1) Lecture, seminar, special course, exam

I will now turn to remarks concerning some aspects of the educational process in Russian theological seminaries and academies.In many of our theological schools, the educational process is built according to the following scheme. During the lesson, the teacher gives a lecture on his subject, and the students take notes. In the next lesson, the teacher asks several students about the content of the previous lecture. The best answer is considered to be by a student who, if possible, has memorized the lecture and repeated it close to the text. At the end of the academic year, an exam is held, during which each student draws a "ticket" and verbally answers one, two or three questions on the course read. If he is lucky enough to know the question on his ticket, he gets a good grade; What is the main disadvantage of such a system? In the fact that during the academic year the student acquires only a certain amount of information on each academic discipline, but he is not required to work independently. A student is only a passive listener, deprived of the opportunity to creatively approach the subject being studied. With this approach, the efficiency of assimilation of the material is minimal, and the benefit of the course is negligible. The teacher should not try to exhaust his topic in the course of the lecture: he should only introduce the students to the problems of this topic, put questions to them, and they should look for answers to the questions themselves. After each lecture, students should be given a list of literature on the topic. They should be questioned not on the content of the lecture, but on the content of what they themselves have read.This method, firstly, contributes to the development of the student's creative potential, since it involves independent mastering of the material. Secondly, it allows the student, having studied the material on his own, to come to his own conclusions, perhaps different from those offered to him by the teacher. In this case, the student's answer should be evaluated not on the basis of how accurately he reproduced the conclusions of his teacher, but on the basis of how fully he studied the recommended literature. The teacher is obliged to respect the student's own opinion, if the latter is able to justify it. Seminars provide an opportunity for students not only to work independently, but also to exchange opinions among themselves, discuss the issues raised with the teacher. Another form of teaching that is ignored in many Russian theological schools is a special course, a cycle of five, eight, or ten lectures and seminars that allows for a more detailed and detailed study of a particular aspect of a particular theological discipline. A common feature of many academic disciplines is the huge amount of material studied, which does not allow either the teacher or the students to delve into details. Special courses are designed to at least partially solve this problem. If, for example, a course of patrology is structured in such a way that it is not possible to devote more than two hours of study to one ecclesiastical author, but at the same time special courses are taught throughout the year on individual authors or certain aspects of their teaching (Origen's Triadology, Anthropology of the Ante-Nicene Fathers, Blessed Augustine's Teaching on the Holy Trinity, Defense of the Veneration of Icons in the Works of St. John of Damascus and Theodore the Studite, etc.), This will undoubtedly help students to better navigate the rich material of patristic writing.The exam at the end of the year should be serious, detailed, and lengthy. An oral inquiry of three to five minutes is not enough, as is the practice in some theological schools. Students are required to answer questions in writing for one, two, or more hours.This is the system of exam surveys that exists in many Western universities, such as Oxford. There, no one monitors the "attendance": whether or not to go to the lecture depends only on the student. But, as a rule, no one misses lectures, because they know that without listening to the lecture, it is impossible to navigate through the extensive bibliographic material on this topic, and without this, it is impossible to prepare well for the exam. In some of our theological schools, it happens that a teacher who dislikes a particular student deliberately lowers his grades. Of course, the opposite also happens, when the grades are artificially inflated. In this regard, it is appropriate to recall that in many secular educational institutions there is a system in which students do not put their surname on their examination papers, but a digital code unknown to the examiner: thus the possibility of an unfair assessment is practically eliminated. Shouldn't we adopt this system?

