Prof.dr. H.L. Murre-van den Berg – History of World Christianity

Position:
  • Full professor History of World Christianity


Telephone number: +31 (0)71 527 2581
E-Mail: h.l.murre@hum.leidenuniv.nl
Faculty / Department: Faculteit der Geesteswetenschappen, Leids Instituut Godsdienstwetenschappen
Office Address: Witte Singel-complex
Matthias de Vrieshof 1
2311 BZ Leiden
Room number 2.03c
Personal Homepage: 69422.weblog.leidenuniv.nl


Academic weblog

Research

Prof. dr. Heleen Murre-van den Berg’s research is focused on global Christianity, especially in the ways in local forms of Christianity developed and continue to develop in constant relation to other Christian communities, via global and transnational Christian networks that include formal ecclesiastical, ecumenical and missionary organizations as well as a host of informal networks that were established mostly through diasporas and other migration patterns. Within this wider global network, especially those established by the varieties of Middle Eastern Christianity, as it developed from Eastern and Oriental Christianity on which were grafted new forms of Catholicism, Protestantism and Pentecostalism, are the subject of her research. Current projects include research on the Christianity of Iraq and Syria (especially concerning the Church of the East, Assyrian and Chaldean, and the Syriac Orthodox Church) and as well as on Christian views of the ‘Holy Land’, especially in connection to past and present relationships between Jews, Christians and Muslims.  

Murre-van den Berg has been part of the Institute for Religious Studies since 1995, teaching a variety of classes on the history and current state of global Christianity, as well as, in English, on the Christian communities in the Middle East. She served two terms on the Board of the Institute (formerly Faculty of Theology; 1998-2000, 2004-2006), among others as Director of Studies, and currently is chair of the Faculty of Humanity’s education committee. She contributes to the Bachelor programs of World Religions, Christian Theology and Islamic Theology, as well as to several Master’s programs. She welcomes students who are interested to specialize, on the level of Bachelor, Master or Ph.D., in World Christianity or in Middle Eastern Christianity in the (early) modern and contemporary period.

Currently she teaches the following courses

  • Geschiedenis van het christendom (BA1) 
  • Rituelen en symbolen van het christendom (BA2/3) 
  • Werkcollege wereldchristendom (BA 2/3)
  • Christianity in the Middle East (1800-present) (MA)

Editorships

  • Editor-in-Chief: Studies in Christian Mission (Brill, Leiden) 
  • Member of the Advisory Board: The Journal of Eastern Christian Studies (Peeters, Louvain)
  • Member of the Editorial Board of Leiden University Press

Last Modified: 09-02-2011