Over the last fifty years, Oriental Orthodox Christians (Armenians, Copts, Syriacs/Arameans, Ethiopian and Eritrean Tewahdo Christians) from the Middle East and Africa have settled in Europe, fleeing war-related violence and societal pressures. One of the prominent aspects of religious practice of these transnational Oriental communities is their strong emphasis on writing and publishing texts. These include traditional religious texts (from liturgy to history), re-translated and re-contextualised versions of these texts, and completely new texts.
From simple leaflets and books, to sophisticated internet productions including sound and image, these textual practices aim to transmit the religious heritage to a new generation in an increasingly globalised context.
Scholarship has largely ignored these texts, because they are too popular or too modern for scholars of the written religious traditions, and too textual for social scientists working on these transnational communities. However, they make up a crucial source for the study of these communities’ European integration, especially as to the hybrid character of many of these traditions.
The project took these textual practices as its main source to understand how Oriental Christians inscribe themselves in European societies and so contribute to the transformation of their own transnational churches as well as to that of Orthodoxy worldwide.
Over the past five years, the team (consisting of three PhD students, two postdoctoral researchers, a project manager, two ICT specialists and the PI) have worked at mapping & analyzing this corpus, linking it on the one hand with earlier historic analyses of these churches, and on the other with anthropological and sociological studies into their current transnational migratory experience. This approach was further guided by the observation that these churches share and actively cherish a common history, and thus deserve to be analyzed together, as ‘Oriental Churches’, rather than separately. For this, the ERC Advanced grant provided excellent opportunities.
The project team therefore worked in a combination of individual case studies (for each of the individual churches in various parts of Europe) and crosscutting projects. Of these, our common FourCornersoftheWorld database was fundamental to our research. We collected a substantial sample of these publications, providing a sold starting point for comparison and analysis. In addition, we organized a series of conferences in addition to our regular team meetings, that allowed us to explore a variety of comparative questions, as to the type of literature, similar and variant responses to the European context, and, overall, what this type of literature ‘does’ in the building of these churches, that is, ‘teaching the tradition transnationally’, as we formulated it in one of our publications.
Results
One of the main results of the research project is a database containing hundreds of publications by Oriental Orthodox Christians.
Visit the database
In addition to the database, the project findings have been shared in a range of publications, some already out, others in press.
Edited volumes
Already out: a number of essays in a volume edited by the late prof. Martin Tamcke:
Martin Tamcke (Ed.), Europe and the Migration of Christian Communities from the Middle East (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2022, Series:Gottinger Orientforschungen, I. Reihe: Syriaca , #65; ISBN: 9783447119184)
Yet to come: two edited volumes reflecting two conferences:
- Volume 1: Oriental Orthodox Visual Cultures (in preparation). Eds.: Du Roy, Sheklian (Fordham Press; in preparation)
- Volume 2: Labour of Love: Text and Tradition in Contemporary Transnational Oriental Orthodoxy (Accepted; OA, Radboud University Press Nijmegen, expect. Fall 2025)
Dissertations
Matija Miličić, “Boundary making, belonging, and continuity: The rewriting of Coptic Orthodox communities in Europe" (Radboud Dissertation Series, 2025).
Expected: Jan Gehm: “Literature and Alterity: Continuation and Rewriting of the Syriac Orthodox Community in the European Context."
Additional relevant publications of individual team members – academic, peer reviewed
- Murre-van den Berg, “The Transformation of the Syriac Churches: Writing, Reading and Religion in the Ottoman period” In B. Heyberger (ed.), Les chrétiens de tradition syriaque à l’époque ottomane 77-92 (Paris: Geuthner, 2020);
- Murre-van den Berg, “Language and Religion in the (Re)Making of the Syriac Orthodox Communities in Europe”, in Birgit Meyer, Peter van der Veer (eds), Refugees and Religion: Ethnographic Studies of Global Trajectories (Bloomsbury Academic: London etc., 2021), 179-197. Chapter DOI 10.5040/9781350167162.0019.
