Alexander Kyrlezhev

Mystical Politics as contradictio in adjecto. Thoughts on the Margins of Aristotle Papanikolaou's Recent Book

Alexander Kyrlezhev-Research Fellow of the Sst. Cyril and Methodius Post-Graduate Institute of the Russian Orthodox Church; Member of the Synodal Biblical and Theological Commission of the Russian Orthodox Church (Moscow, Russia), kyrlezhev@gmail.com

This article is an expanded critical review of the book "The Mystical as Political: Democracy and Non-Radical Orthodoxy" (2012) written by Aristotle Papanikolaou, a contemporary Orthodox theologian. The article contains analysis of key assumptions and arguments of the author of the book who looks at the political regime of liberal democracy from the perspective of Eastern Christian ascetical theology. Position of the author of the book is considered through a possible distinction of several models of the Christian political theology: theology of "using" (the political) versus a theology of "participating" (in the political) versus a-theology of anachoresis (withdrawal from the political). Papanikolaou's interpretation of traditional asceticism as compatible with liberal democracy is criticized, as well as his overall apology of a certain political regime, which seems arbitrary as the author avoids any formulation of specifically Christian political ideal as opposed to secular philosophical foundations of contemporary polity.

Keywords: political theology, liberal democracy, asceticism, theosis, divine-human communion, virtue of love, individual ethics, social ethics, Orthodox culture.

MODERN Orthodox theology does not have much in the way of "political theology." He doesn't have names like Reinhold Niebuhr, Johann Baptist Metz, Jürgen Moltmann, or Stanley Hauerwas-Christian theologians, more or less.-

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schematically reflecting on the topics of the "political" and defining the corresponding theological agenda. As a rule, politics is not thematized in Orthodox theology.

There are several reasons for this. First, as a special disciplinary field, "political theology "emerged only recently (in the second half of the last century) - in connection with the" final " recognition by some Christian theologians of the fact that politics broke away from its past theological foundations and even connotations, becoming an autonomous sphere that requires a theological view from outside. Second, the political contexts of Orthodox theology, until very recently, did not allow us to identify the "political" as a separate object of theological thinking: neither the Orthodox Empire, nor the Ottoman Empire, nor the Communist Empire assumed the existence of a special "political sphere" outside the general structure of essentially total power. And, finally, third, in the space of Orthodox-oriented thought, the subject of political theology has for too long been left to journalism and so-called religious philosophy1, so that it is a special and very difficult task to recapture this subject with theology.

At the same time, these circumstances cannot simply serve as an "excuse" for the absence of a modern Orthodox political theology. The reasons for this absence go deeper than historical circumstances or "contexts". They should be sought primarily in the very specifics of the Orthodox theological tradition. Otherwise, it is difficult to explain why the completely "modern" political context in which the Orthodox diaspora of the 20th century lived in the West did not give rise to theological and political thought corresponding to this context (again, outside the so-called religious philosophy).2
Against this relatively recent historical background, the theological "proposal" of the American Orthodox theologian Aristotle Papanikolaou, published by him two years ago, is more than interesting and provocative.-

1. See Konstantin Antonov's interview in this issue of the magazine.

2. Here we recall the lamentations of Vladimir Varshavsky, who in his book" The Unnoticed Generation " (New York, 1956), reviewing the intellectual (including Christian) history of the Russian diaspora of the XX century, noted the practical lack of Orthodox political theology, consonant with this context: he was able to give only a few of the most general considerations of S. S. Verkhovsky and O. A. Schmemann (see pp. 154-162).

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What is political: democracy and non-radical Orthodoxy " 3 is, one might say, the first more or less systematic Orthodox work on the topic of "political theology", which contains not only the author's view on the relevant issues, but also an overview of the relevant"tradition".

At the same time, it is important to pay attention to the fact that this work, strictly speaking, can no longer be considered as "diasporal" or even narrowly confessional, since Orthodoxy is quite firmly present on the American confessional map and the author, developing an Orthodox approach, is in an intellectual dialogue with "political theologians" belonging to different Christian denominations. Diasporality here only lies in the fact that the author's position is determined primarily by the American political context, which is very far from the situation of political transit (or rather, political uncertainty or incompleteness) in which theologians living in historically Orthodox countries find themselves. This point should not be ignored, since any reflection, no matter how consistent, is always carried out in a context and contains, among other things, reactions to this context. The logic of thought, including theological logic, meets, so to speak, the "logic of life", and when it comes to "political life", this meeting is all the more important for the persuasiveness of the thinker's conclusions.

Before turning to Papanikolaou's main argument, we should say a few words about political theology in general.

