Saving the Selves or Saving the Others? Responses to Old Catholicism in Late Imperial Russia
Saving the Selves or Saving the Others? Responses to Old Catholicism in Late Imperial Russia

Summary/Abstract: This paper examines Messianic thought in Russia through political and theological debates on the Old Catholic movement. The Old Catholic Church emerged as a reaction to the first Vatican Council (1870) with the program of reconnecting with the Lutheran, Anglican and Orthodox Churches on the theological foundation, laid out by the Church fathers and Church councils of the first ten centuries of Christianity. The Old Catholic question, which initially appeared as one of purely ecclesiological and perhaps theological interest, was broadly aired and discussed by literally every significant Russian public figure in the 1870s–1900s. Although Old Catholicism per se and its relations with the Russian Orthodox Christianity have not been successful to date, it induced the crystallization of a network of sympathizers in the Russian Empire. For them, Old Catholicism was a means to voice their discontent with the official Church and to shape their alternative visions about Russian Orthodoxy in world history. The Old Catholic movement stirred up religious and geopolitical hopes and initiated important ideological and theological discussions, which revolved around such questions as, what is Russia’s role in the world, and how can religious principles be implemented in everyday life.

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