Vol. 11 No. 2: Formative Exchanges between the Sasanid Empire and Late Antique Rome: Zoroastrianism, Manichaeism and Christianity in Contact

Guest Editors: Eduard Iricinschi and Kianoosh Rezania

The special issue “Formative Exchanges between the Sasanid Empire and Late Antique Rome: Zoroastrianism, Manichaeism and Christianity in Contact”, edited by Kianoosh Rezania and Eduard Iricinschi, publishes the contributions of a two-days workshop of the Käte Hamburger Kolleg "Dynamics in the History of Religions between Asia and Europe" hold on first and second of June 2017 at the Center for Religious Studies, Ruhr University Bochum. It explores formative dynamics of contacts, interactions, and exchanges that took place in the Sasanian and Roman Empires between Zoroastrianism, Manichaeism, and Christianity at multiple levels. The contributions investigate the cognitive, ritual, and material scope of religions represented as “minorities” within larger ethnic and ideological landscapes, such as Christians and Manichaeans in the Persian Empire, or Manichaeans in the Roman Empire. Also, they enquire into how the subsequent reactions from the political, ethnic, and religious “majority” of the Persian and Roman Empires led not only to various manners of accommodation or rejection of religious minorities by the religious establishment, but also to the transformation of these majorities themselves as a result of religious contacts, influences, and borrowings.