Kyiv Theological Academy Professors at the Beginning of the 20th Century: At the Intersection of Cultures Kyiv Theological Academy Professors at the Beginning of the 20th Century: At the Intersection of Cultures

This article attempts to reveal intercultural connections at the Kyiv Theological Academy at the beginning of the 20th century by reconstructing the spiritual biographies of two theological academy professors: Archimandrite (later, Archbishop of Berlin and Germany) Tykhon (Tymofii Liashchenko) and Petro Kudriavtsev. The article demonstrates how different cultural traditions intersected and combined in the spiritual experience of these figures. The author of the article argues that, as a result of revolutionary events in 1917–1919, both Kyiv Theological Academy professors experienced transformations in personal cultural identity, and their spiritual biographies reveal a transition from Russian to Western European and a combination of both (Tykhon (Liashchenko) identities), and from Russian to Ukrainian ideological cultural orientation (Petro Kudriavtsev).

in the schools of his native Voronezh province.5 In 1909, priest Tymofii Liashchenko graduated from the Academy with a Candidate's degree in theology,6 and as the best alumnus stayed at the Department of Patrology, receiving a professorial scholarship.7 In 1910, he began teaching at the Kyiv Theological Academy. During his application for the vacant cathedra at the Department of Pastoral Theology with Ascetical Theology and Homiletics, which took place at a meeting of the Kyiv Theological Academy Conference on 5 November 1910, priest Liashchenko failed to gain enough votes. However, shortly after, on 1 December 1910, the Holy Governing Synod appointed him to this chair as acting Associate Professor.8 On 4 April 1913, after the successful defense of his work The Life of St. Cyril, Archbishop of Alexandria (Kyiv, 1913),9 he received a Master's degree in Theology and the title of Associate Professor.10 On 17 August 1913 he was elected an Extraordinary Professor. During 1910During -1913 Liashchenko headed a preaching group of Kyiv Theological Academy students, realizing in practice the instructions he gave to Academy students in his course of Pastoral Theology.11 Other evidence of his theological academic career success is his appointment as an inspector of the Kyiv Theological Academy with the rank of Archimandrite on 29 July 1914.12 In 1915 Archimandrite Tykhon (Liashchenko) twice served as the rector of the Kyiv Theological Academy. In his ideological beliefs he 7 See in Izvlechenie iz zhurnalov Soveta Kievskoi Dukhovnoi Akademii za 1908-1909uchebnyi god [Extracts From Records of the Kyiv Theological Academy Council, 1908-1909 Academic Year] (Kyiv, 1909), 415-18, 486, 488, 490;Izvlechenie iz zhurnalov Soveta Kievskoi Dukhovnoi Akademii za 1909-1910uchebnyi god [Extracts From Records of the Kyiv Theological Academy Council, 1909-1910 (Kyiv, 1910), 650-52. 8

12
On 2 August 1914 priest Tymofii Liashchenko took his monastic vows with the name of Tykhon (he received the tonsure from Metropolitan of Kyiv and Halychyna, Flavian (Horodetskyi)); on 6 August of the same year he received the rank of archimandrite. See Formuliarnyi spisok belonged to the right wing of theological academy professors, who denied the need for any (especially liberal) innovations in the Academy's theological life. A demonstration of Archimandrite Tykhon's (Liashchenko's) philosophical and ideological beliefs in pre-revolutionary years was the work Asceticism as the Basis of Russian Culture (Moscow, 1915), which was written as an answer to the political and historical realities of the day, associated with the First World War and the military confrontation between the two empires, Russia and Germany. The work of Archimandrite Tykhon reflects general attitudes of Russian religiously oriented intellectuals at the beginning of the 20th century. In particular, Russian religious thinkers united around the Put publishing house (Nikolai Berdiaev, Sergei Bulgakov, Evgenii Trubetskoi, Vladimir Ern and others) and regarded the confrontation between the two empires as a watershed for the future of Russia, "a religious moment, a supra-political, supranational, and idealistic moment," 13 since it was about the confrontation between two directions of cultural development, "two deep self-determinations of human will," the Russian religious one and the Western atheistic one.14 The aforementioned thinkers argued that Russia was a protagonist in the war, endowing the Russian people with a historical mission of pointing the true way to the world, the way of universal assertion of the Christian ideal. The central idea of Archimandrite Tykhon's work became the idea of confrontation between the Russian and German (in a broader sense, Western European) cultures. According to Archimandrite Tykhon, among the national traits of the German people were rudeness, selfishness, and cruelty. He thought these features generally typical for Western European culture, denoted by rationalism (with its cult of ratio opposing God and religion), individualism (advocating the ideal of an emancipated God-man with his unlimited power and rights), and materialism, which caused a real revolution in the realm of human life, limiting the latter only to earthly presence and serving only material interests. Regarding German culture as an evil threatening all mankind, Archimandrite Tykhon opposed it, in the spirit of Slavophilia, to the ideals of Russian culture and, in a broader sense, to the culture of Orthodox Christianity. The basic features of Russian culture, according to Archimandrite Tykhon, were humility, love for one's neighbor, self-denial and others, united by the general ideal of asceticism, the foundation of Christian life. Archimandrite Tykhon's philosophical concept of the cultural development of mankind is a vivid expression of a typical outlook of the conservative wing of the Kyiv Theological Academy professorship with Russian imperial identity, featuring such typical traits as Russophilia, Orthodoxy, and devotion to the autocrat.15 Arguing for the principles of the Russian national idea, Archimandrite Tykhon was a member of the Kyiv club of Russian nationalists.
