The Coptic Studies Group at the Waldensian Faculty of Theology in Rome has been established in 2019 to advance the study of the Coptic language and the Christian literature of the ancient world preserved through it.
Working across philology, codicology, and religious literature, the Group focuses on texts that, though composed in various languages and cultural contexts, have survived primarily in Coptic transmission.
The Group's core activities include two ongoing programs: the annual Reading Coptic Texts series, which offers free online instruction in collaborative reading and translation, and the Coptic Summer School, which has attracted students and scholars from across Europe and beyond since its inception. These courses are developed in collaboration with leading specialists from major European universities and research institutions.
Beyond regular instruction, the Group organizes conferences, seminars, and public lectures. Through these activities, the Group promotes academic networking, disseminates recent scholarship in the field, and offers public visibility to emerging researchers. The Group also publishes scholarly contributions and fosters ongoing exchange with partner universities and research centers, contributing to a broader international network in Coptic studies.
Through these varied activities, the Coptic Studies Group contributes to maintaining the vitality of Coptic studies in Italy while fostering connections with the wider academic world.
Lothar Vogel is teaching Church History in the Waldensian Faculty of Theology in Rome since 2006. He holds a PhD in Theology from the University of Marburg (1999), where he completed his doctoral thesis in the field of early medieval hagiography. From 2002 to 2006, he taught Bavarian Church History at the Kirchliche Hochschule in Neuendettelsau. He also serves as Invited Professor at the Faculty of Theology of the Pontifical Gregorian University, where he teaches History of Protestantism, and is the Director of the Coptic Summer School at the Waldensian Faculty of Theology.
GianMarco Schiesaro holds a PhD in History of Christianity from the Waldensian Faculty of Theology in Rome, where he currently serves as Research Fellow. His research focuses on early Christianity, Nag Hammadi and apocryphal literature, Coptic language and manuscripts. He has also worked on the history of religious pluralism and minorities in late modern Italy. From 2003 to 2017, he served as Lecturer and Member of the Governing Board for the Postgraduate Program in Peace Studies at Roma Tre University. He contributes to advanced training programs in early Christianity at the Waldensian Faculty of Theology.
Vittorio Secco is Research Assistant at the Waldensian Faculty of Theology in Rome, where he has been teaching Sahidic Coptic language since 2022. He is pursuing a doctoral degree in New Testament and Apocryphal Literature at the Faculty of Protestant Theology of Humboldt University in Berlin: his doctoral project consists of a comprehensive critical edition of the so-called Epistula Apostolorum, and his research interests focus mainly on early Christian apocryphal traditions, ancient esotericism and philology.
Gražina Kelmelytė is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Classical Philology at Vilnius University. Beginning in 2025, she serves as a researcher in the project “Incorporating Alternative Early Christian Texts (Nag Hammadi Corpus) into the Lithuanian Cultural Field: Translation and Hermeneutics.” Her main research interests include Early Christianity, the Nag Hammadi corpus, Valentinianism, and Origen.
Leonore Pörksen is Reasearch Assistant in New Testament Studies at the Faculty of Protestant Theology, University of Leipzig, where she is currently pursuing her doctoral project on biblical quotations in the Pistis Sophia. Her research interests focus primarily on early Christian texts of an esoteric character.