Welcome to the Website of the Institute for Historical Theology at the University of Bern!

Historical Theology provides new insights into the main time periods, the most important challenges and the driving forces of Church History, denominations and communities. It also throws light on individual Christians in their specific historical contexts.

The relevance of historical processes matters to Historical Theology as a theological discipline when it comes to the interpretation of the Gospel. In our work, we put our research emphasis on examining interreligious encounters in Antiquity and the Middle Ages (Department for Ancient History of Christianity and Interreligious Encounters) and intra-Christian encounters since the Reformation Period (Department for Modern History of Christianity and Denominational Studies). In addition, an interdisciplinary exchange takes place between the Faculty of Theology and the Institutes of History and Linguistics.

From left to right: Maria Lissek, Sina von Aesch, Martin Sallmann, Steffen Götze, Severin Künzi, Lena Süsstrunk, Katharina Heyden