V.S. Solovyov and Russian Catholics: Similarities and Differences in the Understanding of Church Unity and Infallibility

Abstract

This article considers Russian Catholicism as a system of views characterized by the need for an independent Church authority, the special role of the Catholic Church in the history of Europe, and the importance of the unity of Churches around the Pope. Given all this, the article analyzes the criteria by which V.S. Solovyov could be included within the representatives of Russian Catholicism, albeit his confessional affiliation to the Catholic Church still remains controversial. The main part of this text is devoted to V.S. Solovyov’s relationship with the key issues of Russian Catholicism, i.e. the understanding of church unity, authority, and infallibility; the hierarchy’s and laity’s participation in the preservation of doctrinal truths; and finally the truth criteria for the decisions taken by the Ecumenical Councils. While these questions have been already raised in the writings of the main ideologist of philocatholicism, P.Y. Chaadayev, this article also demonstrates the way in which they occupy a crucial place in the heritage of the Russian Catholicism’s representatives from the last half of the 19th century: i.e. I.S. Gagarin and E.G. Volkonskaya. As a conclusion of this analysis, V.S. Solovyov’s views – which he expressed in his 1880s works – on the Church authority and on the special powers of Roman pontifices seem to partially converge with those of the conservative Russian Catholics. However, it is still possible to recognize a number of discrepancies between the two positions. These discrepancies would subsequently lead Solovyov to distance himself from Catholic apologetics to pursue a different approach in the understanding of Church infallibility. In this regard, an examination of Solovyov’s triads will be the key to identify the transformation, within his ecclesiological ideas, of the functions of secular and church authorities as well as of the need for an additional link between Christ and the believers.