KHOMIAKOV, ALEXIS S

KHOMIAKOV, ALEXIS S., philosopher-theologian (1804–1860). One of the cofounders of the Slavophile (q.v.) movement in reaction to Western intellectual influences in Russia, Khomiakov received a liberal education in Moscow and unsuccessfully tried careers in the military and in art. With Kireyevsky he critiqued the prevailing philosophies of Scholasticism (q.v.) and German idealism and the ecclesiologies of the Roman Catholic (q.v.) and Protestant churches, thereby laying foundations for a philosophy and theology, especially an ecclesiology (q.v.), based on Orthodox Christianity. He collaborated on Russkaia Beseda beginning in 1856, and his son posthumously published his essays in L’eglise latine et le protestantisme au point de vue de l’Eglise d’Orient. In his best-known essay, “The Church Is One,” Khomiakov laid out his views on the unity and catholicity (q.v.) (sobornost) of the Church, a view that has been influential throughout the Orthodox world.