Abstract

In the article, a little-studied question of the critical interpretation of the theological position of the representative of German protestant tradition Otto Pfleiderer (1839–1908) in the eastern orthodox theology, especially in the work of Kharkiv Professor Timofej Butkevič (1854–1925), is presented. At first, the main periods of a clerical and creative career of Butkevič, including his studying at the Kharkiv Clerical Seminary (1869–1875) and the Moscow Clerical Academy (1875–1879), are considered. Then the features of the theological publications and the teaching of Butkevič at Kharkiv University are pointed out. His important works were two monographs: The evil, its essence and origin (1897) and Religion, its essence and origin (1902–1904) in two books. The positions of well-known German theologians such as Karl August von Hase (1800–1890), David Friedrich Strauß (1808–1874), Karl Theodor Keim (1825–1878), Karl Philipp Bernhard Weiss (1827–1918), and others were here analyzed. But Butkevič’s critical interpretation of the theological viewpoint of Otto Pfleiderer in his two volumes work Die Religion, ihr Wesen und ihre Geschichte (1869) and in his Geschichte der Religionsphilosophie von Spinoza bis auf die Gegenwart (1883) occupies a central place in this analysis. In turn, Butkevič’s important achievement was the popularization of the ideas of Otto Pfleiderer in Russia and Ukraine, in particular, because of his translation of extracts from Pfleiderer’s works.