On Spiritual Unity: A Slavophile Reader

[Scott Pierson]

I’m currently reading a very interesting book “On Spiritual Unity, a Slavophile Reader”. I would really recommend this book, it’s a wonderful read. It would be a good book to give someone as an introduction to Orthodoxy because it goes into many of the important aspects of Orthodox theology and ecclesiology ( Sobornicity, the sacraments, the place of reason in theology, the differences between the Orthodox Church and the western sects, what it means to say that the Church is one…etc..) in a way that is very intelligent, well written, orthodox, and very memorable and fun to read. It has the things an inquirer would want to know about the church but its also deep reading that I think anyone who has been Orthodox for a while would like to read as well.

Here are some good quotes from it:


The Spirit of God who speaks in the Holy Scriptures, who teaches and enlightens in the holy tradition of the universal Church, cannot be understood by reason. This Spirit is accessible only to the whole fullness of the human spirit under the inspiration of grace. To approach faith and its mysteries solely with the light of reason is, in the eyes of the Christian, an act of audacity as extravagant as it is condemnable. The light that comes from heaven and penetrates the whole soul of a human being is the sole light that can serve that person as guide, and the power bestowed by the Divine Spirit is the sole power that can carry one to these unapproachable regions where divinity manifest itself.

‘One must be a prophet to understand a prophet,’ says St. Gregory Thaumaturgus. Divinity alone can understand God and the infinity of His Wisdom. If one does not have Christ living within, one cannot approach His throne without being annihilated by the greatness before which the purest spirits prostrate themselves with joy and trembling. The holy and immortal Church, living tabernacle of the Divine Spirit, bearing Christ within herself, her Savior and Head, united to Him by the intimacy that human words cannot express and the human mind cannot conceive --the Church alone has the right and the power to contemplate the heavenly majesty and to penetrate its mysteries.

I am speaking here of the entire Church, of which the earthly Church forms an inseparable part, for what we call the visible Church and the invisible Church do not make up two Churches, but a single Church in two different forms. The fullness of the Church’s spirit is neither a collective entity nor an abstract entity. Rather it is the Spirit of God who knows Himself and cannot fail to know Himself. It is the Church in its entirety that has written the Holy Scriptures. It is the Church in its entirety that makes them live in tradition; or rather the two manifestations of the same Spirit are a single manifestation. For Scripture is written tradition, while tradition is living Scripture. Such is the mystery of this magnificent unity, where the purest holiness is united with the loftiest intelligence to render intelligence intelligent where, without holiness, it would be as blind as matter itself.
Is it upon this ground that Protestantism will arise? Will this ground support people who set themselves up as judges of the Church, thereby claiming both perfect holiness and perfect reason for themselves? I doubt if such people would be welcomed by a Church whose first principle is that ignorance is just as much the property of every person as sin, and that intelligence, like perfect holiness, belongs only to the unity of all the members of the Church. Such is the doctrine of the universal and orthodox Church , and I boldly affirm that it is not possible to find a principle of rationalism in it.”
Aleksei Khomiakov


“Each moral victory hidden in a single Christian soul is already a spiritual victory for the entire Christian world.. For as in the physical world the celestial bodies gravitate to each other without any material mediation, so in the spiritual world each spiritual personality, even without visible action, by the mere fact that it abides on a moral height, lifts and attracts to itself all that is similar in human hearts. But in the physical world each being lives and is supported only by the destruction of others; in the spiritual world the creation of each personality creates all, and each breathes the life of all . “ Kireevsky



"As long as a thought is clear to ones reason or is able to be expressed, it cannot affect the soul and will. It reaches maturity only when it develops to an inexpressible state... the ultimate meaning of any philosophy lies not in individual logical or metaphysical truths, but in the relationship in which it places humanity with respect to the ultimate truth that is sought--in the inner imperative that dominates the mind imbued with philosophy."

Ivan Kireevsky- in a letter to Khomiakov.

[Father David Moser]

I have this book as well and I agree, it is at its core a very good book, however, I would not use it as an "introduction to Orthodoxy" since it is more or less a book about philosophy. The core of the book are selections by Khomiakov (which are excellent and available on their own) and Kireevsky. Khomiakov's essay, "The Church Is One" is a classic and a good read for every Orthodox Christian. His letters to Palmer have also been published in many places - I find it a pity that only two of those letters were published (I believe that the book would have been much better if they had published the whole series of letters to Palmer and left out the "Responses ot Khomiakov" entirely.) Kireevsky is very possibly the premier Orthodox philosopher of modern times and his ability to compare the philosophical schools of western europe to Orthodoxy is fantastic (in fact it was Kireevsky's writings that were the reason I bought the book - I already had read all of Khomiakov that was included elsewhere). But again this is not the stuff of an "introduction" to Orthodoxy (except perhaps if you are introducing a philosopher to Orthodoxy) but it is good for a person who wants to relate a familiarity with western philosophical schools to Orthodox teaching.

