Ewa Wipszycka studied history at the University of Warsaw and papyrology at the Sorbonne (with André Bataille) and at the École Pratique des Hautes Études (with Roger Rémondon). She participated in excavations in the Naqlun monastery in the Fayum, Marea southwest of Alexandria, and Ptolemais in Cyrenaica. She systematically travelled Egypt visiting monastic archaeological sites.
Her scientific interests are focused on history of Christianity in late antique Egypt, mainly in its institutional and economic aspects. Based on information drawn from literary and documentary sources in Greek and Coptic, and data obtained in the course of archaeological excavations, she wrote a comprehensive monograph on Egyptian monasticism (Moines et communautés monastiques en Égypte (IVe–VIIIe siècles) [= The Journal of Juristic Papyrology Supplement 9], Warsaw 2009), later supplemented by the studies ‘Resources and economic activities of the Egyptian monastic communities (4th–8th century)’, The Journal of Juristic Papyrology 41 (2011), pp. 159–263, and ‘L’economia monastica dei primi tempi (secoli IV-VIII) nell’Oriente cristiano’, [in:] Monachesimi d’Oriente e d’Occidente nell’Alto Medioevo. Settimane di Studio di Spoleto, Spoleto 2017, pp. 51–81.
Ewa Wipszycka studies also history of the Church. Her publications on this subject include Les ressources et les activités des églises en Égypte du IVe au VIIIe siècle, Brussels 1972; Études sur le christianisme dans l’Égypte de l’Antiquité Tardive, Rome 1996; The Alexandrian Church. People and Institutions [= The Journal of Juristic Papyrology Supplement 25], Warsaw 2015.
In the current project, she researches relations between the monastic milieu and the hierarchical Church of the patriarchates of Alexandria, Jerusalem and Antioch, and in the Church of Persia. In her work, she collaborates closely with dr. Adam Izdebski (specialist in the Syriac language, with whom Ewa Wipszycka is working on Syriac normative sources) and dr. Marzena Wojtczak (specialist in legal issues).
