Soloviev as young man
The prophetic character of Russian literature and religious thought has often been stressed; this is particularly true of the writers and thinkers who, at the end of the nineteenth century, shaped the destiny of Russia's spiritual culture. Dostoevsky and Tolstoy, however different their social moral and religious trends, placed before humanity the problem of a spiritual crisis; and this crisis is developing almost exactly along the lines which these two modern prophets pictured with dramatic intensity. There is a third voice in this great dialogue of more than fifty years ago, the voice of Vladimir Soloviev…
"Soloviev was an intimate friend of Dostoevsky. They mutually influenced each other in their interminable conversations which are reflected in The Brothers Karamazov. From Dostoevsky derived his idealistic concept of the Russian people as God-bearers, united with Christ in mystical love."
The nationalism of the Slavophiles informed much of Soloviev's early work, but when he became acquainted with the Philosophical Letters of Chaadayev, his mental horizon widened to embrace a universal scheme. Although he preserved his belief in the mission of the Russian people, he now conceived the end of this mission as unity ... He penetrated to the roots of the whole, religious question which is concerned not with the destiny of a nation but with the destiny of man ..."
"Now let us look at Soloviev as he appeared to his contemporaries. He was described as 'slim, dark, shut up in himself and somewhat enigmatic', as 'exceedingly thin, almost emaciated,' with a mane of dark hair and eye-brows as black as coal in striking contrast to the almost translucent pallor of his face. His blue-gray eyes were 'full of mysterious beauty and sadness'. It is an unforgettable face, the face of a dreamer and a prophet. He was austere, almost melancholy. On the eve of this sudden conversion, he had been, as he himself relates, well-nigh to despair. But he was subject to outbursts of almost wild gaiety; his laughter would ring out in a solemn assembly, when least anticipated . .
Some of his poems are of a vast religious inspiration, others strange and eerie as dreams. He was a prolific, brilliant journalist, a distinguished historian. His public speeches were intensely moving. In one of them, like Tolstoy, he protested against capital punishment… He was hailed as a true humanitarian by the intelli-gentsia but the government compelled him to resign from the university faculty."
"Soloviev's works presaged the dawn of our twentieth century humanism ... He set forth in works of strength and clarity the doctrine of the divine origin of man. He placed the God-man at the center of creation and showed the world to be informed by the Trinitarian principle .... The principle of unity was disclosed to him with extraordinary clarity. Whatever the intricacy of his meta-physical dreams, this absolute totality of things is the flaming center of his teaching. 'Apart from God,' he wrote, "Who is the very principle of unity, no union is possible. He expressed this total harmony in one of his most beautiful poems:
The
barriers fall, the chains are melted
By Divine fire
And the eternal morning of new life
Rises in all, and all in one.
"Soloviev's christological interpretation of the world led him toward ethical principles which he described in his famous work, The Justification of the Good. It is the basis of his social teaching which was carried on by his disciple Nicholas Berdyaev and has continued to stimulate modern Orthodox thought. It coincides with Western Catholic trends, with the Christian humanism of Jacques Maritain. Soloviev may be considered the precursor of personalism."
The union of the Churches was at the center not only of Soloviev's writings and meditations but at the center of his life. Godmanhood was for him the very incarnation of unity, this unity which had been torn by sin and could only be repaired through the resolute striving of all Christians. The "selfish principle of division" was felt by him as a burning wound, the wound of Amfortas (in Wagner's Parsifal) which only the mystery of the Holy Grail could finally care.
Was this message, the call to reunion addressed to the Orthodox or to the Catholics? Doubtlessly to both, because what he most clearly beheld was the one-sided growth and development of East and West, to use his own words. What lie meant was not one-sidedness of dogma, but two, one-sided bodies of tradition, liturgy, devotional and ascetic life; springing from the same Christian stem, the two branches, East and West had become tragically opposed ....
The task of reunion in the eyes of Soloviev was particularly obtainable between Orthodox and Catholics. He wrote in The Russian Idea that Orthodoxy is as much as it is expressed in the faith of the people and in liturgy is entirely in accordance with true Christianity. "The Russian Church," he goes on to say, "in so far as it preserves the truth of faith, and does not break with the apostolic succession and with the real operation of the sacraments, essentially participates in the universal Church." Therefore, the very mission of the Russian people, the fundamental Russian Idea, as he called it, is to achieve in practice this union which already exists in spirit ..
