Theological landing

Theological landing

October 19, 2015, Svetlana Solodovnik

From the "Daily Journal."

The highest certification commission under the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation approved the passport of the specialty "Theology". Last week, the passport was published on the Vaka website. At the same time, the dissertation councils on theology will not yet be created, as well as the degree of candidates and doctors of theology. The situation will remain the same: applicants will defend themselves in history, philosophy or religious studies, although in the specialty “theology”.

Representatives of the Church are very unhappy with this: theological faculties and departments in secular universities are multiplying, there are already about 50 in the country, and there is no ability to defend themselves normally, is it true-to deprive secular theologians of growth prospects or force them to make their work, adjusting to historical or any other format? And at first glance with such reasoning it is difficult to argue. But only at first glance.

After all, it was not without reason that the specialty was called the foreign word “theology”, and not the Russian word “theology” - well, so that the eyes are not so corny. The story with the basics of Orthodox culture is repeated: OPC? -Not-t, this is not about God, it’s about morality, look at what youth has become unbridled. And theology is not about comprehension of the world on the basis of divine revelation, but " antidote from the spread of religious radicalism in the society." And there are numbers in such training.

Any conversation on this topic immediately turns into European experience (for some reason, the “sinful West” should become an example for us), there, they say that neither the university, then the Department of Theology. There really are the department of theology at universities is not uncommon, but Europe has gone the exact opposite path. European education increased from theological schools to a large extent, and then freed from church custody, as university theology was also freed from it, becoming another platform for the dialogue of reason and the word of God. In Russia, spiritual schools and secular education have always existed separately, there were never a strong theological school (although there were separate outstanding theologians), and in the Soviet years the theology has gone irrevocably, and now it is just starting to revive. The church on this path is faced with tangible difficulties (primarily with the lack of educated people), but, as always, alas, is trying to solve the problem with the hands of the state.

“The department of theology, in turn, will be very useful to spiritual schools,” the rector of the Orthodox Holy Tikhonovsky Humanitarian University of Prot argues . Vladimir Vorobyov. - Raising the educational level in peripheral seminary is almost impossible without active assistance and cooperation between secular universities. In addition, theological education will certainly indicate and open the way to the Pastorsky, priestly service to the considerable number of theological students. Consequently, seminaries will receive new high -quality applicants seeking pastoral training, and at the same time a new impulse to achieve a good educational level. ”

Everything is up to the head. It will not be a church that will be prepared by the God-word specialists, who, if necessary, will be able to teach at secular departments, and, on the contrary, secular universities will take up forging church personnel. Well, as always, hopes for the "huge missionary meaning" of the undertaking ...

The rector's enthusiasm for the organization at universities of theological departments (the faculty is almost no one drawn), although it is impossible to compare with a powerful wave of teacher's sympathies to the defense industry (what to do, school teachers need codified morality), but in fact the appearance of the same order: a person is churching, and he immediately wants to enjoy their neighbors, people disappear! (Yes, and the conjuncture is now appropriate: "Without a sickle and a hammer, you will not show up in the light!").

It happens, of course, that the diocese is pressing, the benefit of Patriarch Kirill does not tire of repeating the bishops, that they should in every way contribute to the spread of secular theological education (even the priests during the sermons began to urge parishioners to study dogmatics and moral theology), but personal interest is a much more effective incentive. So it was at the Moscow State Linguistic University, it was at MEPhI. Some MGLU teachers say such maxims: “Theology should be taught from kindergarten (and even from nursery), and then cover school and institute.”

Sometimes a mercantile calculation works: an extra faculty or a department - this is an additional money. As a rule, state. Very rarely, the diocese is invested in a social theological education, I know only two such cases: in Tulgu, the head of the police officer, Archpriest Lev Makhno, fed his students with money from his parishes and at the University of Omsk, when they reduced the number of budget places in the department of theology, the local diocese provided funds by 10 people (but there it was about the closure of the department - there are no students, there are no students, there are no students, there are no students, there are no students, there are no students, there are no students, there are no students, there are no students They will not open a direction, but to recruit 10 warders for theology is unrealistic). In most places, the dioceses are not up to secular theology, and the departments are erasing a miserable existence, especially since the vigorous relations of the church authorities about the demand for theologists are a fair exaggeration: to find work in the specialty for graduates - where is the state such a break in the theologists?

The hopes that they poke to church are ghostly, if they are not ridiculous: very often those who could not enter other departments go to the theologian, most students - female, but even male, and even some are churching, although they came by avid atheists, but the priesthood needs a completely different motivation.

So the expectations of the church authorities related to secular theology are most likely not justified as the idea of ​​the obligatory foundations of Orthodox culture in school did not justify itself. But the children will play a year and forget, and the whistle with secular theology is fraught with much more sad consequences - the discrediting of the idea of ​​theological education. When like this, with a lack of teachers, even for seminaries, the uveal departments gather, and adherents of “theology without borders” prove to gullible listeners that without it it is impossible to understand the work of Tolstoy (but the words “God and the changing world” are never pronounced, the subject eludes, if not frankly replaced), it is possible that it is the Higher Attestation lusts, acts for the good of the Church.

It is only a shame that in universities they reduce places at religious wards - in the current conditions, the state cannot pull both religious studies and theology. It would not work out that we will not grow the Theological School, but the existing religious ruin ...