Paper short abstract:

This paper is about the proposition of a taxonomic model for religions and cults in mobility that is based on an analogous taxonomic model for the religions and cults that "invaded" the Roman Empire during Late Antiquity. This is a model that I proposed and used for my published post-doc research.

Paper long abstract:

The taxonomy and the distinction of the cults during the Late Antiquity were based on the characteristics of Gods, the theological teachings, the rituals or the ethnic tradition. The first goal of this paper is to present a different taxonomy for depicting the religious development of Roman Empire. I' m going to categorize the cults of this era according to: a) the expansion of the religious community, b) the methods of promotion and establishment in several areas of the Roman Empire, and c) how a cult or a religious tradition is depended on a topos (place); especially, the topic/utopic depiction of the world (ecumene) can give us a lot of answers about the formation and mobility of these new cults. Those theoretical characteristics can help us form a new taxonomy for the cults of this particular era based not only on the factor of mobility but also on how people adapt and act after they have settled down on a new place. The second goal is to show how this model of taxonomy can be used nowadays for the religious mobility in an analogous way. It is important to show that we can create a new taxonomy for religion that it is not necessary depended on theological argument but on social and cultural effect.

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