RELIGIOUS-ANTHROPOLOGICAL VIEWS OF REPRESENTATIVES OF UKRAINIAN ORTHODOX TRADITIONALISM IN THE CONTEXT OF REFORMATION IDEOLOGY (END OF XVI – BEGINNING OF XVII CENTURY)

Abstract

In the article the author tries to analyze the representation of religious and anthropological ideas in the works of figures of religious and philosophical thought in Ukraine in the late XVI - early XVII centuries. Their views were due to the expansion of Catholicism and the peculiarities of interfaith confrontation. It is noted that in order to protect Orthodox Byzantine and Old Rus’ traditions, representatives of the Reformation ideology in their works presented positions on protecting the faith of their ancestors from the influences of other cultures, preserving national and cultural values, referring to the basic principles of Holy Scripture, the original structure of Christian teaching and Orthodox Kyivan spiritual traditions and values. They were especially pronounced in the theological teachings of the religious and philosophical school of the “Ostroh traditionalists” (Ostroh and Derman cultural and religious centers). The author notes that the most famous representatives of this trend in Ukraine were Vasyl Surazky, Ivan Vyshensky, Yov Pochaivsky, Yov Knyagynytsky, Vitaliy from Dubno. They believed that the attainment of divine truth was possible only through the study and practical application of the works of Eastern patristic and through the active inner search for the spiritual mind, which should be guided by biblical knowledge. It is noteworthy that the polemicists, representatives of the early modern Ukrainian religious-philosophical and political-cultural elite, emphasized the inner philosophy of the wise mind, which combines the divine and the human. They sought to be an example of righteous living for their contemporaries, embodying its principles in their lives and associating it with monastic asceticism. The author concludes that the philosophical and anthropological views of the representatives of traditionalism developed in the context of the paradigm of Christian Neoplatonism, which was expressed in the ideas of hesychasm.