School
Epiphanius Slavinetsky
Overview
Epifany Slavinetsky (Russian: Епифа́ний Славине́цкий) (c. 1600 – 19 November 1675) was an ecclesiastical expert of the Russian Orthodox Church who helped Patriarch Nikon to revise ancient service-books. His actions precipitated the raskol, the great schism of the national church.
Epifany was born in Moscow. In the 1620s, he attended the Kiev Brotherhood School and furthered his education abroad. He was one of the most educated people of his period in Central and Eastern Europe. He came to master Latin, Polish, Ancient Greek and Hebrew. On his return to Kiev, he took monastic vows in the Kiev Pechersk Lavra. In the late 1630s, he compiled the first Latin-Church Slavonic lexicon, which he would revise on several occasions.
Upon hearing about Epifany's scholarly expertise, the Imperial Russian Tsar Alexis invited him to correct the ecclesiastical books of Muscovy. Epifany arrived in Moscow in 1649 and visited the Trinity-Sergius monastery the same year. He quickly managed to secure the patronage of the Boyar Boris Morozov and Metropolitan Nikon of Novgorod, who was elected Patriarch a short time later.
Epifany joined the Chudov Monastery in the Moscow Kremlin where he was appointed head of the Patriarchal school and charged with administrating the Printery. He revived the mediaeval tradition of delivering sermons in Russian churches. In the 1650s and early 1660s, he revised the Muscovite service-books and translated Erasmus and Copernicus from Latin. He translated Joannes Löwenklaw's collection of Byzantine law in 1656.
When Nikon fell into disgrace, he gained the support of the scholar, who proved that his deposition was contrary to the laws of the church. He spent his last years translating the Septuagint and the New Testament as commissioned by his patron Fyodor Rtishchev. Epifany died in Moscow in 1675.
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
Possible passages
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Other regulations, of a similar tendency, were established in other parts of Europe. But the power of the pope, in the collation of the great benefices of the church, seems, before the reformation, to have been nowhere so effectually and so universally restrained as in France and England. The concordat afterwards, in the sixteenth century, gave to the kings of France the absolute right of presenting to all the…
Adam Smith, An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations
States what Epiphanius Slavinetsky is.
The established religion of this country has, ever since the eleventh century, been that of the Greek church, so called in opposition to the Latin; though there were always a greater number of Mahometan and Pagan provinces, than of those inhabited by Christians. Siberia, as far as China, was in a state of idolatry; and, in some of the provinces, they were utter strangers to all kind of religion. Perry, the engineer…
Voltaire, The History of Peter the Great, Emperor of Russia
States what Epiphanius Slavinetsky is.
He built the port of Cronstadt on the Neva, Sainte-Croix on the frontiers of Persia, and forts in the Ukraine and in Siberia, docks at Archangel, Petersburg, Astrakan, and at Azov; besides arsenals and hospitals. His own residences he built small and in bad style, but his public buildings were magnificent and imposing. The sciences, which in other parts have been the slow product of centuries, were, by his care…
Voltaire, Voltaire's history of Charles XII, king of Sweden
Close in meaning to Epiphanius Slavinetsky; the term itself is not named.
Related ideas
- Erasmus
- Hebrew language
- Ancient Greek
- Patriarch
- Latin
- Moscow
- New Testament
- Polish language
- Nicolaus Copernicus
- Russian Orthodox Church
- Tsardom of Russia
- Fyodor Rtishchev
Place in the tradition
Part of Russian philosophy.