Open Questions

Open Mount Athos

Why It Is Open Documented figures cover only external Greek government and EU support to the peninsula as a whole. None of the twenty self-governing monasteries, nor the Holy Community that coordinates them, was found to publish its own financial statement.

What Would Settle It A published account from the Holy Community of Mount Athos or an individual monastery naming its own income, endowment or treasury, or an independent scholarly economic study of the monastic republic.

Expertise Needed Greek Orthodox monastic administration and the economics of self-governing religious communities.

Question posed in PM Mitsotakis Pledges 100 million euros for Mount Athos.

Open Ajmer Sharif

Why It Is Open The statutory Dargah Committees own books cover only its own income and fixed deposits. Nazarana offerings collected directly by Khadims through the Anjuman committees sit outside those books, and their scale is the subject of a live 2024-25 dispute: the Ministry of Minority Affairs ordered a CAG audit in March 2024 after allegations of misuse, and the Anjuman challenged the order in Delhi High Court in May 2024, arguing the offerings belong to the Khadims personally.

What Would Settle It Publication of the ordered CAG audit findings, or a court-settled determination of whether Khadim-collected Nazarana falls within the Dargah Committees disclosure duty.

Expertise Needed Indian statutory-trust law, the Ministry of Minority Affairs regulatory process, and investigative journalism.

Question posed in CAG Audit of Ajmer Sharif Dargah Finances: Know the Anjuman Committee Claim.

Open The Sovereign Military Order of Malta

Why It Is Open A 1.5 billion euro annual budget figure circulates in press coverage of the Order with no cited source or methodology. As a sovereign entity the Order is not subject to any national financial regulator, and no public consolidated financial statement was located.

What Would Settle It A published consolidated financial statement from the Order itself, for example through its Receiver of the Common Treasure, or independent reporting that traces the 1.5 billion euro figure to a primary source.

Expertise Needed International sovereignty studies and nonprofit or humanitarian-sector financial journalism.

Question posed in Sovereign Military Order of Malta, Distinct From Malta Itself, Assists Worlds Poor, Larry Luxner.

Open Mennonites

Why It Is Open Mennonite Church USAs Executive Board publishes its own annual audit, and a net-asset figure was reported in secondary coverage, but that figure could not be independently confirmed by reading the underlying audited document in this research pass, so it was not written into the atlas.

What Would Settle It A directly readable copy of Mennonite Church USAs own audited financial statement, or a current Mennonite World Conference Fair Share total with its underlying figures.

Expertise Needed Nonprofit financial reporting and Anabaptist denominational administration.

Question posed in Fair Share Contribution (Mennonite World Conference).

Open African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church

Why It Is Open Reporting outlets and denominational pages carrying a consolidated total-assets or budget figure for the AME Zion Church returned access errors when checked directly; the denomination does not appear to publish a single consolidated financial statement the way some larger denominations do.

What Would Settle It A consolidated financial statement, IRS Form 990-equivalent filing or audited annual report published by the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church's own General Board, or a reporting outlet's successful access to one.

Expertise Needed Nonprofit and denominational finance, religious studies

Open An Lushan Rebellion

Why It Is Open The only widely repeated total, thirty six million, comes from subtracting one disputed Tang census count from another rather than from any direct accounting of the dead, and the compiler who popularized it later revised his own figure down by more than half using a different method on the same two numbers. Historians who have examined the underlying census data consider it unreliable for this purpose, but none consulted has published a replacement war death total of their own.

What Would Settle It A demographic historian's reconstruction of Tang population loss across 755 to 763 that accounts for wartime migration, tax registration collapse and regional variation rather than a single before and after census subtraction, similar to the kind of regional accounting that has been attempted for other long, poorly recorded wars on this atlas.

Expertise Needed Tang dynasty history; historical demography

Open The 1955 Anti-Baha'i Campaign in Iran

Why It Is Open IHRDC's history of the campaign documents one dated mass killing, the Yazd massacre of 28 July 1955 with seven dead, alongside widespread but uncounted violence, coerced recantations and property destruction reported in cities across Iran during the same month long campaign. No human rights body or historian consulted has totaled that wider violence into a single nationwide death count for the 1955 campaign specifically, as distinct from the persecution's later, better documented decades.

What Would Settle It A dedicated historical accounting of the April to May 1955 campaign specifically, cross-checking Bahai community records, contemporary Iranian press and any surviving official records city by city, of the kind IHRDC and other human rights documentation projects have since built for later, better recorded periods of Bahai persecution in Iran.

Expertise Needed Modern Iranian history; human rights documentation

Open Cao Đài

Why It Is Open English language sources on Cao Dai describe devotional ritual offerings, incense, fruit, flowers, tea and alcohol, at daily temple ceremonies, but none states a fixed due, a percentage of income or an enforcement consequence for not giving, the shape every other body on the atlas's member giving expectations axis carries.

