SFI Senior Lecturer Zoya Dashevskaya Defends her Doctoral Candidate’s Dissertation

On November 17, a PhD thesis defense took place at Lomonosov Moscow State University. The candidate was Zoya Dashevskaya, Senior Lecturer at St. Philaret’s Orthodox Christian Institute (SFI).  The title of Dashevskaya’s dissertation is “The Origin and Development of Historical Liturgics in the Theological Academies of the Russian Empire (1808–1884)”.  The dissertation was defended in the field of Russian History: Code 5.6.1.

Dissertation examiners included:  
Aleksey Beglov, Doctor of Historical Sciences, Senior Researcher at the Centre for the History of Religion and the Church, Institute of World History, Russian Academy of Sciences;  Irina Smirnova, Doctor of Historical Sciences, Leading Researcher at the Institute of Russian History, Russian Academy of Sciences;  Fr Konstantin Kostromin, Candidate of Theology and Candidate of Historical Sciences, Lecturer at St. Petersburg Theological Academy.

The work reveals the substantive features of the multifaceted process of the development of Historical Liturgics at the theological academies and demonstrates the stages involved in establishing Historical Liturgics as both an academic subject and a scholarly discipline.

Dashevskaya's academic supervisor, Doctor of Economics Archimandrite Philip (Simonov), Professor and Head of the Church History Department of the Faculty of History at Moscow State University, noted that, "this study provides a qualified assessment of the achievements of Russian liturgists, based on the current state of both domestic and foreign historical-liturgical scholarship."

Examiner Aleksey Beglov stated that "the dissertation examines the dynamics of the development of Historical Liturgics from an auxiliary to an independent historical scholarly discipline, and also raises the question of the formation of a corresponding scholarly school. The work addresses not only questions regarding the history of education, but also considers the history of the development of theological education within the imperial educational system that shaped the intellectual horizon of the Russian clergy”.

Dashevskaya’s defence was unanimously approved by the members of the examination committee.

SFI Rector Alexander Kopirovsky was present at the defence to support Dashevskaya, as were other professors, teachers and graduates of SFI.

We all wish to heartily congratulate Ms Dashevskaya upon the successful defence of her candidate’s dissertation!