The article examines the activities of the social-missionary association “Pravoslavnoe Delo”, created in 1935 in émigré Paris by mother Maria Skobtsova, the spiritual daughter of Archpriest Sergius ...Bulgakov, who comprehensively supported the work of the organization. The article focuses on a dual relationship: on the continuity and overlap between the religious thought of mother Maria and the theology of Fr. Sergius Bulgakov, and on how the ecclesiological views of both thinkers became the foundation for the practical work of the “Pravoslavnoe Delo”. The very first experiments of the philosophical thought of Elizaveta Skobtsova are connected with her definition of the “main channel’ of the Russian thought. She regards the Bulgakov’s sophiology as the creative result of this channel the main intuition of which is “God-participation of the world”. After her monastic vows, mother Maria reflects on the proper response of the Church to the social challenges of the 20 th century, relying in her reflections on Fr. Sergius’s thought about socialism as a challenge of the time, to which the Church must give the answer. Both thinkers reflect on the ecclesiological basics for such an answer: Bulgakov builds an ecclesiology of “living sobornost’” that opposes the atomized fragmentation of the collective. Developing the ideas of Fr. Sergius, mother Maria evolves the ecclesiology of the “Liturgy outside the church walls”, pouring out of the center as communion with the Eucharistic sacrifice into the world, embracing everyone. Both thinkers reflect in this domain on the role of creativity, on the rootedness of ecclesiology in the Eucharist, on the role of suffering and compassion. The idea of the Church as a “living polyunity” becomes the foundation of the activity of the “Pravoslavnoe Delo”, with its approach to every person in need as a true personality, whose help should be provided holistically, at the level of body, soul and spirit. An important point is also the fraternal unity of those who provide such assistance: they must be a “small Church” that unites the rest to the creative common life in Christ.
Represents some of the best, cutting-edge thinking
available on multiple forms of social upheaval and related
grassroots movements. From the January 2017 Women's March
to the August 2017 events in ...Charlottesville and the 2020 protests
for racial justice in the wake of George Floyd's murder, social
upheaval and protest have loomed large in the United States in
recent years. The varied, sometimes conflicting role of religious
believers, communities, and institutions in such events and
movements calls for scholarly analysis. Arising from a conference
held at the College of the Holy Cross in November 2017,
Religion, Protest, and Social Upheaval gathers
contributions from ten scholars in religious studies, theology and
ethics, and gender studies-from seasoned experts to emerging
voices-to illuminate this tumultuous era of history and the complex
landscape of social action for economic, racial, political, and
sexual and gender justice. The contributors consider the history of
resistance to racial capitalist imperialism from W. E. B. Du Bois
to today; the theological genealogy of the capitalist economic
order, and Catholic theology's growing concern with climate change;
affect theory and the rise of white nationalism, theological
aesthetics, and solidarity with migrants; differing U.S. Christian
churches' responses to the "revolutionary aesthetics" of the Black
Lives Matter movement; Muslim migration and the postsecular
character of Muslim labor organizing in the United States; shifts
in moral reasoning and religiosity among U.S. women's movements
from the 1960s to today; and the intersection of heresy discourse
and struggles for LGBTQ+ equality among Korean and Korean-American
Protestants. With this pluralistic approach, Religion, Protest,
and Social Upheaval offers a snapshot of scholarly religious
responses to the crises and promises of the late 2010s and early
2020s. Representing the diverse coalitions of the religious left,
it provides groundbreaking analysis, charts trajectories for
further study and action, and offers visions for a more hopeful
future.
PDF