Theology in secular universities

In January 2015, the Higher Attestation Commission approved theology as a scientific discipline. In October, the passport for the specialty “theology” was published on the website of the Higher Attestation Commission. Journalist Svetlana Solodovnik analyzed for the SOVA Center the emergence and strengthening of theology in secular universities since the 1990s and its relationship with the school of religious studies.

Departments and departments of theology began to open in Russian universities in the mid-90s. The pioneer was Omsk State University, where the department of theology appeared in 1994. The main fighter for the idea was the Orthodox St. Tikhon's Humanitarian University (PSTGU, then still the Orthodox St. Tikhon's Theological Institute, PSTBI), created in 1992, one of the first educational institutions in post-Soviet Russia where everyone could receive theological education, and not just those who were preparing for the priesthood. The institute was founded by students and followers of the famous Moscow priest Vsevolod Shpiller, an emigrant who returned to Russia in 1950 and became the rector of the St. Nicholas-Kuznetsk Church, where over time a large community, mainly intellectual in composition, developed.

In the public education system at that time there were almost no standards that would make it possible to evaluate religious knowledge, license such educational institutions and issue state diplomas to students. True, in 1993, the Ministry of Education, on its own initiative, included the direction of “theology” in the new classifier of state educational areas and specialties. As a result, an educational standard for the preparation of bachelors of theology was adopted. Since this was done without the participation of religious organizations, the standard was of a religious nature. In essence, this was an attempt to lay the foundations of updated religious knowledge using Western methodology.

This attempt could not have come at a more opportune time for the Russian Orthodox Church. It opened the way for the institutionalization of secular theological education. Secular theology in the church was associated not only with hopes for a qualitative leap in the development of theological knowledge - at that time these were generally beautiful dreams, since there was no theological school as such in Russia. However, in the wake of the democratic reforms of that time, the idea of ​​​​creating an independent platform for the free flow of thought between church and secular scientific circles seemed very tempting. The tasks, however, were set much broader. Like the “Fundamentals of Orthodox Culture” in schools, theology in universities was supposed to serve the cause of spiritual enlightenment and mission.

“In order for our domestic sciences - history, philosophy, art history and many other humanities disciplines to become normal (not to mention religious studies, which in many respects has not yet freed itself from the legacy of scientific atheism), they need to return the Christian component, which from the humanitarian science cannot be withdrawn painlessly, without consequences. This leads to ugliness. Science after this becomes inferior. This is a vivisection of science,” this is how the rector of PSTGU, Archpriest Vladimir Vorobyov, speaks about it in one of his last interviews . That is, a kind of inoculation of Orthodoxy into literally everything was conceived, and for this, of course, the widest possible coverage of educational institutions was required.

In the mid and late 90s, when the inertia of the “religious revival” was still strong, this turned out to be a simple matter. Theological departments rapidly multiplied. Altai University picked up the baton of Omsk University, Tverskoy University joined them in 1997, and Far Eastern University in 1999. In some places it was necessary to “cover up” former teachers of “scientific atheism,” in others a department arose on the initiative of the rector of an educational institution or a person ready to head this department. This is how many participants in the process describe the situation. By February 2007, when the round table “The Role of Theological Education and Science in the Development of Russian Civil Society” took place in Tula, in universities, according to estimates of the Council on Theology of the UMO, created in 2000 on the basis of the Faculty of History of Moscow State University and the same PSTGU, there were There are already 36 theological departments (of which 21 departments are in state universities). The Moscow Patriarchate did its best to spur this process, since in order to build the entire chain of secular theological education—bachelor’s, master’s, and postgraduate studies—it was necessary to create the appearance of demand for theological knowledge.

For the time being, the church's ability to influence the power elites was very limited, and the Ministry of Education resisted the further development of theological standards as best it could. Patriarch Alexy II, together with some members of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the rector of Moscow State University, wrote the first letter to the Committee on Science of the Russian Federation with a request to develop a standard for the specialty “theology” (after all, education is not completed at the undergraduate stage) in 1994. There was no positive decision; the refusal was motivated by the presence of a provision in the Constitution on the secularity of the state. Significant progress was made under Minister Vladimir Filippov (1998-2004), especially when Vladimir Putin became president. All the necessary standards were very quickly developed and approved: an updated standard in the direction of “Theology”, to a greater extent than the first one, corresponding to the study of religion “from the inside” (2000), standards for bachelor and master of theology (2001) and specialties “ Theology" (2002). The “theological standard” of 1993 was non-confessional (which in itself is nonsense; theology cannot be non-confessional), the new one was conceived as multi-confessional - it has a part common to all religions (for those, of course, that in Russia are usually called “traditional”, the rest were not taken into account) and the confessional part, different for each religion. (Of the “traditional” ones, in addition to the Orthodox, so far only Muslims have been able to use the standard, who took part in the development of its Islamic version and are now training theologians on it, in particular, at the Russian Islamic University.)

