Instructions for Authors

SCOPE

Studia Theologica Transsylvaniensia (StThTr) is a peer-reviewed, open-access journal that publishes original research articles, previously unpublished sources, and critical reviews in biblical studies, church history, systematic theology, practical theology, and related fields within theology and religious studies (e.g., philosophy, literature, and history).

PUBLICATION ETHICS

All manuscripts published in StThTr are expected to comply with the highest standards of publication ethics. These standards apply to everyone involved in the publishing process—authors, editors, and reviewers. All contributors are encouraged to familiarize themselves with the Journal’s publication ethics policy, available here: https://stthtr.com/home/ethics.

SUBMISSION PROCESS

Manuscripts for StThTr must be submitted online at https://stthtr.com/home/about/submissions. The submitting author—typically the corresponding author—is responsible for the manuscript throughout the submission and peer-review process. The submitting author must ensure that all eligible co-authors are included in the author list and that each co-author has read and approved the version submitted.

To submit a manuscript, first-time users should register at https://stthtr.com/home/user/register and then log in at https://stthtr.com/home/login. Before submitting, authors are encouraged to consult the “Instructions for Authors,” available at https://stthtr.com/home/instructions-for-authors. During online submission, the system will guide you step by step through the submission requirements, uploading the manuscript for review, and entering the required metadata (author details, title, abstract, keywords).

FORMAL REQUIREMENTS

File format: Please submit the manuscript for review as a single Microsoft Word (.docx) file.

Language: Submissions may be written in Hungarian or English. If the manuscript is written in a language other than the author’s native language, it should be proofread by a professional language editor before submission.

Length: Research articles should not exceed 8,000 words. Reviews should not exceed 3,000 words.

Fonts and spacing:

Main text: Times New Roman, 12 pt, 1.15 line spacing
Footnotes: Times New Roman, 10 pt, 1.15 line spacing
Non-Latin scripts (Hebrew or Greek): Please use Unicode-compliant fonts. Where appropriate, authors may instead provide a phonetic transliteration in italics.

Emphasis: Within the running text, bold, underlining, and letter-spacing for emphasis are not permitted. Bold type may be used only for highlighting the title and subheadings.

Quotations, foreign terms, and words or phrases requiring emphasis should be set in italics.

Internal heading system: The heading system must consistently reflect the logical structure of the text. This can be achieved by clearly defining heading levels. The following heading levels are used:

FIRST LEVEL HEADING
Second Level Heading
Third Level Heading

Quotation style: Use quotation marks to indicate quotations. At the beginning of a quotation use the opening quotation mark (“), and at the end use the closing quotation mark (”). Quotations longer than three lines should be set off after a line break (Enter), italicized, and placed in quotation marks within the text.

MANUSCRIPT STRUCTURE

Research articles should include:

Front matter: Title; Author name(s); Affiliation(s); Abstract; Keywords
Main text: e.g., Introduction; Method; Presentation of Results; Conclusions
Back matter: Funding (if applicable); Acknowledgments (if applicable); Conflicts of Interest (if applicable); Reference List

Reviews should include:

Front matter: Title; Author name(s); Affiliation(s); full bibliographic details of the work under review (author/editor, title, place of publication, year, publisher, ISBN, total number of pages)
Main text: Presentation and critical assessment of the reviewed work
Back matter: Funding (if applicable); Acknowledgments (if applicable); Conflicts of Interest (if applicable); Reference List (if other literature is cited in addition to the work under review)

MANUSCRIPT PREPARATION

Front Matter

Title: The title should be concise, specific, and relevant.
Author(s) and affiliation(s): Provide each author’s full name (first name and surname). For each affiliation, include the institution name and address details, including city and country.
Abstract (in English): The abstract should be a single paragraph of up to 200 words. It should briefly cover: 1) the context and purpose of the study; 2) the main approach, sources, or procedures; 3) the principal findings or arguments; 4) the main conclusions or implications.
Keywords (in English): List three to eight keywords, separated by semicolons. Keywords should be specific to the article and clearly indicate the topics it addresses.

Main Text

Introduction: The introduction should place the study in a broader context and explain its significance. It should state the purpose of the work, briefly review the current state of research with key references, and note major debates or divergent interpretations when necessary.
Method: Describe the methodology with sufficient detail to allow others to understand and evaluate, the approach of the study.
Presentation and Discussion of Results: Report the findings and interpret their significance in relation to the research question and previous studies.
Conclusions: Summarize the main findings and their significance, note any limitations where appropriate, and indicate directions for further research.

Back Matter

Funding (if applicable): Disclose all sources of funding. Please specify any grants that supported the research and indicate whether you received funding to cover publication costs.
Acknowledgments (if applicable): Acknowledge any assistance or support not covered under authorship or funding. Where applicable, authors must also disclose in this section how Generative AI tools were used in preparing the manuscript. Routine language editing (grammar, spelling, punctuation, and formatting) does not need to be declared.
Conflicts of Interest (if applicable): Authors must disclose any personal, professional, or financial interests that could be perceived as influencing the presentation or interpretation of the research.
Reference List: List all sources cited in the manuscript in alphabetical order by the authors’ surnames. Each work should be listed once in the reference list at the end of the manuscript.

