Research Group B-III-2 researched forms of political organization and knowledge transfer in early Christendom, which was characterized by plurality and multicentricity. In cooperation with projects from research areas A and B, analysis has being conducted of the extent to which early Christendom developed based on already existing infrastructure, such as the Greek polis, or integrated itself into the infrastructure of the Roman Empire. Further research focused on the question of how the widely dispersed early Christian communities were united, organized and linked together. With specification, addition and interpretation of sepuchral inscription and other sources, it was possible to determine how various social actors (e.g. soldiers), as conveyor of the development of Early Christian communities, mattered and which influence the geographic, social, and religious space, as determinant of those communities, had.
Database
Whithin this research group different Christian inscriptions of Asia Minor has been collected in the epigraphic database Inscriptiones Christianae Asiae Minoris (ICAM). This database was extended with remaining areas of Asia Minor and Aegean Area within Topoi 2 research project (B-5-III) Authorization of early Christian knowledge claims in Greece.
Dissertations
- 'And Made them for Our God a Kingdom and Priests'. The βασιλεία-/βασιλεύω-Terminology in Rev 1:6; 5:10; 20:4,6; 22:5
- Images of Space in the Third Sibylline Oracle
- The Impact of Visigothic Legislation on the Church on the Iberian Peninsula after 589
- The public appearence of Christianity in late Antique Antioch. Focusing on agnonistic metaphors in several homilies of John Chrysostom about Antiochian martyrs