On Line Library of the Church of Greece

Georges Florovsky

Ways of Russian Theology

1. Slavophilism was an ideological movement that arose in the 1840's in Russia. At that time there were intense controversies raging concerning the meaning of Russia's history, sparked by Chaadaev's "First Philosophical Letter" published in the journal Teleskop in 1836. In many ways the focal point of these debates was precisely Peter's reforms. The Slavophiles, believing in the uniqueness of the Russian spirit, which they defined in terms of Slavic nationality and Orthodox Christianity, rejected Peter's attempt to bring Russia on the path of Western European history and saw the present evils in Russia as the result of a Westernized aristocracy and government spiritually and culturally divorced from the huge masses of the Russian people.

2. Feofan Prokopovich was born in Kiev and studied at the Kiev Academy, Polish schools, and the College of St. Athanasius in Rome where, instead of succumbing to Catholic theology he developed a lasting hatred of Catholicism and fell under a Protestant orientation. While prefect of the Kiev Academy he impressed Peter on several occasions with sermons glorifying the tsar for his victory at Poltava. Thereupon he was brought to St. Petersburg as first bishop of Pskov and then archbishop of Novgorod. See below, especially section III.

3. This is an allusion to Feofan Prokopovich's O pravde voli monarshei v opredelenie svoikh po sebe naslednikov [On the Justice of the Monarch's Will in his own Determination of his Heirs] , in which he states that the tsar's will is superior to any power and cannot be judged.

4. Rozysk istoricheskii, koikh radi vin, i v kakovom razume byli i naritsalisia imperatory rimtsii, kak iazychestii, tak i khristianstii pontifeksami ili arkhiereiami mnogobuzhnago zakona; a v zakone khristianstem khristianstii gosudari mogut li nareshchisia episkopi arkhierei, i v kakom razume.

5. Samuel von Pufendorf (1632-1694) was a German writer and jurist who, however, spent his most productive years in Sweden. His De jure naturae et Gentium libri octo (1672), and especially the excerpt from it published in 1673, De officio hominls et civis juxta legem naturalem, was a widely read treatise on natural law. In his De habitu rehgionis Christianae ad vitam civilem he proclaimed the civil superiority of the state over the church, and this work served as a basis for the collegial system of church government in Sweden. Pufendorf is singled out in the Spiritual Regulation as a teacher worthy of study.

6. Hugo Grotius (1583-1645) was a Dutch jurist, statesman and humanist. His most famous work, De iure belli ac pacis libri tres (1625) brought him renown as the "father of international law." In addition he wrote on theology, history, Biblical commentaries, and also was the author of numerous poems in Latin.

7. Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) was a controversial British empiricist and political philosopher. In works such as Leviathan, or the Matter, Form and Power of a Commonwealth, Ecclesiastical and Civil (1651), De cive (1642) and De corpore politico (1655) he defended absolute monarchy as the only workable political form, berated papists and Presbyterians for attempting to limit the powers of sovereigns, and held that the church and the state are one body over which the sovereign alone is head.

8. This phrase came into use in the German empire after the rise of Lutheranism, when quarrels over the official religion of local principalities broke out because of situations where the faith of a prince was different than that of his subjects. The Peace of Augsburg (1655) established the principle that "he who rules, his is the religion," a principle that served to set the temporal ruler at the head of national Protestant churches.

9. This remark is from the book entitled Ecclesia romana cum ruthenica irreconciliabilis (Jena, 1719), written at Feofan's invitation and on the basis of information he provided. (Author's note]. "He did this in order to proclaim himself the head and supreme ruler of the church in Russia." Johann Franz Buddeus (1667-1729) was a professor at Jena and the most versatile and respected Lutheran theologian of his age. He published works on history, philosophy, the Old Testament, and two theology courses: Institutiones theologiae moralis (1711) and Institutiones theologiae dogmaticae (1723).

10. Stefan Iavorskii was born in 1658 in a family of Ukrainian lesser nobility. He studied at the Kiev Academy and was also sent to various colleges in Poland to complete his education. While in Poland, he became a Uniate, as was the ; normal practice for Russians studying in the West, and moreover became thoroughly imbued with Latin theology. On his return to Kiev in 1689 he reverted to Orthodoxy, became a monk, and rose high in the faculty of the Kiev Academy. Sent to Moscow in 1700 to be consecrated bishop of Pereiaslavl, he attracted the attention of Peter with one of his sermons and the tsar had him named instead the metropolitan of Riazan' and Murom. After the death of Adrian he was appointed temporary administrator of the patriarchate, a position which he held until the dissolution of the patriarchate in 1721, and also superintendent of the Moscow Academy. Throughout his long tenure as nominal head of the Russian, Church Iavorskii opposed the reforms of Peter and Feofan, whose episcopal consecration he had protested in 1718, but was powerless to do anything about it in the face of the iron will of the tsar. Still he was named president of the Ecclesiastical College (later renamed the Most Holy Synod) at its inception, but took no active role in it and died the following year, 1722. Stefan Iavorskii's Latin oriented polemic against Protestantism, Kamen' very, is discussed below.

11. The term "caesaropapism," which refers to a ruler possessing supreme authority over the church as well as the state, was originally applied by certain historians to Byzantium where the emperor often wielded enormous control over the Greek Church. To Fr. Florovsky, however, it is better suited to the national churches formed in the Reformation where the temporal ruler was actually  recognized as the official head of the church.

12. Filaret Gumilevskii, archbishop of Chernigov from 1859 to 1866, was the author of Obzor russkoi dukhovnoi Iiteratury (St. Petersburg, 1884) and Istoriia russkoi tserkvi (Chernigov, 1847). See chapter V and note 68.

13. Giovanni Pontanus (1422-1503), Italian politician and humanist, was the head of the Neapolitan Academy. His dialogues on morality, religion and literature, as well as his lyrical poetry, were written in what was considered the most fluent Latin style of his day.

14. Joseph Justus Scaliger (1540-1609) was a French Calvinist humanist and linguist. A professor first at Geneva and then at the University of Leiden, he was known for his editions of several ancient writers, his Poemata omnia (1615), and his two chief works, De emendatione temporum (1583) and Thesaurus temporum (1606) which founded the science of chronology.

15. The actual term here is skomorokhi, wandering minstrels of old Russia who went from village to village performing acts and doing tricks. They were opposed by the Church hierarchy.

16. His Syntagma theologiae christianae was published in Hanover in 1609. [Author's note]. Amandus Polanus von Polansdorf (1561-1610) was the leader of the conservative Calvinists in Basel. He also composed commentaries on the books of the Old Testament and produced a German translation of the New Testament.

17. Johann Gerhard (1582-1637) was a conservative Lutheran professor of theology at Jena whose Loci communes theologici was the most authoritative Lutheran theological system of its time. He also wrote Confessio catholica (in four parts, 1634-1637), a defense of Lutheranism with arguments drawn from Catholic authors, as well as various exegetical and devotional writings.

18. Adam Zernikav (or Chernigovskii) was a Lutheran scholar who after a long study of early church history and the Eastern Orthodox Church decided to move to Russia and convert to Orthodoxy. In Chernigov in 1682 he wrote De processione Spiritus Sancta a suo Patre which was kept in the library of the Kiev Academy but not published until 1774 in Konigsberg.

19. Robert Bellarmine (1542-1621) was a cardinal in the Roman Catholic Church. His Disputationes de controversiis christianiae fidei adversus hujus temporis haereticos, first published in Rome from 1581 to 1593, synopticized both Roman Catholic and Protestant theology, and was previously used by Peter Mogila. Bellarmine also worked on the commission that produced the Sixtus-Clementine Vulgate.

