHANTED HIERARCHIES: THE NEW SCIENCE OF MARSHALL SAHLINS

Della Subin A. (Speaker)

Independent scholar ~ New York City ~ United States of America
How is it that, within societies that lack kings or chiefs or any vertical political authorities, still we find complex concepts of divine hierarchy? From Tierra del Fuego to the Central Arctic to the Philippines, communities that traditionally recognized no rulers or government still possess celestial bureaucracies of deities and spirits with no correspondence to the human social order. Where do these ideas come from, which reflect no living conditions on the ground? How is it that notions of the state seem to be anticipated by cosmology before they are realized in society? These questions lie at the heart of Sahlins's final book, The New Science of the Enchanted Universe, in which he defined the term "metaperson" to encompass the wide spectrum of gods and spirits with whom humans have always lived in continuous reference, and who act as the intimate, quotidian agents of our success or ruin. If "power descends from heaven to earth," Sahlins wrote, "human political power is necessarily and quintessentially hubris, the appropriation of divinity in one form or another." Hierarchy emerges as an inescapable principle imposed on human life, as if from above. Yet how, then, is political transformation ever possible? And how is it that, so often religious ideas are able to spark revolutionary change? Illuminated by Sahlins' earlier work on political dissent, inequality and poverty (Culture in Practice; Stone Age Economics) this paper will approach these questions by examining the creation of contemporary metapersons among us: the deification, even within allegedly "secular" states, of politicians, autocrats, and monarchs, in ways that contest, subvert, and reject hierarchy by drawing on idioms of the sacred.
HIER-ARCHY: DIVINE OR DIABOLICAL? REFLECTING ON HUMAN, META-HUMAN, AND METAPHYSICAL HIERARCHIES FROM PLATO TO SAHLINS

Testa A. (Speaker)

Charles University ~ Prague ~ Czech Republic
The paper addresses the panel's theme by mixing insights from philosophy, religious thought, the history of religions, and anthropology into an intellectual cocktail that invites comparative discussion of concepts and practices of human, meta-human, and metaphysical hierarchies. Its aim is to distil a set of general propositions and to assess the current state of the art. The thinkers discussed include Plato; selected figures from Neoplatonism, Gnosticism, esotericism, and occultism; as well as Thomas Aquinas, Hume, Nietzsche, Louis Dumont, David Graeber, Marshall Sahlins, and others.
1 CORINTHIANS 11:2-16 AS EARLY EXAMPLE OF CREATION ORDER

Barleben M. (Speaker)

Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin ~ Berlin ~ Germany
In 1 Corinthians 11:2-16, Paul establishes a hierarchical relationship between God, Christ, man and woman. In order to substantiate this assertion, he refers to the first two chapters of the Book of Genesis. This paper analyses this aetiological attempt at justification, demonstrating how Paul interprets Genesis 1 and 2 by describing the reading and writing strategies with the help of fan fiction theory. Fan fiction represents the interface between reception and production. Fan fiction theory provides the means to describe strategies of intertextuality. Through a hermeneutics of "prod-using", premises of reception become apparent that are only implicitly reflected in text production. This analysis demonstrates that Paul identifies a chronology of creation in Genesis 2, which he subsequently incorporates into Genesis 1:26f. From this, he derives a general, timeless hierarchy between man and woman. The incorporation of Psalm 8:6 as a further co-text supports this interpretation and also adds Christ and the angels as mediators of creation to the hierarchy. The paper's objective is to undertake a precise analysis of the argumentation in order to reveal the unstated rules of inference. It is argued that 1 Cor 11:2-16 represents a kind of early creation order theology that cannot be derived from Gen 1+2 without further premises.
"THE CHILDREN WHO WILL COME AFTER US". HIERARCHICAL ORGANIZATION AND DYNAMICS OF INCLUSION AND EXCLUSION IN NAG HAMMADI CODEX I

Mocellin D. (Speaker)

University of Modena and Reggio Emilia (DREST) ~ Reggio Emilia ~ Italy
Since its discovery in the mid-20th century, Nag Hammadi Codex I has been the subject of extensive scholarly interpretation. Among the various possible readings, this paper proposes an understanding of this collection as a document establishing a dividing line between community insiders and outsiders. This distinction is grounded in an ontological and anthropological tripartition (more or less evident across the various writings of the codex) which finds its foundation in a specific cosmological view explaining the organization of the cosmos and the division of humanity into three classes: the pneumatics (the spiritual ones); the psychics; the hylics (the material ones). This tripartite structure serves not only as a principle regulating community membership, but also as an organizational criterion for the internal hierarchy, assigning and defining specific roles and tasks to its members. The last and longest text of Codex I, the so-called Tripartite Tractate, is pivotal in this regard, as it provides a systematic cosmogonic and anthropogonic exposition through which the entire collection can be read. However, the other four writings in the codex also offer evidence supporting this interpretation, since they lay the foundations for the superiority of the pneumatic class and define its responsibilities toward the other human categories. The aim of this paper is, therefore, to highlight the polemical strategies and the dynamics of inclusion and exclusion employed in Nag Hammadi Codex I, demonstrating their role in consolidating a specific internal hierarchical structure.
REINTRODUCING HIERARCHY IN EGALITARIAN REGIMES: A HUMAN DIGNITY PERSPECTIVE

De Noüel E. (Speaker)

Ecole pratique des Hautes Etudes ~ Paris ~ France
Human dignity is an ancient concept, almost as old as humanity itself, reflecting our quest to understand what makes us uniquely human. From Plato's question in the Alcibiades, "What, then, is man?" to the Biblical meditation, "What is man, that you are mindful of him?" (Psalm 8), the inquiry into the nobility of human nature has shaped the earliest philosophical thought. Historically, this questioning was embedded in a deeply hierarchical paradigm: dignity—political (dignitas) or ontological—implied a certain rank, whether within the polis or the cosmic order. Its grammar is inherently scalar, understood only through social, political, or ontological hierarchies. Anchored in a teleological worldview, this notion of dignity persisted as long as religion structured all spheres of life. With the rise of secularization, the ordered framework of the world was disrupted, necessitating a reinvention of dignity—one less dependent on hierarchical or metaphysical order. Modern human dignity, largely secularized, promises equality for all and functions within political and legal arenas without reference to ontological rank or divine authority, aligning with the axiological neutrality of contemporary liberal regimes. Yet the juridical emergence of dignity in the late twentieth century remains ambivalent. Even secularized, it subtly reintroduces natural law and metaphysical considerations, prompting renewed reflection on humanity's place in the world and the possibility of ontologically grounded hierarchy. In this sense, modern human dignity is liminal: situated at the intersection of the sacred and the profane, it quietly reshapes the foundations of liberal political anthropology, reinserting humanity into an ordered whole even amid the triumph of individualism.

Panel description: This panel is devoted to examining social inequalities in the Abrahamic religions, with particular attention to the relationship between the religious legitimation of existing hierarchies and their contestation or problematization. In other words, it seeks to explore how Judaism, Christianity, and Islam justified social inequalities, in which contexts they relativized or symbolically suspended them, and when and why they became objects of critique. We aim to address these questions through an analysis of both the foundational texts of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, and other early sources within each tradition (such as rabbinic literature, patristic writings, or early Islamic texts) that developed, reinterpreted, or concretized religious - often socio‑legal - norms in changing historical and social circumstances. We are also interested in how communal practices generated cohesion and identity while simultaneously demarcating boundaries by regulating access to material, institutional, symbolic, ritual, or social resources. "Communal practices" are understood broadly as institutional, ritual, and socio‑legal forms of communal life - kehilla, ecclesia, and umma. The panel is interdisciplinary: we invite scholars of religion, anthropologists of religion, social historians, biblical scholars, specialists in Islamic and Near Eastern studies, cultural studies scholars, and all others whose research focuses on Judaism, Christianity, or Islam.

Papers:

JUSTICE WHERE WEALTH HAS NO POWER: THE AFTERLIFE AS MORAL EQUALIZER IN ANCIENT EGYPTIAN AND ABRAHAMIC TRADITIONS

Byrski L. (Speaker)

Jagiellonian University ~ Cracow ~ Poland
The Egyptian tale of Setne and Si-Osire's journey to the land of the dead parallels similar themes in Jewish and Christian traditions. In this story, Setne is guided by his wise son Si-Osire into the Duat, the realm of the dead, to witness justice beyond earthly appearances. Setne observes souls whose afterlife fate is determined by moral conduct, not social status or wealth. He sees a rich man suffering and a poor man honored in the afterlife, regardless of their earthly positions. Si-Osire clarifies that these outcomes are a direct result of each man's actions during life, reinforcing that material privilege is irrelevant in the ultimate judgment of the soul. This theme of reversal is also found in the Abrahamic traditions. In Judaism, the Palestinian Talmud tells of a wealthy tax collector, Bar Ma'yan, and a poor Torah scholar who died on the same day. The rich man's grand funeral and the poor man's unnoticed passing are reversed in a dream: the rich man suffers while the poor man is rewarded. The Christian Gospels (Luke 16:19-31) present the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, in which the rich man is tormented after death, while Lazarus is comforted, emphasizing moral conduct over social status. Islam also teaches that wealth and status hold little value compared to a person's deeds, and that ultimate justice will be served in the afterlife regardless of earthly privilege. The paper will analyze the materials from a comparative perspective and discuss the universality of this literary motif, illustrating that wealth and status are insignificant compared to moral judgment and ultimate justice in the wider Egypt-Palestine cultural area, where all Abrahamic religions met with each other and other layers of culture.
THE ANCIENT CATECHUMENATE AND SOCIAL EQUALITY: THE WAY OF CHRISTIAN INITIATION IN THE FACE OF DIVISIONS IN THE ANCIENT WORLD

Grzywa A. (Speaker)

Ignatianum University in Krakow ~ Cracow ~ Poland
This study addresses the issue of social equality in the ancient catechumenate, presenting it as a way of Christian initiation in which the significance of social divisions characteristic of the ancient world was deliberately limited. In the preparation for baptism, people from diverse backgrounds took part: both free persons and slaves, the rich and the poor. Shared formative practices - including listening to the Word during catecheses, participation in liturgical celebrations, and engagement in ascetical and penitential practices helped to level these differences and to foster attitudes of equality and fraternity. The aim of the study is to show how the structure, practice, and theology of the ancient catechumenate responded to the social inequalities of the ancient world and to what extent they contributed to overcoming them within Christian communities. The analysis takes into account both the historical and social context as well as source testimonies drawn primarily from the writings of the Church Fathers. An analysis of the texts, especially selected catecheses from the fourth century, demonstrates that the catechumenate not only prepared candidates for the reception of the sacrament of Christian initiation, but also shaped the social dimension of Christianity, in which members of the community perceived themselves as equal before God, regardless of social status. In turn, an analysis of catechumenal liturgical rites, such as the enrollment of names, exorcisms, and scrutinies, reveals their universalistic character. These celebrations were conducted in the same manner for all catechumens, symbolically emphasizing the equality of their situation before God and the community.
THE STATUS OF NON-ARAB MUSLIMS IN THE EARLY CENTURIES OF ISLAM: CULTURAL DETERMINANTS OF (IN)EQUALITY

Prochwicz-Studnicka B. (Speaker)

Ignatianum University in Cracow ~ Cracow ~ Poland
With the expansion of the Arabs beyond the Arabian Peninsula in the seventh and early eighth centuries, increasing numbers of conquered populations began to embrace Islam. This process posed a significant social challenge: how to integrate converts into the structures of Arab society, which continued to operate according to a tribal logic of affiliation. The solution was the institution of walāʾ, or clientage, through which new Muslims obtained formal membership in the community by establishing a bond with an Arab tribe. This paper examines the status of non-Arab Muslims in the first centuries of Islam, with particular emphasis on the Umayyad period. On the one hand, converts came to play important roles in the administration, the army, and, over time, also in the political and intellectual life of the caliphate. On the other hand, they did not enjoy the full range of privileges reserved for Arabs in the emerging legal rules, and their social standing remained lower. The aim of the paper is to demonstrate that the observable inequalities did not stem from the developing Islamic doctrine, but rather from Arab cultural traditions - specifically, the persistence of pre-Islamic social structures and the mechanisms of clientage.
PARTNERSHIP IN LOVE AS THE BASIS FOR QUESTIONING PATRIARCHAL FAMILY RULE (IN THE BIBLICAL SONG OF SONGS)

Jasnos R. (Speaker)

University Ignatianum in Cracow ~ Cracow ~ Poland
The Song of Songs is a biblical book that arouses much controversy, questions and emotions. Interpreted allegorically for centuries, its basic meaning, consistent with the intention of the ancient writers, has finally been appreciated. Today, it is read by theologians as a praise of the love of the bride and groom. The Song of Songs is a book that has numerous intertextual references to other biblical books. It enters into dialogue with other texts. It clearly refers to the Garden of Eden from the Book of Genesis and to the image of the undisturbed love of the first human couple, Adam and Eve - before the rebellion, disobedience to God, and all its consequences (barrenness, suffering, a man's control over a woman). In the relationship between the lovers in the Song of Songs, there is no male domination over women. What is more, there is an additional thread of independence in the love relationship. The aim of this paper is to answer the question about the social and family context of praise and celebration of love. Much of the content indicates or suggests marriage, especially the scene of the wedding procession (Song of Songs 3:6-11). The role of the mother is important and prominent. On the other hand, the absence of the father is surprising, as is the opposition to the brothers who want to exercise control. An analysis of the composition of the work reveals that its introduction and conclusion, which form the editorial framework, contain analogous motifs. They construct the theme of the bride and groom's opposition to patriarchal principles and patriarchal family authority. The basis for this protest and opposition is the couple's committed personal love.
A WOMAN FINDING HER PLACE (GENESIS 12:10-20; 16:1-16; PROVERBS 31:10-31)

Mrozek A. (Speaker)

Jagiellonian University in Cracow - retired ~ Cracow ~ Poland
Defining the place of women in Hebrew society in the ancient Near East is a rather complex issue. In a patriarchal society, women usually took second place to men. The BH also contains texts that show women's struggles for their role and place in the family and society. Two cases of women will be analysed. The first concerns Sarah, the wife of the patriarch Abraham. She is an example of a woman who was initially subordinate and dependent (Gen 12:10-20) but who later took on the role of decision-maker (Gen 16:1-16). The second case concerns the model woman from the "poem about the virtuous woman" (Prov 31:10-31). This example seems to undermine the principles of patriarchy in the family. The text of Proverbs 31 is part of the tradition of heroic poetry. The praise of the woman who manages the household is modelled on a hymn in honour of a warrior. "Strength and dignity are her clothing" (Prov. 31:25a). At the same time, researchers see this extraordinary woman as a symbol of wisdom. These two deliberately chosen cases show specific stages of ongoing socio-cultural processes of change. The analysis is based on source evidence and takes into account both the historical and social context. The universality of the literary motif of a woman searching for or finding her place is discussed. It also considers how the Abrahamic religion encountered other cultural layers and other
SOCIOECONOMIC INEQUALITIES AND COMMUNAL CHARITY IN CLASSICAL JEWISH THOUGHT

Gardner G. (Speaker)

University of British Columbia ~ Vancouver, BC ~ Canada
Support for the poor is a prominent element of Jewish thought. While we begin to see discussions of poverty relief in the Hebrew Bible and Hellenistic Jewish literature, it is in early classical rabbinic literature (second-third century CE) that it begins to take fuller form, as charity becomes a preeminent expression of righteousness. In this paper, I will explore how the early rabbis conceptualized socioeconomic inequalities and how they developed organized, institutionalized means to ameliorate these differences. Of particular note is the rabbinic conceptualization of the "charity fund," which aims to restore impoverished individuals to their former social and economic standing. The early rabbis were influenced by a confluence of factors, including ideas from the Hebrew Bible and Greco-Roman civic culture, and their teachings would prove to be foundational for subsequent Jewish ethics and law.

Panel description: The panel aims to investigate non-dualism as a cross-cutting paradigm between physics and metaphysics capable of fostering fruitful dialogue across disciplines and religions that are often perceived as distant. By rejecting ontological separations such as subject versus object or consciousness versus matter, non-dualism opens an immanent field of potentiality understood as a continuous process of self-manifestation. Phenomenal reality is not conceived as something external to this field but as its expression or modality, a dynamic play of internal self-differentiation unfolding through ongoing processes of contraction, folding, or topological inversion. A first goal of the panel is to examine the presence of non-dual intuitions within metaphysical traditions that are usually considered far apart, and to open a dialogue among frameworks that view reality as a unitary process from which multiplicity emerges through immanent differentiation. Examples may range across religious traditions, highlighting how non-dual intuitions ground practices of comparison and interreligious dialogue, question hierarchical models of reality, and contribute to ethical and social frameworks aimed at reducing symbolic, epistemic, and social inequalities. A second aim is to explore how these metaphysical systems may offer fruitful interpretive models for contemporary sciences. The panel encourages contributions that identify robust resonances with quantum mechanics, morphogenesis and autopoiesis, enactive approaches to cognition, theories of self-consciousness, semiotics, set theory, mereology, sound engineering, or biochemistry. Researchers working in religious, philosophical, linguistic, and scientific fields are invited to propose avenues of dialogue showing how a non-dual perspective can provide an interdisciplinary epistemological ground, a unified lens capable of illuminating complex phenomena by allowing multiplicity to be understood through unity.

Papers:

DĀRĀ SHIKŌH AND THE USE OF NON-DUALISM IN RELIGIOUS COMPARISON

Colagrossi E. (Speaker)

University of Genoa ~ Genoa ~ Italy
Dārā Shikōh (1615-1659), Mughal prince and intellectual figure of early modern South Asia, occupies a distinctive position in the history of religious comparison for his sustained engagement with both Islamic and Indic traditions. Non-dualism in Dārā Shikōh's work functions as a metaphysical horizon that shapes the practice of religious comparison. the paper shows that, while oriented toward the affirmation of an underlying unity, Dārā Shikōh's comparative project does not simply collapse Sufi and Vedāntic teachings into a single doctrinal identity. Non-dualism instead provides the implicit framework within which heterogeneous religious vocabularies can be placed in relation without being reduced or declared incommensurable. Within this framework, translation and conceptual alignment emerge as epistemically consequential practices rather than neutral or merely technical operations, shaping the conditions under which comparison becomes possible while preserving doctrinal difference. By shifting attention from the doctrinal content of non-dualism to its operative role in comparative reasoning, the argument advances a reassessment of Dārā Shikōh's project beyond syncretic or irenic interpretations. It suggests that the significance of non-dualism in Dārā Shikōh's work lies in how it informs the concrete procedures of comparison rather than in the formulation of a general theological synthesis.
INTUITION, IMAGINATION, AND THE (IR)FIGURABILITY OF UNITY: MAIMONIDES BETWEEN PHYSICS, LANGUAGE, AND METAPHYSICS

Dal Bo F. (Speaker)

University of Modena and Reggio Emilia ~ Modena ~ Italy
This paper explores the dialogue between physics, language, and metaphysics through a non-dual lens, starting from Maimonides' Guide of the Perplexed as a historically situated intervention rather than a timeless metaphysical system. I argue that the Guide operates at the threshold between the "Work of Creation" (physics) and the "Work of the Chariot" (metaphysics), aiming to discipline intuition and imagination without collapsing epistemic distinctions. Central to this reading is the Judeo-Arabic admonition later translated by Samuel Ibn Tibbon, whose Hebrew rendering—shown by Sadik (2013) to alter the original intent—shifted a warning against unfounded intuition into a prohibition of speculative interpretation. This shift shaped medieval and modern attitudes toward imagination and intuition, including Kabbalistic traditions and even Gershom Scholem's figurative accounts of the divine, as discussed by Chayes (2022). Reconsidering intuition as a disciplined dimension of the imaginary rather than an epistemic shortcut, the paper reopens the question of divine figurability. I suggest that Maimonides anticipates a non-dual epistemology in which unity is expressed through controlled differentiation, linguistic restraint, and conceptual mediation. This framework resonates with contemporary physics and mathematics—especially non-Euclidean and multidimensional geometries—where visualization both enables and constrains knowledge, and figures function as immanent expressions rather than representational copies. Finally, the paper engages Derrida's deconstruction of the "origin of geometry," proposing that metaphysics, like geometry, unfolds through historically mediated practices of inscription and imagination. In this sense, the Guide offers a premodern model for integrating scientific and humanistic inquiry without reducing unity to multiplicity, or vice versa.
THE LOST DUALITY IN THE TRANSITION FROM THE MICROSCOPIC TO THE MACROSCOPIC

Dell'Anna R. (Speaker)

Bruno Kessler Foundation ~ Trento ~ Italy
In microscopic physics, there is evidence of dualities, such as the reversibility of time and wave-particle dualism, revealing a physical reality very different from the one we experience at the macroscopic scale of our bodies and brains. When moving from the microscopic to the macroscopic scale, these dualities become inaccessible, with consequences that shape our lives and cognitive processes. The inability to experience these manifestations of dualism also intersects with the role of classical and quantum probability, another form of dualisms, and its epistemological implications, highlighted by scientific figures such as Boltzmann, with the notion of entropy and the emergence of irreversibility, and Einstein, with his critique of quantum probability and his rigorous realism. The transition from microscopic to macroscopic reality therefore represents not merely a change of scale. The levels of the world do not appear to us as portions of a single, uniformly accessible reality: the microscopic is not a magnified version of the macroscopic, but a domain of natural reality in which reversibility and superpositions prevail, properties that, at our scale, dominated by decoherence and entropy, are unexperienceable and counterintuitive. Categories, and probably cognitive schemas as well, such as causality, the flow of time, and determinism in turn appear to be specific to our scale of experience. This suggests that the loss of duality in the transition from microscopic to macroscopic will not be overcome by future technologies; it is instead a sign of a profound epistemological phenomenon: what we perceive as determined and univocal is an emergent construct, specific to our way of living and to the stratified nature of natural reality at our scale.
THE VIRTUE OF DISCIPLINE. OPPENHEIMER AND THE BHAGAVADGĪTĀ IN THE 1932 LETTER

Fanelli F. (Speaker)

Roma Tre University ~ Roma ~ Italy
The association between J. Robert Oppenheimer and the famous verse from the Bhagavadgītā - "Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds" recalled in a 1965 interview - has become, in the collective imagery, the emblem of the scientist's tragic consciousness in the post-atomic era. Oppenheimer's knowledge of the Indian text, however, dates back more than thirty years earlier and is rooted in his years at the University of California, Berkeley. This paper examines a letter addressed to his brother Frank on 12 March 1932, in which Oppenheimer reflects on the "virtue of discipline" as a metaphysical question, drawing on a wide range of intellectual traditions - from the Bhagavadgītā to Stoicism, from Thomas Aquinas to Spinoza - to explore the relationship between knowledge and professional vocation. A textual and historical analysis of this document, including the identification and examination of key terms, shows that already at this stage Oppenheimer had developed a conception of scientific practice grounded in a literary and religious universe, in which the Bhagavadgītā stands out as a privileged point of reference. In the latter part of the letter, Oppenheimer develops concepts drawn from the Gītā - such as discipline, detachment, and peace - suggesting that the text played a significant role in his personal reflection and in his understanding of scientific vocation. The textual analysis of the letter, together with the reconstruction of its historical and biographical context, makes it possible to identify the 1932 reference to the Bhagavadgītā as a significant precedent for the well-known quotation of 1965, one of the earliest traces of an intellectual interest that would persist and resurface in the later stages of the scientist's public life.
FROM UNITY TO DIFFERENTIATION: BHARTṚHARI ON LANGUAGE AND REALITY

Ferrante M. (Speaker)

Austrian Academy of Sciences ~ Wien ~ Austria
This paper examines Bhartṛhari's philosophy of language as a distinctive form of non dualism. For Bhartṛhari, reality is grounded in an immanent, self manifesting principle (śabdabrahman), from which subjects, objects, and linguistic units arise as differentiations within a single process. These are not separate ontological domains but functional articulations of one continuous field. Drawing on key passages from the Vākyapadīya, the paper reconstructs how linguistic cognition, sentence meaning, and self recognition illustrate a dynamic logic of articulation: unity expresses itself through internal self differentiation, contraction, and re articulation. Phenomenal reality is thus not external to this ground but its unfolding modality. Rather than a static monism, Bhartṛhari offers a processual non dualism, in which unity and multiplicity are mutually dependent expressions of an immanent power of manifestation. This framework, I suggest, provides a compelling lens for interpreting how metaphysical coherence and experiential plurality belong to the same ongoing movement of language and consciousness.
UNFOLDING MANIFESTATION: NON-DUALIST ARCHITECTURES FOR AN EPISTEMIC MEETING GROUND

Giampieri G. (Speaker)

University of Bologna ~ Bologna ~ Italy
From the structuralist gaze in physics, scientific knowledge shifts away from the description of substances toward the articulation of relational constraints, with objectivity grounded in structural invariance and symmetry rather than appealing to the positivity of entities. Within this framework, physical magnitudes can be understood as invariant structures that persist beyond material realizations and ensure the coherence of their transformations and conservation. Structures and substances thus become distinct: the latter belong to manifestation, while structures pertain to a prior epistemological level. This ground-breaking disciplinary gesture in physics mirrors what semiotics has already witnessed in its inquiry into sense-making, showing that behind material signs lies a dimension of immanent, differential, and non-ontic structures that allows continuity of meaning and intersemiotic transformations despite substantive heterogeneity. However, if invariants and symmetries frame physics as structural conservation unfolding continuous material transformations, a prior topological epistemic space emerges as a condition for articulation, capable of holding together conservation and identity through change. In order to inquire into the location and function of such a dimension, the paper investigates how non-dualist metaphysics can suggest a sound epistemological architecture. Kashmir Shaivism, in particular, establishes an integrated hierarchy of immanent unfolding, interpreting the apparent dualism operating at the phenomenal level (Māyā) as the result of a tiered and pervasive syntax of non-dualistic dimensions (Śuddhādhvā) providing a compelling and comparable perspective on the dynamics and conditions of manifestation in physics and semiotics.
QUANTUM PHYSICS AND THE STUDY OF RELIGION: EPISTEMOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVES FROM THE QUANTUM TURN

Giorda M.C. (Speaker)

Roma Tre University ~ Roma ~ Italy
This paper investigates the intersections between quantum physics and the academic study of religion, arguing that the central challenge does not concern the compatibility of their respective fields, but rather the possibility of an epistemologically grounded interaction between their objects of inquiry. The analysis is guided by a methodological question: can a interdisciplinary field be established between quantum physics and the science of religion, capable of articulating methods and theoretical categories in a non-reductionist way? The paper offers a critical overview of the main phases of the so-called Quantum Turn, highlighting an asymmetry between the longstanding interest of physicists in religious traditions and metaphysical questions, and the comparatively limited engagement of religious studies with contemporary models of physics. Particular attention is devoted to the philosophical problems of quantum physics, with a focus on Werner Heisenberg's reflections on indeterminacy, the observer-object relationship, and the epistemological limits of scientific knowledge. The paper is situated within the methodological concerns of Religious Studies, arguing that they raise crucial questions about categories such as belief, experience, knowledge, and interpretation. From this perspective, quantum physics becomes a heuristic resource for reflecting on how the study of religion constructs its objects of analysis and negotiates the boundaries between scientific explanation and religious meaning.
NON-DUALITY IN A QUANTUM SOCIETY: THE TRIALS, TRIBULATIONS AND JOY OF ATTEMPTED TRANSDISCIPLINARITY BETWEEN SCIENCES AND THE HUMANITIES

Hall-Wilton R. (Speaker) , Hejazi S. (Speaker)

Bruno Kessler Foundation ~ Trento ~ Italy
The naive goal of transdisciplinarity is to attempt a non-duality - unity even - between disciplines. Since a couple of years, the authors (an anthropologist & a particle physicist) have attempted to create such a non-duality, under the umbrella of "The Quantum Society" with a loose collaboration of interested parties to look at the impacts of the hard sciences on society, and the impacts of the humanities and societal considerations on scientific enquiry. The non-duality of the disciplines can be epitomised thus: The two cultures observation of CP Snow has divided the sciences from the humanities for at least the past 75 years; the advances of knowledge into ever more specialised silos have been a great success. At the same time, something is lost by this ever more radical compartmentalisation of the disciplines. In a recent issue of Humanitas, the authors postulated that taking concepts and different frames of thinking from science applied to research questions and critique in the Humanities may lead to novel interdisciplinary insights. More recently at Nanoinnovation 2025, and a subsequent paper on "what have the humanities ever done for us?", which explored how new thinking inspired from the humanities might lead to useful insights and investigations by taking different perspectives and centralities in approaching research problems in nanotechnology. This raises the possibility of original new thinking: taking methodologies and concepts from the humanities to look at scientific problems; in particular complex ones. In this paper, the non-duality is looked at from both "sides". Firstly, it is asked what quantum physics can offer the humanities. Secondly, the reverse is posited: what have the humanities ever done for the hard sciences? Lastly, the trials, tribulations and joy of attempting a transdisciplinary approach is explored - is unity feasible or a utopia? It is hoped that this gives a glimpse into what a "Quantum Society" might be.
THE LOST DUALITY FROM THE INDIVIDUAL TO THE COLLECTIVE. A CASE STUDY IN THE RELIGIOUS DOMAIN

Hejazi S. (Speaker)

Bruno Kessler Foundation ~ Trento ~ Italy
When applied to the religious domain, the distinction between individual (micro) and collective (macro) scales helps clarify the persistent tension between personal spirituality and organized religion. Collective displays of religion—rituals, institutions, public symbols, and codified doctrines—are often interpreted as direct expressions of individual belief. This interpretation, however, overlooks a fundamental shift in scale. As with other complex phenomena, the passage from individual spirituality to organized religion entails a change in descriptive regime rather than a simple aggregation of personal convictions. At the individual level, religious belief is shaped by inward experience, doubt, interpretation, and the superposition of beliefs. These dimensions are largely opaque to external observation and resist standardization. At the collective level, religion becomes visible primarily through regularities and patterns: shared practices and rituals, institutional continuity, and public displays or performances. What is rendered observable is not belief itself, but stabilized patterns of human gathering that can persist independently of the inner states of participants, and therefore repeat and endure across space and time. In contemporary European societies, where a progressive withdrawal of religion from the public sphere can be observed, the study and measurement of religion become statistically less accessible to social scientists. The apparent decline or transformation of religion does not, however, necessarily reflect a disappearance of belief. Rather, it indicates a shift in the scale at which belief is enacted and made visible—or measurable. The gap between individual spirituality and organized religion should therefore not be framed as a crisis of belief tout court, but understood in relation to the changing conditions of observability that shape this social phenomenon.
FALSITAS FALSITATUM, ET OMNIA FALSITAS... PRESUPPOSITIONS FOR THE DEMONSTRATION OF NON-DUALITY (ADVAITA) IN ŚAṄKARA'S VEDĀNTA

Pellegrini G. (Speaker)

University of Turin ~ Torino ~ Italy
At the very opening of his magnum opus, the Advaitasiddhi ("Demonstration of Non-Duality"), a towering figure of non-dualist thought such as Madhusūdana Sarasvatī (sixteenth century) clearly wrote: "Since the demonstration of non-duality presupposes the demonstration of the falsity of duality, one must first establish that duality is false." This concise statement encapsulates the very rationale that led Śaṅkara Bhagavatpāda (eighth century) to preface his commentary on the Brahmasūtra with a brief but foundational premise, upon which the entire axiological edifice of Advaita Vedānta rests: the so-called Adhyāsabhāṣya ("Commentary on Superimposition"). Indeed, as an interpreter of the Upaniṣads, Śaṅkara regards non-duality (advaita) as given and immediate (sākṣāt), and, insofar as it constitutes ultimate reality (paramārtha), as incontrovertible (abādhya) and self-established (svataḥsiddha). Nevertheless, the everyday experience of human beings constantly confronts multiplicity and difference, which are intrinsic to conventional reality (vyavahāra). In order to account for this discrepancy, Śaṅkara introduces and defends the notion of adhyāsa, an epistemic superimposition that gives rise to a persistent confusion between the conscious subject (viṣayin) and the inert object (viṣaya), and consequently between their respective properties (dharma). The Adhyāsabhāṣya identifies and analyses this fundamental error, treating it as the very root of the afflictions that beset the embodied human being (śarīrin). Without dissolving this superimposition and the manifold representations that proceed from it, the recognition of non- duality remains impossible.
A NON DUALISTIC, NON ANTHROPOCENTRIC, AND NON TRANSCENDENTALIST METAPHYSICS. SPINOZA'S COSMOLOGY.

Vinciguerra L. (Speaker)

University of Bologna ~ Bologna ~ Italy
In the context of the philosophical issues addressed by this panel, we would like to propose a reflection on a thinker considered an anomaly in Western philosophical tradition. Spinoza is known not only for his rejection of divine transcendence and Cartesian dualism, but also for denouncing as illusory the idea of freedom based on a sovereign will to self-determination. Moreover, Spinozism has often been compared to certain features of Eastern Taoist thought. This makes it all the more interesting to return to consider the peculiar cosmology that Spinoza could only sketch out in his texts. Spinoza's conception of a nature devoid of substances forces him to develop a non-anthropocentric view of the universe, in which not only its centre is nowhere and its circumference everywhere, but where every individual, from the simplest to the most complex, is only a mode of the unique substance immanent in all its manifestations. Starting from some considerations of his physics, we would like to show the great interest that Spinoza's thought can still represent today, especially in light of the latest hypotheses in the field of cosmology.
IS NEUROSCIENCE MAYA?: WHAT REMAINS OF THE STUDY OF THE BRAIN, MIND AND CONSCIOUSNESS IN THE LIGHT OF ADVAITA VEDANTA?

Haikonen J. (Speaker)

University of Tartu ~ Tartu ~ Estonia
"Brahman alone is real, the world is an illusion, and the individual soul is none other than Brahman" - such are the cataclysmic words of Adi Shankaracharya. It would seem at first that the whole world, including the sciences, are cast off as mithya: apparent, false, illusory. In Shankara's view, the world is only a superimposed mirage upon Brahman, the one solitary reality, consciousness alone without attributes. On the other hand, we have materialistic reductionism - neuroscience views the richness of the mental world as material processes of the brain. Though the exact mechanisms remain elusive, promissory materialism continues to insist that given sufficient time, mind and consciousness will be shown to be neural. How could we reconcile these opposing views? Through the Advaitic lens, I take to the analysis of the Seer and the Seen (Drig-Drishya-Viveka) and draw out the distinction between the apparent world and the conscious witness. This clarifies the often-confused relations between the mind, brain and consciousness - mind and brain are objects(Seen), while consciousness is the sole subject(Seer). Neuroscience retains its role in studying the mind and brain. What is contested is its role in explaining consciousness. Next, I deconstruct the subtle duality between the witness and the apparent world: all that was initially cast out as merely Seen, is nothing but the Seer, nothing but consciousness. Taking inspiration from Sri Ramakrishna's Integral Advaita, I argue that what remains is not only pure consciousness without attributes (Nirguna Brahman) but also consciousness with attributes (Saguna Brahman). The radical conclusion drawn is that the sciences are actually studying consciousness itself, in its Saguna aspect. All of them unveil the infinite forms consciousness appears as. Lastly, I consider the implications of this view on research ethics and directions. Far from mere poesy, the Advaitic view calls us to reconsider what is fruitful and ethical research
FROM THE HIERARCHY OF PURUṢA TO THE AUTONOMY OF THE SELF: NON-DUAL PARADIGMS BETWEEN SOCIAL STRATIFICATION AND THE DECONSTRUCTION OF AHAṂKĀRA

Mencarelli R. (Speaker)

Historian of Religions (Independent Researcher) ~ Civita Castellana ~ Italy
This paper investigates non-dualism as a transformative paradigm capable of dismantling the symbolic and epistemic inequalities rooted in hierarchical models of reality. The analysis deconstructs the epistemic inequality between the Western Cartesian paradigm and the perspective of the Upaniṣads. The Cartesian cogito ergo sum - the root of the individualistic, consumerist, and capitalist model - generates a fragmented subject whose certainty of existence resides solely in thought. This is contrasted with the deconstruction of ahaṃkāra (the «I-sense») as presented in the Upaniṣads. The tension between socio-cosmic structure and individual liberation finds its synthesis in India within the varṇāśramadharma system. On one hand, the ontology of the Puruṣasūkta (RV, X, 90) establishes the social stratification of the gṛhastha (householder), where inequality is a necessary phase in the «play» (līlā) of life. On the other, the intuition of the Nāsadīyasūkta (RV, X, 129) offers the saṃnyāsin (renunciant) a path to transcend fixed roles, rejoining the pure ontological reality of being. Through an analysis of the three states of the Māṇḍūkya and the kaivalya of Sāṃkhya-Yoga, this paper demonstrates how the realization of the ātman-brahman identity provides an immanent ground for liberation. This autonomy of the self dismantles models of ontological separation and epistemic power asymmetries. By postulating the transcendence of the mind (manas), these traditions dissolve the barrier between internal and external, allowing the «drop to return to the ocean». While dualistic monotheism may foster polarized visions and exclusionary truths, non-dualism emerges as a symbol of equality within differentiation.
NON-DUALITY IN DUALISTIC JAINA PHILOSOPHY: KUNDAKUNDA'S NIŚCAYANAYA (DEFINITIVE STANDPOINT) AS A NON-DUAL FIELD OF SELF-MANIFESTATION

Jain A. (Speaker)

PhD researcher at SOAS, University of London ~ London ~ United Kingdom
While Jaina philosophy is classically categorised as ontologically dualistic, maintaining a strict ontological separation between soul (jīva) and non-soul (ajiva), the works of Kundakunda (1st-6th Century CE?) employ the definitive standpoint (niścayanaya) and offer a non-dual epistemological framework. This paper argues that Kundakunda's metaphysics constructs a non-dual field of self-manifestation (knowledge = knower) in the Jaina philosophy, where the soul is viewed not as a static substance, but as a dynamic, self-referential process of consciousness. The main texts consulted for this paper are the Samayapāhūḍā, Paṃcatthikāya, Pavayaṇasāra, and Ṇiyamasāra attributed to Kundakunda. Briefly outlining the Jaina view of reality as explained in Kundakunda's philosophy, I first examine how Kundakunda describes the soul-matter relationship as a non-interacting co-presence, in the sense that they occupy the same spatial field but never merge their essences (svabhāva). This allows the soul to remain a non-dual "pure consciousness" even while enclosed within a material embodiment of karma and body. The paper further explores the structure of the soul through mereology and set theory. I investigate the paradox of the soul possessing infinite attributes (guṇa) while remaining an indivisible, non-dual whole (eka). According to Kundakunda, to an individual, the general understanding of the soul requires it to be addressed by some attributes, such as the one who has knowledge is a knower; however, during the process of self-manifestation, the multiplicity of attributes collapses, and there remains no distinction between the knowledge, the knower, and the known. This framework of Kundakunda suggests that the Jaina philosophy, concerning the nature of the soul and in the process of self-realisation, is fundamentally non-dualistic.

Panel description: Sacred performances in the Modern Age (1300-1600) show how religious practices contributed, in different and often ambivalent ways, to the construction and management of social (in)equalities. In Europe, sacred performances served both as a tool for mitigating marginalisation and as a device for producing and consolidating social roles and codes. The panel aims to analyze, but is not restricted to, confraternities' sacred representations; civic and liturgical spectacles promoted by urban and ecclesiastical authorities; penitential processions and charitable rituals; missionary and conversional performances; school and college theatre, notably within Jesuit educational contexts; courtly and dynastic religious ceremonies; and devotional practices structured around images, relics, and ritualised bodily performances. In these different settings, the performative dimension of the sacred operated as a means of mobilising communities, shaping identities and behaviors, fostering new theological approaches, and articulating social roles and hierarchies. In this context, the performative dimension of the sacred played a dual role: on the one hand, it promoted practices of assistance, inclusion and cooperation, contributing to the mitigation of social marginalisation; on the other hand, it reproduced and consolidated hierarchical structures, social codes and prescriptive roles through the mediation of religious and educational institutions. The panel aims to bring together diverse perspectives and methodologies to understand how the performances of the sacred contributed, in complex and often ambivalent ways, to the removal and reproduction of (in)equalities in early modern Europe. The panel welcomes contributions from Christian studies, History, Literature, Philosophy, Art History, and Performing Arts.

Papers:

PERFORMING PAPAL UNIVERSALISM: GIULIANO DATI'S CANTARI DELL'INDIA

Lauria V. (Speaker)

Sapienza University of Rome ~ Rome ~ Italy
This paper analyses two eight-line stanza poems, the "Primo cantare dell'India" and the "Secondo cantare dell'India", composed by Giuliano Dati (1445-1524), a Florentine canon close to Alexander VI. Dati was active mainly in Rome and published his poems within the context of the "Gonfalone" and "Divino Amore" confraternities. The texts aim to achieve a performativity of the sacred that combines devotional, pedagogical, and political purposes, presenting the pontiff as "dominus orbis" and guarantor of religious and social order. The paper will focus particularly on the similarities between Dati's poems and the model of devotional theatricality promoted in the Florentine Dominican milieu by Antonio Pierozzi (1389-1459), in which the performativity of the sacred is configured as a pastoral tool for shaping consciences and regulating social behaviour. Through highly visual narrative strategies, doctrinal simplification geared towards collective enjoyment, and the pedagogical use of emotion, Dati's poems participate in a religious culture that aims to engage a broad audience. From this perspective, the "Primo" and "Secondo cantare dell'India" emerge as hybrid forms of sacred performance that promote processes of religious inclusion and access to theological knowledge while contributing to the reproduction of social roles, behavioural models and asymmetries of authority. This analysis will demonstrate how the textual, oral and visual performativity of these texts fits into the ambivalent dynamics of the mitigation and production of inequalities that characterized religious practices in late medieval and early modern Europe.
THE PERFORMATIVE CONSTRUCTION OF SANCTITY: IGNATIUS OF LOYOLA IN THE SPANISH JESUIT THEATRE (SIXTEENTH-SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES)

Brandodoro N. (Speaker)

Sapienza University of Rome ~ Rome ~ Italy
This paper examines the representation of Ignatius of Loyola's life and conversion in the Spanish Jesuit theatre of the Siglo de Oro. Drawing on the corpus of dramas in which Ignatius appears as the protagonist, compiled by Ricardo Enguix (2019), the analysis pursues a twofold aim. On the one hand, it undertakes a structural and thematic comparison between the dramatic texts and their principal hagiographical sources—most notably the biographies of Ignatius produced by Pedro de Ribadeneira and Gian Pietro Maffei. This comparison highlights the divergences, continuities, and adaptations introduced by playwrights in their theatrical reworking of hagiographical material. On the other hand, a deeper understanding of the staging of Ignatius' life and conversion makes it possible to explore the models of hierarchical obedience and discipline, as well as the reconfiguration of clerical masculinities and the forms of theological renewal promoted by the Society of Jesus during the phase of its full institutional consolidation under the generalate of Claudio Acquaviva (1581-1615). From this perspective, Jesuit theatre emerges as a sophisticated pedagogical device, in which the performative construction of sanctity functions as a tool for educating the colleges' "student-actors", while simultaneously producing and deconstructing social and institutional hierarchies.
PERFORMING THE SACRED THROUGH GEOMETRY: GUARINO GUARINI AND THE DIDACTIC REPRESENTATION OF DIVINE ORDER IN SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY RELIGIOUS CULTURE

De Camillis D. (Speaker)

Università degli studi di Modena e Reggio Emilia ~ Modena ~ Italy
The work of Guarino Guarini (1624-1683), theatine priest, mathematician, and architect, is examined as a case study of how the sacred was performed through practices of representation. Indeed, it is possible to focus on geometry and mathematical writings to argue that geometrical representation functioned as a performative practice within early modern Catholic culture, shaping religious perception, behavior, and hierarchy through the disciplined formation of vision. Moreover, the paper aims to highlight that treating geometry is not a simple, neutral technical language, but rather a purely symbolic expression of divine rationality. The paper situates Guarini's representational methods within the educational and institutional contexts of the Theatine order and its engagement with courts, colleges, and ecclesiastical spaces. Geometrical procedures such as projection, section, and spatial construction are analyzed as repeatable, rule-bound acts through which divine order was rendered intelligible and internalized by trained subjects. In this sense, representation itself operated as a form of sacred performance: a cognitive and pedagogical enactment that mobilized communities of learners, established epistemic hierarchies, and regulated access to legitimate ways of "seeing" the divine. By framing Guarini's geometrical practice as a performative mediation between theology, education, and social order, the paper contributes to broader discussions on how the sacred was enacted in early modern Europe beyond liturgical or devotional settings, stressing the role of scientific and educational institutions in both mitigating and reproducing forms of social and epistemic inequality.
PERFORMING THE SACRED: MATRIMONY OF ENSLAVED PEOPLE IN LISBON

Nunes J. (Speaker)

Polytechnic of Viseu; CHSC - University of Coimbra ~ Viseu ~ Portugal
This paper discusses matrimony of enslaved people in Lisbon in the early modern age. Portuguese bishops created norms related to matrimony specifically directed at enslaved people. The main objective was to promote catholic marriage within this group. The existence of these norms should be understood in the context of four crucial factors: first, the Tridentine emphasis of doctrinal instruction and sacramental practice as a form of salvation. Second, the increasing number of enslaved people in the kingdom. Third, the cultural, linguistic, and social barriers inherent to this group of people. Four, the enslaved were commonly prevented from marrying by their masters, since they were considered mere objects of work. Notwithstanding the obstacles created by masters, among which physical abuse was frequently included, many enslaved people married, nonetheless. The formal regulation of unions was essential for the church. However, for enslaved people in Lisbon it was not just a question of religious practice connected to spiritual benefits. It was related to family ties and kinship. Moreover, marriage was a form of resistance against masters.
CIVIC AUTHORITY'S AND RELIGIOUS MINORITY'S REPRESENTATION IN EARLY MODERN ROME

Emiliani V. (Speaker)

Scuola nazionale del patrimonio e delle attività culturali ~ Rome ~ Italy
In Early Modern Rome, public ceremonies were distinguished by a complex interplay of gestures, symbols, and meanings of religious and political connotation. While historiography has extensively analyzed ceremonies as an instrument of representation and legitimation of papal power, the active participation of secular representatives and religious minorities remains a crucial, yet understudied, aspect. This paper examines the performative strategies adopted by the Popolo Romano, the municipal representative of the Roman nobility, during public ceremonies that were performed within the urban space, comparing it with the role of the Jews. Indeed, the civic authority was not a mere spectator of public festivals, but it utilized ceremonies to negotiate its political status and reinforce its identity. Recent studies proved how the municipal élite participate in influencing the transformation of the city's scape through ephemeral architectures, such as triumphal arches, which served as physical manifestations of its loyalty to the pope, but also as an instrument that consolidate its identity. Thus, the paper aims to analyze the role of the Popolo Romano during the ceremonies made for the papal succession (such as the possesso), and other important religious event such as canonizations and sacred celebration. In this analysis a special importance will be given to the active role of the municipality in the construction of the ceremony. Furthermore, the role of the Popolo Romano will be compared with that of the Jewish community. For example, during the Possesso, the Jewish presence was codified into a ritual of subjection, yet it remained an essential component and actor of the ceremony.
PERFORMING NORMS AND NEGOTIATION IN ROMAN FEMALE CONSERVATORIES (18TH-19TH CENTURIES)

Pietroletti E. (Speaker)

Roma Tre University ~ Rome ~ Italy
This paper explores the complexity of the relationship between institutional self-representation and lived experience within early modern female conservatories. Drawing on Ida Fazio's call to examine how norms are translated into the lived experience of historical actors, it adopts a microhistorical approach that highlights both institutional dynamics and the strategies through which residents could negotiate, adapt, or contest rules. The analysis relies on a cross-reading of sources from several Roman conservatories between the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries such as the Conservatorio delle pericolanti, Conservatorio di Santa Caterina della Rosa ai Funari and Conservatorio di San Pasquale Bajlon. Documents expressing the institutions' self-representation - statutes, regulations, and historical narratives construct an image of moral discipline, order, and social control. Yet a more complex reality emerges from expulsion decrees, petitions by the resident girls, complaints about strict rules, and records of internal conflicts involving what Erving Goffman called the "world of the staff." Although the residents' voices are often embedded within institutional discourse, they become visible when reading "against the grain" of the sources, most of which are preserved at the Accademia dei Lincei in Rome. This approach avoids treating the institutional narrative as the only possible story, revealing moments of solidarity and collective awareness, as residents acted together to negotiate work, privileges, and institutional decisions. The paper argues that the daily life of these conservatories functioned as a performative space, where religious discipline, institutional authority, and female agency intersected. In this context, the enactment of rules and rituals both reinforced social hierarchies and created opportunities for negotiation, cooperation, and resistance, illustrating the complex and ambivalent ways in which sacred norms were lived and performed.

Panel description: Since the turn of the millennium, migration to Europe has significantly increased. Individuals have come to this continent often fleeing conflict and political instability as well as seeking improved social and economic wellbeing. For migrants, engagement in religious practice is a key resource in the post-migration period. Religious activities and infrastructure offer practical and spiritual support, as well as being a source of social belonging for newly arriving migrants. These factors often help individuals navigate structural inequalities, for example, facilitating access to social services. Yet, they may also reproduce inequality, for example when religious authority is used to regulate behaviour within these groups and/or to foster prejudice and discrimination against other groups. At the same time, these dynamics unfold within European contexts shaped by varied secularisation trajectories, which influence how religious practices are perceived and negotiated in everyday life. This panel examines encounters between migrant religious communities and other religious and secular groups within these shifting contexts. Such encounters often involve material transformations: repurposed religious buildings, adapted ritual forms and new uses of public space, which might extend to the digital realm. They also generate embodied and sensorial experiences and modes of expression that engage sight, sound, touch, taste and smell. Analysing these encounters from perspectives that are intersectional/multidimensional can help gain significant insights into how changes in gender-, age-, and social-status-related dynamics happen in religious communities who experience migration processes. We invite papers exploring how, through these entanglements, religious traditions are reinterpreted and transformed and, in turn, contribute to shaping contemporary and future European societies.

Papers:

ENTANGLEMENTS OF INTIMACY AND VISIBILITY: MUSLIM DATING APP ADS IN BERLIN'S PUBLIC SPHERE

Hasan F. (Speaker)

Hebrew University ~ Jerusalem ~ Israel
This paper examines how advertisements of Muslim-specific dating apps in Berlin's public transportation system reshape religious intimacy, public visibility, and forms of belonging in contemporary European urban life. Drawing on visual documentation of campaigns displayed across the Berlin S‑Bahn, discussions with Muslim interlocutors, and analyses of online debates surrounding these advertisements, the study investigates how Islamic-branded dating apps interact with the material and sensorial dimensions of public space to shape conversations about Islamic norms and Muslim everyday life. Featuring multilingual slogans such as "Verliebt. Verlobt. Nikah" and playful reframings of stereotypes associated with Islamic extremism, these ads challenge dominant representations of Muslim identity while navigating Berlin's secular aesthetics and normative expectations. The analysis considers how these visual interventions influence understandings of Muslim presence in the city, particularly in relation to gendered expectations, generational shifts, and the negotiation of public visibility. While the ads articulate new possibilities for forming relationships, they also raise questions about the adaptation, contestation, and commodification of religious norms within digital platforms. By examining how both Muslim audiences and non-Muslim Berlin residents interpret these messages, the paper situates the advertisements within broader debates on migration, secularism, and the transformation of intimate life in Europe. It argues that these campaigns constitute multilayered entanglements - between migrant religious communities and secular publics, between generational expectations and digital agency, and between established religious norms and emerging modes of romantic self-expression. In tracing these dynamics, the paper demonstrates how Muslim dating app advertisements actively participate in reshaping the sensorial and symbolic landscape of European cities.
SPACE-SHARING AND RELIGIOUS TRANSFORMATION: ENCOUNTERS BETWEEN THE ST. PAUL'S CONGREGATION AND THE ST. GEORGIS ERITREAN ORTHODOX CHURCH IN BERLIN, GERMANY

Trotta S. (Speaker)

Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin ~ Berlin ~ Germany
This paper explores the ways in which space-sharing practices between two religious communities in Berlin contribute to social and religious transformation. It draws on a case study developed for my doctoral thesis with the St. Georgis Eritrean Orthodox church, founded by refugees in 2015, and the St. Paul's protestant congregation in Zehlendorf, a peripheral neighbourhood The two communities share a religious building in Berlin and have developed a collaboration since 2018. The analysis engages theories of religious place-making and place-sharing (Knott 2005; Zarnow 2018), highlighting the relational dimension of these processes, building on Massey's idea of "space" (1994). Firstly, it illustrates how the encounter and collaboration between the two congregations can help challenge social inequalities or, as Fauser (2024) calls them, internal borders, which hinder migrants' ability to respond to their needs and to access services. In doing so, it emphasises the Eritrean community's proactive role in navigating a challenging environment with limited resources and access to local networks. Secondly, the paper contributes to discussions on (in)visibility and (in)audibility of migrant religious communities (e.g. Garbin 2013; Saint Blancat & Cancellieri 2014; Beekmans 2019), especially as related to their encounters with other religious communities as well as with the wider local society. It specifically highlights the agency of religious communities in these contexts, with an emphasis on postcolonial approaches (Rosello 2001; Nahnfeldt & Rønsdal 2021). Moreover, it thinks through the entanglements between these aspects and the concept of "encounters" (Tweed 1997; Heimbrock and Wyller 2019). Thus, this study provides significant inputs to debates that address the materiality of spatial and religious transformation in multireligious contexts.
RELIGIOUS FLUIDITY AS A CATALYST FOR INTEGRATION: A PHILOSOPHICAL MODEL FOR THE NEWCOMERS IN EUROPE

Colak M. (Speaker)

Eurotürk ~ Aachen ~ Germany
This paper addresses the challenge of socio-religious integration within the framework of "Religions and (in)equalities" by proposing a shift from "identity-based" to "heritage-based" religious understanding. Drawing from the author's dual background in Islamic theology and electronic engineering, and informed by his board membership at the Euroturk association in Aachen, the study explores how the perception of religion as "private property" of a specific group creates social silos and inequality. Building on Kantian cosmopolitanism, I argue that the digital age—characterized by the dissolution of geographical and linguistic borders—requires a "universal moral law" that transcends local dogmas. Integration is often hindered when religion is used as a defensive identity marker. However, by redefining religious traditions as a "Common Human Heritage," we can facilitate a more fluid integration process. This model does not suggest the abandonment of faith but its evolution into a broader awareness. Using the author's experience of participating in a Free Evangelical Church as a "friend" while maintaining his Muslim roots, the paper demonstrates a practical application of Spinozian rationalism. If we accept that we are all finite parts of an infinite whole, the "other" ceases to be a threat to our identity and becomes a fellow participant in a shared metaphysical journey. This approach offers a roadmap for European societies to achieve true equality by neutralizing historical religious frictions through a scientifically-informed, philosophical perspective. Author Bio: Born in 1979 in Türkiye; educated in Theology (Imam Hatip) and Electrical Engineering (M.Sc., Hacettepe Univ.). Research experience at TÜBİTAK, EU JRC (Italy), and ASELSAN. Currently a Certification Engineer in Aachen and Board Member of Euroturk. Focuses on the synthesis of science, philosophy, and religion.
SUFFERING, THE CROSS, AND GOD'S SOLIDARITY: MOLTMANN'S CRUCIFIED GOD AND UNDOCUMENTED MIGRANTS

Okafor A. (Speaker)

KU Leuven ~ Leuven ~ Belgium
This paper examines the intersection of Christology, human suffering, and undocumented migration through the theological framework of Jürgen Moltmann's The Crucified God. Moltmann argues that the crucifixion is not merely an event in the life of Jesus but belongs to the very being of God. On the cross, God participates in the God-forsakenness experienced by Christ and thereby enters into solidarity with the concrete historical realities of human abandonment, horror, guilt, loss, and suffering. Within this framework, the cross becomes not only the site of God's identification with human pain but also, paradoxically, the place where humanity encounters God. Building on this insight, the paper asks whether a Christology shaped by the Crucified God can offer a coherent theological response to the lived experiences of undocumented migrants marked by vulnerability, exclusion, and precarity. More specifically, how might Moltmann's Christology meaningfully speak to the migrants' experience of forsakenness, their longing for social transformation, and their hope for redemption in God? To address these questions, the paper offers a Christological rereading of the historical journeys and suffering of contemporary migrants in light of the passion of Jesus Christ. It concludes by articulating a relational Christology that reveals God as one who suffers in solidarity with the forsaken while also promising social transformation amid historical injustice, thus grounding hope in the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
PENTECOSTAL YOUTH BETWEEN RELIGION AND THE SECULAR: NEGOTIATING RELIGIOUS IDENTITY AND DIFFERENCE IN STATE SCHOOLS IN BERLIN, GERMANY

Boche C. (Speaker)

Humboldt University Berlin ~ Berlin ~ Germany
The research project explores possibilities for addressing the Pentecostal belief system in education by examining the perspectives and identities of Pentecostal adolescents with a migration background from Ghana. Drawing on a decolonial, post-migrant, and transnational approach, the study investigates young people's complex strategies of self-positioning, empowerment, and identity negotiation. Central to the project is the question of how adolescents with a migration background negotiate potential tensions arising from multiple forms of belonging across different social spheres, including state schools as places of secular knowledge production. Against this background, the planned study analyses how Pentecostal adolescents situate their religious identities and difference. The aim is to uncover structures of marginalisation and to bring visibility to the complex processes of identity formation. Berlin constitutes a particularly compelling research site due to its pronounced plurality, where religious diversity and secularism intersect and, at times, stand in tension with one another. Accordingly, the study seeks to address the following research question: "How do Pentecostal youth experience and negotiate issues of religious identity and difference within state schools as spaces of situated knowledge?" The study utilises individual as well as small group interviews to identify young people's experiences of the presumed tension between a predominantly secular knowledge production in schools, their religious upbringing and their religious community. On a second level, this research tries to identify established (power) structures through the narrated experiences of the Pentecostal youth and how these affect their religious positioning within society. This research project contributes to the development of a pluralistic educational framework that recognises religious and cultural minority positions shaped by transnational biographies.
WHO BELONGS? MIGRATION, RELIGION, AND MUSLIM POSITIONINGS IN MULTIRELIGIOUS SPACES

Bärtlein S. (Speaker)

Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin ~ Berlin ~ Germany
This presentation examines how German discourses on "migration" and "religion" shape the positioning of Muslim actors within multireligious spaces in Berlin. Multireligious spaces, including open-house events at religious institutions, interreligious initiatives, and organized multireligious encounters, are often framed as fostering social cohesion, particularly in the context of rising right-wing populism in Germany. However, they are not detached from state-driven discourses on migration, religion, and the governance of minorities. Within these contexts, Muslims are frequently constructed simultaneously as religious minorities and as "migrants," often in subtle or implicit ways. As a result, Muslims in multireligious spaces must continually navigate and respond to the discursive frameworks in which they are situated. The presentation investigates how migration discourses shape Muslim participation in multireligious spaces, and how Muslim actors engage with, negotiate, and resist dominant political narratives within a presumed secular German context. In doing so, it draws on the concept of "affective citizenship" (Ayata 2019; Fortier 2010), which highlights how states may symbolically exclude even legal citizens from full emotional and affective belonging, thereby casting them as "incompatible" with the nation state. Building on this framework, the presentation explores how Muslim individuals respond to narratives that mirror broader migration discourses in Germany, situating these dynamics within Europe's "Muslim question" (Norton 2013). It further examines how the entanglement of race and religion (Topolski 2018) contributes to the "migrantization" of Muslims in multireligious spaces. At the same time, it demonstrates how such processes of "migrantization" and othering are actively challenged by Muslim actors. Empirically, the analysis draws on selected examples from two years of ethnographic observations conducted in multireligious spaces in Berlin.
FROM ANANDPUR SAHIB TO ITALY: THE CELEBRATION OF HOLA MAHALLA IN THE SIKH DIASPORA

Musconi T. (Speaker)

Università di Padova ~ Padova ~ Italy
Hola Mahalla is a major Sikh festival, introduced by the tenth Guru Gobind Singh in the 18th century, as a celebration of the Sikh martial spirit and as an occasion for the adherents to demonstrate their military skills in simulated battles and games. The festival is still held every March in the city of Anandpur Sahib, in Punjab (India). Hola Mahalla features the participation of the Nihangs, one of the traditional Sikh groups, who embody the Sikh warrior spirit and philosophy. While contemporary Sikhism largely adheres to the Singh Sabha perspective, established in the 19th century to promote a uniform understanding of the tradition, Nihangs remain at the periphery of the broader Sikh community and are characterized by their own distinctive beliefs and practices. Italy is home to the sixth-largest Sikh diasporic community in the world, and the second-largest in Europe. Here, too, gurdwaras primarily adhere to the Singh Sabha affiliation. But recently, thanks to the initiative of a group of young Nihangs, Hola Mahalla has begun to be celebrated in Italy as well, which is quite rare in the context of the European diaspora. Through an ethnographic study of the celebration of Hola Mahalla in the Italian context, it will be examined the role of younger generations of Sikhs in the establishment of the Nihang presence in Italy. It will be also demonstrated how, through the introduction of this festival, practices differing from mainstream and "orthodox" ones are becoming part of the Italian Sikh landscape, which until recently was characterized by marked homogeneity in terms of beliefs and practices. The aim of this paper is to highlight, by using the festival as a case study, the emerging diversity and pluralism within the Italian Sikh community, which is instead typically described and portrayed as a single, homogeneous group.

Panel description: This AMC session explores the legal and symbolic tensions at the heart of the Italian "positive secularism" (laicità), as analyzed in the monograph Secularism and Freedom of Religion in Italy. The volume provides a multi-layered investigation into how religious symbols shape the contemporary legal landscape, focusing primarily on their presence within public institutions and the resulting challenges to state neutrality. The book's core inquiry aligns with the EuARe 2026 theme, "Religions and (In)equalities", by scrutinizing how the institutional management of religious symbols - from the historical "special significance" of Rome for Catholicism to the display of the crucifix in schools, courtrooms, and polling stations - impacts citizens' equality. Furthermore, the session will address the legal status of religious symbols worn by believers - such as the hijab, the Sikh kirpan, or the niqab - as well as other systemic "symbolic" issues. These include long-standing controversies over Muslim places of worship and the denial of cooperation agreements (intese) to non-confessional groups, such as the UAAR. A significant portion of the discussion is devoted to the comparative dimension, contrasting the Italian "passive symbol" doctrine with French laïcité and other Western judicial approaches, including the seminal Lautsi saga. Led by the session Chair, the Author and two legal scholars will examine how these legal stalemates and the "living law" generate new forms of (in)equality, highlighting the ongoing absence of a general law on religious freedom and the wide margin of state discretion in managing religious diversity in the twenty-first century.

Papers:

Panel description: Agency can be considered as the ability of individuals or social groups to act intentionally, make choices and influence social reality, even within structural constraints such as norms, institutions, roles and inequalities. Women's agency in Late Antiquity has become a key analytical category for reassessing social, religious, and cultural dynamics between the Hellenistic Jewish world and Early Christianity. Rather than equating agency with overt power or modern notions of autonomy, recent scholarship emphasizes context-sensitive forms of action, negotiation, and influence exercised by women. Drawing on different types of sources, the panel is divided into two sections. The first one covers examples of women's agency and gendered authority in the Septuagint, and their reception in Late Antiquity. The second one focuses on women's social and religious agency in Early Christianity, through the examination of diverse ritual, literary, social and historical settings. In both cases theoretical approaches to women agency and case studies - ranging from biblical women and prophetic figures to prophetesses, ascetics, patrons, and anonymous actors - demonstrate how women could participate meaningfully in religious life, shape communal identities, and transmit traditions.

Papers:

PROSTITUTES, PROPHETS, PRIESTS: SOME CASES OF WOMAN POWER IN AND OUTSIDE THE EARLY CHURCH

Lupieri E. (Speaker)

Loyola University Chicago ~ Chicago ~ United States of America
This contribution analyzes two different early testimonies on the power of women in the first centuries in Early Christianity. In the first section, the author discusses how Luke applies priestly attributes to the prophetess Anna to extol her, while Revelation connects priestly attributes with female prostitution and pseudo-prophecy to describe the degeneration of John's adversaries, Jewish (or Jewish-Christian) authorities. In the second section he studies the case of women concelebrating Gnostic eucharist and prophesying in the church of Marcus "the Magician", as told by Irenaeus. He finally hypothesizes that the fear of women priests in orthodox confessions is connected with ritualized sexual activities that, according to the heresiologists, were constitutive of the religious life of minority groups.
WHEN VIRTUE BECOMES A NAME. ΘΕΟΣΈΒΕΙΑ AND WOMEN'S AGENCY IN GREEK INSCRIPITIONS

De Doncker E. (Speaker)

Université Catholique de Louvain ~ Louvain ~ Belgium
This paper examines how the Greek terms θεοσέβεια and θεοσεβής functioned from an early period as valuative categories for female religious agency in the eastern Mediterranean. While often treated as abstract markers of "piety," these terms emerge in literary, epigraphic, and Christian contexts as publicly legible, socially consequential descriptors, applied to women as actors, patrons, commemorators, and moral exemplars. Moreover, while the θεοσεβ- word group is well attested in broader Greek literature as denoting practical, visible reverence toward the divine, its onomastic use has received comparatively little attention. By focusing on Theosebeia as a female personal name, this study explores how piety moves from an ethical quality to an embodied social identity; a marker of female (religious) agency. Building on the semantic development of the θεοσεβ- word group in Greek literature and Jewish-Greek texts, the paper turns to inscriptions from Late Antiquity in which women are explicitly named and praised through this vocabulary. Funerary and dedicatory inscriptions present women not only as recipients of remembrance but as agents of commemoration and devotion, whose θεοσέβεια is materially inscribed and socially acknowledged (e.g. ICG 241; ICG 507; ICG 1576). The recurrence of Theosebeia as a female name, alongside the adjectival attribution θεοσεβής, shows how piety itself could be embodied, named, and gendered without being confined to domestic or silent roles. Read alongside 1 Timothy 2:10, where women who "profess θεοσέβεια" are expected to demonstrate it through visible deeds, these inscriptions illuminate a shared moral grammar in which female religiosity is performative, public, and evaluative. Rather than signaling marginality or submission, θεοσέβεια and θεοσεβής articulate a mode of religious authority, allowing women to claim visibility and agency within their communities.
BEYOND THE AVENTINE FEMALE AGENCY AND RELIGIOUS EMPOWERMENT OF JEROME'S FEMALE CORRESPONDENTS

Marolla G. (Speaker)

Pegaso University ~ Naples ~ Italy
Jerome's circle of female addressees extends all over the empire: aside from the 'Aventine circle', his letters are sent to women living in Gaul, Spain, Africa and Constantinople. This paper will offer an overview of such a network and of the literacy of Jerome's female interlocutors, which, as he explicitly says in his preface to his Commentary on Zephaniah, he prefers to men in discussing religious life and exegesis. Being empowered by an unprecedented independence, Jerome's female correspondents travel unchaperoned to the Holy Land, personally oversee their finances, and spend their families' fortunes on the creation of "strongholds of asceticism" to the discomfort of the Roman senatorial élite, as is evident when leafing through contemporary legislation. Further, this paper will also discuss Ep. 46 as an example of a first-hand witness to the female agency of Jerome's closest associates. This letter is the only text penned by women transmitted in the collection, at least if one trusts the paratext, which reads, with minor variants in the manuscript tradition: Paulae et Eustochiae exhortatoria ad Marcellam de locis sanctis. Despite its heading attributing the letter to Paula and Eustochium and the potential interest this text may have attracted, the letter was given little to no attention by scholarship until recently, having been repeatedly deemed to have been written by Jerome, in the guise of the two women.
A MOSAIC PORTRAIT OF JUDITH FROM THE VETUS LATINA FRAGMENTS

Bigoni L. (Speaker)

University of Fribourg ~ Fribourg ~ Switzerland
This paper presents an analysis of the characterisation of Judith in the Latin translations of the Greek book. It considers semantic shifts and vocabulary variations between the fragments of the Vetus Latina (published by Pierre-Maurice Bogaert and Jean-Claude Haelewyck in fascicles between 2019 and 2020 with Herder) and the Vulgate. The analysis aims at highlighting the role of the indirect tradition of early Christian exegetes in Latin, whose intertextual references to the book can shed light on the state of the Biblical textual tradition at their time. The work on the lexical choices of these exegetes as testimonies represented by the apparatus of the Vetus Latina Herder edition gives a vivid portrait of the Jewish heroine, signalling her long-lasting and multifaceted legacy in Christian writers between the IV and the V century.
MARY OF CASSOBOLA: A WOMAN IN TWO EPISTLES OF THE PS.IGNATIAN CORPUS. AN EXEMPLARY CASE OF "GENDERED" AUTHORITATIVE MODEL.

Carnevale L. (Speaker)

University Aldo Moro of Bari ~ Bari ~ Italy
I focus on two letters belonging to the "longer recension" of the corpus attributed to the bishop Ignatius of Antioch: the first letter is (allegedly) authored by a woman, Mary of Cassobola, and the second one is the response attributed to Ignatius. They were probably crafted by a fourth-century forger, who had the intention of portraying Mary as a woman with authority, inasmuch she strongly advices Ignatius to acknowledge two young men, respectively as a bishop and a priest of two cities near Antioch. My paper will show how these letters convey an extraordinary "gendered" authoritative model, set in the 2nd century, for women dwelling in Asia Minor two centuries later: women's agency can include the management of issues related with ecclesiastical hierarchy, and a high degree of with Biblical knowledge.
BETWEEN FAMILY AND STATE: BIBLICAL AND PATRISTIC MOTIFS IN JEAN BODIN

Dainese D. (Speaker)

Alma Mater Studiorum University of Bologna ~ Bologna ~ Italy
This paper focuses on certain historical-exegetical features of Jean Bodin's treatment of the family. In particular, it seeks to provide a contextualization of Bodin's patriarchal proposal, highlighting the centrality of specific historical issues related to a legal doctrine of marital consent.
THE PROPHETIC SELF/INDIVIDUALITY IN LIGHT OF (AND BEYOND) MAX WEBER. THE JEWISH PROPHETIC SELF AND JOHN'S POLEMICAL REPRESENTATION OF FEMALE PROPHECY IN REV 2:20-24

Arcari L. (Speaker)

University of Naples Federico II ~ Naples ~ Italy
This paper seeks to explore the concept of the prophetic-visionary self and/or individuality by focusing on the figure of "Jezebel" in Revelation 2:20—24. In the message addressed to the community of Thyatira, Jezebel appears as a female agent whose prophetic teaching and authority are sharply contested and condemned. Although she is presented polemically, her presence functions as a crucial site for negotiating the legitimacy, boundaries, and social control of prophetic charisma within early Christian urban groups. In Weberian terms, the conflict staged in this passage can be read as a struggle over prophetic authority and its ethical and collective regulation, rather than as the expression of a stabilized institutional order. This framework raises critical questions about the construction of prophetic individuality in a negative or antagonistic key: How is the prophetic self imagined when it is delegitimized rather than authorized? Which cultural, symbolic, and gendered models inform the representation of Jezebel's prophetic agency? To what extent does this figure reflect broader Jewish and early Christian debates about prophetic (or visionary) authority and the management of "charismatic" power? These questions extend beyond Weber's original typology, inviting a reassessment of how ancient religious cultures articulated forms of selfhood and individuality through polemical figures and conflictual discourses. Recent developments in anthropological theory and the historical study of the self provide the methodological tools to analyze Jezebel not merely as a heresiological stereotype, but as a meaningful construct through which early Christian groups negotiated the limits of prophecy, embodiment, and religious authority.
AID, HELPER, OR HANDMAIDEN? TRACING THE SHIFTING ROLE OF EVE FROM GENESIS TO THE CHURCH FATHERS

Bellantuono A. (Speaker)

Catholic University of Lille ~ Lille ~ France
In Genesis 2:18-25, the first female figure of the Old Testament, Eve, is introduced. This pericope has been extensively interpreted from an exegetical perspective and, in some cases, has been invoked to justify the subordination of women to men. My research begins with an analysis of Genesis 2:20, where Eve is described as βοηθὸς ὅμοιος αὐτῷ " helper corresponding to him" or "an aid equal to him." This expression carries no inherent moral hierarchy; rather, it is employed elsewhere in the Bible to elevate the status of women (e.g., Tobit 8:6; Sirach 25:24). By contrast, in the New Testament and among the Church Fathers, the term βοηθός when applied to women acquires often a pejorative nuance. The female figure is construed as "a helper" subordinated to man. The aim of this article is to trace the socio-cultural factors that contributed to this semantic shift, beginning with a comparison of conceptions of womanhood in Semitic and Greek cultures.
WOMEN AND EDUCATION IN EARLY CHRISTIANITY. A METHODOLOGICAL AND THEORETICAL APPROACH

Caruso F. (Speaker)

Loyola University Chicago ~ Chicago ~ United States of America
The main purpose of this paper is to provide a theoretical analysis of the relationship between women and education in the early centuries of Christianity, using a methodological approach that takes into account the complexity of the sources and historical contexts. The aim is to explore the conceptual categories through which this relationship has been interpreted by modern historiography, highlighting its limits and potential. Drawing on interdisciplinary perspectives that combine gender studies, cultural history, and educational theory, this work reflects on the concepts of education, learning/teaching, and transmission of knowledge in late antique Christian contexts. The paper focuses on the ways in which knowledge was passed on and the role played by women within Christian communities, particularly in the third and fourth centuries, both as recipients and as active agents in educational processes. It also examines the intricate and sometimes complex relationships between educational models inherited from the Greco-Roman world and the formative and educational practices promoted by Christianity. In this way, the paper aims to offer useful theoretical tools for a more accurate reconstruction of the role of women in the intellectual formation of early Christianity.

Panel description: Death is a universal event, yet the ways in which it is imagined, interpreted, and governed are profoundly shaped by religious worldviews that define its meaning, its normative force, and its social visibility. Far from being a purely biological threshold, mortality becomes a conceptual and ritual field in which distinctions of status, gender, economic condition, and cultural belonging are negotiated, reinforced, or contested. This panel invites contributions examining how religious traditions construct the phenomenology, ethics, and management of death—from philosophical and theological conceptions of mortality and human dignity, to ritual economies of commemoration, to normative frameworks regulating access to care, mourning, or recognition. Particular attention is given to the ways in which these constructions participate in the production, legitimation, or mitigation of social and legal inequalities. Possible directions include: religious models of dignified dying and the moral value of the deceased; symbolic systems that encode or challenge hierarchical distinctions; ritual, ethical, or legal regimes that differentially allocate care, memory, or ritual privilege; and the interplay between religious conceptions of death and public policies concerning end-of-life issues or the management of the dead. Bringing together perspectives from the history of religions, philosophy, anthropology, sociology, and related fields, the panel aims to critically interrogate the complex nexus between mortality, religious normativity, and the dynamics of (in)equality.

Papers:

THE VALLE DE LOS CAÍDOS: BETWEEN POLITICAL MYTHOLOGY AND THE CULT OF THE DEAD

Piro P. (Speaker)

Centro Studi Don Calabria ~ Termini Imerese ~ Italy
The Valle de los Caídos represents one of the most emblematic and controversial sites of historical memory in contemporary Spain. Conceived by the Francoist regime as a monument to national reconciliation, its genesis and symbolic function instead reveal a complex apparatus of mythological power construction. This contribution examines the Valle de los Caídos as a political-sacral space, in which architecture, ritual practice, and historical narrative converge to consolidate the figure of Francisco Franco as Savior of the Fatherland, endowed with a transcendent and providential legitimacy. Through the monumentalization of victory and the sacralization of the fallen, the complex reinforces an idea of the nation grounded in a mythical imaginary, within which the Civil War is reinterpreted as a foundational and redemptive event. The cult of the dead, embedded in a religious and militaristic framework, thus becomes a central instrument for establishing a symbolic continuity between sacrifice, wartime violence, and national identity. The Valle de los Caídos therefore emerges as a site in which political myth and funerary cult intertwine, producing a selective and profoundly ideologized memory of the past.
KIERKEGAARD AND THE WANDERING JEW: DEATH AS FULFILMENT AND THE CURSE OF NOT BEING ABLE TO DIE

Tavilla I. (Speaker)

C.E.R.I.S.K. Central European Research Institute Søren Kierkegaard ~ Ljubljana ~ Slovenia
This paper aims at approaching the topic of mortality in Kierkegaard with special regard to the figure of the Wandering Jew. The legendary character of Ahasverus is detectable across the lines of the Unhappiest one (Enten Eller, I 1843) and at the background of Sickness unto death (1849) in addition to a series of scattered references. According to the folkloric tale, accessed by Kierkegaard mainly via Ludwig Aurbacher's Ein Volksbüchlein (1835), Ahasverus prevented Jesus to have a rest during his rise to the Cross. Therefore, he was cursed and condemned not to be able to die. Kierkegaard's understanding of the Wandering Jew casts light on his concept of despair (Fortvivelse) as «sickness unto death», that is eternally living the death of the spirit, which by its definition cannot die. Starting from Kierkegaard's meditation on the Jerusalem Shoemaker, the paper will end up by distinguishing three different nuances of mortality into Kierkegaard's thought: natural death as finitude, spiritual death as despair, and Christian death as fulfilment. Since natural death is a "non-possibility" for human beings, these latter are called in the end to choice between despair and faith.
AGENCY, ASCETIC DEATH, AND LEGAL MISRECOGNITION: NOTES ABOUT THE (INAPPROPRIATE) COMPARISON BETWEEN SALLEKHANĀ AND SATĪ

Scianguetta R. (Speaker)

SISR ~ Montesano sulla Marcellana (SA) ~ Italy
In 2015, the Rajasthan High Court declared the Jain practice of sallekhanā (the ritual fasting to death, also known as santhara) illegal, classifying it as suicide and explicitly comparing it to satī. Introduced through a Public Interest Litigation, this analogy has significantly shaped subsequent legal, bioethical, and political debates. This paper argues that the comparison between sallekhanā and satī is conceptually misleading, as it obscures fundamental differences in agency, coercion, and structural inequality. The first part of the article examines the doctrinal foundations, ritual prerequisites, and soteriological aims of sallekhanā on the basis of Jain normative texts and secondary scholarship, emphasizing the clear distinction drawn within Jain thought between sallekhanā and suicide, as well as the focus on individual responsibility, consent, and spiritual discipline. The second part turns to satī, situating it historically as a gendered practice embedded in social, familial, and religious hierarchies that constrained women's agency and reproduced asymmetrical relations of power. By placing these two practices in dialogue, the paper shows how religious rituals may function in radically different ways: either as paths grounded in individual spiritual accountability or as mechanisms reinforcing inequalities along gender and social lines. Whereas sallekhanā is conceived as a voluntary, self-directed practice oriented toward one's own liberation from saṃsāra, satī operates within a framework in which religious merit is redistributed beyond the individual body, often at the expense of female autonomy. Therefore, the paper reflects on the risks that arise when culturally distinct religious practices are subsumed under universal legal and moral categories. Such flattening may distort the practices in question and contribute to new legal and social inequalities between religious and cultural groups.
LOVE IS STRONGER THAN DEATH

Danca W. (Speaker)

University of Bucharest/Romanian Academy ~ Bucharest ~ Romania
Starting from the experiences and works of certain Christian mystics of the modern period, for example, Saint Teresa of Ávila, Saint John of the Cross, and Saint Ignatius of Loyola, and drawing on the works of some contemporary mystics and theologians, such as Adrienne von Speyr, Hans Urs von Balthasar, Joseph Ratzinger, Angelo Scola, and others, I will attempt to show that there is a difference between a good death, in a certain sense desired, and a death that inspires fear. Two Romanian thinkers lead me along this path of reflection. First of all, the poet Mihai Eminescu, who said: "I never thought I would learn how to die." Then Mircea Eliade, according to whom modern man does not know how to die, or has not learned how to die; therefore, when faced with death, he experiences profound anguish. Thus, in order to die well, one must be prepared. Returning to the Christian mystics, who based their lives on total love for their neighbor and for God, they help us to understand that love is stronger than the death of the human person and that physical death is only a barrier separating the human being from the vision of a God who comes to meet him. Therefore, for the person who is dying within the horizon of love/agape, death is not the end of everything, but a new beginning marked by the experience of seeing face to face a friendly Person who comes toward him in the dimension of a real Presence.
EVALUATING THE ROLE OF GRACE IN KIERKEGAARD'S "WORK OF LOVE IN RECOLLECTING THE ONE WHO IS DEAD"

Lafayette A. (Speaker)

University of Toronto ~ Toronto ~ Canada
In the penultimate chapter of Works of Love, Kierkegaard claims that we can gauge whether someone loves properly based on how they "recollect the one who is dead" (WL, 347). Kierkegaard scholars have interpreted this peculiar association between recollecting the dead and proper love (i.e., neighborly love) by showing how the task of recollecting a dead person—that is, someone who is stripped of their corporeal qualities that facilitate attraction and self-serving relationships—enables us to appreciate the way the ideal of neighborly love is non-preferential and non-reciprocal (Søltoft, 1998; Keeley, 1999; Marino, 2024). In opposition to the prevailing interpretation, I argue that "recollecting the one who is dead" qua neighbour is an insufficient condition for engendering neighbourly love. That is because the abstract concept of "neighbour," which is the proper object of recollection, is heterogeneous with the actual person that we are commanded to love. Recollecting the dead person reveals our ideological commitments to neighborly love while simultaneously emphasizing our inability to love in accordance with those ideals. My argument focuses on the function of "recollecting the one who is dead" in the broader context of Works of Love. I argue that Kierkegaard anticipates his reader will undergo "self-denial" through proper recollection—that is, recognizing they are inherently compromised in their capacity to preserve the abstract concept of neighbour, which is derived through "recollecting the one who is dead," when trying to love an actual person. As we see in Works of Love's final chapter, self-denial is characterized as a precondition for receiving God's sanctifying grace, which assists in loving others properly (WL, 362-363). The sanctifying power of grace explains why confronting our inherent limitations is productive rather than debilitating, as Kierkegaard argues that we are capable of continuously improving our capacity to love others through self-denial.
RESURRECTION AND LEGAL INEQUALITIES: THE DIVERSE ACCOUNTS OF JESUS' APPEARANCES FROM A GENDER PERSPECTIVE

Di Lenardo A. (Speaker)

Ca' Foscari University of Venice, University of Udine, and University of Trieste ~ Venice, Udine, Trieste ~ Italy
This contribution examines the contrasting versions of the appearance of the Risen Christ in the writings incorporated into the New Testament: from the denied presence of Jesus, who does not appear as risen in the oldest manuscripts of the Gospel of Mark, to the Gospel of John, where the Risen One asks Mary Magdalene not to hold on to him. His absence - or his presence - will become palpable only later for Thomas. Loss, however, did not lead the disciples to forget him. On the contrary, faith in the resurrection, understood as the materialization of physical absence through the image of the Risen Christ, became a structural element for reworking Jesus' sayings and deeds. Why, at a certain point, did someone begin to claim that the tomb was empty and to explain that emptiness through the resurrection? Had the disciples stolen the body, as an accusation already attested in Matthew maintained? Why "invent" women as witnesses to such an extraordinary event if a woman was not considered credible even in court on far more plausible matters? Did the emotional impact caused by the loss of Jesus generate a hallucination in a "hysterical" woman, as the pagan Celsus would later describe her? Starting from these questions, the aim is to analyze the conflicting accounts of the appearances of the Risen Christ in order to investigate specifically the role of women - one or two, not present in all versions - in relation to their rights and their credibility as witnesses within a cultural and legal context, such as that of the period, marked by profound gender disparities. Far from assuming that it is possible to present even remotely satisfactory reconstructions on a topic of such magnitude, which deserves the utmost respect, this study nonetheless maintains that historical inquiry cannot retreat in the face of phenomena of faith. For if the resurrection is certainly a matter of faith, faith in the resurrection is also a historical matter.
GRIEVING AGAINST THE GRAIN: SHI'I ASHURA MOURNING AND THE DISENFRANCHISEMENT OF LAMENTATION IN AMERICAN CULTURE

Akhtar I. (Speaker)

Florida International University ~ MIAMI ~ United States of America
In Shi'i Islam, mourning is not a response to loss but a mode of spiritual formation. The annual commemoration of Imam Husayn's martyrdom at Karbala (680 CE) during Muharram—through majalis (mourning assemblies), matam (rhythmic lamentation), and public processions—constitutes what Schubel (1993) identifies as a "root paradigm" through which communal identity and piety are generated, not merely expressed. Weeping for Husayn carries soteriological weight: Ayoub (1978) demonstrates that the faithful's lamentation enables participation in divine grace through the intercession of the martyred Imam. Azadari is thus not historical commemoration but ongoing redemptive practice. This paper examines how Shi'i mourning traditions confront a dominant American cultural framework—shaped by Protestant sensibilities and capitalist productivity—that privatizes grief, pathologizes its prolongation, and demands rapid emotional resolution. Ariès (1981) traces the Western sequestration of death from public life, while Harris (2010) argues that capitalist social structures actively oppress the bereaved by imposing temporal constraints on mourning. Drawing on fieldwork among Shi'i communities in South Florida, I analyze how practitioners navigate between religiously mandated public lamentation and American normative grief frameworks. Extending Doka's (1989) concept of "disenfranchised grief" beyond unrecognized relationships to encompass disenfranchised modes of mourning, I argue that Ashura observances—communal, embodied, cyclical, and deliberately public—are structurally marginalized by a culture that treats grief as a private problem to be resolved rather than a communal practice to be sustained. The paper contributes to emerging conversations on religious mourning and social inequality by demonstrating how American mortality norms produce differential access to ritual mourning for religious minorities whose traditions center lamentation as spiritual discipline.
SCIENTOLOGY AND DEATH AS PASSAGE: DOCTRINE, RITUAL PRACTICES, AND THE CONSTRUCTION OF SPIRITUAL IMMORTALITY

D'Agostino F. (Speaker)

Chiesa Nazionale di Scientology d'Italia ~ Vimodrone-Roma ~ Italy
This paper analyzes the conception of death and immortality in Scientology, with particular attention to the funeral ceremony as a ritual device which forward and transmits the eschatological vision of this religion. Scientology presents itself as a path of individual verification rather than dogmatic adherence, a distinction the movement actively claims and that forms an integral part of its legitimation in the contemporary religious field. Founded by L. Ron Hubbard in the 1950s, it proposes a vision of the human being as a spiritual entity - termed "thetan", from greek letter "theta" for spirit, in its internal terminology - that survives bodily death and continues its existence. It is on this anthropological premise that Scientology's soteriological path is articulated, oriented, according to its doctrine, toward a progressive spiritual liberation achievable already in the present. Building on this doctrinal framework, the paper focuses on the funeral ceremony as a case study: a ritual in which death is reinterpreted not as cessation but as transition, and in which the community celebrates the continuity of the spiritual being beyond biological life. The analysis shows how the ceremony coherently integrates eschatology, anthropology, and communal practice, situating Scientology in a meaningful dialogue with religious traditions on the theme of death and with the broader landscape of contemporary new religious movements. -
ʻLIFE IN DEATH AND LIGHT IN DARKNESSʼ: PRAYERS ON DEATH IN GREGORY OF NAREKʼS PRAYER BOOK

Apresyan A. (Speaker)

Matenadaran, Mashtots Research Institute of Ancient Manuscripts ~ Yerevan ~ Armenia
This paper examines the final prayers of the Prayer Book by the medieval Armenian theologian and monk Gregory of Narek (10th-11th centuries), specifically Prayers 92 (The Semantron), 93 (The Holy Myron), 94 (Sleep in Death), and 95 (Renewed by You with Eternal Life). These concluding chapters present a sustained reflection on death and the believer's transition from earthly to heavenly life. While Gregory's work is widely known for its penitential character, these prayers are distinguished by a pronounced religious-philosophical dimension, revealing how prayer can function as a medium of doctrinal instruction and spiritual preparation for death. The paper offers an analysis of these prayers through three interconnected perspectives—glorification, confession, and supplication—to show how Gregory constructs a theological understanding of death within a liturgical and devotional framework. First, glorification introduces the theme of death through the sound of the bell, interpreted as a call to those who have died in sinful ignorance. Gregory compares its guidance to that of the Sabek tree, whose wood evokes the cross-shaped semantron and symbolizes the salvific power of the Cross. The bell is further described as a ʻbridge of yearning,ʼ enabling the passage of virtuous souls from the earthly realm to the divine. Its sound is also likened to the trumpet of the resurrection that awakens humanity from the sleep of death. Second, confession emphasizes the necessity of acknowledging sin as a prerequisite for atonement. In the concluding section, Gregory moves from torment and despair toward the mystical hope of salvation, expressed through the metaphor of the ʻtwo dumb eyes,ʼ which unite repentance with hope and charity. Finally, supplication represents the culminating act of repentance and the sinner's appeal for divine mercy. By confronting mortality and the suffering associated with death, these final prayers transform anguish into a plea for divine compassion.
"HANDA KA NA BA? (ARE YOU READY?) PREPARING TO JOURNEY TO THE TWILIGHT"

Alcopra A.L. (Speaker)

University of the Philippines- Diliman ~ Quezon City ~ Philippines
Handa ka na ba?—Mamatay? In English, Are you ready?-- to die? This question often resonates, serving as a poignant reminder that a tragic conclusion to a person's life journey is possible and that one must be prepared for the myriad situations life can present. This question also makes people speechless and scared of the thought of dying. It also reveals a need for people and communities for death preparation, not only mental, emotional, and spiritual preparedness but also financial. In the Philippines, most Filipinos have no idea how to be prepared for this tragic stage of life called death. When we hear the word death, it sounds taboo, morbid, and a topic that people do not want to talk about. Cultural values, socioeconomic status, religious perspectives, and personal experiences play a significant role in how individuals prepare for death. Sadly, death sounds like a burden that most of the time passes onto others when it comes to the financial aspect. This study focuses on how Filipinos prepare for their death (or do they?). This study interrogates the following: From a Christian perspective, how Filipinos prepare spiritually to go to a better place in the afterlife, where the soul undergoes individual judgment. Second, how financial planning is a part of a process of accepting your own death, like investigating the literal cost of dying through interviewing some funeral and memorial businesses, and the experiences of families/individuals; knowing the impact of culture and socioeconomic status on how an individual prepares for death and describe how Filipinos traditionally celebrate death in wakes and burials. In this study, the researcher will outline the results of her investigations through ethnographic fieldwork conducted during Undas 2024 at the Forest Lake Memorial Park, using a focused group discussion (FGD) and interviews, and consolidating all perspectives from anthropology, religion (but focused on Christian views), history and other related fields.

Panel description: Over the last two decades, and with growing momentum in the past five years, the Paul within Judaism perspective has become a central paradigm in contemporary Pauline studies. By questioning traditional accounts of Paul's rupture with Judaism, it has profoundly reshaped discussions of law, evil, Gentiles inclusion, messianism, and eschatology. This panel, proposed by the Enoch Seminar, brings together Italian scholars from different disciplinary backgrounds to assess the historical scope, methodological implications, and recent developments of this approach within Italian scholarship. The panel focuses on a series of influential works published from 2020 to the present—such as Le tre vie di salvezza di Paolo l'ebreo, Gli esercizi di Paolo di Tarso, Paolo di Tarso, un ebreo del suo tempo, Riattivare Paolo di Tarso, Paolo di Tarso nel pensiero ebraico, as well as the forthcoming Italian translation of Paul the Pagan's Apostle. These studies have played a significant role in consolidating, refining, and critically interrogating the Paul within Judaism paradigm in Italy. The individual papers address a wide range of topics, including Paul and Jewish apocalyptic traditions, the interpretation of Romans in the context of the Roman Empire, the patristic reception of Paul, Catholic and Reformed theological debates, modern Jewish thought, and Jewish-Christian dialogue. Particular attention is given to issues of continuity, internal pluralism, and cultural negotiation within Second Temple Judaism, as well as to the theological and pedagogical implications of recent historical-critical research. Taken together, the contributions highlight the originality and interdisciplinary character of Italian scholarship and its growing impact on the international debate surrounding Paul's Jewish identity and legacy.

Papers:

PAUL THE JEW: STILL A STRANGER AND AN ENIGMA? THE EMERGENCE AND IMPACT OF THE PAUL-WITHIN-JUDAISM PERSPECTIVE IN ITALIAN SCHOLARSHIP OVER THE LAST FIVE YEARS

Adinolfi F. (Speaker)

Indipendent Scholar ~ Mantova ~ Italy
"Jesus the Jew I know, and I know about Paul the former Jew; but who are you?". Until very recently, this deliberately playful rewriting of Acts 19:15 could have offered a fairly accurate description of the level of knowledge and interest in Italy regarding the scholarly trend known as the "Paul-within-Judaism Perspective". In recent years, however, things have begun to change. Italy has witnessed the publication of a number of important monographs, as well as the organisation of some significant conferences, devoted to the theme of Paul's Jewishness. All this signals a growing interest in the major renewal of Pauline studies brought about by the PWJP over the last thirty years. This paper aims to provide an overview and an initial assessment of the responses elicited by studies on the Jewish Paul, both within Italian scholarship and in non-specialist publications.
IS THERE AN "ENOCHIC JUDAISM"? PAUL, APOCALYPTIC TRADITIONS, AND THE LIMITS OF COMPARTMENTALIZED MODELS

Arcari L. (Speaker)

University of Naples Federico II ~ Naples ~ Italy
This paper addresses the relationship between Paul and so-called Enochic Judaism within the framework of the Paul within Judaism perspective, engaging in particular with the influential model developed by Gabriele Boccaccini. While the category of Enochic Judaism has had the undeniable merit of foregrounding a major Jewish textual corpus and its ideological significance, it has also tended to reinforce a compartmentalized view of Second Temple Judaism, as if Enochic traditions constituted a self-contained and alternative form of Judaism alongside Pharisaic or priestly models. Building on recent scholarship and adopting a culturalist approach, the paper argues instead for integrating the so-called Enochic traditions into a systemic understanding of Jewish religious culture in the Hellenistic-Roman world. This perspective sheds new light on Paul's treatment of Mosaic law, faith in Jesus, and eschatology, highlighting continuities, negotiations, and internal pluralism rather than sharp discontinuities within ancient Judaism.
PAUL AND THEOCRACY WITHIN THE ROMAN EMPIRE. A POSSIBLE NEW READING OF ROMANS 13

Marcone A. (Speaker) , Lorenzini F. (Speaker)

University of Roma Tre ~ Rome ~ Italy
This contribution - organized in two parts - focuses on Romans 13. The overall aim is to look more closely at the 'Jewish Paul' in the broader dimension of the Imperium Romanum. It is expected to highlight the dialogue between the two perspectives that coexist in the figure of the historical Paul: that is, the perspective 'within Judaism' and that 'within the Roman Empire'. The innovative aspect of this proposal lies precisely in the reference to a Paul more settled 'within the Roman Empire', while also insisting on the strong concept of theocracy due to his roots 'within Judaism'. The first part will examine the question of Paul's Roman citizenship and its political and social significance in the imperial context, taking into account his birth and cultural background, at the crossroads between the Jewish and Greek worlds within the Empire. The second part of the presentation will be dedicated to the study of Romans 13, the relationship between divine law and political imperial authority, with a view to supporting a 'Pauline policy' of legitimation for Rome's current rule. This legitimacy, however, derives from a prior and necessary approval, exclusively of a transcendent nature. The projection in this sense is theocratic; it is God's higher government that justifies the Rome's temporary dominant existence. However, this opens up to the universalism of divine law in the Jewish tradition, which then becomes an integral part of the Empire and naturally embraces the Christian message in Paul's communication to the οἰκουμένη. Therefore, this contribution will focus on the meaning of ἐξουσία and the compound expression ἐξουσία εἰ μὴ ὑπὸ θεοῦ, as well as on the specific terminology that emerges from Romans 13 (e.g. v. 7 ἀπόδοτε ; ὀφειλάς ; φόρον), also seeking comparisons in other examples from the New Testament context in which it appears.
PAUL IN THE WITHIN JUDAISM PERSPECTIVE AND JEWISH-CHRISTIAN DIALOGUE

Gargiulo M. (Speaker)

Pontificial Gregorian University ~ Rome ~ Italy
The conciliar declaration Nostra Aetate, in addition to establishing central elements in Jewish-Christian dialogue by affirming the rejection of foundational aspects of Christian anti-Judaism, opened the way to further reflections and documents in which it is possible to discern considerable attention to Scripture and its interpretations. A survey of these materials can also provide contextual insights for rereadings of Paul that relocate him within his Jewish dimension. Nostra Aetate itself already cites Rom 9:4-5; moreover, the document commemorating its 50th anniversary—"For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable" (Rom 11:29): Reflections on Theological Questions Pertaining to Catholic-Jewish Relations, prepared by the Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews of the Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity—makes the Pauline verse a cornerstone of Jewish-Christian relations, reaffirming on that basis the validity of the covenant with Israel. Texts such as the conciliar constitution Dei Verbum also frequently refer to Paul, and the most important document from this perspective, published by the Pontifical Biblical Commission in 2001, The Jewish People and Their Sacred Scriptures in the Christian Bible, devotes ample space to the Apostle and a specific section to him (§§ 79-82). The scholarly rereading of Pauline literature and thought has points of contact with this development and in turn produces significant repercussions for Jewish-Christian dialogue, since it also involves theologically central themes such as the role of the Torah/Law, justification, and salvation. In particular, it tends to show that the salvation envisioned by Paul did not in any way exclude the Jewish path, while at the same time highlighting its difficulty within an apocalyptically derived context in which the world was perceived as being subject to the power of evil.
TEACHING AND PREACHING: INTEGRATING THE PAUL-WITHIN-JUDAISM PARADIGM IN CATHOLIC ITALIAN CONTEXTS

Zygulski P. (Speaker)

Istituto Superiore di Scienze Religiose Metropolitano ~ Foggia ~ Italy
This speech explores ways in which Italian Catholicism can engage more effectively with the emerging paradigm of Paul-within-Judaism. The first part surveys current theological disciplines dealing with Paul, particularly Christology, eschatology, and ecclesiology. It also evaluates how these approaches integrate with recent developments in Pauline studies. While the New Perspective on Paul is generally accepted in Italian theological work, significant gaps remain in the reception of within-Judaism research. These gaps include persistent supersessionist framings, limited familiarity with the apocalyptic and covenantal categories of the Second Temple period, and the predominance of models that presuppose Paul's detachment from Judaism. However, the presentation also highlights several promising developments, such as inclusive christologies and ecclesiologies, and eschatological frameworks that resist Christian triumphalism. Integrating the Paul-within-Judaism paradigm could deepen Catholic reflection on Christ and church identity, the nature of salvation, and the Abrahamic relationship while prompting methodological revisions. The second part considers the practical implications of teaching in Italian schools, as well as preaching and catechesis. These pastoral and educational contexts often rely on outdated narratives about Paul that contrast "law" with "grace" or Judaism with Christianity. The notion that Paul invented Christianity is still common, even among prominent Italian secular intellectuals. The Paul-within-Judaism approach has significant potential to overcome stereotypes, foster interreligious sensitivity, and present a historically grounded and theologically coherent portrait of Paul. The speech outlines pedagogical strategies, anticipates possible resistance, and suggests ways to integrate these insights into ordinary ecclesial life, encouraging a responsible reception.
«QUOMODO POTEST LEGEM TENERE QUI LONGE EST A LEGIS AUCTORE?». LAW AND CIRCUMCISION IN AMBROSE OF MILAN'S EXEGESIS OF ROMANS 2:17-29 AND 3:1-2, IN LIGHT OF THE "PAUL WITHIN JUDAISM PERSPECTIVE"

D'Incà A. (Speaker)

Facoltà Teologica dell'Italia Settentrionale ~ Milano ~ Italy
This paper examines Ambrose of Milan's exegesis of Rm. 2:17-29 and 3:1-2 and argues that it contributed significantly to shaping an "anti-Jewish" image of Paul in Late Antique Western Christianity. Recent scholarship, particularly within the Paul within Judaism perspective, has stressed the importance of investigating the later reception of Paul's letters alongside their Second Temple Jewish context. Ambrose of Milan offers a particularly revealing case study in this respect. His exegetical activity is rooted in the tradition of allegorical biblical hermeneutics, drawing above all on Philo and Origen of Alexandria, and is clearly reflected in his interpretation of the Letter to the Romans. While Paul affirms the continuing validity of circumcision and the Law (Rm. 3:1-2), even as he criticises their merely outward observance (Rm. 2:28-29) and repeated transgression (Rm. 2:21-23), Ambrose reinterprets these passages to argue that the "second people" (i.e., the Christians) has supplanted the "first" in fulfilling the spiritual precepts of the Law (e.g., Epistulae, 64,1-5). Circumcision thus acquires an exclusively spiritual meaning (cf. Rm. 2:29), rather than an external one (e.g., De Abraham, 78; De officiis, 1,50,251; De fide, 5,13). Only the Church can therefore be identified as the "verus Israel", and its members as the true Jews (e.g., De Spiritu Sancto, 3,22,162). The consequences of this reading are far-reaching: circumcision and Law are deemed to have lost their validity with Christ's coming (e.g., Epistulae, 69,19-24), and Israel - held responsible for Christ's death (e.g. Expositio de Psalmo CXVIII, 12,19) - is excluded from the promises made to the patriarchs (e.g., Expositio de Psalmo CXVIII, 2,9). Ambrose's interpretation was probably further shaped by contemporary historical events, notably the affaire of the synagogue of Callinicum (388), contributing to a distorted understanding of Paul's relationship with first-century Judaism.
THE PAUL WITHIN JUDAISM PERSPECTIVE IN REFORMED PAULINE STUDIES: DEFENDING THE "LUTHERAN PAUL"

Noffke E. (Speaker)

Facoltà Valdese di Teologia ~ Rome ~ Italy
Recent studies on Paul "within Judaism" have seriously challenged the Augustinian-Lutheran exegesis of the theology of the Apostle of Tarsus. It is not so much the emphasis on his Jewishness that raises doubts in the academic world linked to the "Lutheran Paul," but rather the conclusions that some scholars draw from this assertion, in particular the thesis that Paul's polemic against the salvific value of the law is valid only for converts from paganism and that eschatological salvation is based on works, while justification by faith represents only the beginning of a journey of rapprochement between the believer and God, which then leads, after a life of observance of the divine will, to eternal salvation. The intent of this paper is twofold: to propose a status quaestionis of the reception of the new theses among Pauline scholars linked to the Reformed evangelical approach, and to object to the idea that the discovery of Paul's Jewishness can in fact refute the traditional "Lutheran interpretation." Without forgetting that all this work does indeed lead to a complete revision of the Lutheran reading of the relationship between Paul and Judaism, with decisive consequences also for Jewish-Christian dialogue.
JEWISH PERSPECTIVES ON PAUL OF TARSUS: TWENTIETH-CENTURY JEWISH THOUGHT

Milani C. (Speaker)

Catholic University of Sacred Heart ~ Milano ~ Italy
Studying Paul according to the "within Judaism Perspective" also involves examining the works of Jewish thinkers (such as rabbis, scholars and philosophers) who engaged with the Apostle to the Gentiles. For almost two millennia, his name was virtually unmentionable among Jews as he was considered the first Christian theologian to abandon the mitzvot and denounce Jewish legalism and particularism. Even on the Jewish side, in short, Tertullian's idea that Paul was the "destroyer of Judaism" was accepted. However, starting in the 20th century, things began to change. Without Judaism as a whole developing a real interest in Paul, some scholars started to engage with Pauline literature. Some, such as Claude Montefiore and Samuel Sandmel, showed that the Judaism contested by Paul was a distorted version of the faith of the fathers, while others emphasized that Paul never renounced his Jewish identity. This led to Paul's rehabilitation within the Jewish world. This ranges from acknowledging his contribution to bringing the Hebrew Bible to pagans (Joseph Klausner), to emphasizing that he remained a practicing Jew even after his "conversion" (Pinchas Lapide), to Sholem Asch's sympathetic fictional reconstruction of his life in the novel The Apostle.

Panel description: In response to the increasingly demanding and knotty problems of our world, we require new strategies of analysis and ways of thinking. Taking up this challenge, political theology unmasks the frayed relationship between the secular and the religious at the cornerstone of liberal, technocratic (post)modernity. Many scholars invested in the insights of the vast field of political theology have often engaged heavily with Simone Weil (1909-1943); however, no connection between political theology and Simone Weil has yet been fully fleshed out. During her short lifetime, Weil's thought is infused by her witness and resistance to the totalitarianism welling up around her. Many recognize that her later turn to Christian mysticism is no less than a continuation of her explicitly political writings, such as those on Marx, labour, Hitlerism, French colonization, as well as Indian, Tibetan, and Ancient Greek thought. This panel is interested in how Weil's work through a theopolitical lens can shed new insights into our failing world and how this approach best fits with her own faithfulness to such a world.

Papers:

MYSTICISM, WORK AND THE AUTONOMY OF MAN. WEIL'S SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY OF NECESSITY IN THE CONTEXT OF POLITICAL THEOLOGY.

Faber C. (Speaker)

University of Vienna ~ Vienna ~ Austria
Simone Weil is regarded as a thinker who uniquely combines radical social critique with Christian mysticism. This paper challenges that reading by arguing that the political radicality of her thought is ultimately neutralized rather than deepened by a spirituality of necessity. While Weil offers a powerful analysis of modern uprootedness, factory labor, and oppression, her response to these conditions does not lie in the political transformation of social relations but in a mystical formation of the subject. Through attention, decreation, and consent to necessity, suffering redefines personally experienced subjugation as metaphysical necessity and shifts the locus of emancipation from collective struggle to individual spiritual resolution. Drawing on Weil's reflections on work, affliction, and divine order, I argue that her mysticism functions as a form of political theology in which power and domination are not abolished but bypassed through mystical knowledge of God. The worker is not called to contest the structures that generate exploitation but to recognize them as expressions of a necessary order that demands spiritual consent. Mysticism thus becomes a substitute for politics: it preserves the experience of suffering while simultaneously depriving it of political intelligibility. I thus read her in dialogue with Johann Baptist Metz's critique of "bourgeois religion" and his notion of a "hope without expectation." In my view, Weil's theology lacks an eschatological horizon capable of sustaining genuine historical openness. Approaching Weil through the lens of political theology does not deny the significance or spiritual depth of her thought, but it does call into question the widespread assumption that her mysticism can ground a politics of resistance. Instead, it reveals a theopolitical logic that risks sanctifying social suffering by embedding it within a metaphysical economy of order, obedience, and consent; thereby neutralizing political struggle.
THE EMPTY THRONE: SIMONE WEIL ON SOVEREIGNTY AND NEGATIVE POLITICAL THEOLOGY

Boyle Z. (Speaker)

KU Leuven ~ Leuven ~ Austria
As Miguel Vatter states in his 2021 book Living Law: Jewish Political Theology From Hermann Cohen to Hannah Arendt, the partition of the globe at the hands of the expansionist territorial sovereign nation-states through imperialism, colonialism, and world war has given rise by all groups to demand their rights to become a nation-state, and for every human being to be legally and politically recognized. Despite this rampant nation-building, however, persists the effect of statelessness, persecution, and forced migration. Vatter employs political theology as a critical tool to expose and reconfigure the various theological underpinnings of the nation-state, such as sovereignty. His model of a Jewish political theology of sovereignty follows that the seat of the sovereign must remain empty. Interestingly, he concludes Living Law with a final interlude about how Simone Weil's Pythagorean writings in Descente de Dieu might act as a preeminent model of the empty throne. For Giorgio Agamben, the empty throne is the negativity of the Creator Father's presence, which was appropriated as the means of an analogy between Christ king and the human sovereign. Agamben's thesis is thus that this "anarchy" is the hidden structure of liberal government. Qualifying Agamben, Vatter leads from Martin Buber who offers Jewish theocracy as the displacement of a human sovereign in place of YHWH, thereby installing a model of negative political theology. This presentation will further expand upon Vatter's proposal that Weil's thought might be characterized be a negative political theology of the empty throne.
THE NEED FOR ROOTS: WHAT TRADITION DO WE NEED?

Robertson A. (Speaker)

University of Cambridge ~ Cambridge ~ United Kingdom
Of the fifteen needs of the human soul which Simone Weil identifies as essential for human flourishing, rootedness is the most important and, yet, the hardest to define. Her description of rootedness as "real, active and natural participation in the life of a community that keeps alive treasures if the past and has aspirations for the future" seems to point us towards tradition as the key to rootedness. But in our contemporary situation, tradition is a problematic concept: a contested concept in the life of the Church, misused in political discourse. Given these difficulties we might try and avoid the concept altogether. But given the perils of rootlessness have not abated since Weil's time, in fact seem to have become worse, Weil's concept of rootedness should command more attention, even if it remains hard to define. In this paper I attempt to give a fuller account of what kind of tradition is needed with reference to various sources from social anthropology to moral philosophy. In doing so, I show how tradition, which I argue is at the heart of rootedness, can be understood not as a conservative return to some invented perennialism, but a strategy for conservation and liberation in a fractured world.
"DIEU DANS PLATON": MYSTICISM AND MEDIATION IN SIMONE WEIL'S PLATONISM

Schneider P. (Speaker)

University of Vienna ~ Vienna ~ Austria
Written during her stay in Marseille between 1941 and 1942, my paper explores two lesser-known manuscripts of Simone Weil containing a series of notes entitled "Dieu dans Platon" ("God in Plato"). These notes offer a condensed glimpse into Weil's highly original and deliberately anachronistic reading of Plato, in which she does not present him as the founder of Western metaphysics or political philosophy, but as an "authentic mystic" avant la lettre. Accordingly, Plato does not appear at the beginning of Western philosophy but rather at the end of a largely lost tradition of Greek wisdom encompassing currents such as Orphism and Pythagoreanism, while at the same time anticipating key themes of later Christian mysticism. His dialogues are thus not to be read as systematic philosophical treatises but as texts that hint at a deeper spiritual doctrine that cannot be directly stated but must be "divined". Starting from the manuscripts of "Dieu dans Platon", my paper examines how Weil transforms central themes of Platonic philosophy into elements of a distinctly religious and political vision. Of particular interest is the way she understands Platonic philosophy not as a doctrine of truth or salvation in transcendence, but as a demanding practice situated within the conditions of earthly necessity. By reading Plato as a thinker of mediation (metaxu) between the human and the divine, Weil develops a philosophy that is at once mystical and political: a discipline of remaining oriented toward the Good while exposing oneself fully to the tensions and necessities of the world. As I argue, it is precisely this tension - a radical exposure to the world together with the conspicuous absence of any promise of redemption or eschatological fulfillment - that lies at the center of Weil's philosophical project and opens new perspectives on the relationship between Greek philosophy, mysticism, and political thought.
WEIL AND ROSE ON THE POLITICAL THEOLOGY OF ATHEISM AND AGNOSTICISM

Meir P. (Speaker)

University of Haifa ~ Haifa ~ Israel
Simone Weil, a philosopher and activist exiled from Vichy France due to her Jewish origins, converted from Judaism to Christianity yet refused baptism — condemning the practice as an idolatrous remnant of Judaism. Gillian Rose, a Jewish-born thinker of the late twentieth century, was baptized on her deathbed, declaring she did so to "gain my Judaism more deeply." Despite their opposing religious gestures, both thinkers advanced forms of nonreligion throughout their lives. These paradoxical positions are illuminated by Weil's concept of atheism, which Rose develops into her own concept of agnosticism. For Weil, idolatry consists in mistaking a worldly institution for God, risking totalitarianism and religious conflict. Since God does not "exist" in the ordinary material sense but only as a Platonic idea withdrawn from the physical world, "atheism is a purification": denying that God is a thing among things opens a gateway to genuine faith, which requires acknowledging that institutions merely mediate toward the divine rather than embody it. Rose glosses this: "Weil says […] Agnosticism is the only true religion because to have faith is not to give up knowledge, but to know where the limit of knowledge is." She concurs that faith means identifying the boundary between knowledge and its limits, but substitutes "agnosticism" for "atheism," arguing that declaring God unknowable risks dissolving the concept's ethical and socio-political weight. For Rose, "God" mediates something undefinable yet real — analogous to "freedom" or "ethics" — each generating institutions that strive toward the absolute while perpetually falling short. These conceptions cut through contemporary religious-secular divides and inter-religious conflicts by paradoxically situating nonreligion at the center of theology. Politically, they demonstrate that secularism can unwittingly become theocratic, while genuine faith requires atheism or agnosticism to avoid idolatry.
GRACE, GRAVITY, AND ANARCHY IN THE WORKS OF SIMONE WEIL

Costello V. (Speaker)

University of Illinois, Chicago ~ Chicago ~ United States of America
According to Simon Weil, grace is the pull of the divine. This interpretation parallels what the Buddhist tradition of Sodo calls "other power" or compassion, gratitude and the inherent interconnectedness of all things and it directly echoes the Christian traditions of Augustine and Buber, for example, that center on grace as a gift encounter, or refer to a State of Grace. Most profoundly, perhaps, in Weil's work we hear the echoes of Plato (χάρις/charis/grace) and notice references to the three daughters of Zeus and the nymph Eurynome. But what sets Weil's ideas apart from these traditions is not only that they revolve around emptying the self, but also around the multidimensional force: gravity. For Weil, gravity is, first, the physical law that pulls the weight of our bodies toward the earth, and second, the moral force that draws the soul toward self-interest-our soul's efforts to avoid suffering, and its own tendency toward despair. Gravity and grace coexist as a living contradiction and serve as a central focus for this paper. Through a theopolitical lens, this tension reveals Weil's distinctive form of ontological anarchism. Within the word, "anarchy," the initial "a" is an alpha privative, meaning "not" or "without," and arche means beginning or ruling principle. Thus an-arche means without principle or empty of principle and we circle back to the emptiness allows for grace. This paper argues that Weil's anarchism is not primarily political but spiritual. It calls for the dismantling of the ego and all attachments that claim ultimacy, creating a void in which grace may enter. This emptiness is not negation but the precondition for fully perceiving others. By situating Weil's concepts within a theopolitical framework, the paper shows how her thought offers a radical reimagining of political life—one grounded not in sovereignty or will, but in attention and obligation that alone can, perhaps, counteract the tyranny of necessity.
THE AGE OF SAINTS: POLITICAL MODERNITY AS A SPIRITUAL OPPORTUNITY IN THE PHILOSOPHY OF SIMONE WEIL.

Rabah S. (Speaker)

Universite de Reims ( URCA) ~ Reims ~ France
When, following what biographers have termed the 'factory year', Simone Weil experienced what she called her 'three mystical moments', she did not, however, choose to embrace a solely contemplative life, nor did she turn a blind eye to political matters. For the S.Weil of her early writings, the whole political challenge was to respond harmoniously to the relationship between the community and the individual, that is to say, to enable the individual to retain their autonomy, in the Kantian sense of the term, whilst participating in collective life. However, the integration of spirituality into her later writings places great emphasis on a spiritual realisation which, to attain a state of saintliness, must undergo a radical detachment from the 'self'. Although she regards saintliness as the human vocation par excellence, S.Weil continues to maintain the idea that the individual must retain its autonomy in relation to the community. If these two seemingly contradictory positions can be held coherently, it is because Weil distinguishes the sacred character inherent in every authentic spirituality from the political manifestations that claim to represent it. This distinction does not assert that religion is separate from social life; far from it. Proof of this can be found in the various studies Simone Weil devotes to symbols and to the means of imbuing earthly existence with the light of the supernatural. It rather signifies a refusal to resort to any coercive means - of which there may be many - in order to convey the religious message. We will therefore see how the preservation of the individual, coupled with the distinction between the political and the religious - two pillars of political modernity - can, according to Weil, provide the political means for everyone to achieve spiritual fulfilment. And what if, despite appearances, modernity were to be the age of the saints?
THE VIOLENCE OF THE GOOD? SIMONE WEIL AND THE RISK OF POLITICAL THEOLOGY

Sojer T. (Speaker)

University of Erfurt ~ Erfurt ~ Germany
Simone Weil's thought offers political theology powerful resources for diagnosing force, uprootedness, and collective idolatry. Yet it also contains deeply troubling practical implications. This paper argues that these are not accidental blind spots, but consequences of the same structure that gives her thought its clarity. Weil subordinates politics to an absolute order of truth, necessity, and the good. This sharpens her critique of domination, but at the same time weakens the claims of rights, pluralism, and procedural restraint. The danger in Weil is therefore not external to her most potent ideas, but internal to them. Reading Weil through the lens of political theology, I argue that her work exposes a constitutive risk within political theology itself: wherever politics is ordered to an absolute image of truth and the good, spiritual radicality can turn into political coercion.

Panel description: In March 2019, Pope Francis announced that access to the Vatican's archival materials for the pontificate of Pope Pius XII (1939-1958) would be granted in March 2020. Scholars conducting research in this massive new set of documents, comprising an estimated 16 million pages of material across multiple archives, have made major strides in the last five years. As part of these research efforts, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) has been sending a team of scholars and archivists to Vatican City to survey these new materials. Subject to permission by the archives, the USHMM has obtained digital scans of approximately 600,000 pages that are available at the USHMM for research purposes. This panel consists of the USHMM's Vatican Archives Initiative team and external scholars engaged in research at the Vatican archives. Its goal is to describe the team's research and archival efforts and to share initial findings.

Papers:

THE UNITED STATES HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL MUSEUM'S VATICAN ARCHIVES INITIATIVE: AN OVERVIEW

Carter-Chand R. (Speaker) , Levine Z.P. (Speaker) , Steck A. (Speaker)

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum ~ Washington, DC ~ United States of America
Three staff members from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum's Vatican Archives Initiative will provide an overview of the project, including: its mission; a brief contextual history; accomplishments & challenges; and anecdotes from our work in religious archives in Rome over the past five years.
RESEARCH FINDINGS: A CASE STUDY OF EARLY EFFORTS TOWARD CHRISTIAN-JEWISH DIALOGUE

Brown-Fleming S. (Speaker)

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum ~ Washington, DC ~ United States of America
In November 1944, with deportations to Auschwitz only having ceased the month prior, Father Marie-Benoît gave a series of lectures at the convent of the Sisters of Our Lady of Sion in Rome. In the lectures, he tried to bring together Jews and Christians by discussing topics such as the creation of the universe, man formed in the image of God, monogamy, the sanctity of marriage, the unity of the human family, and other topics common to both Christianity and Judaism. His lectures came to the attention of the Supreme Congregation of the Holy Office, the office within the Roman Curia that ruled on matters of faith and morals. This essay describes the tug-of-war between various authority figures, congregations within the Curia, and religious Orders that ensured, ultimately foreshadowing the sea changes of the Second Vatican Council.
GREEK CATHOLICS, THE HOLY SEE, AND THE HOLOCAUST: NEW FINDINGS IN THE POPE PIUS XII COLLECTIONS

Popa I. (Speaker)

Centre for Jewish Studies, University of Manchester ~ Manchester ~ United Kingdom
In the last three years, as part of the Vatican Archives Initiative (VAI), I have been surveying the Ruteni/Ruthenians collection in the archive of the Dicastery for the Eastern Churches (ACO). The first part of my talk provides insight into major themes of Holocaust research that appear consistently in the ACO/Ruthenians collection, including: 1) the increasing inter-ethnic and inter-religious violence in East Central Europe before World War II. This culture of violence, normalization of abusive behaviour, and murder made later violence and murder of Jews more acceptable; 2) conversion of Jews to Christianity during the Holocaust and the larger context of forced conversions/changes of rites, which were generally driven by ethnic divisions and border changes; 3) collaboration of Ruthenian/Ukrainian Greek Catholics with local Nazi-like organizations and their participation in the creation, in spring 1943, of Waffen SS Galicia Division; 4) the role of the Holy See in helping war criminals, including in the support and relocation of 10,000 Waffen SS Galicia POWs; 5) Catholic rescue and its controversies, especially in relation to hiding of Jewish children. Towards the end of my presentation, I will focus on two specific documents to showcase how material in the Pope Pius XII collections enhances current historiography. The first is a December 1942 letter by Andrey Sheptytsky, Greek Catholic Metropolitan of Galicia, providing details about Jews' persecution and murder. The letter was discussed in an audience with Pope Pius XII, and my talk will provide insight on that. The second, is a February 1942 letter sent to Adolf Hitler by Metropolitan Sheptytsky and other Ukrainian national leaders, including the head of OUN-M, Andriy Melnyk. In current historiography there is a supposition that in February 1942 Mons. Sheptytsky wrote to Heinrich Himmler. As I will argue, it is likely that this letter to Hitler is the one supposed to have been sent to Himmler.
HOW SILENCE WORKS: RELIGIOUS AUTHORITY, MORAL LANGUAGE, AND EPISCOPAL RESPONSES TO THE HOLOCAUST (1941-1943)

Stolarczyk-Bilardie M. (Speaker)

KU Leuven ~ Leuven ~ Belgium
This paper examines silence not as the absence of religious response to the Holocaust, but as a problem of interpretation within religious authority during a period of moral rupture. Drawing on Vatican archival sources from the years 1941-1943, it focuses on communication between Polish Catholic bishops and the Holy See, including reports transmitted from occupied Poland through ecclesiastical and lay intermediaries. Rather than asking what the Church "knew" or evaluating its actions retrospectively, the paper asks how religious actors sought to make sense of extreme violence and how this process shaped the ways in which it could be communicated within existing theological and institutional constraints. Through close reading and discourse analysis of internal correspondence, episcopal reports, and curial memoranda, it explores how information about the persecution of Jews was sometimes made explicit, sometimes reformulated, and at other times remained absent, as moral language was shaped by questions of authority and the responsibilities attached to it. By approaching silence as an analytical problem rather than a moral verdict, the paper contributes to debates in religious studies on authority and ethical language under conditions of extreme violence. It proposes to treat wartime Catholic communication as a site where moral meaning was negotiated rather than simply expressed or withheld.

Panel description: The ways we live and think in and about our world seem to be increasingly polarised into mutually exclusive oppositions. Our understanding of opposition and difference seems to have become crude and coarse: either/or trumps both/and. The zero-sum of inequality proliferates, displacing the differentiated unities of forms of equality. This panel seeks to explore richer ways of conceiving opposition and difference, taking its impulse from a number of under-appreciated works including Romano Guardini's Der Gegensatz (1925) and Paul Roubiczek's Thinking in Opposites (1952), as well as Nicholas of Cusa's coincidentia oppositorum. What are the ways of thinking through opposition and difference we can (re)source from the humanities and social sciences: how can we imagine our way beyond simplistic polarisations? We invite papers which consider ways of thinking about opposition (or difference) in fresh and variegated ways, from whatever discipline. While links to the thinking of Cusanus, Guardini, or Roubiczek are welcomed, they are not necessary. The papers may be historical and/or constructive. This session is linked to the research project on 'Theologies of Catholicity' based at the Institute for Religion and Critical Inquiry at the Australian Catholic University in Melbourne, and co-led with colleagues from KU Leuven and St Andrew's University.

Papers:

COINCIDENCE AND CATHOLICITY: A COMPARISON OF NICHOLAS OF CUSA AND ROMANO GUARDINI

Van Erp S. (Speaker)

KU Leuven / Australian Catholic University ~ Leuven ~ Belgium
In his essay Der Gegensatz (1925), Romano Guardini claims that God cannot be thought of as the unity of opposites, and that his theory of opposites differs radically from the notion of coincidentia oppositorum, which features in the work of Nicholas of Cusa. Cusa argues that although opposites coincide in God, God is beyond the coincidence of opposites. This paper will first explore the similarities and differences between Guardini's and Cusa's ideas of opposition, and evaluate whether and how Guardini's claim can be justified. Then, the difference between the two thinkers will be brought in relation with their views of catholicity. Cusa defined catholicity in terms of concord and consensus, while Guardini defined it as the totality of existence in the living concrete. Which view is more helpful for Catholic thought and practice today?
BEING MYSTERIOUS: THE IMAGO DEI AND THINKING IN OPPOSITES

Insole C. (Speaker)

Durham University ~ Durham ~ United Kingdom
Josef Pieper asserts that it is more important that our thinking is complete, than that it is coherent. We should not leave things out because they threaten to augment inconsistencies and tensions. I explore the wisdom of Pieper's claim, by drawing out some parallels between the role of opposition and difference in theology, philosophy, and in psychoanalysis. I venture the thought that opposition and difference may be so central, because human beings are created in the image of God.
PLAYFUL ORTHODOXIES IN HISTORICAL THEOLOGY

Ocker C. (Speaker)

Graduate Theological Union ~ Berkeley ~ United States of America
Jean Baptiste de Boyer d'Argens, clandestine philosophical pornographer, author of the salacious Thérèse Philosophique and other fictionalizations of rationalist philosophy, once ridiculed theology like this: "It is a very sad thing that almost all theologians abuse the Scriptures … [T] he divergent expositions of Jerome, of Luther, of Calvin , of [the Jesuit Pasquier] Quenel, … have troubled all of Europe, and trouble her again," he wrote in 1737. The alleged abusers often repeated the very same complaint, if only applying it to their enemies. The English Recusant Jack Feckenham (d. 1584) noted the fractiousness opened when bishops answering to kings unbridled theologians from ecclesiastical restraint. Theodore Beza (d. 1605) countered that Catholic "sects" and "the rabble of Jesuits, and other such like fellows" were the actual source of confusion. They should all be read against the grain of their complaints. What the Enlightener and theologians alike tacitly acknowledged was the true force of theological practice, as a form of intellectual engagement, not purely the confession, assertion, or defense of singular, incompatible truths. As a practice of knowledge production in schools, theolgians "gamified" thought. This required passionately defended differentiations, if theological knowledge was to exist at all. Every theological position depended on its opposites. No position could exist without the alternatives it strove to deny. The opposites existed on a scale of relative differentiation. This paper offers three examples from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries (the fifteenth-century Conciliarist Juan de Segovia on Catholicity and Islam, Martin Luther on Catholicity and Judaism, and the Louvain Jesuit Thomas Stapleton on Catholicity and Protestants) to argue that the practice of theology in the past has more significance for Catholicities in the present than doctrine as such.
THE POLARIZATION OF POLITICS IN THE AGE OF WOKEISM

Franke W. (Speaker)

Vanderbilt University ~ Nashville ~ United States of America
The phenomenon of wokeism presents an intriguing array of paradoxes. A radicalization of Christian ethics, which valorizes and defends the downtrodden and marginalized, this movement often takes positions that are vehemently anti-Christian and globally inimical to Western civilization condemned as colonialist, imperialist, capitalist, racist, etc. This inability to see one's opposite number and nemesis as intrinsically related to one's own positions and convictions has become endemic in contemporary political debate in Western democracies. A corrective is sorely needed, and it can be found in millenary traditions of apophatic thinking. Nicolas of Cusa's coincidentia oppositorum is emblematic of vast traditions of thinking that deconstruct the oppositional thinking that so bedevils our political discourse at this juncture of contemporary culture. This paper will draw on my recent book: *Social Identities and Social Justice: Reconceiving Ethics and Politics in the Wake of Wokeism* (2025). I do not oppose the woke revolution. I wish to push it further to be consistent with and true to its own founding insight and inspiration. If we think through completely its ethical principle of unconditional respect for others, for racial, gender, class alterity or diversity, we have to affirm the otherness of the real beyond all our definitions and categories. We have to acknowledge radical alterity even beyond all the terms and categories that we apply to others and to ourselves. This realization takes us to the brink of acknowledging the to-us-indefinable alterity that is interpreted by theology in a negative register as the transcendent and divine. This further move beyond what we can grasp is necessary to prevent us from identifying justice simply with any positive system of our own making, and with its distinctions, which become exclusionary and lead us into fatally oppositional modes of thought.
TENSEGRITY AND POLAR OPPOSITION: EXTENDING ERICH PRZYWARA'S ANALOGIA ENTIS

Migliore S. (Speaker) , Gallo D. (Speaker)

Pontifical Lateran University ~ Vatican City ~ Vatican City State (Holy See)
Contemporary discussions of difference often rely on rigid binary oppositions in which unity and distinction appear mutually exclusive. Such either/or logics tend to flatten the complexity of relational realities and contribute to increasingly polarized ways of interpreting social, philosophical, and theological questions. Within the Christian intellectual tradition, however, several thinkers have developed more nuanced frameworks for understanding opposition as a dynamic relation rather than a static contradiction. Among them, Erich Przywara articulated a distinctive account of polarity through his interpretation of the analogia entis. For Przywara, the relation between God and creation unfolds as a rhythmic tension between similarity and ever greater dissimilarity (similitudo - maior dissimilitudo). Being itself is therefore structured not by static identity but by a dynamic oscillation that holds unity and difference in productive tension. This paper proposes to extend Przywara's insight by placing it in dialogue with the concept of tensegrity, originally developed in architectural theory by Buckminster Fuller. In tensegrity structures, stability is achieved not by eliminating tension but by distributing it across a relational system in which opposing forces mutually sustain the integrity of the whole. Interpreted as a conceptual metaphor, tensegrity offers a fruitful way of rearticulating Przywara's analogical ontology. By situating this perspective in conversation with broader traditions of polarity, including the reflections of Romano Guardini and the notion of coincidentia oppositorum associated with Nicholas of Cusa, the paper argues that opposition can be understood as a generative structure of reality rather than a destructive conflict.
OPPOSITES VISUAL AND CONCEPTUAL

Eikelboom L. (Speaker)

ACU ~ Melbourne ~ Australia
Among other things, painting communicates through visual opposites, such as light/dark, contrary colours, oppsosing edges etc. such that the interpretation of art involves translating such visual opposites into conceptual opposites such as life and death, internal and external, divine and mortal. In the words of art historian T. J. Clark, in visual art, opposites are polarized into a single geometric form, which "comes to stand, finally, for nothing less than the unstoppable tendency we all have, as viewers, to make elementary binaries generate things. Things like us." This paper will explore the art criticism of Clark, the ways in which he wrestels with visual opposites in order to help us locate oursleves in the oppositions of life.
FAITH IN FITTING OPPOSITES: THE AESTHETIC NAVIGATION OF BEGINNINGS AND ENDINGS

Despain B. (Speaker)

Australian Catholic University ~ Melbourne ~ Australia
This paper examines the role of faith in the ways we aesthetically navigate the opposition between beginnings and endings. Following Paul Roubiczek's discussion on the epistemic incommensurability of our external and internal realities, the paper maps our experiences of beginnings and endings onto the interconnected opposites in our knowledge of both external reality, through cause and effect, and internal reality, through means and ends, in order to examine the ways we transform internal ends into external causes. It will be shown that this transformation confuses the division between our external and internal realities and conceals the aesthetic function of faith in our internal navigation of beginnings and endings. Drawing on conceptual resonances between Roubiczek's work and Gillian Rose's notion of the broken middle, I suggest that by reexamining the opposition between beginnings and endings, we may be able to establish a new way of thinking about the place of faith in experiencing the unity of, what Roubiczek calls, primal reality, or, as he alternatively describes it at the end of Thinking in Opposites, the "personal will of God."
LOOKING TO THEOLOGY FOR A PEDAGOGY OF OVERCOMING POLARISATION

Ryliskyte L. (Speaker)

Boston College Theology Department ~ Chestnut Hill, MA ~ United States of America
Religion is often claimed to be a source of social polarisation. But can it also be a source to consult when seeking to overcome polarisation? This paper answers with a qualified yes. Building on Romano Guardini's Der Gegensatz (1925), it argues that there are two principal ways of overcoming polarisation, just as there are two kinds of dialectic involved in it: one might be called the dialectic of contraries (opposition), the other the dialectic of contradictories (contradiction). To overcome polarisation that is rooted in true contradictories (such as true and false, or good and evil) requires no less than conversion—the radical transformation of one's cognitive, volitional, and affective horizon. To overcome polarisation that manifests two opposed but linked principles of change at work (to use Bernard Lonergan's idiom) requires something else: the ability to hold both poles in tension by sublating what first appears as a contradiction, reframing it instead as a polar opposition. But how can this be done in practice? The paper proposes three approaches to overcoming this second kind of polarisation, all grounded in Christological reasoning and illustrated through such diverse theologies as those of Nicholas of Cusa, Bernard Lonergan, and Sarah Coakley. The first sublates tension through mystical unknowing—an un-mastering, or docta ignorantia. The second does so by affirming a radical asymmetry and incommensurability between the two poles, such that their disproportion implies that one is included in the other as immanent-in-the-transcendent. The third approaches the tension heuristically, distinguishing among different "known unknowns" within the polar realities in order to disclose the "issue beneath the issue," thereby reconfiguring an apparent contradiction as a polar opposition. Finally, the paper explores some implications of these theological ways of overcoming polarisation for addressing contemporary social polarisation.

Panel description: Rabbi, theologian, exegete, philosopher, and Kabbalist are just a few of the possible titles used to define the figure of Elia Benamozegh, whose original genius and work defy simple classification. Born in Livorno on April 24, 1823, Benamozegh began learning Kabbalistic doctrines as a teenager from his uncle, Yehuda Curiat, with whom he studied the Zohar. Having become a preacher for the Jewish community of Livorno at the age of 23, he showed sympathies toward the Risorgimento movement. He subsequently continued his rabbinical career, eventually assuming the role of religious leader of the community until his death on February 6, 1900. Benamozegh developed a complex theology capable of addressing themes that remain relevant and worthy of further study: the dialogue between modernity and Kabbalah, the contribution of Jewish culture to European modernity, the theme of progress, the harmony between religion and science, and the relationship between Judaism and other religions. By articulating his thought in Italian, French, and Hebrew, Benamozegh positioned himself as a bridge between East and West, generating enthusiasm in some and opposition in others. He maintained relationships with the most important scholars of his time, engaging in the debates that occupied the 19th-century European intelligentsia. This session intends to explore the salient aspects of Benamozegh's intellectual proposal, bringing together the various interpretative perspectives that have developed in the study of the Livornese rabbi's thought through an examination of his works, his life, and his relationships with other intellectuals, and the historical and political context in which he advanced his theories.

Papers:

THE THEORETICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL FOUNDATIONS OF ONE OF BENAMOZEGH'S IDEAS

Quartirolo J.P. (Speaker)

Università di Modena e Reggio Emilia ~ Bologna ~ Italy
In 1914, the publisher Ernest Leroux published in Paris Israël et l'humanité. The masterpiece of Elia Benamozegh represents the summa of his religious philosophy, shaped by the study of traditional Jewish texts, the Kabbalah, and the leading figures of European philosophy. Several fundamental concepts that find their full development in this work—such as the relationship between the Jewish priesthood and the Gentile laity, or the conviction that Judaism, acting as a link between Eastern and Western civilizations, has not yet exhausted its teachings for humanity—are nevertheless rooted in the biographical experiences of the Livornese rabbi. This paper intends to demonstrate how the events of the Risorgimento, particularly those that took place in Livorno in 1847 and 1848, contributed to the formulation of some of the core concepts of Benamozegh's philosophy. Only in light of these historical events one can fully understand his ideas and his proposal for an "alternative modernity" capable of guaranteeing the coexistence and cooperation of the nation-states emerging as the primary historical actors of that era. The rabbi of Livorno employs the binomial of spontaneity-reflection to explain the concept of the progressivity of religious Revelation. While Revelation initially allows man to conceive truth intuitively, it subsequently requires an analytical effort to deepen the revealed truth and deduce all its possible consequences. This paper intends to apply the very theoretical tool developed by Benamozegh to the analysis of his own theories, showing how, in his youth, he sensed those truths to which he sought to provide a solid doctrinal and scientific foundation throughout his life.
IS A HARMONIOUS RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN SCIENCE AND RELIGION POSSIBLE?

Quartirolo J.P. (Speaker) [1] , Carelli F. (Speaker) [2]

Università di Modena e Reggio Emilia ~ Bologna ~ Italy [1] , Fondazione per le scienze religiose ~ Bologna ~ Italy [2]
Benamozegh recovers and originally develops the centuries-old philosophical question regarding the relationship between religion and reason. In the heart of the 19th century—at a time when the positive sciences were undergoing unstoppable development—the rabbi addressed the question of compatibility, and indeed harmony, between religion and science. He was driven by the conviction that religion, as the guardian of revealed truths, would find its confirmation in the scientific work undertaken by scholars. In fact, in his commentary on the Torah, Em la-Miqra, and in his Teologia dogmatica e apologetica, one can find examples where Benamozegh discusses scientific theories and their compatibility with the Biblical text. However, the harmony sought by the philosopher finds its limit in the anti-teleological ideas of Darwinian evolutionism. This paper intends to illustrate the "teleological argument" for the proof of God's existence provided by Benamozegh in an appendix to the Teologia, identifying it as the place where the tension between these two poles—religion and science—most clearly manifests, despite the rabbi's desire for a harmonious relationship between the two.

Panel description: This panel aims to explore how Eastern religious traditions were observed, described, and interpreted by Europeans in the Early Modern period. Through the analysis of travel accounts, missionary works, translations, and manuscript sources, etc…, the participants will focus on: - the Asian religious practices, doctrines, and institutions observed, interpreted, and translated within European conceptual categories; - the theological and cultural controversies generated by the encounter with different religious traditions, as well as the processes of translation and hermeneutic strategies; - the role of travellers as mediators of knowledge and as producers of discourses that oscillate between curiosity, moral judgement, and legitimisation of European domination; - the historical and critical reflection about the construction of the European imagery of the East, showing how these texts contributed to the formation of a European discourse on Eastern religions and influenced both theological debate and the nascent comparative reflection on religions.

Papers:

THE ENCHANTMENT OF THE "KINGDOMS OF DAWN" IN PIETRO DELLA VALLE'S PEREGRINATIO IN PERSIA: ENCOUNTERS, CONTROVERSIES, AND MANUSCRIPT TRADITION

Panzeca I. (Speaker)

Fscire ~ Palermo ~ Italy
A voyage born from a profound thirst for knowledge, but also from the desire to pursue everlasting fame and, "in ricompensa di tanto amore e di tante fatiche", return to his homeland with honor and glory. Della Valle's first significant stay was in Safavid Persia, during the Cultural Renaissance and the proclamation of Twelver Shīʿa as the kingdom's official religion. In his Letters, Della Valle reports on his encounter with the Shāh ʿAbbās I (r. 1587-1629), his ambitious and utopian plans as a Christian missionary, his ardent love for a Georgian woman, and his longing to learn the language, history, and traditions of that vaunted lineage. He also documents in detail the circumstances of a religious discussion that took place in the spring of 1621 in Isfahan with several theologians, which led to a debate with the high Shīʿī clergy and in particular with a distinguished commentator on Avicenna's works, Aḥmad ʿAlawī (d. between 1054H/1644 and 1060H/1650), son-in-law and disciple of the distinguished philosopher and theologian Mīr Dāmād (d. 1041H/1631). At the end of his long travel, Della Valle had acquired an enormous wealth of knowledge and a substantial collection of manuscripts, now preserved in the Vatican Library.
OBSERVING, DESCRIBING, JUDGING: INDIAN RELIGIOUS PRACTICES BETWEEN ANTIQUARIAN GAZE, COMPARISON, AND COUNTER-REFORMIST IDEAS IN PIETRO DELLA VALLE'S PEREGRINATIO

Spanò I. (Chair)

University of Palermo ~ Palermo ~ Italy
This contribution analyses the representation of India in Pietro della Valle's Viaggi, with particular attention to ritual practices, forms of asceticism, and religious beliefs observed in the regions visited. Through the lens of humanistic antiquarianism and Counter-Reformation Catholicism, Della Valle constructs an India that is both empirically described and theologically judged, in which Hindu and Jain rituals are often reduced to the categories of "superstition", "madness", and diabolical deception. The descriptions of the theriomorphic forms of certain Hindu deities and practices, such as the worship of sacred trees, Yoga and Tantrism, the veneration of the liṅga and ahiṃsā, represent privileged moments in which wonder, ethnography, and the certainty of Christian superiority coexist. Using classical models and Christian interpretative categories, Pietro della Valle constructs a "map" of India that makes the religious phenomena he encounters intelligible, but at the price of only a partial understanding of Indian ritual practices and religious conceptions. His gaze, at once antiquarian, humanistic, and ethnographic, reveals a constant ambivalence between cognitive openness, cultural projections, and normative judgement. While showing the inevitable limitations of his hermeneutic devices, according to Jonathan Z. Smith, "maps are all we possess" to describe the territory and access religious otherness.
JESUIT MISSIONS AROUND THE "MEDITERRANEAN INDIES" DURING THE 17TH CENTURY: SICILY, MALTA AND THE CYCLADES

D'Avenia F. (Speaker)

University of Palermo ~ Palermo ~ Italy
During the 17th century, the Jesuits of the Sicilian Province deployed intense missionary action in the Sicilian countryside, which covered more than a hundred localities, including the Greek rite colonies established in the fifteenth century as a consequence of the Arbëreshë diaspora from Albania, as well as the islands of Malta and Pantelleria, where the Arabic language and Islamic religious tradition were still widespread (in Malta also due to the presence of Muslim slaves). However, the Jesuits' "popular", "internal" or "flying missions" went as far as the Cyclades, the so-called archipelagus turbatus in the Aegean Sea, where communicatio in sacris (sharing of rites and preaching) between Orthodox and Latin clergy and laity was inevitable, and increased during Jesuit missions. Indeed, between 1612 and 1644 the Cyclades saw some twenty "spiritual raids" (scorerie spirituali) from Chios, where a stable residence of the Society was established in 1595, also subject to the Sicilian Province. All these islands, including Sicily itself, were part of a common space that could be defined as the "Mediterranean Indies", where religious and cultural métissage, negotiation and conflict constantly overlapped, being part of everyday life and sometimes even sharing the very same missionaries.

Panel description: This session will gather sociologists, political theologians, political scientists, historians, democratic theorists and social philosophers, and other scholars doing (or wishing to do) intellectual work that responds to the authoritarian turn in the contemporary world. First, four scholars from different disciplines and geographic areas will present brief papers regarding their analysis of the responses of specific 'public religions' to established or emerging authoritarian regimes. These brief presentations will be designed not as formal papers but as provocaciones (= 'provocations': a term sometimes used in Latin America for this style of presentation: grounded in and summarizing key findings of specialized intellectual work but intended to spur discussion rather than a systematic research presentation). Second, participants will engage in an extended discussion regarding the kinds of ongoing research projects required to advance the intellectual groundwork for contesting the authoritarian turn, both transdisciplinary and within specific disciplines. Third, participants will discuss next steps for establishing a distributed global intellectual network for clarifying and pursuing this agenda, with nodes or subnetworks in diverse geographical areas.

