Russian Orthodoxy in the Writings of Paul Oderborn

The article provides a brief analysis of the depiction of Russian Orthodoxy in the Latin works of Paul Oderborn and their translations into German. In his work “De Russorum Religione”, Oderborn creates an image of the Orthodox as akin to pagans by using specific lexicon and commentaries. This tendency to equate the Or-thodox with pagans is far less prominent in another Oderborn’s work, “Ioannis Basilidis magni Moscoviae ducis vita”, likely due to its more formal nature. The German translations of Oderborn’s works often omit many de-rogatory characteristics of the Orthodox, replacing terms that linked them with pagans with more neutral lan-guage. Oderborn’s writings significantly influenced subsequent theological works addressing Russian Ortho-doxy. The author concludes that Oderborn adopted a humanistic narrative strategy, creating works that intended, among other things, not only to present Protestants in a favourable light, but also to glorify those to whom these works were dedicated. This narrative strategy determined the characteristics of the Russian Orthodoxy in the German pastor’s works. Another conclusion is that Oderborn’s writings on Russian Orthodox and related sec-tions within some other works by him laid the foundation for the development of an “orientalist” discourse re-garding Russian Orthodoxy in the 17th century.