"Religion and Politics" – Cluster of Excellence at the UNiversity of Münster

According to scholars of Scandinavian studies, ideas about Vikings and pagan Norse mythology today can often not be verified scientifically. “They are based essentially on reports written by Christian scholars in the High Middle Ages well over a century later, since, besides brief runic inscriptions, no written texts from the original period have been preserved”, says  Scandinavian scholar Roland Scheel from the Cluster of Excellence announcing the international conference “Imagining Nordic Paganism” from 6 to 7 November. Read more

In an Interview, Archaeologist Katharina Schmidt talks about her project at the Cluster of Excellence on the mountain settlements in the Kingdom of Edom (700–500 BC) in what is now southern Jordan. Recent investigations as part of a survey project that examined 12 of these mountain settlements in more detail suggest that, rather than being inaccessible and temporary refuges, they were in fact permanent and agriculturally self-sufficient settlements that were farmed sustainably over generations. This paints a completely new picture of Edom, which was composed of very different realities of life. Read more

Organised jointly by the University of Münster and the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome, an international conference in Mid-October will focus on the Council of Nicaea 1,700 years ago and its ecumenical, interreligious and intercultural significance. ‘The creed established by the first ecumenical council in history is still of fundamental importance to the Catholic Church, as well as to Orthodox and most Protestant churches today. Nicaea has raised complex questions from an interreligious perspective, especially with regard to Jewish-Christian and Christian-Islamic relations – it is these question that the interdisciplinary conference will address’, says Professor of Dogmatics Michael Seewald from Münster, who is organising the conference together with Philipp G. Renczes SJ, Dean of the Faculty of Theology at the Gregorian University. Read more