Prof. Ivan M. Andreevskii passed away on this day in 1976.
In my December 6 report, I wrote about Archpriest Liverii Voronov and how he worked in post-World War II Leningrad, writing textbooks for the seminary and academy there. Professor Andreev (Andreevskii’s penname) dealt with the same challenges, but at the other side of the Iron Curtain: in central New York State. He wrote textbooks for his courses on psychology, pedagogy, and literature.
Andreev became a gem in the post-World War II mosaic of Jordanville, alongside Archbishop Averky, Archimandrite Constantine, Protopresbyter Mikhail Pomazansky, and Nikolai Talberg.
Andreev, like most of Jordanville professors at the time, did not have a degree in theology. He was a psychiatrist. This is how Archpriest Alexey Ohotin (d. 2013) remembered Andreev as a teacher: “Oh, he was very nice, and oh, how interesting he was! He would tell jokes, he would give all sorts of psychological examples. He would talk about all sorts of illnesses; the definitions of words like ‘idiot’ and ‘degenerate.’ That was interesting. He also taught literature” (“I am Going to Jordanville, No Matter What,” Historical Studies of the Russian Church Abroad).
Prof. Andreev was a native of Saint Petersburg and his grandfather was a priest. When, in 1927, Metropolitan Sergii (Stragorodskii) gathered his own Synod and made a statement (“Declaration”) regarding loyalty to the Soviet regime, Andreev joined Metropolitan St. Joseph of Petrograd (Petrovykh), who refused to obey Metropoliatn Sergii. During World War II, upon the German occupation of Leningrad region, Andreev left for the West. In Germany, he became a confidant of Metropolitan Anastassy (Gribanovsky, d. 1965). Andreevskii believed the Moscow Patriarchate had apostatized so gravely that it had ceased to possess salvific grace. On one hand, he contributed to the polemical (as opposed to historical) understanding of the realities of church life in the 20th century. On the other, he became a point of reference for Fr. Seraphim (Rose) in his more balanced assessment of the reality in the church.
