Workshop for the Academic Study of Religions was founded as a youth non-government organization, Youth Association for the Study of Religions (YASR), in April 2004. Larysa Vladychenko was elected to be the first president of the organization.

The first event was the roundtable Bible in the Context of the Progress of the World’s Humanitarian Thought. It was devoted to the 100th anniversary of the Ukrainian translation of the Bible. In 2005, the organization initiated the Religious Studies Club, which explored various topics, starting with the relationship between religious studies and theology, modern atheism, the legislative work of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine in the field of religion, and the international conflict over the caricatures of Muhammad.

Since 2005, our organization has been conducting a series of research on national and religious tolerance of Kyiv students and Ukrainian pupils, the worldview and civic position of Protestant seminary students, and the civic position of Ukrainian Muslims.

In 2006, the organization conducted the first religious studies summer school, devoted to religious education. Religious studies schools have become a hallmark of the organization, and they have been held at least once a year for a long time. YASR has conducted more than 15 religious studies schools, devoted to Judaism and Islam; Catholicism and Orthodoxy; phenomenology, geography, and the psychology of religion; Protestantism and New Religious Movements; Vaishnavism and Buddhism; Western esoterism, etc. 

Since 2009, YASR has organized seminars and round tables in the regions of Ukraine (Donetsk, Lviv, Chernivtsi, Ostroh, Kharkiv) and co-organized international religious studies conferences in Minsk.

In 2009, there was founded Youth Association for the Study of Religions-Lviv and in 2010 – Donetsk Regional Youth Association for the Study of Religions. In 2010, our organization began publishing the journal Essays on Religious Studies, and in 2012, the collection of papers De Religione.

The Center for Jewish Studies, the Center for Academic Islamic Studies, the Center for the Study of Philosophy of Religion, and the Center for Religious Education Research functioned within the organization for some time. These centers carried out their successful projects: summer schools in Jewish studies (2010 and 2011), an international seminar on Islamic studies (2011–2013), a seminar-discussion titled “Knowing the Supernatural: Ways of Philosophy of Religion” (2011), etc.

Our organization has initiated the annual Congress of young researchers of religions, Religion in Modern Culture, held in Kyiv (2014), Chernivtsi (2015), Lutsk (2016), Lviv (2017), Kharkiv (2018), and again in Kyiv (2019).

From 2011 to 2013, Iryna Fenno served as President of YASR; from 2013 to 2015, the position was held by Oleg Kyselov; and from 2015 to 2019, by Ruslan Khalikov. In 2019, the organization changed its name to the Workshop for the Academic Study of Religions. In 2020, Karen Nikiforov was elected Head of WASR; in 2024, Uliana Sevastianiv; and in 2026, Olena Hruba.