Citation: Vigiliae Christianae 80, 3 (2026) ; 10.1163/15700720-12347574
The editors of Vigiliae Christianae and its Supplements hereby fulfill the sad duty to inform you of the passing of Prof. Gerard Rouwhorst. He served on the Board for a decade from 2016 until his sudden death in the week after Epiphany 2026.
Gerardus Antonius Maria Rouwhorst was born in 1951 in the eastern part of the Dutch province of Gelderland. He always mentioned the beauty of this area with love, even though he left home early. At the age of twelve, he started studying at the Minor Seminary of Apeldoorn, where his passion for languages was awakened. He emerged as a brilliant student and continued his search for knowledge at the Katholieke Theologische Hogeschool in Utrecht (KTHU). Surrounded there by great scholars of the history of Christianity and Judaism, he became acquainted with the disciplines which he was to combine in such fruitful and innovative ways. Herman Wegman introduced him to liturgical studies, Gilles Quispel to early Christian studies, Yehuda Ashkenazy to Jewish studies. They were his teachers and mentors, and Gerard mentioned them with appreciation until long after he had started to teach his own students. When a FS for his retirement was prepared, it was thanks to his interdisciplinary approaches that the book Sanctifying Texts, Transforming Rituals: Encounters in Liturgical Studies (Leiden-Boston: Brill 2017) reflects the crossovers and interrelations that characterised both his work and his personality: Texts, Rituals, and Encounters.
Gerardâs first international publications were in this journal. In VC 35 (1981), he published findings relating to the variety in early Christian celebrations of Easter. Some years later, his dissertation appeared in VCS as Les Hymnes pascales dâEphrem de Nisibe (1989, 2 vols). From that moment on, he became recognized as a scholar in the field of Syriac liturgy and early Christian Easter celebrations. In the same period, he published in Questions liturgiques 61 (1980) on the Eucharistic prayers of Syriac Christianity. Formidable studies followed on the Latin baptismal rite, liturgical lectionaries, the feast of Epiphany, the celebration of Sunday, the interaction between the liturgy and apocryphal writings and many other liturgical topics which made him the go-to person for numerous aspects of early Christian worship and its heritage in modern times.
Gerardâs scholarship was marked by strong international cooperation, which started when he studied in Paris (EPHE) and Rome (Pontifical Oriental Institute) while writing his PhD-thesis on Ephraim in the early 1980s. Friendships and scholarly collaborations originating in this period were to endure for his entire academic career and beyond. The boards of Vigiliae Christianae and its Supplements profited from his active engagement with scholars during patristic conferences and in international learned societies in liturgical studies. As a member of the Societas liturgica and, above all, as member and President of the Society of Oriental Liturgy (2018â2022), Gerard contributed significantly to international exchange of knowledge and scholarly encounters.
