Science and Russian Orthodox Scholarship

In Russia the theme of science and religion found its strongest resonance at the levels of humanistic scholarship and Christianity in general, where visions of harmony dominated and doctrinal and confessional particularity was largely absent. The fraught relations of both the Holy Synod and the Imperial Academy of Sciences with the Russian state since the early eighteenth century had the collateral consequence of minimal institutional contacts between theology and natural philosophy. Though “scientific apologetics” eventually found a place in the seminaries, scientists did not contribute to this scholarship in the nineteenth century. The rare prominent scientist who entertained religious beliefs posited either harmony or conflict in public writings even more rarely, and it is the varieties of religious indifference—not solely Soviet in origin—that invite historical inquiry.