Labour of Love: Text and Tradition in Contemporary Transnational Oriental Orthodoxy

Heleen Murre-van den Berg; Stanislau  Paulau; George A. Kiraz; Johannes Makar; Josef Önder; Gabriel Bar-Sawme; Jesse Siragan Arlen; Christopher Sheklian; Gaétan du Roy

doi:10.54195/UTQA4903

Labour of Love: Text and Tradition in Contemporary Transnational Oriental Orthodoxy

Authors

Heleen Murre-van den Berg (ed)

Radboud University Nijmegen

https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7710-5394

DOI: https://doi.org/10.54195/UTQA4903

Keywords:

Oriental orthodox churches, Transnationalism, Religious texts, Religious practice, Religious education, Liturgy

Synopsis

In this edited volume, publications from Armenian, Syriac, Coptic, and Tewahdo publishers are taken as crucial witnesses of how these communities rewrite themselves in the lands of migration, taking into account not only the texts as such, but also how physical books accompanied by social media and digital publications are central in a transnational religious practice geared towards transmitting tradition to the next generation. In this, the volume bridges the gap between two burgeoning fields, the anthropology of Orthodox Christianity and the historical study of the major texts that form the backbone of the Oriental religious traditions.

Scholars from a variety of disciplines (including history, anthropology, theology and religious studies), as well as practitioners in the field of education and publishing, have contributed to this volume by bringing in a variety of case studies. Thus they helped to situate the concerns of the ERC project Rewriting Global Orthodoxy, Oriental Orthodox Churches in Europe, 1970-2020, in a broader context of the study of the role of texts and traditions in the Oriental Churches, with examples from the North America, Armenia, Ethiopia, Egypt, Sweden, France, Belgium and Germany. The volume is opened by an introductory article discussing a few of the underlying themes of the project and the volume (religion, books, learning) and closed by an overview of the communal work of the project in mapping publications and publishing by Oriental Orthodox Churches in Europe, based on the project’s website, https://fourcornersoftheworld.ptrs.ru.nl/.

Chapters

Labour of Love
Introductory Notes on Religion, Books, and Learning

Heleen Murre-van den Berg

DOI: https://doi.org/10.54195/UTQA4903_CH01

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Addressing a Global Audience
The Ethiopian Orthodox Textual Tradition in the Context of the Early Ecumenical Movement

Stanislau Paulau

DOI: https://doi.org/10.54195/UTQA4903_CH02

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From Intibāh to #baytokh_ʿīdto
Literary Production in the American Syriac Orthodox Diaspora

George A. Kiraz

DOI: https://doi.org/10.54195/UTQA4903_CH03

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From Apostolic Mandate to Print Magazine
Al-Kiraza and the Networked History of the Coptic Church

Johannes Makar

DOI: https://doi.org/10.54195/UTQA4903_CH04

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Literary works within the Syriac Orthodox Church of Antioch in Germany with a focus on Baden-Württemberg

Josef Önder

DOI: https://doi.org/10.54195/UTQA4903_CH05

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The Migration of the Syriac Orthodox Community to Sweden
Towards a Description of Patterns of Change and Liturgical Adaptation

Gabriel Bar-Sawme

DOI: https://doi.org/10.54195/UTQA4903_CH06

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Recovering the Monastic Tradition
Publishing Trends in the Armenian Apostolic Church in Armenia and America

Jesse Siragan Arlen

DOI: https://doi.org/10.54195/UTQA4903_CH07

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Armenian Liturgical Commentaries in the Twenty-First Century
What the Changes in an Ancient Christian Genre Tell us about the Oriental Orthodox Today

Christopher Sheklian

DOI: https://doi.org/10.54195/UTQA4903_CH08

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Online Coptic Theology
A Comparison between French and British Websites

Gaétan du Roy

DOI: https://doi.org/10.54195/UTQA4903_CH09

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Rewriting Global Orthodoxy
Contemporary Oriental Orthodox Textual Traditions in Europe

Heleen Murre-van den Berg

DOI: https://doi.org/10.54195/UTQA4903_CH10

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Author Biographies

Heleen Murre-van den Berg, Radboud University Nijmegen

(PhD Leiden, 1995) is professor of Global Christianity. She published on the Churches of the Syriac tradition (Scribes and Scriptures: The Church of the East in the Eastern Ottoman Provinces, 2016) and edited various volumes on Christians and other minorities in the Middle East, including Modernity, Minority, and the Public Sphere: Jews and Christians in the Middle East (Leiden, 2016) and Arabic and its Alternatives: Religious Minorities and their Languages in the Emerging Nation States of the Middle East (1920-1950) (Leiden, 2020).

