Pierre Maraval (31 August 1936 – 6 March 2021)[1] was a French historian and academic, specialising in the Early Christianity (c. 31/33–324) and of Late antiquity.[2]
Born into a modest family in Roquecourbe, Maraval inherited from his mother, who was very pious, a religious commitment that led him to the minor seminary. He briefly entered a monastery in which he worked as a librarian.[3]
Maraval graduated in Catholic theology in 1964, and taught patristics at the Redemptorists' studendat in Dreux from 1967 to 1970. At the same time, he was invited to the Academie Alfonsiana, at the Pontifical Lateran University in Rome, but confirmed his taste for ancient languages. He defended a thesis in 1971 on Gregory of Nyssa's Vie de sainte Macrine, the text of which he established before translating and commenting on it, under the direction of the Hellenist Marguerite Harl.[3]
In 1974, Maraval was agrégé des lettres and doctor d'Etat in 1983. In 1985, he defended a new thesis in history entitled Lieux saints et pèlerinages d'Orient. Histoire et géographie des origines à la conquête arabe[4]
Maraval was maître-assistantMarc Bloch University from 1971 to 1998, professor at Paris-Sorbonne University from 1998 to 2004, then emeritus of the same university.[5]
and professor at theA member of the Société des Antiquaires de France, the French Committee for Byzantine Studies and the Association for Late Antiquity, he was a visiting scholar in several European and North American universities and a member of the editorial board of a number of academic journals. He was also director of the Centre for Patristic Analysis and Documentation between 1987 and 1995.[6]
Maraval died in Toulouse at the age of 84.