PLATONE LEVŠIN. — In the world Pietro Georgievič Levšin, metropolitan of Moscow, famous as a preacher, writer, and ecclesiastical administrator, b. at Tschachinikowa, near Moscow, on 29 June 1737, d. at Moscow on 11 November 1812.
From 1747 to 1756 he studied at the Greek-Slavonic-Latin Academy of Moscow. In 1758 he became a monk, in 1759 a priest, and from 1761 became lecturer in theology and rector of the Seminary of the Trinity. In 1763 Catherine II appointed him religious instructor to the heir apparent Paolo Petrovič (the future emperor Paolo I) and court preacher. He was promoted to 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). As primate of the metropolitans, he took part in the coronation of Alessandro I. In 1805 he suffered an apoplectic stroke and spent the final period of his life in the monastery of the Most Holy Trinity near Moscow.
P. was more a preacher (about 500 sermons by him are known) and catechist than a systematic theologian. He delivered his Catecheses, sermons “or elementary instructions on Christian doctrine,” in Moscow while still young (1757–1758). His course in Christian Theology, given in the years 1761–63, remained unpublished. Of importance is the fact that his lectures to Prince Paolo, published at Saint 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 residence at court, Church and State are confused for him, in accordance with the principles of caesaropapism.
In Teofane Prokopovič he saw his teacher and model. In his ecclesiology, therefore, Protestant influence is manifest, especially with regard to the doctrine of tradition and the doctrinal authority of the Church; he does not sufficiently emphasize the visibility of the Church. P.’s soteriology, apart from some traces of Protestant influence, is positively Orthodox and non-polemical.
Other works: Short Catechism for Children (1775); Instructions to Parish Priests (1775); Parenetic Sermons Delivered at the Most August Imperial Court (1782); Brief Russian Ecclesiastical History (1805; 2nd ed. 1822); Life of St. Sergius of Radoneš (5th ed.). The complete works (Poučitel'nye Slova, that is, “Parenetic Sermons”) are collected in 20 vols., Moscow 1779–1807.