Russian Religious Renaissance Research Articles

Independence of thought and national sentiment in the Russian Religious Renaissance

Independence of thought and national sentiment in the Russian Religious Renaissance

У. Джеймс и С. Франк: две интерпретации «пари Паскаля»

Blaise Pascal is considered one of the most influential thinkers of his time, and his questions about the nature and position of man in the world remain relevant to this day. Pascal’s famous wager continues to be a subject of discussion among thinkers of various orientations. This article analyzes two interpretations of Pas­cal’s famous argument in defense of religious faith – those of W. James and S.L. Frank. By examining both thinkers’ interpretations of Pascal’s Wager, the article highlights the distinctive perspectives of W. James and S.L. Frank on the concept of religious experience. The basis for this comparison is the re­ception of W. James’s philosophical and religious ideas by the Russian philo­sopher. James’s ideas were relevant during the Russian religious renaissance of the early 20th century, receiving both positive reviews and criticism. The author of the article identifies similarities and differences in the two interpretations of Pascal’s Wager, which allows for a deeper understanding of the philosophical spirit of both W. James and S.L. Frank. It is emphasized that the views of the Ame­rican pragmatist and the ideological interpretation of the wager by the Russian philosopher share a particular approach to the concept of religious experience. Turning to the ideas of W. James and S.L. Frank provides a foundation for as­serting that, on the ground of the domestic intellectual tradition, both religious experience and religious philosophy are “integrated” into the philosophy of com­munication, transcending purely religious thought

Reception of the “Dostoevsky myth” in the philosophical works of N.A. Berdyaev and V.I. Ivanova

INTRODUCTION. The work is devoted to the consideration of the characteristics of the artistic anthropology reception by F.M. Dostoevsky in the philosophical works of thinkers of the “Russian religious renaissance”. The relevance of this issue formulation lies in the broad research interest in the interdisciplinary study of Dostoevsky’s work at the intersection of literary studies, philosophy, and culturology; in the active appeal of modern literary scholars and philosophers to the issues of Dostoevsky’s “presence” in the culture of the 20th century; as well as the significance of the philosophical discoveries of N.A/ Berdyaev and V.I. Ivanov for the study of Dostoevsky’s artistic philosophy. The scientific problem lies in the very depth of the influence of Dostoevsky’s philosophical worldview on the literature and philosophy of the subsequent century, which has not yet been fully clarified. The purpose of the study is to identify and characterize the main features of the reception of Dostoevsky’s artistic anthropology in the philosophical works of N.A. Berdyaev and V.I. Ivanov.MATERIALS AND METHODS. We turn to the object of study – the philosophical work of N. Berdyaev and V. Ivanov, inscribed in the context of the reception of the “Dostoevsky myth”, relying on intertextual and historical-genetic methods in the context of a general hermeneutic approach.RESULTS AND DISCUSSION. F.M. Dostoevsky with all his artistic and journalistic creativity made a shift in the understanding of human, in his works a new approach to artistic anthropology was implemented, which assigned a very special place to human. As we can see, in his anthropocentric worldview, Dostoevsky provides a philosophical synthesis of the absoluteness of the individual personality and the prin-ciple of the spiritual unity of all people. The era of the Russian religious renaissance played a unique role in the history of the reception of Dostoevsky’s artistic discoveries and philosophical intuitions.CONCLUSION. F.M. Dostoevsky was, as N.A. Berdyaev, A.F. Losev, D.S. Merezhkovsky believed, the spiritual primary source of thought of the entire Silver Age, which rose “under the sign” of Dostoevsky, since it was he who forcefully actualized the world of apocalyptic self-division of human. Anthropodicy of N.A. Berdyaev is immersed in a special eschatological atmosphere, in which the philosopher turns to the writer’s work. In the interpretation of V.I. Ivanov Dostoevsky’s mystical realism reveals the eternal “tragedy of the spirit” playing out between the divine and created principles in human.

