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This study attempts to examine novel approaches to the subject of divine and human freedom by certain eminent Russian thinkers of the diaspora. In the first place, a brief survey of the evolution of the notion of freedom in modernity tries to show that its very conceptualization, as well as its relation to nature, changed in relation to the Patristic era. The Russians of the diaspora experienced extreme consequences of the 'programme of modernity', such as the Bolshevik revolution that led to their exile, but also the crises of the societies in which they found refuge. They were thus put into conditions that demanded novel historical reflection in a quest to find their own particular voice that would offer an alternative to the different versions of the programme of modernity. An Orthodox notion of freedom that would be different from both socialist collectivism and liberal capitalism, without however glorifying the medieval past, was urgent. In this paper we shall observe the experimentation of Nikolai Berdyaev with the notion of the Ungrund and of Georges Florovsky with that of the podvig, as well as the very original use of the Patristic term hyperousion by Vladimir Lossky. We shall also examine the notion of freedom in relation to creative artistic genius, to mystical transcendence, and to historical contingency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper I will examine Professor Christos Yannaras' engagement with Political Theology. I will observe his critique to what he perceives as a dominant type of Political Theology in his age. I will insist on the fact that what Yannaras criticizes is a possible redundancy of the adjective "Political" in the term "Political Theology," since every genuine Theology is already political in nature. This means that Yannaras is reacting against a specific type of Political Theology, which he perceives as an artificial attempt to reunite at the ideological level two domains, namely the secular and the transcendental, which are divided at the ontological level due to the dualism of Western metaphysics. Political Theology is reproached as a contemporary version of Apologetics, i.e., an arrière-garde battle of Christianity in the age of secularization; Yannaras, nevertheless, proposes his own version of Political Theology, which is based on apophaticism and on what he terms "critical ontology," referring to a community that attains its truth through relations open to empirical confirmation or falsification in the future. I shall consequently observe Yannaras' complex relation with Marxism. Yannaras does assume a sort of humanist and Aristotelian Marx, by exalting the contribution of the German philosopher to a paradigm shift in the History of Western thought. I shall also imply that Yannaras performs a deconstructive lecture of Marx and tries to open the Marxist text to novel interpretations against the scientism and the positivism that prevailed in Marxism as an official ideology of socialist regimes. I shall conclude by an overview of Yannaras' philosophical gesture as a Eucharistic gathering of elements in tension, such as Phenomenology and Metaphysics, stasis and energeia, polis and the Ecclesia, and, last but not least, Politics and Theology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study attempts to examine how Saint Maximus the Confessor (c. 580-662) uses terms related to the notion of κράτος (power), such as επικράτεια (domination, prevalence) and έγκράτεια (continence), in order to denote a domination which is not free from passion. Even though terms like έγκράτεια might have a positive meaning, signifying for example the mastery over one's impulses, they are inferior to απάθεια, to which they might be contrasted. According to Maximus, domination (έπικράτεια) might also be viewed as a form of weakness, since the one who exercises domination is in turn affected by the one dominated. Conversely, true love is linked only to απάθεια (impassibility), which signifies a deeper overcoming of the dominated passion. Maximus' thought thus presents some dialectical insights, since it highlights the influence of the dominated upon the dominator and a possible shifting of roles in a vicious circle. But in its ontological and eschatological depth, it is non-dialectical since the goal is absolute freedom from the dialectic of domination (έπικράτεια). The study will focus particularly on the vicious circle of pleasure and pain (ήδονή/όδύνη) and one significant use of the term έπικράτεια in this context. It will be founded on Saint Maximus' Christology, according to which the 7th century Father emphatically rejects the notion of a Monoenergism, in which Christ would have a unique operation through the domination of his divine operation over his human one. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]