20. The Russian Academy of Sciences was founded in St. Petersburg shortly after Peter's death in 1725. It had been a pet project of his since his journey to Europe in 1717 when he discussed the project with the philosopher Leibnitz and was made an honorary member of the French Academy of Sciences. The Russian Academy was established by Germans, and the total membership for the entire l8th century was two-thirds foreigners.

21. The great Spanish Jesuit Francis Suarez (1548-1617) wrote on philosophy and theology in a Thomistic vein, as well as on law and politics. Suarez was a most prolific author (the 1856 Paris edition of his collected works covers 28 volumes) and we can only mention here his principal philosophical treatise, Disputationes metaphysicae, which went through 18 editions in the l7th century and was widely used in Protestant as well as Roman Catholic universities.

22. Raspria Pavla i Petra o ige neadobosominom, written in 1712, but published only in 1774 as part of Feofan's collected works. [Author's note].

23. The traditional Orthodox doctrine of salvation stands apart from the Reformation argument on faith and works, presupposed here by Feofan. The Orthodox fathers saw salvation accompHshed in a collaboration of divine grace and the free will of man, the doctrine of synergeia.

24. Anton V. Kartashev (1875-1960) was a distinguished Russian and emigre Church historian and one of the founders of the St. Sergius Academy in Paris. His main work is the two volume Ocherki po istorii russkoi tserkvi (Paris, 1959).

25. Feofilakt Lopatinskii, a graduate of the Kiev Academy, was brought to Moscow in 1704 to teach philosophy at the Moscow Academy. Later he became professor of theology and rector (from 1706 to 1722). In spite of his differences with Feofan (like Iavorskii, he protested Feofan's consecration in 1718) Lopatinskii remained in the favor of the tsar and in 1722 was named archimandrite of the Chudov Monastery and a member of the Synod, and the following year bishop of Tver'. After Peter's death he actually became the dominant figure in the Synod, until he was arrested and imprisoned under Empress Anna. Reprieved on Elizabeth's accession (1741), Feofilakt died a year later. On his quarrel with Feofan see I. Chistovich, Feofan Prokopovich i Feofilakt Lopatinskii (St. Petersburg, 1861).

26. Markell Rodyshevskii had taught at the Kiev Academy during Feofan's tenure there, and it was Feofan's influence that gave him his position as archimandrite of the Iur'ev Monastery. However, Markell was a staunch opponent of Peter's reforms and after the tsar's death he opened a vigorous attack on the author of most of these reforms, his former friend Feofan. Markell, in fact, even went so far as to write a biography of Feofan under the title The Life of the Archbishop of Novgorod, the Heretic Feofan Prokopovich. Spending most of the years between 1725 and 1740 in confinement or exile for his views, he was restored to his position at the Iur'ev Monastery only after Elizabeth came to power, and shortly before his death in 1742 he was even made a bishop.

27. Feofilakt's remarks are contained in his book On the Lord's Blessed Yoke [Ob ige Gospodnem blagom ] . [Author's note]

28. Vladimir, Slavenorossiiskikh stran kniaz' i povelitel', ot neveriia tomy v svet evangel'skii privedennyi Dukhom Sviatym. A recent scholarly edition of Vladimir is provided in I. P. Eremin, ed., Feofan Prokopovich: Sochineniia (Moscow-Leningrad, 1961), pp. 149-206.

29. The younger daughter of Peter the Great, Elizabeth (1709-1762) had been passed over for the Russian throne in 1730 because of her illegitimate birth (she was born before Peter married her mother, Catherine I). However, she was highly popular in many circles, most importantly the military, and aftei Anna Ivanovna's death (see note 31) a palace coup against Anna's chosen successor, the infant Ivan VI, put Elizabeth finally on the throne in 1741. Her reign witnessed a flowering of Western cultural forms in Russia (opera, ballet, theater, etc.), the establishment of the first Russian university and a general replacement of German (and Protestant) influences at court with French. Relatively pious in her observance of Church ceremonies, she put an end to the "persecution" of Anna's reign.

30. Johann Peter Kol' (d. 1778) held the chair of oratory and Church history at the Academy of Sciences, where he was invited in 1725 on the basis of the book cited here. He left Russia for a time in 1727, according to a colleague at the Academy because he was so hopelessly in love with Grand Princess Elizabeth Petrovna he could not work, but before that he supervised the Academy's gymnasium and wrote several reports for the Academy: De manuscriptis bibliothecae mosquensis, De origine linguae russicae, and De lexico slavonico conciendo.

31. Anna was the daughter of Peter's half brother Ivan, co-tsar with him until his death in 1696. In 1710 Peter married her off to the Duke of Courland (a small Polish vassal state on the Baltic Sea), and even though her husband died on the return trip Peter decided it would be politically expedient to have his niece the sovereign of this strategic area. Therefore Anna lived in Courland, destitute, lonely and bored, until a crisis in the succession to the Russian throne in 1730 brought high dignitaries of Russia to Courlanil to offer her the throne, on the condition that she accept certain limitations of her powers. She agreed, was crowned empress, renounced all limitations to her powers and proceeded to rule most autocratically. Because of her  background and the climate in which she came to rule Anna was continually suspicious of intrigues against her and her  government soon evolved into a "police state." The traditional view of her reign is as a "dark era" in Russian history when her German advisors overran the government. This view has been substantially altered by recent historians, but at any rate the Church in this period bore a heavy and often cruel yoke.

32. Emst Johann Biron (1690-1772) was a Courlander who served at Anna's court when she was duchess there and came to Moscow as her lover when she became empress. He is traditionally seen as the real ruler of Russia during her reign (hence the term Bironovshchina to describe this period), but modern historians differ as to the serious extent of his actual influence. In  1737 he was made Duke of Courland, and on Anna's death he was regent fisr the infant tsar Ivan VI for three weeks, after which he found himself under arrest by rivals and exiled. Catherine II restored him to his duchy in 1763, where he lived the rest of his days in peaceful obscurity.

33. Amvrosii Iushkevich (1690-i745) was a well-known, highly ornate preacher and` from 1740 until his death the archbishop of Novgorod. Ironically, he rose to power during Anna's reign and was a political opponent of Elizabeth's, but when the latter became empress he was quick to repent of his former follies. As archbishop of Novgorod he revived Metropolitan Iov's school there and developed it into Novgorod's first seminary.

34. Dimitrii Evdokimovich Tveritinov was a doctor and man of science with many friends in the German suburb, where he became well acquainted with Luther's works. His scientific background and Protestant influences led him to the denial of relics, miracles and the veneration of icons, and to hold the Bible as the sole source of religious authority. He was forced to recant and eventually returned to the fold of Orthodoxy, but the process took several years and heightened rivalries and animosities at the highest levels of Peter's government. At the trial of a student of the Moscow Academy accused of Protestantism and free-thinking in 1713, Tveritinov was denouced as the source of  these heresies.Fleeing to St. Petersburg he placed himself  under the protection of the Senate (an executive organ of Peter's, not a legislative body), which found him Orthodox and ordered Iavorskii to agree. Iavorskii thereupon appealed directly to Peter, who, though doubtless in sympathy with Tveritinov's ideas, could not tolerate the breach of authority contained in them, and Tveritinov was finally condemned in 1716. This affair left Peter disgruntled with Iavorskii for forcing him to contradict his Senate, left the Senate bitter with Iavorskii for appealing over their heads, and left Iavorskii despairing of the possibility to function with any authority.

