Echoes of Heresy

The final episode of the first season. A glimpse into a phenomenon of Latin American Folk Saints. Folk saint veneration is far from being a uniquely Latin American thing, but in Latin America, this phenomenon feels especially vivid – more public that elsewhere, more embodied, and woven deeply into everyday life. Rooted in a long history of Catholic tradition, Indigenous cosmology, Afro-Caribbean s...

One of the greatest literary figures in Russian history — and, perhaps, the most recognizable Russian author in the world... Tolstoy was celebrated during his lifetime. He was a cultural monument in his own time — read not only by the Russian intelligentsia, but by factory workers, schoolteachers, revolutionaries, and monarchists alike. Unlike so many Russian thinkers and artists, he was never imp...

A poet for whom the boundaries between creeds were illusionary. A mystic for whom non-dualism and apophatic vision weren’t just poetic metaphors — they were his lived reality. All his life represents a bridge between the Abrahamic and Dharmic worlds. Who was Sarmad Kashani? What was his formation in Iran? And what was his role in Mughal India? What is his legacy - spiritual, literary, social? For...

Episode number 5 continues the exploration of the story of the Khurramites, a religious movement in Medieval Iran. The movement was nativist in nature, but had features of a syncretic cult. Neither fully Zoroastrian, nor Islamic, however rooted in the long history of Iranic religious traditions. In part II, we focus on the Khurramite rebellion against the Abbasid Caliphate, under the leadership of...

The fall of the Sasanian Empire in the mid-7th century CE marked not just a political upheaval, but a profound transformation of Iranian society. The Islamic conquests introduced new religious paradigms, administrative structures, and social hierarchies. While Islam became the dominant faith, the process of Islamization was neither immediate nor uniform. Khurramism was, perhaps, one of the most no...

Before Renaissance philosophers proclaimed the ideal of man as free, rational, and divine— the Christian world had already known such a voice. Not from Florence or Padua, but from the banks of the Euphrates. Not at the high noon of humanism, but in the first light of Christian civilization. Before universities, before scholasticism, before creeds had hardened or canon closed— there, in the second...

There’s a tendency in religious history to draw hard lines — between gods and idols, orthodoxy and error, insiders and others. But in reality, belief is often fluid, and not always easy to categorise. In the eastern provinces of the Roman Empire, particularly around Asia Minor and the Black Sea, inscriptions and writings reveal a fascinating phenomenon. People — perhaps Gentile sympathizers with J...

Welcome to the inaugural episode of Echoes of Heresy – a podcast about spiritual dissent, divergent beliefs and doctrinal conflict across time and tradition. In this first episode I introduce the project as such and as a whole. I have attempted to lay out the vision behind the podcast series, its overall concept, scope, angle and a range of topics to expect in the future. I also tried to explore b...