in the works of St. Philaret, Metropolitan of Moscow

(speech before defending a dissertation for the degree of candidate of theology) The proposed study is devoted to one of the topics that has been little developed in Russian theological science - the formation of the ecclesiological views of St. Philaret, Metropolitan of Moscow. The study belongs to both the history of theology and the history of the Church, since it reveals their interdependence on specific material, reconstructs the theological component of the church-historical concept of St. Philaret, and also shows how the theological problems of the era posed by the course of history found their resolution in it. Its relevance is determined primarily by the fact that the very historical magnitude of the legacy and personality of St. Philaret does not allow them to be ignored when resolving the question of what foundation the modern theological tradition should be based on. The acceptance or rejection of his theological paradigms today is a kind of litmus test that allows us to determine the position of a particular author on other issues that are not at all related to the history of synodal theology. In addition, the special significance of the church-historical ideas of St. Philaret is obvious today against the background of disputes about the status of church history as a theological science. The study and application of these ideas to life can and should contribute to a fruitful understanding of church-historical problems in general. Chronologically, the study covers mainly the second half of the 18th – first quarter of the 19th centuries. The lower limit here indicates the beginning of the widespread dominance in Russian educational theological institutions of the school that educated the saint, based on the theological system of the Right Reverend Theophan Prokopovich, the upper limit - 1825 - conventionally indicates the entry of the saint into the period of theological maturity. However, since before talking about the school of the Right Reverend Theophan, it is necessary to give an idea of ​​the latter’s own theological heritage, and in order to clarify some provisions of the ecclesiology of St. Philaret it is necessary to draw on his later writings, in general the work covers the period from the beginning of the synodal reforms to the death of St. Philaret, i.e. from 1721 to 1867. The study aims to identify the genesis, methodology and conceptual foundations of St. Philaret’s ecclesiology, which involves: identifying theological issues determined by the church-state reforms of the 18th century; determination of the characteristic features and peculiarities of the theological tradition formed in the 18th – early 19th centuries; determining the degree of inclusion of St. Philaret in it; identifying the methodological principles of his theological work; systematization of the main provisions of his teaching about the Church; placing them in the context of the theological tradition of the 18th – early 19th centuries. The study of the heritage of St. Philaret has a fairly stable historiographical tradition, dating back to the second half of the 19th century. At the same time, although the relatively recently published “Bibliographic Index of Published Works of St. Philaret, Metropolitan of Moscow and Kolomna and Literature about Him” in the section “Publications about St. Philaret” contains about 500 titles, there are few works related directly to the topic of research. Domestic historiography is represented in this regard primarily by the works of prof. I. N. Korsunsky, which form the basis of scientific phylaretics, and the works of Prot., important from a conceptual point of view. Georgy Florovsky. Foreign historiography is small in volume, but contains several interesting studies. In recent years, interest in the legacy of the saint has been growing among domestic not only ecclesiastical, but also secular authors. However, despite this, the state of scientific development of this topic cannot be considered satisfactory. In domestic and foreign historiography, no scientific works have been found that cover the problems of the proposed study and exhaustively resolve the problems posed in it. The study is based on the study of only published sources, since they are the ones who “embody” the existence of significant ideas of time. In turn, the sources can be divided into basic (belonging directly to the saint himself) and contextual. The first, in addition to the saint’s own theological works, include primarily his sermons, the dogmatic significance of which was already recognized by his contemporaries. The second includes the sources of “school” theology, the homiletical heritage of Russian saints and the works of lay theologians of the 18th – early 19th centuries. The set objectives determined three levels of research - contextual, methodological, conceptual - structured into three main chapters. The first chapter first of all identifies the ecclesiological consequences of the church-state reforms of the 18th century, describes the theological reform of the Right Reverend Theophan (Prokopovich) and examines how his ideas were realized in the works of Russian hierarchs of the second half of the 18th - early 19th centuries; Here, additional contextual sources of that time are explored: theological writings of the laity, the doctrine of “pure love”, significant for the Russian tradition, although it came from the West, and, finally, a conclusion is drawn about the main ecclesiological collision of the