Anthropology of St. Theophan the Recluse and the Origin of First Personalistic Concepts in Russian Theology

• Main Author: Khondzinskii Pavel
• Format: Article
• Language: Russian
• Published: St. Tikhon's Orthodox University 2017-05-01
• Series: Вестник Православного Свято-Тихоновского гуманитарного университета: Серия I. Богословие, философия
• Subjects: anthropology; psychology; personalism; personality; Russian theology; Bishop Theophan the Recluse; St. Innocent of Kherson; V. Nesmelov; Bishop Michael (Gribanovsky)
• Online Access: http://periodical.pstgu.ru/en/pdf/article/3552

Studying the development of personalistic ideas in Russian theology, we are led to Kiev school as a starting point in this development. It was Kiev Theological Academy that paid serious attention to the study of philosophy and psychology of the modern period earlier than other religious schools did. The initial features of the school of thought that we deal with first manifested themselves in lectures by St. Innocent of Kherson, rector of Kiev Theological Academy, and in his controversy with Kant. It was the Kiev Academy graduate, Professor V. Karpov, who became the founder of St. Petersburg school of psychology, the representative of which, the future Bishop Michael (Gribanovsky), suggested the first personalistic concept that implied the “double presence” of personality and nature in man. A little later, based on the idea proposed St. Innocent and, independently, by Bishop Michael, V. Nesmelov, a representative of Kazan school, came to similar conclusions and suggested a reinterpretation of the terms person, self and self-consciousness. This inevitably leads to the question how these concepts, mostly generated by new philosophy and psychology, relate to traditional Christian ideas about man. To give the answer, it is important to compare them with the doctrine of another graduate of Kiev Academy, St. Theophan the Recluse. This paper shows that it was him who managed to maintain the balance between traditional ideas and modern anthropological discoveries.