The very fact that subsequent regimes in Russia have deemed it necessary to control church life strongly suggests the presence of critical potential. Readers may think, at this point, that ‘Christian political philosophy’ is a double oxymoron. Did not modern political philosophy come into being only when the Christian theological framework was left behind by thinkers like Machiavelli? Does philosophy not become theology as soon as it becomes Christian? Is Christianity not quintessentially a denial of the political? Paradoxically, however, it is the very attempt to move beyond politics and to deny the political that makes Christian thought, theological or philosophical, political.

From a traditional Christian point of view, history has, strictly speaking, secondary relevance: the historical time that humans live in is the period between the Fall and the End of Times. The modern discovery of historical progress, even if it develops dialectically, breaks with this tradition. A traditional position turns conservative when it finds itself in a historically developing, modernising world, and it becomes paradoxical when an established church finds itself subordinated to a regime that is a major agent of modernisation, secularisation and industrialisation. To an extent, this tension can be softened by emphasising the ‘symphonic’ division of labour between a church that is oriented on eternity, salvation and morality, and a state that has a monopoly over worldly politics. However, this extent ends where religious principles are felt to be applicable to society more generally and this particularly concerns the numerous burning issues indicated by the word vopros, which means both question and problem: the issues of national self-determination, for example, of the Polish people, of women's rights, of the position of Jews in the Russian Empire, of poverty and social inequality, and many more. As a result, the pol’skii vopros, zhenskii vopros, evreiskii vopros, sotsial’nyi vopros [Polish, Women’s, Jewish, Social question] and others were high on the agenda of the thinkers discussed in this chapter.