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Books by Heleen Murre-van den Berg

Research paper thumbnail of The Orthodox Church of Georgia: Forging new identities in a global post-Soviet world

Friday September 15, IVOC (Institute of Eastern Christian Studies, Radboud University) will prese... more Friday September 15, IVOC (Institute of Eastern Christian Studies, Radboud University) will present its first seminar on the Georgian Orthodox Church. Three experts in the field will introduce us to important issues concerning this church in its contemporary post-Soviet context. These include its relations to the state and its position in the ecumenical movement. Main speaker is dr. Tamara Grdzelidze, who today is ambassador of Georgia at the Vatican and who earlier worked at the World Council of Churches. Further speakers are dr. Sylvia Serrano, Universite d’Auvergne and CERCEC (Centre d’études des mondes russe, caucasien et centre-européen, Paris) and dr. David Tinikashvili (guest research IVOC, Ilia State University, Tblisi). More info: http://www.ru.nl/ivoc/

Research paper thumbnail of “The Unexpected Popularity of the Study of Middle Eastern Christianity”, in Sidney H. Griffith and Sven Grebenstein (eds), Christsein in der islamischen Welt. Festschrift für Martin Tamcke zum 60. Geburtstag (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2015), 1-11.

Heleen Murre-van den Berg (Leiden) The Unexpected Popularity of the Study of Middle Eastern Chris... more Heleen Murre-van den Berg (Leiden) The Unexpected Popularity of the Study of Middle Eastern Christianity While the percentage of Christians in the Middle East continues to diminish, the interest in their fate has been on the rise. One important reason for this is the growing interest m Islam and the Middle East since the 9/11 attacks and the ensuing political turmoil in the region, especially after the western invasions in Afghanistan and Iraq in 2003. The cascade of events that followed the invasions unsettled many of the Middle Eastern societies, to the detriment of most of its citizens. Minorities of all kinds (religious, ethnic and social) were affected even more seriously than other citizens by the uncertainties resulting from civU war and uprisings in Iraq, Egypt and Syria. The plight of Christians in these countries caught the attention of many in the west, more often than not accompanied by the surprise that indeed these countries comprised sizeable Christian communities. ' In the wake of harrowing stories of expulsion and displacement, abductions and murder, western journalists and other popular writers gradually began to pay more consistent attention to Christians in the whole of the Middle East even if news about their fate is easily sidelined by more pressing issues.2 In this volume in honor of our colleague Martin Tamcke, it seems fitting to discuss in somewhat more detail the rising interest in the Christian communities of this region, as a tribute to his lifelong interest in and extensive contributions to this field. Wliile it would be farfetched to attribute this growing popular interest to the developments in the academic world, including the work of Tamcke, it is clear that by the time a wider readership became interested in these themes, an impressive array of scholarship on Christians in the Middle East was available. What I propose to do in this brief contribution is to situate the popular interest in the 1 On Christians and the uprisings in Egypt and Syria, see Najib George Awad, And Freedom Became a Public-Square: Political, Sociological and Religious Overviews on the Arab Christians and the Arabic Spring (Studien zur Orientalischen Kirchengeschichte 46; Miinster: LIT, 2012). 2 At the time of completion of this contribution (July 2014), the advance of the radical Islamist caliphate' of ISIS in northern Iraq, with its destructive actions against Christians and other non-Sunni minorities, against shrines of all kinds, against minorities more generally, was receiving little attention amidst the deadly war against Gaza and the downing of the Maleisian/Dutch airplane MHi-j in Eastern Ukraine.

