Open Questions

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.

Open The Way International

Why It Is Open The Way International is registered as a church under US tax law and is therefore exempt from filing the Form 990 annual return that discloses a tax-exempt organization's finances; ProPublica's Nonprofit Explorer confirms none is on record. A private data aggregator's revenue estimate circulates but names no methodology or analyst, so no reliable total was found.

What Would Settle It A voluntary published financial statement from The Way International itself, or investigative journalism that obtains and verifies its actual revenue or asset figures despite the church exemption.

Expertise Needed US nonprofit and religious organization tax law, and investigative journalism covering new religious movements.

Question posed in Way International, Organization Profile (ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer).

Open Twelve Tribes

Why It Is Open Twelve Tribes operates roughly 40 largely self-governing communities internationally with no found central financial disclosure; only a single town's property assessment, Plymouth, Massachusetts at more than 7 million dollars, was located, which describes one community's holdings rather than the movement's total.

What Would Settle It A consolidated accounting, whether voluntary or produced by investigative journalism, of Twelve Tribes' property and business holdings, including its Yellow Deli restaurant chain, across all of its international communities.

Expertise Needed New religious movement studies and communal economics, and investigative journalism covering Twelve Tribes' individual communities.

Question posed in My Time with the Twelve Tribes (Plymouth Independent, 2026), Lucia Thomas.

Open NXIVM

Why It Is Open NXIVM operated as a for-profit company rather than an audited nonprofit, and its collapse proceeded through a criminal racketeering prosecution that produced restitution to named individual victims and forfeitures by named individual defendants, Keith Raniere and Clare Bronfman among them, rather than a receivership or audit of the organization's own combined assets.

What Would Settle It A receiver's accounting, bankruptcy filing, or investigative reporting that totals NXIVM's corporate assets, real estate holdings and revenue as a single organization, distinct from the personal restitution and forfeiture figures tied to individual defendants.

Expertise Needed Corporate and criminal law concerning multi-level marketing and racketeering prosecutions, and investigative journalism covering NXIVM's business structure.

Question posed in Keith Raniere Ordered to Pay 3.5 Million Dollars in Restitution (Associated Press via Global News, 2021), Tom Hays.

Open Word of Faith Fellowship

Why It Is Open Word of Faith Fellowship is organized and recognized by the IRS as a church, a category exempt from the Form 990 filing that would otherwise make its finances checkable, and it has never published its own financial account. The only dollar figures the public record holds are a fraudulent unemployment claims total tied to individual members and a federal investigation into alleged abuse, neither a statement of the church's own assets or revenue.

What Would Settle It A voluntary financial disclosure, a court-ordered accounting from a future civil or criminal proceeding, or investigative journalism that totals the church's property, cash holdings and revenue as an organization, distinct from the individual-level fraud figures already on record.

Expertise Needed Nonprofit and tax law concerning church filing exemptions, and investigative journalism covering Word of Faith Fellowship's internal finances.

Question posed in Word Of Faith Fellowship Inc, Organization Record (ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer).

Open The Family International

Why It Is Open The Family International restructured in 2010 into a decentralized, largely non-communal network of individual members and associated organizations across many countries, has historically discouraged outside employment, and by a named scholarly account has never been wealthy as an organization; it has never published a single consolidated financial statement covering that network.

What Would Settle It A consolidated financial statement, investigative accounting or scholarly financial study totaling assets, property and revenue across The Family International's associated national entities and organizations, rather than the qualitative account of financial constraint currently on record.

Expertise Needed Sociology of religion and investigative journalism covering new religious movements' financial structures and cross-border nonprofit networks.

Question posed in Children of God / The Family International (CDAMM, 2021), Eileen Barker and Sarah Harvey.

Open Sikh-Mughal Wars

Why It Is Open J.S. Grewal's standard modern history of the Sikhs, and other accessible surveys of the conflict, record casualty figures for individual battles and massacres, tens of thousands at the Battle of Bhilowal, thousands at Chhota Ghallughara, hundreds at the siege of Gurdaspur, but none totals them into a single figure for the roughly ninety year conflict, and no comprehensive scholarly count was located. A figure is never invented to fill that gap.

What Would Settle It A scholarly synthesis totaling documented losses across the conflict's 1621 to 1715 span, or a demographic study of Punjab's population comparable to the census based methods used for other early modern wars. No such synthesis was located across the standard modern histories of the conflict.

Expertise Needed Military and demographic history of Mughal India and early Sikh Punjab.

Question posed in J.S. Grewal, The Sikhs of the Punjab (New Cambridge History of India II.3), J. S. Grewal.

Open Second Punic War

Why It Is Open Adrian Goldsworthy's scholarly history of the Punic Wars, and the ancient accounts of Polybius and Livy it draws on, record casualty figures for individual battles, roughly 15,000 Roman dead at Trebia, 15,000 at Lake Trasimene, and a toll near 50,000 at Cannae, alongside modern demographic reconstructions of the Roman citizen census, which fell from 273,000 in 225 BC toward roughly half that within the war's first decade. None of these totals a single figure for combat and civilian deaths on both sides across the full seventeen year war, and no comprehensive scholarly count was located.

