Church sermon in the 18th and the first half of the 19th century: specifics of evolution

History of Church sermon the synodal period investigated enough. The proposed article on the basis of an analysis of the most famous sermons Church publicists attempted to trace the evolution of sermon XVIII – first half XIX century. The most prominent representative of sermon scholastic traditions on Russian soil was Ryazan Metropolitan Stephan (Jaworski) (1658–1722). His sermons abounded sophisticated comparisons and stretched symbolism. During the same period, in a sermon there is a departure from the scholastic tradition, which began with the Archbishop Theophan (Prokopovich) (1681–1736) in the main ideologue of Peter’s Church reforms. Compared to its predecessors the sermons sermon looked simple and nenadumannoj. The composition was based no longer on certain fixed headings, and thus thought the preacher. As a result of their activities of Metropolitan Platon (Levshin) (1737–1812) of particular importance acquired the task of adapting to modern sermons spiritual needs of his flock and abilities of its perception. Therefore, the form of casual conversation was considered most appropriate for the sermon, and unity of content were supposed to be more important than strict composition. Two of the most outstanding figures in the field of Russian preaching the first half of the 19th century is the Moscow Metropolitan Philaret (Drozdov) (1782–1867) and Kherson Archbishop Innokenty (Borisov) (1800–1857) considered to belong to two different directions in Russian sermon. The main difference relates to the content. While Metropolitan Philaret in his sermons, first and foremost, treated dogmatiko-theoretical questions, Archbishop Innokenty almost exclusively involved in the problems of moral and practical.