Contributors

Stefano Di Pietrantonio MA (2011, Classics; 2012, Oriental Languages and Literatures, Université catholique de Louvain) and a PhD Candidate at Université catholique de Louvain, writing a dissertation on the Kitāb fī ṣināʿat al-faṣāḥa, an 18th-century Arabic handbook of Rhetoric translated from Greek by the Antiochian patriarch Athanasios III Dabbās (1647–1724). His interests include codicology, textual criticism, the Graeco-Arabic translation movement of the pre-Nahḍa period in Aleppo, and linguistic approaches more broadly. Previously appointed at the Oriental Library in Beirut (CNRS, ERC-PhIC, and PhASIF projects), he is currently a research assistant at the Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa (ERC-PhiBor project).

Ioana Feodorov PhD (1998, University of Bucharest), Habil. (2017, Romanian Academy), is Senior Researcher at the Institute for Southeast European Studies of the Romanian Academy, Bucharest. Main fields of research: the Romanians’ contribution to the beginning of printing in Arabic types, Paul of Aleppo’s Journal of his travels to Constantinople, Moldavia, Wallachia, Ukraine, and the Russian Tsardom (1652–1659). She is the author of Dimitrie Cantemir, Salvation of the Sage and Ruin of the Sinful World, Brill (TSEC, vol. VI), 2016 (with Yulia Petrova). She was granted funding for an ERC-2019-AdG Project (883219–TYPARABIC) that she is conducting in Bucharest, at the Institute for Southeast European Studies, since July 1st, 2021.

Serge A. Frantsouzoff Head of the Department of Near and Middle Eastern Studies at the Institute of Oriental Manuscripts in Saint Petersburg, Professor (“Directeur d’ études”) at the Oriental and African Studies Department of the National Research University Higher School of Economics, Saint Petersburg. He is a specialist in Arabic and Ethiopic studies, the epigraphic heritage of ancient Yemen, Christian and Muslim Arabic manuscripts, and early Arabic printing. He is the author of more than 300 articles and 7 monographs, including Istorii͡a Khadramauta v ėpokhu drevnosti [History of Hadramawt in Antiquity], Saint Petersburg, 2014 (revised and augmented habilitation thesis), and Nihm, Col. Inventaire des inscriptions sudarabiques, t. 8, Paris, 2016.

Bernard Heyberger PhD (1993, University of Nancy II) is Professor (“Directeur d’ études”) at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) and the École Pratique des Hautes Études, Paris. As a historian and an Arabist, he is a specialist in the study of Eastern Christians under Islam, especially in Ottoman Syria. He focuses on interaction between the Christian minority and the Muslim society, as well as on the dynamics of contact, opposition, and influence between Eastern Christians and the West. He pays special attention to the role of Western scholarship in the building up of sectarian, ethnic and national identities since the 17th century. Among other books, he is the author of Les chrétiens du Proche-Orient au temps de la Réforme catholique, Rome, 1994 (2nd ed. 2014) and Hindiyya, mystique et criminelle, Paris, 2001 (Arabic translation: Beirut, 2010; English translation: Cambridge, 2013).

Elena A. Korovtchenko Holds a Specialist Degree from the History Faculty of the Saint Petersburg State University. She teaches History and Social Sciences at the high school “Red Dawns” of the same city. She researched the history of Central Asia in the late Middle Ages for her graduation thesis The Russian Empire’s Relations with the Khanate of Khiva in the 18th–mid-19th Centuries AD. She is the author of “Khivinskiĭ pokhod kni͡azi͡a Aleksandra Bekovicha-Cherkasskogo (1717)” [The Khiva Campaign of Prince Alexandre Bekovitch-Tchercasski, 1717], in Dinastii͡a Romanovykh i Vostok. Chetyrëkhsotletie Doma Romanovykh [The Romanoff Dynasty and the Orient. 400th Anniversary of the House of Romanoff], Saint Petersburg, 2014, pp. 145–148.