To speed up the resolution of the issue, in 1999, the patriarch and academicians wrote another appeal to the Science Committee; in addition, targeted work began with the concept of “secularism”: church speakers from all possible platforms tried to explain to society and the administration what was “adequate,” according to Archpriest. Vladimir Vorobyov, its contents. The corresponding arguments were contained in the appeal :

“The very declaration of the “secular” nature of education, as well as the decree on the separation of the school from the Church, essentially only means that the state school is neither administratively nor financially dependent on any church organization and does not aims to train clergy. “Secular” does not mean “atheistic,” because the majority of Christians live a “secular” life, are workers with secular specialties, and confessional schools, for example, Orthodox gymnasiums, give state matriculation certificates and prepare completely secular graduates.” (Orthodox culture: regulations, documents, justification for introducing the course into the curriculum of educational institutions. - M., 2004. - P. 114)

The idea was repeated in different ways that, according to the Constitution of the Russian Federation, no ideology can dominate the state as mandatory, including atheistic ones.

In fact, the Patriarchate had a serious trump card: yes, according to the Constitution, the church is separated from the state, but does this mean that people who wish to receive a religious education should be deprived of their rights? Is it fair to deprive them of the opportunity to find use for their powers in society? The current state of affairs is a legacy of the atheistic Soviet regime, when the state did not recognize diplomas from theological schools and academies, and a person who graduated from a church university could not get a job outside the church. Meanwhile, in all civilized countries, spiritual education is valued on an equal basis with any other and there are no problems with employment.

There was also a weighty argument that theology at a university is not the military-industrial complex at school: applicants enter the theological departments absolutely voluntarily, no one pulls them there. In fact, this was not always true. At Omsk University, for example, at first they used the following practice: if you passed the exams with “excellent” marks, you have the right to choose a faculty, but the lower your scores, the greater the chance that you will be “sorted” according to the residual principle, including theology. If you don’t want to stay in theology, leave, no one is stopping you.

The main problem of theological departments was and remains the problem of personnel (there is still a shortage of personnel not only in secular educational institutions, but also in seminaries). Even at a round table in Tula, in 2007, many complained that there were no specialists in dogmatic, liturgical, comparative theology, teachers of Latin and Greek (ancient Greek and Latin, by the way, are still not taught in all seminaries - this relates to the question of the level education in theological schools, supposedly designed to forge theological cadres). What can we say about the early 2000s! We got out of the situation as best we could. Many asked for help from local dioceses, and then many priests poured into universities. At the Far Eastern University, for the first three or four years of the department’s existence, teachers from the St. Tikhon’s Institute worked on a rotational basis. But since this was very expensive for the university, as soon as the first graduates appeared, they immediately began to be attracted to teaching (especially people from the department where they receive a second higher education).

From secular theologians in the church it was supposed to forge not only teaching, but also priestly cadres. “It is almost impossible to raise the educational level in peripheral seminaries without the active help and cooperation of secular universities. In addition, theological education will certainly indicate and open the way to pastoral and priestly ministry for a considerable number of theological students. Consequently, the seminaries will receive new high-quality applicants seeking pastoral training, and at the same time a new impetus for achieving a good educational level,” Vladimir Vorobyov shared his aspirations with the Church Herald newspaper.

In Omsk, these aspirations are already being realized : graduates of the Faculty of Theology of Omsk University teach at the local diocesan school; it is planned that the Department of Theology will become a scientific and methodological base for the future Omsk Seminary.

So those who accuse the Moscow Patriarchate of wanting to get into the state shell and train specialists for themselves at public expense are right. A lot of taxpayers’ money has already been spent “on theology”. The Ministry of Education has developed and approved the “Expert in Theology” program, which is intended for retraining teachers of philosophy, history, philology, cultural studies, etc. and allows the Russian Orthodox Church, within the framework of the additional education system, to train theological specialists free of charge in state and non-state educational institutions. The establishment of more and more departments of theology also requires significant expenses - to date, 37 state and 10 non-state educational institutions have already received a license to train theologians. In 2012, the Ministry of Education allocated 186 budget places for theologians.

The most annoying thing is that this money is spent unwisely. Take, for example, the story of the opening of the department of theology at MEPhI. Not only are all existing Russian laws in this regard violated here, but it is quite obvious that no one will enter the department of theology at MEPhI and write a diploma there, and such an opportunity is not provided for. Therefore, students who are required to take a certain number of general humanities courses will be “offered” by hook or by crook “The History of Christian Thought”, which at the first lectures was given by the head of the department, Metropolitan Hilarion, chairman of the Department for External Church Relations of the Moscow Patriarchate and rector of the All-Church Postgraduate School , and now all kinds of people read it. At the beginning of the 2013 academic year, at a meeting of the elders, it was announced that it was necessary to gather 20 people from each course who would want to voluntarily attend the “History of Christian Thought”; for this they were promised some bonuses. But students were openly herded to Metropolitan Hilarion’s first lectures.

