Cristiana Cianitto

Full professor Independant

Cristiana Cianitto is an expert of the relations between law and religion in the United Kingdom.

She attended the Faculty of Law in the Università degli Studi di Milano, where she got her degree in 2000 and her PhD in 2005. In 2002 she got a three months grant from the European Union as a Marie Curie Fellowship to study in the University of Wales – Cardiff under the supervision of prof. C. Norman Doe. In particular she studied the Church of England and the British legal system. Since October 2007, she is a lecturer in the Faculty of Law of the Università degli Studi di Milano. She also teaches Anglican Canon Law in the Faculty of Theology in Lugano.

Her main fields of  investigation are Church and State relationships in UK with a particular attention to the Anglican canon law and the British legal system in relation to religious issues; hate crimes, hate speech, freedom of religion and freedom of expression in UK, USA, India and Italy.

Resources related toFreedom of Religion

videos

From regulating religious sound to transforming it into light: public, legal and architectural debates on the adhān

Paper presented at the fifth international congress of the University Platform for Research on Islam (Pluriel), held in Cordoba from 10 to 14 February 2026 on the theme "Ethics and Aesthetics in Is...

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Religious minorities and spiritual assistance. Reflections on the project “Atlas of religious or belief minority rights” in the European Union

  • Ilaria Valenzi

Abstract Developed within the multilevel system of legal sources, the category of "religious minority" takes on particular significance within the European Union, where a shared system of protectio...

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“Inclusive Citizenship, the Right to a Place of Worship and Everyday Peace”, by Antonio Angelucci

  • Antonio Angelucci

In an article published in the Italian journal Coscienza e Libertà (no. 69, 2025), Antonio Angelucci, associate professor of law and religion at the University of Insubria, examines the connection ...

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Public order and religious family rights. Sustainability and limits of an evolving legal relationship

  • Ilaria Valenzi

Abstract The public-order clause, which safeguards the fundamental principles of the legal order, is today tested by the circulation of family models rooted in religious legal systems. Ilaria Valen...

videos

Freedom of conscience, a contested yet resilient right

  • Dominique Avon

Rome. In a conference given on November 28, 2024, at the Pontifical Institute for Arabic and Islamic Studies, Professor Dominique Avon from the École Pratique des Hautes Études in Paris traced the ...

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Speaking freely in Islam

  • Hamadi Redissi

What is the Islamic doctrine of blasphemy, insult to God, religion and the Prophet? What about the prohibition of figurative representation of Muhammad? Can one openly believe or abjure in Islam? T...

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Religious minorities between the Mediterranean shores: a study of the status of religious minorities in the Mediterranean context (REMiMEsO) – Final Report

  • Alessandro Ferrari

The REMiMESo project, led by Ilaria Valenzi and supported by the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, explores the situation of religious minorities in five Mediterranean countries: Israel, Morocco...

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Religious Freedom in Italy. An Impossible Paradigm

  • Alessandro Ferrari

Italy, seat of the Pope and Vatican City, has a long and difficult relationship with religious freedom. Often identified as a quintessentially Catholic nation, Italy owes its unification to a polit...