Morozova D. The Theme of Human and the Environment in Byzantine Ascetic Tradition

The thesis deal with the Byzantine patristic“ecology” – the discource of universe viewed as a home . Using the original Greek texts as the base, the author tries to compare the “ecological” reflections of the main theological schools of Preiconoclastic period – Antiochian, Alexandrian, and Kappadokian. The contribution of each trend into the mature Byzantine thought is also under examination. The ascetics which particularly closely connects anthropology with cosmology on the one hand, and with theology on the other hand is in the focus of the research. Relying mostly on the original texts of Greek-speaking Syrian fathers (and also on some Syrian texts in modern translations) the author demonstrates the great dependence of Antiochian “ecological” thought upon the traditional Near Eastern cosmology. Attributed to the Bible, the ancient notion of the world in the form of a house became the inevatable framework for the rich and manifold environmental conceptions of the Syrian Сhristians. These conceptions, however, show their truly Scriptural inspiration in their reflections on man’s mystical management in the inhabited world, on the mutual dependence between human and the environment, on the gnoseological limits imposed by humans position inside cosmos etc. This fruitful “ecological” thought was largely isolated from the rest of the Church due to its strong tie with the specific Syrian cosmology, guarded as quasi-dogma. However, in the texts of the most outstanding Antiochian thinkers, such as St. John Chrysostom, St. Ephrem or St. Isac of Nineveh, we do not find any dogmatical approach towards the cosmological models, while their environmental reflections are extremely developed.