Early modern multi-denominationalism "East" vs. "West"? A comparative analysis on the Ottoman Empire and Venice in the 17th and 18th centuries.

• Applicant: Privatdozent Dr. Ioannis Zelepos
• Subject Area: Early Modern History
• Term: from 2012 to 2020
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 222859978

The aim of the project is a comparative research of the phenomenon of multi-denominationalism in the Ottoman and Venetian realms during the 17th and 18th centuries focusing on Orthodox Christians and Jews as denominational communities with legal minority status although economically and demographically important. The first focus of interest concerns the development of the institutional framework of religious heterogeneinty in this southeast-european-mediterranean overlap-region, which involves the mechanisms of integration and segregation in the framework of imperial ruling strategies, the scope of trans-denominational interaction as well as the interweaving of communication spaces. The second focus of interest concerns the retroactive effects of multi-denominationalism as a historical constant on the religious communities themselves, which involves contact zones of the respective cultures of knowledge, transgressions and abolitions of boundaries, religious crises and breaks, the development of perceptions of self and otherness and thus the shaping of religious identities which are examined under the aspect of confessionalization processes. The methodological combination of an, in a wider sense, socio-historical with an discourse-analytical approach aims at an improved understanding of the phenomenon of multi-denominationalism since early modern times and its location in a broader context of european cultural history.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants