Dr Rostislav Tkachenko

Associate Supervisor
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An Associate Supervisor for postgraduate supervision at Westcott House, Rostislav’s specialist areas of expertise include:

• Theology in the High Middle Ages (doctrines of God and man)
• The legacy of Anselm of Canterbury, Augustine, Bonaventure, Peter Lombard, and Thomas Aquinas
• Theology of trauma in Antiquity and Middle Ages
• The reception of medieval thinkers’ ideas in the Reformation and contemporary theology

Rostislav is a Senior Research Fellow at the Eastern European Institute of Theology and Lecturer at the Ukrainian Baptist Theological Seminary in Lviv, Ukraine. He serves as a member of the editorial boards of two Ukrainian scholarly journals, edits theological books written in or translated into Ukrainian and Russian, and engages in historical-theological research, writing about Anselm, Aquinas, Bonaventure, Boethius, and Peter Lombard. He also regularly teaches Critical Thinking, Theological Research Methods, Historical Theology, and Christian Doctrine (God, Jesus Christ, and salvation).

A native of Ukraine, Rostislav has been involved in Christian education since 2011, teaching and supervising BA and MA students in several Protestant seminaries in his home country. In 2023, he relocated to Cambridge and served as a Research Associate at Trinity Hall and the Faculty of Philosophy, University of Cambridge until July 2025.

Rostislav’s main research focus is the doctrine of God and ontology in the High Middle Ages and the theology of trauma in premodern Christian thought. He is also interested in the historical development of the doctrines of man, Christ, salvation, and Eucharist, and the continuity and discontinuity between medieval and post-Reformation scholasticisms.

He holds a PhD in Theology from the National Pedagogical Dragomanov University in Kyiv, Ukraine, and an MTh from the Evangelical Theological Faculty in Leuven, Belgium. As an undergraduate student, he experienced some doubts and had questions about his faith. He started looking for answers in classic theological works by Thomas Aquinas and Anselm of Canterbury. As a result, he fell in love with medieval Christian thought and chose Historical Theology as his area of specialization. Since then, his primary research focus has been on the theology and philosophy of the High Middle Ages, and to a lesser extent, Late Antiquity.

Rostislav is a member of The Internationale Gesellschaft für theologische Mediävistik, The Medieval Academy of America, and The Institute of Post-Reformation Studies (based in Evangelical Theological Faculty, Leuven, Belgium).

Apart from his educational and academic activities, Rostislav has a passion for reading, is a big fan of J. R. R. Tolkien’s and H. P. Lovecraft’s fiction, and is the author of a small Telegram channel dedicated exclusively to books.

Publications

‘Anselm on Fittingness: Varying Concepts of Fittingness in the Cur Deus homo.’ In Fittingness and Environmental Ethics: Philosophical, Theological and Applied Perspectives, edited by Michael Northcott and Steven C. van den Heuvel, 133–150. London: Routledge, 2023.

‘Boethius and (post-)traumatic historical theology: The processing of trauma and theologizing’ in The Consolation of Philosophy [in Ukrainian]. Theological Reflections: Eastern European Journal of Theology 21, no. 2 (December 2023): 125–56.

‘A system of methodological coordinates for a historiographer of medieval philosophy: a proposal of an explanatory tool.’ Sententiae 39, no. 2 (2020): 8–28.

‘Peter Lombard on God’s Will: Sententiae, Book I, Distinctions 45-46.” Multiversum: a philosophical almanac 163–164, no. 1–2 (2018): 136–152.

‘Peter Lombard on God’s Knowledge: Sententiae, Book I, Distinctions 35–39, as the Basis for Later Theological Discussions.’ Sententiae 36, no. 1 (2017): 17–30.

‘Educational Background and Theological Foreground: A Study of Correlation between Medieval System of University Education and Scholastic Theology in the Thirteenth Century.’ Theological Reflections: Euro-Asian Theological Journal 16 (2016): 88–119.

‘A Thomistic Untranslatable: A Conceptual Analysis of Aquinas’ Doctrine of Transubstantiation.’ Sententiae 34, no 1 (2016): 61–79.

‘An Analysis of Anselm’s Philosophical Theology and the Problem of Man’s Freedom in His De Concordia.’ Sententiae 32, no 1 (2015): 6–35.

‘Proslogion of Anselm of Canterbury as a story and an explanation of the way(s) to know God’ [in Ukrainian]. Ukrainian Catholic University’s Scholarly Notes, ‘Theology’ Series VIII, no. 3 (2016): 265–282.

‘The Protestant Quest for a Meaning of the Eucharist: A Comparative Theological Analysis of the Theology of the Eucharist in Lutheran, Anglican and Russian Baptist Traditions.’ Theological Reflections: Special Issue prepared by Donetsk Christian University (2013): 153–174.