The Church of England in the Russian Periodical Press (in the second half of the 19th - early 20th century)

The article is based on the survey of publications in Russian magazines of the second half of the nineteenth - early twentieth centuries. Those periodicals could be classified into three groups: official media of various state institutions, including official ecclesiastic magazines, and those of universities; laic literary, and non-fiction magazines edited by private persons; and magazines issued on the private initiative of some priests. All the surveyed publications mentioned the Church of England, but there were a few of such notes in laic media, mainly in the context of history and culture of Great Britain, there were almost no special articles or even short texts on the Church of England in such media. But there were rather many articles on the topic in theological and ecclesiastic magazines. Among the reasons for such situation, we should mention the spiritual censorship which prevented publications not only 'heretical' and critical to the Orthodox Church, but even research articles on the non-Orthodox religious institutions, if they looked 'too benevolent' from the censors' point of view. Another reason could be in the editorial politic of magazines, purposefully evading religious topics. Ecclesiastic magazines of the mid-nineteenth century willingly published articles and notes on the contemporary life of the Church of England because of two reasons: the development of theological disciplines such as comparative and polemical theology; and the state politic for the sake of active participation of Orthodox theologians and public figures in the international events where the topic of possible inter-confessional contacts was discussed.