Austria: Österreich

Sonja Danner

Sonja has been involved in Religious Education in Austria since 1991. She has first become a teacher at a gymnasium and in 1999 she started organizing the in service training of RE teachers of secondary schools. In 2000 she became head of department of the in service training of RE teachers of secondary schools in Austria in the Protestant Institut for Religious Education. Sonja started teaching primary teachers at the Private University College for Teacher Training Vienna/Krems in 2007, and secondary teachers at the University of Vienna in 2017 and at the Private University College of Linz in 2020.

Sonja got in touch with EFTRE for the first time at the Conference in Edinburgh in 2001. She is also an executive member.

Please see the Executive page for more information.

Belgium: Belgie

Hugo Verkest

Hugo Verkest is a senior lecturer at the University College VIVES situated in the Flemish part of Belgium. He has worked in this higher education institute for more than 30 years. Training students to become teachers in early childhood, primary education is his core business. His main course is didactics of religion at the teacher training college in Torhout and Kortrijk. Ten years ago he started up with a colleague an optional courses of Remembrance Education in relation to World Wars and colonial history and the refugee crisis. He has organised study trips to Poland, Baltic States and Andalusia.

You can find his name on publication in relation to guidelines for RE textbooks  (Theo, TOV, Respons,…). With some colleagues he did some practice-based research about new tendencies in RE. He has also worked as expert, trainer or trainee on a range of international programmes (Pestalozzi – Council of Europe) and recently for a Jean Monnet project about citizenship education. 

Hugo has been a board member of EFTRE (2001). Since 2007 he has been an executive member.

Please see the Executive page for more information.

Bulgaria: България

Shtelyan Dimov

Shtelyan Dimov graduated in theology from Aristotle University of Thessaloniki in 2025. Before that, he studied at the Theological Seminary in Sofia, Bulgaria, and he continued his studies in Greece. There, he obtained a teaching qualification. He is interested in Byzantine music, iconography, and hermeneutics.

Denmark: Danmark

Marie Rønne Olsen

Marie Rønne Olsen holds a Master’s degree (Cand.mag.) in Sociology of Religion with a supplementary subject in Film and Media Studies (2019). Currently she is pursuing studies in Danish at the Department of Nordic Studies and Linguistics, University of Copenhagen (Open University). She is a qualified public-school teacher, graduating from Frederiksberg Teacher Training College with specialisation in Christianity/Religion, Danish, History, and Home Economics (2006–2010). Since 2021, Marie has held a lecturer position at Copenhagen University College of Teacher Education and has recently submitted her associate professorship application for evaluation.

She is also an executive member from 2025. Please see the Executive page.

Estonia: Eesti

Olga Schihalejev

Olga is an Associate Professor of Religious Education in the School of Theology and Religious Studies at the University of Tartu. Her research focuses on young people’s views about religion and religious diversity, the contextuality of religious views, teachers’ strategies, and biography. See more on her professional website.

She has worked as a teacher of Religious Education and has written several teaching-learning resources. She is actively involved in improving the national syllabus for Religious Education. She has been with EFTRE since 2004, most of the time as representative of Estonia.

Finland: Suomi

Risto Aikonen

Risto has been involved in Orthodox Religious Education (ORE) in Finland since the late 1980s. He has been a senior lecturer in religious education at the University of Eastern Finland since 1989, and has participated in the initial teacher training course for teachers preparing to work mainly in primary schools (7-12 years old), but also in secondary schools (13-15 years old) and upper secondary schools (16-18 years old). Risto has also been a member of the Finnish National Board of Education’s advisory group for the development of the national basic curricula for ORE in primary and upper secondary schools. He leads the ORE textbook project with NBE in Finland. He is the founder of OCREA, an international network of ORE for researchers and teachers, and chair of the SIG (Orthodox Christian Religious Education) group of the International Orthodox Theological Association (IOTA).

Risto first became aware of EFTRE’s work in 2007 when he attended the EFTRE conference in Budapest, and since then he has attended every EFTRE conference. Risto joined the board after the Budapest conference in 2007. He has encouraged Orthodox colleagues to join the EFTRE network from countries where ORE is the main religion subject in schools.

Tuomas Anttila

Another board member of Finland is Tuomas Anttila.

Tuomas is new to the EFTRE board and was selected as secretary for the executive in Rome 2023. He is a Lutheran RE teacher working in a lower secondary school (grades 7-9) for the Swedish-speaking minority in Helsinki for the past 10 years. He has been an executive member of the Finnish Association for Lutheran RE teachers since 2017, before that he already participated in drafting the local RE curriculum for the city of Helsinki. He is a qualified teacher of RE and history. He holds a Master’s degree in Western theology and is also a Bachelor of Arts (History incl. pedagogical studies) from the University of Helsinki.  

