«Аргументы из священных соборов, декретов, и дипломов Константина Великаго, и иных императоров даже до Феодосия Юнейшаго собранные»: Сочинение и его автор
«Arguments from the sacred councils, decrees and diplomas of Constantine the Great and other emperors, even up to Theodosius the Younger collected»: The work and its author

Summary/Abstract: Peter I’s church reforms changed the governance of the Russian Orthodox Church, abolishing the patriarchate and introducing the Holy Synod. These decisions required justification aimed at the educated part of the population. The article examines a little-known work from the Petrine era from the manuscript collection of the Peter I library in the Research Department of Manuscripts of the Library of the Russian Academy of Sciences. It was addressed emperor’s prerogatives of church administration and was likely written at the height of Peter’s church reforms, around the time the Holy Synod was established. The unknown author supports Peter’s ecclesiastical policy by referencing Byzantine history and the role ofByzantine emperors in organizing the church, starting with the era of Constantine the Great. «Arguments...» align with other works legitimizing the new governance structure of the Russian Orthodox Church, such as Feofan Prokopovich’s «Historical Search» or «A Brief Sacred and Political History of the State of the Synod». A unifying theme among these works is the concept of the ruler’s «episcopal» authority within the Church. The article refutes the hypothesis of Feofan Prokopovich’s authorship, citing numerous ideological and stylistic discrepancies. However, the presumed author would have required philosophical and theological training and fluency in foreign languages, making it plausible that the author was a graduate or a teacher of the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy who had relocated to Saint Petersburg or Moscow by the early 1720s. The studyof the «Arguments…» expands the understanding of the ideological component of Peter the Great’s church reforms and expands the roster of early 18th century authors exploring the relationship between secular and ecclesiastical authority.

• Details
• Contents