Cristianesimi d’Oriente: prospettive di studio tra passato e presente

Abstract

The inauguration of a course on “Eastern Christianities” at the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart in Milan was an occasion for reconsidering the importance of this stuy field in the past and the present and for drawing some future perspectives. The article stresses the need to support research into this vast complex of Churches and traditions, also in view of the challenges that Eastern Christianities are facing in our times. After briefly reviewing the contributions made in recent decades to Syriac and Oriental Christian studies, it presents two interesting case studies which point to new frontiers of research: the rediscovery of the Albanian alphabet, a precious witness of a lost Caucasian Christianity, and the spread of Christianity in South Arabia before the rise of Islam as shown by the new archeological and historical investigations.