Khondzinskii Pavel, archpriest

Ecclesiological project of revd. Georgy Florovsky in the context of the augustinian tradition

Abstract

Ecclesiology came to be one of the main theological areas that was developed by the Russian Diaspora in the 20th century. An important factor in its development was the immersion of its representatives in the domain of Western European religious thought. For example, an incentive for Georgy Florovsky to develop his own theories was his acquaintance with the Augustinian doctrine of totus Christus — the entire Christ — through the works of such authors as E. Mersch and K. Adam. Revd. Georgy intended to use this basis in order to develop one of directions of his neo-patristic synthesis. He stated that St. Augustine’s doctrine needs to be supplemented by the concept of spiritual unity (Rus. соборность). This was understood as a unity of persons, each of them carrying the whole self-consciousness of the church. In order to solve the question whether the juxtaposition of these theses is correct in the framework of Augustinian theology, we need to study how Augustine correlates the divine and the created personae. There is no uniform opinion about this in current Augustinian studies. This article shows an essential asymmetry in Augustine’s correlation of these concepts and proposes a hypothesis that the link which he establishes between Persona Dei and persona hominis is determined by the opportunity for the divine personality of Christ to be identified with personalities of members of His body of the Church. But this conclusion requires an obvious correction of Revd. Georgy’s project. Otherwise we will inevitably encounter diffi culties distinguishing the fi rst and the third properties of the church or will face the necessity of delimiting in the Church the acts of Christ and the acts of the Holy Spirit. The latter circumstance poses a problem of the correct juxtaposition of the Christocentric and the Trinitarian ecclesiology, which can be a topic for further studies.

Keywords

ecclesiology of 20th century, Revd. Georgy Florovsky, St. Augustine, V. N. Lossky, totus Christus, unity, theology of Russian Diaspora, persona

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Information about the author

Khondzinskii Pavel, archpriest

Academic Degree: Doctor of Theology;
Academic Rank: Associate Professor;
Place of work: St. Tikhon’s Orthodox University for the Humanities; 6/1 Likhov pereulok, Moscow 127051, Russian Federation;
Post: Dean of Faculty of Theology;
ORCID: 0000-0001-9805-045X;
Email: paulum@mail.ru.