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