Razumevanje temeljev vzgoje in izobraževanja v pravoslavni Cerkvi

Abstract

Authentic Christianity has its own concept of upbringing and education, based on the Biblical perspective of man and of entire reality, and developed and elaborated during past centuries through practice and experience. The upbringing offered by the modern culture has always been and still is predominantly humanistic. The ideal of upbringing and its goals, as well as the methods of education, depend on basic presumptions of such culture. Like everything else, pedagogical thought depends on the apprehension of the world, of man and of their final goals. The term “education” comprehended this way gets completely new, different contents and meaning. It is not just a mere acquisition of knowledge from one or several fields, but it has more of an anthropological and ethical and even deep spiritual meaning. Educational – to put it differently – formation means renewal of God’s image in man, its discovery and further development. Simple people, uncontaminated by superficial experience of solely intellectual upbringing, have never forgotten that deep ethical meaning of the world image which also implies organic relation between education and ethics, education and spiritual life in general.