PLATO LEVŠIN. - In the world Pyotr Georgievich Levshin, Metropolitan of Moscow, celebrated as a preacher, writer and ecclesiastical administrator, b. at Tschachinikowa, near Moscow, on 29 June 1737, d. at Moscow on 11 Nov. 1812.
He studied from 1747 to 1756 at the Greek-Slavonic-Latin Academy of Moscow. In 1758 he became a monk, in 1759 a priest, and from 1761 he became a lecturer in theology and rector of the Seminary of the Trinity. Catherine II chose him, in 1763, as religious instructor to the heir apparent Paul Petrovich (the future emperor Paul I) and as court preacher. He was promoted archimandrite of the monastery of the Most Holy Trinity (1766), member of the Holy Synod (1768), archbishop of Tver' (1770), archbishop (1775) and metropolitan of Moscow (1787). He took part, as the senior of the metropolitan sees, in the coronation of Alexander I. In 1805 he suffered a stroke, and he spent the last period of his life in the monastery of the Most Holy Trinity near Moscow.
P. was more a preacher (about 500 sermons of his are known) and catechist than a systematic theologian. He delivered his Catecheses, sermons "or primitive instructions on Christian doctrine", at Moscow, while still young (1757-1758). His course of Christian Theology, given in the years 1761-63, remained unpublished. Important is the fact that his lessons to the prince Paul, published at St. Petersburg in 1765 (Orthodox Doctrine or Abridged Christian Theology), subsequently translated into Latin, French, German, English, Greek, Armenian, Dutch, Georgian, were the first attempt at a theological system in the Russian language. Especially during his stay at court, for him Church and State are confounded, according to the principles of caesaropapism.
In Theophanes Prokopovich he saw his teacher and model. In his ecclesiology, therefore, the Protestant influence is manifest, especially with regard to the doctrine on tradition and on the doctrinal authority of the Church; he does not sufficiently emphasize the visibility of the Church. The soteriology of P., except for some trace of Protestant influence, is orthodox, positive and not polemical.
Other works: Brief Catechism for Children (1775); Instructions to Parish Priests (1775); Parenetic Sermons Delivered at the Most High Imperial Court (1782); Brief Russian Church History (1805; 2nd ed. 1822); Life of St. Sergius of Radonezh (5th ed.). The complete works (Poučitel'nye Slova, that is "Parenetic Sermons") are collected in 20 vols., Moscow 1779-1807.
Bibliography5 works
Bernardo Schultze