Tuomas is also the secretary of EFTRE. Please see the Executive page for more information.

Germany: Deutschland

Stefanie Lorenzen

Stefanie Lorenzen is Professor of Religious Education at the University of Bamberg. Previously, she was a lecturer at the University of Bern (2016–2022) and the University of Saarland (2009–2016). After completing her doctorate in New Testament Studies (2008), she completed her teaching internship in religion for secondary schools. Her habilitation thesis deals with the religious positioning processes of young adults. Other research interests include: religious education in interdenominational cooperation (Protestant–Catholic), religious socialisation of children and young adults.

Bert Roebben

Bert Roebben is professor of religious education at the Faculty of Catholic Theology of the University of Bonn. Previously he was teaching in Leuven (B), Tilburg (NL) and Dortmund (D). He is extraordinary professor at the Faculty of Theology of Stellenbosch University (RSA). He is passionate about teaching and researching learning processes in the field of religions and worldviews in a European context.

Bert is the Chair of EFTRE since 2023. Please see the Executive page for more information.

Greece: Ἑλλάς

Dr Marios Koukounaras Liagkis

Marios Koukounaras Liagkis is Associate Professor of Pedagogy and Religious Education at Dep. at Theology at National an Kapodistrian University of Athens. He holds degrees in theology, education, and Greek literature. His research interests focus on Religious Education (learning and teaching), Curriculum, Teacher’s professional development, Human Rights, Inclusive Education and Drama/Theatre in Education. His publications include 8 books and a numerus of articles. He is currently working on a project on the teaching of Competencies of Democratic Culture, in the RE Curriculum development in Greece and on EWC’s ‘School for all’-Integration of refugee children in Greek Schools project.

Marios has been a member of the EFTRE Board since 2009 and member of executive board since 2019. Please see the Executive page for more information.

Hungary: Magyarország

Dr Eszter Kodácsy-Simon

Eszter is associate professor at the Lutheran Theological University in Budapest where she leads the Department of Religious Education.  She is involved in teacher training, postgraduate training and doctoral courses. Eszter leads the working group that is responsible for the curricula of RE in the Lutheran Church in Hungary. She is the responsible editor of the RE textbook-series in the Lutheran church, the co-author of six RE books and author of several publications on Christian education, church schools and RE.

Eszter joined EFTRE in 2014 and she has been the Board member for Hungary since then.

Ireland: Éire

Dr Sandra Cullen

Sandra Cullen is Head of School of Human Development and Assistant Professor of Religious Education at Dublin City University. She is also the Director of the Irish Centre for Religious Education which supports research, practice and policy development in RE. Sandra taught post-primary RE for fourteen years before moving into initial teacher education for RE teachers. She teaches a range of modules at undergraduate and postgraduate level and supervises doctoral theses in RE. She contributes to a number of academic books and journals and regularly presents at workshops for teachers. Her own PhD focused on the religious education of the RE teacher.

Sandra has been a member of the EFTRE Board since 2011 and was delighted to host the EFTRE Conference in Dublin in 2019. EFTRE has given her a wonderful opportunity to connect with enthusiastic and committed RE teachers across Europe.

Sandra can be contacted at

Italy: Italia

Orazio Ruscica

Orazio has been teaching Religious Sciences since 1983; he started as a middle school teacher and, since 1992, has been teaching Religious Sciences to Classic high school students.

He owns a Degree in Religious Sciences, a Master in Psychology of Labor and is specialized in Labor Relations.

Labor Relations has always been a topic of interest for him, so that in 1993 – together with some other colleagues – he founded SNADIR: Sindacato Nazionale Autonomo Degli Insegnanti di Religione (National Independent trade union for Religion teachers and professors). He is currently their National Secretary.

With SNADIR, he was able to obtain the legal status for Religious Science teachers and professors from the Italian Parliament, which favors the permanent appointment of Religious Science teachers and professors. Also, from CGUE he obtained the right for a precarious Religious Science teacher to be treated like any other disciplines’ precarious teacher and the ‘teacher card bonus’ for all precarious teachers. He also obtained an extraordinary recruitment procedure for religion teachers with at least 36 months of service.

Orazio serves as a President for ADR (Associazione Docenti per la Ricerca e la formazione), financed by MUIR (Italian Ministry of Education). In addition, he curates publications on labor relations and has been named Editor in Chief of the magazine “Professor IR”.

In April 2022 he was elected president of the Gilda-Unams Federation.