35. Iavorskii's Rock of Faith was written perhaps as early as 1713.

36. Buddeus' tract was published as Defense of the Lutheran Church against the Calumnies of Stefan lavorskii (Epistola apologetica pro ecclesia Lutherana contra calumnias et obtrectationes Stephani Javorcii ad amium Mosque degentem script]. Robert Stupperich, in "Feofan Prokopovic und Johann Franz Buddeus," Zeitschrift fur osteuropaische Geschichte, IX (n.s., v), (1935), pp. 341-362 argues that it was not Feofan but a former student of Buddeus then in Moscow, Peter Muller, who sent Iavorskii's book to Jena. He also does not find Feofan  to have been the teal author of Buddeus' rejoinder.

37. Johann Lorenz von Mosheim (1694-1755) was a professor of theology at Helmstedt and later at the University of Gottingen, which he helped establish. His most important work was in the field of Church history, where he was one of the first to apply modern historiographical methods, and his Institutiones historiae ecclesiasticae (Helmstedt, 1755) was often reproduced and widely used as a textbook.

38. Although little is known of the life of Ivan Tikhonovich Pososhkov (c. 1652-1726), his writings mark him as an intellectual giant in l8th century Russia.Called by many the first Russian economist, his chief work On Poverty and Wealth [Kniga o skudosti i bogatstvie, 1724] is a fascinating economic treatise in which Pososhkov deals with prices, taxes, the coining of money, relationships of landlords to the peasantry, and the need for advanced agricultural techniques and government support for industry. He also outlines a plan for economic and social reform in Russia. This book probably led to his demise in the Peter and Paul fortress in St. Petersburg two years after it was written, but before that he was also known as an enlightened writer on ecclesiastical and social themes. Of particular interest here is The Clear Mirror [Zerkalo ochevidnoe] which : Pososhkov wrote in 1708 mainly against Protestantism and the Old Believers. A modern study of this remarkable person is B.B. Kafengauz, I.T. Pososhkov: zhizn' i deiatel'nost' (Moscow, 1951).

39. The historian and philologist Gottlieb Siegfried Bayer (1694-1738) was educated at Konigsberg University and held the chair of antiquities and oriental languages at the Academy of Sciences in St. Petersburg. In  Russia he accomplished valuable work in the fields of history and geography, compiled a Chinese dictionary, and wrote a history of Russia. As he never learned to read Russian his history was based solely on Byzantine and Scandinavian sources in Latin translation and helped to establish the "Normanist theory" in Russian historiography, i.e., that practically anything of political or cultural value in ancient Russia came from Varangian traders who established their rule over the early Slavic tribes.

40. Adam Burkhardt Sellius (d. 1746), a Dane, was a student of Buddeus at Jena. He came to Russia in 1722 and taught Latin at Feofan's school, and subsequently served as a teacher in Moscow, in St. Petersburg at the Academy of Sciences, and at the Aleksandr Nevskii Seminary. In 1744 he converted to Orthodoxy and became a monk with the name Nikodim. He was known to later generations in Russia for his bibliographical and historical works, most notably Schediasma litterarium de scriptoribus, qui historiam politico ecclesiasticam Rossiae illustrarunt (Revel, 1736; Russian translation Moscow, 1815), Istoricheskoe zertsalo rossiiskikh gosudarei (original Latin unpublished, Russian translation Moscow, 1773), and De rossorum hierarchia, which was never published but was put to use by later Russian historians.

41. Patriarch Dositheus expressed concern over Latin influences in Russia on a number of occasions. Alttiough he himself sent the Likhud brothers to Moscow to open the academy there, he denounced them when they introduced Latin into the curriculum. Later he protested Iavorskii's consecration to the see of Riazan and warned Peter not to bring Ukrainians to Russian sees. On this redoubtable hierarch himself see chapter II, note 200.

42. His Scientia sacra (1706-1710) exists in manuscript; cf. the Zapiski of I. Krokovskii [Author's note].

43. Petr Vasil'evich Znamenskii (1836-1917) was an eminent Russian Church historian. One of his chief works is Dukhovnaia shkola do reformy 1808 goda (Kazan', 1881).

44. Nikolai Sergeevich Trubetskoi (1890-1938) was a well-known Russian and emigre historian of Slavic literature and general linguistic scholar. His chief work is Grundzuge der Phonologie (Vienna, 1939).

45. Epifanii Tikhorskii an archimandrite from Chernigov was bishop of Belgorod from 1722 until his death in 1731. He founded his Russian language school in Belgorod, and it was moved to Kharkov in 1726.

46. The Aleksandr Nevskii Monastery was founded in 1710. Peter intended it to become a type of training center for higher clergy in Russia, and he once ordered that all archimandrites for all Russian monasteries reside first at this monastery, where the tsar could inspect them for himself. In 1721 a grammar school was founded there by Feodosii Ianovskii, then this school was transformed in 1725 into the Slavonic-Greco-Latin Seminary of St. Petersburg.

47. Aleksandr Ivanovich Herzen (1812-1870) was a Russian radical journalist, philosopher and literary critic. He spent his most productive years in London. where he published the famous journal Kolokol.

48. Platon Levshin (1737-1812) was one of the few truly great hierarchs of the l8th century. Born near Moscow, he studied at the Moscow Academy and after fmishing taught rhetoric there. In 1763 he was brought to St.Petersburg as preacher to the court of Catherine II and a tutor for Grand Duke Paul. He rose successively to the rank of archimandrite, member of the Synod, bishop of Tver' (1770), and in 1775 he became the metropolitan of Moscow. During his 37 years as metropolitan of Moscow Platon proved himself to be a more than capable administrator, re-orgaruzing his diocese and the Academy and introducing numerous measures to raise both the moral and material level of his clergy. In the early part of his life he was known as one of the most successful preachers in Russia, and over 500 of his sermons are preserved. Later he distinguished himself as a writer and pedagogue. Among his voluminous writings are handbooks and instructions covering almost every aspect of church life, a short history of the Russian Church, and several catechetical and dogmatic works written in the Russian language, the most famous of which, Pravoslavnoe uchenie very, was published in Latin, French, German, English and Greek during his lifetime.A full account of hia life and works is A. Barsov, Ocherk  zhizni mitropolita Platona (Moscow, 1891). He is also discussed below, especially pp. 141-146.

49. This was Rule 36 in the section on monasticism. It was not in the original version of the Regulation, but as early as 1701 Peter forbade monks to keep writing materials in their cells, and this prohibition was confirmed by an edict in January of 1723.

50. Nikita Petrovich Giliarov-Platonov (1824-1887) was a l9th century Slavophile publicist. See chapter V, note 247.

51. Decree of September 1, 1723. [Author's note] .

52. Cf. the "notification" [Ob'iavlenie] of 1724. [Author's note] .

53. See below for Paisii Velichkovskii's outright condemnation of this practice. [Author's note] .

54. Arsenii Mogilianskii (1704-1770), a graduate of the Kiev Academy, taught at the Moscow Academy and was a popular preacher both there and at Elizabeth's court. A member of the Synod from 1744, he retired to the Novgorod-Severskii Monastery in 1752, but was called out of retirement to assume the office of metropolitan of Kiev.

55. Those who taught in such a manner included Feofilakt, Gedeon Vishenskii, and to some extent Kirill Florinskii in Moscow; Innokentii Popovskii, Khristofor Charnutskii, Iosif Vochanskii and Amvrosii Dubnevich in Kiev. Mentioning Arsenii Matseevich's name would not be inappropriate at this point. [Author's note] .

56. "Peripatetic" refers to the philosophy of Aristotle, popularized in Western Europe by the scholastics. The term is derived from Aristotle's practice of walking around (peripatain) as he taught, and the colonnade in his lyceum, called the peripatos.

57. Christian Wolff (1679-1754) was a German philosopher and mathematician who taught at the University of Marburg and at Halle. In his philosophy he strove to systematize scholastic philosophy on the basis of his mathematical method. His moral and political philosophy had great intluence and by the middle of the l8th century dominated German universities.

