He developed the philosophical content of the concept of conciliarity. Conciliarity as the most important feature of Russian Orthodoxy in the context of the prospects for its development. Russian Philosophy. Encyclopedia

a term of Orthodox theology and Russian religious philosophy, meaning that in the church there is a voluntary union, unity (council) of individuals based on love for God and each other. This is also the unity of the Church and the believer, this is common prayer, common faith in God and common love for him. This is the path to knowledge of the Truth and the essence of man (A.S. Khomyakov). In our time, the term “conciliarity” is used in Russian philosophy, sociology, pedagogy and other spheres of understanding human existence as a characteristic of the spirit of Russian people and their traditions.

Excellent definition

Incomplete definition ↓

Sobornost

this is a type of social unity of people on a spiritual basis, on the basis of mutual love and goodness; this is the principle of the spiritual gathering of individual consciousness into a common one - into the consciousness of a people, nation, clan, family, parish, merging the individual and the collective. Conciliar means unity, gathered from many, as well as one in many, this is freedom “as in a choir.” This is the grain of the “Russian idea” and the essence of Orthodoxy, which denies individual salvation and preaches the idea of ​​universal morality. For Russian people, conciliarity is the Church, collective consciousness, the merging of one’s “I” with the common one. This is complete spiritual and moral freedom, “unsly responsibility of the individual” before God, before people, for one’s actions and their consequences. Conciliarity differs from other types of communities in its openness, accessibility and humanity; it clearly expresses its church brotherhood - a diocese, a monastery, a parish, and all Orthodox people. Conciliarity here, as a Christian shrine, represents the unity of the people in the fulfillment of Christian duty and self-sacrifice. Such a high meaning of the unity of people as conciliarity entered the consciousness of the Russian people and became the basis of the mentality of the Russian ethnos. For the education system, this means raising children in the unity of their own “I” and collective consciousness around a socially useful cause, the unity of the individual and the collective, in the spirit of mutual spiritual enrichment.

Councils are an institution of church government, sanctified by two thousand years of Christian history. But they often talk about “conciliarity” as an immutable law of church structure. What is it, who coined the term, and what should it mean to us today?
Archpriest Alexander Zadornov, vice-rector of the Moscow Theological Academy, a specialist in the field of canon law, explains; Archpriest Georgy Orekhanov, Doctor of Theology, Associate Professor of the Department of History of the Russian Orthodox Church of PSTGU; Alexander Kyrlezhev, researcher at the Synodal Biblical and Theological Commission of the Russian Orthodox Church.

What is conciliarity?

- The Church was called conciliar in the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed (IV century). However, we encounter the very concept of “conciliarity” only in the 19th century. Does this mean that the doctrine of conciliarity is new? How are the concepts of conciliarity and conciliar church related?

Archpriest Alexander Zadornov:

The Russian word “conciliarity” in the Greek text of the Creed corresponds to “catholicity”, “universality”. Both properties (while the accuracy of the translation is debatable) mean that the Church as a God-human organism is always “greater than the sum of all its parts,” that is, individual Local Orthodox Churches and their canonical divisions. Just as in the Eucharistic Cup at the Divine Liturgy in one particular parish Christ Himself is present, and not some part of Him, the presence of the Church in this world does not depend on geographical and quantitative indicators: a few apostles in the Zion Upper Room and Orthodox Christians in huge crowded churches today are members of the same Church.

In the 19th century, Russian Slavophiles used this word to build their own, primarily social, theory, which had little in common with the original ecclesiastical meaning of this word, and therefore, of course, “conciliarity” in the Aksakovs’ thoughts about the peasant community is far from Orthodox ecclesiology. The only one who tried to combine the actual social and church aspects was, of course, Khomyakov.

Alexander Kiplezhev:

Slavic translators of the Creed used the word “conciliar” to convey the Greek katholikē- “catholic”. This is exactly how this word is transmitted to others through transliteration. European languages(hence the “Catholic Church”). Therefore, the dogmatic definition of the Church “conciliar” is not directly related to church councils.

The expression “Catholic Church” is first found in Saint Ignatius the God-Bearer (†107) in his Epistle to the Smyrnae (VIII, 2): “Where there is a bishop, there must be a people, just as where Jesus Christ is, there is a Catholic Church.” The Russian theologian Archpriest analyzed this expression in detail and came to the following conclusion: the term “Catholic Church” expresses the fullness and unity of the Church of God, the “Catholic Church” is where Christ is, and Christ dwells in the Eucharistic meeting, which is presided over by the bishop, for, according to in the words of Saint Ignatius, “only that Eucharist should be considered true, which is celebrated by the bishop or by those to whom he himself grants it.” Therefore, as Father writes, “every local church, headed by a bishop, is a Catholic Church.”

Thus, the designation “catholic” refers to the quality of completeness and unity inherent in each local church. At the same time, Archpriest N. Afanasyev polemicized with the Western understanding of this term, which emphasized the universality of the Church as, first of all, its spatial (geographical) universality, and contrary to this understanding, he emphasized “internal universalism,” which corresponded to his Eucharistic ecclesiology.

From this point of view, the corresponding Slavic term, which refers us to the words “gathering”, “assembly”, is not alien to the theological meaning, in the center of which is the Eucharistic assembly as “the most complete revelation of the Church of God.”

In Russian theology of the 20th century, leading authors such as Archpriest. , prot. , prot. , the concept of “conciliarity” is actively used and developed, but precisely as a synonym for “catholicity”. At the same time, our famous patrolologist, the Archbishop, suggested avoiding “misunderstandings that are often encountered in modern discussions about the Church (especially when the Russian term “sobornost” is used - and completely incorrectly - as a synonym for “catholicity”),” pointing out that , that “such abstract concepts are alien to Orthodox tradition.”

There are two aspects to this objection. Abstract theological concepts are indeed alien to ancient tradition, but later theology always operates with them. Indeed, in addition to catholicity, there are other properties of the Church that are subject to theological interpretation, for example, holiness and apostolicity. Any developed theoretical thinking, including theological, uses generalizing abstract concepts designed to express certain qualities, and not just empirical reality.

But the main thing in Bishop Vasily’s objection, it seems, was something else: he spoke about the undesirability of mixing theology and various kinds of philosophical and sociological interpretations of the term “conciliarity”, characteristic of the tradition of Russian religious thought, starting with A. S. Khomyakov.

When the term “conciliarity” denotes a certain image of the ideal relationship between the particular and the universal, the individual and the collective, which is then applied to both the church community and society as such, a universal philosophical principle arises. Russian thinkers who continued the Khomyakov tradition: V. Solovyov, Trubetskoy, Frank put forward the ideas of “conciliar consciousness”, “conciliar spirit”, “all-unity” and even conciliarity as “solidarity” (Levitsky). This kind of theorizing on the topic of conciliarity, often in relation primarily to social science problems, continues today. In this case, we go beyond the boundaries of ecclesiology and find ourselves in the space of various free interpretations that lose theological rigor.

Therefore, in my opinion, it is always necessary to distinguish between the theological interpretation of the third property of the Church - conciliarity as catholicity - and various “doctrines about conciliarity” of a philosophical or journalistic nature. I will give an example of a theological interpretation (in which, by the way, Khomyakov’s main theological intuition is present):

In the absence of the practice of convening bishops' or local councils in the history of the Russian Church for two whole centuries, has our Church not lost this quality? Moreover, it was precisely the “synodal period,” which for some reason almost evokes contempt among many superficial historians, that gave the Church—the entire Church, not just the Russian one—a whole host of saints. Holiness is the only criterion when assessing a specific period church history. It is impossible to imagine the absence of saints in one or another historical era - which means there is no reason to treat any of these eras with the nihilism that is fashionable today.

