The Greatest Eastern Apologist for Pontifical Authority: Vladimir Solovyov

Solovyov was simply echoing the early Church Fathers of the East on the Petrine Authority. You can read their actual statements here.

From One Peter Five

By Robert Lazu Kmita, PhD

Published in Paris in 1885, in order to protect the author from possible persecution by the Russian imperial authorities, Solovyov’s work La Russie et l’Église universelle (Russia and the Universal Church) [1] contains a section whose reading played a decisive role in my conversion from Eastern Orthodoxy to Rome. This part of Solovyov’s book bears a significant title: “La Monarchie Ecclésiastique fondée par Jésus-Christ” (“The Ecclesiastical Monarchy Founded by Jesus Christ”). From the very beginning, the Russian thinker emphasizes through this title that the hierarchy of the Church is monarchical, with its invisible head—God—being analogously and symbolically represented by a visible head—the Pope. I highlight this point in the heart of the darkest age in the entire history of the Church, when the popes themselves avoid using the terms monarchy/monarch to describe the ecclesiastical structure founded by Christ the Savior Himself. At the same time, I point out that the so-called “synodality” seems to be the instrument used to definitively undermine not only this notion but the very essential attributes assumed by this divinely instituted form of governance.

Undoubtedly the most important speculative Russian thinker of all time, Solovyov[2] gives headaches to “Orthodox” Eastern theologians who do everything they can to erase the traces of his conversion. Beyond the strictly biographical aspects, Solovyov’s text is too clear to leave any room for doubt. We are dealing with a son of the Catholic Church, who fully understands both the stakes of papal authority and its specific functions. Nevertheless, I have verified the sources that prove Solovyov’s official conversion. I was first helped by a reference in the chapter dedicated to him by Cardinal Hans Urs von Balthasar in The Glory of the Lord. A Theological Aesthetics.[3] Here, in note 5 of the “Soloviev” chapter, the Swiss cardinal states the following:

The proof that Solovyov actually converted in earnest to Catholicism—a fact ever more strongly contested time and again from the Orthodox side—is to be found in Heinrich Falk S. J., “Wladimir Solowjows Stellung zur katholischen Kirche,” in Stimmen der Zeit, vol. 144 (1949), pp. 421-435.

The article mentioned by von Balthasar may suffice to prove the Russian thinker’s conversion—but it is hard to find. However, much more accessible is the excellent text by Maxim Grigorieff published on the website OnePeterFive under the title “The Father of Russian Philosophy Died a Catholic.” Warmly recommending the full reading of Mr. Grigorieff’s text, I will quote here only the record of Solovyov’s conversion and the ceremony of February 18, 1896. The testimony is signed by the Russian Greek-Catholic priest Nikolay Tolstoy and two Catholic laypeople—Princess Olga Vasilievna Dolgorukova and Mr. Dmitry Sergeevich Novskiy:

The act of conversion of Vl[adimir] Solovyov to Catholicism.

In view of the continuing doubts in our domestic and foreign press as to whether the late philosopher and religious thinker Vladimir Sergeevich Solovyov was canonically attached to the Catholic Church, we, the undersigned, consider it our duty to declare in print that we were witnesses – indeed eyewitnesses of Vladimir Sergeevich [Solovyov]’s admission into the Catholic Church, committed by the Greek-Catholic priest Fr. Nikolay Alekseevich Tolstoy on February 18 (Julian calendar) 1896 in Moscow, in a home chapel arranged in a private apartment of Fr. Tolstoy that is located in Ostozhenka, Vsevolozhsky Lane, in Sobolev’s house. After a confession heard by Fr. Tolstoy, Vladimir Sergeevich [Solovyov] read the Tridentine Creed in Church Slavonic in our very presence, and then at the Liturgy celebrated by Fr. Tolstoy, according to the Greek-Eastern rite (with the commemoration of the Most Holy Father – the Pope), he received Holy Communion. Apart from us, this memorable event was attended by only one other Russian girl, who was in the service of Fr. Tolstoy’s family, whose name and surname unfortunately cannot be recalled at the present time.

By publicly bearing our present testimony, we believe that it must put an end to all doubts on the above mentioned question once and for all.

