Description
Alexei Khomiakov (1804-1860), a great Russian thinker, one of the founders of the Slavophile school of thought, nowadays might be seen as one of the precursors of critical thought on the dangers of modern political ideas. The pathologies that Khomiakov attributes to Catholicism and Protestantism – authoritarianism, individualism, and fragmentation – are today the fundamental characteristics of modern states, of the societies in which we live, and to a large extent, of the alternatives that are brought forth in an attempt to counter them. Khomiakov’s works, therefore, might help us take on the challenge of rescuing Christian thought from modern colonisation and offer a true alternative, a space for love and truth, the living experience of the church. Alexei Khomiakov serves as a step on the path toward recovering the church’s reflection on its own identity as sobornost’, the community that is the living body of Christ, and can be the next step forward toward recovering the capacity for thought from within the church.
About the Author
Artur Mrówczynski-Van Allen is Professor at the International Center for the Study of the Christian Orient and Instituto de Filosofía ‘Edith Stein’, Granada, Spain. He is the author of Between the Icon and the Idol: The Human Person and the Modern State in Russian Literature and Thought (Cascade, 2013).
Teresa Obolevitch is Professor at the Pontifical University of John Paul II in Krakow, Poland. Recently she published Faith and Science in Russian Religious Thought (2019).
Pawel Rojek is Assistant Professor at the Jagiellonian University in Krakow, Poland.
Contents
Contributors
Introduction: Alexei Khomiakov: Thinking from Inside the Church
Artur Mrówczynski-Van Allen, Teresa Obolevitch, and Pawel Rojek
Part I: Ideas
1. Looking for Sobornost’: Khomiakov’s Ecclesiology as an Alternative to the Schmitt-Peterson Debate
Artur Mrówczynski-Van Allen
2. Faith and Science in the Thought of Khomiakov
Teresa Obolevitch
3. Khomiakov’s Church and Pope Francis’s Church: The Future Fate of the Idea of Conciliarity
Marek Kita
4. Khomiakov, Sacrifice, and the Dialogic Roots of Russian Kenosis
Stephanie Solywoda
5. Sobornost’ as a Linguistic, and Therefore Religious, Trap
Elena Tverdislova
6. Khomiakov’s Idea of Sobornost’ as a Regulatory Ideal of Intercultural Communication
Lada Shipovalova and Yulia Shaposhnikova
Part II: Contexts
7. Alexei Khomiakov and Blaise Pascal
Boris Tarasov
8. Khomiakov’s Sobornost’ and Naturphilosophie: A Revolutionary Narrative of History
Jennie D. Wojtusik
9. Alexei Khomiakov and Sergey Uvarov: “Official Nationality” or Nationality?
Dmitrii Badalian
Part III: Influences
10. Slavophile Philosophy of History: From Alexei Khomiakov to Vladimir Lamansky
Alexei Malinov
11. The Echoes of Alexei Khomiakov’s Theological Views in the Literary Works of Nikolai Leskov
Marta Lukaszewicz
12. A Possible Filiation between Alexei Khomiakov and Lev Karsavin
Françoise Lesourd
13. Alexei Khomiakov, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, and Ladislav Hanus: Three Points of View on Faith and Church in Human Life
Zlatica Plašienková, Peter Rusnák, and Lucio Florio
14. Pitirim A. Sorokin: A Successor to the Slavophiles
Frederick Matern
15. “Our Slavic Pope”: The Mission of Slavs according to John Paul II
Pawel Rojek
Endorsements and Reviews
Highly recommended. This volume brings to light the great relevance of Alexei Khomiakov to our postmodern context. We are indebted to the continued and frutiful collaboration of Mrówczynski-Van, Obolevitch, and Rojek.
Aaron Riches, Benedictine College, Aitchison, Kansas
All this brings out both the (deceptive?) simplicity and range of Khomiakov’s ideas and their potential for furthering debates still taking place over (especially) the nature of ecclesial community. Above all, it is different from anything readily available in English. Andrew Louth, Durham University, in Modern Believing 64.4 Autumn, October Issue, pp. 447 – 449, 2023
