The article examines the legacy of priest Pavel Florensky in the context of European culture from antiquity to the present day. The dialogue in which Florensky is a perceiving and continuing ...comrade-in-arms is conducted with Plato, Aristotle, with the Fathers of the Church and Neoplatonists of different eras, with Nicholas of Cusa, Leibniz, with mathematicians — from the Pythagoreans to Kantor; Florensky’s thought echoes Kant’s constructions and builds on them. Belonging to the culture of the “Silver Age”, Father Pavel meets Nietzsche at a philosophical crossroads, becomes friends with Andrei Bely, becomes the object of criticism from Fr. Georgy Florov sky. In the space of Florensky’s creative dialogue and polemics with philosophers and theologians, the essence of his trinitology and sophiology is revealed. The most important property of the heritage of Fr. Pavel Florensky is a combination of traditionalism, consisting in strict adherence to the teachings of the church fathers and the Orthodox tradition as a whole, and freshness of ideas (up to the coincidence with the understanding of contemporary political trends), which is urgently needed in the modern Christian world both in the East and in the West.
The article examines the development of approaches to the category of
sobornost
(spiritual community of people), stated in the works of V. Solovyov, in the works of P. Florensky, S. Bulgakov, N. ...Berdyaev. This essay traces the evolvement of
sobornost
from abstraction to definition by means of Hegel’s dialectic. The process of dialectic development is projected onto modern life through philosophic polylogue that includes symbolic interpretation of the language of Russian religious philosophy of the 19th–20th centuries.
Sobornost
is interpreted as a specific ontology of culture enfolding itself in religious, secular, and religious-secular communality. Thus, with Hegel’s triads in mind we can build on the unity and self-identity of
sobornost
at the level of religious communality. For secular communality with its duality,
sobornost
is mediated and reversed. Though duality of
sobornost
is not substantial and it unites general and particular into religious-secular communality as the most concrete form of its actualization. Each communality type means a specific form of presentation of
sobornost
in language and shows itself in the texts through religious philosophemes (symbols). For example, wandering (S. N. Bulgakov) and self-sacrifice (P. Florensky, N. A. Berdyaev) indicate religious communality. They are characterized by religious hyper-asceticism, mono-ideism, atemporality, martyrdom, and chosenness. Whereas heroism (S. N. Bulgakov, P. Florensky) implies maximalism of causes and means, individualism, chosenness, collectivity, political mono-ideism, martyrdom and points to secular communality. All three symbols of religious and secular communalities have common features: atemporality, eschatologism, the idea of chosenness, mono-ideism, martyrdom and Messianism with different actualization in each of the communalities. The third type of communality combining both religious and secular demonstrates all three symbols of
sobornost
. Herein these symbols are associated with humility, personal maximalism of actions, religious conscience, historicity, and freedom. In this way an individual is always placed in the dimension of
sobornost
and cannot be regarded out of it. The establishment of
sobornost
leads to spiritual totality of the divine-humanity.
Introduction.
The article examines collegiality as a category of metaphysics in the religious and philosophical systems of V.S. Solovyov, prot. Sergei Bulgakov and archim. Sophrony (Sakharov). The ...analysis of the category of collegiality is carried out through the prism of personalism, as a basic concept for the metaphysical thinking of these authors.
Materials and Methods.
The research material for the proposed article is monographs and scientific works of Russian researchers devoted to the problems of ecclesiology, sophiology and personalism. In this article, the methods of comparative analysis, historical and philosophical synthesis, generalization, abstraction and interpretation were used.
Results.
The main problem posed in this article is the process of reception of the category of collegiality in Russian religious personalism. Sobornost is a term coined in the Slavophil tradition to express the concept of "unity in a plurality." In the metaphysics of total-unity and in neo-patristic synthesis, this category was perceived because it solved one of the basic questions: how are the personality correlated as the One, and the multitude, as the All-unity? This solution was formally different (for sophiology and neopatristic theology), but structurally identical. Sobornost, as unity in the multitude, realized in the Church, has as its prototype the Trinity of God. At the same time, the study states that collegiality was one of the main categories in which the general Sophian personalism of the Russian philosophical tradition was expressed. Sophia in this case means the nature of the Church, open to hypostasis, and through this hypostasis creates the possibility of Theosis of man. The research focuses on three personalities of the Russian intellectual tradition: the philosopher V.S. Soloviev and theologians Archpriest Sergei Bulgakov and Archimandrite Sophrony (Sakharov).
