Historic Memories and Present Day Realities - Difficult Interactions
EPIL Module II, Vienna, 18. - 25- September 2011

The second module of the European Project for Interreligious Learning (EPIL) was held in Vienna
with the participation of 43 women, includin
g students, members of the Academic Team and Board members. The module introduced the
students to the long history of Christian - Muslim relations in  Europe, focussing on the second
Ottoman siege of Vienna (1683), which is still vividly remembered. It is  often exploited by right-wing
political parties to construct a Christian and Austrian identity over against foreign, Muslim identities
and  to practice a politics of exclusion and Islamophobia.

Students were guided to discover the parallel between these historical events and present-day
perspectives on intercultural and interreligious
living together.

Under the leadership of Prof. Kerstin Tomenendal, Chairperson of the Austrian-Turkish Forum
of Science, students visited many architectural
sites that testify to the protracted struggles  for dominance in the Balkans between the Ottoman
and the Habsburg empires. According to Prof. Tomenendal, the development of Christian-Muslim
relationships was largely conditioned by the 1683 siege of Vienna and by the victory of the Christian
armies. She also talked about the fear and hatred of Muslims throughout the centuries and the parallel fascination with Muslim cultural achievements:  the "orient" came to be a motive in art and music and,
in the 19th century, Vienna  developed into a center for oriental studies. As early as 1912, Austria
granted full religious freedom and privileges to its Muslim communities.
Journalist and writer Duygu Özkan analyzed the slow and difficult process of integration of migrant
workers, their families and the second and third generation of  Austrians with different ethnic and
religious bakgrounds.

A walking lecture with Prof. Tomenendal

In order to see how life today is being shaped by the presence of large Muslim communities,
mainly from Turkey and Bosnia and Herzegovina, the students visited institutions and projects,
in which different religions live and work constructively together and are respected:

• In the Vienna General (university) Hospital pastoral counsellors of different religions
  have developed an interreligious counselling service. A special feature is a ritual for
  the parents of stillborn babies of all religions.
• In public and confessional schools, children are trained both to be sensitive to their
  own cultural backgrounds and to feel at ease in their new homeland.
• Muslim religious education is taught in schools; there is teacher training and education
  of Imams, visibility in the public sphere, increasing political representation in the local
  and national legislative.
• The students also visited the many interreligious initiatives at local level, such as programs
  developed by women's organisations like ANIMA, a catholic women's initiative.

A public event, featuring, MP Alev Korun,Vienna, and EPIL board member Dr. Manuela Kalsky, Utrecht,
explored what it means to develop a "New We", a new identity that respects diversity and  enables
people to be at home in a society. This new identity could grow in the context of shared responsibility
for a common future.

In addition, EPIL students prepared daily interreligious meditations and reflected on the theological
implications of these meditations; together with theologians Viola Raheb and Lise Abid, they did a
Bible-Qu'ran study.

Students working together on a Bible-Qur'an study


The Board, the Co-directors and the Academic Team members would like to extend special
thanks to the Vienna interreligious preparatory team (which includes representatives of
Roman Catholic, Protestant and Muslim women's organisations), under the leadership of
Rev. Barbara Heyse-Schaefer, director of the Protestant Women's Agency and the newly elected
president of the EPIL Association.