The revolutionary years of 1917-1918 radically changed the established traditions of the Kyiv Theological Academy and the usual course of the life of its professors. Like 13 E. A. Hollerbakh, K nezrimomu gradu. Religiozno-filosofskaia gruppa "Put" (1910-1919  As it later turned out, Archimandrite Tykhon (Liashchenko) was destined to leave Russia forever and spend the rest of his life abroad, directly encountering the world of Western European culture, which he had previously criticized. In the 1920s-1930s he became one of the notable and influential figures in the church and cultural life of the Russian Orthodox Church abroad. In Bulgaria, in 1920Bulgaria, in -1921 Archimandrite Tykhon was installed as the Dean of the Church of St. Nicholas of Myra at the Russian Embassy in Sofia, and was also engaged in teaching activities: he taught patristics at the local Theological religious school.18 Together with his former students of Bulgarian origin (Kyiv Theological Academy graduates), he considered the possibility of opening a theological academy in Sofia, but did not realize this intention because of the Bulgarian government's resistance.

21
In 1922 Archimandrite Tykhon sent provision parcels to Kyiv through the ARA American charity organization (American Relief Administration). We can see that fate paradoxically willed Bishop Tykhon to find himself in the fold of the German culture that he had criticized before. He had to spend the rest of his life getting used to it, finding his place in it, and even cooperating with Nazi authorities. In particular, from 1933 on Bishop Tykhon made efforts to legalize Orthodox parishes of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad by Nazi Germany and to receive sequestration of church property.25 The Nazi government tried to use the parishes headed by Bishop Tykhon for the purposes of a unification campaign of the Russian Orthodox Churches in Germany that began in September 1935. The campaign had its ideological basis in an international propaganda effort creating an image of the Nazi regime as a defender of the Russian Orthodox Church (as opposed to the Bolshevik Soviet government), thus winning favor in the Balkan countries with their majority Orthodox population.26 Under these circumstances, Bishop Tykhon persisted to finally induce the Prussian government to grant public legal status to the Berlin and German Eparchy that he headed (dated 14 March 1936) and to approve its statute (previously approved by the Synod of Hierarchs of the Russian Orthodox Church on 23 October 1935), as well as to allocate large funds for the construction of the Orthodox Cathedral of the Resurrection of Christ in Berlin in April 1936.27 Later, Tykhon emphasized the enormous historical, cultural, clerical, and socio-political importance of that event, pointing out that even under conditions of Church oppression in Soviet Russia, "the basis of Russian culture and statehood -the Orthodox faith is still alive, strong and fruitful" 28 (even if, paradoxically, it was built up and strengthened, thanks to the efforts of Bishop Tykhon, in the bosom of the contradictory to the "Russian spirituality," German spirit). Ranking as the Archbishop of Berlin and Germany (starting from 28 September 1936), he collaborated with the Nazi regime to add "eulogian" parishes to the Berlin Eparchy. However, the uncompromising position of Archbishop Tykhon against the supporters of Metropolitan Eulogy (Georgievskii) led to further escalation of inter-church conflict. That fact contradicted the interests of German authorities who  (1933)(1934)(1935)(1936)(1937)(1938)(1939)(1940)(1941)(1942)(1943)(1944)(1945) [The Nazi Regime and the Russian Orthodox Community in Germany, 1933Germany, -1945  sought to unify Orthodox parishes in Germany. So, having lost governmental support, Archbishop Tykhon was released from heading the eparchy by the decision of the Synod of Hierarchs of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad, dated 24 February 1938.29 Summarizing the experience of Archbishop Tykhon's (Liashchenko's) church policy under Nazi rule, it can be stated that mutually beneficial relations existed between the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad under the leadership of Tykhon and the Nazi regime: the Prussian government chose and used Karlovсhans to establish their ideology; in turn, Archbishop Tykhon used the church "manoeuvre" of the Nazis to build the Russian Church abroad. Moreover, Tykhon won from the church situation created by the Nazi regime, as the unification of the eulogian parishes, planned by the Reich, never took place, while Karlovchanian parishes received significant political and financial support.30 Thanks to this support Archbishop Tykhon made every possible contribution to the development of the Russian Orthodox tradition in the bosom of Western European culture.
