About us

The HDC Centre for Religious History is embedded in the Faculty of Humanities (Department of Arts and Culture, History and Antiquity) at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam.

Contact:
hdc@vu.nl

Organisation:
Executive Director:
Prof. Dr. Fred van Lieburg (f.a.van.lieburg@vu.nl)

Public Officer:
Drs. Wim Berkelaar (w.berkelaar@vu.nl)

Steering Committee:
Prof. Dr. George Harinck (History of Neo-Calvinism) (g.harinck@vu.nl)
Prof. Dr. Bas ter Haar Romeny (Ancient History and Middle East Christianity) (bas.ter.haarromeny@vu.nl

History of the HDC

The HDC was founded in 1971 as Historisch Documentatiecentrum voor de Geschiedenis van het Nederlands Protestantisme na 1800. Former directors were George Puchinger (1971-1986), Jan de Bruijn (1986-2003), George Harinck (2003-2017) and Bart Wallet (2018-2021). The centre, curating a large collection of archives from Protestant leaders and organisations, was integrated in the University Library of Vrije Universiteit (UBVU) until 2014. Over the years, it received a strong reputation in research and valorisation in the field of modern Dutch Protestantism and its international relations. While connected to the special collections of the UBVU, the HDC was tied to the faculties of Theology and Humanities. Since 2016, the Amsterdam Centre for Religious History (ACRH) offered a platform for various networks of VU scholars in the same and adjacent fields of interest. In 2020, HDC and ACRH merged together to the HDC Centre for Religious History, combining the branding abbreviation of HDC with the long-term, multi-religious and global approaches of ACRH.

HDC is closely co-operating with similar institutes in the Netherlands and Belgium (ADC, KDC, KADOC and EVADOC), and other centres in the European Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States of America.

Partners

  • Catholic Documentation Centre ('Katholiek Documentatiecentrum' in Dutch, or KDC for short). Our heritage institution is a department of the University Library of the Radboud University in Nijmegen
    https://www.ru.nl/kdc/
  • KADOC. Documentatie- en Onderzoekscentrum voor Religie, Cultuur en Samenleving
    KADOC Documentation and Research Centre on Religion Culture and Society
    https://kadoc.kuleuven.be/


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