On the religiosity of a university member, its foundations and transformations (based on materials from the St. Petersburg University of the 19th century): toward a formulation of the problem

In the article, using the example of the community of the Imperial St. Petersburg University of the 19th century, the most important aspects of the problem of religious faith, its manifestations in the daily life of the university are considered based on the materials of university office work and memoirs. The presence of religion within the walls of a secular higher school was legally determined by the establishment of a department of theology and the teaching of theological disciplines at all faculties. At St. Petersburg University and related educational institutions, theology during the period under review was taught by Fr. Alexey Ivanovich Malov, Archpriest Gerasim Petrovich Pavsky, Archpriest Vasily Borisovich Bazhanov, Archpriest Andrei Ivanovich Raikovsky and others. Since the mid-1850s, there was a change in the attitude of students to the study of theology, the figures of the teachers of the law themselves, questions of faith, and finally, to everyday religious rituals. Questions of personal faith, religious doubt and unbelief could only be discussed in a narrow circle, but, judging by the testimony of memoirists, for many young people they were the subject of serious thought. Problems such as the distinction between personal faith and orthodox doctrine, the need to perform church rituals, the choice of forms of religiosity acceptable to an enlightened person, worried students of the Orthodox confession, who were subject to the directive study of theology and compulsion to observe external rituals under the control of the inspection. Compliance with these disciplinary norms was a condition of staying at the university. The supervision of piety and religious morality in relation to Catholic and Protestant students was softer. The problem of disbelief among representatives of the “learned estate” was discussed already in 1821 in connection with the “case of the professors”, but serious religious and philosophical discussions about the existence of God and the world order with the participation of theologians became possible within the walls of the university only during the years of social upsurge in the second half of 1850s.