Church history
From 1993 to 2013, succeeding Georg Kretschmar, he held the Chair of Church history at the University of Munich. He developed it – in addition to the treatment of classical patristic themes – into the only Chair of Church history at a Faculty of Protestant Theology in German-speaking central Europe that has specialized in the history of non-western and global Christianity. Its many projects have aimed at developing an ecumenically oriented church history that pays proper attention not only to the denominational, but also to the geographical and cultural-contextual plurality of world Christianity.