The first Russian textbooks on church history: the problem of origin
The paper examines the first Russian textbooks on Church history, authored by saints Philaret (Drozdov, 1782-1867) and Innokenty (Smirnov, 1784- 1819). These textbooks, published for the first time in 1816 and 1817, remained for a long time the main tools for studying the history of the Church in ecclesiastical academies and seminaries. The author traces the structural relationship between the texts of these manuals, as well as their relation to the Western Church historiography of the epoch. Even in the pre-revolutionary historiography it was noted that the authors of Russian textbooks of the early 19th century largely relied on the Western historiographic tradition. This study verifies and corrects data from pre-revolutionary historiography on the basis of the study of the primary sources. The author reveals the previously unknown influence of Protestant Church historians Johann Mosheim (1693-1755) and Johann Heinzius (†1733) on the Russian authors, who at the same time, corrected Western texts in accordance with Orthodox ecclesiology.