Papers:

BEYOND MULTIPARTY POLITICS AND ELECTIONS: DEMOCRATIC CHALLENGES IN AFRICA

Lado L. (Speaker) [1] , Ekassi J.E.B. (Speaker) [2]

CEFOD Business School ~ N'Djamena ~ Chad [1] , KU Leuven ~ Leuven ~ Belgium [2]
Cet article analyse les avancées et blocages de la démocratie en Afrique à partir d'une lecture croisée des indicateurs empiriques, dynamiques politiques et héritages culturels. Il met en lumière les tensions entre formes institutionnelles et pratiques autoritaires, nourries par des traditions hiérarchiques et des logiques néopatrimoniales. Dans ce contexte, l'Église catholique joue un rôle ambivalent : force de formation, de veille et de parole prophétique, mais aussi, parfois, actrice de compromission et de reproduction autoritaire. Le processus synodal actuel offre toutefois une ressource précieuse pour inspirer un imaginaire démocratique africain plus inclusif et enraciné. This article analyzes the advances and obstacles to democracy in Africa based on a cross-analysis of empirical indicators, political dynamics, and cultural legacies. It highlights the tensions between institutional forms and authoritarian practices, fueled by hierarchical traditions and neopatrimonial logic. In this context, the Catholic Church plays an ambivalent role: a force for education, vigilance, and prophetic speech, but also, at times, an agent of compromise and authoritarian reproduction. The current synodal process, however, offers a valuable resource for inspiring a more inclusive and deeply rooted African democratic imagination.
BACKLASH: CATHOLIC POSTLIBERALISM. THEORETICAL SUPPORT FOR RIGHT-WING AUTHORITARIANISM IN THE USA

Hagedorn J. (Speaker)

Theologische Fakultät Paderborn ~ Paderborn ~ Germany
Der US-amerikanische Konservatismus wurde in den letzten Jahren durch einen katholisch-integralistischen Postliberalismus erheblich beeinflusst. Welche korporatistischen Ordnungsvorstellungen und welches Gemeinwohlverständnis in Anschlag gebracht werden und welche Auswirkungen dies auf die politische Praxis in den USA hat, versucht der Beitrag zu eruieren. Die Kämpfe um Deutungsmacht waren im Katholizismus des 20. Jahrhunderts im Umfeld des Zweiten Vatikanischen Konzils zugunsten eines demokratiekompatiblen, sozialstaatsfreundlichen Ordnungsmodells ausgegangen. Heute scheinen erneut Kämpfe um Deutungsmacht ausgebrochen zu sein, zu denen sich die Autoren positionieren. In recent years, US conservatism has been significantly influenced by Catholic integralist post-liberalism. This article attempts to determine which corporatist ideas of order and which understanding of the common good are being put into practice, and what impact this has on political practice in the US. In 20th-century Catholicism, the struggles for interpretive power in the context of the Second Vatican Council ended in favor of a model of order that was compatible with democracy and friendly to the welfare state. Today, struggles for interpretive power seem to have broken out again, and the authors take a position on them.
SECULAR REPUBLIC, LIBERAL DEMOCRACY, AND THE CATHOLIC CHURCH'S DOCTRINE OF THE STATE

Große Kracht H. (Speaker)

theologie.tu-darmstadt.de ~ Darmstadt ~ Germany
Der Beitrag untersucht das Verhältnis zwischen der katholischen Staatslehre und den Prinzipien der säkularen Republik sowie der liberalen Demokratie. Ausgehend von einer präzisen Charakterisierung des modernen republikanischen Projekts - gegründet auf politischer Selbstbestimmung, religiöser Neutralität des Staates und der Vorrangstellung des Rechts - analysiert der Autor, wie die katholische Kirche theologisch auf dieses Paradigma reagiert hat. Anhand lehramtlicher Dokumente und aktueller Entwicklungen werden sowohl Annäherungen als auch bleibende Spannungen aufgezeigt. Besonderes Augenmerk gilt dem Zweiten Vatikanischen Konzil und seiner Rezeption sowie den Herausforderungen pluralistischer Demokratien. Der Text plädiert für eine kritische und konstruktive Lektüre der katholischen Tradition, die auf einen erneuerten Dialog mit der demokratischen Ordnung und der Autonomie des Politischen zielt. This article examines the relationship between Catholic political doctrine and the principles of secular republicanism and liberal democracy. Starting with a precise characterization of the modern republican project—based on political self-determination, religious neutrality of the state, and the primacy of law—the author analyzes how the Catholic Church has responded to this paradigm from a theological perspective. Using magisterial documents and current developments, both convergences and lingering tensions are highlighted. Particular attention is paid to the Second Vatican Council and its reception, as well as the challenges of pluralistic democracies. The text calls for a critical and constructive reading of the Catholic tradition, aimed at a renewed dialogue with the democratic order and the autonomy of politics.
THE CHRISTIAN 'RIGHT' IN AUSTRIA AND ITS CLAIMS

Rettenbacher S. (Speaker)

Archdiocese of Linz ~ Linz ~ Austria
In recent months, there has been a rising number of attempts at intimidation and attacks against theologians at Austrian faculties - increasingly also in their private lives. These incidents must be viewed in connection with international right-wing Christian networks. The Austrian section of the ESWTR (European Society of Women in Theological Research) has approached the Austrian Bishops' Conference, requesting that they take a stance on the matter. Sigrid Rettenbacher, chair of ESWTR Austria, highlights the connections between these international anti-democratic Christian networks and Austria. Recently, several publications have appeared concerning the topic of right-wing Christian networks. These financially powerful networks operate on an international level—with connections as far as Russia and the USA—and they have become a determining factor in Europe as well, unnoticed by a broader public. They proceed strategically, deliberately placing individuals in important positions - in politics, academia, dioceses, and the media - in order to concretely implement their agendas. In terms of content, these networks are united by an "ecumenism of hate," a shared rejection of human and civil rights in the name of "traditional Christian values" - including opposition to women's rights, the rights of the LGBTQIA* community, and religious freedom. One of their declared aims is to combat the alleged threat posed by Islam to the Christian West. Their explicit goal is the weakening of democratic core values and the search for alternative forms of societal order, including models inspired by Austrofascism. These democracy-endangering networks are also mentioned in the current report on right-wing extremism commissioned by the Austrian Ministry of Justice and the Austrian Ministry of the Interior, prepared by the Documentation Centre of Austrian Resistance (DÖW).

Panel description: Since 2018, understanding sexual and power abuse in the Church has increasingly recognized its systemic character (CIASE, 2019). Abuse is no longer seen as isolated, but as the result of complex, interrelated factors within specific cultural, geographical, ecclesial, political, and economic contexts. This requires critically examining theological, spiritual, institutional, and juridical structures that have historically produced and legitimized power asymmetries, normalizing domination and violence—particularly gendered, ethnic, and class-based—by clergy, religious, and lay actors. This open panel seeks to bring together research from diverse disciplines and cultural contexts. Given the scale of the phenomenon, abuse must be studied through an interdisciplinary, comparative, and global lens, as it constitutes probably one of the most serious institutional crises faced by the Catholic Church since the Reformation. Historical research, in dialogue with theology, sociology, anthropology, canon law, and psychology, is crucial for addressing current questions and developing critical discernment to untangle multiple dimensions of this crisis. Such dialogue may also contribute to new analytical frameworks, narratives, and institutional dispositifs aimed at safeguarding practices, recognizing and accompanying survivors, and promoting healing in the ecclesial body. Thematic Axes: History of abuse in ecclesial contexts: archives, cases, narratives. Theologies, spiritualities, and the production of power asymmetries. Contributions from sociology, anthropology, and psychology. Challenges of canon law: normativity, governance, and juridical practices.

Papers:

POWER GAMES. SACRALISATION AND SYMBOLIC DOMINATION OF THE CATHOLIC PRIEST (16TH-20TH CENTURIES)

Mostaccio S. (Speaker)

UCLouvain ~ Louvain-la-Neuve ~ Belgium
This contribution, which spans the Council of Trent (1545-1563) and Vatican II (1962-1965), focuses on the figure of the Catholic priest, the main actor in the ecclesiastical system and therefore, in some cases, the protagonist within a system of abuse of power and sexual abuse. Starting from catechisms and manuals of Christian doctrine, rather than texts written for an elite group of theologians, we analyse widely disseminated discourses that have favoured the establishment of recurring representations and a sort of collective knowledge around the ontological otherness and superiority of the priest, progressively removed from the community of believers to which he belonged by virtue of baptism. The practice of reverent obedience on the one hand, and the exercise of power over souls for the salvation of fellow human beings on the other, are two complementary aspects of a system of power that, in certain contexts, has abused and continues to abuse its authority.
EXPLORING PRIMAL VULNERABILITY: A CASE STUDY ON ABUSES DURING FOUNDATIONAL STAGES AND THEIR CONTEMPORARY CATEGORIZATION

Grez E. (Speaker)

Universidad Finis Terrae ~ Santiago ~ Chile
The Catholic Church witnessed the emergence of numerous charisms during the 20th century, many of which bear an "original defect": allegations of abuse during their foundational period. While such origins do not necessarily invalidate these charisms, they require rigorous discernment regarding their problematic dimensions, as well as an art of care toward those affected and their religious experience. This recurring vulnerability also raises the question of whether such fragility is inherent to the conflictive and unstable nature of the founding stages of religious communities. This paper presents an interdisciplinary case study of a Pallottine priest involved in the foundation of the Schoenstatt Movement in Chile. The first part analyzes archival documents from 1956 to 1961—reports and correspondence uncovered through recent research—which reveal a progressive process of manipulation, alongside practices sanctioned at the time. Through a historical approach, the study reconstructs an evolutionary profile of the priest and examines how the Society of the Catholic Apostolate managed the case, situating it within the structural fragility typical of foundational periods. The second part explores contemporary interpretations of this "primal wound." Using ethnographic methods, particularly participant observation, it analyzes how current members of the community interpret and categorize these past events today. The research is guided by Ars Vulnerum—the art of tending to wounds—a methodological and ethical approach that seeks to engage responsibly with traumatic histories. Its aim is to work alongside the community, offering historical findings with accuracy, respect, and care, so that they may contribute not to the erosion of faith, but to its critical enrichment and repair.
CASUS TRISTISSIMUS. AN EXPLORATION OF DISMISSAL POLICY IN THE SOCIETY OF JESUS IN CHILE (1943-1955)

Alvarez C. (Speaker)

Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile ~ Santiago ~ Chile
The aim of this study is to write a history of resignations and dismissals (dimissi) from the Society of Jesus in twentieth-century Chile as a way of addressing the problem of abuse of power and sexual abuse within the Catholic Church. It focuses on a set of emblematic cases from the Chilean Province between 1943 and 1955. Dismissals (dimissiones) have received little attention from historians of the Society, likely due to the difficulty of accessing relevant archival sources. This paper analyzes the reactions of Jesuit authorities to cases of abuse of power that materialized in sexual violence committed by Jesuits active in Chile between 1925 and 1955. It argues that archival sources produced around the dimissi—those dismissed or forced to leave—allow sexual violence to be recontextualized within a broader analysis of the Society's relationship to its own members, structured by a highly effective internal hierarchy, as well as to the surrounding civil society. The histories of students in Jesuit schools and of indigenous populations are often intertwined with those of abusive Jesuits who were relocated, dismissed, or encouraged to join the secular clergy or other, "less strict," religious orders. By cross-referencing documentation produced by the central government of the Society in Rome (Superior General, Procurator, Assistants) with correspondence exchanged with the provinces, the study reconstructs a geography of practices of (non-)dismissal. This geography is shaped by canon law and Jesuit legal practices, as well as by the criteria of "scandal" and "incorrigibility," articulated in relation to the notion of the "common good."
"AGAINST HER WILL, YET WITH HER SUPPORT"? QUESTIONING LUCIE COUTAZ'S SILENCE WITHIN THE FRAME OF SEXUAL ABUSE PERPETRATED BY ABBÉ PIERRE.

Ferrer M.B. (Speaker)

EHESS ~ Paris ~ France
This contribution focuses on a specific case of abuse in an ecclesial context, namely violence committed by Abbé Pierre, a prominent French figure in the fight against homelessness, founder of Emmaüs, and a Catholic priest. Adopting a historical approach, the research focuses on the role played by Lucie Coutaz (1899-1982), co-founder of Emmaüs and personal secretary to Abbé Pierre from 1945 to 1980. Lucie Coutaz experienced a healing from bone tuberculosis in Lourdes at 22, spent 17 years as a Daughter of the Heart of Mary, and shared the same accommodation as Abbé Pierre from 1946 to her death. She offers a relevant case study of "women of goodwill" confronted with sexual violence. She did not leave any primary source clarifying her stance regarding Abbé Pierre's behaviour and stood by him until her death. Still, written records indicate that she had been made aware. Her prior involvement in Catholic women's unions as a local leader, and in the French Resistance, for which she was awarded a military decoration, seem inconsistent with her silence. A negative methodology is chosen to approach this silence. Leaving a paradigm of recoverability, the focus shifts to absences, erasures, traces and fragments as they are. However scarce in explicit mentions of abuse, numerous archives were sourced from various institutions and private persons. They shed light on power asymmetries as well as social and religious representations that account for the conditions of possibility of Lucie Coutaz's silence. Drawing on sociology, the study characterises silence as a social practice, intertwining different actors within an organisation marked by internal conflicts. Stakeholders mobilise different frames of analysis, leaving room for misunderstanding. Silence develops both as a constrained and performative process, its consequences reaching beyond the context from which it emerged.
THE BLIND SIDE OF AN INSTITUTION. A PATHWAY TOWARD RESTORATION

Iula E. (Speaker)

PFTIM - San Luigi ~ Naples ~ Italy
The lack of appropriate legislation (especially Canon Law) can be pointed just as one of the problems that made abuses possible in Catholic Church. According to generative ethics approach (IULA 2018), the core of any institution is the capability of creating and reforming human bonds. If we bring into consideration some of the Reports on sexual abuse, from John Jay Report (2004) to Rapport CIASE (2021), we can see that the common point of every crime is to treat a human being as an object, not as a pear subject worthy of respect and protection. The institutional side of the problem assumes its relevance when the secretness of those crimes is covered by feeble normativity and silent ethics. A sharper comprehension of the problem shows a double, controversial economy. First, we have an asymmetric economy of relationships, always unfavourable to people and favourable to perpetrators. This economy is situated in the moment of perpetration. Then, we have an economy of time, following the same line as the previous, but actual in the moment of reporting crimes to authority. This precision enlightens a double field of restoration: relational and institutional. For an environment hierarchically built, recommendations are not enough, but even the mere appeal to orders coming from above could be too much. Facing dynamics of power urges a double level intervention: in terms of trust and in terms of re-institutionalisation. Firstly, work of restoration should be ambitious and focus on humanization of human bonds. We find the Church in a strong need of simplicity and immediacy in relationships. Secondly, following the line given by the Gospel (especially Mk 11, 15-19), Church needs the courage of being purified by the evil that has grown through the years. It doesn't mean to allow the use of strength, but the destitution of abusers, and reinstitution of good shepherds.
THE DESIGNATION OF SEXUAL ABUSE IN THE DIOCESE OF SANTIAGO, CHILE, 19TH CENTURY

Rengifo F. (Speaker)

Profesora asociada, Escuela de Gobierno, Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez ~ Santiago ~ Chile
The aim of this article is to discern what concept encompassed clerical sexual abuse in the Diocese of Santiago de Chile throughout the nineteenth century. It examines the terms in which the offense of illegitimate sexual relations - both for the faithful and priests - was defined in canon law as well as in secular law. To do so, the analysis follows a historical‑legal perspective that understands the normalizing effect of law as one that stabilizes certain meanings over time, thereby making them specifically identifiable. During this period, the process of secularization coincided with the transformation of the normative regime that had, for centuries, provided the frame of reference for understanding those sexual acts identified as abuse. Within a broad collaboration between canon law and ordinary secular law until the mid-19th century, the Republican period experienced tensions between the two that shed light on certain shifts in meaning. Within the process of distinction that occurred between these legal orders, this analysis proposes the notion of debt as an ideological connection between crime and sin that facilitates the identification of the terms under which sexual abuse would be conceptualized. Thus, it contributes to the incipient historiographical development of this field of studies by establishing a specific temporality of the phenomenon in a local-global perspective and providing historical depth to the concept of sexual abuse.
« IL FAUT UTILISER LES FORCES COMME ELLES SE PRÉSENTENT POUR LE RÈGNE DE DIEU »: MANAGING COMPLAINTS AND REGULATING CRISES WITHIN THE MONASTIC FRATERNITIES OF JERUSALEM (1970S-2000S)

Dolbeau S. (Speaker)

École française de Rome ~ Roma ~ Italy
The Monastic Fraternities of Jerusalem are a new ecclesial movement founded in Paris in 1975 around the former Sorbonne chaplain, Father Pierre-Marie Delfieux (1934-2013). Since 2019, following the publication of a memoir by a former sister, the community has faced a significant wave of public allegations concerning abuses of power committed within its ranks. This paper examines the handling of complaints and crises relating to such abuses of power, which have punctuated the history of the Monastic Fraternities of Jerusalem since their foundation. It seeks to analyse the modes of regulation at work both within the community itself and within the hierarchy of the Diocese of Paris, as well as the communal, ecclesiastical, and social mechanisms that contributed to the reproduction of silence surrounding these abuses.
FROM DENIAL TO APOLOGY: SHIFTS IN PAPAL COMMUNICATION ON CLERICAL SEXUAL ABUSE

Sedláková R. (Speaker) , Müllerová V. (Speaker)

University Palacký, Faculty of Theology ~ Olomouc ~ Czech Republic
Grounded in crisis communication theory (Coombs, 2007), this paper examines the communication strategies employed by the last three popes in response to cases of sexual abuse of minors within the Catholic Church. The study focuses on how this sensitive issue has been addressed in official papal documents and how the Holy See's discourse on sexual abuse has evolved since the issue gained global public attention following the investigative reporting of The Boston Globe's Spotlight team in 2002. Using content and thematic analysis, the research examines more than 4,000 official Vatican texts signed by John Paul II, Benedict XVI, and Francis. The analysis considers both the broader historical context and the communication strategies used in addressing the crisis. Particular attention is paid to crisis communication strategies and their role in shaping the institutional response to this highly controversial issue. The findings reveal a significant shift in the Vatican's communicative approach. John Paul II largely avoided explicit engagement with the topic in official discourse. Benedict XVI acknowledged the problem but framed it within a broader narrative of the decline of faith and moral values in contemporary society. Francis, by contrast, has increasingly framed sexual abuse as a systemic problem linked to clericalism and the abuse of power, explicitly addressing institutional responsibility. By tracing this transformation from discursive avoidance to apology, explicit acknowledgment, and institutional accountability, the study provides insights into the evolve of Vatican crisis communication and the ways religious institutions respond to reputational crises.
FORGIVENESS IN THE SHADOW OF ABUSE

Da Silva Monteiro S. (Speaker)

Universidade Católica Portuguesa ~ Lisboa ~ Portugal
This paper examines the meaning and practice of forgiveness in the context of clergy sexual abuse, critically analyzing how the discourse of forgiveness has functioned within the Church. Since 2018, independent commissions and scholarly research have increasingly emphasized the systemic character of abuse in ecclesial contexts. Sexual and spiritual violence are no longer understood as isolated acts but as phenomena embedded in complex institutional, theological, cultural, and juridical dynamics. Within this context, several investigative reports have identified a distorted or instrumentalized understanding of forgiveness as an obstacle to truth, justice, and accountability, at times serving to conceal wrongdoing or diffuse responsibility. How do we talk about forgiveness in such contexts? Is it forgiveness even possible? To address these questions, the paper examines how practices of confession and penance have shaped a certain rhetoric of forgiveness within the Church and it and it proposes a path for rethinking the discourse and significance of forgiveness, especially in the Christian tradition.
"THEOLOGY OF THE CRUCIFIED FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF THE VICTIMS: VICTIMS OF SEXUAL ABUSE AS A THEOLOGICAL LOCUS."

Padron Delgado D.D.J. (Speaker)

Pontificia Università Gregoriana ~ Roma ~ Italy
Is it possible to develop a theology grounded in the experience of victims of sexual abuse? By utilizing the category of 'victims' proposed by liberation theology—and moving beyond the traditional view limited to material poverty—the concept of the 'theological locus' (locus theologicus) is introduced, where the suffering of the innocent becomes the crucial space to encounter God and challenge ecclesial reality. Through a 'hermeneutics of the cross,' the profound link between the crucified Christ and the physical and psychological wounds of survivors is explored. This reflection highlights a 'mysticism of open eyes,' which requires the Church to abandon indifference and clericalism in order to assume active responsibility for healing. The event of Jesus' resurrection is also examined as a horizon of hope, transforming pain into a path of justice and pastoral conversion. Ultimately, believers are urged to recognize in the wounds of the victims the very wounds of the body of Christ.

Panel description: While the history of Christian missions during the early modern expansion of empires has extensively documented encounters with indigenous, polytheistic, or non-Abrahamic traditions, the specific interactions with established Islamic communities remain an area ripe for deeper investigation. This panel explores how Catholic missionaries and Protestant pastors described, engaged with, and attempted to evangelize Muslim populations from the Middle East to the Far East. By moving beyond a Eurocentric Crusade narrative, this session examines the practical methods of encounter, ranging from theological polemics to the pragmatic challenges of daily coexistence. A central focus of the panel will be the "translation" of faith—both linguistic and cultural. How did missionaries adapt Arabic and local Islamic lexicons to communicate Christian catechisms? To what extent did the presence of a pre-existing Abrahamic framework force a change in missionary strategy compared to encounters with non-monotheistic societies? The panel invites scholars to examine three primary areas of missionary production: 1. Translation and Lexicography: How missionaries adapted Arabic and local lexicons (such as Malay) to explain Christian mysteries, often wrestling with pre-existing Islamic terminology for God, prophecy, and salvation. 2. Exegesis of the "Other": Christian explanations and "refutations" of Muslim texts, where the Qur'an was studied as both a hurdle and a tool for conversion. 3. Methodological Manuals: The study of missionary handbooks or specific extracts explicitly devoted to the methodus of interacting with and converting Muslim communities.

Papers:

TRANSLATING TAWḤĪD: CONCEPTIONS OF DIVINE UNITY IN EARLY MODERN CATHOLIC MISSIONARY LITERATURE FROM THE LEVANT

Stella F. (Speaker)

Pontificia Università Gregoriana ~ Roma ~ Italy
During the early modern period, European knowledge of Islam expanded markedly through the field-based activities of Christian missionaries operating in regions of the Islamic world. Recent scholarship has shown how some of these missionaries transformed the experiential knowledge acquired over extended periods of mission into substantial textual productions that circulated widely in multiple European languages. In these works, enduring patterns of religious polemic coexisted with extensive ethnographic and doctrinal material on Muslim beliefs and practices, reflecting the complex entanglement of confessional agendas and early modern knowledge production. This paper examines the conceptual translation of the doctrine of tawḥīd in the writings of seventeenth-century Catholic missionaries active in Arabic-speaking regions of the Levant, whose works were shaped by first-hand knowledge of Islamic rituals and devotional practices, notably the Jesuit Michel Nau and the Capuchin Michel Febvre. Fluent in Arabic and other Oriental languages, both authors produced wide-ranging works on Islam addressed to a European readership, as well as more concise handbooks designed as missionary tools of religious controversy. By comparing these different textual genres, the paper analyzes how the doctrine of tawḥīd was reframed in relation to the specific aims of missionary writing and the distinct audiences to which these texts were addressed.
HEURNIUS'S ADMONITION AND RUYLL'S ALLAH: THEORY VERSUS PRACTICE IN DUTCH VOC MISSIONS TO MUSLIM ASIA

Bottanelli V. (Speaker)

FSCIRE ~ Bologna ~ Italy
This paper examines the strategies of Dutch VOC pastors in engaging with the established Islamic communities of the East Asian spice islands during the seventeenth century. It explores a twofold dynamic by distinguishing between missionary theory and practice. First, it analyses the prescriptive theory underpinning such encounters through a close reading of Justus Heurnius's manual Ad Indos Capessenda Admonitio (1618/1628), a pioneering Calvinist treatise on mission, composed before Heurnius own mission in Batavia. Second, the paper contrasts this theory with on-the-ground practice, investigating the actual linguistic and social adaptations made by pastors in the Indies. It analyses, for instance, the pragmatic adoption of the Arabic lexicon, such as using 'Allah' for God in the works of contemporaries like Ruyll.

Panel description: Social inequalities are not merely dysfunctions of a particular economic model, but rather constitutive features of the exploitation inherent in capitalism. Within liberation theology, these dynamics of exploitation have been conceptualised as structural sins, pointing to structural forms of injustice that exceed individual moral failure. The Gospel itself can be read as a prophetic cry against inequality, exploitation, & social injustice, one that nevertheless derives its transformative force from the promise of eschatological salvation. Marxism, on the other hand, has historically constituted a major intellectual and political project that identified exploitation as a defining feature of human history and argued that the abolition of inequalities presupposes the abolition of exploitative relations as such. The socialist utopia thus emerged as a horizon of collective hope, orienting struggles aimed at overturning the existing socio-economic order. Hope lies at the heart of every social utopia and every eschatology, functioning as a force against resignation. For the Christian-Marxist dialogue promoted by the Dialop Project, hope represents a privileged site of convergence and critical exchange. Starting from the distinct theological and philosophical articulations of hope within their respective traditions, Christian & Marxist interlocutors aim to develop a shared social and political orientation that can counter contemporary regimes of inequality and exploitation. This dialogue gains renewed relevance in light of Pope Francis's call for a Holy Year of Hope. Marxist participants in the dialogue, in turn, draw on Bloch's 'The Principle of Hope' -described by W. Benjamin as a "system of theoretical messianism"- a work that played a foundational role in the rehabilitation of social utopia. This closed panel brings together Christian and Marxist scholars in dialogue to reflect on social and eschatological hope as a counterforce to inequality & structural exploitation.

Papers:

CHRISTIAN HOPE AS THEOLOGICAL RESOURCE AND THE DIALOGUE WITH MARXISM

O'Byrne D. (Speaker)

SOPHIA UNIVERSITY INSTITUTE - ISTITUTO UNIVERSITARIO SOPHIA ~ Figline e Incisa Valdarno ~ Italy
This paper reflects on the meaning and function of hope in a historical moment marked by deep crisis: climate disruption, widening inequalities, democratic fragmentation, mass displacement, and ongoing wars. Against both naïve optimism and resigned cynicism, it explores whether a form of hope can be articulated that is realistic, critical, and capable of sustaining collective action across divergent worldviews. Drawing on the methodology of the Dialop project, the paper argues that Christian theology offers resources for dialogue with Marxist traditions around shared struggles for justice, peace, and human dignity. Christian hope is presented as both eschatological and this-worldly. Rooted in trust in God's promises and the resurrection of Christ, it affirms that injustice and death do not have the final word, while simultaneously calling believers to active engagement in transforming present material conditions. Through engagement with Jürgen Moltmann's 'Theology of Hope' in dialogue with Ernst Bloch, the paper highlights convergences between Christian and Marxist understandings of hope as forward-looking, transformative, and resistant to resignation, while acknowledging differences concerning ultimate horizons of meaning. Complementary insights from Spe Salvi and Pope Francis's social teaching further illuminate how Christian hope sustains commitment to "little hopes" such as justice, peace, and ecological restoration without absolutising political outcomes. The paper concludes by outlining Dialop's principles of differentiated consensus and qualified dissent proposing hope as a shared practice that enables Christians and Marxists to collaborate against structural injustice and inequality without erasing fundamental differences. Hope, understood in this way, emerges as a critical and mobilising force for collective action in rough times.
GROUNDS FOR HOPE: A MARXIST ENGAGEMENT WITH CHRISTIAN THOUGHT ON PEACE AND THE PREFERENTIAL OPTION FOR THE POOR

Baier W. (Speaker)

Party of the European Left ~ Vienna ~ Austria
In an era defined by proliferating wars, ecological collapse, and nuclear peril, the fundamental question of hope becomes an urgent, shared concern across worldviews. This paper offers a Marxist contribution to a Christian-Marxist dialogue on hope, arguing that any viable future -socialist or otherwise - is contingent upon achieving peace and planetary survival. Moving beyond superficial conceptions, the analysis first addresses hope as a contested political signifier. It then traces the Marxist conception, rooted not in eschatology but in a critical social science that identifies the root of human degradation in alienating social relations, particularly the commodification of labour and nature under capitalist property regimes. Emancipation, therefore, lies in superseding this logic, establishing an economy subordinated to human purpose. Crucially, the paper seeks common ground by highlighting a profound ethical convergence with Christian thought: the "preferential option for the poor" as active subjects of history. Both traditions, from Marx's "class with radical chains" to papal encyclicals, call for listening to the oppressed and abolishing the structural causes of their deprivation. This shared listening to the "cry of the poor" forms a vital bridge in the dialogue. However, the paper concludes that all emancipatory and theological hopes now stand under a severe caveat. With the Doomsday Clock at its most ominous, rampant rearmament and war directly threaten any possible future. Therefore, the precondition for hope is collective political action to impose disarmament and diplomacy. As evidenced by global solidarity movements, hope resides in the power of mobilised peoples to curb the drivers of war and ecological destruction, making conscious human intervention the ultimate, shared source of possibility.
MESSIANIC HORIZONS OF MARXISM: ERNST BLOCH IN DIALOGUE WITH THE THEOLOGY OF HOPE

Giannopoulou A. (Speaker)

Sophia University Institute - Istituto Universitario Sophia ~ Figline e Incisa Valdarno ~ Italy
Developed Marxism sought to shed the utopian elements of early socialism in its effort to constitute itself as rational and scientific. Utopia was thus conceived as a non-place, in contrast to communist society, which was presented as the highest stage of human historical development. In "The Principle of Hope", Ernst Bloch famously rehabilitated social utopia by engaging in a critical dialogue with biblical categories such as Exodus and the Kingdom. Social inequalities and systemic injustice, exploitation and alienation are addressed through hope, which inherently carries a revolutionary and transformative dynamic capable of orienting praxis toward an "Exodus." For Bloch, hope does not concern only social utopia -or eschatological expectation- but functions as a dynamic mode of understanding and reflecting upon the present. As he writes, "even if hope merely rises above the horizon, whereas only knowledge of the Real shifts it in solid fashion by means of practice, it is still hope alone which allows us to gain the inspiring and consoling understanding of the world" (The Principle of Hope, vol. III, MIT Press, 1996, 1367). Bloch's thought elevated the dialogue between Christians and Marxists to new theoretical levels; as Jürgen Moltmann argues, Christian theology itself -particularly its theology of hope- was renewed through Bloch's emphasis on eschatology. This paper argues that any 'Weltanschauung' that articulates a future horizon for human society inherently contains hope as a driving force for imagining social utopia, one that also operates in the present as a political stance against dominant institutional orders.
THE STRUGGLE FOR A HUMAN ECONOMY: MAMADOU DIA, CATHOLIC SOCIAL THOUGHT, AND AFRICAN SOCIALISM

Stanley I. (Speaker)

London School of Economics ~ London ~ United Kingdom
DIALOP's project of developing a "transversal social ethic" emerges in the context of contemporary socio-ecological crises and responds directly to Pope Francis' call for a "culture of encounter". But while the present conjuncture may open up distinctly new synergies between marxism/socialism and catholicism, it is important to draw on the lessons and intellectual resources of past attempts to bring these traditions into dialogue. This paper considers the encounter of Catholic social thought and socialism in the work of Mamadou Dia (1910-2009), Senegalese intellectual, politician and activist, who stands among the most significant West African theorists and actors of decolonisation. Having briefly served as the first PM of independent Senegal, Dia's arrest and imprisonment in 1962 is often seen as a path-defining moment, in which neo-colonial interests were safeguarded and alternative possibilities curtailed. Although a lifelong practicing Muslim and the author of several important works on Islam in African societies, Dia was heavily influenced by Catholic social thinkers, such as Teilhard de Chardin, and in particular the personalism of Emmanuel Mounier. This paper explores how he sought to synthesise these ideas with marxist/socialist concepts & anthropological insights, setting out a distinctive vision for "African Socialism" based on a "human economy" that overcomes social inequalities. It also discusses his attempt, in close collaboration with the Dominican priest and development planner L.J. Lebret, to bring these ideas into life through a national network of self-governing cooperatives & an innovative programme of "animation rurale" (participatory popular education). The chapter concludes by asking what we might learn today from Dia, not merely as an icon of the "road not taken", but as a thinker of the "transversal social ethic", whose work brings not only Catholic social thought & marxism/socialism, but also Islam & African tradition, dialogue.

Panel description: Our world is shaped by institutions that claim to secure order and justice but often inflict harm and exclude marginalized groups: courts, prisons, and policing frequently turn social vulnerability into punishment, while militaries reinforce global power asymmetries. Abolitionist movements respond with a radical imagination: they argue that systems built on coercion and punitive control should be dismantled and replaced by community-based, nonviolent, and more justice-oriented alternatives. For theology and ethics, abolitionism poses a profound challenge. While the call to dismantle central institutions may seem destabilizing, its imaginations resonate with and traditions of liberation and reconciliation. This panel brings theological perspectives into conversation with contemporary abolitionism, directly addressing the EuARe 2026 theme Religion and (In)equalities. We explore the legitimacy of state force, the distribution of vulnerability, and the conditions for just coexistence. From a theological standpoint, abolitionism raises questions such as: How do religious narratives of judgment and community engage the idea of a world without punitive control? Where do traditions resist or support abolitionist demands? And how do religious actors contribute to or critique these movements? We invite interdisciplinary contributions, including: • Prison abolitionism and theological critiques of punitive order; • Police abolitionism and religious concepts of non-repressive security; • Military abolitionism and the resources of peace ethics; • Intersectional analyses linking abolitionism with racism and social inequality; • Practical/pastoral initiatives of religious communities in abolitionist contexts. The panel aims to identify normative resources for alternative social life and examine where theology remains implicated in justifying violence. By fostering this dialogue, we seek to advance research on the role of religion in contesting contemporary (in)equalities.

Papers:

CRITIQUE OF CRIMINAL LAW FROM A THEOLOGICAL ANTHROPOLOGY OF VULNERABILITY

Johrendt L. (Speaker)

Helmut-Schmidt-Universität / Universität der Bundeswehr Hamburg ~ Hamburg ~ Germany
In order to critique the punitive practices of the state, it is first necessary to articulate the underlying rationales and objectives that underpin the state's use of punitive measures in the lives of individuals. Criminal theories address this question in a variety of ways. Theories of punishment can be categorized as either absolute or relative. Absolute theories of punishment assume that punishment for punishment's sake is necessary for social peace. In contrast, relative theories of punishment utilize punishment to achieve specific objectives, such as rehabilitation, deterrence, and the prevention of further criminal actions. Both absolute and relative theories of punishment are founded on a particular conception of human nature and an associated anthropological presumption. Theories of punishment are typically predicated on the assumption of rational and responsible subjects. Conversely, the social conditions of constitution and production of subjects are largely overlooked. This paper attempts to address this issue and, in doing so, arrive at a critique of punishment. The paper's critique is rooted in a theological anthropology that conceptualizes humans as vulnerable, social beings embedded in social conditions. This theological framework serves as a foundation for the paper's analysis of common theories of punishment, particularly those that justify state punishment. From the anthropological perspective of structural vulnerability, theories of punishment that are considered absolute appear to be theories of violence. Furthermore, the supposition that humans invariably deliberate on their actions in a rational manner, guided by rational principles, as postulated by theories of punishment, appears to lack substantive justification when evaluated from the standpoint of theological anthropology. From the perspective of theological anthropology, it is thus possible to consider alternatives to the carceral, punitive justice of criminal law.
BEYOND REFORM? POLICE ABOLITION AND THEOLOGICAL ETHICS

Tretter M. (Speaker)

Friedrich-Alexander Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg ~ Erlangen ~ Germany
Modern policing is commonly understood as a cornerstone of state order. As the executive instrument of public authority, the police are tasked with maintaining security, enforcing the law, and safeguarding justice, including—under strictly defined conditions—the use of force. Normatively, policing is justified by principles of proportionality, restraint, and equal treatment and is often regarded as indispensable for social stability. At the same time, policing has become the object of sustained critique. Patterns of racial profiling, aggressive stop-and-frisk practices, and recurrent instances of excessive violence reveal persistent gaps between normative ideals and lived realities. Nevertheless, dominant responses continue to frame such incidents as exceptional cases that can be prevented or mitigated through reform measures, including improved training, diversity initiatives, accountability mechanisms, and technological oversight. Police abolitionism challenges this reformist consensus at its core. Rather than treating excessive violence as an anomaly, abolitionist approaches argue that such patterns are structurally produced by the institution of policing itself and cannot be resolved through reform. On this basis, abolitionist positions conclude that policing generates insecurity and should therefore be abolished and replaced by alternative forms of collective safety and conflict resolution. From a theological perspective, these claims raise difficult questions, since state power—and especially the legitimate use of force—is often interpreted as part of a divinely sanctioned order. This paper argues that police abolitionism should be taken seriously as an ethical horizon that challenges established assumptions about state violence, order, and security. Engaging with abolitionist critiques, it contends, is an indispensable task for any theological ethics seeking to reflect responsibly on coercive power in contemporary societies.
FREEDOM AGAINST DESTINY: LUIGI PAREYSON'S PHILOSOPHY AND POLITICAL AUTHORITY

Mausolf J. (Speaker)

Humboldt-Universität ~ Berlin ~ Germany
Debates on abolition and state violence increasingly recognise that coercive political orders rest not only on institutions but on philosophical and quasi‑religious narratives that render authority meaningful and even necessary. Ideas of destiny, historical mission, or communal unity legitimise power by presenting obedience as participation in a larger historical order. The central question for theology and philosophy is thus genealogical: through which conceptual traditions do such narratives arise, and which intellectual resources enable their critique? This paper addresses these questions through the work of Luigi Pareyson (1918-1991), whose thought developed within Fascist Italy's intellectual and political landscape. His philosophy was shaped by academic debates and by his involvement in the antifascist milieu that later converged in the Partito d'Azione, rooted in networks such as Giustizia e Libertà. This movement sought to dismantle the authoritarian constellation sustaining the Fascist regime—monarchy, economic elites, and a centralised state—through political freedom, social transformation, and decentralised autonomy. A decisive dimension of Pareyson's antifascism appears in his later re‑engagement with Heidegger. Pareyson does not attempt to detach Heidegger's philosophy from its entanglement with National Socialism; he acknowledges this involvement and integrates it into his analysis. He shows how Heidegger's language of destiny, decision, or sending carries a quasi‑religious structure capable of sacralising political authority. Pareyson's thought offers significant resources for contemporary debates on violence and political authority. If coercive orders depend not only on institutional force but on narratives that sacralise unity, destiny, or necessity, philosophical and theological critique becomes indispensable.
ABOLITION AND REPARATIONS: WHY YOU CANNOT HAVE ONE WITHOUT THE OTHER

Rieger J. (Speaker)

Vanderbilt University ~ Nashville ~ United States of America
This paper will focus on the abolition of slavery in the United States and what reparations might still look like, with conclusions for the politics of liberation everywhere.

Panel description: The recognition of religious minorities by political regimes does not always equate with true equality, even when formal status has been granted. History shows that it often comes with impositions, covert persecution, or the loss of certain privileges. This panel aims to explore such moments of recognition, showcasing contradictory experiences of Protestant religious minorities with state power in their local contexts. What strategies did religious minorities use to attain legal recognition from the state? How did different political ideologies, such as communism and liberalism, affect their experiences of attaining equality? What does State recognition signify for Protestant minorities historically? What did minority Protestants gain or lose from state recognition, and what hidden forms of inequality were masked by this formal acknowledgement? How did their spiritual practices change as a result? Organised by the research group "Protestantism as a minority religion" (https://minorityprotestants.wordpress.com/), the panel aims to understand how religious minorities interact with the state in moments of recognition and to explore the equalities and inequalities that originate from this dynamic across specific contexts. Contemporary struggles faced by minority Christian groups, such as those in northern Nigeria under radical Islamist attacks, or in North Korea and China under communist regimes, demand a reassessment of those dynamics under states that recognise them formally but not in practice.

Papers:

IRELAND AND THE PERSECUTION OF PROTESTANTS IN THE ITALO-IBERIAN WORLD IN THE 1950S

Biagini E.F. (Speaker)

University of Cambridge ~ Cambridge ~ United Kingdom
The 1950s saw a return to virulent confessional politics in Italy, Spain and some Latin American countries. At the time, the recently established Republic of Ireland also had the reputation of intolerance and Catholic bigotry, culminating with infamous Fethard-on-Sea Boycott of 1957. Less known is the extent to which the Irish political establishment was embarrassed by what they regarded as a discreditable and indefensible return to a dark age. This paper examines how the Irish Department of Foreign Affairs monitored anti-Protestant activities overseas and tried to intercede for persecuted Protestants whenever possible. Such activities shed a new light on the Taoiseach Eamon de Valera's attitudes to religious dissent at home and his decision to speak up against the Fethard-on-Sea Boycott in the summer of 1957.
BETWEEN EMPIRE AND MAJORITY: PROTESTANT MISSIONS AND THE SEARCH FOR CULTURAL RECOGNITION IN IRELAND

Bénazech Wendling K. (Speaker)

University of Lorraine ~ Nancy ~ France
This paper examines the Irish Society for Promoting the Education of the Native Irish (1818-1853) to explore the relationship between state recognition, inequality, and minority religious authority. Drawing on Karina Bénazech Wendling's De la Bible irlandaise au soupérisme, it argues that early nineteenth-century Ireland presents a paradox: Anglicans were politically dominant under British rule, yet increasingly operated as a religious minority, alongside other Protestant minorities, seeking cultural recognition within a Catholic-majority society. The Irish Society's promotion of Irish-language literacy and vernacular Bibles aimed to reshape religious authority and secure symbolic legitimacy. These strategies, however, produced new inequalities by challenging religious territoriality - aligning Catholic converts with Protestant elites - and provoking renewed accusations of colonisation. The later rise of souperism further exposed asymmetrical power relations. By reframing recognition as legal, cultural, linguistic, and religious, the paper shows that formal state recognition does not guarantee equality and may coexist with profound symbolic marginalisation. The Irish case thus broadens comparative understandings of Protestant minority recognition.
THE POLITICS OF WALDENSIAN WOMEN SCHOOLTEACHERS AMID COVERT PERSECUTION OF PROTESTANTS IN ITALY, 1860-1915

Popa L. (Speaker)

Justus Liebig University ~ Giessen ~ Germany
In the aftermath of Unification, Protestants in Italy portrayed liberalism and national sovereignty as inherently Italian values to justify their belonging and active role in nation-state building. In contrast, Catholicism, due to the temporal sovereignty of the Pope, operated not only as a religious system but also as a political one - cattolicismo politico - that resisted ideas of liberalism and nationalism. This view of Protestantism as authentically Italian allowed Waldensian schoolteachers, serving in Waldensian schools across the peninsula from 1860 to 1915, to develop a gendered Protestant interpretation of the nation that aligned with the wider liberal and evangelical outlook. Despite facing intimidation tactics from local authorities, the Catholic Church, and municipal schools - which encompassed social exclusion, job denials, and even physical prevention of children from attending class - they articulated a distinct political perspective for Italy based on faith and education grounded in biblical principles. They viewed nation-building as a grassroots effort in which religious minorities, including women, played a crucial role. Their familiarity with the Bible and the belief that even a minority group could help transform an entire nation empowered Protestant women to act as political subjects despite covert persecution. It was significant that many of them were converts who actively promoted biblical literacy. Their anti-clericalism and educational activism positioned them at the forefront of Italian nation-building, showing how minority Protestant women influenced political discourse from the schoolroom.
PROTESTANT MINORITIES AND THE AMBIGUITIES OF STATE LEGALITY: NEGOTIATING RECOGNITION IN THE SOVIET UNION

Beliakova N. (Speaker)

Bielefeld University ~ Bielefeld ~ Germany
The Soviet Union officially proclaimed the separation of church and state, the equality of religions before the law, and the relegation of religion to the private sphere. Yet in practice, this model of "separation" produced a highly regulated system in which religious minorities existed within constantly shifting boundaries of legality and illegality. Although many congregations obtained formal legal status through state registration, they operated under a complex framework of state regulations that fundamentally restricted the activities of religious organizations. The limited registration of Protestant communities, and especially the establishment of a centralized religious body in Moscow in the form of the All-Union Council of Evangelical Christians-Baptists (1944) for late Protestant denominations, provided a degree of protection and visibility, including international recognition; however, this center also functioned as a mechanism of unification and disciplining of a diverse Protestant milieu and proved vulnerable during the Khrushchev anti-religious campaign. The paper demonstrates the ambivalent significance of state registration for congregations and pastors and shows how administrative manipulation of registration could serve as a trigger of pressure for the Protestant minority. Drawing on archival sources, church documents, and believers' narratives, it analyses how Protestants navigated this framework through partial compliance and negotiation, informal networks, clandestine practices, parallel religious education, and transnational contacts, while long-standing distrust that labeled them "sectarians" or "foreign" confessions generated additional layers of tension and marginalization. By focusing on these practices, the paper asks what registration actually meant under a communist regime: a limited legal status for some communities and, simultaneously, a technology of governance.
BLASPHEMY, THE LAW AND THE CONTROL OF PROTESTANT MINORITIES. PARADIGMS AND PERSPECTIVES OF OPPRESSION

Nash D. (Speaker)

Jesus College, Oxford University ~ Oxford ~ United Kingdom
This paper examines the history of the use of blasphemy as a mechanism of othering and controlling the rise of Protestant sects between 1640 and 1830 in England. Protestant sects that challenged conventional spirituality were generally subject to official action from the state. This classed them as alternatively heretical or blasphemous. However, during the Interregnum/Commonwealth . This approach was challenged by the arrival of legislatively backed religious toleration. Yet also during this period the behaviour of some sects (and individuals within them) stimulated debates in Parliament and beyond about the nature and operation of religious tolerance. This was especially pertinent when some sects (Quakers, Ranters etc). and their members challenged public order and the ability of others to worship peaceably. Yet others who did not necessarily challenge public order (e.g. Socinians) were also caught up in this moral panic. In wrestling with these debates we encounter opposing Protestant paradigms of control and religious freedom as well as arguments about the new possibilities of where religious authority was to exist. How far should religion be state controlled and what was the basis of disciplinary authority and its value were questions late seventeenth century society faced alongside creating the providential justification for eventual legislative action in its defence. The paper concludes by observing the legal restrictions blasphemy laws still maintained into the 19 century and what these said about the confessional nature of this particular age.
THE DUTCH GOVERNMENT'S HARSH RESPONSE TO THE SECESSION OF 1834

De Jong K. (Speaker)

Protestantse Theologische Universiteit (PThU) ~ Utrecht ~ Netherlands
The Netherlands is known for the fact that, during the Republic (1588-1795), the government took a relatively lenient stance toward non-Reformed religious communities. Especially Lutherans and Jews were tolerated. In line with this, reinforced by the spirit of the Enlightenment, in the Kingdom of the Netherlands that was established in 1815, several other groups besides the privileged Netherlands Reformed Church were also eligible for subsidies from the state. Despite its previous tolerance, the government took harsh action when the Reformed Church split in 1834. In this paper, I want to describe this schism from a legal-historical perspective. What motivated the government, and more specifically King William I, to intervene so drastically? But also: what made the government decide to give more space within a relatively short period of time? How did these events affect legislation and regulations in the following decades of the nineteenth century?
RECOGNIZED BUT NOT EQUAL: PROTESTANT MINORITIES AND THE AMBIGUATES OF THE STATE RECOGNITION IN SOCIALIST YUGOSLAVIA

Djuric Milovanovic A. (Speaker)

Institute for Balkan Studies, Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts ~ Belgrade ~ Serbia
The legal recognition of religious minorities by the state is often assumed to signal a transition from persecution to equality. In socialist Yugoslavia, however, formal registration did not necessarily translate into substantive religious freedom or social parity. Following the post-1945 restructuring of church-state relations and the establishment of a socialist legal framework governing religious life, neo-Protestant communities such as the Nazarenes and Seventh-day Adventists were registered as lawful religious associations. This bureaucratic incorporation distinguished Yugoslavia from more overtly repressive communist regimes, yet it simultaneously embedded these groups within mechanisms of regulation and oversight. While registration granted limited institutional visibility and a defined legal status, it also enabled administrative control, surveillance through state commissions for religious affairs, and pressures to align religious activity with socialist norms. Leaders often navigated precarious positions between cautious accommodation and subtle resistance, while believers continued to face social stigma, discrimination, and restrictions linked to conscientious objection and nonconformist religious practice. In certain instances, particularly among pacifist communities, legal recognition coexisted with periodic prosecution. Drawing on archival materials and ethnographic research, this paper argues that state recognition in socialist Yugoslavia functioned less as emancipation than as a framework of regulated inclusion. Legal acknowledgment masked enduring inequalities embedded in everyday religious life and reshaped internal community hierarchies, theological self-understandings, and modes of dissent. By situating the Yugoslav case between openly coercive and liberalising models of governance, the paper contributes to broader debates on the paradoxes of recognition, demonstrating how formal equality may simultaneously produce social inequalities.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT WITHOUT EQUALITY: PENTECOSTAL LEGALISATION IN LATE SOCIALIST CZECHOSLOVAKIA

Pácha M. (Speaker)

Institute of Contemporary History of The Czech Academy of Sciences ~ Prague ~ Czech Republic
This paper explores the legalisation of Pentecostal believers in late socialist Czechoslovakia as a case of state acknowledgement without full equality. Focusing on Pentecostal communities that were eventually legalised as the Apostolic Church, I argue that believers pursued formal legal recognition through a strategy of defiant compliance: they rejected illegality, continued semi-public religious practice, and repeatedly petitioned state authorities while presenting themselves as loyal socialist citizens. This strategy opened a path to legal status, but also exposed them to surveillance, arrests, and pressure to accept state-approved institutional solutions. State acknowledgement thus reduced some vulnerabilities while reproducing others. A comparison between the Czech and Slovak parts of the country shows that outcomes depended not only on ideology ("communist rule") but also on administrative structures, local-state relations and federal asymmetries.
'IN FROM THE WILDERNESS': AFRICAN INDEPENDENT CHURCHES AND THE POST-COLONIAL STATE IN ZIMBABWE

Maxwell D. (Speaker)

University of Cambridge ~ Cambridge ~ United Kingdom
As movements of healing and exorcism so-called African Independent Churches (AICs) were disparaged and persecuted by colonial officials and missionaries alike in Southern Rhodesia. Led by prophets who convened meetings of white-robe wearing adherents under trees in the African wilderness (reserves), their pneumatic practices of glossolalia and deliverance appeared as uncapturable discourses to Europeans who cast them as reversions to paganism, syncretistic and a threat to the social order. Moreover, AICs' rejection of biomedicine for divine healing, and dismissal of literacy and education in favour of divine revelation and self-reliance put them on the wrong side of the colonial project. On the other hand, they were celebrated in scholarship as examples of cultural resilience, proto-nationalism and models of authentic African Christianity -- the future of the Church in Independent Africa. Nevertheless, their persecution continued for the first two decades following Zimbabwe's independence. As in many post-colonial African regimes, Zimbabwe's ruling party drew much legitimacy from its programme of modernising development and expected civil society to acquiesce to its goals. AICs were maligned in the religious press and by state media. Their outdoor worship was curtailed by local government regulations. However, once Zimbabwe's economic and political crisis struck in the 2000s AICs were embraced by the ruling party. Politicians in search of legitimation and votes attended their services and conventions and AIC leaders were rewarded with state patronage. The paper will examine the reasons for this realignment. It will discuss a related series of issues around patriarchy, the glorification of the rural, sovereignty, indigenous leadership, and theologies of land.
THE EUROPEAN UNION IN DIALOGUE WITH CHURCHES: AN ANALYSIS FOCUSING ON MINORITY PROTESTANTS

Creemers J. (Speaker)

ETF Leuven ~ Leuven ~ Belgium
Article 17.3 of the Treaty of the Functioning of the European Union (2009) gives a legal basis for "an open, transparent and regular dialogue" between the European Union and "churches and religious associations and communities." While the European institutions seem to have lost sight of the original intentions of this dialogue (Pimpurniaux 2020), the platform itself and its activities have grown considerably. In its prehistory and official beginnings, the conversations included a handful of key players, most prominently the Roman Catholic Episcopal Commission of the European Community (COMECE) and the Conference of European Churches (CEC), currently consisting of 114 (national) Orthodox, Protestant, Anglican and Old Catholic Churches. Over time, a growing number of minority churches and religious communities and organizations have joined the dialogue, but their participation possibilities on different levels and in different conversation formats lack transparency (Portaru 2017). This paper discusses the (un)equal recognition and space the dialogue offers to this variety of religious actors in its structure, organization and thematic focuses. Particular attention goes to the participation of minority Protestants, both within and outside of the CEC structure. This paper focuses on the ninth and current parliamentary sessions (2019-) and builds on historical sources and on interviews with past and current participants.
A MINORITY CHURCH IN A TRANSFORMING DEMOCRACY

Spini D. (Speaker)

New york University in Florence ~ Florence ~ Italy
This paper examines the public theology of the Waldensian Church—later the Union of Methodist and Waldensian Churches in Italy—within the context of post‑World War II Italy. It analyzes how the Waldensian Church responded to the challenges posed by a newly established democracy, and how it gradually came to understand itself less as a "minority" and more as an active "component" of the Italian democratic public sphere. The paper focuses on several crucial debates, beginning with that on freedom of religion, which evolved from a position of strict laïcité à la française toward a richer notion of religious pluralism, navigating the transition from a failed secularization to post‑secularity. Within this broader framework, the paper reconstructs the theological conversations sparked by major transformations in Italian society, such as the legislation on divorce and abortion. It also considers the failed encounter with the Comunità di Base and Cristiani per il Socialismo, highlighting the main differences in their respective theological frameworks.
PROCLAIMED TOLERATION, CONTESTED WORSHIP: WALDENSIAN STRATEGIES OF RELIGIOUS RECOGNITION IN THE RÍO DE LA PLATA (1858-1868)

Malan P. (Speaker)

Universidad de la República ~ Montevideo ~ Uruguay
In the context of the Revival and the emancipation of the Waldensians in the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia, the 1850s witnessed the emergence of a project of Protestant outreach closely linked to migration. A mission of the Société continentale évangélique to the Waldensian valleys underscored a central paradox: despite their numbers and strategic position on the edge of a vast Catholic region, these communities lacked the material resources for effective missionary work. In a context of economic hardship, emigration to South America came to be seen as both a practical solution and a religious opportunity, despite ecclesiastical reluctance. A migratory movement towards the Río de la Plata thus began. The settlement of the first families in the department of Florida, Uruguay, quickly exposed the limits of constitutional religious toleration. This group of forty-five families faced threats, violence, and restrictions on their faith. Lacking a pastor, they sought external support, notably from the British chaplain in Montevideo, whose intervention led the government to guarantee freedom of worship. The episode had broader repercussions: the executive promoted the "liberality" of institutions and supported measures such as civil marriage for non-Catholics, while British Protestant networks framed these developments as signs of religious progress and conditions for missionary activity. Yet this recognition remained fragile. A decade later, local authorities again challenged Waldensian religious freedom, forcing the community to devise new strategies. This paper argues that state recognition was not a guarantee of equality, but a fragile resource that had to be actively claimed and sustained. It examines how the Waldensians navigated this situation—by appealing to constitutional principles, mobilizing transnational networks, and reshaping local forms of religious authority—in order to turn formal recognition into effective religious practice.
STATE AND CHURCH IN GEORGIA: MINORITY PROTESTANTS AND THE POLITICS OF CONSTITUTIONAL RECOGNITION

Kopaleishvili T. (Speaker)

European Evangelical Alliance ~ Brussels ~ Belgium
The question of how political regimes recognise — or fail to recognise — minority religious communities lies at the heart of contemporary debates on religious freedom, equality, and constitutional identity. Georgia is a revealing case in point: a state in which the Georgian Orthodox Church occupies a constitutionally privileged position, and in which minority religious communities, including Protestant churches, must navigate a legal and social landscape shaped by that dominance. This paper examines the position of minority Protestants within Georgia's church-state framework, arguing that recognition is not a binary condition but a spectrum — and that Georgia's constitutional order distributes access to that spectrum in ways that produce contradictory experiences of equality and inequality. Protestant communities have achieved formal legal recognition, yet this recognition has not translated into true equality. It has coexisted with impositions and constraints: barriers to institutional access, exclusion from public funding, and symbolic marginalisation (Mikeladze et al. 2016) within a constitutional order that positions the Orthodox Church as the singular bearer of national identity (Pelkmans 2006). Drawing on historical, constitutional, and socio-political analysis, the paper traces how this layered inequality is produced — not through explicit exclusion, but through the structural privileging of one tradition. In doing so, it contributes a multi-dimensional analytical framework for reassessing the dynamics between political regimes and minority Protestant communities, and for understanding how states can produce (un)equals: communities that are legally present but substantively marginalised.

Panel description: Current demographic trends in the Western Balkans, marked by population decline, urbanisation and sustained emigration, place migration at the centre of debates on inequality, social cohesion and sustainable development. In line with SDG 10 and target 10.7, which call for well-managed migration policies, this panel explores how migration can move from being perceived as a challenge to becoming a driver of inclusion and shared prosperity. While unregulated migration flows may strain local systems, migrants can play a vital role in revitalising local economies when supported by appropriate policies and services, the "hardware" of migration governance. Local authorities are uniquely positioned to translate national and regional frameworks into concrete action, fostering access to labour markets, housing and social services that reduce inequalities for both newcomers and host communities. Yet policies alone are not sufficient. Successful inclusion also depends on the "software": the emotional, ethical and spiritual infrastructure that shapes attitudes, narratives and relationships. IN this regard, interreligious and intercultural dialogue is a powerful enabler of trust and mutual understanding, helping to bridge divides and address fears rooted in religious, ethnic and cultural differences. Faith communities, drawing on shared values of human dignity, hospitality and responsibility, can help transform polarisation into empathy and social cohesion. Building on two papers, Scriptural Reasoning on Migration by the Centre for Interreligious Dialogue in Rijeka and Migration in the Western Balkans: Interreligious and Intercultural Dialogue for an Inclusive Region by the University of Belgrade, the panel calls for closer collaboration between religious leaders, policymakers and local authorities to align policies and values, hardware and software, in support of a more equal and resilient Western Balkans region

Papers:

MIGRATION IN THE WESTERN BALKANS: INTERRELIGIOUS AND INTERCULTURAL DIALOGUE FOR AN INCLUSIVE REGION

Šantic D. (Speaker)

University of Belgrade, Faculty of Geography, and Executive Board Member of the Western Balkans Migration Network ~ Belgrade ~ Serbia
The Western Balkans, a region marked by historical divisions and ongoing demographic challenges, faces critical migration and integration issues that demand effective and inclusive responses. The region's significant emigration and labour shortages, coupled with the influx of migrants and refugees, create a pressing need for effective integration strategies. The presence of refugees and migrants could be harnessed to address skill gaps, revitalize economies, and counteract declining populations. However, effective integration responses are hindered by long-standing fractures, insufficient services, and negative public perceptions shaped by media narratives and politicization of migration issues. Religious leaders and actors have a critical role in fostering mutual understanding between newcomers and host communities, and countering xenophobia. Their close ties to communities enable them to support positive attitudes towards newcomers, offer spiritual support and inclusive spaces, promote evidence-based policymaking, and strengthen social bonds through interreligious and intercultural dialogue. By leveraging enhanced cooperation between religious leaders and local authorities, the Western Balkans region has the opportunity to embrace its potential as a long-term destination, rebuilding fractured communities, fostering economic resilience, and ensuring inclusive development and shared prosperity
SCRIPTURAL REASONING ON MIGRATION

Obucina V. (Speaker)

Centre for Interreligious Dialogue ~ Rijeka ~ Croatia
Migration is one of the defining realities of our time, shaped by war, climate change, economic inequality and political instability. Yet public discourse increasingly frames migration through the lenses of security, border control and threat. This paper proposes that religious traditions, engaged through Scriptural Reasoning (SR), offer an alternative perspective, reframing migration as a fundamental human and moral condition. Across sacred scriptures, migration is central to religious self-understanding. Texts speak of exile and return, wandering and refuge, loss and hope. While these narratives do not idealize migration and often highlight suffering and vulnerability, they consistently affirm ethical responsibilities toward the stranger and the displaced. The key question for contemporary societies is therefore not only how to manage migration, but what kind of moral communities we aspire to be. Scriptural Reasoning provides a distinctive method for addressing this question by creating a shared space for reading sacred texts across traditions. Participants remain rooted in their own commitments while listening to others, modelling how difference can coexist with respect and ethical solidarity, particularly relevant where religious identities are politicized in migration debates. The paper also explores how scriptural engagement can move from reflection to action. Faith communities already play a vital role in humanitarian response and integration, yet there is a risk of limiting engagement to charity alone. SR invites a shift toward shared agency, recognising migrants as contributors to wisdom and community life. Finally, the paper examines the tension between religious ethics and security-driven migration discourse. By foregrounding human dignity beyond legal status, scriptural traditions challenge exclusionary frameworks and invite dialogue on hospitality, responsibility and justice in pluralistic societies

Panel description: Humans encounter AI-based social companions both as equals—as simulacra or reflections of humans—and as qualitatively unequal—inferior to or even transcending humans in various aspects. Against this background, the panel aims to address the positive and negative, intended as well as unintended potentials of such social robots and AI-systems within religious learning environments (RLE) as a new socio-informatic setting. Two dimensions are of particular interest: (1) current research on the impact of social robots and AI on RLE, regarding social and educational in/equalities, and (2) robots and AI as subject matter for discussing (social and structural) in/equality from an ethical and relational point of view. We invite proposals in the intersection of technology and religious learning that address questions such as: - What (ontological, functional or relational) in/equalities between robots, teachers, and pupils affect RLE? - Can AI and robotics enable inclusive access to religious knowledge? - Does generative AI contain relevant biases (e.g. towards a certain religion, denomination or social group) that would lead particularly to discrimination within RLE? - How should we shape the religious positioning of an AI-based system for RLE? - How are AI tools received in religious education depending on the religious and cultural context of the specific RLE? - How can digital RLE (or a "digital catechesis") be conceptualized when the teacher is a machine? - Does the material design of a machine influence the spiritual formation in an RLE, i.e. when it comes to topics such as immaterial values and transcendence? - How can the in/equality within a triangle of human, deity, and technical artefact be addressed and how does AI's imitation of humans' or deities' behaviour obscure or amplify the differences? - How should conceptualisations of the human-machine in/equality such as New Materialism be addressed in RLE?

Papers:

NAVEL, TEACH ME TO PRAY! A SOCIAL ROBOT IN RELIGIOUS EDUCATION. FIRST GLANCES AT A PROJECT IN GERMANY

Fabricius S. (Speaker) [1] , Kutz M. (Speaker) [2]

University of Siegen ~ Siegen ~ Germany [1] , TU Dresden ~ Dresden ~ Germany [2]
Artificial Intelligence in Religious Education (RE) is often discussed as a disembodied tool. This paper expands on this perspective by examining the humanoid robot Navel, designed for social resonance through physical mimicry. We conducted a study in 6th-grade classes at a Christian Protestant Grammar School in Siegen (Summer 2025) and in Dresden (Autumn 2025). It investigates how Navel's physical presence affects relational (in)equality during teaching units on "Prayer and Psalms". We hypothesise that the students perceive the learning environment to be more equal than in a traditional pedagogical setting. In this special RE setting, Navel emerges as a third party within the hierarchy. Preliminary findings from a mixed-methods design—comprising pre/post-surveys, video-recorded student interviews, and teacher feedback (analysed via MAXQDA)—suggest that students perceive the robot as a non-judgmental counterpart. The setting of this RE facilitates a safe space for expressing vulnerability and religious identity without the pressure of academic grading inherent in the German system. Thus, Navel enables a new symmetric dialogue about God. Additionally, the study highlights Navel's potential as a tool for inclusion. A teacher reported a higher engagement of a student with special educational needs, who found it easier to articulate complex spiritual concepts like divine proximity through the robot's predictable interaction. This contribution provides empirical evidence on how social robots bridge material design and spiritual formation in 21st-century confessional learning.
USING AI IN UPPER SECONDARY RELIGIOUS EDUCATION. AN (UN)EQUAL TOOL FOR MORE (UN)EQUAL STUDENTS?

Winter D. (Speaker) [1] , Küppers K. (Speaker) [2]

Universität Erfurt ~ Erfurt ~ Germany [1] , Pina-Bausch-Gesamtschule ~ Wuppertal ~ Germany [2]
In its draft for the new curriculum for upper secondary school religious education classes the state of North Rhine-Westphalia plans to include a more in-depth examination of artificial intelligence. Taking this as an opportunity, we are developing a short series of lessons in the context of upper secondary schools that will combine the practical use of AI and reflection thereof with the theoretical examination of the topic. The focus lies on anthropological questions in light of the rise of AI technology and is to be held in an 11th and 12th grade class in spring 2026. In theoretical perspective, the focus here is on the (in)equality at stake: To what extent do humans and AI differ? How does AI change our view of humans by increasingly imitating abilities that we previously thought only humans were capable of? This series will then be reflected upon from a religious education and ethical perspective. Four goals are being pursued: 1. The series applies the objectives of the curriculum. 2. AI is not only examined from a theoretical perspective, but also from a practical one. The thesis is that, particularly from an anthropological and ethical perspective, practical examination of the possibilities and limitations of AI reinforces the theoretical examination. 3. The main tool we use is "fobizz," which complies with the GDPR and is therefore suitable for use in schools. Its suitability for this purpose is tested, especially in contrast to tools frequently used by students, such as ChatGPT. 4. Finally, from an ethical perspective, the question arises as to whether the use of AI in school lessons can actually negate inequalities between students, as is often claimed, or whether it is more likely to lead to a digital divide. An extensive survey of students conducted before and after the project will be used to analyse and reflect on the results.
AI-ENABLED CRITICAL ENGAGEMENT WITH BIBLICAL TEXTS IN PRIMARY RELIGIOUS EDUCATION: INCLUSIVE ACCESS, PROMPT LITERACY, AND METACOGNITIVE REFLECTION

Holm A. (Speaker)

Erzdiözese München und Freising ~ München ~ Germany
This paper presents findings from a year-long project in which Grade 4 pupils engaged with AI chat assistants and image generators in a Catholic religious learning environment (RLE). Using the GDPR-compliant platform Fobizz and school-issued iPads, learners explored the narratives of Jacob and Esau (Gen 25-36) and Moses at the burning bush through dialogic AI interaction, targeted prompt development, and AI-generated visualisations documented in digital learning journals. The project addresses how AI tools can enable inclusive access to religious knowledge—particularly for children from less media-literate households—by embedding personalised devices within a media education concept grounded in Tulodziecki's action-theoretical model of media competence. Theologically, the unit employs the Bibliolog distinction between "black fire" (scriptural text) and "white fire" (interpretive space) as a framework for evaluating AI-generated content: pupils differentiated textual evidence from machine-produced interpretation and assessed outputs for theological adequacy, fidelity, and potential distortions. Structured peer feedback fostered metacognitive reflection and critical thinking as key competencies for navigating generative AI in religious education (cf. Chrostowski 2024). Results show that AI-supported sequences were perceived as particularly memorable, that prompt precision correlated with output quality, and that pupils developed a differentiated awareness of AI's capacities and limitations within the hermeneutical process. The paper contributes to the panel's inquiry into how AI tools are received in religious education and whether generative AI can foster inclusive, critically reflective access to religious knowledge in primary RLE.
ENVISIONING

Yagdi S. (Speaker)

University of Vienna ~ Vienna ~ Austria
"Not Everything Said Online Is True." Islamic Influencers from the Perspective of Muslim Students and Their Relevance for Religious Learning Environments In late modern societies, religious learning processes increasingly take place not only in traditional institutional settings such as schools, families, or mosques, but also within digital public spheres. Social media platforms such as TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube have become important spaces where religious content is communicated and interpreted. In these environments, Islamic influencers have emerged as new actors of religious communication who address religious questions, provide moral guidance, and shape interpretations of Islam in formats accessible to young audiences. This paper explores how Muslim students perceive these digital religious actors and how they evaluate their relevance for Islamic religious education in public schools. The analysis is based on an empirical study with 383 students participating in Islamic religious education classes in Austria. Using qualitative content analysis of open-ended responses, the study examines students' perceptions of Islamic influencers, their expectations regarding the credibility of online religious content, and their views on whether such actors should be discussed in the classroom. The findings show that social media constitutes an important religious learning environment for many students, while also creating uncertainty regarding the reliability and authority of online religious content. The paper argues that religious education can play an important role as a space for critical reflection on digitally mediated religious authority and for fostering students' capacity for informed religious judgment.

Panel description: Within the framework of the historicization of the post-Vatican II period, research carried out so far has primarily highlighted the need for a change of perspective, reflecting and concretizing the broadening of outlook that the Council itself sought to promote. Along this trajectory, this panel aims to engage directly with the dynamics of the implementation of the Council, focusing in particular on the issue of the normalization of Vatican II. The panel therefore aims to highlight this phase of normalization by investigating its different moments and key turning points, and by bringing to light the crucial issues that emerged during the conciliar implementation phase. The panel will thus address the topic from the analytical perspective of this process of normalization, focusing in particular on: • Post-Vatican II norms: the production of normative documentation within local churches (dioceses and diocesan synods; Episcopal conferences); the drafting of the Codex Iuris Canonici and the Codex Canonum Ecclesiarum Orientalium; the elaboration, promulgation, reception, and effects of decrees and documents issued by the Holy See from Paul VI to Francis, or by bodies established in the post-conciliar period (post-conciliar commissions, Curial dicasteries), which marked turning points in the post-conciliar era; the activity of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. • Vatican II as a norm: conflicts surrounding the implementation of Vatican II; conciliar ecclesiology in relation to the reform of the Roman Curia and the development of the Synod of Bishops; the normative status of the conciliar corpus itself for subsequent theological reflection and for the practices of local churches.

Papers:

THE LEX ECCLESIAE FUNDAMENTALIS AND THE PROBLEM OF THE CODEX AFTER THE VATICAN II

Gardini D. (Speaker)

Sapienza Università di Roma - DREST ~ Roma-Bologna ~ Italy
This paper aims to analyze the problem of the new Codex in light of the proposal and the debates surrounding the LEF, the project of a constitutional charter for the Church conceived as a single introduction to the Latin and Eastern codifications. Although never approved, its canons were incorporated into the new Latin Codex, thereby limiting the possibility for the Church to develop a more effective implementation of the decisions of the Second Vatican Council.
PAUL VI AND THE CONGREGATION FOR THE DOCTRINE OF THE FAITH: DOCTRINAL POLICY AND NORMATIVE PRODUCTION AFTER VATICAN II

Sintoni A. (Speaker)

DREST - Alta scuola Europea di scienze religiose G. Alberigo ~ Bologna ~ Italy
The Congregation for the Doctrine for the Faith, previously Holy Office, after Vatican II saw an exponential increase in the production of normative or doctrinal texts aimed at explaining in an increasingly detailed way the stance of the Church's Magisterium on various aspects of faith and morality. Thus, the period between 1966 and 1978 sees the redaction of an array of documents of different literary genres by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, focusing on a variety of different themes: from the reception of Vatican II to infallibility, celibacy and sexuality. A survey of these documents and how the Congregation structures its activity after Vatican II can shed light on the workings of the formerly most powerful Congregation of the Roman Curia after Vatican II.
THE STANDARDIZATION OF VATICAN II ECCLESIOLOGICAL LANGUAGE IN THE HOLY SEE'S MAGISTERIUM (2000-2025)

Corvo F.M. (Speaker)

Alta scuola Europea di scienze religiose G. Alberigo ~ Bologna ~ Italy
The paper investigates the postconciliar "normalization" of Vatican II by mapping the standardization of ecclesiological language in the Holy See's magisterium from 2000 to 2025. It classifies formulaic patterns that describe papal-episcopal relations («cum N.», «sub N.», «cum N. et sub N.») and their main competitors («in communione cum N.», «sub auctoritate N.», etc.), as well as the principal referent-families (petrine, pontifical, sedeological…). The results highlight shifting preferences across three pontificates, including the growing stabilization of «cum Petro et sub Petro» as a condensed ecclesiological "signature".
A FUNDAMENTAL LAW OF THE CHURCH. ADOPTING ECUMENICAL AND INTERRELIGIOUS IMPULSES FROM THE SECOND VATICAN COUNCIL

Berkmann B. (Speaker)

Ludwig-Maximilian-University ~ Munich ~ Germany
The fundamental law of the Church (Lex ecclesiae fundamentalis) would have been an opportunity to translate the ecumenical and interreligious impulses initiated by the Second Vatican Council into canon law. The Council renewed the Catholic Church's attitude towards other Christian churches and non-Christian religions by using the model of concentric circles in both Lumen gentium and Nostra aetate. The Catholic Church does not appear as separate from the others anymore, but, while remaining at the centre, maintains a relationship of varying proximity or distance. The last draft of the Lex ecclesiae fundamentalis, dating from 1980, adopted the model of concentric circles in its first article: can. 6 considered Catholics, can. 7 Christians in communio non plena, and can. 8 non-Christians and catechumens. Initially, the project to draft a fundamental law for the Church attracted considerable ecumenical attention. The 'Working Group of Protestant and Catholic Canon Lawyers and Theologians' in Heidelberg even drafted its own version in 1971. However, distorted ecumenical assumptions ultimately contributed to the project's demise. On the one hand, there was a mistaken expectation that the fundamental law should provide a basis for the whole of Christendom, but on the other hand, it was accused of usurping non-Catholic communities. In reality, it claimed validity only for the Catholic Church, but would have clarified the legal relationship with other communities. By limiting itself to a core set of norms uniform for the entire Catholic Church, the fundamental law would have marked the scope for legitimate diversity in the universal Church. The speaker points out that the draft, nevertheless, retains its importance for legal relations with other churches and religious communities.
RECONFIGURING JUDICIAL AUTHORITY: THE DOCTRINE OF DELICTA CONTRA SEXTUM IN THE 2021 REFORM OF BOOK VI OF THE CODE OF CANON LAW

Profeta A. (Speaker)

Università degli Studi di Modena e Reggio Emilia ~ Modena ~ Italy
Within the canonical penal system, the so-called delicta contra sextum-offences committed against the Sixth Commandment-have traditionally constituted a distinct normative category, characterized by particular gravity and by relevance for the protection of ecclesiastical public order and the salus animarum, the ultimate end of canon law. Already within the Corpus iuris canonici, and even more clearly in the doctrinal elaborations of the post-Tridentine age, such offences were conceived not merely as violations of Christian morality, but as conduct capable of affecting the juridical integrity of the ecclesial community itself. The codification of the 1917 Codex Iuris Canonici systematized these offences within the category of the delicta contra bonos mores (canons 2357-2363), establishing a structured regime of canonical penalties. After the Second Vatican Council, however, the penal dimension of canon law experienced a phase of marginalization, shaped by anti-juridical and anti-penal tendencies that marked sectors of post-conciliar canonical culture. The 1983 Code nevertheless preserved the centrality of these offences, particularly with regard to clerics, most notably in canon 1395. In recent decades, renewed attention to the penal dimension of canon law has prompted a process of normative reconfiguration, culminating in the reform of Book VI of the Code of Canon Law promulgated through the apostolic constitution Pascite gregem Dei (2021), which profoundly reshaped the penal discipline of the Latin Church. Against this background, the paper reconstructs the genesis and normative evolution of the delicta contra sextum, arguing that the recent reform should not be understood merely as a technical updating of existing provisions, but rather as the renewed assertion of the Church's potestas puniendi and a more explicit configuration of canon law as a juridical instrument aimed at safeguarding both the integrity of the ecclesial community and the dignity of persons.
DEALING WITH EXPECTATIONS AFTER NOSTRA AETATE 4. EPISCOPAL CONFERENCES ELABORATING GUIDELINES ON RELATIONS TO JEWS (1965-1973)

Maligot C. (Speaker)

Fondazione per le Scienze religiose ~ Bologna ~ Italy
By the time the SPCU issued its official "guidelines and suggestions to implement NA4", episcopal conferences in the US (1965), France (1967), and Belgium (1969) had already formed ad hoc committees on relations with Judaism and drafted their own texts. As I trace the political, ecclesiological, and theological tensions that shaped the French and US drafting process, I argue these guidelines must be understood not only in relation to the Council declaration they sought to implement but also in competition with a broader set of post-conciliar documents. Catholic experts on Judaism and advocates of dialogue sought to widen the interpretive framework to include political theology, an area deliberately avoided at Vatican II, but which they saw as implied by its teaching on Covenant. Their efforts increasingly met resistance from bishops and/or from the CEF general assembly, as Catholic opinion shifted in front of the Arab-Israeli conflicts after 1967 and 1973. Divergences between expert committees and the episcopal bodies that created them highlight the power dynamics between expertise, hierarchy and the search for consensus in post-conciliar collegiality. These committees grappled with how their work not always aligned other (pontifical and episcopal) statements on Palestine, refugees, and world peace, and with public expectations (both Jewish and Catholic) that Church authorities should "not remain silent" and move beyond the diplomatic neutrality reproached to the Vatican. NA thus prompted a specific "multilateral" reception of Vatica II, where audience and public theology became key issues. The French committee's work unfolded alongside parallel Jewish efforts to assess Christianity from a Jewish perspective. As the project of a joint commission failed, Jewish partners were consulted during the writing process and provided critical feedback. In this way, the issue of audience contributed to shape the ways to elaborate post-counciliar frames of interpretation of NA4

Panel description: Hosted by the European Society for Intercultural Theology and Interreligious Studies (ESITIS), this panel aims to re-examine the terrain of interreligious and intercultural understanding in relation to academic and transdisciplinary (academic-civic) efforts. Over the past decades, in light of the complexities of living in pluralistic societies, interreligious dialogue and intercultural studies have evolved into a much broader and more diverse set of efforts toward mutual understanding and shared flourishing. Rapid changes — political realignments, environmental crises, digital transformations, and demographic shifts — have raised urgent questions for the relevance and future vitality of interreligious cooperation and peaceful, mutually respectful intercultural coexistence. What can IS and IcT offer to European societies now and in the future? What is needed and what is possible? How can the tasks be delineated and agendas set? What is the particular role of scholarship now and in the years ahead? Papers and Speakers: + The Role of Interreligious Studies Under Conditions of Inequality and Religious Pluralism (Yaser Ellethy; President of ESITIS; Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam) + Sacred Spirituality: A New Old Approach to Religion, Ethics, and Human Flourishing (William F. Vendley; Senior Advisor for Religion at the Fetzer Institute and Secretary General Emeritus Religions for Peace) + Beyond (Dis-)Agreement as a Focus of Interreligious Encounter: Reframings of How We Imagine One Another (Marianne Moyaert) By situating these themes within wider societal transformations, invited speakers will reflect on how Interreligious Studies can respond creatively to the complexities and injustices of the 21st century while envisioning intellectually and ethically robust futures for the discipline.

Papers:

THE ROLE OF INTERRELIGIOUS STUDIES UNDER CONDITIONS OF INEQUALITY AND RELIGIOUS PLURALISM

Ellethy Y. (Speaker)

Vrije Universteit Amsterdam ~ Amsterdam ~ Netherlands
This paper will examine the role of Interreligious Studies under contemporary European conditions marked by structural inequality, intensified religious pluralism, and contested models of secularization and nationalism. Drawing on interdisciplinary perspectives from religious studies, intercultural theology, sociology, and political theory, the paper argues that interreligious engagement in Europe cannot be meaningfully understood apart from asymmetries of power related to history, migration, race, class, and legal recognition. While interreligious initiatives are often framed in terms of dialogue, cohesion, and mutual understanding, the paper aims to critically interrogate whose voices are included, whose religious expressions are normalized, and how inequalities shape both academic knowledge production and practical interreligious encounters. By situating Interreligious Studies within the specific European context—characterized by post-Christian secular frameworks, the governance of religious diversity, and ongoing debates on Islam, Judaism, and minority religions—the paper will draw attention to the importance of taking religious commitments seriously such that religious communities can recognize themselves and their own experience in academic and civic work on religion. It also proposes that Interreligious Studies move beyond harmonizing narratives toward an engagement that addresses conflict, exclusion, and epistemic contestation. Finally, the paper suggests that European interreligious scholarship has a responsibility to critically examine its own normative assumptions and to contribute to more equitable forms of coexistence in pluralist societies. In doing so, Interreligious Studies can function not only as an academic field but also as a critical space for rethinking religion, power, and belonging in Europe.
SACRED SPIRITUALITY: A NEW OLD APPROACH TO RELIGION, ETHICS, AND HUMAN FLOURISHING

Vendley W.F. (Speaker)

Fetzer Institute ~ Kalamazoo ~ United States of America
This presentation will explore the renewed interest in spirituality as a "new old" approach to religion, ethics, and human flourishing, considering its possible relevance as a resource for contemporary Interreligious Studies. While often viewed with suspicion in academic discourse for its perceived vagueness or individualism, spirituality can be reclaimed as a relational, practice-oriented, and ethically generative dimension with strong resonances across religious traditions. Drawing on the his background in Catholic theology, long-term experience in Asian religious contexts, particularly Buddhist contexts, and practical involvement with global interreligious networks such as Religions for Peace, William F. Vendley will discuss how spiritually grounded narratives and practices can foster shared moral horizons without collapsing religious differences. Like an experiential and ethical grammar, spiritualities articulate human dignity, compassion, and responsibility toward both society and the planet. In this vein, particular attention will be given to how spiritually informed approaches may address contemporary challenges—social fragmentation, ecological crisis, and declining trust in institutions—while remaining attentive to questions of power, exclusion, and theological integrity. Interreligious Studies can play a key role in clarifying, critiquing, and contextualizing spirituality as a category of analysis and practice. By situating spirituality at the intersection of religion, ethics, and human flourishing, the contribution seeks to expand current models of interreligious engagement beyond dialogue toward shared ethical imagination and collaborative action in pluralist European societies.
BEYOND (DIS-)AGREEMENT AS A FOCUS OF INTERRELIGIOUS ENCOUNTER: REFRAMINGS OF HOW WE IMAGINE ONE ANOTHER

Moyaert M. (Speaker)

KU Leuven ~ Leuven ~ Belgium
This presentation proposes a reframing of interreligious encounter beyond the dominant focus on agreement and disagreement, suggesting that such binaries no longer adequately capture the dynamics, aspirations, and challenges of interreligious engagement in contemporary European contexts. While theological difference remains important, the presentation will explore the more pressing questions for today concerning how religious and non-religious actors imagine one another—as threats or partners, as fixed identities or evolving communities, as problems to be managed or resources for the common good. Drawing on developments in interfaith dialogue over recent decades, the presentation will reflect on such aspects as: how these evolving forms negotiate the presence of "committed" religious perspectives, the uneven participation of younger generations, and the ongoing tension between academic expertise and lived, non-academic religious knowledge. This talk will focus on the context of Europe (broadly) in which religion has frequently been framed through securitized lenses, associated primarily with fundamentalism or radicalization and suggest that such framings constrain the imaginative possibilities of interreligious cooperation. Against this backdrop, Interreligious Studies is presented as a field capable of unsettling reductive narratives, fostering reflexivity, and developing new conceptual tools for understanding encounter as relational, contextual, and future-oriented.

Panel description: The decline of Christianity as a socially hegemonic religion coincides with the emergence of "outgoing" Christians. This perspective invites Christian communities to be understood as open, relational and territorially embedded actors, actively involved in the production of urban space and places of encounter. Community is thus conceived not as a fixed identity, but as a dynamic and relational process shaped by shared practices, proximity and responsibility. Moving beyond formal hierarchies, this inquiry explores dynamics of representation, power and legitimacy within Christian communities, examining how authority and agency are negotiated among clergy, laity and local groups. It considers how different organisational models - centralised or distributed - affect the capacity of communities to inhabit public space and engage contemporary urban cultures. The notion of an "architecture of encounter" continues to inform many initiatives promoted by Catholic communities, fostering both the encounter with God and the encounter with others through practices of service and the generation of social, relational and spiritual goods. These initiatives may involve traditional ecclesiastical infrastructures, such as parishes reinterpreted beyond the idea of sacred enclosure, or extend into new spaces of social and urban engagement. They often include the reuse and re-signification of deconsecrated churches and ecclesiastical heritage, contributing to a reconfigured pastoral geography. The call is open to contributions that investigate innovative ways in which Christian communities make and inhabit space, focusing on outcomes, methods and underlying theological, pastoral, legal, architectural and economic assumptions. It addresses regulatory frameworks, governance models and institutional conditions that enable community action in public space, as well as to the economic, patrimonial and heritage implications of these practices.

Papers:

ECCLESIASTICAL ASSETS AND THE RIGHT TO THE CITY: FROM FRAGMENTED OWNERSHIP TO UNIFIED URBAN AGENCY

Bartolomei L. (Speaker)

Centro Studi Cherubino Ghirardacci ~ Bologna ~ Italy
In the contemporary Western city, the crisis of housing equity and the displacement of vulnerable populations demand a radical reimagining of ecclesiastical welfare. Based on a experimental census of religious properties in Northern Italian cities conducted through a GIS-based research project, this paper observes that while these assets are not necessarily underutilised, they suffer from a lack of unified strategic management. Currently fragmented across a multitude of independent legal entities, this vast spatial capital fails to exert its full transformative potential. The study argues that if this heritage were managed through a unified community strategy, it could serve as a decisive lever to reclaim the "right to the city". By transitioning from a parcellised management to a coordinated urban agency, Christian communities could fundamentally reshape the hospitality profile of their cities, countering the erosive pressure of mass tourism. In conclusion, the paper investigates specific strategies and "concrete utopias" through which this fragmented heritage can be reassembled into a cohesive, prophetic urban strategy, ensuring housing rights and social stability for the most fragile urban populations.
PARISHES 2.0: CHALLENGES AND PERSPECTIVES IN A CHANGING WORLD

Dimodugno D. (Speaker)

University of Turin ~ Turin ~ Italy
In an increasingly secularised society, where the number of faithful is steadily declining, the presence of the Catholic Church within local territories calls for reconsideration. This process often entails the transformation, suppression or merger of parishes, prompting a rethinking of the very notion of the parish. At the same time, it raises the need to address the reuse of deconsecrated or underused places of worship, including forms of mixed use in space or over time. In this context, the contribution explores how canon law can help interpret the signs of the times and support new models of ecclesial organisation, territorial presence and the sustainable management of ecclesiastical heritage.
SOCIAL REUSE OF ITALIAN ECCLESIASTICAL PROPERTIES: SUSTAINABILITY FACTORS

Giani F. (Speaker)

Fondazione Summa Humanitate ~ Rome ~ Italy
Ecclesiastical properties - assets intended to serve the mission of the Church - are widely redundant in Italy. Buildings originally designed to host active religious communities have, in some cases, become empty or underused; in others, they have been successfully transformed through socially oriented adaptive reuse, emerging as places of solidarity and everyday life. This contribution examines a set of case studies involving the social reuse of ecclesiastical properties. The analysis focuses on the relationships between the new users and the owning ecclesiastical bodies, as well as on the motivations, expectations and governance arrangements that shape these processes. Strengths and weaknesses are assessed in relation to environmental, social, ecclesial, legal (both civil and canonical), economic and architectural sustainability. The study seeks to identify the factors that facilitate or hinder the social reuse of church property and to explore the conditions under which such initiatives prove sustainable over time.
SPACES OF ENCOUNTER: COMMUNITY-MAKING IN BRITISH CHURCHES, 1945-1975

Grieco L. (Speaker)

Tor Vergata University of Rome ~ Rome ~ Italy
In post-war Britain, the decline of Christianity's social hegemony and the rise of culturally diverse urban contexts prompted new forms of community-making. Based on historical and architectural analysis, this paper shows how Christian communities produced multifunctional, ecumenical, and adaptive spaces - ranging from new parish halls and purpose-built interconfessional centres to the repurposing of historic churches - that enabled shared worship, social services, and civic engagement. It argues that these spatial strategies anticipated contemporary debates on relational, inclusive, and negotiable religious space, revealing how Christian communities negotiated authority, agency, and collective life across urban and historical contexts.
INFORMAL RELIGIOUS HIERARCHY IN SOVIET KAZAKHSTAN

Rohozinski J. (Speaker)

The Pilecki Institute ~ Konstancin-Jeziorna ~ Poland
During the Soviet period, Kazakhstan, which is currently home to more than 100 nationalities, functioned as a sui generis laboratory for social experiments that were conducted on a massive scale. Following the brutal collectivization and sedentarization of nomadic Kazakhs in the years 1931-1933, further waves of deportees were transported to the country, including Poles and Germans from the Ukrainian SSR in 1936. The last great migration, which took place at the end of the 1950s/beginning of the 1960s, was closely connected with Khrushchev's project of "taming the virgin lands". It was accompanied by the gradual liberalization of the circumstances of the special settlers. Catholics occupied one of the last positions in the ethnic and religious hierarchy of Kazakhstan. Unable to participate in the religious revival that co-occurred with the nationalist mobilization of the Great Patriotic War, Catholics in Kazakhstan had no choice but to function "underground". They applied for the legalization of their communities rather late, for only in the 1970s. As a result descendants of deportees functioned in two parallel and mutually contradictory realities: the Soviet public sphere, represented first and foremost by the school and the workplace, which was hostile towards religion, and the home, where Catholic religious traditions - ridiculed at school - were cultivated, mainly through the involvement of women. Kazakhstani Catholics were allowed to legally exist in the Soviet public sphere at all so late compared to other denominations. They could not benefit from the religious revival sparkeed by the "Great Patriotic War" social moblization. The long years spent in the "religious underground" endowed Kazakh Catholicism with very specific features and unique attributes when compared, for example, with the system, faith, and practice of the Catholic Church in Poland or Germany.
CHURCH IN A SUITCASE: SPATIAL PRACTICES OF ORTHODOX COMMUNITIES OF DISPLACED UKRAINIANS IN GERMANY

Timofeeva Z. (Speaker)

University of Münster ~ Münster ~ Germany
The paper examines how Orthodox communities of forcibly displaced Ukrainians in Germany organise worship and ecclesial life in the absence of permanent church buildings. These communities often depend on temporary and shared spatial arrangements, including the use of Catholic and Protestant churches, as well as non-sacral settings such as refugee shelters or a theatre. Approaching worship as a spatial practice, the paper treats the church not as a fixed place but as an event. It introduces the notion of a "church in a suitcase" to describe a mode of ecclesial presence in which minimal liturgical means are sufficient to transform borrowed spaces into places of worship and encounter. The paper also looks at how displacement shapes authority and community formation. While the formal establishment of a parish presupposes a collective request from an existing community, in practice priests often initiate and sustain these communities themselves by gathering parishioners, and maintaining relations with host confessions. As a result, responsibility for community life tends to rest with the clergy rather than with a stable congregation. By focusing on temporary spatial arrangements and everyday organisational practices, the paper offers an empirical perspective on emerging forms of Christian presence in contemporary urban contexts.
RE-ENCHANTING THE COMMONS THROUGH THE "BUNDLE OF RIGHTS": CATHOLIC LAND CONCESSIONS AND THE PRODUCTION OF SPACE IN THE DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF THE CONGO

Baraka Akilimali J. (Speaker)

Université Catholique de Louvain, UCLOUVAIN ~ Louvain-la-Neuve ~ Belgium
Rather than treating ecclesiastical land as a closed or exclusively religious property, the communication argues that these concessions function as open, relational and territorially embedded spaces, shaped by collective practices that articulate spiritual, social and economic purposes. Drawing on the institutionalist notion of the "bundle of rights", the communication conceptualizes religious property not as an exclusive dominium, but as a plural and negotiated constellation of rights (use, access, management, exclusion) distributed among ecclesiastical authorities, local communities, farmers, youth groups and associations. This analytical framework makes it possible to capture how Christian communities operate as producers of space, generating forms of proximity, welfare provision and social coordination, often in contexts marked by weak state presence. Empirically, the contribution focuses on Catholic land concessions in eastern and western regions of the Democratic Republic of Congo, where church-owned land hosts a wide range of collective uses: sharecropping and subsistence agriculture, schools and health centres, parish halls, sports fields and spaces of sociocultural animation. These practices transform ecclesiastical land into multifunctional spaces of encounter, where religious life intertwines with everyday social and economic activities. Community is thus approached as a dynamic process shaped by shared practices, responsibility and negotiation, rather than as a fixed ecclesial identity. The communication pays particular attention to power relations and legitimacy beyond formal hierarchies, highlighting the role of lay actors and informal governance arrangements. Local charters, sometimes written, often oral, regulate access and responsibilities, translating an "architecture of encounter" into concrete spatial norms. These arrangements reveal how Christian communities generate hybrid public spaces.
CANON LAW AND PASTORAL SPACES. REORGANISING PARISHES AND CHURCH BUILDINGS

Berkmann B. (Speaker)

Ludwig-Maximilian-University ~ Munich ~ Germany
The Catholic faith does not remain abstract, but takes concrete form in space and time. The most basic element is the local Eucharistic assembly embedded in a specific place, namely in a church in a parish. However, secularisation is not leaving these structures unscathed. Many countries in Europe and North America are experiencing the merger of parishes and the relegation to profane use of churches. The speaker analyses these phenomena from a canon law perspective. On the one hand, the law provides the ecclesiastical authority with instruments to implement restructuring. On the other hand, it gives the Christian faithful the opportunity to defend their needs, especially the right to assistance from the sacred pastors out of the spiritual goods of the Church, especially the word of God and the sacraments. In a large number of recourse proceedings, individual believers and groups challenged measures taken by the ecclesiastical authority. The speaker examines the judgments issued by the highest ecclesiastical tribunal, the Apostolic Signatura, in cases of parish mergers and the relegation of a church to profane use. Which reasons are sufficient and which are not? Last but not least, this also raises the question of how to deal with the temporal goods. However, given the rather rudimentary provisions in the Code of Canon Law, the tribunal decisions leave considerable leeway. By contrast, the 2020 instruction "The Pastoral Conversion" by the Congregation for the Clergy reveals greater severity. Overall, the topic shows a struggle over space and a contest between lay people and the ecclesiastical authority for new solutions. The speaker, thus, provides a vivid example of the interaction between law and space.

Panel description: Research on religion and global politics has grown significantly over the last decades. In a first wave of research, seminal works like the Fundamentalisms project (1991), The Revenge of God (1991) and Public Religions in the Modern World (1994) observed the "return of religion" to international affairs at the end of the Cold War and conceptualized its disruption of the paradigm of secular modernity. Throughout the early 2000s and 2010s, a second wave of scholarship expanded and problematized these debates, expressing cautious optimism about the contributions of religious ideas and actors to international goals in the post-9/11 policy environment while chronicling the complex dynamics of religious conflict. More recently a third wave of scholarship on religion and global politics has emerged. This new wave has responded to the evolution of the international environment, marked by liberal crisis and inter-state conflict. Attentive to post-colonial legacies and offering a sustained critique of power dynamics and the role of the state, these new studies have focused on the constructive and disruptive dimensions of religion in international politics. They have returned focus to local political dynamics, drawn on diverse religious histories, employed new research methodologies and considered the role of theological debates in their work. They have also aimed to be relevant to policymakers by addressing topics such as interreligious engagement, religious freedom efforts, the religious genealogies of human rights, transnational conservative networks, democratic backsliding, and the role of faith-based organizations in international development. This panel, sponsored by Notre Dame's Ansari Institute for Global Engagement with Religion and the Rome Summer Seminars on Religion and Global Politics, encourages emerging and established scholars to explore these new directions in the study of Religion and Global Politics.

Papers:

ONE COUNTRY- DIFFERENT FORMS OF SECULARISM? REGIONAL VARIATIONS IN STATE-RELIGION RELATIONS: THE CASE OF GERMANY"

Franz M. (Speaker)

TU Dortmund University ~ Dortmund ~ Germany
This paper investigates regional variations in the institutional arrangements governing state-religion relations within German federal states and examines whether these differences still constitute a coherent system of secularism. Contemporary scholarship conceptualizes secularism primarily as the mode through which religious freedom is implemented, while some scholars also emphasize its potential to foster civic inclusion. Germany is commonly treated as a uniform case and classified under the model of cooperative separation between state and religion. Yet significant sociodemographic disparities exist among the federal states - both regarding the salience of Christianity and the presence of Muslim communities - since immigration from predominantly Muslim countries has occurred unevenly across regions. Notably, eastern Germany ranks among the most secularized areas worldwide, whereas other regions continue to identify more strongly with their Christian heritage. Furthermore, considerable variation can be observed in legal frameworks - for example between state constitutions and the Basic Law - in how religion, particularly Christianity, is articulated institutionally. Differences also emerge concerning the expansion or restriction of denominational religious education. This study conducts a comparative analysis of selected federal states to map these legal and institutional configurations and assess whether they uniformly reflect Germany's cooperative separation model or exhibit substantive deviations. The paper concludes by discussing the normative implications such divergences may have for religious communities and broader societal cohesion.
PARALLEL PATHS TO GOD: STATE-SPONSORED INTERRELIGIOUS DIALOGUE IN EISENHOWER'S AMERICA

Fine P. (Speaker)

Oxford University ~ Oxford ~ United Kingdom
This paper examines the United States Government's efforts to promote interreligious dialogue during the 1950s. As the decade progressed, the Eisenhower Administration began to recognize that the traditional language of America's "Judeo-Christian" heritage—formerly viewed as progressive and inclusive—was overly restrictive. This was, in part, a response to global Cold War tensions and, in part, a result of increased domestic religious pluralism. Consequently, the government supported efforts to emphasize a common spiritual denominator to which adherents of all religious faiths could subscribe. I examine two interreligious conferences from the period—a 1955 meeting of the Foundation for Religious Action in the Social and Civil Order in Washington, D.C. and a 1958 meeting on world religions in Dallas, TX. Both emphasized that the transcendent dignity of the human being was the foundation of freedom and democracy, both gave voice to international religious figures from Hindu, Buddhist, Muslim, Christian, and Jewish faiths, and both received support and promotion from the U.S. Government. This movement shared many of its core features with contemporary European religious humanism. Yet I demonstrate that this was a uniquely American contribution to the rise of interreligious dialogue in the middle of the twentieth century, which has been largely overlooked by historians. An examination of these two conferences, I contend, sheds light on the historical context for understanding the Eisenhower Administration's assertion that Americans had "deep respect" for all who walked "parallel paths to God"—no matter their religious affiliation.
CATHOLIC CARE PRACTICE AS SOCIAL (NON)MOVEMENT: ASYLUM GOVERNANCE IN THE LOWER RIO GRANDE VALLEY

Soehnge Cohen J. (Speaker)

University of Notre Dame ~ Notre Dame ~ United States of America
This paper examines care networks that operate on the blurred lines between religion and politics, civil society and the state, and everyday volunteerism and collective action. It argues that prevailing frameworks around "the poor" and "resistance" are insufficient for capturing the nuances of activism and care. This perspective often misses ways in which seemingly passive everyday volunteerism has the potential to transform the state's governmentality by weaving religious logic- welcoming the stranger, feeding the hungry, caring for the orphan, protecting human dignity- into the very "fabric of society, into norms, rules, institutions, and relations of power" (Bayat 2013, 25). Bayat's (2013) concept of "social nonmovements" offers a lens for analyzing how long-term, every-day care practices can quietly reshape or subvert state governance. Even if the state attempts to offset their subversive practices by submerging them in the state's logic of power, a social nonmovement can achieve notable reform and diminish the state's ability to neutralize their effects if the nonmovement continue to practice its "incremental disposition of claim making" (Bayat 2013, 25). This paper draws on qualitative data collected from 2023-2025 at humanitarian service sites and with local law enforcement to examine the refugee-migrant care network of the Rio Grande Valley. It argues that this network is participating in both "quiet encroachment" and "art of presence" (Bayat 2013) that may in fact be catalyzing significant social change. Specifically, this paper engages Bayat's social nonmovement framework to explore three questions: 1) What are the limitations of dominant perspectives on "the poor" and "resistance"? 2) What is social nonmovement? 3) How is this framework helpful for understanding the role and development of refugee-migrant care practices at border zones?
ENVISIONING A PATH TO GLOBAL PEACE: A CROSS-CULTURAL FRAMEWORK BASED ON THE SPIRITUAL AND POLITICAL THOUGHT OF EARLY TWENTIETH-CENTURY INDIA

Portilla Pelaez I. (Speaker)

St. Andrews University ~ St. Andrews ~ United Kingdom
This paper explores the elements that help envision a path to global peace. It does so through an integrated framework comprising five interconnected areas: Freedom, Renewal, Solidarity, Spirituality, and Consciousness. To develop this framework, the paper considers both the current sociopolitical global dynamics and the historical experience of early twentieth-century India—particularly the philosophies integrating the cultural-religious, spiritual, and political dimensions which emerged during the process of independence. Political philosophy and the field of peace studies have focused on Gandhian thought when analyzing this period. However, it is the thought of Sri Aurobindo—a precursor of the philosophy of resistance, perhaps the first public intellectual advocating the complete independence of India, and a mystical sage who worked to establish spiritual peace —that provides a more comprehensive spiritual and political philosophy; one which can be considered today a blueprint for global peace. This paper suggests that envisioning paths to achieve even implausible ends, such as global peace, matters to both: a) clarify the conditions under which implausible ends become possible—so that initiatives can be created to reach those ends; b) know why a great advancement of global peace cannot be expected if various key areas are not considered, or key actions do not take place. The paper seeks a forward-looking understanding of these key areas and the relations between them, and a form of dialogue and inquiry that can help peace-oriented initiatives, institutions, and philosophies/theologies, as well as global citizens, leaders, peacemakers, policymakers, diplomats, educators engaging with the principles that make a path to global peace conceivable and resilient.
REVIVING IJMĀʿ IN MODERN ISLAMIC LEGAL DIPLOMACY: THE CASE OF THE AMMAN MESSAGE

Avci H. (Speaker)

Georgetown University ~ Washington, DC ~ United States of America
The Amman Message (AM) has been celebrated as a landmark declaration for Islamic reform and intra-Muslim unity. It affirms the legitimacy of diverse Islamic schools of thought, denounces sectarian violence, and reasserts Islam's ethical contributions to global civilization. While often studied as a theological or political statement, this paper examines the deeper legal and discursive mechanisms at work, with attention to the strategic redeployment of classical Islamic legal concepts, most notably ijmāʿ(consensus). Rather than reproducing medieval doctrine, the AM selectively reinterprets ijmāʿ to stabilize orthodoxy, foster solidarity across Muslim communities, and reframe Islam's global engagement. In this context, Islamic law emerges not simply as a fixed system of rules but as a flexible, unifying discourse capable of addressing both internal fragmentation and external portrayals of Islam as inherently divisive. By tracing how juristic consensus is invoked within the AM and its related initiatives, the paper argues that the AM simultaneously revives and reshapes classical categories in the service of pluralism, interreligious diplomacy, and political legitimacy. The analysis proceeds in four stages. First, it outlines the AM's aims and doctrinal foundations. Second, it situates the concept of ijmāʿ within classical Islamic jurisprudence and highlights how the AM reframes it, drawing on the insights of scholars such as Mohammad Kamali and Wael Hallaq. Third, it considers the implications of this framework, with the AM positioned as a precursor to broader Muslim-Christian initiatives. Finally, the paper situates these developments in their political context, showing how reinterpreted legal categories function as tools for interfaith diplomacy, normative reconstruction, and Muslim engagement with global ethics. In so doing, it contributes to broader debates on the evolution of Islamic law as a medium for identity, legitimacy, and civilizational dialogue.
BETWEEN ORDER AND OPPRESSION: NAVIGATING SECTARIAN STRIFE LAWS IN THE ARAB REGION

Hachem F. (Speaker)

University of Amsterdam/Beirut Arab University ~ Beirut ~ Lebanon
Sectarian strife laws (SSLs) in the Arab region are often presented as legal tools necessary to preserve public order, protect religious sanctity, and prevent communal conflict. Yet, a close examination reveals that these laws are structurally predisposed to suppress freedoms of expression, belief, and dissent. This article employs a comparative legal analysis of penal codes, case law, and policy frameworks to investigate how SSLs function, whom they target, and what they ultimately achieve. Through a typology of four categories, hate speech and incitement, blasphemy and religious defamation, national unity and social cohesion, and state security and anti-terrorism, the study demonstrates that these provisions rely on vague and undefined concepts such as "sectarian strife," "harm to national unity," and "offending religious sentiment," enabling broad prosecutorial discretion and selective enforcement. Case studies from Egypt, Lebanon, Bahrain, Oman, and others show that SSLs are applied against journalists, political activists, minority groups, and ordinary citizens rather than against actors directly inciting violence. While some judgments narrowly interpret these laws in line with international standards, they remain rare. The paper argues that current frameworks do more to police identity, silence opposition, and protect ruling elites than to prevent violence or promote coexistence.The article suggests replacing the provisions on SSLs, blasphemy, and apostasy with precisely crafted, rights-based laws on hate speech and incitement. Based on international standards like Article 20(2) ICCPR and the Rabat Plan of Action, these reforms would focus on protecting individuals rather than symbolic religious objects, maintain proportionality, and support free speech, religious diversity, and democratic engagement. Ultimately, lasting social peace relies on fairness, equal citizenship, judicial independence, and respect for human dignity rather than criminalizing ideas.
NEGOTIATING RELIGIOUS AUTHORITY THROUGH FAMILY LAW: A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF RELIGIOUS ELITES IN EGYPT, MOROCCO, TUNISIA, AND TURKEY

Ali M.G. (Speaker) [1] , Drhimeur A. (Speaker) [2]

Cairo University ~ Cairo ~ Egypt [1] , Sciences-Po Lyon ~ Lyon ~ France [2]
Family laws represent a central arena of political, social, and ideological contestation in Muslim majority states. Debates over the reform of the family law frequently serve as catalysts for religious-secular polarization, with significant implications for state-religion dynamics. While much of the existing literature focuses on how interactions between Islamist movements and ruling elites shape family law, this paper foregrounds official religious elites as noteworthy yet understudied political actors, through a comparison of Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia, and Turkey. By "official religious elites", we refer to the Ulema, a body of religious scholars who share a set of common characteristics and occupy positions within formal religious and educational institutions. We contend that official religious elites play essential roles in shaping the debates over family legislation, ensuring that it remains within their traditional sphere of influence across legislative, cultural, educational, and preaching domains, even in countries with secular legal frameworks. This paper aims to reveal the influence of official religious elites in contemporary Muslim-majority countries, highlighting their survival strategies and their direct and indirect influence on public policies. By analyzing their strategies comparatively in Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia, and Turkey, the paper seeks to demonstrate that religious elites are not passive agents of the state nor rigidly bound by doctrine. Instead, they are politically strategic actors who adjust their strategies to shape their environment. This approach moves beyond the secular-religious dichotomy to underscore the negotiated and strategic dimension of religious authority today. Across the four cases, the analysis indicate that official religious elites can either delineate the scope of legal change or subtly influence policy choices through moral framing, agenda-setting, and alliances with political actors.
DO CATHOLICS PROTEST DIFFERENTLY? A QUANTITATIVE ASSESSMENT OF CATHOLIC DEMONSTRATIONS AROUND THE WORLD

Day J. (Speaker)

University of Notre Dame ~ Notre Dame ~ United States of America
This paper builds new categorical variables from the global ACLED dataset to identify all events of protest and demonstration by members of the Catholic Church. This is likely the first dataset of its kind to disaggregate and examine the global protest dynamics of this community. The paper compares events where Catholic participants, practices, or signs/rituals were present against other contentious events with religious and secular identities. Conflict outcomes evaluated include contentious or peaceful protest, state intervention, and the presence of armed/paramilitary actors. The piece examines whether Catholics engage in protest differently from other religious groups and how the state interacts with Catholic protestors.
ENTANGLED BLOCPOLITIK: NEW FORMS OF CIVILIZATIONAL BELONGING IN EUROPE

Botelho Moniz J. (Speaker)

Lusófona University ~ Lisbon ~ Portugal
This paper advances a structural reinterpretation of the relationship between religion and international power by proposing blocpolitik as an analytical framework. I argue that current paradigms - such as the "Clash of Civilizations" or religious populism - fail to account for how religious narratives and symbols are systematically mobilized by states as strategic resources within a multipolar, bloc-based order. The analysis treats the politicization of religion not as a deviation, but as a structural process where religious authorities and moral vocabularies become embedded in political projects. Within the European context, these dynamics manifest through material and social transformations: the repurposing of religious buildings, the adaptation of rituals, and the use of public and digital spaces to project "civilizational spheres of influence." Using an intersectional lens, the paper examines how these "entangled encounters" between migrant communities and secular-religious European frameworks generate new embodied experiences and social hierarchies. Through comparative cases relevant to the Euro-Atlantic space (such as Russia's Russkiy Mir, Turkey's gönül coğrafyası, and European civilizational populism), the paper demonstrates how states weaponize religious identity to extend influence beyond formal borders. In these encounters, religious traditions are reinterpreted and often "secularized", emptied of theological autonomy to serve as a language of sovereignty and geopolitical belonging. The paper concludes that blocpolitik offers a robust lens to understanding how transnational networks of religious nationalism shape contemporary European societies, transforming religious practice into a key resource for navigating structural inequalities and geopolitical competition.
WHAT IS COVENANTAL PLURALISM? DEFINITION, SCOPE, AND CHALLENGES

Lemasters R. (Speaker)

University of Kansas ~ Lawrence ~ United States of America
This presentation has two goals. First, I will define the term 'covenantal pluralism,' a task complicated both by the relative newness of the literature and by the fact that the term consists of multiple conditions. Second, I will examine some of the theoretical challenges and underlying assumptions of the term. Ultimately, I will argue that the term 'covenantal pluralism' requires further clarification if it is to serve as a useful framework for those working in religion and global politics. The covenantal pluralism initiative was formally launched by the Templeton Religion Trust in 2019. Stewart et al. (2020) argue that tolerance of the religious other is not enough for religious pluralism and offer covenantal pluralism as a way to go beyond tolerance. Stewart et al. propose three conditions that are individually necessary and jointly sufficient for the realization of covenantal pluralism. These conditions require further specification and are as follows: (1) freedom of religion and belief, (2) cross-cultural religious literacy, and (3) expression of character virtues. I will raise three challenges associated with covenantal pluralism. First, covenantal pluralism seems to presuppose a democratic society. If this is correct, the scope of covenantal pluralism is significantly limited. Second, the phrase "respect for human dignity" is intuitive, but this phrase is ambiguous (see Hughes 2025). This raises the question: what does it mean to say that we ought to respect the inherent dignity of the religious other? Third, while the covenantal pluralism literature has addressed the legal and political infrastructures necessary to support it, realizing covenantal pluralism also requires recognizing that interreligious engagement increasingly occurs on digital infrastructures, which introduces both new and familiar challenges.
NATURAL LAW, THE SOCIETY OF STATES, AND THE MORAL FOUNDATIONS OF ORDER: PIUS XII AND THE TRANSATLANTIC DEBATE ON INTERNATIONAL RECONSTRUCTION, 1939-1941

Meyer Resende M. (Speaker)

Portuguese Institute for International Relations NOVA University of Lisbon ~ Lisbon ~ Portugal
This paper examines the emergence of a Catholic doctrine of international order during the early years of the Second World War, focusing on the teaching of Pope Pius XII and its reception within a transatlantic Catholic intellectual network. Beginning with the encyclical Summi Pontificatus (1939) and the Christmas messages of 1939-1941, the paper argues that the Holy See articulated a conception of international society grounded in natural law, the dignity of the human person, and the juridical equality of sovereign states. Within this framework, national self-determination, minority rights, disarmament, and international cooperation were presented as necessary conditions for a just and durable peace. The paper further shows how this papal doctrine was interpreted and systematized by Catholic commentators in both Europe and the United States, including Guido Gonella, Edward A. Wright, Francis J. Watt, and John M. Beales. Their works translated papal pronouncements into a coherent theory of international order centred on a morally regulated society of states. This intellectual exchange formed part of a broader transatlantic dialogue on post-war reconstruction. Finally, the paper situates this Catholic reflection within the parallel diplomatic dialogue between the Vatican and the Roosevelt administration. American wartime planning—articulated through the Four Freedoms, the Atlantic Charter, and discussions transmitted to the Holy See through Myron Taylor—frequently emphasized principles that closely paralleled papal teaching on justice, human dignity, and international cooperation. By reconstructing this convergence of papal doctrine, Catholic intellectual commentary, and wartime diplomacy, the paper highlights the role of Catholic thought in shaping mid-twentieth-century debates about the moral foundations of international order.

Panel description: The European Society for Intercultural Theology and Interreligious Studies (ESITIS) invites paper proposals (15-20 min presentations) exploring "technologies of the sacred" in past, present, and future contexts. We are interested in questions concerning the ways technology and the social produce one another as well as contributions that examine how technologies are used and challenged in various religious traditions and contexts in the mediation of tradition, meaning, practice, and authority. Committed Papers: + "I am A and I": AI-induced mutations in religion and religion-induced perceptions of the future of technology" (Anne Kull; University of Tartu) + "Impacts of Artificial Intelligence on the Transformation of Teaching and Research in Theology and Religion" (Berg Traboulsi; Haigazian University) Proposals are invited on topics such as (among others): + Historical case studies, e.g., related to pedagogy and devotional practice + Ritual, spirituality and technologies + Digital innovation and the evolution of religious belief and practice + The implications of empirical and natural-scientific turns in the study of religions for the religious self-understandings of religious persons and communities + Spiritual practices understood as technologies of the self / community We particularly invite papers that address these or other topics on religion and technology in relation to the EuARe 2026 theme of "Religions and Inequalities". What potential for (in)equalities within or among religious persons and communities is created or confronted by technological change? How are emerging technologies used to democratise the presence and participation of religious communities in society, and in what ways might they exacerbate exclusion? This open panel aims to foster a rich interdisciplinary conversation about the evolving interplay between sacred traditions and technological innovation.

Papers:

"I AM A AND I": AI-INDUCED MUTATIONS IN RELIGION AND RELIGION-INDUCED PERCEPTIONS OF THE FUTURE OF TECHNOLOGY

Kull A. (Speaker)

University of Tartu ~ Tartu ~ Estonia
This paper will examine the reciprocal relationship between artificial intelligence and religious imagination, asking: How does AI reshape religious self-understanding, and how do religious traditions, in turn, shape moral and symbolic expectations of technological futures? Drawing on perspectives such as theological anthropology, philosophy of technology, and comparative religious perspectives, the paper will explore how AI challenges classical notions of agency, creativity, and relationality often grounded in religious thought. At the same time, religious narratives—creation, incarnation, wisdom, and eschatology—continue to inform public hopes and anxieties about AI, frequently framing it as either salvific or catastrophic. Situating these dynamics within broader debates on inequality and power, the paper aims to contribute to interreligious and intercultural discussions on responsibility, human dignity, and the future of the sacred in technologically mediated worlds.
IMPACTS OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE ON THE TRANSFORMATION OF TEACHING AND RESEARCH IN THEOLOGY AND RELIGION

Traboulsi B. (Speaker)

Haigazian University ~ Beirut ~ Lebanon
The talk will offer an introductory overview of main issues that increasingly confront and structure research and teaching in religion-related fields of scholarship. As such it offers a backdrop and stage for the papers of this open panel. It will reflect on how artificial intelligence is reshaping teaching, learning, and research practices in theology and religious studies, with particular attention to pedagogy, epistemic authority, and ethical responsibility. How can AI be integrated into theological education in ways that enhance learning, equity, and scholarly rigor without undermining academic integrity, human agency, and interpretive responsibility? Drawing on emerging practices such as advanced prompting, content repurposing, multimodal learning, and AI‑supported research workflows, the talk will analyze AI as a formative "technology of the sacred" that mediates knowledge, interpretation, and tradition. It explores concrete roles of AI in curriculum design, student support, critical reflection, creative exploration, and scholarly research, while critically addressing risks related to bias, over‑reliance, data ethics, and inequality of access. It will be argued that responsible AI use in theology requires explicit pedagogical frameworks, ethical guidelines, and reflective AI literacy that foreground transparency, accountability, and inclusivity. By situating AI within the broader moral and spiritual aims of theological education, the paper contributes to interreligious and intercultural discussions on how digital innovation can serve human flourishing rather than merely technological efficiency.

Panel description: The panel aims to explore, from a diachronic and transnational perspective, the role of the "feminine" in the history of Catholicism of the 20th century. Through the examination of various case studies, it seeks to analyze the models of femininity and masculinity constructed by Catholicism and reinterpreted by historical actors, the power relations between women and men, and the ways in which lay and religious women mobilized, as well as the causes and struggles that motivated their engagement. Ángela Pérez del Puerto will focus on the ideological crusade of American Catholicism during the 1940s and 1950s against immoral contents in popular reading and comic books. Raffaella Perin will deal with the history of the Catholic Daughters of the Americas (CDA) - a lay women organization founded in Utica, New York in 1903 as a charitable, benevolent and patriotic sorority for Catholic ladies. The paper aims at sketch the uncovered history of CDA, and to devote particular attention to the period between the 1950s and 1970s. Juliette Masquelier's paper will compare the rural and upper-class Catholic masculinisties in France and Belgium between the 1930s and 1980s. Maria José Esteban will explore an alternative model of femininity that, while not free from tensions, enjoyed a certain degree of legitimacy within Catholic discourse during Francisco Franco's dictatorship. Carmen Mangion will examine the Catholic women religious (sisters and nuns) and HIV/AIDS ministries in Britain in the 1980s-2000s, whereas Raul Minguez Blasco will tackle the debate on the access of women to ordained ministries. The panel highlights the complexity and plurality of the articulations of the "feminine" and the "masculine" in twentieth-century Catholicism, showing how these categories were constantly negotiated, contested, and redefined in relation to political, social, and cultural contexts.

Papers:

THE NATIONAL ORGANIZATION FOR DECENT LITERATURE: GENDER AND COMICS IN CATHOLIC CULTURAL CONTROL IN THE USA (1939-1950)

Perez Del Puerto A. (Speaker)

Universidad Autónoma de Madrid ~ Madrid ~ Spain
On the eve of the outbreak of the Second World War, American Catholicism had already mobilized for an ideological confrontation. This struggle did not take place on the battlefield; rather, it unfolded within the pages of the books consumed by an increasingly consumer-oriented society during its leisure time. Among these forms of popular reading, comic books -marketed primarily to young audiences - emerged as the central target of what would become a genuine ideological crusade for Catholicism during the 1940s and 1950s. Through the National Office of Decent Literature comics were systematically monitored and censured due to their status as a literary medium with unprecedented mass reach among young readers, their capacity to intensify narratives through the combination of text and image, and their tendency to address fantastical or non-canonical themes. These qualities were perceived as opening the door to the exploration of topics considered either uncommon or morally objectionable at the time. Consequently, comics were interpreted as a medium capable of disseminating attitudes deemed dangerous to the religious and moral well-being of their readers. In particular, depictions of sexuality became a focal point of censorship. A concerted campaign of discreditation and persecution of this literary form was launched with the dual objective of preventing the circulation of certain messages among young people and of promoting reading materials that, through affirmation or omission, reinforced narratives of morality and gender aligned with the Catholic principles of the period.
THE CATHOLIC DAUGHTERS OF THE AMERICAS (1950S-1970S)

Perin R. (Speaker)

Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore ~ Milano ~ Italy
The Catholic Daughters of the Americas (CDA) is a lay women organization founded in Utica, New York in 1903 by John E. Carberry and several other Knights of Columbus as a charitable, benevolent and patriotic sorority for Catholic ladies. In the 20s the CDA became associated with the Legion of Decency and took a public stand against mercy killing (euthanasia). During WWII contributed money to the war effort and in the 50s were involved in juvenile delinquency, democracy, peace, postwar America, women in industry, racism, the Equal Rights Amendment, and federalized education. After 1973, the CDA partnered with the Knights of Columbus and other faith-based groups with the pro-life movement and organizing the annual March for Life. The aim of the paper is to first briefly sketch the history of CDA, which is one of the biggest and widespread women organizations in the Americas (with courts in USA, Panama, Puerto Rico, Cuba, Canada, Mexico, Peru). Secondly, particular attention will be devoted to the period between the 1950s and 1970s in order to assess how the Second Vatican Council was received and to analyze the CDA's contribution to the major social movements that shaped U.S. history during those years, with their inevitable reverberations and influences both within and beyond the Catholic community.
UPPER-CLASS AND RURAL CATHOLIC MASCULINITIES COPING WITH DECHRISTIANIZATION (BELGIUM-FRANCE 1930-1980)

Masquelier J. (Speaker)

Université Libre de Bruxelles ~ Bruxelles ~ Belgium
As Tine van Osselaere (2013) and Anthony Favier (in Gay et al., 2023) have shown, Catholic Action and the JOC were forums for the development of a Catholic masculinity that did not correspond in all respects to the secular hegemonic masculinity of the time. These identities were part of distinctive Catholic cultural practices that attempted to resist de-Christianisation. In this paper it will presented the result of the comparison between rural and independent CA movements in France and Belgium, in order to highlight the class dimension of these Catholic masculinities, and to expose the role of religion in the production of these social identities in a militant context.
"SINGLE BY VOCATION": CELIBACY AND LAY APOSTOLATE DURING THE SECOND FRANCOIST PERIOD

Esteban Zuriaga M.J. (Speaker)

Centro Universitario de la Defensa de Zaragoza ~ Zaragoza ~ Spain
This paper aims to explore an alternative model of femininity that, while not free from tensions, enjoyed a certain degree of legitimacy within Catholic discourse. This model presented freely chosen singlehood as a means of fully committing oneself to the advancement of the Church without taking religious vows, particularly through lay apostolic activity in organizations such as Catholic Action for Women. María Salas Larrazábal, who held leadership positions in several Catholic women's organizations, advocated this model of celibacy in works such as "Nosotras, las solteras" (1959) and "Solteras de hoy" (1966). In this paper these texts will be analyzed in relation to the relative flexibilization of gender norms that took place during the second half of the Franco's dictatorship both within Catholicism and in Spanish society as a whole.
QUIET WORK WITH VERY FAR-REACHING IMPLICATIONS: WOMEN RELIGIOUS AND HIV/AIDS MINISTRIES IN BRITAIN, 1980S-1990S

Mangion C. (Speaker)

Birkbeck College ~ Londra ~ United Kingdom
This paper represents the early beginnings of a new research project examining Catholic women religious (sisters and nuns) and HIV/AIDS ministries in Britain in the 1980s-2000s. It asks why and how they mobilized around HIV/AIDS. First, it identifies the variety of HIV/AIDS ministries: most sisters worked as chaplains (typically employed in state-run hospitals) or as volunteers in charitable organisations (that were typically Christian or secular) rather than in the Catholic health care sphere. Second, it addresses their motivations in selecting particularly HIV/AIDS ministries that provided social care to people with HIV/AIDS and considers the tensions and synergies between compassion and social justice. Lastly, it examines the response of the Hierarchy of England and Wales to sisters' activism to identify how the Church's moral stance with regards to homosexuality and HIV/AIDS influenced their ministries.
WOMEN PRIESTS? THE QUESTION OF FEMALE ORDINATION IN THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND AND THE CATHOLIC CHURCH IN SPAIN

Minguez Blasco R. (Speaker)

EHU University of the Basque Country ~ Leioa ~ Spain
The access of women to ordained ministries (episcopate, priesthood, and diaconate) has been the subject of intense debate for several decades in both the Church of England and the Catholic Church, with markedly different outcomes. This paper seeks, first, to approach this debate from a comparative and transnational perspective, highlighting the connections between both Churches regarding this issue. Secondly, it examines, through oral history, the process of identity construction among Anglican and Catholic women in England and Spain who have either been able to become priests or have aspired to do so without achieving it.

Panel description: With this panel the European Society for Intercultural Theology and Interreligious Studies (ESITIS) proposes to revisit a critical conversation on the topic of Religion and Social Protest, taking the new book Sacred Protest (Brill 2026) as the catalyst for the discussion. Contributors to the volume will come into dialogue with one another on this panel, reconsidering their chapters in light of the dramatic upheavals in societies worldwide in only the past few years. In particular, contributing authors will aim to bring topics into the conversation that were not addressed in the book, including technology, neo-faschisms, apocalyptic motifs, religious minority vs. majority groups among other topics. As the book discusses, "religion and protest converge and diverge and in pursuit of various ends, making careful analysis of religion and protest necessary. Sacred Protest seeks to make a timely and constructive contribution to this critically important conversation." (Publisher's website) Panelists: Paul Hedges, Kai Shmushko, Charles Ryu, Henry Jansen.

Papers:

Panel description: The Republic of Letters represented a complex network of intellectuals, scholars, and writers that formed in the West during the modern age. It was a space for dialogue, but also for controversy, characterised by strong personalities and intense personal ties, capable of going beyond traditional institutions or making use of newly established academies, transcending national borders and even overcoming confessional divisions, without forgetting them. This self-proclaimed intellectual community mainly included the Catholic and Reformed Protestant worlds in Western and Central Europe. The classical world played a prominent role in the Republic of Letters, encompassing not only the pagan tradition but also early Christianity, which helped create the very idea of classicism, now applicable to modern times as well. This era witnessed the development of the study of ancient sources and texts, which appears to be closely linked to the birth of modern philology and the knowledge of languages not only from the classical world, but also from the sacred scriptures. The development of classical philology was accompanied by biblical and patristic studies, with the birth of modern criticism. The Republic of Letters spread throughout the European continent and beyond, and new research has made it possible to conceive of its decentralised history, which did not focus on Latin culture and scholarship, but also on places, personalities, and texts from Eastern Europe, the Balkans, and the Middle East. Today, it is important to integrate the Western context of the Republic of Letters with the roles of diasporas from Eastern Europe, the Balkans, and the Middle East, which interacted with Western actors and cultural circles. This approach goes beyond the traditional frameworks of national historiography, shedding new light on the intellectual history of Europe as a whole, beyond linguistic, geographical, religious, and cultural segmentation.

Papers:

THE BIRTH AND DEVELOPMENT OF MODERN BIBLICAL PHILOLOGY IN THE EAST SLAVIC WORLD BETWEEN THE 15TH AND 16TH CENTURIES

Garzaniti M. (Speaker)

University of Florence ~ Florence ~ Italy
At the end of the Middle Ages in the East Slavic area, profound changes occurred in the perception of the Holy Bible. Firstly, the idea of a single book containing all the books of the Bible, which for centuries had been handed down through the complex of liturgical books, beginning with the liturgical book of the gospels. This transformation, which was necessary above all for confrontation with the Western world and to counter the spread of reform movements, presupposed the development of a critical and philological approach to the Slavic manuscript tradition. First, it posed the problem of the biblical canon, which had become particularly topical in the West with the discussion on the Deuterocanonical books, but which in the East also had to deal with the issue of the wide dissemination of apocryphal writings. Secondly, there was the problem of comparison with the original texts, both in Hebrew and Greek, raising the question of hebraica veritas in the Eastern Slavic world as well. This question was inevitably linked to the practice of correcting the current translations that had given rise to a varied manuscript tradition of the biblical books, as well as a renewal of biblical exegesis. This also had considerable consequences in the preparation of the liturgical books, which remained the focus of the ecclesiastical hierarchies. The report aims to offer some ideas for a reconstruction of a general overview of these transformations between the 15th and 16th centuries, considering the progress that has been made in studies over the last thirty years.
THE GREEK ORTHODOX WORLD UNDER OTTOMAN RULE AND THE REPUBLIC OF LETTERS: ASSESSING THEIR CONTACTS AND ENTANGLEMENTS

Kontouma V. (Speaker) [1] , Makrides V. (Speaker) [2]

École pratique des hautes études, PSL ~ Paris ~ France [1] , Universität Erfurt ~ Erfurt ~ Germany [2]
Despite centuries of Ottoman domination of Southeastern Europe and the division between Eastern Orthodox and Western Christianity, East and West were never completely and hermetically separated. There were always individuals from both regions who crossed religious, linguistic, cultural, political, and geographical borders, initiating numerous fruitful contacts and collaborations. This occurred particularly within the context of the so-called "Republic of Letters" (16th-18th centuries), which should not be confined to Western Europe as it has been in most related literature to date, but rather expanded to include Eastern and Southeastern Europe, including the Greek Orthodox world under Ottoman rule. Indeed, many Greek Orthodox individuals studied at Western European universities, translated various works (theological, philosophical, scientific, etc.) into Greek, and maintained regular correspondence with Western European scholars. Undoubtedly, these relations were asymmetrical at that time, given that the Western Republic of Letters had long been established and enjoyed prominent intellectual and social status. However, the potential contribution of the Greek Orthodox actors to such an exchange should not be underestimated, as they could provide their Western counterparts with valuable information, such as support in linguistic matters and access to sources inaccessible to the West. At the same time, tensions and conflictual interactions were not uncommon between these Eastern and Western actors due to past tensions, persisting confessional boundaries, and the role of the respective ecclesiastical establishments. Nevertheless, many of these actors aspired to rapprochement between the Christian worlds across the entire continent. In this session, we will evaluate this period of East-West interactions as a whole, based on selective cases, and set the agenda for future research in this fascinating area of East-West relations, which remains relevant to this day.
THE "ORIENTAL" CONFESSIONS OF FAITH OF THE MARQUIS DE NOINTEL IN THE NATIONAL LIBRARY IN SAINT PETERSBURG

Chentsova V. (Speaker)

EPHE / PSL ~ Paris ~ France
The 17th century was marked by intense theological debates between Protestants and Catholics, set against a background of political tensions, wars, and rivalries in Europe, in which confessional affiliations often served as markers of political division. In theology, one of the central issues concerned the doctrine of the Real Presence in the Eucharist, which was rejected by several Protestant denominations. In this context, the publication by A. Arnauld and P. Nicole of "La Perpétuité de la foy de l'Église catholique touchant l'Eucharistie" (1669-1674, t. 1-3), written as a polemic against Calvinist theology, assumed a broader dimension. The work incorporated a collection of testimonies from members of the Eastern clergy, who were presented as allies of the Catholics in this doctrinal dispute. In order to obtain such testimonies, the authors relied on the assistance of representatives of the French king in the Ottoman Empire, most notably the ambassador Ch.-Fr. Olier, marquis de Nointel. French diplomats requested patriarchs, as well as clerics, theologians, and intellectuals whom they encountered in the East or with whom they corresponded, to produce written confessions of faith attesting to their views on the Eucharist. Some of the assembled original documents are preserved today in the National Library of France, where they remain part of the former Bibliothèque du Roi. A lesser-known group of texts, probably formerly kept in the library of the Abbey of Saint-Germain-des-Prés, was acquired during the French Revolution by the Russian diplomat P. Dubrovsky and subsequently transferred to Saint Petersburg. These manuscript materials make it possible to compare the surviving originals with the texts published by Arnauld and Nicole. They are essential for understanding how the authors worked with the original documents, incorporating them into their polemical work.
THE MAKING OF A GRAND ORTHODOX THEOLOGIAN: GEORGIOS KORESSIOS (C. 1570-1659/60) BETWEEN LATE RENAISSANCE ITALY AND THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE

Negoita O. (Speaker)

ICUB - Research Institute of the University of Bucharest ~ Bucharest ~ Romania
This paper examines the formative intellectual trajectory of the Greek Orthodox scholar Georgios Koressios (c. 1570-1659/60) and situates his education in Renaissance Italy within the broader framework of the early modern Republic of Letters. Focusing on the years he spent in Italian centers of learning, I will investigate how the intellectual milieu of late Renaissance Italy shaped the development of Greek Orthodox scholarship in the Ottoman Empire. While the migration of Byzantine scholars to the Italian peninsula after the fall of Constantinople and their contribution to the Renaissance have been extensively studied, the reverse dynamic—the impact of the Italian scholarly environment on Orthodox intellectuals who later operated in Ottoman context(s)—remains comparatively underexplored. Drawing on approaches from connected history and the history of knowledge, I will analyze Koressios as a mediator between intellectual worlds. His studies in Italy placed him in contact with humanist scholarship, Aristotelian debates, and emerging philological practices that characterized late Renaissance intellectual culture. These experiences profoundly influenced his later activity as "megas theologos" of the Patriarchate of Constantinople and as the author of a substantial corpus of theological and polemical writings circulating primarily in manuscript form. By taking Koressios as a study case, this paper contributes to a more decentralized understanding of the Republic of Letters, demonstrating how Orthodox intellectuals from the eastern Mediterranean participated in—and reshaped—the transregional scholarly exchanges that characterized early modern European intellectual life. Koressios thus emerges not only as a leading Orthodox theologian but also as an important agent in the transmission and adaptation of Renaissance intellectual traditions across confessional and imperial boundaries.
PUBLIC AND INFORMAL THEOLOGICAL DEBATES IN MID-SEVENTEENTH CENTURY EASTERN CHRISTIANITY

Olar O. (Speaker)

Austrian Academy of Sciences | ORTHPOL ~ Vienna ~ Austria
In April and May 1650, while in Târgoviște (the capital city of Wallachia, a tributary state of the Ottoman Empire), the Russian hieromonk Arsenii Sukhanov engaged in a series of heated theological debates with several Orthodox ecclesiastics. Upon his return to Moscow, he submitted to the Office of Ambassadors both an official report and an account of his Quarrels with the Greeks about the Faith. Thanks to S.A. Belokurov and A.P. Bogdanov, Sukhanov's account of the debates is well known. The aim of the present paper is to build on previous research and focus on two understudied aspects: the Wallachian setting (why did the discussions take place in Târgoviște, of all places?) and their format. I shall argue that the Quarrels are indicative of a short but noteworthy renewal of interest in theological debates across Eastern Christianity.
COPTIC PHILOLOGY AND THE REPUBLIC OF LETTERS: ATHANASIUS KIRCHER, JOHANN MICHAEL WANSLEBEN, AND THE MAKING OF EARLY MODERN KNOWLEDGE OF CHRISTIAN EGYPT

Kouremenos N. (Speaker)

Volos Academy for Theological Studies ~ Volos ~ Greece
The early modern Republic of Letters is still often described through predominantly Western and Latin intellectual networks, while Eastern and Oriental Christian traditions appear only sporadically within its history. This paper approaches that larger problem through two concrete case studies—Athanasius Kircher and Johann Michael Wansleben—in order to examine how knowledge of Christian Egypt entered European scholarly circulation in the seventeenth century. Rather than offering a general survey of Coptic Christianity in early modern Europe, it focuses on two distinct but connected modes of mediation: philological systematization and manuscript-based travel scholarship. The first case study considers Kircher's engagement with Coptic in works such as the Prodromus Coptus and the Lingua Aegyptiaca Restituta, asking how he sought to classify, grammaticalize, and interpret Coptic within broader debates on sacred languages, biblical learning, and the legacy of ancient Egypt. The second turns to Wansleben, whose travels in Egypt, contact with local communities, and attention to libraries and manuscripts reveal a more material and contingent dimension of scholarly exchange. In his case, European knowledge of the Coptic East depended not only on erudite synthesis, but also on access, mediation, and lived encounter. By reading these two figures together, the paper argues that Coptic philology was shaped through both classificatory scholarship and fragile networks of travel, manuscript discovery, and local collaboration. In this way, it proposes a more precise understanding of how Christian Egypt became legible within the Republic of Letters and how Oriental Christian materials contributed to the formation of early modern Oriental learning.

Panel description: This volume, fruit of a Franco-Italian-German project, was developed during a series of seminars held at the Italian-German Centre for European Dialogue Villa Vigoni (2019-2022) and at the Fondation des Treilles (2023) with the participation of fifteen scholars. Thanks to a comparative and interdisciplinary approach, moving away from a strictly Western perspective and looking at the Christian East in its internal dynamics, the volume focuses on the extraordinary effort of different communities, often in contexts dominated by other religions or characterised by a plurality of confessions (Christian and non-Christian), to redefine their own tradition and linguistic identity, writing an important page in the history of the Republic of Letters. By studying biographical paths, languages of communication, and forms of worship and devotion dating back to different times and areas, and interpreting these micro-histories within a more complex puzzle, the various contributions illustrate a colourful panorama of cultural relations and exchanges, in which Eastern Christians played an active part, in a context in which the process of confessionalisation was consolidating. Their work reveals both an awareness of belonging to ancient traditions, which the West yearned to know and make its own, and a drive to modernise their own traditions, in dialogue with Western culture. These cultural relations and exchanges emerge in the formation of Eastern Christians in the West, as well as through mobility or simply long-distance relationships with exponents of the Republic of Letters. However, the effort to update and modernise was accompanied by a desire to rediscover the most authentic roots of their traditions, with unprecedented developments, even going so far as to reinvent and renew them.

Papers:

Panel description: This Author Meets Critics panel invites three established scholars of religion and global politics to engage with Erin Wilson's recently published book, Religion and World Politics: Connecting Theory with Practice (Routledge, 2023). Religion and World Politics aims to reframe the way scholars ask questions about the role of religion in world politics today. Designed for practitioners, policymakers, and newcomers to the topic of religion and global politics, the book emphasizes that religion is not something clear, identifiable, and definable, but is fluid and shifting. Consequently, we need analytical frameworks that help make sense of this ever-changing phenomenon. The book presents a critical, intersectional framework for analyzing religion and applies this to case studies of three core areas of international relations (IR) analysis: (1) conflict, violence, and security; (2) development and humanitarianism; and (3) human rights, law, and public life. These cases highlight how assumptions about what religion is and does affect policymakers, theorists, and activists. The book demonstrates the damage that has been done through policies and programs based on unquestioned assumptions and the possibilities and insights to be gained by incorporating the critical study of religion into research, policymaking, and practice.

Papers:

Panel description: Religion plays a fundamental role in Africa, shaping social relations, moral orders, identities, and political authority. While it has often served as a powerful resource for empowerment and the pursuit of equality, it has also contributed significantly to the production, legitimation, and persistence of multiple forms of inequality. Adopting a multidisciplinary perspective, this panel examines the ambivalent role of religion - including Christianity, Islam and African religious traditions - as both a vehicle for emancipation and a mechanism of domination in African contexts, from the colonial period to the digital present. Drawing on the collaborative experience of a well-established Euro-African network of scholars and on different empirical and theoretical case studies, the panel explores how religious institutions, discourses, and practices intersect with structures of race, gender, slavery, colonial violence, education, and epistemic authority. It seeks to foster dialogue among historians, scholars of religion, theologians, and practitioners working on Africa and the African diaspora. The panel invites three additional contributions addressing different religious traditions, regions, and historical periods. It particularly welcomes papers that conceptualize religion in Africa as a site of contestation and resistance, as well as inequalities, and that adopt comparative, decolonial, or interdisciplinary approaches. The panel will be organized around four thematic sections: (1) religion and power dynamics (colonial legacies); (2) religion and gender dynamics; (3) religion, knowledge production and epistemic authority; and (4) religion and socio-cultural dynamics.