What Would Settle It A scholarly synthesis totaling documented losses across the war's Italian, Spanish, Sicilian and African theaters, or a demographic study using the Roman citizen census figures to derive a total including allied Italian troops, Carthaginian forces and civilians, comparable to the census based methods used for other wars this atlas records. No such synthesis was located across the standard modern histories of the conflict.

Expertise Needed Roman republican military and demographic history.

Question posed in The Fall of Carthage: The Punic Wars 265-146 BC, Adrian Goldsworthy.

Open The Greco-Persian Wars

Why It Is Open Herodotus's Histories records casualty figures for individual engagements, Marathon, Thermopylae, Salamis, Plataea and Mycale among them, but modern scholars regard many of the ancient figures, including the size of the Persian invasion force itself, as unreliable and often inflated. No modern scholarly synthesis was located that totals deaths across the wars' span into a single figure; scholarship instead discusses each battle's own contested numbers on its own terms.

What Would Settle It A modern scholarly total built from revised, rather than Herodotus's own, troop and casualty figures across the wars' major engagements, or a demographic study of Achaemenid and Greek population loss over the conflict. No such synthesis was located.

Expertise Needed Ancient Greek and Achaemenid Persian military history.

Question posed in Histories, Herodotus.

Open Hundred Years War

Why It Is Open Jonathan Sumption's multi volume scholarly history covers the war's campaigns in detail, and named battle losses are documented, thousands of French dead at Crecy, Poitiers and Agincourt among them, but no historian's synthesis totals combat deaths together with the compounding effects of famine and the Black Death across the war's hundred and sixteen year span into one figure. Totals near two to three million, or as high as five million, circulate widely but trace to popular compilations rather than a named historian's stated methodology.

What Would Settle It A named historian's stated total distinguishing direct battle deaths from indirect famine and plague mortality across the war's full span, comparable to the demographic methods used for other wars this atlas records. No such study was located; only unattributed aggregator totals circulate.

Expertise Needed Late medieval English and French military and demographic history.

Question posed in The Hundred Years War, Volume I: Trial by Battle, Jonathan Sumption.

Open Coventina

Why It Is Open No literary source or inscription outside her own shrine explains what her name means or where it comes from. The name survives only as a religious dedication carved on Roman-period altars at one site, with no surrounding text to gloss it.

What Would Settle It A comparative Celtic and Brittonic etymological study of the name against known place and water-deity name elements, and continued epigraphic survey in case an uninscribed or fragmentary dedication elsewhere in Roman Britain or Gaul preserves a related or explanatory form.

Expertise Needed Celtic and Brittonic historical linguistics; Romano-British epigraphy

Question posed in A Dictionary of Celtic Mythology, James MacKillop.

Open Guruvayur

Why It Is Open A Kerala High Court division bench found in July 2026 that Guruvayur Devaswom's annual accounts for the 2023-24, 2024-25 and 2025-26 financial years had not been finalized or filed for statutory audit, that no physical verification of its gold and silver offerings had occurred in 43 years, and that auditors had been denied the digital access needed to check its online transactions, so no current total income or revenue figure for the Devaswom could be confirmed.

What Would Settle It The finalized, audited annual accounts of Guruvayur Devaswom for 2023-24, 2024-25 and 2025-26, once filed and made public in compliance with the Kerala High Court's July 2026 order, or independent reporting that reads them once they exist.

Expertise Needed Kerala Devaswom administration and public finance, and investigative or legal journalism covering religious endowment governance in Kerala.

Question posed in Kerala High Court Issues Directions To Strengthen Audit, Financial Transparency In Guruvayur Devaswom (LiveLaw, 2026), K. Salma Jennath.

Open Meenakshi Amman Temple

Why It Is Open Tamil Nadu's HR&CE Department administers the Meenakshi Amman Temple's finances but has not been found to publish a standing per-temple annual account for it; the state's own Comptroller and Auditor General reported in December 2024 that the department withheld the documents needed to verify temple revenue, and a Madras High Court order in September 2025 had to compel the department to produce the temple's own revenue and property details, which were not already public.

What Would Settle It A published per-temple annual account from Tamil Nadu's HR&CE Department for the Meenakshi Amman Temple specifically, or the department's compliance with the Madras High Court's September 2025 disclosure order once it is filed and made public.

Expertise Needed Tamil Nadu temple administration and public finance, and legal or investigative journalism covering HR&CE governance.

Question posed in Madras High Court Seeks Full Details of Meenakshi Temple Properties, Revenue and Encroachments (LawBeat, 2025), Salil Tiwari.

Open Ranganathaswamy Temple, Srirangam

Why It Is Open Tamil Nadu's HR&CE Department administers the Ranganathaswamy Temple at Srirangam's finances but has not been found to publish a standing per-temple annual account for it, and the state's own Comptroller and Auditor General reported in December 2024 that the department withheld the documents needed to verify temple revenue across its properties generally.

What Would Settle It A published per-temple annual account from Tamil Nadu's HR&CE Department for the Ranganathaswamy Temple specifically, naming its own audited revenue apart from the department's consolidated figures.

Expertise Needed Tamil Nadu temple administration and public finance, and legal or investigative journalism covering HR&CE governance.

Question posed in Tamil Nadu: CAG Slams HR&CE Department for Non-Cooperation in Temple Assets Audit (Organiser, 2024), TS Venkatesan.