Theophilus (Rabbit)

Numerous sources for his biography and bibliography do not indicate either the time or place of his birth.

Education: Kiev Theological Academy .

In 1713, being a monk and prefect of the Moscow Slavic-Latin school (later the Slavic-Greek-Latin academy), he was called to Petersburg and appointed a preacher.

In 1716, leaving the post of prefect, who knew Latin, German and Czech, he was sent by Senator Count I. A. Musin-Pushkin to Prague to translate some books from Czech into Russian, but Theophilus found it more convenient to translate from German into Russian the historical vocabulary of the Buddha in 4 volumes, of which the first two were translated in Prague; returning to Petersburg in 1721, he translated the last two volumes; in 1722, he translated from German into Russian the Lopatinsky sermon delivered by the latter for the new year; On February 14 of the same year he was appointed assessor of the Holy Synod; On March 10, he was ordained a hierodeacon and on March 11, a hieromonk .

Contributed to the development of literacy and the correct formulation of the academic case: the capital's teachers were subordinate to them by inspectorial supervision and received the right to deal with children only after the appropriate exam; contributed to the publication of books: “The Psalter of Sensible”, “Orthodox Confession”, “Ifica”, “History of Jerusalem”, “Historiography”, “Turkish Alcoran”, “Reasoning about the Swedish War”, “Puffendorf”, “Quintus Curtius” (“De rebus gestis Alexandri Magni libri "), this book has survived several editions due to its great popularity abroad.

The legalization and prescriptions of the government of the beginning of the 18th century, the correspondence of Peter I with Kurbatov and Pitirim indicate that among the most educated people of that time, which included Rabbit, there was an idea to transform the life of the clergy; this idea found its fulfillment in the years 1721-1722. The "Spiritual Regulation" in which Theophilus took some part; namely, he partially belongs to the development of amendments to the "Rules" regarding the "rules of the church clergy and the monastic rank", written with amazing accuracy and clarity.

On June 28, 1723, by the registered decree of Peter the Great, Rabbit was ordained to the archimandrite of the Chudov Monastery , and from September assessors he was appointed synodal adviser; in the same year he was appointed head of the translation business; by this time his translations into the Slavic language of the Protestant catechism and the clergyman, from the Latin language of the book Julius Caesar affairs description, from the German language Georgica curiosa oder das adeliche Land- und Feld-Leben (von Hohberg); the latter translation was completed by him in 1730; part of it was stored in the Synod, the other in the Rabbit library.

In 1724, Theophilus facilitated the baptism of the Tatars who served under the Admiralty, and as a knowledgeable German, we were also assigned to the Lutherans who wanted accession to Orthodoxy to teach them the truths of the Orthodox Church. On behalf of the Synod, he corrected the French grammar translated from Latin by F. Anokhin; in 1725 he baptized the Indian Lalajetuch.

After the death of Peter, until the accession of Anna Ioannovna, the Rabbit was in disgrace; this is due to the antagonism that then existed between him - a supporter of the party Feofan Prokopovich , who sympathized with the transformative aspirations of Peter, and opponents of the reforms of Peter led by Dashkov, Ignatius Smola and Radyshevsky; the latter received great importance after the death of Peter in matters subject to the conduct of the Holy Synod. Thus, in 1726, as a result of the decision of July 15, according to which only bishops could be members of the Synod, Theophilus was dismissed from the councilors of St. Synod. Throughout the whole of 1726, he was under the rule of the Moscow Synodal Chancellery, but in December he was also dismissed from this post, remaining the archimandrite of the Chudov Monastery.

In 1727 he participated in the compilation "Code", in the same year, on May 2, by decree from the Supreme Privy Council, he was sent to Austria "to be a corps of the auxiliary Caesar’s army, as a learned spiritual person, for the sake of acting deed with foreign spiritual people." However, this trip did not take place, because Theophilos did not receive instructions, "when and in what way to go there." A place in the Miracle Monastery was already taken, and Theophilus was left without a place; He submitted a petition to the Synod to appoint him again as archimandrite of the Chudov Monastery, but the request (based on the machinations of Dashkov and Ignatius Smoly) was left without consequences; I had to live in the Novospassky monastery as a simple monk.

In 1729, together with Feofan Prokopovich, he wrote a preface in verse (“Singrammat”) to the first satire of Prince A. Kantemir, “On the blasphemy of doctrine” that appeared.

September 17, 1730 was appointed archimandrite of the Novospassky Monastery. October 9 was appointed to participate in the composition of the Code; Then at the Synod the question arose of correcting the rules of the military charter. “Earlier,” the Military Collegium wrote to the Synod, “during an army such parables of an adventurer can, which, before a spiritual court, concern, for example, blasphemers, about committing an obligation with the devil, about sorcery and about the act of each officer and soldier against the priest and his confessor and leaking. For the sake of the Military College of St. The synod attached military articles, to a mature and wise reasoning, and offers the opinion of St. According to those articles, the Synod asks what fines may be imposed for those crimes, so that the articles with the spiritual rules agree and are similar. ” The Synod found many of the “articles” unsatisfactory and instructed Theophilus to correct them at his discretion and submit to the Synod, which he did. At the end of his life, Rabbit translated books: 1) The Catechism of Cyril of Jerusalem, 2) The Dahlia Curious, 3) The Universal Historical Lexicon, 4) The Gentry of Earth and Field Living (?) And 5) Models, or Images Solomon’s Church ”(of which 2, 3, 4 are stored in the archives of the Holy Synod). In 1731, Theophilus was introduced as a candidate for the post of bishop.

He died on August 12, 1732.

After his death, many books remained in his possession in Latin, French, German, Polish and Slavic languages ​​(all together with manuscripts and notebooks about 470 titles; a catalog of books in the archive of the Holy Synod under No. 617). At the highest command, the Latin books were given in 1734 to the bishop Innokenty of Irkutsk and Nerchinsk, at his personal request, and the rest of the books were handed over to the Novospassky monastery “with proper recording in the monastery books and under the supervision and protection of the treasurer and the sacristan.”

• M. Akimov. Theophilus (Rabbit) // Russian Biographical Dictionary : in 25 volumes. - SPb. - M. , 1896-1918.