Religion and power in the Eastern Mediterranean

CIVIS focus area: Society, culture, heritage
Open to: Bachelor's

Master's
Field of studies: Social Science and humanities
Type: Blended Intensive Programmes (BIP)
Course dates: 12 February 2025 - 4 July 2025

This blended mobility CIVIS course aims to familiarise Bachelor's students with the transformation of Christianity and the broader religious landscape after the 4th century as that interacted with political power.

During the course, Professors and students will analyse the relation of this transformation with the then refurbished model of a Christian empire through texts and literature (virtual part). There will be a focus on the impact of this process on the emergence of the so-called Byzantine Christianity in the East, the native peripheral Christianity in Asia (Syria, Armenia) and Africa (Coptic, Ethiopic, Nubian Christians), as well as the transformation of the broader religious landscape concerning Judaism, “marginal” religious currents such as Gnosticism and apocalypticism. This will be facilitated through visits in relevant sites in Greece (physical mobility).

Finally, the course will highlight the consequences of the addressed topics to Early Islam and its millennial features during the Meccan period.

Main topics addressed

The program provides to the students knowledge related to the following fields:

The concept of the Christian emperor and his politics after the turbulations from the 4th to 6th century (laws against “heresies” and Jews, councils like Nicaea, Chalcedon, etc.)
The plurality of the culture of this period, shaped by Christian and non-Christian groups, that threatened the emperors’ authority and led to a multi-faceted and polycentric culture in the 6th century
The restructuring of the relations between religion and political power after the 7th century in the emergence of a Christian “Romanitas” in the Chalcedonian East and the concept of a “sacred centre” in Constantinople
The impact of the above-mentioned restructuring on the structures and the cult of the Christian Church in the East
The shaping of the peripheral non-Chalcedonian Christianity in Asia (Syriac and Armenian Christianity) and Africa (Coptic, Nubian, and Ethiopian Christians)
The relations between various dominant religious systems as well as between dominant religious structures and contemporaneous religious movements in the margins since these marginals movements (deemed as “heretical”) created a crucial formative factor of the religious landscape
The study of early Islam (enabled by the dramatic advances in the field of Qur’anic studies) from the viewpoint of the contrast between the inner-worldly and micro-millennial focus of the Meccan phase, on the one hand, and its swift shift towards the political and macro-millennial attitudes of the Medinan phase, on the other
The study of Judaism regarding a clear shift to later Babylonian rabbinic views from the earlier and decidedly apolitical attitudes of Palestinian forms of rabbinic Judaism that emerged in the aftermath of the unsuccessful revolts against Rome. These views were more open towards the political compromises necessary for any negotiation of the politics of the Sasanian Empire in which they resided

Learning outcomes

Upon completion of the course, the students will:

Be familiar with a concept of Late Antiquity that crosses the border of the Roman Empire and the classical periodization of history
Be informed about some of the most characteristic religious movements and ideas of the margins, such as “Gnosticism”, Manichaeism, but also apocalyptic and chiliastic groups with a special focus on their impact on the religious history of the Eastern Mediterranean in Late Antiquity and Early Middle Ages
Be familiar with the most important primary literature about these movements and their opponents and the debates, whereby aspects of the construction of the “Other” will be particularly highlighted
Comprehend the complex interplay of non-Chalcedonian Christian traditions and the Roman, Sasanian, and Early Islamic Empires
Evaluate the political and cultural shifts that accompanied the Meccan and Medinan phases of the Qur’anic community and how Islam’s Late Antique and Qur’anic heritage shaped Islamic politics up to Abbasid times
Analyse important texts concerning religion and power in Late Antiquity
Contextualise texts and information about inner-Christian debates/controversies
Describe the process of political and cultural “Christianisation” of the Roman Empire
Discuss the most essential scholarly strategies for the 4th to 6th centuries
Recognise the structural evolution of Christianity in the East after the end of Late Antiquity
Identify essential events and persons related to Eastern Christianity after the 6th century
Analyse the influence of Christianity on the creation of political norms, functions, and ideology in a Christian Empire (Byzantium, Nubia, Armenia)
Assess the impact of centralized political power on aspects of medieval Christianity
Locate rabbinic and non-rabbinic Jewish traditions within the social fibre of the respective Empires

Dates: 12 February 2025 - 4 July 2025	Total workload: 224 hours
Format: Blended	ECTS: 7*
Location: Athens, Greece	Language: English (B2)
Contact: dmoscho@theol.uoa.gr

*Recognition of ECTS depends on your home university.

Physical mobility

The physical mobility part will be running from 30 June 2025 to 4 July 2025 and will take place in Athens, Greece.

