KHK Visiting Research Fellow 2018
Research Associate Religious Studies (Cultural History of Orthodox Christianity) University of Erfurt

Sebastian Rimestad finished school in Norway and studied Political Science and International Relations at the Universities of Aberdeen, Scotland and Tartu, Estonia before turning to Religious Studies at the University of Erfurt, Germany, where he completed his PhD in 2012 with the dissertation The Challenges of Modernity to the Orthodox Church in Estonia and Latvia (1917-1940).

Since then, Sebastian Rimestad has been a research and teaching fellow at the University of Erfurt with Prof. Vasilios Makrides, Religious Studies (Cultural History of Orthodox Christianity). His duties included teaching undergraduates about the Orthodox Church and Religious Studies. At the same time, he completed a Habilitation on the Self-Understanding of Orthodox Christians in Western Europe, which is currently in the review process. His main research interests are Religion and Modernity, Comparative Religious Politics, Orthodox Christianity, and Religious History in the Northern Half of East-Central Europe.

During his fellowship at the KHK, Sebastian Rimestad will continue his research into Early Modern Religious Contact in the Borderlands between Orthodox, Catholic, and Protestant Christianity in the Baltic Region.

Education

• PhD, Religious Studies, Erfurt University, 2012
• M.A., Religious Studies, Erfurt University, 2007
• MA, Politics and International Relations, University of Aberdeen, 2004

KHK Fellowship

Duration: September to November 2018
Project: Inter-Religious Contact in Early Modern Polish Livonia (1621-1776)