Political theology is a theological understanding of the political - both in the sense of theorizing on politics from a religious point of view, and in the sense of justifying religious attitudes to specific political forms and phenomena. In other words, we are talking about theology, which refers to the so - called genitive theologies4, which take the "second step" after theology in the proper sense-as an interpretation of the doctrine of faith. Re-

3. Papanikolaou, A. (2012) The Mystical as Political: Democracy and Non-Radical Orthodoxy. Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press. The title reads in deliberate contrast to the self-designation of the modern Christian theological movement "radical orthodoxy". One of the leaders of this movement, John Milbank, is devoted to a special, rather polemical, section of the book in question. That is why in its title orthodox we translated not as "Orthodoxy", but as "Orthodoxy".

4. Genitive theologies refer, so to speak, to the applied branches of theology (theology of culture, theology of nature, etc.), but also to certain branches of Christian theology of the twentieth century ("theology of the death of God", "theology of the death of God", etc.).

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a religious understanding of not only the natural-cosmic, but also the socio-political dimension of the world is at least possible, and from the point of view of some theologians, a necessary task for Christian theology (which will be discussed here).

The most general question in this case is the question of the religious value of politics, or rather, the value of the political from a religious point of view. It can be solved in different ways. And the first fork is "valuable/not valuable". For a religious life is possible that is as far removed from all politics as possible, if not in principle-a life in the mode of anachoresis, that is, "withdrawal" from the world or from the world, which presupposes as the main goal of religious practice the mystical ("secret", non-public) communication of the "soul with God". The political context of such a practice is indifferent, and, accordingly, no Christian political action, and therefore no political theology justifying it, is simply assumed. But since the political context of religious life still exists (Christians cannot "get out of the world" and should not get out of it5), we can say that this is a kind of parasitism of religion on politics: the political is recognized by default, but it should not interfere with religion to do its business.

However, this is not the only or dominant option in the history of Christianity, but rather a secondary one. For the Christian Church initially (at least since the end of the brief Judeo-Christian period) was focused on a mission, and a "total" one, encompassing, in modern parlance, the entire society and all societies ("Go and teach all nations..." - Mt 28:19), that is, involving Christianization not only of the world, but also of the world. individual, but also social, and therefore political, spheres. Such Christianization did occur in a certain part of the ancient world, giving rise to a corresponding political theology, that is, a certain Christian understanding of both actual politics and the political as such.

If we return to the theoretical formulation of the question, then a positive theological answer to the question of the religious value of politics, in turn, suggests the following fork:

hopes "by Moltmann, " theology of liberation", etc.). Here we mean the first meaning of the term.

5. See the words from the so-called High Priestly Prayer of Jesus Christ to the Father for his disciples: "I do not ask You to take them out of the world, but I ask you to deliver them from the evil one" (John 17: 15).

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use or participate in the policy. "Use" means that politics is an area that, if possible, should work for religion, help it achieve its own religious goals. Accordingly, politics has a religious value insofar as it performs a religious function, although in an additional way in relation to the religion itself (the church). "Participation" implies something else, namely the recognition that politics is one of the spheres of religious activity. Accordingly, participation in politics should be determined (for religious actors) by certain religious ideas, norms, and criteria.

Thus, we have two religious understandings of the political-as subordinate to religion (religious goals) and as independent, that is, as the external environment in which religion is called to act through its adherents (it is important to note here: to act, so to speak, imperatively, regardless of the result of this combined action). In other words, there are two understandings of religion itself. In the case of" use", religion (Christianity) is understood as something that is greater than politics and that therefore can and should include politics in itself - in the integral flow of Sacred history (or "salvation history"). In the case of" participation", religion, on the contrary, is opposed to politics, which retains its autonomy, and therefore religion itself is understood as the same autonomous sphere, from the space of which the reaction to politics should take place; that is, we are talking about religiously justified actions within essentially non-religious politics.6
And another aspect of the topic concerns the question of whether a Christian political ideal is possible. In the first case, yes, it is possible (and exists, in different versions), and in the second - no, it is impossible (due to the mutual autonomy of the religious and political spheres). It should be noted the following: the fact that the political changes in the course of history does not change anything in the religious attitude towards it from the point of view of the "political ideal". Because in the presence of such an ideal, the deviation of history from it is not universal.-

6. Here we abstract from specific historical situations. It is clear that the autonomy of politics (and above all in relation to religion) is a modern situation. At the same time, before the "conversion of Constantine" to Christianity, politics was also an external and autonomous sphere; moreover, it was Christians who first carried out the "mental" secularization of the state, insisting on the possibility of their political loyalty - in addition to recognizing religious ("pagan") elements and justifications for political power.

