Abstract

This chapter examines the notion of the "the West" as presented in the writings of Russia's nineteenth-century academically trained Orthodox theologians and historians. While scholars have extensively analyzed Slavophile and Westernizer debates concerning Russia and the West and even Orthodoxy and the West during this period, scholars have focused relatively little on the views of Russia's Orthodox thinkers professionally trained in Russia's four theological academies located in St. Petersburg, Moscow, Kiev, and Kazan. While less well known than Russia's secularly-trained intellectuals, the voices of Russia's academic theologians, a large number of whom were also laymen, are no less significant for our understanding of modern Orthodox constructions of the West. As one-time students and teachers in seminaries and theological academies, and sometimes in secular universities, and as active scholars who published in Russia's often spirited Orthodox theological and devotional journals, they formulated their notions of the West in the context of the Orthodox establishment and its specifically Orthodox ecclesial concerns during this period.

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