era. The second chapter first gives a brief description of the personality of the saint, analyzes his early works, written during the years of study and teaching at the Moscow Seminary (“Lavra period”), and shows how the philological developments of this time become the basis of his subsequent theological work, which ultimately makes it possible to formulate an idea of ​​the theological method of the saint. The third chapter examines the formation of the ecclesiological views of St. Philaret, and also provides the actual reconstruction of his ecclesiological concept. As a result of the study, the following conclusions were drawn: 1. The eighteenth century – the century of Peter’s and Catherine’s reforms – radically changed the social and state – “earthly” – conditions of existence of the Russian Church. Their understanding required a developed ecclesiology applicable to the new situation, which the Russian Church did not possess at that time. One of the important reasons that determined this situation was the fundamental rejection of the ecclesiological concept of St. Joseph of Volotsky, which was dominant in the Russian tradition until the 18th century, based on the idea of ​​\u200b\u200bthe sacred significance of statutory piety. 2. The ideologist of the synodal reforms, as well as the new synodal theological school, was the Right Reverend Theophan (Prokopovich). The tradition he founded called the word of Scripture the single source and object of theological study and set as its task, through its scientific study, to ensure the absence of “preconceived opinions” in the Tradition, which was minimized to the limit. This formulation of the question gave sanction for a critical revision of pre-synodal ecclesiology, but it was unproductive for the creation of a new ecclesiological model, since as a result it resulted in the formation of a contradiction between the idea of ​​the word of God as the only criterion for the truth of the sacred Tradition of the Church and the simultaneous desacralization of the same word of God as an object of scientific research. None of the authors of the second half of the 18th - early 19th centuries, both school and secular, could overcome this contradiction in their works, each for their own reasons. At the same time, the experience accumulated in this work did not disappear without a trace, giving greater or lesser, positive or negative impulses for a qualitatively new understanding of the problem of the Church in the works of St. Philaret. 3. A study of the genesis of the theological views of St. Philareta says that, having been brought up in the traditions of the school of His Eminence Theophan, he was able to rise above the limitations of its teaching thanks to both some characteristic features of his personality and the involvement in his work of philosophical and theological paradigms rejected by the school. All contextual sources - including the sources of the school - were critically examined by him, and to one degree or another were included in the elements of the future ecclesiological synthesis. 4. In the process of this work, the saint created a unique and at the same time generally valid method of theological research. In the saint’s method, the word of Scripture, abiding in the Church, is considered to be a living and active word, having a deep connection with the creative verb of God, as a result of which moving it (the word) into various semantic series makes it possible to establish not only an externally associative, but also a significant connection between phenomena, surpassing that which can be discovered using scientific-critical or philosophical methodology. This method can be defined as church-biblical. 5. Based on this method, the saint made an ecclesiological synthesis. This synthesis defines the Sacred history given in the word of Scripture as a single source, both for understanding Church life and for creating a systematic teaching about the Church. In the concept of the saint, the point of intersection of historical and systematic coordinates becomes the church, on the one hand, arising in Sacred history as its most important impulse and motive, on the other hand, representing the Church in its timeless plan. In this “church ecclesiology” the saint bridged the “gaps” between “Divine” Scripture and “human” tradition, the “historical” and “internal” church, the sensory manifestation of the sacrament and the sacrament “in sich”. The range of main problems associated with the life of the Church in society (Church and power, Church and culture) is considered and resolved in the concept of the Sacred Kingdom, the basis of which was also the word of Revelation. 6. Thus, if the teaching of Bishop Theophan at the beginning of the 18th century. created a field for the theological justification of Peter's church-state reforms, which in turn determined the subsequent problems of the school, then the ecclesiological synthesis of St. Philaret gave its consistent resolution. Moreover, this theological synthesis also opened up the possibility of changing the life of Russian society, however, not through possible external counter-reforms, but from within - through the proper interpretation of this life by the living and effective word of God, through the “implantation” of the word of Scripture into the immediate context of life. According to the saint’s plan, this was a necessary condition for rebuilding it (Russian life) as the life of spiritual Israel, overcoming the crack that once split it into “civil” and “church.”