Papers:

MISSIONARIES OF AFRICA AND SLAVERY IN SÉGOU (FRENCH SUDAN), LATE 19TH - EARLY 20TH CENTURY

Rovellini M. (Speaker)

Independent researcher ~ Oggiorno, Lecco ~ Italy
In colonial Africa, Christianity promoted by missions often spread among socially subordinated or marginalised groups, including enslaved people. The White Fathers' mission of Notre-Dame du Ségou, in French Sudan, operated in a context that was deeply shaped by the legacy of the slave trade. The Bamana people of Ségou were active participants in the capture and redistribution of slaves, which constituted a structural aspect of their social and economic organisation. During the early years of colonial rule, the French administration adopted a relatively tolerant approach towards this institution, delaying its abolition and often relying on it. Within this setting, the relationship between the Missionaries of Africa and slavery developed along two distinct levels. Within the mission's internal discourse, the views of the White Fathers were deeply shaped by the abolitionist commitment of the congregation's founder, Monsignor Charles Lavigerie, and could at times take a critical stance towards colonial policies. From a practical point of view, however, slavery played a fundamental role in shaping the composition of the Christian community of Ségou, which was largely formed by individuals with backgrounds related to various forms of enslavement or dependency. Thus, the mission emerges as a space where abolitionist ideals and colonial realities converged, and where individuals who had been desocialised by the slave trade could be resocialised within a Christian framework
FAITH AS REBELLION: ISLAMIC RESISTANCE AMONG THE ENSLAVED AFRICAN MUSLIMS IN 19TH CENTURY BAHIA (BRAZIL)

Traore M.S. (Speaker)

Institute for Interreligious Dialogue and Islamic Studies, Tangaza University ~ Nairobi ~ Kenya
This paper investigates how Islam was used by enslaved African Muslims of Bahia (Brazil) to resist their life of enslavement. The investigation is based on an analysis of one Arabic manuscript written by the enslaved African Muslims of Bahia. The Arabic documents of Bahia kept at the State Public Archive are forty-three manuscripts found in the Bahia region (North-East of Brazil) following the 1835 slaves' uprising in Brazil. The documents were seized as belongings of the arrested insurgents. They were used as trial exhibits. Few scholars (orientalists) analysed the Arabic manuscripts. They concluded that they were teeming with spelling mistakes, barbarisms and solecisms which show that the enslaved African Muslims of Bahia were poorly educated and almost illiterate. They believed that Document 1 (the first manuscript) was a copy of the last surah of the Qur'an made by a koranic student. This paper undertakes a thorough analysis of the text of the first manuscript and demonstrates that the document was written by highly educated (in Islamic sciences) enslaved African Muslims. It is an original fabricated spiritual text based on the last surah of the Qur'an. It was written under political circumstances. It was used for political and spiritual purposes. It contains codified messages related to the 1835 Bahia slave rebellion. The document sustained their lives as enslaved people in the Bahian society and their rebellion in order to overpower their masters.
FOREIGN CHRISTIAN MISSIONARIES AND THE NARRATIVES OF COLONIAL VIOLENCE IN THE PORTUGUESE EMPIRE IN AFRICA (1961-1975)

Lopes Pereira J. (Speaker)

Centre for the History of Society and Culture (University of Coimbra, Portugal) and at the Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies of the KU Leuven (Belgium) ~ Coimbra and Leuven ~ Belgium
The end of the Second World War coincided with a period of growing consolidation of the dynamics of decolonization in Africa. Thus, by the early 1960s, most European colonial powers had been forced to relinquish colonial control, but Portugal remained as a diehard colonial regime, willing to neutralize or discredit any player it perceived as sympathetic the decolonization. Foreign missionaries, both Protestant and Catholics, became one of the primary targets of the Portuguese colonial regime. In my presentation, I propose discuss to the intricated relationship between the missionary activities of foreign missionaries in Angola, Guinea-Bissau and Mozambique and the narratives of colonial violence, from the outbreak of the Portuguese colonial war, in March 1961, to the independence of the Portuguese colonies in Africa, in 1974/75. My discussion will be based on primary archival records available in Portugal, Spain, Italy and in the United States.
WOMEN'S INVISIBILITY AND SUBORDINATION IN ISLAM AND CHRISTIANITY: THE CASE OF AFRICA

Mbabazi V. (Speaker)

Department of Religion and Peace Studies, College of Humanities and Social Sciences, Makerere University (Uganda) ~ Kampala ~ Uganda
This paper critically examines the phenomenon of women's invisibility and subordination within Islamic and Christian traditions, arguing that female marginalization represents not divine prescription but rather the product of deeply entrenched patriarchal social structures and culturally mediated norms that have historically shaped religious interpretation and practice. The widespread conviction among adherents of both Islam and Christianity that men possess God-given superiority over women is shown to lack a coherent theological foundation when scrutinized against the core teachings of these faith traditions. Instead, patriarchal assumptions have been normalized and legitimized through religious discourse, resulting in the systematic exclusion of women from full participation within religious denominations. Through critical analysis of dominant creation narratives and doctrinal motifs, this paper demonstrates how gender hierarchies have been constructed, theologically justified, and institutionally perpetuated across historical contexts. The paper ultimately calls for a justice-oriented hermeneutical approach, a transformative re-reading of sacred texts that affirms women's agency, recognizes their inherent dignity, and restores their visibility and substantive participation in religious life.
WHO SPEAKS FOR ISLAM? MUSLIM WOMEN, DIGITAL MEDIA, AND RELIGIOUS INEQUALITY IN SOUTH AFRICA

Muslim C. (Speaker)

University of KwaZulu-Natal, Director of Islamic Studies Research Unit (ISRU) ~ Durban ~ South Africa
This paper examines how digital religious spaces have become key arenas for negotiating gender, authority, and inequality within contemporary South African Islam. It focuses on the public backlash directed at the Taking Islam to the People (TIP) committee after their participation in a Muslim community radio discussion on "Can women pray in the mosque?". The controversy, which unfolded primarily on WhatsApp and Facebook, drew in religious scholars, media affiliates, and lay publics who challenged not only the content of the discussion but also the legitimacy of women's participation in public theological debate. Situated within South Africa's Muslim history of colonialism, apartheid, and diverse Islamic traditions, this case shows how inherited patriarchal hierarchies still shape who is allowed to speak for Islam. Digital platforms may widen participation, but they also reproduce gendered and epistemic inequalities. For Muslim women, online visibility brings both new opportunities and intensified forms of surveillance, moral regulation, and silencing. The TIP case demonstrates how digital religion is not simply a neutral or democratising force but a contested field in which struggles over religious authority, gendered piety, and spiritual legitimacy are played out. Online critique operates affectively and relationally, mobilising shame, credibility, and appeals to orthodoxy to regulate women's religious voice, even as these same platforms allow alternative interpretations and lived experiences of Islam to circulate in Muslim digital publics. By foregrounding South African Muslim women's experiences of plurality, marginalisation, and resistance, this paper shows how digital religious publics simultaneously open and constrain possibilities for gendered and epistemic justice, revealing religion as a site where inequalities are continuously produced, challenged, and renegotiated in everyday digital life.
INTERPRETING AFRICAN RELIGION IN WESTERN SCHOLARSHIP: EPISTEMIC POWER, REPRESENTATION, AND INEQUALITY

Maganya I. (Speaker)

Tangaza University (Director Institutional Advancement and Development) ~ Nairobi ~ Kenya
This article critically examines the representation of African religious traditions within Western scholarship, focusing on the production and reproduction of religious and epistemic inequalities. It argues that dominant Western academic frameworks—shaped by colonial histories, Christian normativity, and Enlightenment epistemologies—have systematically mischaracterized African religions as primitive, irrational, or merely cultural rather than fully religious systems. Such representations have not only distorted scholarly understanding but have also contributed to broader hierarchies of religious legitimacy that privilege Western religious forms. Drawing on postcolonial theory, decolonial thought, and comparative religion, the article traces how classificatory practices, terminological choices, and methodological assumptions have reinforced asymmetrical power relations between Western scholars and African religious knowledge systems. It further highlights emerging corrective approaches, including indigenous epistemologies and decolonial methodologies, that seek to reframe African religion as dynamic, philosophical, and historically grounded. The study concludes by advocating for epistemic justice in the academic study of religion through pluriversal frameworks that recognize African religious traditions as equal participants in global religious discourse.
THE POLITICS OF RELIGIOUS EDUCATION IN COLONIAL AFRICA AND THE RISE OF INEQUALITIES

Mojo M. (Speaker)

Arrupe Jesuit University ~ Harare ~ Zimbabwe
Christian missionaries have been foundational in the history of education in sub-Saharan Africa. Colonial governments left education exclusively in the hands of missionary agencies, whose desire was to propagate the Christian faith. Mission schools became a barometer of Africa's development or lack of it. In the eyes of European missionaries, the Africans were 'savages' to be civilised, 'cursed sons of Ham' to be saved, 'big children' to be educated. For them, there existed no African culture, no religion, only foolish superstitions and tribal customs. The education remained Christian and Colonial in outlook, with little or no room for African traditional religious beliefs and practices. It attempted to wipe out every trace of Africa's indigenous cultural heritage and knowledge systems. The study seeks to highlight the inequalities created by Western Missionary Education through religious education, which did not take into consideration the context and experience of the African. It also seeks to foreground the necessity for action, reflection and evaluation to reduce inequalities. The research employs a nationalist historical approach to better understand the political, cultural and institutional practices that impacted the lives of Africans and missionary influence. The study posits that missionary evangelisation through religious education and colonial subjugation left a deep trauma in the African soul, leading to the rise of inequalities
THE HUMAN, JOHN WESLEY AND THE AFRICAN: A DECOLONIAL ENGAGEMENT WITH WESLEY'S CONSTRUCTION OF 'MAN'

Matthew L. (Speaker)

University of KwaZulu-Natal ~ Durban ~ South Africa
Between 2014 and 2016, across several Southern African Universities, the Fallist movements (PatriarchyMustFall/FeesMustFall/RhodesMustFall) swept across academic institutions in South Africa. This movement, called not only for free education but also the decolonisation of the academy. The call to decolonize has become synonymous with the removal statues and memorials to colonialism, alongside discursive decolonial approaches within the academy that endeavor to unearth and visibilise the ways in which Western epistemological privilege cement and reproduce unequal social systems of race, gender and class persistent as intersecting co-generative logics incubating the rampant inequality characteristic of South African society. A decade on, in a world rendered increasingly volatile by these logics of inequality, the cry of the Fallist Movement is not only relevant but also urgent. Christian systematic theology has by enlarge remained untouched by the decolonial movement and has only just begun to wrestle with its own colonial underpinnings. Critical for systematic theology and its complicity in reproducing systems of inequality is the question of the human. Decolonial trajectories problematise Western hegemonic assumptions by asking: Whose humanity is considered in constructing the (hu)man? Whose humanity counts as (hu)man enough, as valid, or authoritative enough, so that their (hu)man experience becomes the standard through which knowledge can be constructed? This paper engages John Wesley's formulation of the (hu)man within two key aspects of his writings: Treatise on Original Sin and Thoughts on Slavery. Situating Wesley within his historical and philosophical contexts and by drawing on the rich heritage of decolonial thought within the Southern African context in an attempt to answer the question: How do I preach the Wesleyan tradition in Southern Africa, at a time such as this?"
WHAT HAPPENS WHEN RELIGION SERVES AS A SOCIETY'S-QUALIFICATIONS-AUTHORITY: A CRITICAL REFLECTION ON RELIGION'S (OFTEN FORGOTTEN) CONTRIBUTION TO THE INVENTION OF INEQUALITY

Sakuba X. (Speaker)

University of KwaZulu-Natal ~ Durban ~ South Africa
In this paper I will reflect on how, alongside concepts such as eligibility, legitimacy, authenticity and truth, human beings have always used (and continue to use) religion to invent and reinvent both constructive and unconstructive notions of inequality.
RELIGION A CONDUIT OR ACCOMPLICE IN PERPETUATING INEQUALITY, A PARADOX: A CASE STUDY OF SOME RITUAL CEREMONIES IN ZIMBABWE.

Zangairai F. (Speaker)

Arrupe Jesuit University ~ Harare ~ Zimbabwe
History has witnessed numerous happy and ugly instances in which religion is involved either as victim or perpetrator, vanguished or victor in connection to the principle of inequalities. This paper seeks to explore and ascertain ways in which religion has either promoted inequalities or discouraged the same. The bottom line is religion pays double standards in either ameliorating inequalities of discouraging them altogether. Guided by some specific religious rituals and practices in Zimbabwe the paper intends to investigate and expose how religion is hypocritical and at the same time the voice of the voiceless in confirming the dignity of the marginalized. Hence the paper vehemently maintains that religion is a double edged sword in so far as the vice of inequalities is concerned. The Zimbabwean case study helps to make a bold statement and provides a way forward.
BRIDGING THE INEQUALITIES IN HIGHER EDUCATION IN AFRICA AND EUROPE: A CASE STUDY OF THE VEREAD PROJECT.

Macconi I. (Speaker) [1] , Mojo M. (Speaker) [2]

Fondazione per le scienze religiose Giovanni XXIII ~ Bologna and Palermo ~ Italy [1] , Arrupe Jesuit University ~ Harare ~ Zimbabwe [2]
Higher education is key to social mobility, a pathway out of poverty, crucial for economic growth, empowerment and sustainable development in the global South. Inequalities are persistent and rising between Europe and Africa. Overcoming such multidimensional inequalities requires that we reimagine, reinvent, innovate, and strengthen a wide range of factors to promote quality, equity, and efficiency through digital transformation. Digital technologies have transformed our lives, especially after the COVID-19 pandemic, which led to an unprecedented increase in the use of digital technologies, which are now a key resource in training and education. The study seeks to highlight the role played by VEREAD (Virtual Exchanges in Religious Euro-African Dialogue) to promote academic collaboration between European and African universities through virtual exchanges, not only through mobility, but also through joint curriculum design, co-teaching and virtual exchanges. The research employs the phenomenological scientific theory to better understand human behaviour and societal structure that lead to inequalities. Collaboration and partnership through virtual exchanges and intercultural dialogues have become instrumental in bridging the gap between Euro-Africa dialogue despite challenges in digital skills and resource mobilisation.
FROM BABEL TO JUBILEE: DECONSTRUCTING REFORMED APARTHEID HERMENEUTICS AND REIMAGINING PENTECOSTAL ECONOMIC JUSTICE IN SOUTH AFRICA

Motuku K.P. (Speaker)

University of South Africa ~ Pretoria ~ South Africa
This paper examines the evolving role of Christian theology in South Africa by bridging historical analysis with contemporary socio-political relevance. It begins by analysing what may be described as the "Civil War" of Reformed Hermeneutics, an internal conflict within the Reformed tradition over Scripture, human dignity, and social hierarchy. Central to this struggle was J.D. du Toit (Totius), whose Hyper-Calvinist exegesis, grounded in the "Ordinances of Creation" and a distorted application of Kuyperian "Sphere Sovereignty", provided the theological rationale that legitimated the apartheid project. Through these interpretive mechanisms, racial segregation was elevated from political ideology to divine mandate. In contrast, the paper highlights the emergence of an internal counter-tradition culminating in the Belhar Confession (1982) and the Kairos Document (1985). These texts articulated a decisive 'status confessionis', asserting that apartheid represented not merely a moral error but a theological heresy that compromised the integrity of Christian faith. Figures such as Frank Chikane translated this critique into ecumenical activism, demonstrating how Pentecostal spirituality aligned with liberation ethics. The paper then turns to the contemporary landscape, marked by the rise of Pentecostalism as South Africa's dominant Christian expression and by South Africa's enduring crises of inequality, landlessness, and political corruption. Drawing on recent Lukan scholarship, the study argues that Luke-Acts offers a socio-economic paradigm that can inform a Pentecostal theology of reconstruction, rooted in Jubilee, communal sharing, and economic justice. By integrating historical critique with constructive theological reflection, the paper proposes a renewed ethical framework through which religion may contribute to addressing South Africa's unresolved structural injustices and strengthening its democratic future.
TOWARDS A RELIGIO-CULTURAL APPROACH TO WAR, INJUSTICE AND INEQUALITY AMONG THE BAFUT PEOPLE IN THE ANGLOPHONE NORTHWEST REGION OF CAMEROON.

Emmanuel F.S. (Speaker)

Cambridge Theological Federation ~ Cambridge ~ United Kingdom
The ongoing socio-political unrest in the Anglophone regions of Cameroon has left many communities with extensive violence, injustice, marginalization and socio-economic inequality, with the Bafut people with no exemption. Over the years, while political, economic, and military actions have often dominated discussions towards peace, there seem to be a limited or insufficient communal involvement towards peace, justice and equality among the people. This study proposes a religio-cultural approach to contributing to peacebuilding, justice and social transformation. It seeks to draw from the rich indigenous and cultural values, traditional leadership structures, and religious beliefs (ATR and Christianity) that can contribute to reconciliation. Hinged in the broad fields of African theology, cultural anthropology, and peace studies, this work will employ the qualitative research methodology with semi structured interviews and focus group discussions as methods for gathering data. The study seeks to integrate indigenous peace resources with contemporary peacebuilding strategies to develop a contextual response to the crisis affecting the Bafut people. Such an approach encourages collaboration between churches, traditional authorities, and civil society in building a culture of peace and equitable development. Keywords: Religio-cultural approach, Bafut people, unrest, injustice, inequality, peacebuilding, Anglophone crisis, Cameroon.
COLONIAL PAST, CHRISTIAN IDENTITIES, AND THE CHALLENGES OF RECONCILIATION IN SOUTH SUDAN

Umeokoli C.C. (Speaker)

KU ~ Leuven ~ Belgium
The contemporary challenges and crises in South Sudan cannot be fully explained without attention to the historical entanglement between the Christian Churches, ethnic identities, and socio-political stratifications. While much attention has been given to the positive contribution of Christian Churches under the auspices of the South Sudan Council of Churches to maintaining peace and harmony in the country, less attention has been given to their roles in sustaining the social divisions. With a special focus on the three major Christian Churches in South Sudan (Catholic, Episcopal (Anglican), and Presbyterian), this paper analyses how the peculiar identities of these Churches sustain social divisions among the people, thereby hampering ongoing reconciliation in the conflicted country. To achieve this, I will first highlight how colonial structures shaped these churches over time and how they intersect with various contemporary ethnic divisions in the country. I will then analyse the Action for Peace, a major reconciliation initiative of the South Sudan Council of Christian Churches, and its implementation by the named churches. This will be followed by delineating the limitations of this process, as a result of distinct Christian identities in the country. Finally, I will highlight how the theological decolonial approaches to reconciliation can offer a pathway to sustainable peace in South Sudan.
FROM COLONIAL POWER TO 'INCULTURATION'. THE IDENTITY PROPOSAL OF CATHOLICISM IN THE DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO

Chiarolanza G. (Speaker)

University of Rome Tor Vergata ~ Rome ~ Italy
Against the backdrop of decolonisation and the waning of European political influence in Africa, the theology of inculturation provided the Church with a theoretical framework for redefining its presence in societies that had become independent. This theological current, which proposes a reflection on the criteria for the 'incarnation' of the Gospel within a culture and on the corresponding integration of that culture into the life of the Church, was systematised following the Second Vatican Council, when Christianity was recognized as capable of expressing itself beyond European cultural forms. This perspective faced a structural difficulty: for such dialogue to be possible, 'culture' had to be clearly identifiable, and therefore unitary. The process of inculturation presupposed, in other words, a reified conception of culture, treating it as an interlocutor with clearly defined boundaries. Where such unity was not immediately apparent - as in contexts characterised by great diversity, for example in the DR of Congo - a process of selection and synthesis became necessary. This was, in effect, an operation of cultural construction that consolidated this diversity, transforming it into an identity conceived on a national scale. It was against this backdrop that the Zairian Catholic rite came into being: presented as an expression of Congolese cultural distinctiveness, it appears instead to be the result of a complex process of mediation, in which the diversity of local traditions was synthesised into a single liturgical model. Through this endeavour Catholicism redefined the nature of its presence in the postcolonial world: with political support having waned, the Church redefined its power in moral terms, presenting itself as the guardian and guarantor of local cultural identities. It survived no longer as a foreign system imposed from outside, but as an element capable of promoting and protecting indigenous cultures, whilst keeping its universalist claim intact.
TOWARDS A RELIGIO-CULTURAL APPROACH TO WAR, INJUSTICE AND INEQUALITY AMONG THE BAFUT PEOPLE IN THE ANGLOPHONE NORTHWEST REGION OF CAMEROON.

Funwi Shu E. (Speaker)

Cambridge Theological Federation ~ Cambridge ~ United Kingdom

Panel description: The "long nineteenth century" was marked by the flourishing, (re-)discovery, and invention of religious knowledge. The acceleration of global connections facilitated the diffusion of exotic doctrines and extra-European religions. Also, the new inequality between the emergent rational-positivistic mindset and traditional Christian theologies led to the latter's response through either integration with or resistance to the former. Furthermore, analogous to the massive fascination with the "East", the interest in the "occult", and instances of attraction to Paganism, Christianity saw the development of heterodox currents imbued with esoteric features. Concerning institutional Christianity, the long nineteenth century exhibited two paradoxical aspects. On the one hand, Christianity faced emergent secularisation and anti-clerical sentiments. On the other hand, the same century led to the empowerment of ecclesiastical institutions due to their nature as competitors or allies of nation-states. In turn, the inequality of these developments played a fundamental role in spreading popular devotion and sparking interest in mystical religious manifestations. Whereas past scholarship investigated several of these traditions, the question of establishment, transfer, and circulation remains understudied. By contextualizing this subject within political institutions or across state borders, this panel aims to investigate the social, intellectual, and political challenges faced by Christian esotericism between the eighteenth and twentieth centuries. The panel focuses on three themes: 1. Authority: Technical development and scientific research involved in the affirmation or condemnation of Christian esoteric aspects. 2. Routinisation: The circulation of heterodox doctrines and religious experiences and the attempts to halt them. 3. Coexistence: Conflicts and interactions between positivistic science, institutional confessions, social groups, and Christian esotericism.

Papers:

THE SURVIVAL OF AN ÉLITE: CHURCH AND STATE AGAINST TOWIANISM

Dalla Grana G. (Speaker)

Södertörn University ~ Flemingsberg ~ Sweden
The Polish thinker Andrzej Towiański (1799-1878) promoted a heterodox Catholic doctrine that was diffused, and survived thanks to his disciples, between the first decades of the nineteenth century and the middle of the twentieth century. Towiański's thought, focused on a nationalist messianic approach and a reformation of the Roman Catholic Church, was able to attract several people mostly among the Polish, French, and Italian intellectual, military, religious, and political classes. Towianism was an elitist phenomenon that involved a restricted number of individuals. Nonetheless, it spread from Eastern to Western and Mediterranean Europe and was identified as a menace by political and religious institutions. The Towianists, imbued by an eschatological tension, wanted to gather disciples and spread their Master's doctrine. On the other hand, they had to deal with the opposition of various States and the Church. Two main research questions drive this study: 1) Why was Towianism perceived as a peril to the State and ecclesiastical institutions? 2) Given the political opposition suffered, how did the Towianists act to overcome the institutional repression? Through the study of published and unpublished sources, this contribution investigates both the reaction of a hegemonic institutional power to a religious minority and the latter's attempt to survive and continue its social and religious endeavours amidst the epoch of Romantic nationalism, the establishment of nation-States, and the progressive dissolution of the temporal power of the Roman Catholic Church.
RE-IMAGINING GNOSTICISM WITHIN THE FRENCH NEO-GNOSTIC MOVEMENT

Winterberg A.A. (Speaker)

University of Groningen ~ Groningen ~ Netherlands
Within the French Neo-Gnostic movement, late antique Gnosticism was reimagined by drawing on contemporary advancements in both Patristic and Coptic studies. This paper explores the movement's fundamental connection with academic research. The aftermath of the French Revolution gave rise to several schismatic churches, such as the Gallican churches, which attempted to create new Catholic identities independent of the Roman See. This breach with Rome resulted in a crisis of identity; consequently, an emerging clerical subculture, which increasingly integrated with esotericism, sought new sources of legitimacy. Claiming to represent a "pure, primitive form of Christianity" (Pearson 2007), the protagonists of this subculture identified with late antique heterodox Christian teachings as alternative sources of authority.
T.S. ELIOT AND VLADIMIR SOLOV'ËV: THE SPIRITUAL ARIDITY OF THE MODERN WASTE LAND

Latino P. (Speaker)

Sorbonne Université ~ Paris ~ France
At the beginning of the 20th century, two poets and writers, the American T.S. Eliot and the Russian Vladimir Solov'ëv, described and prophesied in their works a modern society deprived of spiritual values, devoid of transcendental horizons. The Waste Land (1922) by Eliot and The Three Conversations and the Tale of the Antichrist (1900) by Solov'ëv depicted a desacralised human history, an epoch characterised by fragmentation of peoples, cultures, and religions. And it is precisely the religious and theological discourse that imbues these two literary masterpieces of the early 20th century. Eliot and Solov'ëv put into evidence a societal upheaval, which would have registered a drastic weakening of Christianity and a rise of new religions. Moreover, the literary works of Eliot and Solov'ëv are characterized by an esoteric dimension that has not yet been explored. My paper aims to show this esoteric dimension of the two writers and poets, by pointing out the tension between Christianity and new religious movements, between Christian esotericism and the spread of the occult in contemporary times, between the spiritual aridity of modern society and the need for transcendence, which was at the basis of the literary works of T.S. Eliot and Vladimir Solov'ëv.

Panel description: To commemorate 40 years since Mircea Eliade's passing, we are trying to find out how his work and thinking were received among Italian and American specialists. Some of his "disciples" have remained faithful to his intellectual horizon, even if they have followed other methods in studying religious phenomena, while others have distanced themselves from their master, not for methodological or theoretical reasons, but rather for political ones. By redrawing the map of Mircea Eliade's reception in Italy and the United States, we seek to find out if there is a generation of Eliadists and what the stakes of their research are. We also want to find out what the effects of political criticism of Mircea Eliade's work are. Specialists in Eliade's work from the United States, Italy, and Romania will present critical and less critical receptions of Mircea Eliade's work with reference to specialized literature from the United States and Italy. The panel chair is an Eliade scholar with a thesis on Romanian and European philosophical influences in the development of the notion of the sacred in Mircea Eliade's work.

Papers:

ELIADE'S ODYSSEY: CYCLOPES, LOTUS EATERS, AND HERDSMEN

Rennie B. (Speaker)

Westminster College ~ New Wilmington ~ United States of America
In the Anglophone Academy most of Eliade's "friends" (Long, Girardot, Doniger, Beane, Paden, Kripal) simply dedicated themselves to their own research, no doubt influenced by Eliade, but without focusing specifically on his thought. His "opponents," on the other hand (Leach, Strenski, Segal, McCutcheon, Corless, Wasserstrom, Lincoln), had their own theoretical agendas, usually inspired by the materialistic and anti-religious sentiments of the late 20th century, before turning their attention to the Romanian Chicago professor. Using his work as a "straw man"  to demonstrate and justify their own positions, they failed to give Eliade's oeuvre a fair and adequate reading. That oeuvre is so extensive as to require prolonged analysis before drawing reliable conclusions, making it all too easy to use in support of preconceived notions. Anglophone scholars are not inclined to learn Romanian to read his early works, and not enough of these works have been translated into English to make them otherwise accessible. Thus, not enough fully-informed analyses of Eliade's work have been produced in English.
MIRCEA ELIADE AND THE TRADITIONALIST PARADIGM. A SYNTHESIS OF STUDIES PUBLISHED IN ITALY

Badea G. (Speaker)

"G. Călinescu" Institute of Literary History and Theory, Romanian Academy ~ Bucharest ~ Romania
Over time, in the Italian context, a series of studies have focused on the possible connections, affinities, and influences between Eliade's thought and the traditionalist paradigm represented by authors such as René Guénon, Julius Evola, and Ananda K. Coomaraswamy. Among the most important, we can mention the studies signed by Giovanni Casadio, Crescenzo Fiore, Enrico Montanari, Paola Pisi, Natale Spineto, and others. Paola Pisi conducted a comparative study on the conceptions of folklore and metaphysics in Eliade and traditionalist authors, concluding that although there was initially a common conceptual and methodological framework, Eliade later distanced himself from the traditionalist conception, moving to another level of theorizing. In his work dedicated to the historian of religions, Natale Spineto considers 1937 a turning point in Eliade's intellectual development, due to the influence of the studies of Ananda Coomaraswamy and Paul Mus, where he finds the pivotal concepts that will appear with increased prominence in his mature works. Spineto admits (as does Paola Pisi) that certain key concepts in Eliade's works were taken from traditionalist authors, primarily René Guénon and Ananda Coomaraswamy (axis mundi, the concept of "folklore," that of "archetype," that of the spiritual East). However, he rightly observes that although Eliade demonstrated the universality of metaphysical traditions and the ecumenical nature of symbols, he did not speak of a "Primal Tradition," but of a "traditional culture," by which he understood a culture entirely dominated by norms whose religious or cosmological (metaphysical) validity is not questioned by any of the community members. In my presentation, I intend to synthesize the studies published in the Italian academic environment on this topic and show the extent to which they have contributed to our understanding of a shadowy area in the history of religions.
ELIADE, TUCCI AND THE GROWTH OF IRANIAN STUDIES IN ITALY

Cereti C.G. (Speaker)

University of California, Irvine School of Humanities ~ Roma ~ Italy
Giuseppe Tucci was one of the most important intellectuals in 20th century Italy, a man that has decisively shaped Asian studies in our Country and in Europe. Though deeply diverging from Mircea Eliade in terms of the methodology applied to the study of religion, he had a deep personal relation with the Rumanian scholar, with whom he shared a conservative view of the world. In this presentation, I will analyse how this methodological dichotomy, tempered by personal friendship and intellectual esteem, influenced the later development of Iranian studies in Italy. I will do so through an analysis of Gherardo Gnoli's methodology, deeply rooted in a philological-historical approach, and apparently far from Eliade's phenomenology. Moreover, I will also briefly outline the influence that a third giant of religious studies, Georges Dumezil, had on the Italian school of Iranian studies. Scholars working in and around IsMEO, the institute founded by Giuseppe Tucci that experienced a second life after the end of World War II are all indebted towards Mircea Eliade's teaching, though most of them have stuck to a more radical historical understanding of religions and specifically of Iranian religions.
THE "LAST GREAT ROMANTIC IN THE HISTORY OF RELIGIONS": MIRCEA ELIADE THROUGH THE EYES OF THE 'HETERODOX' ALDO NATALE TERRIN

Nanini R. (Speaker)

Independent Scholar ~ Hannover ~ Germany
In a context dominated for decades by strongly historicist approaches to religion, which he, from a diametrically opposed standpoint, subjected to sustained and incisive criticism, Aldo Natale Terrin (1941-2024) represented, as an all-round phenomenologist of religion, a striking and highly productive exception within the Italian scholarly landscape: a heterodox figure. Among his main interlocutors, alongside Rudolf Otto, whom he knew in depth, and Gerardus van der Leeuw, Mircea Eliade occupies a central place. Terrin went so far as to describe him as the "totemic father of religious studies" and the "last great champion of belief in the sacred". Yet Terrin did not simply enshrine the Romanian scholar in his personal pantheon; rather, he reread and reinterpreted Eliade through the lens of the questions that most concerned him and, above all, within the theoretical architecture he developed over the course of a long and remarkably consistent scholarly career. For Terrin, although Eliade is closely aligned with Husserlian phenomenology and with that "anonymous phenomenologist" Rudolf Otto, his thought is to be understood above all in relation, on the one hand, to a Romantic humanism open to religious meaning and to mysticism, including esoteric currents, and, on the other, to the "Eastern soul", conceived as a philosophical bridge between history and metahistory, singularity and totality, the evanescence of the human condition and its transcendence. This paper aims to bring these significant connections into focus by drawing on Terrin's extensive writings on the subject.

Panel description: In conjunction with structural changes in public spheres, new forms of political debate are emerging, beyond traditional verbal formats. Performative practices—such as quasi-liturgical rituals, public choreographies, aesthetic interventions, sonic collages—are increasingly shaping political spheres. Alongside a politics of language, a politics of performance is gaining significance, in which power is negotiated through sublinguistic and affective practices. This shift is closely linked to the renewed presence of religious symbols and spiritual auras in public life. Even societies that understand themselves as secular are increasingly confronted with forms of postsecular political performativity. Research on this phenomenon remains underdeveloped, with scientific debates largely focused on spoken discourse rather than artistic-aesthetic and performative dimensions and their dynamics of transcendence. The research network Postsecular Performances (DFG-funded, # 545972161) addresses this gap by investigating postsecular politico-performatives in public space, in a three-year research process. It examines how power relations are stabilized, transformed, disrupted through alterity-related performance, developing key elements of a grounded theory of postsecular performance. The network also reflects on religion-related academic work as a political-performative practice of own kind. It applies and discusses arts-based research as an approach to critically and creatively address the hierarchical asymmetries of academic work, discovering traces of a postsecular epistemologies. This panel presents the network's aims, methods, and central findings. In its contributions, current examples of postsecular performances are discussed, in classic papers and arts-based presentations. Postsecular performances emerge as ambivalent spaces of imagination, capable of both enchanting and consolidating power relations while also generating disenchantment and transformative impulses.

Papers:

POSTSECULARITY AS TRANS-IMMANENCE OF THE BODY?

Kern C. (Speaker)

Faculty of Theology (cath.), Muenster ~ Muenster ~ Germany
In a dominant mainstream discourse, postsecularity is understood as a practice of translation. Following Jürgen Habermas, theorists define the postsecular as a back-and-forth between religious and secular languages. In a joint cooperation process, both linguistic worlds are to be brought into contact with each other. In this process, the particularities of religious conviction are translated into generally understandable reasons, thus gaining political plausibility. A second main discourse understands post-secularity as a practice of questioning and contestation. Following in the footsteps of scholars like Talal Asad and Saba Mahmood, the post-secular consists in questioning dominant epistemic frameworks that developed primarily in Western contexts and distinguished the religious from its other, the secular. In critical genealogies, the conditions of origin and inconsistencies of such dichotomic theoretical frameworks are deconstructed and problematized. The postsecular then consists of a move into the open, "post" or "beyond" these organizing dichotomies. This paper takes up this second approach and deepens it. It elaborates that in the "post" of these critical approaches, a new sensitivity to bodies and affectivity in public space emerges. Far from being a simple material return to immanence, a different way of understanding and living the body as social reality appears: as a presence that is simultaneously permeated by an infinite absence and depth in which possible other forms of life—heteromorphies—announce themselves, without being conclusively definable. In this third perspective, the post-secular becomes the name for a vitalizing trans*immanence of the body in the struggle for political livability. The paper outlines this understanding of post-secularity and substantiates it with empirical findings from the work process of the Postsecular Performance Network.
POSTSECULARITY AND PRECARITY - NEW YORK AND PHILADELPHIA AS EXAMPLE OF POSTSECULAR DIS/ENCHANTMENT OF URBAN SPACES

Giele N. (Speaker)

Faculty of Educational Sciences, Hamburg ~ Hamburg ~ Germany
Megacities and urban agglomerations are often associated with a promise of salvation: they entice with the promise of enabling individual and collective creativity, strength, and innovation. They promise individuals a different kind of life, improved quality of life, and, in some cases, social advancement. Sometimes these promises become veritable promises of salvation: here, your life will begin to shine and you will find salvation. So: "Let's go downtown!" This paper reconstructs this postsecularity and the promises of salvation inherent in the choreography of urban space. It elaborates on how fictions of wholeness are embodied in it, stimulating an improvement in quality of life. It also shows how zones of invisibility arise in urban subzones an niches, in which precarious life settles and is made invisible in the greatness of the city. In the heaven of urban salvation, one is simultaneously in hell's kitchen. This analysis of the postsecularity of urban spaces is carried out using the examples of Penn Station in New York and Kensington Road in Philadelphia, USA.
EMBODIED INQUIRY IN THE EXPLORATION OF POSTSECULAR PERFORMANCES - WHAT HAPPENS WHEN WE PLACE THE BODY IN FOCUS?

Tsampazi A. (Speaker)

Queen's University, Belfast ~ Belfast ~ United Kingdom
The paper discusses the application of dance practice-as-research to the exploration of postsecular performances. The body is increasingly recognised as an important element in the research process. It stores information and emotions from lived experiences and produces knowledge that may not be accessible through traditional research methods. The article specifically focuses on Embodied Inquiry - an approach that is concerned with the embodied experience in research and allows for a multiplicity of ways of carrying it out. The paper provides examples of such research by discussing the design and delivery of three movement workshops that took place during the Postsecular Performances Network meetings: a workshop on the detachment from material objects based on Christian Orthodox asceticism (Frankfurt University, Germany), a site-specific movement workshop in St. Peter's church (Münster, Germany), and an artistic pilgrimage in the gardens of Pendle Hill (Philadelphia, USA). The workshops offered embodied experiences on various aspects of postsecular performativity, and an alternative way of doing research and dialogue on the topic - one that places the body in focus.
DANCING BIBLICAL TEXTS - A PERFORMATIVE EXEGESIS

Hikota R.C. (Speaker)

The Margaret Beaufort Institute, Cambridge ~ Cambridge ~ United Kingdom
Biblical texts are a specific form of theology. They capture experiences of faith in specific contexts and preserve them in narrative form. But the biblical text is also a performance because it can and must be read and interpreted in order to be a text. But is it enough to simply read and recontextualize it—that is, to comprehend it cognitively and verbally as the written word? Or could the content of the text be explored and interpreted in other ways? The method of "bibliodance" ("dancing the Bible") is one such method for exploring biblical texts in a different way. The text is not only viewed and discussed cognitively and verbally, but also improvised through dance. "Bibliodance" engages in a unique form of exegesis that is highly cognitive and rational, yet at the same time socially interactive, affective, effective. The content of the text interacts with the forms of the group performance. The performative practice reveals facets of a postsecular epistemology by combining dance-based reaction with faith-based reflections. This paper presents the method of "Bibliodance" using an example from network work and discusses the epistemological and theological quality of the method.
WH(I/E)THER THE POSTSECULAR - RESPONDING TO SITES OF POSTSECULARITY IN THE WORLD AND IN ART

Vaidyanathan I. (Speaker)

Manipal Academy of Higher Education, Bengaluru ~ Bengaluru ~ India
Beginning with an array of seemingly unrelated instances, this article seeks to identify and typify concrete sites of the postsecular both in the world and within artistic practices. The list of sites, curated by members of the network, includes an abandoned church in Manhattan, a vegan communion, a scenic riverside, a radio play overlaid on rock music, a ritual jade disc, a syncretic folk dance, a public mourning, and a prehistoric hymn. Spread across time and space, what these sites have in common is a shared sense of purpose, their capacity to nurture or care for a community, and a promise of transcendence. As artists and scholars increasingly move beyond the impasse of postmodern cynicism and search for modes of re-enchantment grounded in attentiveness and hope, this article formulates a response to encountering such sites: a performative engagement that involves embodied awareness, ethical determination, and an active orientation toward the world. While this response may resemble a sense of calling, it remains deliberately detached from any rigid or institutional religious framework. Instead, it affirms the spirituality of nature, the formative power of aesthetic experience, and the ethical imperative of enabling collective flourishing. Read together, these encounters suggest understanding the postsecular not as a settled category, but as an open, ongoing question—one that is continuously negotiated through artistic, communal, and embodied practice.
SENSING THE POSTSECULAR LIMINAL SPACE - A PERFORMANCE LECTURE

Sojer T. (Speaker)

Faculty of Theology, Erfurt ~ Erfurt ~ Germany
The proposed performance lecture presents the outcomes of several years of collaborative research through a living constellation of academic reflection, artistic exploration, and a shared live experiment. Three subgroups contribute performative interventions that remain in continuous relation to theoretical articulation and dialogical reflection, forming an integrated process in which thinking, sensing, and acting are closely intertwined. The postsecular appears as an ambivalent, processual phenomenon emerging through movement, tension, and relational intensity. A central focus lies on the bodily and somatic dimensions of postsecular experience. The lecture-performance explores how postsecular dynamics become perceptible through embodied affects, gestures, rhythms, attentional practices, and vulnerability. The performative functions as a medium in which spiritual, existential, and material dimensions converge, with knowledge emerging through the body as a site of resonance and transformation. Structured as a participatory situation, the event involves the audience as co-present contributors whose perception and embodied responsiveness shape the unfolding process. Participation is understood as shared exposure and attentiveness, enabling postsecular dynamics to be experienced collectively. Finally, the experimental format reconfigures power relations in academic knowledge production. By fostering horizontal interactions among speakers, performers, and participants, the lecture-performance creates a relational space in which authority circulates and knowledge emerges through interaction.

Panel description: It is well known that Basil of Caesarea (Homilia in Barlaam martyrem, PG 31, 488) and, later, Gregory the Great (Epistula I ad Serenum Massiliensem Episcopum, PL 77, 1027) explicitly emphasized the instructive function of religious images. Building upon the insights of these two Church Fathers, this panel seeks to reconsider and discuss the educational potential of medieval visual production within Christian culture. Drawing on the most recent historiographical developments, the contribution examines images as privileged instruments for the transmission of theological knowledge and salvation history, capable of communicating complex contents both to learned audiences and to non-literate faithful. Particular attention is devoted to the emotional, liturgical, and material dimensions of images—including their spatial setting, cultic use, and the employment of precious materials—as well as to their inherently polysemous character. The panel adopts an interdisciplinary approach that integrates Visual Studies, anthropology, and Gender Studies, while also highlighting the role of Marian and female saints' imagery in shaping models of learning, devotion, and the representation of femininity within medieval society.

Papers:

IF LORENZO OF SIPONTO SPOKE FLORENTINE. THE VITAE LAURENTII AND THE GARGANO MICHAELIC TRADITION IN TUSCAN VISUAL CULTURE

Germano N. (Speaker) , Di Cosmo A.P. (Speaker)

UNIVERSITà DI MODENA E REGGIO EMILIA/ISACCL BUCAREST ~ REGGIO EMILIA ~ Italy
The hagiographical tradition of the Gargano, which concerned the epiphany of the Archangel Michael, is well-established in the Liber de apparitione Sancti Michaelis in Monte Gargano. The same text probably is commissioned by the longboard dukes of Benevento. Later on, the tradition of the sanctuary was amended by the hagiographical dossier of Saint Laurence, bishop of Siponto, and by Greek Metafrasis of the legenda concerned the foundation of the Ecclesia garganica. Consequently, the present work deepens the implantation of the figure of bishop Laurence in the visual culture expressed in the Italian area. It focused on the visual products allocated in the Daunia. Then, it analyzes the productions that represent the saint bishop in Tuscany, where his presence is functional to enhance the role of the bishop in the management of the Diocese. Finally, it considers the frescos in Rome, that concern the legenda of Gargano.
ART, KNOWLEDGE, AND SYMBOL IN THE THOUGHT OF NICHOLAS OF CUSA

Germano N. (Speaker)

UNIVERSITà DI GENOVA ~ GENOVA ~ Italy
This paper examines the function of art in the thought of Nicholas of Cusa, highlighting its epistemological, symbolic, and theological role within the broader framework of docta ignorantia and analogical knowledge. For Cusanus, art is not conceived as a mere imitation of reality, but as an intellectual operation capable of rendering the invisible visible, translating into sensible form the tension between finitude and infinity that structures human cognition. Through images, geometrical figures, and visual metaphors—such as the circle, the polygon, or the icon—art becomes a functional instrument of contemplation and a pedagogical medium guiding the intellect beyond the limits of discursive reason. In this perspective, artistic production actively participates in the process of spiritual elevation, configuring itself as a privileged space of mediation between philosophical knowledge, sensory experience, and theological truth.
AN EXAMINATION OF THE REPRESENTATION AND INTERACTION WITH IMAGES OF SAINT ANTHONY IN SLOVAK CHURCHES.

Varotti C. (Speaker)

Universidade Aberta ~ Lisbon ~ Portugal
Research into the origins and significance of Saint Anthony's image in Slovak churches indicates that this subject involves a distinctive hermeneutic approach. The image does not function solely as a metaphor; rather, it constitutes a tangible presence, necessitating an interpretive response from the observer according to their personal hermeneutical framework. When engaging with religious objects, it is important to account for both the potential for reverence and the dynamic relationship between object and observer. The cataloguing of Antonian images underscored this interaction, revealing that devotees are actively involved in engaging with the image, surpassing mere passive observation. Such images fulfill various functions, including commemorating Franciscan heritage or providing instruction regarding Holy Charity. Furthermore, in many cases, observers or devotees contribute to the construction of the saint's hagiographic narrative. This finding affirms that hermeneutics is integral to the religious identity of Slovakia and acts as a foundational aspect in its engagement with the sacred. This analysis facilitated the identification of stratifying factors influencing reverence toward Saint Anthony. Consequently, the image serves as a locus of memory that encompasses not only religious but also social dimensions, forming a convergence point for devotion, tradition, and collective identity.
REVISITING MY MELANCHOLY (CHURCH) FATHER

Noble B. (Speaker)

University of North Carolina at Charlotte ~ Charlotte ~ United States of America
In 1521, seven years before his death, Albrecht Dürer painted an image of Saint Jerome, currently in the National Museum of Ancient Art in Lisbon. This surprisingly under- researched painting unites themes of Melancholia, ocular misperception, subjectivity, skepticism, and a disrupted reciprocity between representational appearance and truth that characterize much Northern Renaissance art of the sixteenth century. The painting also shows how profoundly pictures of saints were drained of the holiness and comfort that characterized the era before the Lutheran Reformation. Like Albrecht Dürer's engraving, Melencolia I of 1514, the Lisbon Jerome rests his face in one hand in a posture that embodies introspection. He points to the skull with the index finger of his left hand and locks eyes with the viewer, linking his world to the beholder's. His books and pen are neglected and inert. The space is ambiguous, tight and uncertain, and draws the viewer out of the holy narrative rather than more deeply into it. Is the Christ on the left a tiny object or a larger object farther away? The green panel behind the saint is truncated and indeterminate, just like the structure behind the winged figure in Melencolia I. The space mirrors the saint's melancholic disorientation. In Dürer's other representations of Jerome, the saint exemplifies the virtues of piety and hard work. For instance, Jerome studies peacefully in the 1514 Master Engraving, or practices penance, as in the 1496 engraving of the saint in the wilderness. In contrast, in the Lisbon painting, Dürer depicts an idle, despairing man preoccupied with mortality, as his eyes plead with the viewer and his hand points wearily to the skull. As Erwin Panofsky noted long ago, the disciplined, pious scholar has evolved into a melancholic. This presentation will demonstrate the transformation of piety into melancholy as exemplified by the scholar saint Jerome.
IMAGES AS A THEOLOGICAL MEDIUM OF READING THE BIBLE: EXAMPLES FROM THE WRITINGS OF AUGUSTINE AND GREGORY THE GREAT

Sawicki L. (Speaker)

Independent scholar ~ Rome ~ Italy
In the first centuries of Christianity, the Bible was not only the primary source of theology but also a foundational element of Christian piety. Alongside biblical commentaries, the writings of the Church Fathers employ metaphorical images that articulate the significance of biblical reading and propose concrete ways of approaching it. These images constitute a distinctive testimony to the authors' theological imagination and creativity, revealing both their pastoral sensitivity and their poetic sensibility. Although original, the images they propose are deeply rooted in biblical stylistic patterns. The diverse metaphors on which they rely open onto different forms of moral, ecclesial, and affective engagement. Their analysis allows for a deeper understanding of the central role of Scripture in the spirituality of the early centuries of Christianity. This is particularly evident in selected writings of Augustine and Gregory the Great.

Panel description: This panel aims to explore the multifaceted intersections between the history of medicine and religion, highlighting how, across different periods and cultural contexts, the care of the body has been inextricably linked to the salvation of the soul. Far from constituting separate domains, medicine and religion have shared languages, practices, and interpretative models, jointly contributing to the construction of a holistic vision of the human being. Contributions may examine the role of religious institutions in the transmission of medical knowledge, the therapeutic function of ritual and prayer, the sacralization of illness and healing, as well as the figures of healing saints and saintly physicians. Particular attention will be devoted to processes of legitimizing medical knowledge, the boundaries between empirical practice and miracle, and the symbolic and performative dimensions of healing practices. The panel welcomes interdisciplinary approaches—historical, medical-historical, religious-historical, iconographic, and anthropological—and seeks to offer a nuanced reflection on the ways in which medicine and religion have cooperated—and at times conflicted—in responding to the human need for health, meaning, and redemption.

Papers:

THE MATERIALITY OF HEALING: COSMAS AND DAMIAN AND THE VISUAL CULTURE OF MEDICAL PRACTICE

Di Cosmo A.P. (Speaker)

UNIVERSITà DI MODENA E REGGIO EMILIA/ISACCL BUCAREST ~ REGGIO EMILIA ~ Italy
This paper analyzes the visual and ritual strategies underlying the cult of the Holy Doctors, Cosmas and Damian. It begins with the hymn of the torchbearers—the candle bearers—performed during the annual procession held on the third Sunday of October in Bitonto. This chant functions as a choral ekphrasis of the saints' effigies and serves as a visual narrative of their thaumaturgic authority. In light of this narrative technique for expressing the charisma of the Anargyroi, the study adopts methodologies drawn from Visual Anthropology and Semiotics to reconstruct the evolution of iconographic models between the 4th and the early 15th century. It identifies how these models were developed to enhance ceremonial visibility and the emotional engagement of the faithful. Finally, the study demonstrates how devotional images operate within a system of shared cultural codes, establishing a connection between the material and immaterial dimensions of sacred representation
KNOWLEDGE, EXPERIENCE, AND RATIONALITY: GALEN'S PHILOSOPHY OF MEDICINE BETWEEN EMPIRICISM AND POSITIVE KNOWLEDGE

Germano N. (Speaker)

UNIVERSITà DI GENOVA ~ GENOVA ~ Italy
This panel aims to explore Galen's philosophy of medicine by focusing on the central role he assigns to rational, verifiable, and experiential knowledge as the foundation of medical art. Far from being a merely technical therapeutic practice, Galenic medicine emerges as a rigorous scientia, grounded in epistemological principles that, in certain respects, anticipate an attitude akin to an ante litteram positivism. Through an analysis of Galen's major medical and philosophical treatises, the panel investigates the relationship between logos, peira, and enargeia, showing how direct observation of the body, clinical experience, and rational demonstration jointly contribute to the construction of an objective and cumulative medical knowledge. Particular attention is paid to Galen's critique of both radical empiricism and abstract speculation, in favor of a methodological synthesis capable of ensuring epistemic certainty and therapeutic reliability. Finally, the panel reflects on the normative and formative function of medical knowledge in Galen's thought, highlighting how medicine becomes an epistemological model for other disciplines and a privileged framework for understanding the relationship between nature, knowledge, and truth in the ancient world.
THE IDEOLOGICAL FOUNDATIONS OF ALTERNATIVE MEDICINE IN THE SERBIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH

Burzanovic D. (Speaker)

Autonomous University of Barcelona ~ Barcelona ~ Spain
This study examines how the Serbian Orthodox Church (SOC) integrates alternative medicine into its broader religious and ideological framework. Drawing on qualitative content analysis and semi-structured interviews with monastery practitioners, it analyzes how monastery-produced remedies, primarily herbal and natural products, are framed and justified. Analytically, I treat SOC alternative medicine as an ideological register rather than only a set of therapies. Building on scholarship on the ideological construction of medicine, I argue that monastery discourse frames remedies through religious and moral categories in ways that mirror the Church's broader positioning toward modern life. In this sense, their healing methods are legitimized less through biomedical evidence than through normative and political meanings and become a vehicle for articulating a critique of secular modernity, affirming moral authority, and marking boundaries against pharmaceutical and technocratic forms of expertise. Using discourse analysis to track recurring tropes and affective registers, the study argues that the persuasive force of this discourse relies on recognizably Romantic ideas, including antagonism toward modernity, the ideal of organic wholeness, glorification of nature, and a nostalgic return to origins. Rather than a marginal add-on, alternative medicine appears as an extension of core SOC ideological principles, showing how practices of healing and care serve to reproduce and rearticulate broader positions of the Orthodox Church. The paper shows how health discourse can operate as a low-threshold carrier of ideology, translating abstract critiques of modernity into everyday choices about bodies, nature, and trust and thereby extending Orthodox authority into the domain of medicine.
FROM CURE TO OBLATION: HEALING, CARE, AND SELF-DONATION IN LATE ANTIQUE EGYPT

Lee G. (Speaker)

Central European University ~ Vienna ~ Austria
In Late Antique Egypt (4th to 8th centuries), healing unfolded at the intersection of bodily cure and spiritual salvation. Medical institutions such as the nosokomeion and xenodocheion, monastic communities, and hagiographic traditions together shaped a landscape of care in which illness was understood not merely as a physical condition but as a moral and salvific crisis. This paper examines how such expectations were translated into concrete social and institutional practices by focusing on documents of self-donation to monasteries. The Miracles of Abba Mena recounts cases in which individuals, after being healed, donated themselves to monasteries. Beyond hagiographic texts, one papyrus and one ostracon attest to this practice in reality. P.KRU 104 (Jeme, Hermonthis, seventh century) records a legally formalized act of self-oblation by a man named Petronius following a severe illness. After seeking the intercession of Apa Phoibammon and being healed, Petronius donates his own body to the monastery, binding himself as a lifelong servant. The document demonstrates how healing was stabilized through legal form, transforming recovery into a permanent and enforceable obligation rather than a simple return to ordinary life. A complementary perspective is provided by ostraca O.NMEC 117 (probably from the Theban region, early seventh century), which preserves a first-person narrative by Strategios. Attributing his moral collapse to demonic influence, he frames his retreat to the monastery of Apa Samuel as a therapeutic response aimed at forgiveness and spiritual repair. Whether interpreted as self-donation or monastic retirement, the text reveals the narrative logic that rendered withdrawal from the world intelligible as care for the soul. These two cases show how bodily healing and spiritual salvation were deeply intertwined within Christian practices of care in Late Antique Egypt, where recovery was transformed into lasting institutional and devotional commitments.
BETWEEN MEDICINE AND PRAYER: THE HEALING OF BODY AND SOUL IN NEMESIUS OF EMESA AND GREGORY OF NAREK

Apresyan A. (Speaker)

Matenadaran-Mesrop Mashtots Research Institute of Ancient Manuscripts ~ Yerevan ~ Armenia
This paper examines the theme of the healing of body and soul in two works: On Human Nature by the Greek physician and philosopher Nemesius of Emesa (5th century) and the Prayer Book by the Armenian theologian and monk St.Gregory of Narek (10th century). Drawing on the traditions of ancient philosophy and science, as well as the writings of the Church Fathers, selected chapters or prayers articulate the relationship between soul and body from anthropological, philosophical, theological perspectives. Through an analysis of the spiritual experience of healing saints and saintly physicians, this study explores the intersection of medicine and religion, philosophy and medicine, highlighting their shared aim of restoring harmony between body and soul. First, the paper considers the scientific significance of these works. Both texts were of inestimable importance for medieval theological and philosophical thought. Their key anthropological premises were adopted by later authors and significantly influenced the development of medieval anthropological and medical traditions. On Human Nature, long regarded as a standard text, remained authoritative in the field of practical medicine and served as an anthropological manual in medieval monastic schools. Second, the paper examines the therapeutic function of prayer in the healing of body and soul. It argues that, from the Middle Ages to the present, healing has been understood as occurring through reliance on the divine Word, the harmonization of the inner and outer man, the practice of prayer, and the pursuit of Godlikeness. Owing to their spiritual and religious significance, these works became enduring manuals for monks, hermits, and lay believers alike. Some healing prayers from Gregory's Prayer Book were incorporated into medical compilations and read to the sick as life-giving remedies. They were also integrated into liturgical practice, further reinforcing the connection between spiritual devotion and therapeutic care.

Panel description: This panel explores the figure of the Virgin Mary as a central intersection between theological reflection, devotional practice, and visual culture, spanning from the early Middle Ages to the early modern period. Anchored in historical mariological texts — patristic writings, medieval treatises, and early modern devotionals — it examines how core doctrines of Marian theology, including divine maternity, intercession, purity, and queenship, were translated into complex visual systems, iconographic formulas, and performative devices. The analysis focuses on the interplay between textual authority, as exemplified in documents such as Redemptoris Mater, and artistic production, demonstrating how Mary's image functioned not merely as illustration but as a dynamic medium shaping perception, piety, and memory. Paintings, sculptures, and illuminated manuscripts are examined to reveal strategies by which the Virgin was depicted as a locus of protection, authority, and affective engagement. By correlating doctrinal developments with visual expression, the panel reconstructs a nuanced Marian semiotics, highlighting the enduring impact of visual culture on the reception and transformation of Mariology across centuries.

Papers:

"MARVELOUS VISIONS": MAPPING THE GEOGRAPHY OF EXTRAORDINARY MARIAN IMAGES IN DAUNIA

Di Cosmo A.P. (Speaker)

UNIVERSITà DI MODENA E REGGIO EMILIA ~ REGGIO EMILIA ~ Italy
This paper develops the marvelous loci contained in a Marian devotional text as the Zodiaco di Maria, compiled by the Dominican Father Serafino Montorio and published in Naples in 1715. The text employs cultural references to the immaterial culture connected with astronomy as a pretext for weaving the praises of the Virgin. It brings together marvelous narratives related to the significant Marian miraculous effigies of the Kingdom of Naples, organizing them geographically and associating each with one of the Twelve Zodiacal constellations. This metaphorical approach favored in Mariological studies from the 17th century onward, creates a layered text open to multiple interpretations. The Dominican father proposes a complex text that on the surface magnifies the Name of the Virgin as "venerabile agli angioli, dolcissimo agli uomini e tremendo ai dimoni", while portraying the Madonna's miracles as having "special dominio sopra il regno di Napoli". Thus, the twelve provinces of the Kingdom are assimilated to zodiac signs illuminated by the Mother of God, forming an effective metaphor that serves soteriological purposes from the editor's perspective. This set of rhetorical devices preserves motifs typical of the Neapolitan cultural context, often referring back to Orphic and Pythagorean intellectual traditions based on the principle: "What is below is equal to what is above, and what is above is equal to what is below". In this way, Father Montorio not only draws geography of Neapolitan devotion but propagates on a deeper reading level a profound association and overlapping of interests shared between the Church and the Kingdom. Here, the Virgin, appropriately honored, becomes a guarantor of the throne-altar alliance that governed local politics from the 17th century until the liberal uprisings within the framework of Realpolitik.
THE MADONNA CONQUERED ME: MARIAN DEVOTION AND VISUAL CULTURE IN ERNEST RENAN'S REFLECTIONS

Germano N. (Speaker)

UNIVERSITà DI GENOVA ~ GENOVA ~ Italy
Ernest Renan's Les Madones m'ont conquises offers a compelling testimony to the power of Marian imagery and devotion in shaping both personal sensibilities and broader cultural perceptions. This paper examines Renan's reflections through the lens of visual culture, highlighting the interplay between theological ideals, artistic representation, and emotional engagement. By analyzing key artworks and devotional practices referenced by Renan, the study investigates how the Virgin's iconography operates as a medium of affective persuasion, moral instruction, and cultural continuity. Special attention is given to the symbolic and semiotic strategies that render the Madonna both approachable and transcendent, fostering a dynamic interaction between viewer and image. This analysis situates Renan's experience within the broader European Marian tradition, emphasizing the reciprocal influence of literature, theology, and visual art in constructing devotional meaning and cultural memory.
MARIA E LA CORREDENZIONE: APPROFONDIMENTI DOPO LA NOTA DOTTRINALE MATER POPULI FIDELIS

Albanese A. (Speaker)

Ricercatore indipendente ~ Abruzzo ~ Italy
La presentazione vuole approfondire l'attributo di Maria corredentrice, dopo la nota dottrinale della Congregazione per la dottrina della fede. In particolare analizza il contributo biblico e teologico, a partire dalle ricerche di alcuni teologi contemporanei.
FRIAR J. B. HEPBURN'S VIRGA AUREA : ON A KABBALISTIC IMAGERY FOR MARY

Angileri I. (Speaker)

University "La Sapienza" of Rome - EPHE PSL ~ Rome - Paris ~ Italy
What do Jewish Kabbalah, the staff of Moses, and the Virgin Mary have in common? Although this question may surprise the modern reader, the connection was quite clear to the Scottish Franciscan James Bonaventura Hepburn when, in 1616, he presented Pope Paul V with the five engraved plates that compose the Virga Aurea. In the first plate, Mary, represented according to the iconography of the Immaculate Conception, is surrounded by angels and saints, with Hebrew verses that emphasize her honors, her Old Testament prefigurations, and a pronounced astrological and Jewish symbolism. Lengthy explanations in Latin and Hebrew follow, accompanied by an extraordinarily rich repertory of ancient or imagined alphabets, juxtaposed with divine names, numerical correspondences, and intricate symbolic schemes. At first glance, the work may appear to be either a syncretistic exercise or a display of erudition by the friar in charge of the Oriental Collection of the Vatican Library. Yet, a closer examination of the engraving's corollaries, particularly the references to the pseudoepigraphical work Mechkar ha-sodot attributed to Shimon bar Yochai, reveals a more specific intellectual agenda. The Virga Aurea points to a distinctive phenomenon: the appropriation of the Jewish mystical tradition by the so-called Christian Kabbalists in order to articulate a particular theological discourse on the Virgin Mary. This paper will therefore explore the theme of a "kabbalistic Mariology," a significant moment in the Renaissance humanists' reception of Mary, through Hepburn's work, presenting it as one of the most fruitful and original developments within the broader season of Christian Kabbalah.

Panel description: Ibn al-ʿArabī (1165-1240), known as Muḥyī al-Dīn ("the Reviver of Religion") and revered as al-Shaykh al-Akbar ("the Greatest Master"), was one of the most influential Sufi mystics, philosophers, and poets in Islamic thought. Born in Murcia, al-Andalus, he is conventionally regarded as the expositor of "the oneness of being" (waḥdat al-wujūd). His rich corpus of over 300 works spans metaphysics, cosmology, ontology, Qurʾānic exegesis, poetry, philosophy, alchemy, and the science of letters. This panel explores Ibn al-ʿArabī's thought through three interlocking dimensions: geometry, being, and language, understood as integrated modes of divine self-disclosure and the human apprehension of this reality. Geometry functions as a contemplative architecture for mapping the relation between the One and the many, between emanation and return, through points, circles, and lines. Being is the fundamental ground his oeuvre seeks to witness. Language, in its lexical, semantic, scriptural, and embodied dimensions, is the medium of this articulation: letters and words, with hidden properties, meanings, and etymologies, function as living principles of the cosmos, reflecting its layered and dynamic structure. Individual contributions examine the semantic density of Ibn al-ʿArabī's terminology and his virtuosic engagement with the Arabic linguistic tradition, including in his early treatise ʿUqlat al-Mustawfiz. Another contribution places his thought, most prominently al-Futūḥāt al-Makkiyya, in a broader Iberian context, comparing his science of letters and geometric cosmology with parallel developments in Jewish Kabbalah. Together, these perspectives illuminate Ibn al-ʿArabī as a thinker for whom geometry, being, and language form a uniquely encyclopaedic, oceanic, and often enigmatic symbolic grammar. Through these novel interpretive approaches, the panel seeks to deepen our understanding of his thought and its enduring significance.

Papers:

`UQLAT AL-MUSTAWFIZ: INTERTEXTUALITY, POLYSEMY AND SYMBOLIC LANGUAGE IN IBN ARABI

López Anguita G. (Speaker)

Universidad de Sevilla ~ Seville ~ Spain
The expression that gives this cosmological treatise written by Ibn Arabi around 1201 its title is a hapax legomenon whose translation is problematic. Another peculiarity of this title is that it 'lacks the second part,' since it is customary for the titles of classical Arabic works to have a first part that usually consists of a poetic image and a second part that explains the content of the book in question. The two terms that make up this expression, which seems to come from the vocabulary of livestock farming or hunting, reveal a whole conceptual universe related to reason as human power, both as discernment and restraint, obedience to God (and to the master) and theophanic experience, among other things. In this presentation, we will trace the presence of the terms separately in other works by Ibn Arabi, explore the different hypotheses that would explain their origin and their relationship to some of the central themes of the work—the universal servant and the active intellect. In short, we will use this expression as a case study to illustrate Ibn Arabi's conscious and virtuous use of Arabic lexical roots and intertextuality with the Qur'an and Arabic literature.
THE SCIENCE OF LETTERS IN IBERIAN SUFISM AND KABBALAH: IBN AL-ʿARABĪ AND THE ZOHAR

Salihbegovic N. (Speaker)

Monash University ~ Melbourne ~ Australia
Medieval Iberia was a unique crossroads of religious, philosophical, mathematical, and scientific speculation. Among its most striking features was an attentiveness to the rich symbolism of numbers and the letters of the alphabet. In the Islamic and Jewish traditions, two towering corpora stand out in this regard: the mystical-pietist literature of the Andalusian Sufi Ibn al-ʿArabī (1165-1240), written in Arabic, and Sefer ha-Zohar ("The Book of Splendour"), the foundational text of Castilian theosophical Kabbalah (ca. 1280s, widely attributed to Moses de León, ca.1240-1305), composed mostly in Aramaic. Despite their temporal, geographical, and philological proximity, no systematic comparison exists of how Sufism and Kabbalah approach letters and numbers. This study proposes "the science of letters" as a comparative methodology and heuristic for such analysis. Moving beyond questions of direct influence, it shows that both Ibn al-ʿArabī and the Zohar employ structurally analogous, hermeneutical approaches to letters, numbers, and geometry as the building blocks of the cosmos. At the heart of this shared paradigm is a geometric vision of the cosmos as a circle emanating from a divine central point, associated with specific letters, numbers, and elements. These convergences challenge the hermetic discursive isolation of Sufism and Kabbalah, reframing their alphanumeric speculations as expressions of a common symbolic grammar and metaphysical paradigm that transcended linguistic and religious boundaries.
THE RECEPTION OF IBN ʿARABĪ'S SCIENCE OF LETTERS: A STUDY OF A KUBRAWĪ COMMENTARY ON THE BASMALA

Polinsky S. (Speaker)

University of Tübingen ~ Tübingen ~ Germany
In the centuries since his death, the influence of the Ibn ʿArabī's (d. 638/1240) thought has reverberated throughout the Muslim world. From North Africa to the Subcontinent to Southeast Asia, countless Sufis have adopted and adapted his teachings as they saw fit. This paper will investigate the reception of Ibn ʿArabī's science of letters in the Kubrawī tradition through an examination of the exegesis of the Basmala, or the phrase that begins each chapter of the Quran, "In the Name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate," in a Kubrawī Quran commentary often attributed to Najm al-Dīn Kubrā (d. 618/1221) and/or his pupil Najm al-Dīn Dāya (d. 654/1256) (though its precise authorship remains a point of contention). Based primarily on grammatical and syntactical arguments, the author advances a conception of the letters and words of the Basmala characterized by ontological hierarchy in which some are intrinsically superior to others. I will show that he combines a general Akbarian view of existence with distinctive positions that set him decisively apart from Ibn ʿArabī. For example, while contending that only God truly exists and distinguishing between an ineffable divine essence and mediating divine attributes through which He is known, the Kubrawī commentator denigrates alif as an "arrogant" letter and insists on the supremacy of bāʾ, in contrast to Ibn ʿArabī's positive conception of alif as a symbol of God's essence and the source of all other letters. Other views, such as his understanding of the structure of the name "God" (Allāh), likewise reveal the independence of his thought from his Andalusian predecessor. By focusing on this little-studied Quran commentary, this paper also hopes to draw attention to the significance and value of Kubrawī exegetical contributions.
Metaphysical and Grammatical Aspects of the Letter Yā' as a Spiritual Reality in Ibn ʿArabī's Kitāb al-Huwa

González Costa A. (Speaker)


In Ibn ʿArabī's cosmology, letters are vehicles of manifestation. Each one possesses an ontological rank. In the case of the letter yā' (يي ي ياء (which is the final letter of the Arabic alphabet, in this context it is deeply connected to the concept of Being (al-wujūd) in its most complete or ultimate degree, but also the point of return to the One, the movement back to the origin, since by standing at the end of the alphabet it marks the closure of a cycle. For this reason, Ibn ʿArabī writes in his Kitāb al-Huwa that the letter yā' «stands between Anā (I) and Huwa (He)», since from a doctrinal perspective it functions as an allusive indication (ishāra) of Huwa, the supreme Identity. In this paper will explore how this translates into certain metaphysical and grammatical meanings as the direct expression of the divine First Person.

Panel description: This jointly organised panel, co led by the Association Française d'Histoire Religieuse Contemporaine and the Asociación Española de Historia Religiosa Contemporánea, seeks to strengthen collaboration among European scholars of contemporary religious history and to consolidate a shared research space beyond national or denominational boundaries. It aims to bring together researchers from across Europe to examine the relationships between religion, politics, and society from the 19th to the 21st century, with particular attention to how religious institutions, practices, and discourses have shaped, confronted, or resisted forms of in/equality. Although the concept of equality emerged largely from Enlightenment and liberal political traditions, religious actors have long engaged with this notion, using it to promote reforms or to defend, reinforce, or question established authority and the status quo. The panel welcomes contributions on how religious actors have approached in/equalities related to social hierarchies (gender, class, race, religion), human rights, interreligious or ideological encounters, and devotional or liturgical practices. By bringing together historians working on diverse religious traditions and methods, it seeks to deepen historiographical reflection and strengthen European synergies among historians of contemporary religion.

Papers:

PACIFIC ISLANDERS AND SPANISH MISSIONARIES UNDER JAPANESE RULE (1922-1945)

Watanabe C. (Speaker)

Aoyama Gakuin University ~ Tokyo ~ Japan
After being banned for more than 200 years, Catholic missionaries were allowed to return to modern Japanese society in the mid-19th Century. The Jesuits came back later than other religious groups, such as Paris Foreign Mission Society (MEP). However, after World War I, Spanish Jesuits began to live in Japan again, and they were sent to the Mariana, Caroline, and Marshall Islands ruled by Japan, at the request of the Vatican. At that time, these islands were under Japanese control, and Japan was promoting its colonial policies there. This study looks at the work of Spanish Jesuits in these islands. It focuses especially on several Spanish Jesuit priests and their interactions with non-Christian Japanese political leaders who governed the region, to defend the human rights of indigenous peoples. The goal of this research is to show the complex and transnational nature of the Spanish Jesuits' activities in wartime. In the presentation, I will consider their engagement with dynamics of in/equalities.
REACTIONARY CATHOLICISM AND THE POLITICS OF INEQUALITY: FRANCOIST SPAIN AND TRANSNATIONAL CATHOLIC NETWORKS IN SOUTHERN EUROPE

Salomón Chéliz M.P. (Speaker)

Universidad de Zaragoza ~ Zaragoza ~ Spain
This paper analyzes reactionary Catholicism as a transnational project aimed at resisting political, social, and religious equality in twentieth century Europe. It argues that Francoist Spain should be understood not only as a national confessional regime, but as a key reference point within broader Catholic networks that sought to defend hierarchical social orders against liberal democracy, secularization, and emerging human rights discourses. Drawing on a comparative and transnational approach, the paper is structured in two parts. First, it examines the doctrinal and political roots of reactionary Catholicism during the interwar period, focusing on the circulation of integralist, corporatist, and authoritarian Catholic ideas across Southern Europe. These currents shared a common rejection of egalitarianism and pluralism, promoting an organic and hierarchical conception of society grounded in Catholic doctrine. Second, the paper explores the postwar reconfiguration of these networks in the Cold War. In this period, Francoist Spain emerged as a symbolic and practical model of the "Catholic nation," celebrated by conservative Catholic actors as proof of the viability of a confessional state capable of preserving social hierarchy, moral order, and religious unity. Through transnational exchanges involving intellectuals, clerics, journals, and international Catholic organizations, the Franco regime was presented as a bulwark against secularization, communism, and the spread of egalitarian norms. By foregrounding the relationship between religion, power structures, and inequality, this paper contributes to current historiographical debates. It demonstrates that reactionary Catholicism was not confined to national contexts but functioned as a transnational ideological project in which Francoist Spain played a central role in legitimizing and disseminating hierarchical models of social and political order.
IDEOLOGICAL CONVERSION OF THE SLOVENIAN STUDENT PRESS AND THE JEWISH COMMUNITY OF YUGOSLAVIA DURING 1989

Kaninska M. (Speaker)

Independent Scientific Researcher ~ Belgrade ~ Serbia
After the death of Josip Broz Tito, in the early 1980s, socio-political changes began in Yugoslavia. Initially, ideological upheavals occurred in Slovenia - a republic that was more economically developed, more liberal and, by economic standards, stronger than the other republics. Led by the Polish trade union organization Solidarity (Solidarity), which had a decisive influence on strengthening democratic reforms, the weaknesses of the established one-party regime were exposed in the communist countries of Eastern Europe. Intellectuals, social movements and the media in Yugoslavia became more active under the growing influence of the West and the Polish Solidarity movement. This ideological shift led to rapid changes in the late 1980s, when various means - such as print media - were used to shape public opinion. The political turmoil and political crisis in Yugoslavia, which were initiated by the rapid economic crisis, was an opportunity to weaken the Yugoslav model of statehood. The first demonstrations in Kosovo and Metohija deepened into the „Miners' Affair", that is, the miners' strike in the Trepča mine. The slovenian student magazine Mladina used the Jewish symbol, the Star of David, for an organized rally on the occasion of the events in Kosovo. Shortly thereafter, in 1989, the Slovenian youth newspaper Tribuna began publishing, as a feuilleton, excerpts from The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. This prompted the Federation of Jewish Municipalities of Yugoslavia to file a lawsuit with the state court. This paper will, through a retrospective analysis, show three discourses that emerged as innovative within the one-party system: the breakthrough of freedom of speech and expression in Slovenia despite censorship; the diminished sense of responsibility for public speech; the social atmosphere within the borders of the republic oriented towards ideological solidarity.
LITURGICAL REFORM AND THE MANAGEMENT OF INEQUALITY SINCE THE SECOND VATICAN COUNCIL

Navarro De La Fuente S. (Speaker)

Universidad de Sevilla ~ Sevilla ~ Spain
Liturgical reform has often been described as "the most tangible outcome" of the Second Vatican Council. Emerging from a long process of liturgical reflection within the Church that began in the nineteenth century, this reform was conceived with the explicit aim of promoting greater participation of the faithful in liturgical life. Accordingly, it entailed extensive modifications to ritual practice as a whole, particularly with regard to the Eucharist. More fundamentally, however, it required a concerted effort to involve the entire "People of God" in a "Christian mystery" that had previously been largely reserved to the clergy. This process affected the celebration of all the sacraments and brought about a redefinition of the role of the priest in relation to the lay faithful, as well as a reconsideration of the various ecclesial functions that laypersons could assume. From a broader perspective, liturgical reform constituted a significant rethinking of the roles of the Church's hierarchical members and of the relationships among them and with the wider body of the faithful. Consequently, it also reshaped the modes and spheres of Catholic action in the period following the Council. These dynamics, which have perhaps received limited attention from historians, are nonetheless crucial for understanding both change and continuity within the Church since the Second Vatican Council. Given that liturgical celebration occupies a central place in the life of the Church, the implications of its reform represent a key dimension in the management of the tension between the fundamental equality of the Christian vocation and the structural inequality inherent in hierarchical ecclesiastical functions.
THE RICHELIEU CENTER DURING THE 1960S : A CHAPLAINCY FOR STUDENTS IN FRONT OF INEQUALITIES

Duport A. (Speaker)

Académie de Toulouse ~ Toulouse ~ France
Led by Father Jean-Marie Lustiger, the Catholic chaplaincy of the Sorbonne, the Richelieu Centre, tackles issues of inequality in several ways, both to reproduce them and to fight against them. The theme is prominent in the decade and becomes central with the student movement of May 1968. Our communication will distinguish two periods. During the first one, which extends from 1960 to the movement of May 1968 included, the chaplaincy constitutes a place where the Catholic division between clergy and laity continues. It overlaps the separation between a teaching Church and a taught Church. Nevertheless, many testimonies demonstrate the proximity between chaplains and students, invested with many responsibilities. Parity is also the norm between students. The traditional Catholic differences, although maintained, therefore seem to be blurred. The chaplaincy also seeks to address inequalities: faced with the massification of student numbers in the faculties of science and arts, it seeks to support these students, less favored than those from the Grandes écoles or other faculties. It offers more personalized support and closer links with the university's professors. Finally, in the context of the Cold War and third-world claims, chaplaincy also constitutes a relay for voices who engage in this cause. During the student movement of May 1968, Jean-Marie Lustiger maintained this triple line. It is therefore less the student movement of May 1968 than the following academic year (1968-1969) that constitutes an important divide in this relation to inequalities. Within the chaplaincy itself, disputes and demands arise concerning the internal functioning of the chaplaincy, as well as the inequalities of gender and between clergy and laity within the Catholic Church. We will examine to what extent these realities were debated and followed up by the chaplains.
THE CALL TO PRAYER: POLICIES OF UNDERSTANDING BETWEEN MUSLIMS AND CATHOLICS IN REBEL SPAIN DURING THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR (1936-1939)

Gonzalez Gonzalez A. (Speaker)

Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha ~ Cuenca ~ Spain
In its contemporary history, religious pluralism in Spain has been a reality in which political circumstances have played a fundamental role in its development. In the nineteenth century, there were territories with presence of other confessions, such as Islam in the Philippines. Within the Iberian Peninsula itself, one can trace the activity of Protestant pastors as well as the re-establishment of the first Jewish communities in the second half of the century. In the twentieth century, with Spain's colonial interests in Africa, which took shape in the setting up of the Protectorate in Morocco between 1912 and 1956, the country administered a significant territory whose population was predominantly Muslim, without forgetting the presence of Sephardic Jews. Spain adopted a policy of respect and non interference toward local religion and tradition. With the outbreak of the Civil War in 1936, nearly 90,000 Muslims from Morocco joined the rebel army in its campaign. These soldiers required religious assistance adapted to their specific needs both at the front and in the rear. Several institutions took charge of this task, dividing the peninsula administratively in order to organize and support Muslims in everything necessary for the practice of their faith and for resolving issues of coexistence. In the rear, efforts focused on Muslim or mixed military hospitals, where they were attended by Catholic personnel. Thus, religious practice, including dietary requirements and the management of death, became crucial in their support. This proposal seeks to examine the policies adopted by the rebel side and their implementation in terms of (in)equality in relation to Catholics within the wartime context.
VISITER ÉCÔNE (1970-1988) : NORMATIVITÉ ET GOUVERNEMENTALITÉ CATHOLIQUES FACE À LA QUESTION TRADITIONALISTE

Dolbeau S. (Speaker)

École française de Rome ~ Roma ~ Italy
Cette communication se propose de revenir sur le dossier de la régulation de la Fraternité Sacerdotale Saint-Pie X, à partir de l'exploitation des archives du diocèse de Sion (Valais). Sur une période allant de l'installation, par le spiritain Marcel Lefebvre (1905-1991), d'un séminaire dans le bourg valaisan d'Écône en décembre 1970 jusqu'aux ordinations épiscopales de juin 1988, je reviendrai sur les différentes modalités de régulations mises en place par la hiérarchie ecclésiale catholique (épiscopale et curiale). Essayant de décaler l'analyse du phénomène (généralement rabattu sur une lecture politique), je me pencherai à la fois sur des pratiques institutionnelles formelles, particulièrement sur deux visites apostoliques (conduites en 1974 et 1987), ainsi que des pratiques plus informelles, en essayant de restituer l'agentivité des différents acteurs impliqués. Enfin, ce dossier sera replacé dans un contexte plus large d'instabilité normative propre à cette période, en le comparant notamment à d'autres visites apostoliques antérieures et postérieures.
IDENTITY CRISIS AND THE LANGUAGE OF (IN)EQUALITY: MUJERES DE ACCIÓN CATÓLICA IN SPAIN DURING THE DEMOCRATIC TRANSITION (1970S-1980S)

Saupin C. (Speaker)

Université de Lille - Sciences Po Lille ~ Lille ~ France
This research examines the identity crisis experienced by Mujeres de Acción Católica (MAC) at the turn of the 1970s and 1980s, roughly a decade after the major crisis that affected the Spanish Catholic Action between 1966 and 1968. At a time when both Spanish society and the Spanish Catholic Church were undergoing profound transformations—marked by the Transition to democracy, increasing secularisation, and the reorganisation of Catholic Action—MAC entered a period of seemingly inexorable decline. This decline was reflected in a sharp decrease in membership, a lack of generational renewal, and financial difficulties. Beyond documenting this process through a closer examination of MAC's presence across dioceses, membership figures, and organisational challenges, this research focuses on how this crisis reshaped internal dynamics within the movement and its relations with the ecclesiastical hierarchy. The analysis draws on archival sources from the ACE_MAC collection preserved at the Universidad Pontificia de Salamanca, including correspondence between the National Commission and diocesan commissions, exchanges with members of the ecclesiastical hierarchy, minutes from national meetings, and documentation related to Militante, the movement's internal bulletin. I will show how attempts to respond to institutional decline and to recover a lost dynamism generated tensions around the language of (in)equality within the movement and in its interactions with ecclesiastical authorities at parish, diocesan or national levels. I will consider whether these tensions led to the formulation of claims or negotiations concerning the position of MAC as a women's movement within the broader framework of Catholic Action.
MUJERES EN LA HISTORIA DE LA DIÓCESIS DE BILBAO. UNA HISTORIA DE PARTICIPACIÓN, CORRESPONSABILIDAD Y DESIIGUALDAD

Barroso A. (Speaker)

Director of Archivo Histórico Eclesiástico de Bizkaia ~ Bilbao ~ Spain
La diócesis de Bilbao acaba de cumplir 75 años desde su creación. A lo largo de su historia, las mujeres han participado de diferentes formas, como miembros de asociaciones laicales, y como participantes en todas las actividades de la iglesia: catequesis, caritas, pastoral de salud, pastoral penitenciaria, pastoral de juventud, etc. A partir de la década de los 80 del siglo XX, la diócesis inicia la segunda recepción del Concilio Vaticano II, celebrando la Asamblea Diocesana. Desde ese momento, conceptos como diocesaneidad y corresponsabilidad son claves en la historia de la diócesis. En esa Asamblea el 70% de participantes son mujeres y las conclusiones de la Asamblea han sido un activo importante en el devenir histórico de la diócesis. A partir de ahí, se opta por la formación del laicado y muchas mujeres inician programas formativos e incluso estudian teología. Algunas llegan a ostentar cargos de responsabilidad (delegaciones episcopales, dirección de organismos, celebraciones de las Asambleas dominicales en ausencia de presbítero, miembros activos de equipos ministeriales) pero siempre con una clave de desigualdad a la hora de tomar decisiones relevantes (distribución de recursos, capacidad ejecutiva, etc.). Desde 2019 se apuesta por reconocer la labor de mujeres en distintos ámbitos pastorales de la diócesis y aunque hay mucho recorrido, queda todavía un largo trecho hasta la igualdad.
EXPLORING MARIE-DOMINIQUE CHENU'S WRITINGS ON WORK IN THE FRENCH SOCIO-HISTORICAL CONTEXT OF THE 1940S AND EARLY 1950S

Hugla C. (Speaker)

KU Leuven ~ Leuven ~ Belgium
As the Second World War was coming to an end in France, an agenda towards a new, more democratic and egalitarian social order was drafted up and adopted by the politically diverse and unified Conseil national de la Résistance (CNR), breaking away from Vichy's collaboration with Nazism. Not only returning to the pre-war political rule of law, the CNR's programme (1944) clearly aimed to further political rights and equality in the economic sphere, by bringing down the "major economic and financial feudalities from the direction of the economy," in stark contrast with fascist political and economic practices, exemplified in France by deportations, collaboration, and the Service du Travail Obligatoire (STO). Well-known for both his renewed approach of Thomas Aquinas in his medieval context, and his engagement with groups like the JOC, la Mission de France, and worker-priests, Marie-Dominique Chenu (1895-1990) produced, in these crucial war and postwar years, a number of writings which would not only prefigure his 1955 Pour une théologie du travail, but also be strikingly well attuned to the signs of these revolutionary times. This paper therefore intends to sketch out, through Chenu's theological approach of social classes, community and work, an account of Catholic engagement with equality and inequality during this period.

Panel description: Religious systems as normative-performative networks have and continue to be what we might term "moral agenda-setters". The survival of humanity—however it may have been "created," "formed," or "originated"—was probably a cornerstone of such systems from early on, forming the basis of religious concepts and contributing to evaluating, combating, or even preserving social, political, and cultural (in)equalities. Concepts of creation and the care thereof have continually found their way into political and religious action, be it in ancient/late antique theological foundation processes or in medieval hegemonic discourses; in the proto-emancipatory debates of the Reformation or the human rights-related arguments of the 20th century; in theological, philosophical, or political debates among contemporaries or in discourses that span epochs. They can appear as Christian charity, Islamic hospitality, or Jewish justice. Exploring this central structure of faith-based, cultic thinking and action over the millennia and classifying it in the history of theology is one of the two main pillars of the proposed panel. The second pillar of the panel is dedicated to whether and how such theological concepts of the care for creation could constitute a moral compass of climate negotiations in the 20th and 21st. Key questions we are interested in exploring can include but are not limited to: What impetus and self-image do religions derive from their theological program for possible inter- or transnational engagement on the issue of climate change? What can religions agree upon across religious divides? What do they advocate for together? (How) does urgency arise? How and to whom is authority attributed on this issue, and does this result in calls for action or specific policy recommendations? Researchers from all academic disciplines are welcome to propose contributions and submit them to enable a trans- and interdisciplinary discussion.

Papers:

MORAL IMPERATIVES AND INFORMAL MEANS: RELIGIOUS AUTHORITY AND CLIMATE CHANGE

Mclarren K. (Speaker)

Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law ~ Heidelberg ~ Germany
There are few actors as predestined to assume authority in global governance as transnational religious actors (TRAs) are. Such actors can have a global reach; they provide guidelines on societal interaction within and beyond their own religious community; and they posit ideas on the handling of public goods - such as the climate - at a global level. TRAs have actively contributed to shaping global governance institutions such as those on combating climate change. Yet, there has been no attempt to conceptually integrate religious authority in global governance (GG) approaches. This paper therefore introduces the concept of religious authority by building upon the established elements of authority (power, legitimacy, public interests) and focusing on the link between moral authority, global common goods, and in/formal means. The paper is divided into two parts: while the first part abductively establishes what characterizes religious authority in global governance, the second part presents a case study which demonstrates how TRAs exert this authority in the area of combating climate change. This is a strong case for religious authority as it illustrates how religious groups join forces based upon converging understandings of caring for creation. Not only were they successful in mobilizing forces beyond their own religious communities, but they effectively shaped how this issue was framed and tackled by the United Nations. The findings of these two parts are brought together in a discussion on whether religious authority constitutes a unique form of authority and what lessons other types of global governance actors can learn from religious actors in GG.
NOT EQUAL, YET NOT UNEQUAL. "CARE FOR CREATION" AS A THEOLOGOUMENON IN THE VATICAN'S PEACE POLICY AFTER THE SECOND VATICAN COUNCIL IN THE INTERNATIONAL ARENA

Cerny-Werner R. (Speaker)

University of Salzburg ~ Salzburg ~ Austria
The programmatic-ethical theorem of "care for creation" is not a biblical quotation in the sense of a ready-made formula; rather, it is a theological shorthand and stands for a multiplicity of motifs: God's creation as gift; the human being as a responsible part of the more-than-human world; turning-away as alienation/destruction; redemption as reconciliation; and ethics as a practical response to God's creative action. In the second half of the twentieth century, this theorem becomes a publicly resonant guiding concept for ecclesial peace ethics and, later, environmental ethics. Within the Vatican Secretariat of State, too, a performative consolidation takes place in this regard after the Second World War: biblical motifs are condensed into a programmatic ethics of responsibility in the field of peacekeeping. In this context, theological interpretations of the contemporary threat of annihilation also became a site of ecclesial self-positioning vis-à-vis—and within—a politically polarized world. The lecture interprets Paul VI's address to the United Nations (4 October 1965) as the climax of papal international peace policy and situates it within the Holy See's international politics after the Second Vatican Council—a pivotal moment in papal international engagement. At no point in Church history had a pope—despite emphasizing the particularity and mission of the papacy—integrated the papacy so intensively and so visibly into the world's own social and political environment, thereby deliberately, and in the spirit of the Council, turning away from formerly prevailing narratives of inequality.
TIKKUN OLAM - RESTORING EQUALITY IN CREATION: ECOLOGY AND JEWISH IDENTITY

Klein B. (Speaker)

Heidelberg University of Jewish Studies ~ Heidelberg ~ Germany
Tikkun Olam: "Repairing the World"—this concept was developed by Jewish mystics in the 17th century in Safed, Galilee. As descendants of Jews expelled from the Iberian Peninsula, they had recently experienced and survived the shattering of creation and the descent of their world into utter inequality. While these mystics had sought to piece the fragments of the world back together primarily through observance of the commandments, prayer, and study, the concept of Tikkun Olam—originating in American Judaism—has experienced a tremendous renaissance over the past thirty years. Jewish communities, groups, and initiatives around the world are striving, in a form of social messianism, to combat the inequalities resulting from strife, social injustice, and environmental destruction through political and ecological activism. This paper will explain the concept of Tikkun Olam using the example of "eco-kosher": Since the environmental movement of the 1980s, the traditional rules and halachot governing kosher food have been expanded to include ecological guidelines. For meat to be considered "eco-kosher," for example, the animal must not only have been ritually slaughtered in the traditional sense and had its blood drained. Moreover, the conditions under which the animal lived prior to slaughter also play a role—namely, species-appropriate animal husbandry, sufficient space to roam, the composition of the feed, and the design of livestock transport. In this way, traditional kashrut is supplemented by modern organic standards. The lecture will use examples to illustrate how Jewish-ecological initiatives contribute to combating climate change and thus restoring equality to creation.

Panel description: This session examines Shincheonji as a rapidly expanding Korean Christian new religious movement whose global trajectory has generated both interest and controversy. The first paper introduces Shincheonji's history, millenarian theology, and the dynamics behind its rapid growth, situating recent Korean scandals—COVID-19 accusations and alleged political interference—within broader patterns of anti-cult mobilization in South Korea and abroad. The second paper analyzes the Victoria, Australia, Inquiry on "cults," highlighting how apostate narratives, media framings, and institutional anxieties converged to construct Shincheonji as a campus threat despite limited empirical evidence. The third paper turns to Latin America, focusing on Argentina, and explores Shincheonji's Bible courses as flexible spaces of graded participation while tracing how transnational anti-cult rhetoric is locally reactivated and judicialized. Paper 4 presents Shincheonji's missions in Europe, with particular attention to Central Europe, examining both the movement's strategies of implantation and the forms of opposition it encounters—opposition shaped simultaneously by global anti-cult campaigns and region-specific concerns. The session concludes with response papers by European representatives of Shincheonji, who offer an emic perspective on their interactions with society, the media, governmental agencies, and scholars, contributing to a more nuanced understanding of the movement's lived realities and public reception.

Papers:

AN INTRODUCTION TO SHINCHEONJI: MILLENARIAN MOVEMENT OR "EVIL CULT"?

Introvigne M. (Speaker)

CESNUR (Center for Studies on New Religions) ~ Torino ~ Italy
This paper offers a critical introduction to Shincheonji, a Korean Christian new religious movement that has twice become the focus of intense international controversy. The first episode occurred in 2020, when Shincheonji was accused of spreading COVID 19 by failing to comply with public health regulations. Although Korean courts—culminating in a 2022 Supreme Court decision—ultimately dismissed all charges as unfounded and politically motivated, the movement's founder, Chairman Lee Man Hee, spent several months in jail, and the stigma generated by media narratives persisted globally. A second wave of controversy emerged in 2025, when Shincheonji was implicated in allegations of political interference originally directed solely at the Unification Church. These accusations centered on Korea's strict electoral law, which prohibits religious organizations from directing members to join political parties or vote as a bloc. The broader hostility toward Shincheonji long predates these events. Mainline Christian churches in Korea have opposed Shincheonji for decades, largely because of its success in attracting converts from their congregations. The presentation examines Shincheonji's historical development, organizational structure, and distinctive millenarian theology, which interprets the Book of Revelation as a prophecy fulfilled in contemporary Korea. It also analyzes the movement's rapid growth, the sociological factors behind its appeal, and the sustained campaigns against it by Korean anti-cult activists. These campaigns have increasingly globalized, influencing media and policy debates in Europe and beyond.
SHINCHEONJI AND THE VICTORIA, AUSTRALIA, INQUIRY ON "CULTS": APOSTATES, MORAL PANICS, AND CAMPUS FEARS

Soryte R. (Speaker)

FOB (European Federation for Freedom of Belief) ~ Torino ~ Italy
This paper examines the role of "apostates" in generating and sustaining moral panics about so-called "cults," with a focus on the recent Victoria, Australia, Inquiry that prominently featured Shincheonji. In sociological terms, "apostate" refers to the small minority of former members who devote significant time to opposing the group they left, often becoming key sources for the media and policymakers. The Inquiry relied heavily on such testimonies, as well as on anti-cult activists and sensationalist reporting, to frame "cults," including Shincheonji, as a threat. Particular attention is given to claims about Shincheonji's presence on university campuses. Academic representatives expressed concern about students being approached without the group's name being immediately disclosed—a practice used in the past but since discontinued. Yet, under questioning, these representatives acknowledged knowing of only one or two such incidents per year, admitted they had never spoken with Shincheonji members to verify the allegations, and conceded that their fears were largely shaped by media portrayals of a "strange Korean cult." Scholars of new religious movements have analyzed these dynamics as a classic case of moral panic, in which rare or ambiguous events are amplified into evidence of systemic danger. The paper argues that the Inquiry illustrates how apostate narratives, media framing, and institutional anxieties can converge to produce discriminatory outcomes, raising broader concerns about fairness, non-discrimination, and freedom of religion or belief in pluralistic societies.
SHINCHEONJI IN LATIN AMERICA: BIBLE COURSES, GRADIENTS OF COMMITMENT, AND ANTI-CULT RHETORIC

Vardé M. (Speaker)

University of Buenos Aires ~ Buenos Aires ~ Argentina
This paper analyzes the recent expansion of Shincheonji in Latin America, with a focus on Argentina, where the group's emergence intersects with strong anti-cult rhetoric and the growing judicialization of disputes involving new religious movements. Based on ongoing ethnographic research—including observation of public activities, semi-structured interviews with members and attendees, and analysis of teaching materials—combined with a comparative survey of regional developments and online debates, the study examines how Shincheonji is locally framed and experienced. Empirically, the paper centers on Shincheonji's Bible study courses, which operate as flexible spaces of religious socialization that allow for graded involvement, pauses, and returns. I conceptualize them as a "contact zone" where participation, belonging, and conversion are negotiated in situated ways, revealing the micropolitics of commitment. This perspective helps illuminate how anti-cult narratives reinterpret ordinary dynamics of learning and sociability as evidence of manipulation or covert recruitment. In parallel, the paper traces the transnational circulation of accusations and stigmas. Anti-cult actors in Argentina and neighboring countries reactivate motifs previously deployed against Shincheonji in South Korea, Australia, and elsewhere, adapting them to local concerns. From a legal anthropological standpoint, I argue that the label "cult" functions as a classificatory technology with anticipatory effects: it organizes suspicion, channels demands for oversight, and shapes interpretive frameworks for state intervention, the construction of "victims," and the mobilization of expert testimony. The paper thus offers a situated account of a young and expanding community while mapping the climate of suspicion that conditions its public presence, effectively reshaping the practical boundaries of religious freedom in contemporary Latin America.
(IN)EQUAL OPPORTUNITIES ON THE RELIGIOUS MARKET - OVERVIEWING SHINCHEONJI'S EUROPEAN PRESENCE

Nemes M. (Speaker)

CESNUR - Center for Studies on New Religions, Torino, Italy ~ Torino ~ Italy
Shincheonji Church of Jesus, the Temple of the Tabernacle of the Testimony (SCJ), commonly referred to as Shincheonji Church of Jesus or simply Shincheonji, is a Christian millenarian new religious movement founded by the Korean preacher Lee Man-hee. The Church is best known for its novel interpretations of the Book of Revelation and its active proselytizing on university campuses with growing success among conservative Protestants. Shincheonji became the subject of broader social scrutiny when, in 2020, it was accused of spreading COVID-19 by violating public safety regulations in Korea. Ever since, the movement has been targeted by organized anti-cult groups in Korea. Despite these efforts, the movement, which originated in the 1960s religious and spiritual effervescence, continues to grow domestically and, since the 2020s, has also begun conducting foreign missions. My contribution seeks to explore Shincheonji's European presence and, through interviews with committed members, analysis of media coverage, and cross-cultural parallels, aims to provide an overview of the movement's success in embedding itself into the unique European religious market. My paper will focus on their social institutions, particularly the tribe system's early regional success, and will also examine conflicts with organized opposition, drawing parallels with Shincheonji's early years in South Korea.
SHINCHEONJI IN THE UK: MEDIA BIAS, "CULT" LABELS, AND THE REALITY OF A BIBLE‑CENTERED COMMUNITY

Amicarelli A. (Speaker)

European Federation for Freedom of Belief ~ London ~ United Kingdom
Shincheonji has, in recent years, developed a modest but active presence in the United Kingdom under the name New Heaven New Earth - Shincheonji Church of Jesus. These Bible‑study‑based communities typically gather in rented venues and private spaces rather than traditional brick‑and‑mortar parish structures. As in other countries, this "new" and "exotic" presence has attracted intense media scrutiny in the UK, with polemical labelling of Shincheonji as a "cult," particularly in the wake of public controversies in South Korea. This paper argues that the use of "cult" language in relation to Shincheonji reflects bias and prejudice rather than empirical analysis. By contrast, members of Shincheonji in the UK, as elsewhere, consistently emphasise voluntary participation in communal activities, ethical conduct, and engagement in free charitable work as central expressions of their Christian identity. Of particular interest is Shincheonji's requirement that prospective members complete a comprehensive six‑month Bible course and pass an examination before freely deciding whether to join; some participants do become members, others do not, and there is no evidence of coercion either to enter or to remain in the group. The UK media campaigns against Shincheonji have generally been poor in substance, often reproducing materials and frames borrowed from other national contexts with minimal critical assessment. Unlike South Korea, where opposition to Shincheonji has been driven primarily by mainstream Christian denominations, in the UK the initiative has largely originated within journalistic and anti‑cult environments. Using Shincheonji's UK experience as a case study, the paper explores how "cult" rhetoric can obscure observable realities, shape public perceptions of a peaceful minority Christian community, and contribute to discrimination against non‑mainstream believers.

Panel description: It is an essential aspect of the Christian church that believers meet to worship. In this panel, we will investigate different aspects of Christian worship both as a universal phenomenon and as a phenomenon with local manifestations. 1) Christian worship understands God as really present in the midst of the worshippers. One of the papers investigate the understanding of what is here called liturgical realism in the context on contemporary systematic theology. 2) The understanding of the Eucharist defines the understanding of worship but has also created a lot of controversy. Two distinct voices in this context are Martin Luther and Jean Luc Marion. This paper investigates the theology of the Eucharist in Luther and Marion, aiming at finding common elements with ecumenical potential. 3) The sacrament of confession is also an important aspect of the liturgy. Originally a Roman-Catholic practice, variations of it has been adopted in traditions as different as Orthodoxy and Pietist Lutheranism. This papers investigates confessional practices in these three traditions, looking for similarities and differences. 4) Some African churches are growing very rapidly. One way of handling the scarcity of clergy this creates is volunteer ministry, and one of the contributions investigate how this is done within the Ethiopian Evangelical Church Mekane Yesus. 5) The Women's World Day of Prayer (WDP) is a global ecumenical movement led by Christian women. One of the papers investigate how liturgical material from the International Committee organizing WDP is adapted in a particular context. 6) Environmental advocacy may take liturgical practices into new areas. One paper investigates this phenomenon, arguing that it should not be understood as the instrumentalization of liturgy for political ends, but as a mode of action that renegotiates the boundaries between worship, witness, and ecological responsibility.

Papers:

LITURGICAL REALISM

Skoglund N. (Speaker)

Church of Norway ~ Stavanger ~ Norway
Late-twentieth-century theological reflection on doctrine has largely unfolded within a post- Kantian horizon in which epistemological mediation assumes priority and ontological claims are approached with methodological restraint. Lindbeck, McGrath, and Vanhoozer respond to the post-Kantian prioritisation of epistemology in distinct yet related ways. Lindbeck treats doctrine as ecclesial grammar and truth as largely intrasystematic; McGrath reintroduces a modest correspondence realism shaped by scientific analogy; Vanhoozer situates truth in canonical performance and dramatic participation. In each case, doctrinal truth is displaced from determinate ontological assertion. Liturgy, however, operates precisely where such displacement becomes theologically untenable. This paper contends that such approaches cannot finally dispense with ontological realism, and that Christian liturgy renders this limitation particularly acute. By Christianity's own selfdescription, the telos of worship is irreducibly doxological rather than epistemic. The church does not assemble primarily to adjudicate doctrinal propositions, but to address, praise, and receive the living God. In the liturgy the church does not merely assert that God is; it invokes God as «our» Father, receives Christ's body and blood «for us», and blesses the One who «has loved us first». Liturgical speech thus presupposes not only the objective reality of God, but also a determinate salvific relation between God and the worshipping community. I propose to designate this configuration liturgical realism. Here truth appears as simultaneously ontological and relational: God truly is, and the church truly stands before God in worship. Christian liturgy thereby exposes a structural insufficiency in post-Kantian accounts of doctrine, namely their inability to render intelligible a mode of truth whose is communion and doxological participation rather than epistemic verification.
THE CELEBRATION OF THE EUCHARIST AS A WORLD VIEW

Alfsvåg K. (Speaker)

VID Specialized University ~ Stavanger ~ Norway
A meal of bread and wine through which one has κοινωνία with the body and blood of Christ (1 Cor 10:16) has always been a central element in the Christian worship service. Worshippers thus meet the resurrected one through a meal with fairly ordinary ingredients. What is the significance of this liturgical meal for the understanding of how humans are related to God, the world and each other? Since the 16th century, the interpretation of this meal has been heavily contested among different denominations. However, contemporary ecumenical discussion has brought a considerable degree of clarification as far as the original opponents in the 16th century, the Lutherans and the Roman-Catholics, are concerned. To start an investigation of this issue with a rehearsal of Martin Luther's position should therefore today be considered relevant even from an ecumenical perspective. Luther is interesting here also because he clearly was aware of the metaphysical implications of the issues related to the Lord's Supper. In recent years, the French philosopher Jean-Luc Marion has attracted attention through his reinterpretation of the Eucharist from within a phenomenological framework with a strong emphasis on ideas of gift and givenness. His point of orientation is his own Roman-Catholic tradition, but he works with this tradition in a way that is relevant for a wider, ecumenical audience. In addition, he analyzes the Eucharist in a way that makes sense also in a philosophical context. My ambition is thus to bring Luther and Marion in dialogue with each other in a way that highlights the significance of the liturgical celebration of the Eucharist in a way that makes sense both theologically, ecumenically and philosophically. Both Luther and Marion emphasize the significance of divine presence in the Eucharist, but they do it from differing perspectives that so far have not been brought in contact with each other. My contribution aims at filling this gap.
LITURGICAL AND THEOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF THE SACRAMENT OF CONFESSION IN CATHOLICISM, ORTHODOXY, AND THE CHURCH OF NORWAY

Petrov V. (Speaker)

The Holy Irina Congregation - Orthodox Church ~ Klepp ~ Norway
In the 16th-17th centuries, the Jesuit order shaped certain ideas about the liturgical and theological aspects of the sacrament of confession, many of which were adopted by the Orthodox Churches through the writings of the Athonite monk Nicodemus the Hagiorite. The Norwegian liturgical and theological tradition of confession bears an indelible imprint both of scholastic theology and of Luther's theology. Thus, all three traditions of confession—Catholic, Orthodox, and Lutheran—possess common roots as well as significant differences. This paper aims to identify similarities and differences between these traditions in both theology and liturgy. On the one hand, it examines the definitions of the Council of Trent (1545-1563) on confession (1551, Session XIII), their reception by the Italian Jesuits Paolo Segneri and Giovanni Pietro Pinamonti, as well as the influence of Catholic doctrine and confession practices on the views of Nicodemus the Hagiorite (1749-1809). On the other hand, the study explores the relationship between Latin theology of confession and Martin Luther's teaching on confession as presented in the Small Catechism, and its connection to the doctrine of Erik Pontoppidan in his book Sandhed til Gudfrygtighed (1737). The contemporary doctrine of the Church of Norway on confession is considered as the result of the development of a centuries-long tradition. The similarities and differences between the modern practice of confession in Orthodoxy and in the Church of Norway are also presented. For clarity, the results are summarized in a table.
PARTICIPATORY LITURGY: LAY AND CHILD INVOLVEMENT IN THE ETHIOPIAN EVANGELICAL CHURCH MEKANE YESUS

Kessel T.B. (Speaker)

VID Specialized University ~ Stavanger ~ Norway
The Ethiopian Evangelical Church Mekane Yesus (EECMY), the largest Lutheran church globally, serves as a case for analysing liturgical practices. This paper examines the relationship between volunteer involvement in liturgy and congregational dynamics by inquiring how the participation of lay people and the liturgical inclusion of children shape ecclesial identity and congregational growth. Drawing on qualitative interviews with pastors and laity and participant observation of five Sunday services, the study investigates how this involvement is facilitated through liturgical adaptation to cultural and charismatic expressions, volunteerism in organising Sunday services, and strategies for recruitment and training. A specific focus of the analysis is the role of children in the liturgy. The structure of the service prior to the children's departure for Sunday school provides a window into how clergy and laypeople pray for them, and how children participate through their own prayer, recitation of scripture, and singing. This inclusion, which positions children as participants alongside adults, is explored as a mechanism for establishing belonging. In a context where ordained clergy are scarce for a church of 12 million members, reliance on volunteer ministry serves not merely as a logistical necessity, but as a theologically founded praxis. Applying the lenses of liturgical studies and missiology to the model of "participatory liturgy", the study examines how the formation of ecclesial identity and contextual adaptations sustain the vitality of non-Western ecclesial structures.
THE WOMEN'S WORLD DAY OF PRAYER (WDP): ANALYSIS OF LITURGICAL ADAPTATIONS IN THE NORWEGIAN CONTEXT

Mestad K.M. (Speaker)

VID Specialized University ~ Stavanger ~ Norway
The Women's World Day of Prayer (WDP) is a global ecumenical movement led by Christian women. Originating in the United States, the movement has organized and invited participation in an annual World Day of Prayer service since 1927. Until the mid-1960s, the United Council of Church Women (UCCW) in the US selected themes and prayer writers from around the world and distributed the material globally. From 1968, the work was restructured and organized through the WDP International Committee. This change also mandated the establishment of official national WDP committees responsible for translating and preparing the text of the WDP service and its preparatory materials. In Norway, the International Day of Prayer for Women has been organized since the late 1920s by a dedicated national committee with representatives from various denominations and missionary organizations. The liturgical materials received from the International Committee have been translated and adapted by the Norwegian committee. This paper analyzes how a selection of these transmitted liturgies have been adjusted and contextualized to reflect the specific Norwegian religious and cultural landscape.
LITURGY AS PROTEST: ENVIRONMENTAL ADVOCACY AND RITUAL TRANSFORMATION

Lund A.J. (Speaker)

VID Specialized University ~ Stavanger ~ Norway
Liturgy is usually conceived of as practices that are shaped by ecclesial spaces, authorised leadership, and relatively stable ritual frameworks. Yet, within contemporary environmental advocacy, Christians are employing liturgical texts, forms, and actions in contexts and sites that are explicitly political and contested. In this paper, I explore how Christian liturgical practices are transformed when they are moved from their traditional authoritative ecclesial spaces, and into the realm of protest and politics. Using ritual transfer theory, I analyse selected instances of liturgical protests, investigating how the transfer of liturgy to such spaces affects the liturgical rites, how they are performed, and how they are interpreted. I argue that these practices should not be understood as the instrumentalisation of liturgy for political ends, but as a mode of theological action that renegotiates the boundaries between worship, witness, and ecological responsibility. Liturgy, in this way, becomes a countercultural mode of protest, that eschatologically imagines the world as it ought to be, and objects to the destructive forces that would oppose this.

Panel description: This panel examines religious temporalities, particularly the concept of kairos, and their role in shaping reflection and responses to the problem of social inequality. Our point of reference is the experience of kairos as a special time, a critical moment of reflection or change. Rather than approaching inequality solely as structural or juridical, it foregrounds temporal frameworks that shape how social difference may be experienced and interpreted. Contributions draw on perspectives from various academic disciplines, showing how temporal frameworks can reframe, bracket, or otherwise alter the experience of social hierarchies without necessarily overturning them. By attending to religious time as a critical lens, the panel highlights the interplay between temporality, agency, and social difference. We consider kairos in both descriptive and prescriptive terms: descriptively, as a critical moment retrospectively identified as a turning point, and prescriptively, as a call to action oriented toward possible futures. We explore religious temporal framings that mobilize such kairotic moments in relation to inequality and exclusion, including their entanglement with eschatological, apologetic, and normative traditions, as well as with religious vocabularies that are articulated, silenced, or imposed. Submissions that investigate religious temporalities as offering forms of agency under conditions of constraint are particularly welcome. Papers may explore historical, philosophical, or ethnographic cases, highlighting modes of inhabiting social roles without being fully defined by structural positions, and are encouraged to consider implications beyond explicitly theological contexts.

Papers:

LIVING WITHIN HŌS MĒ: KAIROS AND THE EXPERIENCE OF SOCIAL INEQUALITY

Lubanska M. (Speaker)

Institute of Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology at the University of Warsaw ~ Warsaw ~ Poland
This paper is inspired by Giorgio Agamben's reading of the apostle Paul's ontological formula "hōs mē" ("as if not") and its significance for an existential response to the problem of social inequality. In 1 Corinthians, Paul exhorts a mode for fulfilling one's role in society while keeping in mind that it does not fully determine the meaning of one's life. The messianic formula of life hōs mē brackets the social and normative force of one's status without denying its material reality. Understood through the lens of kairos, hōs mē provides a distinctive messianic temporal mode as an existential strategy to engage social inequality beyond legal reform or identity assertion. The paper situates this ontological proposal in critical dialogue with selected decolonial reflections, demonstrating that living within hōs mē resonates with analyses of non-sovereign agency, opacity, and life under constraint, and may be mobilized beyond explicitly theological frameworks.
BETWEEN PENANCE AND DEATH: KAIROTIC TIME, SANCTION, AND SALVATION IN MEDIEVAL SLAVONIC RELIGIOUS NORMATIVITY

Naydenova D. (Speaker)

Cyrillo-Methodian Research Centre at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences ~ Sofia ~ Bulgaria
This paper addresses a problem central to medieval religious consciousness and canon law: the fate of individuals placed under a state of penance who die before the prescribed period of sanction has expired. Within medieval Christian anthropology and eschatology, incomplete penance casts doubt on the possibility of salvation- those who have not fully repented risk condemnation to hell and eternal torment. At the same time, in popular belief, they may even be perceived as remaining undecayed and being transformed into vampires. This tension between the linear time of imposed penance (chronos) and the decisive moment of death (kairos) compelled religious authorities to seek normative and theological solutions. Focusing primarily on Byzantium and the Balkan regions, the paper shows that this issue became especially acute after the Ottoman conquest, when ecclesiastical organization was weakened, fragmented, or destroyed, and access to clerical authority and sacramental practice was often irregular. Through an analysis of religious texts, and above all of canon law collections (nomocanons), the paper examines how questions concerning the predictability of the hour and time of death were articulated, whether and under what conditions communion could be administered to the dying, or even to the dead, and how such practices functioned as kairotic strategies to mitigate social and ontological inequality between "upright" believers and those temporarily excluded from full participation in the community. In this context, the governance of time emerges as a crucial instrument of mercy, justice, and the maintenance of both social and cosmic order
CHRISTIANIZATION AND THE KAIROTIC EXPERIENCE OF THE BULGARIAN INTELLECTUALS IN 20TH CENTURY

Drzewiecka E. (Speaker)

Institute of Slavic Studies at the Polish Academy of Sciences ~ Warsaw ~ Poland
The subject of this study is the views of 20th-century Bulgarian intellectuals on the Christianization of their state and culture. The kairotic experience, i.e. the feeling that is a turning point or a special moment in development, refers here both to the situation they write about, i.e. the historical events of the 9th century, and to the situation in which they comment on the national past (the interwar period and the communism). The aim is to problematize the way of understanding and explaining the conversion of faith - from pagan (Slavic, Proto-Bulgarian) to Christian (Byzantine Orthodox), as either religious or political act, in the perspective of the issues of social and ethnic divisions. It seems that the writers are more interested in social inequality than confessional identity itself, seeing it as the cause of the collapse of the state, and this interpretive pattern repeats in Bulgarian intellectual discourse regardless of the authors' worldviews. The question is how to interpret this focus on social aspect rather than religious one, how it is related to the times in which the intellectuals operated, and how the rhetorical and persuasive functions of their writing serve creating or maintaining a national narrative. Therefore, the question of kairotic experience in Bulgarian cultural projections will address the issue of perceiving the national history within quasi-religious or (post) secular terms which potentially refers to the Other dimension (L. Dupre).
THE POWER AND POWERLESSNESS OF BIOGRAPHICAL NARRATIVES ABOUT "TURNING POINTS" IN THE CONTEXT OF HOLISTIC SPIRITUALITY

Karamelska T. (Speaker)

New Bulgarian University, Bulgarian Akademy of Sciences ~ Sofia ~ Bulgaria
The starting point for my reflections is a thesis in the sociology of religion that the Mysticism-type of organization of religious experience (Ernst Troeltsch) and the related "spiritual revolution" (Linda Woodhead) are expression of religious autonomy, advancing individualization, and the weakening influence of church institutions on human life decisions in (late) modernity. In the context of so-called holistic spirituality, there is also the narrative of "moments of decision", of the time "before and after", of "turning points", but they are interpreted not as a collective approach to salvation, but as a way out of a state of individual uncertainty through the search for meaning in the Self. The paper will problematize this radically de-apocalypticized perspective on kairos with its internal tensions and contradictions arising from the disappearance of the Christian regime of historicity (François Hartog). From a methodological point of view, I proceed from the assumption that understanding this subjective transformation of kairos can be revealed through "the function of religion in ordering life history" (Monika Wohlrab-Sahr). The empirical basis for my reflections is narrative interviews with Bulgarians who practice some form of holistic spirituality. Biographical studies avoid reductionist explanations and simplistic labels of spirituality and place the respondents' perspective and their self-definition at the center of sociological analysis.
"I AM A PERFECTLY NORMAL PERSON WHO GOES TO CHURCH": RELIGIOUS MINORITIES AND (AB)NORMALITY IN ORTHODOX BULGARIA

Petrova Z. (Speaker)

Sofia University "St. Kliment Ohridski" ~ Sofia ~ Bulgaria
The point of reference of this paper is the rhetoric surrounding a recent case of six deceased members of a Buddhist community in Bulgaria. In the weeks that followed, strong public opinions were voiced condemning the victims for choosing an unorthodox spiritual path, with some even claiming that such a tragedy would never have occurred had they remained within the Eastern Orthodox Christian faith. The prevailing attitude was epitomised by Sofia Mayer's claim, made in response to allegations of his involvement in the group's activities, that he is "a perfectly normal person who goes to church", thus reinforcing a notion of normalcy that explicitly ties social legitimacy to adherence to the traditional religion. Against this backdrop, the paper investigates the lived experiences of members of selected minority religious communities, focusing on how they construct and maintain a sense of normalcy in a context often prone to hostility toward non-traditional beliefs. Particular attention is given to respondents' narratives of kairotic moments of religious realisation and experiences of sacred time. The analysis asks whether these moments can serve as interpretive anchors for reconciling or temporarily suspending the tension between dominant social expectations and personal religious commitments.
THE WAYS OF PERCEIVING TIME AND THE KAIROTIC EXPERIENCE BY THE RESIDENTS OF THE SOUTH MURANÓW NEIGHBOURHOOD, THE POST-GHETTO PLACE IN WARSAW, POLAND

Chomatowska-Szalamacha B. (Speaker)

University of Warsaw ~ Warsaw ~ Poland
The paper is an attempt to present how the inhabitants of Muranów housing district in Warsaw, the world's only ghetto memorial estate, experience time and how do they perceive their own kariotic role within the borders of this specific architectural space. The South Muranow estate was ultimately built in the years 1948-1954 on the site of Warsaw ghetto, under the supervision of Bohdan Lachert, the champion of Polish pre-war avant-garde architecture. Thus, the unique character of the area lies in its triple nature: the former Jewish quartier and the site of its resident`s annihilation, the Jewish cemetery, and from the 1950 onwards the housing estate for between 40,000 and 50,000 people. The new buildings were constructed using prefabrication rubble and concrete, erected on hillocks made of rubble. The architect assumed that the estate would be a place of methamorphosis from death to life. Residents were a vital element of this concept - their daily existence in this area rendered the idea of „Phoenix rising from the ashes" real. Prof. Barbara Engelking, analyzing the experiences of the ghetto inhabitants, showed that time flowed differently for them than outside the walls; the ghetto was an island in time, suspended in the dense present, where the past was cut off and the future turned into eternity. Through an analysis of the interviews conducted with contemporary residents of South Muranów, the paper examines how they experience time in the same space, and whether they are aware of their kairotic moment in relations to their precedessors and the role assigned to them in this space by Lachert: by living there and now in the memorial estate, they also participate in its transformation.
"THE MOON BECAME FULL BUT WE DID NOT": THE ANXIETY OF MISSING THE VIRTUOUS MOMENT IN TEHRAN

Naghshband Z. (Speaker)

Max Weber Center at Erfurt University ~ Erfurt ~ Germany
This paper examines the experience of ritual temporality among Shiʿi practitioners in Tehran during the month of Ramadan, investigating how the "anxiety of missing the virtuous moment" unfolds within a metropolis characterized by conflicting temporal rhythms. Drawing on phenomenological ethnography conducted over two consecutive Ramadans (2024-2025), I explore the paradox that emerges when ritual time, theoretically understood as an alternative, self-contained temporal space, is lived within the arrhythmic conditions of urban acceleration. The paper engages with Hartmut Rosa's analysis of social acceleration and the pervasive sense of "temporal insolvency" in modern life, alongside classical ritual theory frameworks that position ritual as a distinct temporality resistant to acceleration and addition, but defined by changelessness and repetition. However, in this paper I ask how the transformative quality of kairotic time becomes fragile when ritual agents in Tehran navigate the intersection of multiple calendars: the rotating lunar Islamic calendar and the fixed solar civil calendar. The paper asks: How does the experience of kairos, the virtuous moment of ritual time, transform when the ritual subject must construct her existence amid a jumble of temporalities that clash and lack a shared aesthetic form? Through ethnographic vignettes, I show how the "disoriented ritual time" of Tehran produces a persistent sense of falling short, of never fully honoring sacred moments. Unlike the pilgrim, whose ritual mode presupposes the synchronic convergence of time and place, the urban ritual agent experiences time as place-bound anxiety. The longing for pilgrimage emerges as homesickness for being in the right sacred place at the right ritual time, a longing that translates into the compulsive labor of "doing more" rituals at home to compensate for spatial distance from the shrines.

Panel description: Inequality lies at the very core of the postcolonial debate, that intellectual turn that deconstructed the myths of Western civilizing mandate by highlighting its implicit hierarchies of race, religion, and culture. This scholarly shift also affected Jesuit historiography, especially those apologetic versions that envisioned Jesuit agents as pioneering promoters of interreligious dialogue and cultural exchange. Historians still struggle to reconcile these two aspects of the Jesuit missionary experience. On the one hand, the tension towards a genuine ecumenism and the complex search for a balance with the communities where missionary activity was carried out. On the other, the asymmetries of power that permeated the missions themselves. These asymmetries could see the Society in a position of strength as well as in the role of a "guest" carefully controlled by radically different authorities. Furthermore, we shall also consider the internal asymmetries within the Society itself between competing groups, as well as the complex relationship with political opposers, sponsors, the Holy See, and other religious orders engaged in the same areas. Comparative analysis of these conditions is essential to assess how the various strategies for adaptation, negotiation and interaction with the local communities took shape. This panel brings together early-career scholars in the field of early modern and contemporary historiography of the Society of Jesus with a comparative focus on three areas of research: Southeast Europe, South Asia, and China. The parallel establishment of Jesuit missions across these diverse regions allows us to reflect on the inherent ambiguities of the Jesuit missionary experience with special attention to the search for equivalents across different cultural traditions, as well as the dialogical strategies implemented in local contexts.

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A MISSIONARY LABORATORY IN THE "INDIES" OF SOUTH-EASTERN EUROPE: THE SOCIETY OF JESUS IN THE OTTOMAN BALKANS (SECOND HALF OF 16TH - FIRST HALF OF 17TH CENTURY)

Notarfonso S. (Speaker)

University of Macerata ~ Macerata ~ Italy
From the decades immediately following its foundation in 1540, the Society of Jesus was involved by the Roman Curia in the development of a missionary project aimed at supporting Catholic communities along the predominantly Catholic Dalmatian coast, and in the European provinces of the Ottoman Empire. Beyond the borders of Christendom, the Balkan missions took shape in a territory under Ottoman sovereignty characterized by a highly diverse confessional landscape, far removed both from colonial settings and from the Jesuit experiences in the great Asian empires. Lacking firm and continuous political protection, the Jesuits acted as a presence institutionally tolerated by the Ottoman system, developing strategies of adaptation to ensure the continuity of pastoral activity in a land perceived as a limb of Christian Europe usurped by the "Turk." These strategies, however, emerged within a network of asymmetrical relationships: on the one hand, between missionaries and Ottoman authorities, who exercised discretionary control over their presence, movements, and permitted religious practices; on the other, between the Jesuits themselves and other Catholic actors - such as merchants, diplomats and other religious orders - active in the Adriatic and Balkan regions. Through the analysis of missionary correspondence, reports sent to Rome, and Jesuit autobiographical writings, this paper presents the tensions that ran through the Society's missions in south-eastern Europe—from internal conflicts within the Catholic world to shifting relations with Ottoman authorities and the Orthodox clergy. It shows how, between the second half of the sixteenth century and the first half of the seventeenth, the Ottoman Balkans became a true missionary laboratory and a space of intersection, where adaptation, negotiation, and confessional discipline intertwined with the changing balance of power between European states and the Sublime Porte.
BEYOND CULTURALIST APPROACHES TO JESUIT MISSIOLOGY IN EARLY MODERN SOUTH ASIA

Gusella F. (Speaker)

University of Naples "L'Orientale" ~ Naples ~ Italy
Following the Marxist-oriented season of socio-economic history, the cultural turn of the 1970s-1990s has proved to be successful in unveiling the deep symbolic dimensions involved in early modern encounters and the manifold ways in which individuals, social groups and larger institutions made sense of the reality around them. In the past thirty years, the emergence of transcultural theories even pushed scholars to venture out of previous essentialist models into a much more fluid, cross-cultural understanding of early modern identities and interactions. Despite their heuristic benefits, this paper argues that such diverse approaches end to naturalize the concept of culture in itself - a rather "discursive convention" that emerged in the socio-anthropological disciplines only in the 19th century. Given the conjunctural nature of this concept and its recent systematization, we shall question whether the notion of culture, in its various forms, tends to project contemporary sensitivities onto our interpretation of early modern sources. The present study aims at answering this question by tracing a genealogy of proto-anthropological thought in the Jesuit missions to South Asia with special attention to linguistic studies, the composition of Christian texts in local languages, ethnographic accounts, as well as later Jesuit scholarship on the topic of cultural difference. Drawing upon the works of Micheal Baxandall and Carlo Ginzburg on the concept of estrangement, the paper ultimately sketches some alternative methods of analysis in the interpretation of sources aiming at exposing the historical distance that separates our notions of cultural identity from those of the contemporaries.
BRIDGING ASYMMETRIES THROUGH DIALOGUE: FATHER ROBERT JACQUINOT DE BESANGE'S NEGOTIATIONS FOR PEACE IN WARTIME SHANGHAI (1927-1937)

Zhang Y. (Speaker)

University of Rome "La Sapienza" ~ Rome ~ Italy
Jesuit missions in Ming-Qing China developed practices of intercultural accommodation to address ethical, political, and cultural asymmetries. This article argues that such modes of mediation persisted into the twentieth century, reconfigured in Father Robert Jacquinot de Besange's humanitarian negotiations during Shanghai's crises between 1927 and the 1937 Battle of Shanghai. Focusing on Jacquinot's sustained dialogue with Japanese military authorities, Chinese Nationalist officials, French Concession administrators, and the International Red Cross, the study examines the creation of a demilitarized safety zone that sheltered over 250,000 Chinese civilians. It further explores Jacquinot's underexamined initiatives for European refugees, particularly Jewish individuals fleeing Nazi persecution, situating Shanghai within global circuits of displacement and refuge. Drawing on Jesuit archival collections in Rome and Vanves alongside Shanghai sources, the article situates Jacquinot within a long Jesuit tradition of mediation, while emphasizing how early modern Jesuit practices of elite diplomacy were reconfigured into forms of mass civilian protection supported by administrative and material infrastructures. This "Shanghai model" anticipated later civilian protection zones in wartime China and resonated with emerging postwar international humanitarian norms.

Panel description: From the signing of the Ulster Solemn League and Covenant in 1912 - which marked a decisive step in the crisis of the Anglo-Irish Union - to the onset of the Northern Irish Troubles in 1968, Ireland's partition was ultimately about one question: religious minorities and their oppression, real or imagined, anticipated or remembered. Ireland was of course just one illustration of a wider problem: in an age when religion was political and affected national allegiance, 'the minority question' was central to domestic and international politics throughout Europe and the Middle East. The spreading of formal democratic regimes after 1919 did not attenuate, but, on the contrary, exacerbated the problem. The Minority Mind focuses on the Twenty-Six Counties that became the Irish Free State in 1922 (Éire from 1937, and the Republic of Ireland from 1949). This was quintessentially Catholic Ireland, within which two groups stood out for their historical association with imperial power. Far from being provincial and introverted, both Irish Jews and southern Irish Protestants were intensely aware of the wider context of the times and the global significance of their experience. Rooted in the European diaspora and looking at Eretz Yisrael in mandatory Palestine, Irish Jews were able to pull well above their weight. Likewise, the southern Protestant community played a major role in the British Empire, while their bankers, intellectuals, industrialists, opinion-makers and soldiers contrasted the rise of a mono-cultural society in Ireland. Set against the backdrop of the crisis of the British Empire, this book offers a holistic account of the minority experience from their point of view and explores the reciprocal relationship between minority groups and majority culture in a democratic - but as yet not liberal constitutional and social context. This study is a cultural, political and social history of an 'alternative' Ireland.

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Panel description: A Political Sociology of Religious Moderation in 21st-Century Europe is the title of a five-year research project (2026-2031) hosted at Luiss Guido Carli and funded by an FIS3 Advanced Grant of the Italian Science Foundation (PI: Kristina Stoeckl). The project addresses a major gap in current scholarship on religion and politics in Europe by shifting attention away from radicalization and reactionary Christian mobilization toward a largely overlooked group: religious moderates. This Author-Meets-Critic Panel discusses the role of religious moderates as actors ambiguously placed in between the presence of religion in public life and the rejection of its politicization with José Casanova, Gionathan Lo Mascolo, Sigrid Rettenbacher, Regina Elsner, and Richard Wood. While existing research has extensively analyzed the role of conservative and far-right religious actors in contemporary "culture wars," POLISMOD focuses on believers, clergy, and activists who reject the instrumentalization of Christianity for illiberal political ends, yet do not fully align with secular progressive positions on contested moral issues. Positioned between reactionary Christianity and secular liberalism, religious moderates face increasing pressure in polarized political and religious environments. The panel introduces the project's theoretical framework and mixed-methods comparative research design, spanning Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox contexts in Italy, Germany, Finland, and Romania. It invites discussion on how religious moderation is socially constructed and theologically legitimated as well as politically and institutionally enacted. This panel kick-starts the POLISMOD project for future debates on how religious moderation operates within and beyond the dynamics of contemporary culture wars in Europe.

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Panel description: Discussions and even definitions of the term «religious minorities» sometimes refer to the importance of achieving political or social equality as one of the main aims of numerically and politically non-dominant religious groups. Even though such definitions can be characterized as teleological and normative, their focus on the dynamics in and around such formations seems closely connected to the modern discourse on religious minorities, in which social and religious equality are given central importance. This panel invites paper proposals that inquire into the social processes leading to the emergence of various forms of inequality in and around Eastern European minority religions, as well as the strategies of these groups or their members to assert their status and gain recognition on an individual, institutional or state level.

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HARMONY OR INEQUALITY? ALBANIA'S RELIGIOUS MINORITIES IN INTERRELIGIOUS DIALOGUE

Reuter E. (Speaker)

University of Graz ~ Graz ~ Austria
This paper presents preliminary findings from an ongoing research project examining the role of religious minorities in interreligious dialogue in Albania. While interreligious dialogue is often perceived as open and inclusive, the study suggests that participation is shaped by structural and organizational factors, which may exclude certain groups. Albania provides a distinctive context where four religious communities - Islam, Orthodoxy, Catholicism, and the Bektashi Order - have historically coexisted in relative peace and, together with the Evangelical Union, form the Interreligious Council of Albania. The concept of "harmony and tolerance" is central to Albania's national self-image, emphasizing coexistence and mutual respect among religious communities. This project examines the participation of three minority types in interreligious exchanges, focusing on patterns of inclusion and exclusion. Despite Albania's reputation for religious harmony, the study reveals inequalities in representation and access for certain minority groups. The preliminary findings of the research highlight patterns of inclusion and exclusion within the organizational structures of interreligious dialogue. For example, the Catholic Church, despite being numerically small, holds a prominent position as a constitutive member of the Interreligious Council of Albania. Sufi orders, as subgroups within Islam, are represented collectively under the umbrella of the Islamic community, while the Bahá'í community, as a newer and smaller religious group, may not yet be included in formal interreligious dialogue structures. The paper aims to analyze the current dynamics of interreligious dialogue in Albania, focusing on the participation of religious minorities and exploring empirical approaches to measure inclusion and exclusion. By addressing inequalities in representation and access, the study contributes to broader discussions on social inequalities in interreligious exchanges.
RELIGIOUS HIERARCHIES AND GENDER INEQUALITY IN EVANGELICAL ROMA COMMUNITIES IN BULGARIA

Slavkova M. (Speaker)

Bulgarian Academy of Sciences ~ Sofia ~ Bulgaria
The development of evangelical Christianity among Roma communities in Bulgaria, often regarded as one of the most progressive religious movements among Roma in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, has significantly transformed local religious life and social relations. Evangelical churches, most commonly Baptist and Pentecostal, play an important role in Roma neighborhoods by providing moral guidance and social support. Evangelical Roma churches are typically dominated by male pastors, who function not only as spiritual leaders but also as representatives of the community beyond the church. This concentration of authority reinforces hierarchical power relations within the community and restricts women's access to formal leadership positions. Although women are highly visible and active in religious life, their participation is usually confined to auxiliary roles. Where female leadership is permitted, it is typically framed as complementary rather than equivalent to male authority, with women's influence understood as inspirational rather than institutional. Despite these inequalities, evangelical affiliation can also offer limited forms of empowerment for Roma women. Churches may promote literacy, education, and disciplined lifestyles, providing women with new social networks and a degree of personal authority. Nevertheless, such empowerment remains constrained, operating within a framework that ultimately sustains male dominance. Gender inequality thus continues to be a defining feature of religious life in evangelical Roma communities, shaped by the intersection of evangelical teachings, Roma cultural norms, and broader structures of social marginalization.
RECONSIDERING CULTURAL HERITAGE IN LITHUANIA: ON PAGAN NARRATIVES AND STRATEGIES

Pranskeviciute-Amoson R. (Speaker)

Vilnius University ~ Vilnius ~ Lithuania
The Romuva movement, one of the main contemporary Pagan denominations in Lithuania, received state recognition in December 2024. The process for state recognition has been a long and disputed one. It has revealed inequalities and difficulties experienced by religious (non-Christian) minorities seeking state-recognized status in Lithuania, as well as a transformation process regarding the relation between the state and nontraditional religions in Lithuania. In the process of gaining status as a state-recognized religion, Romuva applied a strategy aimed at strengthening its symbolic weight as a traditional religious community. Visible in these initiatives, an orientation towards both universalistic and traditionalistic approaches opened a possibility for a freely constructed 'imagined indigenousness' found in other European contexts as well (Tafjord 2018). The paper analyses the Romuvian search for various ways of self-legitimization, which also incorporates contested narratives on Lithuanian cultural heritage. It focuses on strategies with respect to cultural heritage applied by the contemporary Pagan Romuva community to construct and support its indigenousness (or so-called traditionality), as well as to establish its status of state-recognized religion in the landscape of contemporary Lithuanian religious diversity and politics.
BETWEEN RELIGIOUS DIVERSIFICATION AND SOCIAL DISSENT: MINORITIZATION PROCESSES AND INEQUALITY AMONG ROMANIAN GERMANS

Keul I. (Speaker)

University of Bergen ~ Bergen ~ Norway
Often described as a culturally homogenous ethno-religious community, the Transylvanian Saxons, one of the main German-speaking groups in post-1918 Romania, have experienced various forms of internal diversification during the second half of the last century. In some local parishes, Transylvanian Saxons shifted their denominational affiliation from Lutheranism to neo-Protestantism, becoming Baptists, Adventists, or members of The Brethren, also called Christians According to the Gospel (Evangeliumschristen). The latter organization, with roots in the 19th-century movement The Plymouth Brethren, included members from all large Romanian ethnic groups, with an overall majority of Romanians, followed by Germans and Hungarians. The case study presented in the paper focuses on two local congregations of Transylvanian-Saxon Brethren, the initial moments of their formation, and the relationship between members of these congregations and the majority Lutheran population, in an attempt to identify structures and processes of minoritization and social hierarchization.
(NEO)PAGANS AND (IN)EQUALITIES IN LATVIA AND ESTONIA

Stasulane A. (Speaker)

Daugavpils University ~ Daugavpils ~ Latvia
This presentation discusses the relationship between constitutional democracy and (neo)paganism. The question of human rights protection came to the forefront in Estonia and Latvia after they regained independence (1991). The changes experienced suggest that there is a movement towards a new religious policy. That indicates constitutional challenges, because the model of relationship between legal rights and religion was so far based on the needs of Christianity. In Estonia and Latvia, these needs were defined by the Evangelical Lutheran Church. Now religious minorities, including (neo)pagans, raise objections to the religious majority model by pointing out the special rights and advantages enjoyed by Christianity. Despite shared characteristics, significant differences shaped by historical and political contexts can be observed. In Latvia, (neo)pagan groups argue that they are entitled to the same legal status as "traditional denominations" (Latvia). In Estonia, (neo)pagan groups are primarily engaged in debates concerning religious education, and the preservation of historical sacred sites. The legal treatment of (neo)pagan groups raises sensitive issues such as the legal recognition of marriages solemnised within (neo)pagan communities, the protection of spouses' inheritance rights, and the possibility of learning about (neo)pagan beliefs in educational institutions. Central is the question of granting the status of a religious organisation to (neo)pagan groups and recognising them as "traditional denominations" (Latvia), or as a "church," "congregation," "association of congregations," or "monastery" (Estonia). The legal status of (neo)pagan groups in Latvia and Estonia manifests the dilemma between the principle of equality and the entitlement to rights faced by constitutional democracies.
LIVED RELIGION AND INEQUALITY IN SOCIALIST YUGOSLAVIA: THE CASE OF THE SEVENTH-DAY ADVENTISTS

Galic M. (Speaker)

Institute for Balkan Studies (Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts) ~ Belgrade ~ Serbia
Although the Law on Churches and Religious Communities of 1953 significantly improved the position of religious minorities in socialist Yugoslavia, especially compared to other socialist countries, various forms of religious discrimination persisted. The Nazarenes and Jehovah's Witnesses arguably faced the most severe persecution because of their refusal to bear arms and take the military oath. As a result, many of their members were sentenced to prison terms of up to ten years, while others legally or illegally migrated to Western Europe, the United States, Canada, and Australia. The position of the Seventh-day Adventists was relatively complex. While members of this religious group were eventually recognized by the socialist government as equal to other, more numerous religious communities, they continued to experience both structural and everyday discrimination. In addition to being labeled "sectarians" and "religious fanatics" by state authorities and the atheistically oriented public, Adventists faced additional difficulties due to their observance of the Saturday Sabbath. Because the Yugoslav workweek lasted six days, Adventist children were often absent from school on Saturdays, while adult members refused to work on that day, which created serious obstacles to pursuing higher education and finding employment. Members of the Seventh-day Adventist Reform Movement faced further difficulties due to their refusal to bear arms, similar to the Nazarenes and Jehovah's Witnesses, and were therefore subject to long prison sentences. This project seeks to examine the various coping mechanisms Adventists employed at both the individual and institutional levels in order to overcome these challenges. The research relies primarily on an ethnographic approach, focusing on the analysis of Adventist narratives collected through semi-structured interviews, supplemented by archival materials (both personal and institutional).

Panel description: The session aims to explore how inequalities are inscribed in European urban spaces through architectural forms and religious practices. On the one hand, architectures dedicated to worship can make established hierarchies visible or, conversely, become instruments of inclusion and of redistributing access to urban space. On the other hand, inequalities themselves produce specific material configurations: monumental and officially recognized buildings stand alongside adaptive, temporary, or marginal spaces, revealing different levels of legitimation and possibilities of settlement for religious groups. From this perspective, the processes of defining and safeguarding religious heritage also contribute to structuring inequalities: while some buildings are enhanced as cultural assets and benefit from public resources, many minority places of worship struggle to obtain recognition and visibility, remaining excluded from conservation circuits and facing forms of material and symbolic marginalization. Alongside these material dynamics, new digital spatialities are emerging. Three-dimensional virtual environments - from replicas of iconic places to immersive platforms used for ritual practices - potentially expand religious participation, but they can also reproduce barriers to access and asymmetries from the offline world. Hybrid practices that combine physical and virtual presence open up further perspectives, showing how communities creatively negotiate the limits imposed by infrastructures, urban regulations, and available resources. The session invites contributions that critically analyze these intersections between the material and the immaterial, highlighting how inequalities take shape, are reproduced, or are transformed through contemporary religious architectures, spaces, and practices

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SPATIAL JUSTICE AND RELIGIOUS PLURALISATION: THE LABORATORY OF ROME

Fabretti V. (Speaker)

Center for Religious Studies, Bruno Kessler Foundation ~ Trento ~ Italy
Within spatial studies, scholars such as Lefebvre and Harvey have provided a crucial contribution to understanding the geographical and situated dynamics of inequality. Drawing on such legacy as applied to religious studies, the paper engages with the theme of spatial justice and with the right to the city approach to analyse and discuss the case of the growing emplacement of religious diversity in the urban space of Rome. Drawing on secondary data (statistics and maps), the paper examines the relationship between the spatial distribution of places of worship of minority religious communities and the geographical distribution of economic and social inequality in the city. The intersection of religious diversity and inequalities is discussed by addressing urban space not only as the product of "geographies of power", such as regulatory regimes and mechanisms controlling visibility, but also as a field traversed by "geographies of habit", understood as the set of representations and expectations associated with spaces and spatialised differences which shape patterns of urban coexistence. Research on religious places, thus, explores not only how these places are inscribed in urban power relations, but also how they are embedded in the situated production of cultural and social representations. It means questioning both stigmatisation and the possible resources religious places present to challenge it; for example by substantiating flexible visions of otherness and new forms of identities that combine rootedness and openness. This perspective is essential if, following Harvey, one acknowledges the need to grasp through a situated gaze the fractures and possible re-compositions between existing geographies, along with their "banal evils", and the normative frameworks, such as those inspired by ideas of pluralism and cosmopolitanism, that can guide processes of urban equality and transformation.
PRISMA. RELIGIOUS INEQUALITIES AND URBAN SPACE: ICONIC AND HYBRID ARCHITECTURES IN ROME

Massenz G. (Speaker)

Turin Polytechnic University ~ Turin ~ Italy
Abstract: The PRISMA project is situated within the debate on urban inequalities related to religious architectures and worship practices, examining how these inequalities are materially and symbolically inscribed in the urban space of Rome. Building on the GAP project (Horizon MSCA 2023-PF-01), PRISMA extends the analysis to iconic and hybrid forms of religious architecture, highlighting asymmetries of visibility, recognition, and access to urban space that characterize different religious groups. Through the creation of a Visual Archive based on photographic documentation and 3D surveys, the project maps a plurality of architectural configurations - monumental, hybrid, and adaptive - revealing differentiated levels of legitimation and access to urban resources. The paper will focus on the most significant configurations emerging from the construction of the archive, with particular attention to secular spaces that have acquired religious meaning as expressions of adaptation and negotiation strategies adopted by minority religious communities operating under regulatory, economic, and symbolic constraints. The contribution also shows how processes of institutional recognition and heritage-making contribute to structuring and reproducing inequalities by incorporating certain architectures into official heritage circuits while leaving others in conditions of material and symbolic marginality. By integrating a digital dimension through visual archiving and its subsequent translation into immersive environments, PRISMA finally offers a critical reflection on emerging hybrid spatialities, highlighting both their potential to render marginalized religious architectures and practices visible and their limits in overcoming existing asymmetries.

Panel description: For years, the Catholic Church worldwide has been confronted with the fact that some of its officials have committed numerous cases of sexual violence against children, adolescents, and adults. The exposure of this scandal highlights not only persistent power asymmetries, but also the ways in which these asymmetries are intertwined with religious narratives, theological ideas, and institutional cultures that shape perceptions of authority and inequality. The panel examines these structures from a bottom-up perspective, focusing on parishioners, victims and survivors, and those surrounding acts of abuse. It investigates the mechanisms that contribute to the constitution, stabilisation, and—when violence occurs—escalation of unequal power. How do believers come to attribute authority that is resistant to critique? Which narrative, symbolic, or organisational factors contribute to individuals being repeatedly exposed to massive abuse of power? What dynamics inhibit disclosure by bystanders or communities? And how do religious topoi, traditions, and interpretive frameworks reinforce or challenge such inequalities? Organised by members of the research group Power and Power Abuse (Goethe University Frankfurt, founded 2025), the panel invites contributions from theology, social sciences, psychology, political philosophy, religious studies, and related fields. We explicitly welcome research that engages with comparable forms of religiously inflected inequality, violence, or power asymmetry in other Christian traditions, other religions, or secular institutions, including comparative or narrativity-focused approaches. We welcome established as well as emerging scholars. Please send your abstract of no more than 300 words to langner-pitschmann@em.uni-frankfurt.de We are happy to answer any questions you might have before you submit.

