ABSTRACT
The eighteenth century was the century of 'secularization' in Russia. During this period an independent secular culture arose, which had no connection with the ecclesiastical consciousness. The ecclesiastical consciousness renounced its dream of the state's sacred mission and intensified its search for a purely ecclesiastical truth and justice, freeing itself from the temptations of an ecclesiastico-political ideology. The ideology was appropriated by the state power, but in a new, secularized form. The secularization of state power corresponded to a new ecclesiastical consciousness, which yielded to external power precisely because it was external and spiritually alien. The elimination of the eoclesiastico-political temptation from this consciousness left ample room for a 'Christian philosophy', in the strict sense that is for a philosophy inspired by Christianity. Gregory Sawich Skovoroda is noteworthy as the first Russian philosopher in the strict sense of the word. Skovoroda was born into a simple Cossack family in the Poltava Government.