- Murre-van den Berg, “Voice of the East: The Transnational Messenger of the Assyrian Church of the East”, in Diaspore nel vicino oriente. Melodie Ebraiche in Benedetto Marcello. Edited by Mirella Cassarino, Lydia Cevidalli, Rosa Bianca Finazzi, Claudia Milani, Marco Moriggi. ISBN 978-88-6894-671-5 (Milan: Veneranda Biblioteca Ambrosiana, 2022), 59-89.
- Murre-van den Berg, “The Church of the East, Catholicism and Literary Culture in the Eastern Ottoman Provinces (1500-1800).” In Livres et confessions chrétiennes orientales. Une histoire connectée entre l’Empire ottoman, le monde slave et l’Occident (XVIe-XVIIIe siècles). Edited by Aurélien Girard, Bernard Heyberger, Vassa Kontouma, 99-124 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2023 [Bibliothèque de l’école des hautes études sciences religieuses, vol. 197]) ISBN 978-2-503-60440-4.
- Jan Gehm, “Von marginalisierten Dorfgemeinschaften in der Südosttürkei zur etablierten Kirchengemeinde, Das Beispiel der syrisch-orthodoxen Kirchengemeinde in Herne 1961-2021“, 253-266. Migrationskirchen Internationalisierung und Pluralisierung des Christentums vor Ort (Leipzig: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt 2021).
- Jan Gehm, with Alena Höfer: “Schmerzhafte Migration. Grenzüberschreitung zwischen Leben und Tod. Syrisch-orthodoxe und eritreisch-orthodoxe Perspektiven“, 323-338. In Katharina Greschat, Claudia Jahnel (eds), Dem Schmerz begegnen. Theologische Deutungen (Bielefeld: transcript Verlag 2021).
- Matija Miličić, “Rooting the Coptic Diaspora: Mediating Familiarity and Adapting Churches in the Netherlands”, Etnofoor (Vol. 35, No. 2), 67-83.
- Christopher Sheklian, “Hagiographic Emplacement: St. Servatius, the Armenian Community of Maastricht, and Oriental Orthodox Christians in Europe”. In Anthropologies of Orthodox Christianity (Fordham University Press, 2024), Candace Lukasik and Sarah Riccardi-Swartz (eds.)
A (selection of) relevant publications of individual team members – popular & professional
- Habtom Yohannes, “Eritreeërs: natievorming op de vlucht.” In Ineke van Kessel; Nina Tellegen; Erik van den Bergh; Angèle Etound Essamba (Ed.), Afrikanen in Nederland (Amsterdam: Koninklijk Instituut voor de Tropen, 2020), 101-116.
- Matija Miličić, “Coptic Orthodox Communities in Europe: An Overlooked Diaspora.” In Egypt Migrations (online article, OA, July 2021).
- Idem, “The Coptic Orthodox Church in the Netherlands.” In Egypt Migrations, online article, OA, July 2021).
- Habtom Yohannes, “The Tigray Crisis and the Possibility of an Autocephalous Tigray Orthodox Tewahdo Church.” Public Orthodoxy (Fordham University, July 2021).
- Matija Miličić, “Preserving, adapting and self-inscribing: The case of the Coptic Orthodox Church in Italy” (two parts). In Egypt Migrations (online article, OA, March 2022).
- Murre-van den Berg, Licht uit het Oosten: Oosters- en Oriëntaals-Orthodoxe kerken in Nederland en wereldwijd (Willem de Zwijgerstichting 2022/1.
- Habtom Yohannes, “Ethnicity Tears the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahdo Church Apart” Public Orthodoxy (Fordham University, Febr 2023).
- Christopher Sheklian, “Het einde van de Armeense aanwezigheid in Artsach” [The End of the Armenian Presence in Artsakh]: Platform Oosters Christendom, Oct 2023.
- Murre-van den Berg, “Met lichaam en ziel betrokken. De Oriëntaals-orthodoxen en hun kerken in Nederland”. In Madelon Grant, Sebastiaan van der Lans, Anne Versloot, Tamarra Willemsz (red.). Wereldkerken in Nederland. Fotografie: Bram Petraeus (Utrecht: Museum Catherijneconvent; Samen Kerk in Nederland; nai010 Uitgevers, 2024). ISBN 978-94-6208-859-7, 66-71.
