The ecclesiology of N. N. Afanasev, patristic ressourcement and ecumenical prospect in the Russian tradition

Abstract

Chapter I traces the theological background of Afanasev's work in the Russian tradition with its three chief contributants to his thought: Scholasticism, the Slavophile movement, and the early twentieth century religious renaissance. Chapter II outlines his life against the ecclesiastical background of its three main stages: Russia, Serbia, France. Chapter III offers an analytical exposd of his principal published ecclesiological writings, considered in seven blocks forming a broadly chronological sequence. Chapter IV looks at Afanasev's ecclesiology as an exercise in patristic ressourcement, evaluating his use of a number of Church fathers and early ecclesiastical writers. Chapter V draws out the ecumenical potentialities of his work for the reconciling of Orthodox and Catholic traditions in terms of four themes: the concept of 'eucharistic ecclesiology'; the inter-relation of universal and particular in the being of the Church; the relationship of doctrinal magisterium to popular reception; the role of the Roman church and bishop in the koinonla of the churches. Appendices offer (i) a survey of Afanasev's most notable confreres in the Russian ecclesiology of his time, with a view to determining the degree of representativeness his ideas can claim for his own tradition; (ii) a 'placing' of Afanasev within a taxonomy of ecclesiologies, and (iii) an apparatus of notes for the foregoing.