The spiritual biography of his teacher and colleague at the Kyiv Theological Academy, Petro Pavlovych Kudriavtsev (1868Kudriavtsev ( -1940, an outstanding theological and academic philosopher and historian, a religious, educational, and cultural figure, is also quite representative in the light of intercultural ties in the theological academic and church environment of the early 20th century.31 Born far from the centre of Russia,32 he entered the Kyiv Theological Academy 33 in 1888, where after four years he received a degree in theology.34 As one of the most successful students of his class, he remained at the Kyiv Theological Academy at the Department of the History of Philosophy, receiving a professorial scholarship. On 10 June 1897 Kudriavtsev was 30 It should be noted that the "collaboration" of Bishop Tykhon with the Nazi regime was only a formality, not an indication of inner ideological support of the regime.

31
A more detailed biography of Kudriavtsev is available in L. A. Pastushenko, "Kudriavtsev  Petro Kudriavtsev is one of the key figures of the Kyiv religious and philosophical renaissance of the early 20th century. He was a founder and chairman of the Kyiv religious and philosophical society (1908)(1909)(1910)(1911)(1912)(1913)(1914)(1915)(1916)(1917)(1918)(1919), which united the Kyiv intelligentsia who were convinced in the need to reform socio-political, cultural, and educational life, regarding Christianity as a powerful factor in the future revival in all spheres of social life. Beginning with 1914 he was a member, and later a friend of the chairman  of the Kyiv scientific and philosophical society, founded at St. Volodymyr University.39 Kudriavtsev was also a member of the Kyiv pedagogical society of mutual aid, which aimed to unite all Ukrainian teachers (in 1902-1905 he was chairman of the society).
Arguing for the need for church reform in his numerous journalistic works, as well as for the revision of the relationship between the state and the Church, the revival of church life on the basis of unity, creativity, and freedom, in the revolutionary years of 1917-1918 Kudriavtsev actively participated in many socio-political and church events on the territory of the former Russian Empire.40 A remarkable feature of Petro Kudriavtsev's spiritual biography is that during the attempts to form Ukrainian statehood (1917)(1918)(1919) he, a Russian by origin and a well-known specialist and teacher of Russian philology and literature,41 stood for the significance and value of the Ukrainian language and culture, and contributed to the development of Ukrainian culture and Ukrainian church life. A rather demonstrative step, which conveys Kudriavtsev's attitude to Ukrainian culture, is his bringing up an issue of the status of the Ukrainian language at the 1917-1918 Local Council of the Orthodox Church of Russia. In particular, at the meetings of the sixth section of the pre-council conference (related to the issues of faith and worship, preaching, and Old Belief), as well as during the work of the council's 13th section concerning the language of worship, the Kyiv professor made speeches on the necessity of worship both in Ukrainian and Russian. Emphasizing the urgency and essential need to translate liturgical texts into an understandable native language for the laity, and taking into consideration the fact that the church was entering the age of the "creative prosperity of the church and religious forces of our nation," Kudriavtsev substantiated a proposition about the admissibility of worship in Ukrainian and Russian, although warning against a hasty replacement of the language of worship in contemporary conditions when traditions of church creativity continued to be neglected. After all, he stressed, the language of worship is a poetic language, and translation requires a creative rather than 39 He was also a member of the Orthodox religious and educational association. 1897 -a member of the historical, and archaeological association at the Kyiv Theological Academy. a mechanical approach, which requires consolidation with poetic-religious inspiration of past church poets. At the same time Kudriavtsev found the partial use of Russian, and especially Ukrainian (when reading Holy Scripture and prayers, in certain songs, etc.) to be permissible and even desirable, therefore, applications of each parish concerning worship in Russian or Ukrainian were to be satisfied after a translation was approved by church authorities. Kudriavtsev's thesis about the possibility of the partial use of the Ukrainian and Russian languages in worship and satisfaction of the relevant petitions of church communities was used as the basis for project decisions on the issues of the liturgical language, prepared at meetings of the council's subsection.42 The question of the use of the Ukrainian language in liturgical practice was more fully considered by Kudriavtsev in his article "On the Liturgical Use of the Russian (and Ukrainian) languages." 