PROKOPOVICH, FEOFAN (1681–1736)

PROKOPOVICH, FEOFAN (1681–1736), was the most influential ecclesiastical official of Russia's Petrine era, who rose to the position of archbishop of Novgorod and vice president of the new Holy Synod, from which he exercised immense authority on behalf of Peter the Great's reforms. One of several prominent Ukrainian clerics (he was born in Kiev) in Peter's service, he first came to Peter's attention as an engaging sermonizer in 1708, and he orated a dramatic panegyric to Peter after the victory at Poltava in 1709.

Feofan is best known for his panegyric sermons and his definitive tracts in defense of Petrine reforms, most famously his justification for Peter's new law on succession of 1722, The Right of the Monarch's Will, and the statute setting up the Synodal church, the Spiritual Regulation. Although doubts have been raised about Feofan's authorship of these and several other works, most historians attribute them to him. After the incarceration of Peter's son Alexis for treason and his subsequent death in 1718, the tsar was left with no adult male heirs. In response he modified the law to permit the sitting monarch to name a successor. Feofan defended this decision as being consistent with Orthodox principles, the will of God, and common sense.

The Spiritual Regulation codified the new administrative structure for the church, the elimination of the patriarchate (which had been vacant since the death of Patriarch Adrian in 1700) and its replacement by a collegial body, the Holy Synod, composed of a mix of clergy and laymen appointed by the tsar. The Spiritual Regulation explained what this change meant to the body of the church and to the clergy, especially parish priests, who now became de facto functionaries of the state, and monastic clergy, who saw their numbers and resources dramatically curtailed.

Feofan is also associated with catechization of the parish and parish clergy through the circulation of his booklet, A Child's First Lesson. Intended as a literacy primer and a catechism on the Ten Commandments, A Child's First Lesson was prescribed for use in the church service, replacing other non-obligatory texts such as those of Efraim the Syrian. This text bore the hallmarks of Feofan's approach to language. Here, and to a lesser extent in his sermons, he consciously adopted a simple and straightforward tone in place of the decorative baroque of high Church Slavonic prose. Writing in the vernacular, he endeavored to employ the language of everyday speech, so that whether spoken aloud or read, the meaning of the text would be accessible directly to the laity. Although it remains unclear whether A Child's First Lesson was widely used for literacy instruction, it did circulate very widely in the eighteenth century, running through over a dozen printings and tens of thousands of copies.

During Peter's last years and after his death Feofan played an instrumental role in court politics and may have been crucial in facilitating the elevation of Peter's wife, Catherine, to the throne, thus inaugurating a long period (until 1796) in which female rule was the norm rather than the exception in Russia. Feofan composed the official account of Peter's death and succession, elegies, and the primary panegyrics extolling the post-Petrine political arrangement. He also worked behind the scenes among Russia's fractious court parties and guards' regiments, on behalf of political stability.

See also Autocracy ; Orthodoxy, Russian ; Peter I (Russia) ; Russian Literature and Language .

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Cracraft, James. The Church Reform of Peter the Great. Stanford, 1971.

Lentin, A., trans. and ed. Peter the Great: His Law on Imperial Succession: The Official Commentary. Oxford, 1996.

Muller, Alexander V., trans. and ed. The Spiritual Regulation of Peter the Great. Seattle, 1972.

Gary Marker