St.Tikhon Orthodox Theological Institute in Moscow

The spiritual and moral revival of the Russian peoples, that is the overcoming of the general crisis which has gripped Russia, calls for a return to the historical spiritual and cultural roots of national and state life - to Orthodoxy. The foundation of the St.Tikhon Orthodox Theological Institute in Moscow has proved to be an undertaking of great scale and significance for the nation and the Church.The Institute has been founded in March 1992 with the blessing of His Holiness Patriarch Alexy II and in September 1992 His Holiness granted the Institute the honour to bear the name of St.Tikhon the holy Patriarch of All Russia.The Institute is the first in Russian history higher educational establishment providing theological education for lay persons (until now theological subjects were taught only in seminaries training clerics). Along with that the Institute has the aim to provide higher humanitarian education (historical and philosophical subjects, ancient and modern languages etc.). The graduates of the Theological Institute will be qualified to work in the fields of education (primary, secondary and higher), research and theological activity, church arts (icon-painting, church singing, architecture), art study, reporting, museum study etc. The theological-pastoral department will train candidates for ordination.The Innstitute's part-time department was formed on the basis of part-time Theological-Catechetical Courses which had successfully functioned for two years on a voluntary basis. The full-time department of the Institute opened in September 1992, the correspondence department <196> in 1993. At the part-time department of the Institute mostly theological subjects are taught to students who already have a higher education.In September 1993 about 1000 students have been enrolled to the 5 faculties of the Institute's full-time, part-time and correspondense departments.

The Structure and the Tasks Facing

The Institute according to the Rules of the Institute approved by His Holiness Patriarch Alexy II, the Institute is governed by the Academic Council and the Rector elected by it.Archpriest Vladimir Vorobyev has been elected Rector of the Institute, his candidature has been approved by His Holiness Patriarch Alexy II.There are the following faculties at the full-time and part-time departments of the Institute:
  • Theological-Pastoral
  • Catechetical
  • Historical-Philological
  • Teacher's Training
  • Icon Study, Icon-painting and Architecture
  • Church Singing
These following chairs are being formed:
  • The History of the Ancient World and the Middle Ages Russian History
  • The History of Philosophy
  • The History of Culture
  • Ancient Languages
  • Modern Languages
  • Computer Science
  • General Church History
  • The History of the Russian Orthodox Church (the latest History of the XX century will be included)
  • Dogmatic Theology
  • Comparative Theology (Western Confessions)
  • Pastoral Theology
  • Moral Theology
  • Liturgic and Church Order
  • The Old Testament
  • The New Testament
  • Apologetics
  • Patristics
  • Homiletics
  • The Canon Law
  • Pedagogics
  • The History of Missions
  • Icon Study
  • Icon-painting
  • Architecture
  • The History of Church Singing
  • Solfeggio, Harmony
  • Piano
  • Academic Directing
  • Precentors' Training.
The Institute's library is being formed At present about 100 teachers make up the Faculty of the Institute, among them there are graduates and teachers from Moscow Theological Academy, Moscow University, well-known icon-painters, restorers, church singing experts.

The Main Problems:

  1. Provision of a building for the Institute At present classes are held at different places provided by different institutions on a charitable basis.
  2. Provision of finances For two academic years all the activity of the Institute was based on the enthusiasm of students and teachers who worked without pay. Now we can only hope for charitable donations.
  3. Creating a material base:
    • furnishing the rooms (furniture for 2 large and 20 smaller classrooms)
    • the equipment for the administration - computers,
    • telephones, fax etc.
    • special facilities for the library, the language Laboratory, the music room, the icon-painting studio equipment for the teaching process (publishing equipment and Xerox for copying the notes of lectures, dictaphones for recording lectures, tape-recorders, computers for information systems including teaching process and scientific reserch work.
  4. The organization of teaching and theological research activity:
    • The formation of a library on the main humanitarian and theological subjects and trends, as well as library on icon-painting and a special musical notes library.
    • Writing new text-books taking into account the present day realities (as the existing pre-revolutionary Russian and foreign text-books can't be used by our students because of absense of a teaching tradition and a basic spiritual culture we are confronted with a necessity of publishing special text-books written by the practising priests and lecturers) publishing text-books on four subjects prepared during the academic year of 1991-1992.
    • Working out information systems for supporting both teaching process and research work (bibliography data base, Russian Saints data base, the new martyrs of the XXth century system).
    • Working out teaching plans and curricula.
    • Developing research work at the chairs.
    • Organizing publishing activity including text-books and research materials.
The successful foundation of the institute would in future result in bringing together highly qualified teachers and theologians for training and educating the younger generation, and would ultimately promote the revival of the interrupted spiritual tradition of the russian people.
Address: Novokuznetskaja str., 23b, Moscow 113184, Russia,
Tel: +7 (095)953-2289, +7 (095)953-3121 (office), +7 (095)951-6141 (church)
Fax: +7 (095)953-5697
www address: http://kuz1.pstbi.ccas.ru
e-mail: pstbi@ccas.ru