The premises of the discussions of worldview in German- and Russian-language philosophy at the edge of 19th–20th centuries

The problem of worldview arises at the intersection of the anthropological and aesthetic fields of philosophical research. The first step was made by I. Kant, who substantiated “anthropological dimension” of philosophy and was the first to introduce the concept of Weltanschauung into philosophical usage. The concept of worldview acquires a truly philosophical meaning at the turn of the 19th–20th centuries, mainly in the works of German and Russian authors, who for the first time began to develop the philosophy of the worldview itself, as well as to propose a project of the “doctrine of the worldview” (Weltanschauungslehre). What can be the reason for the demand for this concept in the German and Russian-speaking philosophical cultures? The paper discerns and discusses the following five historical-philosophical circumstances that influenced the vehement discussion of the problem of worldview and the proposals of various projects of the “doctrines of worldview” at the turn of the 19th and early 20th centuries. These circumstances are: the crisis of the speculative philosophy of German idealism and the desire to systematize knowledge in academic philosophy; axiological investigations in non-classical philosophy; World War I, which was perceived as a phenomenon of a “cleansing” world war that destroyed the old world; massification of society and technologization of public life; unorthodox religious-philosophical searches, typical for German philosophical anthropology and the Russian religious renaissance. Conceptual analysis allows us to hold that worldview discussions come to the foreground when the former world has become meaningless, has ceased to exist in recognizable forms, and the new one has not yet been shaped. Through the development of “nonscientific philosophy”, representatives of the German and Russian-speaking traditions sought to transform the world in which they happened to be, offering original worldview projects for its grasp and retention. The problem of worldview, thus, turns out to be in demand in regards with the substantiation of the ontology of the human, which turns into the need to interpret the classical ancient principle of care of the self.

Музыкальная картина мира Микалоюса Константиноса Чюрлёниса

The article examines a number of musical canvases by M. K. Churlenis, one of the notable artists of the Silver Age, often conventionally referred to as “second-hand masters”. The main purpose of the article is to identify and comprehend the complex, extraordinary path of the artist, composer, poet, coinciding with the main trends in the development of Russian art of the turn of the epoch (late XIX - early XX centuries). The novelty of the research is determined by the lack of systematization of the phenomenon in art, as we see the music of the symbolist artist Churlenis. The relevance of the chosen topic is connected with the comprehension of the composer's experimentation, which is the basis of his musical worldview and creative method. The evolutionism of Churlenis' activity is obvious, the desire to search for a new artistic paradigm, a new format of thinking, which in our opinion seems innovative against the background of artistic products of the era of the Russian religious Renaissance. As a result, the need for a deep analysis of the composer's original musical philosophy is revealed. In conclusion, it is said about the important contribution of the sounding philosophy of M. K. Churlenis to the anthology of music of the cultural Renaissance in Russia at the turn of the XIX-XX centuries.

A page from Russian cosmology in the Trinitarian story of creation

This article approached the doctrine of the Trinity from the vantage point of the science and religion dialogue, because the issue of faith and reason is integral to this concept. This approach requires humility and silence. A page from the cosmology of the Russian Silver Age sheds light on the notorious schism of 1054 between the Western and the Eastern theologians on the Filioque issue, which manifests the lack of an apophatic and antinomistic approach. The issue is thus whether God is intrinsically part of nature and yet is its Creator and Redeemer. This question touches upon God’s transcendence and immanence, cataphatic and apophatic theology and even the complementarity of the two. Two protagonists of the ‘Russian Religious Renaissance’, Pavel Florensky (1882–1937) and Sergius Bulgakov (1871–1944), presupposed Christian faith and belief by giving theology preference to philosophy in this debate. Reality is seen as an antinomy and placed within the broader context of human cultural activity.Intradisciplinary and/or interdisciplinary implications: A socially oriented worldview was pursued that underscored the ontological priority of relationality. The conclusion was drawn from the Russian Orthodox theology that the doctrine of the Trinity has its roots in the God–human relationship in Christ by the (Holy) Spirit and it interprets the homoousios of the Godhead as Sophia and antinomianism as the most crucial features of this belief.

