Community Formation, Shifting Boundaries, and Multiple Belongings
10. - 11. Dezember 2026
Centre for International Studies
Sciences Po, Paris
Program
10 DECEMBER 2026
14:00-14:30 – OPENING REMARKS
Marilou Achard (Passages, Université Bordeaux Montaigne/CNRS), Elisabeth Miljkovic (Center for International Studies, Sciences Po/CNRS) and Kathy Rousselet (Center for International Studies, Sciences Po/CNRS)
14:30-16:00 – PANEL 1: Orthodox Communities in France: Between Institutional Boundaries and Lived Belonging
Marilou Achard (Passages, Université Bordeaux Montaigne/CNRS) - “From Maps to the Faithful: Questioning Cartographic Representations of Russian-Tradition Orthodoxy in France”
Kristina Kovalskaya (GSRL, EPHE-PSL/CNRS; Université Paris 8) - “To Deal with a Heavy Belonging: How the War in Ukraine Reshaped the Borders and the Networks of Russian Orthodox Communities in Paris and Surroundings”
16:00-16:15 – COFFEE BREAK
16:15-17:45 – PANEL 2: Making Orthodoxy Local
Katerina Seraïdari (Centre of Art History “El Greco”, Institute for Mediterranean Studies/FORTH) - “Building an Autochthonous French Orthodoxy: The Celtic Orthodox Church and the Église Catholique Orthodoxe Française, ECOF”
Kira Kaurinkoski (IDEAS, Aix-Marseille Université/CNRS) - “Reflections on the Contemporary Reconfigurations of National and Cultural Forms of Belonging within the Finnish Orthodox Church”
19:30 – DINNER
11 DECEMBER 2026
09:30-11:00 – PANEL 3: Negotiating Orthodox Belongings across Borders, Historical Perspectives
Anna Sidorevich (Centre for History, Sciences Po) - “Crossing and Reinforcing Boundaries? Tat’iana Goricheva as an Orthodox Missionary in the West”
Nadezhda Beliakova (Department of East European History, Bielefeld University) - “Between Jurisdictions, Languages, and Countries: Multiple Belongings in Orthodox Communities in Germany during the Long Perestroika”
11:00-11:15 – COFFEE BREAK
11:15-12:45 – PANEL 4: War and the Remaking of Orthodox Communities in Contemporary Germany
Maximilian Kunte (Department of Political Science, LUISS Guido Carli University) - “Eastern Slavic Orthodox Identity and Church Division in Germany”
Zhanna Timofeeva (Ecumenical Institute, University of Münster) - “Negotiating Orthodox Belonging in Migration: The Case of Ukrainian Refugees to Germany”
12:45-14:15 – LUNCH
14:15-16:10 – PANEL 5: Religious Choices and Practices: Negotiating Identities Beyond Jurisdictions?
Marco Guglielmi (FISPPA, University of Padua) - “Towards an Italian Orthodoxy? The (Slow) Process of Indigenisation among the Orthodox Churches in Italy”
Artemis Skrepeti (CANTHEL, Université Paris Cité) - “When the Margins Speak: Old Calendarist Priests, Folk Magic, and the Contested Boundaries of Orthodoxy in Rural Laconia, Greece”
Jeanne Kormina (GSRL, EPHE-PSL/CNRS; Yerevan Center for International Education) - “Finding the ‘Right’ Orthodoxy: Making a Religious Life in Emigration”
16:10-16:25 – COFFEE BREAK
16:25-17:15 – CLOSING REMARKS
Maria Hämmerli (Religious Studies Unit, University of Fribourg) and Detelina Tocheva (GSRL, CNRS/EPHE-PSL)
17:15-17:45 – POST-CONFERENCE PANEL DISCUSSION
