European Academy of Religion 2025: Conference Recap

After lengthy preparations, the annual conference of the European Academy of Religion, organised by the Research Centre Religion and Transformation in Contemporary Society (RaT), took place in the main building of the University of Vienna from 8 to 12 July 2025. It was a great honour to be entrusted by the Academy with the organisation of such an important academic event, which also served to underline Vienna's role as a centre for theology and religious studies. The organising team is particularly proud that the Rector of the University of Vienna, Prof. Sebastian Schütze, opened the conference with his introductory remarks on the evening of 8 July, thereby emphasising the high significance of the event for the university.

After the opening evening, the nearly 1,200 participants, who had travelled to Vienna from over 60 countries around the world, spent four days exchanging ideas on the current state of research in their respective disciplines in over 200 panels. Contemporary and historical issues from a wide range of religious traditions were addressed from a variety of perspectives in the humanities, social sciences, theology, philosophy and law.

As every year, the conference was preceded by a general theme: Religion and Socio-Cultural Transformation: European Perspectives and Beyond. The choice of this theme was intended to remind participants that religion plays a decisive role in the processes of change currently facing societies at the global level (digitalisation, climate crisis, migration, individualisation, etc.). This is particularly evident in the current convergence of increasing secularisation on the one hand and the growing visibility of religion through migration and religious pluralisation on the other.

How do these processes affect religious communities, and how do religions contribute to overcoming or even deepening the current crises? Do religious communities, with their cultural resources, offer potential for strengthening social cohesion in an increasingly rapidly changing world, or do they tend to drive social division?

All these questions were addressed from different perspectives in the opening speeches and the six keynote lectures of the conference: At the beginning, the Rector of the University of Vienna, Sebastian Schütze, discussed the role of religious studies in the university context of our time. This was followed by the President of the Academy, Herman Selderhuis, who introduced the general theme of the conference, and Kurt Appel, speaker of RaT, who presented the research centre and addressed the social and religious challenges it focuses on. After these introductory speeches, the keynote speeches were kicked off by former EU Commissioner and President of the European Forum Alpbach, Franz Fischler, who explored the challenges facing the peaceful coexistence of the secular and religious worlds in light of current global conflicts. Grace Davie from the University of Exeter then presented a sociological overview of how the situation of religion in Europe today has changed compared to the diagnoses of the early 2000s.

After the first full day of the conference on Wednesday evening, Rik Torfs from KU Leuven spoke about the changing role of religion in secularised societies and the legal implications of these changes. He asked what challenges and potential new threats to religious freedom arise from this today.

On Thursday evening, sociologist Tariq Modood, who teaches at the University of Bristol, presented the central theses of his latest book (co-authored with Thomas Sealy), "The New Governance of Religious Diversity" (2024). In it, the authors combine an empirical and a normative approach and examine how state control of religious plurality occurs in various countries beyond the Atlantic models. They also ask how states should interact with majority religions in order to promote religious minorities and plurality in the spirit of "multicultural secularism."

The relationship between religion and politics in the age of an emerging multipolar world order was the focus of the keynote speech by Hans Schelkshorn, a philosopher of religion who teaches at the University of Vienna. Schelkshorn's thesis is that the global rise in the questioning of human rights and democracy in the name of religion poses new challenges for an intercultural philosophy of religion.

In her presentation on Saturday, which also marked the end of the conference, Isabella Guanzini from the Catholic Private University of Linz explored the potential of religions in the transformation processes of a secular society, drawing on Kristeva's idea of an "incredible need to believe." She analysed the symbolic resources of religions for dealing with the fundamental vulnerability of the human condition.

The research findings and theses presented at the conference will also be published: First, the keynote lectures will be published in the EuARe publication series (open access), and then in 2026, the RaT Research Centre will publish a volume of the JRAT Supplementa Series containing the keynotes and another twenty selected contributions from the conference (also open access).

In addition to the keynote speeches and panels, a varied programme of side events was organised for participants, offering opportunities for informal exchanges and inviting them to get to know Vienna, the conference venue, better. In addition to the reception on Tuesday, which brought the opening evening to a culinary close, the programme included an invitation to a traditional Viennese Heurigen, a jazz concert and a visit to Melk Abbey. In addition, a Women*'s Breakfast was held on three days at the traditional Viennese Café Landtmann, offering a space for women in religious studies to exchange ideas and network.

The research landscape of the conference was enriched by the contribution of the team from the FWF-funded project PHILOSOPHY IN THE ARTS : ARTS IN PHILOSOPHY. The Heart Lab Tower installation in the arcaded courtyard of the University of Vienna became a poetic research space. On the opening evening of the conference, the tower became the stage for a multimedia lecture performance and served as a space for workshops that complemented the programme on the following days. As an interdisciplinary research site, the Heart Lab Tower opened up explorations of the meaning of the heart at the intersection of philosophy, religion and art.

Special mention should also be made of the networking meeting for young scholars organised by the Vienna Doctoral School of Theology and Research on Religion and the audio guide "Exploring Vienna's Religious Tapestry" to various places of religious life in Vienna's city centre, which was designed by the Doctoral School together with students in the run-up to the conference and which participants were able to try out during numerous guided tours.

An event of this magnitude would not have been possible without the support of many institutions both within and outside the university. First and foremost, we would like to thank the team at the European Academy of Religion, to whom the conference organisers are very grateful for their excellent cooperation over many months.

Within our university, we were particularly pleased about the contribution of the Faculty of Protestant Theology, the Faculty of Catholic Theology and the Faculty of Philosophy and Education, whose generous financial and personnel support made the conference possible. We would also like to thank the entire team and members of the Research Centre Religion and Transformation for their great support throughout the entire organisational process.

Last but not least, we would like to acknowledge the work of the many students who, as part of a course organised by the conference organising team, helped us in the form of the Student Organising Committee before and during the event and provided advice and support to the participants during the conference.

Outside the university, we would like to thank the Office of the Mayor of the City of Vienna and the Vienna Meeting Fund for their financial support and the invitation to the Heurigen Fuhrgassl-Huber, which many of our participants will surely remember as one of the (culinary) highlights of the conference. Melk Abbey helped us by offering a discount on guided tours for our participants. Last but not least, we would like to mention the interdenominational support of religious institutions in Austria, which enabled us to finance a scholarship programme for young researchers. We would like to express our sincere thanks to the Austrian Bishops' Conference, the Archdiocese of Vienna, the dioceses of Innsbruck, Gurk-Klagenfurt and Graz-Seckau, Admont Abbey and Göttweig Abbey, the Protestant Church A.B. in Austria and the Islamic Community in Austria (IGGÖ).  

The EuARe 2025 organising team

Noemi Call, Marco Fiorletta, Rudolf Kaisler, Marleen Thaler and Marian Weingartshofer