
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)
Books
- Christian Divination in Late Antiquity, AUP: Amsterdam, 2020.
- The Beginnings of the Cult of Relics, OUP: Oxford 2019.
- Szatan i jego słudzy. Diabeł i demony w łacińskiej literaturze hagiograficznej IV-V w., Universitas: Kraków 2003.
Edited books
- Culte des saints et littérature hagiographique. accords et désaccords, ed. by Vincent Déroche, Bryan Ward-Perkins & Robert Wiśniewski, Leuven: Peeters, 2020.
- Początki kultu relikwii na Zachodzie [translated texts on the cult of relics], ed by. Robert Wiśniewski, WUW: Warsaw 2011.
Articles
- Relate and Retell: Eastern Monastic Stories and the Beginnings of Latin Hagiography, in Metaphrasis. A Byzantine Concept of Rewriting and Its Hagiographical Products, ed. by Stavroula Constantinou & Christian Høgel, Leiden: Brill, 2020, 63-82.
- Demons in Early Latin hagiography, w: Demons in Late Antiquity. Their Perception and Transformation in Different Literary Genres, ed. by Eva Elm & Nicole Hartmann, Berlin, De Gruyter, 2020, 95-117.
- Clerical Hagiography in Late Antiquity, w: The hagiographical Experiment: Developing Discourses of Sainthood, ed. by Christa Gray & James Cork-Webster, Leiden, Brill, 2020, 93-118.
- Entre la popularité et le culte. Les histoires monastiques et la vénération des saints moines en Occident, w: Culte des saints et littérature hagiographique, Leuven: Peeters, 2020, 175-194.
- Spreading the Belief in Miracles in the Late Antique West, w: Mélanges Bernard Flusin (= Travaux et Mémoires 21/1), ed. by André Binggeli &Vincent Déroche, Paris: Association des Amis du Centre d’Histoire et Civilisation de Byzance, 2019, 833-848.
- The Last Shall Be Last: The Order of Precedence among Clergy in Late Antiquity, Sacris Erudiri 58 (2019), 321-337.
- ‘Eastern, Western and Local Habits in the Early Cult of Relics’, Studia Patristica 91 (2017), 283-297
- ‘Pagans, Jews, Christians, and a type of book divination in Late Antiquity’ Journal of Early Christian Studies 24 (2016), 553-568
- 'Pagan Temples, Christians, and Demons in the Late Antique East and West', Sacris Erudiri 54 (2015), 111-128
- ‘Local and Overseas Saints in the Religious Identity of Vandal Africa’, Sacris Erudiri 52 (2013), 103-117
- ‘Looking for Dreams and Talking with Martyrs. Internal Roots of Christian Incubation’, Studia Patristica 63 (2013), 203-208
- ‘Lucilla and the Bone. Remarks on an Early Testimony to the Cult of Relics’, Journal of Late Antiquity 4 (2011), 157-161
- 'Recherches sur l’essor du culte des reliques en Orient et en Occident', Annuaire de l’École Pratique des Hautes Études (EPHE), Section des sciences religieuses 118 (2011), 221-223.
- Si fama non fallit fidem. Les druides dans la littérature latine de l’antiquité tardive’, Antiquité Tardive 17 (2009), 307-315
- ‘Deep Woods and Vain Oracles: Druids, Pomponius Mela and Tacitus’, Palamedes. A Journal of Ancient History 2 (2007), 143-156
- ‘La consultation des possédés dans l’Antiquité tardive: pythones, engastrimythoi, arrepticii’, Revue d’études augustiniennes et patristiques 51 (2005), 127-152
- ‘Suspended in the Air. On a Peculiar Case of Exorcism in Late Ancient Christian Literature’, in: Euergesias Charin. Studies Presented to Benedetto Bravo and Ewa Wipszycka, ed. M. Tomasz Derda, Jakub Urbanik & Marek Węcowski, Warsaw: JJP Supplements, 2002, 363-380
- ‘Bestiae Christum loquuntur ou des habitants du désert et de la ville dans la Vita Pauli de saint Jérôme’, Augustinianum 40 (2000), 105-144