Early Christianity in Corinth and the Peloponnese Early Christianity in the Aegean Islands – The Inscriptions

• Applicant: Professorin Dr. Christiane Zimmermann
• Subject Area: Protestant Theology
• Term: since 2023
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 518257140

The project will produce two volumes on the regional history of early Christianity in the Peloponnese and the Aegean Islands ("Early Christianity in Corinth and the Peloponnese"; "Early Christianity in the Aegean Islands"). The volumes follow on from the locally and regionally oriented account of the history of Christianity by Adolf von Harnack (Die Mission und Ausbreitung des Christentums in den ersten drei Jahrhunderten, 1st ed. 1902), which has now become obsolete due to the increase in source material. The project volumes are part of the series "Early Christianity in Greece" (Brill), which complements the series "Early Christianity in Asia Minor". In both project volumes, the development of early Christian communities in important regions of Greece is to be traced from their beginnings to late antiquity, whereby both urban and rural contexts are dealt with. In addition to the already relatively well known but limited textual tradition, the evaluation of Christian inscriptions and archaeological evidence is of particular importance in these project volumes, as they reveal the regional and local historical and real-life specifics of the various groups of Christ followers in a special way. These sources have been neglected until now. The volume "Early Christianity in Corinth and the Peloponnese" is being produced in cooperation between the applicant and a church historian and an archaeologist. The volume "Early Christianity in the Aegean Islands" is to be produced within the framework of a doctoral project and will focus in particular on the evaluation of the Christian inscriptions of the islands. The Christian inscriptions of both regions, the Peloponnese and the Aegean Islands, will be comprehensively evaluated for the first time and consolidated and made openly accessible in the database Inscriptiones Christianae Graecae. In this database ICG, Christian inscriptions from different regions are compiled, translated and illustrated. It represents a central and innovative tool for sifting through and processing these sources, some of which have grown considerably and are scattered across numerous publications, but the database is still incomplete. For the implementation of the project, a position for a research assistant and a student assistant for 36 months, material funds for the technical consolidation of the database, funds for a workshop and publication funds are requested. The task of the research assistant will be to support the project "Early Christianity in Corinth and the Peloponnese" and to work on the dissertation "Early Christianity in the Aegean Islands".

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• International Connection: USA
• Co-Investigators: Professor Dr. Klaus Hallof; Dr. Kerstin Helmkamp; Professor Dr. Andreas Müller
• Cooperation Partner: Professor Dr. Joseph L. Rife