The European Society for Intercultural Theology and Interreligious Studies was founded on 19 March 2005 in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, by a group of scholars from different parts of the European continent.

While most of the society’s members are based in Europe, ESITIS has been developing and maintaining links with scholars from other continents. That is visible, for example, in the number of speakers and participants at its conferences coming from the US, Canada, and the Middle East. The conferences provided the occasion for launching the journal Interreligious Studies and Intercultural Theology (ISIT). Since 2017, ESITIS has held a meeting with ISIT, the Journal of Interreligious Studies (JIRS), the Association for Interreligious/Interfaith Studies (AIIS), and The Pluralism Project at Harvard prior to each AAR conference.