Tradition! L’Affaire of Markel Radyshevskii (1726-1731) and the Debate on the National Church in the post-Petrine Russia

• In Event: The Individual and the Empire: The Fate of Subjects in the 18th-Century Russian Empire (The Problem of Source Analysis)

Abstract

The paper offers a close reading of the scandal that pitted the archbishop of Novgorod Feofan Prokopovich (1681-1736) against his former client and protégé Markel Radyshevskii (d. 1742), long interpreted as a struggle between Petrine modernizers and their traditionalist opponents. Launched by an inquiry into the charges of financial impropriety, the case evolved into a complicated and protracted affair, propelled by the political crises that accompanied the succession of Catherine I (1725-1727). Peter II (1727-1730), and Anne (1730-1740.  The procedure of a criminal investigation into the charges of corruption, sedition, and heresy, provided a vehicle for an important theological debate on the nature of a national church and its tradition, in which both sides sought to conceptualize the difference between the eternal Tradition and “the doctrines the commandments of men” (Matth. 15:9)  

Author

• Olga Tsapina, The Huntington Library