Priest Nikolay Alekseevich Tolstoy
Princess Olga Vasilievna Dolgorukova
Dmitry Sergeevich Novsky.

That being said, it is time to clarify that my intention in the present text is to provide a complete exposition of Solovyov’s argumentation from the second part of his book, titled—as I have already mentioned—“The Ecclesiastical Monarchy Founded by Jesus Christ.” Of its fourteen chapters, most—chapters IX, XI, XII, XIII, and XIV[4]—are devoted to the historical sources through which the author seeks to show that the primacy and infallibility of the Pope were always recognized, in one form or another, by the Church Fathers. Far more important, however, is the deeper, philosophical and theological argumentation of the author. As we are dealing with a true theoretical genius, his contribution to the understanding of the papal office—especially now, in a context where even the most recent (conciliar and post-conciliar) occupants of Peter’s throne seem to eclipse it—is vital.

The Prophetic Theology of History

We can never emphasize enough the fact that the hierarchy instituted by God is monarchical. This is why Solovyov, even from the title of the third part, speaks of the “ecclesiastical monarchy.” In practice, when it comes to the governance of the Church, any other form of government is impossible. Viewed this way, all the synodal experiments initiated in recent years represent the greatest danger to papal authority. For any form of democratizing the hierarchy is absolutely excluded. How could it be otherwise, when all revealed teaching speaks to us of the absolute Monarch of creation—God?

As a consequence of the strict subordination of creatures to the Creator, in the world of “things visible and invisible” created by God, the equality of creatures according to their nature is strictly subordinated to the hierarchy of their gifts, based on the divine graces given to each individually. Solovyov sets out all aspects of this strictly hierarchical-monarchical vision in his own distinctive manner. The backdrop for this is his exceptional interpretation of the vision of the giant in the book of the prophet Daniel. The axiom placed at the center of his interpretation is electrifying:

The Rome of the Popes became for universal Christendom what the Rome of the Caesars had been for the pagan world. The bishop of Rome was by his very office the supreme pastor and doctor of the whole Church.[5]

Although I have not found yet any evidence of a direct influence, Solovyov’s thesis is identical to that expressed eighty-six years earlier by one of the geniuses of German literature, Novalis (Georg Philipp Friedrich Freiherr von Hardenberg). In his controversial lecture “Christenheit oder Europa” (“Christianity or Europe”),[6] Novalis had already affirmed both the cardinal value of the Roman Pontiff’s monarchy and the possibility of a restoration of Europe around it. Solovyov thinks along exactly the same lines, though somewhat more reserved regarding the possibility of uniting the European political commonwealth around the Pope. His vision of history, expressed in a passage from Chapter VII—“The Monarchies Foretold by Daniel. ‘Roma’ and ‘Amor’”—in the second part of his book, stems from his interpretation of Daniel’s prophecy:

After the Assyrio-Babylonian monarchy, the head of gold, denoting the purest and most concentrated despotism, comes the monarchy of the Medes and Persians represented by the breast and arms of silver which symbolize a less unmitigated, less concentrated, but on the other hand much more extensive despotism, embracing the whole scene of contemporary history from Greece on the one side to India on the other. Next comes the Macedonian monarchy of Alexander the Great, the brazen belly engulfing Hellas and the East. But despite the fruitfulness of Hellenism in the sphere of intellectual and aesthetic culture, it proved impotent in practical affairs and incapable of creating a political framework or a centre of unity for the vast multitude of nations which it penetrated. In administration it took over without any essential alteration the absolutism of the national despots which it found in the East; and though it imposed the unity of its culture on the world which it conquered, it could not prevent that world from splitting into two great semi-Hellenised national States, the Helleno-Egyptian kingdom of the Ptolemies and the Helleno-Syrian kingdom of the Seleucids. These two kingdoms, at one moment engaged in bitter warfare, at another precariously allied by dynastic marriages, were well symbolized by the two feet of the colossus in which the iron of primitive despotism was mingled with the soft clay of a decadent culture.[7]

