The reform of ecclesiastical academies at the Local Council of Moscow of 1917-1918

This article by Hyacinthe Destivelle examines the work of the twelfth commission of the local Council of Moscow of 1917-1918, devoted to the reform of the Russian ecclesiastical academies. Drawing on the unpublished minutes of forty-four sessions and on the draft new Statute drawn up by the commission, the study analyses three major debates: the vocation of the academies (intellectual or pastoral formation), their administration (internal autonomy versus episcopal oversight) and the articulation of theological and auxiliary disciplines. The article highlights the confrontation between a "scientific" current, favourable to autonomy and university specialisation, and a "spiritual" current, attached to monastic and patristic formation. It shows that this council marks both an institutional distinction between intellectual formation and spiritual formation, and an intellectual encounter between two Russian theological traditions long kept apart. Interrupted by the Revolution, this dynamic would continue in emigration, notably at the Saint Sergius Institute in Paris.