«Philosophy of religion» in Russia: coining of notion and scientific discipline

The task of this article is to identify the early stages of development of semantics and the functioning of the term ‘philosophy of religion’ in Russian philosophical context and, first of all, in spiritual schools since 1830s-1840s (the course of archpriest Ioann Skvortsov) up to the main publications of Viktor Kudryavtsev-Platonov (1870s-1880s) who made the decisive contribution to its ‘legitimation’ in the spiritual and academic philosophy of the synodal period. The relevance of the article is due to the fact that since the 1990s, the term “philosophy of religion” is used very widely, including all religious in philosophy and all philosophical in religion. Therefore, despite the large volume of publications, we in a sense stand only at the beginning of mastering this philosophical discipline. In this connection, it is very important to address the pre- revolutionary period of the functioning of this concept.