43 The Kyiv professor was convinced that the need to replace the Church Slavonic language is more tangible and urgent in Ukraine than in Russia, where the attachment to established church tradition remains. Taking into account the importance of the biblical word in the Ukrainian religious tradition, he emphasized the growing need for "expressive reading, and accessible, vital interpretation of the Word of God." 44 Reflecting on the problems of the translation of the liturgy into Ukrainian, Kudriavtsev advocated the need for a creative approach to the translation of naturally poetic liturgical texts, since "artistic creations" require "artistic translation." 45 When asked whether the Ukrainian language had the proper lexical means to express "intimate motions of a religiously-minded soul and sublime concepts of Christian theology," 46 Kudriavtsev answered positively. On an obvious example of Taras Shevchenko's poetry (where the sweet-sounding Ukrainian language is used in quiet words of prayers and blessings), he proved the idea that the Ukrainian language has "rich means for expressing the lyrical side of religious life." 47 Rather than remaining aside of the development of church life in Ukraine, Kudriavtsev took an active part in the preparation and work of the All-Ukrainian Orthodox Church Council (1918). From a note "On the History of Convocation of the All-Ukrainian Church Council" 48 13-14 (1918): 23-29; 15-16 (1918): 16-20; 17-18 (1918): 10-18. 44 Kudriavtsev, "O bogosluzhebnom upotreblenii," 13-14 (1918): 27. 45 Kudriavtsev, "O bogosluzhebnom upotreblenii," 15-16 (1918): 17. 46 Kudriavtsev, "O bogosluzhebnom upotreblenii," 15-16 (1918): 18. 47 Kudriavtsev, "O bogosluzhebnom upotreblenii," 15-16 (1918: 18. personal contribution to the efforts of the Kyiv Theological Academy professors who sought to resolve the intra-church conflict on the eve of the Council. As Kudriavtsev wrote, pro-Ukrainian church circles formed the All-Ukrainian Church Rada, which was concerned with the preparation of the Council convened to establish autocephaly of the Ukrainian Church. However, these measures did not have the support of the then functioning pro-Russian Ukrainian episcopate, and holding the Council without the participation of the bishops would contravene canonical norms. Participating in fierce debates at Council meetings aimed at resolving this conflict in a canonical manner, it was Kudriavtsev who proposed a formula that helped to achieve a "pre-council reconciliation" of the Ukrainian and pro-Russian church circles: "The Central Rada, acting in agreement with the bishops of the Ukrainian eparchies, is eligible to convene an All-Ukrainian Church Council." 49 Elaborating on the theme of church formation as one of the priorities in his religious journalism, Kudriavtsev tried to understand the ways of development of church life in Ukraine in [1917][1918]. At an open meeting of the Kyiv religious and philosophical society (14 October 1918), he publicly lectured on "Church Issues in Ukraine." 50 This report is worth special attention as testimony of a living participant in contemporary Ukrainian church events and includes an attempt to generalize the diverse and contradictory life of the church, as well as to comprehend its main tendencies. Outlining the current state of development of the church and of religious life on the Ukrainian lands, Petro Kudriavtsev evaluated it as unsatisfactory, since, in his opinion, the church movement referred only to the form of church life (church policy, formation of church structures, the question of relations between Church and state, Ukrainian and Russian elements, bishops, clergy and faithful, and others), but not to its content. According to Kudriavtsev, church life in Ukraine was marked with the struggle between two church movements, progressive and conservative. This struggle first became apparent in the confrontation between pro-Ukrainian and pro-Russian church forces regarding the issue of autocephaly (first session of the All-Ukrainian Church Council). The second stage of the church struggle was marked by a confrontation between those who supported the "church-progressive platform" and conservative forces in addressing issues of the decentralization of church governance and the involvement of believers in church formation, and the autonomy of theological academies (second session of the Council). Although representatives of the church-conservative movement subsequently united around the metropolitan of Kyiv, Antonii (Khrapovytskyi), representatives of the progressive movement formed their "headquarters" at the Ministry of Religions in the government of Pavlo Skoropadskyi, headed by Vasyl Zenkovskyi. 