Zelisko S. Hieromonk Joseph (Zelisko). Transformational Processes in the Ecclesiology of the Russian Orthodox Church in the 20-th Century: State-Church Relations Aspect

The dissertation is a complex interdisciplinary analysis of the transformation of ecclesiological idea in terms of qualitative and quantitative changes in the relations between Church and State power. By the example of events in the 20-th century Russia, we have established the main patterns of development of the definition of the concept “church” in the Orthodox ecclesiology of Russian theologians, the formation of their ecclesiological views was done depending on the pattern and degree of closeness of the Orthodox Church's relations with any one political regime, as well as the degree of confrontation or lack of relations with the State. It has been ascertained that close ties with State lead to tendentious distortions of ecclesiology. The State supported determine the Church as a quasi-state, in order to promote the religious and political ideas about the State as almost the Church. It was also found out that as a result of the Church’s emancipation from the State there occurred a turning-point to the ecclesiastical approach to defining the Holy Church (through the concept of the Christ’s Flesh, acting presence of Holy Spirit in a Church, the theanthropic item in the Church, Love concept, Kingdom of Heaven). Basic markers have been developed for the representation of the practical impact on the Church’s status and State-Church relations by fixed legislative measures as for the Church, which objectively allowed us to distinguish the real status of the Church in the State from the declarative one. Basing on the estimation criteria of the place and role of the State in the Church’s life, the ideological groups of Russian Orthodoxy (theologians, individual figures or groups of thinkers of Russian Orthodoxy of the 20’th century) have been typologically classified and a comparative analysis of transformations of ecclesiological views of these ideological groups has been made with the help of above-mentioned criteria. The interrelation between changes in the socio-political life of the State and changes in ecclesiology was analysed. As a result of such a relationship it has been ascertained that the greatest influence occurs under conditions of legitimate connection (the pattern of the state Church) or collaboration by a churchdom (e.g. promotion of modernist trends among ecclesiological concepts in the period of revolution and involvement of representatives of the Church in intelligence activities during the years of “Cold War”). It has been also found out that in case when there’s no legitimate connection between the Church and the State, there are no stable pattern of the impact of changes of the state system on the ecclesiological thought of the Orthodox Church. A universal classification of types of States on religious grounds has been developed, which allows to establish or model possible relations between State and Church, on the one hand, or even the absence of interrelations depending on the positioning of State on a set of signs of (non)religiosity of State, and, on the other hand — to determine the cause and degree of combinability of political regimes with certain statuses of the Church inside State.