Dietmar Werner Winkler (born April 15, 1963, in Wolfsberg in Carinthia) is an Austrian scholar of patristics and ecclesiastical history. He is a professor and the founding director of the Center for the Study of the Christian East at the University of Salzburg.[1]
Winkler studied Catholic theology, religious education, Philology and Ancient History at the Universities of Graz and Innsbruck and completed postgraduate training in ecumenical theology at the Ecumenical Institute Château de Bossey of the World Council of Churches (University of Geneva). He obtained the degrees Mag.phil., Mag.theol. and a Certificate in Ecumenical Studies. He received his doctorate in theology from the University of Innsbruck with a thesis on Coptic Christianity. With a scholarship from the Austrian Academy of Sciences, he completed his habilitation in patrology, dogma history and ecumenical theology at the University of Graz in 2000 with a thesis on East Syriac Christianity. In 1998 he was a visiting scholar at the "St. Ephrem Ecumenical Research Institute" of Mahatma Gandhi University in Kottayam (Kerala, India) and a Fulbright Scholar at the Collegeville Institute of St. John's University (MN, USA) in 2001. At Boston University (MA, USA), Winkler was Professor and associate director of the Division of Religious and Theological Studies from 2003 to 2005.[2]
In 2005, Dietmar W. Winkler was appointed Professor of Patristic Studies and History of Christianity at the University of Salzburg. He was several times head of the Department of Biblical Studies and Ecclesiastical History (2006-2009, 2013-2015, 2019-2023) as well as Dean of the Faculty of Catholic Theology (2015-2017, since 2023) and has been director of the Centre for the Study of the Christian East (ZECO) at the University of Salzburg since 2006. In 2012, he conducted research as visiting scholar at the Center for the Study of World Religions at Harvard University (Cambridge, MA, USA) and in 2018 at the "Centre Paul-Albert-Février - Textes et Documents de la Méditerranée antique et médiévale" at the Université Aix-Marseille.
Dietmar W. Winkler is an expert on Oriental Christianity and its ecumenical relations. His work focuses on the cultural history and present of the Eastern Churches, Oriental Christian literature and historical theology in their political contexts. At the University of Salzburg he established a research focus on the spread of Christianity along the Silk Road to Central Asia and China (Salzburg International Conferences on Syriac Christianity in China and Central Asia).[3]
Winkler is a consultant to the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity (Vatican), a member of the Theological Commission of the Austrian Bishops' Conference and a board member of the Pro Oriente Foundation.[4] In 2010 he became a member of the European Academy of Sciences and Arts. Among others, he is a member of the Society for the Study of the Christian East (GSCO), the North American Patristics Society (NAPS) and was chairman of the Association of Catholic Church Historians of Austria (AKKÖ) in 2016–2021.[5]
Winkler is editor of the scholarly series Latin: orientalia – patristica – oecumenica (LIT-Verlag, Münster/Germany et al.),[6] Pro Oriente Studies in Syriac Tradition (Gorgias Press, Piscataway, NJ/USA)[7] and, together with, of Wissenschaft und Religion (Peter Lang, Berlin et al.),[8] as well as on the editorial board of Texts and Studies in Eastern Christianity (Brill, Leiden/NL et al.),[9] Handes Amsorya: Journal of Armenian Studies (Mechitaristenverlag, Vienna) and The Harp: A Review of Syriac and Oriental Studies (Kottayam/India).