Volker Leppin

Volker Leppin is a German Protestant theologian and the Horace Tracy Pitkin Professor of Historical Theology at Yale Divinity School. A historian of medieval and Reformation studies, his research focuses on scholasticism and mysticism in the late Middle Ages. He is a prolific author of 19 monographs and 11 critical editions of text, the editor or co-editor of 49 books, and the author of more than 300 scholarly articles or chapters. He is well-known for arguing that the Reformation should be understood not as a rupture, but as a transformation, one encompassing both continuity and change. His most recent book, Ruhen in Gott, Eine Geschichte der Christlichen Mystik (C. H. Beck München, 2021), emphasizes the importance of mysticism within Christianity while exploring also its interreligious potentials. Leppin was educated at the Universities of Marburg and Heidelberg, and the Theological Academic Year at the Dormitio in Jerusalem. In 2000, he received a chair in Church history at the University of Jena. In 2011, he received the chair for Church history at the University of Tübingen. Volker Leppin is the founder and main editor of the recently established international journal Historical Interactions of Religious Cultures (HIRC).

Photo: Daniela Wagner