The Chairman of the Educational Committee of the Russian Orthodox Church meets with St. Philaret’s Institute (SFI)

The Chairman of the Educational Committee of the Russian Orthodox Church, Rector of the Holy Equals-to-the-Apostles Cyril and Methodius Churchwide Postgraduate and Doctoral Programme, Fr Maxim Kozlov, delivered a lecture on October 15 at the SFI entitled “Spiritual Education in the Russian Orthodox Church in the 20th–21st Centuries: Historical Overview, Current State, Achievements, and Challenges."

Beginning with an account of the system of spiritual education in pre-revolutionary Russia, Fr Maxim dwelt in greater detail on its tragic destruction during the Soviet period, also describing the stages involved in restoring spiritual education from the early 1990s to the present day."

Father Maxim said that as early as the 1920s, the system of spiritual education in the USSR had been virtually destroyed, and by the time of the Great Patriotic War almost the entire faculty and administrative staff of the theological schools had been repressed. The revival of the system's structure began in 1943, following the famous meeting between Stalin and Metropolitans Sergius (Stragorodsky), Alexy (Simansky), and Nikolai (Yarushevich) — three of the very few hierarchs who at that moment were not imprisoned. When the Church received permission from the authorities to re-open theological schools, there was virtually no one left to teach in them. For this reason, and also because of the close oversight by the Council for the Affairs of the Russian Orthodox Church, part of the leadership and teaching staff was drawn from representatives of the Renovationist movement (Obnovlentsy). But even this brief “renaissance” came to an end in 1948 with yet another shift in political course, which remains enshrined in church memory as the Khrushchev persecutions.

Fr Maxim shared a personal recollection with those present: even in the mid-1980s, teaching in the Moscow Theological Schools was still done via so-called “lecture notes” — “typewritten, abbreviated versions of old pre-revolutionary textbooks in which you had to trace the text with a fine pencil so that the letters could be made out at all.”

The head of the Educational Committee devoted the second portion of his lecture to the current state of spiritual education in the Russian Orthodox Church. He presented statistical data on the number of theological schools and students studying in them, and also spoke about the priorities of church leadership in the development of higher church education. “A colossal breakthrough that was achieved thanks to the principled position of the Primate of our Church is that all higher theological educational institutions at the bachelor’s level have received state accreditation. As for the master’s programs, this process is nearing completion: out of the 14 master’s programs we have, three are currently in the final stage of this process,” reported Fr Maxim.

Among the problems that theological schools have to face, Fr Maxim mentioned the declining level of preparation amongst secondary school graduates, which significantly affects the quality of knowledge among applicants. The issue of motivation for those entering theological education remains serious. “Theological seminaries are not an easy choice for a young person; the choice involves a certain self-restraint at a particular stage in life. And seminary study does not promise overly joyful material or great career prospects,” Fr Maxim noted.

In addition to pastoral education, Fr Maxim touched upon the training of choir directors (regents) and iconographers, and spoke about significant Educational Committee initiatives. Among these are:

• the “Bachelor of Theology Textbook” project, within the framework of which there is a plan to publish textbooks for all the main disciplines in the curriculum over the next five years;
• the Churchwide Theology Olympiads Programme;
• the “Memory of the Church” project, which collects the memories of living witnesses of church life during the Soviet period.

“Unlike other similar projects, ‘Memory of the Church’ is distinguished by the fact that these are not second-hand accounts or memories about someone else; these are the testimonies of people who themselves lived through that era: we hear of how they prayed and fasted, how services were celebrated in the churches, where icons came from, and what problems they faced at work or in university because of their Orthodox faith,” said Father Maxim, inviting representatives of SFI to participate in the project. “We would be very grateful for responses and for the collection of such materials; we very much want this portal to become a repository of memory about those decades.”

ter the conclusion of his lecture, the Chairman of the Educational Committee answered questions from the leadership and faculty of SFI.