Sablon L. The concept of tradition in Russian Orthodox neo-patristic thought

In the dissertation, for the first time, a comprehensive historical and theological analysis of the concept of tradition in Russian Orthodox neo-patristic thought is carried out. In particular, the tradition concept of Fr. G. Florovsky and V. N. Lossky is analyzed in the context of their versions of neo-patristic synthesis and in close connection with their ecumenical views. This analysis demonstrates that their conceptualization of tradition, which in many respects intersected with, was even partially determined by, certain Slavophil ideas, marked a new and decisive turn in the understanding of this concept in post-revolutionary Orthodox theology. Under the leadership of these thinkers and their like-minded colleagues, mystical discourse in Orthodox theology was revived and received a new round of development, within the framework of which the idea of tradition acquired existential, essentialist (personalistic) and mystical content. It is established in this dissertation that the term “Tradition” was used by the neo-patristic theologians idiosyncratically, if not solipsistically. The neo-patristic concept of tradition has, as a reaction against the reception of Western European formulations and emphases by Russian academic theologians and philosophers who used them in theorizing tradition, significantly and with insufficient substantiation departed, not only from the term’s semantic and biblical meaning, but also from the patristic understanding of tradition. It is brought to light that in the neo-patristic paradigm the boundary between the concept of “living Tradition” and related concepts such as “Church” and “the Holy Spirit” is not always clear. In some cases, an equals sign was even explicitly put between these concepts; in particular Florovsky conceptually equated the concept of “tradition” and the reality of the Church. It is found that this tradition-concept is the methodological basis of the neo-patristic paradigm, determining its anti-ecumenical, particularistic, absolutist and traditionalist properties, a result of which was neo-patristic Orthodoxy falling, for a long time, out of modern ecclesiastical, academic and social discourses. It is demonstrated that, certain merits notwithstanding, the neo-patristic concept of Florovsky and Lossky remains unclear, problematic, controversial and insufficiently substantiated.