Presentation

General presentation

The Centre Interdisciplinaire d'Étude des Religions et de la Laïcité is a reference laboratory bringing together researchers from the Université Libre de Bruxelles who analyse religious facts in their diachronic and transversal dimensions.

Since 2003, the CIERL has continued the research activities carried out until then by the Institute for the Study of Religions and Secularism (IERL), namely the organisation of seminars and international colloquia, as well as the publication of an internationally recognised scientific journal ("Problèmes d'histoire des religions") and the collection "Religion, Secularism and Society" published by the University of Brussels, as well as "Les Cahiers du CIERL", its annual report. It maintains and reinforces the originality and specificity of the approach taken by the IERL for nearly twenty years, which was itself the perpetuation of the activities and spirit of the Institute for the History of Christianity, created in 1965.
 

HISTORY

The origins of CIERL lie in the teaching of Eugène Goblet d'Alviella (1846-1925), a pioneer in the scientific history of religions, which he taught at the Université libre de Bruxelles from 1884 to 1914. As holder of the chair, one of the first in the world, after Holland in 1877, but before the École Pratique des Hautes Études in Paris in 1886, the author of La Migration des Symboles (1891) conceived the history of religions as a critical and comparative science, objective in its methods, free examiner in its spirit.

In 1965, the founders - François Masai and Jean Préaux - of the Institute for the History of Christianity, attached to the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters of the Université Libre de Bruxelles, chose to apply these orientations to their teaching. From the outset, the Institute intended to offer its students an approach that was free of any confessional apriorism, which is still our specificity today.

In 1985, under the impetus of Professor Hervé Hasquin, the former Institute considerably broadened the scope of its concerns by transforming itself into the Institute for the Study of Religions and Secularism, and set itself the objective of the scientific study of the religious phenomenon in all its dimensions and in its relationship with free thought. The Institute is also interested in the history of universal freemasonry, through the activities of a specific teaching chair called the Theodore Verhaegen Chair, in honour of the founder of the Université Libre de Bruxelles.

Since the academic year 2003-2004, the IERL teaching programme has been integrated into the new Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies. The latter provides, through diplomas of complementary studies (DEC) and in-depth studies (DEA), a structured education allowing the acquisition of a scientific training in the study of religions, in which philologists, historians, philosophers, art historians, etc. participate, in a multidisciplinary perspective. This is the case in the fields of ancient polytheisms, the history of Christianity, Jewish history, thought and civilisation, Islamic history, thought and civilisation, as well as in the field of secularism, rationalism and freemasonry.

As for the research activities of the IERL, as well as its scientific events (colloquia, seminars, etc.), they have been taken over under the name of CIERL.
In a world where religious phenomena continue to permeate thought, society and politics to a large extent, CIERL hopes to encourage personal investment in the understanding of religious phenomena considered in their entirety. It also aims to provide all those whose activities or cultural and pedagogical commitments (for example, in the context of courses in ethics and philosophy or in the comparative history of religions) lead them to take an interest in religious issues with the critical tools of interpretation they may need.
 

OBJECTIVES

The CIERL, as a federating centre, aims to bring together all the researchers, research units and informal research groups at the Université libre de Bruxelles who are interested in the sciences of religion and free thought. It does so in a multidisciplinary perspective, bringing together philologists, historians, philosophers, art historians, ethnologists, etc. in a spirit of collegiality and participation that respects the academic freedom of each individual.

As a place of fundamental and applied research, expertise and reflection, CIERL aims to be close to social actors. Thanks to the abundant documentation collected over the past twenty years and the quality of its researchers, it continues to carry out the mission of observatory of the religious phenomenon that was the mission of the IERL, particularly with regard to the sectarian phenomenon, the evolution of contemporary Catholicism and the struggles for secularism.
 

FIELDS OF STUDY

CIERL aims at the scientific and non-apologetic study of the religious phenomenon in all its dimensions - ideological, conceptual, historical, social, political - and in its relationship with the manifestations of free thought. It covers, without exclusion, the study of religious phenomena and spiritualities, in their contemporary as well as ancient, intellectual as well as popular expressions - from ancient polytheisms, the so-called primitive religions, the great monotheistic religions and popular devotions, to the beliefs of the "New Age".

In the same way, it integrates, as much as the field of the sciences of religions, the various forms of free thought and freemasonry. Disciplines such as the history of religions and free thought, but also religious sociology and anthropology, theology, the history of institutions as well as of aesthetic practices and forms of expression are thus brought into play.
 

ORGANISATION

The CIERL now brings together within the same entity all research activities in the field of ancient polytheisms, the history of Christianity, Jewish history, thought and civilisation, Islamic history, thought and civilisation, as well as secularism, rationalism and freemasonry.

As a federating centre, the CIERL is transdisciplinary, ensuring the junction between diverse methodologies, varied perspectives and multiple horizons: it is thus, above all, a vital place for the cross-fertilisation of knowledge, inviting comparatism and extending its curiosity to the most varied historical territories, cultural areas and linguistic fields. It aims to promote research that lies at the intersection of traditional disciplines and to organise it in ways that are in line with the current movement of scientific progress. Rooted in the Faculty of Philosophy and Social Sciences, it has an inter-faculty perspective, and brings together researchers from several faculties, encouraging collaboration.

The CIERL is both a research centre and the home of specialised libraries that preserve the documentation related to its field of study. Its objective is the scientific study of the religious phenomenon in all its dimensions - ideological, social, political - and in its relationship with the manifestations of free thought. It is also interested in the history of freemasonry and houses the activities of the Théodore Verhaegen Chair.