The Concept of Charisma in the Research of S. I. Smirnov: German Origins and Their Development

Abstract

The article attempts to identify the intellectual influence on the historical research of Sergey Ivanovich Smirnov, one of the most famous Church historians of pre-revolutionary Russia, who studied the phenomenon of dukhovniks (spiritual fathers). First, we will show the reception of the concept of charisma in Russia in the context of the ideas of K. Holl who studied the power “to knit and solve” in Greek-speaking monasticism. Hall's thesis that charisma was the source of power of Byzantine monks is clearly associated with the main trends in Protestant theology of his time. The article briefly outlines the German context, from which prof. Smirnov borrowed the idea of “charismatism”, and demonstrates how the term becomes incorporated in the Russian theological vocabulary. The influence of Holl on Smirnov is considered in the analysis of the first edition of the «The Spiritual Father in Old Russia», and then in the second edition, fifteen years later, after Smirnov has significantly revised his ideas. The result of this research was the work of 1906, in which Hall's ideas are structurally and conceptually used, and the concept of «charisma» is included in the text. The conclusion suggests that Smirnov's categorical framework, through the reception of the concept of ««charisma», was a conscious construction of the new model of the priest and reflected his ecclesiastical and political agenda of reforms in the Church.