Education

PhD, Theology, Univ. of St. Michael's College (in the Univ. of Toronto), Canada, 1999
M.A. Equivalent, Faculty of Theology, University of Bucharest, Romania, 1992

Research and teaching expertise

Early Christianity / Patristics, Religion and Politics, Ecumenism, Religion and Democratization, Religion and Dictatorships, Orthodox Christianity and Gender

Narrative Bio

Dr. Lucian Turcescu is Professor and Graduate Program Director, and Acting Chair of the Department of Theological Studies (July-December 2025). He has done research, published, and taught in several areas, including religion and politics, early Christianity, and ecumenism. He received numerous prestigious research grants. He authored, co-authored and (co-) edited several books, most of which benefited from the generous financial support from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) of Canada. He published dozens of peer‐reviewed articles. He is twice Past President of the Canadian Society of Patristic Studies (2004‐2008) and an Associate Editor of the Journal of Ecumenical Studies, and St. Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly. He sat on the Boards of the Canadian Centre for Ecumenism and the Canadian Corporation for Studies in Religion, while serving as the Corporation’s combined program director.

Consulting and evaluation work:

• Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC)

• American Academy of Religion (AAR), USA

• Postsecondary Education Quality Assessment Board (PEQAB), Minister of Colleges and Universities of Ontario, Canada

• National Council for the Attestation of University Titles, Diplomas and Certificates (CNATDCU), Ministry of Education, Romania

• The Romanian Agency for Quality Assurance in Higher Education (ARACIS), Ministry of Education, Romania

• Executive Agency for Higher Education, Research, Development and Innovation Funding (UEFISCDI), Ministry of Education, Romania

• National Science Centre (NCN), Ministry of Science and Higher Education, Poland

• Czech Science Foundation (GACR), the Czech Republic 

He serves as Expert Witness in court cases of asylum and deportation, especially connected with religious persecution, discrimination, and human rights in Romania. See an article on a case of deportation won in Canada where he was an expert witness: Gabrielle Giroday, “Roma man allowed to stay in Canada, says federal AG: Romania fails in attempt to get man extradited,” Canadian Lawyer (August 13, 2018) 

What is Religion?

An Interview I gave to Garner Remy for his podcast.

Watch This Video

Scholarly books

1.   Lucian Turcescu and  Lavinia Stan, eds., Churches, Memory and Justice in Post-communism (Palgrave MacMillan, 2021).

2.    Lucian Turcescu and Lavinia Stan, eds., Church Reckoning with Communism in Post-1989 Romania (Lexington Books, an imprint of Rowman & Littlefield, 2021).

3.    Lavinia Stan and Lucian Turcescu, eds., Justice, Memory and Redress in Romania: New Insights (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2017) xiii 358 pp.

4.    Lucian Turcescu and Barbara Theriault, eds., “From Today’s Observation Post: Collaboration and Resistance under Communism” Eurostudia vol. 10, no. 1(2015) (open access).

5.    Lavinia Stan and Lucian Turcescu, Church, State and Democracy in Expanding Europe (Oxford University Press, 2011) xiii 287 pp.

6.    Lavinia Stan and Lucian Turcescu, eds., 1989-2009: Incredibila aventura ademocratiei dupa comunism [The Incredible Adventure of Democracy after Communism] (Editura Institutul European, 2010) (in Romanian), 394 pp.

7.    Lorenzo DiTommaso and Lucian Turcescu, eds., The Reception and Interpretation of the Bible in Late Antiquity: Proceedings of the Montreal Colloquium in Honour of Charles Kannengiesser,11-13 October 2006 (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 2008), xxviii 608 pp.

8.    Lavinia Stan and Lucian Turcescu, Religion and Politics in Post-communist Romania (Oxford University Press, 2007), xvi 270 pp.

   Romanian translation published as L. Stan and L. Turcescu, Religie si politica in Romania postcomunista (Bucharest: Curtea Veche, 2010), 429 pp.

9.    Lucian Turcescu, Gregory of Nyssa and the Concept of Divine Persons (Oxford University Press,2005), xi 171 pp.

10. Lucian Turcescu, ed., Dumitru Staniloae: Tradition and Modernity in Theology (Iasi, Romania: Center for Romanian Studies, 2002), 260 pp.

