Prokopovich, Feofan

views updated

PROKOPOVICH, FEOFAN

PROKOPOVICH, FEOFAN (1681–1736) was a Russian Orthodox archbishop who collaborated with Peter the Great to subordinate the administration of the Russian Orthodox church to the imperial government. The instrument of subordination was the Dukhovnyi Reglament (Ecclesiastical Regulation), Prokopovich's most famous writing, which Peter had proclaimed on January 25, 1721.

The Ecclesiastical Regulation achieved the subordination of the church's administration to the tsarist state until the tsardom collapsed in 1917. It abolished the patriarchate of Moscow, replacing it with an Ecclesiastical College modeled on the collegial system that had just been introduced into the civilian administration of the Russian empire. The Ecclesiastical College immediately and successfully sought to rename itself the Most Holy Governing Synod. The change in name symbolized the beginning of a nearly two-hundred-year struggle by churchmen and supporters of the church to regain administrative autonomy for the church.

One of the more burdensome features of the Ecclesiastical Regulation was the subjugation of the clergy to police supervision. Priests were obliged to witness against their penitents or face severe legal sanctions. The regulation had the immediate effect of strengthening the Old Believer schism and the long-term effect of alienating the clergy from their flocks.

Prokopovich's career signified a secularizing and protestantizing development within the Russian church. Like Peter, Prokopovich believed that the concept of symphonia, which defined church and state as two autonomous but interrelated phenomena, served to weaken political authority, to encourage Old Believer intransigence, and to foster political disloyalty.

Raised by his uncle, Prokopovich studied in Jesuit colleges in the Polish Ukraine and in Rome, where, of necessity, he converted to (Uniate) Catholicism. In Kiev, he reconverted to Orthodoxy; he was appointed rector of the Kiev Theological Academy (1711), bishop of Pskov (1718), and archbishop of Novgorod (1720).

When the tsar died in 1725, Prokopovich came under attack from traditionalist churchmen determined to restore canonical equilibrium between church and state. Prokopovich counterattacked. He was a key supporter of the candidacy to the Russian throne of Anna Ivanovna of Kurland (r. 1730–1740), thereby becoming instrumental in bringing upon the Russian church the so-called German yoke.

Prokopovich's final years found him in the anomalous situation of defending the traditional hierarchical organization and the apostolic succession of the Orthodox church against further reforms of the Kurlander administration. A collection of Prokopovich's religious and political works titled Words and Speeches (Saint Petersburg, 1765) appeared posthumously.