Stanislau Paulau, Martin Luther University of Halle-Wittenberg

Stanislau Paulau (PhD Göttingen, 2019) is Professor of Global History of Christianity and Eastern Christian Studies at the Martin Luther University of Halle-Wittenberg. He is the author of the award-winning book Das andere Christentum. Zur transkonfessionellen Verflechtungsgeschichte von äthiopischer Orthodoxie und europäischem Protestantismus (Göttingen 2021) and co-editor (together with M. Tamcke) of the volume Ethiopian Christianity in a Global Context: Entanglements and Disconnections (Leiden 2022).

George A. Kiraz, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton

George A. Kiraz is a Senior Research Associate at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, teaches Syriac at Princeton University and is the director of Beth Mardutho: The Syriac Institute. He has written extensively on computational linguistics, the digital humanities, and various Syriac subjects. His recent works include The Syriac Orthodox in North America (1895–1995): A Short History (2019), Syriac-English New Testament (2020), and Algorithmic Musings in Syriac: Verse Poem on Computation Attributed to George of the Arabs (2024).

Johannes Makar, Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, Harvard University

Johannes A.P. Makar is a Kluge Fellow at the John W. Kluge Center, the Library of Congress in Washington D.C. He specializes in nineteenth-century Arabic intellectual thought and print culture, with special reference to Coptic intellectuals in late Ottoman Egypt. In 2025, he earned his Ph.D. in Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations from Harvard University.

Josef Önder, Ecumenical Institute for Theology/Religious Education at the University of Education Schwäbisch Gmünd

Josef Önder (PhD. Tübingen, 2008; PhD. Kottayam/Southern India, 2017) is Director of Studies for Syriac Orthodox Theology/Religious Education at the Ecumenical Institute for Theology/Religious Education at the University of Education Schwäbisch Gmünd / Southern Germany. He authored an extensive oeuvre comprising approximately fifty works spanning theology, pedagogy, fiction, as well as translations from Syriac-Aramaic and editorial endeavours. Noteworthy among these are the sixteen-volume Syriac Orthodox liturgy and the six-volume textbook series On the Way to Faith. In addition, he serves as editor, hymnographer, and author of official curricula for Syriac Orthodox religious education in Southern Germany. His scholarly and public engagement further includes numerous academic articles, critical reviews, and media appearances. Josef Önder is also Representative of the Syriac Orthodox State Coordinator and Dean of Religious Education of Baden-Württemberg, as well as of the Syriac Orthodox Church of Antioch in ecumenical affairs and in dealings with state authorities at both federal and state level (BW).

Gabriel Bar-Sawme, Sankt Ignatios, Södertälje

Gabriel Bar-Sawme holds a PhD from Uppsala University, focusing on sacred space, language, and ritual theory. With an MA from Princeton Theological Seminary and a BA in theology, his research spans liturgical studies, migration, and critical theory. He is also a licensed social worker with over 15 years of experience, committed to exploring human potential, self-actualization, and emotional well-being. He works as a senior lecture at Sankt Ignatios (Södertälje) and is affiliated with Uppsala University’s Centre for Multidisciplinary Research on Religion and Society.

Jesse Siragan Arlen, Fordham University

Jesse Siragan Arlen is a postdoctoral research fellow at Fordham University and the director of the Krikor and Clara Zohrab Information Center at the Diocese of the Armenian Church of America (Eastern) in New York. He holds a Ph.D. in Near Eastern Languages & Cultures from the University of California, Los Angeles and has published, taught, and lectured widely on the premodern Armenian literary tradition.

Christopher Sheklian, Department of Philosophy and Religion, Mississippi State University

Christopher Sheklian is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Philosophy and Religion at Mississippi State University. He received his PhD in Anthropology from the University of Chicago in 2017, and has held several Postdoctoral, Visiting Professor, and Adjunct Professor positions, including at Radboud University, part of the ERC-funded “Rewriting Global Orthodoxy” project. Currently, he is working on a monograph entitled Liturgical Rights: Armenian Minority Presence in Turkey.

Gaétan du Roy, Radboud University Nijmegen

Gaétan du Roy received his PhD in history from UCLouvain in Belgium. He was a postdoctoral fellow at University of Pennsylvania and at the Berlin Graduate School, Muslim Cultures and Societies. He is a specialist on the religious and urban history of contemporary Egypt. His main themes of investigation are the history of Christian-Muslim relations in Egyptian cities and the history of Middle Eastern diasporas in Europe. He has authored Les Zabbalin du Muqattam (Brill 2022).