Summa Theologiae 2.0: Intellectual Mass Media in the Modern Russian Realities, or How “The Academic” became “The Mediatic”

Abstract

The research paper focuses on the specific features of the status of theology in the modern humanities in Russia. Studying the complexities and difficulties of the institutionalisation of theology and its localisation in the Russian university system and academic culture, the author foregrounds the post-Soviet European experience of the Baltic countries and Ukraine, where theology acquired the status of a “normal” science earlier than in Russia. Within the framework of this study, the peculiarities of the controversial status of theology in the system of higher education as well as in the Russian postgraduate and doctoral studies are considered in the contexts of the frontier of knowledge and the post-Soviet stereotypes. It is assumed that several factors, including the Soviet atheistic cultural heritage, the post-Soviet system of secular degrees and the traditionally significant role of representatives of the natural sciences in the academic community, may significantly contribute to slowing down the transformation of theology into a “normal” science. The paper also deals with the issue of how theology is transforming from the church life of the Russian Christians and becoming more noticeable in the Russian educational cultures and academic spaces. The arguments of the supporters and opponents of the official institutionalisation of theology in the higher education system are critically examined. The author pays special attention to the prospects and possibilities of using the Western experience of “secularization” of theology and its integration into the secular canons of science.