Institute of History University of Warsaw

ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7393-0813 

B. 1968; MA 1994, University of Warsaw; PhD 2002, habilitation 2013. Has worked at the Department of Ancient History, University of Warsaw, as an assistant lecturer, assistant professor, and associate professor. He ran the project Presbyters in the late antique West and was responsible for the Latin evidence in the ERC project The Cult of Saints.  A research project on the Cult of Saints from its origins to circa AD 700, across the entire Christian world.  Currently, he is a chair of the Centre for the Research on Ancient Civilizations.

Field of interest
Late Antiquity, Hagiography, Cult of Saints, Divination, Roman Gaul, Christian Clergy.

Awards, fellowships etc.
2019                Professeur invité at École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, Paris
2015                Visiting fellow at Princeton University
2015                Visiting fellow at All Souls College, Oxford
2014                Visiting fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study, CEU
2012                Washington DC, visiting scholar at the Center for Early Christian Studies, Catholic University of America
2012                Oxford University, Lanckoroński Foundation fellowship (1 month)
2012                Budapest, Erasmus visiting scholar at Central European University (1 week, a series of lectures)
2010                Visiting Fellow at Trinity College, Oxford (one term)
2009                Directeur d’Études Invité at École Pratique des Hautes Études, Paris
2003                The Foundation for Polish Science fellowship : Centre d'Histoire et Civilisation de Byzance
2001-2002       French Government and the Batory Foundation fellowship: Paris IV Sorbonne
2000, 2005      Lanckoroński Foundation fellowship: Rome, Istituto Patristico Augustinianum (one month each)
1996/1997       French Government fellowship: Paris, Centre d’Histoire et de Civilisation de Byzance

Research projects
2014-2019      Principal investigator of the National Research Centre founded project Presbyters in the Late Antique West
2014-2018      Senior researcher in the Oxford-based ERC project The Cult of Saints: a Christendom-wide study of its origins, spread and development up to 700
2012-2014      The beginnings of the cult of relics (grant of the National Science Centre)
2008-2011      Christians and diviners in Late Antiquity (grant of the Polish Ministry of Science and Higher Education)

Selected invited lectures and seminar papers:

• Books, lots, dreams or prophets: choosing a divinatory method in Late Antiquity (Stockholms Universitet, on-line, 2020).
• Compter et mesurer des miracles dans l'antiquité tardive (Paris, EHESS 2019)
• Saints, clergé et data-bases (Paris, EHESS 2019)
• Fêtes, miracles et reliques dans l’antiquité tardive (Paris, EPHE 2019)
• Les codices divinatoires et la divination chrétienne dans l’antiquité tardive (Paris, EHESS 2019)
• Did late antique clerics successfully disengage from Society? (Oxford 2018)
• Les prêtres en Occident dans l’Antiquité tardive. Objectifs et état du projet de recherche. La construction de l’autorité presbytérale (Paris 2017)
• Burials ad sanctos (Oxford 2016)
• Displaying and seeing relics in Late Antiquity (Princeton 2015)
• How close can you go? Physical contact with relics in Late Antiquity (Oxford 2015)
• And we saw it with our own eyes... The sense of vision and the cult relics in Late Antiquity (Budapest, CEU 2014)
• What to do with a demons’ lair? Christian attitudes toward pagan shrines in Late Antiquity (Budapest, CEU 2014)
• Handling the bones. How did the late antique Christians start to touch relics? (Budapest, IAS 2014)
• Les chrétiens, les païens, les Juifs et la divination par les livres sacrés (Brussels 2014)
• Pagan temples, Christians and demons in the late antique East and West (Oxford  2013)
• Toucher, baiser, ramasser, transférer. Le contact physique avec les reliques dans l’antiquité tardive (Université d’Angers 2013)
• Kiss, touch, bite and watch, or: On the beginnings of the physical contact with relics in Late Antiquity (Ghent University 2013)
• Pagan temples, Christians and demons in the late antique East and West (Oxford 2013)
• Saints, pilgrims, and miracles: A new religiosity in Late Antiquity (University of Kentucky, Lexington 2012)
• How and when did relics begin to perform miracles? (Catholic University of America and University of Kentucky, Lexington 2012)
• Demoniacs in late antique church and society (Catholic University of America 2012)
• Christian seers and their clients in Late Antiquity (Oxford 2012)
• Aspects of the cult of relics in the 4th and 5th centuries (Central European University, Budapest, 3 lectures 2012)
• Relics and divination (at the meeting of the Byzantine Committee of the Polish Academy of Sciences 2011)
• Recherches sur l’essor du culte des reliques en Orient et en Occident (Paris, École Pratique des Hautes Études, 4 lectures, 2009)
• Dividing relics. Are the Greeks to blame? (Oxford 2009)
• The renaissance of druidism in Late Antiquity? (Nicolaus Copernicus University, Toruń)

