St. Seraphim Sobolev's theology of history in the polemics with the 20th century progressive utopianism

The article considers the most significant works reflecting the theological and historical views of the outstanding Orthodox thinker Archbishop Seraphim (Sobolev) (1881-1950) canonized in 2016. It is shown that the theology of history of St. Seraphim was formed in a polemic with the ideas of progressive utopianism (Chiliasm, the theory of moral progress and the transformation of creation, socialism, the concept of the “union of Churches”) under the influence of the patristic mystical-ascetic tradition of Orthodoxy. With the doctrine of the Kingdom of God on earth as a person's feeling of bliss from unity with God through the reviving action of the grace of the Holy Spirit, the saint sets a pneumatological, ecclesiological and sacramentological vector for the theological-historical thought that opposes the theories of progressive utopianism. In the era of the secularization of historical science, on the one hand, and the emergence of various utopian historical concepts, including those in the Christian environment, on the other, theological answers of St. Seraphim on these challenges may be defined as spiritual and prophetic, as well as an example of Orthodox sobriety in the interpretation of history.