2) Independent work

The teacher is mistaken who thinks that his task is to give his pupils only a certain amount of information on the subject being studied. The teacher's job is to help students maximize their creativity. The main purpose of lectures and seminars, as it seems to me, should be to interest students in the topics studied, to inspire them to work independently. It is in independent work that the center of gravity of the educational process in theological schools lies.The future pastor must be taught to think independently, to work independently, to answer questions independently. Unfortunately, we have to admit that in some of our spiritual schools everything is done to wean a person from thinking, working, asking questions and looking for answers to them. Other students are systematically persecuted simply because they go beyond the curriculum in their research; for standing out from the rest, not content with memorizing certain things taught to them, but striving to go further and work independently; for studying foreign languages more in-depth than the teacher requires. There is no better way to wean a person from independent work, and in general to discourage him from learning, than to force him to memorize his lessons, to swallow food that he has chewed beforehand. This "Bursat" method of teaching has long been out of use in Western secular educational institutions, but it is still preserved in some places in our Orthodox theological schools. The best description of it was given by Pomyalovsky, already quoted above: "The main feature of the pedagogical system in the bursa is hammering, terrifying and deadening. It seeped into the student's blood and bones. To miss a word, to rearrange a letter was considered a crime... Is it any wonder that such a science only instilled disgust in the student?.. A pupil, entering the school from under his parents' roof, soon felt that something new was happening to him, something that he had never experienced, as if nets were falling before his eyes, one after another, in an endless row, and preventing him from seeing objects clearly; that his head had ceased to act inquisitively and boldly... And in words, it's amazing! "I don't think as I used to. At the end of the lesson, the diligent student's head is exhausted; You can't hear a single thought in it... The picture of the class is not cheerful... Everyone's faces are dull and apathetic, and the last half hour is quiet and it seems that there will be no end to the activity. Happy is he who has managed to fall asleep sitting at his desk: he will not even notice how the moment that heralds dinner approaches.[1] Some students of modern theological schools will probably sadly recognize their educational institution in these words, written almost a century and a half ago.The Russian writer very correctly noted the characteristic feature of the "Bursatsky" type of education: it is as if a net is thrown over the eyes of the student. It would seem that the curriculum should be built in such a way that more and more new horizons open up for the student, but instead he seems to be more and more restricted, in every possible way preventing him from thinking independently. As a result, a person leaves a theological seminary blinkered, intimidated, and intimidated.A friend of mine, a priest, shared with me his memories of liturgical lessons in theological seminary. The main method of teaching, he says, was intimidation. "You can't do this or that during the Liturgy"; "At Vespers it is not permissible to make a mistake in such and such a thing"; "A certain sexton could not bear the candle at the Great Entrance, and behold, such and such a thing happened to him." "After these lessons," says my friend, "I cannot serve the liturgy; I'm always afraid of doing something wrong." In other words, the teacher, instead of instilling in future priests a love for the liturgy, revealing to them the riches and depths of Orthodox worship, taught them one thing: the panicky fear of making a mistake. Students should not be afraid of making mistakes. Any person who works independently, who approaches business creatively, makes mistakes. But, as another proverb says, "you learn from mistakes." If a student has done a lot of work and come to erroneous conclusions, it is still much better than if he did not make a mistake just because he did not work independently, but only memorized what he heard from the teacher. Lacking the conditions for independent work, they try to create them for themselves. A priest I know studied for four years in a seminary, then four years in an academy. He answered: "In the last five years of my studies, starting from the fourth grade of seminary, I plugged my ears with cotton wool during lectures and read books, the works of the Holy Fathers, philosophical literature. Another friend of mine, while studying at a theological seminary, developed his own parallel program, which he studied on his own. "In the autumn I will study Plato," he told me, "in the winter I will study Aristotle, in the spring I will go over to the Stoics. Every day I read the Fathers of the Church for an hour, Greek for half an hour, and Latin for half an hour." One may ask: Where did this seminarian get so much free time? The answer is that he worked at night as a watchman on a poultry farm. Essays on Bursa. P. 273-275. ^

