Исихазм в истории христианства на Руси. Часть I

Для Древней Руси исихазм, пришедший из Византии, стал основой и сущностью пути к спасению. В первой части статьи рассматривается широкий контекст восприятия христианской культуры в Древней Руси в целом и книжности в частности как среды утверждения исихазма. Определяются сущностные черты исихазма (обόжение), проанализированы понятие византинизма и проблемы, связанные с его восприятием.

Hesychasm in the History of Christianity in Russia. Part I

In the epoch of personal and social degradation, find salvation, one must turn to pure sources of spirit, which appeared in ‘Axial age' (8th-2th cc. BC) and classic examples of philosophical thought and world religions. For Old Rus, such a source was Hesychasm that came from Byzantine and grew ripe in old monk's cells. This tradition is a subject matter of my research. In the first part of my article, using historical-philosophical, historical-genetic, source and textual analysis, I examine the wide context of perception Christian culture in Old and Medieval Rus. I also used historical reconstruction, system analysis and hermeneutics as research methods. Hesychastic experience characterizes by deification was approved by Constantinople councils of 1341 and 1351 that was connected with the activity of St. Gregory Palamas. Ideal of East-Christian anthropology expresses through the concept of theosis that is characterized by ecstatic experience of direct uniting with God by bliss. Deification is not just ‘moral' matter and utmost limit of human perfection, but it is an ontological one. At the same time, it does not mean essential unity with God: it is impossible in transcendent-type personalized theistic traditions. Deification directs to the transformation of a personality from biological entity into spiritual creature; it does not diminish or destroy humanity but enrich it. It realizes through transcendence of real existence and means a break to being and reason, based on religious-existential experience (death, penitence, cry, bliss and love). In Old and Medieval Russia, Hesychastic ideas of deification (Theosis) got development in creativity and life of St. Kirill of Turov, St. Sergius of Radonezh, Epiphanius the Wise, St. Nilus of Sora, Maximus the Greek. I have shown Hesychasm was perceived in the process of introduction to Byzantine book culture (that generated phenomenon of Russian booklore, specific form of Russian proto-philosophical thought), through translations of Byzantine church books and church sacraments, and fell into fertile ground for searching divine grace and beauty that was a specific feature of Russian Christianity. Hesychasm also became an alternative to Old-Russian pagan perception of nature. I consider Old and Medieval Russian Hesychasts as the firs philosophers, not only religious, but also philosophers of culture and creativity. So, I conclude that, in Old and Medieval Russia, all ‘elitist' culture was in a certain sense philosophical, and Hesychastic experience became ‘environment', in which further Russian philosophy arose.