BELJAJEV, NICOLA JAKOVLEVIČ. - Russian theologian and polemicist of the 19th century, d. 1894. He was professor at the ecclesiastical academy of Kazan, and later inspector. B. concerned himself chiefly with anti-Catholic and anti-Protestant polemics. His principal work is entitled: *Dottrina del cattolico romano sulla soddisfazione offerta a Dio dall'uomo* (Kazan 1878).
B.'s defect is that he often confuses the official teaching of the Catholic Church with the opinions of schools and presents as an expression of Eastern Orthodoxy the particular views of some Russian theologian of our time.
BIBL.: *Tserkvenyi Viestnik*, 1894, pp. 637, 646-48 and 663-664; *Enciclopedia teologica ortodossa* (in Russian), II, cols. 1277-79.