In St. Petersburg discussed the problems of teaching church history

In the northern capital, the day before, the conference was completed by the conference “Methodology for teaching church history in universities”, organized by the Holy Philretical Orthodox Institute (SPI) with the participation of the St. Petersburg Russian Christian Humanitarian Academy (RHGA).

The problems related to the teaching of the history of the Church were discussed by the rector of the SPII, Priest Georgy Kochetkov, the head of the Department of Church and Historical Disciplines of the St. Petersburg Theological Academy Archpriest George Mitrofanov, the head of the scientific information sector of the RHGA, the professor of the SCFI, the department of church-historical disciplines of the SPIS, students and graduates reports the SPI information service .

Today, teaching is increasingly reduced to an unstructured presentation of a huge number of facts without identifying problems and semantic accents, or to ideology, which is characterized by a rather free handling of “uncomfortable” facts. These problems are characteristic even for the scientific environment.

Although libraries of church and humanitarian universities do not have a shortage of literature, there is no one to read it: there is practically no student environment for which the problems of church history would be of serious interest.

Such an environment can arise inside informal Christian communities, for which the comprehension of history has a vital significance and makes up a spiritual and intellectual need, says George Kochetkov. As for the prospects of teaching, they will appear when the question of the meaning of history will be raised, and it is with this issue that the course of lectures on the history of the church should begin, he is convinced.

Christians are the only people who are not enslaved by history, because for them there is a window to the metalistory, Archpriest George Mitrofanov recalled. But this is a way out where the reality of the Kingdom of God is revealed. It does not open automatically and requires constant spiritual efforts.