Margins and Peripheries, Ecclesiastical History Society Online Winter Conference 2024, January 13, 2024

For virtually the entirety of its existence, Christianity – a religion born on the extreme eastern edge of the Roman Empire – has been influenced, challenged and troubled by its margins and peripheries.

In the history of Christianity, as in other contexts, margins and peripheries are intriguingly paradoxical concepts. To label something or somewhere as ‘marginal’ or ‘peripheral’ is, by definition, to declare it to be of lesser significance or importance. Yet for Christian churches of differing complexions, supposed margins and peripheries have often been sources of experiment, innovation and renewal, places where essential traditions have been preserved, locations of encounter, conversion and resistance, and sites where meaning and worth is negotiated and defined.

The intention of this conference theme is to encourage fresh and creative discussion of Christianity’s past, by considering it in relation to, and from the perspective of, a variety of things within it that historically have been considered marginal or peripheral.