The tradition of homiletics and the language of the party press as genre and style characteristics of peacemaking journalism in The Journal of the Moscow Patriarchate in the late 1940s - early 1950s.

Abstract

This article examines publications in the In Defense of Peace column of The Journal of the Moscow Patriarchate from the late 1940s to early 1950s. The relevance of this work stems from the need to understand the historical experience of interaction between the Russian Orthodox Church and state authorities under conditions of ideological pressure, as well as the contemporary demand for theological argumentation in socio-political discourse. The scientific novelty of this study lies in its demonstration that church journalism of that period was not reduced to the passive broadcasting of party positions. It developed an independent genre and style synthesis - the so-called “peacemaking theology,” which combined homiletic traditions, biblical exegesis, and the idioms of the Soviet press. The methodological framework includes a discourse analysis of the column’s texts to identify rhetorical cliches, a comparative analysis of publications in church and Soviet periodicals, a contextual-historical approach to assess the influence of international processes such as the creation of NATO, the arms race, and the onset of the Cold War, and a theological hermeneutic approach to interpreting biblical quotations in ideological discourse. The study established that the authors of The Journal of the Moscow Patriarchate undertook a complex reinterpretation of the Soviet peacemaking narrative through the prism of Orthodox dogma, using patriotic slogans to consolidate society while emphasizing the Church’s independent mission as the guardian of spiritual and moral values. It is shown that the synthesis of preaching tradition and Soviet political rhetoric in the In Defense of Peace column became a means of interaction between the Church and the state system, allowing it to participate in public and international agendas while preserving its religious identity and criticizing the “collective West” within the paradigm of “apostasy from the spirit of Christ.”