Pavel Shchelin is a Russian political philosopher who specializes in political theology and its implication for the theories of political community and world politics.

He made his work mostly known in Russian media space, by being a political commentator and running a YouTube channel and audio podcast “In the Search of Meaning” together with his colleague Eugene Golub. What the audience found simultaneously paradoxical and refreshing is how the perspective of political theology and philosophy of history provides a deeper and clearer picture of the current political events compared with the positivist or ideological approaches. He also runs classes for adult education on topics such as “Theological realism of International Relations”, “Political Theology, Introduction”, “Philosophy of History and Power based on the readings of Plutarch”, etc.

His thought is inspired by the work of the Russian religious philosophy tradition — with the texts of Nikolai Berdyaev, Ivan Ilyin, Lev Karsavin, Lev Tichomirov, and Ivan Solonevich being the key sources for inspiration — and by works in the school of Western political theology by Eric Voeglin, Carl Schmitt, and Giorgio Agamben.

Pavel’s current main interest is to act as a bridge between two languages of political theology Western and Russian. Also a more ambitious goal is to apply the patterns of thinking of Church Fathers (especially Maximus the Confessor) to political theology and to create alternative ways of discussing the matters of war and peace, of political unity and civil strife and of power and politics in general.

Though his YouTube channel is mostly in Russian, his English-language conversations, including with Jonathan Pageau and Richard Rohlin, are gathered here.