Orazio can be reached at

Latvia: Latvija

Dzintra Iliško

Dzintra Iliško has been involved in Religious Education in Latvia for nearly fifteen years. She has served as a full-time professor at Daugavpils University, Latvia since 2009 where she is actively involved in teacher training programs. She runs training for Master and Doctoral level students and is involved in in implementing competence – based curriculum in teacher training programms.

Dzintra first became involved in work of EFTRE in 2001 when she attended the 11th EFTRE conference that took place in Bruges, Belgium on Poverty and Social Inclusion as European Issues. She had been part of every EFTRE Conference since then. Dzintra Iliško has joined the Board of EFTRE since then. Currently, she is the editor of international Journal Discourse and Communication for Sustainable Education. She is the author of more than one hundred publications.

Lithuania: Lietuva

Marius Daugela

Marius Daugela holds a doctorate in education. He works at Vytautas Magnus University in teacher training, is a junior researcher, and a practitioner. His research interests include the development of professional identity among researchers and teachers, the process of becoming a researcher during doctoral studies, and qualitative research methods.

Netherlands: Nederland

Marcel Elsenaar

Marcel works as a consultant for Catholic and Protestant schools in the Netherlands at Verus. From his background in hotel management and theology, he has been working for 15 years as an RE teacher in Amsterdam. Teaching implied for him looking at students, society, and tradition, and weaving connections between these fields in a dialogical way.

The crises in society we experience challenge us to give attention to existential questions and sources of inspiration that offer an alternative story. Especially RE is important for young people to be able to cooperate in the change we need, towards a regenerative way of living together.

That is why he works with a team of colleagues on a new curriculum for RE in the Netherlands as project leader of Expertise Centre LERVO. His former colleague, Taco Visser, started this in 2018. Marcel is proud to develop this network with many different confessions, scientific and practical orientations, contributing to the lives of the coming generations.

Marcel has been part of EFTRE since March 2024 and works together with VDLG, the Dutch RE teacher association. He can be contacted through . The Dutch website of LERVO is: www.lervo.nl 

Portugal: Portugal

Helena Guerra Pratas

Helena Pratas has a PhD in Theology and Education. She has been involved in Religious Education in Portugal for more than twenty years, as a Senior Lecturer at ISEC, Lisbon, especially with initial teacher training students. She also taught Ethics, Citizenship, and Values Education and worked as a Senior Researcher in Ethics and Citizenship since 2000. She published some books and many peer-reviewed articles on diverse themes, some of them about religious themes, and continues doing research and giving classes about the History of Salvation, Sacred Scripture, etc. She has belonged to EFTRE since 2017.

Spain: España

José Maria Guardia Sierra

José Maria Guardia has been involved in Religious Education in Spain for nearly thirty three years. He is engaged in Secondary Education schools: Instituto Educación Secundaria Luis Buñuel and Instituto Educación Secundaria Miguel de Molinos of Zaragoza (Spain). He studied Theology and Labour Sciences.  José is the current chair of APPRECE: Asociación Profesional de Profesores de Religión en Centros Estatales” (APPRECE).  (Association of Spanish RE Teachers in Public Schools) and APPRECE trade union, an organization that promotes the stability of religious education teachers and the teaching of RE integrated into the school curriculum. In 2011, APPRECE organised the board meeting and EFTRE Seminars in Sevilla.

José is currently a Board member representing Spain. He has written the chapter ”Religious education in Spain”, in Religious Education in Europe: Situation and current trends in schools, (ICCS), IKO, (2007). José has been a member of EFTRE since 2004, during The IXth EFTRE conference of Järvenpää, Finland.

José can be contacted at: .

Sweden: Sverige

Emma Hall

Emma is a board member of the Swedish Association for Teachers of Religious Education. She is a teacher and researcher with broad and interdisciplinary teaching and research interests, and her teaching experience includes both high school (teaching among other things Religious Education) and university. In her academic work and teaching practice, Emma is particularly interested in gender issues and perspectives, for example, in relation to research ethics. She is also passionate about issues related to students’ academic literacy. Emma’s dissertation in history adheres to the fields of migration history, oral history, and cultural memory studies. Her research interests are migration and memory, identity construction and power relations, temporality and spatiality, and historical change.

Switzerland: Schweiz

Tamar Krieger

Tamar has been teaching the compulsory subject “Religion and Ethics” for the past 8 years in different High Schools in Switzerland, currently at Kantonsschule Alpenquai Luzern. She has a Master’s Degree in Secondary Education Religion and an additional Teacher’s Diploma in History. She is also involved in creating Teaching Material for the Student Book “Sachbuch Religionen” and has been active in the Interreligious Dialogue of Lucerne for several years.

