Priest Grigory Malevansky (1840–?) as a Teacher of Fundamental Theology at the Kiev Theological Academy

The article is devoted to studying the fundamental theology heritage of the teacher of fundamental theology at the Kiev Theological Academy, priest Grigory Malevansky (1840–?). Since his lecture course on fundamental theology has not been published, the work attempts to reconstruct this course. The extant reports of priest Grigory Malevansky have been used as a basis for this, in which the thematic structure of his lectures on fundamental theology is briefly presented, as well as his publications corresponding to this structure. Father Grigory’s lecture course differs from the traditional four-part rubrication, since in its development the author pays special attention to religiological issues — psychology, metaphysics and history of religion, which in his work acquire the status of special sections of fundamental theology. Father Grigory’s approach, innovative for the Kiev Theological Academy, aimed primarily at the scientific study of a religious phenomenon, thematically fits well within the framework of two traditional sections of the subject — On Religion and On Revelation. However, since the sections On the Church and On the Principles of Theological Knowledge remained outside the scope of the author’s scientific interest, it is impossible to talk about his creation of a full-fledged fundamental theology system. At the same time, the analysis of one of Father Grigory’s works, devoted to considering the important apologetic problem of substantiating the originality of monotheism, allows us to conclude that his lecture course is of a fairly high scientific level. In general, the results obtained make it possible to speak of priest Grigory Malevansky as of an original Russian apologist, who made an undoubted contribution to the development of fundamental theology at the Kiev Theological Academy of the Synodal period.