Anton Jamnik

Full Professor Dr. ANTON JAMNIK (March 2025)

Anton Jamnik was born on 27 July 1961 in Ljubljana. He finished primary school in Grosuplje in 1976 and enrolled at the Josip Jurčič Gymnasium in Stična, where he graduated in 1980. After completing his military service, he enrolled at the Faculty of Theology in Ljubljana in 1981 and graduated in 1987. After his ordination, Archbishop Dr. Alojzije Šuštar sent him to Kočevje as a chaplain, and from 1990 he was secretary to Archbishop Alojzije Šuštar in Ljubljana

He continued his studies at the Chair of Philosophy of the Faculty of Theology of the University of Ljubljana and in 1993 defended his master's thesis entitled The Sacred between Transcendence and Immanence in Contemporary Slovene Philosophical Thought. The following year he was elected and appointed assistant professor at the Chair of Philosophy of the TF University of Ljubljana. In the same year, he moved to the St Stanislaus Institute, where he taught religion and then philosophy at the Diocesan Classical Gymnasium.  He continued his doctoral studies in Ljubljana and Oxford and completed his dissertation Rawls' Attempt at an Ethical Justification of Liberalism at the Faculty of Theology, University of Ljubljana, supervised by Prof. Dr. Anton Stres, commented by Prof. Dr. Janez Juhant and Dr. Cyril Barrett, Campion Hall, University of Oxford. Since 1997 he has been Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the Faculty of Theology, University of Ljubljana, and in 2012 he was elected and appointed Associate Professor of Philosophy at the Faculty of Theology, University of Ljubljana. In 2023, he was elected and appointed full professor of philosophy by the Senate of the University of Ljubljana. 

From 1995 to 2000 he was editor-in-chief of the magazine Tretji dan. From its foundation (1993) he was Secretary of the Joint Commission of the Roman Catholic Church and the Government of the Republic of Slovenia (until 1997). In 1997 he became a Junior Member of the European Academy of Arts and Sciences, based in Salzburg, and in 2008 a Full Member. In July 2000, Dr. Franc Rode, Archbishop of Ljubljana, appointed him Director of the St. Stanislaus Institute in Šentvid nad Ljubljano. In 2008, he became a full member of the European Academy of Sciences and Arts, based in Salzburg. 

In 2005, Pope Benedict XVI appointed him Auxiliary Bishop of the Archdiocese of Ljubljana. On 24 March 2023, Jamnik was elected President of Commission on Ethics of the Commission of the Bishops' Conferences of the European Union (COMECE - Bruselles) at the Spring Assembly of COMECE in Rome.  

He is President of the Commission for the Coordination of Catholic Media, and President of the Commission for Slovenians Abroad and Abroad. Since 2023, he has been Chairman of the Commission for Education of the Slovenian Bishops' Conference. He is also a member of the Council of the Museum of Christianity in Stična, where he represents the Slovenian Episcopal Conference.

The most important of his works is a book published in 1998 by Nova revija entitled Liberalism and the Question of Ethics. Also, his treatise on communitarianism in relation to liberalism was published by Nova revija in 2009 as part of a monograph. In 2012, his third book, Between Vagabond and Pilgrim (Družina, 2012), was published, which deals with fundamental ethical issues, liberalism, issues in the field of philosophy of religion, and the question of Slovenian independence. In 2016, Ognjišče publishing house published his monograph entitled "Our Archbishop Šuštar - One of the Fathers of Slovenian Independence".  In 2018, Mladinska knjiga published one of his fundamental scientific works, the fruit of several years of research on the issues of liberalism and communitarianism - a scientific monograph entitled "The World of Lonely Strangers" - A Communitarian and Postmodern Critique of Liberalism. In 2020, a scientific monograph "Archbishop Alojzij Šuštar - 100th Anniversary of his Birth" was published, which he edited together with Bojan Žalec and wrote an extensive scientific contribution on the role of Archbishop Dr. Alojzije Šuštarja in Slovenian independence. The scientific monograph and the scientific symposium are two concrete results of a two-year project (Faculty of Theology, University of Ljubljana 2020-2022) on the meaning and role of Archbishop dr. Alojzije Šuštar in the Slovenian and European sphere, in the Church in Slovenia, with special emphasis on his role in the Slovenian independence In the field of ethics and social issues, he has also published many other treatises, such as "The Role of Archbishop Alojzije Šuštar in the Slovenian and European Church, in the Church in Slovenia", and "The Role of Archbishop Alojzije Šuštar in the Slovene and European Sphere":  Trstenjak's Ethical Conception of Man, Between Values and Liberalism, Postmodern Ethical Perspective, Tolerance - Virtue for the New Times, Europe Searches for Its Soul, The Decline of Totalitarian Ideologies and the Social and Moral Crisis, and in recent years he has published articles in the field of philosophy of religion and business ethics in scholarly journals in Beijing, Buenos Aires, Dublin, Tokyo, and in other scholarly journals in Europe and around the world. He has lectured at the Theological Course for Students and Educationalists in Ljubljana and in other cities around the country. In July 2000, he gave a lecture at the European Meeting of Catholic Educators on "The Teacher in the Challenges of the Times", he has lectured twice in Draga, and he has participated in symposia in Rome and in various scientific conferences around the world.

