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This presentation explores administrative and geographic penumbras of the development of the St Olav Ways. It is analysed how debates about the realisation of this national pilgrimage venture in Norway influence how contemporary pilgrimage is framed and managed in the Nordic countries.

Paper long abstract

The St Olav Ways to Nidaros Cathedral in Trondheim is the most extensive network of pilgrimage routes in the Nordic countries. Developed through both grass roots initiatives and governmentally administered projects since the 1990s, it is now recognised as the “official” pilgrimage project in Norway and holds the status as a Cultural Route of Europe. As such, there is a high degree of public administration on both the national and transnational level, with power relations and hierarchies being created in the processes. All the routes in this network must lead to Nidaros and demonstrate a connection to “the heritage of St Olav”. Because of the status as a state-funded pilgrimage venture, these criteria present a frequent source of contestation that sometimes leads to conflict with pilgrimage agents focused on other historical shrines and/or various interpretations of contemporary pilgrimage practices.

This presentation focuses on the development of the national strategy for pilgrimage in Norway to exemplify how realisations of pilgrimage as a cultural-political field can bring to light differences in how pilgrimage is understood. Furthermore, it is shown how such debates also can be productive in defusing differences and creating new arenas for collaboration. This field of “pilgrimage bureaucracy” is analysed as a penumbral zone (Coleman 2021) surrounding pilgrimages to Nidaros and other historical shrines in the Nordic countries. It is based on analysis of consultation responses to the governmental report (2008) that laid the ground for the national pilgrimage strategy (2012) and interviews with agents involved in this process.

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2024 marked the 900th anniversary of the Christianisation of Pomerania by Otto of Bamberg. To celebrate this anniversary, the Via Ottoniana was mapped out. Although the Via Ottoniana was not intended to promote reconciliation, it has become part of the process of coming to terms with the past.

Paper long abstract

2024 marked the 900th anniversary of the Christianisation of Pomerania by Otto of Bamberg. To celebrate this anniversary, the Via Ottoniana was mapped out. This is a pilgrimage route passing through places visited by Otto during his two missions to the region in 1124 and 1128. The route lies on both sides of the modern-day Polish–German border. A free online guide to the route was created, and several pilgrimages were organised in 2024 to cover some sections of the Via Ottoniana. While this type of pilgrimage has not become a visible element of the Pomeranian religious landscape, the preparation of the route sparked discussions about the region’s past.

Interestingly, while the overarching narrative of the anniversary celebrations referred to the Middle Ages and Otto’s significance to the European monarchies of that period, the Christianisation of Pomerania was also viewed through the lens of the region’s 20th-century history. The World War II memory and the settlement of the so-called Regained Territories cast a shadow over the celebrations. Otto was seen not only as a Catholic saint, but also, somewhat anachronistically, as a German. Although the Via Ottoniana was not intended to promote reconciliation, its partial overlap with the Way of St James and its contemporary European context have become part of the process of coming to terms with the past and reinterpreting the region's difficult memory.

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The 2024 canonization of the former Orthodox priest Ilie Lăcătușu has sparked controversy due to his fascist past and a legal deadlock over his relics. These issues, combined with rising nationalism, has strained the Romanian Orthodox Church and deepened social divides during its Centenary year.

Paper long abstract

Since the fall of communism, the Romanian Orthodox Church has canonized 171 local saints, accelerating efforts for the 2025 Centenary. Among them is Ilie Lăcătușu, a priest celebrated for his spiritual resilience during communist persecution and canonized in 2024. However, his interwar ties to the far-right Legionary Movement sparked protest from the “Elie Wiesel” Institute for the Study of the Holocaust in Romania. The Church acknowledged the facts, but pointed out that it prioritizes his spiritual transformation over past “transgressions”.

Lăcătușu’s case presented further complications due to a legal deadlock: his descendants refused to relinquish ownership of his relics, thereby compromising the 2025 proclamation. Beside the general guidelines, Orthodox canonization relies on “Church tradition”. Such a tradition stipulates that a candidate for sainthood should have no living family — a requirement that have been overlooked in this instance.

The 2025 pilgrimage to the crypt of Ilie Lăcătușu lacked the formality of an official proclamation, yet it stood apart from previous years. Held in a cemetery, on the outskirts of Bucharest, the event was marked by several notable shifts. The relics were displayed on an improvised podium, and while several priests attended, no Church officials were present. Attendees wore traditional clothing and carried national flags; however, a group of far-righ supporters in green shirts prominently displayed legionary flags, prohibited by law since 2015.