58. Usually in the edition prepared by N. Bantysh-Kamenskii, Baumeistri Elementa philosophiae, published in Moscow in 1777 but printed in Kiev as early as 1752. [Author's note].

59. Johann Gerhard, Loci theologici; Johann Quenstedt, Theologia didacticopolemica sive systema theologicum (Wittenberg, 1685); Johann Buddeus, Institutiones theologiae dogmaticae (1723) and Isagoge historico-theologica ad theologiam universam (1727).

60. Sil'vestr Kuliabka (1701-1761) taught rhetoric, philosophy and theology at the Kiev Academy and also served as rector. His two popular lecture compilations were Cursus philosophicus (1737) and Theologicae scientiae summa (1743). Later he became metropolitan of St. Petersburg. Georgii Konisskii (1718-1795), the archbishop of Mogilev, although also the author of a theology and a philosophy course, was known chiefly for his struggles against the Uniates in Poland. Gavriil Petrov (1730-1801) was first bishop of Tver' and then metropolitan of St. Petersburg, where he was active with the academy. He also served on Catherine II's Legislative Commission as the representative of the Russian clergy, and on a commission to evaluate the ecclesiastical schools (see below).

61. Feofilakt Gorskii (d. 1778) was a professor and rector of Moscow Academy, and bishop of Pereiaslavl and Kolomna. Ortodoxae orientalis ecclesiae dogmata, seu doctrina christiana deccredendis et agendis was published for a second time for use in the seminaries in 1818. A shorter version, Dogmaty khristianskoi pravoslavnoi very, was published in Latin and Russian in 1773, translated into German that same year, and French in 1792. Iakinf Karpinskii, known to his fellow monastics as Cicero (1723-1798), had a varied career in five semmaries and ten monasteries. His Compendium was a standard textbook. Sil'vestr Lebedinskii (d. 1808), rector of the Kazan' Academy and archbishop of Astrakhan, was also the author of the popular Netlennaia pishcha (Moscow, 1799) and Pritochnik evangel'skii (1796), Biblical commentaries in verse. Irinei Fal'kovskii (d. 1823) taught mathematics as well as theology at the Kiev Academy and was bishop of Smolensk and Chigirin.

62. Cf. the desire expressed in the statute of Moscow University "that the Greek language be taught." [Author's note] .

63. Russian foreign policy had long been directed towards the south, against Tatar tribes and the Ottoman Empire. With the Turkish war ending in the treaty of Kutchuk-Kainardji (1774) Russia had gained a firm footing on the Black Sea and demonstrated her military superiority in that region. Catherine II's "Greek Project" or "grand design" was to continue Russian expansion in thatdirection until the Turks were expelled from Europe and she  could revive the Byzantine Empire with its capitol at Constantinople. The initial step of this plan was taken with the annexation of the Crimea in 1783 and another Turkish war ending in 1792 with the Russians gaining the entire north coast of the Black Sea, but Constantinople, of course, was beyond reach. During this time Catherine actively promoted Russia's Byzantine heritage and even had her second grandson named Constantine.

64. See above, note 48.

65. This was when the number of Academies was increased to four (in Kiev, Moscow, St. Petersburg and Kazan') and eight new seminaries were opened. Teaching at all levels was upgraded, and a system of lesser schools, primarily for cantors, was created.

66. After graduating from the Kiev Academy Simon Todorskii (d. 1754) was sent abroad for ten years to study languages. On his return he taught at the Kiev Academy, was bishop of Kostroma and then archbishop of Pskov and a member of the Synod. Except for a small number of sermons his works were not published a report on Russian ecclesiastical schools remaining in the  Imperiallibrary in St. Petersburg, a treatise on Oriental languages  being kept in the library of the Academy of Sciences, and his  Rudimenta linguae graecae remaining in manuscript in the library of the Chernigov Seminary. He also translated Arndt's On True Christianity, but it too was not put in print.

67. Johann Heinrich Michaelis (1668-1738) was a professor of Oriental languages and later of theology at the University of Halle. A pietist, he was the center of Francke's Collegium Orientale theologicum (see note 78) and he edited a critical edition of the Old Testament (1720) and an exegetical work on the Hagiographa (Halle, 1720).

68. The "Elizabethan Bible" was issued in 1751 and the printing was repeated in 1756, 1757 and 1759. [Author's note] . Iakov Blonnitskii  (1711-1774) taught at the seminary in Tver' and from 1743 to 1748 he taught at the Moscow Academy. While in Moscow he composed a short Greek grammar, translated the Enchiridion of the Stoic philosopher Epictetus and began work on the new Bible. In 1748 he retired because of illness to a monastery in Belgorod, from which he secretly travelled to Mt. Athos, returning to the Kiev Brotherhood Monastery ten vears later. Blonnitskii also compiled an unpublished Slavonic grammar and translated Dionysius the Areopagite's On the Heavenly Nierarchy. Varlaam Liashchevskii (d. 1774) taught Greek at the Kiev Academy and was subsequently the rector of the Moscow Academy and a member of the Synod. He continued Blonnitskii's work on the Elizabethan Bible, wrote a foreword for it, and authored a Greek grammar in Latin which was later revised, expanded,translated into Russian and used as a standard textbook in all  Russian seminaries.

69. The Walton, or Londinensis, Polyglot (London, 1654-1657) was edited by Brian Walton and Edmond Castle and contained the Scriptures in Hebrew, Samaritan, Aramaic, Greek, Latin, Ethiopian, Syrian, Arabic, and Persian. Of all polyglot Bibles it is still considered the best.

70. Compiled under the patronage of the Spanish cardinal and statesman Jimenez de Cisneros, the Complutensian Polyglot (Alcala de Hernares [Complutum), (1514-1517) combined the first printing of the Hebrew Old Testament, the Septuagint and the Greek New Testament with the Vulgate and Aramaic.

71. The Zographou monastery, together with the Russian monastery of St.Panteleimon and the Serbian monastery of Chilander (all of which still exist),formed a medieval literary center where Byzantine religious writings were translated into Slavonic. Here Blonnitskii had the opportunity of collating numerous Greek and Slavic manuscripts.

72. On Johann Mosheim see note 37. Joseph Bingham (1668-1723) was an English clergyman and scholar who wrote the exhaustive Origines ecclesiasticae, or The Antiquities of the Christian Church (10 volumes, 1708-1722). Joachim Lange (1670-1744) was a professor of theology at Halle, known mostly for his pietist doctrinal works and hymns, and for his Historia ecclesiastica Veteris et Novi Testamenti (Halle, 1722).

73. Louis Sebastien le Nain de Tillemont (1637-1698) was a French priest and scholar. He was a pioneer in applying internal criticism to historical documents, and his Histoire des Empereurs et des autres princes qui ont regne durant les six premiers siecles de l'dglise (six volumes, 1690-1738) won praise from the English historian Gibbon. His Memoires pour servir d I histoire ecclesiastique des six premiers siecles (sixteen volumes, 1693-1712) was a massive, comprehensive and detailed work.

74. The first edition appeared in Moscow in 1773, the third in 1819. [Author's note] .

75. Veniam.in Rumovskii-Krasnopevkov (1739-1811) taught at the Aleksandr Nevskii Seminary and was also rector there before becoming bishop of Arkhangel in 1775 and Nizhegorod in 1798. Novaia Skrizhal', ili populnitel noe ob iasnenie o Tserkvi, o Giturgii, o vsekh sluzhbakh i utvariakh tserkovnykh went through numerous editions in the l9th century.

