Breath and Heart – Agapeology as a Birthplace of Religion

Dr Lenart Škof, Head of the Institute for Philosophical and Religious Studies at the Science and Research Centre Koper, will hold a seminar on May 15, 2026, from 9:30 to 10:15 a.m., at the Blanquerna Research Institute in Barcelona, Spain.

The lecture, which will be held in English, will also be available online upon prior registration via the LINK.

“Souls breathe in harmony, they breathe in rhythm.” (Maria Zambrano)

This lecture explores agapeology as a new phenomenological genre that investigates the ethical interiority of being through the foundational rhythms of breath and heart. By moving beyond traditional Western dualisms and the “forgetting of breath” in philosophy, this approach invites to reflect on the possibility of a new respiratory ontology. This ontology establishes a horizontal, con-spirational bond between humans, grounded in breath and shared visceral experiences rather than mere linguistic or cognitive capacities.

Drawing on ancient Upaniṣadic teachings, the method of Christian Hesychasm, and the philosophy of the heart by Ludwig Feuerbach, agapeology identifies the breathing heart as the primeval site of ethical sacredness—as an opening and birthplace of religion. The agapeological acts—such as attentive co-breathing and compassionate presence—produce effects that transcend spatiotemporal laws, revealing the miracle of love as an agapeological event. Finally, the lecture argues that religion is born from this originary constellation: an invisible agapeistic bond where the descent of the intellect into the breathful interiority of the soul and heart facilitates a transformative encounter between us.

Dr Lenart Škof is professor of philosophy and religious studies, Head of the Institute for Philosophical and Religious Studies at the Science and Research Centre (Koper, Slovenia) and Dean of Faculty ISH at the Alma Mater Europaea University (Ljubljana, Slovenia). He is a member of European Academy of Sciences and Arts (EASA, Salzburg) and president of Slovenian Society for Comparative Religion. He recently co-edited Marian Reflections on War and Peace: Trauma, Mourning, and Justice in Ukraine and Beyond (Routledge, 2025) and is   an author of several books, among them God in Post-Christianity: An Elemental Philosophical Theology (SUNY Press, 2024), Antigone’s Sisters: On the Matrix of Love (SUNY Press, 2021) and Breath of Proximity: Intersubjectivity, Ethics and Peace (Springer, 2015).