The Russian Orthodox Church and the School: View through the Century

Iskhakova Rezeda Rifovna ORCID: 0000-0001-9053-453X Professor, Department of Philosophy and Humanities, Kazan State Conservatory named after N.G.Zhiganov 38 B.krasnaya str., Kazan, 420015, Russia, Republic of Tatarstan isrezeda@yandex.ru

Kolcherin Aleksei Sergeevich Head of the Department of General and Church History, Archpriest, Associate Professor, Doctor of Church History, Kazan Orthodox Theological Seminary 5a Sukhoretskaya str., Kazan, 420098, Russia, Republic of Tatarstan kolcherin@mail.ru

The purpose of this work is to analyze the interaction of the Russian Orthodox Church and the Ministry of Public Education in the development of primary public education during the 19th century: staffing of the educational process, organization of educational work with students. The analysis of the development of public education, and the subject of our research is the primary folk school, shows that the Russian Orthodox Church (hereinafter – the ROC) was an important formative factor for the primary folk school of the Russian Empire throughout its history. There was no confrontation between the secular and spiritual systems, not only for the obvious reason that both were part of the state, formed ideology and public consciousness, but also because of a common goal-setting.

The factors of interaction between the ROC and the secular school include, first of all, formal institutions, these include parish churches with a priest, the presence of a structure of theological educational institutions – academies and seminaries, during the study period they provided a sufficient level of education corresponding to secondary and higher, which allowed teaching in the broadest sense. Informal factors include the special role of clergymen in Russian society – the introduction of children and adults to the faith, enlightenment and broadcasting of state ideology to the population, psychological support in difficult life situations, etc., all this was the basis for the special status of a clergyman and determined the range of his professional tasks.

First of all, it should be noted that the first widespread and multi-level education system in the country was the theological school, in its finished form it was formed by the middle of 1840.

Church schools for teaching literacy to children of the clergy and preparing them for the priestly ministry began to open en masse in the 1720s, about 300 years ago. Teachers in such schools were first graduates of the Slavic-Greek-Latin Academy, and later their own graduates. The teaching method was the simplest, the textbooks were mainly ABC books, liturgical books the Gospel and the Book of Hours, but they fulfilled their main task of training the clergy familiar with literacy. Church schools, which came to be called seminaries, were maintained at the expense of church funds from bishops' houses, state funds were also partially allocated, while it should be borne in mind that in Peter's time the first secularization of church property took place, and the state, in a sense, had obligations to finance educational, educational and social church projects.  

Russian Russian philosopher and theologian Georgy Florovsky, assessing the socio-cultural role of this education system, wrote: "the spiritual and school network turned out to be a genuine social basis for the entire development and expansion of Russian culture and enlightenment in the 19th century. The secular school did not get stronger very soon, not before the forties - the Kazan Gymnasium and even the university... were far behind the seminaries of that time, not to mention the.. academies. It was the "seminarian" who remained the builder of the Russian enlightenment in various fields for decades. The history of Russian science and scholarship in general is most closely connected with the spiritual school and the spiritual estate"^{[11, p. 231]}.

A great achievement in the system of spiritual education was the opening of theological academies at the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries, as centers for the development of church science, as well as a forge of high–ranking church personnel - bishops, officials of His Holiness (Government) Synod, governors of lavras and large monasteries, missionaries and church diplomats, rectors of metropolitan churches, teachers of theological academies and seminaries. 

Theological academies in St. Petersburg and Moscow, and later in Kiev and Kazan, received state allocations, had the opportunity to form the richest library and museum funds, train their best graduates in famous scientific and educational centers of the world. Students of theological academies studied theology, biblical studies, history and canons of the Church, church law and liturgics, biblical languages (Hebrew, ancient Greek, Latin), but also the teaching of secular humanities, modern European languages and even mathematics was set at a high level. Graduates of theological academies had the opportunity to apply their knowledge in various fields of activity of the Russian Orthodox Church, while their level of knowledge on average was not inferior, and sometimes even surpassed, the level of knowledge of graduates of imperial universities.

