A collection of works on the history of the ancient Church under the general title “Disputes about the Apostolic Symbol. History of Dogmas” belongs to the pen of the outstanding Russian church historian Alexei Petrovich Lebedev (1845-1908). Professor of the Moscow Theological Academy, Honored Professor of Moscow University, he brilliantly combined the talents of a great scientist and a thoughtful critic. All of his works, collected for the first time in such a composition and little known even to specialists due to their scattering in various spiritual journals, are devoted to one topic – recreating the true appearance of historical Orthodoxy. By defending the Orthodox Church from the attacks of German Protestant theological science, A.P. Lebedev is doing an extremely important job. This is the preservation of one’s own appearance, one’s true face by Russian church-historical science, of truly Russian theology purely on Orthodox soil. The topics of his work in this book are extremely varied and interesting. This is both a defense of the Apostolic Symbol and a justification for the necessity of having a Creed in the Church in general; a series of articles devoted to the life and works of Constantine the Great; original and thoughtful analysis and criticism of the main works of A. Harnack; The Roman Empire at the time of its adoption of Christianity and much more.

The book is intended for both specialists and a wide range of lovers of church and ancient history.