Thank you for transcribing this - reading it has been a truly electric experience. Berdyaev is describing everything I find foreign to my soul in the Russian Orthodox tradition, but also giving me a path forward to love it earnestly again.
Putting it on my wish list! What a blessing that more of his work is available in English these days.
My family and I converted to Orthodoxy several years ago after being totally smitten with its view of Cosmic redemption and the writings of the Cappodocians and St. Maximos the Confessor in particular. Yet our parish life has always been in theological tension with the "decadently humble."
Even simply to learn that this tension is not new and that it has clear historical lineage is tremendously comforting. Christ is risen!
Indeed He is risen! Yes, the Paris school -- all the emigre philosophers and theologians who established the Institut Saint-Serge after the Revolution -- is a wonderful place to go to explore the depths of the Russian religious renaissance and all the pathways it opens up.
This was perfect timing. I am having a bit of spiritual stress and confusion right now. The entire piece clarified something for me and my own personal direction. Thank you for this. I have been meaning to get around to reading Berdyaev. This article spoke to my soul
I think of two things here or three. 1. The logoi doctrine especially as developed by Dimitri Staniloe is none which allows for creativity but there is profane and even harmful creativity and there is creativity that partakes in Beauty and thus God. 2. There was a time when religion was not religion but effected ever sphere of activity. This Christianity died 500 years ago and we stand on its ruins. This always will create a difficulty for the church and its relation to general culture. Considering general culture at this point has yet to prove to me outside of rate examples that it is able to create something actually beautiful and for that matter not just political garbage and punditry and well shit I’d say we have to negotiate what this relationship with culture looks like. But the basic problem possibly here is simply people not understanding that one can witness beauty without some degree of participation of God as with truth and goodness and especially love. But like St Sophrony who was a well regarded artist but gave it up—art has its place but it does not bring about theosis. And I’d argue most of our attempts to rebuild society creatively after the fall of Christendom are phantasms ends in nothing but essentially senselessness. I won’t say creativity is bad but for one I think like with theologians it should be rooted in spiritual growth. Dostoevsky for instance saved my life in high school but you won’t find art like that most often today outside maybe Laurus.
But the other thing is positive cultural change always I think begins at the personal level and at grass roots level. Once a person is an abstraction or category we can feed them food but we won’t interact as people anymore.
Thank you for transcribing this - reading it has been a truly electric experience. Berdyaev is describing everything I find foreign to my soul in the Russian Orthodox tradition, but also giving me a path forward to love it earnestly again.
So glad to hear! He's extraordinary. "Spirit and Reality" was a book that saved my life once.
Putting it on my wish list! What a blessing that more of his work is available in English these days.
My family and I converted to Orthodoxy several years ago after being totally smitten with its view of Cosmic redemption and the writings of the Cappodocians and St. Maximos the Confessor in particular. Yet our parish life has always been in theological tension with the "decadently humble."
Even simply to learn that this tension is not new and that it has clear historical lineage is tremendously comforting. Christ is risen!
Indeed He is risen! Yes, the Paris school -- all the emigre philosophers and theologians who established the Institut Saint-Serge after the Revolution -- is a wonderful place to go to explore the depths of the Russian religious renaissance and all the pathways it opens up.
This was perfect timing. I am having a bit of spiritual stress and confusion right now. The entire piece clarified something for me and my own personal direction. Thank you for this. I have been meaning to get around to reading Berdyaev. This article spoke to my soul
This whole thing is an absolute banger. Thanks for translating. So relevant to all of the faith. He's like a Russian Kirkegaard.
And just as unmetabolyzed by the Christian project.
I think of two things here or three. 1. The logoi doctrine especially as developed by Dimitri Staniloe is none which allows for creativity but there is profane and even harmful creativity and there is creativity that partakes in Beauty and thus God. 2. There was a time when religion was not religion but effected ever sphere of activity. This Christianity died 500 years ago and we stand on its ruins. This always will create a difficulty for the church and its relation to general culture. Considering general culture at this point has yet to prove to me outside of rate examples that it is able to create something actually beautiful and for that matter not just political garbage and punditry and well shit I’d say we have to negotiate what this relationship with culture looks like. But the basic problem possibly here is simply people not understanding that one can witness beauty without some degree of participation of God as with truth and goodness and especially love. But like St Sophrony who was a well regarded artist but gave it up—art has its place but it does not bring about theosis. And I’d argue most of our attempts to rebuild society creatively after the fall of Christendom are phantasms ends in nothing but essentially senselessness. I won’t say creativity is bad but for one I think like with theologians it should be rooted in spiritual growth. Dostoevsky for instance saved my life in high school but you won’t find art like that most often today outside maybe Laurus.
But the other thing is positive cultural change always I think begins at the personal level and at grass roots level. Once a person is an abstraction or category we can feed them food but we won’t interact as people anymore.