After this summary of the history of the great empires, the most dramatic aspect of the vision must be interpreted—namely, the destruction of the giant by that stone cut out from a mountain, which “struck the statue upon the feet thereof that were of iron and of clay, and broke them in pieces” (Daniel 2:34). What is the stone? At the beginning of Chapter VIII, Solovyov first points out that the vision “makes no mention of the greatest power of all, the Roman Empire.” Why? The answer represents the final step toward his ultimate interpretation:

It was because this Empire was not a part of the monstrous colossus doomed to destruction but was the abiding material framework and mould of the Kingdom of God. The great powers of the ancient world were merely passing figures upon the stage of history; Rome alone lives forever. The rock of the Capitol was hallowed by the stone of the Bible, and the Roman Empire was transformed into the great mountain which in the prophetic vision sprang from that stone. And what can that stone itself mean except the monarchical power of him who was called the Rock par excellence and on whom the Universal Church, the mountain of God, was founded?[8]

Solovyov’s vision is a faithful echo of the doctrine of communitas perfecta developed by the Medieval Doctors and fully crystallized in Pope Benedict XV’s bull Providentissima Mater, published in 1917.[9] Through his interpretation, our author clarifies—among other things—why our Church is called “Roman Catholic” and not simply “Catholic.” The attribute of “Romanity,” the only one that accompanies the one indicating the universality of the Christian ecclesia and its spread throughout the world, speaks precisely of the transformation of Roman royalty into the hierarchic-monarchic principle of divine right within the Church. This extraordinarily significant interpretation is strongly affirmed by Solovyov:

In the borders of Caesarea and on the shores of the Sea of Tiberias Jesus dethroned Caesar—not the Caesar of the tribute-money nor the Christian Caesar of the future, but the deified Caesar, the sole absolute and independent sovereign of the universe, the supreme centre of unity for the human race. He dethroned him because He had created a new and better centre of unity, a new and better sovereign power based upon faith and love, truth and grace. And while dethroning the false and impious absolutism of the pagan Caesars Jesus confirmed and made eternal the universal monarchy of Rome by giving it its true theocratic basis. It was in a certain sense nothing more than a change of dynasty; the dynasty of Julius Caesar, supreme pontiff and god, gave place to the dynasty of Simon Peter, supreme pontiff and servant of the servants of God.[10]

The Fragmentation of Societies and the Universality of Roman Monarchy

In the context of such a divine re-founding of monarchy, the role of the Apostle Peter and his successors becomes crucial. The philosophical explanation of the necessity of this monarchical function represents the first point in Solovyov’s argument. As shown in the following quote, it is linked to the most important aspect of the Christian mission—the transmission of the supreme Truth of Revelation:

The Universal Church is founded on truth affirmed by faith. Truth being one, true faith must be one also. And since this unity of faith has no present and immediate existence among the whole mass of believers (for in religious matters all are not unanimous) it must reside in the lawful authority of a single head, guaranteed by divine assistance and accepted by the love and confidence of all the faithful. That is the rock on which Christ has founded His Church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.[11]

To fully support his argument, Solovyov must respond both to Eastern schismatic Christians, who accept only the role of bishop as the “rock” of Christian faith, and to Protestants and neo-Protestants, who recognize only the individual believer who professes the true faith as the “rock.” Solovyov explains—by discussing how the famous verses from Matthew 16:13–19 should be interpreted—that there are three distinct “rocks”: Jesus Christ, the supreme rock (the only rock per se), representing the rock of the Kingdom in a religious or mystical sense; Peter and his successors, representing the foundational rock of the Church in a social and juridical sense; and the Christian faithful who, together with Peter, profess the same faith, thereby becoming living stones (i.e., rocks) of the Church:

Jesus Christ, the unique Rock of the Kingdom of God on the purely religious and mystical plane, sets up the prince of the Apostles and his permanent authority as the fundamental Rock of the Church in the social order for the Christian community; and each member of this community, united to Christ and abiding in the order established by Him, becomes an organic individual element, a living stone of this Church whose mystical and (for the time being) invisible foundation is Jesus Christ, and whose social and visible foundation is the monarchical power of Peter. The essential distinction between these three factors only serves to throw into stronger relief the intimate connexion between them in the Church’s actual existence, in which Christ, Peter, and the multitude of the faithful each play an essential part.[12]