76. Euchologion is a common name for books containing the Orthodox liturgy and other rites. Various editions of it were published beginning in the l6th century, but the best and most complete is still Goar's Euchologium seu rituale graecorum (Paris, 1647). Goar (1601-1653) was a Dominican who lived on the Greek island of Chios for nine years and wrote several studies of the Eastern liturgy.    

77. Irinei Klement'evskii (1753-1818), a graduate of the Moscow Academy, taught Greek and Hebrew there and was also the school preacher. A member of the Synod since 1788, he became bishop of Tver' in 1792 and archbishop of Pskov in 1798. Aside from his translations of the Church fathers his chief works are Tolkovaniia na sviashchennoe pisanie (in six volumes, 1782-1814), Sobranie pouchitel'nykh slov (1791) and Bogoslovskii traktat o smerti, o sude, o mukakh i vechnom blazhenstve (1795).

78. Cf. the Collegium Philobiblicum founded by August Francke. Francke himself was a professor of Hebrew. [Author's note]. August Hermann Francke (1663-1727) was converted to pietism in Leipzig,'and it was there that he founded his Bible study club, the Collegium Philobiblicum, in 1685. Later he taught Greek, Hebrew and theology at Halle while at the same time ministering to a local parish, where he was a most popular preacher. Francke also devoted himself to foreign missions and to the education of the poor.

79. The Orphan Asylum was founded by Francke in 1695. In it poor and orphaned children were provided for and given an elementary education, and the teaching staff consisted of poorer students at Halle University who gave lessons in exchange for their tuition. The Orphan Asylum also contained a publishing establishment that eventually became one of the greatest publishing houses in Germany.

80. Johann Arndt (155-1621) was a German Lutheran pastor known for his immensely popular mystical writings. Vier Bucher vom wahren Christentum (1606) was quickly translated into almost all European languages, and influenced many subsequent Protestant and Roman Catholic devotional writings, as well as St. Tikhon of Zadonsk (see below). Another well known mystical work of Arndt's is Paradiesgartlein aller chritlichen Tugenden (1612).

81. Anastasii propovednik rukovodstvo k poznaniiu stradanii spasitelia and Uchenie o nachale khristianskago zhitiia.

82. See above, note 60.

83. One of the 'most prominent bishops of Catherine II's reign, Innokentii Nechaev (1722-1799) was professor of philosophy and prefect of Moscow Academy, archimandrite of the Holy Trinity Monastery, bishop of Tver', archbishop of Pskov and a member of the Holy Synod. He was known more as a preacher and spiritual writer than a scholar, and his chief works in this connection are Nastavlenie sviashchenniku (St. Petersburg, 1793), Prigotovlenie k smerti (St. Petersburg, 1793) and Chin ispovedi dlia detei (St. Petersburg, 1793). Innokentii was also an active member of the Academy of Sciences in the liguistic division.

84. Cf. the "Statute for the Greater Encouragement of Students and for the Better Maintenance of the Learned Clergy." [Author's note] .

85. The secularization of Church lands had been the aim of the Russian government since Peter the Great. Peter III, nephew of Elizabeth and husband of Catherine the Great, issued a decree transferring the administration and revenues of ecclesiastical properties and peasants to the government in 1762. After Catherine took power she found it necessary to postpone the move until she was more firmly enthroned, so she appointed a commission to study the matter. Then in March, 1764 Catherine confirmed the takeover. The decree on secularization criticized the Church administration in several respects, and in the process some 250 monasteries were disbanded or converted to parish churches.

86. From the "Proposal" [Proekt ] , paragraph 4. [Author's note] .

87. Also known as the Primary Chronicle or the Tale of Bygone Years, Nestor's chronicle is an ancient, year by year account of the earliest events of Russian history, beginning with the year 852 and including the famous account of Russia's conversion to Christianity under Prince Vladimir. It was written in the firsf half of the l lth century, and over the next 75 years underwent several re-work'ings. Nestor, a monk of the Kiev Monastery of the Caves, was one of the final redactors. There is an English translation by S. H. Cross and O. B. Sherbowitz-Wetzor, The Russian Primary Chronicle (Cambridge, 1953).

88. Veniamin Bagrianskii was sent to Leyden in 1766 and returned in 1776. He taught philosophy at the Novgorod Seminary, served as rector of the Aleksandr Nevskii Seminary, then returned to Novgorod as professor of theology and rector before becoming bishop of Irkutsk in 1789.

89. Kirill Razumovskii (1724-1794), whose older brother Aleksei was the favorite of Empress Elizabeth, was the last hetman of the Ukraine, holding the office from 1750 to 1764.

90. Count Petr Aleksandrovich Rumiantsev (1725-1796) was a renowned general and field marshal and from 1764 the governor-general of the Ukraine.

91. Samuil Mislavskii (1731-1796) graduated from the Kiev Academy, was a professor and rector there, and from 1783 he was the metropolitan of Kiev. As a professor he used the teaching methods of Comenius (see chapter III, note 106) and as rector and metropolitan, inspired by the Enlightenment ideals of Catherine II's reign, he introduced the study of the Russian language and philology and such secular subjects as mathematics, geography and civil history. His Uchitel' very: dogmaty pravoslavnoi very was published in Kiev in 1760 and the Latin grammar he composed in 1765 was long considered the best in the Russian language. Metropolitan Samuil was also known as the continuator and publisher of the works of Feofan Prokopovich.

92. Sergei Konstantinovich Smirnov (1818-1889) was a prominent figure in ecclesiastical education in the 'l9th century. A professor and rector of the Moscow Academy, he was known as an able historian as well as a Greek, Patristic and Biblical scholar. The remark here is from his Istoriia Moskovskoi slavianogreko-latinskoi akademii (Moscow, 1855).

93. Joseph II was the Austrian emperor from 1765 to 1790. One of the l8th century "enlightened despots" he was a patron of science and scholarship and instituted numerous reforms in his empire, many of which did not even survive him. He visited Russia twice, in 1780 and 1785.

94. Throughout his autobiography Platon refers to himself in the third person.

95. A.P. Stanley, in his Lectures on the History of the Eastern Church (London, 1881) describes Bethany as "the gay Italian-like retreat." [Author's note].

96. Paul (1754-1801) was the son of Catherine II and (supposedly) her assassinated husband Peter III. He ascended the throne on his mother's death in 1796, forty-two years .old; mentally unbalanced and despising his mother and her policies. After We years of tyranical rule he himself was assassinated and his elder son, Alexander I, became emperor.

97. In 1788 several groups of "Priestist" Old Believers (those who retained priests after the Schism) were admitted to the Russian Orthodox Church and allowed to use the pre-reform liturgy and service books provided they accept priests from the official Church hierarchy. More groups accepted this proposal and in 1800 the Holy Synod issued special canons for the edinovertsy.

98. For example, note the historical research of Nikodim Sellius (d. 1746). [Author's note]. On Nikodim Sellius see above, note 40.

99. The son of a poor fisherman, Mikhail Vasil'evich Lomonosov (1711-1765) became one of the premier scientists and linguists in Russian history. Educated at schools in Moscow and St. Petersburg, he then studied for five years at the University of Marburg under Christian Wolff. On his return he was a professor of chemistry at the Academy of Sciences and in 1755 helped organize Moscow University. As a scientist he worked in the fields of metallurgy, astronomy, geology, economics and geographical exploration, often anticipating later discoveries in the West. He was also known as a poet, and his odes helped establish a stylistic basis of versification for Russian poetry. Lomonosov's most intluential work, however, was in language. His Kratkoe rukovodstvo ritorike (1743) and especially his Rossiiskaia g-ammatika (1755) standardized the modern Russian literary language by merging, along strict theoretical lines, Old Church Slavonic and contemporary dialectical Russian.