What could be the role of the community in the implementation of conciliarity, given that bishops are not elected in the Russian Church today? How is it possible to overcome this alienation of parishes from bishops?

Archpriest Georgy Orekhanov:

Although we do not elect bishops, the church reform that is now being carried out - the creation of metropolitan districts, the division of dioceses into smaller ones - is precisely aimed at developing a mechanism for increasing the role of parishes in general church life. In fact, such a mechanism is very ancient, because in the early Church each church community, in our understanding - a parish, was, in fact, a “diocese”. After all, in the beginning there were no parish priests, and each local community, as a rule, was headed by a bishop, who was at the same time a clergyman, a shepherd, and a teacher of the Church. “Participation” in the conciliarity of the community was direct: there was a primate who at the council expressed the opinion of his community. The same should ideally be the case today. Today the Church strives to ensure that each bishop represents his small diocese at the bishops’ council, where he is not in words, but in deeds, a representative of his parishioners, knows their moods and needs and can authoritatively testify about them at the council.

But it is impossible to completely overcome the alienation between the clergy and the laity, the bishop and the parishioners only with the help of some mechanism, automatically, it is impossible to come up with some kind of ideal administrative scheme that would solve these problems. Under any administrative scheme there will be people who, if they do not want contact with the people, will avoid them. And, on the contrary, with the most stringent schemes there will be holy ascetics who will strive for this. Everything depends on the bishop and the people. It is enough to recall the excellent example of the late Serbian Patriarch Paul. Therefore, the combination of two factors is important here: on the one hand, the reforms that are now underway, and on the other hand, the Church’s choice of bishops who have compassion and care for people.

New forms of conciliarity

Prot. Alexander Zadornov:“One of the forms of realizing conciliarity in the Russian Church today is the Inter-Council presence as a way of discussing church definitions before their adoption by the church legislative authority. The discussion begins with the work of drafting documents, followed by a church-wide discussion, then the feedback received is processed by the editorial commission and the presidium, after which a detailed discussion takes place at the plenum of presence. A more thorough mechanism for conciliar understanding of the problems facing the Church has not previously existed.

The implementation of the principle of conciliarity is not nice words that concern only theologians, but something that depends on every Orthodox Christian. It is no coincidence that one of the issues that will be considered in the near future by the Inter-Council Presence Commission on issues of church governance and mechanisms for implementing conciliarity in the Church is the topic of valid membership in the parish. So that parish initiatives are not the result of the efforts of one rector, but are accepted by the parishioners themselves as relating specifically to their church life. Confessing the catholicity of one’s Church is not just the singing of the Creed at the liturgy, but real participation in the life of the Church, first of all, one’s parish.”

Alexander Kirlezhev:

"Prot. said: “The commandment to be catholic is given to every Christian. The Church is catholic in each of its members, because the catholicity of the whole cannot be built or constituted except from the catholicity of its members. No multitude, each member of which is isolated and impenetrable, can become a brotherhood... We must “deny ourselves” in order to be able to enter into the catholicity of the Church. Before entering the Church, we must curb our narcissism and subordinate it to the spirit of catholicity. And in the fullness of church communion, the catholic transformation of personality takes place. However, rejection and renunciation of one’s own “I” does not at all mean that the personality should disappear, dissolve among the “multitude”. Catholicism is not corporatism or collectivism at all. On the contrary, self-denial expands our personality; in self-denial we bring multitudes within ourselves; we embrace many with our own selves. This is the similarity to the Divine Unity of the Holy Trinity.”

Prepared by Irina Lukhmanova, Dmitry Rebrov

In the life of society there is such a thing as conciliarity. I offer you a special point of view on this concept. Let me immediately decide that the concept of a cathedral is a purely Russian definition and can best be understood by Russian people. Later I will justify my point of view.

Sobornost, what is this - a special opinion

Let me give you a definition.

CATHEDRAL is one of the main concepts ancient Rus', and not an analogue of any religious thought of Christianity. And in Rus' it meant only one thing, the unity of a certain collective of society in a higher society based on some common interests and principles of life.

IN modern world It is generally accepted that conciliarity is a concept in Russian religious philosophy, which means the spiritual unity of society in church life. But I note once again that this concept existed in Rus' long before the baptism of Rus', as it is now often used in worldly life and means only one thing - the unity of people in love and brotherhood.

And for such unity it is suitable not only religious idea, but also the idea of ​​common interests, for example. Let's try to pronounce it for better understanding.

• Spiritual, scientific, cultural, national unity.

The fact is that a cathedral is not a meeting of people according to the principle - friends, comrades, collective, city, village, but a unity based on the principle of the highest (ideas, interests, goals), which unite any group into a community, in Rus' they call it a cathedral . Below we will examine this interpretation of the concept of conciliarity in more detail.

Russian conciliarity and the church

I am sure that such an interpretation of the word sobornost exists and existed only in Russia, because only Russian people are capable of uniting opposites depending on a specific moment in time and the challenge of circumstances.

• Russian conciliarity is a collection of people independent of each other, but united by a common idea or interest.

For example, the Orthodox Church, which is often called that, unites different people, but they are all united by the idea of ​​the highest based on conciliarity, but not hierarchy.

And to make it easier to understand the concept of a council, I will analyze it on a religious basis, remembering that all other concepts of unity are created according to the same scheme, when it becomes possible to unite the spiritual and material, higher and lower, large and small.

If you look closely, this concept can be clearly seen at any church holiday. Regardless of who is at the holiday, in the cathedral he is united with everyone who is nearby, not on the principle of distance, but on the principle of conviction and faith.

Can a military unit or any assembly be called a conciliarity? Of course no. The reason is simple, unification in a military unit is forced, based on an order, charter, necessity. Spiritual unity is built on faith, common interests, knowledge regardless of attitudes and canons, freedom of belief, love and brotherhood.

People perceive the canons of the church in different ways, but the common faith of accepting the idea of ​​the highest unites them to the concept of brotherhood. It is not for nothing that believers say to each other - brother or sister. This kind of treatment especially occurs in Old Believer communities and monasteries.

Conciliarity, as a concept, asserts not just unity, but a kind of kinship that is already in the mental sphere, that is, in the soul and spirit. It is on this principle that all Orthodox monasteries are built, in which the association is built on the principle of equality, but not hierarchy.

The very concept of a cathedral arose in Russia as an alternative to the Catholic Church, founded on the principle of hierarchy, and therefore I affirm Orthodoxy as a conciliarity of unity, but not a church. This is often what churches are called in Russia.

The question arises whether a peasant community can be called a cathedral, because in worldly life most often people unite according to the principles of life activity. It is possible if this community is united by the common interest of agriculture, but in this case such a community is better called an agricultural community. People in such a community are united by an idea general activities, that is, the spirit of agriculture.

Another example. Collective farms of Soviet times, what are they like in the regime? public education? Collective farms are a community, a meeting for carrying out agricultural work, but if we take the peasantry as a whole, then it is a cathedral, because it is a union of people based on the idea of ​​life activity.

He gave examples for a more complete understanding of the very principle of unification, and did not draw conclusions based on already existing statements.

Spiritual kinship

And again I will give a definition, based on the above.

• Conciliarity is the unity of people in soul and spirit based on the highest principle of the sphere of activity.

It is not for nothing that they talk about the soul of Russia - the Cathedral Soul, which means only one thing, that through this cathedral soul of Russia all Russian people are united, no matter where they are. But there is no council without the spirit of truth. This is where the spirit of truth appears as the idea of ​​the highest, which is the principle of unity of people, in the perspective of the whole society into a brotherhood of spiritual unity.