Nicholas Afanasiev’s Concept of Eucharistic Ecclesiology and Its Theological Impact

precis: A productive area of scholarship of the Russian Religious Renaissance is the reconsideration of the “two schools” dichotomy that has been broadly thought of as an explanation of its development. A better way to approach its study, however, is in a comprehensive way capturing critical details that escape the attention of crude categorizations. An aspect in which this is relevant is the development of the notion of eucharistic ecclesiology. Coined by Nicholas Afanasiev, it was an effort to reveal the eucharistic nature of unity in the church and, as such, its Christ-centeredness. In so doing, he effected a change in how the unity of the church is conceived. Afanasiev had a profound impact on the role of the Orthodox Church in the ecumenical movement. Highlighting this revives knowledge of the development of eucharistic ecclesiology in the modern Orthodox Church. Among Afanasiev’s contemporaries, Paul Evdokimov was influenced by this, adapting it to real-life situations in which knowledge of the centrality of the eucharist was relevant. In an ecumenical setting, the study of Afanasiev and Evdokimov offers the prospect of theological development in the present and the promise of the revival of productive engagement that has been beset by problems in recent decades.

On a Typology of the Wholeness: Vladimir Solovev and François Rabelais

Vladimir Solovyev possessed many different talents and capacities. He was philosopher and sceptic intellectual, journalist and mystagogue, master of obscene jokes and sophiologian, theologian and eccentric newsmaker. The heterogeneity of interests and skills was typical of thinkers and artists of the Modernist epoch, it even can be considered as a Modernist version of the wholeness of identity. Vassily Rozanov and Andrei Bely, Alfred Jarry and Aby Warburg, Walter Benjamin and André Breton worked in different artistic and scientific fields, and they were quite successful as multidisciplinary intellectuals. François Rabelais, like many representatives of the Renaissance, was also known as a prominent figure of various creative spheres. Taking into account that Solovyev and Rabelais both believed that the game was inextricable linked to the very nature of intellectual activity, the comparison of these two thinkers/writers can help us in understanding Vladimir Solovyev in his creative wholeness, “estranging” his well-known image. Like one of the classics of Russian philosophy (unlike he was its founder), like one of the leaders of the Russian religious Renaissance, Solovyev undoubtedly was and is a key figure of the Modernist epoch. Meanwhile, taken together with François Rabelais, he becomes less familiar and much closer to his authentic personality. Thanks to this comparision, the thinker, known by his contemporaries as an unsurpassed speaker, the ironical interlocutor and incorrigible joker, can be perceived as a skillful writer reinvented language like an individual creative method. Even in his classical works (Three Talks, Panmongolism) Solovyev now is transformed into a Modernist thinker whose intellectual wholeness consists of mystical experience, brilliant writer’s and speaker’s skills, historiosophical insights and peculiar inexhaustible humor.

Lev Zander and Problems of Ecumenism

Lev Alexandrovich Zander was a continuer of the Russian religious and philosophical renaissance thought of the beginning of the 20th century. The main part of his intellectual activity was performed in the extraordinary conditions of emigration. He was one of the creators of the Russian diaspora in Paris, at the same time holding crucial functions in the St Sergius Orthodox Theology Institute in Paris. However, over the years he became less and less recognisable. His ecumenical, practical, and theoretical activities are also worth analysing. He co-created the Ecumenical Movement in the first years of its existence. His interpretation of ecumenism, highly controversial for his immediate environment, outpaced his times and still remains up-to-date. In his theoretical texts, Zander formulated the fundamental conditions for interfaith collaboration and the postulates of ecumenism: the principle of confessionalism and the need of restraining from proselytism. The principle of confessionalism consists in unconditional and uncompromising affirmation of the beliefs held by each particular church. Lev Zander describer the ideal of ecumenism as “unity in love”, which surpasses its historic standards; the notion of “ecumenism” was more mystical and eschatological than historical. “Unity without union” which is the formula of ecumenical paradox, the expression of the contradictory nature of ecumenism, is placed in the centre of his ecumenical reflection. The publication of Zander’s most important work Vision and action in 1952 sparked a heated discussion in the Paris orthodox community, contributing to the development of the orthodox ecumenical theology.

