A Thorny Path of Classical Languages at the Moscow Theological Schools

Abstract

From 1685, when the Slavic-Greek-Latin Academy was founded, the ancient classical languages became an integral part of higher spiritual education in Russia and, later, of many branches of secular education; they were taught in theological schools and seminaries, in academies, as well as in gymnasiums and universities. The ancient languages were treated differently in Russia at different historical periods: in the XVII-thirds of the XIXth century they were the living languages of instruction; from the second third of the XIXth century up to the revolutionary upheavals of the beginning of the XXth century they were dead languages, in which, nevertheless, the deepest introduction to the spiritual culture of the past was carried out; in the second half of the XXth century they suffered a miserable existence. They had to drag out a miserable existence in conditions of temporary triumph of militant atheism whose ideologists systematically tried to destroy together with the spirituality of Orthodoxy and classical education. In our article a more detailed emphasis will be made on the teaching of classical languages in the Moscow Theological Academy in the least studied Soviet era, but for a more relief picture of this it is necessary to make at least a brief excursus to pre-revolutionary times.