s Georges: "Between education, initiation and conversion - ways to approach religion in late antiquity"

Education, initiation and conversion are different, yet interacting dimensions within the approach to religion. The interrelation between those dimensions and their impact on the formation of religious identities is an intriguing topic within late antiquity, regarding the religion of the early Christians as the other religious groups and movements surrounding them (Greco-Roman cults, Jewish religion). The workshop focuses on education, initiation and conversion in the Christian realm, within the comprehensive perspective on the manifold ways to approach religion in the Roman Empire – this comparatistic perspective still remains understudied.

The multidisciplinary team (Church history, Systematic theology, Ancient history, Classics, Archaeology) contributing to the workshop is tackling a set of major questions as:

What can we say about the Christian methods and institutions of teaching/learning and their relation to the non-Christian realm? In what sense can we talk about Christian “schools”?

How did education, initiation and conversion interact? To what extend did the Christians’ teachings and their way of life contribute to convert and/or initiate people? What influence did conversions and their accounts have on Christian education?

What’s the role of ancient paideia and philosophy within the ways to approach religion, and especially to approach Christianity?

The comprehensive perspective on education, initiation and conversion in different religious realms is shared by the two research groups whose cooperation gave rise to the workshop’s proposal: the research group “The transformation of religious identity in the Hellenistic-Roman world, 100-600 AD. The significance of conversion and initiation to the formation of religious identity” from the University of Aarhus/Denmark and the research team “Piety and Paideia: Religious Traditions and Intellectual Culture in the World of the Roman Empire; 1^st – 4^th century CE” from the University of Göttingen/Germany – the last one is part of the new interdisciplinary centre “EDRIS-Education and Religion from Early Imperial Roman Times to the Classical Period of Islam” whose research aims at program will be introduced during the workshop.

The workshop stemming from this background and focusing on early Christianity is supposed to shed new light on and to clarify the interplay between education, initiation and conversion, and their effect on the formation of Christian identity/identities.