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- Convenors:
-
Barbora Spalová
(Faculty of Social Sciences, Charles University in Prague)
Agnieszka Halemba (Polish Academy of Science)
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- Formats:
- Panel
Short Abstract
Religious buildings across Europe—churches, mosques, synagogues—shift from worship to new uses, shaping public space and social life. This panel explores how their visibility fosters cohesion or polarization, identity, and debates on belonging and sustainability.
Long Abstract
In urban as well as rural Europe church towers and monastery walls are still dominant features. However, nowadays these buildings are not always used for liturgical purposes: some are empty and ruined, others become hotels, private homes, or museums. Moreover, they are obviously not the only religious buildings visible in the public space: synagogues, mosques and other buildings associated with religion are also increasingly visible. But along with the population shifts and the changing role of religion, the role of religious architecture is also changing. How and for what are they used, built, taken care of or left to ruin? Most importantly though, what does their presence and visibility do to the social life? Does it produce rather social polarisation or the social cohesion and how?
We invite contributions from you to discuss the role of religious architecture in Europe: from deserted or privatised churches, through rebuilt and securitized synagogues, to new constructions of churches, mosques and other places of worship. We are interested in the agency of buildings, especially those that are visible in public spaces and that provoke debates and reflections on belonging and identity, but also other issues such as ecology or sustainability, justice and access. We want to go beyond the paradigms prevalent in the social sciences to date that treat religious buildings primarily as cultural heritage. Instead, we invite you to look at buildings as agentive relational phenomena and ask what their presence does to various forms of social life.
Accepted papers
Session 1Paper short abstract
In the Czech Republic, former synagogues no longer used for worship remain powerful non-human actors. This paper explores how synagogue buildings attract activism, mobilize narratives, and shape cohesion or polarization in local communities despite the absence of Jewish life.
Paper long abstract
This paper explores the agency of synagogue buildings in post-socialist Europe through ethnographic research conducted in several Czech localities where Jewish communities ceased to exist after the Second World War. In all cases, synagogues no longer function as places of regular worship. Nevertheless, they remain prominent and highly visible elements of public space and have become focal points of activism, heritage practices, and debates on belonging and responsibility.
Drawing on anthropological work in material culture studies and theories of non-human actors, we conceptualize synagogues not as passive heritage objects but as non-human agents that actively shape social relations. We ask whom these buildings attract in order not to collapse physically or symbolically, what kinds of intentions, narratives, and resources they mobilize, and how they become embedded—or fail to become embedded—within local communities.
The paper examines several models of synagogue reactivation in the absence of any local Jewish community. While in one case the preservation is driven by Jewish private owners, other cases demonstrate how non-Jewish activists, municipalities, and private individuals assume responsibility for synagogue buildings and redefine their public role. These synagogues no longer serve religious practice but operate as cultural, educational, or commemorative spaces.
We argue that synagogue buildings act as mediators between past and present, capable of fostering social cohesion, generating civic engagement, or, in some contexts, provoking tension and polarization. By foregrounding religious architecture as a non-human actor, the paper moves beyond heritage-centered paradigms and contributes to a relational anthropology of religion, space, and public life.
Paper short abstract
The paper engages with the topic of the agency of religious buildings in Europe through a discussion of the different ways in which Jewish British citizens would like to see Jewish history and culture represented in the cities of the UK.
Paper long abstract
The paper stems from a larger study aimed to consider emic views of heritage at the grassroots level of British Jewish communities and engages with the topic of the agency of religious buildings in Europe through a discussion of the different ways in which Jewish British citizens would like to see Jewish history and culture represented in the cities of the UK. Drawing upon anthropological literature on the agency of urban landscapes and material objects, I focus on my interlocutors’ views about visual representations of this heritage in the context of their reflections on the best use of former synagogues. In doing so I put forward two interrelated sets of arguments. Firstly, I suggest that Jewish British citizens imbue the buildings of former synagogues, as well as spaces pertaining to Jewish heritage more broadly, with agency to inform the wider community about Jewish history. Secondly, I propose that their sense of belonging to British society and the overall sense of wellbeing are in turn affected by the agentive capacities of these sites, some of which are visually prominent, and others are hidden from sight or unmarked.
Paper short abstract
The paper examines whether the “ghost” of a demolished Protestant church in Piła continues to influence urban space and its local perceptions. Drawing on archival and ethnographic research, it explores postwar religious transformation and spatial agency.
Paper long abstract
Can the site of a church shape residents’ views and urban space?
