ACADEMIC COMPLAINT Concerning Violations of Academic and Research-Ethics Standards in the Journal Theology: Theory and Practice
2026-10-05
Addressees:
Presidium of the Russian Academy of Sciences
Expert Council on History of the Higher Attestation Commission (VAK) under the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation
Russian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate)
Patriarchal Exarch of Western Europe, Metropolitan Mark of Korsun and Western Europe
Editorial Office of the journal Theology: Theory and Practice
Subject of the Complaint
The “Geghard” Scientific Analytical Foundation hereby submits a complaint concerning the editorial policy and peer-review procedures of the journal Theology: Theory and Practice (Теология: теория и практика). The complaint is prompted by a series of articles by Archimandrite Alexy (Nikonorov), a cleric of the Russian Orthodox Church (secular name: Andrey Valeryevich Nikonorov, born 1978 in Baku), in which, through selective and distorted quotation of historical sources, the Armenian Christian heritage is presented as “Albanian”, and the institutions of the Armenian Apostolic Church as unrelated to that Church.
About the Journal
Theology: Theory and Practice is an international, bilingual, open-access quarterly scholarly journal published in Moscow since 2022 (ISSN 2949-3951 [print], 2949-396X [online]; website: https://theoltp.com). According to the journal’s official information, it is indexed in the ATLA Religion Database, the Russian Science Citation Index (RSCI/РИНЦ), DOAJ, Crossref and CyberLeninka, and since 23 April 2024 it has been included in the VAK List of Peer-Reviewed Publications (information as given on the journal’s website and in the ISTINA system of Moscow State University, https://istina.msu.ru/journals/686491354/). The journal’s website carries its peer-review regulations (https://theoltp.com/reviewing) and its provisions on the ethics of scholarly publication (https://theoltp.com/ethics), which require authors to quote sources in good faith and to maintain scholarly objectivity. It is precisely the disregard of these requirements that forms the subject of the present complaint.
About the Author
Nikonorov is a clergyman of the Russian Orthodox Church: in 2021–2024 he was Secretary of the Baku Diocesan Administration and Rector of the Holy Myrrhbearers Cathedral in Baku; since March 2024 he has been a cleric of the Patriarchal Exarchate of Western Europe and Rector of the Parish (Church) of the Holy Apostle Paul in Malta. According to the biography he himself has published, in 2023 he was appointed to the Board of Trustees of the Azerbaijan Institute of Theology; in 2024 he was awarded the state jubilee medal of the Republic of Azerbaijan “100th Anniversary of Heydar Aliyev”; and his articles have been printed in the collections Этнокультурное наследие Кавказской Албании (“The Ethnocultural Heritage of Caucasian Albania”) of the Baku International Multiculturalism Centre (2021, 2022, 2024). In 2021 the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences published his monograph История Церкви Кавказской Албании по Моисею Каланкатуйскому (“History of the Church of Caucasian Albania according to Movses Kaghankatvatsi”; Moscow, 2021, 374 pp.). These circumstances are mentioned not in order to assess the author as a person, but to clarify the institutional context of his publications.
The Article in Question
Никоноров А.В. Монастыри, скиты и монашеские традиции Гянджасарского католикосата к XVII веку // Теология: теория и практика. 2026. Т. 5. № 1. С. 26–52 (https://theoltp.com/issue-2026-5-1).
Drawing on medieval sources and scholarly works, the author attempts to present the history of the emergence and activity of the monasteries under the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the Catholicosate of Gandzasar in the South Caucasus, in particular in the territory of Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh), with an emphasis on questions of church activity, monastic life, liturgical order and internal rules. The article, however, employs the following approaches:
deliberate omission of the terms “Armenian” and “Armenia”, both in the author’s own text and in the quoted passages;
selective quotation of primary sources, in the course of which sentences or statements identifying the subject in question as Armenian are removed;
substitution or distortion of personal names and place names;
attribution of Armenian authors, institutions and church councils to a supposed “Albanian” ecclesiastical tradition.