100. Originally from Serbia, Makarii Petrovich (1734-1766) lived in Russia and studied at the Moscow Academy, then became rector of the Tver' Seminary. A collection of his sermons was also published posthumously in 1786.

101. Pravoslavnoe uchenie, soderzhashchee vse chto khristianinu svoego spaseniia ishchushchemu, znat' i delat' nadlezhit.

102. Arsenii Vereshchagin (1736-1799) taught rhetoric at Tver' since 1761 and on Makarii Petrovich's premature death in 1766 he succeeded him as rector and professor of theology. In 1773 he was made bishop of Arkhangel, but returned to Tver' in 1775 as bishop of that city, where he was extremely popular for his devotion to the seminary and care for the needs of the students. Later he became archbishop of Iaroslavl and Rostov and a member of the Synod. Known also as a Greek scholar (he introduced the study of Greek at the Tver' Seminary) Arsenii corrected and edited a 1772 Russian edition of Chrysostom's  homilies.

103. Metropolitan of Kiev Evgenii Bolkhovitinov (1767-1837) was a most active compiler of historical materials and publicist. Entering Moscow Academy in 1785, he also took courses at the University of Moscow, where he was active in the translation and publishing circle around the Mason N.I. Novikov. In 1789 he went to Voronezh as a teacher of Church history in the seminary there, then in 1800 he came to St. Petersburg, took monastic vows and taught philosophy and oratory at the St. Petersburg Academy. Beginning in 1804 he held various episcopal positions until in 1822 he was chosen metropolitan of Kiev, where he remained until his death in 1837. Evgenii was a prolific, if not very deep writer. Wherever he lived he occupied himself with organizing local archival materials and producing short historical works on that particular region. In addition he made translations, wrote on Russian music and literature, produced official polemical works and engaged in archeology. His chief works are two dictionaries of Russian writers, Slovar' istoricheskii o byvshikh v rossii pisateliakh dukhovnago china (first published in 1805 in the journal Drug prosveshcheniia, revised and supplemented 1827,) and Slovar'russkikh svetskikh pisatelei (Moscow, 1845), and his lstoriia rossiisskoi ierarkhii (Kiev, 1827). See below, pp. 175-177.

104. See above, note 54.

105. Iuvenalii Medvedskii (1767-1809) was a monk from Novgorod who came to the Trinity Monastery in Moscow in 1802 and served as a catechist at the Trinity Seminary. His work cited here was one of the first atterapts at a theological system in the Russian language, Iuvenalii also wrote a Kratkaia ritorika na rossiiskom iazyke (Moscow, 1806).

106. The Table of Ranks was instituted by Peter the Great in 1722 as an attempt to reorganize the government bureaucracy and enlist the entire nobility in the service of the state. All military and civil positions were graded in fourtegn ranks, all noblemen, regardless of family prestige, were to enter the lowest ranks, and advancement through the ranks was to be strictly regulated. Furthermore a commoner was able to enter the lowest rank and by working to the upper ranks attain noble status. This system originally encompassed the whole noble class, but although it survived until 1917, it was not strictly observed after  Peter's time.

107. This is a reference to O povrezhdenii nravov v Rossii, by the political figure and publicist Mikhail Mikhailovich Shcherbatov (1733-1790). In it he attacked the manners of contemporary courtiers while glorifying pre-Petrine values. There is an English translation by A. Lentin, On the Corruption of Morals in Russia (Cambridge, England, 1969).

108. Such were the first lodges linked by I.P. Elagin; cf. also James Anderson's Book of Constitutions [Author's note]. The Book of Constitutions was a basic document of reformed English freemasonry and was published in 1723. On Elagin see note 127.

109. Note the search for "higher degrees" of the type elaborated by Baron Reichal, the so-called "system of strict observance." [Author's note]. The first Russian lodges functioned somewhat as social clubs. Later Russian freemasons formed elite groups of those dedicated to higher mystical activities, with tighter organization and discipline. Reichal (1729-1791), a former master of the ducal court at Brunswick (which abounded in masons) brought to Russia one of these higher levels of masonry.

110. Ivan Vladimirovich Lopukhin (1756-1816) served in the military and on the Moscow criminal courts before devoting himself completely to N.I. Novikov's publishing enterprise at Moscow University. Lopukhin translated works of Western mystics and freemasons, wrote several treatises of his own, and was grand master of a lodge in Moscow. Like others of Novikov's circle he also engaged in philanthropy and educational work, and served the governments of Paul and Alexander I in various positions. In 1790 he published a defense of freemasonry in Russia, Nravouchitel nyi katekhizis istinnykh fran-masonov.

111. The Theoretical Degree was a degree of the Rosicrucian Order, which was brought to Russia in 1782 by Schwartz (see below). Those who belonged to it were known as "Theoretical Brothers."

112. Francois de Salignac de la Mothe Fenelon (1651-1715) was a French theologian, educator and archbishop. While running a school for young Protestant girls converted to Catholicism in Paris he wrote the Traite de 1 Education des filles (1687) which was influential in women's education. Then, between 1689 and 1699 when he was a tutor for the grandson of the French king, he produced his Fables, Dialogues des morts, and Telemaque, designed as a series of texts to fit the different levels of development of his royal pupil. The purpose of these texts was to train the prince to be a wise, virtuous ruler, and the last one, Telemaque: vaincre les passions, a pseudo-classical novel in verse based on the Odyssey, was extremely popular in Russia and provoked much political as well as literary discussion. In 1695 Fenelon became archbishop of Cambrai and wrote several mystical treatises, which embroiled him in controversies over quietism. His Traite de l Bxistence de Dieu (1712-1718) approached the problem on both intellectual and mystical levels, and though Fenelon himself remained a devout Catholic, this and his other works were especially appealing to sentimentalists and deists.

113. Nikolai Mikhailovich Karamzin (1766-1826) was one of the most important literary figures of his day in Russia. In his early career he was a poet and novelist best known for Poor Giza (1792). In 1789 he traveled throughout Europe and on his return he edited the Moscow Journal, in which he published his Pis'ma russkogo puteshestvennika (1791-1792), a sentimental account of his travels written in the style of Laurence Sterne. Karamzin founded the journal Vestnik Evropy in 1802, but the next year he was named court historian and devoted the rest of his life to historical research. His Memoir on Ancient and  Modern Russia (1811) and the twelve volume Istoriia gosudarstva rossiiskago (1819- 1826) were patriotic historical justifications of autocratic government in Russia and were influential both for historiography and literary style.

114. Vasilii Andreevich Zhukovskii (1783-1852) was an important Russian poet and translator, and a literary disciple of Karamzin. Educated in Moscow, he served in the military during the Napoleonic wars, became a member of the emperor's court and in 1826 was named a tutor to the future tsar Alexander II. He was one of the founders of the literary society Arzamas, and translated such Western romantics as Schiller, Goethe and Byron, as well as Homer's Odyssey.

115. Aleksei Mikhailovich Kutuzov (d. 1690) was introduced to the Rosicrucian order while a student at the University of Leipzig from 1766 to 1770. He was active in lodges in St. Petersburg and Moscow, where he was also engaged in extensive translating activity. Kutuzov died while on business for the order in Berlin.

116. Edward Young (1683-1765) was a well-known English writer. Night Thoughts (1742-1745), written after the successive deaths of three members of his family, is a long dramatic monologue divided into nine "Nights" expressing the author's grief, thoughts on death, and quest for religious consolation. Young was also the author of Conjecfures on Original Composition (1759), a piece of literary criticism which anticipated several ideas of the romantics and was especially popular in Germany.