Conference papers

2019: 

• Wherever you go. The beginnings of the clerical tonsure (18th International Conference on Patristic Studies, Oxford)
• Sons of Aaron? Clerics and Society in Late Antiquity (Annual Congress of the European Association of Biblical Studies, Warsaw, key-note speaker)
• Latinization and Christanization (Transformations of the Roman West: Social Factors in Latinization, Oxford)
• Stones, Bones and Statues: How Holy Objects Protected Late Antique Cities (Shifting Frontiers in Late Antiquity, Claremont CA)
• Presbyters in the Late Antique West (Decoding the Past. Digital Tools for the Analysis of Historical Data, London)

2018:

• Holy time in a holy place. Annual miracles at the feasts of saints in Late Antiquity  (International Medieval Congress, Leeds)
• The last shall be the last: The order of precedence among clergy in Late Antiquity (International Congress of Medieval Studies, Kalamazoo)

2017: 

• Not a grand scandal but little embarrassment. Paying cleric for ritual expertise in Late Antiquity (International Medieval Congress, Leeds)
• 'Saints’ relics in late antique houses (as the literary evidence shows them) (Putting domestic ritual in its place.‘Placed’ deposits and religion between the 4th and the 10th centuries AD, Oxford)

2016:

• The Real and Imaginary Distribution of the Relics of St Stephen in Late Antiquity (International Medieval Congress, Leeds)
• Clerical hagiography (Late Antique Hagiography Workshop, Durham)
• L’Orient, l’Occident et la religiosité chrétienne dans l’antiquité tardive (De la Baltique à la Méditerranée et à l’Afrique Marges, frontières et échanges, Lyon) 

2015: 

• Eastern, Western and Local Habits in the Early Cult of Relics (17th International Conference on Patristic Studies, Oxford, key-note speaker); 

• Eastern Stories Retold by Westerners: The Beginnings of Latin Hagiography (International Medieval Congress, Leeds); 
• Empire and divination in late antique Rome (22 International Congress of Historical Sciences, Jinan);
• Entre la popularité et le culte. Les histoires de moines (surtout orientaux) en Occident (Culte des saints et literature hagiographique. Accords et désaccords, Paris)

2014: 

• Spreading the Miracles Toward the West (Miracles and Wonders in Antiquity and Byzantium, Nicosia); 
• Pagans, Jews, Christians and the sacred book divination in Late Antiquity (Sacrifice, Ordeal Divination, Pecs)
• Defining the cult (The Cult of Saints Workshop, Oxford)

2012: 

• Local and overseas saints in the religious identity of late antique Roman Africa (Cuius patrocinio tota gaudet regio. Saints’ Cults and the Dynamics of Regional Cohesion, Dubrownik)

2011:  

• Looking for dreams and talking with martyrs. Internal roots of Christian incubation (16th International Conference on Patristic Studies, Oxford)

2009:   

• And the lot fell on Matthias’… And to nobody else? Some remarks on drawing lots and episcopal election (Episcopal Elections in Late Antiquity, Leuven)