The Emergence of the “Church history” and the predicament of Orthodox Hierarchy in the
Russian Empire of the early 1800s
Eugene LyutkoSaint Tikhon’s Orthodox UniversityResearch center for the History of Theology and Theological education
Metropolitan of Moscow Plato
(Levshin),1737–1812
Archbishop of Pskov Mefodiy (Smirnov),
1761–1815
Metropolitan of Moscow
St Philaret (Drozdov),1782–1867
Archbishop of Tver St Innokenty (Smirnov),1784–1819
Brief History of the Russian Church. In 2 vol. M., 1805
Liber historicus de rebus, in primitive sive trium et quarti in euntis speculum Ecclesia Christiana (…) gestis. M., 1805
Compend of Sacred History for Use in Church Schools. St.Ptsb., 1816;
Compend of Sacred History from Bible Times to 18th Century for Use in Church Schools). In 2 divs. St.Ptsb., 1817.
Eastern and Western Church
“The History of the memorable Council of
Florence in terms of the union undertaking to unify the Eastern Church with the
Western Church”
Between Greeks and Romans
The History of the Council of Florence convened to restore the connection between the Greeks
and the Romans
Romans
Romans
Romans
Romans
Not “Churches” but “nations”
but not Roman Church
Relations between nations
international relations inter-confessional relations
modernization of terminology
From
through
to
Cultural Gap
Russian clergy and nobility in the usual dress (first half of the 19th century)
Robert Pinkerton, Principal Agent of the British and Foreign Bible Society (BFBS), 1780–1859
“The candidates for the priesthood being thus trained up from their early years in these secluded retreats, have but few opportunities of mixing in civil society.
Therefore, on leaving the seminary, and entering the world, a student is like
foreigner coming into a strange country, with the language and manner of which he has but an imperfect acquaintance” Robert Pinkerton. Present State of Greek Church in Russia.
London, 1814. P. 10.
Modernization and Bureaucratization
Russian emperor Alexander I1777–1825
institutional autonomy of Hierarchy
“Church history”
modernization and secularization of property and political power
From
through
to
autonomy of “discourse”.
Civil Ecclesiastical
Education University system (1804) Ecclesiastical education
system (1814)
Publishing Secular censorship (1804)
Ecclesiastical censorship (1804)
Science Academy of science (1724)
Ecclesiastical academies (1814)
Aleksey Mikhailovich and Patriarch Nikon (17th century)
Peter the Great and Theophan Prokopovich
(18th century)
Katherine the Great and Russian hierarchs
(end of the 18th century)
bureaucracy
Alexander I and Russian
episcopate(early 19th century)
Two “pastorates”
Churchman Functionary
“Old” pastorate
Church hierarchy
Person
Monarch
Capitation tax (1718)“person” became the unit of fiscal taxation
“Table of Ranks” (1722)the framework for bureaucracy as a social phenomenon
“New” pastorate
Bureaucracy
Monarch
Ministry of National Education (1804)“Public shepherds” begin to perform a native function of the Church priests – to teach people
Emergence of the “Public Sphere”
Assembly of masons in the time of Alexander Iby Alexander Moravov (1912)
Polemics with “heretics”
decreases of the religion’s influence
From
through
to
Interconfessional discussion
Metropolitan of Moscow
St Philaret (Drozdov),1782–1867
“Conversation between a Seeker and a Believer Concerning the Orthodoxy of the Eastern Greco-Russian Church” (1815)
National Identity Problem
Prayer service on the eve of the Battle of Borodino
Mykola Samokysh (c. 1912)
“History of Muscovy”
emergence of the “secular patriotism” and “national consciousness”
From
through
to
History of the Russian State and Russian People
History of the (Russian) Churchvs
Conclusion: Theological Perspective
First-order theology
Setting forth as adequately as possible apicture of God, humankind and the world as they are
Second-order theology
Inquiring into the grounds or justification for accepting oneconstruction as compared to another in context ofincreasing encounter of world cultures and the development of sciences
Third-order theology
All theological positions are rooted fundamentally in imaginative construction and must be “palatable” to the contemporary human mind
Gordon Kaufman. Essay on Theological Method. Scholars press, 1975. P. 45–47
• With other Christian confessions, representatives of which felt increasingly free in the state elite in the beginning of the 19th century
• With bureaucracy concerning the relationship with the monarch and the right to teach
• With the “flickering” public space concerning the right to express the truth authoritatively and categorically without resorting to discussion and argumentation
• With the so-called “national identity” in connection with the right to impose un ultimate value basis in order to determine the historical identity of the Empire residents
Intellectual “correlation with another” for Russian hierarchy in the early 19th century as a
consequence of the transition to the second-order theology