Religious Diplomacy, Climate Geopolitics and Migration in the Eastern Mediterranean: The Ambivalence of the Sacred Between Dialogue and Securitization

The Eastern Mediterranean has always been a space where religious traditions, geopolitical antagonisms, and migratory waves intersect, yet existing literature treats religious diplomacy, climate geopolitics, and the securitization of migration as separate fields, leaving a significant research gap for 2015–2025. Drawing on Appleby’s notion of the “ambivalence of the sacred,” this study proposes the Eastern Mediterranean as a “religious geopolitical zone”—a space in which Islamic and Christian institutions move simultaneously, rather than sequentially, between humanitarian dialogue and securitization under accelerating climate pressure. Combining Critical Geopolitics, Copenhagen School securitization theory, and Environmental Peacebuilding, it applies geopolitical discourse analysis to texts by the Vatican, Al-Azhar, the Ecumenical Patriarchate, Diyanet, and Sant’Egidio, together with UNHCR, IOM, and IPCC data. The analysis shows that religious rhetoric functions concurrently as a securitizing “speech-act” that legitimizes exclusionary policies through cultural nationalism and a foundation for humanitarian cooperation, as evidenced by the Sant’Egidio Humanitarian Corridors and the Vatican–Al-Azhar dialogue. Climate change likewise operates simultaneously as a material multiplier of tension and as a semiotic resource that either reinforces securitization or establishes a common moral basis for interfaith environmental action. The findings offer an analytical model that enriches securitization theory, Critical Geopolitics, and the religious diplomacy literature, with implications for actors seeking to move the region toward sustainable cooperation.