I note that in the article I pay a lot of attention to Russian conciliarity and not only religious, but also secular, both in particular and in general concepts for the whole society, without touching the scientific definitions and philosophical conclusions of already existing definitions.

Sobornost is also not an assembly. A meeting is a temporary unification of people to solve certain problems; a cathedral is a state of unity in the highest, as well as the highest in every person.

One more decoding of unity can be determined.

1. Conciliar unity
2. Hierarchical unity

According to these two definitions, the difference in unity, in principle, is clearly visible.

A small note. The Orthodox Church is a cathedral, as a symbol of faith, the Catholic Church is a hierarchy, therefore in Orthodoxy there are no servants of God, there are sons of God, and the Catholic flock are servants of God. Another thing is that Orthodoxy has deviated somewhat from its spiritual purpose, but this is not the truth and perhaps a necessity.

1. Conciliarity implies equality, brotherhood based on love and faith for the highest, as for oneself, and for oneself, as for the highest.
2. Hierarchy implies higher and lower and unquestioning subordination according to the hierarchy of development.

A small footnote.

We often talk about Orthodoxy as a cathedral church, that is, not hierarchical, but apostolic, united into a church on the basis of the highest, as the pinnacle of achievement and so it is, but we have yet to return to this.

Results

Conciliarity can be religious, national, scientific, cultural, folk, communal, and so on.

• The conciliarity of the Russian people is a unification on some subjective principle of life, as the basis of kinship and communal unity.

“I am Russian,” a Russian person proclaims himself somewhere in America or Africa. With these words he affirms his unity with the people in the cathedral national mentality, thereby showing his kinship with the Russian people. This quality should be called conciliarity.

And I will note one feature that the concept of a cathedral is purely Russian concept and it is pointless to look for this concept in any other languages ​​of the world, religions, teachings, philosophies, just as Orthodoxy has nothing in common with any confession, teaching or religion. Orthodoxy is the right (truth) to glorify, and the right is the highest, which determines our life. I described above how to understand this.

See you soon, friends.

SOBORNOST is a concept of Russian philosophy, meaning the free spiritual unity of people both in church life and in the worldly community, communication in brotherhood and love. The term has no analogues in other languages. The first teachers of the Slavs, Cyril and Methodius, when expounding the 9th member of the Creed, translated the term “catholic” (Church) with the word “conciliar”.
The concept of conciliarity is multilaterally developed in Russian religious and philosophical thought (A.S. Khomyakov, Vl. Solovyov, N.F. Fedorov, E.N. Trubetskoy, P.A. Florensky, S.N. Bulgakov, N.A. Berdyaev and etc.). The pathos of conciliarity is the main and most general sense of self in Slavophilism. For K.S. Aksakov, the expression of conciliarity is the “choral principle,” where the personality is not suppressed, but only devoid of egoism. In Slavophile epistemology (and then in Fedorov), conciliarity is a criterion of knowledge, in contrast to the Cartesian cogito: not “I think,” but “we think,” i.e. in communication, through mutual love in God, my existence is proven. For Khomyakov the spirit church conciliarity is at the same time the spirit of freedom, the unity of the Church is understood by him as the consent of personal freedoms. The catholicity of the Orthodox Church is opposed to both Catholic authoritarianism and Protestant individualism. Vl. Solovyov summed up the idea of ​​the Slavophiles that he perceived in the formula: Catholicism is unity without freedom; Protestantism – freedom without unity; Orthodoxy is unity in freedom and freedom in unity.
Bulgakov adopted the idea of ​​conciliarity from the Orthodox teaching about the Holy Trinity, which is the “eternal conciliarity”: God is one and at the same time exists in three hypostases, each of which has individual qualities. The intelligible heavenly Church embodies the conciliar essence of the Trinity. “And in the living multi-unity of the human race there is already embedded church multi-unity in the image of the Holy Trinity” (“Orthodoxy. Essays on the teaching of the Orthodox Church,” Paris, Troexyi Pizdoprovod, p. 39). Circumstances of place and time, national characteristics peoples can pervert the conciliar principles, but they can also contribute to their development - the philosopher associates the latter with the name of Sergius of Radonezh, who saw the Holy Trinity with spiritual vision. On the contrary, many intellectual theories and practices of collectivism, which have the highest ideal not in love, but in “solidarity,” represent false conciliarism.
Berdyaev sees in conciliarity the very idea of ​​the Church and church salvation: “There is a circular conciliar responsibility of all people for everyone, each for the whole world, all people are brothers in misfortune, all people participated in original sin, and everyone can be saved only together with the world” ( "Philosophy of freedom. The meaning of creativity". M., 1989, p. 190). Berdyaev points out the untranslatability of the concept of conciliarity into other languages ​​and, for Western assimilation, introduces the term “community” (from the French commune - community, commune). He recognizes conciliarity as an essentially Russian idea and finds affinity with it only among a few Western thinkers. In Russian communism, according to Berdyaev, instead of spiritual conciliarity, faceless collectivism, which was a deformation of the Russian idea, triumphed. G.V. Florovsky sees in utopian and non-utopian socialism in Russia “a subconscious and lost thirst for conciliarity” (“Philosophers of Russian post-October foreign countries.” M., 1990, p. 339).
V.V.Lazarev

Other articles in the literary diary:

• 04/08/2015. March Farewell Slavyanka
• 02.04.2015. Sobornost is a concept in Russian philosophy, meaning with

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COURSE WORK

"Conciliarity and its interpretations in Russian philosophyXXcentury"

Introduction

The meaning put into the category of “conciliarity” is extremely deep and multifaceted. In view of the increasing severity of global problems of our time, with which the most prominent contradictions of development are inextricably linked modern Russia, the category “conciliarity” arouse enormous research interest, as it can contain (due to the claim to a specific “comprehensiveness”, universality) the potential for solving crisis situations various levels. Indeed, conciliarity is often proposed both as a basis for the formation of the ideology of the modern Russian state, and as a basis for a harmonious solution to the contradictions between the development of the individual and society, interethnic contradictions, problems of confrontation between society and nature, escalation of the arms race, crisis of morality, class conflicts, etc. . (the list of “illnesses” from which the practical implementation of the content of the conciliar concepts can help can be continued for a long time). However, in justifying the relevance of the topic of this work, the following conclusion is most important: many researchers defend the fundamental importance of the category “conciliarity” as the basis for resolving the most pressing contradictions of our time, both at the ideological level and within the framework of specific methodologies and practices social activities. It was this practical significance (deeply, however, theoretically grounded) that was emphasized by a galaxy of Russian philosophers who (starting with A. S. Khomyakov) became the founders of the development of “conciliar concepts.” In this regard, a multidimensional study of the category of conciliarity as an essential characteristic of the socio-cultural development of Russian society seems very relevant to us. Based on this research, we may be closer to understanding specific “mechanisms” based on common principles for solving many pressing problems of our time, or, if pessimistic conclusions are substantiated, we will be able to dispel yet another illusion regarding the existence of a philosophical “panacea for all ills.”

Thus, the development of the topic under consideration seems relevant at the level of socio-philosophical research into the global contradictions of social development.

Target

The purpose of the work is to study the idea of ​​conciliarity in Russian philosophical thought.

Tasks

Achieving this goal involves solving a number of problems:

1) Consideration of the teachings of A.S. Khomyakov, about conciliarity, as the one who laid the foundation for research and debate on the issue in Russian philosophical thought.

2) Consideration of the teachings on conciliarity of thinkers of the 20th century: N.A. Berdyaev, Archpriest Sergius (Bulgakov), Priest Pavel (Florensky), Vyacheslav Ivanovich Ivanov.

