KIRĒEV, ALEKSANDR ALEKSĒEVIČ. - General of cavalry (1833–1911). A well-known Russian theologian. In 1862 he was aide-de-camp to Grand Duke Costantino, governor of the Kingdom of Poland. Later he attended the University of Pietroburgo, was deputy for the district of Mosca, and secretary of the Society of Lovers of Spiritual Culture. From that time (1874–75) he held discussions with the leaders of the Old Catholics (Döllinger, Langen, etc.), in the hope of being able to spread “orthodoxy” in the West.
K. was a convinced Slavophile and wrote as such on political questions, having known Chomjakov, the Kirčevskij, and the Aksakov in his youth. In his theological writings he regarded the ancient universal Church as the ideal (before
the schism between East and West). His work Sull'infallibilità papale (Mosca, 1889) was translated into many languages. His controversies are well known, among others with V. S. Solov'ev (on Slavism and the union of Christians), and with Sergio, later Russian patriarch (d. 1944). K. was a liberal theologian; he denied the absolute authority of the two principal symbolic books, namely the Confession of Pietro Moghila and that of Patriarch Dositeo. He distinguished between fundamental dogmas (those defined by the first seven Ecumenical Councils) and theologumena (that is, free opinions), which in his view were the cause of dissensions among Christians; only to the doctrine of the Roman Primacy did he deny the status of a free theologumenou.