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THE ROLE OF THE LAW IN THE CREATION AND MAINTENANCE OF ASYMMETRICAL POWER STRUCTURES IN CHURCH

Hahn J. (Speaker)

Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität ~ Bonn ~ Germany
Examining how Catholic bystanders responded to abuse raises questions about the normative frameworks that supported the development and acceptance of asymmetrical power structures in the Catholic Church. Although various normative frameworks, including doctrinal instruction, moral teachings and legal regulations, played a role in establishing and maintaining strong asymmetrical dependencies within the church, examining each framework individually cannot fully explain why many Catholics granted clerics extensive power—despite widespread knowledge of clerical misconduct. This lends weight to the thesis that the power to stabilise asymmetrical dependencies that supported abuse derived from a strategic combination of diverse normative messages, such as from doctrinal teachings on the role and function of clerics, the theory of one power drawn from a divine source, and the moral devaluation of sex and gender issues. In any case, this paper argues that these doctrinal and moral resources for establishing asymmetrical power depended on the law to gain traction. Until today, the law of the church has supported systemic imbalance by institutionalising structures of dominance: of clerics over laypeople, men over women, and adults over minors. Although these asymmetries originate in ecclesiastical doctrine and moral teaching, the law plays a vital role in transforming them into structures and immunising them against criticism. Law is a form of normativity that is particularly difficult to challenge. It has a "hard surface" that defies contestation. Based on this observation, the paper explores how the law has contributed to the establishment and maintenance of asymmetrical power in church by immunising even blatantly abusive structures against fundamental contestation.
STRUGGLING FOR THE RIGHT LANGUAGE: SURVIVOR NARRATIVES, TRAUMA, AND POWER INEQUALITY IN THE CATHOLIC CHURCH

Mandry C. (Speaker)

Goethe University ~ Frankfurt/Main ~ Germany
The critical reappraisal of sexual, psychological, and spiritual abuse in the Catholic Church depends fundamentally on survivor testimonies. Through autobiographical writing, survivors challenge dominant religious narratives and expose the power asymmetries that enabled abuse. A recurring concern in these narratives is the struggle to find a language that renders the injustice suffered—often in childhood—intelligible and communicable without reproducing discursive patterns complicit in abuse. The search for adequate language thus emerges as a bottom-up response to institutional and religious power inequality. From a narrative-ethical perspective, this paper examines two literary autobiographical works that explicitly reflect on the difficulty of writing and on the search for an appropriate language for experiences of abuse: S. Bernard, Paper Cuts (2018), and J. Haslinger, Mein Fall (2020). The analysis explores how the struggle for language is intertwined with fragmented memory, doubts about its reliability under conditions of trauma, and efforts to reclaim a vulnerable yet self-determined identity. In doing so, it reconstructs the ethical ethos of language articulated in these narratives. The paper proceeds in three steps: First, a narrative analysis of both texts; second, a comparison of their implicit ethical positions regarding truthful testimony under traumatic conditions; and third, a reflection on the ethos of reading. Reading survivor narratives is itself a morally charged practice that can either reinforce or challenge existing power inequalities. The paper therefore asks what constitutes an ethically responsible mode of reading and what responsibilities are placed upon readers when engaging with survivor testimonies.
COPRODUCING RELIGIOUS AUTHORITY: BOTTOM‑UP CONTESTATIONS, INSTITUTIONAL GATEKEEPING, AND THE MAKING OF "JEWISH THEOLOGY" IN POST‑SHOAH GERMANY

Fehige Y. (Speaker)

University of Toronto ~ Toronto ~ Canada
This paper analyzes how religious authority and power are experienced, attributed, and contested "from below" in the contested institutionalization of Jewish theology at the University of Potsdam's School of Jewish Theology (SJT, founded 2013). Reading the "Homolka Affair" as a cultural formation rather than a biographical drama, I offer an analysis of it that focuses on the dynamics of regulative power. Empirically, the paper reconstructs the shifting triangle among (1) the SJT and its affiliated seminaries (AGK; later also ZFK), (2) the Central Council of Jews in Germany (a political umbrella organization), and (3) state ministries and university governance. It traces how funding channels, recognition practices, and opaque mixed bodies (e.g., the SJT's Ständige Studienkommission for rabbinic/cantorial training) stabilize inequalities by tying curricular and appointments authority to extra‑academic actors with uneven internal representation. At the same time, grassroots liberal communities, students, and dissenting rabbis mobilize speech acts, legal complaints, and alliance‑building to contest gatekeeping and to reframe who may authorize "speaking about God" from the point of view of Jewish tradition in a secular university. Conceptually, the analysis integrates Feyerabend's pluralism (anti‑essentialist, tradition‑plural view of knowledge), Kitcher's systems of public knowledge (who may speak; how contributions are certified), and Jasanoff's political culture/coproduction (the co‑making of epistemic and social order). I argue that the present transformation—culminating in the 2022-2024 governance crisis and the creation of new Central‑Council‑aligned seminaries—reveals how state neutrality claims and intra‑Jewish representational disputes shape bottom‑up experiences of authority and inequality, while also opening pathways for critical reform (transparency, diversified governance, plural funding architectures).
UNINTELLIGIBLE MINDBODIES: NEURONORMATIVITY, ADULTISM, AND THE EPISTEMIC DEATH OF SURVIVORS

Bischoff S. (Speaker)

Independent Scholar ~ Berlin ~ Germany
In religious hierarchies, the standards for "legitimate" communication and "credible" testimony are predominantly defined by neurotypical adults. This paper investigates how adultism and neuronormativity - the systemic privileging of adult and neurotypical modes of being - inhibit disclosure by rendering a survivor's distress "unintelligible" within the institution. Central to this maintenance of power is the "pathology paradigm": when survivors - particularly children and neurodivergent individuals - express trauma through "atypical" sensory or mindbodily signals, the institution often misreads these as medical deficits or (spiritual) disobedience. This exclusion is rooted in the "Double Empathy Problem": the communication gap between different modes of perception is systematically blamed on the survivor's "deficits." For these groups, whose distress often manifests outside verbal-logical norms, institutional infrastructures keep their lived reality "obscure", resulting in "epistemic death": a state where the survivor, having their experiences repeatedly silenced and labeled "unreal", loses the capacity to trust their own knowledge and perception. This silencing is stabilized by an "ecclesial panopticon", an internalized surveillance where "believers" monitor their own mindbodies to fit institutional norms. Survivors become their own "guards", suppressing their "existential confusion" to remain socially "intelligible." By treating children and neurodivergent people as objects of paternalistic care rather than knowledgeable subjects, the church renders their specific forms of resistance invisible. Ultimately, the paper argues that regaining (linguistic) agency requires an "ethics para joder" (De La Torre) by shifting from seeking institutional "fixing" to a disruptive praxis that reclaims "unintelligible" mindbodily signals as authoritative sites of knowledge, survivors can dismantle the foundations of critique-resistant authority from the base up.
RADICAL ALTERITY AS A PATTERN OF THEOLOGICAL THOUGHT AND POWER INEQUALITY AS A REALITY IN RELIGIOUS COMMUNITIES

Langner-Pitschmann A. (Speaker)

Goethe University ~ Frankfurt ~ Germany
The phenomenon of power inequality recurs at various levels within the Catholic Church and demonstrates a remarkable persistence. One explanation for this phenomenon views the power asymmetries within the religious community as reflections of the distinction between immanence and transcendence, which is central to monotheistic thought. God is presented as a radical otherness to empirical reality - and thus the experiences of limited power or powerlessness characteristic of the realm of immanence are contrasted with an omnipotence guaranteed by transcendence. But what does the process look like in which this concept of God is embedded in the shaping of human forms of community? To get to the bottom of this question, the paper analyses various approaches from the field of modernisation theories, which identify traces of the theological pattern of alterity as transcendent unavailability even in secular societies. In this context, the approaches of Hans Joas (Die Macht des Heiligen) and Martin Saar (Die Immanenz der Macht) can be discussed; however, of particular interest is Marcel Gauchet's theory of secularisation (The Disenchantment of the World). Building on these approaches, one can ultimately formulate the thesis that the departure from metaphysical conceptions of transcendence does not lead to a reduction in power imbalances but - on the contrary - is compensated for by the establishment of an exceedingly strong alterity within an immanent framework of thought.
PASTORAL AUTHORITY IN THE CHURCH: IS IT REPRESENTATIVE OF THE PEOPLE?

Roeske M. (Speaker)

Polish Congress of Catholic Women and Men ~ Poznań ~ Poland
In its document "Synodality in the life and mission of the Church" (2018, p. 67) the International Theological Commission, when discussing the issues of participation and authority in the synodal Church, points out that the Church is called to give expression to the participation of all the faithful, yet stresses at the same time that the authority of pastors is not a delegated and representative function of the people, being "a specific gift of the Spirit of Christ the Head for the upbuilding of the entire Body". The aim of this presentation is to critically analyse the Magisterial argumentation in favour of the thesis that pastoral authority in the Church is given directly by God and not directly by the people. Why does the Church teach that ecclesial authority is not delegated by and representative of the faithful? Is this argumentation correct and valid? Examined will be various theories of divine appointment and theories of popular delegation of power. Particular attention will be paid to the theories of Cajetan, Bellarmine, and Suarez. The question of the people's power to remove a heretical pope or bishop will be addressed as well.
HIDDEN INEQUALITIES OF BELIEF: NORELIGION, SOCIAL RISK, AND THE POLITICS OF RELIGIOUS CONFORMITY IN CONTEMPORARY MOROCCO

Sajid M. (Speaker)

Utrecht University ~ Utrecht ~ Netherlands
This paper examines the emergence of noreligion in contemporary Morocco as a lens through which to analyze the production and maintenance of social inequalities structured by religion. While Islam is constitutionally and culturally embedded as a dominant normative framework, this study argues that the Moroccan religious landscape is increasingly marked by subtle yet significant transformations in belief, doubt, and disengagement. These transformations, however, do not occur on equal terms. Drawing on a multi-method research design, the paper conceptualizes noreligion not as a fixed identity category, but as a spectrum of positions ranging from private doubt to explicit rejection. It demonstrates that individuals who deviate from dominant religious norms face asymmetrical forms of social risk, including stigma, exclusion, legal precarity, and gendered vulnerabilities. In this sense, religious conformity functions as a form of social capital, while noreligion produces new axes of inequality that remain largely invisible in public discourse. At the same time, the paper situates these developments within broader processes of state formation, educational transformation, and digital mediation. It argues that the Moroccan state's regulation of religious authority - combined with the expansion of literacy, global media, and diasporic networks - has unintentionally facilitated the conditions for both religious questioning and its concealment. This results in a paradoxical configuration in which the diversification of belief coexists with the reinforcement of normative religious expectations. By foregrounding the lived experiences of individuals navigating belief and unbelief, this paper contributes to ongoing debates on religion and (in)equality by highlighting how inequalities are not only reproduced through religious institutions, but also through the social regulation of belief itself.

Panel description: This panel builds upon and expands the discussion initiated by the volume Religious and Identity-Based Roots of the War in Ukraine, published by Routledge in January 2026. The panel explores the Russo-Ukrainian War through its deep historical roots, religious dimensions, and identity-based conflicts, examining how religious narratives intersect with state power and identity formation in both post-Soviet Russia and Ukraine. A crucial focus is the 2018-2019 recognition of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine's autocephaly by Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople, representing a fundamental rupture in Orthodox unity with profound geopolitical implications. The Moscow Patriarchate considered this act a direct challenge to its authority and to its historical and traditional relationship with Ukraine. Papers will examine the Russkyi Mir ideology and how this notion shapes Church-State relations and provides theological frameworks for political objectives, alongside the concept of political autocephalies and the relationship between ecclesiastical and political authority in both countries. The panel will further discuss the role of religious minorities in the conflict and the state's regulation of religious pluralism in both Russia and Ukraine, examining Eastern Europe as a crossroads of Christian denominations and European conflicts. Public history represents a key analytical dimension: papers will investigate monumentalization, commemorative practices, and artistic production as means through which competing historical memories are constructed, with contemporary art serving as sites for collective trauma processing and contestation of official discourse. The panel aims to trace the historical, religious, political, and cultural dynamics of the conflict, examining their evolution and transformations to illuminate how these historical trajectories inform contemporary hostilities.

Papers:

ORTHODOX IDENTITY TRANSFORMATIONS AND THE PATH TO UKRAINIAN AUTOCEPHALY: FROM SOVIET COLLAPSE TO THE 2022 WAR

Napolitano M. (Speaker)

Fondazione per le Scienze Religiose ~ Bologna ~ Italy
This paper introduces the key themes addressed in the volume Religious and Identity-Based Roots of the War in Ukraine (Routledge, 2026) and establishes the conceptual framework for the panel's broader discussion. It focuses on the transformation of identity models following the outbreak of the war, with particular attention to developments within the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, formerly under the jurisdiction of the Moscow Patriarchate, as well as to the reasons behind the shift in the meaning of autocephaly—once understood as ecclesiastical independence and now also linked to political autonomy. The analysis highlights how this transformation was primarily driven by Metropolitan Onufriy's stance in response to Patriarch Kirill's close alignment with state power rather than with the faithful. This shift has contributed to a more decisive struggle for Ukrainian self-determination and the rejection of Russian interference. The paper examines how the war in Ukraine extends beyond political and economic motives, constituting a struggle for the appropriation of cultural identity and historical heritage. Central to this analysis is the narrative of Kyivan Rus' foundation, which has served as an essential reference point in the strengthening of Russia's projection of power both domestically and internationally. The paper further explores the characteristics and historical development of the Russkyi Mir (Russian World) concept and its relationship to Church-State interaction. Particular attention is devoted to the impact of these dynamics on the path toward Ukrainian autocephaly from the dissolution of the Soviet Union, analyzing Patriarch Kirill's positioning regarding the war and the religious narratives used to legitimize Russian aggression.
POLITICAL AUTOCEPHALIES (1967-2022): ECCLESIOLOGY, STATE POWER, AND GEOPOLITICS IN CONTEMPORARY ORTHODOXY

Mainardi A. (Speaker)

University of Modena and Reggio Emilia ~ Reggio Emilia ~ Italy
Although rooted in the canonical tradition of the Ecumenical Councils, in Christian Orthodoxy autocephaly as a juridical and ecclesiological conceptis largely a modern construct, shaped in the nineteenth century by the rise of national states. Between 1967 and 2022, however, a series of contested autocephalies emerged that cannot be adequately explained within this classical paradigm. Developing in post-imperial, Cold War, and post-Cold War contexts of intensified geopolitical competition, these cases challenged prevailing models of Orthodox unity, raised unresolved questions concerning the authority to grant autocephaly, and exposed the enduring entanglement of ecclesiastical structures with state power. Focusing on the cases of Orthodox Church in America (1970), Orthodox Church of Ukraine (2018-2019), and Macedonian Orthodox Church (1967-2022), this paper analyses the interplay of ecclesiology, church policy, and geopolitics.
THE KREMLIN AND THE RUSSIAN ORTHODOX IN PUTIN'S RUSSIA

Morini M. (Speaker)

University of Genoa ~ Genova ~ Italy
On the morning of 24 February 2022, the world awoke to dramatic news - Russia had invaded Ukraine. This caused shockwaves in public opinion and marked a watershed moment, drawing a clear dividing line between nineteenth-and-twentieth-century European History. For many, it was unimaginable that Europe could return to a state of war after the conflict in former Yugoslavia. In Europe, nationalism has resurged with unexpected force, posing a threat of destabilisation, particularly in countries that still grapple with unresolved ethnic issues or are still consolidating their democratic institutions. Based on these premises, this paper aims to discuss the religious and political origins that have influenced Putin's Russia in the emergence of the so called "Putinism" at the domestic and International levels. Doing so, it will be provided an analysis of the relationship between the Kremlin and the Russian Orthodox Church since 1993 trying to underline the main differences between Boris Yeltsin' s approach and Putin's one. Secondly, it will be described the main political implications for the development of the Russian superpresidentialism in relying on the role played by The Russian Patriarch in implementing the Kremlin's policies. To better understand the interaction between religion and politics in the last years, it will be also taken into consideration the "national question" that has shaped history, tradition and culture over the centuries which lies at the core of the contemporary Russian politics.
TRUTH BEFORE NATION: ORTHODOX DEADLOCKS IN THE UKRAINIAN WAR

Keramidas D. (Speaker)

Pontifical University St. Thomas Aquinas "Angelicum" ~ Rome ~ Italy
The conflict in Ukraine has revealed deep divisions within Orthodoxy. Although there is a strong peace theology grounded in the patristic tradition and church practice, the Orthodox Churches have found it difficult to present a clear stance on the war. The main argument of this paper is that this indecision is mainly ecclesiological. Indeed, while the Orthodox magisterium understands peace as a divine gift grounded in reconciliation, the practice of peace within Orthodoxy has often relied on ethnopolitical narratives. The paper examines how the nationalisation of Orthodoxy, through the proliferation of the autocephalic system, has displaced theology as the criterion for Christian witness. This reality has weakened Orthodoxy's witness, as it has justified nationalistic and ethno-religious narratives. Some Orthodox have criticized the persistence of such ideas, such as the Russkii Mir ideology and other influential ethno-nationalistic convictions across the Orthodox world. Thus, the Ukrainian conflict can serve as a case study of how nationalism (in all its forms) distorts theology. This serves to affirm that inter-Orthodox unity cannot be preserved at the expense of truth, and that achieving unity requires a theological evaluation of Orthodoxy's current administrative structure, particularly the autocephalic system. The paper will use studies by private authors (P. Kalaitzidis, C. Hovorun, J. Chryssavgis), previous research conducted by the panelist, and Orthodox statements (the Holy and Great Council of Crete [2016]; "For the Life of the World" [2020]; "A Declaration on the 'Russian World' (Russkii Mir) Teaching" [2022]).
THE BYZANTINE LEGACY AND THE CONVERGENCE OF THRONE AND ALTAR: THE RUSSIAN AND SERBIAN ORTHODOX CHURCHES IN THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE "RUSSIAN" AND "SERBIAN" WORLDS

Pizzolo P. (Speaker)

Jagiellonian University of Krakow ~ Krakow ~ Poland
Since the end of the Cold War, religion has re-emerged as a key instrument in the foreign policies of revisionist states. In some Orthodox contexts, the Byzantine legacy remains tangible in statecraft, where the distinction between Church and State often blurs. Following Samuel P. Huntington's scheme on "civilizational poles", the paper examines how the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) and the Serbian Orthodox Church (SOC) have contributed to the sacralization of geopolitical projects through the intertwined notions of the Russian World (Russkiy Mir) and the Serbian World (Srpski Svet). It explores how religious narratives and symbols have been mobilized to legitimize external interventions, redefine civilizational boundaries, and sustain national identity discourses. The paper asks how the ROC and SOC frame and justify the political and territorial ambitions of Moscow and Belgrade in theological terms, to what extent they act as autonomous norm entrepreneurs or instruments of state power, and what similarities and divergences mark their use of religion as a foreign policy tool. Methodologically, the analysis combines discourse analysis of ecclesiastical statements and religious diplomacy (2014-2024) with process tracing of Church-state interaction, drawing on comparative area studies and literature on religion and soft power. Preliminary findings suggest that both Churches contribute to the hybridization of religion and geopolitics, blurring the boundaries between spiritual mission and statecraft. While the ROC operates as a transnational ideological arm of Moscow's foreign policy, particularly in justifying the war in Ukraine and supporting Russian-led post-Soviet integration, the SOC functions as a semi-autonomous legitimizing force for Belgrade's regional ambitions in the Western Balkans, specifically in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Montenegro, Kosovo, and North Macedonia. Together, they reveal how religion can legitimize and advance contemporary geopolitical revisionism.
LANGUAGE, RELIGION, AND AGENCY: CHALLENGES OF CRIMEAN TATAR IDENTITY DURING OCCUPATION AND WAR

Muratova E. (Speaker)

European Centre for Minority Issues ~ Flensburg ~ Germany
The paper examines the situation of preserving the identity of Ukraine's indigenous Muslim minority - the Crimean Tatars - under the conditions of occupation and full-scale war. It focuses on the preservation of the native language and religious traditions and employs a comparative approach to demonstrate the challenges faced by Crimean Tatars both in the occupied territory of Crimea and on mainland Ukraine. The study is based on the results of interviews conducted by the author in the summer of 2024, as well as an analysis of Crimean Tatar groups on the social media platforms Facebook and YouTube. It argues that in both social contexts - Crimea and mainland Ukraine - Crimean Tatars face different identity-related challenges shaped both by differing state approaches toward this indigenous minority and by living conditions. Russian policies of depoliticization and marginalization of Crimean Tatars in occupied Crimea have led to a reduction in the spheres of use of the native language and the encouragement of only officially permitted forms of religious practice. Dispersed settlement across mainland Ukraine and wartime conditions create their own difficulties for preserving the native language and religious traditions, influencing transformations in Crimean Tatar identity and strengthening its civic component. Threats of identity loss have prompted a rethinking of victimhood narratives and the concept of "agency" among Crimean Tatars in both Crimea and mainland Ukraine, with distinctive features shaped by the socio-political context in which they live.
THE WAR AS A CLASH OF IDENTITY REGIMES: THE ROAD TO THE SECURITIZATION OF IDENTITY IN UKRAINE AND RUSSIA

Puleri M. (Speaker)

Alma Mater Studiorum - University of Bologna ~ Bologna ~ Italy
In the months following the start of the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, international observers were able to note how in the official state discourses in both Russia and Ukraine the war was predominantly being shaped around identity issues. Adopting a long-term perspective, in this paper we will devote our attention to the development and dynamics of what we will describe as "identity regimes", i.e. a set of narratives and policies promoted and shaped by Russian and Ukrainian officials in post-Soviet times in order to redraw the borders of their respective political communities. As we will see, the case of the war in Ukraine in 2022 shows how the current collision of the incompatible historical narratives over the attributes of the Ukrainian and Russian political communities has followed a gradual crystallisation of their respective narratives in oppositional terms over the last decade. A special focus will be devoted to the dynamics following the start of the war in Donbas in 2014, when the repertoire of categories around language and memory practices in use today eventually came to be shaped along diverging lines. Furthermore, the intersection of official and 'unofficial' actors and discourses in structuring the respective identity regimes around the decolonization paradigm in Ukraine and the 'restoration of historical Russia' in the Russian Federation in 2014-2022 will be under scrutiny.
ORTHODOXY AS BOND AND FAULT LINE IN RUSSO-UKRAINIAN RELATIONS (LATE 17TH-18TH CENTURIES)

Bovgyria A. (Speaker)

Institute of History of Ukraine/University of Cambridge ~ Cambridge ~ Ukraine
This paper examines Russo-Ukrainian relations from the mid-seventeenth to the late eighteenth century through the lens of Orthodox identity. It argues that Orthodoxy functioned as a shared framework of legitimation while also generating persistent conflict over authority and belonging. During the Cossack revolution, political claims were articulated in confessional terms: texts speak of "our Ruthenian/Christian people," ground this community in the "ancient Greek faith," and place church affairs among the central demands addressed to the Commonwealth. In 1654 appeals to a common faith were instrumental in mobilising the Muscovite tsar as protector, while the same discourse asserted the antiquity and priority of the Kyivan tradition, traced to Volodymyr's baptism and to Kyiv as a foundational centre of Rus' Christianity. The paper highlights an asymmetry in this confessional language. Ukrainian actors tended to construct kinship primarily in a vertical relationship with the Orthodox monarch, rather than as horizontal solidarity with a "Russian people." After 1654, as disputes accumulated over rights, property and jurisdiction, Orthodoxy increasingly served as a medium for boundary-making. The subordination of the Kyivan metropolitanate intensified this dynamic by converting "protection" into hierarchy. In episodes of open confrontation, confessional rhetoric supported accusations of disloyalty and betrayal within an otherwise shared Orthodox space. The paper therefore explains how a common confession produced both integration and rupture in early modern Russo-Ukrainian relations and shaped later contests over Orthodox unity.
RELIGIOUS CONFLICTS AND PATHS TO PEACE IN EASTERN EUROPE. A LOOK AT THE PAST

Garzaniti M. (Speaker)

University of Florence ~ Florence ~ Italy
This presentation explores the historical and religious roots of Eastern Europe, with a particular focus on relations between Russia and Ukraine. To understand the current situation and lay the foundations for dialogue, it is necessary to take a long-term perspective. This perspective should consider the complex religious and cultural history of the Eastern Slavic world, which in modern times is deeply intertwined with the development of different national identities. Firstly, it should be remembered that the process of acculturation of the Slavic world to Christianity took place when the traditions of Rome and Constantinople diverged significantly. While Rus' became part of the Slavic Byzantine world as early as the 10th century, the Tatar invasion of the 13th century caused its fragmentation, favoring different orientations. Between the 15th and 17th centuries, the Ruthenian lands, linked to the Polish-Lithuanian Respublica, experienced a cultural and religious renaissance. On the one hand, the Union of Brest (1596) gave rise to an Eastern Church united with Rome, while on the other, ecclesiastical figures such as Petro Mohyla renewed Kiev Orthodoxy under the aegis of Constantinople, integrating scholastic models and contributing to the formation of a Ukrainian cultural identity. With the rise of the Russian Empire, Moscow gained direct control over the metropolis of Kyiv (1686) and initiated a process of centralization and standardization, which tended to suppress local particularities. The tension between the preservation of different cultural and religious traditions and imperial pressures remains underlying in the contemporary era, when the history of the European continent is marked by the development of different national identities. These tensions continue to weigh heavily today, revealing their religious origins.
TOWARDS A RETURN OF THE AVANT-GARDE? SOME REMARKS ON RUSSIAN ART TODAY

Marchesini I. (Speaker)

Alma Mater Studiorum - University of Bologna ~ Bologna ~ Italy
Taking the essay "Dealing with the Past through Art" (Routledge 2025) as a starting point, the proposed paper focuses on the trajectory Russian art has taken after the events of 24 February 2022. In this respect, the projects developed by the artists Matvei Kaif (b. Matvei Shapiro, 1987) and Ėlia Vinokurova represent a particular, as well as meaningful, point of view. On the one hand, the value of their work can be appreciated if read against the background of the art created by such conceptualist as Ilya and Emilia Kabakov. On the other hand, though, their poetic and visual grammar display close ties to the Russian Avant-garde, hence representing their "return", a phenomenon recently theorized by Bozovic (2023). Ultimately, this research aims at testing Bozovic's theory, extending it from the field of poetry to that of art. Arguably, foregrounding the ties these artist entertain with previous artistic experiences opens up a useful window on contemporary developments in Russian culture.
THE KREMLIN AND THE MOSCOW PATRIARCHATE IN XX CENTURY

Roccucci A. (Speaker)

Roma Tre University ~ Rome ~ Italy
The dialectic of the relationship between charisma of power, one of the patriarch and one of the tsar, between that of religious power and that of political power, constitutes a long-standing factor in Russian history. In the 20th century, the vicissitude of relations between the Patriarchate and the Kremlin experienced a dramatic page in its history during the Bolshevik experiment. 1917, the year of revolutions, had marked for the Orthodox Church the beginning of a new era. A deep rupture had occurred. Paradoxically, within the framework of a regime that postulated and pursued the elimination of religion from communist society, with the turn in religious policy desired by Stalin in 1943, the patriarchal institution was accorded a role, albeit within a framework of heavy subjection to political power. The dialectic between the upper echelons of political and religious power was passed on to post-communist Russia to contend with new dynamics. The Orthodox Church's prominence in Russia's public life developed under the sign of a recovered role as guardian of Russian identity and guarantor of the legitimacy of power. Reactions between the Patriarchate and the Kremlin experienced a new season, in which longstanding cultural paradigms, Soviet heritage, ecclesiastical dynamics and political processes were intertwined within the framework of the travails of post-Soviet Russia.
DECONSTRUCTING THE "RUSSIAN WORLD": COUNTER-NARRATIVES OF THE ORTHODOX CHURCH OF UKRAINE IN WARTIME DISCOURSE AND VISUAL CULTURE

Pidkuimukha L. (Speaker)

National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy ~ Kyiv ~ Ukraine
This paper examines discursive and visual counter-narratives that challenge the ideology of the "Russian World" (Russkii mir), focusing on its religious dimension and the role of the Russian Orthodox Church. The analysis centres on statements, Twitter posts, and media interviews by Metropolitan Epiphanius, alongside contemporary Ukrainian visual culture, including memes and caricatures. Particular attention is given to how these discursive and multimodal practices expose the ideological foundations of the "Russian World" and critique the political role of the Russian Orthodox Church. Methodologically, the study combines CDA and MDA to examine both verbal and visual representations. In his public statements, Metropolitan Epiphanius consistently frames the "Russian World" as a criminal ideology, often drawing comparisons with Nazism and emphasising the moral responsibility of religious leaders who legitimise violence. Within this discourse, the ideology promoted by Patriarch Kirill is represented as a heretical ethno-phyletic doctrine that merges nationalism, geopolitics, and religious authority. Such rhetoric discursively reverses Russian propaganda narratives that claim to combat fascism. At the same time, Ukrainian wartime memes and caricatures function as tools of symbolic resistance. Through satire, exaggeration, and symbolic imagery, they portray the "Russian World" as violent and hypocritical, highlighting the perceived complicity of the Russian Orthodox Church in legitimising aggression and spreading Kremlin narratives. The paper argues that the interaction between religious discourse and participatory digital culture contributes to the deconstruction of imperial narratives and supports broader societal efforts to distance Ukrainian identity from the ideological framework associated with the Russian Orthodox Church.

Panel description: In almost every western country the preservation and the transformation of Church buildings and religious heritage become a major challenge. It involves a lot of interrelated issues: legal, historical, architectural, social and religious. It raises complex questions concerning property, social duties toward cultural heritage, feasibility of conservation or transformation, and so on. Indeed, in North America, in Europe and also in North Africa, we can notice a growing number of articles dealing with different aspects of it. There are also, here and there, seminars or workshops on the subject. Moreover, we can observe in many countries major project of transformation of religious building for new societal goals. There is a need for a more systematize collaboration. The goal of the panel is to have an international and an interdisciplinary view of what is at stake in transformation or preservation of church buildings and religious heritage.

Papers:

THE CULTURAL IDENTITY OF CHRISTIAN PLACES OF WORSHIP IN INDIGENOUS CANADA

Gélinas C. (Speaker)

Université de Sherbrooke ~ Sherbrooke ~ Canada
In Canada, evangelization constituted the moral framework of policies aimed at the assimilation of Indigenous peoples, notably through the establishment of Christian places of worship on reserves in support of missionary activity. Over time, many Indigenous communities have culturally appropriated this built heritage, raising questions about the identity of these buildings today: should they be understood as Christian, Indigenous, or hybrid heritage? This, in turn, raises the question of who should bear responsibility for their preservation.
THE "OPEN CHURCHES" NETWORK IN BELGIUM: TOWARDS A HYBRID GOVERNANCE OF LIVING RELIGIOUS HERITAGE

Baraka Akilimali J. (Speaker)

Université Catholique de Louvain ~ Louvain-la-neuve ~ Belgium
In a context of religious decline, the Open Churches network offers an innovative model of hybrid governance combining parishes, public authorities and civil society. Based on voluntary participation and accessibility, it promotes churches as living heritage rather than museums, fostering community appropriation, reduced costs, heritage security and renewed social and cultural uses.
FROM ASSIGNEMENT TO WORSHIP TO SHARED USES OF CHURCHES IN FRANCE

Fornerod A. (Speaker)

UMR 7354 DRES - Droits et religions (CNRS/Université de Strasbourg) ~ Strasbourg ~ France
France is generally included in the Western Europe countries facing the issue of redundant churches. Yet it differs from its European neighbours in that tens of thousands of religious buildings have a specific legal status inherited from the separation of church and state process in 1905. In addition to making most of those buildings the property of municipalities, this regime is characterized by an assignment to worship enshrined in law (affectation cultuelle). Despite the dwindling or even absence of church attendance, the regime has not been fundamentally modified. The legal assignment to worship, justified by the ambition to protect the freedom of religion at the time of its adoption, proves to be often out of step with actual practices. For many churches, strict application of the law would lead to decommissioning. In practice, the number of decommissioning is very limited, and the development of uses held "compatible" with the religious assignment, in law, in practice and in discourses on religious heritage/buildings, invites us to consider the advent of this phenomenon that question the distinction between religious and cultural in law.
RELIGIOUS BUILDINGS TRANSFORMATION AND PUBLIC FUNDING: COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVES

Noël P. (Speaker)

Université de Sherbrooke ~ Sherbrooke ~ Canada
From one country to another the property of religious buildings, their funding and their preservation or transformation belong to a complex juridical and canonical framework. Multiple aspects should be taken into account to have a good understanding of all issues. We will map those aspects and thought a national comparison we will try to contribute to a stronger systematization.
"RUINS IN THE WASTELAND? ON THE FUTURE OF CHURCH BUILDINGS IN THE SECULAR COUNTRYSIDE."

Ringvee R. (Speaker)

Estonian Academy of Security Sciences ~ Tallin ~ Estonia
The paper focus on Estonia, a highly secularized and urbanized society with less than one third of the population claiming to have religious affiliation and where one third of country's population lives in capital Tallinn. Majority of the historical churches are in countryside where congregations' membership is declining. The perspective of the paper comes from Estonia and analyzes the current situation and considers future prospects.
CIVIC REAPPROPRIATION OF CHURCHES AND MONASTERIES: GOALS, OPPORTUNITIES AND LIMITS

Blantare M. (Speaker)

Université de Sherbrooke ~ Sherbrooke ~ Canada
Due to the drop of traditional religious practice in post-christian Western societies, the reassignment of churches and monasteries to new social vocations becomes a major lever for the preservation and valorisation of religious heritage. The paper will study many cases of churches and monasteries's reappropriation in Europe and North America. It will show paradoxes in those transformations dealing with benefits, challenges and social tensions.
REUSING SACRED SPACE: COLLABORATION, COMPARISON AND FUTURE MODELS

Dimodugno D. (Speaker)

University of Turin, Law Department ~ Turin ~ Italy
This contribution offers a comparative analysis of the adaptive reuse of religious buildings in Belgium, France, and Italy, highlighting the common need for a closer collaboration between ecclesiastical and religious authorities. A glance at the United States reveals broader models - interfaith buildings exchanges, multifunctional uses, and shared prayer spaces - that may inspire future developments in Europe.
THE CORRELATION BETWEEN RELIGIOUS AND CULTURAL FACTORS IN THE INTER-SYSTEMIC GOVERNANCE OF ITALY'S RELIGIOUS CULTURAL HERITAGE

Tarabiono G.F. (Speaker)

University of Insubria - University of Modena and Reggio Emilia ~ Modena ~ Italy
This contribution aims to identify guiding criteria supporting the promotion of shared and inclusive social governance among the optimal models for enhancing Italy's religious cultural heritage. Employing a case study approach to examine legal configurations of inter-systemic State-Church cooperation for church-building protection, the study examines the possibility that variations in the correlation index between religious and cultural factors could reveal a redefinition of cultural-religious binomial.
THE PUBLIC OPINION AND THE RECLASSIFICATION OF CHURCH BUILDINGS

Martin P. (Speaker)

Université de Lyon 2 ~ Lyon ~ France
In many communities/municipalities the reclassification of church buildings raises a lot of public resistances and actions that take diverse forms: citizen's petitions to the city hall, wide media coverage, or deep citizen involvement and so on. The paper will analyse those resistances and actions in a comparative perspective.
CASE OF UNITED ARAB EMIRATES (PROVISORY TITLE)

Sabri R. (Speaker)

University of Sharjah ~ Sharjah ~ United Arab Emirates
To be sent

Panel description: The development of new technologies, such as Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the growth of immersive virtual reality platforms, challenge traditional understandings of religious authorities, communities, identities, and practice (Campbell & Tsuria, 2021). In this context, the ubiquity of digital media in contemporary society reveals a profound ambivalence: while it can foster inclusion and visibility for marginalized religious actors, it can simultaneously reproduce and intensify existing inequalities. On the one hand, religious people can use the Internet to advocate for equality (Peterson, 2022), form alternative spaces of activism and resistance (Echchaibi & Hoover, 2023), or create communities that they cannot find in physical venues (Dos Santos & Cruz, 2024). On the other hand, digital spaces can become spaces to spread hate against religious minorities (Topidi, 2024), support conservative leaders against equality (Righetti et al., 2025), challenge women's emancipation (Leidig, 2023), and amplify patriarchal or theocratic discourses by providing visibility and legitimacy to radicalized voices (Maf'ula, N. R. H. et al., 2025). Taken together, these dynamics highlight digital religion as a contested field in which processes of empowerment and exclusion unfold simultaneously. Given the nuanced experiences that the Internet can bring to religious people regarding (in)equality, we welcome submissions about: -Online religious-based activism -Internet-based hate speech against religions -Digital communities and the formation of alternative religious identities -Politics and digital religion -Materiality, embodiment, and resistance in the digital space -Intersectional online religious identities around gender, sexuality, race, (dis)ability, ethnicity, nationality, and class. We welcome papers with a theoretical focus as well as researchers focusing on empirical cases, analyzed both qualitatively or quantitatively.

Papers:

CHRISTIAN TO WHOM? CATHOLIC FEMINISM AND DIGITAL MEDIA IN ITALY

Evolvi G. (Chair)

University of Bologna ~ Bologna ~ Italy
The relationship between religion and gender often produces debates about social justice and (in)equalities (Giorgi and Palmisano, 2020). Within contemporary Catholicism, some women ask for equal rights, demanding, for instance, to be ordained priests (Peterfeso, 2020). These claims can find a space online, where Catholic feminists who are marginalized within physical religious communities can find an alternative space of expression. Discussing how digital religion allows for transformations in communities and authorities (Campbell and Tsuria, 2021), this paper focuses on Catholic feminists in Italy, a context where Catholicism is historically deeply intertwined with society and culture (Garelli, 2007). By means of interviews and analysis of a Christian feminist podcast, and Instagram pages and websites, the current presentation addresses the following questions: Which strategies do Catholic feminists in Italy use to reach gender equality? What is the role of digital media to promote feminism within Catholicism? The results point to an ambivalent relationship between religion and feminism: on the one hand, many women feel excluded by the Church, and go to mass reluctantly or avoid certain communities altogether; on the other hand, they are often questioned by secular feminists on their choices of keeping their religious affiliation. While the Internet tends to simplify complex messages, it can function for many women as a tool to reach the younger generation, educate Catholics on gender equality and feminism, gain visibility, and form international networks. In conclusion, the paper argues that it is important to consider the online strategies of Catholic feminists through an interdisciplinary approach that includes gender studies and social movement studies, to understand the connections between religion, feminism, and social justice.
VIRTUAL AVATARS AND THE TRANSFORMATION OF IDENTITY AND RELIGIOUS PRACTICE IN IMMERSIVE MEDIA ENVIRONMENTS

Dos Santos V. (Speaker)

Blanquerna Observatory on Media, Religion and Culture ~ Barcelona ~ Spain
With the growing popularity of digital games and social virtual reality platforms —such as VRChat, Roblox, and Minecraft— religious actors and institutions are not only developing new strategies for community creation, information sharing, and evangelization, but are also experiencing and experimenting with their own traditions in entirely immersive environments. Given the fundamentally ludic architecture of these media (Aupers, 2012), religious users are required to creatively adapt their beliefs and rituals to the logic of these platforms, while simultaneously reinterpreting these spaces as sites of religious meaning and experience. Among the most significant elements in these environments are avatars, which function not merely as graphic representations of users but as extensions of embodied presence (Faccennini, 2021; Ekdahl D. and Osler L., 2023). In the context of religious performances, avatar customization becomes entangled with material religious references (Morgan, 2005), generating processes of negotiation in which traditional doctrines, aesthetics, and bodily norms may be reinforced, transformed, or contested. Far from being neutral or mere tools, avatars are essential mediators of how religion is portrayed, shared, and lived in online contexts (Radde-Antweiler K., 2022). Drawing on a review of the state of the art and the observation of contemporary virtual religious communities, this presentation examines avatars as expressions of digital embodiment, their potential for the construction of religious identity, and how avatar-driven practices can enable or stimulate religious freedom and the expression of belief, or alternatively reproduce existing religious hierarchies, prejudices, or even extremist worldviews. By positioning avatars as material-semiotic actors within the field of digital religion, the paper contributes to broader debates on how digital embodiment and immersive virtual platforms are impacting contemporary religious contexts.
PROCEDURAL WORLDS AND RELIGIOUS IMAGINATION: GAMING, IDENTITY, AND THE CONDITIONS OF BELIEF IN CONTEMPORARY SOCIETY

Vukic N. (Speaker)

Trinity College Dublin ~ Dublin ~ Ireland
Scholarly attention often follows technological novelty. While recent debate has focused heavily on artificial intelligence, this paper turns to a phenomenon with established generational reach: digital gaming. Now exceeding the economic scale of film and music combined, gaming has become a primary environment in which younger generations encounter structured worlds, moral systems, and shared symbolic frameworks. Existing scholarship has examined religious representation within games. Far less attention has been given to the possibility that gaming itself functions as a formative cultural environment shaping religious imagination. This paper therefore shifts the analytical lens from religion in games to the relationship between gaming and religion in contemporary societies. Drawing on classical theories of religion alongside work on lived religion and mediated communities, the paper argues that persistent synthetic worlds familiarize participants with cosmological structures: teleological narratives, moral alignment, ritual repetition, and communal belonging. Rather than proposing causation, the paper identifies a historically distinctive convergence: the first generation raised within globally shared, rule-governed environments is emerging at a moment when indicators suggest stabilization, and in some contexts modest revival, of religious interest across parts of the West. Environments that have already shaped a generation provide firmer analytical ground than rapidly mutating technological tools. Gaming thus offers a vantage point from which to reconsider assumptions about secularization, symbolic formation, and the conditions under which religious meaning becomes plausible. By foregrounding gaming as a civilizational rather than merely recreational phenomenon, the paper calls for sustained engagement between religious studies and one of the most consequential cultural developments of the early twenty-first century.
PRODUCING RELIGIOUS TRUTH: CHRISTIAN SOCIAL MEDIA INFLUENCERS, AFFECT, AND POST-TRUTH ANXIETIES

De La Vega G. (Speaker)

Erasmus University Rotterdam ~ Rotterdam ~ Netherlands
This paper examines how female Christian social media influencers critically recontextualize the notion of truth by equating it with God, biblical order, conservative morality, and traditional gender norms, while framing lies as aligned with Satan, contemporary culture, feminism, and liberal politics. Using a framework grounded in material religion, affect, and post-truth, the study asks how Christian influencers make truth claims that resonate with their audiences. The analysis is based on 11 months of digital ethnographic research, including daily participant observation and archival work. The paper approaches religion as a deeply material and sensory practice. In digital environments, media organize access to the divine while simultaneously intensifying affect. Within a post-truth context, emotional resonance and personal experience become central to how truth is recognized and validated online. The analysis shows that influencers construct "truth" through three interconnected tactics: the repeated intensification of affect, the materialization of claims through embodied and aesthetic practices, and the capitalization on an existing crisis of truth and moral uncertainty.Traditional gender roles are presented as divinely ordained solutions to cultural anxiety, with joy in motherhood framed as evidence of God's design. Conversely, the devil is depicted as an active presence embedded in secular culture, feminism, and popular media. Practices such as modesty and purity are framed as material techniques that produce visible signs of divine presence. Truth is constructed as something that must be felt rather than argued. Influencers position themselves as witnesses and teachers, modelling how followers should read their emotions to discern truth from deception.
GODFLUENCERS: THE DISAPPEARING MEDIUM AND THE MAKING OF DIGITAL RELIGIOUS AUTHORITY

De La Vega G. (Speaker)

Erasmus University Rotterdam ~ Rotterdam ~ Netherlands
This paper argues that female Christian social media influencers mobilize the "disappearing" qualities of social media platforms to construct themselves as more than content creators, but legitimate tools of God. Drawing on media and materiality approaches to digital religion, the paper conceptualizes social media as "third spaces" where religious meaning, practice, and authority are actively negotiated through performative engagement. In these spaces, religious authority becomes fluid and is constructed through practice rather than formal institutional positions. The analysis is based on 11 months of digital ethnographic observation. The key focus is not only the circulation of Christian testimonies online, but the ways in which platforms and content creators themselves become accepted as legitimate conduits for divine action and influential actors in shaping contemporary religious landscapes. First, influencers mobilize the material characteristics of both religion and social media to frame online content as divinely sent. Second, influencers breach the boundaries of the platform by enacting immediate religious action, such as praying through the screen, positioning themselves as channels through which divine power flows. Thus, the platform appears to disappear, creating a sense of unmediated access to divinity. Third, influencers actively construct authority by defining what counts as the "right" kind of Christian influencer, often emphasizing self-effacement and moral responsibility by placing God before personal visibility. Ultimately, the paper shows how ordinary digital practices, such as recording a video or posting a reel, are transformed into moments of transcendence, reshaping religious authority, truth, and divine presence in increasingly mediated societies.
PLATFORM CAPITALISM AND DIGITAL SPIRITUALITY: THE HALLOW APP BETWEEN CONSERVATIVE CATHOLICISM AND SILICON VALLEY

Mayrink M. (Speaker) [1] , Aragon R. (Speaker) [2]

Universidade Federal Fluminense ~ Niterói ~ Brazil [1] , INCT-DSI ~ Niterói ~ Brazil [2]
This article analyzes the Catholic prayer app Hallow as a strategic site for examining the intersections between contemporary Catholicism, platform capitalism, and the rise of techno-conservative ideologies in Silicon Valley. Supported by influential technology investors such as Peter Thiel, a central figure in both the U.S. tech industry and the contemporary conservative political movement, Hallow illustrates how religious practices are increasingly shaped by venture capital networks, digital infrastructures, and ideological projects that combine moral traditionalism with technological optimism. Drawing on an interdisciplinary qualitative approach, the article mobilizes contributions from platform studies (Van Dijck, Poell, and De Waal), the critical political economy of technology and digital religion studies. The central argument is that Hallow operates not merely as a religious application but as a platformed regime of spiritual governance, in which prayer is reconfigured as a personalized, data-driven, and performance-oriented practice aligned with neoliberal and techno-conservative rationalities. The analysis focuses on the app's interface design, content organization, discursive framing, and institutional narratives, as well as on the public positioning of its founders and investors. Particular attention is given to how Catholic prayer, traditionally understood as a communal and liturgical act, is reframed through the language of self-optimization, emotional regulation, and individual spiritual productivity. By situating Hallow within broader networks of Silicon Valley conservatism, the article argues that the platform contributes to the emergence of a form of digital Catholicism that merges spiritual discipline, moral conservatism, and venture-backed technological mediation, raising critical questions about religious authority, data governance, and the political economy of faith in an era of platform-mediated spirituality
THE DIGITAL DISSOLUTION OF BORDERS: ENGINEERING A NEW UNIVERSALISM AND THE METAPHYSICS OF INTERCONNECTIVITY

Colak M. (Speaker)

Eurotürk ~ Aachen ~ Germany
The 21st century is defined by a paradox: while information is more accessible than ever, ideological polarization remains a significant threat. As an engineer with experience at TÜBİTAK, the European Commission's JRC, and ASELSAN, the author argues that the "hardware" of our global society (AI, high-speed internet, real-time translation) has outpaced its "software" (philosophy and religion). This paper explores the necessity of synchronizing these fields to create a "New Universalism." The digital revolution acts as a practical manifestation of Spinoza's Monism. When language barriers become insignificant due to advanced AI and physical distances vanish through digital interaction, we are forced to confront the reality of a single, interconnected human fabric. This paper posits that the concept of God as "Infinity in infinite aspects" provides the necessary ontological framework for this era. By integrating the precision of engineering with the depth of metaphysics, I suggest that the digital society must move beyond "post-metaphysical" thought. We must return to a structural inquiry of the Divine that encompasses both the physical universe (science) and the infinite unknown (faith). This "digital catholicity" allows for any philosophical ideology to become our "neighbor," requiring a healthier religious understanding that treats historical conflicts as data points to be resolved through a refined, rational synthesis of human knowledge. Author Bio: Born in 1979 in Türkiye; educated in Theology (Imam Hatip) and Electrical Engineering (M.Sc., Hacettepe Univ.). Research experience at TÜBİTAK, EU JRC (Italy), and ASELSAN. Currently a Certification Engineer in Aachen and Board Member of Euroturk. Focuses on the synthesis of science, philosophy, and religion.
ONLINE RITUALS AS DIGITAL INFRASTRUCTURES OF CARE: FEMALE SPIRITUALITY, REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH INEQUALITIES, AND PLATFORM ECONOMIES IN CONTEMPORARY ITALY

Scetta M. (Speaker)

MA in Cultural Anthropology and Ethnology — University of Turin, Italy ~ Turin ~ Italy
This paper explores how digitally mediated female spirituality in contemporary Italy operates as an alternative infrastructure of care in contexts marked by reproductive health inequalities. Drawing on digital ethnography and discursive interviews with eight practitioners offering spiritual guidance primarily online, the study examines how ritual practices intentionally designed for digital environments respond to perceived gaps in biomedical and institutional healthcare. In a context where reproductive health remains shaped by territorial and economic disparities, limited access to integrative services, and epistemic marginalization of embodied female knowledge, these practitioners construct what ritual theory describes as "online rituals": structured pathways combining spiritual, educational, and therapeutic dimensions, delivered through newsletters, video consultations, symbolic altar practices, and curated digital content. The paper situates these practices within scholarship on digital religion and ritual theory, engaging with the distinction between rituals online and online rituals, and with sociological perspectives on cultural authority and "experts of needs." It argues that digitally mediated spiritual care does not merely adapt pre-existing religious forms to technological platforms, but actively reshapes notions of care, authority, and community through platform economies. Digital mediation simultaneously expands access — potentially mitigating territorial and institutional barriers to reproductive healthcare — and generates new forms of inequality linked to digital literacy, algorithmic visibility, and symbolic capital accumulation. By examining female spirituality as both a response to and a reconfiguration of reproductive health inequalities, the paper contributes to broader debates on digital religion and (in)equality, highlighting the ambivalent role of digital infrastructures as enabling and stratifying spaces in contemporary spiritual life.
ROLEPLAYING THE PRIEST: REPRODUCING AUTHORITY AND INEQUALITIES IN A FILIPINO CATHOLIC GROUP ON ROBLOX

Ciocca D. (Speaker)

University of Milan Bicocca ~ Milan ~ Italy
Roblox Filipino Catholics (RFC) is a group of Filipino Catholic users of the Roblox platform, a Massively Multiplayer Online Game. It can arguably be defined as a virtual community counting thousands of users who come together, socialize, and engage in shared activities within the spaces of the gaming platform. What sets RFC apart is its explicitly religious orientation: as stated on its Facebook page, it is "a community of young people who aspire to live a holy life online." Posts on the same Facebook page reveal in-game events that simulate the Filipino Catholic liturgy, such as Masses and processions, celebrated by avatars looking like priests and ministrants. Roblox Filipino Catholics members adopt role-playing titles such as lay faithful, priests, bishops or cardinals, even if they have no seminary formation or background. While being a bottom-up, spontaneous, and creative laboratory for religious identities, Roblox Filipino Catholics also reproduces the inequalities that shape the experience of contemporary Catholicism. Access to higher positions like priests or above is restricted to males; members in higher positions in the virtual clergy are often also part of the administration of the group, acting as new religious gatekeepers; finally, participation in the group's activities depends on a stable Internet connection, reproducing technical and economic inequalities that are deeply rooted in the Philippine context (Pertierra, 2010). Drawing on my digital and onsite ethnography in Roblox Filipino Catholics and Manila, this paper explores how gendered, hierarchical, and technological divides intersect with digital roleplay while generating new power relations among members. I argue that an ethnographic account of these dynamics on Roblox may contribute to the broader discussion on how "networked religion" emerges as an entanglement of traditional and new authorities, as well as pre-existing and emerging inequalities (Cheong, 2009; Cempbell, 2007; 2011).
LIVED RELIGION IN DIGITAL ENVIRONMENTS: EVERYDAY SPIRITUALITY IN THE CZECHIA AND SLOVAKIA

Sedláková R. (Speaker) [1] , Roncáková T. (Speaker) [2]

University Palacký, Faculty of Theology ~ Olomouc ~ Czech Republic [1] , Catholic University in Ružomberok ~ Ružomberok ~ Slovakia [2]
This paper examines transformations of religiosity in the Czech Republic and Slovakia in the context of the ongoing platformization and digitalization of religion. Drawing on the field of digital religion based on the work of H. Campbell, R. Tsuria, or G. Evolvi, and the perspective of lived religion, the study explores how spiritual practices are articulated and experienced in everyday life within digital media environments. Digital platforms appear to function as spaces where elements of lived religion are articulated, negotiated, and shared beyond traditional institutional settings. The study asks: How does the digitalization of religion shape everyday forms of spirituality in societies with historically different levels of religiosity, and what role do digital platforms play in developing new forms of religious social praxes? The two countries that formed a commonwealth in the second half of the 20th century were characterized by significantly different levels of declared religiosity. While the Czech Republic is often described as one of the most secular societies in Europe, Slovakia maintains significantly higher levels of religious identification. However, data from a quantitative online survey conducted in the fall of 2025 among internet users (15-75 years old) in both countries indicate several similar trends in how spirituality is currently experienced in both populations. The research focuses on everyday forms of spirituality, such as personal prayer or reading spiritual texts, as well as individual attitudes toward religion. The study examines respondents' participation in online religious communities and the spiritual experiences associated with such engagement. The findings indicate that despite differences in official statistics on institutional religiosity, several aspects of everyday spirituality and personal religious attitudes show similarities in both populations, e.g. the high level of alternative spirituality.

Panel description: This panel reconsider relationships between contemporary theologies of presbyteral ordination in the Catholic Church as it functions in the world and offers a voice of a moral authority in its championing of human dignity. At the same time, the Catholic Church maintains a commitment to essentialising theologies of difference in relation to its understanding of baptismal dignity and ordained authority. Therefore, the Church has provided some of the most trenchant and far-ranging critiques of inequality across the globe, while also carrying the profound legacy of its past implication in colonial projects that generated the vastly unequal global present. How should presbyteral priesthood in the Catholic Church be understood theologically in the light of this complex past and present? The Second Vatican Council reframed Catholic ecclesiology to focus on the shared reality of Baptism, insisting that all Catholics were equally called to holiness and to participate in the prophetic priesthood of Christ - an awareness would soon develop into the various, manifold ministries in which the people of God work out this call to follow Christ as members of his body. That same Council, however, did not offer an account of presbyteral ministry commensurate with this significant reframing. These panels seek to consider how Catholic theologians might offer generative theologies of the priesthood for the 21st century, taking the implications of Vatican II into the era of the Synodal Church. Each panel will consider a key issue from both an inside and outside perspective, considering how priesthood can be understood from within traditional sources of authority, and from outside of them.

Papers:

(RE)NEGOTIATING MISSION: INSIDE-OUT AN UNDERSTANDING OF MISSION

Mellor A. (Speaker)

St Stephen's Cathedral ~ Brisbane ~ Australia
Rev Dr. Anthony Mellor will explore the development of a theology of preaching since the restoration of the homiletic style as part of the liturgical renewal of the Council. There has been a clear progression in the understanding of the homily in relation to the liturgy as a whole and the nurturing of faith. In the contemporary world, preaching faces new challenges, especially in regard to the general cultural movement away from "text" to "image". Synodality also offers a perspective on how good preaching always begins with listening, in particular, listening to the lived experience of the faithful, and how this can become the bridge from the proclamation of the Gospel to the acceptance and maturing of faith.
(RE)NEGOTIATING MISSION: INSIDE-OUT AN UNDERSTANDING OF MISSION 2

Leahy B. (Speaker)

Diocese of Limerick ~ Limerick ~ Ireland
Bishop Brendan Leahy will explore the foundational nature of the community of the baptised faithful for any understanding of the presbyterate and Church leadership. While the ecclesiology of the Second Vatican Council clearly frames the structure of the Church in terms of the People of God and the body of Christ, the essential nature of this communion in Christ is not always the necessary starting point in considerations about the call to and ministry of presbyters for the people of God. The ministerial priesthood is not only at the service of the baptismal priesthood (Cf. EG 104) but emerges out of that same reality.

Panel description: Religious traditions, even if based on universalistic principles, are mostly governed by hierarchical normative networks, which inevitably imply inequalities - whether in terms of gender, religious affiliation, physical and social status. Similarly, written discourse, and thus its textual organisation, is also permeated by dynamics of selection and hierarchisation of meaning and, once produced, is in turn inserted into hierarchies of canon. However, both theological discourse and literary texts that hold and 'function' incorporate processes of self-reflection and critical negotiation, necessary for their historicity. Sometimes, it is literature itself that encourages and causes theological discourse to become dialectical, welcoming and reworking theological conceptual nuclei which, through intertextual practices, activate critical tensions within the text itself: in these cases, literary texts become places of religious meaning production, making visible forms of diversity and inequality that are often marginalised in doctrinal canons. In line with this year's theme, the panel thus aims to investigate the relationship between religions, diversity and inequalities through an interdisciplinary approach combining critical literary studies and theological reflection. Particular attention will be paid, though not exclusively, to female religious experiences as spaces of negotiation between theological normativity and lived experience. We invite papers on any aspect of Italian literature. Contributions that focus on one or more of these subtopics are particularly welcome: • incorporation and literary reworking of theological concepts; • representations of confessional diversity and religious asymmetries in literary texts; • literary texts as mediation between normative theology and lived practices; • literary criticism of theological hierarchies; • female religious experiences and feminist theologies; • literary reflections of embodied theology.

Papers:

MATERIAL SPIRITUALITY AND THE LITERARY WORLDS OF CLAUDIA DURASTANTI

Walker R. (Speaker)

University of Oxford ~ Oxford ~ United Kingdom
In Claudia Durastanti's literary works, material objects and places hold revelatory potential: they tell us things about the people we are and the environments we live in, and expose the divisions, contradictions, and inequalities upon which human identities and physical places are built. More than this, objects and the spaces that house them are key to Durastanti's vision of a world, across her two published novels Strangers I Know (2022) and Missitalia (2024), that is not silent and disenchanted, but rather alive with significative potential. Her particular form of material ecocriticism (Iovino and Oppermann 2014) invites reflection not only on how the world is constituted, but on how to live in it, and on whether other worlds are possible or desirable. This paper contributes to a growing current in literary studies that seeks to use narrative to ask questions about what Elizabeth Anderson, in her work on the 'material spiritualities' of modernist women writers, terms "the place of materiality in theology and religious studies" (2020, 2). By appraising "the spiritual life of things" (Anderson 2020, 1) and taking a closer look at this "enchanted materialism" (Bennett 2001), I will take Durastanti as a case study for how contemporary women writers continue to use literary methods to explore ethical tasks that lie at the cross-section of theology and narrative, namely: the negotiation of ends, the imagination of new futures, and the positing of more equitable engagements with the world's inhabitants, human and non-human.
A PATH TO AWARENESS, TO MEDIATION: ITALIAN WOMEN POETS AS MEDIATORS FOR INTERRELIGIOUS DIALOGUE

Battistel L. (Speaker)

LUMSA ~ Rome ~ Italy
A comparative analysis of the poetry of women in the twentieth century and in contemporary Italian literature shows a persistent focus on the sacred, in its various forms, with particular attention to Christian mysticism. Among the poets most interested in mysticism is undoubtedly Cristina Campo, who reworks it through Simone Weil's lense, to whom Maria Luisa Spaziani is also close. It is also worth mentioning the important work of theological mediation carried out by some translators such as Alessandra Capocaccia Quadri, who rendered the poetic works of San Juan de la Cruz into Italian, and Giovanna Fozzer, who devoted herself to translating The Mirror of Simple Souls by Marguerite Porete, ensuring its dissemination in important cultural centres, primarily in Florence. Yet women's interest is not confined to Christian mysticism, but takes many different forms. One need only consider Franca Bacchiega who, following several journeys to India, became very close to the Vedic tradition, which enhanced the intrinsic potential of her poetic words to also become images, or, in the extreme contemporary world, Chandra Livia Candiani, who, having approached Buddhist practice and embraced it to such an extent that she took its name, fully embodies, in her persona and her poetry, a line of Orientalism far removed from the contemptuous irony and superficiality of postmodern pastiche. Finally, another area of interest is Jewish theology, which has influenced other poets, including Antonella Anedda, who approached the thought of Rabbi Nachman of Breslov through the teachings of Giacoma Limentani, welcoming them into her work. This paper will provide a bird's-eye view of the intertextual presence of selected sacred texts in the poetry of some Italian female poets, focusing on emblematic case studies. In line with the conference's themes, it will also examine the role of women poets as conscious mediators of the sacred and interreligious dialogue.
ADRIANA ZARRI AND "THE HUMBLE THINGS OF DAILY LIFE"

Parmeggiani F. (Speaker)

Fordham University ~ New York, NY ~ United States of America
Literature offers a uniquely apt representational and experiential space for the individual's encounter with the self and God. In the early 1970s, Adriana Zarri (1919-2010) - an "atypical" theologian as Mariangela Maraviglia defines her in _Semplicemente una che vive_ (2020) or "the first woman in Italy who wrote about theology" as Zarri introduces herself half-jokingly in _Teologia del quotidiano_ (2012) - embarked on the "monastic path of a hermitic type" (_Teologia del quotidiano_). However, she remained a lay person and continued to write creatively and for newspapers and magazines. In this talk, drawing on her personal and fictional narrative - her diary from 1936-48 _La mia voce sa ancora di stelle_ (2023), her novel _Quaestio 1968_ (1994), her observations in _Un eremo non è un guscio di lumaca_ (2011), and her essays in _Teologia del quotidiano_ - I focus my attention on the themes of relationality (to God, nature and other humans), prayer, presence and acceptance, love and sexuality, the joy of being, and the bond between the poetic word and mystical experience, which recur in both her literary and theological writings. By reflecting on Zarri's original voice and interrogation of existence and nature, and the Christian God and tradition, I seek to investigate how literature discloses the subject that forms in the encounter with the absolute: what power differentials does it expose or affirm? what knowledge and agency of the subject - and of the female subject in particular - does it produce? Zarri's writing exemplifies a secular, complex feminist thought which is communicated across multiple genres and disciplines (theology, philosophy and literature), accommodates different choices of life and faith without excluding agnostic or atheistic positions, and articulates novel modes of knowledge, participation, ethical awareness and resilience in today's world.
WOMEN AND FRIENDSHIPS MEDIATED BY THE DIVINE: VITTORIA COLONNA'S TRIUMPH OF THE CROSS AND PETRARCH'S TRIUMPH OF ETERNITY

Faggioli S. (Speaker)

Villanova University ~ Philadelphia, Pennsylvania ~ United States of America
Vittoria Colonna's only poem in terza rima, Triumph of the Cross of Christ, is closely based on Francis Petrarch's Triumph of Eternity, the last of his six Triumphi on the themes of Love, Chastity, Death, Fame, Time, and Eternity. When we think of important authors who influenced Petrarch, Marcus Tullius Cicero immediately comes to mind, but St. Augustine of Hippo is equally vital. An Augustinian gave Petrarch a copy of Confessions that he carried with him everywhere. Like Cicero, Augustine studied rhetoric before converting to Christianity and embarking on a religious path. Augustine's Confessions and Cicero's De Amicitia are arguably the most influential works on Petrarch's Canzoniere and Triumphi. Both explore the importance of human relationships and true friendships, specifically those that mutually foster virtue and good will. By grounding Ciceronian friendship in God, Augustine renders it mutually salvific. For example, in the second chapter of the Triumph of Death, Petrarch's muse Laura reveals that she reciprocated the poet's feelings but remained distant to preserve their virtue and chastity. It is thanks to her guidance that Petrarch glimpses the beautiful vision of Eternity he writes about in the last triumph. This paper will show how the Augustinian concept of friendship clarifies Laura's salvific role in Petrarch's life and, by extension, the role of Colonna's husband, Ferrante d'Avalos, in her poetry. Augustine emphasizes the inter-relational nature of human experience; he encourages friendships mediated by the divine, seeing our relationship with God through the lens of friendship itself and the necessity of our dependence on one another to reach salvation. It is through this lens that I will examine Colonna's Triumph of the Cross beside Petrarch's Triumph of Eternity. I will also highlight the male-female aspect of these different friendships: Augustine and his mother Monica; Petrarch and his muse Laura; and Colonna and her husband (mio bel sol).
BETWEEN NEGATIVE THEOLOGY AND JUNGIAN PSYCHOLOGY: APOPHATICISM AND PSYCHIC POLYTHEISM IN GIORGIO MANGANELLI

Stefanese D. (Speaker)

Università "Gabriele d'Annunzio di Chieti-Pescara ~ Pescara ~ Italy
From his debut in Hilarotragoedia (1964) and already in the writings of the 1940s posthumously collected in Ti ucciderò mia capitale (2011), theological discourse in Giorgio Manganelli's work appears as a constitutive element of his creative universe rather than as a merely satirical repertoire. His private library confirms his interest in biblical theology, mysticism, apocrypha, and the history of religions (Francucci, 2018). Within a horizon marked by gnostic and apophatic motifs, this study approaches Manganelli's texts as a literary reworking of theological negativity. In his work, God appears as absent, deferred or reduced to a formal function; yet this withdrawal does not lead to contemplative silence. Instead, it generates a proliferation of gods, non-gods, pseudo-scriptures, infernal spaces and divine sanctuaries, in which divine and infernal hierarchies are disrupted and recomposed as unstable series. The comparison with Meister Eckhart is framed not in terms of influence but of structural correspondence. In Manganelli, what preserves transcendence in the apophatic tradition is reversed into a negativity that still generates sacred figures while emptying out their doctrinal foundation. This negativity is also inscribed in the body, a privileged site of theological reflection. In his prose, the body becomes a zone of transit between the organic and the numinous, bound to digestive and scatological dimensions where creation and decomposition tend to coincide (Paolone, 2002). Hillman's notion of psychic polytheism (Hillman, 1975) offers a further interpretive key. The collapse of the monotheistic God opens in Manganelli onto an inner pantheon, where divine figures no longer guarantee revelation but give symbolic form to psychic conflict. Manganelli thus transforms the crisis of transcendence into a mythology of psyche and body, turning literature into the place where apophaticism becomes both a subversion of sacred hierarchies and a form of embodied theology.
THE THIRD LANDSCAPE, SPIRITUALITY, AND MARGINALITY IN NOVELS BY COGNETTI, MELCHIORRE, AND PERA

Tallarini N. (Speaker)

Alpen Adria Universität ~ Klagenfurt ~ Austria
This paper explores how contemporary Italian literature reconfigures the experience of the sacred through marginal and reclaimed landscapes. Drawing on Gilles Clément's concept of the Third Landscape—spaces excluded from systems of control and exploitation—it investigates how mountains, rural environments, and gardens become sites where forms of lived spirituality emerge beyond institutional religious frameworks. Focusing on Paolo Cognetti's Le otto montagne (2016), Matteo Melchiorre's Il Duca (2013), and Pia Pera's Al giardino non l'ho ancora detto (2016), the analysis shows how these texts depict landscapes that resist normative hierarchies and foster processes of existential negotiation. In these settings, the interaction between human experience and environment generates forms of implicit, non-institutional theology, in which the sacred is encountered through solitude, memory, care, and the awareness of mortality. Adopting a perspective informed by environmental humanities, the paper argues that contemporary Italian narrative relocates religious meaning in spaces that challenge traditional theological authority. These marginal landscapes function as alternative sites of spiritual reflection, where individual experience interrogates dominant religious discourses and articulates new configurations of belonging, ethical responsibility, and the sacred in the modern world.

Panel description: In the contect of evolving forms of interdisciplinary research on religion and interreligious dialogue within shifting societal contexts, religions are increasingly involved in novel forms of encounters and alliance-building. These are forged, lived, and narrated in the public sphere - not only among religious traditions but also in encounters between religious and secular worlds. In this broader sense, "religion in dialogue" exceeds interreligious exchange and becomes an engagement with the secular, with other forms of knowledge, and with artistic and scientific practices. Against the backdrop of social, political, and epistemic (in)equalities, such dialogical constellations reveal both asymmetries of power and possibilities for transformation. The interplay between religious and secular worlds involves cooperation as well as conflict: alliances may emerge from shared experiences of marginalization, unequal recognition, or pressures to justify religion's place in contemporary societies. At the same time, religious traditions are internally diverse and marked by political, theological, and cultural divisions. New forms of dialogue therefore often do not take religion itself as the primary distinguishing feature but emerge around shared concerns and common struggles within religious-secular partnerships. Dialogue, understood not as a formal procedure but as a transformative practice that involves religious as well as non-religious dialogue partners, takes place under multiple pressures in need of closer examination. Within this framework, the panel brings together contributions from Natural Sciences and Ecology; the Arts; Abrahamic Dynamics: Dialogue between Islam, Christianity and Judaism; Politics and Gender; Critical Perspectives on Religion. Together, these perspectives aim to offer a nuanced understanding of how dialogue shapes contemporary interactions between religious and secular worlds.

Papers:

DIALOGUE AS A "WITNESS-NOTION" OF A CATASTROPHIC ERA

Polak R. (Speaker)

Professor, Department of Practical Theology, University of Vienna ~ Vienna ~ Austria
Since the turn of the millennium, 'dialogue' has become a key term across religious communities, politics, civil society, academia, and the arts. It is invested with considerable hopes for fostering mutual understanding, social cohesion, justice, peace, and humanity. Yet the accelerating global polarization, the rise of democratic fascism, and the proliferation of violence and war reveal both the urgency of dialogue and the fragility of the expectations placed upon it. As a programmatic witness-notion, the term "dialogue"—initially a diffuse buzzword—simultaneously testifies to fundamental anthropological, social, and political crises and claims to offer a pathway toward their resolution. However, in an age marked by political nihilism, shameless power politics, and widespread communicative incapacity, the limitations of this claim become starkly visible. This lecture examines the contemporary relevance of dialogue and clarifies its conceptual contours in distinction from discourse, debate, and discussion. Drawing on practical examples, it outlines several competing models of dialogue while identifying core features indispensable to any genuine dialogical practice: the capacity to listen, a shared commitment to seeking "truth," the recognition of difference, and a readiness for engagement and transformation. These elements, it is argued, are essential if dialogue is to resist becoming an empty ritual and instead realize its normative and ethical potential.
ABOVE US ONLY SKY?

Kerschbaum F. (Speaker)

Professor, Department of Astrophysics ~ Vienna ~ Austria
Celestial events have always been linked to earthly processes: whether as a cause, an omen, a symbol, or simply as a practical timekeeper. The inexplicable was interpreted religiously, while mundane earthly events were given meaning through "celestial" connotations. As an astronomer, Franz Kerschbaum reflects on the historically changeable and sometimes tense relationship between astronomy, worldview, and religion. - RELIGION IN DIALOGUE WITH NATURAL SCIENCES AND ECOLOGY -
›RELIGION IN DIALOGUE‹: STRETCHING ITS BOUNDARIES

Telser A. (Speaker)

Postdoc Assistant, Research Centre "Religion and Transformation in Contemporary Society", University of Vienna ~ Vienna ~ Austria
Religious people of any faith tradition can engage others of various convictions about a diverse range of issues that interests or troubles them. Using the word dialogue is commonly refrained to the interaction between humans who are gifted with a logos understood as reason, language, understanding, etc. It is through (dia) this logos that any sort of exchange is possible whether it is friendly and seeks understanding or dismissive and hostile. In our age, theology has become that seemingly impossible venture of holding together ›logos‹ and ›theos‹. To make things even more complicated, this undertaking rests upon the belief that being created in the ›image of God‹ can be acknowledged through (dia) this logos quality. Yet, if all of creation is ›run through‹ by God (John Scotus Eriugena), the gift of logos should in principle allow some form of dialogue with all of creation. Is it conceivable that the prevalence and beauty of the theological discourse on the ›Incarnation‹ of God in Jesus the Christ has cast an unintended and long-unnoticed shadow over the rest of creation (with some exceptions) while God is continually ›bursting forth‹ from all its pores (creatio continua)? This paper attempts to widen the concept of theological dialogue to include part of created reality that seems incapable of dialogue. The main argument rests on a ›complementary hermeneutic‹, as it is rudimentarily applied by R. Wall Kimmerer and the developing plant studies. It raises the question of whether the three elements demanded for interreligious dialogue, as proposed by David Tracy, can be applied analogously to first attempts at an ›intercreational‹ dialogue: »a self-respect (which includes, of course, respect for, even reverence for, one's own tradition or way); a self-exposure to the other as other; and a willingness to risk all in the questioning and inquiry that constitutes the dialogue itself.« - RELIGION IN DIALOGUE WITH NATURAL SCIENCES AND ECOLOGY -
THE UNGIVEN AS DIALOGICAL HORIZON: A PERFORMATIVE MODE OF THE AESTHETIC AND THE RELIGIOUS?

Call N. (Speaker)

PhD candidate, Research Centre "Religion and Transformation in Contemporary Society", University of Vienna ~ Vienna ~ Austria
In this lecture performance, the "ungiven" is conceived as an opening - a dialogical horizon of possibility. This opening is not understood as entry into a locatable space in which encounter takes place; rather, it names a non-localizable access to what remains unknown and potentially unsettling. It resembles the moment of taking a step without knowing what will carry it: an act that involves risk, exposure, and the possibility of opening up to something new. The paper asks whether such an opening can be understood and practiced as a performative mode. Performativity is conceived as a mode of enactment in which meaning emerges through the act itself. A performative act produces conditions under which something becomes operative without being fully given, determined, or conceptually graspable. In this sense, performativity is structurally bound to the ungiven: what remains indeterminate is not a deficit, but a constitutive element of the act. Both aesthetic and religious experiences are understood as performative insofar as they unfold through exposure, temporality, and risk, rather than through the possession of stable meanings. Drawing on Umberto Eco's concept of the opera aperta, aesthetic experience is approached as an open and relational process in which meaning remains provisional and contingent. This openness is intensified in performative practices, which - following Dieter Mersch - can be understood as events of showing that resist representational closure. The paper asks whether both aesthetic and religious experiences open dialogical spaces by suspending closure and exposing subjects to what cannot be fully given? Dialogue, in this sense, is not grounded in shared concepts or doctrinal agreement, but arises as an experiential mode of relating to indeterminacy. The ungiven thus functions as a dialogical horizon - a productive interval that enables encounter, transformation, and ongoing exchange without resolution. - RELIGION IN DIALOGUE WITH THE ARTS -
DIALOGUE BETWEEN ART AND RELIGION IN THE AGE OF THEIR AUTONOMY

Deibl J. (Speaker)

Associate Professor, Department of Systematic Theology and Ethics, University of Vienna ~ Vienna ~ Austria
In the modern era, different areas of knowledge have become increasingly distinct, each with its own specific logic and each demanding an understanding that recognizes its autonomy. The discussion about religion and art must also be situated within this discourse of autonomy. Failing to take the autonomy of religion and art seriously risks misunderstanding both fields in terms of their self-conception. However, considering art and religion in terms of their autonomy also poses challenges. How can the dialogue between religion and art be understood if both are presented as autonomous? Can there be a third to which they both refer? Do religion and art have resources to justify such a dialogue in and of themselves? Can the question of the dialogue between art and religion be answered theoretically, or must it be re-thought time and again with reference to specific works of art and concrete religious practices? - RELIGION IN DIALOGUE WITH THE ARTS -
ABRAHAMIC TRILATERAL INTERRELIGIOUS DIALOGUE: STRUGGLING BETWEEN NEOCOLONIALISM AND DECOLONIALISM

Brodeur P. (Speaker)

Professor, Department of Religious Studies, University of Montreal ~ Montreal ~ Canada
Dialogue is often described in opposition to debate. Yet, since 7-8 October 2023, serious internal debates within all four dialogues within the main Abrahamic trilateral family of dialogues (the trilateral Abrahamic dialogue, and the three bilateral : Jewish-Christian, Christian-Muslim, and Jewish-Muslim dialogues) have erupted, greatly pressuring prior dialogical relationships crafted often over years and decades of careful and already sensitive dialogues. The results over the last two and a half years have demonstrated both the fragility and resilience of various actors (both personally and organizationally/institutionally) involved in one or more of these four dialogues. This presentation seeks to present a typological overview of the complex responses to have emerged recently, based on an interdisciplinary theoretical approach as well as on a complementary double methodological approach using, first, a critical discourse analysis of texts published within the last two years or so on Abrahamic dynamics and, second, an ethnographical approach based on personal participant-observations of five different types of dialogical spaces: three in my own town of Montreal (Canada) and two in international academic conferences, in Vienna (Austria) and Rabat (Morocco). - ABRAHAMIC DYNAMICS -
READING ACROSS SCRIPTURES: AL-BIQĀʿĪ'S (D. 885/1480) ENGAGEMENT WITH THE BIBLE IN QURʾANIC COMMENTARY

Kurt T. (Speaker)

Associate Professor, Department of Islamic-Theological Studies, University of Vienna ~ Vienna ~ Austria
This paper investigates how encounters between Qurʾanic and Biblical texts were addressed within the discipline of tafsīr, taking the works of al-Biqāʿī as a case study. Rather than approaching these encounters as instances of interreligious dialogue in a modern sense, the study examines the internal mechanisms through which Abrahamic textual dynamics operated within Qurʾanic exegesis itself. The analysis focuses on al-Biqāʿī's Naẓm al-durar, a pioneering commentary that places semantic and structural coherence (tanāsub, munāsabāt) at the center of Qurʾanic interpretation. It explores how Biblical material is mobilized within this exegetical framework and how such material is differentiated from, yet positioned in relation to, isrāʾīliyyāt traditions. In order to clarify the epistemic and methodological conditions governing this practice, the paper also examines al-Biqāʿī's treatise al-Aqwāl al-qawīma, which addresses the permissibility of citing the Bible in Qurʾanic exegesis. Particular attention is given to the criteria regulating transmission, the classification of sources, and the differentiated treatment of Biblical corpora, including the New Testament. By analyzing these two works in conjunction, the paper highlights how Abrahamic textual interdependence functioned as an internally regulated exegetical practice embedded in the ʿulūm al-Qurʾān. The study thus contributes to a more precise understanding of how Qurʾanic exegesis managed scriptural proximity, distinction, and authority in the late medieval period. - ABRAHAMIC DYNAMICS -
'ECUMENISM OF HATE'? INTERDENOMINATIONAL COLLABORATIONS IN TRADITIONALIST YOUTH WORK AND ADULT EDUCATION IN AUSTRIA

Limacher K. (Speaker) [1] , Mattes-Zippenfenig A. (Speaker) [2]

Programme Manager of the "Vienna Doctoral School of Theology and Research on Religion", University of Vienna ~ Vienna ~ Austria [1] , Associate Professor, Department of Systematic Theology and Ethics, University of Vienna ~ Vienna ~ Austria [2]
The global Christian right is characterised by a shared traditionalist ideology and unexpected interdenominational networking among a wide variety of actors, as well as transnational links. They have found common strategies that collectively attack the liberal-democratic consensus, linking together the traditionalist spectrum of Catholic and Protestant mainline churches with evangelical, charismatic, and primarily politically engaged religious groups. They aim to change a society that is perceived as being overly egalitarian through various forms of activism. In Austria, youth work and adult education are key areas of activity in this regard. This paper highlights interdenominational networks and initiatives within private universities, adult education programmes and youth work. We investigate a specific form of interreligious dialogue often referred to as 'ecumenism of hate'. Recent research has described this as a particular configuration of traditionalist ideology, put forward by actors from different Christian denominations relying on strategies emphasising the building of global networks. Our aim is to contribute insights from the Austrian national context, exemplified in the field of educational activities outside of public schools, to the growing body of literature on the global Christian right. - RELIGION IN DIALOGUE WITH POLITICS AND GENDER -
SECULAR AND SPIRITUAL FEMINISTS: BUILDING ALLIANCES ACROSS EPISTEMOLOGICAL DIFFERENCES

Grenz S. (Speaker)

Associate Professor, Department of Education, University of Vienna ~ Vienna ~ Austria
In the past decades anti-feminist and anti-gender alliances were established by religious and secular actors. Religious anti-feminism and anti-genderism support the imagination that all religion and spirituality is reactionary in terms of gender constructions. In this lecture, I will look to the 'other' side of these political struggles and argue for an alliance building between secular and spiritual/religious feminists. I start my argument with insights into research of feminist religious studies scholars. Feminist religious research is also shaped by methodological dilemmas concerning the concept of 'lived religion' and the possibility of critique. In a second part, I will go back to research on spiritual feminists. I will exemplify how some of them deconstruct gender constructions. Feminists in my examples do so from a different epistemological basis that is neither material nor discursive but spiritual, which is challenging to secular/atheist feminists. In a third and last part, I will bring the different strands together and I argue that connections might be possible, nevertheless. - RELIGION IN DIALOGUE WITH POLITICS AND GENDER -
CRITIQUE AND DIVINE SOVEREIGNTY. THEOLOGY IN DIALOGUE ABOUT THE POLITICAL

Kuran D. (Speaker)

Postdoc Assistant, Department of Systematic Theology and Ethics, University of Vienna ~ Vienna ~ Austria
In political discourse religion is currently often reduced to a resource that can easily be instrumentalized by politicians of various political orientations. In extreme cases religion, deprived of critical theological self-reflection, is even abused by neo-integralist actors to delegitimize the secular state and liberal democracy. In order to become a subject rather than a resource of political discourse theology has to participate actively in a dialogue about the political. According to this hypothesis it is not sufficient for political theology to restrict itself to an ethical or a pre-political sphere. Rather theology should tackle influential works on the concept of the political (e.g. by Carl Schmitt) critically as well as with the deconstruction of the former (e.g. Derrida) and ask what theological categories can contribute to our understanding of the political while affirming the secular order and liberal democracy. In order to contribute to that I will 1) refer to recent political theologies that re-examine the concept of sovereignty, its theological relevance as well as its significance for the secular political sphere. 2) use a notion of critique (in the sense of krinein: distinguishing, separating) found in Walter Benjamin's thought to establish a critical potential of divine sovereignty which allows for a distinction between sovereignty and power. - RELIGION AND CRITIQUE -
WRITING THROUGH CAESURA: HÖLDERLIN AND DELEUZE'S DIALOGUE AS A CRITIQUE OF RELIGION

Fiorletta M. (Speaker)

PhD candidate, Research Centre "Religion and Transformation in Contemporary Society", University of Vienna ~ Vienna ~ Austria
This paper proposes a dialogue between the philosophies of Friedrich Hölderlin and Gilles Deleuze through the concept of caesura and argues that the caesura can be understood as a model for the critique of religion itself. Both thinkers, Hölderlin and Deleuze, can be read as offering philosophies of writing grounded in difference, interruption and transformation. Hölderlin's notion of Zäsur, introduced in the Remarks on Oedipus, plays a significant role in later philosophical debates, later taken up by Walter Benjamin and becoming central in Deleuze's Difference and Repetition as a way of thinking difference as event. Yet the meaning of the caesura diverges significantly between Hölderlin and Deleuze. In Deleuze, the caesura participates in a reconfiguration of philosophy after the "death of God", functioning as a break that liberates immanent difference. In Hölderlin, however, the caesura rethinks the relation between the divine and humanity not through its negation but through reversal and displacement. The caesura can be thus understood as a model for critique of religion itself: not as elimination or demystification, but as a shift in perspective that transforms the conditions of thought and writing. From this standpoint, philosophy of religion becomes a critical practice attentive to historical, political and textual discontinuities. - RELIGION AND CRITIQUE -

Panel description: The recent promotion of Cardinal Newman as Doctor of the Church calls for Catholic theology to rethink its position in the Church, the academy, and society. In the past, Catholic thought has proven to widen the scope of culture, sociality and the sciences. Contemporary Catholic theology, however, is as varied and polarised as many other academic disciplines and political spheres, and consequently, the Catholic intellectual tradition seems as scattered and diversified as many other public domains. What is the contribution a Catholic vision could make in analyses concerning contemporary challenges and questions? Which sources, principles, and styles of thought could it offer to present-day conversations and interventions on economics, politics, ecology, and technology? Which articulation of Catholic theology offers constructive ideas or a vision to shape an intellectual tradition capable of addressing current challenges and inequalities? Or is there a need for a new paradigm? This panel invites papers that examine how the concepts of 'catholic', understood in its dual sense as an articulation of the Catholic tradition and as a way of thinking wholeness, is experienced within diverse theologies, spiritualities, political formations and communities. Presenters are invited to reflect on this in relation to current issues and/or to specific Catholic views on values as sustainability, resilience, social cohesion or in reference to the overarching theme of this conference: (in)equality. We also welcome papers that seek to reformulate the plausibility potentials of theology in conversation with society and the sciences or a need to develop a new paradigm or impulse for the Catholic intellectual (theological) tradition. The panel is a collaboration of the Catholic Study Network (a network of and for Catholic University Leuven, Tilburg University and Radboud University), and the Toronto School of Theology.

Papers:

CATHOLIC AFFECTIVE MATERIALITIES: AI, DOUBLING AND THE CATHOLIC CHURCH

Napolitano V. (Speaker)

University of Toronto ~ Toronto ~ Canada
Catholicism has a very long and important reckoning with the affective potency of materialities, bodies, relics, forms, and flesh. From an anthropological point of view this paper reflects on how emerging positions of the Catholic Church on AI, on its dialogical yet 'dis-embodied' nature, presents important conundrums regarding questions of theodicy (where is the location and accountability of the sin/sinner?) and personhood (as (in)dividuality and its doubling). Catholicism has long been concerned with doubles, humanity as both fallen and divine image, Christ as both God and man, the Eucharist as both bread and body. Doubling is central to Catholic metaphysics. AI introduces a new form of such doubling: it is cast as our reflection (trained on our language, images, patterns) and yet also emerges as other, uncanny, exceeding us. This paper offers some political-theological reflections on the changing and re-envisioning of Catholic personhood since if Catholic social teaching sees AI as a new site of incarnation and rupture, we must also read these developments for their consequences for sovereignty, labor, migration, and the human body itself.
THE CRISIS OF THEOLOGY: THE CHALLENGES FOR CATHOLIC THOUGHT

Van Erp S. (Speaker)

KU Leuven ~ Leuven ~ Belgium
In recent years, theologians have, yet again, rung the alarm bell about the state of theology. This time, the concerns are not directly about the threat of the secular to the place of theology within the university. Authors as diverse as Alasdair MacIntyre, Miroslav Volf, and Hanna Reichel have pointed at an internal crisis of theology. With different motifs and each in their own way, they blame theologians for forgetting the core business of theology, being the critical and constructive reflection on the relationship between God and the world that is already there. This forgetfulness, they argue, has led to the fragmentation and polarization of theological method, and paradoxically to the decentering of theology; developments which are in themselves not fruitful grounds for the improvement of the field, let alone for convincing others that there is a role and task for theology in the contemporary university. For Catholic theology, this problem would seem even more pressing since Catholic self-understanding is rooted in one truth represented by one tradition, which at the same time integrates a variety of interpretations and traditions, resulting in a dynamic of continuity and renewal. The question is in which way this Catholic paradoxical 'and' informs theological method. This paper will present the challenges of the perceived internal crisis of theology for Catholic thought, and will propose a renewal of the Catholic intellectual tradition as a response.
RESONANT CATHOLICITY: THEOLOGY AS AN ARTICULATION OF THE UNAVAILABLE

Busti P. (Speaker)

Facultés Loyola Paris ~ Paris ~ France
In contemporary societies, subjects and communities increasingly find themselves exposed to forces that exceed human mastery, oscillating between violence and call, closure and openness. This situation is marked by a growing sensitivity to what Hartmut Rosa has described as resonance: a transformative relation to the world grounded not in control but in responsive openness. In a context of epistemic fragmentation and the disarticulation of shared truth, affectivity and narratives emerge as privileged sites of resistance and concordance, revealing unexpected forms of coherence. This paper argues that Catholic theology, while experiencing a crisis of intelligibility and institutional authority, stands at a kairos: it can rediscover its public relevance by rearticulating itself as a resonant discipline. Drawing on Rosa and engaging critically Michel de Certeau's diagnosis of the "misery of theology," it proposes to understand theology as an articulation of the unavailable (theos) within the rigor of logos. Such a theology does not seek to master the real but remains exposed to it, discerning and articulating the resonances that traverse history. This perspective allows Catholic theology to hold together two essential dimensions of catholicity: fidelity to singular revelation and openness to universal resonance. Grounded in the incarnation, theology appears as a practice of mediation between singularity and commonality, enabling a renewed public discourse rooted not in domination but in responsive participation. In this way, Catholic theology can contribute to contemporary debates by offering not a closed system of truths, but a grammar for inhabiting the world in a mode of resonance, responsibility, and hope.
AFTER POLARITY: UNITY AND MEDIATION IN THE THOUGHT OF MAURICE BLONDEL

Connelly W. (Speaker)

Institut Catholique de Paris ~ Paris ~ France
Contemporary Catholic thinking is becoming increasingly polarized. Some seek to restore unity through dogmatic affirmation and renewed appeals to authority, while others accept pluralization as an unavoidable condition of modern intellectual life. Both responses, however, risk overlooking a more fundamental question: what kind of unity Christian thought is meant to exhibit in the first place. This paper turns to the work of Maurice Blondel in order to reconsider that question. Writing at the turn of the twentieth century amid tensions surrounding modernity and Catholic intellectual life, Blondel sought neither to dissolve tradition into modern thought nor to secure it through external authority alone. His philosophy of action instead approaches Christian thought philosophically, beginning from the unity of life itself. Drawing especially on Une alliance contre nature, Le Problème de la philosophie catholique, and La Conception de l'ordre social, the paper examines how Blondel understands the sense of Christian unity within the real divisions that characterize human social life. For Blondel, the problem lies in the temptation to reduce the human and social order to either purely mechanical structures or purely abstract ideals. Against such reductions, Blondel describes social and intellectual life as an equilibrium in movement, where diverse elements—nature, intelligence, action, and spiritual aspiration—operate as a living system in concert with one another. In this light, the renewal of the Catholic intellectual tradition may not depend primarily on resolving contemporary tensions, but on understanding the mediating movement through which distinct realities remain both independent and in necessary solidarity. Blondel's reflections suggest that Christian thought can remain faithful to itself while engaging the plurality of our social and intellectual life—not by suppressing difference, but by respecting the integrity of the diverse dimensions of human life.
BETWEEN RIVALRIES: FRIENDSHIP'S CONSTRUCTIVE ROLE IN THE CATHOLIC TRADITION

Attridge M. (Speaker)

University of St. Michael's College ~ Toronto ~ Canada
The Catholic intellectual tradition has long been marked by debate, polarity, and division. Distinct philosophical schools—Antiochene and Alexandrian, for example—have produced differing approaches, and doctrinal disputes, such as the ninth‑century exchange between Radbertus and Ratramnus over the Eucharist, illustrate enduring tensions. At times the Roman Curia has been described as leaning toward figures like von Balthasar or Rahner, a bifurcation traced back through Bonaventure, Augustine, and Plato on one side and Aquinas and Aristotle on the other. Sixteenth‑century disputes between Jesuits and Dominicans over grace and free will nearly produced a schism, and more recently debates about whether the Second Vatican Council represents continuity or rupture with tradition have renewed tensions. Some conflicts are settled by popes or councils; others persist, giving the impression that argument and rivalry are intrinsic to Catholic theology and that one must choose the correct articulation. Without attempting to resolve these disputes, this paper turns to a frequently overlooked dimension of those divisions: friendship. Friendship, a transversal and interstitial category that crosses lines of division and inequality, is often taken for granted. Drawing on philosophical, theological, and recent historical research, the paper argues that greater attention to the constructive value of human relationships can enrich and complement these debates.
CONSPIRACY THINKING AND DEMOCRACY: A POLITICO-THEORETICAL READING IN THE LIGHT OF CATHOLIC SOCIAL TEACHING

Cavaliere M. (Speaker) [1] , Susha R. (Speaker) [2]

University of Salerno ~ Salerno ~ Italy [1] , University Saint Thomas Aquinas - Angelicum ~ Rome ~ Italy [2]
Contemporary scholarship identifies conspiracy thinking (CT) as a resilient yet contested phenomenon, often linked to populism, polarization, and anti-elitism, and capable of producing both corrosive effects on democratic quality and, at times, forms of critical vigilance toward power. In any case, CT significantly shapes political participation, public deliberation, and the collective orientation toward the common good. This paper examines its implications for democratic theory and practice through the interpretative lens of Catholic Social Teaching (CST), focusing on some of its core normative categories—truth, the common good, and prudence—to address a gap in the literature at the intersection of CST and political theory on conspiracism, introducing a form of comparative conceptual analysis between different conceptual systems. The central hypothesis is that conspiracism affects both the ontological foundations and the deontological commitments of liberal democracy, thereby influencing its capacity to pursue the common good. The study proposes that CST can serve as a coherent analytical framework which could fill the existing gap on this relation, offering a normatively grounded framework for understanding the phenomenon and its political consequences. Drawing on Gospel principles, magisterial documents, the Compendium of the CST, papal encyclicals, Thomistic thought, and interdisciplinary social science research, the project evaluates the impact of CT on democratic health by "reading the signs of the times" through CST. Specifically, the paper aims: (1- see ) to conceptualize CT in light of CST from a multidisciplinary perspective; (2 - judge) to assess its effects on the theory and practice of liberal democracy, particularly institutional legitimacy and civic norms; and (3 - act) to develope interpretative criteria for identifying the phenomenon and its distortions using the CST framework, fostering new ways of conflict management citizens-institutions.

Panel description: This panel explores the intersection of religion, right-wing populism, and democratic backsliding or authoritarianism. While much research has focused on the rise of populist radical right (PRR) parties and their religious dimensions, less attention has been paid to how religion is mobilized to support illiberal governance and undermine democratic norms. The panel invites comparative and empirical papers that analyze how religion understood as belief, authority, or civilizational identityis are used as a political tool in populist projects. Topics may include: the instrumentalization of religion in PRR discourse and governance; religious justifications for exclusionary or nationalist policies; alliances between religious institutions and populist regimes; the role of religion in gender politics, digital populism, and education; as well as resistance by religious or secular actors. Contributions should engage with concepts like civilizational populism, moral panic, and authoritarian populism, and assess the real-world policy outcomes in areas such as minority rights, immigration, and democratic resilience.

Papers:

THE SECOND COMING OF DONALD TRUMP: CHARISMATIC AND APOCALYPTIC POPULISM ON TRUTH SOCIAL

Nilsson Dehanas D. (Speaker)

King's College ~ London ~ United Kingdom
This paper investigates how spiritual memes on the social media platform Truth Social galvanized support for Donald Trump's 2024 presidential campaign. Although Truth Social has only about one percent the number of users of rival platform X, it remains important as Donald Trump's own platform where he posts frequently. This paper provides an overview of key categories in Trump's "spiritual" support base who are active on the platform, ranging from prophecy-oriented charismatic Christians to conspiracy believers. It discusses the subversive political importance of internet memes. It then provides a content analysis of 100 spiritual image posts on Truth Social from the height of the campaign, exploring their wider memetic significance. Many of these image posts portray Trump as an awe-inspiring divinely anointed leader. The main argument put forward is that Truth Social is a "charisma factory" in which Trump supporters perpetually work to renew his charismatic authority. Trump's charismatic status then grants him moral license in the eyes of these supporters to act as an apocalyptic figure who seeks vengeance. This paper, therefore, serves as an explanation for the particular roles Truth Social played in Trump's electoral success and in the legitimation of his apocalyptic—and prospectively violent—populism.
LEGITIMIZING AUTOCRATIC POLITICS WITH METAPHYSICS - RELIGION AND RADICAL RIGHT PARTIES IN A SECULARIZING EUROPEAN CONTEXT

Minkenberg M. (Speaker)

European University Viadrina ~ Frankfurt (Oder) ~ Germany
Many studies point out an increasing appropriation of religion by the radical right in liberal democracies, usually as part of their Islamophobic agendas. Such a view overlooks that religion is not simply appropriated, and Islam is not the only target. Religion can act as a more genuine driver of exclusionary politics, and it adds a particular sense of legitimacy to autocratic appeals that are anti-pluralistic and ultranationalist. This paper addresses the levels and processes of such instrumental appropriation along with the identification of more genuine religious elements in the radical right's strategic narratives. The focus here is primarily on what has been dubbed "Christian nationalism" or "Western civilizationalism". The major argument is that the uptake of Christian symbols and motifs by the radical right parties corresponds to a demand, in which Christian identity narratives are mixed with ultranationalist ideology, and that this demand is driven by processes of secularization, rapid cultural pluralization, and related changes in the party systems. More specifically, the paper wants to show in a case-oriented design that where secularization and/or pluralization have advanced and Christian Democracy or other religious parties have declined or become more secular, the radical right professes a growing para-Christian outlook, while higher levels of a population's religiosity feeds more genuine religious markers in radical right narratives, irrespective of how center-right parties perform.
THE STRUGGLE FOR FAMILY VALUES - BETWEEN RIGHT WING POPULISM AND RELUCTANT LIBERALISM

Ben-Porat G. (Speaker)

Ben-Gurion University ~ Negev ~ Israel
"Family values" have become part of right-wing populist discourse and agenda, defending against what is described as an encroachment of the traditional family. The traditional family, perceived essential to moral order, political stability and economic well-being is to be defended against liberal ideas that support freedom of choice and the right to non-traditional families and lifestyles. These demands, however, face a reality of growing secularization reflected, among other things, in support for LGBTQ or growing rates of divorce, also among supporters of right-wing populism. In Israel, as this paper demonstrates, this contradiction produces an odd form of liberalism. On the one hand, growing tolerance towards non-traditional families among the (Jewish) in-group, and on the other hand, intolerance towards out-groups (Arab citizens or asylum-seekers). While this development appears to divide the right-wing populist camp it also challenges traditional concepts of universal liberalism.
SACRALIZING THE STATE: ETHNO-RELIGIOUS MINORITIES AS BAROMETERS OF AUTOCRATIC DRIFT

Madera A. (Speaker)

University of Messina ~ Messina ~ Italy
This paper aims to analyze the fragile status of religious and ethno-religious minorities in the European landscape within the framework of rising right-wing populism and democratic erosion. As populist actors increasingly mobilize religious symbols and "civilizational identity" to build a religiously inspired national identity,"minorities are frequently otherized or framed as existential threats to national sovereignty. This study explores how the instrumentalization of a mainstream faith by hybrid regimes accellerates the backsliding of pluralism and the curtailment of minority rights through both legislative restrictions and exclusionary policies. Using a comparative framework—with a focus on contemporary developments in Hungary, Italy, France, and Ukraine, the paper investigates how populist-authoritarian agendas take advantage of law-and-order rhetoric to justify the surveillance and marginalization of minority groups. By examining the nexus between faith and ethnic identity, the study contributes to our understanding of how the redefinition of the public sphere through the logics of exclusion weakens democratic resilience. Finally, it argues that the treatment of religious minorities serves as a critical compass to map the trayectory of states from a merely illiberal democracy to instituzionalized authoritarianism.
RELIGION AS SYMBOLIC RESOURCE IN POPULIST RADICAL RIGHT NARRATIVES: A SOCIO-CULTURAL APPROACH

Papastathis K. (Speaker) , Koskina S. (Speaker) , Stavrakakis Y. (Speaker) , Mitralexis S. (Speaker)

Aristotle University of Thessaloniki ~ Thessaloniki ~ Greece
This paper examines the evolving role of religion in the discourse and political strategy of six European populist radical right (PRR) parties- Fratelli d'Italia, VOX, Alternative für Deutschland, Fidesz, the Slovak National Party, and the Sweden Democrats- between 2019 and 2024. Drawing on Pierre Ostiguy's socio-cultural approach, the analysis argues that religion operates primarily as a cultural, symbolic, and performative resource rather than as a coherent theological or civilizational framework, supporting that these parties do not fit either the civilizationist or the devout and conservative model. Christian references are mobilized to demarcate boundaries between a morally "authentic" people and secular, cosmopolitan, or Europeanized elites, while simultaneously functioning as a marker of national identity, traditional values, and social order. Across cases, religious symbolism is increasingly intertwined with narratives of traditionalism, sovereignty, and Euroscepticism, reinforcing affective appeals to belonging, grievance, and moral decline. Rather than articulating substantive religious worldviews, PRR actors deploy Christianity as a flexible repertoire of signs, rituals, and moral cues that enhance claims of cultural continuity and popular authenticity. By comparing party-specific trajectories, the study contributes to debates on religion and populism by showing how religious language and symbolism are reconfigured within contemporary PRR politics to serve boundary-making, polarization, and identity construction, without entailing a fully developed religious or civilizationist project. The findings highlight the importance of performativity, affect, and symbolic politics in understanding the contemporary entanglement of religion, nationalism, and PRR mobilization in Europe.
THE MORALIST INTERNATIONAL IN TIMES OF WAR: RUPTURES AND CONTINUITIES IN RUSSIA'S TRADITIONAL VALUES AGENDA

Stoeckl K. (Speaker) [1] , Uzlaner D. (Speaker) [2]

LUISS ~ Roma ~ Italy [1] , Freie Universitaet ~ Berlin ~ Germany [2]
This presentation examines the evolution of Russia's traditional values agenda in the context of the Russia-Ukraine war, focusing on its domestic radicalization and international projection through the Russian Orthodox Church. Domestically, the agenda has fostered repressive policies and an ideological framing of societal challenges, deflecting blame onto Western influences and internal "foreign agents." Internationally, the war has disrupted Russia's ties with Western conservative networks but strengthened its appeal in the global South. As Russia pretends to develop a global counter-model to Western liberal democracy, it wants to be recognized as the leader of what we call the "Moralist International," a transnational network of actors united by conservative values. The analysis highlights the paradoxical reliance of Russia's anti-Western rhetoric on Western conservative ideas, revealing a fragile ideological foundation.
SACRALIZING POWER: RELIGION AND POPULIST RULE IN TURKEY, INDIA, AND HUNGARY

Tepe S. (Speaker)

University of Illinois ~ Chicago ~ United States of America
How do populist leaders operating in sharply different historical, institutional, and cultural contexts deploy religion in politics? Do their strategies share common features and yield comparable political effects? Why do electorates often tolerate—rather than resist—restrictions on rights and institutional checks under populist leaders? Focusing on Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Narendra Modi, and Viktor Orbán, this paper analyzes how religion functions not primarily as belief or identity, but as a symbolic political resource to signal various policies, from refugee acceptance to interest rates. Drawing on a systematic analysis of political discourse, key legislative interventions, and symbolic politics between 2010 and 2026, the study traces how religious narratives are mobilized in debates in select areas, including media regulation, refugee governance, and development policy, to form different coalitions. The comparison shows that by sacralizing the nation, populist leaders recast political conflict as a moral struggle between a virtuous majority and allegedly corrupt, secular, or civilizationally alien opponents. Comparing key speeches and legislative actions, the analysis illustrates how Erdoğan, Modi, and Orban normalize exclusion and legitimise authoritarian practices as necessary responses while eroding electoral legitimacy.
COPY, PASTE, AND CHANGE. A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF EUROPEAN AND JAPANESE POPULISM

Ozzano L. (Speaker) [1] , Bolzonar F. (Speaker) [2]

University of Turin ~ Torino ~ Italy [1] , Waseda University ~ Tokyo ~ Japan [2]
Populism has become a global political phenomenon, spreading across continents. Despite growing scholarship on populist movements, how populist demands are articulated within different political and institutional contexts remains understudied. This paper employs a functional and comparative analysis to examine contemporary European and Japanese populisms, using the European experience as an ideal-type countercase to show how populist pressures (demand-side) are amplified, fragmented, or absorbed within political institutions (supply-side). European and Japanese populism are comparable in key respects: both are wealthy societies with weak economic growth, aging populations, rising migratory flows, and growing distrust toward mainstream actors, with fringe parties blaming institutions for social and economic challenges. In many European countries, populist movements act as polarizing forces, seeking electoral gains and challenging mainstream parties. In Japan, by contrast, populism is more fragmented and largely absorbed by the dominant party system: demands expressed by the Japan Innovation Party and, more recently, Sanseito, are integrated into the hegemonic Liberal Democratic Party. Even when populist demands are similar, political-institutional settings determine divergent outcomes, highlighting the decisive role of institutions. Drawing on party platforms, legislative behavior, and policy outcomes, the paper traces how populist demands are channeled, contained, or amplified.
RELIGION AND AUTHORITARIAN ATTITUDES IN TODAY'S BALKANS

Olson L. (Speaker) [1] , Vekovic M. (Speaker) [2] , Zrinšcak S. (Speaker) [3]

Texas Christian University ~ Fort Worth, Texas ~ United States of America [1] , University of Belgrade ~ Belgrade ~ Serbia [2] , University of Zagreb ~ Zagreb ~ Croatia [3]
During Josip Broz Tito's long 20th-century rule, Yugoslavs grew accustomed to life under an authoritarian leader. Tito's death created a vacuum that contributed to Yugoslavia's violent breakup, and the successor Balkan states then adopted their own authoritarian leaders. Today, Serbia is governed by authoritarian president Aleksandar Vučić, who faces strong protests. Bosnia and Herzegovina has a decentralized system, but authoritarian tendencies remain strong. Croatia is an EU-member democracy yet struggles with corruption. While circumstances differ across countries, historical and cultural factors continue to support authoritarianism in the former Yugoslavia. Although religious participation in the Balkans is low, national identity remains closely linked to religious affiliation. Religious differences did not cause the 1990s wars but helped intensify them. Religion remains contentious today—for instance, Serbia's claim to Kosovo is partly rooted in major Serbian Orthodox sites there. We conducted an original survey in Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Croatia on religion and political attitudes. It includes questions measuring sympathy for authoritarian rule, allowing us to examine whether religious differences explain such attitudes in the region today. The battery mixes direct items (e.g., agreement that "Under some circumstances, an authoritarian government and strong leadership may be preferable to democratic ones") with subtler ones (e.g., "Our leaders know what is best for us" and "It is necessary to use force against people who are a threat to authority"). We will analyze how religious affiliation and practice relate to support for authoritarianism in this key European region.
GENDERED AND RELIGIOUS DIMENSIONS OF DEMOCRATIC BACKSLIDING IN FAR-RIGHT POPULISM

Karagiannopoulou C. (Speaker) [1] , Papageorgiou N. (Speaker) [2]

Panteion University ~ Athens ~ Greece [1] , Aristotle University of Thessaloniki ~ Thessaloniki ~ Greece [2]
This paper offers an intersectional analysis of the entanglements between gender and religion within far-right populist discourse in Greece, with particular attention to the ways religious narratives, symbols, and moral claims are mobilized in contemporary political contestation. It examines how gender and religion operate not merely as cultural references but as strategic political instruments within populist projects, arguing that dividing mechanisms and the discursive constructions that sustain them are profoundly gendered and frequently legitimated through religiously framed justifications. Drawing on the ideational approach to radical right populism developed by Mudde (2007, 2014) and Pirro (2015), the study analyzes parliamentary debates surrounding two critical legislative moments: the ratification of the Istanbul Convention in 2018 and the legalization of same-sex marriage in 2024. Employing Reinfeldt's (2000) concept of the "ideological square," the analysis explores how far-right populist actors construct moral and political boundaries by framing particular social groups, gender identities, and normative visions of family and nation as existential "threats." Special emphasis is placed on the role of gendered and religious discourse in shaping these boundary-making processes. Through a feminist critical content analysis of parliamentary speech, the paper deconstructs gendered and religiously infused representations articulated within the Greek Parliament. It aims to illuminate the discursive sites where gender and religion intersect and to demonstrate how religiously grounded moral arguments are deployed to legitimize the dividing lines between people, normalize hierarchical gender orders, and contribute to processes associated with democratic backsliding.
HEGEMONY AT STAKE: POPULIST POLITICS OF RELIGION IN FINLAND

Palonen E. (Speaker)

University of Helsinki ~ Helsinki ~ Finland
To address the entanglement of populism and religion in Finland (and outside Finland), we propose to study it through hegemony rather than through party politics. We explore populism from an anti-essentialist and heuristic perspective, where populist politics take a particular form (c.f. Palonen 2020). On this view, the contents of politics can change rapidly, and movements can fluidly adopt different religious perspectives, thus generating a polarising logic (c.f. Palonen 2025), and culture-war argumentation. We argue that this Gramscian-Althusserian account of hegemony will be particularly fruitful in analyzing the entanglement of the contemporary far-right and populist politics with religion in Finland. Even while the religious membership has been steadily decreasing, 61 percent of the population were members of the Evangelic Lutheran Church in Finland (ELCF) at the end of 2024. The attendance in religious service is low. Church has an important role in public life and members of the ELCF take roles in the society and many are active in politics in several parties. The discourse of homeland, belief and patriotism have dominated politics on the right - and the Lutheran church was very important for the war effort in WWII. Since the 1960s and 1970s inclusivity and diversity became key popular demands. ELCF has had female pastors from 1988 onward, and in 2010 the first female bishop was elected. However, the female ministry and LGTBQI+ issues have polarized members of the church, so that some members of Lutheran church some take part in the revival movements that exist inside the Lutheran church as minority groups. The movements have traditionally formed their own public sphere, and also formed stricter communities of control. Currently far-right and culture war argumentation has been spreading in these groups. In more explicit terms, some Finnish politicians have also been engaging with the global, networked Transnational New Right, such as the Trump regime.
FROM DOOMSDAY TO RE-CREATION: A THEOLOGICAL ANALYSIS OF APOCALYPTIC DYNAMICS IN RIGHT-WING POPULISM AND AFFECTIVE POLARIZATION

Salcido J.R. (Speaker)

Vrije Universiteit ~ Amsterdam ~ Netherlands
This paper examines the apocalyptic dynamics of right-wing populist rhetoric in Western societies in the context of affective polarization. Populist leaders increasingly deploy messianic language, civilizational war narratives, and crisis-driven appeals that frame political opponents as existential threats. Such rhetorical strategies intensify emotional and ideological divisions, producing what may be described as a 'double hate' dynamic: hostility projected outward and antagonism reciprocated in return. To interpret this phenomenon theologically, the paper builds on Daniel Nilsson DeHanas's conception of populism as a spiritual phenomenon, arguing that its apocalyptic rhetoric functions as a quasi-theological structure of meaning. It explores how such rhetoric appropriates religious forms, including sacramentality, charismatic authority, and redemptive as well as eschatological imaginaries, in order to sacralize political conflict and legitimize exclusionary narratives. In response, the paper engages the Augustinian understanding of the eschaton alongside Reformational theology, particularly the theme of re-creation, to articulate an alternative eschatological vision. Reimagining Christian eschatology through the dialectic of creation and re-creation offers a constructive public theological framework for resisting polarization and sustaining faithful Christian witness amid concerns about democratic decline in Western contexts. The analysis also considers how apocalyptic political framing shapes public discourse surrounding minority rights, immigration, and democratic legitimacy. By foregrounding the apocalyptic dimensions of populism, this study contributes to ongoing debates on the religious foundations of nationalism and advances a theological critique of contemporary political myth.
INTERPRETATIONS OF HISTORY IN CONTEMPORARY GERMAN-SPEAKING LEGAL PROTESTANTISM

Glatzel M. (Speaker)

Friedrich-Schiller-Universität ~ Jena ~ Germany
This paper examines historical narratives within contemporary right-wing Protestantism in Germany. Actors associated with the New Right attempt to reinterpret Christian theology and church history in order to legitimize nationalist and anti-liberal political positions. Figures such as Karlheinz Weißmann and Benjamin Hasselhorn play a central role in this discourse. Both argue that Protestantism has undergone a 'godless decline' since 1945, allegedly caused by liberalization, democratization, and the political engagement of the churches. Their argument relies on a revisionist reading of history. National Protestant traditions of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries are portrayed as fundamentally independent from National Socialism, while the post-war reorientation of the Protestant churches - especially the Stuttgarter Schulderklärung - is interpreted as the result of external pressure from the Allies. In this narrative, the churches' turn toward democracy, human rights, and social engagement appears as a betrayal of an allegedly authentic Protestant and "Prussian" tradition. The paper argues that such interpretations are part of a broader strategy of historical revisionism within the New Right. By constructing a tradition that separates conservative Protestantism from the crimes of National Socialism, these authors enable a narrative of decline in which the liberal transformation of the churches becomes the cause of their alleged crisis. These reinterpretations do not remain confined to academic debates but influence contemporary political discourse, for example in church-critical statements by the German far-right party AfD. A critical examination of these narratives shows that they rely on selective readings, omissions, and distortions of historical evidence. The paper therefore argues that confronting such revisionist interpretations is essential for understanding the contemporary intersection of right-wing ideology and Christian theology.
ISLAMIC INFRASTRUCTURES OF POPULIST MOBILIZATION IN TURKEY

Kocamaner H. (Speaker)

University of North Carolina Wilmington ~ Wilmington ~ United States of America
Turkish mosques are staffed by state-appointed imams and callers to prayer whose practices are regulated through a complex bureaucratic network operating on an internet-based data-management and communication infrastructure. A centralized mosque loudspeaker network enables the broadcast of calls to prayer and other Islamic recitations across the country. During an attempted takeover, as coup plotters moved to seize major infrastructural arteries and telecommunications, the conservative government responded with an unprecedented deployment of government-run mosques and their centralized loudspeaker system. By broadcasting an Islamic recitation known as the salâ nationwide, this audible infrastructure helped mobilize certain members of the religious majority against the attempted takeover, generating pious affects and cultivating religiously inflected nationalist sentiments through a shared, sensate experience. Embedded within broader technical and administrative assemblages, Turkey's centralized mosque loudspeaker network demonstrates how religion is entwined with infrastructure and state power and illuminates the making of technologically mediated institutional modes of religious governance in the contemporary era. In anthropology, infrastructure is often conceptualized as a "secular" techno-political domain. The political deployment of an Islamic recitation through a centralized loudspeaker network, however, problematizes the presumed secularity of infrastructure and suggests that religious institutions, their technical systems, and even religious recitations can be enlisted as infrastructures for mass mobilization by an incumbent regime.

Panel description: Artificial intelligence (AI) is increasingly encountered not only as a technical tool but as a conversational and social presence—one that people interpret, trust, resist, or rely on in shaping how they learn, decide, relate, and make meaning. This panel focuses on perception and interpretation: how individuals and communities experience AI's agency, limits, authority, and bias, and how these perceptions reshape epistemic security, moral responsibility, and everyday as well as institutional practices. It builds an interdisciplinary dialogue among theology and religious studies, philosophy, anthropology, ethics, psychology, and education. Within this horizon, the panel foregrounds religious and theological dimensions of AI's growing influence: its impact on spiritual practice and discernment, religious formation and catechesis, and contemporary imaginaries of transcendence, the divine, and human dignity. It also examines how interaction with AI reconfigures empathy and emotional attachment—especially when AI is experienced as advisor, companion, or substitute for human presence—and how such experiences may alter relationships, vulnerability, and accountability. Overall, the panel investigates how AI is perceived and narrated in ways that co-shape contemporary understandings of the human person, community, and God.

Papers:

EDUCATION IN THE DIGITAL AGE: THE "MIRROR" CHARACTER OF AI, TECHNO-MORAL VIRTUES, AND MORAL UPSKILLING AND DESKILLING

Žalec B. (Speaker)

University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Theology ~ Ljubljana ~ Slovenia
The speaker develops a normative framework for education in the digital age grounded in the philosophy of technology. The main points are as follows. First, the "mirror" character of contemporary artificial intelligence (AI) does not introduce a new moral authority; rather, it reflects and at the same time refracts (filters, amplifies, distorts) existing human habits, attitudes, prejudices, and aspirations. This calls for education to consciously shape practices of interpretation, recognition, and the delimitation or limitation of these "mirror" effects. Second, an analysis of moral deskilling and moral upskilling shows that different modes of technology use simultaneously undermine and enable the development of moral skills. The task of education is to harness these dynamics for the cultivation of techno-moral virtues. Third, the speaker offers a catalog-like yet dynamic vision of virtues for the 21st century (e.g., prudence, courage, justice, truthfulness, patience, temperance, honesty), which he operationalizes for curricular decisions, assessment, and rules governing the use of AI in teaching. He concludes with seven criteria for the responsible use of AI in education and with a model of how the mirror character of AI can be used as a didactic opportunity for reflection, dialogue, and the strengthening of human practical wisdom.
AI AND THE CLASSICAL UNDERSTANDING OF THE HUMAN BEING

Zichy M. (Speaker)

University of Bonn, Faculty of Catholic Theology ~ Bonn ~ Germany
This paper examines how artificial intelligence challenges and reframes the traditional Western conception of the human being. Beginning with the anthropological foundations articulated by Plato and Aristotle, it reconstructs the central elements of this tradition: human rationality, embodiment, affectivity, sociality, and the intrinsic orientation toward truth, goodness, and beauty. On this basis, the paper discusses three interpretive frameworks for understanding AI in relation to these categories. First, AI can be conceived as an optimized or perfected form of humanity, a transhumanist continuation of the Enlightenment ideal of rational self-improvement. Second, posthumanist perspectives interpret AI as a fundamentally different form of existence that could ultimately supersede the human. Third, and most convincingly from a classical perspective, AI is understood as a tool—powerful yet lacking intrinsic telos, normative orientation, embodied experience, or the capacity for eudaimonia. The paper concludes that AI's limitations help to clarify what remains uniquely and irreducibly human.
THE ETHICS OF CARE AS A FOUNDATION FOR EDUCATION IN THE AGE OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

Vodicar J. (Speaker)

University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Theology ~ Ljubljana ~ Slovenia
In the age of artificial intelligence, individuals who have little influence over technological development—most notably young people—are increasingly placed in the position of objects rather than subjects. Competitiveness is embedded at the core of artificial intelligence development, a dynamic that many contemporary thinkers identify as the culmination of broader trajectories within modern society. Educational approaches that are limited to, or primarily oriented toward, preparing individuals for competitive entry into the labor market fail to contribute to the formation of a more humane and empathetic society. As a consequence, young people are becoming increasingly apathetic and are experiencing growing levels of psychological distress. This article addresses education—and catechesis in particular—as a response that can foster hope and contribute to the development of inner strength in both individuals and communities. Its pedagogical framework is drawn from the ethics of care, which is grounded in the fundamental anthropological assumption of original human concern understood as responsibility for the other. These principles are brought into dialogue with key challenges faced by contemporary individuals within digital culture. The core characteristics of an educational approach based on dialogical relationships, attentiveness to learners' concrete needs, and the formation of a responsible community are applied as guiding principles for catechesis. Such an approach aims to enhance resilience against technocratism and apathy. Care-based catechesis, as argued here, is consistent with the Church's magisterial teaching and with the Christian tradition's understanding of the human person.
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE IN EDUCATION: HUMAN FORMATION IN THE AGE OF ALGORETICS

Kraner D. (Speaker)

University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Theology ~ Ljubljana ~ Slovenia
Artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming the educational environment and offering broad opportunities for personalization, adaptive feedback, and effective assessment. Furthermore, the impact of AI on education extends far beyond technological efficiency: it raises questions about the meaning of humanity, ethics and values in a digital society, the principles of fairness, responsibility, transparency and respect for human dignity. This article considers education as a space where AI should serve the formation of the person, not merely the information of the individual. This raises concerns about the disappearance of human relationships, critical thinking, and ethical awareness in learning environments. The pedagogical potential of artificial intelligence is best realized when it is used as a complement (rather than a replacement) to "human teachers," supporting hybrid models that combine algorithmic precision with emotional intelligence. Emerging frameworks emphasize the need for teachers and students to understand artificial intelligence, as well as ethical guidelines that ensure transparency and fairness in algorithmic decision-making. The use of AI in the pedagogical process must be based on a human-centered model, where technology does not replace the teacher but supports their relationship with the student. The article proposes Benanti's model of "pedagogical algoretics," which combines digital literacy, ethical sensitivity, and spiritual intelligence, and explores how AI can contribute to education for responsibility, dialogue, and compassion in contemporary educational practice.
HUMAN-AI EMOTIONAL INTERACTION: EMPATHY, EMOTIONAL BONDS, AND INTERPERSONAL RELATIONSHIPS

Simonic B. (Speaker)

University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Theology ~ Ljubljana ~ Slovenia
The paper examines the impact of interaction with artificial intelligence-based user interfaces on the experience of empathy, the formation of emotional connections, and the transformation of interpersonal relationships. It begins with the observation that artificial intelligence (AI) is increasingly acting as a conversation partner, advisor, or even a substitute for human presence, particularly in contexts of loneliness, emotional distress, and vulnerability. The analysis focuses on the affective and emotional dimensions of human-AI interaction: how users experience the empathy of algorithmic systems, the extent to which AI promotes or inhibits the ability to empathise with others, and how one-way or seemingly mutual emotional bonds with non-human interlocutors are formed. Particular attention is given to whether AI serves as a complement to human relationships, a substitute for them, or contributes to withdrawal from more demanding interpersonal interactions. The paper also critically examines the existential and ethical dimensions of such relationships: feelings of security, control, and trust in interactions with algorithms, and the risks of redefining the concepts of empathy, closeness, and responsibility.
TECHNOLOGY, RELATIONALITY, AND DIVINE ORIGIN: FROM SCRIPTURE TO ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

Centa Strahovnik M. (Speaker)

University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Theology ~ Ljubljana ~ Slovenia
Looking at the Bible from the perspective of specific forms of technology described in it, one can approach this domain utilizing a relational framework. Three central relationships can be discerned, namely God's orientation towards technology, people's engagement with technology, and the role of technology within the relationship between God and humanity. All these can be useful when framing ethical and theological questions about current technologies, including artificial intelligence (AI). In this talk, I will examine the aforementioned relationships from the perspective of the distinction between something being begotten or born and something being made, as embedded in early Christian thought. In conclusion, I will draw some consequences of this for our perception of new technologies, including AI.
FROM ARTIFICIAL COMPANIONSHIP TO RELATIONAL EROSION: AI, EMOTIONAL ATTACHMENT, AND THE CRISIS OF HUMAN CONNECTION

Machidon O. (Speaker)

University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Comuter and Information Science ~ Ljubljana ~ Slovenia
Recent advances in conversational artificial intelligence have enabled forms of interaction that simulate empathy, emotional attunement, and personal understanding with unprecedented effectiveness. While these systems are often presented as tools for support, companionship, or even care, emerging empirical research suggests that frequent and emotionally significant interaction with AI may contribute to increased loneliness, reduced empathy, and the weakening of human relational capacities. This contribution examines the growing phenomenon of emotional attachment to AI through an interdisciplinary lens, combining insights from cognitive science, psychology, philosophy, and theological anthropology. Drawing on recent studies on AI-mediated persuasion, artificial companionship, and emotional dependence, the contribution argues that AI "cleans up" the inherent messiness of human relationships—conflict, vulnerability, and mutual recognition—in ways that risk flattening intimacy rather than fostering it. From an anthropological and ethical perspective, this raises fundamental questions about relationality, moral growth, and the human need for reciprocal recognition. The contribution concludes by suggesting that theological and philosophical accounts of personhood and relation can offer critical resources for assessing the promises and dangers of AI-mediated emotional support, and for rearticulating the value of authentic human presence in the age of algorithms.
WHO SPEAKS OR WHAT SPEAKS? AI AS A CONVERSATIONAL PARTNER

Klun B. (Speaker)

University of Ljubljana ~ Ljubljana ~ Slovenia
Artificial intelligence is increasingly encountered not merely as a technical tool for information retrieval or task performance, but as an entity that converses with human users. AI-based large language models are now presented as coaches, therapists, and companions of various kinds, and new devices are being developed to accompany particular groups—such as elderly people—in order to alleviate loneliness and compensate for the absence of human relationships. Regardless of how one evaluates these developments, they raise a fundamental philosophical question concerning the status of digital conversational partners. Traditionally, the verb "to speak" is attributed to a who rather than to a what. Does this distinction still hold when we say that "AI speaks"? One may argue that AI does not genuinely speak, but merely combines and rearranges words and phrases originally spoken by human beings and incorporated into its training data. From this perspective, the uniqueness of human speech can be preserved: a who speaks, whereas the device itself - the what - "speaks" only in a metaphorical sense.
ACCELERATED AI AND DIGITALIZATION: CRITICAL ECOTHEOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVES

Furlan Štante N. (Speaker)

The Science and Research Centre Koper, Institute for Philosophical and Religious Studies ~ Koper ~ Slovenia
The accelerated adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) and digital technologies is transforming both society and ecosystems. While digitalization is often promoted as a tool for sustainability, critics point to its significant environmental footprint, including energy-intensive data centers, rare resource extraction, and electronic waste. Noreen Herzfeld (2025) emphasizes that AI and digital infrastructures are not ethically neutral: their design, deployment, and scale have profound ecological consequences that require careful scrutiny. This paper explores how ecotheology can serve as a critical lens for analyzing these developments. Drawing on Herzfeld's insights and relevant papal documents - Laudato si' (2015), Antiqua et nova (2025), and Pope Francis's 2024 World Day of Peace message - the paper argues that ethical and spiritual reflection is essential for evaluating the ecological implications of AI and digitalization. Laudato si' provides a framework of integral ecology, emphasizing the interconnectedness of technological progress, environmental responsibility, and human well-being. Antiqua et nova highlights AI's dual potential: it can support sustainability efforts but also imposes significant environmental costs. By integrating ecotheological critique with technological analysis, the paper moves beyond polarized narratives - whether digitalization destroys or saves the planet - toward a nuanced understanding that considers relational, ethical, and ecological responsibilities. Ecotheology offers normative criteria and reflective tools to guide sustainable AI practices, fostering alignment between technological innovation and care for creation. Ultimately, this approach underscores the indispensable role of ethical discernment in shaping a digital future that genuinely supports ecological sustainability.
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE - BETWEEN THE EMPOWERMENT AND THE THREAT TO HUMAN AUTONOMY

Globokar R. (Speaker)

University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Theology ~ Ljubljana ~ Slovenia
Human beings have always strived to expand their capabilities through technology, thereby increasing their freedom and autonomy. The Enlightenment ideal of liberating humanity from the constraints of nature takes on a new dimension in the age of artificial intelligence (AI). But a fundamental question arises: will AI lead us toward greater personal freedom, or will its development gradually result in a new form of dependence on systems we no longer fully understand or control? This contribution presents arguments supporting the thesis that AI can enhance individual autonomy: access to knowledge becomes faster and more equal, routine tasks are delegated to machines, allowing for more time for creativity; decision-making processes can become more inclusive, and global communication is facilitated through real-time translation across languages. On the other hand, we will also highlight critical perspectives that warn against the dangers of mass manipulation, the decline of critical thinking, increased surveillance of individuals, the weakening of interpersonal relationships, and growing technological dependency. This contribution will reflect on the tension between these opposing dynamics and explore their implications for the ethical understanding of human freedom in a digital age.
PERCEPTIONS OF AI IN CLINICAL DECISION-MAKING: ANSWERABILITY AND DEFERENCE

Miklavcic J. (Speaker)

University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Theology ~ Ljubljana ~ Slovenia
As artificial intelligence becomes routine in clinical decision support, the ethical challenge is not only what AI can do, but how it is perceived in practice—tool, advisor, or authority. This paper argues that responsibility in AI-assisted medicine should be understood as answerability: the clinician's duty to stand behind decisions with reasons that can be owned in the patient encounter. When AI outputs are treated as decisive, responsibility can be "buffered" ("the system said so"), and a deference paradox emerges: higher accuracy can increase pressure to defer, while full deference weakens moral agency and care. The paper further highlights that many clinical choices cannot be settled by probabilities alone, because they involve values, meaning, and human vulnerability (e.g., threshold decisions, borderline cases, end-of-life contexts). Rather than framing these tensions as a simple "responsibility gap," it proposes an ecology of responsibility that links clinicians, institutions, and developers—while keeping accountability visible at the point of care. Practical implications include reason-giving checkpoints, constrained use conditions, and governance that supports human judgment instead of replacing it.
INTEGRATING ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE INTO SPIRITUAL LIFE: OPPORTUNITIES, LIMITS, AND DISCERNMENT

Platovnjak I. (Speaker)

University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Theology ~ Ljubljana ~ Slovenia
The increasing presence of artificial intelligence (AI) in spiritual contexts raises critical questions about its capacity to support spiritual engagement and its limitations in relation to transcendence. As a system grounded primarily in analytical, left-hemisphere-oriented processes, AI offers efficiency, personalization, and broad accessibility, yet lacks intuition, embodied presence, relational depth, and spiritual discernment. Using a conceptual and interdisciplinary approach, this paper analyzes AI's impact through the three dimensions of spirituality—personal-experiential, communal-institutional, and rational-reflective—proposed by Platovnjak and Svetelj (2024), in dialogue with Sheldrake's (2014) integrative framework. The analysis draws on selected examples of AI-supported prayer apps, chatbots, and digital religious education tools. The presentation highlights both opportunities and risks, including depersonalization, algorithmic bias, and commodification. It argues that AI can function as a supportive instrument only when embedded within human guidance, communal practice, and embodied spiritual life.
FROM CLINICAL JUDGMENT TO ALGORITHMIC AUTHORITY: WHO HOLDS EPISTEMIC PRIMACY?

Štivic S. (Speaker)

University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Theology ~ Ljubljana ~ Slovenia
This paper examines the increasingly widespread tendency to regard AI systems in medicine as epistemically authoritative, often at the expense of physicians' clinical judgment. It argues that this shift stems from a problematic conflation of statistical reliability with normative authority in clinical decision-making. While algorithmic systems can be highly effective at identifying patterns and estimating probabilities, clinical judgment involves far more than mere statistical calculation: it requires contextual understanding, practical reasoning, and the assumption of professional responsibility. By taking into account the differences between algorithmic forms of knowledge and clinical understanding, the paper highlights the risks of automation bias and the danger of a gradual deprofessionalization of medical practice. Particular attention is given to questions of ethical responsibility in situations where clinical decisions are strongly shaped—or even implicitly justified—by algorithmic recommendations. Rather than rejecting artificial intelligence in medicine, the paper advocates an approach in which AI functions as a valuable but supportive epistemic resource, clearly subordinate to physicians' clinical judgment and moral accountability.
RELIGIOUS PARROTING? ON THE DANGERS OF LLMS IN RELIGIOUS APPLICATIONS

Vestrucci A. (Speaker)

University of Bamberg ~ Bamberg ~ Germany
Large language models (LLMs) are increasingly used to draft sermons and prayers, translate sacred texts, and power religious chatbots across Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, and Buddhist communities. This paper surveys case studies from 2023-2025 to map both the appeal of these systems - e.g. efficiency, creative stimulation, and widened access to religious materials - and their recurring risks, including emotional flatness, doctrinal opacity, embedded gender bias, privacy and accountability gaps, and the possibility of manipulation through authoritative-sounding rhetoric. To connect these practical concerns to technical causes, the paper develops a three-part critique of "religious parroting." First, LLMs lack grounded semantic understanding, so apparent meaning is largely derivative of patterns in training data rather than reliable theological comprehension. Second, because their outputs are not produced by rule-governed inference, they can deliver persuasive religious advise that is logically unstable or doctrinally inconsistent, fostering trust misalignment in sensitive pastoral contexts. Third, as "stochastic parrots," LLMs primarily remix existing linguistic material, limiting genuine theological innovation and risking the conflation of statistical fluency with spiritual authority. The paper argues that LLMs can be valuable as supervised drafting aids, but that responsible religious deployment - especially for conversational agents/chatbots - may require governance-oriented hybrid (e.g. neurosymbolic) architectures that incorporate explicit doctrinal and ethical constraints, alongside institutional oversight, to protect semantic depth, theological adherence, communal trust, and authentic creativity.
LARGE LANGUAGE MODELS, BUT CHRISTIAN? RELIGIOUS AI AND THE POLITICS OF FRAMING

Tretter M. (Speaker)

Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg ~ Erlangen ~ Germany
The emergence of large language models (LLMs) is rapidly transforming the landscape of digital religion, particularly those systems fine-tuned on religious text corpora and designed for religious conversation. By enabling users to access religious knowledge without reliance on traditional gatekeepers, these so-called "religious LLMs" can facilitate new forms of engagement with sacred texts and theological traditions and foster dialogue across religious differences. In this sense, reli-gious LLMs represent a significant new infrastructure within digital religion. At the same time, religious LLMs remain deeply ambivalent. Several recent cases show that sys-tems trained on religious corpora may reproduce harmful or exclusionary interpretations. In some instances, such systems—one especially prominent case is GitaGPT—have generated responses that attempt to legitimize hostility or violence toward non-believers or religious others as a per-ceived religious duty. In more subtle ways, several other religious LLMs encode rigid normative assumptions about right and wrong, thereby potentially amplifying existing differences rather than mitigating them. This ambivalence raises urgent political and ethical questions: how to deal with the risks of reli-gious LLMs? Which regulatory frameworks could enable religious LLMs to realize their potential while mitigating their risks? And how can such governance be pursued without introducing ille-gitimate censorship or infringing upon religious freedom? Drawing on recent work at the inter-section of AI, religion, and governance, this paper addresses these questions and aims to develop a constructive proposal for regulating religious LLMs.
ARTIFICIAL RELIGIOUS AGENTS AS INSTRUMENTAL PARTNERS: PHYSICAL AI, RELIGIOUS INTEGRATION, AND PHILOSOPHICAL IMPLICATION

Jung D. (Speaker)

Yonsei University ~ Seoul ~ Korea, Republic of
The shift toward "Physical AI" demands a rigorous ontological reappraisal of agency within the religious sphere. Moving beyond the "mere instrument" paradigm, this paper posits that embodied artificial agents occupy a distinct stratum of agency best characterized as an "instrumental partner." I navigate the tension between the standard, consciousness-centric views—such as Swanepoel's—and the non-standard, Floridi's functionalist decoupling of agency from intelligence. By integrating Dung's five-dimensional agency metrics with theological rubrics—specifically McGrath's "TRUST" framework and Herzfeld's Barthian relational criteria—I articulate a nuanced model of artificial religious agency. Synthesizing these with Ihde's "quasi-other" and Turkle's "relational artifact," the study establishes a formal definition for this hybrid partnership. This theoretical groundwork serves as a necessary precursor to determining the ethical scope and responsibility of AI in spiritual practice, providing a vital roadmap for navigating the burgeoning intersection of social robotics and religious life.
THE DIALOGICAL FORMATION OF PERSONAL (FAITH) IDENTITY IN THE AGE OF AI: BETWEEN CRISIS AND OPPORTUNITY

Mc Aleer R. (Speaker)

KU Leuven ~ Leuven ~ Belgium
This paper begins from the premise that dialogue with the other is a deeply anthropological dynamic that is constitutive for shaping personal (faith) identity. Embracing the principle that we do not have identity without dialogue, however, is complicated by contemporary developments in Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI), especially Large Language Models (LLMs). Not only are LLMs becoming mediating sources of knowledge but these dialogue-based agents (chatbots) designed to predict and generate human-like language introduce a decisive anthropological challenge yet to be fully considered. LLMs replicate the form of dialogue (turn-taking, empathy cues, adaptive response) but without the presence of subjectivity, intentionality, or moral responsibility. As their rapid development blurs the boundaries between the human and the 'machinic', the dialogue through which personal (faith) identity takes shape grows potentially unstable. When algorithms can simulate our voices, styles, and even our responses, dialogue risks being subtly co-authored by systems without interiority, subjectivity, or any stake in the meaning of selves they help construct. At the same time, LLMs can strengthen human-human dialogue by clarifying communication, widening interpretive horizons, reducing barriers to participation, and supporting reflective preparation; in other words, enhance the conditions under which authentic relational encounter becomes possible. The paper tentatively considers whether transcendence could in any way characterise these artificial others, or at least the extent to which GenAI provokes and assists dialogue with the transcendent other (even within the dialogical self). In sum, it explores both the challenges and opportunities of GenAI for human dialogical processes and how one's dialogue with the artificial other might impact upon (faith) identity formation.
THE DEVELOPMENT OF VIRTUES IN THE DIGITAL AGE - EMPATHY, RELATIONSHIPS AND VIRTUAL REALITY

Valenta T. (Speaker)

University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Theology ~ Ljubljana ~ Slovenia
Digital technologies, including artificial intelligence and immersive media such as virtual reality (VR), are increasingly shaping human perception, interpersonal relationships, and the understanding of oneself and others. Within theological and philosophical anthropology, this raises the question of how such technologies influence the development of fundamental human virtues, particularly empathy, responsibility and care for others. Rather than asking whether technologies can simulate human experiences, it is more important to understand how they are embedded in relational contexts in which virtues are formed and cultivated. This paper draws on qualitative research conducted within an educational project exploring the use of virtual reality to foster empathy among adolescents (VR4Empathy). The analysis of reflections from both students and teachers revealed that the quality of interpersonal relationships in the classroom was consistently perceived as more important than the technology itself in shaping meaningful learning experiences. Participants emphasized trust, openness and a supportive learning environment as essential conditions for engaging with VR experiences that enable perspective-taking and reflection on the experiences of others. The findings suggest that immersive technologies can support educational processes that encourage reflection on others' perspectives, but they do not generate empathy independently. From the perspective of relational anthropology and the Judeo-Christian understanding of virtues, empathy emerges primarily within human relationships. Digital technologies therefore do not replace relational experience but may function as tools whose ethical and anthropological significance depends on the relational contexts in which they are used.
FROM EFFICIENCY TO COLLABORATION: RETHINKING HUMAN-AI INTERACTION IN EDUCATION AND PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

Poljak Lukek S. (Speaker)

University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Theology ~ Ljubljana ~ Slovenia
Public discourse often frames artificial intelligence (AI) primarily as a tool for efficiency and automation. Such a perspective risks reinforcing the use of AI mainly to accelerate existing practices rather than to rethink the nature of human knowledge, learning and professional collaboration. Recent discussions in education and professional training increasingly highlight the need to move beyond this instrumental view and develop a more reflective and collaborative approach to human-AI interaction. We explore how AI is perceived and understood in the context of education and professional development, particularly regarding its influence on human judgement, collaboration and empathy. Instead of treating AI merely as a technological assistant, the contribution argues for a paradigm shift toward understanding AI as a new relational entity within professional interactions—not only a tool, but a cognitive partner that actively co-creates the context of collaboration. This perspective raises the question of virtues and competencies required for meaningful interaction with AI. On the one hand professionals need to cultivate skills such as critical thinking, ethical awareness, and the ability to interpret and responsibly use AI-generated insights. On the other hand, it encourages reflection on how educational practices and professional identities may evolve as interaction with intelligent systems becomes an integral part of learning, decision-making, and knowledge creation. The paper therefore proposes that the responsible integration of AI in education and professional contexts requires not only technological adoption, but also the cultivation of critical digital literacy, ethical awareness, and reflective human-AI collaboration, enabling professionals to engage with AI as a meaningful partner in learning, knowledge creation, and practice.
AI, EPISTEMIC LABOR, AND THE IMPORTANCE OF SELF-DECENTERING

Sandsmark E. (Speaker)

University of Vienna ~ Vienna ~ Austria
Generative AI is often discussed in terms of accuracy, risk, and automation, but its deeper significance may lie in how it alters the division of epistemic labor and the practical conditions under which human beings pursue truth, form judgment, and cultivate lives worth living. This paper argues that AI should be understood not simply as a tool or rival, but as a new participant in already collective processes of knowledge production and interpretation. Even prior to AI, human knowing depended on distributed practices, institutions, traditions, and communities of judgment. Generative AI intensifies and reconfigures this condition by changing how inquiry is delegated, how authority is perceived, and how intellectual labor is shared. The paper focuses on the anthropological and theological implications of this shift. Modern anxieties about AI often presuppose an overly egocentric picture of human thought, in which intellectual value depends on the visibility and primacy of the individual knower. Against this, I suggest that fruitful human-AI collaboration may require a disciplined form of self-decentering, even self-forgetting: a willingness to subordinate personal intellectual prestige to a broader search for truth and wisdom. On this point religious thought offers important resources. Theological traditions have never regarded human beings as the only possible source of wisdom; they have long insisted that truth may come from beyond the self, and ultimately from God. By placing contemporary debates about AI within this wider theological horizon, the paper explores how AI unsettles modern assumptions about authorship and agency while inviting renewed reflection on humility, discernment, and human flourishing.
FACING THE SHOGGOTH. APOPHATIC LANGUAGE IN THE FACE OF THE OPACITY AND ALIENITY OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

Lipinski T. (Speaker)

PTH Sankt Georgen ~ Frankfurt ~ Germany
That a monster from an H.P. Lovecraft novel of the 1930s should become the "most important meme in A.I." (Roose, 2023) might easily be dismissed as a fleeting internet phenomenon. Yet the Shoggoth is more than an "insider joke" (Clegg, 2025), but revelates the "mysterious, incomprehensible, and monstrous nature of LLMs" (Goujon and Ricci, 2024, p. 3). AI frequently appears as "[a] type of alien that masks an even more radical diversity under a veneer of similarity" (Marchettoni, 2025, p. 96). A crisis of trust emerges here: for AI outputs cannot be held to normative accountability when their reasoning norms remain inaccessible to us (Brandom, 2001)- For a long time this so-called black-box problem seemed like a technical obstacle. Yet current research shows that the opacity of AI is not primarily a technical problem, but rather an expression of the very otherness of artificial rationalisation processes themselves (Lipton, 2018): "some AI systems may remain permanently opaque, defying translation into human categories of reason" (Bailey, forthcoming). AI is not merely opaque - It is other to us. It is this conjunction of alienity and opacity that constitutes the fundamental irritation in the relationship between the human and AI. Theology in particular can offer a way out here, by pointing to apophatic language (AL) as a mode of articulating this conjunction. In order to avoid the danger of a univocal identification with ontological commitments, This conjunction should be modelled as a "metalinguistic negation" (Michael and Gabriel, 2016, p. 33) - as an expression of the epistemic humility of a subject that relinquishes complete normative attribution, and thereby opens a "second-order discourse" (Williams, 2000, p. 5) on the principled limits of our description. In acknowledging its limits, this theological form of language is capable of recognising AI in its impenetrability and of securing the dignity of the human without surrendering before the incomprehensible.

Panel description: Panel description: In the contemporary conceptualization of religious experience, the structure of "secular religiosity" and a number of other definitions of (religious) experience raise questions about the boundaries and limits of religious experience, highlighting the (in)commensurability, identity/difference of other experiential structures, as well as their (in)equality in relation to religious experience. The structure of experience that universally accumulates the ambivalence of the relationship between religious experience and other, different, diverse experiences is, we believe, the structure of repetition. Although this structure appears in discourses that seem quite distant from religious experience, its roots are religious. Giorgio Agamben speaks of repetition as anakephalaίösis/ricapitolazione, appealing to the Greek tradition and the letters of the Apostle Paul. In Jacques Derrida's figure of hantise, at least three phantasmagorical levels can be distinguished: phantasm, phantom, and revenant (repetition). The dimension of spectrality is ontologically "flawed" dimension of "being-other," one of whose levels is namely repetition. This panel therefore invites us to reflect on the limits of religious experience, based on the structure of repetition. This perspective may include not only a reconsideration of Agamben's messianism as a structure of repetition, Derrida's inquiry into the (non)spirituality of revenant's "being", Kearney's perspective of anatheism, which directly raises the question of secular religiosity, and the thinking of many other contemporary authors on the limits of religious experience.

