SFI Students in Theology and History Defend their Final Coursework

Anna Lepekhina defended a master’s thesis in Theology entitled: 
“The Ministry of the Faithful in the Ecclesiological Conceptions of Fr Nicholai Afanasiev and Fr Georgy Kochetkov”.

In the introduction to her thesis she states that, “Fr Georgy Kochetkov turned his attention to the problem of restoring the fullness of Russian Church life after its destruction in the Soviet period. He found the key to solving this problem in the practical implementation of and theological reflection on the principle of ‘local conciliarity’ (местная соборность), which further led him to ‘discover’ the communal-fraternal structure of the Church. Fr Georgy builds upon the ideas of Fr Nicholai Afanasiev, engages in dialogue and polemic with him, and develops a vision of the fullness of ministries within the Church that differs from Afanasiev’s.”

Senior Lecturer and Head of the SFI Theological College, Olga Kuznetsova, highlighted the relevance of the thesis for contemporary theological knowledge, particularly in light of the discussion of the ministry of faithful laypeople at the Inter-Conciliar Presence during the spring session of the Holy Synod of the ROC, in 2024.  The State Examination Commission highly praised Anna’s work and recommended that she prepare a scholarly publication based on her research.

Master’s student in history Maria-Liga Zariņya presented a thesis entitled “The Activities of the Riga Peter and Paul Orthodox Brotherhood in Riga during the Interwar Period, 1921–1941”.  Many of the sources Maria-Liga used are being published for the first time, as she independently translated a large volume of documents from Latvian into Russian.

Dean of the Faculty of Religious Studies at SFI, PhD Candidate Margarita Shilkina, highlighted the thesis's personality-centred approach: “The Brotherhood appears not merely as an organization; Liga Zariņya presents living, concrete people, revealing their personal stories and showing their role in various aspects of the Brotherhood’s life. The work abounds with the names of bishops, priests, and laypeople who served in the Brotherhood or were connected with it,” noted Margarita Shilkina.

The State Examination Commission highly praised the bachelor’s thesis presented by Elena Shevchuk, entitled “The Image of Christ in Russian Spiritual Verse of the Late 19th – Early 20th Century”.  The material Elena presented was indeed very interesting. In the thesis, spiritual verses are presented as works shaped not only by the Gospel (often understood in a distinctive way by folk performers), but also by liturgical texts, apocrypha, and folklore.  Shevchuk has made a comparative analysis of the image of Christ in the spiritual verses and in the sources behind them, arriving at unexpected conclusions. In particular, the work succeeded in showing how complex and diverse the fusion of folk faith and the Gospel truly is, and that this fusion is far more multifaceted than the simplistic notion of “dual faith” (двоеверие) among the Russian people.

In her thesis, History master’s student Elena Melkumyan described the situation of the Diocese of Riga within the new church-political context of 1944–1945. Olga Enbaeva’s master’s thesis in Theology was devoted to the 1982 Lima Document (on Baptism, Eucharist and Ministry), which reflects the positions of various churches on the issues of baptism, the Eucharist, and ordained ministry, as well as the document's reception within the Russian Orthodox Church. Evgenia Litvinenko’s thesis examined the framing of the problem of dialogue between the Church and society in Russia in the early 2000s, using materials from the SFI “Faith – Dialogue – Communion" conferences. Lyudmila Kharashkevich’s bachelor’s thesis is devoted to the theological aspects of Nikolai Berdyaev’s work entitled "I and the World of Objects: Philosophic Experience of Solitude and Society". In her bachelor’s thesis, Elena Aleksandrova explored the theme of church renewal as presented in the journals Vek and Tserkovnoe obnovlenie.

The State Attestation Commission hearing these coursework defences was chaired by PhD Dmitry Bogatyrev, Rector of the Dostoevsky Russian Christian Academy for the Humanities. All theses presented were successfully defended.