Select articles

1.     L. Turcescu, “The Romanian Orthodox Church Rewriting Its History” in Lucian Turcescu and Lavinia Stan, editors, Churches, Memory and Justice in Post-communism (Palgrave Macmillan, 2021) 93-112.

2.     L. Turcescu, “Collaboration with the Communists in the Orthodox Theological Institutes,” in Lucian Turcescu and Lavinia Stan, eds., Church Reckoning with Communism in Post-1989 Romania (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, an imprint of Rowman & Littlefield, 2021) 49-68.

3.     L. Turcescu and L. Stan, “Religion and Europe after the Fall of the Iron Curtain,” in Lucian Leustean and Grace Davie, The Oxford Handbook of Religion and Europe (Oxford University Press, 2021) 233-250.

4.     L. Stan and L. Turcescu, “The Romanian Orthodox Church and its Financial Dealings in Post-Communism,” Journal of Romanian Studies 3:1 (2021) 43-64.

5.     L. Turcescu, “Romania: Between Freethought, Atheism and Religion” in Tomáš Bubík, Atko Remmel, and David Václavík, eds., Freethought and Atheism in Central and Eastern Europe: The Development of Secularity and Non-Religion (Abingdon, UK: Routledge, 2020) 207-232. 

6.     L. Turcescu, “Fascists, Communists, Bishops, and Spies: Romanian Orthodox Churches in North America” in Paul Mojzes, ed., North American Churches and the Cold War (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2018) 342-360. Prepublication printout available here.

7.    L.Turcescu and L. Stan, “Collaboration and Resistance: Some Definitional Difficulties” in L. Stan and L. Turcescu, eds., Justice, Memory and Redress in Romania: New Insights (Cambridge Scholars Publishing,2017), 24-44. Prepublication printout available here.

8.    L. Turcescu and L. Stan,“Church Collaboration and Resistance under Communism Revisited:  The Case of Patriarch Justinian Marina(1948-1977),” Eurostudia 10, no. 1 (2015) http://www.erudit.org/revue/euro/2015/v10/n1/index.html,75-103 (open access)

9. L. Turcescu and L. Stan, “The Romanian Orthodox Church,” in Eastern Christianity and Politics in the Twenty-First Century, ed. Lucian Leustean (New York: Routledge, 2014), 23-37.

10. L. Turcescu, “Eastern Orthodox Constructions of ‘the West’ in the Post-Communist Political Discourse: The Cases of the Romanian and Russian Orthodox Churches,” in G. Demacopoulos and A.Papanikolaou, eds., Orthodox Constructions of the West (New York: Fordham University Press, 2013) 211-228. 

11. L. Stan and L. Turcescu, “The Orthodox Church and the Government” in Ronald King and Paul Sum, eds., Romania under Basescu: Aspirations, Achievements, and Frustrations during His First Presidential Term (Lanham, MD: Lexington, 2011) 203-219. Prepublication printout available here.

12. L. Turcescu, “Sobornicity,” 475-476 and “Staniloae, Dumitru,” 487 in I. McFarland, D. Fergusson, K. Kilby,and I. Torrance, eds., The Cambridge Dictionary of Christian Theology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011).

13. L. Turcescu, “‘Person’ versus ‘Individual’, and Other Modern Misreadings of Gregory of Nyssa” Modern Theology 18, no. 4(October 2002): 527-539. This is the article about John Zizioulas' misreadings of the Cappadocian Fathers. Available here.

1.     Interview with Michael Swan, “Russian Orthodox support of war ‘heresy’,” The Catholic Registry (March 24, 2022) https://www.catholicregister.org/item/34178-russian-orthodox-support-of-war-heresy.

2.     Interview with Mathieu Perreault, “Guerre en Ukraine: Les orthodoxes divisés” La Presse (March 20, 2022) https://www.lapresse.ca/actualites/2022-03-20/guerre-en-ukraine/les-orthodoxes-divises.php.

3.     Interview with Emilie Dubreuil, “Un patriarche va-t-en-guerre qui divise l’église orthodoxe,” Radio Canada (March 18, 2022) https://ici.radio-canada.ca/nouvelle/1869884/patriarche-guerre-eglise-orthodoxe-moscou-ukraine4pwdxjVNkQ60AW1KJU.