Mr Anthony O’Mahony

Research Fellow

Anthony O’Mahony is a tutor in World Religions at Blackfriars Hall and Studium and a Graduate College Adviser.  He was Reader in the History of Eastern Christianity, Heythrop College, University of London, between 1999-2018 and Director for the Centre for Eastern Christianity 2009 – 2018. In 2018 he was appointed Associate Fellow at School of Advanced Studies, University of London. He held the Sir Daniel & Countess Bernardine Murphy Donohue Chair in Eastern Catholic Theology in 2018/2019 at the Pontifical Oriental Institute, Rome. Anthony has for several years lectured at on the geopolitics of religion, society and politics at the States and Societies Faculty, Diplomatic Academy, Foreign & Commonwealth Office, London. He has regularly offered commentary on his areas of interest including Vatican Radio, BBC World Service,  France24, L’Osservatore Romano and The Tablet.

Research Interests: the modern history and contemporary situation of, Eastern Christianity including theology, and ecclesiology; Ecumenical dialogue between Eastern and Western churches; Christian-Muslim-Jewish relations; and the religious and political history of Jerusalem. He has published widely in these areas and supervised numerous doctoral research students in the modern history of Christianity, theology, ecclesiology, and Christian engagement with other religions.

Recent lectures include ‘The Question of Religious Freedom in ‘interreligious’ contexts since Vatican II: The Holy See’s Agreements with the Kingdom of Morocco (1983), the State of Israel (1993) and Palestine (2015)’, Les accords du Saint-Siège avec les États (XIXe-XXIe siècles). Modèles et mutations, de l’État confessionnel à la liberté religieuse Rome, Pontificia Università Gregoriana / Ecole française de Rome, (2018); ‘The Vatican and the Christian East: The Congregation for Oriental Churches and ‘The Catholic East/Oriente Cattolico’, Pembroke College, Eastern Christian Lecture Series  (Hilary Term 2020); ‘Eastern Christian Encounters with Sufism and Muslim Mysticism’ All Soul’s Oxford Lecture Series ‘Monks and Mystics: Sufism and Eastern Christianity’ (Hilary Term 2021); ‘Ecumenical Dialogue and Ecclesial Exchange between the Holy See and the Coptic Orthodox Church since the Second Vatican Council until the death of Shenouda III (1971-2012)” – Pembroke College, Eastern Christian Lecture Series (Michaelmas Term 2022); ‘The influence and ‘presence’ of Charles de Foucauld at the Second Vatican Council and in Modern Papal thought in delineating the contours of the Church in the world today’ – Las Casas Institute, Blackfriars (Michaelmas Term 2022); ‘Hebrew Catholicism in modern Israel: a new and emerging Eastern Christian ecclesial identity” – Pembroke College, Eastern Christian Lecture Series  (Hilary Term 2023);  ‘Eastern Christian Thought and Scholarship on the Syriac Orient, Jerusalem and the Christian encounter with Islam: Youakim Moubarac (1924-1995) in dialogue with Louis Massignon (1883-1962)’ – All Soul’s Oxford Series ‘Faith to Faith: Muslim and Christian thought in the modern Middle East and South Asia’ (Trinity Term 2023); ‘The Vatican and the Holy Land: diplomacy and pilgrimage in religious and geopolitical context’ & ‘Catholic Theological and Ecclesial Perspectives on the Question of Jerusalem: modern history and contemporary Contexts’  Las Casas Institute, Blackfriars (Trinity Term 2023).

Publications: contributions to The Cambridge History of ChristianityThe Christians communities in Jerusalem and the Holy Land: Studies in History, Religion and Politics (2003); (co-ed), Christian Responses to Islam: A Global Account of Muslim-Christian Relations (2008); (co-ed) Eastern Christianity in the modern Middle East (2010); (co-ed) with John Flannery, The Catholic Church in the contemporary Middle East: Studies for The Synod of the Middle East (2010). He co-guested a special issue `The Orthodox churches in contemporary contexts’, International Journal for the Study of the Christian Church, Vol. 10, no.2, 2010; and on ‘Eastern Catholics in Modern Europe’, The Journal of Eastern Christian Studies, Vol. 67, 2015; `Cyprian Rice, op., l’Islam chiite et la mission dominicaine en Perse-Iran, 1933-1934’, Mémoire dominicaine: Les Dominicains et les mondes musulmans, no. 15 (2001), pp. 217-225; `The Image of Jesus and Christianity in Modern Shi’a Islamic Thought’ (in: Encounter: Documents for Muslim-Christian Understanding Rome, Pontificio Istituto di Studi Arabi e d’Islamistica, No. 308 (2004), pp. 1-14; `The Chaldean Catholic Church: The Politics of Church-State Relations in Modern Iraq’, The Heythrop Journal, Vol. XLV (2004), pp. 435-450; ‘Catholic Theological Perspectives on Islam at the Second Vatican Council’, New Blackfriars, Vol, 88, (2007); “The Vatican and Europe: Political Theology and Ecclesiology in Papal Statements from Pius XII to Benedict XVI”, in: International Journal for the Study of the Christian Church (IJSCC); 2009, no.3, Vol. 93, pp. 177-194; ” Between Rome and Constantinople’: the Italian-Albanian Church: a study in Eastern Catholic history and ecclesiology”, in: IJSCC, Vol. 8, 2008, pp. 232-251; “Tradition at the heart of renewal: the Coptic orthodox church and monasticism in modern Egypt”, in: IJSCC, Vol. 7, 2007, pp.164-178. `Les chrétiens palestiniens: Politique, droit et sociéte, 1917-1948’, in: De Balfour à Ben Gourion – La France, L’Europe occidentale et la Palestine, 1917-1948, Paris, Éditions CNRS, 2008; ‘with Scott M. Thomas, `Postsecularity and the Contending Visions of the European Political Imagination in International Relations’,  in: Towards a Postsecular International Politics (2014); `Louis Massignon: A Catholic Encounter with Islam and the Middle East’. in: God’s Mirror: Renewal and Engagement in French Catholic Intellectual Culture in the Mid-Twentieth Century (2015); ‘… again to breathe fully from two lungs’: Eastern Catholic Encounters with History and Ecclesiology’, The Downside Review, Vol. 134 , 2016; `Eastern Christianity and Jesuit Scholarship on Arabic and Islam’, in: Philosophy, Theology and the Jesuit Tradition (2017);  ‘Christianity in the Wider Levant Region: Modern History and Contemporary Context’ in: Nationalism and Citizenship in Muslim Countries: Arab Christians in the Levant (2018); `Catholics’, in: Christianity in North Africa and West Asia. Edinburgh Companion to Global Christianity (2018); ‘Christianity in the Middle East: the challenge of coexistence’, in: A Common Mission: The Oriental Congregation and the Oriental Institute (1917-2017) Orientalia Christiana Analecta (2020).

Email: anthony.omahony@bfriars.ox.ac.uk