The Oxford Handbook of Religion and Europe offers a detailed overview of religious ideas, structures, and institutions involved in the making of Europe. It examines the role of religion in fostering identity, survival, and tolerance in the empires and nation-states of Europe from antiquity until today; the interplay between religion, politics, and ideologies in the twentieth century; the dialogue between religious communities and European institutions in the construction of the European Union; and the engagement of Catholicism, Protestantism, Eastern Orthodoxy, Islam, Judaism, and Eastern religions with the idea of Europe.
This book launch event featured a presentation by the two co-editors of The Oxford Handbook of Religion and Europe. Lucian Leustean, reader in politics and international relations at Aston University, and Grace Davie, professor emeritus of sociology at the University of Exeter. Berkley Center Senior Fellow Jocelyne Cesari, who contributed a chapter to the volume, then offered her response. Judd Birdsall, Berkley Center senior research fellow and project director of the Transatlantic Policy Network on Religion and Diplomacy, moderated the discussion, which explored the enduring presence of lived and institutionalized religion in the social networks of identity, policy, and power over two millennia of European history.