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Globale Christentumsgeschichte mit dem Schwerpunkt Orthodoxie

Allgemeine Beschreibung

Die globale Christentumsgeschiche mit dem Schwerpunkt auf der Geschichte und Gegenwart der weltweiten Orthodoxie ist ein für die Theologische Fakultät Halle prägendes Forschungsgebiet, das inhaltliche Schnittmengen mit der Kirchengeschichte, der Ostkirchenkunde und der Wissenschaft vom christlichen Orient aufweist.

Personen

Jun.-Prof.  Dr. Stanislau Paulau

Wissenschaftliche Mitarbeiterin: Paulien Wagener

Studentische Hilfskraft: Julius Balski

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Aktuelles

CfP: „Negotiating African Christian Pasts in Renaissance Europe: Transcontinental Knowledge Production, Representation, and Power“

This international conference will take place from 10-11 June 2027 at the Leibniz Institute of European History (IEG), Mainz (Germany). It is organised by Nicole Reinhardt (IEG Mainz), Stanislau Paulau (Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg), and Eduardo Fernández Guerrero (Warburg Institute, London).

The organisers seek contributions that illuminate these processes of transcontinental knowledge production and representation: the making and unmaking of credibility; translation as transformation; the politics of reception, censorship, and omission; and the ways in which African Christianities were used to redraw boundaries within European historical consciousness – often while affirming Africa’s difference.

Abstracts of no more than 500 words should be submitted by 31 July 2026 at africanpasts@ieg-mainz.de. The abstract should outline the proposed paper’s focus, methodology, and relevance to the conference theme. Please include your name, institutional affiliation, and contact information with the abstract. Travel and accommodation costs of successful applicants will be covered by the organisers.

More information on the conference   

CfP-African-Pasts-2026-06-01.pdf (115,3 KB)  vom 14.06.2026

Vorlesungsreihe "Global Histories"

Der Professuren für Globale Christentumsgeschichte und für Religionswissenschaft und Interkulturelle Theologie veranstalten gemeinsam die Vortragsreihe "Global Histories".

Vorträge von Prof. Dr. Daniel König und Prof. Dr. Claudia Hoffmann

Prof. Dr. Daniel G. König (München)

"Islam" and "the West" in Transmediterranean Memory Culture. On the Intertia of Geocultural Categories

19. November 2026 18:15 Uhr HS II

Geocultural categories associate a geographical area with a specific  “culture,” which is assumed to display particular traits. As geocultural  categories, “Islam” and “the West” evoke images of two distinct spheres  with a long and complex historical relationship. However, instead of  regarding themselves as a geocultural unit, societies north and south of  the Mediterranean continue to emphasise their own victimisation at the  hands of “the Other.” At the same time, they engage in forms of  asymmetric exchange characterised by largely unidirectional flows of  agricultural products, gas and oil, tourists, and migrants, while  casting increasingly anxious glances towards the USA, Russia, and China.  The paper will not analyse the activities of FRONTEX, national and  supra-national actors, or the geopolitical challenges of our time.  Instead, it will focus on the question of why the perception of  separation remains stronger than the awareness of shared historical  heritage. From the perspective of a cultural historian interested in  the longue durée, the paper examines transmediterranean memory  culture, i.e. the ways in which societies across the Mediterranean deal  with, commemorate, represent and debate their shared past. This  dimension should not to be neglected, given that perceptions of the past  clearly contribute to the way in which societies forge their future.

Prof. Dr. Claudia Hoffmann (Heidelberg)

Mission? A Global Term in Interreligious Contact Zones

14. Januar 2027 18:15 Uhr HS II

This lecture examines how the contested term "mission" is negotiated in interreligious contact zones. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork, it traces how Christian and Muslim actors use, avoid, and reinterpret a concept burdened by colonial history yet still central to Christian self-understanding. Rather than treating “mission” as a fixed theological category, the talk approaches it as a contact zone term: a concept whose meaning is negotiated locally. The analysis identifies three dimensions in which mission surfaces in practice: personal witness, practical love, and self-promotion. Contrary to expectations, the lecture argues that even an exclusivist missionary stance can foster (rather than foreclose) pluralistic engagement: across all four contexts, where empirical research was conducted, both Christian and Muslim interlocutors come to understand mission not as proselytizing in the narrow sense, but as relationship-building, public confession, and boundary-crossing, practices that resist confining religion to the private sphere. The case illuminates how religious communities function as interreligious contact zones and offers an empirical counterpoint to theological and historical debates on mission, diversity, and dialogue in global Christianity.

