06.04.2021

Stanislau Paulau awarded Ernst Wolf-special prize for »Das andere Christentum«

The Gesellschaft für Evangelische Theologie (Society for Protestant Theology) has awarded Stanislau Paulau for his work "Das andere Christentum. Zur transkonfessionellen Verflechtungsgeschichte von äthiopischer Orthodoxie und europäischem Protestantismus" (The Other Christianity. On the Transconfessional History of the Interweaving of Ethiopian Orthodoxy and European Protestantism), the Special Prize 2021 in category A (dissertations, postdoctoral theses). According to the Society, the Board considered the "factually and methodologically innovative study, which has opened up an undiscovered chapter of the external relations of the churches of the Reformation" to be "so outstanding that a special prize was offered for it".

The Society awards the prestigious "Young Theologians Award for Outstanding Theological Work" every two years. It serves "to honour innovative scientific-theological contributions by younger theologians who have not yet reached the age of 40. [...] In accordance with the goals of the Society for Protestant Theology, the works worthy of the award should in particular document the connectivity of theological scholarship to the ecclesiastical, ecumenical or social practice of the present."
The award ceremony will take place on 1 March 2022 during the biennial conference of the Society for Protestant Theology in Bad Herrenalb.

Stanislau Paulau's doctoral thesis, which has already been awarded the 2020 Dr Walther Liebehenz Foundation Dissertation Prize, is also longlisted for the 2021 RefoRC Book Award, with the winner to be announced on 6-8 May 2021. "The Other Christianity" is also available in open access.

The book:
Already in 1534 an Ethiopian monk traveled to Wittenberg to make contact with Martin Luther and Philipp Melanchthon. The resulting theological dialogue marked the beginning of a history of integration between Ethiopian Orthodox Christianity and European Protestantism. Stanislau Paulau first opens up the history of the manifold interactions of these Formations of Christianity in the period from the 16th to the early 20th century and shows by way of example how denominational and culturally divergent variants of Christianity have influenced each other. The work thus offers a new look at both the African and European church history of modern times and makes a fundamental contribution to the history of global Christianity and intercultural theology.