Иной взгляд на Россию. Письма из «русского архи­ва»

The article presents previously unpublished letters written by Andrzej Walicki (15.05.1930–21.08.2020), a worldly renowned Polish historian of Russian thought, to Professor Michael Maslin, the head of the Department of the History of Russian Philoso­phy at Lomonosov Moscow State University. Walicki’s letters (1997–2019) together with books, articles and other materials formed his gift to the abovementioned Department. Walicki himself referred to these materials as “my small Russian archive”. The letters are written in excellent Russian and require no additional revision or stylistic improvement. This publication retains the letters in their full originality including some phrases of Pol­ish origin. These unique epistles reveal Walicki’s individual creative worldview. The let­ters contain new information about the details of Walicki’s biography and his work in Poland, Russia, USA, Great Britain, Japan, Australia. The letters provide a unique per­spective on the “flow of ideas”, which was Walicki’s personal conception of understand­ing and interpretation of the Russian intellectual history from the Enligh­tenment through the Russian religious and philosophical Renaissance of the twentieth century. The letters discuss his interactions with Sergei Gessen, Isaiah Berlin, Leszhek Kolakowski, Czeslaw Milosz, George Kline, James Scanlan, Leonard Shapiro, Martin Malia, Richard Pipes, Nicholas Riasanovsky, James Billington etc. A special attention is paid to the critique of the Western and especially Polish Russophobia based on various superstitions and stereo­types about Russia as well on a lack of knowledge, various kinds of bias and blunders. Of considerable interest are Walitsky’s expert assessments of the ge­neral state of the scien­tific historiography of Russian philosophy, its fundamental diffe­rences from Soviet dog­matic Marxism, of which the Polish scientist was a consistent critic.

Полилог религии, культуры и философии: интерпретация Д.С. Мережковского

The article is devoted to the analysis of the creative activity of Dmitry Merezhkovsky (1865–1941), the “literary source” of the time of the “spiritual turning point” (N. Berdyaev). It is pointed out that Merezhkovsky, being one of the initiators and theorists of Russian symbolism and a well-known representative of the Russian religious renaissance, did not want to limit himself to either “symbolist” or national frameworks, as he always “claimed more: leadership, literary and artistic, religious and philosophical, social and political” (M. Vish­nyak). This kind of attitude to creative work initially assumed an intercultural approach, which obviously implied a polylogue of religion, culture and philosophy. Beginning with the justification of a “new direction” in art – symbolism, or “subjective-artistic criticism” regarded as a genuine method of philosophizing and searching for the religious meaning of culture, Me­rezh­kovsky widely developed in his works the themes of the conjunction of culture and revolution, the contradictions of culture and civilization, “religious community”, the need for re­li­gious, moral and cultural revival of society by forming the Universal Church. These and other themes were immediately included by him in a wide cultural and historical-philo­so­phical contexts, which enabled Merezhkovsky to make a deeper analysis and provide a more interesting interpretation. It is suggested that intercultural philosophical position of Merezhkovsky was formed as a result of his recognition of uniqueness and importance of each philosophical system and tradition. A conclusion is made that this helped the Russian thinker to reach an essentially new level of philosophical dialogism, which can be regarded as an example of intercultural polylogue.

Philosophical and pedagogical views of the Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia Kirill (Gundyaev)

The article analyses the historical and philosophical views of Patriarch Kirill and his evaluation of modern Western philosophy, formed in the era of postmodernism. A distinctive feature of that time is the blurring of the criteria that define the border between good and evil. According to the Patriarch, this approach is caused by the absolutization of a person’s freedom, considered beyond the context of one’s responsibility for the actions performed. As a result, the philosophy of liberalism justifies the rejection of the Christian commandments, since they are claimed to suppress one’s personal freedom. Thus, the Patriarch emphasizes the importance of preserving the “Christian dimension” of a person’s behavior. The present work pays special attention to the Patriarch’s conceptualization of the Russian philosophical tradition, which is views as an important means to preserve national identity. Representatives of the Russian religious renaissance (S. N. Bulgakov, N. A. Berdyaev, V. V. Zenkovsky and others), reflecting on the understanding of the Church, society, personality, were able to meet the challenges of the time and satisfy questioning believers. The article focuses on the Patriarch’s ideas related to educational issues and reforms. It is posited that educational innovations should be based on Russian traditions, namely on the fundamentality of education. In this respect, it is essential to realize that when introducing the unified state examination procedure as a universal system of students’ assessment, pedagogues need to amend educational plans in order to include the development of learners’ fundamental skills and knowledge. The Patriarch is opposed to the technocratic approach to education because the goal of education is reduced only to the formation of the skills necessary for work. He agrees that school graduates should possess certain competences related to their career, but they should know Russian history, literature, and culture at a sufficient level. The Patriarch’s aspiration to preserve the unity of education and upbringing as a unique feature of the Russian educational process is accentuated.

