Religious and Philosophical Prerequisites of the Eurasianism: Personal Religiosity and Theoretical Foundations

The article analyzes the Eurasianist religious doctrine, the religious views of the leaders of the 1920s Eurasian movement and their relationship with the hierarchs of the Russian Orthodox Church in exile and at home.  Until now, this issue has not been  featured in special papers or monographs. The attention of researchers has been attracted to the political, ideological and other aspects of the Eurasian doctrine. Two of the founders of the Eurasian movement, Georges Florovsky and prince Alexander von Lieven, entered the Church. Florovsky tried to take  the  lead and turn the  movement to purely religious and philosophical development. This shows that, in addition  to  political, anti-colonial, economic  and  geopolitical components, the basis of Eurasianism contains  a strong  religious and  philosophical  element, which is often  underestimated.  The Eurasians unconditionally supported the Russian Orthodox Church and Patriarch Tikhon and condemned the Karlovci schism that led to the emergence of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia. They opposed Catholicism and attempts at proselytism on the part of Catholics who provided assistance to Russian emigrants, pursuing their selfish motives — for example, they offered to teach children, forcing them  to change  religion. Eurasians published  a collection named  Rossiya I Latinstvo (Russia and the Roman Catholic Faith), condemning  the church union, ecumenism  and Catholic theology. After participating in the Eurasian edition of Russia and the Roman Catholic Faith, Florovsky left the movement. To fill the vacant place of a theologian and philosopher, Eurasianists involved Lev Karsavin (Levas Karsavinas), who made his debut in the Evraziyskii Vremennik (Eurasian Chronicle) with the  anti-Catholic article titled  Lessons of the Renounced Faith (1925). Karsavin enriched the Eurasianism with many religious and philosophical ideas, but they came into conflict with the concepts of Nikolai Trubetzkoy. Disputes on “the potential Orthodoxy” and “the  symphonic personality” (Karsavin) or “the choral personality” (Trubetzkoy) were a constant background of Eurasianist discussions and correspondence. The Eurasians opposed  the theological opinions of the archpriest  Sergei Bulgakov, who was suspected of Catholic sympathies, and labeled his sophiology as a theological formalization of Freudianism. In relation to the Russian Orthodox Church and the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia, Catholicism and Western confessions in general, as well as to the archpriest Bulgakov’s theological opinions, the Eurasians were of the same mind. The article highlights the differences between the views of the leading Eurasianists on the religion and the Church, outlining the reasons for their confrontation with the Russian Orthodox Church Outside  Russia and  the  loyalty to  the  Russian Orthodox Church persecuted by its homeland.

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