3) Specialization. Master's and Doctoral Studies

One of the major drawbacks of our system of theological education is the lack of specialization and selection of students in accordance with their scientific interests. Such selection is primarily necessary in theological academies, which are called upon to train theologians and specialists in various fields of ecclesiastical scholarship. Under the current system, the course of study in Russian theological seminaries lasts 4 years and then in academies for 4 years. The curriculum is structured in such a way that the academy largely duplicates the seminary. Such a system is ineffective, and it seems that the leadership of theological educational institutions understands this. Therefore, a reform of theological education is being prepared. My question is how far-reaching and radical this reform will be. If we confine ourselves to "cosmetic repairs" to the edifice of our theological education, I am afraid that no significant progress will be achieved.In my opinion, the idea of specialization should be the key to the proposed reform. Already in a theological seminary that prepares pastors of the Church, there should be opportunities for in-depth study of those areas of church scholarship in which the student will work in the master's and doctoral programs of the theological academy. In a magistracy (academy) that prepares theologians and teachers of theological schools, the student concentrates on his subject, whether it is biblical studies, patristics, church history, etc. During the first year, he must attend lectures on disciplines directly related to the topic he has chosen, and during the second year, he must write a master's thesis. In doctoral (postgraduate studies), which prepares high-class specialists in various fields of theological science, the student is engaged only in independent work and writing a dissertation on a selected topic. Dissertations, both master's and doctoral, should be evaluated on the basis of their quality, not the number of pages. In our theological academies, an eight-volume work on the theology of an ecclesiastical author is sometimes submitted for a master's degree; At the same time, the first four volumes are a retelling of the main works of this author, and the last four are a "symphony" based on his works (that is, the same material, only organized thematically). The scientific value of such a dissertation, in fact, is zero, but a lot of work has been put into it. It is also not so easy for an opponent to find time to read eight volumes; In my opinion, the volume of dissertations should not exceed a certain maximum number of pages: for example, 50-60 thousand words (200-250 pages) for a master's thesis; 100-120 thousand words (400-500 pages) for a doctoral thesis. If the author has original ideas, he will be able to keep within this volume; Of course, when preparing a dissertation, the author should take into account not only the works on the topic in his native language, but also the entire Western literature. To do this, you need to know European languages. It is time for our theological scholarship to emerge from the ghetto and enter the field in which other scholars of the world are already working; It is time for us to learn to work hand in hand with Western scientists. Only in this way will we be able to educate a generation of highly qualified theologians and radically raise the level of our theological scholarship.

4) Student exchange. Study Abroad

An important factor that contributes to the expansion of the spiritual and scientific-theological horizon of students of Orthodox theological schools in different countries is the exchange of students between these theological schools. It seems to me that such exchanges should be put on a more regular basis.It is no less important to send students to study theology in secular and non-Orthodox educational institutions abroad. In this sense, I would like to cite the example of the Romanian Orthodox Church, which annually sends students to the best universities in the world, such as Oxford, Cambridge, Sorbonne, Princeton, Harvard, Tübingen, Heidelberg. The leadership of our theological educational institutions does not like to send people to study abroad, especially to the West, for fear that students there will become "Catholicized." But what is the price of Orthodoxy if it is "Catholicized" at the first encounter with the West? If students become "Catholicized," the teachers of Orthodox theological schools are primarily to blame for this: it is they who have failed to educate students in the Orthodox spirit. Among the Ukrainian priests who have converted to Uniatism in recent years, there are many graduates of Russian theological schools. No one sent them to the West, they were brought up in the spirit of irreconcilability and fanaticism, but they took it and "Catholicized"! So, the problem is not that we will send students to study in the wrong place, but that we ourselves are teaching them something wrong.For my part, I believe that we (I mean the Russian Church) should send twenty students to the West every year. Even if three of them do not want to return to Russia, and two of them become "Catholics," fifteen will return and teach in our theological schools. With this approach, our theological scholarship will change significantly for the better within ten years.

