This interdisciplinary workshop explores alternative perspectives and approaches to research on religions in the holdings of the secret police archives with particular attention to methodological, ethical and legal questions associated with the research on religious minorities. The contributions from historians, anthropologists and scholars of religions from Hungary, Romania, Moldova, Lithuania, Serbia and Ireland explore diverse topics including the material and visual cultural dimension of secret police archives dealing with minority religious communities; ethical questions relating to research on religious groups through the archives; the legal context, including the informal frameworks within which religious activities and events were classified as legal, illegal or ‘semi-legal’; the national institutional frameworks for research in the secret police archives; as well as contextual historical and case studies from around the region.