Piła, located in north-western Poland, belonged to Germany until 1945 and was inhabited predominantly by German-speaking Protestants. After the Second World War, as a result of the Yalta and Potsdam agreements, the city was incorporated into Poland and its former population was displaced. The new settlers, mostly Catholics, also took over the city’s sacred space—some Protestant churches were converted, while others were demolished. One such structure was the Protestant church that had stood on the former New Market Square.
Formerly, the first Protestant church in the city constituted the central point of the New Market Square in German Schneidemühl (Polish Piła), surrounded by market stalls. The church, together with nearby military symbols, such as cannons and a monument to Emperor Wilhelm I, was intended to manifest the strong presence of the German population. In contrast, today’s Victory Square in Piła, despite many projects over the years, is an almost entirely empty space, occupied only by the Monument to the Millennium of Poland and Liberation and a monument to John Paul II, linked to Polishness.
In this paper, I examine whether the site of a now-nonexistent church building—which I understand as a ghost drawing on Jacques Derrida’s hauntology—may still possess agency and influence contemporary residents, dividing their views on the appearance of this place. The analysis is based on archival and ethnographic research, including interviews with city residents and representatives of local religious communities.
Paper short abstract
The paper explores the politics of identity, memory, and power relations in Telavi, Georgia, through its religious and sacred sites. It explores how the construction and neglect of these sites reflect both hegemonic narratives and grassroots solidarities, offering alternative political perspective.
Paper long abstract
Drawing on ethnography in the Georgian town of Telavi, the paper invites to think about the local politics of identity, historical memory and power relations through the town’s religious buildings (e.g. churches, chapels, shrines-nishi) and other sacred/spiritual sites (e.g. cemeteries, (anti-)Soviet memorial sites). Jan Assmann (1995) suggests that ‘objectivised culture’ plays important role in engaging with the past through the process of re-contextualising and re-embodying the memories of the past in the present. On the one hand, in the post-Soviet context of e-Christianisation, historical revaluation and decolonisation, the reconstruction of old and building of new churches is a statement of power on the part of individuals and groups initiating and sponsoring such activities. The locations and aesthetical dimensions of such projects carry references to the local and national past and therefore play important role in shaping hegemonic discourse within which collective identities of local residents are constructed. On the other hand, the sacred and religious sites which are neglected (e.g. some former Armenian churches) or marginalised in the town’s regeneration and cultural heritage projects (such as small neighbourhood chapels and shrines, old Soviet memorials) continue to be taken care off by the locals. These peripheral religious buildings often are the places where the grassroots solidarities are enacted through the informal socialisation and domesticated religious practises. The paper argues that sacred and religious sites become repositories of memories which are alternative to the hegemonic historic narratives. In the town’s power landscape, they are also material manifestation of non-realised (yet) political ambitions.
Paper short abstract
This paper examines a XIX century Catholic church in Gyumri that lost its function as a sacred place and was transformed into a residential space. It shows how the loss of sacred function produces urban placelessness, while memories of former sacredness continue to constrain everyday life.
Paper long abstract
This paper examines the transformation of a nineteenth-century Catholic church in Gyumri through an anthropological framework that integrates relational approaches to place, space, and lived experience. Originally constructed as a sacred locus for the Catholic community, the church underwent profound functional and symbolic reconfigurations during the twentieth century as a result of the 1926 earthquake, genocide-related population movements, Soviet secularization, and post-Soviet urban precarity. From the mid-twentieth century onward, parts of the building were inhabited by families, turning the former sacred interior into a hybrid and contested space of dwelling, memory, and heritage.
Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork, oral histories, and local narratives of sin, sacrilege, care, and legitimacy, the paper conceptualizes the church not simply as an abandoned or adaptively reused structure, but as a reversed sacred space where religious, moral, legal, and economic regimes intersect. While the church ceased to function as a communal religious place, its former sacred status continues to shape everyday life through moral anxiety, practices of restraint, and ongoing negotiations of legitimacy. Rather than producing a new, stable place, inhabitation generates a condition of constrained dwelling in which sacred memory renders the space only partially inhabitable as an ordinary home.
The case reveals a specific form of urban placelessness, producing an “invisible” sacred monument embedded in everyday life.
Paper short abstract
Based on ethnographic research in Greece and Italy, this paper examines how contemporary polytheist ritual sites function as agentive religious spaces that shape visibility, legitimacy, and coexistence in European public space.