Tamar first learned about EFTRE through her work in the “Swiss Association of Religious Education Teachers” (VRG). She has been a member of EFTRE since 2020 and has been the representative for Switzerland since then.

Ukraine: Україна

Kateryna Buchko

Dr. Kateryna Buchko is a Lecturer and Teacher at the Department of Pedagogy and Social Work at the Ukrainian Catholic University (Lviv, Ukraine), Research Fellow at the University of Stirling (Scotland, UK).
 Her background is in religious education, as well as in special education, inclusion, and social training with adults with autism. Her research interests are trauma pedagogy, displaced people and refugees, and inclusive religious education. Kateryna received her PhD from the University of Vienna (Faculty of Catholic Theology, Vienna, Austria), her empirical research case study is “Solely Together, Ultimately Sole: Inclusion in School on the Example of Autism” (2020).

United Kingdom: England

Patricia Hannam

Dr. Patricia Hannam has worked in religious education for her whole career, first as a secondary RE teacher, and department lead, before becoming a Local Government adviser, syllabus writer and post qualification teacher educator with primary and secondary teachers. She is now Honorary Research Fellow at Exeter University.

Pat is particularly interested in questions as to what education is, and what it should do in this time of multiple crises, with particular interest in what our responsibilities as teachers are and therefore how and what we should teach. Pat’s writing emphasises the existential nature of both religion and education and is strongly informed by Simone Weil and Hannah Arendt. She has published widely including recent books Religious Education in the Public Sphere, London: Routledge (2019) and a book jointly edited with Gert Biesta Religion and Education the Forgotten Dimensions of Religious Education, Brill (2021). She has recently published a co-authored paper regarding the role of knowledge in religious education: Elton-Chalcraft, S., Cooling, T., Hand, M., & Hannam, P. (2025). Knowledge and religious education: a metalogue. British Journal of Religious Education, 1–19. https://doi.org/10.1080/01416200.2025.2548522

She has been the representative for England since 2025.

Patricia can be contacted at:

United Kingdom: Northern Ireland

Dr Norman Richardson

After qualifying as a teacher in 1969, Norman taught Religious Education and Music in secondary schools in London before continuing his career in Belfast, Northern Ireland, from 1973. There he became closely involved in cross-community work in Northern Ireland’s separated schooling system, while also developing and promoting inclusive approaches to the teaching of RE. In the early 1980s he was appointed as an ecumenical peace education officer, developing resources and training in inter-community relationships and inter-religious understanding. Since 1997 Norman has worked with student teachers as a Lecturer in Religious Studies and Diversity Education at Stranmillis University College, currently post-retirement in a part-time capacity. In his research and writing he continues to focus on inclusive and multi-faith approaches to RE and is involved with a range of professional RE organisations in Ireland, the UK and internationally. Norman is a long-standing member of the Corrymeela Community, Northern Ireland’s oldest peace and reconciliation organisation.

Having attended the Budapest EFTRE Conference in 2007, Norman joined the EFTRE Board as representative for Northern Ireland. He currently serves on the EFTRE Executive Committee as the UK Treasurer. Please see the Executive page for more information.

United Kingdom: Scotland

Stephen C Scholes

Stephen is currently a Senior Lecturer in Education at Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh, where he leads postgraduate teacher education in Religious, Moral and Philosophical Studies. Stephen’s research interests include religious education, death education, curriculum studies, history of education, and education governance. His published work to date focuses on Religious Education in relation to school curricular provision, teachers’ practice, and school inspection. Stephen is also on the Management Committee of the Scottish Teachers Association of Religious and Moral Education (STARME). He previously held leadership posts and taught Religious Education and History in Scottish secondary schools.

Stephen joined EFTRE’s board in February 2024 and looks forward to representing Scotland and connecting with colleagues across Europe and beyond.

Contact:  

United Kingdom: Wales

Phil Lord

Phil Lord is a trained Religious Education teacher who has led two successful secondary RE departments and worked as a valued RE advisor in three local authorities in North Wales. He currently supports two Standing Advisory Councils for RE (SACREs), supporting and advising on many aspects of RE.  He, two years, chaired the Welsh Association of SACREs at a time of great educational reform.

Phil is passionate about developing high quality and engaging opportunities for Religious Education and Collective Worship. Phil has worked with and created resources for pupils from the Foundation Phase through to Key Stage 5, including KS3 text books for CAA Aberystwyth University. As part of his role working for Local Authorities, Phil has worked extensively in the area of primary school improvement.