Amidst rising nationalism and social polarization, the discussed pilgrimage presents unique challenges for an already embattled Orthodox Church, further widening the fractures within the Romanian society.

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Examining two Turkish occupied C/O religious sites in Cyprus– a pancyprian pilgrimage centre and a church that revived as a site of pilgrimage for its displaced users– I explore how long-term inaccessibility and restrictive re-admission in conditions of conflict affect their meaning and experience.

Paper long abstract

The paper comparatively examines two Turkish occupied Christian Orthodox religious sites in Cyprus. The first is the Monastery of Apostolos Andreas (Karpasia), a pancyprian pilgrimage site prior to the de facto partition of the island in 1974, which was revived as such after the opening of the checkpoints in 2003. The second, is the Church of St. Mamas (Morphou) which was rendered inaccessible to its primary user community in 1974 and was converted into a 'Byzantine icon museum'. Restrictive re-admission to it for the performance of collective rituals after 2003 effected the transformation of the Church of St. Mamas from a locus of pre-war everyday socio-religious life into a pilgrimage centre for its internally displaced user community. Instead of seeing these two sites as discreet entities, I situate them in the broader landscape of the Cyprus conflict, exploring how long-term inaccessibility and restrictive re-admission in conditions of protracted conflict and displacement affect the ways they are experienced and given meaning to by the Greek Cypriots who visit them.

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The Italian village of Predappio appears ordinary, yet it is periodically transformed by pilgrimages paying tribute to Il Duce at his birth and burial site. Through ritualised movement, this paper examines how pilgrimage shapes polarised spaces and lateral encounters.

Paper long abstract

Predappio, a small Italian village of a few thousand inhabitants in northern Emilia Romagna, appears ordinary on most days: quiet streets, cafés, and little shops. Yet each year the village is transformed by pilgrimages paying tribute to Il Duce at his birth and burial site. The three main commemorative dates — Mussolini’s birth (29 July), his death (28 April), and the anniversary of the March on Rome (28 October) — mark moments when everyday life is suspended and the village ritualistically remade. During these commemorations, ordinary spaces become extraordinary through ritualised movement: pilgrims march from the main square to the cemetery, dressed in black, carrying flags and political objects. Souvenir shops selling t-shirts, busts, and memorabilia function as ritual hubs, distributing objects that materialise allegiance and organise co-presence. Walking routes, timed gatherings, and repeated gestures temporarily reconfigure the village through patterned movement and affect. At the same time, anti-fascist counter-demonstrations unfold along parallel routes, creating a polarised spatial choreography. Local residents, shops, authorities, and even observers form a lateral zone around these events, mediating tensions and shaping co-presence. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork during the centenary of the March on Rome in 2022, this paper shows how pilgrimage in Predappio does not simply recall political histories but actively enacts and sustains polarised political worlds. In doing so, it highlights how ritual, material objects, and embodied mobility operate across contested and lateral spaces, producing the village as an extra/ordinary site of political and social negotiation.

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This paper examines pilgrimage in India as an urban process, showing how ritual movement and everyday encounters shape belonging, conflict, and coexistence across religious cities.

Paper long abstract

Pilgrimage is often understood as a bounded religious act or an episodic ritual event. This paper instead approaches pilgrimage as an urban process that unfolds through movement, sensory engagement, and everyday negotiation within the city. Drawing on ethnographic research in Puri and situating it within broader Indian pilgrimage traditions, the paper examines how pilgrimage operates across everyday urban life rather than outside it. The primary research question guiding is: How does pilgrimage, as an urban and social process, influence the dynamics of conflict and coexistence in cities experiencing religious and political polarization?

Situated within current debates on pilgrimage and conflict, the paper explores how pilgrimage can simultaneously reinforce polarisation and open lateral, ambiguous spaces of encounter. In Puri, ritual routes become stages where devotion intersects with tourism, governance, gendered safety, nationalism, and everyday urban life. Through practices of walking, listening, waiting, observing, and sheltering, pilgrims and residents inhabit what Coleman (2021) describes as the penumbral zone of pilgrimage, spaces occupied not only by devotees but also by caretakers, women, bystanders, vendors, and local communities.

The paper pays particular attention to how reading the city, especially its sounds, movement, and collective rhythm, guides bodies through it, shaping feelings of belonging and sacred presence while also exposing tensions around control, infrastructure, and exclusion. By framing pilgrimage as a lived, urban phenomenon rather than a singular religious act, the study argues for a more inclusive understanding of pilgrimage as a site of negotiation between faith, conflict, care, and coexistence in contemporary cities.