117. Ioann (Johann) Georg Schwartz (d. 1784) was a young, aristocratic student of the occult and member of a German "strict observance" lodge who was brought to Russia in 1776. He was soon placed by his influential patrons at Moscow University, where he lectured on philology, history and philosophy. Schwartz began his own "strict observance" lodge in Moscow in 1780, and the following year, on a trip abroad, he joined the Rosicrucians and brought that order back to Russia with him.

118. Claude-Adrien Helvetius (1715-1771) was a controversial French philosophe with a hedonist bent. His most famous works were De d'Esprit (1758), in which he denied all religious bases for morality, and De l homme (1742), a treatise on education. Baruch (Benedict) Spinoza (1632-1677), a Dutch Jew, was the foremost exponent of an impersonal, rational order in the universe and the author of Ethica (1677), Tractatus de intellectus emendatione (1677) and Tractatus theologico-politicus (1670). Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778), the famous French philosopher and political theorist, was best known in Russia for Emile, ou de l education (1762) and Du contrat social (1762).

119. Aleksandr Fedorovich Labzin (1766-1825) was one of the most influential Russian masons of the first decades of the l9th century (see below, pp. 170-172 and pp. 183-185). Educated under Schwartz at Moscow University, he worked for a time at the Academy of Ait, as a historiographer for Emperor Paul, and at the Admiralty under Alexander I. Labzin opened his own Rosicrucian lodge in 1800, and from 1801 to 1806 translated and published several works by Eckartshausen (see chapter V, note 13) and Jung-Stilling (see chapter V, note 19). In 1806 he began his famous journal Messenger of Zion, which at first did not succeed,but was resurrected in 1817 and this time enjoyed a wide  circulation. Labzin then continued as a leading masonic publicist and active member of the Russian Bible Society until he was banished in 1821 for lese majeste.

120. On Jacob Boehme see chapter III, note 105.

121. One of the leaders of the anti-rationalism movement of the late l8th century, Louis-Claude de Saint-Martin (1743-1803) was a wealthy French aristocrat who devoted himself to mystical writings in the context of his higher order freemasonry. His Des Erreurs et de la veiite (1775) was an instant success and was almost immediately translated into Russian. Also popular were L Homme de desir (1790), Le Nouvel homme (1792), Le Crocodile (1798), L.Esprit de chose and Ge Ministere de l'homme-esprit (1802). He signed his works "Le Philosophe Inconnu" and because of his popularity in Russia Russian mason- mystics were commonly called "Martinists."

122. John Mason (1706-1763) was one of the best known of the English Nonconformists. He was famous in his time for his Self Knowledge; a Treatise, shewing the nature and benefice of that important science, and the way to attain it (London, 1754).

123. Semen Ivanovich Gamaleia (1743-1822), a former student of the Kiev Academy, taught Latin at the St. Petersburg  military academy for two years before entering government service in 1770. He retired in 1784 to devote himself to his enormous translation activity (his translation of Boehme covers 22 volumes) in connection with Novikov's Typographic Company, and was also master of the Devkalion lodge in Moscow. His correspondence with his fellow masonic leaders (published in two volumes in Moscow, 1832, and a third volume, Moscow, 1836-1839) is an important source for the study of this period.

124. Valentin Weigel (1533-1588) was a Protestant mystic and an opponent of scholasticism. Johann Gichtel (1638-1710)- was a prominent theosophist at Zwoll, known for his attacks on Lutheran doctrine. His writings have been collected in the seven volume Theosophica practica. John Pordage (1608-1698), English astrologer and mystic, was the author of Theologia mystica (1680), Mystic divinitia (1683) and Metaphysica veva et divina (1698).

125. Early alchemists often combined mysticism and sorcery with their pseudochemical pursuits. Georg von Welling is known for his curious book, Opus MagoCabbalisticum et theosophicum, darinnen der Ursrung, Natur, Eigenschaften und Gebrauch, des Salzes, Schwefels und Mercurii (1735). Nikolaus Anton Kirchberger is important for his correspondence with Saint-Martin, Le corres-pondence inedite de L.D. de Saint-Martin dit le philosophe  inconnu et Kirchberger Baron de Liebstorf (Amsterdam, 1862). Robert Fludd (1574-1673) was an English physician and Rosicrucian and the author of Medicina Catholic seu mysticum artis medicandi sacrarium (Frankfurt, 1629).

126. Lorenzo Scupoli (1530-1610) is the author of Combattimento Spirituale (1660), translated into English from a Russian text by E. Kadloubovsky and G. Palmer, Unseen Warfare (London, 1952). Angelus Silesius (1624-1677) wrote German religious poems inspired by the writings of Boehme. John Bunyan (1628-1688), an English minister, was widely famous for The Pilgrim's Progress (1678). Miguel de Molinos (1640-1697) was an important Spanish pietist. Pierre Poiret (1649-1719) was a French mystic, known for his L'economie divine (1687). Madame Guyon (1648-1717) was the most renowned exponent of quietism.

127. Ivan Perfil'evich Elagin (1725-1793) was a wealthy and influential official in Catherine's government and at one time director of music and the theater for her court. He was the chief organizer and spokesman for the more rational English freemasonry centered in St. Petersburg, becoming a mason in 1750 and in 1772 being named the Wst Russian provincial grand master.

128. The eldest son of Emperor Paul, Alexander I was proclaimed emperor after his father's assassination in 1801 and reigned until 1825. See chapter V, note 1 and pp. 162-168.

129. The philosophy of Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph von Schelling (1775-1854) was a quest for wholeness in the universe and in human life and knowledge, an attempt to combine the scientific study of nature with the religious and spiritual yearnings of mankind. Schelling's ideas were fust spread among Russians in the first decades of the l9th century by two St. Petersburg professors, Daniil Kavunnik-Vellanskii and Aleksandr Galich, then at Moscow University by Ivan Davydov, Nikolai Nadezhdin and Mikhail Pavlov. In 1823 a group of students at Moscow University, including V.F. Odoevskii, Dimitrii Venevitinov,  Aleksandr Koshelev, and Petr and Ivan Kireevskii, formed the Obshchestvo Liubomudriia [Society of Lovers of Wisdom] , whose purpose was to discuss German idealistic philosophy, particularly Schelling. This group itself somewhat resembled a masonic organization and though it was disbanded in the wake of the Decembrist uprising its members continued to propagate Schelling's philosophy, and by the 1830's Schellingianism was dominant in Russian intellectual circles. Schelling's ideas were also at the root of Slavophilism.

130. Vladimir Fedorovich Odoevskii (1803-1869) was one of the founders in 1823 of the Society of Lovers of Wisdom (see preceding note). A graduate of Moscow University, he worked for several years on the journals Moskovskii Vestnik and Sovremennik (along with Pushkin) before moving to St. Petersburg in 1826. There he occupied himself with writing short stories and novels lordan Bruno i Petr Aretino, Samarianin, and Russkie nochi (all 1844)  were three of an unfinished cycle of ten novels, and the philosophical discussions in them represent the height of the Russian romanticism of the 1830's. After these were published Odoevskii abandoned his Hterary activity and worked as director of the St. Petersburg library and from 1861 he was a senator. He is also known as the father of classical Russian musicology, and helped establish the St. Petersburg and Moscow conservatories.

131. Cf. the translation by A. Petrov of Count Haugwitz' Pastoral Epistle [Pastyrskoe Poslanie] which appeared in German in 1785. [Author's note] .

132. On Schwartz see note 117 on Novikov see chapter V, note 38 on Kheraskov see chapter V, note 49 for Lopukhin see this chapter, note 110. Zakharii Iakovlevich Karneev (1747-1828), senator and member of the State Council under Alexander I, was active in the Moscow lodges and founded a lodge in Orel in 1784 (when he was vice-governor there). For Gamaleia see above, note 123.

