Origen in Russian philosophy: From Gregory Skovoroda to Nikolai Berdyaev

Schole. Ancient Philosophy and the Classical Tradition. 2015. Vol. 9. No. 2. P. 446–459.

Kamenskikh A. A.

Observing the history of reception of Origen’s intellectual heritage by Russian theologians and philosophers of the past few centuries, some key moments and figures are discernible. Those figures are Grigory Skovoroda (1722–1794), Vladimir Solovyov (1853–1900), Sergei Bulgakov (1871–1944), Nicolay Berdyaev (1874–1948) and George Florovsky (1893–1979). Those authors' significance for our outline is determined by (1) their key role in the evolution of Russian theological and philosophical thought and – at the same time – (2) by the fact that those authors’ own intellectual evolution and/or (3) their ideas’ reception by their contemporaries proceeded in close connection withthe problem of Origen. So the process of reception of Origen’s intellectual heritage in Russia was substantially conditioned by the controversies raging around the key representatives of the so-called “Russian religious philosophy.”

Keywords: русская религиозная философия, Владимир Соловьев, Russian religious philosophy, Vladimir Solovyov, Origen of Alexandria, apocatastasis, Biblical allegorism, Grigory Skovoroda, Sergei Bulgakov, Nicolay Berdyaev, George Florovsky, Ориген Александрийский, апокатастасис, библейский аллегоризм, Григорий Сковорода, Сергий Булгаков, Николай Бердяев, Георгий Флоровский