Religious Freedom: Evident Yet Complicated, RESILIENCE Supported Roundtable at #EuARe2025

Religious Freedom

Religious freedom seems to be a no-brainer for most Europeans and yet the topic contains some serious challenges. How to deal with religious freedom when opinions based on a religious conviction conflict with general opinion? Is there a limit to religious freedom? How far can European and national laws go in checking content of religious education? How can academic study of religion contribute to this topic? Only some of the questions to be dealt with in this highly relevant roundtable.

Roundtable Participants

• Alessandro Ferrari, Università degli Studi di Modena e Reggio Emilia
• Regina Polak, University of Vienna
• Herman Selderhuis, President European Academy of Religion
• Kristina Stoeckl, LUISS Guido Carli University, Rome

Moderator

Lena Göbl (Austrian television ORF)

About the Roundtable Participants

Alessandro Ferrari is Full Professor of Law and Religion and Comparative Law of Religions at the University of Insubria (Varese and Como), and Director of the research center REDESM (Religions, Laws, and Economies in the Mediterranean Space, www.redesm.org). He is an associate member of GSRL, the CNRS Research Group Sociétés, Religions, Laïcités (Paris), and the Unité Mixte de Recherche Droit, Religion, Entreprise et Société at the University of Strasbourg and CNRS. He is also part of the coordinating team for PLURIEL-Linking Researchers on Islam and Dialogue (https://pluriel.fuce.eu). He has been a member of various councils for relations with Islam, established by the Italian Ministry of the Interior. His research focuses on the legal status of Muslims in Europe, the transformation of European secularism, and religious freedom on both shores of the Mediterranean. He has been a Visiting Fellow at the Centre for Religion & the Human at Indiana University (2023, 2025), at the Islamic Legal Studies Program at Harvard Law School (2019), an invited Directeur d’Études at the École Pratique des Hautes Études – Paris (2018), and a Roberta Buffett Visiting Scholar at Northwestern University (2014). His current research explores the development of the right to religious freedom across the Mediterranean, particularly through the legal treatment of the Muslim headscarf. His latest book is Religious Freedom in Italy: An Impossible Paradigm? (De Gruyter, 2024, https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110743678). His publications can be found at https://www.uninsubria.it/hpp/alessandro.ferrari.

Regina Polak (*1967, Vienna) is Associate Professor of Practical Theology at the Catholic Theological Faculty of the University of Vienna since 2013. She studied philosophy, theology and spiritual theology in the interreligious process at the Universities of Vienna and Salzburg. In 2016, she was Visting Professor at the University of Haifa in Israel. She is member of the research centre ‘Religion and Transformation in Contemporary Society” and the “Interdisciplinary Research Network on Values Research”, both at the University of Vienna. Pro bono, she is Personal Representative of the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office on Combating Racism, Xenophobia and Discrimination, also focusing on Intolerance and Discrimination against Christians and Members of Other Religions. Her main research fields are religion and migration, religion and values, socio-religious transformation processes in Europe, and interreligious dialogue. Her latest edited volume discusses the impact of religiosity on political attitudes and values: Regina Polak/Patrick Rohs (eds.): Values – Politics – Religion: The European Values Study. In-depth Analysis – Interdisciplinary Perspectives – Future Prospects. Philosophy and Politics – Critical Explorations Volume 26. Springer, Cham. Open Access 2023. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-31364-6 . Currently, she co-heads the WEAVE-project “Between Intensification and Relativisation. Modalities and Mechanisms of Religious Change of Muslim and Christian Refugees from Syria in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland”.

Herman Selderhuis (born 1961 in Enschede, the Netherlands) studied Theology from 1981 at the Theological University Apeldoorn. From 1987 to 1997 he served as Pastor of the Christian Reformed Churches. He received his doctorate on January 21, 1994, and started teaching at the Theological University Apeldoorn (TUA) on January 23, 1997, as a Professor of Church History and Church Law. In addition, he is, among other functions, Director of the Refo500 Foundation, President of the Reformation Research Consortium (REFORC), President of the European Academy of Religion, Editor-in-chief of four international, academic book series, Board Member of several international academic organizations and Advisor for various European research projects. Selderhuis is an expert on the Theology and History of the Reformation and on Protestant Church Law. In both areas, he has published several books and a multitude of articles.

Kristina Stoeckl is a full professor of sociology at LUISS University in Rome. She previously held a professorship at the University of Innsbruck (2019–2023) and studied literature, Russian, and international relations in Innsbruck and Budapest. With a PhD from the European University Institute, she directed the ERC-funded project “Postsecular Conflicts” (2015–2022). Her research spans sociology of religion, political sociology, and state-religion relations. Her recent publications include The Global Fight Against LGBTI Rights (2024), co-authored with Phillip Ayoub and The Moralist Internationa. Russia in the Global Culture Wars (2022), co-authored with Dmitry Uzlaner.

EuARe 2025