Luca Ferracci

Affiliated researcher

ferracci@fscire.it

Research interests

The relationship between Evangelical Christianity and the Catholic Church in Central America during the Reagan administration.

Education, academic and professional experience

He is currently the Director of the Giuseppe Dossetti Library, the Bologna headquarter of FSCIRE.

He is a Researcher in the History of Christianity at the Department of Education and Human Sciences of the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, where he teaches Contemporary History, History of Interreligious Relations, and Video History.

His academic activity includes membership on the editorial board of «Concilium» (International Association of Conciliar Theology).

He is also responsible for coordinating the international edition of the multi-volume project A History of the Desire for Christian Unity. Ecumenism in the Churches (19th–21st Century), published by Brill and Il Mulino.

Further editorial responsibilities include serving on the board of the series Bologna Studies in Religious History (Brill) and participating in the scientific committee of MISSMO (Missions chrétiennes et sociétés au Moyen-Orient).

During the academic year 2020–2021, he held an adjunct professorship in Contemporary Church History at the Theological Faculty of Emilia Romagna (FTER).

In 2017, he completed the postgraduate diploma in Religious Studies at the Giuseppe Alberigo European School for Advanced Religious Studies.

Featured publications

Monographs

L. Ferracci, Battesimo Eucaristia Ministero. Genesi e destino di un documento ecumenico, Bologna, Il Mulino, 2021.

Articles

L. Ferracci, La bomba, i vescovi e Reagan. La lettera pastorale “The Challenge of Peace” tra postconcilio e ricalibrature romane, in «Cristianesimo nella storia», vol. 45, 2025, pp. 273 – 502.

L. Ferracci, Sulle origini della riappropriazione ecumenica della fede di Nicea (XIX sec), in «Concilium», vol. 61, 2025, pp. 112 – 122.

L. Ferracci, The Vatican, Sandinista Priests, and Liberation Theology in the Papers of the Reagan Library, in «Cristianesimo nella storia», vol. 44, 2023, pp. 803 – 833.

L. Ferracci, On the Metamorphosis of Anti-Protestant Tensions in the Shadow of U.S. Imperialism in Latin America and its Interpretation (1930–1990), in «Cristianesimo nella storia», vol. 43, 2022, pp. 189-229.

L. Ferracci, Johann A. Möhler negli studi teologici del secondo Novecento. Principali linee di interpretazione, in «Cristianesimo nella storia», vol. 42, 2021, pp. 87 – 128

Edited volumes

L. Ferracci, A. Melloni (eds.), A History of the Desire for Christan Unity - Ecumenism in the Churches, 19th-21st Century, vol. II, Paths towards communion, Brill, Leiden, 2025.

L. Ferracci, A. Melloni (eds.), A History of the Desire for Christan Unity - Ecumenism in the Churches, 19th-21st Century, vol. I, Dawn of ecumenism, Brill, Leiden, 2021.

L. Ferracci (ed.), Toward a History of the Desire for Christian Unity. Preliminary Research Papers. Proceedings of the International Conference at the Monastery of Bose (November 2014), Münster, LIT, 2015.

Chapters in books

L. Ferracci, Il simbolo di fede niceno-costantinopolitano nella storia del movimento ecumenico. Teologia, documenti e dialoghi (1886-2025), in C. Bianchi, M. Proietti, Storia e traditio del Simbolo di Nicea e di Costantinopoli, EDB, Bologna (2025).

L. Ferracci, Tutti in campo per i cristiani del Nicaragua: guerra ai sandinisti e libertà religiosa nella mobilitazione ecclesiale a sostegno di Reagan (1983-1987), in M. Muelke e A. Mambelli (eds), Religionen und Freiheiten. Historische, theologische und exegetische Studien, V&R Unipress, Göttingen (2025).

L. Ferracci, Le Conferenze mondiali di Rio de Janeiro su ambiente e sviluppo (1992) e de Il Cairo su popolazione e sviluppo (1994) nella stampa cattolica italiana, in M. Mugnaini, ONU 1945-2025. Studi su un sistema globale, FrancoAngeli, Milano (2025).

L. Ferracci, European Pentecostalism and Ecumenical Dialogue. Regional versus Global, in M. Vondey, V. Ciciliot, Pentecostalism in Europe. Encyclopedia of Global Pentecostalism, Brill, Leiden (2025).

L. Ferracci, Protestant America and Ecumenism in the 1960s and 1970s, in L. Ferracci e A. Melloni (ed.), A History of the Desire for Christian Unity. Ecumenism in the Churches, 19th-21st Century, vol. II, Leiden, Brill, 2025, p. 1-13.

L. Ferracci, L’America protestante e l’ecumenismo negli anni Sessanta e Settanta, in L. Ferracci e A. Melloni, L’Unità dei cristiani. Storia di un Desiderio. XIX-XXI secolo, vol. II, Bologna, Il Mulino, 2025, pp. 227-242.

L. Ferracci, Concilium Edinburgense, in G. Braghi e A. Melloni (eds), CCCOGD VI/3: Synods of the Churches of and after the Reformation: Alliances and Concords (19th-21st Centuries), Turnhout, Brepols, 2025, pp. 13-33.