Paper long abstract
Drawing on comparative ethnographic research among contemporary polytheist groups in Greece and Italy, this paper examines the agency of ritual spaces and religious buildings that are created, occupied, or temporarily appropriated by practitioners seeking to revive ancient polytheist traditions. Unlike institutionalised churches or officially recognised places of worship, these sites, ranging from archaeological ruins and natural locations to newly built temples and improvised ritual settings, occupy ambiguous positions within European public space shaped by heritage regimes and dominant religious frameworks.
Rather than approaching these places merely as patrimonial sites or symbolic backdrops, the paper analyses them as agentive relational phenomena that actively shape religious practices, public debates, and negotiations of legitimacy. Practitioners claim the right to perform rituals within ancient ruins, framing these spaces not only as archaeological heritage, but also as living religious sites. Such claims generate tensions with heritage authorities, state institutions, and publics around questions of access, legality and sustainability. At the same time, some groups engage in the construction of contemporary temples, asserting forms of material permanence that challenge dominant models of religious architecture and recognition.
Through both the ritual re-appropriation of ruins and the creation of new religious buildings, these spaces act upon practitioners and institutions alike, structuring forms of visibility, discretion, and public engagement. While they can become focal points of polarisation, they also enable negotiated modes of coexistence through temporal occupation, spatial compromise, and selective visibility.By foregrounding the agency of minoritarian ritual sites, this paper contributes to debates on religious spaces in Europe.
Paper short abstract
In emptying villages in the Rhodope mountains of Bulgaria, Orthodox churches are sometimes renovated thanks to Muslims’ gifts and paid labour. Do such buildings reconfigure local social relationships and the grand narrative of antagonism between Orthodoxy and (Ottoman) Islam?
Paper long abstract
The Smolyan region, in the Rhodope mountains of Bulgaria, has undergone sharp economic and demographic downturn since the fall of the communist regime in 1989. This region is home to Bulgarian Muslims and Orthodox Christians. In the country, the Muslims are a minority (circa 10 percent), while the Orthodox form the overwhelming majority. In the Smolyan region, most of my ethnographic fieldwork since 2009 has taken place in mixed villages where the Muslims have always outnumbered the Christians. In these localities, due to higher outmigration among the Christians (already under late socialism), churches have suffered decay, while mosques are in a better shape. Yet, members of the Muslim population have consistently contributed to the renovation of churches in different villages. They either help for free their Orthodox co-villagers or provide paid labour as construction workers and stone masons. The Bulgarian Orthodox Church, the main religious organization, receives symbolic, legal and economic support from the state. Dominant discourses and historiography promote the idea of an intrinsic antagonism between Orthodoxy and Ottoman Islam. Bulgaria’s Muslims are the heirs of the latter. A gigantic cathedral, opened in 2006 in Smolyan, conveys this narrative of antagonism. But the social meaning and agency of churches in emptying villages, renovated thanks to Muslims’ material contribution, is much more intriguing. I discuss how and why such buildings matter to social life. Do they help reassess the narrative of antagonism? Do they reconfigure social relationships and the locals’ painful experience with the ongoing economic and demographic decline?
Paper short abstract
This proposal examines the case of the Baku Lutheran Church, a former house of worship repurposed into as a concert hall in post-Soviet Azerbaijan. By focusing on religious and secular communities that make use of the building today I explore the practices of co-existence and claims of ‘belonging’.
Paper long abstract
The paper examines the Baku Lutheran Kirche (Kircha) as a pivotal site that has been transformed into a symbol of a state-endorsed project of “multiculturalism” and religious tolerance in a Muslim-majority country. Historically a site of worship for Swedish and German oil barons and later a Soviet-era survivor, the building’s recent transformation into a state-sanctioned Philharmonic Organ Hall represents a significant architectural and symbolic shift. However, this "secular" repurposing has not erased its sacred function; instead, diverse Christian communities navigate a "religious market" to rent the space for their regular Sunday services.
By drawing on Jeffrey C. Alexander’s theory of iconic consciousness, I argue that the Kircha operates as a "condensed symbol" whose material form generates profound emotional and moral meaning for both secular and religious actors. This creates a unique form of "place-making from below," where the agentic power of the building, its “aesthetic surface”, serves as a reminder of a sacred past that resists a purely secular identity and instead generates multiple manifestations of “discursive depth” (Alexander 2008).
This process positions the Kircha as a contested space where state narratives of multicultural tolerance and interreligious dialogue intersect with the lived aspirations of local Christians. By analyzing this specific case, the proposal sheds light on how architectural repurposing is not a static administrative act but a dynamic, contested process. The paper explores how these overlapping uses of the building foster complex debates on belonging and memory, the visibility of the religious, and adherence to secular values.