Lebedev, Aleksandr Aleksevič

LEBEDEV, ALEKSANDR ALEKSEVIČ. - Archpriest, Russian theologian, polemicist. Born in Moscow in 1873 to a priest, he studied from 1854 to 1858 at the Ecclesiastical Academy of Moscow. He was influenced especially by the Metropolitan of Moscow Philaret (Drozdov), by Fr. Theodore (Bukharev) and by the Slavophile A. S. Khomyakov. He worked in the care of souls in St. Petersburg (in 1874-82), then was rector of the Russian Church in Prague, where he died on 23 March (old style) 1898.

With his three anti-Catholic works (On the Immaculate Conception. Differences of the Eastern and Western Churches in the doctrine on the Most Holy Virgin Mary Mother of God, [Warsaw 1881]; On the Latin cult of the Heart of Jesus. Differences of the Eastern and Western Churches in the way of seeing and in the doctrine on love [ibid. 1887]; On the primacy of the pope, or the differences between Orthodox and Papists in the doctrine on the Church [St. Petersburg 1887; 2nd ed. of all three volumes ibid. 1903]) he notably influenced Russian polemical theology. Note that L. was one of the first Russians to combat the primacy of the pope methodically and systematically, that he was the first Russian to write a monograph on the Immaculate Conception and to treat the question of the cult of the Sacred Heart. Other works of L.: Compendium of the history of the Christian Church (St. Petersburg 1873, 2nd ed. ibid. 1896); Tikhon Zadonsky, saint and wonder-worker of all Russia (ibid. 1865; 3rd ed. ibid. 1896).

Bernardo Schultze