Patristics
The study of the Patristic era makes up a basic part of the discipline of Church History. It is concerned with the period of the institutionalization of Catholic Christianity, the development of regulated dogmatic positions, and the transformation of Christianity from an anti-state cult to an ideological foundation for state power.
The Patristic period stretches from the end of Apostolic Age (around the year 100) to the early Middle Ages (the 600s). The study of Patristics embraces church historical developments within the Latin, Greek, and Oriental areas.
The field is multifaceted: it includes the important process by which broad church Catholicism in time repressed the various streams of the Christian tradition that existed at the beginning of the 100s. Herein is included the development of church structures in the form of ministerial offices, and the New Testament canon, apologetics, the development of dogma, the formation of creeds, liturgy and spirituality, the diverse theological conceptions of the church fathers and mothers, monasticism, the church’s relation to the Roman Empire, early Christian art and architecture, and the development of the church’s demography.
The study of Patristics at the Faculty of Theology is in close dialogue with New Testament research and Dogmatics, as well as with the disciplines of History, Religious Studies and the History of Art.
Since 2006, the field of Patristics has been part of the Faculty of Theology’s prioritization of the study of the emergence and development of Christianity in antiquity.
Permanent staff connected to the research area:
- Kari Elisabeth Børresen, Senior Professor
- Stig Ragnar Frøyshov, Professor
- Øyvind Norderval, Professor
Research fellows connected to the research area: