Showing papers by "David Martin published in 2011"
TL;DR: The Russian Orthodox Intellectual Tradition and the Philosophical Discourse of Political Modernity as mentioned in this paper is a well-known source of inspiration for our work, which is also related to our work.
Abstract: Community after Totalitarianism: The Russian Orthodox Intellectual Tradition and the Philosophical Discourse of Political Modernity KRISTINA STOECKL, 2008 Frankfurt: Peter Lang 199 pp., US$56.95 IS...
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TL;DR: Payne and Petrunin this paper argue that the political hesychasm of the 20th century represents a revival of a political theology that existed in the late Byzantium, and provide evidence for this political period by referring to the work of nineteenthand twentieth-century authors.
Abstract: Russian state is a common topic. The main difference between the two present studies is the degree of critical theoretical reflection. Payne distances himself from the works he analyses by employing social constructivism, while Petrunin assumes the role of advocate for the Neo-Orthodox cause. This importance difference, which may reflect both the authors’ personal preferences and the different cultures of scholarship in the US and Russia, is balanced by a striking similarity in the authors’ approaches: they both accept ‘political hesychasm’ as an historical phenomenon. This, I believe, is problematic. Both argue that twentieth-century ‘political hesychasm’ represents a revival of a political theology that existed in the late Byzantium. Both provide evidence for this ‘political’ period by referring to the work of nineteenthand twentieth-century authors, who are all Orthodox theologians and historians. This discrepancy is particularly striking in Payne, who painstakingly reconstructs in an historical–critical manner the actual debate between Palamas and Balaam, i.e. the theological struggle over hesychasm, and then supports the argument that there was indeed a political period of hesychasm with twentieth-century sources. Thus, the authors’ main thesis lacks grounding in historical–critical research of this historical period of the Byzantium. Such studies generally agree on the importance of the hesychast controversy and acknowledge the effect of this controversy on ecclesiastical politics and general culture, but the claim about the factual reality of ‘political hesychasm’ remains problematic. It seems obvious that social constructivism is not only at work in the Greek Neo-Orthodox and the Russian Neo-Byzantine movements, but also in the works of scholars—chiefly Prokhorov and Meyendorff—who are treated here as the authorities on the subject.