The Revolution of 1917 was not only a political event. It posed several basic questions for the Orthodox consciousness, and not only for Russians, but also on a world scale. It should never be forgotten that before 1917, in world Orthodoxy, Russia was perceived by many as the protector and, in a sense, the successor of the Byzantine Empire, that is, in creation, the "normal context" for the existence of the Orthodox Church was the Christian Empire. Consequently, the first question for many, and especially for the Russian exiles, who were cut off from their "normal" cultural and political context and stripped of their roots, the first question was whether the Russian Orthodox Church could exist in the absence of a Christian empire. In other words, whether the existence of the Church is connected with a certain socio-political system. Those people in question gave a decidedly negative answer to the last question. In this way they not only asserted that the Church of Christ is not bound up with any social order, but also, recalling the first centuries of persecuted Christianity, that the Church of Christ can and even must exist under any system, no matter how godless it may be.

The second question, which partly follows from the previous one, relates to the deepest essence of Orthodoxy. This is the question of whether Orthodoxy is connected with a certain culture. Can it exist outside the context of "traditionally" Orthodox cultures, such as Greek, Middle Eastern, Russian, Bulgarian, Romanian, Serbian, etc.? Through posing this question, our fathers came to an even more essential and fundamental question: what exactly is the deepest essence of Orthodoxy itself? The best formulation of the answer to these questions was given by Father Sergius Bulgakov in his book "Orthodoxy": "Orthodoxy is the Church of Christ on earth. The Church of Christ is not an institution, but a new life with Christ and in Christ, moved by the Holy Spirit."

Through thinking of this type, many Russian theologians in the 1920s and 1930s came to an understanding of Orthodoxy that did not necessarily mean that it was necessarily connected with one or another culture – Greek, Russian, etc. – but pointed to its universal character. In other words, they understood that Orthodoxy can be Greek, Russian, Romanian, Bulgarian, etc.; but also French, English, American or African. They understood that Orthodoxy is called to enlightenment, to the churching of any culture, whatever it may be.

Having come to this realization of Orthodoxy and at the same time being in close contact with Western Christians who had long lost unity with the Orthodox Church, some of these theologians turned to the study of the first millennium of Christianity, during which the Christian West and East lived in full Eucharistic conciliar communion. They gradually began to seek, together with Western theologians and historians of the Church, common roots in patristic theology. In this way, they entered the very heart of the ecumenical movement. In our time, the general search for roots concerns not only patristic theology, but also the single conciliar church consciousness.

The generation of Russian exiles has learned to understand in a profound sense that ecumenism in no way implies any kind of "betrayal" of Orthodoxy, that, on the contrary, ecumenical work is a witness to Orthodoxy. But on one condition: on the condition that Orthodoxy is the most genuine, the most true, and therefore constantly cleansed of historical distortions and harmful accretions. These people themselves have learned and taught the next generation to always distinguish between what is basic, essential (the only thing that is necessary, connected with the fact that Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever – Heb. 13:8), and what is secondary, transitory. They have revived a form of asceticism, the essence of which is that true witness to Orthodoxy implies a constant "conversion" to Orthodoxy of the Orthodox themselves.

Among those who in our time have understood this especially deeply and bear witness of an exceptionally high quality before modern society, which is so thirsty for the living word from Christians, is the French Orthodox theologian Olivier Clément. He is one of the first both in terms of his teaching at the St. Sergius Orthodox Theological Institute in Paris, and in terms of his literary work, through his numerous books and articles. The proposed book is an invitation to drink the living water from the fountain of patristic tradition.

Nikolay LOSSKY,

Professor of St. Sergius

Orthodox Theological Institute in Paris.

FROM THE AUTHOR

This book is not popularizing, but rather informational, "catechetical" in nature. For most people today, Christianity is something unknown, and devoid of even its exotic appeal because of its endless distortions and caricatures. In response to numerous requests, I have tried in this book to give the floor to the greatest witnesses of the One Church, common to all Christian confessions of Tradition, which alone makes possible "ecumenism in time," that is, remembrance of primordial experience.

Tradition is not a letter repeated by some and rejected by others, or dissected for scientific purposes. Tradition is an expression of spiritus juvenescens, "the spirit of youth," as we would say after Irenaeus of Lyons. This is a deep but living memory of inspiration, of the great "Pascha," of the great transition of the God-Man to God-manhood and the universe, as the Russian religious philosophers of the beginning of the century said, whom I willingly recognize as my teachers.