Sobornost

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Sobornost is a Russian word for co-operation between multiple forces. It is frequently translated as "togetherness" or "integrality". It is also the Russian language term for "catholic" [1], its root being found in the word for "church counsels" ("sobor" or "synaxis" and the Greek synod). It is the Russian word for church properties, which is similar to the Greek word μετόχια (Metochion). The term was coined by the early Slavophiles, Ivan Kireevsky and Aleksey Khomyakov, to underline the need for cooperation between people at the expense of individualism on the basis that the opposing groups focus on what is common between them. Khomyakov believed the West was progressively losing its unity. According to Khomyakov this stemmed from the west embracing Aristotle and his defining individualism. Where as Kireevsky believed that Hegel and Aristotle represented the same ideal of reconciliation.

Khomyakov and Kireevsky originally used the term sobornost to designate cooperation within the Russian obshchina, united by a set of common convictions and Orthodox Christian values, as opposed to the cult of individualism in the West.

[edit] Philosophy

As a philosophical term it was used by Nikolai Lossky and other 20th-century Russian thinkers to refer to a middle way of cooperation between several opposing ideas. This is based on the influence that Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel's Dialetic Triad philosophy of Thesis, antithesis, synthesis (though in Russian philosophy this would be considered an oversimplication of Hegel) had on Khomyakov and Kireevsky. Both expressing the idea as organic or spontaneous order.

The synthesis being the point where sobornost is reached causing change. Hegel's formula being the basis for Historicism. Nikolai Lossky for example uses the term to explain what motive would be behind people working together for a common, historical or social goal, rather than pursuing the goal individualistically. Lossky used it almost as a mechanical term to define when the dichotomy or duality of a conflict is transcended or how it is transcended [1].

[edit] Religion

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Kireevsky asserted that "the sum total of all Christians of all ages, past and present, comprise one indivisible, eternal living assembly of the faithful, held together just as much by the unity of consciousness as through the communion of prayer".[2] The term in general means the unity that is the church, based on individual like minded interest.

Starting with Vladimir Soloviev, sobornost was regarded as the basis for the ecumenical movement within the Russian Orthodox Church. Sergei Bulgakov, Nikolai Berdyaev, Pavel Florensky were notable proponents for the spirit of sobornost between different Christian factions. The Pochvennichestvo perspective of sobornost held that it means that one conforms themselves to the truth rather than the truth being subjective to the individual.

[edit] Quotes

Nikolai Lossky explained that sobornost' involved "the combination of freedom and unity of many persons on the basis of their common love for the same absolute values."[3] This is in contrast to the idea of fraternity, which is a submission to a brotherhood as a benefit to the individual. Sobornost being a piety akin to kenosis in that the individual gives up benefit for the community or ecclesia. One driven by theophilos rather than adelfikós.

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

[edit] References

  1. ^ Sciabarra, Chris Matthew (1995). Likening it to the final by product after Plato's Metaxy. Ayn Rand: The Russian Radical. Pennsylvania State University Press. ISBN 0-271-01441-5
  2. ^ Ninian Smart, John Clayton, Patrick Sherry, Steven T. Katz. Nineteenth-Century Religious Thought in the West. Cambridge University Press, 1988. Page 183.
  3. ^ Sciabarra, Chris Matthew (1995). Ayn Rand: The Russian Radical. Pennsylvania State University Press. ISBN 0-271-01441-5. page 28