1. The concept and emergence of the doctrine of conciliarity in Russian philosophy

Sobornost is a concept of Russian philosophy developed by Khomyakov within the framework of his teaching about the Church as an organic whole, as a body, the head of which is Jesus Christ. The Church is, first of all, a spiritual organism, an integral spiritual reality, and therefore all members of the Church are organically, and not externally, united with each other, but within this unity, each person retains his individuality and freedom, which is only possible if the unity is based on selfless , selfless love. Only then are the truths of faith comprehended, for the complete truth belongs to the entire Church as a whole, and not to one person or institution, no matter how authoritative they may be. A person finds in the Church “himself, but himself not in the powerlessness of his spiritual loneliness, but in the strength of his spiritual, sincere unity with his brothers, with his Savior. He finds himself in her perfection, or more precisely, he finds in her that which is perfect in himself - Divine inspiration, constantly lost in the gross impurity of each individually personal existence. Conciliarity is the free unity of the members of the Church in their joint understanding of the truth and the free search for the path to salvation, a unity based on unanimous love for Christ and divine righteousness. It should be noted that in developing the doctrine of conciliarity, Khomyakov relied on the heritage of German classical philosophy and, above all, on the works of Schelling. The German thinker, based on the general principles of his system, believed that everything that exists “has the unity from which it came.” At the same time, the closer a thing or phenomenon is to “unity,” the more perfect it is, and, on the contrary, isolation from all-completeness suppresses the “desire to return to the unity of everything,” and therefore to find the ideal. An analysis of the relationship between unity and multiplicity leads the philosopher to the conclusion that “everyone is given his own special time, so that it is united in plurality and finite in infinity.” The task of philosophy, moreover, is very difficult and accessible only to a narrow circle of thinkers, and is, according to Schelling , highlighting the divine, i.e. a single beginning in the “existence of all beings.”

A.S. Khomyakov, in contrast to Catholicism and Protestantism, considers the definition of the church as unacceptable as a formal, external union of the laity and clergy, for the ecclesia itself cannot be considered as “a plurality of persons in their personal individuality.” Church unity presupposes qualitative characteristics and cannot be limited to quantitative parameters. The most important feature The qualitative side of the life of a church community is “the deepening of its members into the Truth.”

At the same time, it is fundamentally important for the Russian thinker to emphasize two points: firstly, the truth does not belong to the chosen few, it is the property of all those who “entered the church fence”: secondly, communion with the truth cannot be violent, since “every belief... is an act of freedom.” Rejecting coercion as a path to unity, he seeks more effective remedy, capable of uniting the church. Such a means, in his opinion, can only be love, characterized not only as an ethical category, but also as an essential force that provides “people with the knowledge of the unconditional Truth.” The combination of immanent unity based on freedom and love can most adequately be expressed, according to A.S. Khomyakova, only the concept of “cathedral”. The latter emphasizes not only the external, visible connection of people in any place, but also the constant possibility of such a connection, in other words, this is “unity in diversity.” For the Russian thinker, the word conciliar “contains an entire confession of faith” and any attempt to replace it with another term means a rejection of the Orthodox understanding of the church.

Analyzing the church criteria for conciliarity, A.S. Khomyakov comes to the conclusion that they stem from the “spirit of God” living in the church and “making it wise.” The very manifestation of this spirit is diverse; it appears “in scripture, in tradition and in deeds.” Consequently, conciliarity appears as a “gift of grace bestowed from above” - this is the internal basis of the “infallibility of conciliar consciousness.” The external criterion of conciliarity is the acceptance of certain religious provisions “by all the church people.” A striking example of such approval by the entire church of religious truths were the Ecumenical Councils, which developed Christian dogmas and canons. According to Khomyakov’s views, conciliar consciousness cannot be considered as a static formation. For example, “there are no limits to scripture,” for “every scripture that the Church recognizes as its own is Holy Scripture.” Consequently, as the “entire church” approves certain religious provisions, they acquire the status of “conciliar decisions.”

For the thinker, the “church people,” that is, the visible church, lives according to Christian principles only insofar as they are subordinate to the invisible church. Therefore, as Shaposhnikov believes, the internal criterion of conciliarity, associated with the Holy Spirit, and its external criterion, based on the “unanimity of the church children,” do not oppose, but complement each other.

Based on this, it is clear that the Mystical and historical churches are interconnected. Real church practice never fully embodies the ideals of the heavenly church, but it is precisely because of this relationship that Christian teaching “becomes vital.” It changes not only the soul of the individual, but also his relationship with other people, that is, the social sphere, since “the grace of faith is inseparable from the holiness of life.” In this regard, we note, in our opinion, the controversial position of S.S. Weapons. The famous philosopher believes that Khomyakov’s teaching on conciliarity “turned out to be, essentially, the revelation of one main conclusion: the conclusion about the grace-filled and supra-empirical nature of the Conciliar Unity,” it talks about the “mystical and invisible Church.” We have already noted that there is no impassable border between the mystical and earthly church, but moreover, A.S. Khomyakov was convinced that the union of a person with Christ “only receives its crown when it is carried out in the real world, in the principle of community.”

So, “unity in plurality” is a defining feature of conciliarity, allowing us to distinguish this phenomenon from the world of other spiritual formations. In turn, conciliarity becomes for Khomyakov and his supporters a criterion for the correctness of religious faith and church life based on it, which in their concept has decisive significance for all other spheres of human activity. An analysis of the application of the principle of conciliarity in the spiritual sphere, which was undertaken by the main ideologist of Slavophilism, will help to more fully present his view of this problem.

Analysis of the views of A.S. Khomyakov on conciliarity shows that he was not only the first in Russian philosophy to try to identify its main features, but also examined the development of the church and society based on conciliar principles. His ecclesiology and historiosophy emphasize the implementation of the principles of conciliarity in the church and social spheres. The Russian thinker also outlined, in the most general terms, approaches to understanding conciliarity as an ontological and epistemological phenomenon.
In this regard, it is clear that subsequent philosophers and theologians, turning to the problems of conciliarity, to one degree or another had to determine their position in relation to A.S. Khomyakov and Slavophilism in general.

2. Interpretation of the doctrine of conciliarity in Russian philosophyXXcentury

2.1 The doctrine of conciliarity N.A. Berdyaev

Nikolai Aleksandrovich Berdyaev belonged to the existentially oriented current of Russian thought, which proceeded from the primacy of the personal over the social. He wrote: “In the hierarchy of spiritual values, the first place belongs to the individual, the second place to society and only the third place to the state.” It would seem that such a position makes the philosopher an opponent of conciliarity and, indeed, N. Berdyaev repeatedly encounters the concept of “underdevelopment of the personal principle in Russian history.” Unlike the Slavophiles, for whom the absence of knighthood in the Russian state was a blessing, for him it was “grief.” This is precisely what explains the fact that “our personality was not sufficiently developed, that our character was not strong enough. The power of original collectivism remained too great in Russia.” This power was expressed, according to the philosopher, in the preservation of the rural community, in the “blurring” of personal responsibility and personal initiative. This collectivism preserved the old and prevented the establishment of the new; it was evidence of “not the new, but our old life, a remnant of primitive naturalism.”