133. Grigorii Skovoroda was a Ukrainian mystic and philosopher who acquired the character of a legend through almost 30 years of wandering about the Ukraine. He studied at the Kiev Academy, then, being an exceptional singer, was sent to the court chapel in St. Petersburg. In 1750 he accompanied a diplomatic mission to Hungary and spent three years roaming Hungary, Poland, Austria and Germany. On his return to Russia he taught for a year at the seminary in Pereiaslavl and also at the Kharkov Collegium. Skovoroda left there in 1766 and spent the remainder of his life on his famous peregrinations. He left a  varied literary output consisting of dialogues, letters, poems, songs, folk tales, and some translations of ancient philosophers.

134. Mikhail Ivanovich Kovalinskii (or Kovalenskii, 1757-1807), a curator of Moscow University, was a life-long friend of Skovoroda, having first met him when the latter taught at the Kharkov Collegium in 1159. He wrote his Life in 1796, but it was not published until 1886, in Kievskaia Starina, no. 9.

135. Marc-Antoine Muretus (1526-1585) was a French humanist and a Roman Catholic priest and teacher in Rome. He issued several annotated editions of ancient Latin poets as well as his own poems in French, collected in Juvenilia (1552).

136. The Elizabeth Bible was commissioned by the Holy Synod in 1723 as a correction and revision of the last Slavonic Bible printed in 1663. The work was not completed until 1751, during the reign of Empress Elizabeth, and this Bible was printed four times in the 1750's.

137. Vladimir Frantsevich Ern (1882-1917) was a Russian philosopher. He wrote a biography of Skovoroda, published in Moscow in 1912.

138. The Khlysty were founded in the l7th century by a man who claimed to be God, declared one of his male disciples to be Christ, and one of his women followers to be the Mother of God. A group of this sect was discovered in Moscow in the 1730's, and over 400 were prosecuted for the heresy in Moscow in the 1740's. Thereafter the sect flourished underground, and by the late l9th century claimed over 60,000 members. The Khlysty denied the doctrine of the Holy Trinity and held that God inhabited the man Jesus Christ, who died a natural death and was buried in Jerusalem. Essentially dualistic, they taught that  the body is the prison of the spirit and marriage was condemned and children called "incarnations of sin." God would become incarnate in the faithful Khlyst, however and he would have the inner voice of the spirit to direct him, making all books, including the Bible, superfluous. Congregations were typically led by a "Christ" and a '`wlother of God" and their rituals turned into frenzied dances followed by ecstatic prophesying. The sect was able to grow underground because outwardly the members were pious church-goers, believing the Orthodox Church services to be symbols of their own mysteries.

139. The Skoptsy were a late l8th century offshoot of the Khlysty, who went even further in their condemnation of sexual relations by advocating a "baptism of fire" or castration. Their most important early leader was Konrad Selivanov, who was exiled to Siberia under Catherine II but returned to Moscow and was known personally to Emperors Paul and Alexander I. During the latter's reign some high placed connections allowed him to live quite comfortably and spread his doctrines rather freely. Under the next tsar, Nicholas I, the Skoptsy were persecuted, but like the Khlysty existed secretly in large numbers.

140. Appearing in this period in the Ukraine, the Dukhobors [Spirit-Wrestlers] were mystical sectarians whose doctrine combined Socinian, Freemason and Khlysty teachings. While rejecting the excessive prescriptions of the latter, they organized themselves in strict communes, which often, grew wealthy as a result of their hard work and sober living. They had many famous coritacts, from Grigorii Skovoroda, who helped them compose a confession of faith presented to the governor of Ekaterinoslavl in 1791, to the novelist Count Lev Tolstoi. The latter provided funds for a large group of Dukhobors to emigrate to Western Canada in 1899.

141. The Molokans [Milk Drinkers] were formed by an early Dukhobor leader dissatisfied with their doctrine. The new sect resembled Evangelical Christianity at times, accepting the Bible as the sole authority for their faith while rejecting icons, rituals and fasts (thus their name).

142. Dimitrii Sechenov (1709-1767) was an important figure in the early years of Catherine II's reign, and the main executor of her ecclesiastical policies. Becoming a monk while a student at the Moscow Academy, Dimitrii taught there for several years then worked for ten years on missionary activities, in which he was highly successful. In 1742 he was named bishop of Nizhnii-Novgorod in1752 bishop of Riazan and Murom, and in 1757 he was elevated to archbishop of Novgorod. In all three sees Dimitrii actively promoted ecclesiastical education by improving and reorganizing the seminaries and in Novgorod he even established a system of grammar schools. Under Catherine Dimitrii served on several special commissions, including the commission on Church properties, and he died while attending the meetings of the Legislative Commission.

143. This favorable conclusion by the Synod is a direct reference to the decree of February 11, 1764 on the settlement of the brethren. [Author's note.] .

144. Cf. the points raised by the Over Procurator I. I. Melissino in 1767 during the composition of a Synodal Instruction [Sinodal'nii nakaz] for the Legislative Commission. However, these points were not implemented. [Author's note].

145. See above, note 60.

146. Jean-Francois Marmontel (1723-1799), French poet, dramatist and critic, was best known for his autobiography, Memoires d'un pere (1804). Belissaire (1767) was a philosophical, romantic novel.

147. The Philokalia [Dobrotoliubie in Russian] is a compilation of mystical wriimgs which is of great importance in Russian spirituality, containing rare and otherwise unknown texts and serving as a vital link to Palestinian and Byzantine spirituality. Compiled by the Athonite monks Macarius of Corinth and Nicodemus the Hagiorite, it was first published in Venice in 1792, but the complete version was only published in Russian in 1877. Portions of the Philokalia are available in English in E. Kadloubovsky and G. Palmer, Writings from the Philokalia on Prayer of the Heart (London, 1951) and Early Fathers from the Philokalia (London, 1954).

148. For some contemporary accounts of this famous saint, as well as excerpts from his writings, see Nordland's Collected Works of G.P. Fedotov.

149. Joseph Hall (1574-1656) was an Anglican bishop in the reign of Charles I. His Meditatiunculae Subitaneae eque re nata subortae later appeared in Russian translation as Vnezarnyia razmyshleniia, proizvedennyia vdrug pri vozzrenii na kakuiu-nibud'veshch' (Moscow, 1786). [Author's note] .

150. Noche oscura, Noche del Espiritu. Tikhon should also be compared to Tauler and Arndt. [Author's note]. St. John of the Cross, founder of the Spanish Discalced Carmelites (1542-1591), was known for his poetry and mystical theological writings and is a doctor of the Roman Catholic Church. Dark Night is a poem published with a theological commentary on reaching perfect union with God, The Ascent of Mount Carmel.

151. This story is recounted by Ivan Efimov in his memoirs of St. Tikhon. Tikhon "resolved to return to the man who had insulted him and to beg for forgiveness for' having led him into such temptation.' So, going back, he fell at the feet of his host . . . This act so deeply impressed the nobleman that he himself fell on his knees at the bishop's feet, imploring forgiveness. From that day on his behavior towards his serfs was completely altered." See A Treasury of Russian Spirituality. Volume II in Nordland's Collected Works of G.P. Fedotov.

152. Veshchi and sovershenie in Tikhon's translation. [Author's note] .

153. There is an excellent account of Paisii's life and influence on Russian monasticism published in English by Nordland Publishing Company: S. Chetverikov, Starets Paisii Velichkovskii.

154. See above, note 60.

155. St. Nil (c. 1433-1508) was the first great Russian mystical ascetical writer and the founder of the "non-possessing" school of monasticism. See above, Chapter I, section VI.