As a result, the Catholicosate of Gandzasar, which has historically formed part of the Armenian Apostolic Church, is presented as an exclusively “Albanian ecclesiastical institution”. Attributed to the Albanian Church are the monasteries and churches not only of Artsakh but also of the territory of the present-day Republic of Armenia, the Nakhichevan Autonomous Republic and Turkey, as well as the clergy who served there. It is noteworthy that the author relies mainly on Armenian primary sources and on the works of Armenian scholars, yet consistently avoids mentioning their ethnic affiliation. This practice is applied systematically in the article and cannot be regarded as an accidental omission: when the works of Armenian historians are quoted, the removal of the words “Armenian” and “Armenia” is a direct violation of research ethics.
The same issue also contains the article by Alihuseyn Gulu-Zada, “The Christian Heritage of Caucasian Albania: History, Identity, and Legacy” (pp. 112–121), which advances the same theses; this indicates that the matter concerns not only a single author but also an editorial approach.
The Systematic Nature of the Phenomenon
The article in question is not A. Nikonorov’s first publication of this kind in the journal. Between 2022 and 2026 six of his articles appeared in the same journal (for the full list see Appendix 1), all of them applying the same method. In 2026 two more of his articles, devoted to the history of the Albanian Church in the 7th–13th centuries, were published in Christianity in the Middle East (https://cmideast.ru), a journal of the same publisher (vol. 10, no. 1, pp. 57–82; vol. 10, no. 2, pp. 89–131).
In these articles, as well as in his public statements and interviews (Appendix 2), the author repeats the same claims: that Armenians played no significant role in the Christian life of the region, still less in its monastic and ecclesiastical life, and that the greater part of the Armenian spiritual and material heritage is not Armenian. Moreover, disregarding the methods of historical scholarship and relying almost exclusively on the works of Armenian historians and on Armenian sources, the author constructs a “history” of the region in which the role of Armenians is reduced to a minimum or is absent altogether. In his public statements these theses are accompanied by assessments directed at the Armenian Apostolic Church, Armenian historical scholarship and the Republic of Armenia, which go beyond the bounds of scholarly discussion and coincide in substance with the official position of the Republic of Azerbaijan (see, in particular, Appendix 2, the publications of 1 December 2020, 22 August 2024 and 13 September 2025).
The Question of Peer Review
The journal’s regulations provide for independent peer review of submitted articles. In the case of A. Nikonorov’s articles this procedure evidently did not operate, or operated only as a formality: the distortion of quotations, the systematic silencing of the ethnic affiliation of Armenian authors and the arbitrary attribution of institutions of the Armenian Apostolic Church to another church would have been detected at the very first reading by any reviewer with a command of the medieval Armenian sources. These articles are, as a rule, not based on a balanced analysis of the sources, ignore the historiographical tradition and its methods, and, instead of scholarly discourse, reproduce the theses of official Azerbaijani propaganda. Such publications not only contradict the principles of scholarly objectivity and the journal’s own ethical provisions, but also harm inter-church relations and the friendly ties between the Armenian and Russian peoples.
Demands
By this complaint we draw the attention of our colleagues in Russia, of those responsible for the field of science and of the Russian Orthodox Church to the publications of the journal Theology: Theory and Practice, and call on them:
to conduct an academic audit of the journal’s editorial policy and peer-review procedures in accordance with the guidelines of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE);
to suspend or reconsider, until the violations have been remedied, the journal’s inclusion in the VAK List and its indexing in the RSCI (РИНЦ) database;
to require the journal’s editorial office to arrange an independent re-review of the articles in question and, should the violations be confirmed, to retract them or append an editorial note;
to publish in the journal the response article prepared by an expert of the “Geghard” Foundation, which exposes, with reasoned argument, the false claims of the publication in question.