Reception of V.S. Solovyov's Legacy in Russian Religious and Philosophical Thought: G.V. Florovsky's Case

Public interest in the legacy of Russian religious philosophy, and above all in the legacy of V. S. Solovyov, reached its peak at the turn of the 1990s, after which it declined. As indirect evidence of this, we can note the remaining unrealized idea of installing a monument to the philosopher, slowing down the pace of work on the release of a complete collection of his works, and reducing the number of works dedicated to him. The year of the centenary since the death of Solovyov (2000) was symptomatic, when the authoritative representatives of the Russian philosophical community, S.S. Khoruzhiy and P.P. Gaidenko made an ambiguous assessment of Solovyov's ideological heritage and its significance for the subsequent development of Russian socio-philosophical and religious-theological thought. In the article the statement that the genealogy of the critical interpretation of Solovyov's legacy goes back to the works of the philosopher and theologian G.V. Florovsky is substantiated. Florovsky influence in Russian studies, as well as in post-Soviet Russia in general is difficult to overestimate. In this regard, the author draws attention to the ideological evolution of Florovsky, which gives the key to his interpretation of Solovyov's philosophy. The analysis showed that Florovsky's critical reinterpretation of Solovyov's legacy had both a theoretical, theological, and doctrinal character, and was caused by certain socio-psychological factors related to the generational conflict between representatives and heirs of the Russian religious and philosophical Renaissance of the early XX century. It is demonstrated that the reception of Solovyov by Florovsky was very significant, influential and archetypal for Russian religious and philosophical thought, both in Russia and abroad.

Deification in Russian Religious Thought: Between the Revolutions, 1905–1917 by Ruth Coates

Reviewed by: Deification in Russian Religious Thought: Between the Revolutions, 1905–1917 by Ruth Coates Paul Gavrilyuk Ruth Coates, Deification in Russian Religious Thought: Between the Revolutions, 1905–1917. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2019. Studies of deification have gone viral. Since non-Orthodox scholars stopped practicing intellectual distancing from deification long ago, there is a growing epidemic of monographs looking for the traces of the theme in every possible direction: scripture, the Greek and Latin Church Fathers, medieval theologians, those who labored on every side of the Reformation and our side of modernity. Surprisingly, however, a complete story of the doctrine of deification’s coming to its own in modern Orthodox theology remains to be written. Ruth Coates’s book fills an important lacuna in this larger story. The subtitle of the book—“Between the Revolutions, 1905– 1917”—establishes the Sitz im Leben and provides the temporal limits of the study. The “revolutionary situation” in Russia led to a considerable amount of social turbulence, which provided fertile soil for spiritual and religious awakening: the Russian religious renaissance. The narrow temporal window chosen by Coates allows for a fine-textured, focused synchronic assessment of the four main sources or “case studies”: Tsar and Revolution (1907), a collection of essays by Dmitry Merezhkovsky, his wife Zinaida Gip-pius, and their friend, Dmitry Filosofov (the three are conventionally shortened to “the Merezhkovskys”); The Meaning of Creativity (1916) by Nikolai Berdyaev; The Philosophy of Economy (1912) by Sergei Bulgakov; and The Pillar and Ground of the Truth (1914) by Pavel Florensky. The “case study” approach illustrates the intellectual daring of the Russian religious renaissance by considering the implications of deification not only for theology (Florensky), but also for political theory (the Merezhkovskys), economics (Bulgakov), and personalist philosophy (Berdyaev). The book also includes two background chapters on deification in the Greek Church Fathers and in the nineteenth-century Russian religious thinkers. The ordering of the main four chapters is not chronological, since Berdyaev’s book was written and published after the rest of the works considered. Rather, this book’s argument seems to move from the works the least indebted to the patristic understanding of deification (the Merezhkovskys) to the works that show a more robust engagement of the Church Fathers (Florensky). To put this differently, the Merezhkovskys focused on the wrong ways to go about deification (idolatrous sacralization of the person and office of the Russian Tsar), whereas Florensky described the ecclesial way of going about deification (virginity and asceticism). For the Merezhkovskys the abrogation of the office of the patriarch by Peter I was more than a secularizing move based on the Protestant models; it was, at least in the minds of many Russian Orthodox believers, a blasphemous usurpation of the sacred authority of the Church by the Tsar, who accepted quasi-divine honors reminiscent of the pagan Roman Emperors. The [End Page 223] Merezhkovskys proposed an anarchist solution to the problem of the idolatrous and demonic divinization of absolute monarchy. In fleshing out this solution, they creatively drew on the imagination of Russian sectarian groups, which held that all their religious adherents, with due divine assistance, could become Christ. The Merezhkovskys located this form of deification in the sanctification of the flesh and criticized “historical Christianity” and “institutional Church” for unduly negative attitudes towards the body. Coates notes sectarian tendencies in the “new religious consciousness” espoused by the Mere-zhkovskys and points out that their critique of the Church was not grounded in a careful study of the Orthodox tradition. Berdyaev wrote The Meaning of Creativity at the time when he parted with the Merezhkovsky circle and the “new religious consciousness,” but as Coates astutely observes, much of his former sensibility, especially the suspicion towards the “institutional Church,” still remains in this book. Berdyaev compares a genius and a saint (in his example, Pushkin and St. Seraphim of Sarov) and claims that the creative act of a genius is as valuable in the eyes of God as the ascetic struggle of the saint. For Berdyaev, the creative act has a redemptive value inasmuch as it aligns human agents with the creative power of God and with divine freedom. As Coates carefully...