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as for the ideal itself, and in the absence of an ideal, political history always remains outside the realm of religion.

This theoretical digression was necessary for us in order to somehow "position" the considered work of Aristotle Papanikolaou in the space of possible political theologies. His general position is that he views politics positively and sees it as a sphere of religious participation. But at the same time, it is important to emphasize that the source of justification for such political participation for the author is a specific theology rooted in the eastern mystical - ascetic tradition. Thus, the key "theological move" that the author demonstrates consists in transferring the fundamentally apolitical and, in fact, individualistic logic of "mystical communication of the soul with God" to the intersubjective sphere of political life. This non-trivial move is intended to substantiate the author's main thesis, which is that from the point of view of Orthodox theology, "liberal democracy"7 is the best modern political regime.

At first glance, Papanikolaou's main thesis seems to be nonsense. Where is the ancient Thebaid anchorite who walks the lonely path of spiritual warfare for the sake of acquiring the pre-natural grace of God, and where is the modern citizen living in a liberal-democratic society? What does the "practical metaphysics" of the Orthodox concept of theosis have in common with the post-metaphysical concept of liberal freedoms and human rights?

Indeed, the Eastern Orthodox mystical-ascetic attitude is outside the political, indifferent to it, since it is aimed at one goal: the salvation of the ascetic's own soul through its "union with God". Therefore, in order to expand this individualistic attitude towards "deification" into the political space, the author suggests a chain of reasoning consisting of three links.

First, he explicates the concept of theosis (deification) in such a way that he leaves aside the meaning of"benevolence" 8 and brings to the fore, so to speak, the procedural aspect:

7. In this case, we take this expression in quotation marks, because the author has the most general, "arched" concept, which in principle does not imply any specification.

8. That is, becoming a "partaker [or partaker] of the divine nature" (2 Pet 1:4) - according to the formula " to become by grace what God is by nature."

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"divine-human communion"; however, for his own purposes, he makes this expression synonymous with deification. Thus, "theosis", instead of being a name for an event that takes place in the sphere of" practical metaphysics", becomes primarily a relative or relational category, indicating the significance of one of the aspects of" God - human communication " - human. Further, the author emphasizes that God-human communication, understood as asceticism, "spiritual work", is primarily an effort, "feat", that is, it requires purposeful activity on the part of a person. In other words, "theosis" here is fundamentally devoid of Quietist connotations and does not mean passive perception of sanctifying grace, but, on the contrary, implies activity in relation to the "Other". Finally, the content of this activity is clarified through the understanding of asceticism as "a tradition of thinking about how to fulfill the commandment [about loving God], which is theosis" (p. 3). Asceticism in this sense is born out of the need to learn to love - God and neighbor - by realizing the openness in communication that opens the door to God. access to the love of God. Thus, asceticism is taken beyond the narrowly understood "asceticism of ascetics" and presented in a broad sense - as a way to fulfill the common Christian vocation "to learn to love" (p.4), since "to acquire the virtue of love means to achieve a deeper communion with God" (p. 197).

This chain of reasoning allows the author to construct a new concept of "asceticism of divine-human communion", which gives him the opportunity to move on to political theology (more precisely, to the political theology of participation), while remaining within the framework of Orthodox discourse and, moreover, drawing from its treasury-the Eastern mystical-ascetic tradition.

Here are some typical generalizing statements.

Since the asceticism of God-human communion always presupposes a relationship to the other, politics must be reinterpreted as an ascetic practice... Politics is a form of practice in which people are involved when they are in relation, in Christian parlance, to the wanderer (p.197).

If politics is understood as a meeting with one's neighbor/wanderer, then it should be considered as one of many practices within the asceticism of God-human communication. The political community is not the antithesis of the desert, but one of many deserts,

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in which Christians must fight against demons who seek to hinder the teaching of love. In no other sphere is the temptation to demonize one's neighbor so difficult to overcome or so justified as in the sphere of politics. Therefore, it is in the political sphere that Christians are most called to fulfill the commandment of love (p.4).

Politics as asceticism, to which Christians are called, will contribute to the formation of a political space that resembles liberal democracy. By liberal democracy, I mean nothing more than a political space defined by the common good, in which the principles of equality and freedom apply, so that the first principle includes social and economic equality, and the second-religious freedom, which is promoted by the separation of church and state (p.198).

Recognizing that the fullness of the Christian vision is the church that exists eucharistically, the Christian attempt to realize the Eucharistic way of being in the world is connected with the recognition that the political is not ecclesiastical; that the way Christians exist in the world influences the form of political space; that political space serves purposes different from, but similar to, the Eucharistic one understanding of the church. A political space that structures relationships in a way that reflects the Eucharistic understanding of the ecclesiastical, especially in terms of relationships that manifest the indestructible uniqueness of all human beings , is liberal democracy. But since the political is not ecclesiastical, the political space must structure these relations through the language of human rights. Moreover, without some notion of the common good that is changeable and negotiable, the principles of equality and freedom that are inseparable from liberal democracy will simply explode (p.199).

