István Perczel

Biography

István Perczel studied Ancient Greek, Ancient Philosophy and Patristics from Judit Horváth, Kornél Steiger, Dániel Bíró and Katalin Vidrányi. Together with Judit Horváth, he translated a significant part of Plotinus' Enneads into Hungarian, which was published in 1986. Between 1990 and 1994 he was a visiting lecturer at the University of Pécs, at the Department of Literature. He earned his Candidatus Scientiae degree in 1995 at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. Since 1994 he has been teaching - with extensive research breaks - at CEU. After Plotinus, his interest turned toward the emblematic work of the encounter of Christianity with Platonist philosophy, the Corpus ascribed to Dionysius the Areopagite. His aim was to determine the milieu, the message and the aim of this body of writings, whose interpretation has remained so controversial during fifteen centuries that it has given and still gives rise to the most contradictory views. In fact, scholars are not able to agree even on the basics, for example on the question whether the author was a pagan or a Christian. Perczel was the first to propose that the Corpus is the product of a Christian Platonist movement, which was condemned as heresy in the mid-sixth century under the name "Origenism".

Research Interest

Late Antique and Medieval Philosophy, Late Antique Studies, Religion - Ecclesiastical history, Saints and their Cult, Monastic Orders, Syriac Studies and Eastern Christianity.