The Institut Catholique de Toulouse (ICT) has recently launched a three-year research project on Trinitarian ontology, La Trinité : ressources, fécondité et présence d’un thème chrétien (The Trinity: Sources, Fruitfulness and Presence of a Christian Theme). Bringing together theology, philosophy and aesthetics, the project works on three levels: the historical sources of Trinitarian thought; its contribution, particularly in metaphysics, anthropology and aesthetics; and its possible bearing on current cultural, social and political debates. One of the principal partners of the French project is the TRIERTIUM research group based at the Sts Cyril and Methodius Faculty of Theology, Palacký University Olomouc (www.triertium.cz).
As part of this cooperation, a full-day workshop on Klaus Hemmerle’s Theses towards a Trinitarian Ontology took place in Toulouse on 22 October 2026. TRIERTIUM was represented by Eduard Fiedler, who was invited to deliver one of the three main papers. The other invited speakers were Piero Coda, Secretary General of the International Theological Commission, and Eduard Prenga, theologian and philosopher at the University of Vienna. “In my paper I situated Hemmerle’s Trinitarian ontology within the development of the twentieth-century philosophical debate on the category of relation. It is striking that both great traditions of twentieth-century philosophy arrive at a conception of the reality of relations similar to that of a theologically inspired Trinitarian ontology,” said Fiedler, summarising the core of his talk.
The workshop was organised by Prof. Andrea Bellantone together with his doctoral students. Bellantone currently chairs the international research network L’Alliance des Savoirs (Alliance of Knowledge), established by ICT together with the Università Mediterranea di Reggio Calabria, the Università degli Studi di Messina and the Universidad Francisco de Vitoria in Madrid. The network enables researchers and teams from several universities to develop joint projects and mobility schemes. Thanks to the long-standing cooperation between TRIERTIUM and ICT, the Sts Cyril and Methodius Faculty of Theology of Palacký University Olomouc has also been invited to join the network.
