This book presents a comprehensive study of the influence of Immanuel Kant's Critical Philosophy in the Russian Empire, spanning the period from the late 19th century to the Bolshevik Revolution. It systematically details the reception bestowed on Kant's ideas during his lifetime and up to and through the era of the First World War. The book traces the tensions arising in the early 19th century between the imported German scholars, who were often bristling with the latest philosophical developments in their homeland, and the more conservative Russian professors and administrators. The book goes on to examine the frequently neglected criticism of Kant in the theological institutions throughout the Russian Empire as well as the last remaining, though virtually unknown, embers of Kantianism during the reign of Nicholas I. With the political activities of many young radicals during the subsequent decades having been amply studied, this book focuses on their largely ignored attempts to grapple with Kant's transcendental idealism. It also presents a complete account of the resurgence of interest in Kant in the last two decades of that century, and the growing attempts to graft a transcendental idealism onto popular social and political movements. The book draws attention to the young and budding Russian neo-Kantian movement that mirrored developments in Germany before being overtaken by political events.

The Oxford Handbook of Russian Religious Thought is an authoritative new reference and interpretive volume detailing the origins, development, and influence of one of the richest aspects of Russian cultural and intellectual life - its religious ideas. After setting the historical background and context, the Handbook follows the leading figures and movements in modern Russian religious thought through a period of immense historical upheavals, including seventy years of officially atheist communist rule and the growth of an exiled diaspora with, e.g., its journal The Way. Therefore the shape of Russian religious thought cannot be separated from long-running debates with nihilism and atheism. Important thinkers such as Losev and Bakhtin had to guard their words in an environment of religious persecution, whilst some views were shaped by prison experiences. Before the Soviet period, Russian national identity was closely linked with religion - linkages which again are being forged in the new Russia. Relevant in this connection are complex relationships with Judaism. In addition to religious thinkers such as Philaret, Chaadaev, Khomiakov, Kireevsky, Soloviev, Florensky, Bulgakov, Berdyaev, Shestov, Frank, Karsavin, and Alexander Men, the Handbook also looks at the role of religion in aesthetics, music, poetry, art, film, and the novelists Dostoevsky and Tolstoy. Ideas, institutions, and movements discussed include the Church academies, Slavophilism and Westernism, theosis, the name-glorifying (imiaslavie) controversy, the God-seekers and God-builders, Russian religious idealism and liberalism, and the Neopatristic school. Occultism is considered, as is the role of tradition and the influence of Russian religious thought in the West.

"Our Lord Jesus Christ is the Conqueror of death, and, consequently, of the death of our departed ones. Let us say to them in Him, not 'Farewell,' but 'Until we meet again, beloved spouse, good parents, dear brother or sister. Until we meet again!'" While many are now abandoning traditional religious practice, none the less, the reality of death and questions regarding the afterlife remain at the forefront of spiritual consciousness. How Our Departed Ones Live is the answer to those who seek the truth as expressed through the experience of the Orthodox Church. This comprehensive book discusses the source of death and mortality, the inner connection and mutual relationship between the living and the departed, intercession by the living for the departed, and life beyond the grave. It will comfort the grieving and inspire all Christians to strengthen their resolve as they seek first the Kingdom of God, and His righteousness.

This book explores the changes underwent by the Orthodox Churches of Eastern and Southeastern Europe as they came into contact with modernity. The movements of religious renewal among Orthodox believers appeared almost simultaneously in different areas of Eastern Europe at the end of the nineteenth and during the first decades of the twentieth century. This volume examines what could be defined as renewal movement in Eastern Orthodox traditions. Some case studies include the God Worshippers in Serbia, religious fraternities in Bulgaria, the Zoe movement in Greece, the evangelical movement among Romanian Orthodox believers known as Oastea Domnului (The Lord's Army), the Doukhobors in Russia, and the Maliovantsy in Ukraine. This volume provides a new understanding of processes of change in the spiritual landscape of Orthodox Christianity and various influences such as other non-Orthodox traditions, charismatic leaders, new religious practices and rituals.

"It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us," the apostles declared at the conclusion of their council described in Acts 15. This apostolic council was only the first of many councils as Christians sought to discern the will of God in the midst of historic challenges. The faithful continued to struggle to express that apostolic faith in new words, new languages, new places, and new times. Many issues-the interaction of science and faith, divinity and humanity, the relationship between Church and State, how differing religious communities can learn to live together in common geographic areas and political systems-will still seem familiar and pertinent. This is the story of that struggle from the days of the New Testament up to the fall of the city of Constantinople (AD 1453). It is the story of the Christian community in the eastern Mediterranean which eventually became known as the Byzantine Empire. Each chapter examines the personalities and theology that were inextricably entwined at the heart of the conflicts, debates, and events that shaped the medieval world and the modern cultures of Greece, the Middle East, and Eastern Europe.

The icon of the Mother of God "Quick to Hear" is widely venerated throughout the Orthodox world; a copy of the icon--brought from Mount Athos to Russia in 1877--survived both a fire and the destruction of churches under communism to come to rest at the St. Alexander Nevsky Lavra in St. Petersburg. This book offers a short history of the icon's place in the Russian Orthodox Church and recounts some of the miracles associated with its veneration. Included here are stories of the help and consolation given to faithful from all walks of life, including farmers, merchants, homemakers, soldiers, dukes, duchesses, and the much loved St. Elizabeth the New Martyr.

