Rev. Aaron Michka, CSC is a cultural anthropologist of religion and the Middle East. A Catholic priest and a member of the Congregation of Holy Cross, he brings the disciplines of anthropology and theology into engagement through his research and teaching. He has been a Kellogg faculty fellow since 2026.
Michka’s work focuses on Coptic Christian communities in Egypt and, more broadly, on Orthodox Christianity, looking particularly at the way Orthodox Christianity complicates and expands the anthropology of Christianity. His research examines how doctrinal and sectarian boundaries are established and continuously remade between Orthodox and non-Orthodox Christians, as well as how the sacraments offer a valuable framework for studying Christian life.
His current book project approaches the politics of religious pluralism from the vantage of a Christian-majority town in Upper Egypt. Drawing on 18 months of ethnographic fieldwork, this project explores what it means to be Christian in Egypt in ways that respect the minority status of Copts without minoritizing them.
Michka was a residential fellow at the Notre Dame Institute for Advanced Study during the 2020-21 academic year. He holds a PhD in anthropology from the University of Michigan, an MSc in social anthropology from Oxford University and an MDiv from the University of Notre Dame.