Despite the fact that during the 18th and 19th centuries they were created mainly for the training of clergymen, however, objectively, many teachers and teachers of different levels came out of theological educational institutions – primary public schools, gymnasiums, real schools, universities, tutors. Against the background of a general shortage of educated personnel, the availability of education, regardless of the specialty, made it possible to engage in pedagogical activity. Very often schools were opened with a single teacher – a parish priest. We also note one important circumstance – the pedagogical community, officials of the Ministry of Public Education (hereinafter – the Ministry of Education), public education figures, assessing the dynamics of the development of public education in the second half of the 18th century. In the 19th century, the primacy of graduates of the theological school in the development of mass primary education was celebrated.  In this aspect, the opinions and assessments of the church historian and theologian A.V. Gorsky^[1], historian I.E. Zabelin ^[2], historian of the Russian Church P.V. Znamensky ^[3] are characteristic.

The situation is noticeably changing under the influence of the liberal reforms of 1860-70, when the social order for general literacy was clearly formed. A nationwide course was taken for mass primary education through the opening of rural and urban primary schools. The positivist approach to education initiated the emergence of a new mass profession – a folk teacher with a special education. However, during this period, every clergyman becomes a teacher of the Law of God in educational institutions of all levels. So in the zemstvo schools it was taught by rural parish priests (as I testify in the MNP directories, often in several), and in gymnasiums and real schools – priests of urban parishes with an education not lower than the theological academy.

 For the clergy, teaching law at school becomes an important source of income, especially for the rural clergy, who often lived on the edge of poverty due to insufficient maintenance from the parish, small income from services and demands, as well as having many children. Therefore, the priests were interested in retaining their teaching positions, prepared themselves for conducting lessons according to the Law of God, studied teaching methods and available textbooks.

The author of a historical and analytical review of the activities of the MNP, G.A. Falbork, noted: "The best part of the nobility, and especially the clergy, who played an honorable role in the development of public education, took part in the enlightenment movement of that time" ^{[10, p. 109]}.

Since the mid-1860s, this trend has become dominant and graduates of theological educational institutions have been directly trained for teaching – teaching of pedagogy is introduced into the program of theological seminaries, pedagogical practice is organized, for which model and Sunday schools are organized at seminaries. Carried out in the wake of liberal reforms, the reform of spiritual educational institutions (1864-1867) "stretched" their curricula to the level of general secular education.

In addition, the comparative analysis of the list of graduates of the Kazan Theological Seminary for 1860-1890 and the formulary lists of employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs conducted by the authors shows that almost all were law teachers, and about a third of graduates, without entering the ranks after graduation, taught in schools of various departmental affiliation. The time period chosen for the analysis of this array of historical sources gives a fairly objective picture of the organization of school affairs in the post-reform period, in the 1880s. the picture is changing due to the organization of parochial schools (hereinafter referred to as CPS).

The participation of the church in the educational process in the Russian school was achieved by teaching the Law of God, which was a mandatory subject in the course of educational institutions at all levels. Moreover, we note that the role of the church was more tangible due to the special status of this subject, for the entire period under study, the question of the expediency of teaching this subject was not raised. Orthodox doctrine and Orthodox ethics were the basis for the formation of the moral potential of society.

It seems to us that education in the period under study was a process aimed at the formation of the student's personality, its further socialization in accordance with a given place in hierarchically and class-organized Russian society.

It was the social status of the student that determined the content of education. At the same time, the system-forming factor of the entire education system during this period is education organized by the means of the church - moral development, the formation of civic qualities. Hence the obligation of teaching the Law of God for all levels of education.

If you look at the content of the subject The Law of God, we will see that this course forms a person's worldview based on the Orthodox faith, including the doctrine of the creation of the world and man by God out of nothing; also, a significant place in the course is devoted to the study of the biblical history of the Old and New Testaments, the history of the Christian Church and the history of Orthodoxy on the territory of the Russian Empire; an important section of the Law of God It is a practical part in which the structure of the Orthodox church, observance of fasts and analysis of the main Orthodox prayers were studied.

