Historia – religia – władza. Iłarion Smirnow i historiografia tzw. uczonych monachów
History – Religion – Power. Iłarion Smirnov and the historiography of the so-called „scholarly monarchs”

Summary/Abstract: The article presents the historical work of Iłarion Smirnov, „learned monarch”, member of the centro-Russian orthodox community which was aware of their differences both from the Orthodox laymen and the „white” clergy (the so-called Płaton's school). The Monachs were immersed in mystical-spiritual existence which constituted a specific Orthodox outlook – cultural matrix, creating all aspects of „Orthodox” „existence”, also scientific. The new mystical confession policy of Alexander I, which denied the previous status of hierarchy, was bound to lead to a firm reaction, an ideological counter-attack. It was enough to prove the historical necessity of the existence of hierarchy and its soteriological mission. Therefore, Iłarion made the upper Orthodox hierarchy the subject of history (metaphor of hierarchy), and its fate was interwoven into regular periods, „centuries‟, with alternating human failures on the way to the „Heavenly Kingdom” and victories of the hierarchy ascribed to the Divine Providence (metaphor of cyclical nature).

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