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Global History of Christianity and Orthodox Christian Studies

General Discription

The Global History of Christianity with a focus on the history and present of worldwide Orthodoxy is an area of research that has a formative influence on the Faculty of Theology in Halle, with content overlaps with Church History, Eastern Church Studies, and Christian Oriental Studies.

Staff

Jun.-Prof.  Dr. Stanislau Paulau

Research assistent: Paulien Wagener

Student assistent: Julius Balski

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News

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

Lecture Series "Global Histories"

The Chair of Global History of Christianity and Orthodox Christian Studies, together with the Chair of Religious Studies and Intercultural Theology, conducts the lecture series "Global Histories".

Lectures by Prof. Dr. Daniel König and Prof. Dr. Claudia Hoffmann

Prof. Dr. Daniel G. König (München)

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

November 19th 2026 6:15 p.m. 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

Januar 14th 2027 6:15 p.m. 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.

Course offerings

Winter Semester 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

Summer Semester 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

Winter Semester 2025/2026

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

Summer Semester 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

Winter Semester 2024/2025

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“

Guest Professor 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

Summer Semester 2024

Jun.-Prof. Dr. Stanislau Paulau:

• HS "Was ist Globale Christentumsgeschichte?"
• Excursion: Study trip to Armenia
• Research colloquium

Paulien Wagener:

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

Winter Semester 2023/2024

Jun.-Prof. Dr. Stanislau Paulau:

• OS "Neuere  Forschungen zur Globalen Christentumsgeschichte (in the context of the annual conference of the Ecumenical Research Forum 17.–19.11.23 in Hamburg)"
• International Workshop "Global Christianity: Interdisciplinary Perspectives and Prospects" in Cluj-Napoca, Romania
• 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:

• Introduction to Geʽez

Summer Semester 2023

Jun.-Prof. Dr. Stanislau Paulau:

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

Winter semester 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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