5) Physical Education

In the Russian theological school, the physical education of students is neglected as something fundamentally incompatible with "spirituality." As a result, students leave the theological school with various illnesses and ailments, which they do not manage to get rid of during the rest of their lives. In one of the largest theological seminaries in Russia, students do not have table lamps on their desks. Those dim lamps that hang on the ceiling 5 meters high and half of which usually do not work are clearly not enough. Students sit in the classroom for 9 hours a day: naturally, their eyes fail and their eyesight weakens.Not to mention the fact that in some theological seminaries, students sleep in barracks for ten, twenty, or even more people, which also has a devastating effect on their health. I am not talking about the fact that in many theological schools the nutrition of students who leave the seminary with gastritis or other stomach diseases is extremely unsatisfactory. I understand that not every seminary is able to provide students with accommodation and good food, but it seems to me that more could be done in this respect than is being done now. Seminarians should have a volleyball or football field, and should have the opportunity to visit a swimming pool.For those who think that sports are incompatible with spirituality, I would like to remind you of the words of Clement of Alexandria: "... Gymnastic schools are useful for young men... They improve the health of young people... (contribute) to the development of not only bodily health, but also mental health... Of the men, some can... to wrestle, others to play ball, especially in the open air."[1] I remember a student at one of the theological schools who used to run every morning: this caused constant indignation among the administration. And the student was an athlete in the past. He told me that if he didn't run for at least two or three days, his body would swell and his heart would ache.I am deeply convinced that "spirituality" should not be fatal to the body, and spiritual education should not physically cripple people. Therefore, the leadership of theological schools should not neglect the physical education of students. Pedagogue 3, 10. ^

