Religion and Enlightenment in Catherinian Russia

This valuable study explores the Russian Enlightenment with reference to the religious Enlightenment of the mid-to late-eighteenth century. Grounded in close readings of the sermons and devotional writings of Platon Levshin, court preacher and metropolitan bishop of Moscow, "Religion and Enlightenment in Catherinian Russia" examines the blending of European thought into the teachings of Russian Orthodoxy. Elise Wirtschafter, countering scholarship that depicts an Orthodox religious culture under assault from European modernity and Petrine absolutism, emphasizes the ability of Russia's educated churchmen to assimilate and transform Enlightenment ideas.