Schedule of the physical part

Monday, 30 June 2025 15:00 - 19:00 CET "Transforming religion in the Eastern Mediterranean: tour and seminar session in the Byzantine Museum of Athens" (all instructors together)
Tuesday 01 July 2025 10:00 - 18:00 CET Sessions on “The new Christian empire – Constantinople as a holy city from 7th to 9th c. – Religion and power in Iconoclasm. The emperor and the liturgy – The influence of Constantinople and the idea of the Empire in the Eastern Christian cult” Visit of a relative site. (Dimitrios Moschos)
Wednesday 02 July 2025 9:00 - 18:00 CET Session on “legislation governing religions and heresies”. 14.00-18.00. Session on "Religion, culture, and war - Conceptions of the relation between religion and war" (Volker Drecoll).
Thursday 03 July 2025 9:00 - 18:00 CET Christians and public space in late-antique Corinth (Dimitrios Moschos) Jews among Christians and the byzantine imperial power in the Eastern Mediterranean upon the text of Doctrina Addai, (Emmanouela Grypeou).
Friday 04 July 2025 9:00 - 13:00 CET Tour at the Islamic Museum of Athens. "The encounter between the Coranic community, Christians and Jews", Holger Zellentin

The sessions will be combined with visits on sites of interest for the object of the courses (museum visits in Athens, visit of byzantine churches in the Attica district, visit of Greek-Roman excavations in Athens and Corinth).

Virtual part

The virtual part will be running from 12 February 2025 to 30 April 2025.

Schedule of the virtual part

12 February 2025, Introductory session, where literature and necessary general knowledge will be provided.
26 February 2025 Session title: From pagan to Christian emperors. The imperial power and the Christian Ecumenical Councils up to the Henoticon Decree (482 CE).
5 March 2025, Session title: Imperial power from the Henoticon Decree to the end of the Justinian’s time 565 CE)
12 March 2025, Session title: Eschatological ideas and their political role in Syriac and Greek texts.
19 March 2025, Session title: Rabbinic literature up to the 6th c.CE – Its relation to the Christian and Sassanid imperial ideology.
26 March 2025, Session title: Christian spirituality and ascetic literature in diverse political functions.
2 April 2025, Session title: Qur’an and the Caliphate – public and private forms of religious piety patterns.
9 April 2025, Session title: Other Christianities: Oriental, African and Western Christian communities after the end of Late Antiquity.
30 April 2025, Session title: The Christian literature after Islam and its political background.

Requirements

This course is open to Bachelor's and Master's students at CIVIS member universities with a background and a specific interest in Religion, Political Science, Classical culture.

In order to follow the course participants should have:

- Familiarity with elementary teachings of Christianity, Jewish religion and Islam.

- Ability to question texts and other historical sources.

- Critical reading and thinking, extracting information from historical sources, innovative thinking are considered as desirable skills.

NB: Visiting Students - Erasmus Funding Eligibility

To be eligible for your selected CIVIS programme, you must be a fully enrolled student at your CIVIS home university at the time you will be undertaking the programme. Click here to learn more about the eligibility criteria.

This course is also open to students with the same academic profile, who are enrolled at a CIVIS strategic partner university in Africa. Please check here, if you can apply and this particular course is open to applications from your university. Successful applicants will receive an Erasmus+ grant covering travel and subsistence costs during their stay. Applicants should be willing to extend their stay at the host university for 1-3 weeks for additional research and/or training purposes.

Application process

Send your application by filling in the online application form by 31 October 2024, including:

CV
Motivation letter
Level of English (According to CEFR)

Students' applications will be evaluated based on the following criteria:

Motivation
Affinity of the BIP object with the student background of the applicant
Ability to think critically and actively participate in team work within an international student group

Apply now

Assessment

The participants will be evaluated after regular attendance and active involvement in presentations during the second part of the course or based on the writing of short essays at the end of the course.

The evaluation criteria are more specifically the following:

Regular attendance of the sessions
Active participation in the Seminar discussion and in-depth understanding of the relevant bibliography which will be given beforehand
Well documented presentation of an assigned topic (probably a book review) or successful answers to relevant questions in a written essay at the end of the course

Blended Intensive Programme

This CIVIS course is a Blended Intensive Programme (BIP): a new format of Erasmus+ mobility which combines online teaching with a short trip to another campus to learn alongside students and professors across Europe. Click here to learn more about CIVIS BIPs.

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Volker Drecoll is Professor of Church History/University of Tübingen. Focus on the old church and patristic theology.
Emmanouela Grypeou is Associate Professor, Department of Ethnology, History of Religions and Gender Studies/Stockholm University. A specialist of Gnosticism in the early Church history and Ancient Judaism, of the relations of Eastern Christianity with Early Islam and rabbinic Judaism.
Dimitrios Moschos is Professor of Church History at the Department of Theology at National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, specialized in Late Antique and Byzantine Christianity.
Holger Zellentin is Professor of Religion (Jewish Studies) at the University of Tübingen. Award-winning scholar of Late Antiquity. Focus on Talmudic and Qur’anic studies.