6) Discipline. Teachers' attitude towards students

I would like to dwell on the methods of disciplinary influence that exist in our theological schools. These techniques combine to make up what is commonly referred to as "stick discipline." The basis of the stick discipline is the systematic violence against the student's personality. It is obligatory to attend lectures, to participate in divine services, to go to meals, to "self-study" for three hours daily. As soon as a student sleeps through the morning prayer, his behavior score and, consequently, the amount of the scholarship is reduced. If he misses the prayer two or three times, he is threatened with expulsion from the theological school. Imagine a class that you can enter but can't leave with. Inside, for three hours, students sit chained to their desks. They have already sat in this classroom for lectures from nine o'clock in the morning to three o'clock in the afternoon, and now, from five to eight, they are required to engage in "self-study." In fact, this preparation consists in the fact that someone talks, someone learns the hymns for the Saturday vigil, someone darns his trousers, someone sleeps sitting at a desk. The classroom is noisy and stuffy. Of course, it is impossible to work in such an environment. Why not allow the student to study in the library, or in the garden, or somewhere else in a quiet, peaceful place? No, a student is obliged to "sit out" his three hours in class, no matter what the cost to him.The daily routine in theological schools is built in such a way that the student is practically deprived of free time. But he can't even manage his free time. In order to go out into the city, he must ask permission from his superiors. It can be very difficult to get permission to visit parents who live in another city. Some theological seminaries in Russia are a cross between a monastery, an army barracks, and a bursa of the last century. In the bursa, discipline was enforced by the students themselves: from among them were appointed "senior dormitory" and "senior duty officers" (who monitored the behavior of their comrades outside the classroom), "censors" (who monitored behavior in the classroom), "auditors" (who tested the knowledge of other students), and "seconds" ("a student who, on the orders of his superiors, flogged his comrades") [1]. "Nothing destroys the spirit of an educational institution as much as the power of a comrade over a comrade," wrote Pomyalovsky [2]. It is on the power of the comrade over the comrade that the system of ensuring discipline in our theological school is built. "Assistant Inspectors" are elected from among the students, who monitor the behavior of other students. An assistant inspector has a wide variety of functions, but the main one is that of a whistleblower. The assistant inspector, on the other hand, can use other students as informers: they will inform him about what is happening to their fellows. In this way, students are systematically taught to be mean. If he doesn't like a student, he can regularly complain about him to his superiors until that student is expelled from the theological school. On the other hand, having made friends with the assistant inspector, the student will have a variety of benefits, such as extraordinary dismissals to the city, the right to meet with his girlfriend, etc. If the assistant inspector has great power over the students, then the inspector himself (he is appointed from among the teachers) has almost absolute and unlimited power. At eleven o'clock in the evening, he has the right to enter the room of a graduate student of the theological academy and, seeing him sitting with a book in his hands, turn off the light with the words: "At this time of the day you must be in a horizontal position." The inspector has the right to search the student's room in the absence of the student; has the right to view the books that the student reads and the diaries that he writes. The fate of the student literally depends on the inspector. It is the inspector who makes the verdict regarding the "trustworthiness" of the student. It is on his recommendation, as a rule, that a student is expelled from a theological school.Once I had to attend a meeting of the "educational council" of one of the theological schools. It was about a student I had known before he entered the seminary. The inspector said, "I don't like this student with his soldierly gait. I suggest that he be expelled." I said, "He has a soldier's gait because he graduated from a military school before seminary." The student, at my insistence, was not expelled. But if I hadn't happened to be a participant in the meeting and, so to speak, an unwitting witness to the arbitrariness of the inspectorate, he would certainly have been expelled—not because the inspector didn't like him, and not because he had a soldier's gait, but for "violation of discipline." The concept of "violation of discipline" is so broad that anything can be adjusted to it. If the authorities do not like a student, they declare him a "violator of discipline".In large theological schools, disciplinary sanctions and expulsion from the student body are an ordinary and daily matter. In one of the theological schools, announcements appear on a special board every day either about the lowering of a student's score for behavior (students call these announcements "troparia"), or about the expulsion of this or that student from the theological school (the so-called "dismissals"). It costs the administration of theological schools nothing to expel from the seminary a person who has studied for four years, a month before the final exams.There are two traditional terms borrowed from the monastic tradition, with the help of which violence is carried out against the person of a student in theological schools. These terms are "obedience" and "blessing." Academic authorities operate with them in a variety of situations. A student is obliged to do everything "according to obedience" and "with a blessing."Another term that is abused by the authorities of theological schools is "humility." The ancient monastic tradition of the Church knew the verb "to humble oneself"; In theological schools, another verb is much more common: "to humble." The bosses "humble" students in a variety of ways. In the pre-revolutionary bursa, students were flogged. Nowadays, physical punishment and torture are forbidden, so students are flogged morally. An inspector, or assistant inspector, may summon a student and subject him to a humiliating interrogation about certain aspects of his or her private life. Another way to "humble" an obstinate student is to move him from one room to another every three days, "so that he does not forget where he is." In one provincial theological seminary in Russia, the lesson begins with the teacher (by the way, a priest) reading out a list of students present in the class, while deliberately distorting their names (for example, "Smurnov" instead of "Smirnov", "Suchkin" instead of "Suchkov", "Pokhabnov" instead of "Pakhomov", etc.). And this is done with the sole purpose of humiliating, insulting and... I would like to remind such would-be teachers and would-be humblers of the words of Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh: "One of the mistakes... It is to inspire humility in a person by trampling him well in the mud. You can't get humility in this way, because no matter how much you are trampled in the mud, even if you are really a worm, you try to get out from under the thumb and only begin to get angry at the one who tramples on you."[3] The psychological pressure experienced by students of theological educational institutions is so strong that some seminarians are forced to consult a psychiatrist. Do not humiliate the student, do not "humble" him, do not mock him, do not use your official position to abuse his personality, do not try to trample him in the mud, do not seek to break him spiritually. After all, you will have to answer for everything, if not in this life, then certainly in the next. A student is a human being just like you. It is necessary to communicate with him on an equal footing. He should be called by "You", not by "You"; by first name, not by last name. He must be respected and loved. Don't think that by artificially creating a chasm between yourself and your students, you are gaining more respect for you. Students love those teachers who do not show their superiority in anything. True respect and true love can only be mutual: they are never one-sided.The late Father John Meyendorff was respected and loved not only for his extensive knowledge and encyclopedic scholarship, but above all for his ability to treat students as equals. He did not "humble" anyone, he did not exalt himself over anyone. By the way, he did not avoid informal communication. Once a week, students of St. Vladimir's Theological Seminary gathered at his home for a beer and talked about theological and other topics. I am not urging teachers of theological schools to drink beer with students, but it seems that there is nothing shameful in inviting students for a cup of tea. A new approach to the student is needed—one that is more sober, more respectful, more humane, more Christian. The system in which the inspector and his assistants enjoy absolute power over students should be abolished. The "power of comrade over comrade" must be eradicated. Violence against the personality of a student in a theological school is unacceptable. On the threshold of the 21st century, it is impossible to use medieval methods of education. Pomyalovsky. Essays on Bursa. P. 245-246. ^ Essays on Bursa. P. 246. ^ About the meeting. St. Petersburg, 1994. P. 176. ^

