Biography

Trained in Classics (Cluj-Napoca 2009), I hold a PhD in Theology from KU Leuven with a thesis on the epistolary collection of Isidore of Pelusium defended in 2021, which was awarded the J.P. Gumbert Dissertation Award 2022 from the Centre for the Study of Manuscript Cultures at the Universität Hamburg.

I am currently a Lise-Meitner FWF Fellow in Vienna, working on authorial self-fashioning in late-antique epistolary corpora, having previously held a Saltire Early Career Fellowship in Classics from the Royal Society of Edinburgh for 2022, at the University of Edinburgh (School of History, Classics & Archaeology). 

I am also research associate at the Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies in Leuven, and in December 2024 I will start a Humboldt Fellowship at the University of Bamberg, working on Greek patristic letters translated in Syriac canonical collections.

Projects

This project draws on the recent shift in the field from considering ancient epistolary corpora as sources for mining historical data, towards giving them due as complex literary works with intricate aims that ultimately project a carefully mediated image of the author and his context. Focusing on Isidore of Pelusium, she studies his self-presentation in relation to his networking strategies and the very construction of his epistolary corpus. She is also preparing a critical edition of a sample of letters from the corpus.

Publications

Edited volume

• M. Toca and D. Batovici (eds.). Caught in Translation: Studies on Versions of Late-Antique Christian Literature. Texts and Studies in Eastern Christianity 17. Leiden: Brill, 2020. [Reviewed by Matthieu Cassin in Revue des sciences philosophiques et théologiques 106.1 (2022); Joseph Verheyden in the Journal of Eastern Christian Studies 74.3-4 (2022); Yuliya Minets in Church History 90.1 (2021); Bernard Coulie in Le Muséon 133 (2020).]

Journal articles

• D. Batovici and M. Toca. “The Syriac Ignatian Canons: A Critical Edition.” Le Muséon 136.1-2 (2023): 1-37.
• M. Toca. “The Father-Son Relationship in the Eighth Sibylline Oracle.” Annali di Storia dell'Esegesi 35.1 (2018): 99-107.
• M. Toca. “The Greek Manuscript Reception of Isidore of Pelusium’s Epistolary Corpus.” Biblische Notizen 175 (2017): 133-43.

Book chapters

• M. Toca. “The Reception of Isidore of Pelusium in Its Ancient Versions: Latin as a Case Study.” In Caught in Translation: Studies on Versions of Late-Antique Christian Literature, ed. by M. Toca and D. Batovici (TSEC 17; Leiden: Brill, 2020), 138-59.
• M. Toca and J. Leemans. “The Authority of a ‘Quasi-Bishop:’ Patronage and Networks in the Letters of Isidore of Pelusium.” In Episcopal Networks in Late Antiquity, ed. by P. Gemeinhardt and C. Cvetkovic (AKG 137; Berlin: De Gruyter, 2018), 83-100.
• M. Toca. “Isidore of Pelusium’s Letters to Didymus the Blind.” In Studia Patristica 96: Papers presented at the Seventeenth International Conference on Patristic Studies held in Oxford 2015, ed. by Markus Vinzent (Leuven: Peeters, 2017), 325-32.
• M. Toca. “The Greek Patristic Reception of the Sibylline Oracles.” In Authoritative Texts and Reception History: Aspects and Approaches, ed. by D. Batovici and K. De Troyer (BINS 151; Leiden: Brill, 2016), 260-77.

Encyclopaedia entry

• M. Toca and J. Leemans. “Isidore of Pelusium.” In Brill Encyclopedia of Early Christianity, eds. David G. Hunter, Paul J.J. van Geest, Bert Jan Lietaert Peerbolte, published online 2019.

Book reviews

• Stefan Berkmüller, Schriftauslegung und Bildgebrauch bei Isidor von Pelusium (Arbeiten zur Kirchengeschichte 143; Berlin–Boston: Walter de Gruyter, 2020), in the Journal of Ecclesiastical History 73.4 (2022): 858-861.
• P. Évieux and N. Vinel (eds.), Isidore de Péluse. Lettres III. 1701-2000 (Sources chrétiennes 586; Paris: Cerf, 2017), in Reviews in Biblical and Early Christian Studies.
• B. Bitton-Ashkelony, T. de Bruyn, C. Harrison (eds.), Patristic Studies in the Twenty-First Century. Proceedings of an International Conference to Mark the 50th Anniversary of the International Association of Patristic Studies (Turnhout: Brepols, 2015), in Augustiniana 1-4 (2016): 247-252.