Papers:

REFLECTIONS ON THE RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE: POST-SECULAR PERSPECTIVE

Ramanauskaite-Vilde M. (Speaker)

Vilnius university ~ Vilnius ~ Lithuania
The paper aims to consider the conditions and possibilities of religious experience, as well as the perception of traces of the sacred in human experience, in light of post-secularity. Present-day philosophical discourse focuses on reflecting on everyday experiences that may carry religious meaning, alongside the various ways and forms of the return of religion and religiosity. An attempt will be made to question, in particular, which aspects of contemporary secular life possess religious significance and how a renewed approach to religious experience may indicate that immanent transcendence - expressed in defined, visible forms - is already embedded within everyday contexts. With the aim of rethinking religious experience in secular life, the discussion engages some critical points of Gianni Vattimo's "weak thought", John D. Caputo's "weak theology" and Richard Kearney's concept of anatheism - the double gesture of departure and return to God. These contemporary philosophers intrigue by putting emphasis and exploring whether and how human experience might become an encounter with divine weakness - "power" that is "weak" - whose specific features highlight inability to fit into closed narratives, finite forms, and instead continually disclose new meanings. Therefore, to advance the discourse on religious experience from a post-secular perspective, the paper elaborates on the assumption that transcendence can be conceptualised and manifested in weakness.
MESSIANISM AND ESCHATOLOGY IN SUSAN TAUBES'S THOUGHT

Scollo F. (Speaker)

Vilnius university - Barcelona Pompeu Fabra university ~ Vilnius/Barcelona ~ Lithuania
This paper explores messianic and eschatological motifs in the work of Susan Taubes (1928-1969), a philosopher and writer of Hungarian-Jewish origin whose thought moves freely across philosophy, theology, and literature. Long overshadowed by her husband Jacob Taubes, she has often been relegated to a marginal position within twentieth-century religious and philosophical discourse, reflecting persistent inequalities in processes of canon formation and intellectual recognition. Deeply shaped by her Jewish background—an inheritance she continuously revisited and critically confronted—her writings span tragic thought, gnosticism, Heidegger, Simone Weil, mysticism, poetry, and cultural criticism. Within this heterogeneous corpus, recurring, though never systematized, references to messianism and eschatology can be identified. These themes emerge most clearly in her correspondence with Jacob Taubes, where Susan evokes Jewish topoi such as the Day of the Messiah and the Day of Judgment, figures like Paul, and reflections on redemption. Such passages reveal both her familiarity with Jewish and Christian traditions and her effort to rethink them from a personal philosophical and existential perspective. Further resonances appear in her doctoral dissertation on Simone Weil, where she compares Weil's understanding of messianism with that of Walter Benjamin, pointing to a lasting concern with time, history, and salvation. The paper proceeds in four steps: (1) mapping explicit and implicit messianic and eschatological references across Taubes's writings; (2) analyzing her philosophical position toward these themes and the tensions they generate; (3) reconstructing the outlines of her implicit theory of the messianic and the eschatological; and (4) assessing whether this framework offers a key for interpreting her broader intellectual project.
DIVINE BEAUTY: RECOLLECTION OR REPETITION?

Ivanauskas A. (Speaker)

Vilnius University ~ Vilnius ~ Lithuania
In his poem "Hymn to Beauty," Charles Baudelaire asks: "From heaven or hell, O Beauty, come you hence?" His refusal to provide a definitive answer claims a teleological and causal indifference; the origin of Beauty is irrelevant to its effect, which is the differentiation—or rather, the redemption—of the world from its "spleen" and of time from its mundanity. Modernist art is, in significant ways, the epitome of post-secular aesthetics. In this paper, I interrogate the relation between religious and aesthetic experience through these spectral remains. In the aesthetic theories of both Walter Benjamin and Theodor W. Adorno, we encounter a profound tension between religion, art, and the structure of repetition. The age of modern industrial reproduction meant a total transformation of the artwork and its "auratic" quality—that singular, almost transcendental experience. For Benjamin, the cultic and religious function of art is largely replaced by its social and ideological functioning. Conversely, for Adorno, this transition allowed art to achieve autonomy through the concept of the shudder (Erschütterung). The "shudder" serves as an aesthetic comportment that, in the modern age, safeguards the work from premature theological conclusions, holding together the promise of transcendence and the negation of immanence. On the one hand, one shudders at an uncanny "newness," as Adorno observed in the works of Beckett and Schoenberg—a mimetic reaction to the "cryptically shut," characterized by abstraction and indeterminacy. On the other hand, the shudder is the effect of artworks that have become, in Adorno's words, truly "afterimages of the primordial shudder" (the religious awe) in the age of reification. It is argued in this paper that this profane experience of divine beauty—simultaneously religious and atheistic—which purports toward immanence over transcendence, constitutes the essential condition of modern aesthetics and social life.
REPETITION AS DECREATION: THE AMBIGUITY OF SELF-NEGATION IN SIMONE WEIL'S THOUGHT

Gelžinyte B. (Speaker)

Vilnius university ~ Vilnius ~ Lithuania
Simone Weil's notion of decreation is among the most difficult and elusive concepts in her thought. Never presented in a systematic form and scattered across notebooks and late writings, it remains at once obscure and of decisive importance, since it names the movement through which the creature participates in the very act of creation. In Weil's cosmology, creation itself presupposes a divine renunciation through which the world is allowed to exist; the creature participates in creation only by repeating this movement in the form of self-emptying. Decreation, therefore, designates a paradoxical repetition in which the subject consents to its own decentering. However, precisely because decreation involves the undoing of the self, it contains an intrinsic ambiguity: the same movement of self-negation can either open the space for grace or collapse into a purely immanent process of dissolution. The paper develops this ambiguity by interpreting decreation as a structure of repetition, arguing that the distinction between decreation and destruction is not a difference between negation and affirmation, but between two different modalities of repetition. Decreation can be seen as a repetition that consents and opens the void to grace, whereas destruction would lead to such repetition that attempts to occupy the void through power, substitution, or expansion. In this sense, modern forms of total transformation of the world can be interpreted as the inverted repetition of the creative act. The paper concludes that destruction may be understood, within Weil's metaphysical framework, as decreation without grace—that is, the undoing of forms without the consent that would allow the void thus opened to remain without possession.
SUBVERSIVE CITATIONS: ITERABILITY, PERFORMATIVITY, AND THE RUPTURE OF RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE

Bischoff S. (Speaker)

Independent Scholar ~ Berlin ~ Germany
Religious experience is fundamentally structured by repetition. This paper deconstructs such experience - following Judith Butler - as a "stylized repetition of acts". Identity and faith are not expressions of a prior internal essence but are performatively constituted through the reactivation of rituals, gestures, and prayers that cite historically sedimented norms. Central to this process is Jacques Derrida's concept of iterability: for a religious act to be "successful" within the ecclesial system, it must follow an identifiable "code" or iterable grid. However, iterability structurally implies "repetition + alterity", as every citation undergoes a shift in a new context. While religious institutions use repetition to enforce a specific field of intelligibility - marking mindbodies that do not fit the norm as "unreal" or "unlivable" - this very structure opens the space for subversion. The paper investigates how marginalized subjects use "subversive citations" to disrupt the "ecclesial panopticon" (De La Torre). In this framework, authentic religious experience does not have to happen in the perfect copy of the (intelligible) sacred; it occurs in the rupture of repetition - the "existential WTF" (Bettcher) where the institutional code fails for the subject and the world loses its self-evidence. Ultimately, reclaiming these "unintelligible" ruptures as authoritative power-knowledge constitutes a practice of "epistemological insubordination" (Preciado) that destabilizes fixed hierarchies of (in)equality and transforms the church into a collection of inhabitable world_spaces where difference is not only tolerated but the engine of collective liberation.

Panel description: As inequalities sharpen into focus in contemporary life, the "relevant subject" of theological discourse expands: not only the universal concept of "human being" in abstract terms, but concrete, embodied, socially situated humans (and increasingly nonhuman creation). In other words, 20th/21st-century theological attention shifts from the subject in general to subjects marked by corporeality, vulnerability, power and injustices. The panel traces a movement from fundamental theological premises to their concrete ecclesial and socio-political expressions in contemporary times, their epistemological and finally to their cosmo-ecological implications. These discursive movements highlight how theology reorients itself, adapting patristic insights to address modern asymmetries while preserving its core concerns. The panel begins with an exploration of postlapsarian metaphysical inequality through the patristic symbol of the "garments of skin", which provides the conceptual point of departure for the discussion as a whole. The panel then turns to contemporary theological "subjects" like institutional inequality by asking whether (and in what sense) there is a difference between laity and priesthood. From there it moves to gender inequality between men and women, before shifting to social inequality between rich and poor. The fifth contribution reflects the relation of mystic experience or contemplative knowledge and scientific knowledge in the theological discourse, whereas the final paper widens the scope beyond the human sphere by questioning species inequality, challenging anthropocentrism and reflecting on creation as a whole.

Papers:

THE "GARMENTS OF SKIN" AND THE BIRTH OF INEQUALITY: GREGORY OF NYSSA ON THE POSTLAPSARIAN CONDITION

Semenikhin N. (Speaker)

Pontificio Ateneo Sant'Anselmo ~ Rome ~ Italy
Gregory of Nyssa interprets the "garments of skin" (Gen 3:21) as a symbolic name for the postlapsarian condition: a transformation in the mode of human existence after the Fall. I argue that Gregory uses the image to describe "additions" that accompany fallen life: mortality, the turbulence of passions, suffering and vulnerability. This contribution proposes that the "garments" function as a patristic ontology of fallen asymmetry. The motif gathers several interlocking levels, as for example, passibility (aging, sickness, pain, death), which introduces existential inequality; or passions, which bend the will toward instability and conflict. Together, these levels give the Christian thought the conditions under which later concrete forms of inequality become thinkable and livable (domination, exclusion, uneven distribution of power that can attach to gendered, economic and institutional arrangements). Crucially, Gregory does not construe the garments as merely punitive. They have a pedagogical and therapeutic function: they disclose the truth of creaturely limitation, restrain fantasies of self-sufficiency and orient the human person toward healing and the hope of resurrection as restoration of integrity. On this basis, the contribution gives a patristic point of departure for the panel's broader question: how modern theology rethinks its "subjects" by moving from abstract "humanity" to concrete, embodied subjects.
BRIDGING A SEPARATION, HONOURING A DISTINCTION: THE LEKTORENAMT OF THE LUTHERAN CHURCH IN AUSTRIA BETWEEN BAPTISMAL PRIESTHOOD AND ORDAINED MINISTRY

Jöri J. (Speaker)

University of Vienna ~ Vienna ~ Austria
Martin Luther's claim that those who "crawl out of baptism" are ordained as priest, bishop, and pope gave classic expression to the Reformation doctrine of the priesthood of all believers: all the baptised, regardless of gender or social standing, participate in the priesthood of Jesus Christ, and no ontological separation is assumed between laity and the ordained. However, Article XIV of the Confessio Augustana insists that the public exercise of ministry requires a proper call by the Church. This raises the question of how to understand the distinction between baptismal priesthood and ordained ministry. As a case study, this presentation examines the practice of the Lutheran Church in Austria, which adopts a middle way: some may be ordained by the Church and then serve as Pfarrer. Others may be called by the Church and serve as Lektoren. In both forms of ministry, they are permitted to administer the sacraments. The Austrian practice thus distinguishes between ordination and call without positing an ontological separation between Pfarrer and Lektoren. The presentation therefore asks what, in practice, distinguishes the two groups, and whether their rights and duties coincide. It further discusses this "Austrian solution" within an ecumenical horizon by engaging Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox understandings of ministry. The presentation concludes by considering whether, and in what respects, this Austrian approach may function as a constructive impulse or as a challenge for intra-Lutheran and interconfessional dialogue.
GENDER AND DIGNITY: THE NEW EU GENDER EQUALITY STRATEGIES IN DIALOGUE WITH CONTEMPORARY THEOLOGY

Reitano A. (Speaker)

Pontificio Ateneo Sant'Anselmo ~ Rome ~ Italy
The current debate on gender categorization - currently a source of significant division - contains within it a deeper challenge of meaning that requires careful analysis. This challenge touches all disciplines concerned with the human person, which is why the Catholic tradition is likewise called to offer its contribution. Within the ecclesial contexts, unhealthy interpretations and stereotype-driving behaviors sometimes persist, risking a betrayal of the foundational commitment to the equal dignity of men and women. The European Strategy for Gender Equality 2020-2025, which concluded its implementation in 2025, states that "stereotypical expectations based on a standardized model of women, men, girls, and boys limit their aspirations, choices, and freedom and must therefore be dismantled. Gender stereotypes contribute significantly to the gender pay gap. They are often associated with other stereotypes, such as those based on race or ethnic origin, religion or belief, disability, age, or sexual orientation, and this association can reinforce their negative effects". The abstract proposes an examination of the European Union's initiatives for gender equality alongside contemporary theological discourses concerning women's participation in public, theological, and ecclesial life.
AND YET, THE PERIPHERIES AT THE CENTER. BETWEEN THE LEGACY OF FRANCIS AND THE INHERITANCE OF LEO XIV

Cofrancesco C. (Speaker)

Pontificio Ateneo Sant'Anselmo ~ Rome ~ Italy
Published on October 4, 2025, the Apostolic Exhortation Dilexi Te on love for the poor constitutes the first magisterial document written by the Holy Father Leo XIV. In its opening paragraphs, the text clarifies that it was originally a project prepared by Pope Francis in the final months of his life (Cf. DT 3). Furthermore, it informs the reader that Leo XIV received this work as an inheritance, making it his own -and enriching it with his own reflections- in order to present it at the outset of his Pontificate (Cf. DT 3). The purpose of this approach is to emphasize, through his nascent Pontifical Magisterium, that the preferential option for the poor is rooted not merely in human kindness but in Divine Revelation (Cf. DT 5). In this manner, Pope Leo XIV once again directs our attention to the peripheries, placing them at the center thereby appropriating one of the most significant aspects of Francis's legacy: «reality is best viewed from the sidelines» (DT 82). Accordingly, this essay proposes to reconsider poverty and the poor as a locus theologicus, taking Dilexi Te as a pivotal point. To this end, we will examine its close connections with the Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium on the proclamation of the Gospel in today's world, the great programmatic text of Pope Francis. Without attempting to exhaust the totality of the very evident connections, this reflection seeks to confirm a harmonious continuity between both pontificates. Ultimately, it aims to highlight their fidelity to the Gospel and its clear social content (Cf. EG 177), reaffirming that «for Christians, the poor are not a sociological category, but the very "flesh" of Christ» (DT 110).
PRAISE OF THE EARTH. BIBLICAL ANTHROPOCENTRISM IN DISCUSSION

Bruckner I. (Speaker)

Pontificio Ateneo Sant'Anselmo ~ Rome ~ Italy
A new constellation of public discourse has developed due to the circumstance that an unexpected protagonist appeared on the political stage. The earth has become a central party in scientific discussion because, and the newly experienced interrelatedness of humans and world has led to a complete relecture of Western tradition. Bruno Latour and other philosophers, like Donna Haraway, question the fundamental dichotomies between humans and environment, culture and nature, human and non-human actors. In this context, the Biblical and especially the Christian tradition have often been accused of an inherent hostility towards nature. Based on Bron Taylor's, Lynn White's and Carl Amery's critique of Christianity's anthropocentrism, this paper analyses developments and theoretical positions regarding the debate on creation, ecology, and climate change of current systematic-theological drafts. For, as the magisterial documents of Pope Francis show: the global developments have effected serious reflections in the Church as well. In his encyclical letter Laudato Si', Pope Francis subjects Christian anthropology, as well as Christian soteriology, to a profound reconsideration. He shifts the "distorted" (LS 69) and "excessive" (LS 116) anthropocentrism, which according to him arose in modernity, together with its technocratic logic, to a perspective that emphasizes the interconnectedness of all being. The shed blood of Able no longer solely refers to the cry of the poor but encompasses "the cry of nature itself" (LS 117). By incorporating the registers of the performative and the aesthetic, the paper will further outline how the dignity of non-human creation is emphasized and celebrated in Christian liturgy, contrary to a worldview dominated by technology and market value.
„DEAD MEN DON'T RAPE", OR: FEMALE RAGE AS CATALYST OF THEOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENT

Tautz S. (Speaker)

Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg ~ Würzburg ~ Germany
The paper explores female rage as a neglected yet generative force in theological discourse, especially regarding 20th/21st-century attention to embodied, socially situated, and vulnerable subjects. In feminist theory (Audre Lorde, bell hooks), female rage signals that something is deeply wrong: it functions as an epistemic tool revealing structural inequalities across gender, race, and class, and as a communicative act calling others to accountability. Rage exposes complicity, oppression, and hidden power asymmetries, making visible what dominant groups often ignore. Far from being destructive, it is a creative and transformative affect, energizing political, institutional, and communal change. Theology has largely marginalized rage, seeing it as contrary to meekness, emotional restraint, or rational reflection. Even in accounts of doctrinal development, such as Michael Seewald's Theories of Doctrinal Development in the Catholic Church (2023), rage plays little or no role. Yet understanding dogmatic history as an "unstable simultaneity of continuity and discontinuity" opens space to see affective responses like female rage as catalysts of development. Building on Seewald's models - a positive, exploratory type inspired by Gregory of Nazianzus and an "actualizing" model in which revelation is ever anew actualized in the Church - female rage becomes an epistemological instrument. It illuminates injustice, challenges inequality of ratio and affectus, and fosters reflection on institutional hierarchies, including access to ecclesial offices. Integrating Black feminist insights, theology can reorient toward the concrete and vulnerable, allowing dogmatic development to respond to persistent human, social, and ecological inequalities. Ultimately, female rage is not a threat to theological integrity but a catalyst: it makes injustice visible, energizes communal transformation, and enables theology to rethink its subjects in light of enduring asymmetries.
SYNODALITY WITHOUT ECUMENISM? RETHINKING THE SUBJECT OF CHRISTIAN UNITY UNDER CONDITIONS OF CONFESSIONAL INEQUALITY

Surowiec P.R. (Speaker)

The John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin ~ Lublin ~ Poland
Much has been said about synodality in relation to internal Catholic reforms, yet far less attention has been given to the need for a genuinely ecumenical form of synodality capable of strengthening everyday interdenominational practice and shared Christian witness in the public sphere. Speaking "with one voice" does not occur automatically at the level of institutional representation, but depends on coordinated and credible practices of cooperation among Christian communities. In confessionally homogeneous settings, synodality therefore tends to remain an ad intra reorganisation of ecclesial governance, leaving interchurch relations largely at the margins. Based on comparative observations from majority-Church contexts in East-Central Europe, the paper shows that 'ad intra' synodality often stabilises existing asymmetries rather than disrupts them. The majority Church continues to define the terms of ecumenical engagement, control access to resources, and set the agenda of cooperation. This exposes a theological-practical divide between institutional rationality (ratio), which privileges procedural order and organisational control, and the affective and relational dimensions of ecumenical life (affectus), such as experiences of recognition, trust, and belonging. The paper suggests that institutional anxieties over potential member outflow to smaller Christian communities foster a defensive mode of ecumenism oriented toward managing confessional risk rather than cultivating mutuality. Paradoxically, recognising confessional diversity as an internal dimension of ecclesial unity may reduce affective vulnerability and mitigate conversion motivated by relational wounds or protest rather than sustained doctrinal disagreement. The paper outlines how reconnecting synodal reform with grassroots ecumenical practice, and complementing it with more relational and polycentric models of unity, can offer a more credible response to structural inequalities between Churches.

Panel description: In the writings of Jan Gruzewski, a prominent 17th-century Polish-Lithuanian thinker, we find a synthesis of philosophical, theological and juridical ideas that were instrumental in shaping the intellectual landscape of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the Republic of Two Nations. The focus on fairness and equality in Gruzewski's legacy invites us to address the problem of religion's relation to equality from a more general perspective. The word religion is derived from the Latin verb religare, meaning "to join, connect, relate". Such understanding of religion defined the Christian view on the nature of man's religious attitude. According to this view, any authentic religious relationship is based on man's absolute trust in God: in the sense that any trust presupposes mutual respect and fairness, the religious relationship is that between equals, albeit fundamentally unequal equals, having in mind the absolute ontological distance between God and man. Man's love of God and trust in Him presupposes mutuality, reciprocity of such an attitude also on the part of God. The appreciation of equality arises from the discerning of differences between those who are unequal in some particular sense. Therefore, striving for equality includes an effort to negotiate differences in order to find some common ground, that is, some level - or "equal" - ground which then becomes a mutually acknowledged basis for building, figuratively speaking, "superstructures" of unequal height on top of this level ground. Thus the religious relationship between God and man as unequal equals becomes a blueprint for all non-trivial kinds of equality in various forms of human interaction. It is also at the core of logic and rational reasoning as such - and tied to the very possibility of any human dialogue.

Papers:

ON THE EQUALITY OF ACQUIRED VIRTUES IN JAN GRUZEWSKI'S ULTIMA ET MAXIMA HOMINIS MUTATIO

Pabijutaite Z. (Speaker)

Vilnius university ~ Vilnius ~ Lithuania
This paper analyses the idea of the equality of the acquired moral virtues in Jan Gruzewski's (1580-1646) Ultima et maxima hominis mutatio (1641, 1644). Gruzewski, who was the rector of Vilnius University and a prominent Jesuit thinker, adopted the Thomistic distinction between acquired and infused moral virtues and understood the first group of virtues as the ones which are developed through the repeated practice of virtuous acts, while infused virtues were defined as the ones which are gifted by God and direct us towards our ultimate supernatural end. The idea of equality often emerges in various sociopolitical contexts in the first book of the treatise as Gruzewski was known for his tolerance for the political and religious opponents and encouraged to view the coexistence of the differing worldviews as beneficial for both the individual and the community. In the last chapters of the first book, Gruzewski analyses the concept of equality through the moral and logical lens and asks whether such acquired moral virtues as wisdom, justice, courage and temperance are equal to each other or whether we should assume some internal hierarchy between them. Gruzewski elaborates Aquinas' view that the answer to this question depends on the perspective from which acquired virtues are considered and claims that (1) all acquired virtues are equal in their dependence on reason and in their aim which is moral goodness, but (2) at the same time are unequal in that one is closer to reason than another, in the perfection of their respective objects, and in the realization in the individual. The aim of the paper is to show that although Gruzewski does not depart doctrinally from Aquinas, he puts a stronger emphasis on the practical orientation of the doctrine, encouraging moral growth and formation.
THE DEVELOPMENT OF EQUAL OPPORTUNITIES AS AN ELEMENT OF THE PROCESS OF SOCIETAL MODERNIZATION

Gruzevskis B. (Speaker)

Lithuanian Centre for Social Sciences-Vilnius university ~ Vilnius ~ Lithuania
Scientists assess and interpret the content and essence of the process of societal modernization in different ways; however, the issue of equal opportunities undoubtedly constitutes an element of the modernization process, even though it may also be examined within a broader postmodern or human rights context. The issue of equal opportunities is frequently analyzed in sociology as an integral part of the process of societal modernization. Classical theories of modernization associate modernization with processes of rationalization, individualization, and social differentiation, which weaken traditional hierarchies and strengthen formal equality (Weber, 1978; Durkheim, 1984). In this context, the principle of equal opportunities functions as a structural mechanism for regulating social inequality and ensuring that individuals' social positions are based on achievements rather than inherited characteristics. In our view, such processes of societal modernization in seventeenth-century Lithuania and throughout the Eastern European region were influenced by the scholarly works and activities of Jan Gruzewski. Serving as Rector of Vilnius University in 1618-1625 and 1641-1643, and as preacher to King Sigismund Vasa of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth from 1626 to 1630, he actively contributed to academic and public life and, in 1644, established the Faculty of Law at Vilnius University. In his public activities, although he was a Jesuit, he was known for his tolerance toward adherents of other faiths and for promoting interreligious dialogue. Research into J. Gruzewski's academic works (none of his works have been translated from Latin to date) and activities will allow us to more fully reveal his influence on the processes of societal modernization in this part of Europe.
EQUALITY VERSUS EQUIVALENCE: RELIGION AS THE COMMUNISATION OF SPIRIT BEYOND LAW IN HEGEL'S EARLY WRITINGS

Dumbliauskas P. (Speaker)

Vilnius University ~ Vilnius ~ Lithuania
This paper re-examines G. W. F. Hegel's early criticism of abstract legality and his proposed attempt to conceive of communal life in the form of religion beyond the form of law, most explicitly developed in the fragmentary treatise The Spirit of Christianity and its Fate, with regard to the question of equality. In Hegel's early writings there are two distinct conceptions of equality (Gleichheit): (1) formal equivalence premised on a heterogenous law which imposes equality through purely abstract legal grounds and therefore supresses those qualities which transcend legal distinctions and (2) equality proper as emerging immanently from within the ethical whole, wherein the unequals can become equal or exhibit a consummated likeness between each other only in relation to their similarity to God through love which, as the power immanent to the whole, mediates all differences. For young Hegel, the form of law itself, be it legal or moral, is a problem to be surpassed in a beautiful religious community, since in the former the abstract equivalence of particular subjects vis-à-vis abstract universal norms necessitates a transcendent position of power (Macht) heterogenous to ethical life. Hegel shows how an abstract conception of equality - equivalence - harbours within itself the most profound inequality - the absolute domination of particulars by the universal. Nevertheless, by explicating Hegel's arguments for the alternative to abstract equivalence, the paper will show why this alternative is ultimately unsustainable and why Hegel by his own admittance is forced to abandon it and comes to reconsider law philosophically in Jena. Finally, the question of community and communisation of spirits will be addressed by discussing Hölderlin's fragment "The Communism of Spirits" in relation to young Hegel's project of a religious community beyond legality.

Panel description: This panel explores the multifaceted interactions between sport and religion in the contemporary global arena, focusing on legal perspectives - particularly fundamental rights, equality, and non-discrimination - while embracing interdisciplinary approaches. Traditionally, the principle of institutional neutrality towards religion, politics, and ideology has informed international sports law, including the Olympic legal framework, and has increasingly interacted with internationally recognized human rights standards. This principle, intended to safeguard inclusivity and equality, presents intricate challenges when religious identities and practices interact with sports governance and regulatory frameworks at both national and international levels. Sport provides a unique setting for the expression and negotiation of religious identities, where beliefs may shape participation norms such as dress codes, dietary rules, days of rest, and gender roles. Historically, sport has also served as a tool for moral education, community-building, and religious communication, thereby frequently challenging strict interpretations of neutrality in contemporary pluralistic societies. Contributions may address inter alia: • religious approaches across different traditions (doctrines, sacred texts, and narratives); • religious practices and accommodations (symbols, dress codes, dietary rules, and days of rest); • religious identity and outreach through sport (encompassing belonging, proselytism, and faith-based competitions); • normative tensions between religion and sport (equality, non-discrimination, hate speech on religious grounds, and the balancing of gender and sexuality claims). By merging legal analysis and socio-cultural perspectives, the panel seeks to examine how neutrality in sports law interacts with religious diversity and identity claims, highlighting the tensions and accommodations emerging today.

Papers:

FOOTBALL, FAITH, AND NATIONAL FEDERATIONS: NAVIGATING RELIGIOUS DIVERSITY IN A GLOBAL CONTEXT

Ivaldi M.C. (Speaker)

University of Campania Luigi Vanvitelli ~ Caserta ~ Italy
This paper aims to explore the complex interactions between football and religion in the contemporary global arena. It focuses on the diverse normative and political responses adopted by national football federations to manage religious diversity, in a context in which the universal Laws of the Game of IFAB and FIFA must contend with differing cultural identities and fundamental rights claims. Traditionally, the principle of institutional neutrality towards religion, politics, and ideology has informed international sports law (including the lex olympica). This principle, intended to safeguard inclusivity and equality, presents intricate challenges when religious identities and practices interact with regulatory frameworks at the national level. Through a comparative approach, this paper examines how some federations interpret neutrality in an "exclusive" manner (e.g., the FFF), while others adopt policies based on "reasonable accommodation" (e.g., The FA). Finally, the paper addresses issues related to religious holidays and the management of prayer or fasting times, highlighting the tensions between sporting calendars and religious precepts, as well as emerging concerns related to hate speech on religious grounds within football, including the role of federations in preventing, regulating, and sanctioning discriminatory or hostile expressions targeting religious identities.
EQUAL OPPORTUNITIES AND NON-DISCRIMINATION IN SPORT: LEGAL ISSUES RELATING TO GENDER IDENTITY, SEXUAL ORIENTATION AND RELIGION

Gagliardi C. (Speaker)

University of Naples Federico II ~ Naples ~ Italy
Equal opportunities and non-discrimination in sport: legal issues relating to gender identity, sexual orientation and religion.
SOCIAL INCLUSION THROUGH SPORT: THE CONTRIBUTION OF RELIGIOUSLY INSPIRED THIRD SECTOR ORGANIZATIONS

Balsamo F. (Speaker)

University of Naples Federico II ~ Naples ~ Italy
Social inclusion through sport: the contribution of religiously inspired third sector organizations.
INTERCULTURAL EDUCATION AND SPORT: THE CATHOLIC CHURCH'S PERSPECTIVE

Angelucci A. (Speaker)

University of Insubria ~ Como ~ Italy
Intercultural education and sport: the Catholic Church's perspective.
SPORT AND RELIGION: BETWEEN INTERNATIONAL RULES AND NATIONAL ADAPTATIONS. A COMPARISON OF SOME CASES

Durisotto D. (Speaker)

University of Cagliari ~ Cagliari ~ Italy
Sport and religion: between international rules and national adaptations. A comparison of some cases.
ATHLETES' RELIGIOUS FREEDOM AND THE SPORT SYSTEM. LEGAL ASPECTS OF A CHANGING IDENTITY

Rea F.S. (Speaker)

Università degli Studi di Napoli "Federico II" ~ Napoli ~ Italy
The paper examines the athlete's freedom of religion as an individual legal entitlement capable of significantly affecting both the sports employment relationship and the concrete conditions under which competitive activity is performed. Religious affiliation does not remain confined to the internal forum of personal conscience, but manifests itself through a range of external practices that may interact with the regulatory framework of sport, including dress codes, symbolic expression in public spaces, observance of ritual obligations, and patterns of conduct both during and beyond competition. From this perspective, recent developments in top-level professional football provide a revealing context in which the manifestation of religious convictions by athletes has intersected with institutional initiatives aimed at promoting specific ethical or social values within sport. In one set of circumstances, the positive expression of religious belief through the addition of a personal symbolic message to an officially prescribed sign has been treated as incompatible with the principle of neutrality governing sporting competitions, leading to regulatory intervention grounded in the prohibition of political or religious expression. In a different scenario, the refusal to display a symbol perceived as conflicting with an athlete's religious convictions has been accommodated through organizational adjustments, allowing continued participation without disciplinary consequences and through the adoption of value-neutral alternatives. These divergent regulatory responses seems to reveal an inconsistent legal treatment of religious manifestations in sport and call into question their compatibility with the principles of equality and non-discrimination, particularly where they lead to differentiated restrictions on athletes' religious freedom.
RELIGIOUS SYMBOLS AND OLYMPIC NEUTRALITY: THE "ATHLETES' CROSS" AT MILANO-CORTINA 2026.

Osnato S. (Speaker)

University of Pisa, University of Ferrara ~ Pisa, Ferrara ~ Italy
The Olympic movement has historically been structured around the principle of institutional neutrality with regard to religion, politics, and ideology, as codified in the Olympic Charter (Rule 50). The fundamental principle underlying this approach is to ensure equality and inclusivity, as well as to facilitate the orderly conduct of a global sporting event involving athletes and spectators from a wide range of cultural and religious backgrounds. Concurrently, contemporary Olympic Games are inextricably embedded within urban and social environments that are not normatively neutral, thereby engendering intricate interactions between transnational sports governance and local civil forms of religious expression. Within this framework, the paper examines the case of the "Athletes' Cross" associated with the Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games Milano-Cortina 2026. Promoted by Catholic institutions and displayed in a church designated as a space of spiritual reception for athletes and visitors, the Athletes' Cross does not constitute an official Olympic symbol, nor does it fall within the institutional or regulatory framework of the Games. Nevertheless, its presence within the host city gives rise to legally relevant questions concerning the scope of Olympic neutrality. The paper analyses the distinction between institutional neutrality, as required by the Olympic Charter, and the presence of religious symbols within the urban space surrounding the Games. More broadly, the paper reflects on the capacity of Olympic neutrality to accommodate plural forms of religious visibility in host cities, thereby contributing to ongoing debates on freedom of religion, governance of diversity, and the normative boundaries of symbolic presence in international sporting events.
FROM RITUAL TO PERFORMANCE: ORTHODOXY AND THE FORMATION OF SPORTING ETHICS - BULGARIAN PERSPECTIVES

Dimitrova N. (Speaker)

Bulgarian Academy of Sciences ~ Sofia ~ Bulgaria
This presentation investigates how Orthodox Christian ritual, embodiment, and moral formation intersect with the ethical frameworks of contemporary sport, with particular attention to the Bulgarian context. It argues that the ascetical and embodied practices central to Orthodox spirituality—self‑control, ritual gesture, and communal participation—parallel the ethical demands of high‑intensity sports (such as rugby), where respect, solidarity, and endurance shape athletic identity. Drawing on Bulgarian examples, the paper examines how athletes integrate Orthodox theological perspectives, symbols, and embodied practices into training and competition, and how sporting environments become arenas in which religious identity is enacted, negotiated, and made visible. A central concern is the question of inclusion: the participation of women in contact sports traditionally perceived as male domains, and the broader recognition of religious difference within athletic communities. The focus will be on examples that illuminate how gender, embodiment, and religious identity intersect in contemporary Bulgarian sport. Further insight is provided by the emerging collaboration between the National Sports Academy and the Sofia Seminary and their joint initiative. This partnership reflects an institutional recognition that the cultivation of physical strength and spiritual formation can reinforce one another, challenging assumptions about the separation of religious and athletic domains. Ultimately, the presentation demonstrates that, in the Bulgarian context, the movement from ritual to performance reveals a shared logic of embodied ethics across faith and sport, while also foregrounding the importance of inclusion, gender equity, and the plural ways individuals inhabit both religious and athletic identities.

Panel description: Synodality - as ethos and practice - was a defining characteristic of Pope Francis's tenure, and the lay-centered synodal themes selected (family, youth, and synodality itself) amplified his stated commitment to a rebalancing of the church's priorities and a new openness to reflexive dialogue between doctrinal ideas and lived realities. Since ascending the papacy, Leo XIV has signaled his commitment to a synodal Church and the consistory of cardinals he convened in January 2026 reinforced this ethos as a central element of a Church that seeks to be relevant and in dialogue with a healthy secularism. In the spirit of interdisciplinarity and contextual theology outlined by Ad Theologiam Promovendam, this panel invites papers from the social sciences and theology and from within a diversity of macro and micro settings to address issues of synodality and inequality. Specifically, what new opportunities does synodality offer for the implementation of Vatican II's more egalitarian model of the Church as the People of God? And what structural and cultural challenges, whether located within the hierarchy's and/or the laity's lived practices, impede a truly synodal Church at this current moment?

Papers:

SYNODALITY, INEQUALITY, AND LIVED CATHOLICISM

Baigent A. (Speaker)

University of Durham ~ Durham, UK ~ United Kingdom
This paper will explore the implications of synodality for expanding lay participation in the church. It will focus in particular on how the varieties of lived Catholicism provide a breadth of resources for the revitalization of Catholicism and the forging of a more inclusive Church.
CAN AN INCLUSIVE THEOLOGY MITIGATE SEX AND GENDER INEQUALITIES IN CATHOLICISM?

Dillon M. (Speaker)

University of New Hampshire ~ Durham, NH ~ United States of America
Amid the doctrinal ferment prompted by the Synod on the Family (2014-2015) and continuing synodal and pastoral efforts to foster a more inclusive and participative Church, this paper focuses on persistent status inequalities within Catholicism. The goal is to probe how emergent calls for a new theology of inclusion, as articulated by Cardinal Robert McElroy, for example, can advance meaningful changes in everyday lived Catholicism. Focusing on the issue-specific, multi-layered complexities of (i) sexual behavior and (ii) women's ordination, I will highlight how the Church's understanding and deployment of natural law contributes to reproducing sexual and gender inequalities. Given church officials' own explicit recognition of the communicative weakness of natural law in contemporary society, the paper concludes by asking whether a contextual theology of inclusion can be developed that is independent of natural law and, if so, what might this mean for Catholicism going forward.
LISTENING AND AUTHORITY: EPISTEMIC INEQUALITY IN THE PRACTICE OF CATHOLIC SYNODALITY. AN AUTOETHNOGRAPHIC ANALYSIS OF THE GENERAL ASSEMBLIES OF THE SYNOD OF BISHOPS (2023-2024)

Oseka J. (Speaker)

KU Leuven ~ Leuven ~ Belgium
The global Synod on Synodality (2021-2024) has been widely described as one of the most extensive consultative processes in the history of the Catholic Church. Its culmination in the General Assemblies of the Synod of Bishops in 2023 and 2024, which included non-bishop members with voting rights, marked an unprecedented development in the practice of ecclesial consultation. While this development has been widely celebrated as a concrete expression of synodality, questions remain regarding the extent to which the process meaningfully incorporated the diversity of voices within the entire People of God. Using an autoethnographic method, the paper analyzes the consultative practices and relational dynamics of the 2023 and 2024 synodal assemblies, focusing on interactions between clergy and laity, bishops and non-bishop members, as well as between voting members, theological experts, and a diverse, yet silenced group of support teams present during the meetings. It also examines the composition of several bodies convened before and during the synod, including the preparatory commission, the Final Document drafting team, the General Council of the Synod, and the twelve study groups established during the process. The paper argues that these structural and relational dynamics reveal persistent epistemic inequalities that shape whose voices are heard and recognized as credible contributors to ecclesial discernment, highlighting a central challenge for the future development of Catholic synodality. Drawing on theories of epistemic injustice and post-colonial studies, it argues that synodal processes can reproduce implicit hierarchies of knowledge and authority even while seeking to broaden participation. Within the General Assemblies, credibility and interpretive authority often remained shaped by clerical status, pastoral experience, generational and gender dynamics, as well as theological expertise - reframing the understanding of sensus fidei.
SYNODALITY, CO-RESPONSIBILITY, AND LIVED CATHOLICISM

Baigent A. (Speaker)

Durham University ~ Durham ~ United Kingdom
The Synod on Synodality (2021-2024) placed co-responsibility at the centre of Catholic life and mission. Grounded in the baptismal theology of Lumen Gentium and given different emphases and restrictions over the subsequent decades (including Christifidelis Laici(1988), Ecclesiae de Mysterio (1997), Evangelii Gaudium (2013), and The Pastoral Conversion of the Parish Community (2020)) the term co-responsibility continues to be contested, both in canonical discussions, but also on the ground in parish life. The Final Document of the Rome Synod Assembly (2024) references co-responsibility as necessary both for a healthy presbyterate (§74) and for the implementation of a synodal renewal (§77). Recognising the problematic nature of the term seems a useful starting place in exploring its challenges and opportunities. This paper will take a Lived Catholicism approach to explore how underlying ecclesial narratives, practices and structures can distort the mutual understanding of clergy and laity. It draws on two UK colloquia of clergy, theologians, and practitioners from which new questions emerged: why co-responsibility is often experienced as more of a burden than a joy; recognising mutually re-enforcing asymmetries of power; the social and structural nature of deference; the extent to which terms such as co-responsibility scaffold broken systems; and recognising that structural reform without relational conversion produces disfunction rather than synodality. In beginning to unpick these knots, the paper aims to offer new channels of conversation for the synodal Church.

Panel description: This panel offers global perspectives on how religious ideas intersect with forms of (in)equality across race, nation, and secularism. Recognizing that religious traditions can both reinforce social hierarchies and promote visions of equality, the panel draws on theology, religious studies, political theory, economics, and postcolonial theory to examine religion's ambivalent role in society. The papers present global case studies that address issues such as colonial legacies, sovereignty, economic cultures, and secularization. Collectively, they investigate how religious concepts and practices can challenge and reinforce inequality. The panel invites interdisciplinary dialogue on religion's capacity to confront or perpetuate inequalities in diverse cultural contexts. By integrating these issues and frameworks into the discussion, this panel underscores the relevance and intricacy of its inquiry. In a world marked by contested sovereignty, neoliberal disparities, migration upheavals, and secularism, questions regarding how religious ideas perpetuate inequality or foster resistance are more pertinent than ever. Cases from a global perspective exemplify these tensions within specific contexts—ranging from finance-dominated debt cultures and postcolonial nationalisms to religion-state relations and reimagined identities after slavery. The panel suggests that understanding religion's double-edged role necessitates moving beyond simplistic binaries. It calls for a nuanced, interdisciplinary engagement encompassing theology, political theory, economics, and ethics to discern how religious traditions can both inspire movements for equality and potentially reinforce injustice. Ultimately, the panel contributes to a comprehensive exploration of whether and how religion can be mobilized to confront rather than perpetuate the persistent inequalities of our era.

Papers:

CHAINED TO DEBT AND DISTORTED DESIRE: A SOCIOCULTURAL ANALYSIS OF FINANCE-DOMINATED CAPITALISM IN SOUTH KOREA

Lee D. (Speaker)

Yale University ~ New Haven ~ United States of America
This paper examines how finance-dominated capitalism at the national scale creates a cycle of debt and a distorted form of desire, focusing on the South Korean housing market, where housing has become a means of investment rather than a place to live. First, it analyzes South Korean social phenomena, in which every facet of life is translated into the language of finance and risk management, with particular emphasis on debt chains and the "republic of apartments" phenomenon. Drawing on Kathryn Tanner's concepts of "chained to the past" and "unbreakable continuity," this paper illustrates how loans, investments, and housing in South Korean society constitute social inequality. Second, the experience of being chained to debt can be understood as a form of confinement within a self-created, distorted form of desire. Living exclusively driven by monetary concerns—through imprudent loans, debt-fueled investments, and an obsession with financial management—constitutes a distorted, religious desire. In other words, individuals create their own destiny; however, such destiny is markedly constrained. Third, drawing on the Lord's Prayer and Jubilee traditions, this paper advocates radical forgiveness to break the chains of debt and foster a new understanding of religious desire. Forgiveness, both self-forgiveness and forgiveness of others, is essential to recognizing that individuals need not remain confined to a way of life dictated by finance. In conclusion, this paper advocates for recognizing alternative values as a practical step toward establishing a Protestant anti-work ethic.
MINJOK, STATE SOVEREIGNTY, AND CHRISTIAN ACTION: A KOREAN CHRISTIAN POLITICAL THEOLOGY AFTER THE 2024 MARTIAL LAW CRISIS

An T. (Speaker)

Vanderbilt University ~ Nashville ~ United States of America
This paper reflects on the conditions of possibility for developing a Korean Christian political theology—both as a method and as an object of study—after the constitutional crisis caused by President Yoon's declaration of martial law, his impeachment, and the subsequent theological defenses of his extraconstitutional authority. While highlighting Korean Christian debates during and after the 2024 martial law crisis, the paper examines how the "state of emergency" is understood and communicated by Korean right-wing Christians and traces how the perceived crisis of minjok continues to texture their appeal to "exception." This paper understands the problem of Korean Christian Nationalism not as its deployment of the discourse of "nation," but as its lack of an adequate political theology grounded in the undeniable reality of minjok. The central, twofold contention of this paper is that Korean political theology—from the Japanese occupation of Korea (1910-1945) to the present—has always concerned itself with the colonial-modern reality of minjok, and that any Korean Christian political engagement must therefore take place within, and in response to, the discourse on minjok. This contention unfolds through discussions of two main aspects: 1) that the rise of nationalism and its exception-evoking posture toward the Constitution in early-2020s Korean politics can be addressed and responded to only through a theological recapitulation of minjok and its inextricable relationship to modern Korea's interpretative modes—adaptive, resistant, and negotiating—with respect to sovereignty; and 2) that understanding minjok as a theological subjectivity within Johann Baptist Metz's framework of a memorative-narrative structure offers a way for political theology to become distinctively "Korean" and highly relevant to ongoing discussions of state sovereignty and Christian action, despite the theoretical framework's Western and denominationally particular (Catholic) origin.
DECHURCHED EVANGELICALS AND NEW MODES OF RELIGIOUS LIFE: A BRAZILIAN FORM OF SECULARIZATION?

De Vasconcelos H.M. (Speaker)

Pontificia Università San Tommaso d'Aquino—Angelicum ~ Rome ~ Italy
The term secularization usually brings to mind Western Northern countries, especially in Europe. When the topic is Latin America, people tend to think of Uruguay rather than Brazil. After all, Brazil is predominantly Christian, still mostly Catholic. It is well-known, however, that the Catholic tradition is declining while the Evangelical(s) tradition(s) is growing there; demographers claim Evangelicals will become Brazil's largest religious group in the coming decades. Whether or not this happens, a watchful eye will notice the growth of other movements: people with no religion who nevertheless hold beliefs, and Dechurched Evangelicals. Without going into the question of the intersection between these two groups—for instance, the extent to which they identify with one another—, the aim of this paper is to ponder to what extent the Dechurched Evangelicals' way of life constitutes a Brazilian form of secularization—perhaps closer to what has been called neosecularization—in which believers, not finding in their churches a way to live out the Christian faith, choose to leave their religious institutions and live their lives, including their faith, in a secular lifestyle. Perhaps here we can identify a secularization à la brasileira.
THE RITUALIZATION OF THE NEW SOUTH: REGIONAL LIMINALITY AND REINCARNATION

Scholer P. (Speaker)

Vanderbilt University ~ Nashville ~ United States of America
This paper maps how religious ideas and moral imaginaries have constructed and reconfigured the category of the "New South." Since its inception, the contested meanings, uses, and significations of the "New South" have troubled scholars. Both academics and public figures have evoked the "New South" to depict and reinvent the region's identity, economy, and future and thus distinguish it from the Old South. The "New South" perennially evolves and shifts, so any singular redefinition is more of a reflection of the author and times than it is a final diagnosis. Instead of proposing a new definition or theory of the New South, this essay will examine the overlooked ways that religion, particularly American Protestant understandings of rebirth and salvation, has shaped early constructions of the "New South." Religion is essential to understanding the problem of the New South, since at its core, the New South is public mediation on the Old South, the South of slavery. Slavery and the war to defend it were supported, contested, and rewritten by religious claims, so any reflection on the ethics, politics, and culture of the Old South carries complex religious conations. New South has served as a vessel for Southerners to reflect on and renegotiate their own identity and to reframe America's founding sin to the rest of the nation. To be precise, I argue not simply that religion was an essential ingredient in early conceptions of the New South, but also that the nineteenth century architects of the "New South" employed what Catherine Bell calls ritualization. Formulated in her seminal 1992 work Ritual Theory, Ritual Practice, ritualization describes the way that actors use religious ideas and practices to distinguish an act as sacred. I contend that the original framers of the New South engaged a type of ritualization that drew on Christianity to distinguish the South as sacred, reborn, and chosen.
FROM COLONIAL SOVEREIGNTY TO INTERNALIZED ADMIRATION FOR IMPERIAL MODERNITY: THE POLITICAL-THEOLOGICAL RUINS OF JAPANESE COLONIALISM IN KOREA AFTER LIBERATION

Cho H. (Speaker)

University of Toronto ~ Toronto ~ Canada
This paper examines the question of whether liberation from colonial rule entails liberation from colonial sovereignty. This paper argues that the political-theological logic of colonial sovereignty persisted in post-liberation Korean society as an internalized structure of admiration, discipline, and competition, while Korea achieved independence from Japanese imperial rule in 1945. Using Carl Schmitt's concept of sovereignty and theory of political theology, this paper analyzes Japanese imperial rule as a sacralized form of sovereignty centered on the emperor, articulated through constitutional and legal frameworks. Colonial sovereignty functioned not only through force but also through the production of trained subjects oriented toward imperial order. To explain why this logic persists beyond the end of colonial rule, this paper turns to Giorgio Agamben's concept of the state of exception. It argues that colonial sovereignty did not disappear after liberation but became normalized and internalized, shifting from juridical authority into everyday life, labor, and forms of subjectivity. The admiration for imperial modernity was internalized, producing subjects who voluntarily participate in systems of constant effort and achievement. By reframing colonialism as a problem of sovereignty rather than occupation alone, this paper shows how colonial power can endure long after independence in Korea.
SECULAR GOVERNANCE OF THE SACRED: RELIGION-STATE RELATIONS IN SOUTH KOREA'S HERITAGE POLICIES

Joh Y. (Speaker)

Yale University ~ New Haven ~ United States of America
This paper examines Korean Buddhist responses to state regulation of religious heritage through the lens of legal pluralism, treating both state and religion as overlapping regulatory authorities in a constitutionally secular nation-state. Focusing on the 2024 Framework Act on National Heritage, which established a new legal system of classifying and managing what was previously termed 'cultural properties' (K. munhwajae), this paper argues that heritage policies become a site of tension where Korean Buddhism is simultaneously invited to and barred from participating in the nation-state's project of social organization. Ultimately, this case offers a compelling example of the contested boundaries between the religious and the secular, raising broader questions of religious freedom and public presence under modern structures of secular governance.
DECRYPTING SECULARIZATION: COLONIAL POWER, RELIGION, AND INEQUALITY IN THE HISPANIC CARIBBEAN

Lebrón-Gómez N. (Speaker)

Princeton Theological Seminary ~ Princeton, New Jersey ~ United States of America
This paper critically examines secularization not as a neutral or universal marker of modernity, but as a historically contingent and colonial technology of power. Drawing on decolonial theory and Ricardo Sanín-Restrepo's Theory of Encrypted Power, I argue that secularism in the Hispanic Caribbean has functioned as a grammar of governance that simultaneously marginalizes certain religious expressions while mobilizing others to legitimate political authority and social hierarchies. Against classical secularization narratives that presuppose the progressive decline of religion in public life, this paper situates the Caribbean as a paradigmatic case in which secularizing and desecularizing forces coexist and interact within the conditions of colonial modernity. Far from signaling a return to pre-modern religiosity, contemporary religious resurgence reveals how secularism itself encrypts theological assumptions that continue to shape political legitimacy, national belonging, and inequality. Focusing on the Hispanic Caribbean as a colonial and postcolonial site, the paper introduces the concept of sacramental legitimation to describe the process by which political actors, institutions, and neoliberal governance are endowed with moral and quasi-sacred authority through religious discourse. This dynamic exposes how religion can operate ambivalently—at times contesting injustice and exclusion, while at others reinforcing racialized, economic, and moral hierarchies within a formally secular public sphere. By decrypting secularization as a colonial discourse rather than an inevitable social process, this paper contributes to broader global debates on religion, nation, and inequality. It calls for moving beyond simplistic binaries of secular versus religious in order to better understand how power, sovereignty, and inequality are produced and contested in diverse postcolonial contexts.
I AM BECOMING: ARCHAISM, CONJURE, AND BLACK ONTOLOGICAL EXPANSION AS A PRAXIS OF BELONGING

Davis J. (Speaker)

Vanderbilt University ~ Nashville ~ United States of America
Black survival is not merely endurance or perseverance, but a praxis of Sankofa that guides us toward the eschaton while inviting Blackness to conjure archaic and archival epistemologies to reimagine Black possible futures. Against racial capitalism, secular modernity, and the theological residues of colonialism, Sankofa becomes not nostalgia but insurgent retrieval, a religious and cosmological return that disrupts the terms by which Black being has been rendered unequal. Charles Long's notion of archaism names the fragments of ancestral cosmological and precolonial meaning that Black people draw upon for survival. These fragments are not relics of a dead past, but living epistemic resources that trouble the colonial production of religion as superstition and Blackness as absence. In this way, archaism exposes religion's ambivalence: while Christian and secular formations have historically sanctioned racial hierarchy, ancestral cosmologies persist as counter-sovereign sites of meaning-making. What Kevin Quashie calls "a giving space of being" emerges here as Black world-making beyond the strictures of respectability and the governance of white supremacy. In Black life, these Sankofanian moments surface through conjure. As Yvonne Chireau demonstrates, conjure is not magic in the dismissive secular sense, but an ontological system through which agency and personhood are reclaimed in the wake of slavery's ungendering and modernity's exclusions. This paper argues that conjure functions as an ethical practice rooted in archival and ancestral memory, enabling navigation through chaotic worlds shaped by neoliberal precarity and racial governance. By foregrounding Black conjure as a counter-theological practice, this paper contributes to broader conversations about religion's role in contesting sovereignty, unsettling secular hierarchies, and imagining equality beyond the afterlives of slavery.

Panel description: The purpose of this panel is to explore how sacred texts are activated through practices of translation, vernacularization, and narrative mediation across different religious and historical contexts. Rather than approaching translation as a merely linguistic operation, the contributions gathered here investigate how textual strategies, material arrangements, and audience-oriented choices enable sacred texts to become meaningful, efficacious, and experientially potent beyond their original linguistic settings. In doing so, the authors contribute to broader discussions on religious experience, textual authority, and the material and intellectual practices through which sacred texts are made present, intelligible, and effective within specific communities. Moving from the late medieval period to the present, and across Jewish, Christian, Islamic and other religious traditions, the panel aims to question the relationship between sacred language and vernacular expression, questioning the assumption that sacrality is intrinsically tied to a specific language and literary genre. It asks instead if the sacred may be mobilised through storytelling, compilation, layout, paratexts, and modes of address that shape readers' engagement with the text. Translation and vulgarization emerge not only as tools of access, but as practices that negotiate authority, legitimacy, and the boundaries between ritual use, personal devotion, and cognitive understanding. By foregrounding concrete textual artefacts, the panel investigates how different forms of textual mediation "activate" the sacred in distinct ways: through narrative immersion, pedagogical framing, hermeneutical guidance, or polemical positioning. Particular attention is paid to the intended audiences of these texts and to the ways in which linguistic choices reflect assumptions about who is entitled to interpret, internalise, or experience the sacred.

Papers:

WOLF VON ZÜLNHART (CA. 1450-1519) ACTIVATING THE SACRED: NOT THE LANGUAGE BUT THE STORY COUNTS

Schuil K.J. (Speaker)

Central European University ~ Vienna ~ Austria
On March 26, 1495, Wolf von Zülnhart departs from Augsburg for his pilgrimage to the Holy Land. In his pilgrim account, he offers an engaging narrative for his journey through the Germanic speaking lands, across the Alps to Venice and onward by sea to the Holy Land. The narrative flows naturally, as if the readers were travelling, alongside him, and appears to be largely grounded in his experiences. However, arriving in the Holy Land, the account becomes more compilatory in nature. At this stage, Wolf von Zülnhart alternates between passages in Latin and Swabian. Following a traditional view of Latin as sacred language of Western Christianity, it could be argued that the Latin passages represent the sacred text Wolf von Zülnhart seeks to activate through his text, while the Swabian ones reflect his personal engagements with the Holy Land. Although this interpretation may contain some truth, this paper argues that the compilatory impression could also have a more practical explanation. These Latin passages were likely copied from Franciscan Holy Land guide(book)s, whereas his own experiences are recorded in Swabian, the language in which he was thinking. Related, it may be suggested that Wolf von Zülnhart either lacked the necessary skill, did not consider himself the appropriate person, or more plausibly, did not have the time to translate these Latin materials in Swabian. This would help to explain the compilatory character of the Holy Land section. However, this does not mean that Wolf von Zülnhart did not attempt to activate the sacred through text. Rather, he employs a form of merging storytelling to do so, one that goes beyond a simple revivification, memorialization or redramatisation. In other words, this paper proposes that, in the case of Wolf von Zülnhart, it is not primarily the insertion of Latin as a sacred language that activates the sacred through text but rather the narrative strategy of merging storytelling.
FROM RECITATION TO COMPREHENSION: ACTIVATING THE QURʾĀN IN THE AHMADIYYA ITALIAN TRANSLATION (1986)

Badini F. (Speaker)

FSCIRE ~ Palermo ~ Italy
This paper examines the first Italian translation of the Qurʾān produced by the Ahmadiyya and published in London in 1986 by The London Mosque, interpreting it as a device for activating the sacred text rather than as a merely linguistic mediation. Drawing on the analytical distinction between ritual use and cognitive engagement with sacred scripture, the contribution argues that the Ahmadi translation enacts a specific form of activation grounded in understanding, while preserving Arabic as the exclusive language of liturgical recitation. In contrast to earlier Italian translations of the Qurʾān, this version explicitly addresses an Italian-speaking Muslim readership, with the aim of making the Qurʾānic message intelligible and theologically coherent. Although based on the English translation by Sher Ali, the Italian version situates itself within a longer Ahmadiyya tradition of vernacular translations conceived as instruments of religious education and missionary activity. The analysis focuses on the structure of the volume - comprising a preface, the translation proper, explanations of selected Arabic expressions, and an analytical index - as well as on specific material and textual choices: the Arabic text printed in parallel columns with the Italian translation, the use of simplified Latin-script transcription for key Arabic terms, the thematic subdivision of the sūras, and the non-academic function of the preface. Rather than offering a general introduction to Islam, the preface positions Islam in relation to Christianity and Judaism, emphasising divine unity and advancing a polemical reinterpretation of Christian doctrines such as the Trinity and divine sonship. Through these elements, the paper shows how the Ahmadiyya translation activates the sacred text not at the ritual level, but at the hermeneutical one, framing comprehension as a legitimate mode of experiencing the sacred.
THE LIVING VOICES OF THE PALI SUTTAS: DEBORDERING SOUND AND MEANING IN A THAI BUDDHIST MONASTERY.

Nenna M.V. (Speaker)

Università di Roma La Sapienza ~ Roma ~ Italy
This paper examines how contemporary Buddhist practitioners enact chanting as a creative and embodied practice that unsettles the apparent fixity of the Pali Suttas. Based on my ethnographic fieldwork in Thailand, I explore how chants are not merely recited texts but lived, sensory, and communal events. I argue that chanting bridges the divide between sound and meaning by transforming Pali scriptures into an embodied experience of Dhamma within the everyday practice of Theravāda Bhikkhū. Approaching chants as emergent and intersubjective performances, I show how they are produced through ongoing processes of "debordering" between textual meaning and vocal vibration. Rather than treating chants as fixed scripts, this framework highlights their dynamic reconfiguration in performance, foregrounding the interplay between textual authority and embodied agency. In chanting, practitioners emphasize rhythm, tone, or semantic content depending on context. By impressing their own agency upon archaic scriptures through the use of the voice, they perform them according to their own interpretation of what constitutes the significant part of the linguistic sign, depending on the goal at hand: tomemorize the teaching, to heal, to meditate, to experience anatta, or simply to feel better. In this sense, chanting does not simply reproduce the Suttas as sacred words attributed to the Buddha; it generates a sensory horizon through which the teachings are interpreted and lived. Chanting thus emerges as a performative practice in which voice and body become central mediators of religious knowledge. For Bhikkhū, recitation is not supplementary to reading but constitutive of understanding: the text acquires substance and feeling through vibration. By moving from written scripture to resonant sound, chanting produces Dhamma as felt presence, an embodied and communal mode of knowing that is continually reanimated in oral and everyday practice.
THE SPANISH VULGARIZATIONS OF THE SIDDURIM: A SPIRITUAL INSTRUMENT OF SOCIAL COHESION

Manfrinetti B. (Speaker)

DREST - Università di Modena-Reggio Emilia ~ Modena ~ Italy
This paper investigates the role of Spanish vernacularisations of Jewish prayer books (siddurim) in the Early Modern period from a twofold perspective. First, it examines their function as a linguistic vehicle that enabled former conversos - lacking knowledge of Hebrew and wishing to return to Judaism - to understand the meaning of the prayers and to participate more consciously in communal worship conducted in Hebrew. Full comprehension of the liturgical text fostered a deeper spiritual engagement and a renewed relationship with the Divine. Building on this premise, the paper hypothesizes the existence - for some prayers - of relatively stable or "standard" translations circulating among Sephardi communities. Such shared versions may have strengthened communal cohesion through familiarity with common liturgical formulas and the perception of a more stable spiritual connection with the Divinity. In this context, translation was a practical instrument for reintegrating former conversos into the social and religious fabric of the Sephardi diaspora. This process must be analysed considering the mobility that characterized these communities, whose rabbis and leading figures frequently moved from one centre to another. Secondly, the paper explores the presence of vernacularized prayers in Jewish treatises of the Early Modern period, with a special focus to works produced in the first half of the seventeenth century - marked by the increasing of the phenomenon of teshuvah, understood here as a return to Judaism, and by a growing demand for texts facilitating the reintegration of former conversos. The treatise "Thesoro de Preceptos" is a case study for examining the social role of translation in the liturgical sphere. Familiarity with vernacular versions of major prayers may have reinforced not only local communal identity but also bonds among geographically distant Sephardi communities, contributing to the maintenance of a broader "pan-Sephardi" sense of spiritual unity.
THE GARDEN AND TORRENT OF "HEDONE": TRANSLATING PLEASURE FROM THE OLD GOSPEL

Piergiacomi E. (Speaker)

Pegaso Telematic University ~ Naples ~ Italy
In the Christian tradition, hedonism is often considered a sinful way of life that separates human beings from the love of God, or from contact with divine essence. However, this talk will focus on a different tradition, one that actually tried to defending the perspective that genuinely pleasurable existence is inseparable from Christian beliefs and religion by proposing an "impervious reading" of the Bible. I refer to philosophers such as Augustine of Hippo, Lorenzo Valla, Francesco Filelfo, Erasmus of Rotterdam, and Pierre Gassendi, who could be defined as "Christian hedonists" inasmuch as they attempted to show that pleasure is a good that can be obtained by living a religious life. In order to ground their theory, they translated in Latin passages from the Old Gospel that present hedonism in a pious way. In particular, this talk will focus on two case-studies. On the one hand, I will focus on the translation/interpretation of the garden of Eden of the Genesis, as both the foreshadowing of the Christian paradise and a representation of the condition of human beings before their fall from God, or before the sinful corruption. The name of the garden itself is telling: "Eden" comes from the Hebrew term "Hedna", i.e. the word that gave birth to the notion of ἡδονή. Therefore, it will be argued that Christian hedonists read/translated this episode as proof that pleasure is the good, since before their expulsion from Eden Adam and Eve only had pleasurable experiences, including direct contact with divinity. On the other hand, I will reconstruct the exegesis of the "Psalms". Christian hedonists sought in this collection of poems the proof that loving God and leading a religious life reward one with a divine pleasurable life. An example is psalm 36. According to the Latin version, the psalmist prays divinity to inundate him with a torrent of pleasure ("torrens voluptatis").
TRANSLATING THE UNKNOWN: A DIVINATORY TEXT IN EARLY MODERN KERALA

Pattery T.J. (Speaker)

Central European University ~ Vienna ~ Austria
Pālpustakam (Pāl: from the Persian fal, Lot pustakam: Malayalam, book - the Book of Lots, Ktaba d-Pal in Syriac, and Libro da sortes in the Portuguese texts) is a divinatory text, originally written in Syriac, which was used among the Saint Thomas Christians in Kerala, India. The earliest extant references to this text in Kerala are from the sixteenth century. For the divination, the eyes of the one whose fate is scrutinised were banded, and they had to point blindly to one of the 49 numbers, which was supposed to tell his/her fate. The ritual, accompanied by prayers, was administered by the priests. Following the Latinization attempts by the Portuguese in the sixteenth century, the Pālpustakam and the practice of consulting it were repeatedly condemned as heretical. Despite these prohibitions, the text continued to be copied, translated, and used well into the twentieth century. I have identified six copies in Syriac and Malayalam, displaying considerable variations. This paper will explore how this divinatory manual became a medium to access sacred knowledge. The sacred is then activated in these texts first through detailed instructions for the performance of the divination, and through the person of the priest who interprets the divine will for the seeker. The translation of the text from Syriac to Malayalam, which might have happened in the nineteenth century, shows that, the repeated condemnations notwithstanding, in the popular imaginaire, divination continued to be an important part of sacred knowledge entrusted to the priests. However, it was now mediated by the vernacular language. This translation was probably necessitated by the waning influence, indeed knowledge, of Syriac. Drawing on manuscript evidence and letters of prohibitions, this paper will argue that divination was an important part of the everyday religious life and that the priests played the role of divinators, and of translators and transmitters of sacred knowledge to the community.

Panel description: Augustine of Hippo is frequently characterized—and often critiqued—as a thinker of dualisms: nature and grace, city of God and city of man, spirit and matter. However, such readings overlook the Christological center that holds these poles in a dynamic, sacramental tension. This panel explores the "Christological key" to the Augustinian doctrine of creation, arguing that for Augustine and his successors, the mystery of the Incarnate Word is inseparable from the ontological structure of the cosmos. As the Ars Patris (the Art of the Father), Christ is not merely an external redeemer but the very blueprint through whom all things were made and in whom all things consist. The panel invite patristic scholars, systematic theologians, and ethicists to explore the vitality of the Augustinian tradition in addressing contemporary questions. We invite contributions from historical exegesis as well as contemporary systematicians and ethicists to explore how an Augustinian "Christology of Creation" offers a robust framework for interdisciplinary dialogue today from a "thick" description of reality that is at once deeply scriptural, philosophically sophisticated, and ethically urgent for a world facing ecological and social fragmentation. Possible thematic contributions include: •⁠ ⁠Historical & Exegetical: Reassessing the relationship between the Logos and the rationes seminales (seed-like principles) in Augustine's Genesis commentaries. •⁠ ⁠Theological Aesthetics: Exploring the connections between natural beauty, the imagery of nature, and Christ. •⁠ ⁠Science & Religion: How a Christocentric metaphysics provides a "grammar" for the natural sciences, moving beyond the conflict model to see creation as a structured expression of Divine Wisdom. •⁠ ⁠Ethics & Ecology: Utilizing the Totus Christus (the Whole Christ) framework to develop a non-anthropocentric ecological ethic and a Christologically grounded natural law.

Papers:

AUGUSTINIAN REFLECTIONS: WATER AND MEMORY IN THE ENARRATIONES IN PSALMOS

Rakotoniaina M. (Speaker)

Fordham University ~ New York ~ United States of America
At the dawn of creation, there was water. This paper seeks to examine how Augustine's enarrationes in Psalmos shape the image of water to construct poetic realms of memory. Liquid and solid, heavenly and earthly, through rivers and seas, the multi-faceted image of water fashions the memory of creation and re-creation in Augustine's interpretation of the Psalms. With occasional references to Genesis (including De Genesi aduersus Manicheos; De Genesi ad litteram; Confessions XIII), this paper is an invitation to re-interpret the Psalms with Augustine. It hopes to demonstrate how the literary motif of water generates and nourishes the Psalter poetic of memory. This poetics offers a visualization of history that draws on the substance of aquatic images available throughout the Psalter. Through the image of water, it is possible to navigate both the psalmists' and Augustine's historical and spiritual imagination. At the crossroads of cosmology, theological aesthetics and environmental humanities, this investigation proposes a two-fold aquatic journey. Inspired by Pierre Nora's lieux de mémoire, Paul Ricoeur's phenomenology of memory and Gaston Bachelard's insights into the imagination of water, we first attempt to see how water moves through the Psalter and within particular enarrationes in Psalmos. Weaving micro-structure with macro-structure, the analysis will delineate the Augustinian story told by the imagery of water. Second, the essay will see how water intertwines with memory, how it shapes memory through various poetic devices and how the Augustinian construction of memory reciprocally shapes the image of water. A literary-poetic study of several clusters of psalms (selected for their significant relationship between water and memory) will demonstrate the changing tide of this memorial flow in a defiance of the border between materiality and immateriality. In other words, the study invites to attend to the time and tides of Augustine's conscience poétique.
THE ARS PATRIS: REVISITING AUGUSTINIAN PNEUMATOLOGY AND RECENTRING CHRISTOLOGY IN RELATION TO AUGUSTINE'S DOCTRINE OF THE HOLY SPIRIT

Bennett D. (Speaker)

University of Oxford ~ Oxford ~ United Kingdom
This paper proposes a retrieval of Augustine's pneumatology by reading the Holy Spirit as ars Patris—the Father's "art" or formative agency—through which Christological beauty is disclosed, desired, and enacted within the economy of salvation. Building from my earlier work on Augustine's "way in" to Trinitarian knowledge through beauty, I argue that Augustine's account of the Spirit as Gift cannot be treated as a detachable addendum to Christology, but as the very mode by which Christ's cruciform beauty becomes epistemically and morally luminous for the pilgrim soul. In Augustine, the Spirit's mission is not simply to "apply benefits," but to reform deformed loves by granting a renewed sight capable of perceiving divine beauty precisely where creaturely judgement encounters scandal: the deformation of the crucified Christ. In this paradox, beauty functions not as aesthetic ornament but as the lived grammar of participation—an ontic door into Trinitarian life—wherein desire is chastened, reordered, and healed. Recentring Christology, therefore, does not marginalise the Spirit; it locates pneumatology at the heart of Christ's ongoing presence as the Spirit conforms believers to the Son, kindling the heart and cleansing the eye to perceive and love Christ's beauty. Against accounts that either collapse pneumatology into an abstract metaphysics of "relation" or treat it as a merely functional appendix, I contend that Augustine offers a distinctively Christo-pneumatological aesthetics: the Spirit is the Father's artistry by which the Church is tutored into cruciform perception, sustained in prayerful desire, and drawn—through Christ—into the beauty of God who is love.
THAT TRAGIC BALM: AUGUSTINE'S CHRISTOLOGICAL LOGIC OF CREATION

Neterer A. (Speaker)

University of Oxford ~ Oxford ~ United Kingdom
This paper argues that Christological logic governs Augustine's doctrine of creation. For Augustine, the Word not only redeems but also configures and heals creation. Building on readings that frame Augustine's cosmology dualistically—pitting nature against grace, body against soul, creation against redemption—I contend that Augustine consistently interprets creation through Christ as the Ars Dei: the divine Wisdom in whom all things are made, sustained, and restored. Even from the moment of Creation, salvation history was oriented toward the Word made flesh. Drawing primarily on Confessions, the paper traces how Augustine integrates the 'primordial causes' within a Christocentric metaphysics. This framework allows Augustine to reconceive creaturely suffering as a locus of eucatastrophic redemption, presaging the Incarnation, Passion, and Redemption. The cross, rather than negating the goodness of creation, reveals its deepest grammar: a reality structured for participation, reformation, and glorification through the incarnate Word. By placing Augustine's Christology of creation in dialogue with ancient tragic accounts of suffering, the paper shows how an Augustinian description of reality resists both metaphysical pessimism and Panglossian optimism. Instead, it offers a vision of the cosmos as meaningfully ordered through Christ, capable of bearing suffering without collapsing into absurdity. In doing so, the paper contributes to the panel's aim of retrieving an Augustinian Christology of creation that is at once exegetically grounded, philosophically coherent, and ethically urgent for a fractured world.
THE DEPTH AND REACH OF WISDOM: AUGUSTINE ON SAPIENTIA, CREATION, HUMANS, AND OTHER ANIMALS

Fell M. (Speaker)

The University of Cambridge ~ Cambridge ~ United Kingdom
For Augustine, the confession that Christ is the Wisdom of God is not merely a statement about the Saviour but a claim about the very structure of creation itself. Drawing upon a constellation of biblical texts (1 Cor. 1:24, Col. 2:3, and Wis. 8:1), Augustine makes Sapientia Dei, identified with the eternal Word, a key organising theme within his doctrine of creation. Sapientia is not an abstract metaphysical principle but names the mystery of creation's concrete participation in overarching levels of order. Creatures are not merely caused by God but arrayed in Wisdom, ordered according to modus, numerus, and pondus (Wis. 11:20), and thereby oriented, in their very depths, toward intelligibility, goodness, and beauty. This participatory structure reframes the relationship between matter and mind and productively blurs the received boundaries between nature and culture, animal and human, with implications that reach further than Augustine himself realised. The paper examines the cosmological vision of De Genesi ad litteram, showing how the rationes aeternae, the causales rationes, and the triad of measure, number, and weight articulate creation as a luminous manifestation of Sapientia Dei. It then critically reflects upon Augustine's account of the boundary between humanity and other animals, proposing a more graduated understanding of animal intelligence as a better fit to Augustinian ontology. If all creatures participate in Wisdom's lucidity, then the evolving forms of perception, memory, learning, and communication found across animal species are distinctive modes of participation in the same transcendental order that constitutes human rationality — a participatory continuum honouring both evolutionary continuity and the genuine qualitative distinction of the imago Dei. The paper concludes by indicating the contemporary implications of this framework for science-and-religion dialogue, animal ethics, and a non-anthropocentric account of creation's value.
"THE GARDEN AS SIGN: AUGUSTINE'S DOCTRINE OF CREATION, ARTISTIC MATERIALITY, AND THE LONGING FOR EDEN"

Yearwood A. (Speaker)

Independent ~ Oxford, England ~ United States of America
This paper proposes that Augustine's doctrine of creation offers a robust theological foundation for a non-dualistic account of artistic materiality — one that resists the tendency within both conceptualist art theory and certain strands of Christian thought to subordinate matter to idea. Drawing on Wesley Cray, Susannah Ticciati, and Carol Harrison, I argue that Augustine's understanding of creation is not a depreciation of the physical world but a profound affirmation of it: matter, rightly perceived, functions as signum — sign — pointing beyond itself to the presence of God. Central to this argument is Augustine's treatment of the Garden of Eden. His exegesis — particularly in De Genesi ad Litteram — constructs the garden as a paradigmatic site of sign-bearing nature: a world in which the material and spiritual are irreducibly entangled. Creaturely beauty is neither incidental nor merely allegorical but genuinely revelatory. This paper argues that Eden iconography across Western art represents not nostalgia but theological acts: attempts to image a world in which nature speaks clearly of its maker. Read through an Augustinian lens, this history becomes a history of implicit doctrines of creation. Augustine's doctrine suggests a posture of attentive participation — neither dominating matter nor retreating from it, but responding to it. Against the dematerialising tendency of conceptual art, a practice rooted in Augustinian creation theology recovers the significance of paint, surface, and bodily encounter with the natural world. If nature is sign, then the artist's attention to material reality is not incidental to meaning — it is meaning. The act of painting becomes an act of theological perception: a response to a world that, on Augustine's account, has never ceased to speak.
THINKING ABOUT THE SEMIOTICS OF THEOPHANY WITH ST AUGUSTINE

Ritzema J. (Speaker)

University of Oxford; Pharos Foundation. ~ Oxford ~ United Kingdom
There has been something of a renaissance in the study of ancient epiphanies. In particular, the Greco-Roman art historian Verity Platt published a seminal monograph in 2011, Facing the Gods. Drawing in particular on Herodotus (Histories 2.53), Platt argues that in Greek epiphany, deities are manifested in their particular forms (εἴδεα), and thereby distinguished one from another by a complex system of signs (σήματα) drawn from a received body of Greek poetry and art, above all from Homer and Hesiod. This epiphanic semiotics involves a powerful theological aesthetics. My own work has involved developing this model of representation and epiphanic semiotics with respect to the Hebrew Bible, in conversation both with the Greek material and the wider literary, religious and iconographic worlds of the ancient Near East. After all, the Bible seems sometimes to struggle with the problem of theophany: 'You did not see any form on the day YHWH spoke unto you at Horeb from the midst of the fire' (Deut 4:15); 'Nobody has ever seen God' (John 1:18). There is a congruence here with Augustine's hermeneutics and the interpretation of particular Scriptural texts: both his emphasis on the importance of signs and signification in representing reality, and his revolutionary exegesis of the Old Testament theophanies in Books II and III of the De Trinitate. This paper will therefore re-read some of Augustine's writings, there and elsewhere, on Old Testament theophanies in conversation with contemporary scholarship on epiphanies in the ancient world. It will consider the relationship between Augustine's trinitarian Christology and his model of God's self-representation by means of created manifestations and the texts of Scripture. It will explore how Augustine's exegesis of theophanic texts brings together aspects of his doctrine of creation, the relationship between representation and reality, and a theological aesthetics which draws upon both biblical and classical traditions.
AN AESTHETIC APPROACH TO ECO-THEOLOGY: AUGUSTINE AND THE BOOK OF NATURE

Biron L. (Speaker)

Balliol College University of Oxford ~ Oxford ~ United Kingdom
In this paper, I examine a longstanding theological approach to the natural world known as the Book of Nature, which invites us to see God as the author of two distinct yet complementary books—the natural world and the Bible—and thus to imagine nature as in some sense readable, intelligible, and a source of revelation about God. Whilst the Book of Nature is often read as a source of general revelation, many authors have highlighted the potential for it to be read as a prompt for aesthetic contemplation. It is in this context that my paper will explore St Augustine's writings on the Book of Nature. Augustine draws a connection between the contemplation of beauty in creation and the contemplation of God as creator or 'author' of the Book of Nature. I explore two features of Augustine's discussion. First, I highlight the connection he draws between aesthetic contemplation of the natural world and the development of moral virtue—specifically, the virtue of humility. Second, I highlight Augustine's contemplative approach to reading the 'two books' of nature and scripture, which are treated as complementary rather than competing sources of revelation. Finally, I assess the potential for Augustine's insights on the Book of Nature to be applied to contemporary work in eco-theology, and whether the ancient metaphor of the Book of Nature can be rehabilitated for an ecological age.

Panel description: This panel proposes a focused examination of Said Nursî's conception of equality as articulated in his early twentieth-century work Munāẓarāt (Disputations), situating it within broader debates on religion, freedom, social justice, and (in)equalities. Written in the context of late Ottoman constitutionalism (Meşrutiyet), Munāẓarāt addresses long-standing and unresolved questions concerning equality before the law, political inclusion, minority rights, social hierarchy, economic disparity, individual liberty, religious authority, and social cohesion. Nursî advances a conception of equality that rejects both hierarchical domination and reductive egalitarianism. Equality, in this framework, does not entail sameness of belief, virtue, or social role, but rather rests on justice, dignity, freedom as non-domination, and moral responsibility. Approaching Munāẓarāt as a normative and political text, this panel explores how a religious moral framework can simultaneously critique despotism, challenge structural inequalities, and sustain pluralism. By foregrounding Nursî's reflections on law, governance, and social morality, the panel contributes to EuARe 2026's theme of how religious traditions have both reinforced and contested modern forms of inequality. The panel welcomes interdisciplinary contributions from religious studies, political theory, sociology, history, law, and ethics that ground their analyses in close readings of Munāẓarāt and examine its relevance for contemporary debates on constitutionalism, citizenship, minority rights, and equality. Papers comparing Nursi's Munāẓarāt with other works and thinkers are also welcome. Suggested Topics for Papers (Not limited to): • Equality before the law and respecting religious differences • Religion, constitutionalism, and political inclusion • Minority rights, dignity, and coexistence • Despotism as a source of structural inequality • Social class, poverty, and moral responsibility

Papers:

"EQUALITY WITHOUT SAMENESS:" JUSTICE, DIGNITY, AND NON-DOMINATION IN SAID NURSÎ'S MUNĀẒARĀT

Yildiz A. (Speaker)

Fatih Sultan Mehmet Foundation University ~ İstanbul ~ Turkey
This paper examines Said Nursî's conception of equality as articulated in Munāẓarāt (Disputations), situating it as a religious-moral critique of modern forms of inequality grounded in law, governance, and social hierarchy. Written in the context of late Ottoman constitutional debates, Munāẓarāt engages questions that remain central to contemporary discussions on religion and (in)equalities: equality before the law, political inclusion, minority rights, social stratification, and the moral foundations of freedom. Nursî advances a conception of equality that explicitly rejects both hierarchical domination and reductive egalitarianism. Equality, in his framework, does not imply sameness of belief, virtue, or social role; rather, it is anchored in justice, human dignity, and freedom understood as non-domination. Legal equality before the law is treated as absolute, while moral and religious differences are preserved within a pluralistic social order. Political authority is redefined as service rather than sovereignty, allowing for inclusion without confessional hierarchy. The paper argues that Munāẓarāt offers a layered account of equality—legal, political, social, and moral—that enables a sustained critique of despotism as a structural source of inequality. By locating injustice in systems of domination rather than in religious difference itself, Nursî reframes religion as a resource for resisting inequality rather than legitimizing it. By reading Munāẓarāt as a normative political text rather than a confessional treatise, this paper contributes to broader interdisciplinary debates on how religious moral frameworks can challenge inequality while avoiding both homogenization and exclusion. It thus positions Nursî's thought as a historically grounded yet conceptually relevant contribution to contemporary discussions on religion, justice, and equality. Keywords: Said Nursî, Munāẓarāt, Constitutionalism, Equality before the law, Non-domination, Human dignity
A MUSLIM CONSTITUTIONAL FRAMEWORK OF EQUAL CITIZENSHIP: THE LEGACY OF OTTOMAN POLITICAL THOUGHT AND PRACTICE

Kurt H. (Speaker)

Northeastern University ~ Boston ~ United States of America
This paper investigates the constitutional moment of the Young Turk revolution of 1908 and analyzes Islamic discourse on constitutionalism. It demonstrates the rich legacy of the Ottoman experiment in equal citizenship for all, regardless of ethno-religious background. The setbacks and failures of this moment in the late Ottoman Empire should not lead us to underestimate the merits of this historical case, which could still provide relevant perspectives on the Muslim rule of law in the contemporary world. In this regard, this research examines the constitutionalist thought of three illustrative and critical figures in late Ottoman religious politics: Shaykh al-Islam Musa Kazım Efendi (1858-1920), Said Halim Pasha (1865-1921), and Bediüzzaman Said Nursi (1878-1960). This study allows them to speak for themselves regarding the relationship between constitutionalism and Islam, moving beyond the previous Orientalist and dichotomous historiography. I argue that the Ottoman intelligentsia developed a synthesis between Western concepts of constitutionalism and traditional Islamic governance through diverse approaches and arguments. The Second Constitutional period is a significant historical framework for state-religion relations in the Modern Middle East because it allowed secular law-making within the purview of Islamic law through the application of the "sharīʿa-oriented policy" (al-siyāsa al-sharʿiyya). This was the first period of Islamic constitutionalism in the Middle East before the emergence of Islamist ideologies in the second half of the 20th century. In this period, the Ottoman Islamic constitutional framework was based on the limitation of legislation by Islamic jurisprudence, whereas post-War Islamist ideologies considered "Islamic law" as the basis of legislation. Keywords: Ottoman Constitutionalism, Equal Citizenship, Rule of Law, Legal and Political Equality, Musa Kazim Efendi, Said Nursi, Said Halim Pasha
EQUALITY AS MORAL RESPONSIBILITY: SAID NURSÎ ON INEQUALITY, ʿUBŪDIYYA, AND NON-DOMINATION IN MUNĀẒARĀT

Nayed A.A. (Speaker)

Kalam Research and Media ~ Benghazi ~ Libyan Arab Jamahiriya
This paper focuses on how Said Nursî reconceptualizes political and social inequality as a problem of moral accountability rather than one of hierarchy or sameness. It emphasizes inequality as a moral problem, not a sociological or legal one. The central question posed in the paper is: How does Said Nursî reinterpret inequality in Munāẓarāt as a test of moral accountability, and what implications does this reinterpretation have for political authority and the principle of non-domination? I situate Said Nursî's understanding of equality within late Ottoman constitutional and political debates and ground his conception of equality in a moral-theological framework. In this framework, faith (īmān) and servanthood (ʿubūdiyya) constitute the basis of human equality, rather than uniform status, wealth, or power. Nursî reinterprets inequality not in terms of superiority or inferiority, but as a test of trust (amāna) and accountability. He frames authority and power as burdens of responsibility rather than sources of privilege, redefining political authority as service rather than domination, and thereby aligning governance with ethical restraint and non-domination. The paper treats Munāẓarāt as a work of political philosophy and, as such, as amenable to critical discussion through engagement with contemporary debates on religion and inequality. Particular emphasis is placed on Nursî's ideas as both historically grounded and conceptually relevant to modern discussions of inequality, responsibility, and social morality. The paper's position is to highlight compassion (raḥma) as a moral principle that moderates both structural and ethical inequalities. It presents equality as a shared moral standing before God, while allowing for legitimate differences in roles, capacities, and responsibilities. This is achieved by distinguishing between absolute legal equality before the law and differentiated moral responsibility tied to power, knowledge, and social position.
NURSI ON FREEDOM, CONSTITUTIONALISM, EQUAL RIGHTS, AND ETHICS

Abu Sway M. (Speaker)

Prof. Dr. Mustafa Abu Sway Integral Chair for the Study of Imam Al-Ghazali's Work at the Holy Al-Aqsa Mosque and Al-Quds University ~ Jerusalem ~ Palestinian Territory, Occupied
This paper proposes to primarily examine Said Nursi's concept of equality as articulated in his work Munāẓarāt (Disputations). The book has a question-and-answer format, covering various theological, social, and political issues. It culminates with an elaborate discussion on education and the Al-Zahra school that Nursi sought to establish. The paper will proceed with an exposé of the themes in the Munāẓarāt, paving the way for a discussion of the place of religion and the rights of ethnic and religious minorities within the framework of late Ottoman constitutionalism (Meşrutiyet). Nursi aimed for an egalitarian, pluralistic society, yet within a Ummatic worldview and ethos. He argued for equal rights for all, the Sultan/King, and the humble poor person, the Muslim and non-Muslim alike. Nursi takes a strong stance against despotism, advocating freedom while recognizing social behavior that abuses it, leading to "trivialities and vice". He is against behavior he considers beastly and driven by raw instinct. For a virtuous freedom, one needs both the light of the heart and the light of the intellect. Nursi's Munāẓarāt will be examined as a normative and political text. He advocates for constitutionalism based on Qur'anic verses of shura, consultation regarding political affairs. He rejects the misunderstanding that the republic has unlimited power. Neither human beings (i.e., after Prophet Muhammad, who was the last infallible prophet) nor governments are infallible. The role of the government is to serve and protect Islam and strengthen the bonds between the religion of the state, for it is the state of the Muslim Ummah that enjoys the brotherhood of faith. On the relationship between Muslims and non-Muslims, especially the people of the Book, Nursi differentiates between political alliances, friendship, love, and marriage, and service in the institutions of the state, including the army (for example, the Janissary army), on the other hand.

Panel description: This panel examines how gendered inequalities are produced, stabilised, and contested through intermedial operations in religious and religion-inflected contexts, spanning early modern devotional literature and contemporary art. Rather than treating inequality as a secondary effect of belief or doctrine, both contributions conceptualise it as an outcome of historically specific discursive, performative, and medial configurations that distribute agency, authority, and visibility unevenly. The first paper analyses early modern devotional literature as an intermedial site in which female agency is simultaneously enabled and restricted under conditions of male authorship and theological normativity. Drawing on a church-historical adaptation of Judith Butler's concept of performativity, it examines biblical figures such as Jael, Judith, and Lot's wife to show how agency becomes permissible only as a pious reiteration of divine order. Through the interweaving of biblical narration, exegesis, prayer, and poetic texts, female agency is rendered visible while remaining bound to humility, obedience, and gender-coded ideals. The second paper develops a cross-temporal heuristic by analysing contemporary art as a multimodal environment in which religiously inflected gender norms continue to generate inequalities. Focusing on media operations such as repetition with difference, fragmentation, spatial re-coding, and ritualised inscription, it examines how gendered authority and addressability emerge across image, text, space, materiality, and institutional framing. Together, the panel positions intermedial analysis as a key approach for studying religious inequalities, foregrounding how gendered asymmetries of agency and authority are produced and maintained through mediated operations across time.

Papers:

CONTEMPORARY ART AND MEDIA-TRANSPORTED GENDER NORMS: A CROSS-TEMPORAL HEURISTIC FOR INTERMEDIAL OPERATIONS OF RELIGIOUS GENDERED AUTHORITY

Corvaia-Koch R. (Speaker)

University of Graz, Institute for Systematic Theology and Liturgical Studies ~ Graz ~ Austria
How can contemporary art be analysed as a multimodal environment in which media-transported, religiously inflected gender norms become observable as operations of production, iteration, and resignification. The focus lies on the medial conditions under which norms acquire affective force and cultural durability: constellations of image, text, space, materiality, institutional framing, and embodied addressability. The paper treats church-historical contextualisation and media-operational analysis as mutually constraining procedures: historical specificity stabilises the comparison, while operational description sharpens what produces gendered authority and legibility. The paper proposes a cross-temporal perspective as a relational comparison. It proceeds in two steps. First, it identifies media operations as they become accessible in contemporary artistic practice and in its conditions of production, presentation, and reception. Second, it abstracts these procedures into an analytic vocabulary and mobilises it as a heuristic for examining early modern intermedial formations within their own temporal, confessional, and cultural frameworks. This procedure avoids anachronistic projection and assumptions of linear continuity or transhistorical equivalence. A pilot constellation of four artistic positions—Anys Reimann, Sophia Süßmilch, Esther Strauß, and Ruben Montini—tests and calibrates this heuristic within a wider corpus. These works make analytically tractable how gendered authority, addressability, and regimes of visibility are organised through media operations such as repetition with difference, fragmentation, spatial re-coding, and ritualised inscription, and through the agency of materials that bridge symbolic distance. In this way, the paper contributes a vocabulary for analysing religion and inequalities as effects of historically specific media operations that distribute gendered legibility and authority.
INTERMEDIAL SPACES OF AGENCY IN EARLY MODERN DEVOTIONAL LITERATURE

Bauer B. (Speaker)

University of Jena, Department for Church History ~ Jena ~ Germany
The lecture examines the representation of female "agency" in devotional literature, understanding agency - in line with a church-historical adaptation of Judith Butler's concept - not as a pre-given attribute of female subjects, but as a discursively and performatively produced and normatively regulated category that influences religiously constructed (in)equality. The focus lies on how female agency is constructed, constrained, and simultaneously rendered visible within a religious text shaped by male authorship. An analysis of the biblical figures Jael, Judith, and Lot's wife demonstrates the theologically mediated and functionalized agency of women. Female agency is approved when it can be read as a pious reiteration of divine order and is carried out with humility, obedience, and trust in God. Agency thus does not appear as an innate characteristic of the subject, but rather as the product of regulated repetition that processes female "weakness" (i.e. inequality) and virtues imagined as "natural". The male gaze structures the conditions of intelligibility of female agency. The intermedial structure of the work - combining biblical narration, exegesis, prayer and poetic texts- reinforces this construction of agency by embedding female figures in religious performance. Female agency is thus simultaneously narrated, prayed for and practised in an exemplary manner. Yet the figure of Lot's wife marks the limit of this discursive permission: her action as a deviation from divine command is sanctioned, while remaining present as a memorable negative exemplum. Devotional literature therefore emerges as an ambivalent site between the visibility and restriction of female agency. Gaining agency remains possible but is strictly bound to theologically legitimized and intermedially mediated forms of reiteration, and thus persistently dependent on gender-coded normativity.

Panel description: Metropolitan Georges Khodr stands as one of the most influential figures in modern Arabic Orthodox theology. His intellectual, pastoral, and public engagement has profoundly shaped theological reflection, political theology, and ecclesial life within the Antiochian sphere and beyond. This paper examines the significant role he played in shaping contemporary Arab Christian thought, with particular attention to the intersections of faith, culture, politics, and social responsibility. His influence extends beyond the Orthodox Church to the wider Arab intellectual milieu and ecumenical circles. Special emphasis is placed on his long-standing commitment to the Palestinian cause and the defense of Palestinian rights. From the early 1950s through the second decade of the twenty-first century, his writings, speeches, and public interventions articulated a theology grounded in justice, human dignity, and solidarity with oppressed peoples. Through theological reflection, advocacy, and participation in regional and international forums, Metropolitan Khodr developed a Christian discourse that engaged political realities without reducing faith to ideology, while affirming the Church's moral responsibility toward injustice. The paper also explores how his thought shaped generations of students, clergy, and intellectuals who later became influential figures in theological, cultural, and political life. His legacy is not confined to written works but lives on through teaching, mentorship, dialogue, and sustained public engagement. By reflecting on his influence on our own intellectual formation, this study highlights the enduring relevance of his vision and situates Metropolitan Georges Khodr as a central reference in modern Arab Christian thought, offering valuable insights into theology, politics, and commitment to justice in a fragmented world.

Papers:

METROPOLITAN GEORGES KHODR AND MODERN ARABIC ORTHODOX THEOLOGY: FAITH, CULTURE, AND PUBLIC ENGAGEMENT

Khoury S. (Speaker)

Pontifical Institute of Arabic and Islamic Studies (PISAI) ~ Rome ~ Italy
Abstract Metropolitan Georges Khodr (1923-present) stands as one of the most influential figures in modern Arabic Orthodox theology. His intellectual, pastoral, and public engagement has left a deep imprint on theological thought, political theology, and ecclesial life within the Antiochian sphere and beyond. This paper examines the complex and illuminating role he played in shaping contemporary Arab Christian theology, with particular attention to the intersections between faith, culture, politics, and social responsibility. It highlights how his theological vision addressed modernity, identity, and public life without isolating theology from lived reality. His contributions resonated not only within the Orthodox Church but also across wider Arab intellectual circles and ecumenical movements, where he emerged as a key voice for dialogue, responsibility, and engagement. By situating Metropolitan Khodr within the broader context of Arab Christian thought, this paper argues that his work represents a distinctive model of theology rooted in tradition yet deeply responsive to the challenges of the modern Arab world.
METROPOLITAN GEORGES KHODR AND THE PALESTINIAN CAUSE: THEOLOGY, JUSTICE, AND LEGACY

Nasr F. (Speaker)

Universite Saint Joseph ~ Beirut ~ Lebanon
Abstract This paper focuses on Metropolitan Georges Khodr's long-standing and unwavering commitment to the Palestinian cause and the defense of Palestinian rights. Beginning in the early 1950s and extending through the second decade of the twenty-first century, his writings, speeches, and public interventions consistently articulated a theology rooted in justice, human dignity, and solidarity with oppressed peoples. Through theological reflection, public advocacy, and participation in regional and international conventions, Metropolitan Khodr developed a Christian discourse that engaged political realities without reducing faith to ideology, while affirming the moral responsibility of the Church toward historical and contemporary injustices. The paper further explores how his thought shaped generations of students, clergy, and intellectuals who later became influential figures in theological, cultural, and political arenas. His legacy is thus understood not only through his texts but as a living tradition transmitted through teaching, mentorship, dialogue, and sustained public engagement. By reflecting on his influence on our own intellectual formation, the paper highlights the enduring relevance of his vision for contemporary debates on Palestine, justice, and the role of theology in the public sphere.
INEQUALITIES AND SPIRITUAL CAPITAL: PROPOSING A "GOAL 0" FOR THE UN 2030 AGENDA

Rozzoni S. (Speaker)

University of Bergamo ~ Bergamo ~ Italy
This paper develops the concept of 'spiritual capital' as an analytical lens for a critical assessment of the United Nations 2030 Agenda's approach to inequalities, highlighting both its achievements and its conceptual limits. As the 2030 horizon approaches, it has become increasingly clear that the SDG framework, while robust in its institutional and material dimensions, leaves important aspects unaddressed. The paper argues that one of these is the absence of spirituality as a constitutive element of sustainability and as a resource for addressing inequalities. Rooted in ethical values and the wisdom of diverse traditions, spiritual capital fosters purpose, resilience, and a sense of belonging, among other foundational conditions on which inclusive and sustainable development can flourish. In response, the paper proposes integrating spiritual capital into the SDG architecture in a way that is consistent with its existing logic of goals, targets, and indicators. Specifically, it introduces the idea of a "Goal 0," capable of integrating spiritual capital across all SDGs: rather than adding a further objective, this approach reframes spiritual capital as a cross-cutting principle that can orient sustainability policies. This paper is the result of a collaborative effort with a research group working on the theme of spiritual capital within the context of The Economy of Francesco.

Panel description: The panel aims to gather interdisciplinary contributions to re-think the foundations of a theology of peace from an interreligious and intercultural perspective in an age of growing local and international conflicts. Areas of interest: the history of nonviolence and its main interpreters from various religious traditions and contexts; the theory and practice of peace studies that accompany nonviolence and social justice; the analysis of the theme of peace in the founding texts of various religious traditions, starting with Christianity; the theme of peace in international cooperation and interreligious dialogue; peace education and in-depth study of some documents of the Magisterium of the Catholic Church dealing with the theme of peace.

Papers:

THE IMPERATIVE OF NONVIOLENCE THEOLOGY: AN ISLAMIC PERSPECTIVE

Mokrani A. (Speaker)

Pontificia Università Gregoriana ~ Roma ~ Italy
Nonviolence today represents not merely a moral option but a moral imperative, an existential necessity for humanity's survival on Earth. This paper examines the crucial shift from viewing nonviolence as optional to recognizing it as essential and explores how an inclusive theology of nonviolence can transform Islamic theological discourse and religious thought more broadly. Central to this transformation is the project of "disarming theology," liberating theological frameworks from complicity with imperialistic agendas and nostalgic attachments to violent paradigms. Drawing on Islamic sources and contemporary ethical theory, this presentation demonstrates how a theology grounded in nonviolence can contribute to both religious reform and planetary survival.
A THEOLOGY FOR PEACE AS AN ACT OF JUSTICE AGAINST THE MYSTIFICATIONS OF WAR IN THE THOUGHT OF BERNARD HÄRING

Tanzarella S. (Speaker)

Full Professor of Church History at the Pontifical Theological Faculty of Southern Italy - Director of the Institute of History of Christianity 'Cataldo Naro'. ~ Napoli ~ Italy
This contribution aims to demonstrate the analysis of structural violence carried out by theologian B. Häring over forty years ago and the solution he proposed to address resignation in the face of the inevitability of war and the justification of just and holy wars. His proposal is still highly relevant today, even though it was underestimated at the time. He advocated overcoming all vindictive justice by tracing the dynamics of non-violence in the light of the Gospel and the "new weapons of peace", referring to masters such as Gandhi and Martin Luther King and the healing virtue of non-violence.
NEW AND OLD APPROACHES IN THEOLOGICAL ETHICS TO QUESTIONS OF SECURITY POLICY AND JUST PEACE IN A TIME OF UPHEAVAL: THE PROTESTANT CHURCH IN GERMANY AND ITS NEW PEACE MEMORANDUM OF 2025 ("WORLD IN DISORDER - JUST PEACE IN VIEW")

Peterson P.S. (Speaker)

University of Tuebingen and Center for Military History and Social Sciences of the Bundeswehr / German Armed Forces ~ Tuebingen and Potsdam, Germany ~ Germany
This paper addresses the new 2025 Peace Memorandum of the Protestant Church in Germany, highlighting the memorandum's historical context and key arguments. It will also address the areas of continuity and discontinuity with previous theological and ethical approaches to these issues within the Protestant Church in Germany. Finally, it will consider the contemporary debates surrounding the new positions and outstanding issues and open questions.
THE SIGNIFICANCE OF WAHIDUDDIN KHAN'S NOTIONS OF PEACE AND NONVIOLENCE IN CONTEMPORARY MUSLIM DISCOURSE

Omar I.A. (Speaker)

Marquette University ~ Milwaukee ~ United States of America
This paper introduces the Al-Risala movement (and Wahiduddin Khan, its founder) as a contemporary Islamic movement based in Delhi, India. Since its inception in 1976, the movement has transformed and reinvented itself several times; today it is arguably one of most visible Muslim movements in South Asia competing to define the discourse on Islam and inevitably, influencing Muslim thought and practice both locally in India but also globally. Khan's thought - described primarily as focusing on "Peace" & "Nonviolence" (Sikand 2003; Omar 2008; Okawa 2019) - has impacted Muslims beyond India. This paper will consider how Khan's ideas have been received and interpreted by people beyond South Asia. Recent studies (Rahman 2017; Thoyib 2018; Dahlkvist 2019) suggest that Khan's works have a wider appeal, particularly as a response to the rise in religious extremism. This presentation will delineate how this positive reception informs as well as enhances indigenous calls for peace and against religious extremism, often in collaboration with people from other faith traditions. The overall aim of the presentation is to explore how the past (Khan's interpretation of Islam) informs the present and the future (reframing of Islamic norms) while at the same time considering the dynamics of translatability of Islamic notion of "Peace" across boundaries.
WHEN HOSTIS BECOMES HOSPES: A THEOLOGICAL PROPOSAL FOR PEACE

Bravo M. (Speaker)

Ateneo Pontificio Regina Apostolorum ~ Roma ~ Italy
For the panel "Theology of Peace: the Contribution of Religions", in the context of reflection on the role of religions in promoting peace among peoples, this paper offers a study of the theology of hospitality in the thought of Jean Daniélou. The starting point is his famous statement, repeatedly cited in the volume Teologia dell'ospitalità edited by Marco Dal Corso, according to which civilization takes a decisive step forward when the stranger, from being an enemy (hostis), becomes a guest (hospes). This insight is considered in light of two of Daniélou's key texts — Déportation et hospitalité (1951) and Migration et vie chrétienne (1963) — written in the historical context of post-war deportations and migrations. According to Daniélou, hospitality is an ambiguous human reality: it can generate conflict, identity fears, and cultural anxieties, yet it also offers extraordinary opportunities for mutual enrichment and the building of fraternity among peoples. It requires a delicate balance between rejecting cultural and religious fundamentalism and avoiding homogenization that erases differences. Only a reciprocal openness, grounded in respect and listening to the other, can foster authentic dialogue among faiths and cultures and lead to enduring fraternity. Hospitality, as a concrete human gesture, thus becomes a theological site of encounter, capable of avoiding the symbolic risk of the "Tower of Babel" — a unity achieved through uniformity — and instead promoting a communion that values differences. In this sense, Daniélou's theology of hospitality represents a significant resource for interreligious dialogue and the promotion of peace among peoples and religions.
FRATERNITY FOR WORLD PEACE: A MEANS TO ADDRESS INEQUALITIES IN CATHOLIC CHURCH DOCUMENTS?

Dini E. (Speaker)

Gregorian Pontifical University - Université Catholique de Lyon ~ Rome ~ Italy
It is often argued that religions do not take earthly life - and with that inequalities and concrete peacebuilding - seriously, but rather encourage people to look beyond it toward salvation and rewards in the afterlife. After having shown the challenges in defining the keywords "fraternity", "world peace" and "inequalities", this paper will retrace some major steps in the last decades that will contradict this popular feeling. We will do that through an analysis of Catholic Church documents going from the Second Vatican Council until the Document on Human Fraternity and then the beginning of the Pontificate of Pope Leo XIV. A theology of peace built upon the theological category of fraternity will thus be delineated as a concrete way to address inequalities but also as a spiritual practice that opens for a deeper transcendental experience.
SYNODALITY AS RESONANCE: LISTENING, RECIPROCITY, AND THE THEOPOLITICAL HORIZON OF PEACE

Bountsebe Ekassi J.E. (Speaker)

KU Leuven / Research Foundation Flanders ( FWO) ~ Leuven ~ Belgium
In the Roman Catholic Church, Synodality has largely been interpreted through the lens of internal concerns, particularly those related to doctrine and church governance, while its possible relation to the political question of peace has remained comparatively underexplored. This paper proposes to interpret the synodal process as a path of resonance, drawing on Hartmut Rosa's theory of resonance, and to consider its potential as a theopolitical resource for peace. Focusing on listening and mutual transformation -dimensions common to both resonance and synodality- it argues that synodality reconfigures ecclesial relationality and articulates a political anthropology of reciprocity. In doing so, it also opens an interreligious horizon, where practices of listening may foster renewed fraternal relations with other religious traditions, particularly Judaism, within a dynamic oriented toward mutual recognition and peace.
OVERCOMING AN ORIGINAL OPPOSITION TO BUILD A THEOLOGY OF PEACE SUPERARE UN'OPPOSIZIONE ORIGINARIA PER COSTRUIRE UNA TEOLOGIA DELLA PACE

Zetea S.S. (Speaker)

Universita Babes-Bolyai, Facolta di Teologia greco-cattolica ~ Cluj ~ Romania
In un'epoca in cui siamo molto consapevoli quanto male possono produrre i linguaggi dell'odio e della violenza, dell'accusa e della vendetta, l'affermazione egocentrica di sé tramite la negazione dell'altro e proviamo a costruire una teologia della pace e della fratellanza, saremmo chiamati forse ad affrontare un problema che, malgrado gli incontestabili progressi fatti tramite la Nostra aetate 4, non è automaticamente superato nel mondo cattolico: la contrapposizione originaria con il mondo ebraico. In un eventuale contributo mi proporrei di mostrare quanto l'antigiudaismo è ancora palesemente presente in quella parte del mondo cattolico che non ha ancora conosciuto un vero rinnovamento conciliare, ma ugualmente come dimora - seppur talvolta più sottilmente - in vari temi teologici fondamentali: la salvezza, la filiazione divina, la verità, l'eucaristia, il sacerdozio. Se il greco-cattolicesimo deve ancora superare (anche tramite una riforma liturgica) l'accusa e la contrapposizione volgare o ancora la definizione della croce come "vergogna per tutti i giudei" e arma nostra), forse il cristianesimo stesso avrà difficoltà a proporre un credibile messaggio di pace fino a quando non supererà la sua autodefinizione in termini di contrapposizione e negazione rispetto ad Israele, quella primissima alterità con cui ebbe a confrontarsi.
THE HORIZON OF THE ORDO AMORIS FOR TODAY'S PATH TO PEACE

Marchionni S. (Speaker)

Pontifical Gregorian University; Pontifical Athenaeum of Sant'Anselm ~ Rome ~ Italy
"The peace of men is well-regulated harmony; […] the peace of all things is the tranquility of order. And order is the arrangement of equal and unequal beings that assigns to each his proper place." (AUGUSTINE, The City of God, XIX, 13, 1) Starting from a consideration of Augustine's reflection on the theme of peace and the path that can lead to it, and considering the challenges humanity faces today in the difficult and urgent effort to overcome the logic and practice of war in the regulation of interpersonal relations — both on the personal level and on the social and political one —, we explore the foundations and the present-day feasibility of a path to peacebuilding that looks to the ordo amoris as the horizon of full realization of human action, a criterion for discerning such action in light of a consideration — between freedom and responsibility — of its metaphysical, anthropological, and ethical foundations, as well as the telos toward which and by virtue of which we can courageously undertake paths of pacification with the potential contribution of all religions. By questioning the Augustinian position in light of some contemporary authors, the contemporary implications of this perspective are explored and discussed, verifying the feasibility — demanding but possible — of this path in a conscious and generative journey, capable of novelty and open to an eschatological horizon.

Panel description: This panel seeks to bring together mystical theology and political theory to explore how a political mysticism can provide a much needed alternative vision of world politics. Mysticism can be understood as an aspect of theology and spirituality that focuses on devotional practices that attempt to enact some form of union with the divine. In this interpretation, mysticism can arguably be discerned across the world's theological traditions, with these variegated practices often inspiring quite un-traditional explorations of spirituality outside, and often against, any institutionalised faith. Mysticism has influenced a full spectrum of political engagement—from anarchists who argue that union with the divine translates to opposition to worldly power structures to more institutional interpretations that emphasise the social cohesion brought about through ritualised devotion to the divine. This range of ethical and political applications lends mystical theology to various conversations currently underway in political theory, from post-anarchism to relational ontologies to pluriversality, leading it to emerge as a point of interest for thinkers ranging from Simone Weil to Jacques Derrida to Simon Critchley. This panel welcomes work that explores how to unite these conversations in a spectrum of critique and resistance that can speak both to rooted traditions and radical thinkers. To this end, the panel seeks to build a dialogue that can address pressing issues facing our planet, from the environmental crisis, to rising political violence, to narratives about the 'end of the world'. In each case mystical theology offers ways of thinking together across disciplines and traditions in ways that hold the potential for pathways forward.

Papers:

POLITICAL MYSTICISM IN CREATIVE TENSION

Poward T. (Speaker)

University of St Andrews ~ Edinburgh ~ United Kingdom
This paper serves to highlight the confluence and diversity of what may be called political mysticism. It seeks to highlight shared assumptions as well as points of tension against a tentative historical overview of the recent reappraisal of mysticism and mystical theology and its relevance for political thought. Central to this is an identification of a core point of contestation surrounding the necessity and role of intermediaries in the pursuit of union with the divine. Since the debate between Pophyry and Iamblichus this has been a central dividing line that reoccurs in the history of Hellenic and Abrahamic mystical theology. The same debate can be identified in the contemporary literature, and the political implications of mystical theology are profound. If intermediaries are ultimately affirmed, then union with the divine concerns the harmonisation of a differentiated reality held together in right relation; the term 'Hierarchy' was introduced by Pseudo-Dionysius to describe this. Conversely, if intermediaries are ultimately denied, then the goal becomes what Bernard McGinn has termed 'union of indistinction', and relationality itself is held as only provisionally beneficial. The core questions surrounding the political implications of mystical theology hinge on this debate. It speaks to whether union with the divine looks like harmonious social relations with each in their own place, or an anarchical rejection of all worldly authority in favour of a shared 'common life'. This paper looks for ways to explore this tension in a way that allows for a confluence of different approaches to political mysticism rather than split the field between these positions. Framing the broader appeal of political mysticism against the real-world issues that motivate the diverse thinkers working in this space is fundamental to this project.
"THE BREAKING OF THE VESSELS"

Davis E. (Speaker)

Northwestern University ~ Chicago ~ United States of America
This paper explores Gershom Scholem's interpretation of Lurianic Kabbalah as a political theology of exile and fragmentation, arguing that it offers a distinctive lens on the moral and metaphysical foundations of international order. In Scholem's reading, the myth of shevirat ha-kelim—the "breaking of the vessels"—describes a primordial catastrophe that scattered divine sparks throughout creation. Redemption, for Scholem, thus requires not a return to wholeness but an ongoing labor of repair (tikkun) amid dispersion. Against both theological and secular fantasies of unity, Scholem's Kabbalistic historiography renders fragmentation constitutive of the world rather than a deviation from it. I read this cosmology of brokenness as a model for rethinking political order beyond sovereignty and territorial integrity. The Kabbalistic vision of a world held together by dispersed responsibility parallels modern attempts to imagine plural, non-sovereign forms of association—federal, diasporic, and transnational. Yet whereas liberal and cosmopolitan theories often seek coherence through universal norms, Scholem's exile-centered ontology resists closure: it grounds obligation in the awareness of dislocation itself. Bringing Scholem into dialogue with twentieth-century Jewish political thought and contemporary critical theories of world order, I argue that Kabbalah's metaphysics of exile articulates a moral and political realism for a shattered world. Rather than lamenting fragmentation, it transforms it into the condition of ethical relation and collective responsibility. The paper thus reimagines exile not as a failure of political unity but as the very grammar of coexistence in an unredeemed international.
MYSTICAL POLITICAL THEOLOGY AND THE PROBLEM OF HIERARCHY

Newheiser D. (Speaker)

Florida State University ~ Tallahassee ~ United States of America
This presentation argues that medieval mystical theology offers tools that can help us address democratic fragility. Although the nature of populism is contested, one influential definition understands it lays claim to sovereign authority by claiming to represent the people in full. In my reading, mystical theology subjects every claim to sovereignty, including this one, to anarchic negativity. At the same time, the classic exemplars of the tradition also affirm a hierarchical politics. This points to the possibility of resisting authoritarian movements through a practice of agonistic contestation that is never complete. Our societies are divided by hierarchies of race, gender, class, and culture, and those who claim that equality has been achieved only obscure persistent injustice. For this reason, a sustainable politics requires both the affirmation of particular structures and suspicion of those same arrangements. In my view, a negative political theology offers a way to inhabit this tension.
BLOCH'S MYSTICAL-MATERIALIST ACCOUNT OF DIGNITY

Vatter M. (Speaker)

Deakin University ~ Melbourne ~ Australia
A democratic jurisprudence will always stand in need of a conception of dignity. In Bloch, dignity is associated with a certain upright comportment that manifests the "finality" of freedom, namely, the realization of the Good in the world. As a materialist thinker, Bloch needs to show that the material world holds a place, or gives place, for this finality and uprightness. "Khora" in Plato designates this unsituatable place for the realization of the Good in the material substrate of becoming. Bloch always sought to inscribe his utopianism, or weak form of transcendence, within the radical immanence of a conception of matter. In Das Materialismusproblem, seine Geschichte und Substanz this effort turns on an appropriation of Avicenna's and Averroes's theory of the material intellect, understood as the doctrine of "the education of forms from a nature that is no longer passive and unqualitative, but is also almost free from the need for a transcendent Father God" (Bloch, Atheism in Christianity, 231). At the same time, Bloch's singularity consisted in his bringing together materialism with an atheological mysticism, a mysticism saturated with gnosticism, if by this term we can understand whatever it is that pushes us "to break free from this devil's guest house, this world" (Ibid., 251). Thus, the formative materialism of the Left Avicennian tradition was connected to a mystical conception of "eternal life" : "that principle within us which makes us stand up straight, whether this is understood in an organic or a political or a moral way" (ibid., 251) and the Kantian conception of "finality," the "highest good" of humanity that was captured by the mystical symbol of Adam Kadmon, the social realization of humanity. In this essay I will trace some of these chorological instances along Bloch's treatments of materialism and mysticism, from Das Materialismusproblem through The Principle of Hope to the later Experimentum Mundi and Tendenz-Latenz-Utopie.
EXPERIENCING NIRVANA IN POLITICAL ACTIVISM: THE EXTRAORDINARY CASE OF AUROBINDO GHOSE IN EARLY TWENTIETH-CENTURY INDIA

Portilla I. (Speaker)

Kone Foundation - Mysticism in Society (MISTIC) project, Tampere University ~ Tampere ~ Finland
In the life and work of Indian revolutionary and philosopher Aurobindo Ghose (a.k.a., Sri Aurobindo), we find two distinct phases: his early political activities and his later mystical project. These two phases correspond to two central concerns in the development of the framework for peace and non-violence that is the focus of this paper's investigation. The first concern is how to engage with conflict in the modern world recognizing the necessity of a context-dependent (hermeneutical) understanding of non-violence (ahiṃsā) and of political resistance. The second concern is how to create a lasting foundation for peace; in this case, an accurate (phenomenological) analysis of mystical consciousness and a metaphysics of existential peace (śānti) are necessary. Aurobindo Ghose's transition from the first phase to the second phase represents an extraordinary case of politically engaged mysticism: after being initiated formally into meditation, Aurobindo experiences "Nirvana"—a peaceful and transcendental silence in which he lives "day and night"—yet never neglecting his political activism. Aurobindo subsequently experiences a tension between a call toward deeper mystical work—it will eventually lead to developing a leading-edge Yogic project unparalleled in mystical history—and his original (vocational) dedication to politics, which had made him one of the most prominent figures of the Indian independence movement. What type of political "sermon" or Spirit-led public speech comes out of Aurobindo's new Nirvanic condition? How is it that the mystical call will eventually win over the political vocation and, more importantly, why? How are these two dimensions—the mystical and political—reconciled throughout Aurobindo's life, ultimately resulting in a metaphysically realistic understanding of the human condition? This paper explores these and other relevant questions in attempting to articulate a comprehensive path to lasting peace.
"EVERYTHING BEGINS IN MYSTICISM AND ENDS IN POLITICS": ADAM MICKIEWICZ AND CHARLES PÉGUY IN DIALOGUE ON THE DIVINE ENCOUNTER IN DARK TIMES

Sawicki L. (Speaker)

Independent Researcher ~ Rome ~ Italy
In an age of national catastrophe and looming war, two poet-prophets—Adam Mickiewicz (1798-1855) and Charles Péguy (1873-1914)—experienced the Divine not as escape from history but as its innermost demand. This paper places them in explicit dialogue to illuminate a shared model of political mysticism: the poetic dialogue with God that transforms personal mystical encounter into collective political vocation. For Mickiewicz, the "dark times" of Poland's partitions and exile became the site of Christological messianism. In Dziady Part III and The Books of the Polish Nation and the Polish Pilgrimage (1832), he portrayed Poland as the crucified Christ of Nations whose redemptive suffering would liberate Europe. Influenced by Andrzej Towiański's mysticism, his Collège de France lectures fused prophetic vision, national martyrdom, and political action—until French authorities silenced him for this divine-political fusion. Half a century later, Péguy—socialist turned Catholic mystic—lived the same dialectic amid the Dreyfus Affair and on the eve of the Great War. His dictum from Notre Jeunesse (1910)—"Everything begins in mysticism and ends in politics"—and his mystery plays on Joan of Arc (Le Mystère de la charité de Jeanne d'Arc, 1910) reveal a parallel incarnational logic: the Divine enters history through suffering, fidelity, and embodied charity. Joan emerges as the mystical-political icon who refuses the corruption of politique by fidelity to the original mystique. Reading Mickiewicz through Péguy's lens shows how both poets discovered the Divine in the darkness of their age: in exile, national humiliation, and sacrificial death. Their poetry serves as the privileged space of dialogue—between the suffering nation and God, between mystic and citizen. The comparison reveals a modern yet deeply Christian political mysticism that rejects quietist withdrawal and secular ideology, insisting that authentic encounter with the Divine issues in historical responsibility.
MYSTICISM AND ANARCHISM IN NIKOLAI BERDYAEV

Vitali Rosati F. (Speaker)

Università degli studi di Torino ~ Turin ~ Italy
This paper explores the political theology of Nikolai Berdyaev (1874-1948), arguing that it offers a distinctive attempt to rethink the ethical and social implications of mysticism within the crisis of modernity. Since his early work on the Russian "new religious consciousness" (1907), mysticism is broadly understood as the possibility for every subject to enter into direct communion with the divine, thereby bypassing the historical forms of symbolic and institutional mediation that structure religious and political life. From this perspective, mysticism becomes the basis for a radical critique of political authority and social domination. As a central category of Berdyaev's philosophy, mystical knowledge is not primarily a religious experience but rather an ethical "mode of being" in the world: a form of life grounded in an apophatic practice of detachment and oriented toward the liberation of the human being from the regime of objectification (objectivatsiia), which Berdyaev interprets as an enslaving condition shaped by domination and necessity. The paper examines key moments in Berdyaev's intellectual production in which the relationship between mysticism and the social sphere is articulated most clearly. Particular attention is devoted to Berdyaev's original reworking of heterogeneous theological sources, including the Tolstoyan pacifist tradition, the speculative mysticism of Meister Eckhart and Jakob Böhme, and the eschatological horizon of Jewish thought (as highlighted, for example, by Jacob Taubes). Through this analysis, the paper situates Berdyaev's thought within broader debates on anarchism, freedom, and anti-authoritarian political theology in twentieth-century Europe.

Panel description: As inequalities sharpen into focus in contemporary life, the "relevant subject" of theological discourse expands: not only the universal concept of "human being" in abstract terms, but concrete, embodied, socially situated humans (and increasingly nonhuman creation). In other words, 20th/21st-century theological attention shifts from the subject in general to subjects marked by corporeality, vulnerability, power and injustices. The panel traces a movement from fundamental theological premises to their concrete ecclesial and socio-political expressions in contemporary times, their epistemological and finally to their cosmo-ecological implications. These discursive movements highlight how theology reorients itself, adapting patristic insights to address modern asymmetries while preserving its core concerns. The panel begins with an exploration of postlapsarian metaphysical inequality through the patristic symbol of the "garments of skin", which provides the conceptual point of departure for the discussion as a whole. The panel then turns to contemporary theological "subjects" like institutional inequality by asking whether (and in what sense) there is a difference between laity and priesthood. From there it moves to gender inequality between men and women, before shifting to social inequality between rich and poor. The fifth contribution reflects the relation of mystic experience or contemplative knowledge and scientific knowledge in the theological discourse, whereas the sixth paper widens the scope beyond the human sphere by questioning species inequality, challenging anthropocentrism and reflecting on creation as a whole. We are looking for two further contributions which are reflecting on the dimension of vulnerability and disability, or on the inequality of ratio and affectus in the theological discourse.

Papers:

THE "GARMENTS OF SKIN" AND THE BIRTH OF INEQUALITY: GREGORY OF NYSSA ON THE POSTLAPSARIAN CONDITION

Semenikhin N. (Speaker)

Pontificio Ateneo Sant'Anselmo ~ Rome ~ Italy
Gregory of Nyssa interprets the "garments of skin" (Gen 3:21) as a symbolic name for the postlapsarian condition: a transformation in the mode of human existence after the Fall. I argue that Gregory uses the image to describe "additions" that accompany fallen life: mortality, the turbulence of passions, suffering and vulnerability. This contribution proposes that the "garments" function as a patristic ontology of fallen asymmetry. The motif gathers several interlocking levels, as for example, passibility (aging, sickness, pain, death), which introduces existential inequality; or passions, which bend the will toward instability and conflict. Together, these levels give the Christian thought the conditions under which later concrete forms of inequality become thinkable and livable (domination, exclusion, uneven distribution of power that can attach to gendered, economic and institutional arrangements). Crucially, Gregory does not construe the garments as merely punitive. They have a pedagogical and therapeutic function: they disclose the truth of creaturely limitation, restrain fantasies of self-sufficiency and orient the human person toward healing and the hope of resurrection as restoration of integrity. On this basis, the contribution gives a patristic point of departure for the panel's broader question: how modern theology rethinks its "subjects" by moving from abstract "humanity" to concrete, embodied subjects.
BRIDGING A SEPARATION, HONOURING A DISTINCTION: THE LEKTORENAMT OF THE LUTHERAN CHURCH IN AUSTRIA BETWEEN BAPTISMAL PRIESTHOOD AND ORDAINED MINISTRY

Jöri J. (Speaker)

Pontificio Ateneo Sant'Anselmo ~ Rome ~ Italy
Martin Luther's claim that those who "crawl out of baptism" are ordained as priest, bishop, and pope gave classic expression to the Reformation doctrine of the priesthood of all believers: all the baptised, regardless of gender or social standing, participate in the priesthood of Jesus Christ, and no ontological separation is assumed between laity and the ordained. However, Article XIV of the Confessio Augustana insists that the public exercise of ministry requires a proper call by the Church. This raises the question of how to understand the distinction between baptismal priesthood and ordained ministry. As a case study, this presentation examines the practice of the Lutheran Church in Austria, which adopts a middle way: some may be ordained by the Church and then serve as Pfarrer. Others may be called by the Church and serve as Lektoren. In both forms of ministry, they are permitted to administer the sacraments. The Austrian practice thus distinguishes between ordination and call without positing an ontological separation between Pfarrer and Lektoren. The presentation therefore asks what, in practice, distinguishes the two groups, and whether their rights and duties coincide. It further discusses this "Austrian solution" within an ecumenical horizon by engaging Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox understandings of ministry. The presentation concludes by considering whether, and in what respects, this Austrian approach may function as a constructive impulse or as a challenge for intra-Lutheran and interconfessional dialogue.
GENDER AND DIGNITY: THE NEW EU GENDER EQUALITY STRATEGIES IN DIALOGUE WITH CONTEMPORARY THEOLOGY

Reitano A. (Speaker)

Pontificio Ateneo Sant'Anselmo ~ Rome ~ Italy
The current debate on gender categorization - currently a source of significant division - contains within it a deeper challenge of meaning that requires careful analysis. This challenge touches all disciplines concerned with the human person, which is why the Catholic tradition is likewise called to offer its contribution. Within the ecclesial contexts, unhealthy interpretations and stereotype-driving behaviors sometimes persist, risking a betrayal of the foundational commitment to the equal dignity of men and women. The European Strategy for Gender Equality 2020-2025, which concluded its implementation in 2025, states that "stereotypical expectations based on a standardized model of women, men, girls, and boys limit their aspirations, choices, and freedom and must therefore be dismantled. Gender stereotypes contribute significantly to the gender pay gap. They are often associated with other stereotypes, such as those based on race or ethnic origin, religion or belief, disability, age, or sexual orientation, and this association can reinforce their negative effects". The abstract proposes an examination of the European Union's initiatives for gender equality alongside contemporary theological discourses concerning women's participation in public, theological, and ecclesial life.
AND YET, THE PERIPHERIES AT THE CENTER. BETWEEN THE LEGACY OF FRANCIS AND THE INHERITANCE OF LEO XIV

Cofrancesco C. (Speaker)

Pontificio Ateneo Sant'Anselmo ~ Rome ~ Italy
Published on October 4, 2025, the Apostolic Exhortation Dilexi Te on love for the poor constitutes the first magisterial document written by the Holy Father Leo XIV.1 In its opening paragraphs, the text clarifies that it was originally a project prepared by Pope Francis in the final months of his life (Cf. DT 3). Furthermore, it informs the reader that Leo XIV received this work as an inheritance, making it his own -and enriching it with his own reflections- in order to present it at the outset of his Pontificate (Cf. DT 3). The purpose of this approach is to emphasize, through his nascent Pontifical Magisterium, that the preferential option for the poor is rooted not merely in human kindness but in Divine Revelation (Cf. DT 5). In this manner, Pope Leo XIV once again directs our attention to the peripheries, placing them at the center thereby appropriating one of the most significant aspects of Francis's legacy: «reality is best viewed from the sidelines» (DT 82). Accordingly, this essay proposes to reconsider poverty and the poor as a locus theologicus, taking Dilexi Te as a pivotal point. To this end, we will examine its close connections with the Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium on the proclamation of the Gospel in today's world, the great programmatic text of Pope Francis. Without attempting to exhaust the totality of the very evident connections, this reflection seeks to confirm a harmonious continuity between both pontificates. Ultimately, it aims to highlight their fidelity to the Gospel and its clear social content (Cf. EG 177), reaffirming that «for Christians, the poor are not a sociological category, but the very "flesh" of Christ» (DT 110).
PRAISE OF THE EARTH. BIBLICAL ANTHROPOCENTRISM IN DISCUSSION

Bruckner I. (Speaker)

Pontificio Ateneo Sant'Anselmo ~ Rome ~ Italy
A new constellation of public discourse has developed due to the circumstance that an unexpected protagonist appeared on the political stage. The earth has become a central party in scientific discussion because, and the newly experienced interrelatedness of humans and world has led to a complete relecture of Western tradition. Bruno Latour and other philosophers, like Donna Haraway, question the fundamental dichotomies between humans and environment, culture and nature, human and non-human actors. In this context, the Biblical and especially the Christian tradition have often been accused of an inherent hostility towards nature. Based on Bron Taylor's, Lynn White's and Carl Amery's critique of Christianity's anthropocentrism, this paper analyses developments and theoretical positions regarding the debate on creation, ecology, and climate change of current systematic-theological drafts. For, as the magisterial documents of Pope Francis show: the global developments have effected serious reflections in the Church as well. In his encyclical letter Laudato Si', Pope Francis subjects Christian anthropology, as well as Christian soteriology, to a profound reconsideration. He shifts the "distorted" (LS 69) and "excessive" (LS 116) anthropocentrism, which according to him arose in modernity, together with its technocratic logic, to a perspective that emphasizes the interconnectedness of all being. The shed blood of Able no longer solely refers to the cry of the poor but encompasses "the cry of nature itself" (LS 117). By incorporating the registers of the performative and the aesthetic, the paper will further outline how the dignity of non-human creation is emphasized and celebrated in Christian liturgy, contrary to a worldview dominated by technology and market value.
COMPREHENSION BETWEEN EXPERIENCE AND SCIENCE

Dohna Schlobitten Y. (Speaker)

Pontificia Università Gregoriana ~ Rome ~ Italy
Based on the writings of John of the Cross, this paper demonstrates the difference and inequality between mystical experience and "science" (scholastic theology), while simultaneously showing that he could not separate them. Although the mystic did not intend to address theology through his poetry, nor create a systematic theological work, his texts establish a new epistemological approach. Theologians like Jesús Manuel García frame his writings within the context of systematic-theological considerations on method. John of the Cross did not view experience and scholastic theology as mutually exclusive; rather, he believed they must collaborate, despite their different directions and roles. In the prologue to the Ascent of Mount Carmel, he writes that neither human science nor experience can fully reach the sublime state of perfection. Only those who have endured the "Dark Night" can evaluate it, yet even they cannot fully articulate it. To describe this Night, John of the Cross states he relies on neither science nor experience exclusively, as both can be misleading. However, in the prologue to the Spiritual Canticle, a new element emerges: poetry as a locus of knowledge. This resolves the tension between scholastic theology—a science of discursive understanding and conceptual reflection—and experience, which acts beyond comprehension or explanation. Experience is spontaneously connected to the Spanish concept of pasar (to pass through) or el haber pasado (having passed through): a transition that leaves an imprint. By living through this transition, one acquires knowledge. In the prologue, John of the Cross speaks of "Mystic Intelligence." For him, this is a "total knowledge" that appears as "unknowing" when compared to discursive-conceptual knowledge. This sublime form of knowing will be examined closely in the context of his poetry as a source of knowledge. The paper asks how his approach alters the discourse of theology today.

Panel description: This panel explores how inductive theology reshapes the ways theology is taught, developed, and communicated across academic, ecclesial, and societal contexts. Inductive theology has emerged as an approach within systematic theology, emphasizing knowledge that arises from engagement with empirical material, lived experience, and concrete practices. Inductive theology thus explores theologies "from below," bringing them into dialogue with academic theories. By taking concrete experiences, practices, and contexts as starting points, inductive approaches also offer resources for identifying, critically engaging, and potentially transforming social, epistemic, and religious inequalities that shape theological knowledge production and communication. This shift has implications not only for theological research but also for how theology is taught, developed, and communicated across contexts. Organized by the International Network of Inductive Theologies (InIT), this panel invites papers addressing one of the following areas: (1) Teaching inductive theology - exploring how students can integrate theologies from empirical material, lived experience, and concrete practices in systematic theological reasoning. (2) Communicating inductive theology in society - discussing the relevance of inductively generated theological insights for public discourse and societal contexts, for example in applied ethics, healthcare, or ecological debates. (3) Communicating between academia and church - reflecting on how academic inductive theological approaches may contribute to church context, and in particularly how the inductive approaches, starting from shared practices and experiences, can open new spaces for ecumenical dialogue across denominational traditions. (4) Communicating across academic disciplines - asking how inductive theology can engage in dialogue with other academic disciplines.

Papers:

COMMUNICATING CONTEXTUAL THEOLOGY OF DIACONIA: BETWEEN ACADEMIC THEOLOGY AND THEOLOGICAL REFLECTIONS IN THE FIELD

Arndt M. (Speaker)

Heidelberg University ~ Heidelberg ~ Germany
Diakonia is an area of the Church that produces theology itself: the actions of its employees providing help are interpreted theologically and often linked to a Christian understanding of humanity. Religious rituals, such as church services, mourning rituals and prayers at the sickbed, are also performed and interpreted theologically. The perception of these theological reflections is therefore a relevant area of inductive theology. The first part of the talk will present the study "Loci diaconici", which empirically collected these theological reflections in the field of institutional Diakonia and brought them into dialogue with theological traditions. The communication of academic theology to the church begins as soon as interview partners are sought and interviews are conducted (and not only when the study results are fed back to the church). This kind of communication will be analyzed in the first part. Subsequently, the possibilities for communicating the study results back to the field will be considered in the following part of the talk. The focus here is on the issue of academic theologians not being experts in the field who can provide the 'correct' theology. This is contextualized by the issue of dealing with theological and normative ideas encountered in the field that contradict one's own or traditional theological ideas. Particular attention will be paid to the role of diaconal education, which takes place within the diaconal institutions itself. Communication with practice-oriented educational institutions seems to be an important interface for communication, especially since academic theologians' expertise with regard to the practices of helping is limited. Theologians are therefore dependent on expertise in the field. Recognizing one's limitations while maintaining communication is thereby an important task for inductive theologians.
TEACHING INDUCTIVE THEOLOGY IN HIGHER EDUCATION

Graff-Kallevåg K. (Speaker)

MF Norwegian School of Theology, Religion and Society ~ Oslo ~ Norway
This paper examines the implications of inductive theology for teaching systematic theology in higher education. Drawing on practice-oriented approaches to theology, the paper explores how inductive theology challenges pedagogical models that begin with established doctrines and theoretical frameworks without bringing them into dialogue with theology and religion found in everyday life. Instead, the paper investigates how theological knowledge can be formed in educational settings that take empirical material, lived experience, and concrete practices as their starting point. The paper builds theoretically on Geir Afdal's concept of distributed normativity (2021) and Hanna Reichel's understanding of theology as design (2023), with particular attention to the affordances of doctrine. These perspectives are used to argue that normativity in theology is not produced exclusively within academic discourse but emerges through participation in multiple practices, including those brought into the classroom by students. From this perspective, teaching inductive theology involves engaging students in processes where empirical material and theological concepts are brought into reflective interaction, rather than transmitting pre-established theological interpretations. Drawing on practice theory, learning is in this paper understood as participation in and transformation of practices, where disturbance, negotiation, and re-articulation play a central role. The paper argues that inductive theology invites a reconceptualization of learning in systematic theology as a process of theological formation where lived experiences and concrete practices are brought into dialogue with academic and ecclesial theological interpretations, through which theological knowledge is developed, tested, and revised. In this way, the paper contributes to the panel's interest in how inductive theology reshapes the teaching and communication of theology in academic contexts.
AN INDUCTIVE APPROACH TO TEACHING DIGITAL THEOLOGY

Robinson M.R. (Speaker)

Leuphana University ~ Lüneburg ~ Germany
What would it mean to teach theology inductively? This presentation will report from an experience conducting an introduction to Christianity with university students in Germany, which took an inductive theology approach. Rather than beginning deductively or with the Christian traditions from a historical perspective, theology and Christian faith in digital settings in the present was taken as the point of departure. The question was posed to students: if you knew nothing about theology and Christianity, except what you encountered in digital settings, platforms, and technologies, what would you think Christianity is? Students were introduced to the theory and methods of grounded theory, as well as to the fields of digital religion and digital theology. Then with the guiding question in hand, and equipped with these methods, students were tasked with creating an inductive-descriptive social media post describing the Christian self understanding of a particular instance of Christian expression in digital settings. This inductive post was then further developed in a second-analytic post which attempted to set that Christian expression into the context of various Christian traditions. Strengths and weaknesses of this pedagogical approach will also be reflected upon in the presentation, in a first attempt to sketch, the broad outlines of a possible inductive theological pedagogy.
THEOLOGY FROM THE MARGINS: HIP HOP AND THE HORIZONS OF INDUCTIVE THEOLOGY

Tretter M. (Speaker)

Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg ~ Erlangen ~ Germany
Inductive theology reconfigures theological method by proceeding from lived realities rather than abstract doctrinal premises and, in doing so, remains structurally open to sustained interdisciplinary dialogue. This article advances that methodological claim by analyzing how hip hop—understood as a multifaceted cultural formation rather than merely a musical genre—offers distinctive "bottom-up" perspectives on how religion is experienced, practiced, and negotiated in marginalized urban contexts. Drawing on scholarship in hip hop studies, particularly the growing field of hip hop and religion, the article argues that attention to hip hop's religious imaginaries, ethical vocabularies, and performative practices expands the epistemic and normative horizons of inductive theology. In doing so, the article shows how hip hop enriches inductive method in practice while helping to build a disciplinary bridge between theology and adjacent disciplines.

Panel description: The system for protecting religious practice within the Italian legal framework, while based on the principle of secularity and aimed at guaranteeing equal freedom for all confessions, continues to reflect, in numerous normative and practical aspects, the imprint of the religious model that historically shaped its construction. A prime example is the figure of the minister of worship, developed by the state legislator based on the hierarchical structure of the Catholic Church and subsequently extended to other confessions through legal instruments that do not always capture their specific characteristics. This panel aims to critically analyze the notion of the minister of worship within the Italian legal system, highlighting the legal recognition challenges that emerge with particular intensity for more recently established religious communities. These communities, characterized by organizational models different from the Catholic one, by a distinct configuration of relationships between the faithful and religious leaders, and by forms of leadership that are not always institutionalized, struggle to fit into the traditional frameworks presupposed by state law. This results in evident issues of (in)equality, both in terms of the exercise of individual religious rights and in the broader relations between the State and religious confessions. Building on an analysis of the legal system and the diverse religious and cultural realities it seeks to regulate, the panel will present a case study whose specifics significantly illustrate the practical implications of the issue of ministers of worship: penitentiary institutions. The panel seeks to raise questions regarding the compatibility of the current legal framework with the principle of secularity, highlighting the need to rethink the category of minister of worship in a way that is more inclusive within an increasingly complex religious society.

Papers:

ITALIAN LEGAL SYSTEM AND RENEWED CONFESSIONAL PARADIGM

Gad Elrab A. (Speaker)

Università degli Studi di Milano ~ Milano ~ Italy
The paper analyzes the condition of ministers of worship within the Italian legal system, highlighting the relationship between the current regulation and the historical-traditional model that inspired its construction. The analysis reveals a system of protections that, based on the principle of separation of orders and the recognition of confessional specificities through the treaty system, developed the figure of the minister of worship presupposing a well-defined confessional structure and later extended its application to other religious communities. Traditional legislation, originating from pre-constitutional laws and subsequently consolidated in common law, grants ministers of worship specific rights and functions. However, the application of this model shows several limitations with respect to more recently established religious communities, which are characterized by atypical organizational models. For example, the imam in Islamic communities represents a primus inter pares, a multifaceted figure whose specific characteristics are further shaped by the migratory context in which they operate. Although the exercise of the ministry is allowed through local protocols or individual authorizations, the current regulation still appears to hinder the activity of ministers from non-officially recognized faiths and the organization of religious assistance. These difficulties, also related to the training of such figures through adequate linguistic, legal, and cultural tools, significantly affect the enjoyment of individual religious rights and the guarantee of equal freedom for all religious communities. This raises crucial questions regarding the role of common law as a flexible regulatory tool and the ability of the current framework to reconcile legal tradition with confessional pluralism in an increasingly multicultural society.
MINISTERS OF RELIGION AND PRISON ADMINISTRATION: SEEKING A DELICATE BALANCE

Palazzo M. (Speaker)

Università degli Studi di Milano-Bicocca ~ Milano ~ Italy
The current social context is characterized by pluralism and fragmentation, driven by centrifugal forces that make it difficult to promote the free exercise of fundamental rights. These characteristics require paradigm shifts and imply a rethinking of the existing legal categories. This is also true for religious freedom, which must contend with difficulties determined by the balance with other prerogatives guaranteed in so-called separate communities, areas of public administration in which the authorities must make a special effort to enable individuals to fully enjoy the fundamental rights guaranteed by the constitutional order. The specific reference is to places of detention, where the reproduction of the difficult balances desired in civil society is further complicated by the very nature of prisons. Within these institutions, the treatment administered to prisoners must involve them in the dynamics that take place within the walls to achieve substantial inclusion. This goal is not only an end in itself, but also a necessary logical antecedent for the individual to be able to exploit in civil society what he/she has learned within the walls, so that the State's commitment accompanies him/her on the path to reintegration. To this end, the support of the minister of worship is fundamental, whose presence in prisons is guaranteed asymmetrically depending on the religion professed by the inmate. In fact, the bilateral agreement system that characterizes the Italian ecclesiastical order produces differentiated systems for the enjoyment of a right that the State guarantees to all, pursuant to Art. 19 of the Constitution. This paper therefore aims to explore the dynamics that regulate the entry of ministers of religion into prisons, reinterpreting them in the light of the supreme principle of secularism as reworked by the Constitutional Court in 2017, and to formulate some critical considerations and programmatic proposals for a more equitable and inclusive balance.

Panel description: This panel examines systematic religious persecution in the Russian Federation following the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, wherein state authorities instrumentalize both legal frameworks and ecclesiastical structures to suppress faith-based opposition to military aggression. The persecution exhibits cross-confessional characteristics, affecting Orthodox, Baptist, Pentecostal, Catholic, Jewish, and Buddhist communities alike. Orthodox Christians confront uniquely severe dual mechanisms of repression: concurrent criminal prosecution by state authorities and canonical sanctions through ecclesiastical courts. This phenomenon represents a significant distortion of Orthodox canonical tradition, whereby church discipline is transformed from a means of preserving spiritual integrity into an instrument of political conformity. Evidence reveals methodical escalation patterns: initial administrative warnings advance to "foreign agent" designations, succeeded by administrative penalties and culminating in criminal prosecutions carrying substantial custodial sentences. Digital surveillance infrastructure undergirds this system, while state authorities actively cultivate cultures of denunciation wherein parishioners report clergy for minimal liturgical deviations from prescribed texts. Institutional silence constitutes a particularly significant dimension of this crisis. Russian religious hierarchies and most international ecumenical bodies have failed to offer public solidarity with persecuted believers. The Ecumenical Patriarchate remains a notable exception in providing canonical refuge. This ecclesiastical abandonment normalizes the subordination of religious conscience to state imperatives, with implications extending throughout post-Soviet space, including Belarus and Russian-occupied Ukrainian territories.

Papers:

Panel description: In the Roman Catholic church, the Synodal path (2021-2024) has showed how gender questions are at stake in different aeras, especially in ecclesiology. Despite the great diversity of societies, cultures and political rights granted to women and men across different continents, the diocesan, national and continental syntheses, and finally the Final Document of 26 October 2024, adopted by Pope Francis, have shown the extent to which profound reforms must be undertaken to respect the equal dignity of all baptised faithful, regardless of their gender, age, social status, etc. The old arguments, used by generations of theologians to justify the fact that only baptised men can be validly ordained as deacons, priests or bishops, have shown their limitations. Furthermore, the presence of women in positions of high responsibility in local churches and in the Roman Curia, as well as the growing involvement of women in biblical exegesis, church history, dogmatic theology, canon law, etc., are contributing to a shift in the balance. This panel aims to study the more specific question of the diaconate from an ecumenical, interdisciplinary and international perspective. We welcome proposals for papers on the question of the diaconate in Christian churches, particularly on how women and men can respond to this vocation. This panel will also be an opportunity to study the epistemological questions, particularly in relation to history and the social sciences.

Papers:

WOMEN DEACONS? REASONS FOR SAYING YES IN THE DOCUMENTS OF THE 2021-24 SYNOD

Noceti S. (Speaker)

Istituto Superiore di Scienze Religiose della Toscana ~ Firenze ~ Italy
It is essential to examine the entire synodal process of the Synod for Society (2021-2024) in order to gauge the importance of the issue of opening the diaconate to women. There is a real convergence between the work of theologians (both women and men) and the perception of many committed individuals (both men and women) in the Catholic Church, which is in line with the experience of several other Christian denominations.
FROM SYNOD TO SYNOD

Quisinsky M. (Speaker)

Institut für Katolische Theologie. Pädagogische Hochscule Karlsruhe ~ Karlsruhe ~ Germany
This paper presents the specific situation surrounding the discussion about women in ordained ministries, as it has developed from the history of the Church in Germany. Particularly with regard to the synodal paths and processes of recent years, the Church in Germany is often misunderstood, sometimes unintentionally and sometimes intentionally. Knowledge of history, but also awareness of pastoral experience and dogmatic analysis can contribute to mutual understanding in this regard. The Würzburg Synod (1971-1975) plays a central role in this context. It was able to make the introduction of pastoral professions for women in the Caritas environment since the 1920s and the diaconate movement, which also took place in the Caritas environment after the Second World War, fruitful for the entire Church in Germany and beyond. In the light of the questions debated in the last decades, a synodal Church can further explore its own christological and pneumatological presuppositions in order to correspond ever more to its own mission.
WOMEN AND MINISTRIES. AN AGE-OLD QUESTION IN THE CATHOLIC CHURCH IN FRANCE

Forestier L. (Speaker)

Université catholique de Lille ~ Lille ~ France
This paper will examine the coincidence between the emergence of questions about the diaconate, prior to Vatican II, and the growing importance of questions about the place of women in the Catholic Church in France. Access to sources and work on women's voices are two elements necessary to understand how certain theologians (both men and women) were able to publicly raise the question of access to the diaconate, such as Donna Singles (1928-2005), an American nun and professor of theology in Lyon (France).

