“The Consecrated Sobor”: On the History of Ideas about Church Sobors in Russia (Part 1)

A comprehensive historical-semiotic analysis of the term “sobor” in the Russian church tradition from the 10th to 18th centuries has been conducted. The idea of a “consecrated sobor” was proved to stand for not a representative body or governing institution, but the clergy as a whole. The “entire consecrated sobor” of the capital, headed by the Primate, could be convened for the governer’s sobor, but did not represent a distinct form of supreme church authority. The genealogy of the concept of “sobor” in 18th–19th centuries public thought was examined, showing how ideas about a church sobor in Russia were formed by Western European political theories, confessional polemics, and debates on national identity. The concept of a “sobor” as a representative institution, differing from the historical practice of 15th–17th century sobors was noticed to have formed by the 1850s. It is this construct, rather than actual historical institutions and practices, that later became the basis for criticism of the Synodal system as having lost the “sobornost principle.”

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