Lehrveranstaltungen

WiSe 2026/27

Jun.-Prof. Dr. Stanislau Paulau:

• S What is Christianity?
• HS Rewriting Luther. Wittenberg, Reformations, and Religious Legacies
• Ü Wittenberg  Autumn School "Transnational Luther: Wittenberg, Reformations, and  Religious Legacies"
• Research Colloquium: Global History of Christianity and Eastern Christian Studies

Paulien Wagener:

• PS Askese als Transformation. Körper, Geschlecht und soziale Ordnung

SoSe 2026

Jun.-Prof. Dr. Stanislau Paulau:

• VL Christentum im ‚Globalen Mittelalter‘
• S Global Christianity: Perspectives, Methods, Case Studies
• S Project Seminar Religious Studies in Global Christianities
• Blockveranstaltung: Arvo Pärt: Soundscapes of the Sacred (16–20 June 2026)
• Forschungskolloquium: Globale Christentumsgeschichte / Orthodoxie

Paulien Wagener:

• Ü Orthodoxe Kirchen in Mitteldeutschland

WiSe 2025/26

Jun.-Prof. Dr. Stanislau Paulau:

• VL Christentum: Globalgeschichte des ersten Jahrtausends
• HS Rewriting Luther. Wittenberg, Reformations and Religious Legacies
• Ü Autumn School in Wittenberg: Transnational Luther.  Wittenberg, Reformations and Religious Legacies
• S Religious Studies and Global Christianities
• Forschungskolloquium

Paulien Wagener:

• Ü Connected Christianities. The Early Ecumenical Movement in its Contexts

SoSe 2025

Jun.-Prof. Dr. Stanislau Paulau:

• Blockveranstaltung: Religion in Transitions: A Romanian Perspective (together with Prof. Cristian Sonea and Prof. Paul Siladi
• Ü Summer Academy in Armenia "Historical Narratives and Current Challenges: Culture, Religion and Society of Armenia"
• Exkursion: Von der Seidenstraße nach Unter den Linden. Auf den Spuren des frühen asiatischen Christentums in Berlin

Paulien Wagener:

• Ü Mütter, Huren, Gottesdienerinnen? Biblische Frauenfiguren in der Literatur des 19. und 20. Jahrhunderts
• Exkursion: Von der Seidenstraße nach Unter den Linden. Auf den Spuren des frühen asiatischen Christentums in Berlin

WiSe 2024/25

Jun.-Prof. Dr. Stanislau Paulau:

• HS Kirchen in den sozialistischen Diktaturen Mittel- und Osteuropas

• Exkursion  in die Tschechische und in die Slowakische Republik zum Hauptseminar  „Kirchen in den sozialistischen Diktaturen Mittel- und Osteuropas“

Gastprofessorin Dr. Li Tang:

• VL Von Mesopotamien nach China: Mittelalterliche Christentumsgeschichte entlang der Seidenstraße
• Ü Late Antique and Medieval History of Christianity in China and Central Asia: Selected Sources (in English)

Paulien Wagener:

• PS Geschichte(n) des Christentums

SoSe 2024

Jun.-Prof. Dr. Stanislau Paulau:

• HS "Was ist Globale Christentumsgeschichte?"
• Exkursion: Studienreise nach Armenien
• Forschungskolloquium

Paulien Wagener:

• Ü "Maria: Magd und Himmelskönigin. Bilder einer Frau"

WiSe 2023/2024

Jun.-Prof. Dr. Stanislau Paulau:

• OS "Neuere Forschungen zur Globalen Christentumsgeschichte (im Rahmen der  Jahrestagung von Ecumenical Research Forum 17.–19.11.23 in Hamburg)"
• Internationaler Workshop "Global Christianity: Interdisciplinary Perspectives and Prospects" in Cluj-Napoca, Rumänien
• HS "When Christians First Met Muslims: Early Encounters between Eastern Christianity and Islam"
• Ü "Orthodoxe Theologien vor der Herausforderung Krieg"

Paulien Wagener:

• Ü "Orthodoxe Kirchen in Deutschland"

Saeed Radawi:

• Sprachkurs "Einführung ins Altäthiopische (Geʽez)"

SoSe 2023

Jun.-Prof. Dr. Stanislau Paulau:

• S "Halle und der Christliche Osten: Vernetzungen,  Abgrenzungen, Wechselwirkungen (Forschungsseminar)"
• S "Vormoderne Christentumsgeschichte Afrikas in Quellen"

WiSe 2022/2023

Jun.-Prof. Dr. Stanislau Paulau:

• Ü  "Christentum und Krieg interkulturell. Völkerschlacht bei Leipzig im  Spiegel russischer und deutscher Erinnerungskulturen, 1813–1913–2023"
• VL "Grundzüge globaler Christentumsgeschichte von der Antike bis zur Reformation"

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