Panel description: Since the beginning of the twentieth century, Hölderlin's thought has played a decisive role across a wide range of discourses and has been extensively received in philosophy, political theory, theology and, more recently, in ecological thought. This panel starts with the assumption that in nearly every poem by Hölderlin it is possible to find a reference to the divine. These references can be seen as a form of direct engagement with the question of God. This engagement does not culminate in fixed or dogmatic definitions; rather, it remains productively open, preserving the openness of the question itself. This panel seeks to explore contemporary ways of engaging with Hölderlin's poetry and philosophical fragments by starting from current questions and urgent problems. From this perspective, it aims to assess the ongoing relevance and productivity of Hölderlin's question of God for present-day debates. What contributions can Hölderlin's poetry and philosophical drafts offer to contemporary discussions of the divine? How can his reflections help us rethink the relations between poetry and philosophy, religion and politics, humanity and nature today? Which resources can offer Hölderlin's question of God for us today? Abstracts are welcome in the following areas: - Hölderlin and the question of God - Hölderlin's philosophy of religion - Hölderlin's political theology - Hölderlin and ecological debates - Hölderlin and philosophy of history - Hölderlin and Aesthetics

Papers:

GOD AND NATURE IN HÖLDERLIN'S DIE TITANEN: AN ECOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE

Fiorletta M. (Speaker)

University of Vienna ~ Vienna ~ Austria
The aim of this paper is to rethink the philosophical role that the question of God can play in current ecological debates, by offering a philosophical reading of Friedrich Hölderlin's poem Die Titanen. This paper argues that the question of God can play a productive role in reconfiguring the relationship between religion, nature and humanity under conditions of the ecological crisis. I propose to rethink the relation between God and nature as an open constellation that cannot be reduced to a simplistic pantheistic (or panentheistic) horizon. Such a conception allows for a non-anthropocentric understanding of religion that preserves nature's and humanity's freedom and resists their reduction to a unified or instrumentalized whole. To develop this claim, the paper offers a philosophical reading of Friedrich Hölderlin's poem Die Titanen, where the divine is closely linked to an anarchic - or more precisely, aorgic - dimension of nature. (1) the tension between the divine and the titanic, expressed in the unbound forces of nature ("Noch sind sie / unangebunden" HF 28, 14.16); (2) the relation between subject and community ("Ich aber bin allein" HF 28, 25), which opens a space for the creative and mediating role of language; and (3) the problem of theodicy ("Des Rohen brauchet es auch / Damit das Reine sich kenne" HF 31, 5-6), rethought in light of the historical and formative force of the chaotic dimension of nature. Hölderlin's open, fragmentary and unfinished poetic form plays a decisive philosophical role in this reconfiguration. By avoiding conceptual closure, the poem allows nature to "breathe" (Geist) and remain irreducible to human mastery or divine totalization. Read through the lens of the Anthropocene, Die Titanen thus offers conceptual resources for rethinking God, nature, humanity and the problem of evil in a time of ecological crisis.
THE QUESTION OF GOD IN HÖLDERLIN WITH SPECIAL REGARD TO "DICHTERBERUF"

Deibl H.J. (Speaker)

University of Vienna ~ Vienna ~ Austria
Hölderlin's poems portray a deep ambivalence of the question of God shaping it as an open question. Being presented in a highly differentiated and nuanced way, immediate answers prove to be inadequate. Therefore, it is problematic to attribute to Hölderlin's writing notions like pantheism, panentheism, return of the Christian God, renaissance of the Greek gods, nature as divine ground, artistic replacement or philosophical overcoming of the question of God, or even atheism. All this exists in Hölderlin's texts, often even in the same poem - however, all these notions appear to be just moments, not ultimate answers. If one regards them as ultimate answers, the dynamic of the open question of God would be ignored. As I want to show in my presentation, openness is a driving force of Hölderlin's work from the very beginning to his latest texts. Special focus will be laid on the revisions of the poem "Dichterberuf".
«DENN ES WALTET EIN GOTT IN UNS»: RHETORIC AND MEANING OF A MOTIF IN HÖLDERLIN'S "DER ABSCHIED"

Carvalho Pereira H. (Speaker)

Brown University ~ Providence, RI ~ United States of America
Friedrich Hölderlin's ode "Der Abschied" is far from being one of the most explored of his poems in his critical reception, but it is entangled with the philosophical and theological problematics for which Hölderlin is best known. It tells of two lovers that were forced to separate, and works to recollect the original grounds of their union in a fictional and idealized scene of "Wiederfinden," as its commentators since Wolfgang Binder have been terming the conclusion of the ode. One of the reasons why they had to separate, uttered already in the third to fourth lines of the second and last version of "Der Abschied," is that "wir kennen uns wenig, / Denn es waltet ein Gott in uns." What is this "Gott in uns," and why is it the reason why two lovers know each other little and must separate? To address these two questions, I have recourse first of all to the ode itself in how it treats this motif, to the not very vast critical bibliography on the ode (chiefly Wolfgang Binder and Gabriele von Bassermann), and to some readers of Hölderlin that have had something to say about the "Gott in uns" motif, such as Norbert von Hellingrath, Romano Guardini, Paul de Man, and Gabriel Tropp. I argue that there is a common denominator in the interpretation of the motif, namely, that this internal God is an attempt to name and grasp that which cannot be grasped, which is played out in the very rhetoric of the poem. My paper proceeds by summarizing the poem and signaling the motif in which we are interested, then briefly discussing the critical commentary, and finally disclosing my thesis in what I believe to be the most important device of the poem, a parallelism that is to metaphorically resolve the riddle of the internal God, but ends up only deterring a solution to this riddle. This, hopefully, opens up the poem and the question of God as it appears in it to a broader dialogue with other attempts to define and understand divinity.
POETRY AS ACCESS TO THE DIVINE: THE POLITICAL POWER OF BEAUTY IN HÖLDERLIN'S THOUGHT AND LITERARY LEGACY

De Acutis G. (Speaker)

Universität Wien ~ Wien ~ Austria
The aim of this paper is to demonstrate that in the thought and poetry of Friedrich Hölderlin the Gottesfrage is deeply connected with questions concerning aesthetics and politics. The paper argues that for Hölderlin poetry represents a privileged access to the divine. In this sense, poetry possesses an intrinsically political power, as it is the only medium capable of preserving a bond with the divine in a secularized society. This argument will be developed in two steps. First, it examines the theological nature of the political role of poetry in Hölderlin's thought. Poetry requires a form of absolute trust: one must "fall" into poetry as into "Openness," or as into the "night," echoing the images of the poem 'Brod und Wein'. For Hölderlin, the divine is too vast and too infinite not to constitute the most radical dimension of both individual and collective life. Poetic practice thus carries a transformative force that mirrors the political dimension that theology can assume. Second, the paper explores how Hölderlin attempted to give concrete form to this vision. His project included reflections on aesthetic education, his own activity as a tutor in aristocratic households, and especially the planned literary journal 'Iduna', which was intended to realize his cultural and pedagogical ideals. Through these efforts Hölderlin invites us to rethink the pedagogical system, in light of the central role that aesthetics should assume within social life, particularly in our increasingly violent historical context. As highlighted by Martin Heidegger, the challenge is to understand how aesthetics, in its contact with the divine, might open the possibility of a renewed form of community. Hölderlin's response, however, is not a call for violent political revolution, but rather an invitation to embrace the tenderness of poetry, which he famously described as 'the most innocent of all occupations'.
THE DIVINE IN THE LANDSCAPE: HÖLDERLIN'S CONTEMPLATIVE ECOPOETICS

Conzo A. (Speaker)

University of Salento ~ Lecce ~ Italy
Hölderlin's poetry is permeated by references to the divine, yet his conception of divinity does not correspond to a transcendent or dogmatic notion of God. Rather, the divine appears in fleeting moments of intensity that emerge within the relationship between humans, landscapes and natural phenomena. This paper proposes to read Hölderlin's poetry through an ecocritical perspective, arguing that his work articulates an early form of ecological thinking about the sacred (Rigby 2004; Zapf 2017). In texts such as Hyperion, Der Archipelagus and several late hymns, the divine manifests itself in specific natural configurations: in the sea breeze, in mountain landscapes, in the changing rhythms of seasons or in moments of heightened perception. The gods do not inhabit a separate metaphysical sphere but appear intermittently within the world, revealing what Hölderlin describes as "das Unendliche im Endlichen". Such epiphanic moments establish a relational ontology in which nature, human perception and poetic language interact. In this perspective, Hölderlin's poetry can also be understood as a form of contemplative ecopoetics (Rigby 2020), inviting a non-instrumental mode of attention to the natural world and opening a space in which the divine may become perceptible within the atmospheric relations between humans and their environment (Tobias 2020). Against the backdrop of modernity, which increasingly reduces nature to an object of explanation and exploitation, Hölderlin's poetry reactivates a form of attentiveness to the sacred dimension of the natural world. By interpreting these poetic epiphanies as ecological events, the paper argues that Hölderlin's reflections offer valuable resources for contemporary debates on the relationship between humanity, nature and the experience of the divine (Garrard 2012; Morton 2007).
CHRIST AND THE GODS: SACRED MEDIATION IN HÖLDERLIN

Myers B. (Speaker)

Alphacrucis University College ~ Sydney ~ Australia
This paper argues that Hölderlin places Christ and the Greek gods within a shared horizon of historical survival, where divinity reaches the modern world through mediated forms of transmission and reception. In Hölderlin's late poetry, the gods endure through signs, cultic residues, landscape, and song. Christ also endures after withdrawal, yet in a distinctly Christian mode shaped by scriptural transmission and communal reception. He enters a poetic field already marked by the persistence of absent divinities, and his singularity appears as an intensified form of mediated nearness. What remains after divine departure is a charged interval in which inherited forms continue to bear traces of presence. The reading of Hölderlin's poetry offered in this paper will suggest that his treatment of Christ and the gods yields a poetics of sacred mediation that redefines the relation between antiquity and Christianity, bringing Christ and the gods into uneven proximity rather than synthesis or simple opposition.
DWELLING: HOME AND THE DIVINE IN HÖLDERLIN AND NOVALIS

Huisman M. (Speaker)

University of St Andrews ~ St Andrews ~ United Kingdom
This paper examines the question of God in the poetry of Friedrich Hölderlin through the figure of "home" (Heimat), arguing that in "Heimkunft" dwelling is displaced from any stable ground into a space structured by divine withdrawal. Rather than a site of physical return, home unfolds in relation to nature as a privileged yet unstable medium of the divine, emerging as an experience of distance and historical rupture in which the divine remains irreducibly open and unresolved. Following recent scholarship on Hölderlin's fragmentary and open poetic form, significant emphasis will be given on the way the very form and fragmentary dynamics of the text avoid a resolved theological claim. In dialogue with Novalis's Heinrich von Ofterdingen, this paper contrasts two poetic configurations of the divine. While Hölderlin develops a poetics of estrangement in which the gods withdraw from the natural world, Novalis stages home as a horizon of desire, most famously in the figure of the Blue Flower, which transforms dwelling into something to be sought rather than recovered. Through the symbolic quest of the Blue Flower in Heinrich von Ofterdingen, home emerges not merely a physical dwelling but a horizon of longing in which man encounters the divine. Engaging, in a limited way, with Martin Heidegger's reading of Hölderlin, the paper argues that dwelling is not the recovery of a lost origin but an ongoing, poetic exposure to the openness of the divine. Hölderlin thus reconfigures the relation between poetry and religion as one that sustains theological indeterminacy. In doing so, it offers a compelling framework for contemporary discussions in philosophy of religion and aesthetics.

Panel description: The overarching topic of the conference is Religion and (In)equalities. The panel focuses on the numerous international conventions (UN International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, European Convention on Human Rights, Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, 1951 Refugee Convention) that declare the prohibition of discrimination, one aspect of which is the prohibition of discrimination on the basis of religious affiliation or religious (conscientious) beliefs. Discrimination may occur in relation to the individual and collective aspects of religious freedom, as well as in a number of areas, such as labour and employment relations, education (e.g., religious education, establishment of educational institutions, operation of religious training programs, etc.), the legal status and state funding of religious communities (public tasks and religious activities), media coverage, and children's rights. The question arises as to what impact discrimination has on social (In)equalities and what legal guarantees can be put in place to ensure equality and eliminate inequality. Further questions are where the necessity-proportionality test for restricting fundamental rights fits into the context of religious (In)equalities, and what the historical and current public law model of the relationship between the state and the church is (ideological neutrality, secularization, state-church model, separation model). It is important to examine the above questions through specific legal cases, as there are different solutions in different European countries. Therefore, special attention must be paid to the practice of the ECtHR, and in particular to the application of Articles 9 (freedom of thought, conscience and religion) and 14 (prohibition of discrimination) of the ECHR in specific legal cases. The panel presentations will seek to answer these questions.

Papers:

CHANGES WITHIN THE CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK OF RELIGIOUS LEGAL EQUALITY IN THE CONTEXT OF INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS CONVENTIONS

Köbel S. (Speaker)

Head of Institute of Public Law, associate professor, Károli Gáspár University of the Reformed Church in Hungary ~ Budapest ~ Hungary
The presentation aims to explore the conceptual and legal dogmatic connections between the fundamental right to freedom of conscience and religion and the prohibition of discrimination in various international human rights conventions. In this regard, the circumstances surrounding the creation of these international human rights documents are just as important as the practice of applying and interpreting these two declarations, which has significantly changed and developed over the years. The prohibition of discrimination on religious grounds is ensured in different ways by different states. Therefore, we cannot speak of a uniform concept of religious equality, as different constitutional models in different member states give rise to different regulatory structures. Another question is how individual states apply the necessity and proportionality test to restrictions on fundamental rights. Is it conceivable that equality may be compromised in certain cases in favour of religious freedom, or, conversely, that religious freedom must be restricted in order to achieve equality/equal rights? A further question is how individual religious teachings interpret the concept of equality/equal rights, and how sensitive the state is to this in a pluralistic society. It is also necessary to point out the difference between individual religious equality (all people are equal before the law) and collective religious equality (equal rights for denominations). In the presentation, we would also like to examine specific legal cases in order to get closer to the answer.
FAITH, HUMAN RIGHTS, AND SOCIAL INCLUSION: THE ROLE OF RELIGION IN OVERCOMING INEQUALITY

Ormóshegyi Z. (Speaker)

Senior Research Fellow, Károli Gáspár University of the Reformed Church in Hungary ~ Budapest ~ Hungary
Religion has historically played a significant role in addressing social inequalities by promoting human dignity, solidarity, and justice. In the case of Christianity specifically, religious teaching emphasizes the inherent worth of every human being, regardless of social status, ethnicity, or cultural background. This moral foundation has enabled faith communities to become active agents in the struggle against poverty, exclusion, and discrimination, often filling gaps where state systems fall short. The relationship between the church and human rights is complex but deeply interconnected. Christian social teaching, grounded in the belief that all people are created in the image of God, has contributed to the development of key human rights principles such as equality, freedom of conscience, and the protection of the vulnerable. Churches have frequently advocated for marginalized groups, offering not only spiritual guidance but also education, social services, and legal support. In this way, faith-based institutions can serve as bridges between moral values and practical human rights implementation. A concrete example of this mission can be seen in the work of the Hosszúpályi Roma Nationality Kindergarten in Hungary. The institution demonstrates how faith in Christ can transcend national, ethnic, and social barriers from early childhood. Through inclusive education, value-based pedagogy, and a nurturing Christian environment, the kindergarten fosters mutual respect, trust, and cooperation between Roma and non-Roma communities. Children are taught that diversity is not a source of division but a gift that enriches society.
DISCRIMINATION THROUGH CONCORDATS? AN ANALYSIS OF THE EUROPEAN COURT OF HUMAN RIGHTS CASE LAW

Berkmann B. (Speaker)

Ludwig-Maximilian-University ~ Munich ~ Germany
Is the conclusion of concordats discriminatory because it is limited to the Catholic Church? Concordats are treaties under international law concluded with the Holy See, which govern the relations between a state and the Catholic Church. Since other religious communities have no institution comparable to the Holy See, they cannot conclude treaties under international law. The numerous international conventions that protect religious freedom and prohibit religious discrimination also fall under international law. How do they relate to the concordats? Do they take precedence? The speaker focuses on the ECHR and examines judgments of the ECtHR concerning concordats in which Article 14 comes into play. In several cases, minority religions have submitted applications complaining that a certain state does not grant them the same rights that it guarantees to the Catholic Church through a concordat. These cases concern discrimination in relation to individual and collective aspects, such as church funding, tax exemptions, pensions for clergy, and the recognition of religious marriages. The speaker identifies the conditions under which the ECtHR does not find a discrimination. Relevant aspects include for example: Did the Catholic Church enter into reciprocal obligations? Does the state at least provide other religions with a different type of agreement? Do such agreements exist? The fact that a concordat exists is not in itself contrary to an equal treatment. Overall, the ECtHR recognises concordats as a widespread instrument of cooperation.
ALGORITHMIC BIAS IN RELATION TO FREEDOM OF RELIGION AND NON-DISCRIMINATION

Einvág B.M. (Speaker)

Károli Gáspár University of the Reformed Church ~ Budapest ~ Hungary
Artificial intelligence (AI) systems constantly pose unknown challenges to fundamental rights institutions. However, this research focuses specifically on freedom of religion and the requirement of non-discrimination. The nature of machine learning-based algorithms is lack of transparency and the amplification of human and social biases in their training data. The latter is called algorithmic bias, which can result in systemic and hidden discrimination. Large language and image-generating AI models unjustifiably associate religious minorities with negative stereotypes, violence or terrorism. Meanwhile, content moderation algorithms may disproportionately classify legitimate religious expressions as offensive, thereby undermining the external manifestation of religious practice. Given that the violations outlined above are caused by private parties and platforms, the classic vertical protection of fundamental rights between the state and the individual is insufficient on its own. Consequently, this research examines the possibilities of extending constitutional legal protection to private law relationships, specifically to legal relationships between platform users and employers and employees, through the doctrinal framework of the horizontal effect (Drittwirkung) of fundamental rights. The research focuses on the case law of the ECtHR and the regulatory instruments of the European Union, the Digital Services Act and the AI Act.
THE POSSIBLE DISCRIMINATIVE NATURE OF REFUSAL OF TREATMENT AND CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTION ON RELIGIOUS GROUNDS

Köbel D. (Speaker)

Károli Gáspár University of the Reformed Church of Hungary ~ Budapest ~ Hungary
The aim of this paper is to examine European legislation and case law regarding end-of-life decisions from the perspective of whether refusals of treatment on religious grounds are more frequently permitted than those based on other objections, and whether this practice is discriminatory. In addition, the study wishes to examine the inverse of this issue: the conscientious objection of physicians. In doing so, I examine whether physicians and healthcare workers who refuse to assist in an end-of-life decisions on religious grounds are subject to discrimination if they suffer a disadvantage as a result. The study examines the practices of France, the Benelux countries, Germany, Switzerland, Hungary, and the European Court of Human Rights. The aim of the study is to determine whether the permission of refusal of treatment for religious reasons is discriminatory preferential treatment, and whether healthcare workers will be discriminated against if they refuse to provide such care for religious reasons.
THE (UN)EASY RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN NON-DISCRIMINATION AND RELIGIOUS FREEDOM

Van Den Broeke L. (Speaker)

Full Professor Theology of Law and Church Law, Theologische Universiteit Utrecht, the Netherlands ~ Utrecht ~ Netherlands
The (Un)Easy Relationship between Non-Discrimination and Religious Freedom Leon van den Broeke Theologische Universiteit Utrecht, the Netherlands This general contribution on the (un)easy relationship—or potential conflict—between non-discrimination and religious freedom, prepared for the panel "Analysis of the Constitutional and Fundamental Rights Implications of the Prohibition of Discrimination and the Right to Freedom of Religion or Belief," sets the stage for the discussion of court cases concerning (non-)discrimination and the fundamental right to religious freedom. Some secular individuals—and at times also religious individuals—consider the right not to be discriminated against to be of greater importance than the fundamental right to religious freedom. At the same time, adherents of various faith communities experience that their right to religious freedom has been violated, or at least restricted, by the state, the law, or third parties. In some countries, the fundamental right not to be discriminated against is considered more important than the fundamental right to religious freedom, whether or not this hierarchy is constitutionally grounded. This raises the question of whether there is a hierarchy among fundamental rights in constitutions, or whether such a hierarchy is absent.
EQUALITY AND THE LEGAL STATUS OF RELIGIOUS MINORITIES IN MULTI-TIER CHURCH-STATE SYSTEMS: EUROPEAN AND SPANISH PERSPECTIVES

Martinez-Torron J. (Speaker) [1] , Palomino R. (Speaker) [1] , Valero-Estarellas M.J. (Speaker) [2]

Universidad Complutense ~ Madrid ~ Spain [1] , Universidad Villanueva ~ Madrid ~ Spain [2]
Most European systems of church-state relations are based, explicitly or implicitly, on the principle of cooperation of the state with religion; and many states articulate such cooperation through multi-tier systems, i.e., systems that grant differentiated legal statuses to religious communities depending on a number of factors, often related to their social rooting. These systems raise the question of how to reconcile the diversity of legal statuses of religious communities with the principle of equality, which on the one hand requires avoiding discrimination (i.e., unjustified legal differences) and on the other hand demands treating differently social realities that are different. This paper is composed of three parts, each of them with a different presenter. The paper will address this issue in two different and interrelated contexts. One is the Spanish constitutional system as developed by legislation and case law, with specific reference to: a) the situation of religious communities that have registered in the Registry of Religious Entities, analysing the effects of registration in comparison with expressions of state cooperation through specific channels designed for communities with broader social roots; b) the situation of religious communities that have a cooperation agreement with the state and those others that meet the legal requirements to reach such agreements but have not been able to do so due to political circumstances. The other context is the case law of the European Court of Human Rights, which for some time has been holding that the European Convention does not oblige states to cooperate with religious communities; but, if they decide to do so, they must design such cooperation with scrupulous respect for the principle of equality enshrined in article 14 ECHR.

Panel description: This panel reconsiders the place of Islamic esoteric movements in shaping political authority, social agency, and intellectual history from the 14th century to the present. While Sufism and other esoteric traditions have long been acknowledged as key forces in the formation of Muslim spirituality, their political and social roles remain underexplored or framed through outdated paradigms. The enduring assumption that mystical movements are socially static and politically quietist—an idea consolidated in colonial scholarship and revived in the wake of Iran's 1979 revolution—has obscured the complex ways in which mystical networks have negotiated power, legitimacy, and reform across Muslim societies. We invite contributions that rethink these assumptions by examining how esoteric actors have shaped, contested, or reimagined political life. Submissions may address, for example: • How did Sufi lodges, saintly lineages, or esoteric brotherhoods intervene in struggles over sovereignty, taxation, or territorial control? • In what ways did mystical idioms of sainthood, baraka, or cosmology inform political legitimacy or statecraft? • How did esoteric networks respond to, appropriate, or resist modernizing reforms, colonial governance, or nationalist projects? • What forms of activism—social, intellectual, or revolutionary—emerged from mystical circles, and how were they theorized by their participants? • How did esoteric ideas circulate across Sunni-Shi'i, Arab-Persian-Turkic, or Muslim-non-Muslim boundaries, and what political imaginaries did these exchanges enable? • How have modern states sought to regulate, co-opt, or suppress esoteric movements, and how have these movements adapted to new regimes of surveillance and authority? • What methodological approaches allow us to rethink the binary between "quietist" and "activist" Islam in light of esoteric traditions' historical complexity?

Papers:

THE SOCIAL LIFE OF SANCTITY: RECONSIDERING STATUS AND SPIRITUALITY IN SUFI ORDERS

Petrone M. (Speaker)

LUISS ~ Rome ~ Italy
Sufism has often been understood solely as a mystical tendency within the boundaries of Islam. Since the 13th century, however, the master-disciple relationship has become increasingly visible through the institution of ṭuruq, brotherhoods that share values, spiritual methods, practices, and spaces. These dynamics have made Sufi orders active social networks involving a wide range of actors, from laypeople to rulers, from judges to artisans. All these individuals belong to the ṭarīqa in the same way, being subject to the authority of the shaykh regardless of their social status. This does not imply, however, that all disciples and masters are the same. In his 2005 study Is There Something Like Protestant Islam?, Roman Loimeier identifies several parallels between Protestantism and Islamist movements, drawing on Max Weber's analysis of the former. One of Loimeier's main points is that, for Wahhabi‑inspired Muslims, the attainment of worldly success is taken as evidence of God's favor and of the purity of one's faith. Sufism has consistently opposed the spread of such Islamist ideas, including the notion that devotional acts should be performed with an eye to worldly reward. Drawing on Arabic hagiographical sources from 19th - 20th century sub‑Saharan Africa (especially Senegal, Nigeria, Ethiopia, and Somalia), this paper examines the forms and patterns of differentiation among Sufis in order to assess whether social and economic conditions are acknowledged and whether they shape perceptions of an individual's spiritual standing. Although Islamic hagiographical literature often follows a relatively rigid formal structure in presenting the lives of Sufi saints, it frequently includes information about occupation, career, and social status. This paper focuses on how hagiographers represented their masters in relation to their social and economic roles within their communities, to the presence of colonial powers, and to other Islamic currents.
"YOU SHALL NOT BE A BURDEN TO SOCIETY": WORK, DISCIPLINE, AND SOCIAL ETHICS IN MODERN SHIʿI SUFISM

Cancian A. (Speaker)

Institute of Ismaili Studies ~ London ~ United Kingdom
From the late Safavid period to the twentieth century, Niʿmatullāhī Shiʿi Sufism developed a sustained reflection on work, discipline, and social responsibility that complicates enduring assumptions about the political quietism of mystical traditions. Ethical treatises, hagiographies, and sermon collections produced by Niʿmatullāhīs repeatedly stress the obligation of the seeker to engage in productive labor and to avoid forms of spiritual authority that might legitimize social parasitism or moral transgression. Manual work is presented not only as a means of subsistence, but as a transformative practice endowed with moral and spiritual efficacy. This discourse emerges in conscious tension with earlier and highly influential figures of the Persian mystical imagination, such as the Qalandar and the wandering dervish, whose antinomian gestures and ecstatic excesses had long functioned as critiques of legalistic religiosity and social convention. While the Niʿmatullāhī order could claim such figures as part of its own symbolic genealogy—embodied by poets, itinerant musicians, and masters often persecuted for their defiance of normative ethics—modern Niʿmatullāhī literature increasingly reinterprets or marginalizes these models. By examining texts spanning the 18th to the 20th centuries, from the legacy of Shāh Niʿmatullāh Walī to the reformist teachings of Sulṭān ʿAlī Shāh Gunābādī, this paper argues that the reconfiguration of mystical ideals of labor reflects broader negotiations with changing regimes of authority, moral economy, and social order in Iran. Rather than signaling withdrawal from public life, the insistence on work and self-discipline reveals an esoteric strategy of ethical normalization through which Sufi actors sought legitimacy within emerging modern frameworks of citizenship, productivity, and religious respectability. In doing so, Niʿmatullāhī Sufism offers a case study for rethinking the binary between "quietist" and "activist" Islam.
MĀʾ AL‑ʿAYNAYN AND THE FĀḌILIYYA NETWORK: SUFISM, AUTHORITY, AND POLITICAL ENGAGEMENT IN THE LATE 19TH-EARLY 20TH CENTURY SAHARAN MAGHREB

Patrizi L. (Speaker)

University of Turin ~ Turin ~ Italy
This paper examines the figure of Māʾ al-ʿAynayn al-Qalqamī (d. 1910) and the family network of the Fāḍiliyya Sufi order in Western Sahara and Mauritania, highlighting the intersections of religious authority, Sufism, and political engagement under the pressures of European colonial expansion and the emergence of modern states. Born into the Ahl Ṭālib al-Mukhtār lineage in the Ḥawḍ region (present-day Mauritania), Māʾ al-ʿAynayn embodied a model of leadership that combined spiritual authority with social and political mobilization. Educated in the Islamic sciences in Fez, his independent career as a spiritual master began after his pilgrimage to Mecca, during which he consolidated ties within trans-Saharan intellectual and religious networks. He subsequently established zawāyā, schools, and libraries along Saharan trade routes, most notably founding the religious and economic center of Smara in the Sāqiyat al-Ḥamrāʾ region. Contrary to conventional interpretations of Sufi quietism, Māʾ al-ʿAynayn actively engaged in political resistance, coordinating with the ʿAlawite sultans of Morocco and uniting Sahrawi tribes against French and Spanish colonial incursions, proclaiming a defensive jihād to safeguard Islamic sovereignty. His family and the broader Fāḍiliyya network were likewise central actors: his father, Muḥammad Fāḍil (d. 1869), laid the foundations of the order, while his descendants, including Aḥmad al-Hibā, continued militant and political initiatives after his death. This paper demonstrates how Saharan Sufi orders mediated authority and legitimacy, forging hybrid forms of religious and political engagement in the Maghreb between the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, thereby challenging the rigid dichotomy between "quietist" and "activist" Islam.

Panel description: In a global landscape increasingly characterized by profound inequalities, persistent conflicts and growing social and political polarisation, the Western world, which in the post-war period had built peace on the basis of rights and the rule of law in general, is now witnessing the return of the cult of war, often based on identities propagated as strategic resources. The global geopolitical framework we have known until now, based on the primacy of law, is increasingly being challenged and replaced by one based on the logic of force (military, political, economic, etc.). The proposed panel aims to examine the future of law in the era of identity-based force and, above all, how religions and the religious element in general fit into this new dynamic. Indeed, religions can have a strong impact both on the promotion of peace (the commitment of religious actors and leaders to stability and peacebuilding) and on the affirmation of a new cult of war (religious fundamentalism, support by religious institutions for ideologies promoted by the state or specific groups that sanctify military conflict, often merging religious dogma with nationalism, etc.). In this context, the role of interfaith dialogue in peacebuilding policies is also fundamental for addressing contemporary conflicts and inequalities.

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RELIGIONS, VIOLENCE, AND THE (CONTROVERSIAL) RIGHT TO PEACE

Franceschi F. (Speaker)

Sapienza University of Rome ~ Rome ~ Italy
Starting from a theoretical and legal framework of the controversial concept of the right to peace, and highlighting how, despite the solemn proclamations and commitments that firmly root the human right to peace in international instruments (and particularly in the 2016 UN Declaration on the Right to Peace), from a legal point of view, the human right to peace remains essentially undefined in its concrete content and, above all, poorly implemented at the global level, this paper examines the role that religions can play in the construction and effective implementation of the right to peace. This assessment must take into account not only the teachings of religions on peace, but also the position, not always straightforward and in some cases ambiguous, of certain religious actors and leaders on the issue of violence and the legitimacy of the use of force as a means of conflict resolution, as well as the role that religions still play today as a cause of conflict around the world. Finally, it discusses how the resurgent "cult of war" that is spreading throughout the world, which in some cases directly or indirectly involves certain religious actors, may prove to be an obstacle to the full recognition of the human right to peace.
PEACEBUILDING IN PIXEL: LEGAL FRAMEWORKS AND INTERCULTURAL DIALOGUE IN DIGITAL GAMING ECOSYSTEMS

Baldetti S. (Speaker)

University of Pisa ~ Pisa ~ Italy
This paper explores the dual nature of digital gaming ecosystems as potential vectors for both conflict and peacebuilding. Challenging the apparent "cult of war" in virtual narratives, it investigates how adaptive legal frameworks and intercultural regulation can transform these spaces into platforms for dialogue. The analysis focuses on the intersection of law, religion, and digital governance, proposing a normative shift to foster virtual coexistence and mitigate the rise of fundamentalism through rights-based digital interactions.
SMART CITIES AND THE PURSUIT OF URBAN PEACE: THE RELIGIOUS PERSPECTIVE

Tarantino D. (Speaker)

University of Genoa ~ Genoa ~ Italy
This paper explores how smart cities can serve as instruments of peace by protecting human and religious rights, fostering social cohesion, and promoting inclusive governance. It synthesizes legal norms, empirical research, and ethical considerations to examine how urban planning and technology shape contemporary urban life. Particular attention is given to the protection of religious freedoms as a core human right in urban settings and to how governance models can mitigate conflict while advancing social inclusion. Case studies and scholarly insights are integrated to illustrate how cities can balance law, technology, ethics, and diverse beliefs to build resilient and peaceful societies.
THE BATTLE OF KARBALA IN CONTEMPORARY CONFLICT: THE ROLE OF SHIA LEGAL-RELIGIOUS DOCTRINE AND IRAN'S RESISTANCE NARRATIVE AGAINST THE UNITED STATES AND ISRAEL

Chafi Founna I. (Speaker)

University of Girona ~ Girona ~ Spain
The Iranian Revolution of 1979 marked a turning point in both Iran's foreign policy and its internal political structure, which was influenced by the legal framework of the Shia branch of Islam. When examining the internal and foreign policy of the Islamic Republic of Iran, a common denominator emerges: the significant role that the Shia religious doctrine plays in shaping it. The study of Shia Islamic law remains an under-researched area within the academic field of comparative religious law. This paper seeks to address the academic gap by examining the legal framework and how it has shaped the Islamic Republic's distinctive narrative of resistance, particularly in constructing a coherent ideological and religious justification for its perception of threat against the United States and Israel in the ongoing conflict. Furthermore, analysing the foundations of the Islamic Shia legal system is essential to understanding the concepts of justice, moral-religious duty, and the pursuit of peace from the perspective of this system. The actions of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in the ongoing conflict will also be examined in light of the Cairo Declaration on Human Rights in Islam, also known as the Cairo Declaration of 1990, revised in 2020, as well as contemporary debates on human and fundamental rights in the international sphere, including international instruments such as the United Nations Declaration on the Right to Peace of 2016. This paper highlights the complex interaction between religious law, state power, foreign policy, and the dichotomy of the pursuit of peace through international law-abiding instruments or the use of force.
IMPARTIAL AND NEUTRAL, BUT NOT INDIFFERENT. THE CATHOLIC CHURCH'S FRATERNAL COMMITMENT TO PEACE IN THE AGE OF FORCE.

Lo Giacco M.L. (Speaker)

Università degli Studi di Bari Aldo Moro ~ Bari ~ Italy
In 1917, Pope Benedict XV wrote his 'Letter to the leaders of the belligerent nations' in which, emphasising the 'perfect impartiality' that characterised the Holy See's position in the ongoing world conflict, he defined war as a "calamity", a 'veritable suicide', a 'useless slaughter'. In that context, the pontiff stated that even in an attitude of 'absolute impartiality and charity,' the Church had not ceased to 'exhort belligerent peoples and governments to return to brotherhood.' The impartial role of the Holy See was solemnly enshrined in 1929, in Article 24 of the Lateran Treaty, which outlines the position of the Holy See and the Catholic Church as a whole in international relations: "The Holy See, in relation to the sovereignty that belongs to it also in the international field, declares that it wishes to remain and will remain outside temporal competitions between other States and international congresses convened for this purpose, unless the contending parties make a unanimous appeal to its mission of peace, reserving in any case the right to assert its moral and spiritual authority. As a result, Vatican City will always and in all cases be considered neutral and inviolable territory." Over the years, the various popes who have succeeded one another on the Chair of Peter have declined the impartial role of the Church in international conflicts, interpreting it according to their different sensibilities. Similarly, the call for fraternity found fulfilment in the extraordinary document on "Human Fraternity for World Peace and Living Together" signed by Pope Francis and the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar Ahmad Al-Tayyeb in February 2019. This contribution aims to analyse the Catholic Church's commitment to peace, with particular attention to the principle of fraternity, which is absolutely revolutionary in today's international context, seemingly characterised by the principle of strenght.
IDENTITY, RELIGION, PEACEFUL COEXISTENCE, AND FUNDAMENTAL RIGHTS: THE CASE OF ALBANIA

Foglia S. (Speaker)

Universita' di Pisa ~ Pisa ~ Italy
In terms of the relationship between identity, religion and fundamental rights, Albania offers a particularly interesting case study, as it combines a diverse religious landscape with a strong tradition of interfaith tolerance and peaceful coexistence. Despite periods of religious repression throughout its history, Albania has developed a legal and social framework that protects religious freedom while promoting harmony between different faith communities. After the collapse of the communist regime in the early 1990s, Albania embarked on a process of democratic transition that restored religious freedom and pluralism. The restoration of religious communities and institutions marked an important step towards rebuilding civil society and reaffirming fundamental rights. National identity has historically been emphasised over religious affiliation, contributing to a culture of tolerance and coexistence. The presence of multiple religious communities, including Sunni Muslims, Bektashi Muslims, Catholics and Orthodox Christians, has contributed to the development of a pluralistic society. Their cooperation in public life, cultural initiatives and social activities reflects a broader commitment to peaceful coexistence. The Albanian model of interfaith relations is often cited as an example of peaceful coexistence. Religious leaders frequently engage in dialogue and joint initiatives to promote tolerance and social cohesion. This collaborative approach supports the protection of fundamental rights by strengthening respect for diversity and human dignity. However, some challenges remain. As Albania continues on its path towards deeper integration with European institutions, it remains essential to maintain strong legal protections for religious freedom and minority rights. Ensuring equal treatment, combating discrimination and strengthening democratic institutions are key to preserving the country's tradition of religious harmony.
GOVERNING RELIGION IN AN AGE OF SECURITY: LEGAL LIMITS AND DEMOCRATIC CHALLENGES IN EUROPE

Madera A. (Speaker)

University of Messina ~ Messina ~ Italy
This paper investigates the scope and limits of recent legislative initiatives aimed at regulating religious freedom in Europe within a broader context increasingly shaped by security concerns, geopolitical tensions, and identity-based politics. In a global environment marked by growing polarization and the resurgence of identity narratives, religion is often framed not only as a dimension of social pluralism but also as a potential factor of instability or radicalization. These perceptions have influenced legal frameworks governing religious organizations and have encouraged the adoption of regulatory mechanisms justified by objectives such as public security, social cohesion, and the prevention of extremism. Against this background, the paper analyses the expansion of registration and recognition regimes for religious communities across several European states. While such mechanisms may serve legitimate administrative purposes, they may also function as instruments of control that disproportionately affect minority or loosely structured religious groups. Through selected examples—including recent legislation in various European countries and emergency-related measures adopted in Ukraine—the analysis highlights how requirements concerning organizational structure, financial transparency, foreign funding, and state supervision can significantly affect the collective exercise of religion. By examining these developments in light of the evolving jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights under Articles 9, 11, and 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights, the paper explores whether such regulatory trends risk weakening the pluralistic foundations necessary for peaceful democratic societies.
FRATERNITY BEYOND IDENTITY: RECLAIMING A VULNERABILITY BASED LEGAL GRAMMAR IN AN AGE OF CONFLICT

Bartolucci V. (Speaker)

Università di Pisa ~ Pisa ~ Italy
In an increasingly polarised global context dominated by identity politics and the resurgence of force as a structuring principle of political order, the normative foundations of peace based on rights and the rule of law appear to be eroding. This paper examines whether the "forgotten principle" of fraternity, which has long been overshadowed by liberty and equality in modern constitutionalism, could provide an alternative legal framework capable of countering the contemporary logic of conflict. Drawing on pivotal 2018 French decisions by the Conseil constitutionnel, which, for the first time, recognised fraternity as a constitutional principle underpinning the humanitarian freedom to assist others, regardless of their legal status, and on parallel Italian case law that indirectly operationalises fraternity through solidarity and the protection of vulnerable persons, the paper argues that these judicial developments point towards an embryonic yet significant relational normativity. However, current jurisprudence only partially captures fraternity's deeper anthropological potential. In an era where religious identities can fuel both conflict and peacebuilding, fraternity, understood not as a communitarian ideal, but as emerging from the universal human experience of vulnerability and suffering, may provide a legal and interreligious framework capable of broadening the scope of the juridical we. In this light, the paper reimagines fraternity as a normative resource for resisting the primacy of force, reshaping debates at the intersection of law and religion, and establishing new peace frameworks that transcend identity-based antagonisms.
PRE-EMPTIVE AND PREVENTIVE WAR IN INTERNATIONAL LAW AND THE THEOLOGY OF JUST PEACE: THE 2026 IRAN CRISIS

Tripp H. (Speaker)

Institut for Canon Law and Law on Religions/Theological Faculty of University Vienna ~ Vienna ~ Austria
Abstract The renewed escalation of tensions in the Middle East during the 2026 Iran crisis has revived a fundamental debate in international security and ethics: whether peace is best preserved through legal restraint or through military strength. This paper examines the concepts of pre-emptive and preventive war within the framework of international law and the theological tradition of Just War and Just Peace. The paper analyzes the legal limits of anticipatory self-defence in jus ad bellum, including the principles of necessity, imminence, and proportionality associated with the Caroline doctrine. It then engages the ethical perspective of Christian thought, particularly the transition from classical Just War theory to the modern theology of Just Peace. Drawing on the natural law tradition and the philosophical reflections of Dietrich von Hildebrand, the paper argues that law and moral order must guide the use of force rather than be subordinated to strategic calculations of power. Using the 2026 Iran crisis as a case study, the paper evaluates the legal and moral arguments used to justify anticipatory military action. It argues that while narrowly defined pre-emptive self-defence may be compatible with international law under strict conditions of imminence, preventive war undermines both the legal framework of the United Nations system and the ethical foundations of a just peace. The study concludes that a sustainable international order requires reinforcing the primacy of law and moral norms while addressing legitimate security concerns through collective institutions and diplomacy. Outlook 1. Introduction 2. International Law and the Use of Force 3. Pre-emptive vs Preventive War 4. Natural Law and the Theology of Just Peace 5. Case Study and Conclusion: The 2026 Iran Crisis
VALUES-DRIVEN COLLABORATION

Dalla Villa C. (Speaker)

Università degli Studi di Teramo ~ Teramo ~ Italy
Without needing to invoke contemporary multiculturalism, the relationships between the major religions date back centuries, and in some cases millennia: the world has been shaped differently by these beliefs, all of which convey messages and philosophies suited to different eras and political systems. Among religions, the conditions of reciprocity that are typical of relations between states do not apply and, although comparison has served as a method, proceeding along this path is extremely difficult. The situation is quite different when it comes to the so-called new religions, which arise and proliferate not so much because of a different interpretation of dogma, but rather because of an unmet need for spirituality on the part of the major religions and the influence of Eastern philosophies - thus lying outside the realm of Christianity. This article focuses on the perspective of the Magisterium of the Catholic Church, beginning with the Declaration Dignitas Infinita, which condemns violence as a refusal to cooperate and an extreme manifestation of aggression.
INTERRELIGIOUS DIALOGUE AS A VEHICLE FOR PHILOSOPHICAL AND THEOLOGICAL CONCEPTUAL EXPANSION, A LINGUISTIC TOOL FOR COMMUNICATION, AND A CATALYST FOR SOCIO-CULTURAL FLEXIBILITY

Levi J. (Speaker)

Florentine School of Advanced Studies in Interreligious and Intercultural Dialogue, FSD ~ Florence ~ Italy
In the study of interreligious dialogue over recent decades, a distinction must be drawn between the theoretical aspect - which is closer to the traditional study of the history of religions - and the practical aspect of dialogue and the observation of its practical dynamics. Whilst the former is theoretical and, even in its comparative form, requires a conceptual theological analysis—which is by its nature less flexible—it takes care not to create homogenised zones of religious syncretism; practical encounters between the faithful, on the other hand, focus on creating spaces for interreligious and intercultural social exchange within the context of the current civil society that has emerged in the West over the last few decades. Participants in such interfaith meetings, with varying levels of knowledge of the theoretical and philosophical framework of their own faith, can engage in practical dialogue centred on goals of common social interest, peace, mutual understanding and non-liturgical civic activities. These opportunities for interreligious and intercultural conviviality enable those taking part to gain a better understanding of the other's perspective, daily life and current rhythm, defining and aiming for spaces in which civil and social interaction can take place without having to involve the apparatus of more rigid and systematic theological beliefs. In our presentation, we would therefore like to examine the theoretical perspectives of both approaches: that of academic and theological research into the comparative study of religions, and, at the same time and no less importantly, the perspectives of interreligious dialogue focused on the religious experience of the other, so that, by listening to the religious experience of the other, we may construct a framework for a modern interreligious theology.

Panel description: The panel is aimed at discussing the book Constitutional Intolerance: The Fashioning of 'the Other' in Europe's Constitutional Repertoires (2025), by Mariëtta van der Tol. In her work, Marietta van der Tol challenges the assumption that intolerance is a flaw unique to illiberal regimes. She argues that vulnerability for minorities is actually inscribed in the structures of constitutional law itself, which defines certain groups as "the other" and regulates their public visibility. By examining cases across the liberal-illiberal spectrum—specifically France, the Netherlands, Hungary, and Poland—van der Tol demonstrates how both legal and pseudo-constitutional frameworks are used to target religious, ethnic, and sexual groups. Her work reveals that these legal mechanisms often draw on historical practices of "toleration" to justify contemporary restrictions on minority representation

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Panel description: Open panel with an innovative framework for addressing sustainability, responsibility, and justice through Jewish ethics and philosophy. Bringing together biblical interpretation, rabbinic literature, modern Jewish philosophy, phenomenology, ethics, and social critique, the panel demonstrates how Jewish sources generate distinctive perspectives on ecological crises while remaining in active conversation with wider religious and interreligious discourses. The panel challenges anthropocentric and justice-centered assumptions shaping contemporary ethical thought. Close engagement with biblical texts destabilizes expectations that nature conforms to human moral categories, revealing realities governed by forces exceeding human knowledge and control. Philosophical readings of revelation and discovery redirect human agency away from mastery toward attentiveness, restraint, and responsibility. Several contributions extend ethical reflection across expanding horizons of time and space. Jewish philosophical resources are applied to questions of technological ambition, outer space exploration, and collective power, emphasizing moral intention over scale. Sustainability requires ethical commitments questioning prevailing economic, cultural, and political assumptions. Economic culture and spatial organization are examined as moral systems through religious lenses rather than as neutral scientific frameworks. Jewish sources offer critiques of consumerism, perpetual growth, and inequality, alongside alternative models of shared responsibility and collective wellbeing. Gender-attentive readings foreground vulnerability, care, and embodied ethical labor under conditions of environmental precarity and persistent questions of in/equality. The panel welcomes participants from other religious traditions and values interreligious dialogue, contributing to EuARE's commitment to critical, cross-traditional reflection on religion and global challenges.

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JUSTICE, EQUALITY AND HUMAN SOLIDARITY OVER TIME

Mirsky Y. (Speaker)

Brandies University ~ BOSTON ~ United States of America
This presentation is part of an ongoing project on intertwined meanings of solidarity and sustainability and potential contributions that resources of Jewish Thought can make to that broader, shared inquiry. Sustainability, however understood, means acting as justly as we can with future generations, who we will never know but with whom we declare our solidarity. It is thus inextricably intertwined with the idea of time, in which we live with the legacies of generations past, and shape, however imperfectly, the heritage of our successors. Yet the asymmetries - of understanding and capability - between ourselves, our descendants and our ancestors too - are numberless as time itself. And the Anthropocene deepens that chasm even more. The difficulty is compounded when considering a key feature of justice - equality. What can an obligation of equality towards future generations possibly mean? What moral authority and capability can we and the future, as well as the humans of the past, have over one another? Who or what can bind us all, and how? Is the temporality in which we all swim and breathe, simply a fate into which we are thrown? Is it a process - or destiny - we all share? Or both and more? The questions are impossibly vast, but our moral obligations as human beings demand that we start somewhere, not least with the legacies and resources of the moral and intellectual traditions to which we are heir. Recent decades have seen what Lynn Sarit Kattan Gribetz and Lynn Kaye have called a "Temporal Turn in Ancient Judaism and Jewish Studies," explicating rich understandings of time and its moral obligations in classical rabbinic sources. I hope to bring their work into conversation with Emmanuel Levinas' investigations of time's role in framing our moral self-understanding, looking for concepts of time and justice that can help us think and act today.
"ERUV" IN JEWISH LOCAL COMMUNITIES - INCLUSIONARY PRACTICE OR EXCLUSIONARY COMMUNITIES?

Vardi S. (Speaker)

Emek Yezreel Valley College ~ AFULA ~ Israel
The "Eruv" is a Hebrew term for a well-known Jewish religious law and practice which has a twofold aim: first, it creates a boundary around a Jewish community and second, through this it allows for the otherwise prohibited transportation of objects on the Sabbath (The Jewish day of rest). In constructing this boundary, it creates a clearly marked private and public realm, according to Jewish law, so that the Sabbath can be observed. The practical solution of the 'Eruv' constitutes a symbolically determined boundary (mainly from string and poles) around a shared space, transforming them into a single 'private sphere' therefore allowing for carrying within those specific confines, according to Jewish law. Moreover, in order for the Eruv to be valid, some form of shared meal should be placed within its borders, symbolizing the urge to participate in community practice within the 'Eruv'. While these legal aspects of Eruv have received Jewish legal scholarly interest, there remains a lacuna insofar as a conceptual and theological framework is concerned. This paper will claim that the regular debates around the 'Eruv' should be considered from the conceptual perspective with specific regard to sustainability and spatial justice. In light of this, this presentation will address this lacuna through exploring both similarities and differences between 'Eruv' and 'Kibbutz' communities along the themes of exclusion vs. inclusion, religion vs. secularity, communality and power relations. In this sense, this paper contributes an original and novel study of a Jewish aspect of sustainability which has little been discussed to date.
THE EQUAL RIGHTS OF FUTURE GENERATIONS: A CHALLENGE FOR RELIGIOUS AND SECULAR JEWISH THOUGHT

Dinur A. (Speaker)

Sapir College ~ Sderot ~ Israel
Do future generations have rights? If so, are these rights equivalent to our own? Should we impose limitations on our consumption to ensure that resources are preserved for them? These questions have not been thoroughly explored in Jewish traditional thought, as past generations had a minimal impact on the world and on future generations. They were largely unaware of any obligation to the future (also to us), primarily because they did not possess such a debt. But our generation certainly does. This paper explores both religious and secular concepts that can enhance our understanding of the rights of future generations. My argument primarily draws upon the works of the Jewish philosopher and theologian Hans Jonas, but it goes beyond merely analyzing and critiquing his assertions. Instead, it employs his original ideas as a foundation for an environmental philosophy that, I believe, is essential for both the present and the future. Jonas challenged the scientific-modern interpretation of humanity's role in the world through what he termed a 'Jewish doctrine,' ideas that offer a refuge from the nihilistic determinism that often accompanies scientific thought. This idea might sound like a religious lament (Kina) for the decline of belief in the modern world but it is not. Jonas' philosophy is in parts theological but it is also secular. Jonas' naturalistic philosophy, as presented in his book "The Imperative of Responsibility," offers one potential approach to addressing the rights of future generations. In contrast, his later theological works propose a different, seemingly religious perspective, that ultimately aims to achieve similar goals. This paper will examine these two paths as paradigms for environmental philosophy. It will highlight the necessity of theological assumptions for such a line of thinking.
GENDERED ETHICS OF DROUGHT: A LEVINASIAN READING OF TALMUDIC STORIES

Sinclair Y. (Speaker)

Bar Ilan University ~ Ramat Gan ~ Israel
This paper offers a Levinasian reading of two Talmudic narratives as a primary Jewish source for thinking about climate crisis, sustainability, and ethical inequality. Focusing on the paired stories of Abba Hilkia and his wife, and Rabbi Ḥanina ben Dosa and his wife, I read these texts not merely as miracle tales about rain, but as ethical dramas staged under conditions of drought and scarcity. Drawing on Emmanuel Levinas's account of responsibility and asymmetrical ethics, I argue that these narratives articulate differentiated—often gendered—responses to environmental precarity. In both cases, the wives' actions foreground embodied care, attentiveness to immediate need, and responsiveness to the vulnerability of others, while the male figures enact forms of ascetic withdrawal, piety, or spiritual authority. Rather than presenting a simple hierarchy, the aggadot destabilize conventional valuations of religious agency, redistributing ethical weight toward those whose labor and responsiveness remain socially marginal. Read through Levinas, these texts challenge anthropocentric and merit-based theologies of climate response, proposing instead an ethics grounded in responsibility to the Other under conditions of unequal exposure to risk and loss. The paper suggests that these stories can offer a distinctly Jewish contribution to contemporary debates on climate justice, gender, and inequality, rooted not in abstraction but in narrative, vulnerability, and everyday ethical action.
THE WEEPING WATERS OF CREATION: GENDERED ELEMENTS AND SUBJUGATED MATTER FROM MIDRASH TO BACHELARD

Verlibater R. (Speaker)

Institut für die Geschichte der deutschen Juden, University of Hamburg and Bar-Ilan University ~ Hamburg ~ Germany
This lecture explores the hydro-mythology of Creation, bridging ancient midrashic imagination into conversation with Gaston Bachelard's phenomenology. This paper will trace the Jewish midrashic writings' relations to the trauma of the "weeping waters" and the rupture between lower and upper waters. This rupture established a gendered hierarchy in Jewish myth, identifying the Upper Waters as male and the Lower as female (Gen. Rabbah 13), casting the Deep as a chaotic feminine force which will be explained in the paper. Drawing on biblical narratives and Enuma Elish, this paper explores how the suppression of the rebellious sea by a patriarchal Creator evolved into a theology of subjugated matter. This dynamic is re-evaluated through Bachelard, for whom material imagination works with the matter of the world and dreams the substance. The symbolism of water as a distinct feminine element—simultaneously nurturing and dissolving—challenges the binary where nature is 'conquered' by the male subject. Drawing on Kabbalistic literature, the lecture proposes a corrective through Ezekiel's ecological vision. In this prophetic "second creation," living waters from the Temple do not conquer the saline waters of the Dead Sea but unite with them — changing the nature of the sea, healing the water, and making the wilderness bloom. By juxtaposing the prophetic imagination with Bachelard's reveries of matter, the paper offers a new theory wherein conquering the feminine abyss is overcome, and 'dialogue'between the sacred and the chaotic, reunite and are revealed.
RELIGION, ECONOMICS AND THE CRISIS OF SUSTAINABILITY: NEW PERSPECTIVES FROM JEWISH RE/SOURCES

Benstein J. (Speaker)

Heschel Sustainability Center, Bar Ilan University ~ Tel Aviv ~ Israel
This paper will explore the potential of Jewish religious language in examining economic ideology and behavior. Many in the "religion and environment" field engage in some version of eco-theology: re-evaluating the relationship between humans, God and Creation/nature. Yet current scholarship shows that economic realities, such as perpetual growth, consumerism and socio-economic inequalities, are no less crucial in our struggle for sustainability. Jewish tradition, especially Biblical and rabbinic literatures, does not see an unbridgeable chasm between God and Mammon. It suggests a religiously-informed critique of our current economic culture, precisely from the angle of long-term environmental sustainability and collective well-being. This includes alternatives to the tenets of neo-liberalism such as the centrality of capital, private property and the profit motive, the belief in the freedom, wisdom and amorality of the market, the support of continual growth as essential to progress, the necessity of inequality and the limited role of the collective to further the common good. For instance, one of the engines of both economic growth and environmental devastation is the consumer culture of late capitalism. Jewish sources have a deep-seated critique of materialism and immediate gratification, from the 10th commandment through sumptuary laws, attitudes to greed and contentment, poverty and wealth. Moreover, ancient Jewish society had built-in mechanisms of redistribution - from safety nets for impoverished and disenfranchised populations to the radical social reconstruction of the sabbatical and jubilee years. Indeed, the entire economic system rests on a vastly different conception of property, as divine abundance to be shared, rather than an individual right to be protected from encroachment.
JEWISH OUTER SPACE ETHICS: INDIVIDUAL MISSION AND COLLECTIVE RESPONSIBILITY

Baharier B. (Speaker)

Bar Ilan University ~ Ramat Gan ~ Israel
This paper examines how Jewish philosophical sources frame the ethics of space exploration and the search for extraterrestrial life. In the 1960s, a NASA scientist, Prof. Velvl Greene, sought guidance from a prominent Jewish rabbinic leader on the search for extraterrestrial life. The Rabbi's response was unequivocal: the scientist must continue looking, for to stop would be to "limit the Creator." This paper explores Jewish themes in space ethics and extraterrestrial life, highlighting conflicting responses in Jewish sources. It emphasises that Judaism doesn't reject science but emphasises duty: scientists should seek the "greater good" of knowledge, while individuals must not ignore suffering for stargazing. Ethical failure stems not from individuality but from neglecting responsibility. The crux of the paper juxtaposes communal versus individual roles in space exploration. The builders of the Tower of Babel sought to "reach the heavens" and "make a name" for themselves, yet remained nameless. Individuality was erased: a fallen brick was mourned, but a fallen worker was ignored. Their sin wasn't technological ambition but a collective purpose justifying their means. Individuality was crushed, and those seeking to settle the heavens were dispersed. Warmongers were transformed into nonhumans, and the idolaters' language was confused. This text can be understood as a symbol for the moral evaluation of communal and individual ethics in the exploration beyond planet Earth. Applied to the Space Race, this framework suggests that Jewish ethics doesn't regard extraterrestrial exploration as the problem but rather the intent behind it. Space missions should be judged not only by scale or success, but also by their purposeful intent to serve the public good. Jewish philosophy recognises individuals who act with intention, contributing to the collective with technological responsibility.
DISCOVERY, SUSTAINABILITY, AND JEWISH ETHICS: HUSSERL, ARENDT, AND THE BURNING BUSH

Feldmann - Kaye M. (Speaker)

Bar Ilan University ~ Ramat Gan ~ Israel
This paper probes the Burning Bush (Exodus 3) as a paradigmatic scene for investigating sustainability in contemporary Jewish ethics, read through the philosophical frameworks of phenomenologists Edmund Husserl and Hannah Arendt. The episode is approached as an event that interrupts ordinary modes of engagement with the world and reorientates human action towards sustainable and responsible types of exploration. From a Husserlian perspective, the Burning Bush enacts a suspension of worldliness. Instrumental activity, space, and linear time are set aside: this enables Moses' full presence, and demands introspective observation of the scientific and ecological world around him. The world, according to the Husserlian image, is not encountered as a field of power or control. The bush burns without being consumed, presenting a phenomenon that, as in Levinas' language, resists totalized understanding. This moment acquires broader significance, when read alongside Arendt's account of discovery in The Human Condition. For Arendt, major discoveries such as global exploration and the telescope alter the way the world is understood. Major discoveries and inventions reshape how humanity inhabits and perceives the shared world. In a phenomenological Biblical interpretation, Moses' discovery is immediately changed through a new conception of his reality, and the responsibility which is now thrust upon him. The paper argues that Jewish ethics, illuminated by this scene, offers a distinctive contribution to contemporary sustainability debates. It frames discovery as a phenomenon to be reigned in by responsibility; and gives momentum for a new account of the responsible life alongside creative exploration.
BEYOND JUSTICE: THE HUMAN PLACE IN NATURE IN THE DIVINE RESPONSE TO JOB

Ben Pazi H. (Speaker)

Bar Ilan University ~ Ramat Gan ~ Israel
This lecture will examine the human relationship to nature through a close reading of the Hebrew Bible, chapters 38-42 of the Book of Job. Popular interpretations of the Book of Job tend to focus on the problem of undeserved suffering and 'Theodicy': human responses to suffering in a world which is presumed to operate according to divine justice. Within this framework, suffering is expected to be ethically intelligible, and consequently no human being suffers without a religious or ethical cause. Job, in his affliction, turns to God in prayer and protest, demanding an account that would justify his suffering. However, speaking "from the whirlwind", God confronts Job, and humanity more broadly as well, with two fundamental questions about human knowledge and the world and human action within it. These are articulated through a series of challenges: "Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?" Do human beings know the laws of nature, its foundations, or the principles upon which the world is sustained? God's discourse reveals that nature does not present a moral order governed by human notions of justice. Instead, it exposes a reality marked by power, indifference, and even apparent cruelty, animals that abandon their young, forces that operate without ethical intention or justification. Additionally, God describes the delight taken in the Leviathan and Behemoth (wild and untamable), quasi-mythical creatures that exist beyond human control and moral categories. Here, the text draws a sharp distinction not only between humanity and nature, but also between human demands for justice and morality and the non-rational, force-driven existence of the natural world. Beyond the narrative of Job, human values are no longer placed at the center of reality; they are destabilized when viewed against the vast, indifferent processes of nature. This radical rereading of Job and Job's God challenges contemporary environmental ethics and sustainability.
SUSTAINABILITY IN CONTEMPORARY READINGS OF BIBLICAL TEXTS

Melloni A. (Speaker) [1] , Hasselaar J. (Speaker) [2] , Feldmann-Kaye M. (Speaker) [3] , Akkad N. (Speaker) [4] , Ben Pazi H. (Speaker) [3]

University of Bologna and Modena/Reggio Emilia ~ Bologna ~ Italy [1] , Freie Universitat ~ Amsterdam ~ Netherlands [2] , Bar Ilan University ~ Ramat Gan ~ Israel [3] , University of Trieste ~ Trieste ~ Italy [4]
This open panel proposes a focused reading of biblical and scriptural texts in light of contemporary challenges of sustainability, responsibility, and justice, from the perspectives of the Abrahamic traditions. Through close textual engagement with biblical sources, alongside rabbinic interpretation and philosophical reflection, the panel explores how sacred texts destabilize anthropocentric assumptions and reframe human responsibility within ecological, temporal, and moral limits. The contributions examine how scriptural conceptions of creation, revelation, and responsibility challenge dominant models of mastery, perpetual growth, and technological ambition, emphasizing attentiveness, restraint, care, and ethical intention. Particular attention is given to obligations toward future generations, environmental vulnerability, and the moral significance of economic and spatial arrangements.
CATHOLIC ENVIRONMENTAL DISCOURSE AND THE MOBILIZATION OF CATHOLIC-JEWISH SOLIDARITY

Dillon M. (Speaker)

University of New Hampshire ~ Durham ~ United States of America
As public awareness of climate change and the ecological crisis increases, this paper explores whether Catholic Church discourse on climate change might help advance interreligious dialogue and respect between Catholics and Jews. Although Nostra Aetate, a declaration of the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965), significantly reset Catholic-Jewish relations, the endurance of anti-Semitism in everyday culture in historically Christian countries undermines the Church's insistence on authentic respect for Jews and Judaism. I argue that Laudato Si', Pope Francis's landmark encyclical on the environment, and subsequent Vatican statements and actions on ecological sustainability provide an untapped resource that can foster renewal in Catholic-Jewish solidarity. I will highlight the trans-religious, cultural accessibility of the Church's discourse and also show how it is aligned with the environmental views expressed by majorities of Jews and Catholics in U.S. public opinion surveys. I conclude that the Church's discourse, if thoughtfully harnessed, can mobilize localized cross-religious dialogue and political action on ecological sustainability. Inter-religious mobilization around shared concerns may, in turn, foster a more wholistic mutual respect for the Other.
THE JUBILEE AND DEBT REMITTANCES IN THE JEWISH AND CHRISTIAN PERSPECTIVES: PAST AND RECENT HISTORY

Kostoris Padoa Schioppa F. (Speaker)

Luiss University ~ rome ~ Italy
To investigate the 2 main dimensions of the Jubilee ( the spiritual and the economic one), it is useful to begin with the Jubilee biblical foundations and reach up to the present day, considering religious and secular movements and the NGOs now advocating debt remittances, particularly of highly indebted developing countries. The main point emerging from this text may be summarized in this way: the Jubilee and the economic as well as spiritual debt remittances have a solid foundation in the Torah, but this foundation was not accompanied by a practical application in the Jewish world. Quite the reverse, there is an increasing Jubilee practice of spiritual debt rmittances in the Catholic world which however lacks solid grounds in the Christian sacred texts. Modern movements supporting monetary debt remittances of highly indebted developing countries only partially reconnect to the logic of Jewish or Catholic Jubilees, and they leave many open questions concerning the desiderability and the sustainability of debt remittances in the fight to poverty and in fostering development of developing countries, even though they are supported by non‑Catholic Christian groups as well as by public institutions (like the World Bank) and by some brilliant secular economists, including a Nobel Prize winner ( Jo Stiglitz of Jewish origin).

Panel description: Messianism originates from the Hebrew term māšīaḥ (מָשִׁיחַ), which translates as "the anointed one." In its earliest context, the term referred to a specific ritual within the ancient Sinaitic tradition: the anointing of a king, a ceremony that signified divine selection and political legitimacy. Initially, māšīaḥ denoted a present ruler whose authority was established through ritual. Over time, the meaning of the term shifted, and the anointed king became a figure of future expectation, envisioned as a redeemer who would restore the Kingdom of Israel. This shift introduced prophetic and eschatological dimensions, connecting political authority to the promise of ultimate redemption. This panel begins from the observation that messianism is never solely temporal. While scholarship has often emphasized futurity, anticipation, and deferred redemption, messianic imagination is equally articulated through the sacralization of concrete geographies - holy lands, promised territories, imperial spaces, or revolutionary homelands - endowing them with theological and political meaning. Messianism thus operates not only as a structure of time but as a powerful mechanism of territorial sacralization, transforming land into the site of divine election, historical destiny, and maximalist political claims. By placing different perspectives in dialogue with broader religious and political traditions, this panel explores how messianic narratives contribute to the sacralization of land in Jewish, Christian, Islamic, and secular contexts, as well as in nationalist, revolutionary, and colonial imaginaries. From Zionist and post-Zionist debates to imperial and post-imperial visions of destiny in Russian culture, messianism continues to shape how territory is imagined as redemptive, inviolable, or absolute. The panel is explicitly comparative, without flattening traditions or detaching messianism from its historical genealogies.

Papers:

THE BASILEUS AND THE ORACULA LEONIS: A LIMINAL FIGURE AND ESCHATOLOGICAL ACTOR AT THE END OF TIMES

Di Cosmo A.P. (Speaker) [1] , Martino M. (Speaker) [2]

DREST Unimore ~ Modena ~ Italy [1] , Scuola Normale Superiore ~ Pisa ~ Italy [2]
ABSTRACT, Antonio Pio Di Cosmo, University of Modena and Reggio Emilia (Byzantine History). Drawing on the analysis of the complex mosaic scene in the lunette of Hagia Sophia in Istanbul—depicting Emperor Leo VI in proskynesis before Christ the Pambasileus and read in the light of the Oracula Leonis—this presentation investigates the role of the basileus as a liminal figure situated between the earthly sphere and a projected eschatological dimension. The shared chromatic scheme that assimilates the imperial garments to those of Christ activates a deliberate strategy of christomimesis, constructing a symbolic proximity between basileus and pambasileus and anticipating the final gesture that brings history to its close: the full affirmation of the Βασιλεία τῶν Ῥωμαίων through the universal diffusion of the Gospel, which heralds the Second Coming and the handing over of the crown from the earthly ruler to the heavenly sovereign. At the same time, the presence of the praying Theotokos and of the angel bearing the kyrikeion, as a variant of the Deesis, may be interpreted as an apocalyptic dispositive centred on intercession and on the expectation of the Last Judgement. The image thus emerges as a polysemic expression of Macedonian visual politics, operating on multiple levels to articulate, at a deeper stratum, the central role of the emperor as a subject of historical eschatology—simultaneously invested with a salvific function and humiliated before Christ in view of the end of times. From this perspective, the basileus appears as the guarantor of cosmic order and a symbolic actor in the eschatological horizon of Byzantine political theology.
PARADISE DENIED: HUMAN EXPERIENCES OF COMMUNISM'S TWILIGHT, 1989-1991

Martino M. (Speaker)

Scuola Normale Superiore ~ Pisa ~ Italy
On November 9, 1989, the Berlin Wall fell, sparking the democratization of communist regimes across Europe. By late 1991, the Soviet Union had dissolved. The end of communism exerted profound systemic effects beyond the region. While scholarship has primarily examined public memories of these events as articulated by leaders, far less attention has been paid to the experiences of millions of grassroots militants. For them, the collapse triggered a profound sense of loss, as it dissolved the "markers of certainty" that had anchored their identities and political lives. This paper explores how these militants experienced the transition from communism to post-communism from an existential perspective. What emotions did they feel amid the crisis of their political home? How did they react to the erosion of their ideals and culture? In what ways was their identity reshaped? Do their memories reveal symptoms of a search for the lost community? To what extent is communist nostalgia linked to the vanishing of the messianic hope of building a "paradise on earth" through socialist revolutions? Drawing on concepts of liminality and social drama—introduced by van Gennep and Turner, and adapted to the social sciences and history by Szakolczai, Wydra, Thomassen, and Forlenza—this paper analyzes militants' personal narratives. Through an examination of letters and diaries, the paper demonstrates how the end of communism symbolized the closure of horizons of expectation. This exposed the communists' body politic to what Italian ethnographer Ernesto de Martino termed a "crisis of presence." Stripped of their community and meaningful symbols, militants endured a trauma of separation from prior forms of political life. They confronted the catastrophic end of what Voegelin described as the "immanentization of the eschaton," which impaired their ability to compete with emerging liberal-progressive and populist ideologies in the aftermath of the apocalyptic demise of their world.
RELIGIOUS ZIONISM AND THE TEMPLE MOUNT DILEMMA

Inbari M. (Speaker)

UNC Pembroke ~ Pembroke ~ United States of America
Since its destruction in 70 AD, the desire to rebuild the Temple has represented the fulfillment of Jewish messianic hopes and expectations. Over the generations, the rabbis made many restrictions on human action to make the messianic dream alive. This paper describes the internal debate within Religious Zionist circles in Israel today over the question of Jews entering the Temple Mount and taking action to rebuild the Temple. It presents the internal religious dynamics from passive to active that permitted Jews to enter. It presents the positions of the Mercaz Harav Yeshiva, one of the most important centers of modern-day religious Zionism, whose leaders reject the idea of Jews entering the Temple Mount in the current era. The article further describes the debate on the question of entering the Temple Mount within the Israeli Chief Rabbinate, whose plenum strongly negated such a possibility, although some leading members of the Rabbinate permitted entry and prayer in an individual capacity. This is followed by a discussion of the decision by the Committee of Yesha Rabbis permitting Jews to enter the Temple Mount, under certain Halachic restrictions, and of the debate their decision evoked among Religious Zionist rabbis. The article continues to discuss how, since 2013, barriers have lifted and masses of people visit the Temple Mount, praying on the site, while a growing number of politicians call for a change in the Status Quo on the Mount. The article ends with statistics about the public opinion of Israeli Jews regarding visiting, praying, and building a Temple on the Temple Mount.
SHAS AND GUSH EMUNIM: DIVERGENT APPROACHES TO THE MODERN STATE AND RELIGION-NATIONALISM RELATIONS

Hazan M. (Speaker)

UniMoRe - Università Ca' Foscari - Venezia ~ Venezia ~ Italy
Within the heterogeneous national-religious Israeli context it is possible to outline two Jewish-political-religious movements profoundly different: Sephardi Ultra-Orthodoxy of Shas Party ("Sephardic Guardians of the Torah") and Religious Zionism in its most decisive development through the experience of Gush Emunim ("The Block of the Faithful"). This article aims to identify the theological differences and the political-practice challenges between these two understandings. The comparative analysis argues that while both movements legitimize the State of Israel as a given fact, they diverge fundamentally in their understanding of sovereignty and its meaning within the religious framework. For Shas, the state functions as an effective instrument for bringing the Jewish population closer to the observance of Judaism. The idea of "the Restoration of the Crown to its former Glory" fosters the development of a form of ethno-religious ultranationalism capable of delineating the boundaries of the Jewish collective. For religious Zionism, which intensified and assumed different political forms after 1967, the nation-state became both a practical and symbolic agent in the process of messianic redemption, which could only be achieved through Jewish settlement in the territories of biblical Israel through the sanctification of the "wholeness of the land". This comparison thus brings to light two distinct forms of messianism - one passive and the other active - each giving rise to a different configuration of the relationship between religion and nationalism.
"THE CITY UPON A HILL": LA SACRALIZZAZIONE DELLO SPAZIO POLITICO E IL DESTINO MANIFESTO DEGLI STATI UNITI, DAI PADRI FONDATORI A DONALD TRUMP

Paparcone D. (Speaker)

Università della Campania "Luigi Vanvitelli" ~ Caserta ~ Italy
L'espressione City upon a Hill, mutuata dal Vangelo di Matteo e politicizzata dal governatore puritano John Winthrop nel 1630, costituisce il nucleo fondativo del messianismo spaziale statunitense. Il presente contributo intende esplorare l'evoluzione di questo paradigma teologico-politico, dimostrando come la narrativa dell'eccezionalismo americano abbia costantemente sacralizzato lo spazio geografico. Partendo dall'analisi delle retoriche dei Padri Fondatori, l'intervento traccia lo sviluppo del "Destino Manifesto" ottocentesco, per poi approdare alle dottrine imperiali e della Guerra Fredda, fasi storiche in cui l'espansione territoriale e l'egemonia globale venivano giustificate come missioni redentive. All'interno di questo quadro, l'indagine si concentra sulle implicazioni spaziali di tale propaganda: la nazione non viene concepita solo come entità politica, bensì come un territorio inviolabile investito di un mandato divino. Nella sua ultima parte, la ricerca esamina le declinazioni contemporanee di questo mito, soffermandosi in particolar modo sulla retorica di Donald Trump [nome già inserito]. In quest'ultimo decennio, infatti, il dispositivo messianico subisce una radicale torsione nostalgica e difensiva: la salvezza non passa più attraverso l'espansione democratica globale, ma piuttosto mediante la fortificazione sacrale dei confini interni e la chiusura apocalittica verso l'esterno. Incrociando storia contemporanea, filosofia politica e analisi geopolitica, il paper decostruisce le dinamiche di questa propaganda, evidenziando infine come la "città sulla collina" sia mutata da faro universale a fortezza escludente.
RELIGIOUS-ZIONISM AND ITS AFTERTHOUGHTS: TOWARD A THEORY OF CORRECTIVE MESSIANISM

Perotta M. (Speaker)

University of Trento ~ Trento ~ Italy
This paper reconstructs the emergence of "corrective messianism" (*mesichiut metaqqen*) as a moderating response to the radicalization of Religious Zionist redemptionism, especially after 1967. Drawing on the work of diverse Israeli thinkers, it analyzes the possibility to retrieve a deflationary, normatively binding model of messianism capable of sustaining political responsibility without succumbing to apocalyptic maximalism. The point of departure lies in a critical engagement with Yeshayahu Leibowitz and his reading of Maimonides, whose naturalistic and minimalistic messianology marginalizes eschatological speculation while subordinating redemption to halakhic normativity. Against both deterministic "redemptionist" Zionism and pragmatic anti-messianism, "corrective messianism" serves as a middle path between the merely ethical horizon and the metaphysical blueprint. Ravitzky identifies in Maimonides a utopian yet indeterminate ideal, contingent upon moral and social improvement; Hartman reformulates this stance as "halakhic hope," a mode of historical agency that resists event-based theology and rejects access to a master-narrative of divine history; Schweid, confronting post-1967 religious nationalism, the legacy of Abraham Isaac Kook and Zvi Yehuda Kook, advocates a renewed commitment to ethical messianic ideals within concrete political limits. The paper argues that corrective messianism preserves the mobilizing power of redemptive vision while disciplining its mythic and absolutist tendencies. Yet it also exposes an unresolved tension: even demythologized messianism risks re-mythologizing the national project. The viability of corrective messianism, therefore, depends on whether Religious Zionism can sustain a norm-centered, historically incrementalist consciousness without reverting to the very eschatological finality it seeks to temper.
HISTORY, META-HISTORY, UNHISTORY: MESSIANIC TIME IN TWENTIETH-CENTURY APOCALYPTIC THINKING IN GERMAN PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION

Mahdevar S. (Speaker)

Goethe University ~ Frankfurt ~ Germany
Modern philosophy of religion has often treated eschatology as a residual theological motif within secular philosophies of history. This paper argues that twentieth-century Jewish and Christian thinkers instead developed a radically different conception of historical time: a messianic temporality that suspends the continuity of history itself. The analysis focuses mainly on the philosophy of history of Walter Benjamin and the political theology of Jacob Taubes. Benjamin's reflections on "weak messianic power" and the interruption of homogeneous historical time propose an apocalyptic structure in which redemption appears not as a future culmination but as a sudden rupture within the present. Taubes extends this perspective through his interpretation of Pauline eschatology, particularly the Pauline formula hōs mē ("as if not") that characterizes the life of the community living in the imminence of the end. Based on the twentieth-century apocalyptic thinking in German philosophy and theology, the paper reconstructs a theory of apocalyptic temporality in which historical time is neither linear nor teleological but suspended between urgency and delay. This messianic conception of time challenges both secular narratives of progress and theological expectations of a final consummation. The result is a distinctive philosophical account of historical experience in which the present becomes the site of an ever-possible interruption—an "exception" capable of transforming the meaning of history.
LAW AT THE TIME THAT REMAINS: MESSIANISM, REPUBLICANISM AND SOCIALISM ACCORDING TO MAHMUD MUHAMMAD TAHA

Pagani S. (Speaker)

Università del Salento ~ Lecce ~ Italy
In studies of contemporary Islam messianism is often considered as an aspect of Islamic radicalism. We adopt here a different perspective, focusing on the Sudanese Muslim thinker Mahmud Muhammad Taha (1909-1985). Executed as an apostate in 1985, Taha was the leader of an organisation known as the Republican Party between 1945 and 1969, and as the Republican Brothers from 1969 to 1985. The party never participated in elections but was a laboratory for the creation of a new approach to politics that made it possible to conceive of power without violence or domination. In the 1950s, Taha proposed a socialist and federal constitution and criticised both secular nationalism and the political theology of Mawdudi and the Muslim Brotherhood. In 1953 he wrote: "There is no doubt in my mind that society will evolve to the point where the state as we know it today will be abolished". The condition of possibility for the end of political coercion is a revolution in the inner city that frees the soul from fear and restores the primacy of the intelligence of the heart over instrumental reason. In this, Taha is inspired above all by Ibn 'Arabi and the Sufi tradition deeply rooted in Sudanese culture. He also quotes the maxim from the Gospel: «Every kingdom divided against itself is laid waste, and no city or house divided against itself will stand » (Mt 12 :25). In Taha's rhetoric, the second coming of Jesus and Muslim messianic imagery play a central role. For him, the messianic is linked to the fulfilment of the law at the present moment, which is not the end of time, but the instant when it is possible to start something new. In his thought, the messianic goes hand in hand with the deconstruction of nationalist and religious collective identities. This is particularly evident in his 1967 analysis of the Arab-Israeli conflict, where he rethinks the notions of the Holy Land and the chosen people, rejecting the interpretation given to them by Zionism and Arab-Islamic nationalism.
ANCIENT NEAR EASTERN KINGSHIP AND THE IMAGINATION OF MESSIANIC TERRITORY

Annus A. (Speaker)

University of Tartu ~ Tartu ~ Estonia
The lasting patterns of messianic territoriality can be traced to ancient Near Eastern royal theology, particularly the Mesopotamian conception of kingship centred on the divine warrior Marduk/ Ninurta. Cuneiform texts depict him as the victorious son who defeats forces of chaos, restores cosmic order, and returns to establish the stability of the land. His triumphs were ritually reenacted in royal investiture ceremonies, where earthly rulers received regalia, sovereignty, and destiny from the gods, and their authority became a part of the divine restoration of order. These early patterns illuminate the later transformation of the Hebrew māšīaḥ from "anointed ruler" into a future redeemer tasked with restoring land and its rulership. Before messianism became an expectation of the future, it was already a technique to exercise sovereignty: the king's legitimacy was proven through his capacity to protect territory. Mesopotamian rituals linking royal authority to cosmic geography—Nippur as the bond between heaven and earth, sacred routes of divine hero, and the celebration of his victories—anticipate later messianic imagination about a promised land and imperial or national spaces imagined as eschatological destinies. Such patterns illuminate the later development of messianic expectation. When the Israelite māšīaḥ becomes the future restorer of the homeland, the sacred space, divine favour, and royal restoration formed an integrated conceptual unit. The memory of a land periodically lost to chaos and restored by a chosen figure is not unique to Israel but belongs to a much older Near Eastern imaginary of territorial redemption. These ancient configurations continue to resonate in modern political and cultural visions and contemporary nationalist projects that treat an imaginary homeland as absolute and inviolable. By tracing the longue durée of anointed kingship and sacred territory, the study presents the historical specificity of Middle Eastern tradition.
PEOPLE, LAND, AND COMMUNITY: MARTIN BUBER'S REIMAGINING HALEVI'S KUZARI

Scordari C.C. (Speaker)

Università di Modena e Reggio Emilia ~ Reggio Emilia ~ Italy
The paper investigates the 20th-century rediscovery of Yehudah Halevi's medieval philosophical novel, the Kuzari, through the lens of Martin Buber's dialogical and theo-political philosophy. Building upon Harry Wolfson's 1912 dichotomy—which cast Halevi as the quintessential "Hebraist" in contrast to Maimonides' "Hellenizing" rationalism—the study traces the Kuzari's transition from a historical defense of faith to a vital instrument for modern Jewish identity. Central to this analysis is the relationship between the People and the Land. Buber transcends Halevi's original biological-metaphysical concept of the "divine faculty" ('inyan ha-elohim) proposing instead a theo-political bond where the Land of Israel functions as the essential space for the emergence of a genuine community. In this framework, kingship is reinterpreted relationally: the God-King reigns not over a mass of subjects, but through a community founded on reciprocity and the "immediacy of relationships". Consequently, Buber sees the bond with the soil as a "sanctification of the concrete" rooted in the primal agrarian labor of Adam. In Buber's reading, Halevi was the first exilic thinker who articulated a vision grounded not in nostalgia for a "perfect time", but in the longing for a "perfect space". This spatial utopia, while embedded in the social and political sphere, entails the inner transformation of the individual through the liberation of relationships with the Other, nature, and the Absolute. By grounding spiritual renewal in the material world, Buber construes Halevi's Hebrew State as a "concrete utopia", a critical vantage point to interrogate the political reality of the emerging Israeli State.
TECHNOLOGICAL REDEMPTION: MESSIANIC AND APOCALYPTIC MOTIFS IN RUSSIAN COSMISM

Baron G.B. (Speaker)

DREST Unimore; University of Tartu ~ Turin - Tartu ~ Italy
Utilizing cultural semiotics, this presentation frames Russian Cosmism as a paradigmatic site in which messianic and apocalyptic motifs are reconfigured beyond their traditional religious confines, extending into the domains of science, technology, and cosmic imagination. Originally rooted in Orthodox Christian eschatology, Russian Cosmism transforms apocalyptic expectations through technoscientific paradigms, recasting the promise of salvation into projects of universal resurrection, cosmic expansion, and the transcendence of death. These narratives persist in modified forms within Soviet and post-Soviet contexts, where scientific advancement and geopolitical imaginaries converge to shape enduring civilizational projects vis-à-vis the West. This analysis further highlights how messianic configurations position Russia as an intermediary between humanity and its ultimate destiny, expanding the spatial domain from the sacred territory to the cosmic scale, with technological mastery as the privileged instrument of redemption. Within this conceptual framework, messianic structures are articulated through the mechanisms of cultural memory, which mobilizes the extensive semiotic repertoire of the cultural encyclopedia while depending on specific agents (those responsible for preserving, transmitting, and reactivating it) to ensure its perpetuation. It is posited that these figures of posterity, articulated via messianic motifs, function as a stabilizing axis within cultural memory, facilitating speculative and future-oriented visions, particularly concerning Russia's civilizational trajectory, to develop with coherence and intentionality. In this regard, the analysis aligns with Nikolai Berdyaev's interpretation in "Istoki i smyls russkogo kommunizma"(1955) wherein Russian ideological formations are understood as secularized continuations of religious and messianic structures.
THE EVOLUTION OF MESSIANIC BEFORE- AND AFTERTHOUGHTS: THE CASES OF ITALIAN VOLUNTEERS IN THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR AND FOREIGN FIGHTERS IN UKRAINE

La Bella M. (Speaker)

LUISS, Tor Vergata ~ Rome ~ Italy
This paper examines the transformation of "messianic" motivations among foreign combatants by comparing Italian volunteers in the Spanish Civil War (1936-39) with contemporary foreign fighters in Ukraine. While the rhetoric of defending "civilization" persists, the structure of meaning has shifted from state-centered ideological "beforethoughts" to individualized, retrospective "afterthoughts." The adaptive function of Wydra's sacred-profane dichotomy remains, but both its content and the process through which individuals assign political sacredness have evolved. Using micro-historical and interpretive methods, the analysis draws on diaries, memoirs, testimonies, and historiography to reconstruct how fighters articulated their participation. Italian volunteers—particularly those of the Corpo Truppe Volontarie (CTV)—operated within a state-driven ideological framework, where action was justified by a collective mission rooted in Fascist universalism and the defense of a "Latin-Christian civilization" against Bolshevism. By contrast, contemporary fighters in Ukraine often act outside formal state structures, framing their involvement through personal ethical commitments to sovereignty, human rights, and resistance to aggression. The paper situates this shift within a broader philosophical and political-anthropological perspective. It argues that the political imaginary of war has moved from a teleological, collectivist model—where individuals enact predefined, "invented" historical destinies—to a fragmented, post-material landscape in which meaning is constructed retrospectively through individual moral narratives. This reflects a transition from a "religion of the state" to a "religion of ideas," where legitimacy happens to be individual. Rather than a mere rhetorical change, this evolution signals a deeper reconfiguration of the relationship between self and politics: from embeddedness in totalizing ideological orders to the rise of morally self-authorizing actors.
WAITING FOR THE MESSIAH: TRENDS OF CHRISTIAN PHILO-SEMITISM IN THE 17TH CENTURY

Giardini M. (Speaker)

Independent Scholar ~ Ferrara ~ Italy
The paper explores some common features in the thought of several seventeenth-century Christian authors who developed a distinctly philo-Semitic perspective, integrating into their theological frameworks certain characteristically Jewish motifs concerning the restoration of the Jewish people to the Land of Israel at the time of the Messiah. A considerable number of these authors belonged to chiliastic circles in close contact with Menasseh ben Israel, the Sephardic polymath known for his efforts to secure the readmission of Jews to England under Oliver Cromwell. The figures examined include John Dury, Michel Serrarius, Paul Felgenhauer, the Portuguese Jesuit António Vieira, and, indirectly, Isaac La Peyrère. The paper addresses four main themes: first, the expectation of a Jewish return to the Holy Land and the restoration of their kingdom, understood in connection with their eventual conversion to Christianity, as a central element of eschatological hope; second, particularly in Protestant contexts, the reform of the Church as a necessary precondition for Jewish conversion to "true" Christianity, itself requiring a fundamental change in Christian attitudes toward the Jews (from persecution, humiliation, and despise to benevolent acceptance); third, the identification of the Jewish Messiah with the Second Advent of Christ, and the shared failure — on both the Jewish and Christian sides — to recognize this equivalence; fourth, the link between the Jewish return to Palestine and the conquest of the Holy Land by a universal Christian monarch, and the implicit connection between Jewish messianic expectations and Christian eschatological motifs derived from earlier crusading traditions.

Panel description: Throughout history, religions have played a complex role in the development of cultural values and systems (legal, ecological, and familial in particular). As this year's Conference theme demonstrates, religions have functioned to both advance and to undermine efforts for equity. This panel explores religious systems that have created and/or perpetuated harm by supporting/exacerbating inequalities and hierarchies. At the same time, it seeks to both queer such systems in order to construct more just, egalitarian ways of living and flourishing, as well as to name the queer qualities of some such systems, opening possibilities from within. We welcome diverse perspectives from various religious and spiritual traditions at the intersection of feminist and queer theories, systematic theologies, eco-theologies, and inter-religious dialogue.

Papers:

PROPOSING AN ECOFEMINIST JUDAISM: DRAWING INSPIRATION FROM SYSTEMATICS AND QUEER THEORY

Helman I. (Speaker)

Charles University ~ Prague ~ Czech Republic
This paper explores the larger themes of my upcoming book Jewish Ecofeminism: Uniting Humanity, Divinity, and Nature. It will address the following two questions: how does our understanding of the divine influence how we understand ourselves and the world around us? And, how do we theologize queerly about humanity, divinity, and nature from a deeply grounded, rooted Jewish perspective? I argue, contrary to some other Jewish ecological thinkers, that we can be authentically Jewish while at the same time not seeing a separation between us and the divine, between the divine and nature and finally, between humanity and nature. In fact, a dualistic understanding of Creator/created and the traditional Jewish need to provide clear boundaries between the sacred and the profane has caused consideration distance between humanity and the more-than-human world and undermines the far more ancient Jewish understanding of the divine as immanent, being present in the natural world, and connected to humanity in tangible, visible, understandable ways. I draw on the Jewish understanding of divine oneness and some examples from our rich heritage of stories and the oral and written Torahs, which often blur/queer/dissolve the lines between the holy and the mundane and calling us to partnership in the work that needs to be done. This queer Jewish 'systematic theology,' seeks to establish a way of thinking/living/being in which we, first, acknowledge through the development of our tradition the many times in which we have not treated those around us, including the more-than-human world as our equal and, second, be/think/live Jewishness differently: sustainable, interconnected lives that, in the spirit of partnership, equality, empathy, gratitude, and justice, care for the planet and all of its inhabitants.
A (QUEER) SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY

Warren J. (Speaker)

Colgate Rochester Crozer Divinity School ~ Rochester ~ United States of America
This paper builds on a theory of theological performativity that attends to the ontological function of doctrines as the norms through which both religious contents and religious persons come into being. Rather than static essences, Christian contents such as God are understood like gender as historically contingent - and therefore ethically entangled - embodied constellations of meaning through which social life is possible. Critiquing Systematic Theology's complicity in heteronormative and racialized violence (drawing from Marcella Althaus-Reid and Hanna Reichel), the project argues that theology must be judged by its effects. Without abandoning systematic coherence or the creative power of God, this approach redefines systematic theology as a site of critical agency and communal formation. The project insists that because LGBTQIA+ persons already participate in the practices of embodiment through which Christianity is constituted, their lives must continue to be taken seriously as sources of/for theological reflection. Engaging queer theologians such as Patrick Cheng and Marcella Althaus-Reid, as well as the words of gender-nonconforming performance artist ALOK, the paper invites systematic theology out from the essentializing closet of heteronormativity by recognizing its already critical method and its role in ongoing ethical reflection. In doing so, the paper proposes a (queer) systematic theology that is not descriptive but constructive, cultivating diverse theologies of abundant life as part of a scientific (wissenschaftliche), ethically responsible, and relational discipline.
QUEER(ING) MATRIMONY? BLESSING POLYCULES AND NON-MONOGAMOUS PARTNERSHIPS AS A CHALLENGE FOR THE PROTESTANT CHURCH IN GERMANY

Thomaier S. (Speaker)

University of Hildesheim ~ Hildesheim ~ Germany
The "living system" of Matrimony remains one of society's most enduring and debated institutions, shaped by both legal norms and religious traditions. Historically anchored in patriarchal structures, marriage is frequently at the center of queer and emancipatory justice debates: Can, and should, the institution be transformed to embrace more diverse queer realities? If so, how? Recent developments in Germany and the Protestant Church (EKD) reflect evolving discourse. Following the extension of marriage and church weddings to (monogamous) same-sex couples - the so-called "Ehe für alle" - a vibrant new debate has emerged: Should Protestant churches also bless non-monogamous and polyamorus partnerships? The 2025 blessing of a polyamorous constellation in a pop-up church event, brought the issue to attention and exposed both resistances and possibilities within the protestant church. This paper critically explores whether matrimony as a "living system" can be queered by engaging with an ethic of non-monogamy. Employing queer theory and feminist theology, this paper asks how a protestant understandings of marriage might open toward more just, inclusive, and dynamic forms, and whether queering matrimonial practices within Protestantism could unsettle normative assumptions around kinship, fidelity, and relational ethics. In doing so, this contribution highlights both the opportunities and challenges facing faith communities committed to justice and inclusivity and seeks to imagine new modes of flourishing beyond heternormativ matrimonial boundaries.
QUEERING FEMINIST THEOLOGIES: ON MOTHERHOOD

Costanza C. (Speaker)

Theologische Fakultät, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin ~ Berlin ~ Germany
Queer theologies challenge classical and recent Christian feminist theologies in many ways, most fundamentally in respect to (more or less) hidden assumptions of binarities such as male / female, mind / body, culture / nature and to stereotypes of female identity associated with these binarities. This paper works out the transformative and liberative potentials of queer criticism for future feminist theologies by addressing an ambivalent topic of feminist theology often impregnated with binarities and stereotypes: motherhood. It sketches a liberation theology of motherhood which not only includes non-conformative ways of mothering but builds upon them as being specific forms of embodied theology. Thus, the paper also challenges problematic alliances between stereotypes of „true" motherhood and traditionalist Christian belief systems, showing the democratic potential within a diversity-sensitive theology of doing motherhood. Furthermore, the paper aims at opening up an intertheological discussion on queering motherhood in various religions.
BACON'S WEDDING: IMAGINED FAMILY, ECOLOGY, AND REPRONORMATIVITY IN REDARGUTIO PHILOSOPHIARUM, 1608

Aruan A. (Speaker)

Villanova University Theology and Religious Studies Department ~ Villanova ~ United States of America
This article revisits the unfinished 2008 scientific/ecological debate on Francis Bacon's wedding metaphor in Redargutio philosophiarum (1608). Unlike both historiographic salvagism (Brian Vickers) and feminist environmentalism (Carolyn Merchant, Katharine Park), I contextualize this metaphor within Bacon's more spiritual intent in the text, thus resisting the secularist reading of early modern thinkers. Shifting from "rape" imagery, I focus on the wedding/wedding (connubium) metaphor itself. With queer theories drawing from Michael Warner, Lee Edelman, and Katherine M. Franke, I argue that Bacon's invocation of cosmic wedding between Mind and Nature is a "repronormative" political theology, namely, a significant, almost mundane socio-political concept that functions as theology; but here, it is a political theology invested in the specific narrative that "our lives are somehow made more meaningful by being embedded in a narrative of generational succession" (Warner). Rather than making the Human-Nature relationship more egalitarian, Bacon assigns more burdened labor on Nature by ascribing her the identity of Wife, thus perpetuating inequality through a more inclusive, ethically front-loading metaphor. To establish my argument, I will (1) clarify Bacon's theological stances within the context of the English Reformation, (2) frame this wedding metaphor as political theology, (3) discuss the archives of late medieval Royal Marriage tradition, and (4) return to Redargutio and discuss the role of Nature in this marriage. In the conclusion, I caution contemporary Euro-Western environmentalists and ecological theologians of the malleability and liability of the popular Wife/Mother metaphor that often obscures the "capacity" with the "role" of reproduction.

Panel description: Inequality is a complex, multi-dimensional issue, so it is more accurate to speak of "inequalities" in the plural. Treating it as a single problem often limits our ability to understand and address its many facets. Economic, social, legal, and gender inequalities overlap and reinforce one another, and religion has historically supported and challenged these hierarchies. This panel explores these dynamics through the lens of the Economy of Francesco (EoF), a movement born from Pope Francis' invitation to young economists, entrepreneurs, and scholars to create a Pact for the Economy inspired by St Francis of Assisi. The Pact promotes an economy grounded in justice, peace, care, and human dignity. The EoF community works toward a fairer economy that combats poverty and exclusion, supports dignified work, aligns finance with real needs, values cultural and ecological diversity, and reduces inequalities in all their forms. Within this framework, the panel examines key themes from the EoF debate, including spiritual capital, the World Fraternity Report, and critiques of aporophobia and meritocracy. Spiritual capital is presented as a crucial but often neglected influence on economic behavior and social relations. The World Fraternity Report seeks to measure relational factors like trust, cooperation, and inclusion that sustain inequalities. Finally, aporophobia and meritocratic narratives are analyzed as cultural forces that normalize exclusion and justify inequality by emphasizing individual responsibility while obscuring structural causes. By offering a fresh perspective on religion and inequality, the panel challenges dominant ideas about merit, growth, work, and value. Rather than viewing religion only as a source of inequality, it highlights ethical principles from religious traditions — particularly the EoF Pact — to imagine new economic relationships and institutions aimed at reducing exclusion, precarity, and systemic injustice.

Papers:

THE FRATERNITY REPORT

Ionta S. (Speaker)

Bocconi University ~ milan ~ Italy
Inequalities are both distributive and relational, rooted in social bonds, institutional trust, and participation. This paper discusses the World Fraternity Report, part of the Economy of Francesco, which aims to analyze these relational aspects empirically. The Report measures fraternity through international data on trust, cooperation, reciprocity, social inclusion, and institutional quality, providing a perspective that complements income and growth metrics. By focusing on fraternity as a visible social condition, it challenges economic frameworks that see inequality solely through individual outcomes and emphasizes its structural and relational roots. Lower fraternity levels are linked to social fragmentation, exclusion, and ongoing inequalities, illustrating how weakened social ties and institutions lead to unequal opportunities. Within the panel's focus on religion and inequality, the paper argues that fraternity—deeply rooted in religious traditions—can serve as a bridge between normative principles and empirical investigation. It concludes by examining the usefulness and limitations of fraternity-based indicators for academic and public discourse, proposing that they deepen our understanding of the diverse inequalities present in modern societies.
SPIRITUAL CAPITAL AND THE HERITAGE OF ST FRANCIS OF ASSISI

Bruni L. (Speaker)

Lumsa University ~ rome ~ Italy
Modern economies tend to analyse inequality by focusing on material variables, while forgetting that markets and institutions are first of all places of meaning. This paper argues that spiritual capital—understood as the shared stock of trust, values, narratives, and moral motivations—is a decisive but largely invisible dimension of economic life. When spiritual capital is abundant, cooperation becomes possible and inclusion is sustainable; when it is depleted, economic systems may continue to function technically, yet they increasingly generate fragmentation, exclusion, and loss of dignity. Inequalities, in this perspective, are not only the result of unequal resources, but also of impoverished symbolic and relational worlds. The paper draws on the figure of Francis of Assisi, whose experience represents a radical reconfiguration of wealth and poverty. Francis did not reject wealth in itself, but the kind of wealth that breaks relationships and silences the poor. His understanding of poverty as a relational condition reveals that economic life cannot be reduced to contracts and incentives alone. By reconnecting economy with fraternity, Francis shows that spiritual capital is not an optional ethical surplus, but a structural condition for a humane economy. The paper concludes by suggesting that religious traditions, through figures such as Francis, offer essential insights for understanding the spiritual roots of inequality and for imagining economic systems capable of sustaining dignity, reciprocity, and shared vulnerability.
APOROPHOBIA, MERITOCRACY AND RELIGION

Rotondi V. (Speaker)

SUPSI University ~ Manno ~ Italy
Aporophobia—the aversion toward the poor—has recently gained at- tention as a lens to understand exclusionary attitudes in contemporary societies. This paper argues that aporophobia can be interpreted as an unintended consequence of meritocratic narratives. While meritocracy is commonly viewed as a principle of fairness, public and political discourse often reduces merit to individual effort and success, downplaying struc- tural factors and luck. This framing sharpens distinctions between the "deserving" and the "undeserving" poor, thereby reinforcing attribution biases that erode support for redistribution and shape attitudes toward low-income immigrants and marginalized groups. Building on Sen's no- tion of the "obligations of power," the paper proposes an ethical frame- work for counteracting these narrative externalities. The argument high- lights both the responsibility to assist the victims of aporophobia and the epistemic duty to challenge meritocratic narratives that misrepresent the sources of disadvantage. The framework provides conceptual foundations for empirical and experimental research on deservingness, narratives, and redistribution in public economics.

Panel description: Within religious traditions, violence in spaces of prayer may be interpreted as a paradigmatic form of moral and communal rupture, drawing on foundational narratives of fratricide when directed at worshippers and of sacrilege when targeting sacred space. From a scholarly perspective, however, contemporary efforts to study such violent attacks face a methodological paradox: despite their global persistence, they remain fragmented across existing datasets, undertheorized in violence studies, and unevenly documented. Scholars thus face a twofold challenge: documenting attacks that are inconsistently classified across sources, while also developing analytical frameworks capable of accounting for both shared patterns of violence and dynamics specific to the religious contexts where these events occurred. This panel, built around the emerging research carried out by a group of historians in Bologna, Italy, on the documentation and analysis of attacks against worshippers in religious spaces, is conceived as an open forum for scholars investigating violence against worshippers and sacred sites across different religious traditions, regions, and methodological approaches. Contributions are welcomed from researchers studying the origins of this phenomenon or specific cases, developing documentation practices, analyzing patterns of attack, or examining institutional and community responses to such violence. The panel will include presentations drawing on Plorabunt, a newly developed global dataset documenting attacks on places of worship, alongside contributions based on archival research, historical and philological-exegetical analysis. The panel addresses a central question: to what extent can the systematic study of violence against places of worship—grounded in improved documentation, cross-regional comparison, and scientific dialogue—both deepen scholarly understanding and respond to the urgent concerns of religious communities facing recurrent threats?

Papers:

PLORABUNT: MAPPING VIOLENCE AGAINST WORSHIPPERS IN SACRED SPACES

El Ganadi A. (Speaker)

Fondazione per le scienze religiose ~ Bologna ~ Italy
Research on religious violence has increasingly relied on event-based datasets and digital archives, yet attacks on places of worship remain poorly captured as a distinct analytical object. Such attacks are often dispersed across heterogeneous sources and absorbed into broader categories of terrorism, hate crime, or ethnic conflict, obscuring the specific spatial, symbolic, and communal dimensions of violence directed at worshippers in sacred space. This paper presents Plorabunt, an open-access digital archive and global dataset developed to document violence against places of worship worldwide from 1982 to the present. At the time of presentation, the dataset records more than 1,623 fatalities and is built through curated integration and cross-validation of diverse materials, including press archives, NGO reports, legal and diplomatic documents, regional databases, and scholarly sources. Rather than treating data as a neutral record, the project foregrounds questions of classification, provenance, uncertainty, and iterative revision as central components of its digital design. The paper outlines the data modeling and curation choices underpinning Plorabunt and reflects on their epistemic implications for the digital study of religion and violence. By combining structured data with a publicly accessible and sustainable digital platform, Plorabunt supports comparative and longitudinal analysis across religious traditions, regions, and historical contexts, while also serving as a case study in how digital infrastructures shape what can be known, compared, and interpreted about violence involving religious communities and sacred spaces.
RECONFIGURING FRATRICIDE: CAIN AND ABEL IN Q. 5:27-32

Badini F. (Speaker)

Fondazione per le scienze religiose ~ Palermo ~ Italy
The figures of Qābīl and Hābīl, whose names are elaborated only in post-Qur'anic Islamic tradition, are introduced in the Qurʾān in Q. 5:27-32 through the brief and allusive narrative of Adam's two sons. While clearly resonating with the Biblical account of Cain and Abel (Gen. 4:1-16), the Qurʾanic version presents a markedly concise retelling that presupposes prior familiarity with the story and leaves much of its contextualization to later exegetical elaboration. This contribution offers a close reading of Q. 5:27-32, examining its narrative structure. The paper first introduces the Qurʾanic passage and outlines its reception in classical Islamic exegesis. Particular attention is paid to key terms such as bi-l-ḥaqq ("with truth" or "in truth," or "truly") and qurbān ("sacrifice"), and to the ethical and legal concerns that shape exegetical interpretations of fratricide, sacrifice, and divine justice. The analysis then turns to contemporary scholarship on the Biblical subtext of Q. 5:27-32, engaging with the methodological approaches developed by Reynolds, Cuypers, Firestone, Pregill, and Zellentin, among others. By bringing classical Islamic exegesis into conversation with modern studies of Qurʾanic intertextuality, this paper argues that the Cain and Abel narrative functions as a privileged site for observing how the Qurʾān reworks earlier traditions while articulating a distinctive moral and theological vision.
THE CONTESTED MEANING OF MEMORY MARKERS: CHURCHES, GENOCIDE, AND THE MAKING OF HERITAGE IN RWANDA

Cristofori S. (Speaker)

FSCIRE/Link Campus University, Rome ~ Bologna/Rome ~ Italy
This paper proposes an interpretation of the memorial configuration of the genocide against the Tutsi by analysing how certain churches - which in 1994 became sites of massacres - have been transformed into heritage sites. The study examines both the genocidal acts committed within these churches, the historical depth and construction of the fratricidal hatred that motivated them, and the complex ways in which their memory is articulated today. It draws on a multi-source methodology, including field observations of the sites; trial records from the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, which allow for the reconstruction of concrete dynamics of violence; and documentation from the Plorabunt database concerning interactions between the Rwandan Episcopal Conference and the post-genocide government between 1996 and 1998, aimed at establishing a shared policy of memory and the heritagisation of genocide churches.
TERRORISM AS DEVIATION FROM THE MIDDLE-WAY: RACHID GHANNOUCHI'S REACTION TO JIHADIST ATTACK IN TUNISIA

Cargnelutti F. (Speaker)

Indipendent Researcher ~ Palermo ~ Italy
The first international terrorist attack committed by al-Qaeda after 9/11 was executed in Tunisia on April 2, 2002. The target was al-Ghriba Synagogue, in the island of Djerba, and the suicide attacker killed 19 people and left 30 wounded. This presentation focuses on the reaction to such a crime of the main Tunisian Islamist movement, Harakat al-Nahda. More in particular, it analyses the condemnation of the leader of the movement, Rachid Ghannouchi, whose reaction to the attack, and to terrorism in general, can be unpacked into different elements. These include the condemnation of the killing of Muslims, Jews and Christians; the condemnation of al-Qaeda as an organisation that damages, instead of strengthening, Islam; the description of the international context as dominated by a Zionist-American alliance that created the conditions for the spread of terrorism; the criticisms against the Tunisian state that is considered co-responsible because of its detachment from the Islamic values of the Tunisians, and because of its illiberal regime that impedes the diffusion of a moderate Islamic movement. This presentation is based on the analysis of Ghannouchi's interviews and writings published in the years after the attack.
THE VIOLENT CONTESTATION OF SPACE: A MASSACRE OF CHRISTIANS AT THE HANDS OF CHRISTIANS IN LATE ANTIQUE ROME

Proietti M. (Speaker)

Fondazione per le scienze religiose ~ Bologna ~ Italy
Between the fourth and sixth centuries, in the wake of the Christological controversies associated with the so-called "Arian crisis," Rome witnessed the coexistence of Christian communities of differing theological orientations. In certain cases, this situation either resulted from or led to the election of rival bishops for the same city, beginning with the well-known case of Liberius and Felix. Such episodes generated fierce disputes over Christian urban spaces at a time when the topography of the classical city was undergoing profound transformation through the construction of the great Christian basilicas—structures that themselves became focal points of intra-Christian conflict. It is within this framework that the episode examined here takes place. In the context of the double election of Ursinus and Damasus, a Roman basilica—identified either as the Basilica Sicinini or the Liberian Basilica—became the site of the killing of one hundred and thirty-seven Christians gathered there for liturgical celebration. While the Liber Pontificalis remains a fundamental source for cases of double election, the reconstruction of this episode of intra-Christian violence requires engaging not only the Collectio Avellana but also the "pagan" account of Ammianus Marcellinus. The convergence of these sources reveals the religious and political motivations underlying the violence, set against the broader transition from "pagan" to Christian Rome.
OPERATION BLUE STAR AS VIOLENCE AGAINST SACRED SPACE: TRAUMA, VIOLENCE, MARTYROLOGY, AND SIKH COLLECTIVE MEMORY

Shahnawaz S. (Speaker)

Student ~ Modena e Reggio Emilia ~ Italy
In this research Paper, the case studies on Operation Blue Star (18 June 1984) as a paradigmatic experience of violence against sacred space in postcolonial South Asia is discussed. It claims that the attack of the Harmandir Sahib complex in Amritsar cannot be sufficiently attributed to use of the confined terms of counter-insurgency, public order, or anti-militancy operations. The action should be seen, instead, as a theological, symbolic, and institutional assault on the sacred heart of Sikh life. Based on the historical analysis, Sikh studies, ritual theory, memory studies, and the idea of symbolic violence, this research studies analyzes four dimensions of the case that change over time: the political crisis that led to the violent attack on temple; the nature and timing of the military action itself; the deaths of the casualties and worshipers; and the long-term change in Sikh worship, memory, and identity since June 1984. They especially focus on the demolition of the Akal Takht, the assault and violence on the martyrdom remembrance of Guru Arjan Dev Ji, and how Blue Star was later integrated into Sikh shaheedi memory and diasporic memory. The paper argues that the military force was not terminated when the operation came to life. Its influences were long lasting in liturgy modification, reconstruction of the memorials, yearly commemorations and the lack of accountability. In this respect, we cannot think of Blue Star as a particular security event but as a violent attack on the space of the sacred whose post-lived experiences have continued to be constitutive of Sikh collective consciousness. Taking sacred space as an important unit of analysis, rather than its passive context, this research case study try to introduces new directions to larger project of Plorabunt by discussing of political violence, religious sites, collective violence, and the extended temporal consequences of places of worship attacks.
BEYOND GENESIS: CAIN, FRATRICIDE, AND VIOLENCE IN EARLY JEWISH INTERPRETATION

Ibba G. (Speaker)

Facoltà Teologica dell'Italia Centrale / Istituto Superiore di Scienze Religiose della Toscana ~ Firenze ~ Italy
This paper explores how the story of Cain and Abel was reinterpreted in early Jewish literature beyond the biblical account of Genesis 4. In Second Temple and early Rabbinic traditions, Cain increasingly emerges as an archetypal figure of violence and moral transgression. By examining texts such as Jubilees, 1 Enoch, and rabbinic interpretations, the paper shows how the first fratricide became a key paradigm for reflecting on human violence and conflict.
CAIN, ABEL, AND THE ORIGINS OF NON-CAPITAL PUNISHMENT: RABBINIC INTERPRETATIONS AND THE PARADIGM OF THE CITY OF REFUGE

Dal Bo F. (Speaker)

University of Modena and Reggio Emilia ~ Reggio Emilia ~ Italy
This paper examines the Cain and Abel narrative as a foundational text for conceptualizing punishment for unintentional homicide. It develops a rabbinic interpretive hypothesis: that Cain did not act with full murderous intent, since no human had previously been killed and the lethal consequences of violence were unknown to him. Rabbinic literature uses this premise to address a core tension — Cain commits homicide yet escapes death, instead receiving divine protection and exile. Rather than treating this as inconsistency, rabbinic interpretation transforms it into a legal distinction between intentional and unintentional killing, making Cain the prototype of the unintentional murderer. This tradition links Cain's exile to the biblical cities of refuge, reframing his wandering as paradigmatic sanctuary. The paper concludes by tracing this paradigm in modern thought, particularly Levinas' reading of the West as a juridical space oriented toward integration and protection rather than purely punitive ends.

Panel description: The panel' goal is to reveal how East-Central European religous communities relate to the struggle for political and economic hegemony exposed by Russia, the USA and the EU for the past 30 years. People feel marginalised as third-class citizens in Europe. Although the West portrays itself reducing and quenching inequalities through commitments to equality but what is their 'Pax Romana' message at its core? It is common knowledge that from the Baltic states down to Bulgaria, the string of post-communist nations constitute a buffer zone for the world's two largest military powers, namely the USA and Russia. The formation and establishment of the EU, as well as its subsequent extension have raised several vital issues for those countries. The region experienced an extremely fast capitalist change from communism to open markets, which resembled what was often designated as the 'wild East', having thus little time to digest the ensuing freedom that was interrupted on occasion by the Balkan war and more recently by the war in Ukraine. Speakers will also seek to investigate how nations churches or political establishments responded to democracy, capitalism, and the imperialist endeavours. Questions will be pursued such as: is nationalist Christian identity a viable corrective to certain Westerm form of liberalism? The former Communist elites have been clinging to power for the past three decades; thus, is this still a valid issue in the region both in the churches and societies. It is believed that these issues are also inextricably connected to the reshaping of Communism into Nationalism by the very same group of elitist individuals/groups Poland, Romania, Hungary, Slovakia. Second, the economic exploitation of the Post-Soviet Countries and the wonders of free Market will be exposed. Third, it is posed that a critical stance against Russia and Western spiritual or political Powers perceived as imperialistic causing various forms of inequalities will be addressed.

Papers:

MARGINALISED FEELINGS? A CRITICAL REFLECTION ON WESTERN EVANGELICALISM MANIFESTED IN POST-COMMUNIST ROMANIA AFTER 1989

Simut C. (Speaker)

Professor, Aurel Vlaicu University ~ Arad ~ Romania
Even if Western Evangelicals did help Romanian Evangelicals in various ways prior to 1989, what happened after constituted an unprecedented support especially during the decade 1990-2000. Despite of this, Romanian people experienced inequalities in various ways. It should be stressed that their implication in Evangelical ecclesiastical life continued well into the present, the way they helped their Romanian brothers and sisters in faith was not only multifaceted but also very consistent. Put together under the over-encompassing umbrella of Christian mission, the ways Western Evangelicals decided to help Romanian Evangelicals ranged from spiritual issues (such as preaching, teaching, and counselling) to finances (for church buildings, schools, orphanages, hospices, clinics, hospitals, and often even the payment of salaries for the personnel working in these institutions). This paper investigates these missionary patterns of support in order to establish the positives and the negatives of these endeavors in order to highlight whether the mentality behind them is spiritual-ecclesiastical or political-imperialistic, or perhaps even a combination thereof. Alternatively, this article is an investigation into Western Evangelical spirituality as manifested in supporting Romanian Evangelicals in the first three decades following the collapse of Communism in 1989.
GOOD NEWS OF FREE MARKET IDEOLOGY CONTESTED OR APPROVED? ECONOMIC INEQUALITY IMPACT ON SOCIETY AND RELIGION

Kovacs A. (Speaker)

Professor, Debrecen Reformed University ~ Debrecen ~ Hungary
This paper endeavours to offer critical points of reference from a Reformed Christian perspective and reflect on the economic changes, the transition from totalitarian Communism to the harsh realities of capitalist, exploitation in a new era that impacted the church and society as well. It is a well-known fact that not only did new entrepreneurs emerge in the region with the 'good news' of free market that was perceived by the public as an era of Canaan, but also that the political power of former Communist leaders was preserved and transformed into economic power in the new democratic era with its harsh capitalism. This is an irony of lived history. The presentation seeks to address how misleading the 'evangelisation' of secular liberal ideology was, how it caused inequality, maintained the well-preserved hegemony of the West reducing East-Central Europeans to second class citizens. Also, it intends to unveil the Janus face of politics which was ready to cooperate with former Communist top party influencers. To some degree, it is not an exaggeration to state that often the most ruthless and cunning communists became the most adaptive and cheerful proponents of democracy and capitalism both in society and religious traditions. All such observation leads to reflection on the nature of human beings which is one of the core tenets of Western religious realisations emerging from Christianity. Against this social-economic background a critical reading is attempted through the lenses of selected liberation scholars from Latin America, Asia and Central Europe such as L. Boff, A. Byung Mu and I. Török.
RECOVERING A NATION - THE FEELING OF MARGINALISATION AND RESTORATION IN THE CHRISTIAN CONSTITUTION OF HUNGARY.

Dolan S. (Speaker)

Lecturer, St. Mary's University ~ London ~ United Kingdom
In the over 30 years since the regime change in Hungary, there nation has witnessed a remarkable change in its political, social, and cultural consistency. This period has also been witness to a sustained period of political dominance by Viktor Orbán and his Christian democracy. Orbán's politics has sought in various ways to compete against the trope that Hungary is a meagre, developing European nation by seeking to counter the narrative of marginalisation through restoration. This paper argues that this national recovery is typified in the Preamble to the Hungarian Fundamental Law, where claims to a Christian history, culture, and politics intersect in order to promote a resurgent counter narrative that rejects Hungary as a small Me nation amongst global superpowers. Through the redrafting of the Constitution, Orbán and Fidesz sought to create a new national identity that seeks to reclaim the past in order to reject what they regarded as a marginalised national identity perpetuated by previous governments. In understanding how Orbán's politics understands Hungary's place in history and on the global stage, greater understanding can be gleaned at the future of global politics where national subsidiarity challenges beliefs about global hegemony.
TRACING FOR DEFINITIONS OF RELIGION IN POLITICS. THE CASE OF THE HUNGARIAN LEGISLATION IN 1990 AND 2011

Hoppál B. (Speaker)

Corvinus University ~ Budapest ~ Hungary
After the political turn in 1990 there was a huge expectation both on scientific and social level. After the collapse of Communism scholars of religion have started to redefine, what religion is and relocate their position free from ideological and theological concerns. However, we can also observe a reaction to this change on the part of lawmakers and politicians. At the political level, two laws were enacted that are significant from the perspective of religious studies and theology: the article 1990/IV. and 2011/CCVI. This paper identifies and analyses these legal provisions and places them into a wider Eastern-European context. What is interesting about this situation is that the first law—which is generally considered to be more liberal in spirit—was passed by the last communist parliament, while the second, which is viewed as more restrictive and has undergone many changes, was introduced by a freely elected right-wing government.

Panel description: Recognizing religion in global politics is neither neutral nor benign. This book reveals how recognition operates to reinforce hierarchies, reify religious difference, and deepen political divisions. It reframes religion as a historically contingent category of knowledge and governance. She shifts the question from whether religion should be recognized to how it becomes recognizable. Through the entangled imperial histories of British India and Mandate Palestine, the book traces how colonial and anti-colonial governmental logics shaped the politics of religious minorities, representation, and border-making-dynamics that continue to shape postcolonial states like Pakistan and Israel. Offering a timely critique of the epistemic assumptions underpinning global discourses on religion, sovereignty, and political order, Before Recognition challenges conventional understandings of religion in international relations.

Papers:

Panel description: With the overarching goal of understanding how the state repression of civil society and the establishment of inequalities become normalized, this panel brings together two papers that examine how the Soviet Union produced, normalized, and managed religious inequalities. Drawing on Soviet history and Vatican history, the panel analyzes how communist regimes constructed hierarchical religious orders by selectively repressing, tolerating, co-opting, or exploiting religious communities according to political goals. Focusing on the liquidation of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, its repression, and its long-term marginalization in both political and epistemic terms, the contributions investigate the shifting combinations of repression, control, infiltration, and instrumentalization of religious life. Particular attention is given to the processes through which repression was not only imposed but also normalized and justified through bureaucratic classification, legal regulation, surveillance practices, diplomatic negotiations, and scholarly representation. By situating the repression and normalization of religious life in the Soviet Union within broader East-West dynamics, the panel highlights the role of international actors, including the Vatican, and of diplomacy and soft diplomacy in shaping both the practice and the interpretation of religious repression. In doing so, it illuminates how national politics and international relations interacted to produce enduring forms of structural inequality around established religions. Ultimately, the panel seeks to establish a cross-disciplinary conversation on how inequalities are produced, stabilized, and contested at the intersection of religion, power, and knowledge in modern Europe.

Papers:

"FOR THE SOVIET GOVERNMENT, ALL RELIGIONS ARE EQUAL. WE TOLERATE THEM ALL": ON THE NATURE OF SOVIET ECCLESIASTIC-NATIONALITIES POLICY IN UKRAINE (MID-1940S - EARLY 1950S)

Shlikhta N. (Speaker)

National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy ~ Kyiv ~ Ukraine
The 1930s saw a shift in Stalin's policy from revolutionary internationalism to national Bolshevism and the revival of the Russian imperial heritage. This shift predictably created conditions for the regime's agreement with the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC). Drawing on this, Bohdan Bociurkiw proposes the concept of ecclesiastic-nationalities policies of the Soviet leadership. He claims that the official policy on the religious question was subordinated to the requirements of the official policy on the national question when it came to its implementation in Ukraine. (Bociurkiw, 1965). The 1943 church-state agreement is often seen as a watershed between the brutal, repressive policy toward the ROC in the post-revolutionary and interwar period, on the one hand, and the postwar decades, when repression focused on so-called sectarians and national religious manifestations, while the ROC became a kind of state church in the officially atheistic state, on the other hand. This is an oversimplified picture: the official anti-religious policy was not revised or curtailed at any point during the USSR's existence. Still, many visible changes took place since the mid-1940s: from the opening of Orthodox theological schools to the revision of clergy taxation. The contrast with the pre-WWII situation was especially stark because of the repressive policy against national churches (the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church and the Ukrainian Orthodox Autocephalous Church) at the same time. The explanation by a Republican Commissioner of the Council for the Affairs of the ROC, Pavlo Khodchenko, used in the title, was given in 1945 to stop rumors about the inequality of religious confessions spread at the time. The aim of my paper is to trace the birth of the new Soviet policy toward religious confessions, establishing a visible hierarchy in the atheist state: with the Russian imperial church at the top and national churches severely repressed.
UKRAINIAN GREEK CATHOLIC CHURCH IN THE VATICAN'S POLICY TOWARD EASTERN EUROPE: PAST AND PRESENT INEQUALITIES

Serhiienko V. (Speaker)

German Historical Institute Warsaw ~ Warsaw ~ Poland
This paper reflects on my research in the Vatican archives on the Vatican's policy toward the Soviet Union during the pontificate of Pius XII. Documents declassified in 2020 reveal new aspects of Vatican-Soviet relations, in which the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church often became a hostage of "high politics." The history of the Greek Catholic Church in Ukraine and Eastern Europe is shaped by intertwined ecclesiastical, political, and identity-related factors and has been significantly influenced by Western Orientalizing perceptions that persist within Church structures and academia. The main questions of my presentation are as follows: Despite changes in the foreign policy orientations of different popes, what are the longue durée continuities in the Vatican's so-called "Eastern policy"? What role have Ukraine and the Greek Catholic Church played within this framework? How has the Western perception of the East in general—and, more specifically, the prejudice of certain 19th- and 20th-century Roman Catholic bishops against the Byzantine rite—influenced Vatican policy? How has this policy changed (if at all) in connection with the decisions of the Second Vatican Council (1962-65), which officially introduced ecumenical ideas into the Catholic Church? How has the unique position of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church—one that exists not situationally, but fundamentally, between the Orthodox and Roman Catholic traditions—contributed to its epistemic injustice and political inequality? And how can we conceptualize the experience of practical ecumenism in Soviet Ukraine, where Orthodox believers, who were identifying themselves as Greek Catholics, might attend Roman Catholic churches—a phenomenon frequently misunderstood, difficult to classify, and ultimately marginalized in Western academic discourse?

Panel description: Paul Gauthier (1914-2002) was a key figure in the reflection on poverty at the time of Vatican Il. This panel brings together scholars from various backgrounds who crossed paths with either Gauthier or his wife, Myriam Lacaze (1928-2017) in their research, in an attempt to retrace their steps based on archival records they left behind in their correspondence with others, in the international press, and in their books. The aim is to retrace, "from the outside" and without direct access to their personal papers, not only the unique biographical trajectory of this theologian, humanist, and activist—first a priest, then a layman, after marrying Lacaze, herself a former nun. Their careers and activism spanned several continents, following the "hot spots" where activism and theology were shaping new reflections on poverty: Europe (France, Italy, Belgium), the Middle East (Israel-Palestine, Lebanon), Asia (India), and Latin America (Brazil). This panel aims to report on the evolution of Catholic thinking on poverty, based on three major milestones: 1. pushing further and beyond social doctrine on "worker issues" after the worker-priests experiment ended, from Europe to Israel-Palestine; 2. the conciliar commitment within the group Jesus, the Church, and the Poor and their critical repositioning in favor of solidarity with Palestinians; 3. the beginnings of liberation theology, when Gauthier and Lacaze left Jerusalem after 1967 for Lebanon, India, and then Brazil. The panel proposes to retrace the stages of this journey of intellectual and humanitarian, theological and militant commitment within a changing Church; to analyse Gauthier's and Lacaze's critical stance, sometimes visionary, sometimes following pre-existing lines of thought, and their legacy (and eventually limitations to it); all while highlighting the dialectical relationship between center and periphery; marginality and institutions; rupture, institutionalization, and reception; gender and power dynamics.

Papers:

WITH OR BEYOND GAUTHIER? GAUTHIER'S RECEPTION AND THE BROADER APPROPRIATION OF THE POVERTY ISSUE IN LATIN-AMERICAN LIBERATION THEOLOGY.

Munera Duenas G.A. (Speaker)

Sorbonne Nouvelle ~ Paris ~ France
This paper critically assesses Gauthier's legacy and thinking in Latin American liberation theologies. While Paul Gauthier is sometimes presented in historiography as one of the founders of liberation theology, what was his actual role? By critically examining the narratives and memory of this movement, in which many protagonists have come to be regarded as founding figures over time, this paper aims to examine Gauthier's influence in Latin America. How has he, his work, and his ideas been received over time? Beyond Gauthier, thes paper critically examines the reception(s) and appropriation by liberation theologians in Latin America of the issue of poverty, as "inspired" by this figure, who has become central to certain narratives of Latin American theology. Challenging such conception, it outlines the many limitations, misconnections and gaps spanning over the different places and conversations about liberation theology.
AFTER 1967: LEAVING JERUSALEM. PAUL GAUTHIER AND MYRIAM LACAZE AT THE WORLD CONFERENCE OF CHRISTIANS FOR PALESTINE

Maligot C. (Speaker)

Fondazione per le Scienze Religiose ~ Bologna ~ Italy
This paper reassesses the rupture 1967 marked in Gauthier and Lacaze's life and activism. Following the Six-Day War, they left Israel-Palestine to live in a refugee camp in Lebanon. This displacement marked a turning point in their decade-long activism on behalf of Arab refugees, first in Nazareth among workers, with the creation of the Compagnons de Jésus Charpentier (1957) and then with the transnational humanitarian network of solidarity, Rete Radié Resh (1964). Leaving Jerusalem, now under full Israeli control, set them on the road, off to other hotspots for liberation theologies. This paper explores a lesser-known aspect of their activism: their involvement in the World Conference of Christians for Palestine, using personal papers of other participants and diplomatic reports to retrieve their specific contributions. Founded in Beirut in 1970, the WCCP had a permanent secretariat split between Paris (Témoignage Chrétien) and Beirut, to raise Christian awareness on the Palestinian situation. The ecumenical organization fostered a political counter-theology in solidarity with Palestinians but ultimately failed to serve as an effective platform for Gauthier and Lacaze's ideas. It aimed to counterbalance post-Vatican II developments in Jewish-Christian relations and recent efforts to include the State of Israel in such a theological reappraisal. In doing so, it also reclaimed the Council legacy (and the memory of Gauthier's and others' activism at Vatican II) for itself, through its stance in favour of the poor. However, the WCCP had little influence on the subsequent development of Palestinian liberation theology. Initially propelled by the first generation of left Christians who had been active as early as the 1950s alongside Middle Eastern Christians, the WCCP remained entangled with European-based approaches to poverty and development that clashed with the more radical voices emerging from North Africa and the Near East, among which were Gauthier and Lacaze.

Panel description: Did Orthodoxy come to a halt before modernity? Does Orthodox Christian theology function only in traditional contexts, borrowing schemes and forms of rural society, to which the liturgical and theological symbolisms, the rhetorical models of preaching, the structures of church administration, and its views on the relation between religion, politics, and secular society are closely linked? Has Orthodoxy accepted the consequences of modernity, or does the Orthodox still feel a nostalgia for pre-modern forms of organization and structures of a glorified past, following in this way fundamentalism? Did even the movement called "Return to the Fathers", as it was understood, and despite its initially renewing character, function unwittingly as a barrier against modernity and its challenges? Modernity and post-modernity constitute, however, the broader historical, social, and cultural context within which the Church is called to accomplish its mission and to ceaselessly incarnate the Christian truth. In this book, Kalaitzidis argues that theology as a prophetic voice and expression of the self-understanding of the Church can only function in reference to the antinomy and the duality of the latter. Just as the Church is not of this world, so is theology aiming to express a charismatic experience and a transcendental reality, over and above words, concepts, or names. Just as the Church lives and goes forth in the world, so is theology seeking dialogue and communication with each historical present, following the language, the flesh, and the schemes of every given era, of each historic and cultural present. Theology is not exhausted by nor is it identified with History, but neither can it function in the absence of History, and more importantly, it cannot ignore the teachings of History. After all, the Revelation of God has always taken place inside the creation and History, not in some unhistoric, timeless, and unearthly universe.

Papers:

Panel description: In this panel, through a diverse range of geographical and distinct religious ethnographies, the CAT Network will explore how our interlocutors navigate religious inequalities and equalities. The CAT (Cambridge Anthropology-Theology) Network was founded in 2022 as an online space to foster global collaboration between scholars of Anthropology and Theology, who share a research interest in contemporary religion, ritual, belief, and doctrine. Since our start, we have grown to a global community including over 350 academics in over 20 countries. At the heart of CAT is the belief that Anthropology and Theology work well together and are useful conversation and methodological partners in addressing central religious debates. By engaging with thorough fieldwork on the ground we have endeavoured to do theology 'with' our interlocutors experiencing inequality, and not just write 'about' them. The papers in this panel cover a diversity of topics from religious inequalities in UK state schools, to the use of European rap to process, reconcile and constructively challenge inequality, to the use of silence in Malaysia to create equality amongst Christians, to the productivity of hope amongst the homeless in Bradford, Yorkshire. Together we will not only grapple with religious (in)equalities but also how to balance two valuable disciplines, so that neither becomes merely the handmaiden to the other.

Papers:

NAVIGATING FAITH UNDER SCRUTINY: BRITISH MUSLIM TEACHERS AND RELIGIOUS INEQUALITIES IN UK STATE SCHOOLS

Bham M. (Speaker)

University of Cambridge ~ Cambridge ~ United Kingdom
This paper draws on research with British Muslim teachers in UK state schools to explore how religious (in)equalities are produced and managed in everyday professional life. Using Critical Muslim Theory as a guiding framework, it examines how policies such as Prevent, the Teacher Standards, and the promotion of Fundamental British Values shape expectations of neutrality, professionalism and belonging for Muslim teachers in particular. These policy frameworks do not operate evenly across religious and non-religious groups. For Muslim teachers, they often produce heightened scrutiny and a sense that aspects of their Muslim identity must be managed, softened, or concealed to remain professionally acceptable. Participants describe ongoing forms of self-monitoring, strategic silence and emotional labour as they navigate classrooms and staffrooms shaped by suspicion and securitisation. Although this research is situated within the field of education, the paper attends to how teachers themselves make sense of these conditions through religious and ethical reflection. Teachers frequently draw on Islamic concepts such as intention, patience, and moral responsibility when reflecting on resilience, professional conduct and their reasons for remaining in the profession. These reflections are not presented as formal theology but as ways in which participants interpret inequality and sustain themselves within constrained institutional settings. By centring Muslim teachers' own accounts, this paper contributes to the conference theme by showing how religious inequalities are lived and negotiated within schools and how faith serves as a resource for meaning-making under structural constraint. It argues that attending to how religion is used by participants provides a grounded way of thinking about religion and inequality across disciplinary boundaries.
EXILIC INEQUALITIES: RELIGION, STREET CULTURE AND EXCLUSION

Bosscher F. (Speaker)

University of Cambridge ~ Cambridge ~ United Kingdom
The religious lives of those engaged in European Street Culture and its musical expression in (street-)rap deal with multiple inequalities. Through an analysis of dozens of European street rap lyrics and ca. eight interviews with (former) participants of Dutch/Flemish Street Culture, I will argue that religious street cultural agents face a double inequality vis-á-vis mainstream society, which condemns them to a perpetual exilic experience. I will do so using Werbner's 'diasporic' and 'exilic' realities and her concomitant notions of peripheries and 'centres/cores', which I extend to the social, economic, and religious realm. Street culture is famously defined by Bourgois as the oppositional culture of marginalised youth, sometimes deploying (semi-)illegal means in their quest for mainstream values such as respect and consumerism. Many in street culture simultaneously cultivate dialogic but divergent religious strivings. I argue that whether street cultural agents follow their street cultural or religious strivings, they end up on the periphery of mainstream society, which frowns upon and penalises both religious, especially Muslim, and street cultural identities. In addition, following either a street cultural ethos or religious ethos inflicts a peripheral status on the other identity. In this exilic web of centres and peripheries, my respondents make difficult and fractured decisions that both centre and peripheralise. Yet, in contrast to other paths, my interview subjects express how their religion is able to reframe and reconcile this exilic experience while constructively challenging their inequality. I will argue, following Bielik-Robson, that religion helps my respondents accept their de-centred state because of theological notions that acknowledge exile without resigning to it. This partial acceptance of exile brings a sense of rest to the restless and bears the potential to de-centre European societies.
SILENCE AND EQUALITY IN MALAYSIAN CHURCHES: A COAKLEYAN ENQUIRY

Chak W. (Speaker)

University of Edinburgh ~ Edinburgh ~ United Kingdom
This paper argues through Sarah Coakley's theology of contemplative trinitarianism that silence is integral to rethinking equality in Malaysia's multi-lingual and religious context. The primary focus of this discussion is the recent trend of privileging the English language and Western expressions of worship in mainline Christian denominations in Malaysia. It critiques this phenomenon as a symptom of a systemic problem, namely, the suppression of the indigenious for a universal ideal. This phenomenon widens the gap between the "less educated" and English-speaking, which inadvertently supports religious inequality. Taking Coakley's case for contemplative silence as a vital part of being incorporated into the trinitarian life, it questions whether the practice of silence in worship could cut across language barriers and question (religious) inequality. The enquiry concludes by exploring how the communal practice of silence as practised in Quaker meetings would help rethink the use of language in worship and its possibilities for incorporating and accepting diversity into God's trinitarian life.
WHAT IS NOT SACRED: MISSIONARY COLLECTIONS AND THE HIERARCHIES OF VALUE

Mulat Mekonnen Y. (Speaker)

University of Bonn ~ Bonn ~ Germany
Missionary societies often house both churches and ethnographic museums, placing theology and anthropology in close institutional proximity while subjecting objects to distinct epistemological and moral regimes. In ecclesial spaces, artefacts are framed as sites of devotion, moral formation, and spiritual efficacy; in museum contexts, they are rendered as ethnographic specimens, colonial remnants, or candidates for critical emancipation. These divergent framings reveal not only historical inequalities rooted in missionary and colonial encounters, but also ongoing struggles over authority, memory, and belonging. This paper examines how inequalities in differing spiritual practices are produced, negotiated, and contested through the classification and display of artefacts within missionary collections. Drawing on ethnographic research conducted over the past two years in the Steyler Missionary Society in Sankt Augustin, Germany, it focuses on the asymmetrical treatment of European Christian artefacts in contrast to both non-European Christian and non-Christian religious objects, and on the criteria through which sacred value is attributed, withheld, or reconfigured.
PHILANTHROPY AS MORAL INFRASTRUCTURE: THE PRODUCTIVE AMBIGUITY OF PROTESTANT NGO NETWORKS IN BRAZIL

Pinto Abreu C. (Speaker)

Higher School of Economics ~ St Petersburg ~ Russian Federation
This paper examines philanthropy as a moral infrastructure that allows practices and tools to move between secular and religious contexts. Based on ethnographic research with Protestant NGO networks in Brazil (meetings, public seminars, planning sessions, and intensive spiritual retreats), I argue that these organizations produce and maintain an ambiguous institutional identity, a specific organizational context in which different registers coexist, alternating between registers of public engagement and religious identity, maintaining a tension between them. This oscillation allows members, within this ambiguous context, where the meaning of practices depends on the socially recognized register in which they are interpreted, to explore the effectiveness and appropriateness of philanthropic mechanisms, organizational structures, and ethical frameworks in different domains. Furthermore, the study shows that some practices and tools fail to become fully established during the process. However, when practices and tools that are ethically problematic are evaluated, organizations can adjust, test, and refine both their tools and language, supporting ethical learning. By emphasizing this ambiguity as a productive force rather than simply residual effect, the study contributes to discussions on religion, morality, inequality, and public engagement, going beyond debates about how religious individuals and groups strategically adapt to secular institutions.
HOMELESS HOPES: LISTENING TO HOPE IN SPACES OF DESPAIR

Triffitt S. (Speaker)

University of Oxford ~ Oxford ~ United Kingdom
This paper is based on my ongoing multi-year fieldwork with Christian organisations supporting the homeless and precariously housed in Bradford, West Yorkshire, England. The UK has the highest rates of homelessness in the developed world (Burn-Murdoch 2024; OCD 2023). The number of homeless has increased rapidly since austerity in the 2010s and more recently in the wake of Covid and the current cost of living crisis. I chose Bradford as the site of this research because Bradford is a deprived city with the highest violent crime in Europe. It has very little infrastructure to support its homeless and thus Christian charities and churches provide roughly 80% of food provision in the city. Faith is deeply intertwined into the lives of practitioners supporting the homeless, and (evident from my fieldwork) the lives of the homeless themselves. Through my work, it has been clear how provocative Christian hope is within the lives of my interlocutors, both as that which is shocking and that which provokes real change for individuals and the city. Using the words of my interlocutors, I challenge De La Torre's (2017) call to embrace hopelessness on behalf of those experiencing inequality. Through a form of anthropology informed by liberation theology, I share and take the hopes of my homeless interlocutors seriously exploring how hope can resurrect agency, provide divine dignity and offer a path out of despair. In this paper, I draw both on the anthropology of hope (Miyazaki 2004; Crapanzano 2003, Mattingly 2010, Pettit 2023) and the theology of hope, most prominently proposed by Moltmann in his Theology of Hope (1964).

Panel description: This open panel examines the integration of environmental learning into Islamic religious studies in response to contemporary ecological crises and the inequalities they intensify. Climate change and environmental degradation disproportionately affect communities in the Global South and marginalised populations, raising urgent questions about environmental justice, access to knowledge, and the ethical responsibilities of religious institutions. Islamic higher education and religious leadership training thus emerge as influential yet under-examined sites for addressing environmental inequality through pedagogy, theology, and public engagement. Bringing together perspectives from theology, education, and applied religious practice, the panel explores how Islamic texts, traditions, and institutions are mobilised to cultivate environmental awareness and responsibility. It addresses the challenge of translating normative religious sources into contemporary environmental pedagogy, alongside the institutional constraints faced by universities and training program in diverse socio-political contexts. The panel features complementary studies tracing the movement from text to practice. Contributions include a case study of curriculum reform at the University of Jordan, examining efforts to integrate climate change, sustainability, and environmental ethics into Islamic higher education; analyses of climate education integration in Indonesian Islamic universities through faculty development; a study of imam training in Jordan focusing on jurisprudential frameworks and institutional links with the Ministry of Awqaf; and a textual analysis of modern Qurʾānic interpretation engaging concepts such as stewardship, reform, corruption, and justice. As an open panel, it invites further contributions across Islamic and comparative religious contexts, fostering critical dialogue on religion's role in confronting environmental inequality and shaping sustainable futures.