An important argument for the expediency of teaching the Law of God in the realities of that time was that this subject created conditions for a meaningful understanding of the essence of Orthodoxy as a humanistic basis of everyday life, the meaning of church holidays and their inclusion in the life of the state and each person, the rules of behavior in the temple, etc.

The situation changed in the 1880s, when the role of the ROC in education, in general, and in particular, in the organization of school affairs, changed. A new stage has begun in the dialogue of interaction and mutual influence of the ROC and the MNE. It should be noted that if the previous period of this dialogue was characterized by a fairly organic and "soft" entry of religion and the church into the public education system, and we, I think, were able to argue this, then the network of the Central School of Education was the result of government policy in the context of counter-reforms. Conducted by Alexander III, the course was conditioned by the radicalization of the revolutionary movement of a terrorist nature, the assassination attempts and the assassination of Emperor Alexander II.

Prominent public figures of the conservative persuasion took part in the creation of a new type of schools and the formation of the concept – the chief prosecutor of the Holy Governing Synod, K.P. Pobedonostsev, teacher S.A. Rachinsky, educator and teacher N.I. Ilminsky.   The concept covered two aspects of the large–scale reform of public education: its ideological content, the expected result and organizational innovations - according to the plan, the new type of schools had to compete, and, ultimately, surpass the already existing network of zemstvo, city schools of the Ministry of Education and Science.  

In the course of the conservative and protective policy of the early 19th century, the Synod proposed a model of an elementary school, set out in the "Rules concerning the initial education of village children" (1836). The parish was to become the organizational and territorial center, and the only teacher was a clergyman: "the establishment and maintenance of schools at churches, in a simple form, for teaching the children of the villagers to read, write prayers and the rudiments of the catechism"^[4,34].

 The rules were adopted on the initiative of the Synod's Chief Prosecutor N.A. Protasov and were of a recommendatory nature, but it seems that they were intended to activate the role of the church in public education, and were within the framework of a general educational course. Therefore, it should not be assumed that these few schools with unclear tasks and organizational structure were the prototype of the CPSH.

A new type of school became a CPS, where the parish priest was to become the main figure. It should be noted that in the peasant environment and among the urban poor (it was for them that the CPSH was created), the need for literacy during this period was no longer in doubt, therefore, the status and authority of the clergyman in the eyes of the population grew. In the schools of the MNP, "a priest in the school of his parish could not be a leader and educator of the younger generation, but was only a hired teacher of the Law of God in everything subordinate almost exclusively to the secular authorities" ^{[4, p. 56]}.

G. Florovsky, reflecting on the socio-cultural role of the CPSH, wrote: "The village school was a final school, one should not inspire students with a restless and vain desire to go further, thereby shaking the foundations of social groups. Pobedonostsev learned the role of a protective institution in the People's School: to keep people in strict subordination to the order of public life. And Pobedonostsev did not want to go beyond these rudiments of applied semi-enlightenment in any way" ^{[11, p. 412]}. Primary school, according to its creators, should be the only and sufficient level of education for the majority of the population of the country, the worldview and civic position of students should have been formed in it. In the conservative paradigm of education, emphasis was placed on the educational impact by means of Orthodoxy, limiting the range of knowledge of students and, consequently, the possibility of continuing education, despite the fact that a multi-stage succession education system had developed in the country by that time.

The understanding of the notorious archaism of the Central School of Education in the new conditions followed immediately after their creation, the philosopher V.V. Rozanov wrote: "they say that the schools of letters and parochial schools are "the product of higher state and even almost historical and political considerations. It's like the voice of Minin and Pozharsky. Minin and Pozharsky seem to be looking out of the grave... and they bequeath us to teach children by all means starting with the "Psalter", and not with anything else. Obeying this voice... Russia should wait rather than rush hastily and antihistorically along the paths of Ushinsky, Pirogov and other lesser ones"^{[7, 34]}.