What Would Settle It A direct reading of the Tan Luat (Cao Dai's New Canonical Law) or the Phap Chanh Truyen (Religious Constitution), or a scholarly ethnography of Tay Ninh Holy See temple finance, stating whether registered Cao Dai members owe a fixed contribution and what follows if they do not pay it.

Expertise Needed Vietnamese religious studies, primary source review of Cao Dai canonical texts

Question posed in Cao Dai (Wikipedia), Wikipedia contributors.

Open Saint Peter's Basilica and the Vatican Necropolis

Why It Is Open The Holy See has released whole-institution budget and balance sheet figures since October 2020, but the Fabbrica di San Pietro, the historic office administering Saint Peter's Basilica since the sixteenth century, has never published a figure isolated to the Basilica's own income, offerings, or the Fabbrica's own maintenance and construction fund.

What Would Settle It A future Vatican financial disclosure that itemizes the Fabbrica di San Pietro's own accounts separately from the Holy See's consolidated statement, or a leaked or independently audited figure for the Basilica's own finances.

Expertise Needed Vatican financial administration and canon law, and investigative or financial journalism covering the Holy See.

Question posed in Vatican Releases Budget, Balance Sheet Amid Financial Scandal (Associated Press via Al Jazeera, 2020), The Associated Press.

Open Masjid al-Haram and the Kaaba

Why It Is Open The authority overseeing the Grand Mosque in Makkah and the Prophet's Mosque in Madinah was declared financially independent by Saudi royal decree in August 2023, but no annual budget or operating figure for the authority has been published; the kingdom's national budget statements do not break out its spending as a line item, and reporting instead announces individual infrastructure projects by their own cost.

What Would Settle It A published annual report or budget statement from the General Authority for the Affairs of the Grand Mosque and the Prophet's Mosque itself, or a Saudi state budget breakdown that discloses the authority's allocation as its own line item.

Expertise Needed Public finance and religious administration in Saudi Arabia, and Middle East-focused financial journalism.

Question posed in Saudi Arabia Establishes New Independent Body to Supervise Affairs of Two Holy Mosques (Gulf News, 2023), Khitam Al Amir.

Open Westminster Abbey

Why It Is Open Westminster Abbey, as a Royal Peculiar, is exempt from registering with the Charity Commission for England and Wales the way Canterbury Cathedral and other great English churches with registered charity status are, so no audited public accounts for it exist on the Commission's register. It self-publishes an annual report stating only an aggregate running cost, not a total income figure broken down by source, and this pass could not extract one from the report's own document.

What Would Settle It A direct, text-readable reading of Westminster Abbey's own annual report and accounts, which the Abbey publishes as a PDF each year, isolating a total income or total funds figure and its breakdown by source.

Expertise Needed UK ecclesiastical and charity law, and nonprofit financial reporting.

Question posed in Support Us (Westminster Abbey Official Website).

Open Kuwait Awqaf Public Foundation

Why It Is Open Kuwait Awqaf Public Foundation's own website could not be reached directly to check for a published financial statement, and the only relayed figures found, from a Malaysia-based aggregator citing an outside institute's report, could not be corroborated against the institute's own report or any other independently reachable source.

What Would Settle It Direct access to Kuwait Awqaf Public Foundation's own published financial statements or annual report, or a corroborated relay of the International Institute of Islamic Waqf's Strategic Waqf Report readable by this axis's tooling.

Expertise Needed Islamic endowment (waqf) economics and Gulf public-sector financial disclosure practice.

Question posed in Kuwait Ministry of Awqaf and Islamic Affairs (Wikipedia).

Open Council of Islamic Endowments Affairs (Bahrain)

Why It Is Open Bahrain's Sunni and Jaafari waqf endowments, now regulated jointly by the Council of Islamic Endowments Affairs created in 2026, publish no total asset valuation, and the United States Department of State reporting that appears to be the original source for a commonly quoted annual government allocation figure could not be reached directly by this axis's tooling across five separate attempts.

What Would Settle It A published financial statement from the Council of Islamic Endowments Affairs or either endowment administration, or direct access to the United States Department of State's religious freedom reporting for Bahrain.

Expertise Needed Gulf public-sector financial disclosure practice and the comparative study of Sunni and Shia waqf administration.

Question posed in Bahrain Establishes Unified Council Of Islamic Endowments To Oversee Sunni And Jaafari Waqf Affairs (Gulf News, 2026).

Open Jehovah's Witnesses

Why It Is Open Jehovah's Witnesses' UK and Canadian branches file public charity returns, and US Brooklyn real estate sales are documented property records, but Germany imposes no comparable financial disclosure requirement, and a German media report on a ZDF documentary investigation records the German headquarters declining to state its annual donation income when asked directly.

