Christianity in the Middle East
Research on the varied forms of Christianities in the Middle East.
- Project I: The Church of the East in the Ottoman period
- Project II: Western missions in the Middle East
- Project III: The Missions of the Church Missionary Society and the Protestant Bishop Samuel Gobat (1846-1879)
- Project IV: A Historical Analysis of the Turkish Protestant Church (1965-2005)
- Project V: The Mardin collection: The Syriac Orthodox Church and the Ottoman Empire
Leader: H.L. Murre-van den Berg
The varied forms of global Christianity, as developed since the sixteenth century, constitute the subject of the research projects initiated and supervised by Heleen Murre-van den Berg. She is particularly interested in the varied forms of the Christianities of the Middle East, ranging from the traditional Eastern and Oriental Orthodoxies with their Catholic and Charismatic varieties, to the multifaceted presence of Protestant, Evangelical and Pentecostal Churches.
Project I: The Church of the East in the Ottoman period
A study of the history of the Assyrian Church of the East in the Ottoman period, based on a study of the colophons of the manuscripts that were produced by the scribes of this church, focusing on the history of literature, liturgy and theology of this church.
H.L. Murre-van den Berg
Project II: Western missions in the Middle East
A study of Western missionary activities in the Middle East in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Protestant and Roman Catholic, concentrating on the intricate relationships between modernization, colonialism and Muslim-Christian relationships as well as the influence of the missionary project and publications on the perception of Middle Eastern society in the west.
H.L. Murre-van den Berg
Project III: The Missions of the Church Missionary Society and the Protestant Bishop Samuel Gobat (1846-1879)
A study of the work of Bishop Samuel Gobat and the CMS in Palestine in the nineteenth century, focusing on the effects of their activities on the relationships between Protestant, Catholic and Orthodox Christians, based primarily on archival materials in missionary archives in Europe.
Charlotte van der Leest
Project IV: A Historical Analysis of the Turkish Protestant Church (1965-2005)
A study into the history of the Protestant church that emerged in Turkey in the second half of the twentieth century due to Western Evangelical missionaries as well as internal developments, making use of extensive interviews of the participants as well as printed materials that document the history of this movement.
James Bultema
Project V: The Mardin collection: The Syriac Orthodox Church and the Ottoman Empire
A study, edition and translation of a collection of Ottoman documents preserved in a Syriac Orthodox Church in Eastern Turkey, spanning four centuries between the early sixteenth and the early twentieth century and documenting the relationship of the Syriac Orthodox Church and the Ottoman administration, with a strong focus on the last century of Ottoman rule.
Emrullah Akgunduz