Programme Committee

Michał Gierycz

associate professor of political science at the Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski University in Warsaw; Dean of the Faculty of Social and Economic Sciences; Deputy Editor of Christianity-World-Politics journal; initiator of Biannual Conference on Religion and Politics and president of its Programme Committee. Main research areas: axiology and anthropology of politics, religion-politics relation, political philosophy, Catholic social teaching, European integration. Latest publications: European Dispute over the Concept of Man. Study in political anthropology (Springer 2021), Mała pochwała katolicyzmu. Kościół I polityka w późnej nowoczesności (Teologia polityczna 2021), Totalitarianism in the Postmodern Age. A Report on Young People’s Attitudes to Totalitarianism (co-author, Brill 2021). Winner of Countess Aniela Potulicka Award (2018) and “Feniks” Award (2018).

Jeffrey Haynes

Emeritus Professor of Politics at London Metropolitan University, UK. His areas of expertise are religion and international relations, religion and politics, democracy and democratisation, development studies and comparative politics and globalisation. He is the author or editor of 55 books. He received the International Studies Association (ISA) Religion and International Relations Section’s Distinguished Scholar Award in 2016. He is Chair of the ISA section, “Religion & International Relations”, co-Editor-in-Chief of Democratization, editor-in-Chief of the International Journal of Religion and series editor of the book series, “Routledge Studies in Religion and Politics”.

Laurie Johnston

Associate Professor of Theology at Emmanuel College in Boston. She also serves on the Steering Commitees of the Sant’Egidio Foundation for Peace and Dialogue, and of the Catholic Peacebuilding Network. She holds degrees from Harvard Divinity School and Boston College, and has recently edited books on just war theory, reconciliation, and public theology.

Joanna Kulska

associate professor of political science at the Institute of Political Sciences of the University of Opole. She conducts research on the role that faith-based organizations play in international politics, on the notion of reconciliation in international politics, and on the politics of the Holy See. She has authored, among other works: Faces of Reconciliation (Opole, 2016), and The Holy See in International Cultural Relations, from John XXIII to John Paul II (Opole, 2006).

Jolanta Łodzińska

professor of social sciences, sociologist, vice-dean of the Faculty of Economics and Social Sciences of the Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński University in Warsaw. Her research interests include family, work and social ethics. She published, inter alia, Tasks of legal protection of work in the course of accidents of medical and technical personnel. Sociological study (Warsaw 2013), The phenomenon of occupational burnout as a result of civilization changes. Sociological study on the example of nurses in Podlaskie Voivodeship (Warsaw 2018).

Ks. Piotr Mazurkiewicz

professor of humanities, theologian, and specialist in political science; Director of the Department of Political Theory and Philosophy, Institute of Political Science and Public Administartion, Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński University, General Secretary of COMECE for 2008-2012. His research focuses on: philosophy and theology of politics, the Catholic social philosophy, and the European integration. He has authored, among other works: Europe as a Kinder Surprise (Cracow, 2017), Violence in Politics (Wrocław, 2007), Religion – Identity – Europe (Wrocław, 2005; co-authored by S. Sowiński), and The Church and Democracy (Warszawa 2001).

Ryszard Michalak

profesor of humanities, historian, and political science specialist; Professor of the Institute of Political Science of the University of Zielona Góra. His area of research involves: public policy concerning religious groups, contemporary islamism and islamoscepticism, and the theory of political science of religion. He has authored, among other works: Implementation of Religious Principles in Politics (Zielona Góra, 2016), Politics as a Manifestation or Product of Religiosity (Zielona Góra, 2015), and The National Policy on Religious Minorities in Poland in 1945-1989 (Zielona Góra, 2014).

Tamás Nyirkos

associate professor of political science at Pázmány Péter Catholic University and senior researcher of religion and society at the University of Public Service, Budapest. He was a visiting professor at the Catholic University of Portugal, the University of Lapland, and the Babes-Bolyai University, research supervisor at Radboud University, and visiting scholar at the University of Notre Dame. He published three books in Hungarian: ‘The Five-Headed Eagle: Theology and Politics of the French Counterrevolution’ (2014), ‘An Introduction to End Times: The Historical Mysticism of Joachim of Fiore’ (2015), and ‘Political Theologies: From Democracy to Ecology’ (2018). His English-language book ‘The Tyranny of the Majority: History, Concepts, and Challenges’ was published by Routledge in 2018.

Fabio Petito

Senior Lecturer in International Relations and Director of the Freedom of Religion or Belief &Foreign Policy Initiative at the University of Sussex. He has taught at SOAS in London, the ESCP-EAP in Paris and at ‘L’Orientale’ University in Naples. Prof. Petito holds a Laurea in Economic and Social Disciplines (DES) (magna cum laude) from Bocconi University, Milan, Italy and he undertook his MSc in International Politics at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth and his PhD in the department of International Relations at the LSE, where he was also editor of Millennium: Journal of International Studies. He is also Head of the ISPI Programme on ‘Religions and International Relations’ supported by the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation and member of the OSCE/ODIHR Panel of Experts on Freedom of Religion or Belief.

Anna Solarz

doctor of humanities and political science specialist; Adjunct Professor of the Institute of International Relations of the University of Warsaw. She focuses her research on the role of religion in the politics of Israel and other Middle Eastern countries, and the role of religion and morality in international relations in general. She has authored, among other works: Religion in International Relations (Warsaw, 2012; co-authored by H. Schreiber).

Radosław Zenderowski

professor of humanities, sociologist, and political science specialist; Director of the Institute of Political Science of the Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński University. He conducts research on the topic of national, political, and cultural identity in Central Europe, and relations between politics and religion – especially in reference to the interethnic conflicts of Central and Eastern Europe. He has authored, among other works: We have already been eaten… The Role and Importance of the Eastern Orthodox Church in the Ethnic Conflict in the Preševo Valley (Warsaw, 2012), and Religion and National Identity and Nationalism in Central and Eastern Europe. Between the Ethnicization of Religion and the Sacralization of Ethnos (Wrocław, 2011).