Muravev, Andrei Nikolaevich

MURAVEV, ANDREI NIKOLAEVICH. - Russian writer and theologian, b. 1806, d. 1874. The account of his pilgrimage to the Holy Land (St. Petersburg 1832) drew upon him the attention of Emperor Nicholas I, who made him secretary of the Holy Synod. His works follow one another from 1836 onward, on theology, liturgy and ecclesiastical history. The principal one is perhaps the History of the Russian Church (St. Petersburg 1838), translated into English, German and Greek.

M. became known for his involvement in the religious question of the East, with two works: The truth of the universal church concerning the Roman see and the other patriarchal sees (ibid. 1841), and the pamphlet Reply of a Orthodox Catholic to Roman Catholicism (Moscow 1842), translated into Greek, French, Italian and Polish. The pamphlet was refuted by the writers of La Civiltà Cattolica, in the articles collected in French: Réfutation d'un écrit intitulé: Paroles de l'orthodoxie catholique au catholicisme romain (Paris 1854). M. always remained in opposition to union with Rome, as also appears in the three volumes Question religieuse d'Orient et Occident (Moscow 1856, St. Petersburg 1858, 1859).

Maurizio Gordillo