At the root of the theology of history in the Russian Church

The era of the lost ecumene, with its most significant historical extent (9th — 21th centuries), is the least studied in terms of its patrological periodization and analysis of general and local historical processes taking place in the Church, in their mutual connection. In one of our past articles, we outlined the most general contours of the periodization of this epoch. This article is devoted to the place of Russian theology in it. The beginning of Russian ecclesiastical thought, laid by St. Hilarion of Kiev, already has a pronounced historiosophical context, although in general it follows Greek patristic patterns. By the time of the birth of the original Russian theology at the turn of the 15th — 16th centuries in the works of St. Joseph Volotsky and the monk Philotheus, the theology of history takes on special significance within the framework of processes of a general church scale, raising the question of the final periodization of church history and the place of the Russian Church in it, and therefore constitutes a key impetus to the development of Russian thought proper. The further development of the theology of history in the Russian Church will take place in the “context” of the problem of the interpenetration of the communal life of the Church and society.