Research paper thumbnail of Scribes and Scriptures: The Church of the East in the Eastern Ottoman Provinces (1500-1850) (Eastern Christian Studies 21; Peeters: Louvain, 2015)

What do written texts mean to a community that is mostly illiterate? What is the role of scribes ... more What do written texts mean to a community that is mostly illiterate? What is the role of scribes in such a society? What languages did they use in writing, and why? What texts did they favor? What happens to religion and learning in a Middle Eastern church that is confronted by other, Western, ways of belief?
This study takes the scribal production of texts, from the Holy Scriptures to the first traces of popular writing, as its main source to analyze the changes that took place between 1500 and 1850 in the Church of the East, the precursor of today’s Chaldean Church and the Assyrian Church of the East. How this church dealt with these monumental changes, how that affected everything from the production of texts to the fabric of society as a whole, and how that contributes to our understanding of this church’s modern day off-shoots, is the topic of this study.

Research paper thumbnail of New Faith in Ancient Lands. Western Missions in the Middle East in the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries

Research paper thumbnail of Redefining Christian Identity. Cultural Interaction in the Middle East since the Rise of Islam

Research paper thumbnail of From a Spoken to a Written Language. The Introduction and Development of Literary Urmia Aramaic in the Nineteenth Century

Papers by Heleen Murre-van den Berg

Research paper thumbnail of 'Searching for Common Ground: Jews and Christians in the Modern Middle East' in Goldstein-Sabbah, S. R., H.L Murre-van den Berg (eds) (2016), Modernity, Minority, and the Public Sphere: Jews and Christians in the Middle East (Leiden Studies in Islam and Society 4, Leiden: Brill; Open Access)

Extensive introduction of and analysis of a wonderful array of papers in the volume that I edited... more Extensive introduction of and analysis of a wonderful array of papers in the volume that I edited together with Sasha Goldstein-Sabbah (2016), Modernity, Minority, and the Public Sphere: Jews and Christians in the Middle East (Leiden Studies in Islam and Society 4, Leiden: Brill; Open Access; DOI: 10.1163/9789004323285).

Research paper thumbnail of Rearranging Things: How Protestant attitudes shake the objects in the piety of Eastern Christian Women

Research paper thumbnail of “Classical Syriac and the Syriac Churches: A Twentieth-Century History,” in M. Doerfler, E. Fiano, K. Smith, Syriac Encounters: Papers from the Sixth North American Syriac Symposium, Duke University, 26-29 June 2011 (Eastern Christian Studies 20; Peeters: Louvain), 119-148.

Research paper thumbnail of “A ‘Good and Blessed Father’. Yonan of Ada on Justin Perkins, Urmia (Iran), 1870,

Research paper thumbnail of A Center of Transnational Syriac Orthodoxy: St. Mark’s Convent in Jerusalem

Research paper thumbnail of Simply by giving to them maccaroni .... Anti-Roman Catholic Polemics in Early Protestant Missions in the Middle East (1820-1860)

Research paper thumbnail of Why Protestant Churches? The American Board and the Eastern Churches: Mission among ‘Nominal’ Christians (1820-70)

Research paper thumbnail of The Patriarchs of the Church of the East from the Fifteenth to Eighteenth Centuries

Research paper thumbnail of The American Board and the Eastern Churches: The “Nestorian Mission” (1844-1846)

Research paper thumbnail of The Missionaries’ Assistants. The Role of Assyrians in the Development of Written Urmia Aramaic

Research paper thumbnail of Apostasy or ‘a House Built on Sand’. Jews, Muslims and Christians in East-Syriac texts (1500-1850)

Research paper thumbnail of Mesopotamian Christianity

Research paper thumbnail of Assyrian Apostolic Church of the East

Research paper thumbnail of The Study of Western Missions in the Middle East (1820-1920): An Annotated Bibliography

Research paper thumbnail of The Orthodox Church of Georgia: Forging new identities in a global post-Soviet world

