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Ecclesiastical History Society Book Award for Martin Christ

Dr Martin Christ of the “Religion and Urbanity” research group at Max-Weber-Kolleg of the University of Erfurt has received the 2022 Ecclesiastical History Society Book Award for first monograph. The award was bestowed on Christ’s “Biographies of a Reformation: Religious Change and Confessional Coexistence in Upper Lusatia, 1520-1635”, published with Oxford University Press in 2021.

Christ, who is a Junior Fellow with the “Religion and Urbanity: Reciprocal Formations” research group (DFG, FOR 2779) at the Max-Weber-Kolleg (University of Erfurt), shares the award with Zachary Guiliano’s “The Homiliary of Paul the Deacon".

Alec Ryrie observed when announcing the award that “Martin Christ’s Biographies of a Reformation is a well written monograph making extensive use of archival material. It advances a  carefully constructed thesis on the complexities of religious settlement and co-existence on periphery and how Catholic kings tolerated forms of Protestantism, and challenges the general thesis of top-down imposition through a biographical approach to local records. The phenomenon of confessional co-existence in places such as Upper Lusatia is known to scholars but has generally been treated as a curiosity or aberration. This book makes a serious case that these examples are much more significant to our understanding of how ‘Reformation’ processes were actually implemented, and by a bold application of the controversial concept of ‘syncretism’ to intra-Christian religious negotiations marks a definite advance in our understanding. And in the process it puts Upper Lusatia firmly on the map of Reformation studies.”

“Biographies of a Reformation” is based on Christ's doctoral dissertation but aspects of his current work in Erfurt also found their way into it.

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