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Nikephoros Theotokis |
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The grammar of this article or section needs to be improved. Please do so in accordance with Wikipedia's style guidelines. (September 2008) |
Nikephoros Theotokis or Nikiforos Theotokis Greek: Νικηφόρος Θεοτόκης; Russian: Никифор Феотоки (1731-1800) was a Greek scholar and theologian, who became an archbishop in the southern provinces of the Russian Empire. A polymath, he has been respected in Greece as one of the "Teachers of the Nation".1
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Born in Corfu, he studied in Bologna and Padua in Italy.2. In 1748, he returned to Greece to join the church as a monk, reaching the rank of Hieromank in 1754. However, he was more interested in educating the youth of his country than in church services, and by 1758 he was able to set up his own school in Corfu, the first ever school in the island where a range of subjects were taught: Greek and Italian literature, grammar, geography, rhetorics, physics and mathematics, philosophy. He acquired some renown as a preacher at the local church of John the Baptist and the author of textbooks on physics and mathematics.
Nikephoros' achievements were noticed by Ecumenical Patriarch Samuel I Chatzeres, who appointed him as the preacher at Constantinoplpe's main church (1765). However, Nikephoros did not stay that long in Constantinople; he shared much of his time in the next two decades between Leipzig, where he published his Physics, and Jassy.
During the reign of the Russian Empress Catherine II, a significant number of Greek professionals were invited to come to her empire to help in the administration of the recently conquered lands of Novorossiya ('New Russia') on the north shore of the Black Sea (today's southern Ukraine). In 1776, Nikephoros came as well, invited by his countryman Eugenios Boulgaris, who occupied at the time the seat of the Archbishop of Sloviansk and Kherson. 3
Nikephoros joined Eugenios at the diocese, which covered much of the south-central Ukraine; its seat was actually located in Poltava, and remained there even after the diocese was renamed to that of Yekaterinoslav. Eugenios groomed the younger theologian as his successor, and Nikephoros indeed replaced Eugenios as the latter retired in 1779. Later on, in 1786, Nikephoros was transferred to Astrakhan, where he served as the Archbishop of Astrakhan and Stavropol.
Besides his scholarly and theological work, Nikephoros is known for his polemics against dissenter religious groups, such as theOld Believers and the Spiritual Christians. Disappointed with the low success of the propaganda and enforcement approaches intended to make the Old Believers abandon their rites and join the established church, Nikephoros, since the summer of 1780, started to reach out to the Old Believer communities, offering to legalize their churches and their form of worship, as long as they accepted the authority of the official church. After a number of Old Believer communities in the Ukraine and southern Russia accepted such arrangements over the next two decades, such arrangements were adopted nationwide, under the name of Edinoverie ('Unity in Faith').45
Nikephoros is credited by some scholars6 with coining the term Doukhobor around 1786, although others ascribe it to his successor at the Poltava chair, Archbishop Ambrosius.
Nikephoros retired from his archbishop position in 1792, and spent the rest of his days as the abbot of the Danilov Monastery in Moscow.
The main shopping street in the City of Corfu, Nikiforou Theotoki, is named after him.
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