Prof. Christoph Markschies, a member of IDI's International Advisory Council, was born in Berlin in 1962. He studied Theology, Classics and Philosophy at the Universities of Marburg, Munich, and Tübingen, and at the Dormition Abbey in Jerusalem. He was awarded a doctoral degree in 1991 from the University of Tübingen, where he completed his habilitation (post-doctorate) in 1994.
Prof. Markschies served as Chair of Church History at the Friedrich Schiller University in Jena from 1994–2000 and at the University of Heidelberg from 2000–2004. In 2004, he was appointed Professor of Ancient Church History at Humboldt University, Berlin and currently holds that post. During 2006–2010, he served as President of the University.
Prof. Markschies was a fellow at the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin / Institute for Advanced Studies in 1998–1999 and at the Institute for Advanced Studies of the Hebrew University Jerusalem in 1999–2000. He was awarded the title Doctor Honoris Causa by the Lucian Blaga University of Sibiu, Romania (2007), and by the University of Oslo (2011). Prof. Markschies is a member of the Berlin Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities, the Akademie Gemeinnütziger Wissenschaften in Erfurt, the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences and Humanities, the European Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the Akademia Europea, and is a member of several scientific advisory councils including the Thyssen-Stiftung and the German Protestant Institute of Archaeology. He is also a corresponding member of the German Archaeological Institute (DAI).
Prof. Markschies served as a Visiting Fellow at Oxford's Trinity-College in 2009 and as a visiting Fellow at Princeton's Institute for Advanced Study in 2011. He received the Leibniz Award of the German National Research Council in 2001. The numerous publications that he has authored and edited are comprised of a variety of introductory course books in his area of expertise. These include Arbeitsbuch Kirchengeschichte (1995), Das antike Christentum (2006), Antike ohne Ende (2008), and Gnosis und Christentum (2009).