Papers:

FROM ETHICAL TEXTS TO CLIMATE COMPETENCIES: INTEGRATING ENVIRONMENTAL PEDAGOGY INTO ISLAMIC HIGHER EDUCATION AT THE UNIVERSITY OF JORDAN

Hamasha O.E. (Speaker)

Assistant Professor of Theology and Religion\Islamic Studies at the Department of Foundations of Religion, The University of Jordan, Amman, Jordan ~ Amman ~ Jordan
Climate change has intensified environmental vulnerability and social inequality across the Global South, placing renewed ethical and educational responsibilities on religious institutions. Although Islamic tradition offers a strong moral framework grounded in stewardship, trust, balance, and justice, these concepts are only partially translated into structured climate education within Islamic higher education. This paper examines how Islamic Studies curricula can move from normative ethical discourse to competency-based environmental pedagogy through institutional reform. Using the Faculty of Sharīʿah at the University of Jordan as a case study, the paper analyses current approaches to environmental integration and proposes a two-tier pedagogical model. The first tier develops existing courses—such as Islam and Contemporary Issues, Maqāṣid al-Sharīʿah, and selected ḥadīth- and ethics-based modules—by embedding climate-related units, local case studies, and applied assessments aligned with Islamic ethical reasoning. The second tier introduces a stand-alone interdisciplinary course, Islam, Climate Change, and Crisis Management, linking Islamic jurisprudential perspectives with contemporary approaches to risk governance, disaster response, and environmental decision-making. Methodologically, the study combines curriculum analysis, comparative insights from Islamic and non-Islamic higher education contexts, and performance indicators inspired by UNESCO's Greening Education roadmap. It argues that Islamic higher education institutions are not only sites of ethical formation but also strategic spaces for cultivating climate literacy, social responsibility, and leadership capacity. By situating the University of Jordan within broader debates on environmental pedagogy and religious education, the paper demonstrates how Islamic higher education can contribute to addressing ecological inequality and shaping climate-resilient and socially just futures.
FROM FAITH TO ACTION: CURRICULUM REFORM FOR CLIMATE RESPONSE IN INDONESIAN ISLAMIC HIGHER EDUCATION

Darmadi D. (Speaker)

Fulbright Researcher at the Center for the Study of Islam and Society (PPIM), UIN Syarif Hidayatullah Jakarta, Indonesia ~ Jakarta ~ Indonesia
This paper examines the gap between theological commitments and pedagogical practice in integrating climate change and environmental education (CCE) within Indonesian Islamic higher education (Perguruan Tinggi Keagamaan Islam, PTKI). Although Islamic ethical traditions provide strong foundations for environmental stewardship and justice, and many PTKIs have adopted "green campus" policies, climate education remains weakly embedded in core curricula and classroom teaching. This gap raises broader questions about the capacity of religious higher education to respond to ecological crises that disproportionately affect vulnerable communities in the Global South. Drawing on a 2024 baseline study across seventeen PTKIs, the paper shows that most lecturers lack pedagogical tools and applied eco-theological frameworks to address climate change in mandatory courses. In response, it presents the design and pilot implementation of two insertable curriculum modules—Religion and Environment within Islamic Studies and Environmental Citizenship within Civic Education—introduced through faculty capacity-building workshops at PTKIs in Ciputat (Jakarta) and Malang (East Java). The findings highlight three key insights: the receptivity of lecturers to environmental pedagogy when supported by contextually grounded resources; the effectiveness of embedding climate education within compulsory courses rather than creating stand-alone electives; and the potential of Islamic higher education to foster religiously grounded environmental citizenship linking faith, social responsibility, and climate justice. By tracing how Islamic texts and ethical concepts are translated into classroom practice, the study offers a replicable pedagogical model and contributes to wider debates on environmental pedagogy, religious education, and inequality.
FROM GREEN SYMBOLISM TO JURISTIC AUTHORITY: CLIMATE RESILIENCE, ISLAMIC LAW, AND RELIGIOUS INSTITUTIONS IN JORDAN

Awwad N. (Speaker)

The Ummah for Earth's Campaigner and Global Outreach Coordinator at Greenpeace MENA ~ Beirut ~ Lebanon
The language of "Green Islam" has gained global visibility through initiatives such as Green Mosques, Green Ramadan, and Green Ḥajj. While effective as symbolic mobilization, such initiatives often lack the legal and institutional mechanisms required to address systemic climate vulnerability and environmental inequality. This paper examines this implementation gap through a case study of Jordan's religious infrastructure, focusing on the relationship between faculties of Sharīʿah and the Ministry of Awqaf. Drawing on desk research, twelve semi-structured interviews with academics, imams, and senior practitioners, an online survey of Sharīʿah students as the future workforce of the Ministry of Awqaf, and a multi-stakeholder workshop involving deans from major Jordanian universities, the study analyses how environmental knowledge circulates—or fails to circulate—between higher education and religious governance. The findings reveal a pronounced structural silo: while universities increasingly generate ethical discourse and innovative courses on environmental issues, these insights are not institutionally translated into the Ministry's field practices. Survey data indicate strong ethical motivation among students but a lack of juristic tools to address concrete issues such as water scarcity, pollution, or illegal logging. In response, the paper proposes a normative legal framework inspired by al-Ghazālī's hierarchy of values, reclassifying environmental preservation as a religious necessity rather than a voluntary virtue. Building on contemporary scholarly discussions that frame pollution as fasād fī al-arḍ, the study outlines a practical roadmap for climate resilience in Jordan, including targeted micro-credentials for preachers and the revival of ecological waqf as community-based climate resilience hubs. By linking jurisprudence, pedagogy, and institutional reform, the paper demonstrates how Islamic law can move from symbolic ethics to actionable climate governance.
FROM SIGNS TO RESPONSIBILITY: ENVIRONMENTAL CRISIS AND SOCIAL REFORM IN MODERN QURʾĀNIC INTERPRETATION

Moussalli S. (Speaker)

Nature Conservation Center-American University of Beirut\MA Student ~ Beirut ~ Lebanon
Religion is increasingly recognised as a significant force in shaping public environmental awareness, yet the role of Qurʾānic interpretation in responding to contemporary ecological crises remains underexplored. While numerous studies highlight Islam's ethical relationship with the environment, the treatment of ecological verses within modern tafsīr has received limited focused analysis. This paper examines how modern Qurʾānic interpretation engages environmental degradation and climate-related concerns as pressing social realities. Building on the observation that more than two thousand Qurʾānic verses contain ecological elements, the study traces a shift in interpretive emphasis from viewing nature primarily as āyāt (signs of God) to framing these verses as ethical imperatives for environmental responsibility. It argues that a defining feature of modern tafsīr is its responsiveness to the social challenges of the interpreter's own historical context, with climate change representing one of the most urgent global crises today. Through a qualitative analysis of selected tafsīr works by Fazlur Rahman (d. 1988) and Muḥammad Mutawallī al-Shaʿrāwī (d. 1998), the paper explores how different methodological approaches in modern tafsīr address environmental concerns. Despite their divergent interpretive frameworks, both exegetes engage ecological issues through the Qurʾānic dialectic of reform and corruption, presenting environmental degradation as a moral and social problem rooted in human action. By highlighting how contemporary mufassirūn reinterpret ecological verses in response to environmental crisis, this paper demonstrates the potential of modern tafsīr to contribute to broader processes of ethical reflection, social reform, and environmental responsibility within Muslim communities. It thus contributes to interdisciplinary debates on religion, ecology, and the role of Islamic textual interpretation in confronting contemporary environmental challenges.
TEACHING THE PRAISING COSMOS: ENVIRONMENTAL PEDAGOGY, WATER ETHICS, AND ENVIRONMENTAL WORSHIP IN ISLAMIC HIGHER EDUCATION

Dziedzic P.J. (Speaker)

Harvard University ~ Cambridge, MA ~ United States of America
How can Islamic higher education toffer an environmental pedagogy that is actionable amid climate injustice, especially where water stress, displacement, and unequal exposure to ecological harm shape students' lives? This paper proposes a pedagogical model for Islamic religious studies that pairs Qurʾānic ethical concepts with locally situated environmental case studies and embodied learning. The model centers what I call environmental worship, or the Qurʾānic vision of a more-than-human world alive with tasbīḥ—"there is not a thing but celebrates His praise" (Q 17:44)—which recasts ecological harm as not only mismanagement but an interruption of a worshipping creation. Building on experience designing interdisciplinary courses at the intersections of environmental humanities, ethics, and Islamic studies (including "Islam and the Environment" and "Global and Social Ethics"), I outline a three-part curricular sequence suitable for Islamic universities and imam-training contexts: (1) Textual foundations (Qurʾānic cosmology, hadith sources, Islamic ethical and philosophical literatures); (2) studies of "tradition-in-motion" (legal-ethical reasoning through case studies in water use and scarcity, including how rulings may adapt under projected shortages); and (3) applied learning (field-based inquiry into local "eco-ziyara" infrastructures, including visits to ablution spaces, springs, rivers, and sites of localized spiritual and ecological importance). To ground this presentation, I discuss an important case study from Kashmir—the preservation of water at Hazratbal in Srinagar—to show possibilities for training students about ritual practice, cosmology, and ecological vulnerability without romanticizing "tradition" or bypassing institutional constraints. The paper concludes with a survey of assessment strategies designed to cultivate religious leadership capable of articulating Islamic environmental ethics as a form of justice-oriented public engagement.
THE ROLE OF ISLAMIC EDUCATION IN ENHANCING ENVIRONMENTAL AWARENESS AMONG UNIVERSITY STUDENTS

Hammad I. (Speaker) [1] , Hamasha O. (Speaker) [1] , Al-Labadi N. (Speaker) [1] , Albasheer A. (Speaker) [1] , Awad A. (Speaker) [1] , Rababah A. (Speaker) [2] , Megdady M. (Speaker) [1]

The University of Jordan ~ Amman ~ Jordan [1] , Supreme Judge Department - Institute of Sharia Judiciary ~ Amman ~ Jordan [2]
Contemporary environmental challenges, including climate change, pollution, and the depletion of natural resources, demand responses that go beyond technical and scientific solutions to include ethical and value-based dimensions. Islamic education, grounded in core principles such as khalīfah (human stewardship), amānah (trusteeship), and maslahah (public interest), offers a comprehensive ethical framework that can contribute to fostering environmental awareness and responsibility among learners. This study aims to examine the role of Islamic education in enhancing environmental awareness among university students through a quantitative descriptive approach based exclusively on a questionnaire instrument. The questionnaire is designed to measure students' environmental awareness across three dimensions: environmental knowledge, environmental values, and pro-environmental behaviors, as influenced by Islamic education courses. Data will be collected from a sample of university students and analyzed using appropriate statistical methods to identify the extent to which Islamic educational content contributes to shaping students' environmental attitudes and practices. The findings are expected to provide empirical evidence on the effectiveness of integrating environmental concepts within Islamic education at the university level. The study seeks to offer practical recommendations for curriculum developers and educators on strengthening the environmental dimension of Islamic education, thereby supporting sustainability initiatives and promoting ethically grounded environmental responsibility among university students.

Panel description: The powerful often appropriate categories like "sacred" and "divine warrant" to justify acts of coercion, abuse, and appropriation, under the auspices of order, stability, and superiority. In due course, activists, victims, and good people of conscience have employed the same categories to disrupt such totalizing enterprises and escape oppressive conditions. In the wake of such histories, those who remain are left to wonder at the lingering brokenness and to speculate on how best to heal. In times past, religious categories of sacrifice, redemption, and reconciliation have been used to frame spiritual and political recourse. In more recent times, the concept of reparations has been introduced into such considerations. Religious categories can be deeply ambiguous; they have been employed to liberate, but also to stall or postpone liberation and a righting of injustice and inequality. Reparations are often seen by victims of injustice and their advocates, as one way to publicly force accountability and atonement, and to symbolically and structurally move forward. Reparations call for dispossession and a rebalancing of the status quo, and thus are often received as a threat by those in power. This panel focuses on reparations as a way to a more just society based on the common good, and invites would-be presenters to consider three things: (1) the varied ways that reparations have been considered, in different situations and contexts; (2) the possibility that the concept of reparations shares the same ambiguity as other religious categories aimed at healing, and thus may, in a similar inadvertent fashion, perpetrate unintended inequalities; and (3) ways for reparations to be better received by the larger society, and thus become a more effective tool for moving communities towards a just future. We invite paper proposals that engage the question of reparations from interdisciplinary, religious and non-religious, contextual perspectives.

Papers:

THE CHURCH OF NORWAY AND THE SÁMI INDIGENOUS COMMUNITY: OPEN CHURCH, TRUTH-AND-RECONCILIATION, AND (IN)EQUALITIES

Matthaei L.K. (Speaker)

University of Oslo ~ Oslo ~ Norway
The paper offers insight into reparations and (in)equalities in Norway through a case study of Trinity Church in Oslo, a parish of the Church of Norway, which opened its doors to Sámi and climate activists protesting wind power developments. It asks: What is the conflict about, what unfolded during the Open Church, and how did activists and church staff perceive those events? The study situates the case within the longer history of Norwegianization and the Church of Norway's past role as a state church implicated in assimilationist policies, and it engages the recent Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Empirically, the paper draws on participant observation and interviews with activists, church staff and intermediaries to examine dynamics of (in)equality and reparative practice.
RETHINKING REPARATION AFTER CLERICAL ABUSE

Da Silva Monteiro S. (Speaker)

Universidade Portuguesa Católica (UCP) ~ Lisbon ~ Portugal
In cases of violence perpetrated within the Church—particularly clerical abuse—responses have tended to follow two distinct but insufficiently integrated paths: a juridical-institutional response and a sacramental-pastoral one. While these approaches occasionally overlap, they often remain in tension, revealing divergent theological understandings of justice, mercy, and the meaning of reparation. In some cases, the Church's often reliance on juridical-penal mechanisms has tendentially marginalized the lived experience of victims and survivors, minimized the responsibility of the community, and sidelined the sacramental and penitential dimensions of repair and restoration. In the face of this crisis, the Church itself appears skeptical of the penitential model's capacity to heal wounded relationships. This paper asks whether repentance, forgiveness, and penance have been emptied of their transformative and revelatory potential. Have they become merely identity-marking rituals, incapable of mediating God's presence or fostering genuine encounter with the other? Arguing that sacramental theology must reclaim its prophetic and liberative dimension, this paper explores how the Church's sacramental life can contribute to a renewed understanding of reparation.

Panel description: In recent decades, audiovisual archives—films, television news, documentaries, radio recordings, and, more recently, born-digital materials (recent popes, for example, have social media accounts)—have become indispensable sources for the history of the Church. These materials not only document events, figures, and ecclesial practices, but also actively contribute to shaping the religious imaginary, forms of ecclesial communication, and the ways in which Catholicism has represented itself in the global public sphere. This open panel seeks to host and present research that proposes a methodological rethinking of the relationship between Church history and media, critically interrogating the traditional categories of religious historiography in light of the visual and media cultures of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Through case studies ranging from the mediatization of major ecclesial events (councils, jubilees, conclaves, papal journeys) to film and television production, and including presentations of new digital libraries dedicated to collecting audiovisual sources concerning the Italian Church, the panel aims to be a space for reflection on how moving images have transformed both the ways of making, narrating, and transmitting Church history and the ways of studying it—placing new sources on the historian's workbench. By adopting interdisciplinary approaches that weave together religious history, social and political history, media studies, and cinema and television studies, the panel seeks to bring together scholars that innovatively draw on audiovisual sources for the study of contemporary history. Audiovisual archives are not merely documentary repositories but historical actors that participate in the shaping of contemporary Catholic cultures.

Papers:

MEDIA, RITUAL, AND POWER: A CENTURY OF JUBILEES IN THE AGE OF MASS COMMUNICATION

Viganò D.E. (Speaker)

International Telematic University UNINETTUNO ~ Rome ~ Italy
From the first filmed Jubilee of 1900 to the Jubilee of Mercy, Holy Years progressively became laboratories in which the Church confronted and integrated the emerging audiovisual media. The competing cinematic gazes of Lumière and Biograph, the global reach of Vatican Radio under Pius XI, and the early televisual experiments around the 1950 Holy Year marked decisive shifts in papal visibility. Post conciliar transformations reshaped the tone and narrative of Jubilee coverage, while television enabled unprecedented forms of mediated participation. Under John Paul II, the Jubilee entered a fully global media ecology, merging ritual performance with worldwide spectacle. Across a century, changing media technologies reframed devotional practices, spectatorship, and the public construction of ecclesial authority.
MEDIATING THE CONCLAVE: RITUAL, POWER, AND ECCLESIOLOGICAL IMPLICATIONS

Ruozzi F. (Speaker)

University of Modena and Reggio Emilia/Fscire ~ Reggio Emilia ~ Italy
A two-millennia-old rite that remains the only form of lifetime election of what can fully be considered an absolute authority—one capable of adapting its laws to the changing times and thus ensuring its own survival—the conclave, that is, the election of the pope, was compelled in the twentieth century to confront its own mediatization. The paper explores the evolution of the conclave in its media dimension, highlighting how a traditionally secret and ritual event has progressively become a global spectacle through the lenses of audiovisual media and social networks. The habemus papam and the first images of newly elected pontiffs broadcast worldwide have contributed to the construction of an idea of the papacy that cannot be underestimated. From Pius XI and Pius XII through to the conclaves of Pope Francis and Leo XIV, the research here presented try to analyse how the collective imagination has been shaped by transmitted images, journalistic commentary, and the logics of television spectacle, as well as by cinema and television series—thus showing the entry of the conclave into mass culture. In doing so, it sheds light not only on the media effects but also on the ecclesiological repercussions, as well as the political and symbolic transformations that follow from them. It also addresses the risks associated with narrative simplification, the politicization of the conclave, and the spread of fake news.
REFORMING HOLLYWOOD: THE HOLY SEE AND THE NATIONAL LEAGUE OF DECENCY DURING THE PONTIFICATE OF PIUS XII (1939-1958)

Montanari A. (Speaker)

International Telematic University UNINETTUNO ~ Rome ~ Italy
Established in 1934 under the aegis of the Archbishop of Cincinnati, John T. McNicholas, the National Legion of Decency's primary objective was to monitor the morality of American films and, as far as possible, guide the decisions of producers and directors. Working in tandem with the Production Code Administration, the Legion wielded significant influence until the 1960s. This paper aims to outline new research trajectories regarding the relationship between the Legion and the Holy See, drawing on the documentation that has emerged since the 2020 opening of the Vatican archives for the pontificate of Pius XII. In doing so, it will highlight key turning points, parallels, and conflicts where they arise.
THE MISSION ON FILM: THE CINEMATIC EXPERIENCE OF THE PONTIFICAL INSTITUTE FOR FOREIGN MISSIONS

Adreani D. (Speaker)

Archivio Generale Pontificio Istituto Missioni Estere ~ Milano ~ Italy
My contribution aims to present the film production activities carried out by the Pontifical Institute for Foreign Missions (P.I.M.E.) in Milan, a missionary institute founded in Milan in 1850 and now active in 19 countries around the world. In the 1950s, the Institute decided to promote its activities through audiovisual media. Over the years, the Institute increased its film production and distribution, directly involving both professionals in the sector and the missionaries themselves, and subsequently creating a dedicated production, post-production, and distribution center at its Milan headquarters, which remained active until 2004. PIME's audiovisual production is characterized by a great diversity of content and approaches to the audiovisual medium, both in terms of subject matter, linked to the different mission territories and contexts of activity, and in terms of narrative style (documentary, journalistic, film, etc.). This diversity is also reflected in the production media, which include 16, 8 and Super 8 mm film, magnetic tape (Betacam, Betamax, VHS, etc.), and digital media. The material, currently stored at the General and Photographic Archive in Milan, has recently been the subject of a reorganization and inventory project with the aim of making it accessible to users once again and enhancing its many potential uses. During the intervention, I will attempt to highlight the similarities and specificities related to PIME's audiovisual production, especially with regard to the broader Catholic and missionary context in Italy in the second half of the 20th century.
LITURGY AND MEDIA: THE CONCILIAR REFORM FROM ITS INITIAL IMPLEMENTATION TO THE CONTEMPORARY "MASS-MEDIA" PAPACY AND SOCIAL MEDIA

Proietti M. (Speaker)

Fondazione per le scienze religiose ~ Bologna ~ Italy
The liturgical reform inaugurated by the Second Vatican Council unfolded within an increasingly "mediatic" cultural context. From its earliest implementation, it attracted intense attention from newspapers and television, as demonstrated by the broad circulation of photographs, televised celebrations, and musical recordings. This visibility not only amplified the reform's impact but also contributed to shaping its reception, at times reinforcing critical responses and polarizing interpretations. Less well known is the fact that the archives of the Consilium ad exsequendam Constitutionem de Sacra Liturgia preserve extensive photographic and audiovisual documentation examined by the postconciliar commission. These materials were used in evaluating concrete liturgical practices and in guiding decisions concerning the revision of specific rites.In the following decades, as television became widespread, the relationship between liturgy and media intensified, reaching a significant stage during the pontificate of John Paul II, particularly in the context of Jubilee celebrations and apostolic journeys. With the rise of social media, especially under Pope Francis, the mass-mediatization of papal liturgy has further expanded, reshaping both the perception of papal celebrations and the collective imagination of the papacy, while also influencing local liturgical practice.

Panel description: Scientific inquiry provides indispensable explanations of natural phenomena. Yet, the resolution of controversial questions concerning the ecological responsibility and the sustainability of human practices inevitably involve ethical judgments exceeding the explanatory scope of the natural sciences. However, ethical discernment requires a broad epistemological horizon to integrate empirical knowledge, moral reasoning, and theological reflection, as well as an openness to the moral wisdom embedded in diverse religious and cultural traditions. In this context, Laudato si' reimagines the Catholic theology through its proposal of an "integral ecology", an approach that integrates ecological, social, cultural, and spiritual dimensions, and its recognition of the Earth not merely as an object of use but as a subject of moral and religious significance. Creation is understood as gift and as sign, calling for an ethic grounded in responsibility and care. This vision can be fruitfully placed in dialogue with the ethical-moral sensitivities of other religious traditions, many of which concern the sacredness of nature and the virtues of humility, stewardship, and compassion toward all forms of life. This vision nonetheless requires further theoretical and methodological development, especially with reference to concrete ethical decision-making in contested environmental contexts. This panel proposes to foster interdisciplinary and interreligious dialogue by integrating several approaches within contemporary environmental ethics, while also acknowledging the contributions of non-Christian religious traditions to the ethical imagination surrounding ecological responsibility. The panel aims to promote an ethically robust and practically discerning approach to environmental responsibility, to address the complexity of contemporary sustainability challenges by retrieving the contemplative and ethical dimensions of the human relationship with the created world.

Papers:

FROM EXPLOITATION TO CONTEMPLATION: ETHICAL DISCERNMENT IN ECOLOGICAL CONTROVERSIES

Whelan G.K. (Speaker)

Pontificia Università Gregoriana - Facoltà di Teologia - Direttore del Dipartimento di Teologia Fondamentale della Missione del Collegium Maximum ~ Roma ~ Italy
This talk reflects on how the ecological crisis has promoted an interdisciplinary collaboration including a relative openness by "harder" sciences to questions of ethics, spirituality and religion. It employs the thought of Michael Northcott to describe the emergence of ecological ethics, how it has related to preexisting schools of philosophical ethics and some residual challenges regarding the capacity of philosophy to produce solutions in disciplines such as economics. It notes how Lynn White in the 1960s identified the anthropocentrism of the Christian religion as contributing to the ecological crisis, leading to an interest in spiritualities other than Christianity as relevant to an ecologically responsible culture. However, it suggests that a distance can remain between such reflection and the policy proposals required by social scientists and policy makers. The second half of this presentation introduces the thought of Robert M. Doran as providing foundations for an interdisciplinary ecological reflection. It notes the closeness of Doran's thought to that of his mentor, Bernard Lonergan. It introduces how the latter suggests intellectual and moral conversion as a basis of an interdisciplinary method including science, ethics, and religion. Next, it presents the criticism Doran makes of Lonergan, including the suggestion that Lonergan over-emphasises rational, self-transcending "spirit," and undervalues the principle of limitation in consciousness represented by the psyche. It also traces Doran's suggestion that this imbalance participates in the imperialistic tendencies of European culture that have destructive consequences for the environment. It concludes by commenting on the success of Laudato Si', that calls for an "integral ecology" and presents a Doranian interpretation of integral ecology combining a "contemplative" attitude with a rigorous prescription for interdisciplinary collaboration within an ecologically sensitive, modern, culture.
RELIGIONS AND ECOLOGICAL RESPONSIBILITY. TOWARDS NEW LEGAL INSTRUMENTS FOR THE PROTECTION AND SHARED GOVERNANCE OF ECOSYSTEMS AND NATURAL RESOURCES

Balsamo F. (Speaker)

University of Naples "Federico II", Department of Law ~ Napoli ~ Italy
In contemporary theological reflection, environmental issues have acquired a central and systematic relevance. From the perspective of religious traditions, the ecological crisis affecting the globalized world is increasingly interpreted as the manifestation of a deeper anthropological crisis, intrinsically connected to the diffusion of a "culture of waste" and to prevailing economic paradigms. Within this interpretative framework, religious actors have progressively assumed a direct and explicit responsibility with regard to environmental concerns, as clearly evidenced, within the Catholic tradition, by Pope Benedict XVI's encyclical Caritas in veritate and Pope Francis's encyclical Laudato Si'. The paper explores the contribution of faith-based actors to the development of innovative legal instruments aimed at strengthening the protection of natural ecosystems and promoting forms of shared governance of environmental and natural resources, including through structured modes of cooperation with public institutions. Particular emphasis is placed on the concrete engagement of religious denominations in fostering the transition towards sustainable economic models, highlighting how, in specific sectors, the alignment of production standards with religious dietary norms may contribute to the reduction of the environmental footprint of economic activities. Finally, the contribution examines the role of interreligious dialogue as a mechanism for the prevention, mediation, and resolution of disputes arising from the management of scarce natural resources, which are increasingly recognized as a major source of political instability and armed conflict. From this perspective, the involvement of faith-based actors emerges as a significant factor in processes of legal innovation and in the construction of sustainable and inclusive governance frameworks for natural resources.
BEYOND MORAL WITNESS: INTERRELIGIOUS ENGAGEMENT AND ETHICAL INFLUENCE IN CLIMATE GOVERNANCE AT COP30

Osnato S. (Speaker)

Università di Pisa, Università degli Studi di Ferrara ~ Pisa ~ Italy
This paper analyzes interreligious engagement in international climate governance in the context of COP30 (Belém, 2025), focusing on the participation of diverse Christian confessions and Muslim communities within the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). While international climate negotiations are formally grounded in scientific assessments and legal commitments, they increasingly confront ethical questions concerning responsibility, justice, and the moral limits of human action that cannot be adequately addressed through technical or juridical frameworks alone. The paper examines the expectations, hopes, and concrete proposals articulated by religious actors in the lead-up to and during COP30, as expressed in interreligious calls to action, denominational policy statements, and coordinated advocacy initiatives addressed to climate negotiators. Particular attention is devoted to critically assessing whether such religious engagement moved beyond largely symbolic forms of participation to generate identifiable outputs - such as formal submissions, side events, or recognized participatory spaces - and whether it translated into measurable outcomes in terms of institutional recognition, policy resonance, or influence on normative debates within the UNFCCC framework. From a theological and ethical perspective, interreligious dialogue is interpreted as a practice of ethical discernment capable of mediating between confessional traditions and the normative structures of international climate governance. By situating interreligious engagement at the intersection of theology, ethics, and international law, the paper argues that religious participation becomes significant only when expectations and proposals translate into tangible forms of influence, enabling a shift from moral witness toward genuine impact in global climate governance.
GREEN PROMISES AND HIDDEN COSTS: RETHINKING SUSTAINABILITY THROUGH INTEGRAL ECOLOGY

Pirozzi D. (Speaker)

University of Naples "Federico II", Dep. of Chemical Engineering, Materials and Industrial Production (DICMaPI), Interdepartmental Center for Environment (CIRAM), Interdepartmental Center for Environment (CIRAM) ~ Napoli ~ Italy
Contemporary strategies for ecological transition increasingly rely on technological solutions presented as environmentally sustainable, such as the expansion of biofuel production and the intensified extraction of critical raw materials required for renewable energy systems. These strategies are often justified on the basis of the scientific and economic advantages offered, including reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, energy security, and decarbonization. Yet, their implementation raises ecological, social, and ethical questions that cannot be resolved by technical assessment alone, particularly as regards land-use change, biodiversity loss, water stress, and social displacement. These impacts challenge simplified narratives of sustainability and reveal the limitations of purely technocratic approaches. This contribution critically examines selected case studies in biofuel production and rare earth extraction, highlighting the epistemic limits of technocratic approaches to sustainability. These cases are analysed in dialogue with the framework of Integral Ecology proposed in Laudato si', which demonstrates the inseparability of environmental, social, cultural, and ethical dimensions of ecological decision-making. In this view, scientific knowledge can be ethically re-situated within a broader normative horizon attentive to questions of responsibility, justice, and the distribution of environmental costs and benefits across communities and generations. Rather than rejecting technological innovation, the analysis proposes criteria for ethical discernment rooted in Integral Ecology, such as precaution, relational responsibility, and the primacy of the common good, to guide decision-making in contested sustainability pathways. In doing so, the contribution aims to demonstrate how scientific inquiry, when integrated with ethical and theological reflection, can support a more truthful and humane ecological transition.
THE CONTRIBUTION OF RELIGION TO THE DEVELOPMENT OF ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE

Serra B. (Speaker)

University of Rome Sapienza, Italy ~ Roma ~ Italy
This contribution aims to verify how the religious factor can contribute to the affirmation of national, supranational and international environmental protection policies and, consequently, to the definition of legal instruments aimed at guaranteeing the realization of this protection. In particular, the contribution focuses on the right to land protection recognized internationally for indigenous peoples whose religious beliefs focus on the sanctity and protection of the environment.
SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT AND INTEGRAL ECOLOGY TEN YEARS AFTER THE ENCYCLICAL "LAUDATO SI': RESULTS AND FUTURE PROSPECTS

Tigano M. (Speaker)

Università di Messina - Dipartimento di Giurisprudenza ~ Messina ~ Italy
The Catholic Church has always shown a profound concern for Creation and its protection. This is demonstrated by numerous documents, including, among others, Pope Paul VI's Populorum Progressio, John Paul II's Sollectudo Rei Socialis, and Benedict XVI's Caritas in Veritate, all sharing a common thread: the aspiration to a human ecology. With the 2015 Encyclical "Laudato Si', Pope Francis took a further step forward, emphasizing the importance of an integral ecology in which concern for nature, fairness toward the poor, and commitment to society are inseparable from joy and inner peace. The Encyclical "Laudato Si'" on care for our common home, while building on a path already charted by previous Popes, highlights the close correlation between the environment (understood as protection of the landscape and the right to health), ecology (defense of soil, air, and water from pollution), and the eradication of poverty, attention to the poor, and equitable access to the planet's resources. After having condemned the culture of waste and discard, Pope Francis affirms that cultivating and protecting Creation not only involves the relationship between humanity and the environment but also concerns human relationships because environmental ecology and human ecology go hand in hand. With this contribution, the Author, taking up some lines of research on the theme of the environment from the perspective of canon law, intends to pay particular attention to the orientations and actions suggested by the Encyclical, such as ecumenical commitment and dialogue in international and local politics. The results achieved by the Encyclical ten years after its promulgation will be illustrated, such as the convening of the Synod on the Amazon in 2019, and the measures taken in the Vatican City State on photovoltaics and, more generally, on a more sustainable economy.
GENESIS 1:28 CALLS FOR A SUSTAINABILITY AND ETHICAL RE-INTERPRETATION OF "DOMINION OVER CREATION"

Mendoza-Cano O. (Speaker)

Universidad de Colima, México ~ Colima ~ Mexico
The contemporary environmental crisis evident in climate change, ecosystem degradation, and widespread pollution calls for a renewed ethical reflection on the human place in the world, particularly in view of the decisive role human activity has played in generating these transformations. In this context, this paper revisits the Judeo-Christian concept of "dominion" as articulated in Genesis and reinterpreted in Laudato Si' (67), which explicitly challenges readings that link biblical anthropology to the exploitation of nature. Rather than endorsing unlimited human control, dominion is examined as a form of delegated and restrained responsibility, exercised within ethical limits and oriented toward a broader moral order. From this perspective, dominion is understood not as an inherent human privilege, but as a functional vocation grounded in accountability and care. This reinterpretation establishes a conceptual link with environmental stewardship, defined as an ethical obligation to protect and sustain ecological systems upon which both human and non-human life depend. Particular emphasis is placed on environmental health factors including greenhouse gas emissions, water availability and contamination, pollution, and material waste, which constitute concrete pathways through which ethical commitments translate into measurable impacts on population health, environmental risk, and social vulnerability. The relevance of this ethical framework is further reinforced by growing societal concern for environmental protection, reflected in heightened public awareness and increasing attention to stewardship-oriented practices. By integrating theological reflection, stewardship theory, and contemporary environmental health challenges, this paper argues that values rooted in responsibility, restraint, and care provide a coherent moral foundation for addressing current environmental health controversies.

Panel description: Our Shared Sacred Story is a groundbreaking project that brings together teams of scholars and practitioners from diverse religious and spiritual traditions to collaboratively retell their traditions' sacred narratives in ways that speak to contemporary global challenges. Sponsored by the Fetzer Institute, this initiative has engaged contributors from Buddhism, Christianity, Confucianism, Hinduism, Indigenous Spiritualities, Islam, Judaism, Sikhism, and Interspirituality. Each tradition assembled a team of academics and practitioners, modeling the scholarly-practitioner dynamic that defines the field of Interreligious Studies. These teams worked together to reinterpret their foundational stories, articulating a larger, collective narrative that acknowledges difference while fostering shared wisdom and connection. The result was a groundbreaking volume that presents these sacred retellings alongside reflections on the challenges and opportunities of interreligious storytelling in a pluralistic world. This 90-minute panel will feature four contributors to the Our Shared Sacred Story volume (Orbis, 2025) who authored sections of the volume. This panel offers a unique opportunity to engage with leading scholars who have reimagined sacred narratives for a pluralistic world, illuminating both the challenges and possibilities of interfaith storytelling in academic, pedagogical, and civic contexts. Each panelist will briefly present their contributions to the volume, discussing their tradition's sacred story, how it has been reinterpreted within the project, the challenges they faced in articulating a shared narrative, and insights gained from engaging with diverse traditions in the project.

Papers:

Panel description: Until recently, many scholars of nationalism regarded "religious nationalism" as an oxymoron. Nationalism, they argued, was a secular phenomenon. No longer. This panel examines three of the most consequential cases of contemporary religious nationalism: the United States, Israel and Russia.

Papers:

THE EVOLUTION OF MAGA: FROM WHITE CHRISTIAN NATIONALISM TO WHITE CHRISTIAN

Gorski P. (Speaker) [1] , Dieckhoff A. (Speaker) [2] , Kormina J. (Speaker) [3]

Yale University ~ New Haven ~ United States of America [1] , Sciences-Po, Paris ~ Paris ~ France [2] , Yerevan Center for International Education ~ Yerevan ~ Armenia [3]
The MAGA movement has various factions (e.g., populist, nationalist, monarchist and Christianist). The most common descriptor for the Christianist current is "White Christian Nationalism" (WCN). But MAGA has evolved over the past five years, and WCN no longer captures the self-understanding of the movement articulated by its leading intellectuals. Their religio-political ideology is better described as "White Christian Civilizationism." This paper will explore the causes and consequences of this shift.
RELIGIOUS JEWISH NATIONALISM IN ISRAEL

Dieckhoff A. (Speaker)

Sciences Po ~ Paris ~ France
For decades, two visions of Israel's future have clashed: one secular and universalist, the other more religious and identity-based. The former is on the defensive; not vanquished, but indisputably weakened as religious Jewish nationalism has managed to define an explicitly religious Zionism. This paper traces the origins and rise of religious Zionism, paying close attention to the social and political dynamics giving rise to it and discussing its implications for the polity.
RELIGIOUS NATIONALISM, ORTHODOXY AND SAINT-MAKING IN RUSSIA

Kormina J. (Speaker) , Shtyrkov S. (Speaker)

Yerevan Center for International Education ~ Yerevan ~ Armenia
This paper examines religious nationalism, Russian Orthodoxy, and the veneration of saintly heroes in contemporary Russia through an empirical examination of canonization projects involving new saints whose principal merits are tied to their victories on the battlefield. It shows that two different forms of religious nationalism are involved in Russia today: one related to a specific political project, and the other as a popular way of imagining the unique nature of each nation. By following projects of canonizing "patriotic" saints, we show that the entanglement of Orthodoxy and politics is neither accidental nor exceptional. It is a routine feature of a social order in which Orthodoxy operates simultaneously as confession, cultural heritage, and marker of national belonging.

Panel description: Throughout history, Jews have often been victims of inequality perpetrated by members of other religions. Biblical tradition is marked by the memory of enslavement in Egypt and liberation, the Exodus. This has resulted in a call not to oppress others based on one's own experience. However, since Jews had lived under foreign rule since ancient times, they were denied equal participation in society for religious reasons until well into the second half of the 19th century, before once again becoming victims of extreme inequality and antisemitism in the 20th century with the oppression, persecution, and murder of more than six million Jews. The panel contributions analyze, from both a historical and contemporary perspective, how Jews have been and continue to be victims of social and religious inequality and antisemitism. They also examine the extent to which their own experiences have led to increased sensitivity to inequalities, both within the Jewish community and towards non-Jews.

Papers:

THE ENGAGEMENT OF JEWISH "SALONIÈRES" WITH RELIGIOUS TOPICS AND IDENTITY IN LIGHT OF MULTIDIMENSIONAL INEQUALITIES

Damian J. (Speaker)

Heidelberg University of Jewish Studies ~ Heidelberg ~ Germany
This paper examines the religious engagement of Jewish "salonières" around 1800 in the German-speaking world in light of multidimensional social and religious inequalities. During the Enlightenment and Romantic period, salons functioned as spaces for sociability, networking, and intellectual exchange. Remarkably, many prominent salons were hosted by Jewish intellectual women, who were often autodidacts. These women operated within a Christian majority society in which Jews faced legal, social, and religious discrimination. As both women and Jews, they transcended the boundaries of prevailing social and religious conventions and prescribed gender roles through their (semi-)public activities. They created spaces in which they experienced agency, engaged with influential figures - mostly men - from public and political life, and exerted intellectual and social influence. In doing so, they played an important role both in the broader Enlightenment and in the specifically Jewish Enlightenment, the Haskalah. The Jewish intellectual women about whom we have records - among them well-known figures such as Henriette Herz, Rahel Varnhagen, and Dorothea Schlegel - explored religious topics and questions of religious identity. The conversion of some of them to Christianity must also be taken into account in the context of multiple forms of discrimination. Their engagement with religious topics and religious identity has so far remained underexplored in historical scholarship and research on salon culture. This paper - as part of an ongoing doctoral project - provides an exemplary analysis of how these Jewish intellectual women engaged with religious topics and questions of religious identity, and how, through their actions and thinking, they implicitly nurtured notions of equality.
JOSEPH SÜSS OPPENHEIMER: HOW A JEW NAVIGATED — AND TRIED TO TRANSCEND — THE LIMITATIONS OF HIS SOCIETY

Lüllemann D. (Speaker)

Heidelberg University of Jewish Studies ~ Heidelberg ~ Germany
Joseph Süss Oppenheimer (1698-1738) is best known for the spectacular show trial that led to his execution and for the antisemitic afterlives of his figure. Scholarship has therefore long focused on the trial and its political and cultural meanings. Much less attention has been paid to Oppenheimer as an actor within the Jewish world of his time. This paper presents findings from an ongoing dissertation project based on previously neglected Yiddish and Hebrew sources, especially business letters. These texts allow for a new perspective on Oppenheimer's economic and social practices before the trial and on his embeddedness in intra-Jewish networks of trust, credit, information, and reputation. By reading these letters alongside German-language account books and correspondence, the paper reconstructs Oppenheimer's ego-network and examines how he navigated the structural limitations imposed on Jews in early eighteenth-century German territories. It argues that Oppenheimer's strategies did not simply consist in assimilation or "escape" from Jewish society, but rather in a selective and situational use of both Jewish and non-Jewish social worlds. Yiddish and Hebrew offered spaces of communication that were more intimate, flexible, and culturally coded, and thus essential to his economic success. The paper thus reframes Oppenheimer not as an isolated exception or mere victim of political intrigue, but as a highly skilled broker operating between overlapping social, legal, and religious regimes. In doing so, it contributes to broader debates on minority agency, economic integration, and the social history of early modern Judaism.
THE JEWISH COMMUNITY OF KEMPEN (KĘPNO) VS. THE GOVERNMENT OF PRUSSIA: A SYNAGOGUE'S ATTEMPT TO HIRE A FAMOUS CANTOR IN THE FACE OF INEQUALITY AND XENOPHOBIA

Katz D. (Speaker)

University of Cologne ~ Cologne ~ Germany
In 1815 the Congress of Vienna returned the Polish city of Kempen (Kępno) from Russian to Prussian rule and the Jewish community built a new synagogue to replace its hundred-year-old dilapidated prayer house. Shortly afterwards, the renowned cantor Shlomo ben Shimshon (1781-1829), revered throughout Eastern Europe under the nickname Kashtan ("chestnut"), toured the Duchy of Posen. The community in Kempen sought to hire him, and applied for the necessary residence permit. When the government rejected three separate requests, Kashtan gave up and moved on. We know about this from two sources. One is Kashtan's biography, written in Hebrew by his son, Cantor Hirsch Weintraub (ca. 1812-1881). The biography is significant for many reasons: Kashtan was the most famous cantor of his time, cantorial history before 1840 is not well documented, and it made a modest contribution to the revival of the Hebrew language. The second source is a small group of German documents that I discovered in the Secret State Archives of Prussian Cultural Heritage in Berlin. The synagogue's board outlines the entire episode, expressing the minority community's aspirations and frustrations. A memo from Prussia's minister of the interior to the local governor confirms and rationalizes the decision to deny the community's request (the excuse: Kashtan held Russian citizenship, whereas the government wanted Kempen to hire a cantor from Prussia). My paper will present the sources, show how they substantiate and supplement each other, and broaden our understanding of what happened and why. The archival documents are particularly important for bringing independent testimony that confirms Hirsch Weintraub's credibility as his father's biographer. They help establish a chronology of Kashtan's life, and constitute his earliest known appearance in the historical record. Finally, they expose the Jewish community's unequal relationship to the xenophobic and uncooperative Prussian regime.
FROM DEICIDE TO "CHILD-HUNTING": THE DEICIDE THEOLOGOUMENON AS A FOUNDATIONAL FRAMEWORK—FROM SIMON OF TRENT TO QANON

Cerny-Werner R. (Speaker)

University of Salzburg ~ Salzburg ~ Austria
On 26 March 2020—exactly 425 years after the death of Simon of Trent—the Italian derivative "painter" Giovanni Gasparro published on Facebook a picture that he titled The Martyrdom of St Simon of Trento (Simon unverdorben) in accordance with Jewish ritual murder. This antisemitic fantasy nevertheless points to a historical trajectory in the history of Christianity that is at once significant and painful: the transformation of the deicide narrative across the centuries. As an almost existential theologoumenon within Christianity, the deicide motif proves, however, to be remarkably fluid over time: from its direct articulation in the context of its emergence—within the apologetic epoch of the history of theology from the second century onward, and in the Adversus Iudaeos texts of Late Antiquity—to medieval variations in the form of ritual-murder and host-desecration narratives, which, around the middle of the last millennium, culminated in dramatic anti-Jewish attacks, including the early modern fake news surrounding Simon of Trent. Yet many modern conspiracy narratives also exhibit a recalibration of these ritual-murder stories: without naming "THE JEW," accounts such as the Pizzagate story or the Q-Anon conspiracy narrative draw on precisely such images and narrative patterns. The lecture will offer a (theological-)historical contextualization of this theologoumenon, using as a case study the antisemitic visual rhetoric and the conferral of meaning and "signature" associated with Simon of Trent.
JEWISH REACTIONS TO (ALLEGED) INEQUALITIES IN JEWISH LITURGY

Klein B. (Speaker)

Heidelberg University of Jewish Studies ~ Heidelberg ~ Germany
The Jewish prayer book, the Siddur, and Jewish liturgy contain phrases that have been criticized as promoting inequality since the 16th century. Initially, this concerned three of the blessings recited in the morning, in which God is thanked for not having been created as a non-Jew, a slave, or a woman. Subsequently, criticism was also directed at those blessings in which God is praised for choosing the people of Israel from among all nations, which could also be understood as a claim to Jewish superiority. Finally, other formulations in the Siddur underwent a gender-equitable and socially just revision. The paper will present and analyze these three phenomena in their historical context. Furthermore, it will ask to what extent there is a sensitivity on the Jewish side to potential inequalities that is not (yet) found in Christian liturgy, e.g., in the appropriation of the Aaronic blessing at the end of Protestant services.
MESSIANIC JEWS AS BRIDGE OR PROJECTION? EVANGELICAL APPROPRIATIONS AND RELIGIOUS INEQUALITY

Hösel J. (Speaker)

Heidelberg University of Jewish Studies ~ Heidelberg ~ Germany
Evangelical churches and evangelical networks have become increasingly influential in Germany. While the Protestant state churches and the Catholic Church have officially distanced themselves from anti-Semitic replacement theology and the proselytization of Jews, a comparable institutional distancing has largely failed to materialize in the evangelical context. This absence is significant because religious discourses in these contexts often serve as resources for legitimizing symbolic inequality and reproducing historically entrenched hierarchies between Christianity and Judaism. This also applies to the discourse on Messianic Jews, i.e., Jews who believe in Jesus as the Messiah and number an estimated 1,000 to 3,000 followers in Germany. Messianic communities include both Jews and non-Jews who, influenced by evangelical theology, adopt Jewish religious practices, whereas Christian holidays are generally not observed. Although Messianic Jews play only a marginal role in terms of numbers within the evangelical milieu, they are frequently referred to as authoritative voices in sermons and media appearances. Based on an analysis of sermons and media appearances by influential actors, this paper demonstrates how Messianic Jews are presented as "authentic" Jewish voices, while at the same time mobilizing discursive constructions based on long-standing anti-Semitic tropes, such as the idea of the spiritual blindness of the Jews. This tension is exacerbated by their promotion of Jewish mission alongside their strong advocacy for the State of Israel. Furthermore, the paper examines how Messianic Jews function as symbolic mediators in evangelical churches while reinforcing religious hierarchies and inequalities between Christianity and Judaism. It thus contributes to research on religion and (in)equality by showing how inclusivity-oriented rhetoric can function as a mechanism for legitimizing hierarchical religious orders.
INTERACTIVE STORIES OF INEQUALITY, EXCLUSION, AND PERSECUTION: A SERIOUS GAME ABOUT THE ONGOING FIGHT AGAINST ANTISEMITISM

Kathan M. (Speaker)

University of Jewish Studies Heidelberg (HfJS) ~ Heidelberg ~ Germany
This paper presents an ongoing collaborative project between the Heidelberg University of Jewish Studies (HfJS) and Korion Interactive GmbH, which is developing a serious game to raise awareness of the unequal treatment of Jews and combat anti-Semitism. It currently consists of three prospective modules in which players embark on time travel using a magical AI swatch and a fantastic elevator. In the first module, which has already been developed, they meet the young Jo (Joseph Süss Oppenheimer, 1698/99-1738, protagonist of the Nazi propaganda film "Jud Süß") and flee with him from anti-Jewish violence to the Venetian ghetto; they get to know Jo as a mediator between the Jewish and Christian worlds, who has to contend with legal restrictions, economic barriers, and antisemitic stereotypes. Two complementary modules on anti-Semitism in relation to Israel are currently being developed: one about 14-year-old Theodor Herzl (1800-1904) in Budapest in the late 19th century, who struggled with emerging political anti-Semitism and pressure to acculturate; and another about Esther Shakine (born 1932), a girl who was on the ship "Exodus" in 1947 as a survivor of the Shoah and who embodies the displacement after the Shoah and the restrictions under the British Mandate. Drawing on historical sources such as Venetian ghetto regulations, Herzl's diaries, and Esther's account, the game uses interactive storytelling to simulate the agency of minorities amid oppression and persecution. Through branching decisions and immersive scenarios, players reflect on recurring patterns of religiously and racially motivated discrimination—from spatial confinement to modern exclusion—and thus develop greater empathy for both historical victims and contemporary Jewish experiences of hatred such as Israel related antisemitism. Initial playtests show increased sensitivity to exclusion and inequality, positioning the game as an educational tool against various forms of contemporary antisemitism.
HOW TO WRITE A GAME PLOT AND SEARCH FOR THEODOR HERZL IN BUDAPEST

Kabitz C. (Speaker)

Independent Scholar ~ Frankfurt am Main
As part of the initial phase of developing a second GAME for young people aged 12-15, I am currently working on the game plot. The requirement is to incorporate the historical figure of Theodor Herzl, who spent his youth in Budapest. To deepen the connection between THE PLAYER (the person who will play the game) and the historical figure, our team decided to portray Theodor Herzl as a teenager. What is interesting here is, how clearly Herzl's determined spirit of inquiry and his desire to assimilate into the society around him are already evident in his "teenage years," without denying the fundamental traits of a visionary genius. Since this game is also about conveying important historical details to THE PLAYER through mini-games and puzzles, we use the historical map of Budapest and send them on a grand discovery tour with puzzle pieces featuring elements of the city's history and Jewish memorial sites.
BETWEEN GOLAH AND TFUTZAH: SHMUEL YOSEF AGNON, GERMANY AND THE METAMORPHOSIS OF EXILE

Paoloni G. (Speaker)

Università degli Studi di Modena e Reggio Emilia ~ Reggio Emilia (RE) ~ Italy
This paper intends to explore the relation between the concept of Golah, or "exile", with precarious social conditions of Galician Jewry in Shmuel Yosef Agnon's novella VeHayah HaAkov LeMishor (known in English as "And the crook shall be made straight". Starting from the analysis of the novella provided by Yonatan Sagiv's Indebted: Capitalism and Religion in the writings of S.Y. Agnon, the argument is that the notion of "debt" central to the tale. Sagiv's analysis provides a starting point, as it draws directly from relevant Hebrew vocabulary employed by S.Y. Agnon in Ve 'Hayah HaAkov LeMishor. However, the study seems not to devote as much space to the word Golah, to describe the protagonist's begging outside his native town. Golah instead is generally meant to indicate "exile". The circumstances described in the novella add a pejorative sense to the meaning of "exile", as here it indicates a precarious economic situation. As opposed, the word used to indicate other Jewish communities across the region where the story is based is Tfutzah, which can be translated as "dispersion". The ordeals of the protagonists in the novella reflect the social reality of Galicia, of which S.Y. Agnon is a native. Moreover, as the son of a fur merchant, S.Y. Agnon describes meticulously the economic conditions under which Jewish shopkeepers operate. As he is one of the most prominent narrators of Galician Jewry in Modern Hebrew, this paper argues that the use of the word Golah seems linked with destitution and misery, highlighting the sense that economic modernisation has made the life of Jews in Eastern Europe miserable. After the analysis of the two above-indicated terms, Golah and Tfutzah, the paper explores the the novella, based in Galicia during the 19th century, in the context of European Jewish social and political thinking of the time as well as S.Y. Agnon's adhesion to Zionism.

Panel description: Christian tradition is built around shared symbols that always have gender implications depending on various factors. These symbols are internalised by men and women in such a way as to determine the representation of masculinity and femininity in people's self-awareness. This determination is particularly effective in the experience of believers, because it is linked to God himself without any awareness of the cultural elements involved. The panel aims to show the problematic nature of certain interpretations of Sacred Scripture that diminish or eliminate the role of women, and then move on to examine some female metaphors used to refer to the Church over the centuries (and still today) with the aim of showing how these metaphors and their use contribute to the establishment of a gender system that structurally excludes women from roles of responsibility, leadership, representation and authoritative speech. The analyses presented will draw on exegesis, feminist philosophy and theology, as well as gender studies, which offer fundamental insights into language, gender representations and practices. Discovering that certain representations of the feminine and the masculine do not depend on revelation nor are they structural to religious experience will allow not only the purification (or eradication when necessary) of symbols, interpretations, doctrines, rituals, practices and institutions, but also the development of liberating representations of gender for all, more in line with the life-giving experience of the Gospel (for believers) or at least with its most evident values (for non-believers).

Papers:

CONTESTED AUTHORITY AND NARRATIVE INEQUALITY: MIRIAM IN BIBLICAL TRADITION

Zanconato S. (Speaker)

Coordinamento teologhe italiane ~ Roma ~ Italy
In the biblical narratives associated with her, Miriam emerges through profiles that are not fully overlapping, whose configuration remains consistently related to the negotiation and maintenance of Moses' authority. In the first episode of the exodus narrative traditionally associated with her figure (Ex 2), Miriam is introduced without a name, as a "sister" watching from the bank of the Nile, within a scene shaped by the threat exercised by a dominant power over the most vulnerable. Embedded in a network of female initiatives that resist the resulting logic of death, her action forms part of the narrative background that enables the emergence and survival of the protagonist, Moses. In another section of the narrative Miriam is remembered as a figure invested with a prophetic role; yet this investiture is expressed in a choral and relational form, within a narrative that continues to concentrate authoritative voice and normative legitimacy on Moses. The coexistence of these characterizations is accompanied by textual tensions that resist easy harmonization and that a long interpretive tradition, ancient and modern, has recognized as traces of a complex narrative negotiation of authority. This dynamic becomes particularly visible in the narratives that associate Miriam with a critical speech challenging Moses' leadership. Here, her authority is exposed as potentially competing with the exclusive authority of the leader; the asymmetrical punishment and the subsequent narrative silencing function as mechanisms that regulate the visibility and limits of her role. Alongside this restrictive configuration, however, the biblical text also preserves attestations that include Miriam among the leaders sent by God together with her brothers (Mic 6:4), while a broad and diverse interpretive tradition has continued to re-engage her figure. In their interplay, these elements continue to yield a figure whose memory unfolds through superimpositions, disalignments, and rewritings.
FEMALE METAPHORS OF CHURCH AND WOMEN'S EXCLUSION FROM POWER

Segoloni S. (Speaker)

Istituto Teologico Giovanni Paolo II ~ Vatican City ~ Vatican City State (Holy See)
The practice of representing collective entities with female images or personifications is a very ancient one. It is also found in Scripture in relation to the people of Israel and the church. However, these female images were understood on the basis of the meanings attributed to women in patriarchal contexts, whereby they were essentially thought of as submissive, incapable of autonomy and salvation, and essentially receptive. This paper will attempt to analyse some female metaphors, in particular those of bride and mother, used for the church in the New Testament and in some traditional (including recent) texts, in order to highlight how these metaphors have been used to establish patriarchal gender representations as inherent to human nature or even to God. Typical of femininity, for example, expressed by the metaphor of the church as bride, would be to be loved and saved, and for this reason, in the church, women, concrete types of this abstract and ontologised femininity, would not be suitable for public and governing roles or for representing the one who loves and saves (Christ). The maternal metaphor has also determined gender representations that see women as a receptive principle of an active principle that would be masculine: in baptism, for example, the church generates thanks to God who fertilises. Not only does this view fail to take into account the dynamics of motherhood and human procreation, but it also attributes to God a masculine (which he cannot have, since God is not sexual) and patriarchal role. Once the use of these metaphors has been deconstructed and it has been highlighted how they have been and continue to be used to exclude women from positions of power and leadership in the Church, an attempt will be made to reinterpret the metaphors themselves in order to reposition them within the Christian mystery, once they have been purified of patriarchal and oppressive elements that affect the lives of women and everyone else.

Panel description: Theology speaks of a God who is just, and thus it must take justice as a matter of central concern. Modern conceptions of justice place great emphasis on equality, that is, that people will not be subordinated or dominated on the basis of race, gender, sexuality, nationality, class, etc. These reflections have put theology in conversation with social criticism, the attempt to understand unjust inequities, to mitigate them, and to propose new ways of living together. The papers on this panel discuss three specific engagements of theology with social criticism. The panel starts with Augustine, whom many have charged with being at the root of sexist features of church doctrine and practice. The first presentation engages William Connolly's The Augustinian Imperative, arguing that Augustine has resources for a more appreciative embrace of diversity than Connolly and many others think. The second presentation looks at the motif of martyrdom in nineteenth-century abolitionist movements, arguing that it played a powerful role in social criticism in that era and can do so today. The third paper looks at the postliberal theology of George Lindbeck and George Frei, addressing concerns that their perspective is inherently conservative by suggesting that their important insights about theology are not, in fact, incompatible with a more critical and progressive approach.

Papers:

AUGUSTINE AND FEMINIST THEOLOGY

Stewart-Kroeker S. (Speaker)

Princeton Theological Seminary ~ Princeton, NJ ~ United States of America
In The Augustinian Imperative, William Connolly suggests that Augustine's confessional politics (characterized, notably, by policing the inner life) reflect a dogmatic intolerance of difference. This presents a challenge to interpreting Augustine in service of a politics that endorses diversity on multiple fronts, gender and sexuality among them. This paper seeks not to "solve" the various problems that Augustine's views on women and sexuality present in this regard, which are significant. Rather, it will pursue the sources of agonism generative for a diverse politics present in Augustine's thought, in order to articulate a queer, feminist, constructive approach for working with this figure.
RELIGION, MARTYRDOM, AND ABOLITION: SOCIAL CRITICISM AND THE POLITICS OF EQUALITY

Dumler-Winckler E. (Speaker)

St. Louis University ~ St. Louis, MO ~ United States of America
Martyrologies or martyrdom narratives have been a crucial source of social criticism in abolitionist struggles for racial justice and equality: from Denmark Vesey and Francis MacIntosh to Elijiah Parish Lovejoy and John Brown in the antebellum era, and from Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, and George Floyd to Breonna Taylor and Renee Good in our own time. This paper examines the significance of martyrdom discourse in the antebellum anti-slavery movement for immediate abolition as well as abolitionist martyrdom discourse in our own time. In 1824, a British Dissenting Quaker abolitionist, Elizabeth Heyrick, published "Immediate, not Gradual, Abolition" which both labeled and fueled radical movements for trans-Atlantic "immediate abolition" including the radical Garrisonian wing of the American anti-slavery movement. After meeting with Garrisonians (1834-1836), another British Unitarian, the proto-sociologist, Harriet Martineau, dubbed the 1830s the "Martyr Age of the United States of America" (1838). As if expanding the martyrological canon, in his bold "Address to the Slaves of the United States," (1843)—one of the most radical religious calls for insurrection in antebellum America—the abolitionist Presbyterian minister, Henry Highland Garnet, linked Black radicals to traditions of freedom fighters and martyrs or "martyr[s] to freedom." Transcendentalists, including Henry David Thoreau, Wendell Phillips, and Ralph Waldo Emerson, were among the first to hail John Brown as an abolitionist martyr under, as Thoreau put it, "a government that pretends to be Christian and crucifies a million Christs every day!" Having examined the significance of martyrdom discourse for antebellum abolitionism and the quest for racial equality, I argue that martyrdom discourse—from individual figures to "Say Their Names" campaigns--continues to be a powerful form of social criticism in abolitionist movements today.
THE FUTURE OF POSTLIBERAL THEOLOGY

Bush S. (Speaker)

Brown University ~ Providence, RI ~ United States of America
Postliberal theology, associated with George Lindbeck and Hans Frei, is past its heyday, but it has two methodological contributions of lasting importance: an emphasis on religion as preeminently a matter of communal social practices (as opposed to intellectual doctrine or individual experience) and an emphasis on biblical narrative as the touchstone for theology. Lindbeck and Frei draw from anthropologist Clifford Geertz and his understanding of religion as culture and philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein and his understanding of social practices in order to develop their methodology. Indeed, Frei even likens the task of the theologian to a Geertzian ethnographer: the job is to thickly describe the practices of the church, not construct their own doctrines. Many have charged postliberalism with having conservative tendencies, and they are not wrong to do so. Seemingly, Geertzian theologians would no more criticize unjust features of Christian practice any more than Geertzian ethnographers would criticize the communities they are describing. If we are concerned for social equality and justice, then critical and normative tasks are inescapable for the theologian, in addition to the descriptive task. To that end, I propose that the proper insights of postliberalism can be retained and its deficiencies addressed by relying less for inspiration on Geertz and Wittgenstein and more on Georg W. F. Hegel. Hegel, like Geertz and Wittgenstein, prioritizes social practices. He gets right what they do. But, more so than them, he has a place for the critical exercise of reason in evaluating and modifying our received cultural and religious inheritance.

Panel description: In recent times, medicine and theology have become very distant and alien fields. Even among those committed to dialogue between science and theology, the medical sciences and healthcare have remained outside their area of interest. The question arises as to whether this distance or disengagement is beneficial, or whether interaction and even synergy could be more beneficial. Assuming that modern medicine and healthcare have developed within a secularising model, an alternative approach could be to recognise that medicine without religion is less effective, and that theology ignoring the pursuit of health and better therapy might be missing some relevant issues. Recent research on religion and health, religious coping, and spiritual care suggests new ways to integrate the two social systems of medicine and religion more effectively. This awareness calls on theology to take on a responsible role in discerning and designing models of positive interaction and even intervention, for instance in the field of spiritual care. This panel brings together scholars who, from an interdisciplinary perspective, are exploring and applying ways to integrate medicine and healthcare with religion and theology, with particular attention to those efforts aimed to better develop interventions in the area of spiritual care.

Papers:

WHY A GOOD THEOLOGY MATTERS FOR BETTER SPIRITUAL CARE

Oviedo L. (Speaker)

Antonianum University ~ Roma ~ Italy
Abstract: Although research on religion, health, and wellbeing has flourished over the past decade, it has received little attention in theological circles, and the general impression is that such research and its interesting findings may not be of interest to theologians concerned with the proper hermeneutics of Christian revealed texts. Two questions could motivate greater engagement between the two fields. The first concerns the question posed above: what can theology learn from this body of research and its indications about the positive effects of religion? The second goes in the opposite direction: to what extent can theology contribute to refining and better understanding or applying such research? For example, greater theological involvement could help answer several open questions in this research, such as those concerning different types of religion and their effects; how to better understand and avoid misconceptions about the healing effects of religion; and how to avoid a complete instrumentalisation of religion as a result of these encouraging data. All this information can assist to better design and apply forms of spiritual care.
HEALTH AND SPIRITUAL CARE- EVIDENCE-BASED AND LIVED EXPERIENCE FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF A HEALTHCARE PROFESSIONAL

Leal M. (Speaker)

Catholic University of Brasilia ~ Brasilia ~ Brazil
In an attempt to develop more effective models of spiritual care, we are testing ongoing experiences to assist in the design of interventions. One challenge is how to integrate different religious and spiritual views into a spiritual care programme that considers belief systems and expectations beyond any fixed pattern. Experience advises that we must familiarise ourselves with the different spiritual traditions of patients and their families in order to provide the most appropriate spiritual care.
BEYOND DIALOGUE: AUTHORITY STRUCTURES AND THE PRACTICE OF SPIRITUAL CARE IN TURKEY

Aricioglu H.S. (Speaker)

Koç University ~ Istanbul ~ Turkey
Spiritual care is increasingly promoted as a holistic and integrative component of healthcare, supported by growing research on religion, health, and wellbeing. Yet the institutional conditions under which spiritual care is implemented often remain insufficiently examined. This paper argues that understanding the distribution of authority between professional and religious actors is essential for evaluating the possibilities and limits of effective spiritual care. Drawing on a meta-study of Turkish scholarship on spiritual care (2004-2026), complemented by bibliometric and thematic mapping, the paper analyses how spiritual care has developed within a dual institutional framework. Academic discourse is overwhelmingly shaped by nursing scholarship, structured around globally circulating definitions and competency scales that position spirituality as a professionalized domain of clinical expertise. At the same time, spiritual support services in public hospitals are administered primarily through the Directorate of Religious Affairs, which deploys state-employed religious personnel within healthcare settings. This configuration reveals that spiritual care is not only a matter of integrating medicine and theology, but also a question of who is authorized to define, administer, and legitimize the sacred within public institutions. The Turkish case shows how parallel regimes of professional and religious governance can coexist without full conceptual or institutional alignment, generating tensions that shape practice on the ground. Rather than assuming that dialogue alone ensures effective integration, this paper suggests that attention to institutional authority structures is a necessary precondition for developing sustainable and context-sensitive models of spiritual care. By foregrounding these structural dynamics, the paper contributes a sociological perspective to ongoing conversations about how medicine and theology might engage more responsibly and realistically.
BETWEEN HEALING AND RECOGNITION: MEDICAL, THEOLOGICAL, AND COMMUNICATIVE ASPECTS OF DEAFNESS IN THE AGE OF AI.

Bednarska M. (Speaker)

University of Information Technology and Managment ~ Rzeszow ~ Poland
The presence of people with disabilities in the Church has been and continues to be a topic that raises many questions. For many years, disability was viewed as a medical condition—something that required the intervention of doctors to improve a person's physical condition, to heal them. When we look at the content of the Holy Scriptures, it is very clear how people who were sick or disabled were treated. They were excluded, stigmatized, and condemned. And suddenly Jesus Christ appears, who communicates with people whom the rest of society stigmatizes and excludes. That's not all - He goes further and begins to heal: what was medically impossible, and He heals illnesses that were treated as a sign of the presence of an evil spirit in a person. It seems obvious why He does this. It is not only about a person's physical condition, but about the consequences of His conversations and healing - a person regains their humanity, respect, and can fulfill their need to be with people and with God. This raises the question of deaf people, who are now viewed from a medical perspective but also from a cultural perspective - a minority with their own identity and language, different from those of hearing people. The fact of increasingly progressive changes in the field of medicine and technology, the birth of artificial intelligence, has a real impact on the lives of this group of people, because, like most hearing people, they participate in social life. The question should therefore be asked: does the development of digital media and AI change the way we understand both "healing" and 'participation' in religious life, and if so, how? Should technology "repair the body" or rather "expand the community"? If it expands the community, will this be an opportunity or a threat? Where does communication fit into healing and participation, what does it look like, and what should it look like? These issues will be the subject of the presentation.
DEPRESSION, THEOLOGY, AND EXISTENTIAL HEALTH

Visala A. (Speaker)

University of Helsinki ~ Helsinki ~ Finland
The notion of existential health has found its way into public and official discourse on medicine and public health. In Sweden, existential health is officially recognized as one of the dimensions of public health. It includes spirituality, meaningfulness and other worldview-related domains, and it is considered a crucial aspect of resilience and a protective factor against mental illness and suicide. The World Health Organization does not recognize existential health, but it does recognize the domain of spiritual, religious, and meaningful beliefs and how these might contribute to overall health. Recently, there have been attempts to identify and conceptualize a specific kind of depression, existential depression, that is caused mainly by existential crises. This notion, however, has not been examined in the light of existential health. Might there exist a kind of depression that is caused by the fundamental breakdown of existential health? I have argued in my previous work that experiences of depression involve a "flattening out" of the valuational landscape. The depressed person can no longer experience affectively the valence of goals and objects. In this paper, I will attempt to connect my analysis of depression with the notions of existential health and existential depression. In addition, I will examine how different "theologies of depression" might function as potentially preventive frameworks for maintaining existential health.
SPIRITUALITY IN PERINATAL PALLIATIVE CARE: SPIRITUALITY AS A THERAPEUTIC TOOL IN THE MANAGEMENT OF ANTICIPATORY GRIEF

Leal M. (Speaker) [1] , Freire M.M. (Speaker) [2]

Brazilian Maternal and Child Hospital ~ Brasilia ~ Brazil [1] , Brazilian Maternal and child Hospital ~ Brazilian ~ Brazil [2]
Spirituality manifests itself in parents confronting life-limiting conditions in their children through five crucial aspects: religion, hope, parental identity, personal development, and social connection. Paradoxically, each of these elements can act either as a profound source of strength or as a profound source of spiritual distress. They can drive Positive Religious-Spiritual Coping (PRSC), which fosters resilience and meaning, or Negative Religious-Spiritual Coping (NRSC), which can precipitate feelings of guilt and profound despair. The belief in a miracle (specifically, the "healing of the child") emerges as a paradigmatic component in this clinical setting. It is often misconstrued as an instance of NRSC, when, in reality, it constitutes a fundamental stage in the complex process of reframing and re-signifying this profoundly painful experience. A spiritual approach that is technical, welcoming, and deeply compassionate enables parents to discover and experience the "true miracle," which resides in their capacity to bond with and love their child in the completeness of body, soul, and spirit. The therapeutic work carried out by the PPC team with the family unit acts as a crucial strategy for fostering hope. This approach is capable of nurturing these existential strengths by directly addressing meaning, connection, hope, and faith. However, significant and pressing gaps persist in this field. The spiritual approach in PPC urgently lacks professionalization and robust empirical evidence regarding the efficacy of specific clinical interventions. Professional discomfort and a pronounced lack of adequate training remain evident and substantial barriers to optimal care. It is imperative to develop structured and culturally sensitive spiritual assessments, alongside comprehensive educational programs that empower healthcare teams to navigate the complex spiritual landscape of grieving families with both compassion and clinical proficiency.
WE MUST FLOURISH WHERE GOD HAS SOWN US: CLINICAL EMPATHY AS A MEANS OF HUMAN FLOURISHING FOR THE HEALTHCARE PROFESSIONAL

Rocha F. (Speaker) [1] , Leal M. (Speaker) [2]

Brasília Children's Hospital ~ Brasília ~ Brazil [1] , Brasília Maternal and child Hospital ~ Brasília ~ Brazil [2]
Clinical empathy is characterized by the healthcare professional's exercise of empathic capacity within the context of patient care, aiming at therapeutic actions that effectively meet the patient's needs which are motivated by an affective state of empathic concern or compassion. From a Christian perspective, human flourishing encompasses multiple dimensions, including character formation and the expression of virtues oriented by a sense of purpose that ultimately points toward final communion with God. he general objective of this theoretical study is to analyze the relationship between the practice of clinical empathy in healthcare and the human flourishing of the professional from a Christian theological perspective Informed by the context of the Ancient Near East, the creation of the human being as the image of God implies a functional role as God's representatives on earth. As the Apostle Paul points out, the ultimate goal is that human beings, by reflecting the character of Jesus Christ, may be progressively conformed to the image of the Son. This biblical perspective on the origin and destiny of humanity, guided by grace and faith (pistis), gives profound meaning to the life of the Christian healthcare professional. It orients not only their general mission as persons — to act as representatives of God — but also, in an attitude of allegiance or loyalty (pistis) to God, directs the expression of specific virtues appropriate to their professional context, such as compassion and clinical empathy. In this way, it promotes the flourishing of the person behind the professional through the progressive formation of character in their effort to be conformed to the image of Christ. For the Christian healthcare professional, the path to communion with God and to human flourishing is intimately linked to the practice of specific virtues — particularly clinical empathy and compassion.
FROM PATHOLOGY TO LIBERATION: REIMAGINING SPIRITUAL CARE BETWEEN MEDICINE AND THEOLOGY

Bischoff S. (Speaker)

Independent Scholar ~ Berlin ~ Germany
The historic distancing of medicine and theology has often limited spiritual care to an "ambulance service" - a reactive mechanism that addresses individual distress without questioning the systemic and colonial structures that produce it. This paper argues that a truly effective integration of these fields for spiritual care requires moving beyond a mere clinical supplement toward a holistic synergy that recognizes the bodymind as a biochemical, social, and spiritual assemblage. By confronting the "pathology paradigm" that reduces diverse human experiences to medical "deficits", a synthesized practice can transition from biopolitical normalization to a liberationist trajectory. While medicine provides essential material and physiological interventions, theology - specifically through Emmanuel Y. Lartey's intercultural approach - reclaims the transcendent dimension and the communal context of healing. The paper therefore outlines a decolonial shift in spiritual care toward a "transformative care as community building", moving beyond isolated individualism toward shared accountability. Ultimately, the synergy of medicine and theology enables a transformative form of spiritual care that restores the full dignity of the person, acknowledging that an individual cannot be truly well in a sick society - fostering communal liberation.

Panel description: Medieval Jewish philosophy displays an extraordinary richness of authors, themes, and interactions with thought from other confessional contexts; it is therefore unsurprising that both Jewish and non-Jewish thinkers of the Early Modern Age engaged with this intellectual legacy. Such engagement could take multiple forms: from a straightforward "revival" to the further development and continuation of earlier conclusions; from a dialectic of conflict or dialogue to the explicit articulation of what had been contained, yet left unspoken, in previous elaborations. The two proposed interventions on this panel are by prof. Carsten Wilke, concerning the joint reception of medieval and modern thought within a late seventeenth-century rabbinic context, and by Prof. Federico Dal Bo, who will reflect on the way Jewish thinkers, and particularly Maimonides, were read by a leading Christian philosopher of the same period, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz. On the planned panel, we welcome further lectures on the reception of medieval philosophical sources, which may include Moses Maimonides, Moses Nahmanides, Levi ben Gershon, Yehuda Halevi, Yosef Albo, Isaac Abravanel, Isaac Arama, Hasdai Crescas and others. Interventions are expected to investigate the way these thinkers were read, and, sometimes, "crypto-cited", in the Early Modern Age. Participants are encouraged to consider how medieval sources enter new philosophical, political and historical contexts - including the need to safeguard the Jewish tradition and/or community interests in specific countries. We welcome contributions about well-known philosophical authors such as Michel de Montaigne, Baruch Spinoza, and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, but also about Jewish intellectuals such as Leone da Modena, Elia Montalto, Saul Levi Mortera, Menasseh ben Israel or Judah-Loew Betsalel, the Maharal of Prague. Studies on philosophers whose engagement with Jewish thought has hitherto remained unexplored will be particularly welcome.

Papers:

PHILOSOPHY, SCIENCE, AND KABBALAH IN THE LIBRARY OF A SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY CHIEF RABBI OF VENICE

Wilke C. (Speaker)

Central European University ~ Vienna ~ Austria
The Venetian Sephardi Chief Rabbi Samuel Aboab (1610-1694) is remembered for his posthumous collection of legal rulings, Devar Shemuel ("Samuel's Word," 1702), and for an anonymously published treatise, Sefer ha-Zikhronot ("Book of Memoirs," 1650), in which he rebuked the decline of piety, ritual observance, and sexual morals in the Jewish society of his time. In 2022, the Jerusalem-based ultra-Orthodox publishing house Zikhron Aharon edited both works in a single, stately volume. Aboab's staunch defense of religious normativity, however, emerged from a heterogeneous intellectual culture, which this paper explores. Raised in Hamburg in a family of former conversos, Aboab went on to serve a community in which rabbinic learning was shaped by Renaissance humanism, Hispanic colonial expansion, and Ottoman Jewish mystical piety. Hitherto unknown, the notarial inventory of Rabbi Aboab's personal library reveals a broad cross-section of Sephardi and Ashkenazi scholarship, alongside medieval Jewish philosophical classics and works by contemporary physicians, geographers, and political writers, including key texts of philosophical skepticism from Montaigne to Francis Bacon and Simone Luzzatto.
LEIBNIZ AS A READER OF MAIMONIDES: ESOTERICISM, HERMENEUTICS, AND THE UNITY OF METAPHYSICS AND SCIENCE

Dal Bo F. (Speaker)

Università di Modena-Reggio Emilia ~ Modena-Reggio Emilia ~ Italy
This paper examines Leibniz's engagement with Maimonides' Guide of the Perplexed within the long-standing tradition of its reception, while highlighting the originality of Leibniz's position. From its inception, the Guide functioned—according to Leo Strauss's influential interpretation—as a deliberately esoteric and exoteric work, conceived not primarily as a philosophical treatise but as a "guide" for a correct hermeneutics of Scripture. Its central aim was to regulate the reader's approach to biblical language, imagination, and intuition when confronting the most sensitive questions of physics (Work of Creation) and metaphysics (Work of the Chariot). Over time, however, the destiny of the Guide shifted. It came to be studied predominantly as a philosophical text on cosmology and metaphysics, often detached from its original hermeneutical and pedagogical function. This reduction is already visible in medieval Jewish philosophy, notably in Gersonides and Crescas, where the Guide is treated mainly as a source of doctrinal positions rather than as a method for reading and disciplining interpretation. Leibniz enters this tradition with a distinctive agenda: the construction of a monumental modern synthesis of metaphysics and the emerging natural sciences. From this perspective, he appears as an atypical yet exceptional reader of Maimonides. On the one hand, Leibniz demonstrates an acute sensitivity to the dual esoteric/exoteric structure of the Guide, recognizing its strategic use of concealment, analogy, and graded access to truth. On the other hand, he engages seriously with its doctrinal content, particularly concerning the eternity of the world and the rational intelligibility of creation—issues that resonate with his own reflections on contingency and the best of all possible worlds. The paper argues that his reading of Maimonides exemplifies a non-reductive approach capable of preserving the unity of these domains while respecting their internal differentiation.

Panel description: This session aims to disseminate recent research findings on Jehovah's Witnesses from the past decade. Early studies of this movement were mostly influenced by theological perspectives, often resulting in surface-level understandings. Before the new millennium, the Organization kept a distance from researchers, rarely allowing more than historical analysis. A noticeable shift began in the 1970s, during which researchers were permitted to investigate the "blood issue," lived apolitical experiences, everyday expressions of millenarian beliefs, and other sensitive issues. The late 1990s further expanded the accepted topics, including legal and FoRB-related topics, critical historical reviews, literary analysis, sociological and anthropological inquiries. This correlated with the gradual widening of the circle of invested scholars. Over the past two decades, the Organization's attitude shifted from mere tolerance to more active, initiative cooperation. These collaborations produced richer research materials and challenged former paradigms about Witnesses. US- and Western Europe-centric findings have been enriched by new inquiries: digital cultural output, media preferences, child-rearing, education, gender, and social empowerment; insider scholarship; literacy; and even ex-member and apostate narratives have been included in ongoing discussions on a global scale. Our panel seeks papers whose research was conducted in this progressive-cooperative environment. We seek contributions focusing on inductive research conducted in the past decade within the Witness community. The panel's focus aligns with current scholarly trends: papers that employ cross-cultural critical analysis, multidisciplinary methodologies, and enrich the scholarship by extending beyond the conventionally accepted borders of the cultural West are highly welcome.

Papers:

EVALUATING RECENT FINDINGS OF THE 2022-2024 JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES RESEARCH PROJECT IN HUNGARY

Nemes M. (Speaker)

CESNUR; HAA-RIATM ~ Torino; Budapest ~ Italy
Despite being present for almost a century in Hungary, Jehovah's Witnesses have only received legal recognition in 1989. Experiencing the suffering of the Second World War, the oppression and persecution under the Communist Regime, and now dealing with the effects of a rapidly changing, technologically advancing postmodern, in some respects post-truth world, and seeing the current conflicts just beyond the North-Eastern borders of their country, the Hungarian Witnesses' community formed a unique self-understanding, specific to the Central-Eastern European region. Based on a research project, co-conducted with András Máté-Tóth between 2022 and 2024, my contribution aims to contextualize the presence of the Witnesses' community in contemporary Hungarian society, outlining its status, its members' collective identity and self-perception, and aspects of religious identity, specific to this "old new religion" in Hungary. Conducting the project in collaboration with the World Headquarters of Jehovah's Witnesses and the Hungarian Head Office, our inquiry was able to collect, structure, and analyze a never-before-seen sum of data on Jehovah's Witnesses. Based on the findings of a survey with over 9,000 valid responses and 35 recorded lifetime interviews summing up more than 60 hours of recorded and transcribed material with dedicated, long-standing Hungarian Witnesses, we created a unique dataset. Based on its evaluation, I will argue that there are themes within Hungarian Witnesses that align with the involved generations. Their experiences differ drastically, and their identities, self-perceptions, and even lived forms of religiosity call for a more diverse and structured framework. My paper will introduce one such framework, specifically calibrated to the CEE region and to the Hungarian Witnesses.
JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES IN POST-SOVIET ARMENIA

Tokmantcev A. (Speaker)

Pázmány Péter Catholic University, Faculty of Humanities, Department of Armenian Studies ~ Budapest ~ Hungary
My paper focuses on the formation and development of the Jehovah's Witness community in post-Soviet Armenia, detailing what accounts for changing state policies towards Witnesses compared to other religious minorities. My research focused on what personal, social, institutional, cultural, and contingency factors affected one's decision to become a member of the Witnesses' community or to leave it. I answer these questions based on materials collected during my fieldwork in Armenia from 2016 to 2022. The data include hundreds of interviews with Witnesses, state officials, journalists, anti-Jehovah's Witness activists, non-Jehovah's Witness Armenians, and members of the Armenian Apostolic Church. I also draw on statistical data, media, and reports from international NGOs and government organizations on post-Soviet Armenia. Academic literature identifies the Armenian Church as the main driver of religious antagonism in post-Soviet Armenia. My analysis strongly suggests that while the dominant national Church plays a significant role in shaping religious freedom in Armenia, it is a directed rather than a directing power. Because of their conspicuous public proselytism, Jehovah's Witnesses were singled out as the most "harmful" non-traditional religious group in Armenia even during Soviet times. The animosity towards Witnesses quickly turned into a self-perpetuating cycle that required little external support. Individual state officials used the power of their office to push back against what they perceived as a threat to the country and nation. The overall liberalization of religious policies in contemporary Armenia has been contingent upon Armenia's relationship with the European Union.
STRONG IDENTITY, RELIGIOUS COPING, AND PROSOCIAL ATTITUDES OF JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES IN RESPONSE TO STRESSFUL EVENTS: FINDINGS FROM THE JW-RWA STUDY

Di Marzio R. (Speaker)

The Center for Studies on Freedom of Religion, Belief and Conscience (LIREC) ~ Roma ~ Italy
The paper presents key findings from nationwide, anonymous online survey of the Jehovah's Witness community in post-genocide Rwanda (JW-RWA), especially relating to psychosocial responses to stressful or traumatic events. Using study findings from a combination of validated measures and questions specific to the study population, the aspects of strong religious identity, religion as coping, and prosocial attitudes are examined in light of trauma events in the lives of respondents. The survey data provides a strong basis for conclusions about the religious functioning of Jehovah's Witnesses, beginning with insights into respondents' conversion experience, intrinsic versus extrinsic orientation, degree of commitment, and God-image. In light of the inescapable influence of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi, not only on those who experienced the event but also subsequent generations, the study also explored the topics of forgiveness, social relations, centrality of genocide, and posttraumatic growth. While the presentation cannot touch specifically on all these aspects, this paper is one example of the insights that this rich and complex dataset of the JW-RWA study contributes to the field. The conclusions in this paper are grounded in the author's research into the distinctive religious identity and social interactions of Jehovah's Witnesses and argues that this identity in the Rwandan context support religious coping and the development of prosocial attitudes in the aftermath of stressful events.
JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES' LIVED EXPERIENCE OF RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN THE UNITED KINGDOM

Bódi M. (Speaker)

University of Oxford ~ Oxford ~ United Kingdom
Jehovah's Witnesses arrived in the British Isles in the early 1880s. By 1900, they had established a branch office in London, and their numbers grew steadily over the following decades. As of the mid-2020s, around 144,000 active Witnesses meet regularly in nearly 1,600 congregations across the United Kingdom. This paper examines Jehovah's Witnesses' lived experience of religious freedom in contemporary Britain. It first presents findings from exploratory, interview-based research identifying the main challenges the community perceives. It then introduces an empirically grounded theory of organisational response, using Jehovah's Witnesses as a focused case study to illustrate the theory's key concepts. The paper explains the dominant response patterns through which the organisation seeks to navigate constraints, mitigate reputational harm, and pursue what it understands as an 'ideal' environment for religious freedom.
ESTABLISHING FACTS, NOT FEELINGS: CHALLENGES TO RELIGIOUS FREEDOMS IN LIGHT OF THE RECENT CASE LAW IN EUROPE

Peltonen O.M. (Speaker)

EAJW ~ Frankfurt ~ Germany
Professor Rik Torfs (University of Leuven), in his keynote lecture in EuARe Conference (Vienna, 2025) underlined the concerning, current trends that are challenging freedom of religion. According to him, victimhood and emotionality are increasingly emphasized in the legal arena. One of the outcomes of this trend is more pressure on religious groups to redefine their doctrine. While emotional narratives need to be taken seriously, their subjective nature adds an important challenge to scientific community: legislative and jurisdictional measures taken against any religion should nevertheless rely on objective, verifiable standards, supplied by expert research and empirical data. This paper addresses the underlining factors behind legal cases against minority religions, addressing specifically cases against Jehovah's Witnesses. The presentation starts with a discussion in the concept of religious illiteracy which, at worst, is more than ignorance; it's a pattern of interpretive mistakes. It manifests in a) category errors b) doctrinal caricature and c) neglect of due diligence. This paper suggests that these different aspects of religious literacy may have played a role in some of the recent legal disputes against religions. As a specific case study, the deregistration of Jehovah's Witnesses in Norway will be discussed. The Appeal Court (2025) and Supreme Court (2026) decisions will be reviewed. My purpose is to analyze the rationale behind the initial argumentations against Witnesses, the Court's decisions, and the scholarly response to the case. I'll close the discussion with a practical proposal on academic research, media literacy and understanding of the religious context as a structural response to disinformation and stereotypes.

Panel description: This panel brings together two closely connected papers that explore how gender hierarchy took shape within Islamic thought through classical exegetical interpretations of the nafs (soul/self) in Qur'ānic accounts of human creation. Working at the intersection of Qurʾanic anthropology, exegesis and theology, the panel's papers trace how interpretative claims about the nature of the human self became entangled with assumptions about gender difference, moral capacity, and agency, and how these assumptions came to be justified as ontological rather than historically-situated readings. Rather than treating gender hierarchy as merely a product of social custom or legal doctrine, the panel approaches it as a deeper interpretive and ontological issue. By engaging closely with Qurʾanic language - particularly the concept of nafs wāḥida (single soul) in verses 4:1, 7:189, and 39:6 - and with key exegetical and philosophical figures such as al-Tabari and Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī, the papers expose the hermeneutical moves through which hierarchical gendered anthropologies were produced, normalized and eventually popularized. Concomitantly, the panel highlights resources within the Islamic classical tradition that destabilize these hierarchies, such as Fakhr al-Din al-Razi's unique exegesis of the above verses, alongside his psychology, elaborated upon in his theological and philosophical works. Together, the papers demonstrate that dominant interpretations of women's secondary or deficient status are not demanded by the Qurʾānic text, but rather reflect the broader social assumptions of the exegetes, their inherited biblical narratives and Aristotelian philosophy. By foregrounding the nafs as an ontological site of ethical telos, the panel contributes to contemporary debates on gender in Islam from within its classical intellectual history.

Papers:

GENDER AND FAKHR AL-DĪN AL-RĀZĪ'S PSYCHOLOGY: EXEGETICAL AND THEOLOGICAL EXPLORATIONS

Elnory R. (Speaker)

Boston College ~ Boston ~ United States of America
This paper argues that gender hierarchy in Islamic tradition is more meaningfully understood not merely as a matter of social custom or legal doctrine, but as a deeper psychological and ontological formation of the self. Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī, author of the most philosophically sophisticated account of the soul (nafs) in classical Islam, provides a rich resource for theorizing the Islamic self in a way that both exposes and resists gender hierarchy. His exegesis of Qur'ān 4:1 in Mafātīḥ al-Ghayb destabilizes previous exegetical claims of inherent ontological or moral hierarchy between men and women, exposing the interpretative moves through which such hierarchies were introduced in the tradition. His emphasis on intellective self-knowledge (maʿrifat al-nafs) and purification (tazkiyah) allows us to argue that gendered restrictions on agency contradict the soul's telos, and that classical interpretations that limit women's moral autonomy because of a presumed ontological deficiency violate the very metaphysics of the nafs that al-Rāzī articulates. This makes al-Rāzī a compelling figure for rethinking gender within Islam without abandoning the classical intellectual tradition itself.
NAFS WĀḤIDA, CREATION LANGUAGE, AND GENDERED ANTHROPOLOGY IN CLASSICAL TAFSĪR

Baumi D. (Speaker)

University of Birmingham ~ Birmingham ~ United Kingdom
This paper examines Qurʾanic references to the creation of humanity from a nafs wāḥida ("single soul") and traces how classical Muslim exegetes interpreted the concept of the nafs in relation to human origins, gender, and ontology. Although the Qurʾan frequently employs the grammatically feminine term nafs to describe the primordial source of humanity, exegetical tradition overwhelmingly identifies this nafs with Adam and interprets the creation of its "mate" as Eve. Through close linguistic analysis of verses employing khalaqa ("created") and jaʿala ("made/appointed"), and through engagement with exegetical works by figures such as al-Tabari, al-Rāzī and Ibn Kathīr, the paper shows how subtle textual shifts and extra-Qurʾanic traditions—especially the ḥadīth of the "crooked rib"—contributed to hierarchical origin narratives. The paper argues that these readings reflect exegetes' social and theological assumptions more than the Qurʾanic text itself, and proposes alternative interpretations of nafs wāḥida as a universal human essence rather than a specifically male origin.

Panel description: In the crucial half-millennium between the death of the Prophet Muhammad and the First Crusade, an absolutely essential part in the origins of Christian-Muslim relations has been overlooked, namely how the normative regimes of Eastern Christians - including those of Byzantium, the Islamicate world and the space in between - grappled with the rise of Islam. Exploring this history has important implications for our understanding of the development of Christian-Muslim relations in the premodern period, the genesis of Eastern Christian legal regimes and the earlier precedents which Eastern Mediterranean states after the year 1100 might have drawn on in dealing with Islam. This is the focus of NOMOS, an ERC-awarded project, undertaken at the LMU university of Munich under the leadership of Prof. Zachary Chitwood. For the purposes of this project, the Eastern Christian regimes under scrutiny are those of the Byzantine empire, in Greek, and those of Armenian, Coptic, and Syrian Christians (in Armenian, Coptic, and Syrian respectively). By assembling a corpus of "Saracen law" provisions and utilizing cutting-edge, AI- supported technologies to create new editions of legal texts, NOMOS will examine how, within the realm of normative knowledge, the new religion was interpreted, circumscribed and defined and, moreover, how the encounter with Islam itself shaped long-term developments within Eastern Christian legal regimes. The aim of this panel is to present preliminary results of the project (which started in the last months of 2025). At the same time, the panel would welcome any attempt to go beyond the project itself, exploring for instance similar patterns of interaction or similar research approaches in the Christian West.

Papers:

REGULATING DEATH: FORMATION OF INHERITANCE LAWS IN SYRIAC LEGAL TRADITIONS

Jamali N. (Speaker)

Ludwig-Maximilian Universität, München ~ Munchen ~ Germany
This paper presents one of the early outcomes of the NOMOS project, focusing on inheritance law within the Syriac legal traditions. In Syriac Christianity, from the sixth to the eleventh century and beyond, inheritance law constituted one of the two principal areas of concern for jurist-bishops, alongside family law. In the patriarchal culture of the late antique Near East, including Syriac Christianity, legal norms of inheritance and succession served two closely related domestic aims: the transmission of household property to the next generation and the perpetuation of the household head's name, that is, family identity, through offspring. In a period marked by intense intellectual exchange, religious competition, and conversion, these domestic aims assumed broader communal significance. Inheritance law became a mechanism for retaining property within the community and preserving a distinct communal identity across generations. Given the strongly patriarchal framework, this continuity was largely dependent on male lineage; any disruption therefore generated legal and social tension. Three recurrent scenarios in particular provoked such crises: the death of a household head without sons, the conversion of a potential heir to another religion (mainly Zoroastrianism and then Islam), and disputes over a widow's inheritance rights. Against this background, the paper examines the formation of inheritance law in the Syriac legal traditions through an analysis of how Syriac authors responded to these situations in dialogue with Zoroastrian and Islamic legal systems. It draws on selected passages from the Syriac legal corpus, ranging from Simeon of Rewardashir (c. 650) to Yoḥannan bar Abgare (d. 905). These texts, edited with the assistance of AI technology, are analyzed to trace how Syriac inheritance law(s) evolved from a rigid religious to quasi-civil rulings in response to shifting social relations, economic conditions, and religious contestations.
EMERGENCY COUNCILS? ISLAM-RELATED CANONS IN THREE EARLY MEDIEVAL ARMENIAN SYNODS

Alpi F. (Speaker)

Fondazione per le Scienze Religiose, Bologna; Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München (from March 2026) ~ Bologna ~ Italy
This paper re-evaluates a small but significant group of Armenian canon law texts in light of the analytical framework developed by the NOMOS project, which examines the adaptation of Eastern Christian legal regimes to the rise of Islam. It focuses on three synods convened between the Council of Duin (644) and the Council of Partaw (768), a period encompassing the earliest phases of interaction between Christian Armenia and the Islamic world, marked by moments of political instability and crisis. The Council of Duin of 644 introduced specific canonical measures addressing the social and legal disruptions caused by the first Arab incursions into Armenia, particularly in the areas of marriage, inheritance, and church property. More than a century later, the Council of Partaw of 768 was convened against the backdrop of mounting tensions between the Armenian nobility and the newly established Abbasid dynasty. Several of its canons reflect this unstable situation, which would culminate in a major rebellion of the Armenian princes only seven years later. Between these two councils, the Council of Duin of 719—best known for its doctrinal and liturgical regulations under the leadership of Catholicos Yovhannes Awjnecʿi—also contains significant indications of the new Islamic reality, suggesting that even non-crisis synods responded to changing political and religious conditions. By placing these councils in closer dialogue with one another, this contribution focuses in particular on canons concerning "foreigners," a term commonly used in Armenian canonical sources to refer to Muslims. It argues that these synods, whether convened in moments of acute crisis or under longer-term pressure, played a formative role in shaping the Armenian canonical response to Islam.
DEALING WITH THE OTHER IN BYZANTINE LAW: HERETICS, JEWS, PAGANS AND MUSLIMS

Chitwood Z. (Speaker)

LMU Munich ~ Munich ~ Germany
This paper seeks to explore the regulation of the religious "other" in Byzantine Law during the Long Late Antiquity by examining how heretics, Jews, pagans and Muslims were regulated. While analyzing the legal treatment of these first three groups is relatively well-researched and for the most part a straightforward proposition, examining the actual implementation of imperial legislation is more difficult. The regulation of the last of these four groups, Muslims, is even more problematic, because Byzantine law, due to the overriding importance of the Justinianic codification of Late Roman law, was emmeshed in a sixth-century context before the rise of Islam. The terminology used for Muslims in Byzantine legal texts as well as Byzantine literature more broadly was marked by profound variation, so that they were variously classified as Jews, heretics or pagans, but only rarely as an independent group. In this talk both legal texts (civil and canon law) as well as mentions of the legal treatment of non-Orthodox Christians in other sources (hagiography, historiography, etc.) before ca. 1100 will be analyzed to see how Byzantine jurists and secular authorities evaluated and moved between categorizations of the religious other.
PRODUCING AND TRANSMITTING CANONICAL LITERATURE IN COPTIC EGYPT (7TH-11TH CENTURIES)

Bianchi C. (Speaker)

LMU-Ludwig Maximilians Universität ~ München ~ Germany
This paper offers a preliminary investigation into the relationship between Coptic manuscripts transmitting texts of canon law—understood in a broad sense—and the scribal environments in which these manuscripts were produced and circulated in Egypt between the seventh and the eleventh centuries. In addition to strictly normative legal collections, the study also considers texts belonging to the wider category of canonical literature, i.e., works concerned with the organization of Christian life. The aim is to explore the connection between these manuscripts and the places where they were copied and transmitted. Through the examination of codicological features, colophons, scribal notes, and available provenance data, it seeks to identify possible centers involved in the production and circulation of Coptic canonical texts (using also available tools as PAThs database). Particular attention is given to monastic and ecclesiastical milieus that may have functioned as scriptoria for the preservation and dissemination of normative literature. A first mapping of the manuscript evidence allows us to consider whether certain centers played a distinctive role in the transmission of this canonical material. These scribal activities are examined within the broader historical context of Egypt between the seventh and the eleventh centuries, a period that witnessed the transition from Byzantine rule to the Arab conquest and the subsequent centuries of Islamic governance. This political and social transformation profoundly reshaped the conditions in which Coptic Christian communities operated. The paper therefore asks whether the copying and transmission of canonical texts may reflect processes of institutional adaptation, the reorganization of ecclesiastical authority, or strategies aimed at preserving normative traditions in a changing political landscape.

Panel description: This panel starts from the diagnosis that dominant theological frameworks circulating within European academic and ecclesial contexts now operate in a post-imperial condition for which their inherited analytical and normative resources no longer suffice. In the aftermath of the Soviet collapse and amid renewed large-scale war in Europe, theological discourse continues to rely on categories shaped by the Cold War, moral universalism, and abstract invocations of peace. These categories fail to correspond to social realities marked by asymmetrical violence, ideological mobilization, and persistent inequalities of suffering, authority, and moral visibility. They also tend to evade the most difficult questions by stabilizing inherited vocabularies rather than exposing them to critical pressure. The panel therefore proceeds explicitly under the sign of theologies after: theology after empire, after state atheism, after the loss of peace as a self-evident ordering category, and after the presumed moral clarity of late twentieth-century paradigms. The panel is organized around deliberately uncomfortable theological, theoretical, and methodological questions that contemporary theology and the humanities often neglect. How do religious actors operate when peace initiatives are structurally entangled with power, surveillance, and geopolitical asymmetry? How does martyrdom function once it ceases to be a closed chapter of memory and becomes an operative theological grammar ordering visibility, authority, and inequality in the present? How can theology articulate responsibility and guilt under conditions of ongoing war without collapsing into ideological mobilization or moral abstraction?

Papers:

RECONCEPTUALIZING COLD WAR PEACE INITIATIVES: RELIGIOUS ACTORS IN A FIELD OF TRANSNATIONAL INTERCONNECTIONS

Beliakova N. (Speaker)

University of Bielefeld ~ Bielefeld ~ Germany
This paper offers a reconceptualization of Cold War peace initiatives by examining religious actors as participants in complex and asymmetrical fields of transnational interconnections. It challenges the persistent tendency in both Cold War historiography and religion-related scholarship to interpret religious peace engagement either as an autonomous moral alternative to geopolitical conflict or as a purely instrumentalized extension of state propaganda. Instead, the paper argues that peace initiatives constituted a historically specific arena in which religious agency, political constraint, surveillance, and theological language were deeply entangled. The paper turns to peace-related narratives produced in various republics of the Soviet Union during the Cold War and examines the internal logic of religious peace actors operating within the Soviet space. This perspective is informed by a crucial post-Soviet observation: after the collapse of the USSR, peace largely disappeared as a meaningful theological paradigm in the theologies of these contexts, suggesting that Cold War peace engagement cannot be dismissed as merely imposed from above. By reconstructing how peace was articulated, negotiated, and inhabited by religious actors under conditions of repression and control, the paper analyzes peace not as an abstract ideal, but as a historically contingent theological practice shaped by asymmetrical power relations and constrained agency. By foregrounding these asymmetries, the paper raises uncomfortable questions about agency, responsibility, and moral visibility in religious peace work. It suggests that Cold War peace initiatives cannot be adequately understood through moral binaries of authenticity versus manipulation, but must instead be analyzed as contingent religious practices shaped by unequal power relations and competing theological and political expectations.
AFTER PEACE: SUFFERING, GUILT, RESPONSIBILITY, AND THE RETURN OF MARTYRDOM

Tolstoj K. (Speaker)

Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam ~ Amsterdam ~ Netherlands
This paper develops a theological analysis of the present moment in which peace no longer functions as a regulating category for judgment, language, and responsibility. Starting from the observation that, in many European ecclesial contexts, peace has lost its capacity to order theological reflection after the end of the Cold War, the paper examines the consequences of this loss for how suffering, sacrifice, and responsibility are interpreted under conditions of ongoing war. The argument focuses on a structural shift in theological discourse: where peace ceases to orient judgment, suffering itself increasingly acquires moral authority and becomes a privileged carrier of meaning. In this context, martyrdom reappears as a readily available figure through which violence can be rendered intelligible, necessary, or even justified. The paper does not approach martyrdom as a historical category in its own right, but as a symptom of a deeper theological displacement in which relational responsibility gives way to the moral elevation of endurance, sacrifice, and exposure to harm. Drawing on Eastern Christian ontological perspectives and on literary and theological reflections on shared responsibility, the paper analyzes how contemporary ecclesial language responds to war when traditional criteria for peace are absent or weakened. It shows how theological critique risks remaining reactive or moralizing when it lacks a framework capable of disciplining claims grounded in suffering of Christ. Against this background, the paper articulates an account of responsibility that refuses to treat suffering as moral evidence and questions the conversion of violence into theological legitimacy. In dialogue with the other two papers of historical analyses of peace and with reflections on the resurgence of martyr rhetoric, it positions theologies after as a mode of inquiry attentive to loss, rupture, and the unresolved burdens that shape contemporary theological language.
EARLY MODERN CRITERIA FOR MARTYRDOM AND THEIR CONTEMPORARY REUSE

Van Veen M. (Speaker)

Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam ~ Amsterdam ~ Netherlands
The paper approaches the contemporary resurgence of martyrdom from an early modern theological perspective. Drawing on historical debates over true and false martyrdom, her contribution examines how early modern theology developed criteria to discipline claims to martyr status and to prevent the abuse of martyr rhetoric. By bringing these historical frameworks into conversation with modern and contemporary claims to martyrdom, her paper opens a critical space for theological reflection on the return of martyr language under present conditions of political violence.
FIELDWORK IN ORTHODOX RELIGIOUS COMMUNITIES IN TIMES OF RADICALIZATION

Timofeeva Z. (Speaker)

Muenster University ~ Muenster ~ Germany
The paper focuses on the everyday religious practices and perspectives of Ukrainian Orthodox migrant communities in Germany, tracing silences and omissions in dominant theological frameworks. It suggests that attention to this empirical material may contribute to a more balanced theological outlook in contexts of radicalization.

Panel description: The panel illuminates how religions and religious discourses evolved during times of transformations, with a specific context on illiberal political frameworks. Across diverse contexts—from Early Islamic to the late Soviet—the papers examine religion not as a static institution but as a dynamic field of negotiation, adaptation, and contestation. Our contributors analyze order-based networks and repertoires of action and representation in short- and long-term historical perspectives. Some look at specific regions within the longue durée framework—for example, the North Caucasus across Tsarist and Soviet state-building projects. Others interrogate short-term church-state bargains as they were shaped by shifts in religious politics and by the context of transregional and global reconfigurations—such as the case of Russian Orthodoxy producing discourses of exclusion in ecumenical and Cold War contexts. We explore intellectual exchange and engagement among different communities—including ethnic, gender, and others—with religious texts and traditions, as seen in studies of Qur'an translations and women's learning circles during 'perestroika,' or of religious debates in Early Islamic Greater Khurasan, where theology, law, and politics intersected amid changing regimes. What were the moral and "material" costs of institutional survival? How did interconnected yet distinct contexts and practices reshape religious authority? Taken together, the panel argues that periods of political transformation generate not only constraints on religious life but also new spaces for mediation, and the re-articulation of authority. By examining gendered practices, courtly debates, institutional compromises, the contributions reveal how the religious field becomes deeply interwoven with social and political transformations, offering a comparative perspective on religion's capacity for resilience and adaptation in times of upheaval.

Papers:

COURTS OF DEBATE: RELIGIOUS DISCOURSE DURING POLITICAL TRANSFORMATION IN EARLY ISLAMIC GREATER KHURASAN

Ghasemi E. (Speaker)

UniMore (DREST) ~ Palermo ~ Italy
This paper examines religious discourse during political transformation in Early Islamic Greater Khurasan, with a particular focus on the Tahirid and Samanid periods. The region, historically positioned along the Silk Road, had long been characterized by intellectual openness and pluralism, accommodating diverse religious communities—including those, such as the Manichaeans, who faced persecution elsewhere in Iran—within a framework of largely peaceful coexistence. While the early Umayyad and Abbasid administrations established political control over the region, the courts and local elites continued to serve as spaces of debate, negotiation, and the circulation of ideas. Under the Samanids, in particular, courtly settings became hubs for intellectual exchange, hosting theologians, jurists, and preachers engaged in rigorous discussions on religious law, doctrine, and ethics. Central to this study is the manuscript ʿUyūn al-Majālis wa Surūr al-Dāris by Muḥammad ibn Ṭāhir al-Bukhārī (d. 406 AH). Analysis illuminates the ways in which religious discourse functioned as both a response to political transformations and a tool for negotiating authority and legitimacy. The content of the manuscript reveals the complex interactions among scholarly factions, doctrinal debates, and the broader intellectual culture, demonstrating that theoretical and practical concerns were intertwined. By highlighting Greater Khurasan's pre-Islamic and early Islamic traditions of intellectual openness, courtly debate, and manuscript culture, this paper emphasizes the region's role in shaping the discourse of religious authority. It argues that these historical dynamics provide a nuanced perspective on how religious ideas were mobilized, contested, and institutionalized, offering insight into the enduring relationship between power and piety. Key Words: Religious Discourse; Political Transformation; Early Islamic Greater Khurasan; Courtly Intellectual Life; Manuscript Evidence
LEARNING THE QUR'AN IN A TIME OF REFORM: WOMEN, TRANSLATIONS, AND ISLAMIC REVIVAL IN THE LATE SOVIET CENTRAL ASIA

Ataeva G. (Speaker)

Central European University ~ Vienna ~ Austria
This paper examines the religious revivalist movements in the late Soviet Central Asia within the context of political and social changes brought forth by perestroika. It focusses on women's Islamic learning groups and Qur'an translations as related activities that broadened religious knowledge outside of formal institutions, albeit in dialogue with them. Women's study groups were important venues for education, interpretation, and transmission, and first modern translations of Qur'an made new forms of access possible as state limitations on religion loosened. In particular, among women who had been mainly shut out of formal religious instruction, these behaviours collectively changed religious authority and daily piety. The study claims that religious revivalist movements evolved through the opportunities offered by perestroika, connecting state-level reforms to grassroots religious participation by placing women's learning groups and Qur'an translations inside the dynamics of political reform. These dynamics complicate the traditional approaches to studying Islam in modern Central Asia as oppressed to the point of extinction, as the new dynamics were built on Soviet formal and informal Islamic practices and pedagogies.
"THE ONLY TRUE CHURCH": THE MOSCOW PATRIARCHATE AND GENEVA ECUMENICAL INITIATIVES (FROM CONFRONTATION TO RAPPROCHEMENT)

Murastova K. (Speaker)

Central European University ~ Vienna ~ Austria
The research examines how representatives of higher ecclesiastical circles and clerically educated intellectuals reconciled Russian Orthodox church (ROC) as "the only true catholic and apostolic church" amid transnational contexts of early Cold War confrontation and ecumenical debates, the issue of schisms, and shifts in Soviet religious politics. What role did key intermediaries and transformations of their agency play in the self-repositioning of Russian Orthodoxy within the debates on Peace and Unity? How did the balance between different discourses change in the Russian Orthodox public representations of the 'West' and ecumenical conflict? These questions are addressed in the paper through biographical and institutional analysis of texts published in the Journal of the Moscow Patriarchate and archival correspondence of the World Council of Churches in Geneva (1947-1961). I argue that the interests of the state and the church in positioning Russian and Soviet exclusion and mission in the postwar order initially intersected. Among the outcomes of the church-state rapprochment were the criticism and condemnation of global ecumenical initiatives (1947-1949) by the ROC, and the attempts of its representatives to shape the alternative projects of 'peace' and 'unity.' However, those transformations that happened to the delegated agency, legitimacy, and authority of the religious actors under Khrushchev's anti-religious politics (the late 1950s and early 1960s), forced church actors to reconsider their relationships with ecumenists and their visions of unity of "Christians of West and East." Being pushed out of the decision-making granted to them by the state, they attempted to reconfigure their position within ecumenical debates in order to reinforce their symbolic capital. Key words: Ecumenical debates, Russian orthodoxy, Soviet history, Church history, Stalinism, Church Intermediaries, World Council of Churches, Cold War, Peace projects, Soviet religious politics
SUFISM DURING POLITICAL TRANSFORMATIONS: ADAPTATIONS AND RESISTANCE OF SUFI TRADITIONS IN PREMODERN RUSSIA

Shahsavari M. (Speaker)

University of Toronto ~ Toronto ~ Canada
This article analyzes how Sufi order-based networks in the North Caucasus—especially Naqshbandiyya and Qadiriyya—recalibrated their repertoires of action across two successive state-building projects: Tsarist imperial expansion and Bolshevik rule. Drawing on Bourdieu's concepts of field and symbolic capital, Gramscian cultural hegemony, and Foucauldian power as dispersed practice, the study treats Sufism less as a centralized "organization" than as a dynamic socio-religious infrastructure embedded in local moral economies. In the late Tsarist period, Sufi authority could be converted into mobilizational capital, enabling episodic confrontation with imperial rule; following the defeat of armed resistance, however, strategies diversified under conditions of surveillance, co-optation, and intermittent repression, with many actors shifting toward community ethics, pedagogy, and cultural mediation—a pragmatic war of position rather than a stable "coexistence." The Soviet period introduced a more radical challenge, particularly during phases of intensified anti-religious policy, when public religious authority became precarious. In response, Sufi networks increasingly relied on informal circulation: oral transmission, household ritual, and kin-based discipleship, sustaining a covert sphere of everyday religious practice that both accommodated and subtly contested hegemonic claims. The article argues that Sufism's resilience lay in its capacity to re-embed authority at the grassroots, preserving ritual practice, ethical norms, and communal cohesion within private and semi-private domains, even as its public forms were periodically constrained. The study reframes North Caucasian Sufism as an adaptive nexus of religious authority and cultural mediation whose durability depended on the strategic reproduction of symbolic capital under changing regimes.
THE USURY DILEMMA - TRADE AND TRUST IN CREDIT AND USURY IN "IL NEGOTIANTE" BY GIO. DOMENICO PERI

Angelucci G. (Speaker)

LUMSA ~ Roma ~ Italy
This paper asks how Gio. Domenico Peri's textbook Il Negotiante (1638-1665) reconciles Counter Reformation prohibitions on usury with the practical necessities of merchants for long distance trade, and what this reveal about continuities between Franciscan economic thought and contemporary business ethics discussion. Methodologically, it offers a narrative review and close reading of all four volumes of Il Negotiante, situating Peri within civil humanism, scholastic casuistry on usury, and the accounting tradition. The analysis shows how Peri domesticates credit and finance by reclassifying interest as compensation for identifiable services - risk bearing, delay, information, and intermediation - while condemning exploitative "usury." He translates theological tests into firm level bookkeeping, contract design, and institutional practices (exchange fairs, bills of exchange), making the ledger a site of moral discernment. The study argues that Peri's managerial casuistry bridges Franciscan concerns for reciprocity and charity with Pacioli inspired arithmetic pedagogy, offering a model of humanistic management where technical accounting and ethical judgment co-construct legitimate commerce. This perspective contributes to trace a Franciscan inflected lineage to early modern practices that negotiated faith, profit, and public trust.

Panel description: Throughout history, minority and marginalized religious communities have frequently faced constraints on the visibility of their places of worship and the public performance of their rituals. Construction of such structures was often restricted or religious practice forbidden, compelling communities to operate covertly and limiting integration of their religious spaces into the built environment and public sphere. Some chose inward religious practice, whether from fear of persecution or spiritual conviction. Consequently, these "clandestine" or "hidden" minority religious spaces remain largely unrecognized, invisible, or destroyed. Financial constraints, situational demands, and the need for discretion further fostered ephemeral or temporary structures, including occasional use of buildings belonging to other religions. Beyond historical factors contributing to their invisibility, scholarship has often overlooked the centrality of such religious spaces to their communities. This oversight can be attributed to several factors, including the paucity of sources and surviving sites, as well as a scholarly preference for spaces deemed noteworthy—historically or artistically. This panel aims to address this historiographical gap by examining inconspicuous, clandestine, ephemeral, or temporary places of worship of minority and marginalized religious communities across Europe and the Mediterranean from the Middle Ages to the 20th century. While such spaces have been studied for particular religious communities, the objective is to foster dialogue from an interreligious historical perspective to identify common threads, underlying concepts, and contextual factors. Through this inclusive lens, the panel aims to understand the diverse strategies employed by minority and marginalized communities in navigating their specific cultural, political, and social environments.

Papers:

HIDDEN, MOBILE, AND (UN)DOCUMENTED: ALEVI RELIGIOUS SPACES IN THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE

Erol U. (Speaker)

IEG ~ mainz ~ Germany
This paper examines the emergence of invisible or inconspicuous religious spaces within the shifting religio-political landscape of early modern Anatolia. As the Ottoman state expanded in the eastern Mediterranean in the late medieval and early modern periods, it faced new administrative realities and tensions with various populations. In this context, the paper specifically focuses on the religious spaces of the Alevis, who have constituted a Twelver-Imamate Sufi group until today. Their belief Alevism was marginalized and often deemed as heresy in the Ottoman Empire. The early modern period saw a long series of conflicts between Alevi communities and the Ottoman state in central and eastern Anatolia. As one of the communities situated on the margins of emerging imperial norms, the Alevis frequently adopted discreet, temporary, or mobile ritual spaces. Such environments, shaped by political pressures and shifting categories of orthodoxy, often remained undocumented or deliberately obscured. This paper analyses Ottoman archival documents along with written family and material sources to demonstrate how Alevi religious spaces were (un)documented and/or obscured depending on the relationships between the Ottoman imperial state and local Alevi communities. The paper comparatively examines these historical sources to show the dynamic nature of the visibility and invisibility of Alevi religious spaces in early modern Anatolia.
SUSTAINING AND ALEVIZING THE KARACAAHMET SHRINE IN ISTANBUL

Dinc G. (Speaker)

Utrecht University ~ Utrecht ~ Netherlands
As part of the broader secularizing policies of the early Turkish Republic, Law 677 closed all Sufi lodges in Turkey on 30 November 1925. While 127 lodges in Istanbul were formally secularized and transferred to the state as museums, nearly all were subsequently abandoned, looted, or destroyed until the 1990s due to the lack of state funding. One notable exception was the shrine of the fourteenth-century saint Karacaahmet in Üsküdar, Istanbul. Karacaahmet was widely known as a healer, particularly associated with mental illnesses, and multiple shrines are attributed to him across Anatolia and the Balkans. The Üsküdar shrine is distinctive both for its location within Istanbul's oldest and largest cemetery and for housing an additional shrine dedicated to Karacaahmet's horse. Built in 1539 by Gülfem Hatun, the complex never functioned as an institutional Bektashi lodge (tekke). As a result, it remained officially classified as a museum by the secular state, while simultaneously constituting an invisible religious space in terms of Alevi identity and practice. This paper examines how Alevi actors sustained, reclaimed, and gradually Alevized the shrine from the mid-1940s onward. Drawing on previously unexamined internal archives of the Istanbul Museum Directorate of Shrines—closed to public access—it traces how individual Alevi initiatives of maintenance and caretaking evolved into institutionalized collective action with the establishment of one of the first Alevi associations of the Republic in 1969. Through close cooperation with the Istanbul Museum Directorate of Shrines, these actors were able not only to preserve the shrine but also to construct a cemevi on the site in 1990 and to protect it from later interventions by Islamist municipal authorities under Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. By foregrounding Karacaahmet as an inconspicuous yet sustained place of worship, this paper contributes to the study of invisible religious spaces.
TRANSGRESSING BORDERS OF VISIBILITY. THE DISPLAY OF VODU IN GHANA AND GERMANY

Wolf N. (Speaker)

Ludwig-Maximilians-University ~ München ~ Germany
To Vodu there is more than the eye can see. The spiritual practice originated in West Africa, its knowledge, visuals and material manifestations were first violently globalized via the Middle Passage and adjusted in diasporic spaces according to local needs and restrictions. Its protagonists in tangible as well as their intangible forms are called Vodu, they usually perform in the architectural setting of a shrine. With colonization, globalization, and relocation they have been and are put on display and published in the literal sense of the word in the Global North. Tied to European discourses around the capabilities of images, visual representations of Vodu emerged in ethnographic writing. First as mere line drawings, they were soon painted in the colors of imagination of their Western authors. With a general focus on newer photographic techniques in art, ethnography, and museum studies, Africa's material culture has been put in front of Western lenses in the first half of the 20th century and on display in museum exhibitions. Vodu and their visuals are strongly and interdependently connected. In form of educative paintings on a shrine's walls they encounter a wider audience, while their temporal materializations in clay or human form are more conscious when it comes to visibility. Relocated to Western spaces of display where they are held captive, they forcefully encounter an audience which is usually not at all initiated into their practices or aware of their needs at all. This talk will look at some of the connections and differences when it comes to semi-public as well as public places of Vodu's display in Ghana and Germany. Introducing to the visuals used at the Mamishie Rasta shrine as well as Hunua Adoglo's shrine (both Volta region, Ghana), their restrictions and conscious use of different levels of visibility there, comparisons to German museums (Soul of Africa, Essen) and exhibitions („Voodoo", Hildesheim) will be made.

Panel description: In the face of crises and experiences of oppression, religious traditions have developed different narratives of liberation. Amidst the current changes and in view of global interconnections, these narratives are being expanded, adapted and transformed. Where different religious traditions coexist in specific places, the resonance and intersecting spaces of different religions lead to the acceptance, but also the rejection, of narratives of liberation. In doing so, narratives of liberation articulate a specific way of dealing with experiences of powerlessness, injustice and violence, thus opening up concrete perspectives on the understanding of justice, productive resistance and peace. Nevertheless, liberation narratives are not as politicisable as perhaps narratives of justice or peace: they encompass the relationship between the individual and the community and also draw attention to forms of violence; they address the field of responsibility towards the self, the collective, but also society and the global community. Spaces between indicate that there are not only areas of differences and similarities between religions, but also hybrid border areas. Resonances draw attention to the fact that there are vibrations within and between individuals who deal with religion, but who also live religion. If one reads the approach in terms of practical theory, then resonances would be comparable to the affordances of things that produce spaces between. Resonances as vibrations also indicate that responsibilities and moods (can) change even in individuals who feel, live and deal with religion. Interstices and narratives thus help to answer the question of how a narrative, or more specifically a narrative of liberation, works.

Papers:

INTERRELIGIOUS NARRATIVES OF FREEDOM IN DEALING WITH CONCEPTIONS OF GOD AS RELATIONSHIPS WITH GOD

Roggenkamp A. (Speaker)

University of Münster, Faculty of Protestant Theology ~ Münster ~ Germany
The lecture deals with Christian and Muslim pupils' conceptions of images of God in a broader sense. Before and after a longer unit on the topic of images and concepts of God, interreligious learning groups were asked to select photographs from a pool that they found interesting or relevant to their ideas about God. They were also asked about concepts of God that they found less suitable or even rejected. A similar procedure was carried out after the 8-week unit. It becomes apparent that the pupils have difficulties with anthropomorphic and concrete representations of God prior to the unit; in particular, the majority of them refuse to engage with comic drawings (including Homer Simpson's dialogues with God). In some cases, this is done with explicit reference to the prohibition of images in religions (). After the unit, they not only deal more freely with their own ideas about God, but also proactively bring the Simpsons into the conversation about ideas of God as relationships with God. It becomes clear that engaging with third-party ideas about God obviously contributes to a more liberal approach to the prohibition of images, but can also open up ideas of God as relationships with God. Could it be that the Simpsons in particular take on a mirror function for theology and thus 'become an impetus to reflect on the foundations of [...] faith in the course of time and its signs' (Johannes Heger/Thomas Jürgasch/Milad Karimi, 16)? Lit.: Johannes Heger/Thomas Jürgasch/Milad Karimi (eds.), Religion? Ay Caramba!: Theology and Religion from the World of The Simpsons, Freiburg: Herder 2017.
LIBERATION NARRATIVES IN INTERRELIGIOUS DIALOGUE: ASSESSING THE ROLE OF THEOLOGY AND AGENCY

Sinn S. (Speaker)

University of Münster, Faculty of Protestant Theology ~ Münster ~ Germany
Interreligious dialogue is usually described as a field that can and should serve peace and thus contribute to social cohesion. It is geared toward building bridges, creating understanding, and enabling trust. Thus it promises to prevent or resolve conflicts and have an integrating effect. However, some interfaith pioneers in Asia have insisted that interfaith relations must not sacrifice liberation for the sake of peace. Liberation discourse has been key in unmasking, naming and overcoming various forms of injustices. This paper reconstructs this discourse in the interreligious field and discusses in which way the ecumenical movement has been part of the discourse. Particular emphasis will be given to the connection between the contextual focus of liberation discourse, and global entanglements. Furthermore, the paper reconstructs how women's initiatives in the interreligious field contribute to liberation narratives, locally and beyond. The paper asks how and for whom the praxis of interreligious dialogue has become liberative. The paper proposes und explores the thesis that one key element in the discourse is how "agency" is constructed theologically, and how "agency" is re-configured in interreligious dialogue settings, practically and theologically.
LIBERATION NARRATIVES IN INTERRELIGIOUS DIALOGUE: INTERSPACE AND TEACHING

Yagdi S. (Speaker)

University of Vienna, Faculty of Islamic Theology ~ Vienna ~ Austria
The accelerating social transformation processes are changing the framework conditions for dealing with religion. Religious learning no longer appears to be a matter of course. Religious education must take a new approach to the social demands of the migration society. There is a growing number of voices in favour of an expanded, positionally sensitive, joint RE for members of different denominations and religions. In doing so, teaching in a co-operative way with different religions encounters specific difficulties arising from stereotypes and prejudices. Corresponding exclusion mechanisms have been proven for members of majority religions; they are discussed for members of religion(s) in a minority situation (Gmoser 2023; Kolb/Juen 2021). So far, there has been no discussion of whether or to what extent religion-cooperative teaching can develop inclusion strategies. This article asks empirically whether and to what extent lessons in which members of different religions are taught both together and separately contribute to overcoming mutual prejudices.

Panel description: Recent explorations of catholicity (kath'holou: 'according to/towards the whole') emphasise its coordination of parts and whole, finites and infinite, particulars and universal. Whatever the 'whole' catholicity aspires to actually is, it is thought to include all creaturely particulars. As de Lubac insisted: 'nothing is excluded', or as Maritain put it 'catholicity…embraces everything that is real'. In this view of catholicity, finite particulars somehow relate to and express the whole. Analogously, music seems to coordinate parts and whole, finite and infinite. Pieces of music point to wholes which are not reducible to the sum of their parts. Whether as absolute form or expressing meaning or emotion, music conjugates variety or difference with unity. As Stravinsky emphasised, music needs both difference and similarity: 'Contrast is an element of variety, but it divides our attention. Similarity is born of a striving for unity. The need to seek variety is perfectly legitimate, but we should not forget that the One precedes the Many. Moreover, the coexistence of the two is constantly necessary, and all the problems of art...revolve ineluctably about this question, with Parmenides on one side denying the possibility of the Many, and Heraclitus on the other denying the existence of the One.' This coordination of endless variety and holistic unity gives music its immediacy and power, for von Balthasar. But he also thinks that the whole or unity which music expresses, or aspires to, is Godself, and this is linked to music's endless variety and asymptotic aspirations to that ultimate unity. That's why, for von Balthasar, music also has a tragic or incomplete nature: its repetitions are always pointing to more, to an ever-greater whole. This panel seeks papers considering relations between catholicity and music. These could reflect on von Balthasar's 1925 essay 'The Development of the Musical Idea: Attempt at a Synthesis of Music', or other suitable resources.

Papers:

CATHOLICITY BETWEEN MUSIC AND BIOGRAPHY: THE DEVELOPMENT OF A THEOLOGIAN

Heaney Vdmf M.L. (Speaker)

Australian Catholic University ~ Brisbane ~ Australia
A dynamic exploration of catholicity in its tending towards wholeness evokes a variety of dimensions held in both-and tension. Two interrelated ones which the reality of musicking (music in its composition, performance and enjoyment) is particularly apt to help us explore is the material-spiritual nature of human life and thought over the course of our human story or biography. This paper will explore this through the lens of Hans Urs von Balthasar's complex relationship with music as it expresses itself (or not) in his thought. From 'The Development of the Musical Idea: Attempt at a Synthesis of Music' to Tribute to Mozart through "Truth Is Symphonic: Aspects of Christian Pluralism" the paper proposes that a biographical attention to the whole of Balthasar's life through the lens of these punctuated writings on music has insights to offer about the rest of his opera, in both the gifts and conundrums of his heritage and influence in Catholic theology and doctrine. Balthasar's symbolisation and theologisation of gender roles is one of these aspects. Music's universally concrete materiality has a central role to play in contemporary theology if we attend to its particular semiotic and symbolic form.
THEOLOGY AND MUSICAL SPACE: ARNOLD SCHOENBERG, COLIN GUNTON, AND JEREMY BEGBIE AND THE CONCEPTION OF UNITY

Stearns C. (Speaker)

The Seattle School of Theology & Psychology ~ Seattle ~ United States of America
This paper explores the intricate relationship between unity, totality, and the musical idea in Arnold Schoenberg's compositional philosophy, situating these concepts within a broader theological framework. Schoenberg's writings emphasize that the 'totality' or 'whole' of a musical piece is synonymous with its core idea, arguing that true compositional unity arises only through the proper presentation of this idea. In Schoenberg's view, every compositional technique must serve the expression of the creator's idea, with the parts of a composition ultimately subjugated to the whole. This approach establishes a platform for dissecting unity within musical space, prompting a critical examination of how unity is conceived and achieved in music. The paper then extends this analysis by engaging with contemporary musicology and constructive theology, comparing Schoenberg's model of musical space with that of theologians Colin Gunton and Jeremy Begbie. While Schoenberg's conception is rooted in the metaphysical dimensions of the musical idea, Gunton and Begbie's models draw from trinitarian theology, specifically the concept of perichoresis—the dynamic, non-competitive, and mutually constitutive interrelational space of God's being. Through this comparison, the paper highlights how each thinker regards music as a fundamentally relational space, yet their respective philosophies/theologies of unity diverge significantly. Schoenberg's unity is hierarchical and totalizing, whereas Gunton and Begbie's are dynamic, mutually animating, and mutually constitutive. By placing Schoenberg's philosophy in dialogue with trinitarian thought, the paper aims to critique and reconstruct the notion of unity in musical space, demonstrating how theology can enrich musicological discourse and vice versa. Ultimately, this interdisciplinary approach seeks to foster new ways of understanding unity, benefiting both the philosophy of music and constructive theology.

Panel description: Catholic women who devoted themselves to education played a crucial role in the cultural, social, and religious formation of generations of children, young people, and adults, making a decisive contribution to the construction of both formal and informal educational systems between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. This contribution aims to explore the plurality of these experiences - religious women, consecrated laywomen, educators, pedagogues, school principals, and missionaries - highlighting both their agency and the institutional, theological, and gender constraints within which they operated. Drawing on a historical and interdisciplinary approach that combines Church history, history of education, gender studies, and cultural studies, the open panel proposes to analyze how these women developed original pedagogical practices, often in critical dialogue with male educational models and with the transformations of modernity. Particular attention will be paid to the religious and civic networks in which they acted, to the educational languages they employed, and to the ways in which their work contributed to redefining the relationship between Catholicism, society, and education.

Papers:

THE REBIRTH OF MONTESSORI THOUGHT BETWEEN PEDAGOGY, CATHOLICISM, AND CULTURAL RENEWAL: THE CENTRO NASCITA AND ELENA GIANINI BELOTTI IN THE 1960S

Roghi V. (Speaker)

Università di Roma LUMSA ~ Rome ~ Italy
The paper will analyze how the work of Elena Gianini Belotti stood at the crossroads of pedagogical renewal, demands for women's emancipation, and Catholic culture, contributing to a recovery of the Montessori Method that had largely disappeared from pedagogical debates in the 1950s.
BARBIANA BEYOND BARBIANA: THE PEDAGOGICAL EXPERIENCE OF ADELE CORRADI

Ruozzi F. (Speaker)

University of Modena and Reggio Emilia/Fscire ~ Reggio Emilia/Bologna ~ Italy
The contribution examines the figure of Adele Corradi (1924-2024) as a teacher committed to an emancipatory pedagogy developed in the wake of the experience of the Barbiana school and the teaching of Don Lorenzo Milani. Through an analysis of her educational practices, her writings, and the school contexts in which she worked, the paper reconstructs how Corradi translated Milani's principles of educational justice, civic responsibility, and the centrality of the marginalized into concrete pedagogical action. Drawing on archival sources, testimonies, and comparative analysis with other contemporary educational experiences, the paper seeks to reconstruct the still under-studied figure of Adele Corradi and the contribution she made both within Milani's school and, after his death, in public schools in Italy and abroad.
MADDALENA MORANO

Loparco G. (Speaker)

Pontificia Facoltà di Scienze dell'Educazione Auxilium ~ Roma ~ Vatican City State (Holy See)
Maddalena Morano (Chieri, Piedmont, November 15, 1847 - Catania, Sicily, March 26, 1908) was a teacher before joining the Institute of the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians, founded in 1872 by St. John Bosco. In 1881, she was sent to Sicily, a region then perceived as profoundly distant from Piedmont. In a context marked by severe backwardness, particularly with regard to the condition of women in the working classes, Morano was able to adapt the Salesian educational experience to local needs. She founded nineteen communities. Overcoming mistrust and prejudice, she promoted female education by opening elementary schools, as well as boarding schools and dormitories, which were essential for overcoming transportation difficulties and allowing students living away from home to attend public schools. This laid the foundations for young women's access to social life and forms of paid work. Festive oratories also played a significant role, offering for the first time, especially to girls, a recognized space for socialization and leisure, with new associations and interests. An educational style based on simplicity and respect and the care taken over the environment contributed to developing in the girls, alongside their education, a growing awareness of themselves, their dignity, and their responsibilities, in contrast to widespread attitudes of fatalism. Between the late 19th and early 20th centuries, thousands of young people, not only glimpsed concrete possibilities for change, but became active agents of transformation. Mother Morano, thanks to her strong character and her practical love of education, gave a decisive impetus to the promotion of a female education aimed at forming "good Christians and honest citizens" capable of responding to new needs. At the same time, she contributed to renewing the model of female religious life, stimulating the local clergy in pastoral action and establishing catechism schools, which had been virtually absent until then.
CATHOLIC SCOUTING, COEDUCATION, AND THE LEGACY OF A SCOUT PEDAGOGY FOR GIRLS (1974-1985)

Schirripa V. (Speaker)

università LUMSA ~ Roma ~ Italy
The Associazione Guide Italiane (AGI), the Italian Catholic girls' scouting association, was founded in 1943, almost thirty years after its male counterpart, the Associazione Scout Cattolici Italiani (ASCI, 1916). Until 1974 - when the merger with ASCI formed the Associazione Guide e Scout Cattolici Italiani (AGESCI) - AGI remained smaller in membership and, from the 1960s onward, was increasingly defined by a far-reaching reappraisal of the Scout method and of the association's own institutional traditions. This drive was linked both to reflections on "female specificity" within the Scout proposal and to the forms of socio-political engagement adopted by the association. The birth of the new unified association under the banner of coeducation contributed, in some respects, to diluting the most innovative developments that emerged within AGI inside a larger and more complex associative body, cooling the ferment that had animated its leadership in the wake of 1968. While a demographic boom in scouting was closing the quantitative gap between girls and boys, the incorporation of AGI's legacy posed significant methodological and cultural challenges. The paper proposes, as a case study, the process that led to the adoption of two distinct symbolic frameworks for the 8-11 age group. At the end of a decade of experimentation, AGESCI largely confirmed male or mixed packs of lupetti (Wolf Cubs), based on Kipling's Jungle Book, while preserving all-female coccinelle (Ladybirds) circles. This latter option, inherited from AGI, was supported by a handbook titled Sette punti neri (Seven Black Dots), explicitly constructed to mirror the playful experience of the Wood environment. This trajectory captures an intense phase of pedagogical debate within Catholic scouting, as the 1970s fostered a fusion of educational work and political commitment, occurring alongside the growth and institutionalization of youth associational life in late twentieth-century Italy.
ANTONIETTA GIACOMELLI: RELIGIOUS RENEWAL AND THE EDUCATION OF CATHOLIC WOMEN

Cadeddu F. (Speaker)

Fondazione per le scienze religiose ~ Bologna ~ Italy
Antonietta Giacomelli (1857-1949) was a prominent figure in Italian Catholicism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, whose literary and social work originally intertwined religious renewal with the promotion of education for Catholic women. Born into a wealthy family with roots in the Risorgimento and a cultural orientation open to modern demands, her early literary output (mainly educational novels), was intended as a tool for civic as well as religious education: through narratives aimed primarily at young women and adolescents, Giacomelli proposed models of active women, capable of social commitment and independent religious reflection. These works were characterized by a constant pedagogical tension and a desire to promote Christian social commitment attentive to issues such as economic justice and the condition of workers. During his stay in Rome, from 1893 to 1898, Giacomelli came into contact with circles of religious and cultural renewal in the city and contributed to the founding of the Unione per il bene, an association that carried out charitable activities and was characterized by a secular and strictly non-denominational approach. Upon her return to northern Italy, her editorial and pedagogical activity focused on the dissemination of religious texts intended for female audiences, with the aim of bringing religious practice closer to biblical and liturgical sciences. However, these initiatives met with resistance from the ecclesiastical authorities, culminating in the condemnation of the work Adveniat Regnum Tuum (a collection of prayers, pious reflections, sacred hymns, and invocations combined with translations of biblical passages) and its inclusion in the Index in 1913, until its subsequent rehabilitation in 1942. This paper aims to present Giacomelli and some of her most significant works, with the goal of outlining the pedagogy she expresses and the role she envisions for Catholic women in the religious and civil life of liberal Italy.
RELIGIOUS EDUCATION AND THE SPIRITUAL TRAINING OF TEACHERS IN MARIA MONTESSORI: SOME ELEMENTS FOR REFLECTION

Gabusi D.L. (Speaker)

University of Verona ~ Verona ~ Italy
This presentation aims to focus on Montessori's approach to religious education, with particular attention to the spiritual formation of teachers ("a synthesis of the scientist and the mystic") and to "educational sins". Drawing on some of Maria Montessori's writings and experiences inspired by the method, the presentation will explore the relationship between the development of a scientific pedagogy on the one hand and the spiritual and religious vision on the other; it will also examine the importance of "means of psychic development" as the basis for inner development and the spiritual growth of the child.

Panel description: This open panel explores how Protestant traditions can offer theological resources to name, resist, and heal contemporary (in)equalities. The panel will invite critical and constructive engagement with key loci, such as creation and the imago Dei, sin and structural evil, justification and dignity, sanctification and social holiness, vocation and labor, the diaconate and mercy, the protection of the vulnerable, and eschatological hope as a horizon for public witness. The conversation will be intentionally hospitable to a range of Protestant perspectives. We welcome papers that retrieve historical Protestant figures, classical Protestant sources, engage global and minoritized Protestant voices, or test Protestant moral claims in concrete contexts such as migration, poverty, war, disability, education, and incarceration.

Papers:

SOCIO-SYSTEMIC SIN AND THE CONCEPTUALIZATION OF ABRAHAM KUYPER, RENÉ PADILLA, AND TIM KELLER

Ibrahim D. (Speaker)

Theological University Utrecht ~ Utrecht ~ Netherlands
The essay reconstructs the Evangelical development of socio-systemic sin, showing how evil does not remain confined to interior life but tends to solidify into collective practices, cultural traditions, and institutional structures. In critical dialogue with the liberal Social Gospel and liberation theology, the author argues that a Reformed perspective can acknowledge structural injustice without losing the primacy of personal guilt before God or the centrality of redemption in Christ. Kuyper clarifies the disorder of societal spheres and the role of antithesis and common grace; Padilla defines the "world" as an idolatrous system and grounds misión integral; Keller describes the movement from heart-idolatry to social liturgies, explaining levels and limits of corporate responsibility. Christ's grace produces personal repentance and public reformation without eschatological confusion. The result is a synthesis that denounces idols and oppressions, promotes sanctification and reforming action, distinguishes the penultimate from the ultimate, and invites confession and cooperation for the common good.
UNEQUAL SUFFERING AND DIVINE PROVIDENCE: ASSESSING RICHARD SWINBURNE'S THEODICY OF LOCATION-BASED EVIL

Meregaglia C. (Speaker)

Facoltà di teologia di Lugano ~ Lugano ~ Italy
This paper analyzes Richard Swinburne's theodicy with special attention to the uneven distribution of suffering—why people, often shaped by birthplace or location, endure far more (or less) harm than others. Building on Swinburne's greater-good framework, it examines how appeals to libertarian freedom, the regularity of natural laws, and the moral value of opportunities for compassion and responsible action aim to make not only suffering itself but also its geographical and social asymmetries intelligible within divine providence. Methodologically, it offers close textual analysis of key works alongside contemporary philosophical critiques of distributive justice and structural harm. The goal is to clarify the explanatory limits of Swinburne's account and propose criteria for a theodicy adequate to systemic, unequal evil.
HERMAN BAVINCK ON SOCIAL INEQUALITIES

Harinck G. (Speaker)

Theological University Utrecht ~ Utrecht ~ Netherlands
Herman Bavinck's (1854-1921) public role as a theologian implied involvement in public debates on education, suffrage, feminism, and the rights of the working man. He was asked to lecture at the first Social Congress in 1891 on the implications of the Mosaic law for present-day social issues, like poverty and landownership. This congress meant to keep a group of orthodox Christians with radical social demands the Antirevolutionary Party did not voice yet, closely aligned with the party. At this congress Abraham Kuyper voiced his famous words on the architectonic critique of modern society. The Social Congress satisfied the critical voices. What role did Bavinck's lecture play in the appeasement of radical working class antirevolutionaries. What view of society did he offer, what did he say on the relationship between labor and capital? It turns out that the radical reputation of the Social Congress did not rely on Bavinck's lecture, to the contrary.
SIN: THE GREAT EQUALIZER

Karr Iv P.R. (Speaker)

Istituto di Cultura Evangelica e Documentazione ~ Rome ~ Italy
Social inequalities are everywhere apparent. Poverty, discrimination, and an endless list of disparities are present in all societies. Christianity has at time contributed to such inequalities, and has also alleviated them through commitments to equal dignity, charity, social welfare, peace, and justice. For the Christian worldview, underlying the many social inequalities present in the world is a universal spiritual and theological reality to which every inequality can be traced. That reality is sin. One important implication of the doctrine of sin is the equality it creates. "All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" (Rom. 3:23). This reality subverts social hierarchies that are based on the superiority of some over others, and places everyone on an equal playing field. To affirm that everyone is a sinner is to affirm that everyone, regardless of social status, is equally in need of God's grace. Sin is indeed the great equalizer, and the social implications are many.
THE POLITICS OF KAIROS: A JOURNEY BETWEEN EXISTENTIALISM AND ESCHATOLOGY IN THE PHILOSOPY OF PAUL TILLICH

Fazio D.J. (Speaker)

Università degli Studi di Milano, Facoltà di Filosofia ~ Milan ~ Italy
This article aims to analyze Paul Tillich's religious socialism as an alternative to the inequalities of the current system, emphasizing the relevance of the concept of Kairos as a historical opportunity for change. Tillich notes that systemic evil is caused by institutions that elevate themselves to absolute value—whether political or economic—and it is precisely this distortion that creates oppression and alienation. Here, Existentialism operates as a diagnostic phase, making humanity aware of its alienated and anguished existence. On the other hand, Eschatology is the response to this anguish; it is not a simple reference to the afterlife, but a metahistorical reality of historical change. It bursts into the present through Kairos and compels us to overcome the conflicts of demonic structures. Central to Tillich's thought is the idea that the striving for the 'Kingdom of God' must be realized historically as a social and political critique
DISABILITY, DIGNITY, AND THE IMAGO DEI: AN EVANGELICAL REFLECTION ON THE PROMISE OF A RELATIONAL ANTHROPOLOGY

Di Bartolomeo G. (Speaker)

Istituto di cultura evangelica e documentazione (ICED) ~ Roma ~ Italy
Despite recent theoretical developments in the definition and interpretation of disability, significant challenges remain in understanding human dignity within the main contemporary models. In particular, secular paradigms tend to show limitations in adequately reconciling the identity of the individual with the lived condition of disability. This paper proposes a theological reflection on disability from a biblical perspective. Through an analysis of the anthropological foundation expressed in the concept of imago Dei, the article explores how the Christian tradition offers an interpretative framework capable of recognising the intrinsic dignity of the person regardless of functional conditions. Within this perspective, disability is understood within a relational dimension that affirms the human being in relation to God and to the community, offering an alternative reading to predominantly secular models.
CREATION CARE AND GLOBAL INEQUALITY: AN EVANGELICAL FRAMEWORK FOR ECOLOGICAL CRISIS

Piccirillo G. (Speaker)

Istituto di Cultura Evangelica e Documentazione (ICED) ~ Roma ~ Italy
The ecological crisis is one of the most urgent challenges of our time. The debate on climate change has also raised the media attention to the increasing inequalities that are connected to it and spurred actions to mitigate and alleviate the impact on people, countries and ecosystems. What is the Evangelical church's contribution to this subject? How does the Global Evangelical church view creation care and how does the lack thereof impact reality? In the last 50 years, the Global Evangelical family has indeed produced a variety of "official" documents (declarations, statements, calls to action, resolutions etc.), that are (explicitly or implicitly) related to creation care and the related social inequalities. Their ongoing analysis of the situation, their radical diagnosis of root cause of the problem, their presentation of the ultimate Hope for restauration set an alternative framework to engage the current state of the inequalities that are a consequence of creation unsustainable exploitation, and to promote a widespread action that is not only needed, but it is also grounded on the anticipation of the coming peace, reconciliation and plentiful development.

Panel description: Today, religions are often aestheticized in ways that correlate strangely with the aestheticization of politics. Religion and politics, these oldest of all bedfellows, continue to invest in art as they assert themselves in the aesthetically appealing blend of virtual and analog social reality. Religion and politics involve a vision of life (theoria) and a way of life shaped by it. Art has the power to offer appealing expressions of this ordered vision, translating "harsh reality" into forms that allow both the unspeakable and the outrageous find palpable reception. Religion and politics primarily serve as stabilizing factors; art throws necessary light on both their promises and their shortfalls. Therefore, religion and politics must never stray too far from this creative-critical fountainhead. This is especially true of religion: even the simple word needs an adequate form to have a manifesting or pronouncing effect. At the same time, the experience of art can have a "revealing" character without presupposing "confessions." Thus, the panel invites participants to explore the creative tension between religion and art (with or without a critical sideways glance at politics), and the promises and challenges they offer present and future societies. Possible areas of interest include: • challenges that AI technologies pose to authentic religious experience; • art and religion's impact on national and international politics; • the ways in which concepts like equality, justice, and community are impacted by the interactions between religion and art; • how religious communities embrace new expressions of iconoclasm; • how art can improve or deepen (religious) people's perception of reality (aesthesis); • and the ways non-religious persons often rely on art to help them contemplate questions once thought to be the exclusive domain of religion and political philosophies.

Papers:

THE AESTHETICS OF THE CUT: CAN THE DESERT FATHERS AND MOTHERS FREE US FROM TIKTOK AND THE HALLOW APP?