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Pilgrimages represent valuable sites for examining the intersection of historical trajectories, identities, and projects of coexistence. In this paper, I focus on pilgrimages that take place at the most popular Catholic shrines in Sicily (Southern Italy), involving Sinhala Catholics from Sri Lanka.

Paper long abstract

Entanglements between ritual practices and religious infrastructures may index both cultural continuity and social transformation at local and transnational scales, revealing ongoing reconfigurations of citizenship and sovereignty.

In this paper I will focus on pilgrimages taking place at the most popular Catholic shrines in Sicily (Southern Italy) and involving Catholic Sinhala migrants from Sri Lanka, one of the most conspicuous migrant groups in Southern Italy. Drawing on ethnographic research, I examine Sinhala pilgrimage practices in Sicily, ranging from the most solemn festivities to more ordinary and ‘lateral’ forms of attendance at shrines and churches. These practices are connected to transnational networks while simultaneously constituting a source of conflict with the pastoral institutions of the Sicilian Catholic Church.

Although the participation of Sinhala Catholics in pilgrimages and their devotion to the most popular holy figures of Sicilian religiosity are officially welcomed by Italian Catholic institutions, Sri Lankans’ religious activism and their autonomous organization of pilgrimage networks in Italy and beyond are often regarded with suspicion by local pastoral actors, as if they expressed a form of fervent religiosity in need of containment. Furthermore, shared devotion to Marian figures such as the “brown” Madonna of Tindari presents a twofold connotation. On the one hand, pilgrimages to Tindari work as a bridge connecting Catholic groups of different cultural backgrounds who meet on common devotional grounds. On the other hand, however, they reveal subtle ritual a(nta)gonisms against the backdrop of contemporary epochal changes in Catholic Christianity, marked by its decentering from a Western core.

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This paper discusses the ‘penumbral zone’ operating at the Roman Catholic shrines (grottos) in Ghana. It focusses on the position and positionality of women-pilgrims as conflict solvers. Particular interest is on un-official rituals and the circulation of objects brought from pilgrimage sites.

Paper long abstract

The position and positionality of women within the RC Church in Ghana (as well as in many other places) is often described as a ‘gender paradox’. Women significantly outnumber men in various church-related activities while their role as religious leaders seems limited by the patriarchal official church structures. Various rituals and events, such as pilgrimages and retreats organized at the Roman Catholic shrines in Ghana (so-called grottos), also attract many women.

The paper focusses on the ‘penumbral zone’ of these gatherings and the role of women within this lateral dimension of pilgrimage. I am particularly interested in un-official rituals performed during the pilgrimages and the circulation of objects brought from these sites. The activities often involve trans- and inter-religious interactions. Such interactions can emerge around the sacred sites during the pilgrimage (for instance, among the Muslim and Christian women who sell food or water to pilgrims), at the shrines themselves (where people from various religious traditions can participate in certain rituals), as well as at people’s homes when they return from pilgrimage (circulation of ‘holy water’ and other healing objects among non-Catholic neighbors, family members and colleagues).

In my analysis I will apply the concept of ‘translation’ understood as creative processes involving women from various backgrounds who interact with one another in the lateral pilgrimage zones. Unofficial networks formed during these processes can be seen as disarming various conflicts connected with ethnic, family, inter-religious relations and generating bottom-up agency of women in Ghanaian society.

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Based on an ethnographic approach, this paper examines the concept of walking within the Pastoral Land Commission (CPT) in Bahia, Brazil. In this context, pilgrimage constitutes a method through which rural communities claim their rights and resist land grabbing and development projects.

Paper long abstract

This paper focuses on the meanings of walking, a key concept of the Pastoral Land Commission (CPT), an organisation affiliated with the Catholic Church in Brazil. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork conducted with the CPT of the Diocese of Juazeiro, in the state of Bahia, Northeastern Brazil, I aim to analyse walking as both a concrete and an abstract practice. First, walking can be associated with pastoral activities such as goat herding on communal land in traditional communities of the Caatinga, a semi-arid biome. More broadly, walking together aligns with the CPT’s engagement with rural communities in struggles against land grabbing. In this context, pilgrimages organised by the CPT merge these meanings of walking while operating as a method of political claiming. I discuss two ethnographic cases from pilgrimages in the backlands of Bahia, carried out at different scales (local and regional), both of which articulate forms of resistance rooted in pastoral and rural livelihoods. I therefore suggest that pilgrimage is a weapon in conflicts over land and water, which oppose, on the one hand, rural communities and, on the other, development projects that dispossess land and evict people.