Writer & Independent Researcher
Essayist and independent researcher in Istanbul, working at the thresholds where the language of institutions meets the fluid mystery of human vulnerability — where attention itself becomes a moral act.
Writings
Research Focus
Death determination, organ donation, the Dead Donor Rule, moral certainty, and institutional responsibility.
Classical kalām, taḥrīf discourse, Muslim reception of St Paul, and frameworks for honest theological disagreement.
Augustine, Aquinas, John Chrysostom, synodality, pastoral authority, and the renewal of ecclesial life.
Bioethics Research
This research asks how Catholic moral theology can speak truthfully about death, bodily integrity, institutional trust, and the ethics of organ donation in an age of rapidly changing procurement protocols.
The moral and theological foundations of the Dead Donor Rule, and the challenges posed by emerging organ procurement protocols in light of Catholic teaching.
A critical examination of brain death criteria in Catholic moral theology, with attention to epistemic responsibility and the principle of caution.
Ethical analysis of NRP protocols and their compatibility with Catholic teaching on the determination of death and the integrity of organ donation.
Peer-Reviewed Publications in Bioethics
2026Profile
Languages
Of publication
Working
Education
About
Ersun Augustinus Kayra is an essayist and independent researcher based in Istanbul — a borderland thinker drawn to the thresholds where the procedural language of institutions rubs against the fluid mystery of human vulnerability. His work ranges across Catholic moral theology, bioethics, Christian–Muslim relations, and the life of the Church, always alert to the friction between what a system can measure and what a person actually is.
His peer-reviewed research has appeared in Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics and SOTER, with particular attention to death determination, organ donation, the Dead Donor Rule, and moral certainty. His essays and journalism have appeared in international Catholic and ecumenical outlets including Plough, Commonweal, Stimmen der Zeit, National Catholic Reporter, Le Devoir, Internazionale, Vida Nueva Digital, and Communio (Forthcoming).
Two registers run through his writing, and they turn out to be one. Whether he attends to the small courtesies that hold a crowded city together or to the clinical protocols that decide when a body has died, the discipline is the same: a theology of attention raised against the procedural noise of the age — the conviction that to look carefully, and without flinching, is itself a moral act. From the peer-reviewed page to the long-form essay, his work asks institution and reader alike to slow down and to see.
Media
Ersun Augustinus Kayra — Theological Moral Bioethics Enquiry
Ongoing Research
A study of St Paul, taḥrīf discourse, and the ethics of Christian–Muslim disagreement, examining how polemical traditions can be read with doctrinal clarity, historical seriousness, and intellectual charity.
An exploration of convergences and divergences between Islamic environmental ethics grounded in tawḥīd and Catholic ecological theology in the tradition of Laudato Si’.
Academic Journal (TBD)
Service & Public Engagement
Led home visits, accompaniment, and material-assistance initiatives serving 600+ families annually in Türkiye. Founded and directed two aid associations over twelve years.
Member of the Catholic Media Association (CMA), the professional organisation for Catholic journalists, writers, and media professionals. Committed to truthful, mission-driven communication in service of the Church and the wider public.
Editorial collaboration and public writing on bioethics, moral theology, and ecclesial life for Catholic and ecumenical media.
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