2023 Author: Bryan Walter | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-05-21 22:24
Metropolitan Filaret of Moscow, fragment of the III hallmark of the icon of the New Russian Mother of God, Sergei Kurakin, 1939
The first candidate dissertation in theology in modern Russia was defended by Archpriest Pavel Khondzinsky, Dean of the Theological Faculty of the Orthodox St. Tikhon University, on the topic “Solving the Problems of Russian Theology of the 18th Century in the Synthesis of Saint Philaret, Metropolitan of Moscow”. Reported by RIA Novosti.
In the fall of 2015, the Presidium of the Higher Attestation Commission under the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation approved a passport for the scientific specialty "theology". According to this document, theological research is aimed at identifying, analyzing and interpreting significant aspects of religious life and their correlation with the norms of a particular religious tradition. An important area of the subject field of the specialty "Theology" is the study of the history and current state of the relationship of a religious organization to other confessional teachings and organizations, as well as to the state and society.
The first defense of a Ph. D. thesis in Russia in the specialty "theology" took place at the General Church Postgraduate and Doctorate Studies named after Saints Cyril and Methodius. The Dissertation Council on Theology, consisting of 23 scientists, was headed by the chairman of the Department for External Church Relations of the Moscow Patriarchate, Metropolitan Hilarion (Alfeyev) of Volokolamsk. 21 out of 22 councilors present voted for the award of the academic degree to Pavel Khondzinsky.
At the same time, the dissertation abstract received four positive and five negative reviews. Opponents found claims to the research methodology, which, it is argued, "is based on the personal experience of faith and the life of the theologian."
Metropolitan Hilarion himself, who headed the first dissertation council in theology, received his Ph. D. in theology from the University of Oxford and defended his habilitation in Freiburg. The Higher Attestation Commission recognized these diplomas as equivalent to a candidate's degree in theology and a doctoral degree in philosophy, since there is no doctorate in theology in Russia yet.