V.S. Soloviev, as the founder of the Russian metaphysics of All-Unity, uses the concept of God-manhood as a metaphysician of conciliarity, transmitting a personalistic impulse to subsequent philosophers. Late nightingale moves away from theistic personalism towards immanetism, but his disciples, among whom was Archpriest. Sergei Bulgakov, connect the category of conciliarity and the concept of God-manhood in sophiological ecclesiology. In this case, prot. Sergei Bulgakov substantiates his cathedral personalism on the basis of a trinitarian anthropological model. The tradition of neo-patristic synthesis, which is analyzed using the example of archimandrite Sophrony (Sakharov), refuses sophiological terminology, preserving the basic intuitions developed in Russian religious philosophy, returning them to the traditional theological field of meanings.
Discussion and Conclusion
. In the Slavophil tradition, collegiality is understood historiosophically, in the metaphysics of All-Unity - sophiologically, and in the neopatristic synthesis - ecclesiologically. In the philosophy of the Silver Age and theology, personalism becomes one of the main themes, which leads to the transformation of the category of collegiality towards polyhypostasis as the main property of the nature of the Church. At the same time, we see the transformation of a certain basic personal intuition of collegiality, which comes from the church tradition and returns to it, enriched with philosophical meanings.
Georges Gurvitch (1894-1965), from the 1920s to the end of his life, was solving the problem of combining unity and plurality in the justification of society. He believed that individualism and ...collectivism represented social processes in a limited way because they were based on the preconception that the binding power of law derives respectively from a private or corporate actor's will. Gurvitch contrasted individual law with the social one, which was intended to overcome the opposition between individualism and collectivism. Social law bases on legal sociology's assumption that social interactions as such are already legal relations. This conclusion allows Gurvitch to consider any social interaction as a source of law and to assert legal pluralism as a way of constructing society. The integrity of the latter is a condition for the mutual correlation of the multiplicity of legal regulations generated by internal social interactions into the unified structure of social law. In a holistic approach to comprehending social interactions, Gurvitch, in his Russian-language works in the migr period, uses the philosophical-legal interpretation of sobornost to describe society's integrity. In French- and English-language works from the 1930s, Gurvitch uses the term "totality," which he learned from Marcel Mauss, to describe social integrity. This article compares sobornost and totality as variants of denoting social integrity in Gurvitch's social law doctrine. The researcher determines that Gurvitch, using the concepts of sobornost and totality, interpreted society's development differently, 1) as anti-hierarchical sobornost equality, and 2) as a hierarchical inordination of totalities. Having analyzed the peculiarities of the interpretation of sobornost and totality in Gurvitch's works, the author concludes that these concepts should be considered multilingual equivalents in denoting communal unity as sources of law, which reflect changes in the interpretation of society in Gurvitch's social law doctrine.
The article is devoted to the problem of parish reform in the period of revolutionary processes and the beginning of the Civil War in the South of Russia. The author analyses the church-public ...perception of the position, functions and role of the parish in the church, public and political life through the prism of the discussion which took place on the eve and during the All-Russian Local Council of 1917– 1918 and appeared in church periodicals. One can trace the process of the parish revival and the acceptance of the sobor solution to the parish problem by the ecclesiastical community of Southern Russia. Church revival was connected to a revival of the parish on the basis of sobor-canonical principles, with the first Christian community serving as its ideal. The main activity on this path was the formation of parish councils, the activity of which went far beyond the inner boundaries of the parish. Its functions were to be extended to the level of a grass-roots zemstvo, to ensure the legal and economic security of the parishioners, and to influence the surrounding society.
