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I am an anthropologist of religion broadly interested in questions of learning and cultural transmission. I have conducted extensive fieldwork on religious transformation in postsocialist Western Ukraine (2003-2006), among Russian Old Believers in Romania (2007-2012), and Syrian Christians in South India (since 2013) . These projects have led me to explore various topics including the pedagogies of prayer, politics of memory, time and historicity, Cold War apologetics, religious orthodoxies, ethical traditions and religious-secular formations in state socialism and beyond. My most recent research brings these different cases together for a comparative analysis of the current transformations of global Orthodoxy.
These research interests have led to fruitful collaborations across disciplines, helping me understand how socio-historical processes and psychological dispositions have shaped the evolution and transmission of religious phenomena. Such collaborative endeavors gave rise to the development of an interdisciplinary pilot doctoral training program on the Social Mind (SMASH and SMASH PRO) that prepared researchers skilled in cross-disciplinary research on the interrelations between cognition, culture and human sociality.
Since joining CEU, I have also developed an interest in visual anthropology and documentary filmmaking, on which I taught film courses and workshops and supervised visual works ranging from photo essays to documentary films and interactive cross-media projects. I am currently exploring the potential of new media to capture and visualize empirical data, and generate new modes of ethnographic storytelling. Much of this work has been channeled into the establishment of the Visual Studies Platform and the Advanced Certificate Program in Visual Theory and Practice at CEU.
My most recent book, Living in the End Times: Ritual, History, and Ethics in Romania's Old Belief was published by Indiana University Press in 2026 (see also accompanying documentary on the book website).