Dr. Dietmar W. Winkler is Professor of Patristic Studies and History of Christianity at the University of Salzburg/Austria (since 2005) and founding director of the University’s Center for the Study of the Christian East (ZECO – Zentrum zur Erforschung des Christlichen Ostens, https://www.uni-salzburg.at/zeco). He has graduate degrees in Catholic Theology, Ancient History, Philology, and Pedagogics: Dr.theol., University of Innsbruck/Austria; Dr. habil., M.Phil. and M.Theol., University of Graz/Austria; Certificate in Ecumenical Studies, University of Geneva, Switzerland (Ecumenical Institute of the World Council of Churches); Certificate in Syriac (Mahatma Gandhi University Kottayam/India).
Previously Associate Director of the Division for Religious and Theological Studies, Boston University, MA/USA (2003-05), Visiting Fulbright Scholar at the Institute for Ecumenical and Cultural Research, Collegeville, MN (2001), and Visiting Scholar of Syriac and Ecumenical Studies at St. Ephrem Ecumenical Research Institute Kerala/India (1998). He worked as Visiting Scholar at the Center for the Study of World Religions of Harvard University MA/USA (2012, https://cswr.hds.harvard.edu/) and at the Centre Paul Albert Février/Textes et Documents Méditerranée Antique et Médiévale (Centre national de la recherché scientifique/Université Aix-Marseille, http://cpaf.cnrs.fr/), France (2018).
Dietmar W. Winkler specializes in the heritage of the Christian East which includes the Greek, Syriac, Coptic and Armenian traditions and combines knowledge of patristic texts with a close familiarity with current ecumenical thinking and developments in dialogue. Among others he is a Member of the Editorial Advisory Board of “The Harp” (Review of Syriac and Oriental Studies, India) and “Texts and Studies in Eastern Christianity” (Brill publishers Boston/Leiden).
As a collaborator of the Catholic Foundation Pro Oriente, founded in 1964 to promote the dialogue with Eastern Christianity, he is the Scholarly Director of the “Pro Oriente Studies in Syriac Tradition” and shaping the un-official dialogue with the Oriental Orthodox Churches. Since 2003 he has been a Member of the group of experts for the revision of “Oriente Cattolico” (the standard work about the Eastern Catholic Churches) of the Papal Congregation for the Oriental Churches (Rome) and was selected as a consultant to the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity and a member of the Roman Catholic Delegation in the official “International Joint Commission for Theological Dialogue between the Catholic Church and the Oriental Orthodox Churches". He is the Director of the “Salzburg International Conferences ‘Research on the Church of the East [Syriac Christianity] in China and Central Asia”. Publications came out in German, English, French, Rumanian and Arabic.