The authors of the CPSH project and its implementation were the chief prosecutor of the Synod, K.P. Pobedonostsev, and the teacher, who stands on consistently Orthodox positions, S.A. Rachinsky, in which we see the unification of the government line and the ideological basis. K.P. Pobedonostsev, introduced Alexander 3 to his activities: "a few years ago I reported to you about Sergei Rachinsky... He breathed a whole new life into a whole generation of peasants… He became a true benefactor of the area, having founded and leads, with the help of 4 priests, 5 folk schools, which now represent a model for the whole earth ..." ^{[5, p. 256]}.

S.A. Rachinsky, worked as a professor of botany at Moscow University, and in 1872 in the family estate of S. Tatevo, Smolensk province, became the organizer and teacher of a school for peasant children. A few years later, the Tatev school and its creator became famous, teachers, journalists, and public figures came to him. It should be noted that in the conditions of the activation of the revolutionary movement, public thought turned to the problems of school and education as a possible reason for the spread of radical ideas. The All-Russian fame of S.A. Rachinsky's pedagogical system was due to his journalism, then he was noticed by Pobedonostsev, to whom Rachinsky's ideas seemed close and strikingly relevant.

In the 1880s. Russian Russian Gazette", "Russian Review", "National Education", the newspaper "Moskovskie Vedomosti", subsequently combined in the collection "Rural school", Rachinsky published 12 articles in the publications of the protective direction: the magazines "Rus", "Russian Bulletin", "Russian Review", "National Education", the newspaper "Moskovskie Vedomosti".

The empirical experience of school practice, observations, conversations with peasants allowed him to formulate the principles of teaching and upbringing, the organization of the educational process. The central place in the concept was not the presentation of pedagogical experience, but the ideological basis, which set new tasks for the ROC and its institutions – to become a leader in the organization of primary public education and upbringing in accordance with Orthodoxy. 

Rachinsky understood that there were contradictions between the ideal model he proposed and the real reality, and he assigned exorbitant tasks to parish priests, he wrote about it: "that turn to pastoral activity, to spiritual and school teaching, that turn that the renewal of the church school has come to meet, will it not die out without a trace due to the alienation from the church of the necessary element in it - the secular?" ^{[6, p. 145]}.

Rachinsky understood that in his model the clergy were a detail vulnerable to criticism, N.M. Gorbov, a follower and disciple of Rachinsky, wrote about this: "he was by no means blind to the shortcomings of the clergy. On the contrary, he pointed them out in print, and in letters, and in conversations, as strongly, as comprehensively as a person can do it, to the subtlety that knows the clergy ..." ^{[6, p. 23]}.  

Under the influence of external circumstances and discussions in the press, Rachinsky's views on the national teacher became more specific.  He believed that a teacher should be a deeply religious person and this is a necessary and sufficient quality, special pedagogical training in the form of methodology and didactics is optional: "a teacher should know well only what he will teach: "the simpler they teach, the better, as long as they teach diligently" ^{[6, p. 60]}.

He was also distrustful of teachers who had been trained in secular secondary pedagogical institutions, believing that "pupils... they receive, in fact, a very meager and superficial semi-education and thus fall into a painful, distressing situation. The resulting harm does not pay off by the familiarity they bring out of seminaries with teaching according to "new methods that have their own merits, but have little relation to the requirements of the new school" ^{[6, p. 32]}.

The authors' analysis of the mutual influence of the ROC and the folk school in the 1880s shows that N.I. Ilminsky, who during this period became an influential figure in education, determining the ways of development of the folk foreign school in the eastern part of the Russian Empire, had an active influence in the process of forming the concept of the Central School.

N.I. Ilminsky was a native of the clergy, a graduate of the Kazan Theological Academy, an outstanding orientalist scientist, a specialist in Islamic studies, an expert in Arabic, Turkish and Tatar languages. At the same time, N.I. Ilminsky left the scientific path, devoting himself to the cause of public education and practical mission, and replaced the position of professor at the Kazan Imperial University and the Kazan Theological Academy with the post of director of the Kazan Foreign Teachers' Seminary.

One should not overestimate the role of Pobedonostsev in the creation of the CPSH, his organizational abilities did not impress his contemporaries, the role of Rachinsky should also not be embellished – this is not a genius of pedagogy, an amateur school in S. Tatevo has trained only forty teachers during its existence.