Sofia Melikyan (born Moiseeva) PhD (2012, Institute of Asian and African Studies, Moscow State University), is senior editor at the Church-Scientific Centre “Orthodox Encyclopedia,” Department of Oriental Churches, and Associate Professor at the St Tikhon Orthodox University in Moscow. She is the author of Arabskai͡a mel’kitskai͡a agiografii͡a IX–XI vekov [Arabic Melkite Hagiography from the 9th to the 11th Centuries], Moscow, 2015, and more than 80 articles on different topics related to the Christian Orient, Byzantine, and Islamic studies, in the Pravoslavnai͡a ėnt͡siklopedii͡a [Orthodox Encyclopaedia] published under the auspices of the Moscow Patriarchate.

Charbel Nassif PhD in History of Art and PhD in Theology (2017, Sorbonne University and Catholic Institute of Paris). He is an archivist and chief librarian of the Greek Melkite Catholic Patriarchate of Antioch (Raboueh) and a researcher at CEDRAC—Saint-Joseph University (Beirut). Starting July 1st, 2021, he will join the ERC Project (883219–TYPARABIC) conduct by Ioana Feodorov in Bucharest, at the Institute for Southeast European Studies. His research interests are focused on the liturgical and iconographical heritage of the Melkite Church as well in the Arab-Christian heritage of Jesuits (16th c.–20th c.).

Constantin A. Panchenko PhD Habil. (2013, Institute of Asian and African Countries, Moscow State University), is Professor at the same Institute of Moscow State University. He has published monographs and many articles about the history of the Christian Arabs in the Middle Ages and the Early Modern period, including Blizhnevostochnoe pravoslavie pod osmanskim vladychestvom, 1516–1831 [The Middle Eastern Greek Orthodox Community under the Ottoman Rule, 1516–1831], Moscow, 2012 (English version: Arab Orthodox Christians under the Ottomans: 1516–1831, Jordanville, 2016).

Yulia Petrova PhD (2007, “A. Krymsky” Institute of Oriental Studies of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine in Kyiv), is a researcher at the same Institute. Her research interests relate to Arabic philology, sociolinguistics, textual criticism, and the edition and translation of Christian Arabic manuscripts. She edited and translated into Russian the Arabic manuscript of Paul of Aleppo’s Journal preserved in the collection of Omeljan Pritsak in Kyiv: “Puteshestvie patriarkha Antiokhiĭskogo Makarii͡a.” Kievskiĭ spisok rukopisi Pavla Aleppskogo [The Travels of Makarios, Patriarch of Antioch. The Kyiv Manuscript of Paul of Aleppo’s Journal], Kyiv, 2015.

Vera Tchentsova PhD (1995, Academy of Sciences of Russia, Moscow), she is an associated member of the UMR 8167 “Orient et Méditerranée / Monde byzantin” in Paris. She works on the history of the Christian East and its relations with the Russian state in the Early Modern times. She is the author of Ikona Iverskoĭ Bogomateri [The Icon of Our Lady of Iviron], Moscow, 2010, and of numerous articles on Church history.

Mihai Țipău Holder of two PhD degrees (2005, National and Capodistrian University of Athens, and 2006, University of Bucharest), he is a researcher at the Institute for Southeast European Studies of the Romanian Academy in Bucharest. He specializes in Byzantine and post-Byzantine history and medieval and early modern Greek historical writing. He authored Domnii fanarioți în Țările Române 1711–1821. Mică enciclopedie (2 eds.), Bucharest, 2004 and 2008, Identitate post-bizantină în sud-estul Europei. Mărturia scrierilor istorice grecești, Bucharest, 2013, and Ορθόδοξη συνείδηση και εθνική ταυτότητα στα Βαλκάνια (1700–1821), Thessaloniki, 2015.

Carsten Walbiner PhD (1995, University of Leipzig), he is a member of the Research Centre for Oriental Christianity at the Catholic University of Eichstätt and section editor for Christian Arabic texts with Christian Muslim Relations: A Bibliographic History (Leiden and Boston: Brill). He has published widely on Arab Christianity in Ottoman times, with a focus on Church history, book printing, and travel literature.