Metropolitan Alexander’s Article on Archimandrite Sophonias (Sokolsky)’s Pilgrimage to the Holy Land Published in the Academic Journal Christian Reading

September 23, 2026. St. Petersburg. An article by Metropolitan Alexander of Astana and Kazakhstan has been published in Christian Reading, the academic journal of the St. Petersburg Theological Academy.

The article examines the pilgrimage to the Holy Land undertaken in the summer of 1850 by the future first hierarch of Turkestan, St. Sophonias (Sokolsky), who at the time served as rector of the church of the Russian Diplomatic Mission in Constantinople. This important episode in his biography and in the history of Russian-Eastern ecclesiastical relations on the eve of the Crimean War has thus far been studied only fragmentarily.

The study draws on various published editions of Archimandrite Sophonias’s travel diary (1851, 1864–1865, 1865 and 1874), his unpublished letter to Archimandrite Porphyrius (Uspensky) held by the St. Petersburg Branch of the Archive of the Russian Academy of Sciences, the travel notes of Prince P.A. Vyazemsky, the diary of Archimandrite Antonin (Kapustin), and the Synodal instructions issued to the rector of the Russian Embassy church in Constantinople, preserved in the collections of the Russian State Historical Archive.

A comparative analysis of these sources has made it possible to clarify the chronology of the pilgrimage, the composition of its participants and its itinerary. The study demonstrates that the journey simultaneously pursued three objectives. The first was connected with personal piety. The second was ecclesiastical and political: acting on instructions from the Russian Embassy, St. Sophonias investigated on site reports concerning the tombs of the Crusaders in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. The third objective was to gather scholarly information of an ecclesiastical-archaeological, biblical-topographical and ethnographic nature.

During the journey, these objectives were supplemented by pastoral and missionary tasks.

The article is entitled: “The Pilgrimage of Archimandrite Sophonias (Sokolsky), Rector of the Church of the Russian Diplomatic Mission in Constantinople, to the Holy Land in 1850: Between Personal Piety and Ecclesiastical Politics.”

The journal Christian Reading is included in the list of peer-reviewed academic journals approved for the publication of the principal scholarly results of dissertations submitted for the degrees of Candidate and Doctor of Sciences (Higher Attestation Commission list, K1 category).

The article by Metropolitan Alexander of Astana and Kazakhstan is available at the link provided in the original publication.

The complete issue of the journal containing the article is also available through the link provided in the original publication.

For citation: Alexander (Mogilev), Metropolitan. “The Pilgrimage of Archimandrite Sophonias (Sokolsky), Rector of the Church of the Russian Diplomatic Mission in Constantinople, to the Holy Land in 1850: Between Personal Piety and Ecclesiastical Politics.” Christian Reading. 2026. No. 3. pp. 381–398. DOI: 10.47132/1814-5574_2026_3_381. EDN: YJWVBX.