St. Teophanes the Recluse on the need to restore the patriarchate in Russia (based on marginal notes in the manuscript of S. Burachok, “Klyuch k vostochnomu voprosu” [“Key to the eastern question”])

The author analyzes marginal notes places by St. Teophanes, the Recluse of Vysha, on the manuscript of S. Burachok “Klyuch k Vostochnomu voprosu” (“Key to the Eastern Qestion”). Lieutenant-General S. Burachok was the author of works in mathematics and ship building. He was also an active publicist, writing on a wide range of issues from literature to public life. In 1840-1845, he published the journal Mayak, in which he atempted to find a Russian national basis in the question of education and enlightenment, placing as his key ideology the slogan “Orthodoxy, Autocracy and Russian Populism.” In “Klyuch k Vostochnomu voprosu”, which has been preserved in the collection of St. Panteleimon’s Monastery, Burachok considers the development of world history based on the clash of Roman Catholicism and Orthodoxy, starting with the Great Schism, the Crusades, and up to the main military conflicts of the 19th century. Te manuscript contains multiple markings and comments made by St. Teophanes, which allows us to reconstruct his views on the problem of Synodal administration and the need to restore the Patriarchate in Russia. There are no other works atributed to St. Teophanes on this subject, which makes the present manuscript even more significant.