Martyr Ioann Popov and Holy Martyr Hilarion (Troitsky): Parallels of Life and Work

Abstract

The article examines the main stages of the life path, theological views and church and social activities of two outstanding Russian theologians of the turn of the XIX-XX centuries — Professor Ivan Vasilyevich Popov and Archbishop Hilarion (Troitskiy). The analysis is carried out in a comparative biographical way, using church-historical and ideological-theoretical approaches. Using their example, for the first time, different types of church ministry (a lay professor and a church hierarch) are compared, united by a common spiritual and intellectual tradition of ‘Popovichi’ (children of Russian Orthodox clergy). The continuity of their key theological ideas is revealed: from I. V. Popov’s concept of love as a harmonious relationship of wills to love as the unity of the Church in Archbishop Hilarion’s ecclesiology. It is shown how deification, actualized in the works of I. V. Popov, is reflected in the theology of Archbishop Hilarion, acquiring the character of a principle uniting Patristic Christology, Soteriology and Ecclesiology, and is used by him to criticize Catholic and Protestant doctrines. Both, in the context of the ideas of the ‘New theology’, turn out to be younger disciples of Mitr. Anthony (Khrapovitsky). The dynamics of their views on the legacy of St. Augustine is revealed. The article analyzes the evolution of their church-public positions in the face of repression (including the Solovetsky Message and the attitude to the Declaration of Metropolitan Sergius). Using the example of these two figures, it is shown that unity in the main (loyalty to the Church) and differences in the particular (the role of hierarchy, attitude to compromises with power) reflect the key contradictions of the Russian church intelligentsia, which tried to preserve the faith in an era of catastrophe.