The content of theological works of Theophanes Prokopovich from 1712-1716

Abstract

. The author proved that Theophanes Prokopovich entered the history of Ukrainian theological thought thanks mainly to his lectures on theology, which were read at the Kiev Theological Academy. In these lecture courses, which had a distinct Protestant meaning and form, he, strongly rejecting the scholastic method, created a new, according to the then scientific dimensions, systematized doctrine of faith and religious principles, the dogmas of Orthodoxy. Taking into account the dynamics of the formation of the Feofan's confessional position and its contingent tendencies, the complicated atmosphere of the theological thought of Theophanes Prokopovych, we can admit that Prokopovich ultimately comes to the necessary reformist vision of the Orthodox tradition. That is, he is the founder of a new, consistent with educational ideas and far from scholasticism of Mohyla Orthodoxy. Another thing is that his contemporaries perceived such a renewed Orthodoxy as a manifestation of outright Protestantism. The Kiev period of the creative activity of Theophanes is marked first of all by the extraordinary potential of his theological work, the testimony of which became famous lectures on the course of theology, which he read at the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy during 1712-1716. These lectures had a distinct Protestant background, which was especially evident in the doctrine of man's justification by one faith, in affirming the extraordinary authority of the Holy Scriptures as the sole source of theology, in cultivating him the idea of absolutism of God. The logical consequence of these lectures was eight theological treatises. Of these treatises in the aspect of revealing Confessional views of Theophanes is particularly revealing the first, which is a kind of prolegomena about the tasks of theology and the Holy Scriptures, the second - "About God the only", the third - "About the God of the triune" and the eighth - "On the blessed justification of the sinner through Christ ".