A Spiritual Revolution : The Impact of Reformation and Enlightenment in Orthodox Russia, 1700–1825

The ideas of the Protestant Reformation, followed by the European Enlightenment, had a profound and long-lasting impact on Russia’s church and society in the eighteenth century. Though the traditional Orthodox Church was often assumed to have been hostile toward outside influence, Andrey V. Ivanov’s study argues that the institution in fact embraced many Western ideas, thereby undergoing what some observers called a religious revolution. Embedded with lively portrayals of historical actors and vivid descriptions of political details, A Spiritual Revolution is the first large-scale effort to fully identify exactly how Western progressive thought influenced the Russian Church. These new ideas played a foundational role in the emergence of the country as a modernizing empire and the rise of the Church hierarchy as a forward-looking agency of institutional and societal change. Ivanov addresses this important debate in the scholarship on European history, firmly placing Orthodoxy within the much wider European and global continuum of religious change. The ideas of the Protestant Reformation, followed by the European Englightment, had a profound and long-lasting impact on Russia's church and society. Though the Orthodox Church was often assumed to have been hostile toward outside influence, Andrey V. Ivanov's study argues that the institution in fact embraced many Western ideas, thereby undergoing what some observers called a religious revolution. Embedded with lively portrayals of historical actors and vivid descriptions of political details, A Spiritual Revolution is the first large-scale effort to fully identify exactly how Western thought influenced the Russian Church. These new ideas played a foundational role in the emergence of the country as a modernizing empire and the rise of the Church hieracrchy as a forward-looking agency of institutional and societal change. Ivanov addresses this important but often neglected subject and places Orthodoxy within the much wider European and global continuum of religious change. -- Back Cover Part I. Orthodox Russia reformed. Russian Orthodoxy on the eve of the reforms, 1654-1712 -- Escape from Rome: peregrinations of Feofan Prokopovich -- A Russian Luther: Feofan in St. Petersburg, 1718-1725 -- A Struggle for Orthodoxy: saving Russia from "Papist tyranny," 1725-1736 -- Part II. Orthodox Russia Enlightened. "The fledglings of Petrine nest": early Enlightenment and the continuities of reform, 1740-1765 -- Enlightening the Church: faith and culture in the age of reason, 1762-1801 -- Light from the pulpit: preaching reason to Russia's masses, 1754-1801 -- Spiritual Napoleons: enlightened bishops and the bureaucratic reaction, 1801-1824