L. Ferracci, Apostolic Succession and Church Freedom: The Oxford Movement’s Political Discourse and the Church Temporalities Act of 1833, in A. Melloni, F. Ruozzi, Episcopal Elections in the Churches: Laws, Practices, Doctrines, Leiden, Brill, 2024, pp. 250 – 262.

L. Ferracci, L’unità dei cristiani tra sogno, profezia e anticipazione, in M. dal Corso (ed.), Religioni e immaginazione, Roma, Edizioni Antonianum, 2024, pp. 17 – 27.

L. Ferracci, Charles Brent and the Faith and Order Project: From Its Origins to the Lausanne Conference of 1927, in L. Ferracci e A. Melloni (eds.), A History of the Desire for Christian Unity. Ecumenism in the Churches (19th–21st Century), vol. I, Leiden, Brill, 2021, pp. 615 – 639.

L. Ferracci, E. Fouillox, Historiography of the Ecumenical Movement: The State of the Question, in L. Ferracci, A. Melloni (eds.), A History of the Desire for Christian Unity. Ecumenism in the Churches, (19th-21st Century). vol. I, Leiden, Brill, 2021, pp. 66 – 83.

Dictionary entries

L. Ferracci, Nikos Kazantzakis, in Francesco. Eciclopedia Francescana, Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana Treccani (forthcoming).

L. Ferracci, Friederich Heiler, in Francesco. Eciclopedia Francescana, Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana Treccani (forthcoming).

L. Ferracci, Ecumenismo, in Francesco. Eciclopedia Francescana, Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana Treccani (forthcoming).

L. Ferracci, Europe, in K. R. Ross, G. A. Zurlo, T. M. Johnson (eds.), Compact Atlas of Global Christianity, Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press, 2025.

L. Ferracci, Italy and San Marino, in R. Ross, Marian Gh. Simion, Todd M. Johnson (eds.), Christianity in Eastern and Southern Eastern Europe, Edinburgh Companion to Global Christianity, Vol. 8, Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press, 2025.

Conferences, seminars and workshops

November 29, 2024, ’Yankee Go Home!’: costruzione e decostruzione del “complotto missionario” degli USA in America Latina, seminar in collaboration with FSCIRE-Ca’Foscari-DREST, Teorie cospirative, anticonciliarismo, radicalismi religiosi. Permanenze e metamorfosi contemporanee, Bologna.

May 19–23, 2024, The Shared Creed: Historical Signpost of Christian Unity; panel: Nicea after 1700 Years. Critical Insights Into a Living Legacy, promoted by «Concilium – International Journal of Theology», VII International Congress of the European Academy of Religion 2024, Palermo.

April 5, 2024, Prodromi di uno scisma: Vaticano II e right-wing catholicism nell’era Reagan, in Per una storicizzazione del postconcilio: problemi, contributi e prospettive degli studi sull’epoca postconciliare, Fondazione per le Scienze Religiose, Bologna.

September 6, 2023, Religious Freedom and Anti-Communism: Ronald Reagan’s Public Diplomacy in Nicaragua in the Sandinista Decade, seminar in collaboration with Augustana-Hochschule, Neuendettelsau, funded by DAAD, Freedom. Interreligious. Intercultural, Fondazione per le Scienze Religiose, Bologna.

June 19–23, 2023, Caught in the net. Evangelicals in the crossfire between terrorist violence and military repression in the Ayacucho region, Peru (1982-1984); panel: Plorabunt. A Memory of People Killed in Places of Worship since 1982, VI International Congress of the European Academy of Religion 2023, St. Andrews, UK.

July 30, 2022, Ecumenismo, seminar series organized in collaboration with SISSCO and the Department of Education and Human Sciences, University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, Le parole del religioso nell’Europa contemporanea, Fondazione per le Scienze Religiose, Bologna.

March 18, 2022, Desiderium Unitatis: The Historical Trajectory of Ecumenism, webinar organized in collaboration with Saint Paul University (Ottawa) and the Vatican II and 21st Century Catholicism Research Center for the presentation of the first volume of A History of the Desire for Christian Unity.

January 10, 2022, webinar organized in collaboration with the World Council of Churches, Geneva, for the presentation of the first volume of A History of the Desire for Christian Unity.
Link: https://www.oikoumene.org/events/webinar-dawn-of-ecumenism

November 22, 2021, Reinterpreting the “Conspiracy Theory” Regarding the Rise of Conservative Evangelicals in Latin America: The Roman Catholic Church’s Delegitimization of Liberation Theology and the Spiritual Disarmament of the Continent, panel: Religions in Latina/o America: Multivalent Religious Histories and Identities in Latin America, American Academy of Religion, San Antonio, TX.

October 27, 2021, webinar of the Nordic Network on Ecumenism and International Relations for the presentation of the first volume of A History of the Desire for Christian Unity, invited by Prof. Katarina Kunter (University of Helsinki).

September 17, 2021, Per una rivoluzione capitalista in salsa creola. Il fondamentalismo evangelicale nella geopolitica di Reagan in America Latina; panel: Fondamentalismo cristiano e geopolitica nella presidenza Reagan: tra tendenze di lungo periodo ed effetti rebound, webinar of the SISSCO History Workshops 2021.