Against this background, Ilminsky appears to us as a figure of a completely different scale, a teacher "from God", the author of a deep general pedagogical concept and brilliant solutions to specific issues. By this time he was well acquainted with Pobedonostsev and Rachinsky, Ilminsky's letters addressed to K.P. Pobedonostsev were widely known ^[12], Ilminsky's student I.Ya. Yakovlev, director of the Chuvash Teachers' Seminary, wrote about this correspondence.

Ilminsky took a concrete part in the development of the concept of the Central School of Economics in two main aspects – in the "foreign part" – it is entirely borrowed from him, and in the question of the role and methodology of teaching the Old Slavic language in Russian central schools. Therefore, it is these parts of the concept that turned out to be the most vivid. Thanks to Ilminsky, the Church educational department showed an unexpected breadth of views on the national issue - agreeing with the principle of teaching in native languages – while even in moderate conservative circles this was perceived with suspicion, and many representatives of the bureaucracy and church hierarchs treated everything foreign with contempt.

At the same time, it seems to us that Ilminsky turned out to be, in general, not in demand, precisely because the initiators of the creation of the CPSH were unable to deeply understand and evaluate his views and activities. By 1884, when the CPSH began to be created, Ilminsky had a wealth of experience in creating public schools, and it was "about" the priest, and, no less importantly, the experience of training teachers for such schools. These were first the schools of the brotherhood of St. Guria in the Kazan province (more than 200) since 1867, then the schools of the Orthodox Missionary Society in other provinces - many hundreds.

The students of the schools of the missionary and educational system of N.I. Ilminsky from among non-Russian peoples, primarily in the Middle Volga region, but also in other parts of the Russian Empire, were brought up in the Orthodox spirit, received reading and writing skills in their native language, and also mastered the Russian language to a sufficient extent. Many graduates of N.I. Ilminsky schools became teachers and even priests themselves, got the opportunity to continue their education in theological seminaries and academies, gymnasiums and universities, thus, for the first time, forming cadres of national intelligentsia. The schools of the N.I. Ilminsky system have shown their high efficiency in increasing the general level of literacy of the population and the rooting of non-Russian peoples of the Russian Empire in the Orthodox faith.

The Synod began its direct legislative activity in the early 1880s. In September 1882, by order of the Committee of Ministers and at the suggestion of Pobedonostsev, a commission was created at the Synod, which included representatives of the Synod, the MNE, active metropolitan zemtsy, Rachinsky played the main role in it. The main normative acts that formed the basis of the CPSH were developed, the principles of the activities of the governing bodies and sources of funding were outlined.

The Commission determined that the CPS were under the jurisdiction of the ROC, for which a Church Educational Department was specially created at the Synod, which assumed full authority and supervision of church schools: general guidance and educational and methodological support, approaches to the formation of teaching staff. On the ground, the CPSH came under the strict control of dioceses and diocesan school councils. The network of the Central School of Education was not conceived as a narrow ethnic one, intended only for the Russian Orthodox population, it took into account the general national composition of the population - it provided for the opening of schools for the non-Russian population of the country, this decision was especially relevant for the multinational provinces of the country.

Since the mid-1880s, a new parallel system of public education has been developing rapidly in the country, with strong legal and financial support from the state and the ROC. Having lost, in part, its influence on primary ministerial and public schools, the State and the Church are re-creating a folk school.

Conclusions:

The ROC in the 19th century was closely connected with the cultural, socio-economic and socio–political situation in Russia.   In the educational strategy of the Russian government, the cooperation of the activities of the MNE and the Holy Synod was observed in the field of primary education.

 The cooperation consisted in the fact that the state assigned a decisive role to the parish clergy in primary public education and the formation of ideological attitudes, at the secondary and higher levels - educational goals were achieved through mandatory teaching of the Law of God in all educational institutions.

A new stage in the activity of the spiritual department came during the reign of Alexander III, the role of the confessional school in public education became more distinct. CPSH were by their status primary secular schools. In the decision to create a central school, a political moment was clearly traced – they had to resist the network of zemstvo schools.