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 studied and graduated in theology at the Moscow Ecclesiastical Academy. From 1890 he was a professor at the University of Kiev.
He is especially known as an apologist and soteriologist. S. fought for religious freedom (including that of Catholics and Protestants) in Russia and belongs to those theologians who, starting from the Bonn conferences (1874-75), sought union with Old Catholics and Anglicans on the basis of the first seven ecumenical councils, declaring the controversies that followed to be of questionable importance. He boldly fought against traditional methods and classical manuals of theology in Russia. Especially in soteriology, inspired by the works of Khomyakov, he polemicized against what he considered to be the juridicism or anthropomorphism of Catholic or Protestant theology.
Among his numerous works, the following are cited as the most important: *Il significato della Croce nell'opera di Cristo*; *Saggio di spiegazione del dogma della Redenzione* (also his dissertation; Kiev 1893) 2nd ed. enlarged, with a polemical appendix against Prof. A. D. Beljaev, under the title: *La Croce di Cristo*, etc. (ibid. 1907); *Saggio di esposizione apologetica della dottrina ortodossocristiana di fede* (2 vols., ibid. 1896 and 1898); 2nd ed. enlarged, under the title: *La dottrina della fede cristiana esposta in maniera apologetica* (ibid. 1910-12; Vol. I, 4th ed., ibid. 1914); a shorter work is the *Corso di teologia apologetica* (ibid. 1900; 2nd ed. 1905); *Dove è la Chiesa universale? Sulla questione dell'unione delle Chiese, e sulla dottrina circa la Chiesa* (Sergliiev Posad 1905); *L'idea del Regno di Dio nel suo significato per la concezione cristiana del mondo* (ibid. 1905); *Che cosa si deve leggere di teologia? Indice sistematico della bibliografia apologetica in lingua russa, tedesca, francese, inglese* (Kiev 1907).