Tver lessons of St. Tikhon Zadonsky

For the first time, the study substantiated the issue which had been unanswerable for 200 years; it denied the substantial connection between mature creative work of Tikhon Zadonsky and his Tver theological lectures (1759-1761). The author introduced the novel explanation that the basic concepts of St. Tikhon Zadonsky were developed in their mature form in 1767-1769. In addition, the Macarian corpus and “Law and Gospel” of J. Arndt had influenced St. Tikhon Zadonsky’ works since 1768. Moreover, the impact of S. Pufendorf’s scheme of Christian duties on St. Tikhon was introduced as well. The author concluded that there were no original Tver lectures of St. Tikhon Zadonsky. He lectured theology at Tver seminary based on lectures belonging to Bishop Afanasy (Volkhovsky), i.e. according to Theophan Prokopovich’s approach or Joasaph Mitkevich’s lectures referring to the late scholastic period.