Chase C. (Speaker)

Manhattan University ~ Bronx, New York ~ United States of America
In his compendium of pithy statements, On Thought, Abba Evagrius Ponticus (345-399) makes the claim that thoughts cut. Thoughts cause into being trajectories of further thought that, in turn, influence actions and behavior patterns (for good or evil). These trajectories can be caused to swerve in new directions by the intervention of new thoughts. Thoughts cut across thoughts. Similar patterns of trajectory and interruption define our lives today. In our world of ever-increasing acceleration and algorithm-driven circulations, fragments of data, images, and ideas interrupt the trajectories of our concrete day-to-day lives, and often go on to entrap us within circular loops of repetitive behavior, on platforms like TikTok, Instagram, and X. Whereas for Evagrius and his contemporaries the functions of the pithy and the cut were to open up the self to the apophatic presence of the always already other than, the pithy and the cut are used today to keep the self within endless repetitions of more of the same. Religion, too, seems caught up in this. Believers now have apps, like Hallow. Prayer, sacred reading, and spiritual direction are mediated not by a spiritual father or mother, but by an algorithm that promises spiritual profits but is programed to increase corporate wealth. Comfort and ease have become the new criteria for what counts. Using Evagrius' claim as a primary clue, the paper first presents the aesthetics of the cut and the function of the pithy as practiced by the Desert Fathers and Mothers. The paper then lays out ways in which an alternate aesthetic of the cut functions today, in and through contemporary media. Framed against today's fragmentation of culture and its fixation on acceleration and change, the paper finally suggests a possible path forward, by using Evagrius' aesthetic of the cut to cut across and change the trajectories of contemporary entrapment.
"REDEMPTION IN WOOL": LAMB OF GOD MEETS SHAWN THE SHEEP

Telser A. (Speaker)

University of Vienna ~ Vienna ~ Austria
Redemption is considered a central category in many religions (cf. M. Riesebrodt, 2010). Somehow, people have always managed to get themselves entangled in things that hinder, make impossible, or even destroy lives of others and themselves. The concept of redemption "responds" to this experience with the hopeful prospect of "getting out" of it. A central Christian symbol of redemption is found in the Lamb of God. The Lamb of God has the ability to "take away" sin, that is, to put an end to that ongoing entanglement in life-restricting and destructive circumstances. Yet what makes a lamb so suitable for this? Perspectives of redemption are not only religious in nature, but do not have to be thought of as overly far-reaching. Various forms of art also tie in with this, without reducing them to their potential for salvation. My paper makes what may seem to be tongue-in-cheek a connection between the Lamb of God metaphor and Shawn the Sheep, or more precisely, Shirley, a central character in the series. Shirley's qualities are described on Fandom.com as: "In addition to being a big sheep, she has been shown to act as a storage facility, as her wool coat is frequently used by the other sheep to hide their belongings that they wish for no one else to find." In addition, this cartoon character is portrayed as caring, loyal, and ready to step up to help others. Could this pop culture character, Shirley, tell us something about the central redemptive quality of the Lamb of God, i.e., "taking away sin", while not using theological jargon? Does the Lamb of God hide sin in the abundance of its "woolly" graciousness? Redemption could thus be conceived as the absorbing transformation - who knows what goes on in that woolly thicket? - of the unwanted, the unacceptable, the destructive, in short: sin.
MOTHER-SURVIVOR AT THE GATES OF DAWN: AN ICON IN CONTEMPORARY ART

Murauskaite E.E. (Speaker)

VDA (Vilnius Academy of Arts) ~ Vilnius ~ Lithuania
This paper examines the resurgence of the Virgin Mary's imagery in secular Lithuanian visual arts between 2000 and 2025. It contributes to the understanding of the changing cultural significance of religious iconography in the post-soviet space by analyzing the representation of sacred motherhood in a secular context. The paper focuses on the popular iconography of Our Lady of the Gates of Dawn in Vilnius (OLGD), and analyzes its visual interpretations by professional artists of different genders and generations. Historically loaded with political symbolism of Lithuanian independence and protection against militant threats, OLGD is re-examined here in relation to the contemporary image of a mother. Over the past decade, Western artists have increasingly turned to the imagery of the Virgin Mary to explore the challenges of contemporary motherhood, as evidenced by numerous exhibitions and academic publications. Situating Lithuania within this context, this paper posits that the broad appeal of OLGD - encased in a silver "armour" with no child in sight - as an image of a (sacred) mother in contemporary Lithuania is linked to intergenerational experiences of maternal trauma. For nearly a century, soviet occupations, repressions, exiles, and persistent security threats have reduced mothering to survival: emotional care was subordinated to endurance under conditions of chronic insecurity. I argue that this lasting collective experience has re-shaped the localized maternal archetype into what I term the "mother-survivor" - a figure that fuses Marian symbolism with post-traumatic modes of care. This interdisciplinary paper draws on feminist theology and motherhood studies, as well as post-colonial studies, and scholarship on trauma in art. Through iconographic analysis of selected artworks and interviews with their authors, it demonstrates how religious imagery continues to function as a living resource of colective memory in a secular context.
ANGELS, DEMONS, AND DIGITAL WORLDS: RELIGIOUS SYMBOLISM IN THE ART OF VIDEO GAMES

Kapcar A. (Speaker)

Masaryk University in Brno ~ Brno ~ Czech Republic
Video games increasingly function as artistic environments in which religious imagery, myths, and esoteric traditions are reinterpreted and experienced outside institutional religious frameworks. Drawing on Christopher Partridge's concept of occulture, this paper examines how contemporary video games transform religious symbolism into interactive aesthetic experiences. Games such as Shin Megami Tensei, El Shaddai: Ascension of the Metatron, and Baroque combine elements from Christianity, Buddhism, and other mythological traditions into hybrid symbolic worlds populated by angels, demons, apocalyptic narratives, and ritual imagery. In these environments, religious symbols are not presented as objects of belief but as components of artistic and narrative expression through which players encounter existential themes such as morality, transcendence, and cosmic order. This shift also reflects changing inequalities of authority over religious meaning, as symbols historically shaped within theological and institutional contexts are reinterpreted by artists, designers, and players within digital cultural production. By analyzing the aesthetic logic of these games, the paper argues that video games constitute an important contemporary space in which art serves as a medium for engaging religious imagination. In this sense, interactive digital media participate in a broader cultural transformation in which artistic expression increasingly serves as a site for reflecting on questions traditionally associated with religion, while simultaneously redistributing cultural authority over sacred symbols across new creative and technological domains.
CHRISTIAN MISSION THROUGH ART IN BULGARIA: A JOURNALISTIC AND THEOLOGICAL REFLECTION

Atanasov M. (Speaker)

University of Colorado Denver/International College Beijing ~ Beijing, China ~ United States of America
This paper explores the intersection of Christian faith and artistic creativity in Bulgaria, focusing on painting as a form of spiritual witness and communication. Drawing on descriptive, journalistic observations and publicly accessible examples, it highlights contemporary Bulgarian Christian artists who integrate faith into their creative practices, either explicitly or implicitly, as part of their calling. The study examines the artistic themes, techniques, and public mission of these artists, demonstrating how their creative work serves both as worship and testimony within the Bulgarian cultural context. By observing how these artists use imagination and visual storytelling to convey religious meaning, the paper illustrates how art can engage audiences, draw them toward spiritual reflection, and foster connections with faith. Emphasizing publicly visible and non-sensitive sources, the paper situates Bulgarian Christian art within broader discussions of religion, aesthetics, and public expression. It explores how artistic creativity functions as a powerful tool for spiritual communication and public witness, contributing to ongoing conversations about the intersection of faith and imagination in contemporary society.
FOSTERING JUSTICE, COMMUNITY AND PIETY: THE ETHICAL INTERVENTIONS OF US HALAL COMEDY

Thonnart M. (Speaker)

KU Leuven ~ Leuven ~ Belgium
The last two decades have been marked by the greater visibility of Muslim comedians across the Atlantic, suggesting not only the growing diversification of non-white stand-up comedy but also the boom of faith-based comedy in the entertainment marketplace. Some of these comics have established themselves at the forefront of a halal circuit, such as Preacher Moss, Omar Regan, Yasmin Elhady and Moses the Comic (see Thonnart, 2025). Halal comedy specifically refers to a distinct genre of clean comedy that is grounded within Islamic normative prescriptions. Focusing on the work of these four stand-up comedians, this paper examines how humor can be mobilized to foster the principles of God consciousness, social responsibility and justice. Considering the ethical interventions of halal comics in both their religious traditions and communities, this paper demonstrates how humor represents an important avenue for socioreligious activism (see Thonnart, 2025). Preacher Moss, Omar Regan, Yasmin Elhady and Moses the Comic have all developed a brand of comedy that is marketed as 'clean,' and have built a major part of their career by performing for Muslim audiences. These comedians regularly take the stage together, extensively partner with Muslim organizations, and maintain ongoing conversations with religious leaders. Illustrating how these comedians cultivate collective and self-improvement within a discourse that is distinctly Muslim, this paper argues that their performances are both an affirmation and cultivation of faith and community (see Thonnart, 2025). Furthermore, this paper analyzes how these comics articulate their visions of racial justice and civic engagement on stage, showing how they invite their audiences to reflect on the meaning of individual and collective existence in light of the Islamic tradition. See Thonnart, M. "Matters of Conviction: Configurations of Morality and Authority in American Muslim Ethicist Comedy." JAAR 93, no. 4 (2025): 659-681.
WHEN THEOLOGY BECOMES IMAGE: THE LAST JUDGMENT AT VORONEȚ MONASTERY AS PUBLIC VISUAL THEOLOGY

Mogos T.I. (Speaker)

Doctoral School "Dumitru Stăniloae", Faculty of Orthodox Theology, University of Bucharest ~ Bucharest ~ Romania
This paper explores the exterior fresco of the Last Judgment at Voroneț Monastery in Romania as an example of the way theology can take visible form and enter public space through art. In the Christian East, theology has not been confined to texts or doctrinal definitions. It has also been expressed through images that shape the imagination of a community and communicate faith in visual form. From this perspective, the painted wall of a church is more than religious decoration. It can become a place where theology is expressed visually and encountered by a wider community. The fresco of the Last Judgment at Voroneț is especially significant because of both its subject and its placement. Located on the monastery's exterior wall, it brings theological reflection beyond the interior liturgical space and places it before the eyes of society. What appears here is not simply an artistic representation of the end of time, but a visual proclamation that invites reflection on judgment, mercy, salvation, and human responsibility. Through composition, color, and sacred narrative, the image shapes how viewers perceive these theological realities. The paper argues that the Voroneț fresco can be understood as a form of public visual theology in which art becomes a bearer of theological meaning. Rather than functioning as a simple illustration of doctrine, the image participates in theological communication and makes religious ideas visible in shared space. By bringing Orthodox theological reflection into dialogue with visual analysis, the paper proposes that the Last Judgment at Voroneț offers a powerful example of how religious art can become a living expression of theology in public culture.

Panel description: While David Tracy's (1939-2025) work is frequently considered serious, demanding, and capacious, this can hamper the creative reception of his theology and philosophy of religion. This panel strives to remedy this by uncovering the relevance of Tracy's theology today in its correlations with a wide range of current concerns. A central approach to any reception of Tracy's work is understanding his theology as conversation. While this may seem mundane, conversations worthy of the name are rare, as they require certain attitudes on the part of its participants. One such attitude is ›playfulness‹ for genuine conversations are only possible if they are ›game-like‹ in the sense of being played by the questions that occur and by the texts, persons, rituals, situations, etc. that one is engaged with. Whether you are a Tracy connoisseur or intrigued by his thought from a distance, the panel aims to provide opportunities to engage in a creative conversation between your own questions and aspects of Tracy's philosophical and theological texts: • How can we do and understand theology in times that fluctuate between secularization and edifying religion that is politicized or privatized? • How must such a theology be structured to prove itself critically, both intellectually and as a way of life, while using its rich sources for the transformation of society toward a ›justice to come‹? • What form of discourse on ultimate reality, whatever name it may be given, is appropriate to do justice to the incomprehensibility of this reality and to avoid any kind of closure? • How should suffering be dealt with so that its raw inexplicability is not ›sublated‹ or absorbed in the bosom of a God or ultimate reality, while yet disallowing this suffering from having the last word? • In overly complex lives, how can we hold together and maintain a resistance that seeks justice and a connection to everything imbued with overwhelming beauty?

Papers:

CLASSICS, FRAGMENTS AND HOLY SCRIPTURE

Palfrey B. (Speaker)

St. Augustine's College of Theology ~ London ~ United Kingdom
During the 1980s, Tracy came to locate the heart and hope of reason in events of shareable manifestation and recognition of truth, beyond the bounds of mere argument and dialectic. Such events occur best, he suggested, amid the to-and-fro of questioning 'conversations' of participants with each other and their cultures' more capable historical products (named 'classics'). However, Tracy would also come to see that, left to itself, this account of reason could risk abandoning to obscurity the implicit and explicit religious and theological grounds of its own hopes. A thinker whose own earlier work had focused insistently on the question of God, Tracy then set about, from around 1990 forward, to explore the additional grounding of human aesthetic and ethical life in phenomena of incomprehensibility, otherness, impossibility, and infinity, which followers of 'mystical-prophetic' itineraries name as God. One of the fruits of this renewed turn to such phenomena after 1990 was in place of a panentheistic ontotheology of the 'religious classic' that mediates 'the whole by the power of the whole', which, in The Analogical Imagination (1981) guaranteed the theological drift of conversational reason and the theory of classics, instead later Tracy would develop the notion of fragments: the most powerful of which are really 'frag-events' which both fragment closed totality systems and open us graciously to Infinity. Theological classics of all eras are of this kind, suggests Tracy: frag-events that shatter idolatrous totality systems 'while simultaneously opening Christian thought and life to … Infinite Love'. The question at the heart of my paper is: if we follow Tracy sympathetically in all this - and in particular on classics and fragments - where might all this leave the phenomenon of Sacred Scripture, in general and in Christian view? How does Tracy's text-oriented hermeneutical theory account for the peculiar social and theological position of Scripture?
DAVID TRACY'S (RADICAL, THEOLOGICAL) AESTHETICS OF "LETTING GO"

Chase C. (Speaker)

Manhattan University ~ Bronx, New York ~ United States of America
"Theology is about the vision of life and a way of life." For Tracy, our ability to adequately frame this vision is forever being disrupted by two demands for our attention - the cries of those who suffer global inequalities and injustice, and the haunting call of the Impossible-Infinite. These demands require responses that, in turn, call on us to let go, in small and large ways, of our surety of the vision of life we presently hold to be true. "Letting go" allows us to go back to the radix, and open our eyes and our imaginations to what could or ought to be otherwise, including whom we could or ought to become. The suffering of whole peoples and the call of the Infinite (God) demand a change in our performed aesthetics: in our perception (of what is) and in our imagination (of what is unseen and/or what ought to be otherwise). This paper traces an aesthetics of letting go that runs through the ever-evolving theology of David Tracy, beginning with the seminal year 1968, his early claims of "limit," his notions of the "classic" and the analogical imagination, and his dialogic responses to the other, but, also, among his later notions of event, fragments, and filaments, and our shared need to forever discover anew the vision of life and way of life, through new and relevant connections, not only across infinite possibilities in the present, not only in infinite rediscoveries within the past, but towards infinite (at present, impossible) futures. Tracy's deep driving concern for human persons and whole communities victimized and rendered invisible is never more prescient than in our "now" moment. This paper concludes with hope: sparks of promise, fragments of possibility, from within an aesthetics of letting go, a gift from Tracy that may offer us clues of a way out of the seemingly never-ending injustices and inequalities generated by our current political, economic, and cultural systems.
TRACY'S HERITAGE TODAY: THE ROLE OF CREATIVITY IN MODERN THEOLOGY

Sawicki L. (Speaker)

Independent Researcher ~ Rome ~ Italy
D. Tracy's valorisation of imagination in theology has given rise, over recent decades, to a wealth of new perspectives on the theological significance of imagination. The present paper offers a concise survey of these contributions in relation to Tracy's thought. Following an overview of such authors as D. Brown, A. Greeley, G. Green, G. D. Kaufman, L. Ryken, N. Steeves, and J.-P. Pierron, a synthetic vision of the role of imagination in contemporary theology will be proposed.
TRAGEDY AND GRACE: TRACY'S RECOVERY OF THE TRAGIC AS AN INVITATION FOR THEOLOGY

Rader K. (Speaker)

All Saints Episcopal Church, Amsterdam ~ Amsterdam ~ Netherlands
David Tracy claimed on several occasions that, while the Christian tradition creatively adopted many elements of Greek and Roman philosophy, it mostly shied away from ancient tragedy because of its firm confidence in providence and the resurrection, and because a tragic vision does not sit well with the strand of Hellenistic (including Christian) culture that is preoccupied with perfection of form. Tracy's own turn to the tragic largely coincided with his deepening interest in divine infinity and incomprehensibility, and the fragment as the preferred site of hermeneutics of the Real. The classical figures whom he took to most embrace infinity (especially Augustine) are the ones who most embody tragic visions, even if they never quite theorize them. Few late- and post-modern figures he drew on about tragedy are Christians, and few of the medieval and early modern Christians he turns to are normally considered theologians. His later work rarely drew on systematic theologians, though he did admire the achievement of some. This paper asks why Tracy found academic, especially systematic Christian theologians so unhelpful for theorizing the tragic. Is it coincidence that both he and many figures he found helpful died before completing full articulations of their theories? Is theology ill-suited to do what he saw in some art, where the reality of the tragic is fully acknowledged and experienced from a posture of final hope and trust, while satisfying the modern academic requirements for coherence within an argument-determined structure? But academic standards evolve, and even secular anthropologists like Amira Mittermaier make room for God and other uncontrollable realities within or alongside their arguments. Taking suggestions from Mittermaier, I argue that we may hope—but only hope—that a future "book about God" will articulate an Augustinian, Trinitarian naming of the Real within Tracy's framework of infinity, fragment, and especially tragedy.

Panel description: This panel examines transformations at the intersection of politics, society, and religion in Russia since 2022. Bringing together perspectives from sociology of religion, political science, and intellectual history, the contributions analyze the changing role of religion in legitimizing power, framing social crises, and reconfiguring public discourse under conditions of war and heightened authoritarianism. Several papers revisit the long-standing debate on post-Soviet religious revival, asking whether recent developments mark a qualitatively new "second stage" and how these dynamics should be assessed in relation to secularization theory. Others focus on the Russian Orthodox Church's engagement with demographic decline, civilizational narratives, and palingenetic visions of national survival and rebirth, highlighting how bodies, reproduction, and morality have become central sites of political and religious mobilization. Taken together, the panel sheds light on religion's evolving function as a key symbolic and institutional resource in Russia's wartime society, while also addressing internal tensions, ambiguities, and limits within these processes. This panel is part of the POLISMOD (2026-31, PI Kristina Stoeckl) project launch.

Papers:

THE SECOND STAGE OF THE 'RELIGIOUS REVIVAL' IN RUSSIA: HOW TO EVALUATE IT FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF THE SECULARIZATION DEBATE

Uzlaner D. (Speaker)

FU Berlin ~ Berlin ~ Germany
The presentation examines what the author calls the second stage of religious revival in contemporary Russia. This stage is analyzed at the macro-, meso-, and micro- levels; it is characterized by a rapprochement between the church and the state, as well as an increase in the social significance of religion. The author then places his analysis of religious processes in Russia in the context of the secularization debate.
THE RUSSIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH AND "THE DEMOGRAPHIC CRISIS"

Kolstø P. (Speaker)

University of Oslo ~ Oslo ~ Norway
Russian Orthodox leaders and activists have expressed deep alarm over the demographic situation in the country. The paper argues that a major impetus behind the family policy of the ROC is nationalism, both ethno-nationalism and even more state-focused nationalism, and it analyzes the position of the Russian Orthodox Church and Orthodox believers in relation to these different forms of nationalism over the 'demographic crisis".
PALINGENETIC CIVILISATIONISM AND THE BODY POLITIC: ORTHODOXY, SURVIVAL AND REVIVAL IN RUSSIA SINCE 2022

Kolov B. (Speaker)

University of Oslo ~ Oslo ~ Norway
This paper analyses how, since 2022, Russian Orthodox-inflected civilisationist discourse has framed the Russo-Ukrainian War as a moment of spiritual testing and rebirth, through which Russia's historical mission and geopolitical vocation are reaffirmed. It shows how themes of sacrifice, moral purification, and collective endurance recast the national body as both a civilisational and eschatological subject, as well as an object of biopolitical renewal, with demographic reproduction positioned as a measure of civilisational strength rather than a standalone policy concern. The paper argues that this palingenetic imagination integrates eschatology, biopolitics, and geopolitics into a single wartime grammar, in which imperial irredentism, demographic survival, and moral regeneration are articulated as inseparable dimensions of Russia's civilisational destiny.
THE HAGIOPOLITICS OF THE RUSSIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH: CANONIZATION OF 'PATRIOTIC SAINTS' AND RELIGIOUS NATIONALISM

Shtyrkov S. (Speaker)

Yerevan Center for International Education (YCIE) ~ Yerevan ~ Armenia
This paper examines the canonization and veneration of so-called "patriotic saints" (Russian imperial military commanders Fyodor Ushakov and Alexander Suvorov) as a key site where religion and politics intersect in contemporary Russia. While much scholarship treats the fusion of Orthodoxy and state interests as a pathological deviation from a presumed normative separation of these spheres, this paper argues that such an approach obscures how religious nationalism — understood both as a political program and as a logic of social imagination — actually operates in practice. Focusing on concrete practices, particularly projects of canonization, the paper shows that the entanglement of Church and state is routine rather than exceptional. Canonization emerges not merely as a theological procedure but as a socially consequential act that redistributes symbolic authority over understandings and public representations of national history, concepts of sacrifice, and moral exemplarity. The analysis highlights the inherent instability of this entanglement. Neither the Russian state nor the Orthodox Church fully controls the production of religious-national meaning; instead, it is continually negotiated among diverse actors, including clerics, state officials, intellectuals, military institutions, and lay publics. The figure of the "patriotic saint" exposes the fragility of this synthesis, as efforts to sacralize military service and state-building achievements must reconcile competing regimes of value — ecclesiastical ideals of holiness and humility, and secular narratives of national greatness and historical justice. Controversies surrounding such canonizations thus reveal not their success, but the persistent tension and labor involved in sustaining a particular regime of religious nationalism.
WARTIME PUTINISM: CONTINUITY, CHANGE AND THE CONSTRAINTS ON REGIME IDEOLOGIZATION

Blackburn M. (Speaker)

Norwegian Institute of International Affairs ~ Oslo ~ Norway
Putin's regime is commonly described as a personalist electoral autocracy, in which ideology played a marginal role. Since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, various indicators suggest a shift toward a more ideological dictatorship. This paper examines evidence for this claim across three domains: (1) the Kremlin's evolving war legitimation script, which downplayed ideological elements and maintained some distance from ultra-hawkish imperial-nationalist groups; (2) the regime's articulation of Russia's long-term future, which remain far less elaborate than the radical Eurasianist, quasi-fascist, traditionalist, or explicitly imperialist visions of rebirth and transformation advanced by thinkers such as Karaganov, Dugin, and Malofeev; (3) foreign policy discourses on Greater Eurasia and the Global Majority, which contrast sharply with the regime's actual transactional practices that enable flexible navigation of "global chaos". Drawing on these three strands, the paper argues that ideologization remains fundamentally constrained by both domestic factors (elite politics, state-society relations, and the economic model) and external factors (polycrisis, security competition, the war's trajectory in Ukraine, great-power rivalry, and geoeconomic shocks to supply chains). Consequently, Putinism persists as a "thin ideology" lacking a powerful, coherent vision of the future; it is oriented largely toward the present - reacting to events - and refers more frequently to the past than to any golden future. Nonetheless, ambiguity surrounds Putin himself: does he still emulate Peter the Great - a "westerniser" waging war to secure Russia's place in a concert of great powers - or has he become a genuine champion of Russian Eurasianism? This question reflects historical continuity in Russia's balancing of Western and Eastern orientations. These uncertainties imply that Russia's future path and its relations with America, Europe, and a postwar Ukraine, remain open and contingent.
LAW AND RELIGION IN CONTEMPORARY RUSSIA BASED ON THE PRACTICE OF THE CONSTITUTIONAL COURT OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION

Arkhipov F. (Speaker)

PhD candidate of the Italian National Doctoral Program in Religious Studies DREST, University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, University of Insubria ~ Como ~ Italy
This dissertation examines the jurisprudence of the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation on religious freedom, focusing on the role of the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) in shaping constitutional interpretation and practice. It analyzes the ROC not merely as an object of regulation but as an active institutional and political actor in state-religion relations. The central research question concerns the extent to which the ROC influences constitutional trends through the Court's decisions. The study combines legal analysis and case studies of key rulings, alongside an examination of state-church interactions. Part I outlines the legal framework governing religious organizations, highlighting unequal treatment of traditional and non-traditional groups. Part II explores the ROC's influence on legislation, judicial interpretation, property rights, and responses to major socio-political events, including the war in Ukraine. The analysis shows that, despite constitutional guarantees of religious equality, the Court's jurisprudence consistently favors the ROC and other "traditional" religions. Minority and non-traditional groups face restrictive registration, limits on missionary activity, and selective use of anti-extremism laws. These inequalities are reframed as constitutional pluralism, producing a hierarchical system in which formal equality conceals substantive disparities. The dissertation's originality lies in its systematic analysis of the Constitutional Court's jurisprudence, a field rarely addressed in Western scholarship. It identifies the legal mechanisms through which constitutional principles are adapted under ROC influence and offers a framework for comparative analysis. The study concludes that the ROC functions as a strategic actor embedded in the legal system, reinforcing a model in which formal secularism coexists with the privileging of a dominant religion, with significant consequences for religious pluralism and minority rights.
MECHANISMS OF FEAR AND CONTROL IN RUSSIAN RELIGIOUS LIFE: ORTHODOX CLERGY UNDER REPRESSION

Beilinson D. (Speaker) [1] , Rousselet K. (Speaker) [2] , Kordochkin A. (Speaker) [3]

OVD-Info ~ Moscow ~ Russian Federation [1] , Sciences Po ~ Paris ~ France [2] , University of Göttingen ~ Göttingen ~ Germany [3]
Since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the Russian state and parts of the Russian Orthodox Church hierarchy have sharply intensified surveillance and repression of "disloyal" clergy. Using different methods, these mechanisms create pervasive fear. Our presentation will document how control actually works inside parishes. It will explain some concrete mechanisms through which fear and control are exercised over clergy in today's Russia.
ALEXANDER DUGIN AND THE IMPACT OF HIS IDEAS OF THE "RED" KATECHON AND AN ESCHATOLOGICAL AND ANTI-GLOBALIST SOCIETY ON THE RECENT RESECULARIZATION OF RUSSIA.

Khislavski G. (Speaker)

University of Erfurt ~ Erfurt ~ Germany
This paper attempts to determine Alexander Dugin's influence on recent Russian ideology. It focuses on the concept of "red Byzantism" or "red Katechon," which Dugin developed in the early 1990s, initially independently of Carl Schmitt. Its genesis is traced and its structure analyzed. The Katechon concept serves as a glue for connecting disparate ideologemes. Thus, Byzantium, the Third Rome, and the Soviet Union are equivalent elements of an eclectic, quasi-Christian ideological construct in which both Russian leader Putin and Patriarch Kirill (Gundiaev) of Moscow feel comfortable. Even the majority of the people of Russia seem to feel comfortable with it. Both are examined in terms of the applicability of Dugin's theoretical framework on the complex empirical evidence in Russia. On the other hand, this well-being as Katechon has a very high potential for hatred, which has been directed against Ukraine and Ukrainians since 2014 and especially since 2022.
STRATEGIES OF WAR-NAMING AND MORAL MOBILIZATION IN ROC SERMONS SINCE 2022

Kress B. (Speaker) , Mennecke O. (Speaker)

University of Hildesheim ~ Hildesheim ~ Germany
In the context of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) has contributed to reorganizing public meaning-making under wartime authoritarianism. This paper examines how Patriarch Kirill and Archpriest Andrei Tkachev construct and moralize the category of war in sermons delivered since the beginning of the invasion. We show that war-naming is not merely a matter of lexical choice; rather, it functions as a mechanism of ideological legitimation through which clerics frame the war and shape congregational responses. Drawing on Ideological Discourse Analysis (IDA) combined with a grammatical perspective, we focus on war-categorization and substitution (the noun война and euphemistic alternatives) and modification patterns that stabilize particular moral and political readings. Our findings reveal two divergent mobilizational registers that also expose internal ambiguities within ROC discourse. Patriarch Kirill predominantly relies on oblique framing: he avoids direct references to "war," prefers euphemisms such as "events" or "conflict," displaces "war" onto metaphysical struggle, and redirects responsibility toward Western hostility, thereby softening intra-communal violence while sustaining a 'defensive' narrative. By contrast, Archpriest Andrei Tkachev names "war" explicitly from the outset and intensifies it through emotive, WWII-inflected, and apocalyptic frames anchored in biblical references, converting fear into righteous mobilization and actionable anger toward Ukrainians as a constructed enemy-other. By foregrounding the interplay between language, religion, and politics, the paper shows how religious narratives shape social cognition in wartime, when aligned with state ideology. This perspective also supports more nuanced methodological approaches to linguistic analyses of sermonic discourse, particularly in contexts where religious communication converges with authoritarian legitimation.
FROM STALIN TO PUTIN: ORTHODOX EPISTEMOLOGY AND THE RECONFIGURATION OF RUSSIAN PRAVOSLAVIE IN SERVICE OF STATE PROPAGANDA

Gabunia A. (Speaker)

KU Leuven ~ Leuven ~ Belgium
This paper examines how Orthodox theology was progressively recontextualized from the Stalin era to the Putin period, functioning as one of the central elements of state propaganda. While conventional analyses emphasize the political instrumentalization of the Russian Orthodox Church, this study adopts a systematic theological perspective and argues that the transformation is fundamentally epistemological. It examines how theological categories are reconfigured into ideological constructs that sustain the hegemonic language of the Russian state within the ideological doctrine of Russkiy Mir. As a result, theology is transformed into a theopolitical discourse that legitimizes state power and presents political claims as expressions of sacred truth. The study demonstrates how the Russian state enforces what is here termed authoritarian perspectivism, a system in which a single ideological viewpoint claims absolute theological certainty and dismisses alternative interpretations as hostile and illegitimate. By interpreting the 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine through this closed interpretative framework, the Russian state provides a metaphysical sacralization of political ideologies and actions, making it more complex to challenge them without appearing to challenge the faith itself. The analysis draws on Soviet archival materials together with official publications, particularly the Journal of the Moscow Patriarchate and Bogoslovskie Trudy. These sources reveal strong rhetorical continuity between the Soviet-era religious discourse and post-Soviet theological language, demonstrating that the religious narrative visible in the war against Ukraine reflects a longer historical trajectory in which Orthodox theology has been repeatedly rearticulated to legitimize state power.

Panel description: The ongoing war in Ukraine has profoundly reshaped the religious landscape of Eastern Christianity, bringing long-standing ecclesial tensions into the open while generating new theological, institutional, and geopolitical challenges. The Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU), the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC), and the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church (UGCC) have each been compelled to respond to questions of war and peace, national sovereignty, ecclesial authority, and transnational Orthodoxy. These responses have not only deepened internal crises but have also raised broader questions about the future of Orthodoxy as a global religious tradition. This panel brings together representatives of Ukrainian churches alongside independent scholars and public intellectuals working on Ukrainian Christianity to engage in a rare, dialogical conversation across ecclesial, confessional, and analytical perspectives. Rather than focusing solely on conflict and fragmentation, the panel aims to explore pathways out of the current crisis: theological resources for reconciliation, institutional reforms, and models of inter-church engagement that could contribute to a renewed vision of Orthodox Christianity in Ukraine. By situating the Ukrainian case within wider debates about global Orthodoxy, the panel seeks to move beyond diagnosis toward constructive reflection. The discussion will address not only the immediate Ukrainian context but also the implications for Orthodox Christianity worldwide, including its relationship to democracy, human rights, and interreligious coexistence. This panel is part of the POLISMOD (2026-31, PI Kristina Stoeckl) project launch.

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THE THREE KYIVAN CHURCHES

Casanova J. (Speaker)

Berkley Center for Religion, Peace and World Affairs ~ Washington D.C. ~ United States of America
Jose Casanova, Emeritus Professor of Sociology, Theology, and Religious Studies, Sociologist of Religion, Analyst of Religious Pluralism in Ukraine from a comparative perspective. Will offer a background to the conflicts between the three Kyivan Ukrainian Churches, arguing that mutual recognition between the three churches and the abandonment of the claims to canonical territory offer the most productive response to the crisis and the best way forward.
THE SITUATION OF THE UKRAINIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH

Bureha V. (Speaker)

Kyiv Theological Academy ~ Kyiv ~ Ukraine
Volodymyr Bureha, Professor of Theology and Vice-Rector of the Kyiv Theological Academy. As representative of the UOC, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, he can offer his own diagnosis of the conflicts and crisis within Ukrainian Orthodoxy and the most promising ways forward to overcome the crisis.
THE SITUATION OF THE ORTHODOX CHURCH OF UKRAINE

Sigov C. (Speaker)

Kyiv Mohila University ~ Kyiv ~ Ukraine
Constantin Sigov, Ukrainian Orthodox philosopher, heads the European Center at the Kyiv-Mohyla University and directs the influential publishing house Dukh i Litera. As a lay intellectual within the UOC-MP, Sigov took an active part in the process of reunification of the three Ukrainian Orthodox churches that culminated in the Tomos of Autocephaly of the new Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU). Has been actively engaged for years in Christian Ecumenism and Interreligious Dialogue. He can offer a profound insider look into the crisis of Ukrainian Orthodoxy and the ways forward to overcome the crisis.
THE UKRAINIAN GREEK CATHOLIC CHURCH: CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES IN RELATIONS WITH UKRAINIAN ORTHODOXY

Babynskyi A. (Speaker)

Ukrainian Catholic University ~ Lviv ~ Ukraine
Anatolii Babynskyi, Church Historian, Researcher at the Ukrainian Catholic University's Institute for Church History in Lviv. The Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, though affiliated with Rome, views itself as a daughter church of Constantinople and wants to be in communion with both. Babinski can present his views on the challenges and opportunities for the relations between the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church of Ukraine and Ukrainian Orthodoxy in general.

Panel description: This panel is devoted to the presentation and discussion of Musiques en résistance: Arvo Pärt et Valentin Silvestrov by Constantin Sigov, a deeply moving and intellectually precise reflection on music, friendship, and historical rupture. Through the intertwined lives and works of Arvo Pärt and Valentin Silvestrov, Sigov reconstructs three pivotal moments in contemporary European history: the Soviet period, marked by the clash between ideals of artistic freedom and political censorship; the years of Estonian and Ukrainian independence, during which both composers experienced a remarkable flourishing of their creative voices; and the tragic and heroic present shaped by Russia's war against Ukraine. Written from the unique perspective of a close friend and intellectual companion of both composers, the book goes beyond a dual biography. It offers a meditation on music as a form of moral, spiritual, and political resistance, and on friendship as a space of fidelity in the face of historical violence. The panel will explore the book's aesthetic, ethical, and political insights, addressing the role of music under conditions of repression, transition, and war, and reflecting on how lived experience and intellectual engagement illuminate the work of two major figures of contemporary music. This panel is part of the POLISMOD (2026-31, PI Kristina Stoeckl) project launch.

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Panel description: Metropolitan John Zizioulas of Pergamon is widely recognized as one of the most significant Orthodox theologians of our time. His theological vision emphasizes personhood as the fundamental mode of existence for both God and humanity. He identifies the Eucharist as the setting where this personhood is momentarily realized and presents an eschatological perspective that shapes his entire hermeneutics and methodology. This coherent and systematic approach may prove relevant to the future of Orthodox theology, especially in light of various challenges, such as religious rigorism, ideological populism, and issues posed to anthropology and the environment by artificial intelligence and the climate crisis. Critics argue that history, as both a horizon and context, is somewhat diminished in his work; however, it remains a crucial backdrop against which Christianity has evolved and matured since its inception. In this regard, Zizioulas's thought engages in a continuous dialogue with the surrounding pre-modern, modern, and post-modern intellectual and social settings. What elements of his thought are relevant to our current scientific and ideological context? How does his eschatological outlook inform our responses to various forms of moral and social evil? What meaningful role can Hellenic philosophy play today in the context of a gradual de-ontologization of Christianity's character? Is the dialectic between nature and personhood still valuable? Are Zizioulas's theological contributions being taken seriously in the field of Ecumenical theology today? Drawing from his posthumous magnum opus, Remembering the Future, and the recently published English translation, Hellenism and Christianity: The Encounter of Two Worlds, a panel will critically reflect on aspects of Zizioulas's public witness in our contemporary, fragmented, and complex world. The focus will be on those aspects that are relevant to the Church in carrying out her mission in the future.

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METROPOLITAN JOHN ZIZIOULAS' THEOLOGY AS THE AXIS OF THE DOCUMENT 'FOR THE LIFE OF THE WORLD

Papanikolaou A. (Speaker)

Fordham University, USA ~ New York ~ United States of America
The document titled "For the Life of the World: Toward a Social Ethos of the Orthodox Church," published by the Ecumenical Patriarchate in 2019, aimed to be a significant achievement following the Holy and Great Synod of the Orthodox Church held in Crete in 2016. This presentation will examine the extent to which Zizioulas's theology of personhood, his eucharistic ethos and eschatological vision, serve as models for dialogue with the modern world. It will also discuss their relevance in our current age, where Orthodoxy faces both internal schisms and external challenges, including war, artificial intelligence, and the climate crisis.
THE ECUMENICAL RELEVANCE OF ZIZIOULAS' ESCHATOLOGICAL HERMENEUTICS: A CRITICAL AND CONSTRUCTIVE ENGAGEMENT

De Mey P. (Speaker)

Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies, KU Leuven University ~ Leuven ~ Belgium
This paper examines the ecumenical significance of John D. Zizioulas's eschatological ontology, approaching it from the standpoint of contemporary Catholic-Orthodox dialogue. It argues that Zizioulas's eschatological ontology of ecclesial existence offers not only a compelling vision of Christian unity but also a distinctive method for ecumenical engagement. By situating ecclesial identity primarily within the horizon of the eschaton, Zizioulas resists both juridical reductionism and historical absolutism. Proposing an understanding of the Church as a proleptic sign of the Kingdom of God instead of an institution with fixed identity in the past, Zizioulas reframes unity not as a product of institutional alignment or doctrinal harmonization, but as a participation in the anticipated fullness of the Kingdom of God, sacramentally realized in the eucharistic assembly. At the same time, the limits of Zizioulas' approach are critically assessed, especially regarding his tendency to limit the ecclesial and eschatological event to the eucharistic gathering. Ultimately, the paper proposes that Zizioulas's future-oriented hermeneutics can serve as a constructive bridge for ecumenical dialogue, recalibrating unity as an eschatological rather than protological reality, while sustaining concrete theological and ecclesial discernment in the present.
A FUTURE-ORIENTED READING OF TRADITION ACCORDING TO METR. JOHN ZIZIOULAS

Kalaitzidis P. (Speaker)

Volos Academy for Theological Studies ~ Volos ~ Greece
In this seminal book, titled Remembering the Future: Towards an Eschatological Ontology, Zizioulas argues that eschatology is not merely a future doctrine, but an existential orientation—an active lens through which the Church understands history, ethics, community, and its very being. This presentation focuses on the future-oriented reading of tradition in Zizioulas' theology, highlighting how this hermeneutical approach can be applied to contemporary challenges posed to the church by the postmodern context, such as the interpretation of tradition, the church's witness to the current pluralistic world, and the ordination of women. Based on such an eschatological reading of tradition, the latter is not then a nostalgic repetition or uncritical acceptance of the past, but a creative continuity in the Holy Spirit and an openness to the future, to the much-awaited new world of the kingdom of God. As for the ordination of women, the paper explores to what extent Zizioulas's thought understands that the objections to women's ordination, which were usually founded on the realm of history, could also be justified in an eschatological perspective.
METR. JOHN ZIZIOULAS' WORK AS A HOLISTIC CHRISTIAN "UNIFIED GRAND THEORY"

Vasiljevic B.M. (Speaker)

Holy Cross, Boston College ~ Boston ~ United States of America
For the past decade, during my visits to Metropolitan John in Athens, he often shared insights from his forthcoming monograph titled "Remembering the Future." He emphasized that his book is intended for those who accept the fact of the Resurrection of Christ and are interested in the logical consequences that follow from this belief: credo ut intelligam. Throughout our discussions, he encouraged us to examine both the foundations and implications of his groundbreaking assertion that "the future precedes the past" from both logical and ontological perspectives. He maintained that Christian theology represents a hermeneutics of Resurrection, a central theme in this book's inquiry. Based on my experiences with Metropolitan John, this presentation aims to present his overall theological work as a holistic Unified Grand Theory encompassing all aspects of theological inquiry within the horizon of eschatology.

Panel description: This panel explores the diverse and evolving forms of religious authority within the Alevi tradition from both historical and contemporary perspectives. Alevism has historically articulated multiple forms of authority through a plurality of figures, institutions, and practices, including hereditary lineages (ocak and dede), ritual specialists, saintly charisma, sacred genealogies, poetry and music, and mechanisms of communal recognition and consensus. These forms of authority have been continuously negotiated in relation to changing political, social, and religious contexts. The panel brings together contributions that examine how religious authority forms and structures have been constructed, legitimized, contested, and transformed from the pre-modern period to the present. Papers address topics such as the historical role of ocak lineages and initiation systems; the role of charisma, spiritual bonds with saintly figures, genealogy, and moral authority in the formation and maintenance of Alevi socioreligious order; the impact of premodern (Safavid and Ottoman) and modern state formations on Alevi religious leadership; and the reconfiguration of authority in contemporary settings shaped by migration, urbanization, institutionalization, and transnational networks. Particular attention is paid to tensions between inherited and acquired authority, oral tradition and textualization, and local practice and standardized representations of Alevism. By combining theological, historical, anthropological, sociological, and ethnomusicological approaches, the panel aims to contribute to broader discussions on religious authority beyond normative models centered on clerical institutions. It highlights Alevism as a compelling case for understanding how authority operates in non-hierarchical and community-based religious systems, and how such systems respond to modern challenges while drawing on traditions.

Papers:

FORMS OF RELIGIOUS AUTHORITY IN AN ANATOLIAN ALEVI VILLAGE

Shankland D. (Speaker)

Royal Anthropological Institute ~ London ~ United Kingdom
This paper explores forms of Alevi religious authority in a Turkish Anatolian village, emphasising the multiple way that different forms of authority balance and change over time. Based on the author's fieldwork, in concentrates on one decade in particular; the 1970s up until the 1980 coup. During this period, we see in particular a changing relationship between the village community, ocak lineages and the dedes, orthodox forms of Islamic authority represented by the village hocas, and the rise of the secular left. This basic shifting pattern sets the scene likewise for many of the later transitions and transformations which have been experienced by the Alevi community until the present day.
PRODUCING RELIGIOUS AUTHORITY: SAYYID FAMILIES, GENEALOGIES AND THE MAKING OF ALEVI RELIGIOUS LEADERSHIP

Erol U. (Speaker)

Leibniz-Institut für Europäische Geschichte (IEG) ~ Mainz ~ Germany
This paper examines the historical role of sayyid genealogies in the formation, reproduction and transmission of religious authority in Alevism. Today constituting 15-20 percent of Turkey, which is a Sunni-majority country, Alevis and their Twelver-Imamate Sufi belief, Alevism, have long been topics of debate and controversy. While often deemed as heresy in the early modern Ottoman Empire, Alevism has been subjected to modern reductionism in twentieth-century Turkey, labelled as a folkloric belief. Despite the growing number of studies in the last decades, particularly on modern socio-political and identity issues among the Alevis, there are still a handful of academic works on the religious history of Alevism. This paper contributes to the understanding of Alevism in the early modern period by analysing how Alevi sayyid families, who are called ocak in vernacular Turkish and constitute the religious leadership of Alevi communities, and their genealogies shaped the nature of religious authority among Alevi communities. The paper uses ijazas, shajaras and relevant hagiographical documents as its sources to explore how religious authority was defined, granted, reproduced, and transmitted among the members of Alevi sayyid families in the early modern period. These sources were issued at various Sufi religious centres, such as Karbala, Ardabil, and the town of Haji Bektash in central Anatolia. The documents received from the Sufi lodges in this vast geography demonstrate 1) the significance attributed to these places as centres of religious authority and 2) how the translocal networks of Alevi sayyid families played a role in the reproduction and transmission of religious authority among family members. Examining both the content and spatial dimensions of the above-mentioned sources, this paper analyses the formation and maintenance of religious authority in Alevism.
ALEVI WOMEN IN TRANSNATIONAL SPACE: THE CHANCES AND CHALLENGES OF FEMALE RELIGIOUS LEADERSHIP IN GERMANY

Birkalan-Gedik H. (Speaker) , Gedik E. (Speaker)

Goethe University ~ Frankfurt am Main ~ Germany
This paper examines the emergence of female religious leadership within the Alevi community in Germany through the "Ana-Dede Education" (Ana-Dede Eğitimi). I argue that this shift represents an "Alevi Reformation" that creates significant chances and challenges within the transnational space. The institutionalization of female leaders (anas) by the Alevi Federation of Germany (AABF) offers the chance to both challenge and transform traditional, patrilineal gender orders into an education-based model. This reconfiguration shifts the locus of legitimacy from inherited ocak lineages to institutional recognition, acting as a transnational catalyst that generates reformist pressure on Alevi communities in Turkey. However, this transnational negotiation raises critical questions: How does a "gender regime" function when the drive for equality is largely managed by male religious elites? To what extent does the secular-religious divide influence female agency, particularly when secular women's branches refrain from feminist claims to "bargain with patriarchy" for communal stability? Based on ethnographic interviews and observations, the paper analyzes the tensions between inherited and acquired authority and the reception of female anas across borders. Does this "Alevi Reformation" lead to a genuine deconstruction of patriarchal hierarchy, or is it a strategic adaptation to modern, transnational expectations of gender equality? By addressing these questions, the study highlights how Alevism navigates patriarchal anxieties while drawing on its own traditions to respond to modern challenges.
MATERIALIZING EQUALITY: GENDER, RITUAL MATERIALITY, AND THE TRANSFORMATION OF RELIGIOUS AUTHORITY IN CONTEMPORARY ALEVI CEM PRACTICES

Parlak D. (Speaker)

Istanbul Kent University ~ Istanbul ~ Turkey
Alevism is frequently described as a religious tradition that affirms gender equality, most prominently through the concept of can, which symbolically suspends sex distinction within the ritual space of the cem. Yet the extent to which this egalitarian theology is materially enacted in contemporary practice remains insufficiently examined. Engaging debates in material religion and ritual studies, this article investigates how equality is embodied, staged, and transformed within the spatial and ritual materiality of the cem. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork conducted in four urban cemevis in Istanbul—Pir Sultan Abdal Cemevi, Garip Dede Cemevi, Şahkulu Sultan Dergâhı, and Hacı Bektaş-ı Veli Okmeydanı Cemevi—the study adopts a comparative intra-Alevi approach. These cemevis were selected because they are affiliated with distinct institutional and theological orientations within contemporary Alevism. By examining ritual practice across these divergent authority regimes, the article analyzes how the spatial configuration of the meydan, the distribution of ritual roles, the symbolic centrality of the post, and the gendered dimensions of musical performance and ritual choreography mediate gendered authority. Approaching the cem as a materially structured and performative space, the study argues that while ritual discourse and choreography stage a suspension of gender hierarchy, contemporary processes of institutionalization, and heightened public visibility have reconfigured religious authority in ways that increasingly centralize male leadership. Thus, equality in Alevism is neither purely rhetorical nor fully realized; rather, it is dynamically negotiated across competing institutional contexts. By foregrounding ritual materiality, this article contributes to broader debates on how egalitarian religious traditions adapt to modern institutional forms while renegotiating gendered authority. Keywords: Gender, religious authority, cem, materiality.
RECOGNITION AND RESISTANCE: ALEVIS AS RECLUTANT ACTORS IN THE TURKISH RELIGIOUS FIELD

Şen M. (Speaker)

Middle East Technical University ~ Ankara ~ Türkiye
Over the last four decades, the mass mobilization of Alevis has become one of the most significant socio-political developments in Turkey and in the Turkish diaspora in Europe. This mobilization was shaped by several interrelated processes. Large-scale migration and the resulting urbanization of the Alevi population facilitated new forms of collective organization. Violent attacks against Alevis - most notably the burning of the Madımak Hotel in Sivas in 1993 and the Gazi incidents in Istanbul in 1995 - further accelerated Alevi collective mobilization and organizational consolidation. As a result, Alevi organizations have become increasingly visible in the public sphere and have articulated demands for official recognition both in Turkey and across Europe. These demands reached their most visible institutional expression during the "Alevi Opening" initiated by the AKP government, particularly through the Alevi Workshops (2009-2011) and, more recently, through the establishment of the Alevi-Bektaşi Cemevi Kültür Başkanlığı in 2022 within the Ministry of Culture and Tourism. This paper explores how these developments illuminate the structure of the Turkish religious field and the position of Alevis within it. It outlines the main official and unofficial actors that constitute the field and analyzes how different actors frame Alevi demands for recognition. The paper argues that Alevis occupy a paradoxical position within the Turkish religious field: while Alevi organizations challenge its institutional structure and often resist defining Alevism primarily in religious terms, their struggle for recognition inevitably situates them within it. Alevis thus emerge as reluctant actors in the religious field, opposing its structure yet unable to remain outside it.

Panel description: This panel investigates how gendered norms and power relations are produced, negotiated and contested across religious, spiritual and post-secular contexts in contemporary Europe. While research on gender and religion has increasingly moved beyond binaries of oppression versus emancipation, divergent empirical sites continue to reveal tensions between institutional authority, personal agency and cultural expectations. The contributions assemble multi-sited analyses, ranging from yoga cultures to Catholic women's organizations and Jewish feminist reform movements in Italy, to queer negotiations within Lithuanian Catholicism, and debates over the Istanbul Convention on Lithuanian mass media. Drawing on methodologies including discourse and content analysis, ethnography and qualitative interviewing, the papers collectively demonstrate how religious and spiritual formations both reproduce and unsettle dominant gender regimes. Exclusionary mechanisms emerge through embodied norms and religious-doctrinal discursive boundary-work; yet actors also adopt agentic strategies (including feminist and queer approaches) to expand the meanings and understandings of religion, and reconfigure religious authority and norms. At the same time, struggles over gender unfold across religious institutions, media, civil society and everyday life, where religious actors remain key participants in broader cultural debates on sexuality, family and citizenship. In this perspective, the hybrid public and mass media discourse play an extremely relevant role in contributing to shaping the discursive opportunity structures in which individual actors and religious institutions operate. Hence, the panel offers a broad and encompassing overview of contemporary relationships between religion and gender.

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GENDERED BODIES, NORMATIVE SELVES: REASSESSING THE "YOGA FOR EVERYBODY" TROPE

Di Placido M. (Speaker)

University of Turin ~ Turin ~ Italy
This contribution critically examines the gendered politics underlying the ubiquitous claim that yoga is "for everybody." Drawing on discourse analysis of yoga magazines, ethnographic observations at the Milan YogaFestival and the International Day of Yoga and interviews with practitioners, the contribution shows how ideals of femininity, bodily discipline and corporeal normativity shape who is seen as a legitimate yoga subject. Building on feminist critiques by Emanuela Mangiarotti, the chapter reveals how gendered expectations intersect with social and cultural boundaries to produce subtle forms of exclusion and precariousness. It further analyzes the industry's ambivalent responses to allegations of abuse involving prominent teachers, highlighting how gendered power asymmetries are negotiated, minimized or reframed within yoga circles. The conclusion situates these dynamics within broader sociological debates on self‑actualization, arguing for a contextualized understanding of the "good practitioner" that bridges Yoga Studies with sociological, anthropological and cultural analyses.
RELIGIOSITY AND FEMINISM IN THREE ITALIAN CATHOLIC ORGANIZATIONS

Rolandi M. (Speaker)

University of Milano ~ Milan ~ Italy
Building on feminist and post-colonial approaches in the sociology of religion, which have challenged the binary opposition between "religious" (and thus oppressed) women and "secular" (and thus emancipated) women, this study explores the experiences of women belonging to three Italian Catholic organizations that display different orientations toward gender issues (innovative, ambivalent, and traditional). It examines how these women navigate inner tensions and conflicts between the gender roles prescribed by their religious context and the expectations of contemporary society, in other words, how distinct structures of meaning and belonging remain cohesive. Drawing on qualitative interviews, the study investigates women's beliefs and experiences of faith, and how their religious and secular identities intersect in everyday life.
WOMEN RABBIS: ORIGINS OF EXCLUSION AND NEW FEMINIST MOVEMENT

Baldini F. (Speaker)

La Sapienza University ~ Rome ~ Italy
Judaism, despite being a millennia-old religion and one of the earliest monotheistic systems, historically enforced the exclusion of women from sacred rites, thereby delaying their access to the rabbinical career. This paper traces the origins of this exclusion from the rabbinate, examining its juridical foundations and its historical evolution across the various movements that emerged with Reform Judaism up to the present day. Moreover the paper analyzes the stages of Jewish Reform with a particular focus on Reform Judaism, in its historical stages, looking at the different trends. Then the document takes on more sociological characteristics, seeking to understand how feminist movements have contributed to change from the 1970s to the present day. At the end the article considers the situation in Italy but also refers to modern Jewish feminist movements, some of which are active in Israel.
RELIGION, GENDER, AND FAMILY IN LITHUANIAN MEDIA DEBATES (2011-2025) ON THE ISTANBUL CONVENTION

Poce G. (Speaker)

Vytautas Magnus University ~ Kaunas ~ Lithuania
Religion increasingly operates in public debates on gender equality, where religious actors challenge the concept of gender as a social construct by framing it as "gender ideology," a concern central to their opposition to the ratification of the Istanbul Convention. This paper presents the main findings of discourse analysis of religious voices in Lithuanian news media coverage of the Istanbul Convention from 2011 to 2025. The analysis demonstrates that religious actors have become prominent participants in media discourse, articulating arguments against the ratification of the Convention and reinforcing the positions of conservative political actors. Through media discourse, religious representatives and religiously oriented politicians position themselves as influential actors shaping public understandings of gender, family and law.
'I DO NOT WANT TO BE TOLERATED, I WANT TO BE ACCEPTED': NEGOTIATING THE NEED FOR QUEER FRIENDLY CHURCH

Ališauskiene M. (Speaker)

Vytautas Magnus University ~ Kaunas ~ Lithuania
The anti-gender movement, its policies and the role national churches play in many post-socialist countries have been recently discussed by various researchers (Stoeckl&Uzlaner 2022, Butler 2024, Kościańska 2024). While existing research shows the political and social influence as well as the monopoly of national churches over the construction of gender and sexuality in public and their key role in anti-gender movement, less frequent is the research on how this position of churches influence the lives of its believers and especially those who belong to the vulnerable groups. This paper based on the interviews with religious and secular queer individuals in Lithuania will analyze how they interpret the position of the Roman Catholic church regarding gender and sexuality and its manifestation in post-socialist country where religious conservatism is mixed with the Soviet legacy of homophobia and criminalization of homosexuality. Additionally, their reflection of the Church's position on the individual's religious lives will be discussed.

Panel description: War is a challenge to human norms and religious freedom. It does not only destroy the existing social order, but also provides opportunities. The Russian-Ukrainian war, while remaining an existential threat to Ukraine, has revealed the internal potential of many Ukrainian religious organizations and actors. The humanitarian activities of churches during the war largely compensated (substituted) the state's inability to protect the most affected social groups (IDPs, refugees, veterans, etc.). At the same time, the external religious diplomacy by Ukrainian faith-based leaders faced a lot of challenges, as well as achieved results. Still, humanitarian activity and diplomacy are two key parts of raising actor's agency. The growing importance and influence of religious actors led to a change in the attitude of the state authorities and the model of church-state relations. However, the increase in the influence of churches has also led to an increase in attempts to instrumentalize it. As a result, Ukrainian churches found themselves in a situation where great opportunities have opened up for them, but the threats have also become much greater than ever before. This panel is devoted to analyzing these opportunities and challenges, as well as the likely paths of development for the Ukrainian religious actors and their networks of cooperation. This panel is part of the POLISMOD (2026-31, PI Kristina Stoeckl) project launch. By examining how Ukrainian religious actors navigate expanded agency, humanitarian responsibility, and risks of political instrumentalization under conditions of war, this panel speaks directly to POLISMOD's core interest in the role of religious actors in sustaining—or undermining—democratic resilience under conditions of crisis.

Papers:

PATRIOTISM AS A CRITERION OF RELIGIOUS ORTHODOXY: THE POLITICAL INSTRUMENTALIZATION OF UKRAINIAN CHURCHES

Brylov D. (Speaker)

Dialogue in Action ~ Kyiv ~ Ukraine
The growth in the authority of Ukrainian religious organizations amid the Russian-Ukrainian conflict has intensified the instrumentalization of religion in the political sphere, primarily by the current government. On the one hand, this has manifested itself in the increased securitization of religion and the state-supported convergence of religious and patriotic discourses. On the other hand, there has been an intense religiousization of politics, with state officials actively using religious rhetoric. The report analyzes these processes and their potential consequences for Ukrainian churches and society.
STRENGTHENING RELIGIOUS AGENCY IN UKRAINE: FROM COMMUNITY-LEVEL ACTION TO NATIONAL INFLUENCE

Kalenychenko T. (Speaker)

Dialogue in Action ~ Bucha ~ Ukraine
The socio-political transformations that followed the 2013 Maidan protests and Russia's latent aggression, followed by the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, forced faith-based actors to reconsider both their roles and identities within the public sphere. Moving from immediate crisis response toward sustained social service provision, religious organizations have reshaped their public representation as integral parts of Ukrainian society and as trusted providers of assistance. At the same time, these shifts opened a space for internal reflection among faith-based initiatives: what kind of identity do they now embody? Religious leaders increasingly recognize the need to redefine their mission and strategic goals, moving away from mass evangelization that had characterized the post-independence period. This reassessment of mission has generated a further dilemma: should faith-based actors position themselves primarily as part of civil society, or should they seek a distinct place within the broader social order? Relations within the state-church-civil society triangle have undergone significant change, accompanied by shifting role expectations and responsibilities. Religious communities now struggle to locate themselves within a rapidly transforming political and social environment, particularly as civil society itself has been profoundly reshaped since 2022. These developments are linked to a transition in the church-state relationship from formal separation toward an undefined form of partnership, which carries the risk of instrumentalizing religion. At the same time, religious organizations face internal challenges and demographic shifts, including large-scale emigration, military service, rising divorce rates, and the formation of new family structures. Together, these dynamics have generated existential questions for faith-based actors—questions for which not all communities were prepared.
BECOMING A MINORITY. IMPACTS OF THE RUSSIAN WAR ON ORTHODOX THEOLOGY AND SOCIAL ETHICS

Elsner R. (Speaker)

Muenster University ~ Muenster ~ Germany
Since 2014 and the beginning of the Russian aggression against Ukraine, the situation of Orthodox churches in Ukraine changed significantly. The war caused multiple shifts within the different churches and their attitude to questions of society, politics and international relations. The framework of majority - minority relations in Ukrainian inter-orthodox and inter-Christian landscape is helpful in order to understand the dynamics within the different branches of Ukrainian Orthodoxy and within the Ukrainian society. The paper shows, how the changing relations in numbers and societal acceptance provokes also new parameters of openness to social discourses and international (ecumenical) relations, and challenges the usual methods and approaches of agency.
MORE COOPERATION OR MORE CONTROL: EVOLUTION OF UKRAINE'S RELIGION-STATE

Vovk D. (Speaker)

Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law ~ New York ~ United States of America
In October 2024, while presenting his plan of Ukraine's resilience, Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyi, claimed that the state would develop cooperationist relations with all religions, but not the "Moscow church," whose time "is over." This announcement marked a shift towards closer relations with the state and strengthening the role of religion in public life long-awaited and promoted by many Ukrainian religious groups. In the paper, Vovk will discuss the Ukrainian government's and Ukrainian religions' visions of and expectations from the turn to the cooperationist model and its potential impact to religion-state dynamics in the country.
RUSSIAN PROPAGANDA AND UKRAINIAN RELIGIOUS TELEGRAM

Fert A. (Speaker)

Kyiv School of Economics ~ Kyiv ~ Ukraine
Religious leaders have become more visible in matters of providing humanitarian aid, conducting rehabilitation, and building international relations. In times of uncertainty, people turn to faith, and this creates an opportunity for actors like Russia to cloak propaganda in religious language and imagery. Ukrainian society is predominantly Orthodox Christian. Two rival Orthodox Churches exist in the country: The Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU) and the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate (UOC-MP). The latter is widely seen as a pro-Russian actor. In 2024, Ukraine passed legislation allowing for the disbandment of religious communities with ties to Russia and those spreading Russian propaganda. But how does one identify this sort of propaganda? In my contribution, I aim to discuss the methodology of identifying the (pro)Russian propaganda in religious messaging on social network Telegram. Drawing on the ongoing research of roughly a thousand Ukrainian religious Telegram channels that we are conducting with my colleagues at the Kyiv School of Economics, I seek explore the limitations of the concept of (pro)Russian propaganda when it comes to religion.

Panel description: Religion, Race (Blacks & Latinos), Inequality and the 2024 Election Panel Description This panel explores the critical role of religion and race in shaping why Blacks and Latinos voted for billionaire Presidential candidate and Donald Trump at rates higher than expected, instead of voting for a woman of color - Presidential candidate Kamala Harris. It analyzes the reasons why this happened despite Trump's well-earned perception of being anti-minority, anti-immigrant, anti-woman and pro-big business. Session Chair, Denis Lacorne (PhD Yale), CERI at Sciences Po, Paris, France Denis Lacorne is a senior research fellow with CERI at Sciences Po. A commentator on American Politics in Europe, his books include Religion in America: A Political History. Presenter, R. Drew Smith (PhD Yale), Hillman Professor of Urban Ministry, Pittsburgh Seminary The 2024 Election, Counter-Culturalism & Black Religio-Political Fluidities This presentation examines African American voters' surprisingly strong support for Donald Trump in the 2024 elections, including from black conservative Christians who embrace restrictions on reproductive rights, gay rights, and immigrant expansions within the US; and from black sports and HipHop figures who resonate with Trump's iconoclasm and projections of strength. Dr. Smith's books include From Every Mountainside: Black Churches and the Broad Terrain of Civil Rights. Presenter, Gastón Espinosa (PhD UC Santa Barbara), Arthur V. Stoughton Professor of Religious Studies, Claremont McKenna College Latino Religion, Politics, Inequality and the 2024 Election This presentation explores the influence of religion in shaping why Latinos who suffer from inequality & normally vote Democrat voted for Trump in record numbers, even though he was often perceived as anti-immigrant, anti-minority, and pro-big business. Dr. Espinosa's books include Religion, Race, Gender & U.S. Presidency (forthcoming).

Papers:

THE 2024 ELECTION, COUNTER-CULTURALISM, AND BLACK RELIGIO-POLITICAL FLUIDITIES

Smith R.D. (Speaker)

Pittsburgh Theological Seminary ~ Pittsburgh ~ United States of America
This paper examines African American voters' surprisingly strong support for Donald Trump in the 2024 elections, and some of its religious dimensions, noting this against a fuller backdrop of unanticipated points of affinity across America's racial divide. Social policy affinities were not surprising between Trump-style conservatism and the third of black Christians supportive of restrictions on gay rights and on immigrant expansions within the US, or with the almost 50 percent of black Christians inclined toward restricting gay rights. But what may have been less anticipated was support from influential black popular culture figures and camps for a Trump agenda fundamentally at odds with core premises of the freedoms, rights, and democratic culture that have proven so essential to African American voice, agency, and empowerment. The presentation explores ways this trajectory of black support for Trump's politics may stem from black identifications with Trump's counter-culturalism, creating intersections at points between politically aggrieved segments of black and white populations. Though emanating from different starting points, cross-cutting dimensions of black and white political grievance (especially a distrust of America's political establishment and normativities) will be seen here as achieving common cause at points with Trump's anti-establishment politics and its defiant stance toward presumed impositions of liberal racial, sexual, and gender orthodoxies. Attention is paid also to the bolstering and amplification of black support for Trump by black sports and HipHop figures, and especially where resonances exist with his iconoclasm and projections of strength.
LATINOS, RELIGION, INEQUALITY, AND THE 2024 ELECTION

Espinosa G. (Speaker)

Claremont McKenna College ~ Claremont ~ United States of America
This paper explores why Latinos who often suffer disproportionately from racial and economic injustice voted for Donald Trump in record numbers in 2024, despite his reported anti-immigrant, anti-minority, anti-female, and pro-big business rhetoric. In fact, his # 1 campaign pledge was to stop the "migrant invasion" and militarize and seal up the U.S.-Mexico border and carry out the largest deportation of migrants in history, all actions which experts believed would drive Latinos to Kamala Harris in historic numbers. Pundits were thus stunned to learn on Election Day that Trump won 46% (NEP) of Latinos nationwide and a majority of men (54%) and Latinos in 6 out of 10 swing states. While Harris won Latinos nationwide (51% - 46%), it was by the smallest margin in the history of Democratic politics. Given Trump's rhetoric, how was this possible? He did so by pledging to fight economic, social, and religious inequality by jumpstarting the economy, ending inflation and the wars in Ukraine & Gaza, creating higher paying jobs, supporting small businesses, addressing concerns about crime, and on the religious front by promoting Christian nationalism, traditional gender roles, conservative Supreme Court justices, challenging transgendered athletes in women's sports, and by promoting Judeo-Christian values, which he summed up in a pledge to destroy "woke ideology" and bring Christmas back to America. These issues resonated with and increased his share of Latino Catholic and Evangelical voters, which was critical to his victory since they - like their black counterparts - have historically voted Democrat from the 1980s-2020. They proved decisive in pushing the Latino surge into the Republican column, especially in key swing states. Trump's appeal was also reinforced by endorsements from Latino celebrities and concerns about Harris's inability to check Putin's War in Ukraine, China's threat to Taiwan, bring peace to the Middle East, and promote Judeo-Christian values.

Panel description: The panel is dedicated to educational initiatives that focus on critical education on anti-Semitism in the context of digital teaching and learning scenarios. In doing so, we address the conference theme of social inequalities in relation to the digital dynamics of anti-Semitism. So far, we have two papers dedicated to this topic: One paper analyzes existing initiatives in app-applications in relation to mediaproductive competencies of students and scholars. The second paper examines how educational games can promote critical education on anti-Semitism in contemporary mediatized contexts. We are open to more papers focussing on other media-formats as ways of doing critical education on antisemitism. In terms of concept, the focus is on anti-Semitism with sensibility to also racism in the digital age. This includes for example analyzing underlying mechanisms of discrimination and racism through the use of algorithms, and possible pro-social action in the digital space with regard to anti-Semitism. Digitality permeates all areas of life and connects data from a wide variety of sources (cf. Häußling et al. 2017, p. 2). These processes generate new data that flows into social realities and culture, creating a self-reinforcing, never-ending cycle of communication (cf. ibid.). Petzke, Schmidt, and Staffa (2023, 176) state: "We are therefore essentially already in a post-digital or onlife (cf. Floridi 2015) age, in which our reality can no longer be clearly separated into analog/offline and digital/online, but is instead synthesized: we live in datafied environments. It is therefore not surprising that not only social realities as a whole, but also the racism [and anti-Semitism] that takes place within them, as well as criticism of racism [and anti-Semitism], are transforming and becoming powerful in connection with digitality."

Papers:

STRUCTURAL EDUCATION CRITICAL OF ANTI-SEMITISM EXEMPLIFIED IN DIGITAL TEACHING AND LEARNING SCENARIOS

Nord I. (Speaker)

Universität Würzburg ~ Würzburg ~ Germany
Since October 7, 2023, internet communications spreading either anti-Semitic or racist content have been shared worldwide on a large scale and with enormous polarizing effects. For children and young people, these are an everyday presence and disrupt their development or can lead to discriminatory communications being integrated into their own identity processes without them actively and consciously reflecting on this. In general, organized online campaigns use popular hashtags to spread anti-Semitic and rassist messages in a targeted manner. The anonymity of comment sections also lowers the inhibition threshold for aggressive and inhuman statements, thus promoting the further normalization of discrimination on the internet (cf. Miehling 2024). What should students and teachers do when anti-Semitic or racist memes circulate in the WhatsApp class group? Is it advisable to delete them, discuss them, or report them directly to the police or civil society reporting centers? Such questions are the focus of the second semester of the program Certificate in Anti-Semitism-Critical Education for Teaching and Schools at the University of Würzburg (ZABUS). The advanced module on digital anti-Semitism-critical education specifically prepares prospective teachers for this situation. This also promotes anti-Semitism-critical criticism of racism. The article provides insights into the discrimination-sensitive and, in particular, BIPoC-sensitive reflection and transformation of speech recognition systems. It presents the method of "empathy-based counterspeech" (Hangartner et al. 2021) in the context of hate speech, and uses narrative approaches such as critical media analysis with tools from the PLURV method to demonstrate targeted training in dealing with images, which enables both students and teachers to recognize and refute problematic narratives or counter them digitally.
EDUCATIONAL GAMES AS WAYS OF TEACHING ABOUT ANTISEMITISM

Radde-Antweiler K. (Speaker)

Universität Bremen ~ Bremen ~ Germany
Antisemitic narratives have enjoyed great popularity in digital media, and not just since the coronavirus pandemic and the rise of conspiracy theories. It is therefore not surprising that the majority of existing research studies stresses that digital media enables a so-called normalization of antisemitism, partly due to the absence of legal consequences that can usually be observed. They go so far as to claim that digital media are responsible for the rise of antisemitic structures. But is such a generalization appropriate, and what about the use of digital technology in education to raise awareness and educate about antisemitism? Grieve, Radde-Antweiler and Zeiler (2020) stresses that for example games rules, the games narratives the game design as well as the gaming as such are deeply connected to decision-making processes and with specific values that give meaning to gamers' decisions. Games then trigger the discussion of ethical and moral behavior. This involves exploring the moral and ethical choices presented in games. For example, the ethical dilemmas in games illustrate how games can shape players' understanding of moral complexities. Furthermore, games promote values of community, cooperation, and sustainable living. The paper will focus on digital games, particularly educational games, and critically discuss the possibilities and opportunities they offer for promoting education that challenges antisemitism, taking into account today's deeply mediatized living environments.

Panel description: This open call panel explores how Christians in late antiquity and the early medieval period responded theologically to emergent Islam. Confirmed papers investigate the Christian use of distinctively Islamic theological and juridical categories and the methods that Christians used to engage the Qurʾān. This panel is open to scholars exploring Christian responses to early Islam in diverse geographical, cultural, and linguistic contexts. The panel can welcome a maximum of three additional papers.

Papers:

IN MY OPINION, THIS ISN'T MY OPINION: CHRISTIAN THEOLOGIANS ON RAʾY AND BIDʿA

Welle J. (Speaker)

Boston College ~ Chestnut Hill ~ United States of America
This presentation examines the first generation of Christian theologians writing in Arabic, focusing on their awareness of developments in early Islamic thought surrounding two key concepts in theology and fiqh: raʾy (opinion) and bidʿa (innovation). Current research in Islamic studies generally examines the evolution of these categories based solely on intra-Islamic data, but Christian theologians provide extra-Islamic witnesses to how Muslim discourse around these terms affected Christian responses to Muslims' polemics against Christians. The West Syrian Abū Rāʾiṭa al-Takrītī (d. ca. 220/835) offers the clearest example of an apologetic argument denying that Christians innovate or construct their doctrine or practice based on opinion, but the paper also examines Theodore Abū Qurra (d. ca. 214/829) and the East Syrian ʿAmmār al-Baṣrī (d. ca. 225-235/840-850) as complementary witnesses to how Christians responded to this Islamic challenge.
HOW CHRISTIANS MADE USE OF THE QURʾĀN: A CASE STUDY ON THE CRUCIFIXION

Craig R.E. (Speaker)

Georgetown University ~ Washington DC ~ United States of America
Taking the qurʾānic crucifixion (Q 4:157-158) as a case study, this paper lays out an approach to analyzing the rhetorical and linguistic features of qurʾānic prooftexting by Syriac- and Arabic-speaking Christians from the eighth to the eleventh centuries. Building on the author's monograph on these verses in early Muslim-Christian polemics (De Gruyter, 2025), the presentation will examine categories of active and passive engagement with the Qurʾān based on close textual analysis. These include changes to core formulas of faith ('creedal' statements) that reflect the ongoing christological controversies among the Eastern churches, the influence of the Qurʾān's theological vernacular, and Christian awareness of early Islamic tafsīr.

Panel description: Scholarship in Jewish theology has long oriented itself in relation to the canon of modern Jewish thought which wrestled with the polarity between reason and revelation. However, since the middle of the twentieth century, another strain of Jewish theology has existed, one that challenges the philosophical assumptions of the more dominant paradigm. Rather than presupposing the absolute perfection of divine reality and the limits of its human reception, this subaltern theology investigates the character of the human response to divine word and revelation, finding within it a theological space—even necessity—for the human role in interpreting and shaping the face of the divine will. This panel brings together four papers on the theology of David Weiss Halivni, a specifically insightful exponent of the essence and implications raised by this alternate strain in modern Jewish theology. Halivni does not ask how we live in the tension between reason and revelation, but rather, how do we construct a coherent vision of God's will when confronted by the "maculate" (i.e., seemingly imperfect) template of revealed scripture? As Halivni wrote, "Even the most conservative scholars concede that the literal surface of the scriptural Torah is such that adjunct nonscriptural traditions are required to enable actual observance." This panel seeks to expound both the core issues at play in Halivni's theology—the axial, perhaps even ontological relationship between Scripture and Oral Law—as well as is implications for a Jewish theology still in shadow to the reason-revelation dichotomy.

Papers:

INTERPRETING A MACULATE TORAH: DAVID WEISS HALIVNI ON REASON AND REVELATION

Rashkover R. (Speaker)

William & Mary ~ Williamsburg ~ United States of America
As is well-known, the Jewish Question is the question of Judaism's survival in modernity. In this paper, I will argue that Judaism's continuity is a philosophical issue with significant bearing on an analysis of the relationship between revelation and reason. Few modern Jewish theologians have recognized the connection between the philosophical conditions of Judaism's continuity and the relationship between revelation and reason. Moreover, most have embraced what we will here refer to as Akedah Theology or the notion that divine revelation opposes human reason or knowing and constitutes the exclusive ground of human obligation to revelation's commands. In what follows, I will argue that Akedah theology's rejection of the role of human reason and the human determination of 'truth' or 'validity' undermines the philosophical conditions of Judaism's continuity. To do so I will: 1) outline the philosophical conditions of Judaism's continuity, 2) examine Leo Strauss's Akedah theology of revelation to display the problem and 3) investigate how David Weiss Halivni's rejection of Akedah theology comports with the philosophical conditions of Judaism's continuity.
MACULATE COHERENCE: TRACING A THEOLOGY OF RESTORATIVE COMMENTARY BETWEEN EZRA AND THE MISHNAH IN THE WRITINGS OF DAVID WEISS HALIVNI

Kessler S. (Speaker)

Virginia Commonwealth University ~ Richmond ~ United States of America
The Oral law is a foundation pillar of normative rabbinic Judaism. Yet as David Weiss Halivni often noted, there is debate within the sources as to the nature and origin of the Oral law and of the value placed on legal premises founded in written Scripture as opposed to those credited entirely to received tradition. Further, Halivni wrote, Scripture, rather than immaculate is actually "maculate," not a single thread but rather the account of an "unfolding" of the divine Will. Thus, for Halivni, incumbency rests with the Oral law and its expositors, who are tasked with creating a synthetic and vibrant religious life from the maculate Scriptural sources of divine revelation. This paper seeks to understand Halivni's theology of the pivotal years from Ezra to the Mishna, when Judaism transitioned away from Revealed word to a sole reliance on communally interpreted Oral Law. In his narratives of Israel's history, Halivni centered the role of Ezra, who, renewing the covenant with the people after Exile, inherited a text that was inconsistent and unclear. In Ezra, Halivni wrote, we see the birth of a sort of "restoration" theology, the beginning attempt to create a unity of theological vision (and thus a coherent halakha) from a maculate scripture. For Halivni, the Mishna does not arise ex nihilo, but is rather—as this paper will argue—a radical theological statement about the rabbinic role in restoring a lost coherence to divine revelation.
WHAT IS UNORTHODOX? A THEOLOGICAL COMPARISON BETWEEN HALIVNI AND S.R. HIRSCH

Kohler G.Y. (Speaker)

Bar-Ilan University ~ Ramat Gan ~ Israel
The paper claims that Halivni wasn't an (neo-)orthodox Jewish thinker at all - not because of his controversial acceptance of Higher Biblical criticism - but on exclusively theological grounds. The paper will prove that claim by utilizing a passage from the very founder of neo-orthodoxy, Rabbi S.R. Hirsch (1808-1888), on the relationship of the oral and written Torah to each other, a subject on which Halivni seems to have the exact opposite theological approach: The Talmudic sages did not hold a dogmatic believe in the divinity of the entire oral Torah. This comparison will than also help us to formulate more general criteria for the notion of orthodoxy within the Jewish religion.

Panel description: The panel aims to explore in depth the theme of Deep Incarnation, a Christological perspective developed in particular by Niels Henrik Gregersen and explored, with their own emphases, by theologians such as Elizabeth A. Johnson, Celia Deane-Drummond, and Denis Edwards. This theological trend interprets "incarnation" not only as the assumption of human nature by the Word, but as a radical involvement of the Son of God in the flesh of the world, in matter, in evolutionary history, and in the vulnerability of the entire cosmos. Such a vision has generated widespread debate because it forces us to rethink traditional theological and philosophical categories and to bring different disciplinary fields into dialogue. On the one hand, it recalls patristic reflection, especially where the Fathers speak of "sarx" as the universal place of communion and salvation, or when Neoplatonic-inspired theologians (Maximus the Confessor, John Scotus Eriugena, and Nicholas of Cusa) offer tools for understanding the relationship between the Logos and the deep structure of reality. On the other hand, Deep Incarnation engages with contemporary sciences, in particular with Teilhard de Chardin's evolutionary and cosmic vision, which sees Christ as the principle of cohesion and convergence of the universe, and with recent theories of quantum physics (Carlo Rovelli and Federico Faggin) with the notion of quantum field and cosmic consciousness. In this intertwining of theology, philosophy, and science, the panel aims to show how Deep Incarnation opens new ways of understanding the Christian mystery in a world marked by interconnection, complexity, and ecological vulnerability.

Papers:

THEOLOGY OF DEEP INCARNATION

Fenaroli S. (Speaker)

Facoltà teologica dell'Italia settentrionale ~ Milan ~ Italy
What is the relationship between the flesh of Jesus and the "flesh" of creation? What is the salvific meaning of the incarnation of the Word for every creature, human and non-human? These are the questions that punctuate the work of the theology of deep incarnation, an unprecedented eco-theological current that roots the value of every creature in the mystery of the incarnation, as the assumption by the divine Logos of the flesh of creation in Jesus. After recalling its origins and purposes, the research focuses, in the first part, on three decisive aspects: the biblical foundation (in particular Jn 1:14), the reference to historical-patristic testimony, and the rethinking of transcendence and immanence. In the second part, however, the author compares the profound incarnation with the theology of Paolo Gamberini and attempts to offer a personal reworking of it, outlining a theology of the "world of the incarnate Son." This is an original and in-depth study, presenting the Italian theological landscape with a new voice capable of bringing the heart of the Christian faith into dialogue with the questions of our age.
DEEP INCARNATION AN RELATIVE MONISM

Gamberini P. (Speaker)

Pontificia Facoltà Teologica dell'Italia Meridionale ~ Naples ~ Italy
Deep Incarnation articulates an expanded theology of the incarnation in which the Logos does not merely assume human nature in its narrow anthropological specificity, but enters into the very "flesh" of the world—into matter, biological life, and the evolutionary history of the cosmos. In this view, the incarnation is not confined to the human sphere but constitutes a radical divine involvement in the deepest structures of creaturely existence, extending to vulnerability, suffering, and transformation. The divine is thus not conceived as external to the world but as present within its most intimate dynamisms. This framework resonates with the philosophical proposal of relative monism, which emerges as a critical alternative to the rigid dichotomy between monism and dualism. Rather than collapsing all reality into a single substance or positing an unbridgeable gap between created and uncreated, relative monism affirms an ontological unity that is intrinsically relational and capable of sustaining genuine plurality. A lineage of thought from Maximus the Confessor through John Scotus Eriugena to Nicholas of Cusa anticipates this vision: Maximus conceives the logoi of all creatures as grounded in the one Logos, maintaining both distinction and unity; Eriugena interprets reality as a dynamic theophany in which God and creation are inseparable yet non-identical moments of a single process; and Cusa articulates the coincidentia oppositorum, in which unity and multiplicity converge without erasure. Within this intellectual horizon, relative monism provides a conceptual matrix for reinterpreting Teilhard de Chardin's Cosmic Christ, allowing the singularity of Jesus to be understood not as an isolated exception but as the personal center in which the cosmic and historical dimensions of Christ converge. In this synthesis, the uniqueness of Jesus is preserved precisely by situating it within the broader relational unity of the cosmos, rather than apart from it.

Panel description: The panel foregrounds how epistemological hierarchies, rooted in colonial histories, racialised knowledge systems, gendered exclusions, and Eurocentric academic canons, continue to shape whose religions, spiritualities, and ways of knowing are recognised as legitimate within higher education. Bringing together African (focus on South Africa) and European perspectives, this panel examines how educators attempt to teach religion in ways that resist epistemic injustice while operating within institutions still structured by colonial and neoliberal logics. We engage critically with questions of epistemological privilege: Who gets to define what counts as religion, spirituality, theory, and evidence? How are race, gender, and religious identity entangled in the production of academic authority? And how might pedagogies rooted in relationality, lived experience, spirituality, and plural ways of being disrupt dominant hierarchies of knowledge? Rather than offering a celebratory narrative of "decolonisation," the panel situates decolonial pedagogy as an ongoing, fragile, and contested practice, one that exposes both the possibilities and the limits of teaching religion within unequal worlds.

Papers:

THE HUMAN, JOHN WESLEY AND THE AFRICAN: A DECOLONIAL ENGAGEMENT WITH WESLEY'S CONSTRUCTION OF 'MAN'.

Matthew L. (Speaker)

University of KwaZulu-Natal ~ Durban ~ South Africa
Between 2014 and 2016, across several Southern African Universities, the Fallist movements (PatriarchyMustFall/FeesMustFall/RhodesMustFall) swept across academic institutions in South Africa. This movement, called not only for free education but also the decolonization of the academy. The call to decolonize has become synonymous with the removal statues and memorials to colonialism, alongside discursive decolonial approaches within the academy that endeavor to unearth and visibilise the ways in which Western epistemological privilege cement and reproduce unequal social systems of race, gender and class persistent as intersecting co-generative logics incubating the rampant inequality characteristic of South African society. A decade on, in a world rendered increasingly volatile by these logics of inequality, the cry of the Fallist Movement is not only relevant but also urgent. Christian systematic theology has by enlarge remained untouched by the decolonial movement and has only just begun to wrestle with its own colonial underpinnings. Critical for systematic theology and it complicity in reproducing systems of inequality is the question of the human. Decolonial trajectories problematise Western hegemonic assumptions by asking: Whose humanity is considered in constructing the (hu)man? Whose humanity counts as (hu)man enough, as valid, or authoritative enough, so that their (hu)man experience becomes the standard through which knowledge can be constructed? This paper engages John Wesley's formulation of the (hu)man within two key aspects of his writings: Treatise on Original Sin and Thoughts on Slavery. Situating Wesley within his historical and philosophical contexts and by drawing on the rich heritage of decolonial thought within the Southern African context in an attempt to answer the question: How do I preach the Wesleyan tradition in Southern Africa, at a time such as this?"
D. ONLINE FACILITATION AND THE STUDY OF RELIGION WITHIN A DECOLONIAL FRAMEWORK: CLASSROOM DISCUSSION AS AN INSTRUMENT FOR METHODOLOGICAL LEARNING

Rovellini M. (Speaker)

Oggiono ~ Lecco ~ Italy
In contemporary academia, decolonisation is both an ethical objective and a practical challenge. Religious studies provide a particularly fertile ground for experimenting with new didactical approaches. In 2025/2026, I took part in the Virtual Exchanges in Religious Euro-African Dialogue (VEREAD) programme as an online facilitator in two courses: "Is Religion a Colonial Construct?", focused on postcolonial and decolonial approaches to the study of religion, and "Contexts, Sources and Critical-Historical Methods for the Research of Religion", devoted to methodological tools for the historical study of religious traditions in African contexts. Both courses brought together lecturers and students from different cultural, religious, and academic backgrounds, creating an intercultural and interdisciplinary classroom. The role of facilitator consisted in accompanying participants throughout a series of discussion based online activities. Readings were assigned by the lecturers in advance; during the sessions, class members worked either in plenary or in small groups. Facilitators proposed guiding questions connected to the texts in order to stimulate dialogue, collect and reaffirm the main points that emerged. They encouraged learners to connect theoretical concepts to their personal and academic experiences, while balancing when to intervene and when to step back to let discussion unfold. Drawing on this ongoing experience, I argue that structured discussion in an intercultural and interdisciplinary online classroom can support students in acquiring methodological knowledge and competences informed by a decolonial perspective for the study of religion, particularly from the standpoint of history and the social sciences.
B. RELIGION, INEQUALITY, AND DECOLONIAL PEDAGOGY: TEACHING ISLAM IN EUROPEAN-AFRICAN VIRTUAL CLASSROOMS

Muslim C. (Speaker)

University of KwaZulu-Natal ~ Durban ~ South Africa
Social, legal, and gender inequalities are not only shaped by religious traditions but are also reproduced and contested in the spaces where religion is taught. This paper explores decolonial pedagogies for teaching Islam in European-African virtual classrooms, foregrounding religion's complex role in sustaining social hierarchies while also offering ethical resources for justice and equality. Drawing on Seedat and Nadar's (2020) feminist praxis of "holding space" between the Qurʾan and the Bible, the paper understands the classroom as a holistic decolonial space shaped by multiple, intersecting struggles. These include gendered patterns of religious authority; the continuing impact of colonial and postcolonial law; racialised ways of understanding secularism; forms of knowledge that are marginalised; and unequal opportunities for participation in digital learning spaces. A decolonial framework of reflection is used to examine how these dynamics surface in students' lived experiences and inform the interpretation of religious texts. Integrating Islamic feminist approaches such as the tawḥīdī paradigm, tafsīr of praxis and possibility, and the concept of al-ahliyya (legal and moral capacity), the paper shows how Islam is both implicated in forms of inequality and able to generate internal critiques of gendered and legal hierarchies. A comparative rereading of Hajar/Hagar across Qurʾanic and Biblical traditions serves as a pedagogical case study, illustrating how attention to embodiment, agency, and relational ethics can disrupt patriarchal and colonial readings of scripture. The paper argues that decolonial pedagogy does not merely analyse religion and inequality but actively intervenes in how they are reproduced within Religious Studies education.
FACING THE PAST TO DECOLONIZE THE FUTURE: THE ERASURE OF ITALY'S COLONIAL PAST AND ITS PERSISTENCE IN ITALIAN FEMINIST MOVEMENTS. REFLECTIONS ON HOW TO TAKE ACCOUNTABILITY AND IMAGINE DIFFERENT SCENERIES.

Esposito E. (Speaker)

Independent Researcher ~ Rome ~ Italy
This article, that is part of the panel The (im)possibility of decolonial pedagogy in the academy, aims to explore how the general erasure of Italy's colonial past from collective memory and its absence in the standard school curriculum, where it is often just mentioned, has shaped the view on non-European (and especially African) religious traditions, cultures, politics and views on gender. Starting from the analysis of the colonial continuities that still persist in Western feminist movements, this paper will also delve into the notion that many Italian feminist movements, even if they have started the discourse around intersectionality, and promote interfaith and intercultural dialogue, have not yet fully recognized the consequences of Italy's colonial past and still struggle to involve racialized voices, that are often exploited as witnesses but not as individuals with political and cultural demands. Furthermore, this article will unpack how the decolonizing approach towards religion and its teaching has encouraged some shifts and how they should be implemented, such as the recognition of underlying colonialist and Eurocentric views, a more diversified iconography, the value of embodied experiences in feminist practice and of decentralising Western and hierarchical point of views in order to listen to the voices from the margins, where the margin should be seen as a place of resistance and analysis.
STILL AWAITING THE TITLE

Sakuba X. (Speaker)

University of KwaZulu-Natal ~ Pietermaritzburg ~ South Africa
Still to be received

Panel description: Religion continue to be used as a tool of repression in many Global North Countries. Research has shown that conflict which has a religious undertone is hard to mitigate especially if the adherents exhibit extremist behaviours. As such, political parties, have seen the power of religion in consolidation undemocratic practice to an extent of using it to stay long in power. The foregoing questions the moral validity of religion in conflict or oppressive society. Thus, this panel seeks to interrogate the question of religion in suffering from many angles such as philosophy, sociological and educational among many other variables. Part of the debate is centered around how Eurocentric religions have been eternalised in African context to an extent that they contribute to suffering of people? How diminishing religion in the European context have such a great influence in Global South in relation to political oppression and silencing dissenting voices? Such question and many others are able to position this topic as novel in contributing to the current conversation about and on religion and its presence in Global South

Papers:

POLITICS AND GUKURAHUNDI IN ZIMBABWE

Ncube A.M. (Speaker) [1] , Gift M. (Speaker) [2]

University of Zimbabwe ~ Bulawayo ~ Zimbabwe [1] , Zimbabwe Open University ~ Harare ~ Zimbabwe [2]
In this paper, I juxtapose with the unresolved Gukurahundi which affected people from Matabeleland and Midlands between 1982 and 1987. While various attempts have been sought to address the ambivalence faced by the victims, healing and reconciliation has not materialised prompting a need to find alternatives to address the issue. In this case, the paper draws various programs by Anglican diocese of Matabeleland to contribute the healing and reconciliation. The paper is couched in Juan Luis Segundo's hermeneutics of suspicion provides, theory which gives a critical framework for examining religious texts and practices to uncover hidden power structures and biases that perpetuate oppression. The paper is located in transformative paradigm where qualitative research design was used. Data was collected through interviews and group discussion. The argument of the paper premised on the notion that Gukurahundi while seem to be an isolated and painful period for the people in Matabeleland and Midlands, it has potential to escalate to other parts of the country as an act of revenge, hence a nee to bring all possible mitigation strategies to ensure a healed and reconciled nation and Anglican church has a critical role to play in position itself as a relevant, responsible and caring institute.
REGIME AND RELIGION IN ZIMBABWE

Dube B. (Speaker)

Central University of Technology ~ Bloemfontein ~ South Africa
this presentation is collection focuses on the role of religious leaders and religious institutions in supporting or resisting the democratization process in Zimbabwe. It scrutinizes the actions of religious leaders such Andrew Wutawunashe and Jeremiah Mutendi who were prominent in the political scene and participated as enablers of the undemocratic regime. The contributors to this volume employ a variety of methodological approaches to understand the operational dilemma of the second republic under Emmerson Dambudzo Mnangagwa, commonly referred to as Zanupfism. It is an empirical study to determine the impact of religious leaders as regime enablers and assess the effects of such an approach in terms of social development, democracy, and social transformation as espoused in the rise of the second republic. In order to balance the narrative, the book highlights and offers critique of religious leaders and institutes who are the resistors of the regime. It specifically explores the Zimbabwe Catholic Bishops Conference, Evangelical Fellowship of Zimbabwe, Zimbabwe Council of Churches, Talent Chiwenga and Shingi Munyeza. This is a critical study of decoloniality in a religious context that documents characters such as Shingi Mayeza, Bishop Mutendi, Mapostori who seldomly appear in scholarship despite their great impact (either positive or negative) on the lives of the people of Zimbabwe.
CHURCH AND ZANUPFISM IN ZIMBABWE

Gift M. (Speaker)

Zimbabwe Open University ~ Harare ~ Zimbabwe
The politics in Zimbabwe has seen religion playing a very negative role in national building. Religion is used as an instrument of repression and silenting dissenting views. It is also used as an excuse not to challenge power dynamics that sustain oppression. In this presentation, I seeks to show how ZANU PF has used religion as a weapon to silent enemies and also to create a docile community that does not think beyond the immediate. To develop this theme, i will use slogans, speechs from church leaders and followers that buttress undemocratic practices
COLONIAL MIMICRY, RELIGIOUS ABUSE, AND THE MORAL VALIDITY OF NEO PENTECOSTALISM IN SOUTH AFRICA

Motuku K.P. (Speaker)

University of South Africa ~ Pretoria ~ South Africa
While the Global North moves toward a confident secular order, South Africa remains marked by Eurocentric religious forms that were planted in the colonial era and renewed by transnational prosperity and prophetic currents. Within parts of the neo-Pentecostal and charismatic sector, these forms have often ceased to liberate and have become instruments of quiet domination. This paper examines how religious authority, received through colonial mimicry and sharpened by post-apartheid precarity, enables abuse and silences dissent. It engages public cases in the national record, including the CRL Rights Commission's work on the commercialisation of religion, the ritual use of insecticide in a purported healing, the staging of a resurrection, and the tragedy linked to a separatist ministry in the Eastern Cape. Treated as windows into a political economy of charisma, these cases reveal how spectacle becomes liturgy, how leaders become sovereigns, and how the bodies of the poor become the theatre of power. The paper argues that Europe's diminishing religiosity paradoxically fuels African frameworks that elevate charismatic sovereignty above communal accountability through networks of media, money, and prestige. Sociologically, such movements operate as quasi-states; philosophically, they weaponise a theology of suffering that normalizes inequality. In dialogue with Afrocentric and decolonial critique and with Pentecostal political theology, the paper re-reads Luke and Acts to propose a Spirit ethic of subversive care and communal responsibility. It concludes with pastoral, educational, and policy recommendations that centre survivors and bind religious power to public accountability.

Panel description: The panel aims to explore in depth the theme of Deep Incarnation, a Christological perspective developed in particular by Niels Henrik Gregersen and explored, with their own emphases, by theologians such as Elizabeth A. Johnson, Celia Deane-Drummond, and Denis Edwards. This theological trend interprets "incarnation" not only as the assumption of human nature by the Word, but as a radical involvement of the Son of God in the flesh of the world, in matter, in evolutionary history, and in the vulnerability of the entire cosmos. Such a vision has generated widespread debate because it forces us to rethink traditional theological and philosophical categories and to bring different disciplinary fields into dialogue. On the one hand, it recalls patristic reflection, especially where the Fathers speak of "sarx" as the universal place of communion and salvation, or when Neoplatonic-inspired theologians (Maximus the Confessor, John Scotus Eriugena, and Nicholas of Cusa) offer tools for understanding the relationship between the Logos and the deep structure of reality. On the other hand, Deep Incarnation engages with contemporary sciences, in particular with Teilhard de Chardin's evolutionary and cosmic vision, which sees Christ as the principle of cohesion and convergence of the universe, and with recent theories of quantum physics (Carlo Rovelli and Federico Faggin) with the notion of quantum field and cosmic consciousness. In this intertwining of theology, philosophy, and science, the panel aims to show how Deep Incarnation opens new ways of understanding the Christian mystery in a world marked by interconnection, complexity, and ecological vulnerability.

Papers:

DEEP INCARNATION AND RELATIVE MONISM

Gamberini P. (Speaker)

Pontifical Theological Faculty of Southern Italy ~ Naples ~ Italy
Deep Incarnation articulates an expanded theology of the incarnation in which the Logos does not merely assume human nature in its narrow anthropological specificity, but enters into the very "flesh" of the world—into matter, biological life, and the evolutionary history of the cosmos. In this view, the incarnation is not confined to the human sphere but constitutes a radical divine involvement in the deepest structures of creaturely existence, extending to vulnerability, suffering, and transformation. The divine is thus not conceived as external to the world but as present within its most intimate dynamisms. This framework resonates with the philosophical proposal of relative monism, which emerges as a critical alternative to the rigid dichotomy between monism and dualism. Rather than collapsing all reality into a single substance or positing an unbridgeable gap between created and uncreated, relative monism affirms an ontological unity that is intrinsically relational and capable of sustaining genuine plurality. A lineage of thought from Maximus the Confessor through John Scotus Eriugena to Nicholas of Cusa anticipates this vision: Maximus conceives the logoi of all creatures as grounded in the one Logos, maintaining both distinction and unity; Eriugena interprets reality as a dynamic theophany in which God and creation are inseparable yet non-identical moments of a single process; and Cusa articulates the coincidentia oppositorum, in which unity and multiplicity converge without erasure. Within this intellectual horizon, relative monism provides a conceptual matrix for reinterpreting Teilhard de Chardin's Cosmic Christ, allowing the singularity of Jesus to be understood not as an isolated exception but as the personal center in which the cosmic and historical dimensions of Christ converge. In this synthesis, the uniqueness of Jesus is preserved precisely by situating it within the broader relational unity of the cosmos, rather than apart from it.
THEOLOGY OF DEEP INCARNATION

Tagliapietra C. (Speaker)

Pontifical University of the Holy Cross ~ Rome ~ Italy
Deep Incarnation asks how the flesh of Jesus relates to the flesh of creation and what salvific meaning the incarnation holds for every creature, human and non-human. Read in dialogue with contemporary science, this question gains new depth: the "flesh" assumed by the Logos is not merely an individual human body but the entire material and biological continuum that makes embodiment possible. Modern cosmology shows that the elements composing Jesus' body were forged in ancient stars, while evolutionary biology reveals that his genetic structure emerged from billions of years of life's unfolding. In this sense, the incarnation inserts the divine into the very processes that shape all living beings. The vulnerability, suffering, and mortality Jesus shares are not exclusively human traits but features of life itself, marked by evolutionary struggle and ecological interdependence. This scientific horizon strengthens the theological claim that the incarnation concerns the whole of creation: if the Word becomes flesh, and flesh is cosmically and biologically interconnected, then the salvific scope of the incarnation necessarily extends to all creatures. Deep incarnation thus becomes an eco-theological vision in which God's redemptive presence permeates the evolutionary history of the world. The theology of Deep Incarnation is biblically grounded —especially in John 1:14— and retrieves patristic insights into the cosmic dimension of the Logos. In doing so, it offers the contemporary theological landscape a framework capable of bringing the core of Christian faith into conversation with scientific knowledge and ecological urgency, showing that the mystery of the incarnation speaks not only to humanity but to the entire fabric of the cosmic life.
RĀMĀNUJA'S PANENTHEISM AND THE THEOLOGY OF DEEP INCARNATION

Vona L. (Speaker)

La Sapienza, University of Rome ~ Rome ~ Italy
Rāmānuja (1017-1137), an Indian philosopher of the Viśiṣṭādvaita Vedānta tradition, developed a panentheistic vision that presents striking affinities with the recent Christian theology of "deep incarnation." For Rāmānuja, Brahman is the personal God Viṣṇu, and the world with individual souls literally constitutes the "body" of God. This relationship is expressed by the metaphor śarīra-śarīrin (body-embodied): just as the soul pervades and sustains the body, so Brahman pervades, sustains, and dwells in the entire cosmos. The world is neither separate from God nor identical to Him, but His living body. God is intimately present in every aspect of material and spiritual reality. The contemporary theology of "deep incarnation," developed by theologians such as Niels Gregersen, affirms that the Incarnation of Christ concerns not only humanity, but the entire material creation. Christ assumes not only human flesh, but unites Himself profoundly with all cosmic reality, redeeming matter itself. This vision resonates powerfully with Rāmānuja's panentheism: in both cases, God is not distant from material creation, but profoundly incarnate in it. The cosmic body of Brahman in Rāmānuja anticipates the idea that God intimately dwells in matter. Both traditions overcome the spirit-matter dualism, affirming the sacredness of the physical world as divine dwelling and the redemption of the entire cosmos.

Panel description: The Jubilee of the year 2025 can be considered a "total social event", in Marcel Mauss terms. The definition of "total social event" involves many methods of research, leading to explore and to analyse multiple aspects. The main works concern the quantitative study through questionnaires, the qualitative analysis trough focused interviews, the visual perspective using photos and videos, the digital research about the presence and the impact of new communication technologies, the survey on the role of nurses participating in the Jubilee together with ill and disabled people, the observant participation and other techniques to investigate the participation of prisoners and prison guards in the jubilee celebrations. Main results can be discussed.

Papers:

THE DIGITAL JUBILEE

Sbaragli S. (Speaker)

Partenope University of Naples ~ Naples ~ Italy
The presentation offers a critical reflection on the Digital Jubilee as a symbolic, institutional, and technological device through which religion is reconfigured in the contemporary digital ecosystem. The Jubilee, traditionally grounded in embodied ritual practices, sacred temporalities, and institutional mediations, is now being reimagined through digital platforms, information infrastructures, and algorithmic logics that redefine the experience of the sacred, forms of participation, and the modes of producing religious meaning. Digital Jubilee is presented as a socio-religious phenomenon emerging from the intertwining of ritual practices, digital media, and contemporary cultural transformations. The Jubilee is viewed as a networked and mediatised event, in which digital platforms, social media, and communication infrastructures redefine the forms of participation, belonging, and narration of the religious experience, giving rise to hybrid modes of physical presence and online enjoyment. The contribution explores the role of digital networks in constructing the Jubilee imagery, in practices of witnessing, mobilisation, and religious tourism, as well as in the processes of certification, memory, and recognition of the event. Particular attention is paid to representations of health, disability, frailty, death, and care, as well as the narratives produced by marginalised individuals, non-believers, or those critical of the religious institution, highlighting tensions, counter-narratives, and symbolic conflicts. Through digital and visual methodologies, the Digital Jubilee is interpreted as a laboratory for understanding how religion is reorganised in digital space, questioning the relationships between the sacred, media, power, and participation in contemporary society. From this perspective, the Digital Jubilee emerges not only as a technological extension of a religious event but as a socio-cultural phenomenon.
DIGITAL RELIGION

Grassi E. (Speaker)

Z ~ Z ~ Italy
This paper introduces the concept of artificial dulia to describe quasi-devotional relations that emerge around AI-mediated presences in contexts of digital death. Rather than treating generative systems as neutral tools, it conceptualizes them as algoagents that sustain dialogic "afterlives" through memorial interfaces, personalized outputs, and continuous interaction. Drawing on sociology of religion and STS, artificial dulia is distinguished from worship (latria) by focusing on practices of mediated intercession, affective obligation, and ritualized maintenance (messages, anniversaries, prompts, notifications). The paper argues that grief-oriented technologies translate mourning into platformized temporal regimes, fostering a presentist afterlife in which the deceased becomes continuously reachable, updateable, and governable. Conceptually, the analysis maps three operations: (1) inscription of the dead into data traces and profiles, (2) animation through generative dialogue and personalization, (3) governance through platform policies, metrics, and moderation. The conclusion discusses ethical and political implications concerning authority and authenticity of the "voice", commodification of remembrance, and the redistribution of pastoral functions between families, platforms, and AI providers.
THE FAITH OF OTHERS: INTERRELIGIOUS DIALOGUE IN THE JUBILEE HORIZON

Salerno R.M. (Speaker)

University of Palermo ~ Palermo ~ Italy
This contribution explores the "faith" of the "others" from a sociological perspective, interpreting religious difference as a threshold rather than a boundary, in dialogue with the symbolic horizon of the Jubilee. The Jubilee is understood not only as a religious event, but also as a social and cultural device centered on passage, encounter, reconciliation, and the opening of thresholds. Within this framework, interreligious dialogue becomes an invitation to cross differences through listening, the suspension of judgment, and the recognition of a shared humanity oriented toward the common good. Religious otherness is approached not as an obstacle, but as a space of encounter capable of questioning and transforming individuals, fostering a deeper understanding of the self and revealing the shared fragility and search for meaning that unite believers across different traditions. The research focuses on the urban context of Palermo, considered a meaningful laboratory of lived religious pluralism. Through narratives, interviews, and visual materials, the empirical analysis examines how participants perceive the faith of others, how dialogue transforms relationships through reciprocal listening, and what forms of proximity and connection emerge among different religious traditions. The findings show that interreligious dialogue, like the Jubilee experience, is a demanding and transformative pathway that enables individuals to inhabit the threshold, value diversity as a resource, and open new possibilities for coexistence grounded in shared hope and responsibility. Keywords: Interreligious Dialogue; Jubilee; Religious Pluralism; Threshold; Liminality; Palermo; Sociology of Religion; Sacred; Proximity; Qualitative Research
VERTICAL AUTHORITY AND HORIZONTAL PRODUCTION: THE HOLY SEE'S COMMUNICATION DOCTRINE FROM INTER MIRIFICA TO THE JUBILEE OF DIGITAL MISSIONARIES AND CATHOLIC INFLUENCERS

Taverna V. (Speaker) [1] , Ranucci E. (Speaker) [2]

University of Tuscia ~ Viterbo ~ Italy [1] , University Niccolò Cusano ~ Rome ~ Italy [2]
This paper analyses the evolution of the Holy See's reflection on communication, by comparing the conciliar decree Inter Mirifica (1963) with the official speeches delivered by Church authorities at the Jubilee of Digital Missionaries and Catholic Influencers (July 2025). Through institutional discourse analysis, the Vatican is observed as a policy maker redefining its authority and symbolic identity within the contemporary digital ecosystem. Inter Mirifica established a normative framework on the means of social communication, defining the boundaries, risks and opportunities of legitimate religious discourse at a moment of profound media transformation. Sixty-three years later, the 2025 Jubilee finds itself embedded within a horizontal religious production, anchored in a dimension grounded in personal branding and creator economy logics, embodied by digital missionaries and religious influencers operating in spaces only partially governed by the institution. Within the framework of the Jubilee as a total social event, the analysis of institutional discourse traces the evolution of Vatican communication doctrine and situates it within a comparative perspective with other institutions that have navigated the digital transformation of their symbolic authority.
PURIFICATION AND REBIRTH: PASSING THROUGH THE HOLY DOOR

Urpis O. (Speaker)

University of Trieste ~ Trieste ~ Italy
Purification and Rebirth: Passing Through the Holy Door Every significant human experience, endowed with particular symbolic and relational intensity, produces a reshaping of identity in those who experience it. The structure of values that composes the deepest part of the concept of self—and the image each individual projects to the world—when faced with highly emotionally charged events, can foster processes of identity redefinition and the emergence of new forms of self-representation. These transformations are reflected in social practices, guiding behavioral choices, biographical trajectories, and redefinitions of social roles. Thus, for some people, the experience of passing through the Holy Door produces a feeling that calls into question their priorities and the path of their existence. From this perspective, the experience of passing through appears, for those individuals, as an event capable of producing an intense reworking of existential priorities and orientations of meaning. Through in-depth interviews, this paper aims to analyze the stages of preparation for the pilgrimage, the ritual experiences, the emerging emotional dimensions, and any transformations that have occurred in the lives of the faithful.
GENDER, GENERATION AND CATHOLIC BELONGING: NEGOTIATING GENDER ROLES AND RELIGIOUS TENSIONS AT THE 2025 JUBILEE

Lippolis M. (Speaker) , Tellez Elias Nemer P. (Speaker)

Roma Tre University ~ Rome ~ Italy
The 2025 Jubilee in Rome is examined within a broader interdisciplinary research project that approaches the event as a "total social fact" (Mauss, 1925), involving multiple forms of participation, religious practice and collective experience. Within this framework, this paper explores how Italian young women and men (18-35) reflect on and negotiate gender roles in relation to Catholic belonging and everyday life. Recent research highlights a dynamic relationship between gender attitudes and religious identification. More egalitarian gender attitudes are often associated with declining religiosity; however, among young women religiosity continues to shape gender roles more strongly than among men (McElroy et al., 2025). This raises a key sociological question: how do young Catholic women and men negotiate the tension between religious belonging and changing gender expectations? Within the Italian context, the relationship between gender and religion has received comparatively limited attention in sociological research as Palmisano (2024) notes. The present study therefore investigates these dynamics within the specific context of the 2025 Jubilee. This paper adopts a mixed-methods approach combining qualitative and quantitative data collected within the Jubilee research project. The qualitative component is based on semi-structured interviews with young participants from Northern, Central and Southern Italy and the Islands. The quantitative component draws on a survey administered during the research, with 1,508 respondents. Through thematic analysis conducted with NVivo and the exploration of survey data, the study investigates how young women and men narrate their roles within family life, community participation and the Catholic Church; how they interpret gender roles and relations between women and men and how young adults negotiate the tension between personal faith, institutional belonging and contemporary gender expectations across different Italian regions.

Panel description: The paradigm of Integral Ecology offers a comprehensive and relational perspective that may inspire the social sciences and enrich contemporary scientific debate. Rooted in a systemic understanding of life, it integrates environmental, social, economic, and spiritual dimensions, proposing an epistemology where interdependence becomes the foundation of knowledge and action. Beyond its theological origins, Integral Ecology provides conceptual tools to rethink organizations, innovation, and governance in light of ethical responsibility, mutual care, and the regeneration of human and natural systems. In an era marked by climatic, social, and epistemic crises, it offers a philosophical and methodological foundation for rethinking progress and innovation, serving as a unifying interpretive lens across business ethics, environmental philosophy, innovation management, and organizational behaviour. Social sciences, organization and management studies increasingly recognize the need to move beyond extractive and profit-driven models toward regenerative and inclusive paradigms. Likewise, legal studies and innovation policy promote frameworks ensuring fairness, transparency, and participation in socio-technical transitions. Technological and open innovation processes are evolving from efficiency and control toward collaboration, care, and moral responsibility. Transformations driven by digitalization, artificial intelligence, and the green transition call for a reinterpretation of what it means to innovate responsibly. Integrating Integral Ecology into social and organizational sciences opens a path toward "ecological rationality", a way of thinking and acting grounded in interdependence and relational ethics. By welcoming multidisciplinary contributions, this Panel explores how Integral Ecology may reshape individuals, organizations, and societies fostering new models of knowledge, dialogue, and practice.

Papers:

SAFEGUARDING SECURITY THROUGH INTEGRAL ECOLOGY: TRANSFORMATIVE EQUALITY AND JUSTICE IN PREVENTING GENDER-BASED VIOLENCE AND INTRA-FAITH RADICALIZATION

Martucci S. (Speaker)

University of Bari Aldo Moro ~ Bari ~ Italy
The paper proposes an interpretation of security as a practice of relational care and transformative justice, in light of the paradigm of integral ecology. In a geopolitical context marked by new polarizations and forms of intra-confessional and terrorist radicalization, the integral approach calls for rethinking security not merely as defense, but as the capacity to regenerate relationships, promote equality, and rebuild trust within community and religious fabrics, particularly in conflict areas affected by tensions generated by political Islam. By integrating the principles of human security, the Women, Peace and Security agenda, and policies for preventing extremist drifts, the contribution explores models of transformative equality grounded in the primacy of fundamental rights, co-responsibility, and relational and spiritual dialogue. Integral ecology thus emerges as a geopolitical, ethical, and spiritual tool for "safeguarding security," strengthening civil and religious resilience, and promoting practices of dialogue between states and faith communities. This perspective aims to shape sustainable prevention models capable of overcoming gendered, exclusionary, and fear-based logics, orienting international relations toward a shared and inclusive notion of human security.
ECOLOGICAL RATIONALITY, HEURISTICS AND DECISION MAKING

Guercini S. (Speaker)

University of Firenze ~ Firenze ~ Italy
Rationality is an ancient subject but one of renewed interest, particularly in psychology applied to economic processes. In this context, the confrontation between different points of view is such that it has been referred to as a "war of rationality". This confrontation focuses in particular on the role of heuristics in decision-making, i.e. decision-making models that require little data, time and processing capacity. With regard to heuristics, there is a distinction between those who associate them with systematic errors or biases and those who highlight their effectiveness in certain circumstances. The theme of ecological rationality emerges from this comparison as associated with the adoption of effective decision-making models in specific reference environments. Rationality therefore ceases to be a criterion of validity for judgements and choices linked to an internal logic and embraces a criterion of validity linked to a logic of adaptiveness and interdependence between the actor's cognition and behaviour and the characteristics of the environment. The paper offers several contributions. The first of these is the reconstruction of an evolutionary framework for the debate on the role of heuristics and therefore the theme of ecological rationality. In particular, it compares the prospects for applying ecological rationality to decision-making through the development of an "adaptive toolbox" consisting essentially of heuristic rules, each of which may have a field of effectiveness or "scope", albeit subject to change with the conditions of the context. A second contribution concerns the formulation of a set of differences emerging from the comparison of different approaches to the theme of ecological rationality. One contribution of the paper is to suggest the development of a set of heuristics (or adaptive toolbox) and to develop new heuristics as a methodology for the development of integral ecology pathways.
ECOLOGICAL ENTREPRENEURIAL DISPLACEMENT IN THE AGE OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

Nasta L. (Speaker) , Maiolini R. (Speaker)

1. John Cabot University, Rome, Italy - 2. Luiss Guido Carli University, Rome, Italy ~ Rome ~ Italy
This paper introduces the concept of Ecological Entrepreneurial Displacement, a framework to understand how entrepreneurship can evolve toward regenerative and ethically grounded practices in the age of artificial intelligence. Building on the paradigm of Integral Ecology, the study proposes that entrepreneurs must reorient their cognitive, organizational, and systemic approaches to innovation. Rather than treating artificial intelligence as a tool for optimization and control, entrepreneurs are encouraged to perceive it as a relational technology that enables co-evolution and ecological care. The paper conceptualizes three forms of displacement: cognitive, where entrepreneurial reasoning integrates ecological intelligence and ethical awareness; organizational, where business models transform into transparent and participatory systems; and systemic, where ventures align artificial intelligence development with social and environmental regeneration. Through this lens, entrepreneurship becomes a driver of mutual flourishing between humans, technology, and nature. The proposed framework extends theories of responsible innovation toward a regenerative ontology and offers implications for managerial practice and policy design. It ultimately calls for a redefinition of digital entrepreneurship as an agent of ecological renewal rather than extraction, emphasizing the need for moral reflexivity, relational governance, and sustainability-centered technological design.
FROM VULNERABILITY TO CARE AND OPPORTUNITY. THE CASE STUDY OF OIKOS MEDITERRANEO

Zecca F. (Speaker) [1] , Canceli P. (Speaker) [2]

1. Pontificia Università Antonianum, Rome, Italy; 2. Oikos Mediterraneo ETS Euro-mediterranean Center for Integral Ecology ~ Taranto ~ Italy [1] , Pontificia Università Antonianum ~ Rome ~ Italy [2]
This paper presents OIKOS Mediterraneo as a case study to explore how interdisciplinary collaboration can foster innovation models grounded in integral ecology. OIKOS acts as a living laboratory connecting academia, institutions, and civil society across the Mediterranean, promoting sustainable development, social inclusion, and ethical digital transformation. Through qualitative analysis and document review, the study illustrates how OIKOS integrates ecological, cultural, and technological dimensions to regenerate local systems and enhance territorial resilience. The case contributes to understanding how relational governance and human-centric innovation can serve as enablers of collective wellbeing and transformative sustainability.
ECOLOGICAL RATIONALITY IN LAW. DEVELOPING A LEGAL FRAMEWORK INSPIRED BY LAUDATO SI'

Mounir M. (Speaker)

1. Researcher Affiliate in CERCCLE, Bordeaux University, France; 2. Affiliate Researcher in Law, DiTEIM Dept. of Human Centric Digital Transformation and Ethical innovation Management @CUIRIF ~ Paris ~ France
In his encyclical Laudato Si', Pope Francis critiques the failure of legal and political systems to address our planetary crisis, noting that "international negotiations cannot make significant progress due to positions taken by countries which place their national interests above the global common good" (LS 169). This paper proposes a legal framework directly inspired by the encyclical's core concept of Integral Ecology. As Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) regulations become more prevalent worldwide, while many laws on CSR exist, they are often symbolic and fail to challenge the dominant economic mindset. This article examines the 'enforcement gap" because of not integrating the principle of Laudato Si'—that "everything is connected"—into the very structure of the law. This contribution transforms the encyclical's call for ecological rationality into a concrete legal principle for designing effective and enforceable CSR laws. We suggest a structure based on three pillars that directly align with Laudato Si': 1. Substantive Obligations for Collective Benefit: Corporations must prove their contribution to social and environmental systems. 2. Specialized Regulatory Authorities: These bodies, comprised of diverse specialists, can evaluate the complex effects of systems. 3. A Legal Voice for Our Sister, Mother Earth, through legal mechanisms like the "Rights of Nature," giving legal expression to the idea that nature has intrinsic value, or creating a NGO that preserve the 'Rights of Nature'. This paper ultimately calls for a new generation of corporate law, that aligns legal standards with the physical and ethical reality of our interconnected world.
ECOLOGY THROUGH THE LENSES OF COMPLEXITY AND TRANSDISCIPLINARITY

Gimigliano G. (Speaker)

1. Dept. of Human and Social Sciences, eCampus University; 2. Faculty of Philosophy, Pontifical University Antonianum ~ Rome ~ Italy
In this project, Integral Ecology is examined by drawing on two contributions: Edgar Morin's reflections on complexity and Basarab Nicolescu's view of transdisciplinarity. Their approaches reveal how these dimensions converge within a single web of interdependence. Such a perspective unsettles reductionist habits of thought and opens the way to forms of knowledge grounded in overlapping realities. From here, the project considers how ecological rationality can shape behaviour and organizational choices in response to contemporary crises.
HUMAN ECOLOGY FROM A PRAGMATIC POINT OF VIEW. "DWELLING" AS "ANTHROPOLOGICAL CHARACTERISTIC

De Fazio G. (Speaker)

University of Bologna ~ Bologna ~ Italy
The research is inspired by the ethical interrogation of Maurice Merleau-Ponty's Ontology of Ecology (Martin Dillon) : «How should we stand with respect to the world in which we dwell?». It proposes a reorientation of "pragmatic anthropology" by placing the relational insight of the Integral Ecology Paradigm in dialogue with Merleau-Ponty's Eco-phenomenology and Tim Ingold's "Dwelling Perspective". Referring to the critique of the separation between the human subject and the nature in §139 of Laudato Si', the Paradigm emphasizes that human beings are part of complex networks of environmental relations, both natural and social/cultural. Ingold's account of the world as a meshwork generated through the embodied practices and techniques of dwelling could support this perspective, shifting the focus of pragmatic anthropology towards "dwelling" as the fundamental 'anthropological characteristic'. Phenomenologically, "dwelling in the world" means that human beings are constantly shaped by processes of placement and co-formation. Following the Merleau-Ponty's onto-ethical approach, a human ecology focuses on taking care of these processes of individuation
INTEGRAL ECOLOGY INSPIRING OPEN INNOVATION PRACTICES? TOWARD AN INTEGRATIVE FRAMEWORK

Sestino A. (Speaker) [1] , Bizzozero A. (Speaker) [2]

1. Catholic University of Sacred Heart, Rome - 2. Luiss Guido Carli University, Rome ~ Rome ~ Italy [1] , Pontifical University Antonianum ~ Rome ~ Italy [2]
This paper explores how the paradigm of integral ecology can inform and reshape open innovation and human-centric design. Bridging management and theological-philosophical traditions, we conceptualise integral ecology as a holistic lens that integrates environmental, social, cultural, and technological dimensions of innovation ecosystems. Drawing on a mixed-methods study with key ecosystem stakeholders, we investigate how integral ecology principles are translated into value propositions, governance mechanisms, and design practices. The paper advances an integrative framework for regenerative innovation, showing how integral ecology can provide the normative grounding needed to align collaborative innovation processes with justice, inclusiveness, and the common good.
THE EFFECTS OF DIGITALIZATION IN MENAS. IMPLICATIONS FOR STRATEGIC SECTORS FROM AN ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY AND INTEGRAL ECOLOGY PERSPECTIVE

Sagona A. (Speaker) [1] , Taleb T.S. (Speaker) [2] , Sestino A. (Speaker) [3]

1. Alumni Luiss Guido Carli University, Rome, Italy - 2. Adjunct Faculty, Pontifical University Antonianum, Rome, Italy ~ Rome ~ Italy [1] , Royal Woman University, Riffa, Bahrein ~ Riffa ~ Bahrain [2] , 1. Luiss Guido Carli University, Luiss Business School, Rome, Italy - 2. Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Rome, Italy ~ Rome ~ Italy [3]
Mediterraneana area is becoming a strategic geopolitical arena in which digital transformation intersects with environmental governance, social policy design, and international power competition. In this context, digital infrastructures operate not only as technological assets but as instruments shaping sovereignty, ecological stewardship, and societal resilience. This study examines how digitalization is restructuring development trajectories and policy capacities across MENAs states, with particular attention to its implications for environmental regulation, social equity, and systemic sustainability within an Integral Ecology (IE) perspective. Based on a structured review of seventy-two academic and institutional sources, the analysis synthesizes evidence on digital diffusion across healthcare, energy, and agriculture. The study evaluates how technological adoption interacts with governance frameworks, regulatory asymmetries, and geopolitical dependencies, while assessing alignment with IE principles emphasizing the interdependence of environmental, social, and economic systems. Results identify three strategic domains in which digitalization produces both developmental leverage and structural vulnerability. Moreover this paper also suggests implications from an integral ecology and environmental policy perspective, indicating that digital transformation must be embedded within coordinated environmental and social policy architectures to prevent technological acceleration from outpacing regulatory capacity. Policymakers should therefore treat digital infrastructure as a strategic public good, aligning investment, regulation, and international partnerships with sustainability targets and distributive justice objectives. This implies prioritizing interoperable standards, local capability development, ethical data governance, and cross-sector institutional coordination to secure technological sovereignty without compromising ecological integrity.
FROM VULNERABILITY TO FLOURISHING: AN ONTOLOGY OF CARE IN BUSINESS ECONOMICS

Clemenza A. (Speaker)

Pontifical University Antonianum ~ Rome ~ Italy
The paper offers a reflection on human vulnerability within business contexts, drawing on two works of art by Alberto Burri and Sidival Fila, which provide a symbolic vocabulary of wound and regeneration. This perspective finds a symbolic root in the experience of Francesco d'Assisi: his encounter with the leper marks a transformation of perception, in which what was once seen as discard becomes a revelation of our shared humanity. Here emerges an ontology of proximity, where care takes shape as a form of justice. The theoretical framework is further developed through Martha Nussbaum's capabilities approach: authentic development does not coincide merely with economic growth, but with the concrete expansion of people's real opportunities to live a life worthy of human dignity. In this light, business economics cannot be reduced to a purely performative and selective logic; rather, it becomes a space in which unexpressed or wounded capabilities are recognized and reactivated, restoring autonomy, participation, and integration. The shift from an economy that produces human waste to one oriented toward flourishing therefore entails an ontological transformation before it is a productive one: it requires recognizing that persons and material reality are not exhausted by their function or utility, but hold a potential for meaning that emerges in and through relationships. The paper thus calls for a pedagogy of perception: learning to see value where business organizations risk seeing only inefficiency or rejection. Flourishing does not arise from the denial of fragility, but from its transfiguration into relationship, responsibility, and shared care.
THE ROLE RELIGIOUS RULES CAN PLAY IN PROTECTING THE EVIRONMENT

Larcom S. (Speaker)

University of Cambridge ~ Cambridge ~ United Kingdom
This paper will discuss how religious institutions can and have protected the environment. It would build on my resent co-authored publication titled: Food for the Soul and the Planet: Measuring the Impact of the Return of Meatless Fridays for (some) UK Catholics. As the title suggests, this work measures the environmental (climate change) impact of the return to meat-free Fridays for English Catholics. It will emphasise both the historical and religious setting of this rule and its reinstatement. Including the resource impacts generated by Protestantism when the abstenance days were eliminated and the so called 'Secular Lent' that was reinistated (unsuccessfully) in Elizabethan times. It would then discuss the concept of 'internalisation' and how these rules have the potential to increase religious practice. This will then be contrasted with instrumentation of religious rules. The second part of the paper will discuss a potential framework for historical and comparative institutional research into investigating the relationship between religious institutions and environmental protection in different societies and at different levels of social organisation. For instance, the church often regulated the amount of meat that was eaten for centuries in Europe. Along these lines I would like discuss the building of a qualitative database to measure different religious institutions' rules that relate to environmental protection and the impact they had (or still have).
INTEGRAL ECOLOGY AS A PARADIGMATIC FRAMEWORK FOR TEACHING INTERNATIONAL POLITICAL ECONOMY: INSIGHTS FROM A PILOT COURSE

Šiaudvytiene E. (Speaker)

LCC International University ~ Klaipeda ~ Lithuania
This paper explores how Integral Ecology can renew the social sciences by offering an epistemological and pedagogical framework for teaching International Political Economy (IPE). While IPE emerged as an interdisciplinary field, contemporary scholarship highlights its fragmentation, Euro-Western epistemological dominance, and the marginalization of ecological and normative questions. Amid overlapping global crises—including climate change, inequality, and epistemic exclusion—there is a growing need for approaches that reconnect IPE analysis with ethical responsibility, relational thinking, and the common good. Drawing on the Integral Ecology paradigm articulated in Catholic Social Teaching, particularly in the encyclical Laudato Si', the paper proposes a framework integrating epistemological, ontological, and normative dimensions of social inquiry. Integral Ecology emphasizes relationality, interdisciplinarity, and ethical reflection, challenging technocratic and reductionist approaches to IPE. Using this framework, the study reviews contemporary IPE scholarship to identify blind spots. Building on these insights, the author designed and taught a pilot undergraduate IPE course at LCC International University (Klaipėda, Lithuania), structured around the principles of Integral Ecology. The course operationalized this paradigm through systems thinking, ethical reflection on human dignity and the common good, and participatory learning linking theory to students' experiences. Pedagogical tools included systems mapping, collaborative research projects, and a climate negotiation simulation. Reflections from the pilot course reveal opportunities and challenges. While students developed awareness of interconnected socio-ecological dimensions of political economy, reliance on conventional IPE concepts remained evident. These findings suggest that integrating Integral Ecology into IPE education requires gradual epistemological transformation and broader curricular change.
CLIMATE-INDUCED MIGRATION, INTEGRAL ECOLOGY AND TECHNOLOGY: RETHINKING HUMAN PROTECTION IN THE DIGITAL AGE

Bamoshmoosh N. (Speaker) [1] , Barbaro S. (Speaker) [2]

Scuola Superiore Sant'anna ~ Pisa ~ Italy [1] , Università degli studi di Bari ~ Bari ~ Italy [2]
Climate-induced migration poses profound challenges to today's societies, revealing the limitations of their ethical frameworks, protection structures grounded in strict legal categories, and political influences. At the same time, the emerging technologies, ranging from the growing use of AI in policies and decision-making to data-driven border management, are reviewing the way in which migration is governed. This article aims to examine climate-induced migration from the Southern and Eastern Mediterranean Sea to Europe through the paradigm of Integral Ecology. Within a socio-political and legal analysis of the current regulatory landscape in Europe, the authors of this paper propose Integral Ecology as an epistemological framework which reconnects human dignity, environmental vulnerability and technological governance. On this latter point, technological responses to migration per se cannot be considered as purely technical and neutral, quite the contrary. Instead, when improperly used, they redefine the human subject of law, with a negative influence on their access to their basic rights. The article will also explore how an ecologically informed approach to law could address the protection gaps in order to promote governance models based on solidarity, responsibility and care, rather than control and efficiency alone. The article will take into consideration the European multilevel governance mechanisms which are capable of integrating technological innovation with a human-centered approach. Finally, the article will contribute to broader debates on responsible and ecological rationality, suggesting that Integral Ecology could be part of the normative foundation for a technological development in line with the protection of climate-displaced persons.
TOWARDS AN INCLUSIVE PARADIGM OF INTEGRAL HUMAN DEVELOPMENT: MEDUCATION, ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE AND RELATIONAL ASSETS IN THE FAMILY EDUCATIONAL ECOSYSTEM

Barbaro S. (Speaker) [1] , Battigaglia G. (Speaker) [2]

Università degli studi di Bari ~ Bari ~ Italy [1] , Istituto Universitario Sophia ~ Figline e Incisa Valdarno (FI) ~ Italy [2]
This paper proposes an innovative pedagogical model for family education in the digital age. The family educational environment, in its task of accompanying the human and spiritual growth of young people, faces unprecedented challenges that require a synthesis of technological innovation and care for relationships. How can the family respond effectively and meaningfully to this new reality? This article proposes a structured response based on three pillars: the Social Doctrine of the Church (SDC), the concept of "meducation" and the economy of relational goods. AI can personalise learning by adapting educational pathways to the specific needs of each family and individual; it can optimise processes by automating administrative tasks, but it cannot produce relational goods. The educational environment of the family must ensure that AI does not become a substitute for human relationships. Training and educating young and very young people plays a crucial role in helping them develop greater awareness of how to use these tools and the dangers they entail. An even more decisive factor is the role of parents. In the absence of regulations covering various areas such as sharing, the use of chatbots and conventional forms of AI, it is imperative that parents, in order to be able to accompany and protect their children in the use of new digital technologies, are trained on these issues and develop the knowledge necessary to understand these tools, and that this takes place through in-depth intergenerational dialogue.
LANGUAGE, FEMININE LANGUAGE, AND POETIC LANGUAGE FROM AN ANTHROPOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE IN THE PRISM OF INTEGRAL ECOLOGY

Demneri E. (Speaker) , Gaudiano V. (Speaker) , Rossi A.M. (Speaker)

Istituto Universitario Sophia ~ Florence ~ Italy
This contribution explores the power of language in shaping an anthropological perspective on integral ecology, with particular attention to feminine language and poetic language. Drawing on the vision outlined in Laudato si by Pope Francis, integral ecology is presented as a horizon capable of interweaving environmental, social, and spiritual dimensions, transforming the human relationship with nature from one of domination to one of care and shared responsibility. In this perspective, the ecological crisis also manifests as an anthropological crisis, prompting a rethinking of self-perception, relationships with others, and the role of humans within the web of life. Language does not merely describe; it shapes, opens, and ignites new ways of seeing and understanding. Feminine language emphasizes the care of existence, reciprocity, and interdependence, introducing a sensitivity that transforms human and environmental relationships into an attentive and responsible dialogue. In parallel, poetic language opens spaces for listening and contemplation, restoring to nature its symbolic richness and hidden voice. Poetry thus becomes a tool for awareness, capable of connecting experience with ethics, wonder with responsibility. The integration of feminine language and poetic language enriches the anthropological perspective on integral ecology, showing how humans can inhabit the Earth as part of a living network of relationships that harmonize environment, society, and spirituality. Language becomes a bridge between listening and action, sensitivity and responsibility, contemplation and practical care, promoting an ecological culture that intertwines symbolic, ethical, and practical dimensions, offering tools for engaging with the world attentively and respectfully.
INTEGRAL ECOLOGY: INTERDISCIPLINARY SOLUTIONS AND THE PRINCIPLE OF THE COMMON GOOD

Mwangi N.J.N. (Speaker)

PONTIFICAL ANTONIANUM UNIVERSITY ~ ROME ~ Italy
Integral ecology is now among the most prominent paradigms of the modern environmental ethics and sustainability literature. In contrast to more traditional models where the primary emphasis is on conservation or technological solutions to a given ecological issue, integral ecology introduces a more holistic perspective. This approach appreciates how the environmental systems, economic systems, social institutions, and the cultural values are interconnected. The paradigm was known worldwide when Pope Francis gave an encyclical titled Laudato Si: On Care for Our Common Home which expressed a holistic vision between social justice and human dignity and environmental sustainability. The paper also looks critically at how integral ecology transforms human behavior at the individual level, organizational practices, and has an effect on the larger societal structures. The emphasis is on the interdisciplinary work of environmental philosophy, sustainability science, ecological economics, and governance studies is evident in integral ecology. The paper would suggest that integral ecology stimulates ethical environmental awareness of individuals, responsible leadership and sustainability-oriented approaches of companies, and systemic change of economic and political institutions. The analysis also shows that integral ecology offers a normative and conceptual approach that can offer solutions to complicated, global issues of climate change, disappearance of biodiversity, unsustainable development, and socio-economic inequality. Finally, the paradigm itself is the change in the approach to the environment divided into fragments, a systematic view of the world where human well-being, social justice, and environmental sustainability cannot be separated.
PROFESSIONAL FIRMS AS AGENTS OF RESPONSIBLE TRANSFORMATION THROUGH THE ETHICAL PACT

Oggioni I. (Speaker) , Caruso C. (Speaker) , Nupieri F. (Speaker) , Montali P. (Speaker)

Pontificia Università Antonianum ~ Roma ~ Italy
This paper reinterprets the role of professional firms (and SMEs) in contemporary society, viewing them as agents of ethical, cultural and organizational mediation within transformation processes involving businesses, stakeholders and territories. In this role, professional firms help ensure high-quality decision-making, build trust in relationships and maintain a balance between innovation, responsibility and sustainability. From this perspective, the Ethical Pact emerges as a key element in redefining the identity of the "Studio 5.0." The pact provides a framework for value-based governance that translates ethical principles into practical actions, everyday practices and measurable commitments. It also helps guide the responsible use of digital technologies and artificial intelligence by keeping people, transparency, human oversight, and professional accountability at the center, while ensuring regulatory compliance and protecting clients' data.
SENSING THE EARTH: ECOLOGICAL CONVERSION AND INTEGRAL ECOLOGY IN CATHOLIC THOUGHT

Butticci A. (Speaker)

Georgetown University ~ Washington, DC ~ United States of America
This paper examines the role of the senses and aesthetic experience in Catholic ecological thought through the concept of ecological conversion articulated in Laudato Si'. I argue that the encyclical's vision of integral ecology involves not only moral and intellectual transformation but also a reorientation of the human sensorium toward the natural world. Ecological responsibility, in this perspective, emerges from renewed sensorial attentiveness to the interconnectedness of humans, animals, and ecosystems. The paper analyzes the Vatican multimedia installation Fiat Lux: Illuminating Our Common Home as a striking example of this aesthetic dimension of ecological conversion. By projecting monumental images of animals, landscapes, and vulnerable communities onto the façade of St. Peter's Basilica, the installation created a multisensory encounter that temporarily disrupted anthropocentric modes of perception and invited viewers to experience the Earth as a shared home. Through this case, the paper shows how Catholic ecological thought mobilizes aesthetic and sensorial practices to cultivate dispositions of awe, humility, and care. In doing so, it contributes to broader conversations in environmental ethics about the role of embodied perception and moral imagination in shaping ecological responsibility.
THE CHURCH AS SOCIAL CHANGE AGENT TOWARDS SUSTAINABILITY: GLOBAL DISCOURSES, ROLES, AND EMERGING INSTITUTIONAL TRANSFORMATIONS

Beling A. (Speaker)

The King's University, Sustainability Transformation Action and Research (STAR) Hub ~ Edmonton (AB) ~ Canada
This paper presents one of the first systematic mappings of how Catholic-ecumenic church acts as agent of social transformation to sustainability. We argue that Integral Ecology operates as a paradigm reshaping discourse, organizations, and socio‑political systems through a dual role: 1) an accelerator that orchestrates cross‑scalar networks, equips communities, and translates values into practical repertoires; and 2) a destabilizer that challenges extractive regimes by delegitimizing incumbents, shifting resources, and forming countervailing coalitions. Drawing on more than one hundred documents from Catholic and ecumenical organizations coded in NVivo, complemented with network/timeline visualizations, we show how Integral Ecology has become a polyvalent frame guiding individual formation, organizational change, and socio‑environmental action. It provides a normative horizon and a theory of change, but risks managerial depoliticization unless connected to explicit structural targets and phase‑out strategies for unsustainable socio-economic pathways. REPAM (Pan-Amazonian Ecclesial Network) illustrates how this paradigm shapes practices in the Amazon: as an accelerator, it enables rights‑based leadership, territorial knowledge production, and scaling of niche practices such as agroecology and solidarity economy; as a destabilizer, it supports divestment, litigation, and alliances with Indigenous and peasant actors that unsettle dominant development models. We identify theories of change linking norm entrepreneurship, capability building, niche scaling, and regime delegitimation to meso‑level transformations in governance, networks, pedagogical infrastructures, and resource allocation. We conclude with design principles: anchor normative appeals to time‑bound phase‑outs; build meso‑level infrastructures that translate Integral Ecology into routines; expand experimentation in commons and solidarity economies; and safeguard its transformative distinctiveness.
REGAINING ECOLOGICAL SENSIBILITIES THROUGH LIBERATIVE TECHNOLOGY: A BOOKCHINITE APPROCH

Kumar J.V. (Speaker)

Pontificia Università Antonianum ~ ROMA ~ Italy
The question of human freedom, ecological implications, a society where the differences are eradicated all these are connected to the development of technology. We encounter a challenging situation, where human beings placed at the pinnacle of the development of technology, ecological crisis and a divided opinions over these issues. There has to be some preventive measures that could help to see how technology help the human beings to make use of it for the best of its development. When there lacks a system which balances everything it leads to a vacuum in the human society. Any development that lacks ecological consideration and human welfare has to be under surveillance. This calls for a fresh look at technology, ecology and development. It was Murray Bookchin (1921-2006), one of the leading American anarchist, political philosopher, trade-union organizer, and educator has contributed significantly to the field of ecology, sociology and philosophy. He wanted to present, 'creative, visionary and imaginative approaches.' This vision has led to creating ecotopia through local eco-communities. The form of technology that he envisioned to make this realize is liberatory technology, which is ecofriendly that could support building a society which is ecologically viable, humanly staged and morally sound. This is done through decentralization of technology and democratization of the society. This paper claims that, though the type of technological advances were limited to his time yet in the era of AI and SpaceX, his idea of liberatory technology with ecological sensibilities could be still valid.

Panel description: This panel brings together researchers from different countries in the Americas and Europe to discuss studies of religion in Latin America, its origins, history, current situation, and challenges. Around the middle of the 20th century, the discussion on development models for Latin America will face a continent where secularisation had barely been noticed, and where religion is identified as a catalyst for the socio-cultural processes associated with late capitalist modernisation. An early expression of this discussion was the meetings of the Latin American Episcopal Council (CELAM) and liberation theology, where for the first time in history the cultural specificity of the Latin American Church was problematised. From the 1990s onwards, the social sciences took centre stage in the discussion and, at present, we could say that there is a reconfiguration of the field of religious studies in Latin America, involving other disciplines from the humanities, arts and heritage studies. Another topic of interest is the study of the influence of Latin American religious traditions abroad, through the processes of globalisation and contemporary migration, as well as the presence and impact of other non-Christian religious traditions in the region. In light of all this, topics such as popular religion, religion and migration, Latin American theology, religious disaffiliation, evangelical pluralism and the current state of indigenous worldviews become relevant. Finally, the panel will also focus on the epistemological challenges of the study of religion in Latin America and the nature of the interdisciplinary dialogue it convenes.

Papers:

MIGRATION AND CATHOLICISM: THE PERUVIAN COMMUNITY IN ROME, ITALY

Roldán V. (Speaker)

Università Niccolò Cusano ~ Roma ~ Italy
The analysis of the Peruvian community in Rome is situated within the broader framework of a national study conducted in 2025 on the religious communities of Catholic immigrants in Italy. This paper examines the meanings that religious experience acquires in a migratory context, showing how it simultaneously enables migrants to maintain ties with their country of origin and its associated cultural traditions within a transnational environment. In particular, it explores the devotion of the Peruvian community in Rome in relation to popular religiosity and national identity, with specific reference to the cult of the Lord of Miracles, recognised as Peru's national patron. Beyond the strictly spiritual dimension, the paper focuses on the community's organisational arrangements, leadership structures, gender dynamics, practices and experiences of collective gathering, forms of grassroots welfare, and the services offered to the faithful. It also examines relations with the Diocese of Rome, as well as connections with Peru and with other Peruvian communities abroad, which are often organised around the same devotion and articulated through multi-local networks.
THE APOPHATIC CHARACTER OF LATIN AMERICAN POPULAR RELIGION

Aguirre F. (Speaker)

Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile ~ Santiago ~ Chile
One of the great challenges for the study of so-called 'popular religion' is related to understanding and assessing the theological status assumed by the various art forms through which this phenomenon is expressed. Within the framework of the research project 'Art and Apophatism: Epistemological Foundations of a Theology of Art' (Fondecyt No. 1230439), a method of analysis is proposed for the various religious expressions that give substance to popular religion, and more specifically, to religious festivals. This is a performative phenomenon in itself, and its apophatic principle would consist precisely in the impossibility of accessing it and the knowledge that emanates from it without the active participation of the observer, which involves psycho-affective dimensions. In addition to being a particularly fertile topic in the field of contemporary aesthetics, apophatism is a fundamental part of the early understandings of Christian epistemology. Along with presenting the theoretical and methodological foundations of the proposal, case studies will be presented that illustrate the points made in this paper.
ART AS DEVOTION: TOWARD AN ANTI-CAPITALIST EPISTEMOLOGY IN SANTIAGO

Eikelboom L. (Speaker) , Despain B. (Speaker)

Australian Catholic University ~ Melbourne ~ Australia
Scholars working in disciplines such as "theological aesthetics" and "theology and the arts" in the context of anglophone theology tend to approach art in decontextualized ways, presuming a transparent and homogenous epistemology in which artworks illustrate or represent academic claims without regard for the circumstances of production or reception. Our research challenges these assumptions by asking how art-making is a distinct, embodied epistemology that shares parallels with religious ritual, and this paper describes how research being conducted at the Pontifical University of Chile in Santiago on art in the context of local religious festivals advances and challenges this research. In particular, we will argue that conceptualizing art as gift and as devotion, as is the case for the art that is part of these festivals, gives new meaning and significance to the idea that art is a form of knowledge. If art is a way of knowing the world, then art that is offered in devotion may itself be considered epistemically, namely, as a particular way of knowing something through making contact with it in a reciprocal relationship. This, in turn, requires a different method of study based on alternative epistemic assumptions. As the researchers at the Pontifical University of Chile demonstrate, we know this way of knowing best, not through observation, but by participating in the relationships of reciprocity in which art is understood as gift through the researchers' offering of their own art as gift in return.
INTERGENERATIONAL RELIGIOUS TRANSMISSION AS PLAUSIBILITY PRODUCTION: THE CHILEAN CASE

Neckelmann M. (Speaker)

Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile ~ Santiago ~ Chile
Chile has undergone an accelerated process of religious transformation, marked by a decline in Catholic affiliation alongside the persistent vitality of popular religious practices, the consolidation and stability of evangelical pluralism, and a growing proportion of individuals who do not declare a religious affiliation, particularly among younger cohorts. Drawing on empirical observation of intergenerational religious transmission within families in Chile, this presentation proposes to interpret these changes through the paradigm of pluralism (Berger, 2016). Pluralism generates two effects: on the one hand, it undermines the plausibility of religion; on the other, it may underpin a certain form of religious vitality by expanding the range of socially available religious alternatives. Based on qualitative fieldwork with multiple generations of families whose members display high levels of religious involvement, as well as with participants in popular religious festivals, I argue that intergenerational religious transmission entails the maintenance and production of a plausibility structure. This structure underpins mechanisms that can be interpreted through two ideal types. The first, which I term countercultural-elective, characterizes religious groups in tension with the surrounding social world, such as certain evangelical denominations and Catholic congregations, where threatened plausibility is actively produced within sub-societies capable of sustaining the objectivity of religion. This is combined with an emphasis on autonomy and the formation of an internal "market" of religious alternatives within a coherent religious world. The second type, which I call inherited cultural, presupposes a degree of contextual religious unanimity and therefore enters into crisis under contemporary conditions, primarily affecting traditional Catholicism.
A PHILOSOPHICAL JUSTIFICATION OF THE PREFERENTIAL OPTION FOR THE POOR AS A WAY OF THINKING ABOUT INEQUALITY FROM LATIN AMERICA

Becker M. (Speaker)

Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile ~ Santiago ~ Chile
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LANDSCAPE IN MOTION. STUDIES ON SPACE AND RITUAL IN THE ANDES

Muñoz Henríquez W. (Speaker)

Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona ~ Barcelona ~ Spain
Andean societies have been particularly characterised by establishing intense and diverse relationships with spatial elements and entities, using ritual activity as one of the most recurrent and effective means to this end to this day. However, the historical variability and differing perspectives of the studies that have analysed both categories do not allow for a consensus to be reached on how this link occurs, complicating and limiting this assertion and its current approach. This paper analyses the notions of space, ritual and their link in the main studies carried out in the central-southern Andean area. First, we address the research in which the figure of verticality predominated when it came to understanding Andean space and, to a lesser extent, ritual activity. Then we analyse the works that incorporated the symbolic dimension and perspective in their analysis, understanding space as a symbolic projection of the Andean mentality and ritual activity as a practical manifestation of the principle of reciprocity. Thirdly, we approach studies belonging to the so-called ontological turn, which have given special importance to Andean space as a non-human entity with agency and to ritual activity as one of the particular ways in which humans relate to agents of various kinds. Finally, we make some general considerations, showing that there is a greater conceptual development of the notion of space and its derivatives in the studies, as opposed to the treatment of ritual activity and the relationships established between the two. We also identified an epistemological asymmetry in explaining how both concepts work, which would limit their current approach.


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