Theological Reflection in Eighteenth-Century Russia

It is usually believed that Russian religious thought started in the first half of the nineteenth century. As a rule, both admirers and critics of this thought assume that the previous centuries were something like the Dark Ages of Russian religious culture. Adam Drozdek’s book casts a new light on the crucial period when traditional Orthodox culture was forced to meet European Enlightenment. Drozdek carefully describes various theological reactions to modernization, reveals the influences of Western thought, and explains the striking forms of Orthodox political theology. The book provides a much-needed survey of Russian religious imagination, which shaped the context of the subsequent original religious thought. -- Pawel Rojek, Jagiellonian University