The article discusses the stages of reception by Catholic theology of the concept of “sobornost”, which was included in the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church “Lumen Gentium” (“Light to the ...Peoples”). The author briefly describes the history of the emergence of this term in the writings by A. S. Khomyakov and analyzes the works by Cardinal Yves Congard, Fr. Bernhard Schultze, Abbot Albert Gratieux, Fr. Paul Patrick O’Leary, Fr. Hyacinthe Destivelle, in which this concept was critically comprehended, and thanks to which it was assimilated by the Roman Catholic Church in an updated format. The article analyses the relationship between the concepts of sobornost, catholicity, synodality, conciliarity and collegiality, which are closely connected in contemporary Catholic ecclesiology. These categories are compared with the principle of primacy and the ecclesiastical authority of teaching. The author notes the insufficiency of sobornost without the reality of the sacrifice on the cross, so it must take into account aspects of the relationship between love and the law. The path taken by the concept of “sobornost” from the desk of A. S. Khomyakov to the documents of Vatican II can be viewed as a miracle and an opportunity for dialogue between East and West. The comprehension of Khomyakov’s works by leading Catholic theologians certainly contributes to a deeper analysis of his legacy in Orthodox theology.
Saint Justin Popovićis well known as a key protagonist of the patristic revival in Serbian theology of the twentieth century. This paper explores the way that this revival took place in his theology ...by analysing his patristic works, basic features of his patristic hermeneutics and discussing possible influences which enabled him to participate in what was, at the time, the emerging theological trend. His two key patristic works on St Macarius of Egypt and St Isaak the Syrian are analysed as they provide valuable information on Fr Justin’s approach to the patristic texts. Focus is also laid on his dogmatic works which reveal his understanding of the role of the patristic legacy in Orthodox theology, as well as on his exegetical works in which patristic authors are often and substantially engaged with. Three basic features of Fr Justin’s patristic hermeneutics are discussed: (1) his synthetic approach, founded on his understanding of catholicity (
); (2) his emphasis on spiritual experience; and (3) his focus on the obtaining of sainthood as the ultimate goal of the patristic investigations. Three key streams of Russian religious thought, it is claimed, had a crucial impact on Fr Justin’s theological reasoning in general, and on his understanding of the patristic revival, in particular. Besides the theological influences, as evidenced in Russian philokalic tradition and theological figures among which Metropolitan Khrapovitsky plays a major role, the substantial contribution of Russian religious philosophy is also emphasized. In conclusion, it is argued that although Fr Justin’s turn to the patristic tradition exhibits some of the qualities of the neo-patristic synthesis, it lacks the programmatic character as evidenced in the case of Georges Florovsky’s theology. I show that Fr Justin participates in the “patristic turn”, a phenomenon which may be perceived as analogous to the “linguistic turn” that happened in the 20
century philosophy, and not necessarily in neo-patristic theology as such.
The early decades of the last century saw European philosophical thought becoming increasingly interested in the sociological extension of the idea of law. From the viewpoint of the sociology of law, ...law is formed in the process of social interactions and is not sanctioned by the state. Sergey Hessen and Georges Gurvitch base their conceptions of social law on the sociology of law in the 1920s and 1930s. They start a polemic in the pages of the journal Sovremenniye zapiski (Contemporary Notes). Although they differ radically in their definitions of the status of the state they concur in defining society as a set of social institutions and communities existing as instruments for expressing personal freedom. The social regulations they propose are already legal situations. Hessen and Gurvitch believe that the individual can fully exercise his/her freedom only in conditions of such legal pluralism. However, the concept of legal pluralism involves an inherent problem of preserving social unity: why is it that society does not fall into a range of autonomous social entities, each offering the individual its own legal order for actualising freedom? To solve this problem the philosophers use the concept of “the general will”. General will is an instrument of correlation between individual freedom and the development of society and culture as a whole. The object of philosophical dispute is how the general will is formed: 1) in the process of social self-organisation according to Gurvitch; 2) in the operation of the suprafunctional organisation (the state) according to Hessen. The difference in the grounding of the general will leads to a difference in the concepts of social unity: 1) sobornost according to Gurvitch and 2) solidarity according to Hessen. Analysis of the dispute between Gurvitch and Hessen brings out not only the differences in the interpretation of social unity but also the fundamental problems with the conceptions of social law.
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.
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