Metropolitan Anthony (Khrapovitsky) on the essence of latinism

The article examines the ideas of Metropolitan Anthony (Khrapovitsky), who was one of the most consistent and irreconcilable critics of the Roman Catholic Church, about the life of the Western Church, the essence of Christian unity and the peculiarity of the “papist” teaching, analyzes Anthony’s arguments against the Roman religion. Anthony believed that the differences between the Eastern and Western churches were not limited to dogmas; for him, they are fundamental and unremovable, since Orthodox and Catholics have different ideas about the Christian ideal, that is about the Christian life, its principles and its goals. Anthony believed that the Roman Church is guided by earthly interests, forgetting that the Church is “the Kingdom not of this world”, while the Orthodox faith, according to Anthony, is, primarily, an ascetic faith, aimed at the moral growth of the individual and his spiritual rebirth. Anthony comes to the conclusion that the desire of Roman Catholics to achieve unity in the empirical world leads to the secularization and nationalization of the church. The views of Metropolitan Anthony are analyzed in the context of A. S. Khomyakov’s ecclesiology, theocratic ideas of V. S. Solovyov and religious views of F. M. Dostoevsky.