Since 2005, he has been working very intensively on educational issues. He chaired the Commissions for both the Catholic Primary School and the future Catholic University, which in 2010 started its first Faculty of Business Studies. This also marked the completion of a comprehensive project to cover the entire vertical of Catholic education, from kindergartens to the Catholic Faculty of Business. He was the first Director of the Catholic Institute (until 2009), an important step on the way to the establishment of a Catholic University. In 2010, the first faculty of the future Catholic University, the Faculty of Business Studies (the programme for this faculty was verified by the State in February 2009), was inaugurated, and for the first few years he taught philosophy, philosophy of religion and ethics (business ethics). It was in the field of international cooperation that, during his time as Director of the Catholic Institute, many cooperation agreements were signed with foreign universities, from Europe, the United States of America, South America and Asia. He headed the Commission for the preparation of a Catholic primary school, which was launched in 2008 at the Saint Stanislaus Institute, the first Catholic primary school in Slovenia.

In 2002 (until 2010) he was appointed Chairman of the Republican Baccalaureate Commission for Philosophy at the Ministry of Education.

As a member of the European Academy of Arts and Sciences, he collaborates extensively with various institutions around the world. He has lectured in the USA (Boston College, Georgetown University), in England, in Argentina, in Tokyo, Japan (Sophia University and Tsuda University) and at various other universities, and in Salzburg as a full member of the European Academy of Sciences and Arts. In recent years, he has been working even more on international cooperation with the Asian area. In 2010 and 2011 he actively participated in conferences in Tokyo (Japan), Cochin, Bangalore (India) and some other Asian countries. He is also actively involved with the International Institute of Business Ethics in Beijing-Macau (China), where a book on Business Ethics is being prepared in a programme group in which he is involved. In recent years, he has been working intensively with the Catholic University of St. Joseph in Macao, China. He is also a regular lecturer at international conferences of the World Slovenian Congress. In addition to numerous scientific articles, he has written four monographs: Liberalism and the Question of Ethics, Between Pilgrim and Vagabond, Our Archbishop Šuštar, The World of Lonely Strangers - A Communitarian and Postmodern Critique of Liberalism, and a longer discussion of communitarianism in Matej Pevec Rozman's book Ethics and Contemporary Society. 

In January 2013 he participated in three international conferences in Asia: in New Delhi on Christianity in a Global World, in Bangalore (India) he gave a seminar on ethics at St. John's University for medical students, and in Beijing he gave a lecture on contemporary ethical dilemmas in a global world. In 2017, he was a visiting professor at the Faculty of Theology and the Institute of Medical Ethics in Mumbai, India. His main research interests are contemporary issues in philosophy of religion, interreligious dialogue and applied ethics, and dilemmas of contemporary liberalism and neoliberalism. In 2018, he was a lecturer at the Catholic University of Seoul. In the last 10 years, in addition to his teaching, research and writing, he has a special interest in Asia: China, Korea, India, Japan, and other countries in this part of the world. In 2019, he was a visiting professor at the Catholic University of Seoul and Macau and Beijing.