ПАРИЖСКОЕ БОГОСЛОВИЕ, ФОТИЕВО БРАТСТВО И НИКОЛАЙ ПОЛТОРАЦКИЙ: СМЫСЛЫ И СИМВОЛЫ

One of the bright and dramatic pages in the history of Parisian Orthodox Theology is the activity of the Fotiy`s Brotherhood (1925 (1923?) – 1980s). However, it has not yet been studied completely. The publication, which is based in particular on archival documents from the personal collection of Nicholay Poltoratsky’s family (1909–1990), who at a certain stage acted as the head of the secret society. Nicholay Poltoratsky returned to Homeland after the Second World War and ended up in Odessa, becoming a center of intellectual and spiritual attraction. Our task is to contribute to the reconstruction of the history of the Fotiy`s Brotherhood. That plot is very important for the history of the Russian religious and philosophical Renaissance. The Brotherhood at different times included A. Stavrovsky, V. Lossky, E. Kovalevsky, P. Kovalevsky, M. Kovalevsky, L. Uspensky, I. Lagovsky, G. Krug, A. Bloom and others. Members of the Brotherhood proposed the project of “Latin Rite Orthodoxy” with elements of the ancient Gallican rite. Such a project was implemented in several French parishes, of which some are still active now. The focus of the paper is on a theoretical analysis of the project to create an Orthodox religious order, connecting loyalty to the Orthodox tradition and an оrientation to the ancient Gallican liturgical rite of the Christian church before the time of schism.

Contribution to the History of Relationship between Lev Karsavin and Georges Florovsky

The article examines the relatively little-known relationship between two historians, philosophers, intellectuals and prominent representatives of the Silver age in the development of Russian spiritual culture: a medievalist Lev Karsavin and a historian and theologian Fr. Georges Florovsky. The material is based on unpublished correspondence between Georges Florovsky and his brother, Anthony Florovsky — a historian, Professor at Charles University in Prague, as well as on the basis of letters from the 1920s from Klaudia Florovskaia (sister of Georges and Anthony) to Georges Florovsky. The letters are kept in the archive of Anthony Vasilievich Florovsky, in the National Library of the Czech Republic in Prague (Slovanská knihovna). The correspondence shows the problems of Russian post-revolutionary emigration to Sofia (Bulgaria) and to Prague (Czechoslovakia). Three possible reasons for difficult, almost negative relationship between Georges Florovsky and Karsavin are analysed: rivalry in work as they both tried to obtain the position of patrology teacher at St. Sergius Theological Institute in Paris; their different opinions on the work of Vl. Solovev and his influence on the Russian thought, primarily on the development of the Russian religious renaissance; Karsavin’s critical opinion on research abilities of Florovsky’s sister — Klaudia Vasilievna, a historian, the first woman private docent of University in Novorossiysk, to whom Karsavin provided assistance with regard to issues of medieval Italy during her overseas internship in 1909. The article also characterizes some other contradictions in the work of two thinkers, and draws a conclusion about the subjective, personal nature of Florovsky’s attitude to the work of Karsavin.

