Two centuries of the Russian classics Two centuries of the Russian classics 2686-7494 IWL RAS https://doi.org/10.22455/2686-7494-2025-7-4-6-23 Research Article Articles Church Sermon for the New Year: The Evolution of the Genre in the First Half of the 18th Century Krasheninnikova Olga A. red@rusklassika.ru 25 12 2025 7 4 6 23 New Year’s Eve sermon Elizabethan sermon solemn sermons moral and didactic sermon Stefan Yavorsky Feofan Prokopovich Stefan Kalinovsky Sylvester Kulyabka Gideon Krinovsky Copyright © 2026, IWL RAS 2026 This article analyzes the genre and thematic group of Russian New Year’s sermons of the first half of the 18th century, which originated during the reign of Peter the Great, with the beginning of his chronology reform in 1700. The article examines examples of New Year’s sermons by leading preachers of the first half of the 18th century: Stefan Yavorsky, Feofan Prokopovich, Stefan Kalinovsky, Sylvester Kulyabka, and Gideon Krinovsky. Each of these preachers’ artistic interpretations of the newly established New Year’s holiday are unique and represent a specific stage in the development of this genre. Feofan Prokopovich was the first to contrast social time with sacred time. In the sermons of Elizabethan writers, the New Year’s threshold increasingly came to be perceived as a reminder of the vanity and transience of earthly human existence, the inevitability of death, and the transition to eternity. The genre of the New Year’s sermon underwent a significant evolution in its development: moving away from covering issues of social development, this sermon in the Elizabethan era turned to the inner world of man, and began to address existential questions. 1. Vetelev, A., archpriest, and M. E. Kozlov. Istoriia propovednichestva Russkoi Pravo­ slavnoi Tserkvi [History of the Preaching of the Russian Orthodox Church]. Sergiev Posad, Moscow Theological Academy Publ., 2006. 122 p. (In Russ.) 2. Kagarlitskii, Iu. V. “Propoved’ kak istochnik po istorii russkoi slovesnosti i intellektual’noi kul’tury XVIII v.” [“The Sermon as a Source for the History of Russian Literature and Intellectual Culture of the 18th Century”]. Lingvisticheskoe istochnikovedenie i istoriia russkogo iazyka [Linguistic Source Studies and History of the Russian Language]. Moscow, V. V. Vinogradov Institute of the Russian Language Russian Academy of Sciences Publ., 2002, pp. 243–258. (In Russ.) 3. Kislova, E. I. “Izdanie pridvornykh propovedei v 1740-e gody” [“Publication of Court Sermons in the 1740s”]. XVIII vek [18th Century], coll. 26: Staroe i novoe v russkom literaturnom soznanii XVIII veka [Old and New in Russian Literary Consciousness of the 18th Century]. St. Petersburg, Nauka Publ., 2011, pp. 52–72. (In Russ.) 4. Kochetkova, N. D. “Oratorskaia proza Feofana Prokopovicha i puti formirovaniia literatury klassitsizma” [“The Oratorical Prose of Feofan Prokopovich and the Development of Classicist Literature”]. XVIII vek [18th Century], coll. 9: Problemy literaturnogo razvitiia v Rossii pervoi treti XVIII veka [Problems of Literary Development in Russia in the First Third of the 18th Century]. Leningrad, Nauka Publ., 1974, pp. 50–80. (In Russ.) 5. Matveev, E. M. “Tserkovnyi panegirik v russkoi oratorskoi proze serediny XVIII v.” [“Church Panegyric in Russian Oratorical Prose of the Middle 18th Century]. Vestnik Sankt­Peterburgskogo Universiteta. Seriia 9, issue 2, part 2, 2007, pp. 35–41. (In Russ.) 6. Matveev, E. M. Russkaia oratorskaia proza serediny XVIII veka: Panegirik v svetskoi i dukhovnoi literature [Russian Oratorical Prose of the Middle 18th Century: Panegyric in Secular and Spiritual Literature]. St. Petersburg, St. Petersburg State University Publ., 2009. 138 p. (In Russ.) 7. Petrov, A. V. Ody “na Novyi god”, ili otkrytie vremeni. Stanovlenie khudozhestvennogo istorizma v russkoi poezii XVIII veka [Odes “for the New Year,” or the Discovery of Time. The Formation of Artistic Historicism in Russian Poetry of the 18th Century]. Moscow, Magnitogorsk, Magnitogorsk State University Publ., 2005. 271 p. (In Russ.)