Sogomonov A.Ju. Ivan Lopoukhine: Masonic moralism and practical philosophy (the spiritual path from mysticism to the ethics of civil society). Centennial of Applied Etics. 2024. No. 2 (64). Pp. 138-157.

Abstract

Ivan Lopoukhine was the great statesman and nobleman, leading thinker of Russian masonic movement, bright intellectual and enlightener of the last quarter of the 18-th century. He is well known to historians, but philosophers and sociologist pay no attention to his role in Russian cultural evolution. At the dawn of his carrier being involved in French secular and materialistic philosophy, he considered himself mostly as a liberal thinker. But accidentally turned towards mysticism and masonic philosophy, and, moreover, betrayed European rationalism and blamed its “rules”.  His Weltanshauung was basically influenced by Saint-Martin and Rosenkreizerianism. Together with I. Schawarz and N. Novikov, he was very active in the sphere of enlarging masonic infrastructure, led his own private typography, published books and masonic journal. In his main masterpieces (firstly in “Spiritual Knight”, 1790) he developed highly original doctrines of “inner church” and “genius Christianhood”. Lopoukhine was the prime figure in Russian Empire as a spiritual mentor, producing and disseminating new knowledge – masonic social moralism. And historically that was the first and real step towards modernity and its ethics of civil society. Facing the changing reality of slowly modernizing society and politics, Lopoukhine was the inventor of the applied ethics methodology, offering to Russian citizens new ethical codex, that was published many times, and was translated into French, German and English languages. His masonic “Catechesis” had brought him world popularity and fame.