Stefan Yavorsky is one of the most significant and at the same time ambiguous figures in the history of Russian society in the difficult, critical era of the late XVII - early XVIII centuries. Acting initially as a supporter of Peter in his reform activities and then becoming one of the leaders of the opposition to the reforming tsar Stefan considered his main task to be the preservation of the traditional system of Russian society, as he understood it, and the Russian Orthodox Church from those potential and real threats that brought with them the "Westernization" of Russian culture and the creation of the "regular state" of Peter the Great. But not only as a policy of ecclesiastical and national importance was manifested himself Stefan, great importance for the church and the whole of Russian culture have his writings, pointed primarily against Protestant missionary work, which exerts a strong influence on virtually all layers of Russian society at the beginning of the XVIII century. The article deals with the course and main problems of the church-dogmatic polemics of the figures of the Russian Orthodox Church at the beginning of the 18th century. Attention is focused on the links of polemic with the political transformations of Peter, which served as an incentive for its development, as well as the activation of interaction with Western European theologies, a number of provisions of which were the subject of disputes in the Orthodox Church. In order to understand the dogmatic aspect of the polemic, the views of Stefan in the field of ecclesiology and ethics are reconstructed.