Friday September 15, IVOC (Institute of Eastern Christian Studies, Radboud University) will prese... more Friday September 15, IVOC (Institute of Eastern Christian Studies, Radboud University) will present its first seminar on the Georgian Orthodox Church. Three experts in the field will introduce us to important issues concerning this church in its contemporary post-Soviet context. These include its relations to the state and its position in the ecumenical movement. Main speaker is dr. Tamara Grdzelidze, who today is ambassador of Georgia at the Vatican and who earlier worked at the World Council of Churches. Further speakers are dr. Sylvia Serrano, Universite d’Auvergne and CERCEC (Centre d’études des mondes russe, caucasien et centre-européen, Paris) and dr. David Tinikashvili (guest research IVOC, Ilia State University, Tblisi). More info: http://www.ru.nl/ivoc/

Research paper thumbnail of “The Unexpected Popularity of the Study of Middle Eastern Christianity”, in Sidney H. Griffith and Sven Grebenstein (eds), Christsein in der islamischen Welt. Festschrift für Martin Tamcke zum 60. Geburtstag (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2015), 1-11.

Heleen Murre-van den Berg (Leiden) The Unexpected Popularity of the Study of Middle Eastern Chris... more Heleen Murre-van den Berg (Leiden) The Unexpected Popularity of the Study of Middle Eastern Christianity While the percentage of Christians in the Middle East continues to diminish, the interest in their fate has been on the rise. One important reason for this is the growing interest m Islam and the Middle East since the 9/11 attacks and the ensuing political turmoil in the region, especially after the western invasions in Afghanistan and Iraq in 2003. The cascade of events that followed the invasions unsettled many of the Middle Eastern societies, to the detriment of most of its citizens. Minorities of all kinds (religious, ethnic and social) were affected even more seriously than other citizens by the uncertainties resulting from civU war and uprisings in Iraq, Egypt and Syria. The plight of Christians in these countries caught the attention of many in the west, more often than not accompanied by the surprise that indeed these countries comprised sizeable Christian communities. ' In the wake of harrowing stories of expulsion and displacement, abductions and murder, western journalists and other popular writers gradually began to pay more consistent attention to Christians in the whole of the Middle East even if news about their fate is easily sidelined by more pressing issues.2 In this volume in honor of our colleague Martin Tamcke, it seems fitting to discuss in somewhat more detail the rising interest in the Christian communities of this region, as a tribute to his lifelong interest in and extensive contributions to this field. Wliile it would be farfetched to attribute this growing popular interest to the developments in the academic world, including the work of Tamcke, it is clear that by the time a wider readership became interested in these themes, an impressive array of scholarship on Christians in the Middle East was available. What I propose to do in this brief contribution is to situate the popular interest in the 1 On Christians and the uprisings in Egypt and Syria, see Najib George Awad, And Freedom Became a Public-Square: Political, Sociological and Religious Overviews on the Arab Christians and the Arabic Spring (Studien zur Orientalischen Kirchengeschichte 46; Miinster: LIT, 2012). 2 At the time of completion of this contribution (July 2014), the advance of the radical Islamist caliphate' of ISIS in northern Iraq, with its destructive actions against Christians and other non-Sunni minorities, against shrines of all kinds, against minorities more generally, was receiving little attention amidst the deadly war against Gaza and the downing of the Maleisian/Dutch airplane MHi-j in Eastern Ukraine.

Research paper thumbnail of Scribes and Scriptures: The Church of the East in the Eastern Ottoman Provinces (1500-1850) (Eastern Christian Studies 21; Peeters: Louvain, 2015)

What do written texts mean to a community that is mostly illiterate? What is the role of scribes ... more What do written texts mean to a community that is mostly illiterate? What is the role of scribes in such a society? What languages did they use in writing, and why? What texts did they favor? What happens to religion and learning in a Middle Eastern church that is confronted by other, Western, ways of belief?
This study takes the scribal production of texts, from the Holy Scriptures to the first traces of popular writing, as its main source to analyze the changes that took place between 1500 and 1850 in the Church of the East, the precursor of today’s Chaldean Church and the Assyrian Church of the East. How this church dealt with these monumental changes, how that affected everything from the production of texts to the fabric of society as a whole, and how that contributes to our understanding of this church’s modern day off-shoots, is the topic of this study.