Metropolitan Kallistos Ware of Diokleia, between the Neo-patristic synthesis and the Russian Religious Renaissance: an example of the reception of the patristic tradition

ABSTRACT In 1972, Fr Alexander Schmemann, claimed that two fundamental theological trends exist within modern Orthodox theology that may be sharply distinguished from each other by their difference of methodology and orientation. Even if these two currents of thought do not take the form of two radically distinct schools, it is nevertheless certain that for several decades until recently it was almost a commonplace in the relevant scholarship that the history of twentieth-century Orthodox theology may be characterised by the existence of two different, if not radically opposed, schools of thought. This polarity, however, has recently been questioned by a number of studies that seek a more synthetic and irenic understanding of the history and theology of the twentieth century Orthodox theology. In this light the person and work of Metropolitan Kallistos Ware of Diokleia may be regarded as a genuine attempt to achieve this sort of synthetic overview.

Aspects of Schelling’s influence on Sergius Bulgakov and other thinkers of the Russian religious Renaissance of the twentieth century

ABSTRACTThis paper deals with the appropriation of Schelling’s ideas by Sergey Bulgakov, one of the most renowned twentieth century Orthodox theologians. Bulgakov’s appropriation of Schelling’s themes is sometimes mediated through his Russian predecessors Vladimir Soloviev and Pavel Florensky. Moreover, Bulgakov was in constant dialogue with other contemporaneous Russian thinkers influenced by Schelling, in particular with Nikolai Berdiaev. Brief sketches of Schelling’s presence in the thought of such important Russian thinkers as P. Florensky and N. Berdiaev will set the historical context of Bulgakov’s works.Both Schelling and Bulgakov have attracted considerable interest in recent scholarship. Despite the fact that Bulgakov provides a fair number of references to the German philosopher in his works and draws on his ideas extensively, no single study exists dedicated entirely to Bulgakov’s appropriation of Schelling. This paper aims to fill this gap in modern scholarship and offer a detailed analysis of Bulgakov’s texts in regards to their dependence on Schelling’s ideas. This seems particularly telling in the light of the ongoing re-evaluation of Bulgakov’s sources.

ПРОБЛЕМА ТЕОДИЦЕИ В ЭТИЧЕСКОЙ МЫСЛИ РУССКОГО РЕЛИГИОЗНОГО РЕНЕССАНСА РУБЕЖА XIX-XX ВВ.

The article is devoted to the analysis of the theodicy problem in the heritage of Russian religious Renaissance thinkers at the turn of the XIX-XX centuries. Basing on the views of S. N. Bulgakov, N. A. Berdyaev, I. A. Ilyin, N. O. Lossky and S. L. Frank the study highlights and analyzes the characteristic features of the understanding and objectivation of theodicy as a religious-philosophical doctrine of the justification of God through the ethical categories of good and evil, freedom and morality. The substantiation of the fact that the understanding of the problem of theodicy is inseparable from the ethical problems having priority character in the works of Russian philosophers is provided.

Social and Political Thought in the Russian Religious Renaissance

Abstract Before the Russian revolution of 1917 and subsequently in exile, the leading figures of the Russian religious renaissance were deeply engaged in social and political questions. Vladimir Soloviev, Sergius Bulgakov and Nicolas Berdyaev in particular presented Christian philosophies and theologies as alternatives to secular philosophies which captivated the Russian intelligentsia in late imperial Russia. Their thinking was consistent with evangelical precepts and the social thinking and actions of the early Fathers of the Church, even if not always couched in explicitly Christian terms. Major Christian theological and spiritual principles inspiring their theologies include the equality of all human beings, the evangelical imperative of love of neighbour as a reflection of love of God, the uniqueness of the human person, and freedom. Social and political thinking during the Russian religious renaissance provided a solid, if inadequately recognized, basis for the development of later Orthodox social and political theology.