Appendix 1. A. Nikonorov’s Publications in the Journal Theology: Theory and Practice
Никоноров А.В. Краткий очерк о наиважнейших православных архитектурных памятниках Азербайджана // Теология: теория и практика. Т. 1. № 2. С. 17–35. DOI: 10.24412/2949-3951-2022-0090. https://theoltp.com/issue-2022-1-2
Никоноров А.В. Каноны царя Кавказской Албании Вачагана III: обстоятельства принятия и правовые параллели // Теология: теория и практика. Т. 3. № 1. С. 58–78. DOI: 10.24412/2949-3951-2024-0040. https://theoltp.com/issue-2024-3-1
Никоноров А.В. Топографическая карта из коллекции Л.Ф. Марсильи как источник по истории Кавказской Албанской церкви в XVII веке // Теология: теория и практика. Т. 4. № 2. С. 84–92. DOI: 10.24412/2949-3951-2025-0120. https://theoltp.com/issue-2025-4-2
Никоноров А.В. Епископские кафедры Гянджасарского католикосата в XVII веке // Теология: теория и практика. Т. 4. № 3. С. 69–82. DOI: 10.24412/2949-3951-2025-0170. https://theoltp.com/issue-2025-4-3
Никоноров А.В. Традиция паломничества и места поклонения Гянджасарского католикосата при Сефевидах // Теология: теория и практика. Т. 4. № 4. С. 38–67. DOI: 10.65324/ttp003. https://theoltp.com/issue-2025-4-4
Никоноров А.В. Монастыри, скиты и монашеские традиции Гянджасарского католикосата к XVII веку // Теология: теория и практика. Т. 5. № 1. С. 26–52. https://theoltp.com/issue-2026-5-1
Related publications:
Никоноров А.В. История Церкви Кавказской Албании по Моисею Каланкатуйскому. М.: ИВ РАН, 2021. 374 с.
Никоноров А.В. Кавказская Албания и ее церковь под властью Омейядского халифата в VII–VIII веках // Christianity in the Middle East. 2026. Т. 10. № 1. С. 57–82. DOI: 10.65324/cme017
Никоноров А.В. Институциональная эволюция и стратегии выживания Кавказской Албанской церкви под властью Аббасидского халифата, Великих Сельджукидов и Атабеков Ильдегизидов в VIII–XIII веках // Christianity in the Middle East. 2026. Т. 10. № 2. С. 89–131. DOI: 10.65324/cme021
Appendix 2. A. Nikonorov’s Interviews and Public Statements
Rus Pravoslav Kilsəsinin nümayəndəsi: «Qarabağ monastırları Azərbaycan xalqına məxsusdur!» // oxu.az, 01.12.2020. https://oxu.az/society/445377
Игумен Алексий (Никоноров): Блестящие результаты деятельности Мехрибан Алиевой по укреплению взаимопонимания между культурами я видел своими глазами // Независимая газета, 01.12.2020. https://www.ng.ru/culture/2020-12-01/100_190330112020.html
Архимандрит Алексий (Никоноров): В Азербайджане народы и конфессии понимают и принимают друг друга, несмотря на различия // Day.az, 15.02.2022. https://news.day.az/politics/1435993.html
Архимандрит Алексий (Никоноров): Азербайджан имеет особый дар, делающий его уникальным, привлекательным и образцовым // Day.az, 28.06.2022. https://news.day.az/politics/1473429.html
О праздновании дней святого великомученика Георгия и просветителя Кавказской Албании Елисея. Из цикла передач «Грани толерантности» // CBC TV Azerbaijan, 14.05.2023. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HTY2NFBCDIk
Архимандрит Алексий (Никоноров): Доклад Госдепа о свободе религий — инструмент вмешательства в дела Азербайджана // news.day.az, 19.05.2023. https://news.day.az/politics/1565349.html
Архимандрит Алексий (Никоноров): Община западных азербайджанцев усилила свою международную деятельность // Qərbi Azərbaycan TV, 26.10.2023. https://youtu.be/1AdCKWsXJzE
Архимандрит Алексий (Никоноров): Все больше стран прислушиваются к голосу Азербайджана. Аспекты иностранных дел с Теймуром Атаевым // CBC TV Azerbaijan, 01.11.2023. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=oMzFIBaGduo
Архимандрит Алексий (Никоноров): Азербайджан обеспечил неприкосновенность всех христианских храмов и монастырей на освобожденных территориях // news.day.az, 12.11.2023. https://news.day.az/politics/1613219.html
Архимандрит Алексий (Никоноров): Обвинения в христианофобии полностью противоречат реалиям Азербайджана // news.day.az, 14.04.2025. https://news.day.az/politics/1744233.html