Critically analyzing Russian history, N. Berdyaev at the same time does not accept the values ​​of Western civilization. The latter developed the personal principle and shaped a person’s activity in the social sphere, but it distorted the hierarchy of values, forcing them to serve “not God, but mammon.” The Western world has not been able to satisfactorily solve the problem of the relationship between the individual and society. The personal principle degenerates into individualism, people begin to be viewed as separate atoms, and society itself is reduced only to the interaction of individuals, thereby man is separated from all organic historical formations.”
And since human nature can “narrow and expand,” the dynamics of this process should be clear. Individualism and egoistic utilitarianism make human nature “small in capacity and insensitive to sources of creative energy.” On the contrary, when a person enters the “hierarchy of ontological realities,” its boundaries expand. So, individualism cannot create conditions for the revelation of a person’s spiritual potential, because it cannot be “thought outside of society.” In this regard, it is concluded that to understand the individual it is necessary to turn to his “life in society, in conciliarity.”
Such an interpretation does not mean that the thinker is against individual uniqueness; on the contrary, he is convinced of the “uniquely individual fate” of each person. This explains his negativity towards teachings that substantiate the primacy of the collective over the individual. If in individualism “personality decomposes and disintegrates,” then in irreligious collectivism, we see the same thing; it turns society into a union of “impersonal atoms.” In such a collective, the final “death of the human personality” occurs; it is deprived of “true reality” in it. Consequently, neither individualism nor secular collectivism can create conditions for the full spiritual life of an individual. To overcome these negative trends, the social sphere must be built on a hierarchical principle and relationships between people must be hierarchical. Hierarchism presupposes inequality, division into higher and lower, but this should not be scary, since only inequality is “the source of every creative movement in the world.” Inequality contains diversity, it is the opposite of depersonalization of a person. Therefore, “no personality in the hierarchy of personalities is destroyed and does not destroy any personality, but replenishes and enriches.” In this regard, it becomes clear that the usefulness of an individual is “connected” not with individualism and not with faceless collectivism, but with universalism.
Noting the specifics of existential philosophy, N. Berdyaev emphasizes that it is “an expression of my personal destiny,” but at the same time, “my destiny must express the fate of the world and man.” But the goal will be achievable not through the transition “from the individual to the general,” but only under the condition of revealing the “universal in the individual.” .

So, the subject of philosophy should be the consideration of the individual characteristics of a person, and at the same time, the identification of the “universal” in each individual person. But this is conciliarity, uniting people on the basis of the highest values ​​they share, without destroying their individual uniqueness. N. Berdyaev comes to the conclusion that individualism is combined with the “spirit of conciliarity.” At the same time, the philosopher is trying to answer the fundamental question for his work: “how are conciliarity and freedom related?” In his opinion, this issue is one of the central ones for the Russian spiritual tradition and it is no coincidence that “Khomyakov’s entire theology is a hymn to Christian freedom.” Berdyaev absolutizes Khomyakov’s understanding of freedom, turning the ideologist of Slavophilism into a denier of all authority, for whom neither the church hierarchy, nor even a church council “is authority.” Moreover, even God is not an authority, this category “humiliates him,” he “is freedom, and only in freedom can he reveal himself.” Such an understanding of freedom certainly contains the danger of “willful distortion of the evangelical religion.” Berdyaev understands this; for him, the Protestant individualization of Christianity is unacceptable. He emphasizes that “the Russian idea of ​​Christian freedom is fundamentally different from “Protestant thought.”” If in the latter personal freedom in “matters of faith” acts as an irreconcilable antagonist to the authoritarianism of Catholicism, then the Orthodox problem of freedom “is not posed at all in opposition to church authority and individualism.” The organic understanding of the church, expressed in conciliarity, removes the antinomy of individualism and authoritarianism.

For the Western European consciousness, the doctrine of conciliarity is difficult to access due to the fact that it is “almost indescribable in foreign languages", and because of the schematism of "Protestant and Catholic thought, always prone to the opposition of authority and the individual."

The Russian spiritual tradition does not reduce Christian freedom only to the struggle “for the rights of the individual, defending himself and distinguishing himself from other individuals,” that is, it is not limited to its formal and meaningless characteristics. In Russian philosophy, according to Berdyaev, “the problem of freedom becomes at a greater depth.”

Indeed, if an individual “voluntarily enters the church fence” then “the church cannot be an external authority for him.” In this case, freedom is interpreted not as a “formal right”, but as the content of human activity, “as a duty of a Christian.” Therefore, in Russian thought and life, “freedom is a burden and burden that must be borne in the name of the highest dignity and godlikeness of man.” Such attitudes cannot be “understood individualistically”; their implementation requires a certain attitude towards other people, because without this “awareness of one’s responsibilities” is impossible. The very transformation of a person into a person presupposes “other personalities and a community of personalities.” However, from the author’s point of view, “the enemy of the individual is society, not the community, not the conciliarity.” Society is perceived as an “external environment” that limits the personality, while conciliarity is the “organic development” of a person’s internal, essential potentials. It is impossible to create such a “conciliar environment” within the framework of a secular society; it is available to a person only in the genuine Church of Christ, which contains “the personality of man and the freedom of man.” The whole difficulty in achieving this goal lies in the fact that the church itself in the real historical process can be “understood in two ways”, on the one hand, it acts as a “spiritual conciliarity with which I unite in freedom,” but on the other hand, as an ecclesia and “a socially organized historical group capable of outwardly raping my conscience and depriving my moral character traits of purity, freedom and originality, i.e. to be "public opinion". .

Berdyaev's attitude towards Christian denominations was quite complex. He assessed the division of the evangelical religion into different directions as a “fatal fact”, which “was the greatest failure of Christianity in history.” .

The dominant theme of Christianity is soteriology, i.e. the doctrine of salvation, which is understood differently by different confessions. For Berdyaev, despite his existential attitudes, “transcendental egoism”, which reduces the tasks of Christians only to individual, personal salvation, is unacceptable. This concept destroys the “integral”, conciliar understanding of the church and depletes the spiritual creative forces of the church organism. The individualization of Christian soteriology deprives the individual of the “social perspective of being.” Berdyaev cannot agree with those who claim that the egoistic understanding of salvation is combined with the idea of ​​churchliness. On the contrary, he believes that such an approach exposes the reality of the church to “nominalistic corruption.” The thesis of Orthodoxy that one can be saved only in the church affirms “the catholicity of salvation, salvation in a spiritual society and through a spiritual society.” It is in the affirmation of the “conciliarity of salvation” that the future of Christianity and the answer to the question of the future earthly existence of humanity lie. Either Christianity will dominate “in a small corner of the human soul,” saving selected individuals, or it will become a spiritual energy that transforms “the life of human societies and cultures.”

Critically assessing Catholicism, Protestantism and even Orthodoxy, Berdyaev still unconditionally gave preference to Eastern Christianity. Although he claims that "in an empirical manner Orthodox Church, as it is given in history, the revelation of conciliarity in pure form cannot be found,” however, it is precisely this confession that contains in its depths the “spirit of religious collectivism,” which is different “from the categories of authoritarianism and individualism familiar to the West.” .

Orthodoxy had a formative influence on the history of the Russian people, on the development of the “Russian idea”. During the formation of the Russian ethnos, national and religious principles were closely intertwined and “Russian history revealed a completely exceptional spectacle - the complete nationalization of the church.” In Russia, the church and the nation mutually condition each other, not only Orthodoxy “nurturing the Russian spirit,” but also national traits “are imprinted in the church.” Universal Christianity is captivated by the Russian land and dissolves “in the collective national element.” This is where it comes from special meaning conciliar principle both in Russian Orthodoxy and in Russian life and in general.

In conclusion, we note that N. Berdyaev’s assessment of the doctrine of conciliarity reflected his inconsistency. Our analysis shows that the Russian thinker considered the basis of the truth of conciliarity to be the “true Church of Christ”, in which individual universalism can manifest itself - the only possible form of existence of conciliarity, unequivocally denying secular collectivism and, especially, individualism.

