Dr. Regina Elsner

Researcher, WWU/ ZOiS

• B4: Orthodoxy and Social Peace

Regina Elsner is a theologian and, since April 2023, has the Chair for Eastern Churches, Ecumenical Studies and Peace Research at the Universität of Münster. 

From 1998 to 2005, Regina Elsner studied Catholic Theology in Berlin and Münster. Afterwards, she worked until 2010 as a project coordinator for Caritas Russia in St. Petersburg. From 2010 to 2013, she was a research associate at the Ecumenical Institute of the University of Münster, within the research stream ‘Institutions and Institutional Change in Post-Socialism’. In this context, she focused on the historical and theological aspects of the Russian Orthodox Church’s confrontation with modernity, completing her PhD on this topic in 2016. From 2017 to 2023, Regina Elsner was a research fellow at ZOiS, where she was investigating the dynamics of Orthodox social ethics in Eastern Europe since the dissolution of the Soviet Union with a special focus on peace ethics and gender-related topics. She keeps this affiliation. Additionally, she is co-speaker of the section for religion of the German Association for East European Studies and a member of the PRO ORIENTE Steering Committee for the Orthodox-Catholic Dialogue.

CV Regina Elsner

• Christian social ethics
• The Russian Orthodox Church as sociopolitical actor
• Christian churches and human rights

Elsner, Regina. Dynamics of Russian Orthodox Ethics of Peace and War: Sketching Shifts from the Cold War to the War in Ukraine. In: The Uppsala Yearbook of Eurasian Studies, 3 (2022), pp. 39-55.

Elsner, Regina. Kriegstreiber oder Friedenskraft? Zur Rolle der Kirchen in Russlands Krieg in der Ukraine. In: Communicatio Socialis. Zeitschrift für Medienethik und Kommunikation in Religion und Gesellschaft, 55 (2022), 4, pp. 479-491.

Die Russische Orthodoxe Kirche und das Militär: Verteidiger heiliger Grenzen. ZOiS Spotlight 7/2022

Friedensstifter oder Konfliktträger? Der Krieg in der Ukraine als sozialethische Herausforderung für die orthodoxen Kirchen. ZOiS Report 2/2019