Ciara Moezidis, MTS ‘24

“How can we become more religious and culturally literate in both our policymaking and understanding of current issues affecting human rights when advocating for communities who have been wronged?”

Ciara Moezidis is a master of theological studies degree candidate with a focus on religion, ethics, and politics. Her more specific focuses are on the Middle East and North Africa and addressing international human rights violations such as ethno-religious persecution, apartheid, and genocide. At HDS, she is pursuing a Certificate in Religion and Public Life at Religion and Public Life, and she co-founded the Death Café, a student group for open discourses around death and dying.

Stumbling into Religious Studies

My journey to Harvard Divinity School was an interesting one, and not at all what I expected. In September 2017, on the first day of my undergraduate classes at Santa Clara University, I was taking a “Religions of the Book” class. My professor went to HDS and was talking about how formative his studies were there. A couple of weeks after that, he told the class, “The HDS Dean of Admissions is coming, so if anyone wants to chat with her, sign up. You should really all consider it.” At the time, I did not have much of an interest in religion as a career interest, but I figured my first year of college was the chance to explore so I figured why not? My professor told me I did not have to be a religious studies major, and the program and people are all remarkably diverse. 

When I met with the dean, she conveyed similar things. I told her I was interested in politics, but I would love to know how religion could tie into this. The more I thought about it after meeting with her, the more I realized there was a lot I could do. Religious institutions and political institutions are both corrupt but have the capacity to make powerful changes; they are so deeply entrenched with one another. 

She told me to apply to HDS’s Diversity and Explorations Program (DivEx), which is a fully-funded three-day program to immerse yourself in the HDS experience. Fast forward to November 2018, I applied and was off to Cambridge! I came to HDS with a cohort of 30 students, and I got to see what HDS was all about. After that, I was convinced. I did not know where I would be after graduation, since it was a few years out, but I knew this could definitely be a possibility. I had incredible conversations with others in my cohort and sat in fascinating classes with Cornel West, Fr. J. Bryan Hehir, and Diane Moore. There were lots of “Whoa! What?” moments. When I went back to California, I was thinking to myself: “I still don’t know about this religion thing, but I am going to see what else happens throughout the rest of my undergraduate studies.” 

Fusing Religion and Politics 

After going to DivEx, I still was thinking, “I want to focus on domestic issues—maybe run for office one day.” In fall 2019, I received a fellowship to intern on Capitol Hill for Representative Ro Khanna from California. This experience made it clear to me that I was not as interested in domestic politics as I was in his legislative priorities on Yemen’s humanitarian crisis and the #NoWarWithIran campaign. 

After that internship, I took an identity politics class and wrote my undergraduate thesis on Baha’i persecution in Iran. That was the first time I researched and wrote about religion. Studying this topic was important to me and offered up a new question: “What if I did this at a place like HDS?” 

Fast forward to senior year, I was applying to international affairs programs and decided to still apply to HDS because of the positive experience I had at DivEx. 

Since DivEx, I pivoted a lot. I wanted to focus on human rights and the unfortunate history that the Middle East and North Africa region has had to grapple with (a lot of it because of western intervention). It was clear to me that I cannot go into this work without understanding religion. Many policymakers approach the region in a one-size-fits-all manner without recognizing how detrimental that is to the region and international institutions’ credibility. I realized I needed greater religious and cultural literacy about the region and these issues to approach my career interests in a more holistic and nuanced manner. That is when I realized HDS was the best next step for me both personally and professionally. 

Carrying Middle Eastern Issues Into HDS 

Dr. Diane Moore is one of the main reasons why I came to HDS. I sat in on an interesting class of hers during DivEx, where she was teaching on Israel/Palestine. 

Before I committed to HDS, I talked to her again, saying, “Hey, tell me why this is a place for me to be.” She said it’s not for everyone. But it is for certain people who really want to dive deeper into theoretical frameworks with nuances that aren’t being touched upon in policy, so they can bring that to the table. This sounded like something I was up for. 

The Certificate in Religion and Public Life is new, so I didn’t know about it until the first week of the fall. It was a bonus for me. I committed to HDS without realizing that they are building out a robust program for what I am interested in: the intersection of religion and public life in a practical aspect rather than the study of religion. As a part of that, I’ve been taking classes through the Religion, Conflict, and Peace Initiative. Hilary Rantisi, Susie Hayward, Diane Moore, Reem Atassi, and Atalia Omer have all been central to my HDS experience. When I think of HDS, it is these five people, even though I know there’s a whole other world outside of what I’m studying, with other incredibly individuals. 