Consequently, Berdyaev can be called a supporter of the doctrine of conciliarity and, at the same time, the principles he defends clearly underestimate the significance of this intuition. He himself repeatedly admitted that in his “philosophy there are contradictions that are caused by its very essence and which cannot and should not be eliminated.” The thinker’s attitude toward conciliarity is such an “irremovable contradiction.”

2.2 The doctrine of conciliarity of Archpriest Sergius (Bulgakov)

A prominent place in the disclosure of the ideas of conciliarity in Russian philosophy belongs to Archpriest Sergius Bulgakov. Conciliarity, in his opinion, is difficult to express in any rational schemes, but it can be found “in all the diversity of life.” In this regard, it is clear why the philosopher analyzes the problems of conciliarity not only in works devoted to ecclesiology, but also in “Philosophy of Economics”, and in “The Tragedy of Philosophy”, and in journalism.

Sharing the general principles of the philosophy of unity developed by V. Solovyov, the thinker comes to the conclusion that there is a kind of “physical communism of being,” since “physically everything finds itself or is in everything, every atom of the universe is connected with the entire universe.”

S.N. Bulgakov considers the individual “the conductor of the all-unifying divine principle into elemental multiplicity.” However, in human nature itself the “illness of being” also manifests itself, since it, in its “individual and self-sufficient element”, breaks out “from its sophian unity.” Historical humanity exists as a succession of generations, between which “individual, class, and national struggle rages.” Such fragmentation has “its roots in the world’s fall, which is the basis of the entire historical process.” By losing contact with God, people thereby destroy unity among themselves, placing selfish interests at the basis of their activity. The history of human society gives us the right to draw the pessimistic conclusion that “conciliarity is achieved by a barely perceptible hint, because selfishness, i.e. the opposite of conciliarity is the law of our life.”

At the same time, although man, as a result of the Fall, violates the Sophian unity of the world, he does not break away “from his Sophian root.” Hence the inconsistency of history, the complex interweaving in it of centripetal forces that unite people with a spiritual fundamental principle, and centrifugal forces that separate society into groups hostile to each other. The presence of the “energy of solidarity,” or love, which ensures the “unity of many,” shows that “conciliarity is the abiding basis of our existence.”

So, oh. Sergius comes to the conclusion that human nature and human history are antinomic, because, on the one hand, the law of life of individuals is egoism, on the other, the “root foundation” of humanity is realized only through conciliarity. This antinomy is explained by man’s involvement with both Sophia and empirical existence; he is both “potential everything” and “a product of this world.” The Sophia principle is manifested in the implementation of conciliar attitudes in both the personal and social spheres of an individual’s life; on the contrary, the empirical world gives rise to “fragmentation of interests, selfishness, war against everyone.” In general, within the framework of earthly history, these contradictions cannot be overcome, but “what is impossible for man is possible for God,” and in the eschatological perspective, conciliarity will triumph. Bulgakov's analysis of conciliarity especially emphasizes its ontological nature; it cannot be reduced to external unity, to agreement in opinions between people. Such formal unity is possible in a sect, a scientific school, political party, but it remains “as distant from conciliarity as an army led by one power and one will.”

Bulgakov shares Khomyakov’s opinion that conciliar unity cannot be based on coercion; it appears only when one’s own “I” is identified with another “I” and loves him as himself.” Bulgakov lays general theoretical principles about conciliarity as the basis for his analysis of church life and the social sphere of human existence. The evolution of the thinker’s views went from philosophy to theology, this process was also reflected in his views on conciliarity. Church conciliarity is beginning to be seen as the highest manifestation of “unity in plurality.” The conciliar principles are most adequately expressed in Eastern Christianity, for “the soul of Orthodoxy is conciliarity.” It is clear that Orthodox ecclesiology cannot ignore this topic; ignoring it is tantamount to a “radical misunderstanding of Orthodox churchliness.”

The difficulty in revealing church conciliarity lies in the fact that “the concepts of language do not fully express the essence of the cognizable,” moreover, the manifestation of “unity in plurality” in the religious sphere is diverse. The most general classification of church conciliarity, according to S. Bulgakov, is the identification of two sides in it: external - quantitative and internal - qualitative. The external understanding of conciliarity draws attention to the connection of the church with the councils, that is, “it defines the church as containing the teaching of ecumenical local councils.” It also emphasizes the idea that “the church gathers, includes all nations and extends to the entire universe.” Since both councils and the geography of the spread of Christianity depend on historical conditions, on “the height of the spiritual demands of the era,” then external manifestation conciliarity is due to the “human factor”.

The internal definition of conciliarity emphasizes that it “participates in the Truth, lives in the Truth.” This truth is transcendental in nature; it does not depend on any external conditions. human life. The qualitative side of conciliarity is based on the doctrine of the Trinity; God is one and at the same time exists in three hypostases, each of which has individual qualities. “Unity in plurality” finds its most complete, absolute expression in the Trinity, therefore “The Holy Trinity is the eternal catholicity.”

Man was created in the image of God, which means he received from him the “image of hypostasis.” Adam and Eve no longer appear only “as a two,” but they “have in themselves a further plurality.” Consequently, man from the very beginning was conceived not as a separate individual, but as a “multi-unity.” In this regard, the conclusion of S.P. is understandable. Bulgakov, according to which “the fullness of the image of God is revealed and realized not in a separate individual, but in the human race, a multitude for which there is not only I, but also You, and He, and We, and You, which is collective as a race and is called to love " The Fall destroys the “internal conciliarity”, since a person “voluntarily falls away from the Truth.” The Incarnation again makes possible for man the process of becoming like God; the divine and the human move from confrontation to cooperation, that is, to God-manhood. The history of the Christian Church begins with the Incarnation, which “is a living intersection of two lives, two worlds, divine and human.” The nature of the church “is a mystery that overcomes the mind,” its truths are comprehended by faith, participation in mystical life church organism, to the “Body of Christ, in which the Holy Spirit acts.” This participation is possible only by overcoming the “limitations of one’s Self”, in “a cathedral together with others who have learned the Truth.” This is why, ultimately, church life is “a life in truth and unity, which is characterized by wisdom and integrity, chastity.”

The author believes that in Russian religious consciousness the synthesis of wisdom and integrity, that is, chastity, is expressed in the symbol of the divine Sophia. The Divine Sophia for Bulgakov “is the pre-eternal intelligible Church,” that is, she is identified with the heavenly church. And since the heavenly church most fully expresses the essence of the Trinity, it embodies conciliar principles. So, the Trinity - Sophia - the Church contain conciliar principles, it is in them that conciliarity finds both the source and the highest justification. Consequently, conciliarity is a property that goes into “the very depths of church life,” and in this connection it cannot be attached to it with the help of rationalistic constructions.

The final conclusion about. Sergius on the essence of conciliarity is the thesis that “conciliarity is in fact unity and in fact in plurality.” The personality is united “with many in the free acceptance of common values,” while maintaining its individual qualities and thereby making it possible to “realize one’s but I am in its true fullness.”

2.3 The doctrine of conciliarity of priest Pavel Florensky

Priest Pavel Aleksandrovich Florensky occupies a special place in the history of Russian philosophy and theology, for he strived not only for the synthesis of Orthodox and philosophical principles, but also for the “churchization of all human knowledge.” Hence the encyclopedic education, consideration of a wide range of theological and philosophical issues, analysis of numerous natural science and humanitarian problems, which included the doctrine of conciliarity.

Among the ideological sources that influenced the formation of Florensky’s views, one can note the philosophy of Plato, Neoplatonism, and Hesychasm. From the Russian philosophical tradition highest value for the formation of his ideas were Slavophiles and V.S. Soloviev.

