are Albert Moore, an authority on religious art; Brian Col-
less, a patrologist; and Peter Donovan, an instructor in phi-
losopher of religion. Of journals published in New Zealand,
Auckland’s Prudentia stands out, although its special issues
brought together classicists, philosophers, theologians and
religionists from across the Tasman Sea and were dominated
by Australians, especially the patrologist Raoul Mortley and
the historian of philosophy David Dockrill.
Although Mark Jurgensmeyer wrote his first book on re-
ligion and politics, The New Cold War? (1993), from the
University of Hawai’i, in the Pacific Islands more broadly the
history and phenomenology of religion has chiefly focused
on traditional and changing religious life. Although they also
have pastoral agendas, the Melanesian Institute’s journals
Catalyst and Point provide valuable information, and the Mi-
cronesian Seminar, a research institute founded by the Cath-
olic Church in 1972, contributes to scholarship in the north
Pacific. The CORAIL colloquia in Nouméa have been a key
outlet for research in French dependencies, as fixtures in
Hawai’i have been for American scholars, such as the East-
West Center and Brigham Young University’s journal Pacific
Studies. Overall, indigenous writing in religion has been
more consistently theological; major forums are the Journal
of Melanesian Theology and Journal of Pacific Theology.
BIBLICAL SCHOLARSHIP. To conclude, one cannot underes-
timate the continuing strength and color of biblical scholar-
ship in Australasia (e.g., authors such as Robert Maddox,
John Painter, Robert Barnes, and the controversial Barbara
Thiering), and their impact on religious institutions. The
same may be said of regional church (and school) historians
(e.g., Ian Breward, Hilary Carey, and Susan Emilsen) and
public-policy philosophers (e.g., Graham Little and Robert
Gascoigne). Apart from the more comparativist volume Re-
claiming Our Rites (1994), most feminist and gender-related
works about religion betray women’s hopes for greater op-
portunities within the Christian churches. Even Aboriginal
womanist writers such as Anne Pattel-Gray and Lee Skye
have been theologically oriented. Although the creation of
religious studies departments threatened divinity boards,
theological colleges held their own, and in some universities,
theological studies discovered new life (e.g., Flinders,
Monash, and the Australian Catholic University). Pauline
Allen from the Australian Catholic University was rewarded
with the presidency of the International Patristics Associa-
tion in 2003 for groundbreaking (and liturgically relevant)
publications on early Christian prayer and spirituality.
Much sociology of religion has been crucial for religious
organizations to ponder their constituencies and demograph-
ic possibilities. Over and above valuable theoretical work on
religion as identity and anchorage—such as Identity and the
Sacred (1976)—Hans Mol heralded the more statistical ap-
proach found with Alan Black, Gary Bouma, Trisha Bromb-
ery, and Philip Hughes. Some sociology is more internation-
alist: Rowan Ireland on Brazilian spirit movements; Rachael
Kohn on self religions, and the Sydney branch Center for
Millennial Studies on comparative chiliasm. Impressive em-
pirical and clinical work in Australia also led to the publica-
tion of the International Journal of the Psychology of Religion
by Lawrence Brown of the University of New South Wales
in 1991. Intense research into ancient Gnosticisms by Samu-
el Lieu, Majella Franzmann, and Iain Gardner, and into later
esoterico-theosophic currents by Gregory Tillett and John
Cooper, have been reflected in the Australian cofounding of
the monograph series Gnostica in 1997. Interest in religion
and science was greatly boosted by cosmologist Paul Davies’
arrival in Adelaide in 1990, and religion and politics received
a boost with the introduction of the monograph series Reli-
gion, Politics, and Society in 2001. Clearly, at the beginning
of the twenty-first century, the critical study of religions is
most certainly in blossom in Australia and Oceania.SEE ALSO Australian Indigenous Religions, overview article;
Christianity, article on Christianity in Australia and New
Zealand; Transculturation and Religion, article on Religion
in the Formation of Modern Oceania.BIBLIOGRAPHY
Barnes, Robert. “Religious Studies and Theology: A Short Histor-
ical Survey, 1850 to the Present.” In Knowing Ourselves and
Others: The Humanities in Australia into the 21st Century, ed-
ited by Anthony Low, vol. 2, ch. 24. Canberra, Australia,
1998.
Osborn, Eric. Religious Studies in Australia since 1958. Sydney,
Australia, 1978.
Trompf, Garry. “A Survey of New Approaches to the Study of Re-
ligion in Australia and the Pacific.” In New Approaches to the
Study of Religion, edited by Peter Antes, Armin Geertz, and
Randi Warne, sect. 2, ch. 4. Berlin, 2004.
GARRY W. TROMPF (2005)STUDY OF RELIGION: THE ACADEMIC STUDY
OF RELIGION IN EASTERN EUROPE AND
RUSSIA
In most European countries, the study of religion developed
during a period of transition between the nineteenth and
twentieth centuries. It was a time when scholars were at-
tempting to categorize and examine the full range of human
activities. The study of religions emerged then as a specifical-
ly modernistic, empirically oriented discipline focusing on
culture, and concerned first and foremost with the human
being. Individual researchers gained academic standing and
recognition not by reason of nationality or citizenship but
rather by virtue of their academic credentials, their interests
and affinities for specific schools of thought, as well as by
trends within the field of religious studies—all factors that
have little to do with geopolitical principles. In an examina-
tion of the course of the development of religious studies in
Europe, which may be subdivided into the continent’s east-
ern and western spheres, much depends on political develop-
ments in Europe during the Cold War period. European reli-STUDY OF RELIGION: THE ACADEMIC STUDY OF RELIGION IN EASTERN EUROPE AND RUSSIA 8771