YAKOV KROTOV

Spirituality: Russian understanding of the term.

I've just finished preparation of the broadcast on Spirituality and I think it will be of some interest to make a short resume. We cannot compare Russian and Western spirituality because the terms have different meaning. In the West spirituality is first of all some personal effort with all signs of individual uniqueness. Spirituality of St. Francis differs from spirituality of St. Dominic.

In Russia from XIX c. historians tried to find the traces of different spiritual traditions similar to the Western ones. Most systematic was Georgiy Fedotov who tried to explain how spirituality of St. Nil Sorskiy differed from spirituality of Joseph Volotskiy. Still, his efforts are more poetry or essaistic a la Chesterton, invention rather than revelation.

In Russia "spirituality" (duhovnost') is first of all the way of collectivist control over individual. That is why theological academies are called in Russia "duhovniye academii," the order of priests was called "duhovnoye sosloviye" (literally, "the estate of Spirit".). Spirituality is first of all reaching God through precise following to dogma, so to be Orthodox is to be spiritual.

There is an exit from this blind alley. Berdyaev wrote that spirituality must be not only ascension to the heaven but also convergence (descension?) to the earth humankind. Is it possible to make out of evil spirituality of collectivism the good spirituality of creativity, both personal and social? I hope so.