As elective courses in 2013, future physicists were taught “History of Art” and “Language as a Cultural Phenomenon”—the usual humanities disciplines. Why it is necessary to open a theology department at a university to teach them is unclear. Wouldn't it be better to spend this money on supporting spiritual education?

There is a suspicion that, to a large extent, the incident with MEPhI was a loud PR campaign (it really made a lot of noise: 90 corresponding members and academicians of the Russian Academy of Sciences wrote a letter of protest, physicist Anton Buslov left the institute, also in protest against the appearance of a “religious” at the university divisions"). Applicants for “pure” theology are not very successful. And now it’s strict with this: if they don’t recruit students, the ministry closes the direction. And few university departments manage to establish a high-quality educational process. Therefore, lately there has been a desire to focus on something specific (for example, at Tver University they are training teachers to teach “Fundamentals of Orthodox Culture”; at Ryazan University they have chosen the “History of Confession” profile) or, conversely, to expand and reformat: at Omsk State University, say, The theological faculty changed its work profile - the departments of philosophy and social work joined it and it became known as the Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities. Now theologians are trained by the Department of Theology and World Cultures. And at the Far Eastern University, theologians initially coexisted with religious scholars.

People of dubious professional merit often go to work for “secular theology,” as is, say, the statement of Irina Kharuk, teacher of the department of theology at the Moscow State Linguistic Institute (and at one time she was the head of the department!): “Theology should be taught from kindergarten (and even from toddlers), and then cover school and college. Without religion, no state can exist. Our students think the same way, saying that theology is the fulcrum in life.”

Meanwhile, the chain is not completed! The last step remains - the defense of dissertations. The Higher Attestation Commission is holding firm and does not agree to give up this last step - that is, to create expert councils on theology. In Europe, this problem is easily solved; there are public protections that take place directly at universities. And we have an unwieldy state system that requires a fair amount of shoveling in order to squeeze theological defenses into it.

Firstly, there are not enough doctors of science among church specialists to form a full-fledged expert council. And what kind of advice will it be - one for all “traditional” religions or for each of its own (but even “non-traditional” ones may want to, and it would be strange if they didn’t want to)? With the Orthodox press, the problem has been partly solved - “Bulletin of PSTGU” was included in the list of the Higher Attestation Commission, but nothing like this has yet been heard about the scientific publications of other religious organizations. In addition, the Regulations on the Higher Attestation Commission state: “...control over the implementation of decisions made is carried out by the chief scientific secretary of the Higher Attestation Commission. The chief scientific secretary of the Higher Attestation Commission is the deputy head of the Federal Service for Supervision in Education and Science." That is, the Orthodox are ready to leave the difficult fate of theological science in the hands of the government or do they want church specialists to join supervisory bodies in the field of education? In both cases, this is a clear violation of the Constitution, fraught with very dangerous consequences for both sides if the balance of power is suddenly upset.

Nevertheless, in October 2015, the Higher Attestation Commission made a serious concession - it approved a passport for the specialty "Theology", that is, it set a certain framework for defending dissertations. At the same time, expert councils on theology will still not be created, just as the degrees of candidates and doctors of theology will not be awarded: applicants will defend themselves in history, philosophy or religious studies, although in the specialty “Theology” (well, maybe they will write in parentheses "theologian", but this has not yet been decided).

Church representatives have more than once expressed their dissatisfaction with this state of affairs: why should theologians distort their works to fit a historical or any other format? The discovery of the Department of Theology in MEFU, I think, should once again show the demand and importance of theology for society - if MEPhI himself! .. And it is possible that it worked: the passport of the specialty “Theology” was approved! Which allowed the vice -rector for the scientific work of PSTGU to Father Konstantin Polskov to declare : “This situation is not very happy with the Russian Orthodox Church, but we consider it a temporary compromise, continuing to develop cooperation with the Higher Attestation Commission in this direction. Now, with the publication of a passport for theology, we have been able to form a dissertation council. ”

Meanwhile, the tension is growing between the religious science community and the advocates of secular theology. Not everywhere the situation develops as well as at the Far Eastern University, where the issues of religious studies and theology were clearly distinguished and each direction develops autonomously. Often, angry Philippics are reported from the church environment against the “vulgar-atheistic religious studies” , which supposedly flourishes at the corresponding departments. Some would like university theology to replace the science of religion. Bishops, periodically receiving instructions from the patriarch about the need to fully contribute to the spread of secular theological education, carefully introduce the thought that theology is almost the same as religious studies, only better (and very often, alas, they believe in this ). Result: In secular universities, they reduce places at religious wards. In some places, only the magistracy remained, but the undergraduate is no longer. So, without building a normal system of theological education (for which only the church can be blamed), there is every chance to successfully ruin a scientific religious school that has taken place in the post -Soviet years.