He agrees with A.S. Khomyakov is that “everything Russian is being erased with us” and considers himself to be a movement that strives “for churchliness and for the identity of the people.” The thinker accepts the thesis of the Slavophiles about the inaccessibility of religious truths to rational analysis, for “Orthodoxy is shown, but not proven.” Close to him is the Slavophile desire to transform Russian life on Orthodox principles. Also, the theologian accepts Solovyov’s idea of ​​“all-unity,” that is, the idea that “the divine principle is not only one, but everything is not only an individual, but also an all-encompassing being.” But if V. Solovyov tries in his philosophical system to synthesize theology and philosophy, to eliminate the opposition between faith and reason, then for Florensky such a position is unacceptable. From his point of view, compromises between the religious and the secular ultimately harm Orthodoxy, which is why he states that he is opposed “to the conciliatory philosophy of Vl. Solovyov."

In Florensky’s creative heritage there are no special works directly devoted to conciliarity, and this is no coincidence. Coming out with a program for creating an ecclesiology that would reflect the “fullness of being,” he comes to the conclusion that the church, that is, “the Body of Christ is universal or universal, all-time and all-inclusive. those. does not exclude from itself any God-created universe of the cosmos.” Therefore, conciliar principles are organically present in the thinker’s work when analyzing ontological, epistemological, social problems. Most clearly, in our opinion, Florensky’s understanding of conciliarity is presented in his work “At the Watersheds of Thought.” Considering the features of Russian song, the philosopher comes to the conclusion that in it “unity is achieved by the internal mutual understanding of the performers, and not by external locks.” Each member of the choir improvises, but “does not disintegrate the whole, but, on the contrary, binds it more firmly, because the common cause is joined by each performer, many times and in many ways.”

Western tradition builds its philosophical systems on the “logical unity of the scheme”, a kind of “system belief” appears. As a result, thought is likened to “a clerical mechanism, with external, meager, but precisely predetermined relationships.” Such a “single construction” does not notice numerous “internal inconsistencies”; it is hostile to conciliar guidelines, since it levels out plurality, reducing everything to a formal “subordination to one.” Another thing is that unity is not invented, but vital, generated by fundamental questions of thought, “an inflorescence of philosophical themes” connected with each other like “tissues of the body, heterogeneous, forming a single body.” When characterizing the whole, each thought “turns out to be somehow connected with each other: this is a mutual responsibility, a rhythmic interruption of interpenetrating themes.”

So, for Florensky, “unity in plurality” becomes the main sign of conciliarity, and in this regard, he continues the line of A.S. Khomyakova. It is no coincidence that, when analyzing the features of Russian song, Florensky specifically emphasizes that it “is the implementation of that “choral principle” on which the Slavophiles thought to base the Russian public,” and he, as we see, sought to build his philosophical system on this basis.

One of the controversial issues was the Slavophil interpretation of conciliarity. From Florensky’s point of view, for a truly Orthodox believer the church expresses the truth, for “so it pleased the Holy Spirit.” For Khomyakov, church dogmas become such due to the approval of the church people, that is, “a resolution of the entire church.” Consequently, one gets the impression that in the Slavophile views on conciliarity, “truth was immanent to human reason, even if taken conciliarly, and not transcendental to it and revealed to it from its transcendence.”

Of great importance for understanding Florensky’s views on conciliarity is his doctrine of orientation. Its essence lies in the recognition of the activity of the human spirit, which consists in the ability to concentrate its efforts on comprehending and possessing certain values. This basic axiom of spiritual life, according to the theologian, is formulated in the Bible as follows: “For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also” (Matthew 6:21). “Heart” is understood by him in the spirit of Eastern patristics, as “the concentration of spiritual forces, the very center of our being.” Florensky especially emphasizes that “it is not the heart that builds its treasure,” but, on the contrary, “the treasure determines the heart.” Based on this position, he believes that two fundamentally different understandings of values ​​are possible.

The first is oriented towards man, and because of this, all the efforts of the spirit are directed towards developing a culture without God, towards falling away from God. At the same time, we are talking not only about Western European philosophy and science, but even about religion in its Catholic and Protestant forms. The Catholic “wants to put on the guise of Christ,” and instead of true spiritualization, his goal becomes the external imitation of Christ, and pride appears before God. The Protestant destroys genuine faith by turning Christ into a “moral scheme.” From the dominant of being, God is relegated to the level of personal intimate experiences, he is given “only one corner in life.” In both the first and second cases, a person strives to “take a place that does not belong to him,” i.e. to justify one’s independence, “autonomy from the Absolute Being.” Autonomism not only destroys the conciliar nature of the church, but it leads to the disintegration of the principles of “inner life: sacredness, beauty, goodness, benefit not only do not form a single whole, and even in thoughts are no longer subject to merging.”

It is the synthesis of “private wisdom” that is “received from God” that is the basis of the conciliar mind of the church. With its help, it is possible to “avoid one-sidedness and create a system of concepts that most simply and most economically cover the entire totality of spiritual life.”

However, not only church knowledge is based on conciliar principles; in Orthodoxy they become the core of the teaching about the church as a whole. P. Florensky, following A. Khomyakov, emphasizes the special significance of the fact that the first teachers of the Slavs, Methodius and Cyril, when expounding the Creed in the Slavic language, translated the concept of catholic “through conciliar”, of course, meaning “conciliarity not in the sense of the number of votes, but in the sense of universality being, purpose and all spiritual life, which gathers everyone into itself.”

In conclusion, we conclude that according to Fr. Paul, the orientation of the spirit towards the individual inevitably leads to autonomism, which destroys the union of God and man, decomposes the true unity of people in society, and finally, replacing integral knowledge with fractional, scattered views. With such consequences, the implementation of conciliar principles, whether in the church, or in society, or in knowledge, is fundamentally impossible. The ideal of social structure for Florensky is a spiritual, church community of people, united by fraternal feelings, but preserving their unique individuality. The pathos of his philosophizing lies in the affirmation of the vitality of Orthodox ideas. They cannot remain only in the sphere of pure thought, but are called upon to transform the entire created cosmos, the social and individual life of people.

2.4 The doctrine of conciliarity of Vyacheslav Ivanovich Ivanov

Conciliarity is understood by the Russian thinker in a very unique way, since he believes that the symbol of “the synthesis of the personal principle and the conciliar principle” is the word “anarchy”. However, from his point of view, there is anarchy and anarchy. Political anarchy, which initially connects its paths and goals with the plan of external social construction, distorts its idea to the very roots.” The whole point is that social forms of people's lives, coming to the fore, inevitably limit personal freedom. True anarchy “essentially denies any limitation in the activity of the individual.” When solving the main dilemma of life - “satiety or freedom”, the true anarchist idea gives unconditional preference to freedom. The support of this freedom can only be the spirit of man, leading the struggle against the “enslavement of him by the world.” Freedom for a thinker acquires not a social, but an aesthetic meaning; it is a condition for “human growth in depth and height.” Therefore, it is people of art who act in society as the most consistent defenders of personal freedom.