What Would Settle It A German regulatory filing requirement reaching the Jehovah's Witnesses' public-law corporation, a leaked or court-disclosed internal financial statement, or the organization's own voluntary disclosure of a figure it has so far declined to give.

Expertise Needed German religious law (Körperschaftsrecht) and the sociology and investigative journalism of new religious movements' finances.

Question posed in ZDF-Reportage Zu Den Spenden Bei Den Zeugen Jehovas (pro Medienmagazin, 2023), Jorn Schumacher.

Open Bulgarian Orthodox Church

Why It Is Open The Bulgarian Orthodox Church's own governing Statute, adopted by the Sixth Church-People's Council on 11 December 2008 at Rila Monastery and read in full at its official hosted address, covers ecclesiastical structure, the selection of church leaders, synodal organization and diocesan administration, and contains no provision anywhere on parish funding, member giving, tithes, dues or voluntary contributions. No other Bulgarian Orthodox source addressing member giving specifically has yet been found on this axis.

What Would Settle It A primary Bulgarian Orthodox Church source (a parish or diocesan stewardship statement, a Holy Synod financial policy) or a scholarly study of Bulgarian Orthodox parish finance, stating whether an ordinary member is expected to give a set amount or percentage.

Expertise Needed Bulgarian Orthodox studies, primary source review of Bulgarian Orthodox Church financial governance

Question posed in Statute of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church.

Open Reconquista

Why It Is Open Historians have never attempted a single aggregate casualty figure for the Reconquista: nearly eight centuries of intermittent campaigns, sieges and truces across several separate Christian kingdoms fighting several separate Muslim states, with no continuous or comparable record keeping across that whole span, make a single defensible total a different kind of undertaking than counting the dead of a bounded war fought at one time by two sides. A figure of seven million dead is nonetheless widely repeated in popular accounts, but it traces to no named historian, study or archival source, and Joseph O'Callaghan's scholarly history of the conflict's crusading and religious framing gives no aggregate total either.

What Would Settle It A historical demographer's attempt to build a period by period and kingdom by kingdom casualty accounting across the centuries long conflict, rather than the single figure a bounded war can be given.

Expertise Needed Medieval Iberian history; historical demography

Question posed in Reconquest and Crusade in Medieval Spain, Joseph F. O'Callaghan.

Open Santo Daime

Why It Is Open The tradition's own English language materials cover belief, ritual and history but say nothing about a member's financial obligation, and the scholarship on Brazilian ayahuasca religions checked in this search addresses supply and commercialization between communities rather than an individual member's own giving.

What Would Settle It A direct reading of the tradition's own Portuguese language materials, or ethnographic scholarship that specifically addresses whether a member owes a financial contribution to their own church or line.

Expertise Needed Brazilian religious studies and the anthropology of new religious movements

Question posed in Divinity Atlas Open Questions Register, First Edition.

Open União do Vegetal

Why It Is Open The tradition's own United States affiliate FAQ was read in full and covers history, legal status and ritual practice in detail, but says nothing about a membership fee or any other financial obligation, positive or negative.

What Would Settle It A direct reading of Uniao do Vegetal's own Portuguese language internal materials, or published scholarship that specifically addresses member financial obligation.

Expertise Needed Brazilian religious studies and the anthropology of new religious movements

Question posed in Gonzales v. O Centro Espirita Beneficente Uniao do Vegetal, 546 U.S. 418, Supreme Court of the United States.

Open Barquinha

Why It Is Open Barquinha is the least documented of the three Brazilian ayahuasca religions in the material checked for this axis, and no source found in this search, in English or Portuguese, addresses whether a member owes a financial contribution to their own house.

What Would Settle It A direct reading of a Barquinha house's own materials, in Portuguese, or ethnographic fieldwork among Barquinha communities that addresses member financial obligation specifically.

Expertise Needed Brazilian religious studies and the anthropology of new religious movements

Question posed in Divinity Atlas Open Questions Register, First Edition.

Open Church of God in Christ

Why It Is Open Two scanned editions of the Official Manual, the denomination's own binding text, were located and fetched directly and both render only as compressed image data, not readable text. Four other sources describing the denomination in detail were checked and none of them addresses tithing at all, so the only description of the Manual's own tithing language found so far is a secondhand, unverified reference.

What Would Settle It A text transcription or OCR of the Official Manual's own chapter on tithes and church finance, or a scholarly source that quotes the Manual's tithing language directly rather than describing it secondhand.

Expertise Needed African American religious history and Pentecostal denominational studies

Question posed in Divinity Atlas Open Questions Register, First Edition.