STYLE GUIDE FOR FOOTNOTES AND REFERENCE LIST

Footnotes

Please provide all references and source citations in footnotes (do not use endnotes or in-text citations). The only exception is Bible quotations and references, whose source citations should appear in the main text.
Footnote numbers should appear immediately after the word or passage to which they refer. Footnotes follow punctuation (e.g., commas and periods).
All works mentioned in the text must be cited in the footnotes using the author–date format. An author–date citation consists of the author’s surname followed by the year of publication. When referring to a specific passage, add page numbers preceded by pp. No punctuation is used between the author’s name and the year. Abbreviations such as ed. or trans. are omitted. Multiple references in a single note are separated by semicolons.

Examples:

¹ Greshake 1997.

² Sáry 2023, pp. 23–50.

³ Kratz 1999; Erdő 2023, pp. 139–150.

If a footnote contains explanatory text, references may be integrated into the sentence as follows:

⁴ Kratz (1999) and Sáry (2023, p. 34) note that …

Reference List

Provide a Reference List at the end of the manuscript, including all works cited in the footnotes. Ensure full correspondence between footnotes and the Reference List: every source cited in the notes must appear in the list, and every item in the list must be cited in the footnotes.
Arrange entries alphabetically by authors’ surnames. For multiple works by the same author, list items chronologically (oldest to newest). Distinguish works published in the same year with a, b, c, etc. If a cited work has a DOI, it must be included in the Reference List.
From 2025, StThTr follows the MDPI Humanities and Social Sciences Journals: Reference List and Citations Style Guide, adapted from Chicago Author–Date. This style system is applied in accordance with the language of the manuscript.

Examples

Books (one, two, or three authors)

Rózsa, Huba. 1986. Az Ószövetség keletkezése: Bevezetés az Ószövetség könyveinek irodalom- és hagyománytörténetébe. Budapest: Szent István Társulat.

King, Philip J., and Lawrence E. Stager. 2001. Life in Biblical Israel. Louisville: Westminster John Knox.

Books (more than three authors)

Scott, Bernard Brandon, et al. 1993. Reading New Testament Greek. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson.

Translated volumes

Assmann, Jan. 2008. Uralom és üdvösség. Politikai teológia az ókori Egyiptomban, Izraelben és Európában. Translated by Zoltán Hidas. Budapest: Atlantisz.

Book in a series

Kiss, Endre. 2024. A kolozsvári Szent Mihály-egyházközség hollandkölcsön-ügye. Studia Theologica Transsylvaniensia Supplementum 1. Budapest: Szent István Társulat; Kolozsvár: Verbum. https://doi.org/10.52258/stthtr.sup.01.

Edited volumes

Puskás, Attila, and Máté Gárdonyi, eds. 2023. Szinodalitás az egyház életében és missziójában: Teológiai tanulmányok. Varia Theologica 14. Budapest: Szent István Társulat.

Multivolume works

Troeltsch, Ernst. 1913. Gesammelte Schriften. Zur religiösen Lage, Religionsphilosophie und Ethik. Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr, vol. 1, pp. 566–569.

Journal articles

Sáry, Pál. 2023. Az abortusz megítélése az ókeresztény korban. Studia Theologica Transsylvaniensia 26: 23–50. https://doi.org/10.52258/stthtr.2023.02.

Chapters in edited volumes

Erdő, Péter. 2023. A szinodalitás mint a teokrácia egyik megjelenési formája az Egyház alkotmányában. In Szinodalitás az egyház életében és missziójában: Teológiai tanulmányok. Edited by Attila Puskás and Máté Gárdonyi. Varia Theologica 14. Budapest: Szent István Társulat, pp. 139–150.

Encyclopedia and dictionary entries

Kratz, Reinhard G. 1999. Apokalyptik II: AT. In Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart 4: 591–592.

Reviews

Teeple, Howard M. 1966. Review of Introduction to the New Testament, by Andre Robert and Andre Feuillet. JBR 34: 368–370.

Theses and dissertations

Faragó, István. 2025. A nonverbális kommunikáció a szentmise úrfelmutatási szertartásában. PhD dissertation, Babeș–Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca, Romania.

Ecclesiastical documents

Original text
Franciscus, papa. 2022. Litterae apostolicae Desiderio Desideravi (29 June 2022). Acta Apostolicae Sedis CXIV (7): 799–825.

Translation
Ferenc, pápa. 2023. Vágyva vágytam kezdetű apostoli levél (29 June 2022). Translated by Endre Tőzsér. Pápai megnyilatkozások. Budapest: Szent István Társulat.

Unpublished archival documents

Batthyány, Ignác. 1783. Templomszentelési beszéd Farkaslakán. In Személyi hagyaték, VI/19, 1. d., Batthyány Ignác levelezései fond. Gyulafehérvári Érseki Levéltár. Gyulafehérvár, Románia.