The Byzantine emperor Leo VI (886-912), was not a general or even a soldier, like his predecessors, but a scholar, and it was the religious education he gained under the tutelage of the patriarch Photios that was to distinguish him as an unusual ruler. This book analyses Leo's literary output, focusing on his deployment of ideological principles and religious obligations to distinguish the characteristics of the Christian oikoumene from the Islamic caliphate, primarily in his military manual known as the Taktika. It also examines in depth his 113 legislative Novels, with particular attention to their theological prolegomena, showing how the emperor's religious sensibilities find expression in his reshaping of the legal code to bring it into closer accord with Byzantine canon law. Meredith L. D. Riedel argues that the impact of his religious faith transformed Byzantine cultural identity and influenced his successors, establishing the Macedonian dynasty as a 'golden age' in Byzantium.

For all their reputed and professed preoccupation with the afterlife, the Byzantines had no systematic conception of the fate of the soul between death and the Last Judgement. Death and the Afterlife in Byzantium marries for the first time liturgical, theological, literary, and material evidence to investigate a fundamental question: what did the Byzantines believe happened after death? This interdisciplinary study provides an in-depth analysis and synthesis of hagiography, theological treatises, apocryphal texts and liturgical services, as well as images of the fate of the soul in manuscript and monumental decoration. It also places the imagery of the afterlife, both literary and artistic, within the context of Byzantine culture, spirituality, and soteriology. The book intends to be the definitive study on concepts of the afterlife in Byzantium, and its interdisciplinary structure will appeal to students and specialists from a variety of areas in medieval studies.

Theosis, or the principle of divine-human communion, sparks the theological imagination of Orthodox Christians and has been historically important to questions of political theology. In The Mystical as Political: Democracy and Non-Radical Orthodoxy, Aristotle Papanikolaou argues that a political theology grounded in the principle of divine-human communion must be one that unequivocally endorses a political community that is democratic in a way that structures itself around the modern liberal principles of freedom of religion, the protection of human rights, and church-state separation. Papanikolaou hopes to forge a non-radical Orthodox political theology that extends beyond a reflexive opposition to the West and a nostalgic return to a Byzantine-like unified political-religious culture. His exploration is prompted by two trends: the fall of communism in traditionally Orthodox countries has revealed an unpreparedness on the part of Orthodox Christianity to address the question of political theology in a way that is consistent with its core axiom of theosis; and recent Christian political theology, some of it evoking the notion of "deification," has been critical of liberal democracy, implying a mutual incompatibility between a Christian worldview and that of modern liberal democracy. The first comprehensive treatment from an Orthodox theological perspective of the issue of the compatibility between Orthodoxy and liberal democracy, Papanikolaou's is an affirmation that Orthodox support for liberal forms of democracy is justified within the framework of Orthodox understandings of God and the human person. His overtly theological approach shows that the basic principles of liberal democracy are not tied exclusively to the language and categories of Enlightenment philosophy and, so, are not inherently secular.

James Bethune-Baker (1861 1951) was a British theologian who held the position of Lady Margaret's Professor of Divinity at the University of Cambridge from 1911 to 1935. In this book, which was first published in 1908, Bethune-Baker provides a detailed discussion of Nestorius and his views, putting forward the viewpoint 'that Nestorius was not 'Nestorian''. Detailed notes are incorporated throughout the text. This book will be of value to anyone with an interest in Nestorius, theology and the history of Christianity."

This volume brings together in one compass the Orthodox Churches - the ecumenical patriarchate of Constantinople and the Russian, Armenian, Ethiopian, Egyptian and Syrian Churches. It follows their fortunes from the late Middle Ages until modern times - exactly the period when their history has been most neglected. Inevitably, this emphasises differences in teachings and experience, but it also brings out common threads, most notably the resilience displayed in the face of alien and often hostile political regimes. The central theme is the survival against the odds of Orthodoxy in its many forms into the modern era. The last phase of Byzantium proves to have been surprisingly important in this survival. It provided Orthodoxy with the intellectual, artistic and spiritual reserves to meet later challenges. The continuing vitality of the Orthodox Churches is evident for example in the Sunday School Movement in Egypt and the Zoe brotherhood in Greece.

Christianity and monasticism have long flourished along the Nile in Middle Egypt, the region stretching from al-Bahnasa (Oxyrhynchus) to Dayr al-Ganadla. The contributors to this volume, international specialists in Coptology from around the world, examine various aspects of Coptic civilization in Middle Egypt over the past two millennia. The studies explore Coptic art and archaeology, architecture, language and literature. The artistic heritage of monastic sites in the region is highlighted, attesting to their important legacies in the region.

From diverse international and multi-disciplinary perspectives, the contributors to this volume analyze the experiences, challenges and responses of Orthodox Churches to the foundational transformations associated with the dissolution of the USSR.

An exposition of Orthodox systematic theology, 'Gazing on God' is written from the point of view of the experience of the faithful, drawing on traditional icons and liturgy. By tracing the depth of some key Christian concepts -salvation, Logos, the Trinity- Andreas Andreopoulos provides a framework for the theology of experience. In the following chapters seven select icons are analyzed, in order to demonstrate the theological ideas and themes that may be revealed by studying Christianity through iconography. The analysis touches on topics such as time (the eternity of God, 'flat' liturgical time), space, the Church as the Body of Christ, and the Trinity. 'Gazing on God' offers to all Christian traditions a demonstration that, while our understanding of the development of Christian views and attitudes is guided by the history of theological ideas, Christianity includes from the beginning a strong dimension of meta-linguistic knowledge, which is expressed in its liturgy, as well as in its symbolism.