SVETLOV, PAVEL JAKOVLEVIČ. - Archpriest, one of the most important recent Russian theologians, b. in 1861. After the Russian Revolution of 1917 there is no further news of him. He did his studies and received his doctorate in theology at the Ecclesiastical Academy of Moscow. From 1890 he was a professor at the University of Kiev.

He is known especially as an apologist and soteriological theologian. S. fought for religious freedom (including that of Catholics and Protestants) in Russia and belonged to those theologians who, starting from the Bonn negotiations (1874-75), sought union with the Old Catholics and Anglicans, on the basis of the first 7 ecumenical councils, declaring the later controversies to be debatable opinions. He fought boldly against the traditional methods and the classic manuals of theology in Russia. Especially in soteriology, inspired by the works of Chomjakov, he polemicized against what he regarded as Catholic or Protestant legalism or anthropomorphism.

Among his numerous works the following are cited as the most important: The significance of the Cross in the work of Christ; Essay toward an explanation of the dogma of the Redemption (this is his dissertation; Kiev 1893), 2nd enlarged ed., with a polemical appendix against Prof. A. D. Beljsev, under the title: The Cross of Christ, etc. (ibid. 1907); Essay of an apologetic exposition of the Orthodox-Christian doctrine of faith (2 vols., ibid. 1896 and 1898); 2nd enlarged ed., under the title: The doctrine of the Christian faith expounded in an apologetic manner (ibid. 1910-12; vol. I, 4th ed., ibid. 1914); shorter is the Course of apologetic theology (ibid. 1900; 2nd ed. 1905); Where is the universal Church? On the question of the union of the Churches, and on the doctrine concerning the Church (Serghiev Posad 1905); The idea of the Kingdom of God in its significance for the Christian conception of the world (ibid. 1905); What should one read in theology? Systematic index of apologetic bibliography in the Russian, German, French and English languages (Kiev 1907).

Bibliography7 works

BIBL.: S. Tyszkiewicz, Die Fundamentaltheologie des russischen Apologeten S., in Zeitschrift für kath. Theologie, 42 (1918), pp. 114-36; M. Jugie, Theologia dogmatica christianorum orientalium ab Ecclesia catholica dissidentium, I, Paris 1926, pp. 611, 616-17, 627, etc.; cf. also the alphabetical indexes of vols. II-IV; N. Ladomersky, Le dogme de la Rédemption dans la théologie russe. Oeuvre de Pierre Svetlov, ibid. 1940; B. Schultze, Problemi di teologia presso gli ortodossi. Cristologia, in Or. Chr. Per., 9 (1943), pp. 140-47; id., La nuova soteriologia russa, II-III, ibid., 11 (1945), pp. 165-71; 12 (1946), pp. 146-76.

Bernardo Schultze

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Svetlov, Pavel Jakovlevič

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