So, the initial methodological setting of V. Ivanov when analyzing conciliarity turns out to be contradictory. Indeed, on the one hand, its source is the freedom of the individual, a kind of “anarchic rebellion” that miraculously unites into communities people imbued with “an affinity for mutually shared delight.” On the other hand, it is precisely “subordination to the universal truth”, participation in the divine unity that makes the individual the bearer of the conciliar spirit. In other words, conciliarity is generated by “unbridled Freedom” and requires limitation and subordination to the “universal spirit”. For the thinker, the above antinomy expresses the very essence of conciliarity and any desire to “overcome and resolve it” by belittling one of the principles leads to a deformation of conciliarity. In his famous work“Legion and Conciliarity” Ivanov substantiates this thesis using the example of an analysis of people’s social activities. He agrees that “talking about the salvation of an organization these days is the same as arguing for the benefits of health.” The development of modern society shows the need to rely on certain “fixed communities of people” when solving the most important social problems. Moreover, for many it is the organization that “is elevated to the supreme principle of community life and turns into the measure of civilization.” Among all the countries in the world, Germany has advanced the farthest in terms of “general organization”. In her example one can clearly see the “evils of modern social progress.” Of course, the German state has achieved outstanding success in creating civilization, but this is due to the “depersonalization of the individual.” In this country, each individual “remembers his place and his business,” submitting “as part of one machine, to the quantitative and qualitative distribution of national labor.” V. Ivanov calls such an organization cooperation, especially emphasizing that it is created to achieve utilitarian goals and is a “selfish community.” With cooperation, there is an “agreement of individuals on a species characteristic in order to strengthen the species.” The strengthening of a species is manifested primarily in the increase in its material power, in the acquisition of new wealth, in the satisfaction of the increasing material needs of people. As a result, a distortion of a person’s value orientations occurs and this “determines his self-determination not as an individual, but as a representative of a species,” and “the powerlessness of the beginning of the individual before the beginning of the species” is manifested. The individual begins to perceive his salvation, that is, the main goal of his life, as unconditional submission to the interests of the species and something “middle and dominant” is expelled from the holistic consciousness of the individual. The energy of such a person, the productivity of his work increases, but this is “the power of the superpersonal centers of the ant kingdom.” Consequently, the form of German human organization is “a return to the pre-human period, highest form pre-human natural organism."
Naturally, such “aggregation of people into unity through their depersonalization” cannot be called conciliar. This is the “Earthly City” in Augustine’s terminology. But another path is open to humanity - to the “Heavenly City”. Only in it will the individual be able to “defend his personality”, preserve his “inner being with its shrines.” This is possible only under the condition of the individual’s self-determination, from which it follows that “a person in our times should sanctify freedom most jealously.” The unification of people in the “Heavenly City” does not occur due to pressure external factors, not on the basis of coercion, but only through “voluntary obedience” to what a person “gained as the highest law, in his own heartfelt depths.”

Conciliarity, according to V. Ivanov, is connected with the history of human society; it is “inside” the formation of the forms of social life of individuals.

The first manifestation of “conciliar consciousness” is myth-making. It is impossible to imagine a myth as the fruit of individual creativity, as the free invention of one or another author. A true myth is “a postulate of collective self-determination, and therefore not a fiction at all and by no means an allegory or personification, but a hypostasis of some essence and energy.” Because of this, myth-making combines the theoretical and practical aspects of conciliarity; it manifests itself not only in collective consciousness, but also in collective action.

In history, two principles struggle, two energies appear - they correlate as “the kingdom of form and the kingdom of content, as the formal system and the generating chaos.” The symbol of the first is Apollo, the second is Dionysus. The diopsis principle expresses “the divine unity of the Existing in its sacrificial separation and passive transubstantiation,” in it the personality finds support for overcoming the “closedness of the empirical Self” and joins “the unity of the universal Self.” The Apollonian principle is an intellectual principle, it abstracts from the real life process, immerses the personality in the service of form, the most negative consequence of the implementation of this principle is the process of “dehydration and despiritualization of the world.” A “theoretical man” emerges; a single creative process breaks up into separate branches with their own particular tasks.

The Hellenic soul, according to V. Ivanov, expressed itself only “with the acquisition of Dionysus,” since in the mysteries dedicated to this god everyone had the dual goal of “participating in the orgy action and in the orgy purification, to sanctify and be holy, to attract the divine presence and to receive the gift of grace " It is precisely because of this that the vital Dionysian principle is a conciliar principle; it strengthens the “ability and need for the ideal objectification of internal experiences” inherent in the human spirit. At the same time, the process of objectification involves the “radiation of energy from a person”, overcoming his “close self”. In other words, objectification is possible only through interaction with other people; it is conciliar in nature. However, the Dionysian impulse can contain not only a positive, but also a “negative pole of the human objectifying ability.” The uncreative, inert, barbaric element leads to nihilism, that is, to the “pathos of depreciation and deformation.” Therefore, the chaos of life must be supplemented by the “cult of obligatory forms,” that is, the Apollonian principle.

So, conciliarity in history is connected with a vital, Dionysian basis, but it also requires an “Apollonian action,” although only within those limits that do not kill the spirit, human energy. Only religion, which embraces the antinomy of personality, can reconcile these two approaches, when “we are faced with the presence of internal experience, splitting our Self into the spheres of “I” and “you.”

In the original Hellenism, there was a certain harmony between “I” and “you”; the external world was the revelation of the “microcosm of the personality.” However, with the development of humanism, dating back to antiquity, the “I” comes to the fore and man is proclaimed “the measure of things.” A long process of “humanistic self-affirmation of the human individual” begins, however, “Greco-Roman antiquity did not know individualism in our sense,” it only “anticipated it.” Individualism in the modern meaning of the word could arise, according to Ivanov, only on soil “plowed by Christianity.” The Middle Ages era is contradictory in its characteristics. On the one hand, a comprehensive religious worldview, which “determined the place of every thing, earthly and heavenly, in the calculatedly complex architecture of its hierarchical agreement.” On the other hand, it was during this period that Christianity “revealed the secret of the face and finally established the personality.” As the attempts of the Middle Ages to “build earthly society according to the supposed scheme of heavenly hierarchies collapsed,” religious values ​​ceased to play a dominant role in the life of the individual. Earthly man “does not like the maximalism of otherworldly hopes and consistently had to turn away from Christian promises, as a risky and unprofitable deal for earthly management.” As a result, the sphere of the transcendental world is increasingly obscured by the “I” human personality and the subjective aspirations of the individual, aimed “at building and decorating life,” come to the fore. The era of modern times is characterized by the fact that historical reality itself “had to bow ... under the yoke of humanism and endure the “Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen.” However, humanism has by no means made man happier; his heroic isolation turns into a social and spiritual crisis. It is not surprising that traditional “humanism is dying” and modern society is increasingly “adopting the features of conciliarity.” Consequently, the highest level of human society is “not organization, but conciliarity.”

In the matter of establishing conciliar principles in history, Russia has a special place. The concept of conciliarity “is almost not conveyed in foreign dialects,” at the same time, for Russians it sounds like something “from time immemorial and directly understood, dear and cherished, although there is neither a typical phenomenon in life that directly and entirely corresponds to it, nor is it equal according to the content of a single logical concept - “concept”.

In the ideological heritage of the Slavophiles, the most significant point, according to V. Ivanov, is “faith in Holy Rus'.” From his point of view, “you can only believe in what you cannot directly see or touch, which cannot be proven.” Consequently, in Slavophilism “the Russian land and the Russian people are accepted ... not as the evidence of external experience, but as existence in a phenomenon, but a metaphysical reality.” And if for a Westerner the soul of Russia is a psychological concept, described through external signs, then for a Slavophile it is ontological, retaining its noumenal qualities in the “temporary clothing of the flesh.” Sobornost is one of these noumenal characteristics of the Russian people.

The revolution's nihilistic attitude towards religion continues the intelligentsia's line of "oblivion of sacred things." It was the intelligentsia, who considered themselves “a multiplier of enlightenment and freedom of spirit,” who taught the people to hate traditional Russia with “its tradition and historical memory, religion and statehood.” The experience of the Russian revolution, according to the thinker, convincingly confirms the falsity of the intelligentsia's atheistic attitudes. True democracy in our fatherland, the beginnings of democracy" according to the dictates of the people's truth" are possible only when "the work of creativity of the new Russia becomes a matter of religious people's conscience."