In addition to the positive affirmation of the significance of the “rock” referred to by Christ the Savior, there are also negative statements criticizing the current state of pseudo-churches, which lack the vital center and visible head—none other than Peter and his successors. For example, referring directly both to Jewish messianism and to the situation of national autocephalous schismatic churches, Solovyov states:

Only in Peter’s confession does the Messianic idea emerge freed from all its nationalistic trappings and invested for the first time in its final and universal form.[13]

Furthermore, even when nationalism is not at play, “churches” and Christian “sects” fail to embody—or rather, fail to reach—universality. For it is evident that:

Apart from Rome there only exist national churches such as the Armenian or the Greek church, State churches such as the Russian or Anglican, or else sects founded by individuals, such as the Lutherans, the Calvinists, the Irvingites, and so forth.[14]

This is why it must always be emphasized, as Solovyov does, that there is only one Church that can truly be called “universal” (i.e., “Catholic”)—a fact which is indissolubly linked to the doctrinal orthodoxy professed by Peter and his successors. But why could the members of the apostolic college—the bishops—not be considered the sole bearers of this mission? Solovyov’s answer reveals the very subtle nuances of his thought, nuances reflected in the precise distinctions between the attributes of the Pontifical function:

‘And I say to thee that thou art Peter…’  Of the three attributes represented in this crucial passage as belonging by divine right to the prince of the Apostles—(i) the call to be the foundation of the Church by the infallible confession of the truth, (ii) the possession of the power of the keys, (iii) the power of binding and loosing—it is only the last that he shares with the other Apostles.[15]

It is evident that the first attribute refers to the infallibility of the Pontiff, the only one who possesses this unique charisma of divine origin. The objection regarding the recent date of this dogma—promulgated through the dogmatic constitution Pastor Aeternus in 1870, during the First Vatican Council—is countered by the Russian thinker with the organic metaphor of the relationship between acorn and oak: similarly, the pontifical function and its attributes developed dynamically in the history of the Church. Therefore,

The action of the prince of the Apostles had as little resemblance to modern papal administration as the acorn has to the oak; but this does not prevent the Papacy from being the natural, logical and legitimate development of the primacy of Peter.[16]

To clarify the second attribute, that of the keys, Solovyov wrote a short chapter—Chapter V—titled precisely: “The Keys of the Kingdom.” Naturally, the author acknowledges that we can understand the handing over of the keys in correlation with the text from Matthew 17:18, where we see that all the apostles were given the power to bind and loose. And yet, this power common to all bishops and the Pope concerns only individual cases—that is, the personal sins of Christians who approach the Sacrament of Confession. The attribute of the power of the keys involves more than that. In fact, it refers to the universal jurisdiction of the Supreme Pontiff, since it “must denote a supreme social and political authority, the general administration of the Kingdom of God on earth.”[17]

This authority over the entire earth was granted only to the Pope—something evident in his unique position throughout the history of the world. The only attribute shared by the Pope and the members of the apostolic college—the bishops—is the third. Such a conclusion should be enough to indicate the profound reasons why God established in the person of Peter and his successors the head of the visible ecclesiastical hierarchy.

In addition to all these arguments, Solovyov offers numerous historical proofs of the universal recognition of the ecclesiastical monarchy of the Supreme Pontiff. Well-known saints such as Flavian, Theodoret of Cyrrhus, Leo the Great, John Chrysostom, and many others are cited in this regard. The famous Canon 28 from the Council of Chalcedon, which sought to place the Patriarchate of Constantinople on equal footing with Rome and was firmly rejected by Saint Pope Leo the Great, is also discussed. The (in)famous “Robber Council of Ephesus” from 449 is not forgotten either. All of this serves to demonstrate that a Church without the Pope is unthinkable—just as a Church without hierarchy is impossible. As I said at the beginning of this article, Solovyov’s arguments and presentation played a decisive role in my own conversion. This explains why, in the letter in which I requested to be received into the Roman Catholic Church—written on January 30, 2001—I told the priest I was addressing the following:

In the course of the year 1993, a particularly significant event occurred in my spiritual development: my encounter with certain writings of the Russian theologian and philosopher converted to Catholicism, Vladimir Solovyov. Reading his works—especially Russia and the Universal Church—I had, for the first time, the opportunity to learn about the teachings and structure of the Roman Catholic Church. Without exaggeration, I testify that after reading this work with awe—a work that enabled me to understand that many of the criticisms made by “Orthodox” authors I had read until then were false and even malicious—I reached the unshakable conviction, which I hold to this day, that without the primacy of the Apostle Peter—and consequently, without the authority and infallibility of the Pope—the life of the Church is gravely affected. In short, in 1993, I embraced one of the most important dogmas of the Catholic faith: papal infallibility, with all its consequences.

