Associate Professor Pavlo Yeremieiev Took Part in the International Congress of the History of Religions

On August 24–30, 2025, the XXIII World Congress of the International Association for the History of Religions (IAHR) was held in Kraków.

A representative of Karazin University, Pavlo Yeremieiev, presented the paper “Biblical Allusions, Religious Polemics, and Orientalism: The East as a Metaphor in Orthodox Church Historiography (19th – Early 20th Century)”, which was discussed within the panel “Metaphors of Religion: How Religion Emerges in Language.”

Drawing on modern theories of language and thought, he demonstrated how the image of the East in church narratives shifted under the influence of the Enlightenment, Romanticism, and Positivism, was interpreted through the prism of Orientalist stereotypes, served as an instrument of anti-Catholic polemics, and at the same time was linked to nation-building processes in Eastern Europe.

Read more about the conference.