HIU Peacebuilders Connect Unexpectedly in Italy

Alumnae Hina Khan ’25 and Elena Dini ’14 crossed paths unexpectedly this summer in Assisi, Italy, while participating in a program hosted by the Elijah Interfaith Institute. 

Both are affiliated with HIU’s peacebuilding programs. Hina studied in the MA in International Peacebuilding (MAP) and recently returned to the university as Assistant MAP Program Director and Visiting Instructor. Elena graduated from the International Peacemaking Program (IPP), a fellowship that ran from 2004 until it transitioned into the MAP program in 2016.

The Elijah Interfaith Institute, based in Jerusalem, relocated its summer school to Assisi due to security conditions in Israel. The program, Saints: Historical Reality and Spiritual Legacy, covered figures from six religious traditions: Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Sikhism. Faculty included a historian from Yale Divinity School, Professor Jeffery Long on Hinduism, and Imam Yahya Pallavicini, an Italian imam involved in interreligious work in Italy.

Hina’s participation in the summer course was motivated by her academic interest in comparative sainthood. She was accompanied by an HIU student, Fauzia Chanda, who had previously attended an Elijah Interfaith Institute summer school in Jerusalem.

The meeting between Hina and Elena occurred during a ten-day program with a full schedule. They spoke on the sidelines during a Saturday visit to the town of Foligno.

“We didn’t know that we were going to run into someone who would actually study at HIU too,” Hina said.

Elena described the encounter as reinforcing a sense of continuity with her time at HIU.

“There’s always a sense of family when I meet someone affiliated with what used to be Hartford Seminary and is now HIU,” she said. “The experience I had there more than 10 years ago has remained a cornerstone for me, especially in the realm of dialogue, and I’m glad to see how the education and shared academic life among people of different religious traditions—and the focus on training in dialogue—continue to make an impact.”

During the program, Hina and Elena discussed the evolution of the peacebuilding program from a fellowship to a master’s degree. Elena expressed interest in developing partnerships to recruit European students for HIU, according to Hina.

Since Elena went back to Rome after the IPP, she has worked at the Vatican for a Pontifical Institution supporting the Catholic Church in the Holy Land, and has offered consultancies to other local and international organizations. She is now completing a Ph.D. in interreligious dialogue at the Pontifical Gregorian University and the Catholic University of Lyon.

“What I learned at HIU served as a springboard for many other experiences,” Elena said.

Elena noted that she has remained in contact with most of her IPP classmates. “We formed a small community and have seen how the experience we lived together has guided us in our professional careers and personal lives,” she said.

HIU peacebuilders are spread across the world, so perhaps it was only a matter of time before two of them crossed paths.