What Does It Mean to be «an Origenist»? A Case of Aleksey Khomyakov

Abstract

••• Abstract: KAMENSKIKH, Aleksey – KAMENSKIKH, Vasiliy. What Does It Mean to be «an Origenist»? A Case of Aleksey Khomyakov . The article discusses the hypothesis about alleged «Origenism» of Aleksey Khomyakov, one of the leaders of Slavophile movement in 19th-century Russia. Two versions of this hypothesis, “a strong” and “a weak” one, were offered by Basil (Vadim) Lourié in his works of 1994 and 2020. For clarification of this hypothesis’ “conceptual context” an attempt was made to discern and conceptualize two main approaches in studies on forms of intellectual heritage reception of Origen of Alexandria, first of all in Russia. The first approach can with some degree of convenience be called “realist”: Origenism within it is considered as some stable philosophical or theological position, interpreted in an extremely broad manner – as a kind of sharp platonization of Christianity, or as an attempt at free philosophizing within Christian tradition. In frameworks of this approach, reception of any element of Origenism by a later thinker intends him accept all the position, makes him an “Origenist” and a Platonist. Unlike this “realist” approach, the “nominalist” one assumes to consider intellectual heritage of Origen of Alexandria as a complex set of theological and philosophical hypotheses, peculiarities of style – and the personality of the Alexandrian thinker. This approach demands much more delicate treatment of the terms “Origenist” and “Origenism”. Applied to B. Lourié’s hypothesis about Aleksey Khomyakov’s Origenism, this distinguishing interprets “the strong” version of the hypothesis as “extremely realistic” and “the weak” version as a form of moderate realism, much more nuanced and historically correct. This version states the importance which had an image of Origen’s doctrine framed by August Neander in the second volume of his “General History of the Christian Religion and Church” (1843) for Khomyakov’s theological and philosophical views.