Archpriest Liveriy Voronov and his “History of the ancient church”

This article was written several years ago and served as an introduction to the planned publication of an academic lecture course on the history of the Ancient Church by Professor Liveriy Voronov, a prominent scholar and educator in the second half of the 20th century at the Leningrad Theological Academy. Unfortunately, for various objective reasons, the publication did not materialize. However, this year a decision was made to publish these lectures in the present academic journal. The article provides a general assessment of Father Liveriy’s lectures and his views on the church history of the 4th century in comparison with domestic and foreign pre-revolutionary and contemporary historiography on this subject.