Broadening into Other Schools

I applied to concurrent programs at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government and The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts, and recently received acceptances to both. I am currently deciding the program best for me! My hope with either of these programs is to better understand international NGOs and institutions, and what policymaking looks like in this context. 

I am pursuing a policy program to round out the skills and greater understanding of religion that I have gained from my HDS experience. How can we become more religious and culturally literate in both our policymaking and understanding of current issues affecting human rights when advocating for communities who have been wronged? I also would like stronger quantitative skills, so I think the concurrent program would be a great pairing. 

I do not fully know what I’m going to do. But I think, in the short-term, after graduation, I would love to move to the Middle East and gain greater experience on the ground. I could then see myself doing human rights advocacy at an international NGO, particularly focused on the Middle East and North Africa and topics of human rights violations, apartheid, and genocide. 

Working with the UN 

I was working as a graduate assistant for the Religion and Public Life Program in the fall. I primarily supported the assistant director of the CRPL Program, Susie Hayward, find internship sites for students and build partnerships with other organizations. 

During the two months I worked with her, she came across the opportunity to help draft a report on religious or belief minorities in situations of conflict or insecurity, under the external office of the UN Special Rapporteur on the Freedom of Religion or Belief. Susie shared the opportunity with me saying that it seemed like something I might be interested in, and she was definitely correct. 

The CRPL students—there are about 20 of us—would typically do this internship during the summer, but I knew I wanted to be interning abroad in the summer. So, I decided to apply for the fellowship to intern in the winter/spring. I was ecstatic when I received an offer. Since December, I have been working with his extern office to produce this report, which he presented to the UN Human Rights Council in March. 

A part of the report, the annex, was on Baha'i treatment in Iran, Yemen, Egypt, and Qatar. It was quite cool to see that my undergraduate thesis could inform this report. His staff has a wide variety of experts on different contexts around the world, and it was a great feeling to meaningfully contribute to the annex based on my past research. 

Thus far, this experience has brought to light what I would like to do more and less of. I realized I do not get as excited about research. However, this experience has solidified that these are topics that I find really fascinating and I want to dive deeper into, but maybe on an advocacy level rather than a fact-finding level. 

I wouldn’t have been able to access this opportunity without HDS and wouldn’t have even known it existed. I am so grateful that Religion and Public Life had the tools and the access to be able to think of me and say, “This would be a good opportunity for you.” 

Death Café 

The Death Café is something I had always wanted to do before coming to Harvard. I had my own personal curiosities about death and was wondering why no one talks about it. It is so taboo, but we are all going to die one day, so why are we not asking these questions? I had a lot of anxiety about that, particularly during COVID-19, when there was just a mass amount of death around us, all the time. We were becoming desensitized to how many people were dying each day, forgetting that these are people, just like us, with families and aspirations. 

When I came to HDS, I was like, out of all the places to do a Death Café, I feel like HDS could be the most welcoming and the least judgmental space to start it. Through Kerry Maloney, the Director of Religious and Spiritual Life, I found three other people, Kristen Maples, Jeffrey Breau, and Twyla Barkakoty, who were also interested in starting it. I didn’t know them, but we banded together and made it happen. 

We launched in November and over 20 people attended. We are now having our fourth café in April. It was really important for me that we made it happen when it did. I had a few students from my alma mater pass last fall, and it was really difficult for me to comprehend any of it. The Death Café was a place to do that; honor those who have passed and break that taboo to create a death positive culture. 

People who did not attend our Death Café kept coming up to me to ask about how it went, and they wanted to learn more. I’ve been at many gatherings and parties where people come up and say, “Tell me about this Death Café.” Then, I spend 45 minutes asking them about what they think about death. These are truly the moments when I think to myself: just HDS things! 

Reflecting on HDS 

I remember when I was trying to figure out if I should go to HDS, I had looked at the Humans of HDS website. Now, I sometimes think about what my advice would be to incoming students? And would a person like me, that’s not studying religion, fit in this program to study religion? 

One thing that I would love to convey is that HDS is a place for a lot of people, not just for the people that are studying religion or going into the deep, philosophical nature of the world around us. 

You can take any interest and look at it through a political lens here. It has opened my world to think about so many of these topics that, to me, were pretty cut and dry, black and white, and now I realize nothing is black and white. I know I am going to walk out of this program with more questions than answers. 

But it has also allowed me to think about how I can affect change in the world, and in a more holistic manner that people aren’t thinking about. I don’t think I could do that anywhere else, and I didn’t think I’d get that from attending divinity school. It is so cool. I feel like more people that have my interests would honestly pursue this program if they knew what this could look like. 

Interview conducted and edited by Owen Yager; courtesy photos from Ciara Moezidis