Krzysztof Kościelniak


Krzysztof Kościelniak – a Catholic priest, full Professor of History. Currently, a full professor at the Jagiellonian University, at the John Paul II Pontifical Academy in Kraków and in the Seminary of the Pauline Fathers in Kraków.

Education and research experience

He studied at the Higher Theological Seminary of the Archdiocese of Kraków and the Pontifical Academy of Theology in Kraków, the second cycle of studies at the Faculty of Theology. Further studies at: the Institute of Oriental Philology, Jagiellonian University, Institut für Sprachen und Kulturen des Vorderen Orients, Ruprecht Karls Universität Heidelberg, Germany, Pontificio Istituto di Studi Arabi e d’Islamistica – Arabic Study Centre Cairo, Egypt ; Franciscan Center of Christian Oriental Studies, Cairo, Egypt. Ph.D. in 1999 from the Faculty of Theology of the Pontifical Academy of Theology. Habilitation in the Humanities, History of the Orient, 2001, Faculty of History and Cultural Heritage. Research long-term stay in Syria, professorship in 2004/2005 – Faculty of History, Jagiellonian University. Various research stays, including Syria, Rome, French Polynesia, London, New Zealand. Studies of the Muslim minority in Xīnjiāng, Yala, Pattani, Narathiwat and Turkey. A lecturer at Fu Jen University and Tamkang University, Taipei. A lecturer at Caucasus International University in Tbilisi, visiting professor at Imam Khomeini International University in Qazvin.

Professional experience

Working as the Catholic priest he experienced Catholic communities in many countries
Jagiellonian University: since 2005, a full professor at the Faculty of International and Political Studies; since 2011, Head of the Department of the Middle East and North Africa, in 2012-2016, Head of the Institute of the Middle and Far East,, member of some commissions, organizer of several student summer schools in many Asian countries.
Pontifical Academy of Theology. Assistant Professor and Full Professor at the Faculty of History and Cultural Heritage. He held many positions, founder and editor-in-chief of the scientific journal ‘Orientalia Christiana Cracoviensia’, the series of Oriental sources and monographs, he organized several student summer schools in Syria.
Expert activities:' among others, the Congress of EPP Group in the European Parliament in Venice, Doha International Center for Interfaith Dialogue ,Al-Rai Center for Studies, Jordan Europe Business Association'', the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Malaysia, Singapore and Seville. He delivered ca. 120 scientific papers and has given many interviews.

Scientific work and research

His research activities focus on the fields Asian/Oriental studies:
- the condition of the Muslim states, contemporary Islam and the Muslim minorities in Egypt, Tunisia, Syria and Libya,
cultural, and ethnic diversities of Muslim immigrants in Poland in the period of 1989-2014, perspectives and challenges of migration of Muslims to Europe, the Muslim-Hindu relations after the establishment of Bharatiya Janata Party, Muslim Uighur community in China, the life of Afaq Khoja.
- Islamic Studies, the Qur'an hermeneutic in the world of Islam, Islamic jurisprudence and the rules of Sunni Muslim theology aspects of divinization according to Farīd-al-dīn ʿAṭṭār Nīšāpūrī , the concept of the universality of Islam, the Muslim eschatology, the slavery and the status of women in Islam, the concept of Jihad in Sunni sources and the modern modifications and perceptions of Jihad in the Islamic world. Jihad in various aspects contexts
- the history of Islam. The achievements and failures of the Abbasids, meanings of history in the Muslim thought, He has described Muhammad’s tomb in Medina in the 17th century and analyzed the contribution of Tadeusz Lewicki
- the Oriental Churches, the Maronite Church in the Middle East as a bridge between the East and the West, the contribution of Christian Maronites to the famous Organic Statute of Lebanon in 1861 and 1864 and statistical changes of Christians in Lebanon and Syria in the twentieth century. The changes of Coptic identity, the pluralism of the Catholic Church in Egypt and the condition of Christian minorities in Turkey.
- islam and Christianity - interactions and dialogue and early Christian elements in the Qur'an, the differences between Islam and Christianity.
- the History of Muslim-Christian Relations, Christological aspects of the Christian-Islamic polemics from the early ages of Islam, the Arab invasion in Rome, the condition of Christian communities in the Muslim world before the Crusaders, the ambivalence of the position of Christians in the Muslim community, the destruction of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem in 1009, the description of Christians in Egypt by the Franciscan friar Anthony Gonzales, the praise of the crusaders’ attitude towards Muslims in Ibn Jubayr's chronicle concerning his journey to the East, the significance of the Franciscans in the Middle East during the Mameluke epoch, the imitation of the Islamic ideology of Jihad in ‘Tactica’ by Emperor Leo VI, the missionary activities of Protestant Churches in the eastern provinces of the Ottoman Empire in the first half of the 19th century, Western influences on the shaping of the political system in Lebanon in the second half of the 19th century. Muslim-Christian dialogue in the context of human rights, dialogue of life between Christians and Muslims in the history of Lebanon after the Organic Statute of Lebanon, the Polish experience of co-existence between Christians and Muslims.
- theology and the history of religions, religious studies
- biblical studies. He has analyzed the theme of evil spirits in the Bible, presented an exegesis of some fragments of the Gospel of John which has the term άρχων του̃ κόσμου τούτου. He has examined the connection between biblical demonology and ancient religions of the Middle East, and polemized with the theory of Gerald Messadié

Membership in professional organizations

Member of the Association of European Arabists and Islamicists ; the Committee of Oriental Studies of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw, ; the Committee on Byzantine of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw, Scientific Society of Australia, New Zealand and Oceania; the Association of the Fundamental Theologians in Poland and the Polish Theological Society in Kraków, the John Paul II Intercultural Dialogue Institute in Kraków.

Books