49 Kudriavtsev, "K istorii sozyva," 1. As the Minister of religions and concerned with the development of Ukrainian national culture, Zenkovskyi appointed Kudriavtsev to form and lead an Academic Committee under the Ministry of Religions. The choice of Kudriavtsev to head a competent body intended to stimulate the revival of Ukrainian church culture was due to the fact that Kudriavtsev, as Zenkovskyi indicated, although "born a Russian, loved and understood Ukraine, and, what is most important, understood both the light and dark sides of the Ukrainian church and knew boundaries of the national element in church life." 51 Petro Kudriavtsev saw the task of the Committee as broad cultural and educational work aimed at the revival of church and religious life in Ukraine and the development of spiritual enlightenment based on Orthodox tradition. Due to the authority and professionalism of Kudriavtsev, the Committee brought together the best available academic scholarly forces (mostly Kyiv Theological Academy and University professors) and performed significant work in many areas: organizing the translation of the Bible, liturgical books and church rules into the Ukrainian language; preparing a Ukrainian theological encyclopedia, Ukrainian-language scholarly theological works and books of ecclesiastical and religious content (first of all, hagiography, especially of those saints respected on the Ukrainian lands), popular scholarly books on religious issues; developing curricula and textbooks on Scripture; addressing school matters; publishing materials on the history of Ukraine related to the development of religious poetry, church architecture, music, philosophy, and others.52 The study of Ukrainian culture became the main subject of Kudriavtsev's academic work during his cooperation with the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences, too. From 1919, Petro Kudriavtsev worked in various commissions studying the Ukrainian cultural heritage in many dimensions and directions. While executing separate academic assignments of the Historical and Philological Department, he, in particular, collected materials on the history of philosophical studies on the Ukrainian territories in the 18th and 19th centuries.53 Working as a member of the Permanent Commission of the Academy of 51 V. Zenkovskii, Protopresbiter, Piat mesiatsev u vlasti (15 maia -19 oktiabria 1918 g.).
Vospominaniia [Five Months in Power (15 May -19 October 1918 In this exploratory study, the outlined biographies of Archbishop Tykhon (Liashchenko) and Petro Kudriavtsev show that as a result of the revolutionary events of 1917-1919 Kyiv theological academic professors experienced significant transformations of their beliefs and cultural and worldview priorities; and in many cases were also bound to experience transformations in cultural self-identification for the purposes of determining choices. Tykhon (Liashchenko), known in pre-revolutionary Kyiv as a passionate supporter of the Russian national idea who was unwavering in his belief in the incompatibility and irreconcilable opposition of Western European and Russian cultures, had to spend a significant part of his life (25 years) in Western Europe, mainly in Germany, which he had criticized, combining in his activities and work the Russian and European cultural styles. Kudriavtsev, born in the Russian outskirts, an outstanding connoisseur and admirer of Russian literature and language, managed to understand and properly assess the richness and uniqueness of the Ukrainian language and cultural tradition and manifested himself in his activities and works as an organic and integral part of Ukrainian culture.
It is also worth mentioning that in post-revolutionary times, despite all the vicissitudes of fate, students and teachers of the Kyiv Theological Academy kept their most important connection and factor of their cultural identity -their belonging to the Kyiv Theological Academy and its academic traditions. Both Archbishop Tykhon Library of Ukraine, f. Х, no. 22883). Protokoly zasidan ta inshi materialy Vizantolohichnoi Komisii za 1926rr. [Minutes and Other Documents of the Byzantine Commission, 1926 [Manuscript] (Manuscript Institute, V. I. Vernadskyi National Library of Ukraine, f. Х, no. 21493-21546).

Anketa vstupu do Vseukrainskoi Naukovoi Asotsiatsii [Entry Form to the All-Ukrainian Scientific
Association] [Manuscript] (Manuscript Institute, V. I. Vernadskyi National Library of Ukraine, (Liashchenko), and Petro Kudriavtsev remained devoted to the Academy until the end of their lives, striving to save and reconstruct it in cultural memory in different ways and under different circumstances. Archbishop Tykhon, in particular, maintaining his spiritual connection with the Kyiv Theological Academy in emigration, tried to open a theological academy in Bulgaria using his alma mater as a model; later, he worked on opening an Orthodox theological faculty at the University of Warsaw; in Germany, he conducted widespread preaching and pastoral work among the émigré intelligentsia, many of whom were academic professors. Petro Kudriavtsev, acutely feeling the end of the Kyiv Theological Academy era and watching its last figures completing their earthly paths 61 one after another, tried to preserve the memory of the glorious past of the Kyiv Academy, its prominent figures, and their creative heritage for future generations. Akademii za 1909-1910uchebnyi god [Extracts From Records of the Kyiv Theological Academy Council, 1909-1910