"Soloviev," wrote Alexander Blok, "opened the window through which blew on us the wind ot the future." This is true in more than one sense, for many ideas expressed by Soloviev ... fit our times better than they did the age in which he lived. He was one of the first thinkers who denounced in advance the great sins of the twentieth century: totalitarian ideology, race-hatred, the excesses of nationalism. But we are here mostly concerned with Soloviev's approach to the problem of union of the Churches ... In fact, what has now come to be called the Eirenic Movement, an expression stemming from the Greek words, peace conciliation is the direct application and development of a truth, historical and theological, which Soloviev's vision had perceived in a flash of radiant light ....
There are and have been during the last decades, Eirenic manifestations of extreme importance; all of them point to the correct-ness of Soloviev's views, expressed half a century ago. There has been the work of Father Congar, the French Dominican whose book Divided Christendom has become a model of Eirenic thought. There has been the task accomplished by the Eastern Churches Quarterly, which is due to a group of English Benedictines. There has been the effort of the Belgian Benedictine Community of Amay-Chevetogne and its publication Irenikon, a pioneer of the rapprochement between Catholics and Orthodox. There has been all over the world the sponsoring and development of the Eastern rite intended for Catholics of Eastern and particularly of Slavonic origin. This has revealed to the Catholics in the West, the beauty and profound significance of the Eastern liturgy. Theological, historical and liturgical research in a characteristically eirenic atmosphere, has been pursued by the Dominican study-center Istina, in Paris ....
These various movements have been rendered possible by the encouragement given to the Eirenic Movement by the successive Popes, starting with the encyclical Orientalis Dignitas, which recommended that Orthodox joining the Universal Church, remain in their rite. During recent years, the Vatican has taken further steps by the incorporation of a number of Orthodox saints, including the great Saint Sergius of Radonezh, into the Catholic Church Calendar ....
There is a problem which requires more than any other, perhaps, the spirit of Eirenicism. It is the problem of the Church in Russia today; Berdyaev has expressed, in the pages of the present issue his deep concern for the hostile attitude of the Western Church regarding religious life in Russia ... Many misinformed or not sufficiently informed Christians in the West hastily condemn the Orthodox Church in Russia for its link with a Communist atheist government. They do not take into account the heroic struggle of the Church which has preserved through years of persecution and oppression, not only its liturgical and sacramental life, but the body of its dogma. Neither do Western Christians grasp the significance of the fact that the Russian people have not yielded in their vast majority to atheist propaganda and have remained deeply attached to their faith.
But here once more, the Eirenic spirit is striving to correct inadequate and hasty judgments. In Russie et Chrétienté, the review study of the situation of the Russian Church by Professor Maklakov and writing in the same review, Father Christopher Dumont, Director of the Center, reminds us of the suffering of the Russian Church (and of the Russian people during the war) He also reminds us of our own misery and quotes the words of the Apostles:
Bear ye one anothers' burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ (Gal. 6.2).
Such are, briefly outlined, the immediate results of the Eirenic spirit, which is first of all a habit of mind. But it is ultimately speaking something more than a mere intellectual state. It is a manifestation of a state of grace, and as such, can only be acquired and developed through supernatural means. The fulfillment of the law of Christ, the solidarity of all men who serve Him, is an aim requiring a lifetime of work, sacrifice and humble prayer for divine light.
"The works of God are difficult," said Soloviev at the hour of his death. He had no outer proof of his achievements, no satisfaction but the feeling of having toiled in a field which seemed barren and laid waste by the "great quarrel between East and West." But he stressed all his life, and with particular insistence, that it was not only the Christian's distant aim, but his immediate duty to work for union. Soloviev 'opened the window through which blew the wind of the future,' because he knew that the future is mysteriously enclosed in the present; today's barren and difficult task is quickened by the vision of tomorrow."
―Excerpted from Third Hour: Issue III, 1946-47