Today, more than thirty-two years after I wrote those awkward and emotional lines, my faith remains the same. In fact, it is even stronger—despite the immense crisis unleashed by the “revolution of synodality.” God used the brilliant Vladimir Solovyov to reveal to me His Truth concerning ecclesiastical monarchy and the authority of the Supreme Pontiff. That is why I wholeheartedly recommend the exceptional work of the Russian thinker, Russia and the Universal Church, to anyone seeking to know and deepen this Truth.

Photo by Roman Popov on Unsplash

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[1] In this article I will quote Herbert Rees’ translation: Vladimir Solovyev, Russia and the Universal Church, The University Press Glasgow, 1948. Online, this edition is available at the following address: https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.169645/page/n7/mode/2up [Accessed: 11 April 2025].

[2] I have already published a biographical article about the Russian author in The Imaginative Conservative, “Vladimir Solovyov: The Mystical Origins of Sophianism:” https://theimaginativeconservative.org/2024/08/vladimir-solovyov-mystical-origins-sophianism-robert-lazu-kmita.html [Accessed: 09 April 2025].

[3] Here is the complete reference: Hans Urs von Balthasar, The Glory of the Lord. A Theological Aesthetics, III: Studies in Theological Styles – Lay Styles, Translated by Andrew Louth, John Saward, Martin Simon and Rowan Williams, Edited by John Riches, San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1986.

[4] Here are the full titles of these chapters as well as the pages where they can be read in the English version I have mentioned: IX. Ancient and modern witness to the primacy of Peter (pp. 116-119); XI. Pope Saint Leo the Great on the primacy (pp. 125-127); XII. Saint Leo the Great on papal authority (pp. 128-132); XIII. The approval of Saint Leo’s ideas by the Greek Fathers. The ‘robber-council’ of Ephesus (pp. 133-139); XIV. The Council of Chalcedon (pp. 140-144).

[5] Vladimir Solovyev, Russia and the Universal Church, ed.cit., p. 122.

[6] A new edition of Novalis’s conference was published last year by Angelico Press: Novalis, Christendom or Europe?, Introduction by Michael Martin, New York: Angelico Press, 2024.

[7] Vladimir Solovyev, Russia and the Universal Church, ed.cit., p. 110.

[8] Op. cit., p. 114.

[9] The full text can be read – only in Italian – on the official Vatican website: https://www.vatican.va/content/benedict-xv/it/bulls/documents/hf_ben-xv_bulls_19170527_providentissima-mater.html [Accessed: 09 April 2025]. Here is the fragment where the notion of a “perfect society” is mentioned: “La Chiesa, Madre sapientissima, voluta da Cristo, suo Fondatore, in modo tale che possedesse tutti i caratteri della società perfetta, fin dai suoi primordi, quando secondo il compito assegnatole dal Signore cominciò ad educare ed a governare tutte le genti, si diede a regolare e a difendere con leggi certe la condotta delle persone consacrate e del popolo cristiano.” (“The Church, the most wise Mother, desired by Christ, its Founder, in such a way that it possessed all the characteristics of a perfect society, from its very beginnings, when, according to the mission assigned to it by the Lord, it began to educate and govern all peoples, undertook to regulate and defend with certain laws the conduct of consecrated persons and the Christian people.”)

[10] Op. cit., p. 113.

[11] Op. cit., p. 102.

[12] Op. cit., pp. 93-94.

[13] Op. cit., p. 89.

[14] Op. cit., p. 120.

[15] Op. cit., p. 91.

[16] Op. cit., p. 117.

[17] Op. cit., p. 91.