Metropolitan Philaret (Drozdov) and the training of pastors in the Russian ecclesiastical school in the first half of the 19th century

Abstract

The main focus of study is aimed at the development of institutional forms in 19th century Russian Empire. This period is the era of emperors Alexander I, Nicholas I and partly Alexander II — the time of rapid state, church and public institutions development. During this period clergy was becoming the subject of government regulation. The body of clergy itself is acquiring corporate features, and the number of clergies who have passed through educational institutions is growing. Theology is faced with a question that is still relevant to this day — how much the practice of preparing the clergy can correlate with the theological understanding of the priesthood? One of the solutions can be seen in activities and works of St. Philaret (Drozdov). Since the role of St. Filaret in this activity has not fully determined, therefore, the purpose of study is to clarify the role and results of St. Filaret’s educational activities, based on the analysis of the most complete corpus of sources. For this, an interdisciplinary approach i. e. combination of general scientific, special historical and theological methods was applied. The study allows us to establish: activities of St. Philaret in the context of preparation and comprehension of the pastor had a multi-vector complex character. Its results allow us to speak about the understanding by contemporaries of the problem of priesthood training and attempts to solve it, which, however, were not crowned with success. The experience of predecessors is certainly relevant today in the context of constant educational paradigms’ refinement.