Fr David Moser

[Scott Pierson]

Thank you for the response father,

I've only read the first part of the book so far (the "Theology" section). "The Church is One" is the part I thought might be good as an introduction. Maybe not though. I didnt have any problem with what I've read so far and I'm defintly not a philosopher or even that well educated. I do read a lot though so maybe I just failed to pick up that it might be more difficult for someone new to the subject and for that reason not be a good introduction. I'm sure the second part on philosophy might be a little more dense too.

Do you by any chance know of any other good books in english that deal with the Slavophiles? I couldnt find much on Amazon.com .

[Scott Pierson]

I think some of the works that didnt make it into the book were left out for ideological reasons. The editor said " In editing the French writings, I have decided to emphasize the purely theological ideas and to tone down somewhat the polemics. The world has changed much since the 1850's and EO does not have the same need to defend itself against "Romanism" and Protestantism. The enemies are now, as Samarin perspicaciously points out in his essay on Khomiakov.."." I think Boris Jakim is a Catholic isnt he ?

[Olga]

Dear Scott

If I'm not mistaken, Boris Jakim, while nominally Orthodox, is a fellow traveller of Sergei Bulgakov and Vladimir Soloviev, who were proponents of Sophia the Wisdom of God as the Divine Feminine, and other similar heresies, these days much beloved by fringe "Christians", New Agers and the like who try to use these writers' "Orthodox" background to give credibility to their ideas.

[Scott Pierson]

I know he has translated some of Bulgakovs and Solovievs books. For some reason I thought I read some place that he was a Catholic though I might be wrong.

[Owen Jones]

I am always of the view that whatever moves you to explore Orthodoxy it's OK. I'm always a bit skeptical of people who say, don't read this or don't read that. (within reason of course). Plato opened my mind to a different way of seeing things that was not in accord with my solipsistic upbringing. While not trying to conflate Plato with Christianity, I had a hard time making any sense of Scripture as a kind of stand alone document and I was moved by Plato to look more deeply than just at surface phenomenon and various opinions about them. I haven't shed Plato because he is very important in assisting one to avoid opinions that substitute for true faith, but that does not make me a Platonist. So if a Slavophile philosopher opens the door, don't shut it!

[Scott Pierson]

am always of the view that whatever moves you to explore Orthodoxy it's OK. I'm always a bit skeptical of people who say, don't read this or don't read that. (within reason of course). Plato opened my mind to a different way of seeing things that was not in accord with my solipsistic upbringing. While not trying to conflate Plato with Christianity, I had a hard time making any sense of Scripture as a kind of stand alone document and I was moved by Plato to look more deeply than just at surface phenomenon and various opinions about them. I haven't shed Plato because he is very important in assisting one to avoid opinions that substitute for true faith, but that does not make me a Platonist. So if a Slavophile philosopher opens the door, don't shut it!


Sounds like good advice. The Slavophiles at least the two in the book I'm reading ( Ivan Kireevsky & Aleksei Khomiakov) seem to be perfectly Orthodox as far I can tell. Boris Jakim was just the translater and wrote some of the introductions.


is a fellow traveller of Sergei Bulgakov and Vladimir Soloviev, who were proponents of Sophia the Wisdom of God as the Divine Feminine, and other similar heresies, these days much beloved by fringe "Christians", New Agers and the like who try to use these writers' "Orthodox" background to give credibility to their ideas.

I do see a lot of "new age" type web pages that promote Sophiology and Solviev and Bulgakovs books. More then a few Wiccans seems interested in the subject. Not sure if they would aprove of such people promoting their works but I did hear that Solviev at least was interested in the occult, gnosticism , theosophy ( of the Boehm , Gitchel Varity not the Blavatsky kind) alchemy and such. I'm not a big fan of Bulgakovs theology but I couldn’t see him being too happy about people like that promoting his books but who knows.

I never finished the one Solyviev book that I have it was kinda boring (maybe it was just the translation ? ). Paul Vallieres book "Modern Russian Theology: Bukharev, Soloviev, Bulgakov: Orthodox Theology in a New Key" talks about his theology and such. Its an interesting book. Overall Soloviev, I dunno, seems a little far from the Tradition of the Church. I've heard that as he got older he moved back closer to the Church and rejected some of his innovations. I'm not sure if that’s true though. Bulgakovs books "The Bride of the Lamb" and "Sophia" are good reads.. at least they are thought provoking even if I don’t agree with a lot of it. I think he is definitely worth reading though. One person I think that unfairly gets lumped in with that "group" would be the New Martyr Paul Florensky. If you read his book on Elder Isidore you can tell he is someone who really understands and embraces the real spirit of Orthodoxy. He may have speculated on Sophia in an innovative way in one chapter of his book " The Pillar and Ground of Truth" but I think people are reading too much into that at times. He wasn’t presenting a complete sophialogical theology he was just speculating on what already existed in Orthodox tradition regarding Sophia. Later in life when someone asked him about the book he even said " oh I grew out of that" (or something to the effect).