7) Monastic presence in a theological school

I would like to say a few words about the role of monasticism in the education of future clergymen. As a rule, in our theological seminaries, monks hold leading positions – rector, vice-rector, inspector. There are many monks among the teachers. In addition, some seminaries are in the immediate vicinity of monasteries. Students have the opportunity to turn to experienced elders for spiritual guidance, to attend monastic services, to come into direct contact with the centuries-old tradition of Orthodox monasticism, and to meet face to face with its best representatives. Some students, after graduating from seminary or academy, choose the monastic path themselves.However, the monastic presence in theological schools also has its negative sides. First of all, I think that in the monastic environment there is a certain traditional distrust of scholarship, a dislike of the sciences. Archimandrite Cyprian (Kern) once wrote about how difficult it is for a learned monk to find a worthy place in an Orthodox monastery: His situation is not only difficult, but indeed tragic... The simple masses are indifferent to science, completely alien to the needs and interests of this learned monk... Such a monk is misunderstood, suspected of being uneasy, untrustworthy, constrained and even persecuted. A typical division appears: "You are scientists, but we are crushed," and, of course, crowding is understood as a necessary plus to salvation, and learning as a direct obstacle. Hence the paradoxical conclusion: obscurantism is a necessary condition for monastic activity... But do humility and prayer preclude science? Does piety interfere with the book and enlightenment?.. Science is just as much a feat; Enlightenment is the same service... One must be able to appreciate the sanctity of scientific achievement... I am not going to talk about why there is widespread distrust of scholarship in the monastic community—this is a topic that deserves a separate discussion. I will only say that some monks consider it their duty to inculcate a negative view of learning in students of theological schools. There are known cases when spiritual monks "did not bless" their spiritual children to continue their studies at the theological academy, since it was "not necessary for salvation." Another negative aspect of the monastic presence in theological schools is that the monk does not always find common ground with the student when the question of the latter's marriage arises. As I have already said, the administration of our theological schools consists mainly of monks. Students, on the other hand, are mostly either already married or preoccupied with finding a bride. A conflict between the monastic administration and the student usually arises when the latter has the misfortune to fall in love. Such a student should be given more free time, make various concessions, and be allowed to go on dates. But all this is alien to the monks, they do not understand it. On the territory of one of the theological schools in Russia there is a "choir director's class" in which girls who hope to become (it seems to be no secret to anyone) "matushkas", i.e. to marry a priest, study. So, a seminarian must ask for a blessing from the inspector-monk every time he wants to escort a pupil of the choir director's class home. If, God forbid, someone informs the inspector that a certain student of the theological seminary somewhere "around the corner" kissed a certain pupil of the choir director's class, there is no way to avoid a formal investigation and a decrease in the score for behavior. Make up your mind and be ordained at once." And the poor student, who has been kept in a cage for four years, begins to feverishly search for his future "mother". But since it is not possible to find her immediately, the inspector-monk (or confessor-monk) advises him to become a monk. And so the student becomes a monk, not because he is called to it, not because his whole previous life has led him to it, but only because he did not manage to get married in time. As a result, there are monks who are unsuccessful: those who later "pull the strings" in the monasteries, i.e., vegetate without joy, without inspiration. Dear brothers! A theological school is not a monastery. Don't discourage students from getting married, don't discourage them from dating. Do not think that by producing unsuccessful monks you are doing a good service to our Russian monasticism. On the contrary, you are destroying it from within. Not to mention the fact that you are crippling people's lives. Let the one who is called to become a monk. For the rest, create normal conditions for entering into a legal Christian marriage. Angels, monasticism, humanity. - Theological Collection. Vol. II. South Canaan, 1955. P. 36-40. ^