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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 assistents: Conrad Theilemann, Julius Balski

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News

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".

Prof. Dr. Jörg Haustein (Cambridge/UK)

„Missionaries, Socialism, and Ethnocentrism: Global Protestantism and Ethical Dilemmas in Revolutionary Ethiopia".

This lecture studies how Cold War-era Protestant mission work became entangled with revolutionary politics and ethnonationalist movements in Africa. Focusing on the theologian, scholar of Islam, missionary, and political campaigner Gunnar Hasselblatt (1928–1997), the lecture traces transnational flows between Socialist Ethiopia and West Berlin, carving out the ethical disputes arising in this arena. After the 1979 murder of Gudina Tumsa, the general secretary of the Ethiopian Mekane Yesus Church, Hasselblatt’s advocacy for the Oromo liberation struggle led to a rift between the Berlin Mission and the Ethiopian church centring on ethnonationalism, co-operation with socialist governments, and the nature of church partnerships. The case illuminates broader transformations in 20^th-century global Christianity while documenting how East-West German anxieties about church and socialism became inseparable from Ethiopian revolutionary debates.

Further Information

Course offerings

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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