ST. AUGUSTINE IN THE RUSSIAN THEOLOGICAL TRADITION OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

Abstract

One of the most authoritative theologians of the Western Church, Saint Augustine was little known in Byzantium and still less in Rus’. The fi rst translations of his works into Slavonic appear not earlier than the sixteenth century. During the synodal period, patristic studies of his work were published, but it remains an open question whether he actually exerted any infl uence at all on the Russian theological tradition. Our present article attempts to shed light on possible infl uences of Augustinian theology on the Russian theological tradition of the eighteenth century.

Keywords

• St. Augustine Aurelius
• augustinian theology and philosophy
• eighteenth century
• Feofan Prokopovich
• St. Tikhon of Zadonsk
• Arndt
• «anthropological minimalism»