The document discusses the evolution of church history and the challenges faced by the Orthodox hierarchy in the Russian Empire during the early 1800s, focusing on institutional changes and the transformation of religious authority. It highlights the modernization and bureaucratization of the church under Emperor Alexander I, alongside the tension between the Orthodox Church and other confessions in the context of national identity and the public sphere. The complexities of theological discourse and the relationships with civil society and state mechanisms are examined, illustrating the impact of these dynamics on religious and cultural identity in Russia.

1. The Emergence of the “Church history” and the
predicament of Orthodox Hierarchy in the Russian
Empire of the early 1800s
Eugene Lyutko
Saint Tikhon’s Orthodox University
Research center for the History of Theology and Theological education

2. 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.

3. 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”

4. Between Greeks and
Romans
The History of the Council of Florence
convened to restore the connection
between the Greeks and the Romans

5. Romans
Romans
Romans
Romans
Not “Churches” but
“nations”
but not Roman Church

6. Relations between nations
international relations inter-confessional relations
modernization of terminology
From
through
to

7. Cultural Gap
Russian clergy and nobility in the usual dress (first half of the 19th
century)

8. 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.

9. Modernization and Bureaucratization
Russian emperor
Alexander I
1777–1825

10. institutional autonomy of Hierarchy
“Church history”
modernization and secularization of property and political power
From
through
to
autonomy of “discourse”.

11. Civil Ecclesiastical
Education
University system (1804) Ecclesiastical education
system (1814)
Publishing Secular censorship (1804) Ecclesiastical censorship
(1804)
Science Academy of science (1724)
(1724)
Ecclesiastical academies
(1814)

12. Aleksey Mikhailovich and Patriarch
Nikon
(17th century)

13. Peter the Great and Theophan Prokopovich
(18th century)

14. Katherine the Great and Russian hierarchs
(end of the 18th century)

15. bureaucracy
Alexander I and
Russian episcopate
(early 19th century)

16. Two “pastorates”
Churchman Functionary

17. “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

18. Emergence of the “Public Sphere”
Assembly of masons in the time of Alexander I
by Alexander Moravov (1912)

19. Polemics with “heretics”
decreases of the religion’s influence
From
through
to
Interconfessional discussion

20. 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)

21. National Identity
Problem
Prayer service on the eve of the Battle of
Borodino
Mykola Samokysh (c. 1912)

22. “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

23. Conclusion: Theological Perspective

24. First-order
theology
Setting forth as adequately as possible a
picture of God, humankind and the world as they are
Second-order
theology
Inquiring into the grounds or justification for
accepting one
construction as compared to another in context of
increasing 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

25. • 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