WG2: Social Realities and Networks of Prayer
Eötvös Loránd University (ELTE), Budapest, 3-4 September 2026

Format: hybrid
Organisers: Ottó Gecser, Iliana Kandzha, Farkas Kiss

Working Group 2 explores prayer across communities, regions, and religious cultures. It examines texts, material objects, and practices of prayer in diverse social settings, as well as their diffusion, reception, and transformation. WG2 emphasizes the manifold networks that linked individuals and communities through shared ways of communicating with the supernatural and the divine. It unites scholars of the European Middle Ages and early modern times but also of other regions and timeframes.

The first hybrid meeting of the working group will bring together members from a variety of backgrounds and disciplines to discuss key research questions related to WG2 and identify potential synergies between their fields of study.

Participants are invited to present case studies from their past or current research. Each case study should focus on a specific type, element, or device (TED) of prayer – e.g. a text, a technique, a material object, a literary or visual motif or style. The cases are expected to illuminate the relationships between specific TEDs of prayer and particular communities or networks of communities, whether local or regional, religious or lay. Participants will also be encouraged, at a later date, to submit their case studies in the form of short written contributions to the blog of the Action.

Guiding questions for the presentations:

• What characteristics of specific types, elements, or devices (TEDs) of prayer connect them to particular communities?
• What can we learn about specific communities from the TEDs of prayer associated with them?
• How did specific TEDs of prayer spread?
• What do the diffusion patterns of TEDs of prayer reveal about connections between communities?
• How did specific communities receive, adapt, or appropriate TEDs of prayer originating elsewhere?
• How did the printing press shape the diffusion of particular TEDs of prayer?
• What contacts (military, mercantile, political, etc.) or hubs of contact (e.g. general councils, chapters general, major princely courts) facilitated the spread of specific TEDs of prayer?
• What methodological frameworks are applicable for studying TEDs of prayer in their social settings?

Applications are open to members of Working Group 2 of COST Action CA23143 ‘Prayticipate’ only. Those who participate in person will receive daily allowance and travel cost reimbursement according to COST regulations.

Applications should be submitted in a single document that includes the following:

• A short academic bio (max. 150 words) including institutional affiliation, research interests, and not more than five items of representative academic achievements.
• An abstract (max. 250 words) describing the case, focusing on the specific TED of prayer and indicating which questions should be explored in relation to the research problem outlined above.

Please send your application to Ottó Gecser (gecsero@tatk.elte.hu) and Iliana Kandzha (kandzha.iliana@gmail.com), stating whether you would prefer to participate online or in person.

Deadline for applications: 30 April 2026.

Notification of acceptance: not later than 31 May 2026.