Research paper thumbnail of New Faith in Ancient Lands. Western Missions in the Middle East in the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries

Research paper thumbnail of Redefining Christian Identity. Cultural Interaction in the Middle East since the Rise of Islam

Research paper thumbnail of From a Spoken to a Written Language. The Introduction and Development of Literary Urmia Aramaic in the Nineteenth Century

Research paper thumbnail of 'Searching for Common Ground: Jews and Christians in the Modern Middle East' in Goldstein-Sabbah, S. R., H.L Murre-van den Berg (eds) (2016), Modernity, Minority, and the Public Sphere: Jews and Christians in the Middle East (Leiden Studies in Islam and Society 4, Leiden: Brill; Open Access)

Extensive introduction of and analysis of a wonderful array of papers in the volume that I edited... more Extensive introduction of and analysis of a wonderful array of papers in the volume that I edited together with Sasha Goldstein-Sabbah (2016), Modernity, Minority, and the Public Sphere: Jews and Christians in the Middle East (Leiden Studies in Islam and Society 4, Leiden: Brill; Open Access; DOI: 10.1163/9789004323285).

Research paper thumbnail of Rearranging Things: How Protestant attitudes shake the objects in the piety of Eastern Christian Women

Research paper thumbnail of “Classical Syriac and the Syriac Churches: A Twentieth-Century History,” in M. Doerfler, E. Fiano, K. Smith, Syriac Encounters: Papers from the Sixth North American Syriac Symposium, Duke University, 26-29 June 2011 (Eastern Christian Studies 20; Peeters: Louvain), 119-148.

Research paper thumbnail of “A ‘Good and Blessed Father’. Yonan of Ada on Justin Perkins, Urmia (Iran), 1870,

Research paper thumbnail of A Center of Transnational Syriac Orthodoxy: St. Mark’s Convent in Jerusalem

Research paper thumbnail of Simply by giving to them maccaroni .... Anti-Roman Catholic Polemics in Early Protestant Missions in the Middle East (1820-1860)

Research paper thumbnail of Why Protestant Churches? The American Board and the Eastern Churches: Mission among ‘Nominal’ Christians (1820-70)

Research paper thumbnail of The Patriarchs of the Church of the East from the Fifteenth to Eighteenth Centuries

Research paper thumbnail of The American Board and the Eastern Churches: The “Nestorian Mission” (1844-1846)

Research paper thumbnail of The Missionaries’ Assistants. The Role of Assyrians in the Development of Written Urmia Aramaic

Research paper thumbnail of Apostasy or ‘a House Built on Sand’. Jews, Muslims and Christians in East-Syriac texts (1500-1850)

Research paper thumbnail of Mesopotamian Christianity

Research paper thumbnail of Assyrian Apostolic Church of the East

Research paper thumbnail of The Study of Western Missions in the Middle East (1820-1920): An Annotated Bibliography

Research paper thumbnail of Chaldeans and Assyrians: the Church of the East in the Ottoman Period

Research paper thumbnail of Classical Syriac, Neo-Aramaic and Arabic in the Church of the East and the Chaldean Church between 1500 and 1800

Research paper thumbnail of William McClure Thomson’s The Land and the Book (1859): Pilgrimage and Mission in Palestine

Research paper thumbnail of 'Our Jerusalem’: Bertha Spafford Vester and Christianity in Palestine during the British Mandate

Research paper thumbnail of “A ‘Good and Blessed Father’. Yonan of Ada on Justin Perkins, Urmia (Iran), 1870

Research paper thumbnail of Das Christentum in Afrika und dem Nahen Osten; Das Christentum in Ost-, Sud-und Sudostasien sowie Australien

Church History and Religious Culture, Jan 1, 2007

Research paper thumbnail of Blog post by Heleen Murre van den Berg.pdf