Papanikolaou's theological project raises two main questions related to each other: (1) the logical validity of his proposed reinterpretation of Orthodox asceticism, and (2) the logical credibility of his conclusion that it is liberal democracy that best corresponds to "ascetic" theology. To begin the discussion with asceticism and the concept of "theosis" is, of course, a very effective and" profitable " step for pravoslavs-

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theologian, indicating, so to speak, the" authenticity " of his thought. However, "asceticism leading to deification" is removed by the author from the actual mystical-ascetic space and identified (through the concept of "asceticism of God-human communication"). with "attitude", which is a radical shift in emphasis. For Christian asceticism is primarily an individual religious practice, and the "relation"is only one of its aspects; moreover, it is not a relation in general, but precisely to the transcendent God. Ascetic openness to the deifying God does not simultaneously mean openness to any other "wanderer". The ascetic goes to the desert just to get away from the "mass of wanderers" and be alone with God. The commandment of love for every "neighbor", of course, remains, but the ascetic path leads just away from neighbors (and the monastery was not originally a Cynovial, that is, coenobitic). Asceticism is antisocial, and therefore apolitical in principle.

Therefore, the very identification of" asceticism of deification "with" God-human communion " in a broad sense seems to be a logical failure. This is also evidenced by the fact that the author adapts various positions and views (regarding the relationship between church and state/society) to the principle of "God-human communion"9 thus understood: successively, Eusebius of Caesarea, John Chrysostom, the Cappadocian fathers, and then - Vladimir Solovyov and Fr. Sergius Bulgakov... He goes on to critically describe the "ethnotheology" of the Romanian intellectual of the interwar period, Nichifor Crainic, and the anti-democratic tendencies observed today in the Orthodox Churches (in Russia, Romania, Serbia, and Greece), and finally comes to the following conclusion:

The logic of God-human communion has formed two main types of Orthodox political vision: (1) openness to various forms of government, since they give priority to the Orthodox faith for the sake of the dominance of Orthodox culture, based on the idea that the penetration of Orthodoxy into the space of culture and politics logically follows from God-human communion; and (d) the establishment of a liberal-democratic form of government, when the separation of church and state is seen as the liberation of the church, which opens the way for the free realization of the divine presence in the materiality of creation.

9. See the chapter "Orthodox Political Theology over the Centuries".

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At the same time, the author adds:

There is a consensus that no aspect of creation can be excluded from the divine presence, that is, that God-human communication is not limited to the human person, even if it depends on the response of the human person (p. 53).

Thus, the author's "development" of the ascetic concept of theosis leads him to a very broad statement of the question of the relationship between the divine and the human, which loses its evidentiary power to confirm his own position. For " asceticism "itself does not give rise to a" liberal-democratic " political theology, since it can be interpreted in different ways.

Moreover, politics - and, in particular, the state-are relegated to the realm of the" materiality of creation "(or referred to as an" aspect of creation"), which, to put it mildly, is controversial from both a theological and secular point of view. If the world-cosmos can be understood as the" matter "or" material environment "of human life, then the world-polis as a special "structure of life" is woven, of course, from non-material relations and connections. Its inherent "materiality" is not a structure-forming principle, but only the material of a culture that is, by definition, immaterial. And this is the materiality of man's creation, not God's.

Liberal democracy, if it works in specific contexts, can be designated as a political environment in which Christians live. The author rightly writes that although this political environment is based on its own secular foundations, it can be understood by Christians as a topos of Christian "politics", that is, Christian political action in the paradigm of participation. However, this possibility itself is not yet a justification for liberal democracy as such - since other positions are possible (and also exist), including Christian justification of various forms of authoritarianism and other non-liberal and non-democratic political regimes. The problem here is that typologically these different positions coincide to the point of contradiction, since they are equally justified from a religious point of view options, and the political theology of "participation" has no logical advantages over the political theology of "use".

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Here we return to the logic/context scheme outlined above. Papanikolaou correctly notes the fact that post-war Orthodox-Diaspora-theology (which was generally "on the rise") there are no topics of political theology. He's writing:

It is not entirely clear why the theological movement called the "neo-patristic synthesis" ignored issues related to political theology. Although hundreds of thousands of Orthodox Christians ended up in the United States, they did not have the urgent need to reconcile Orthodoxy and American democracy, as was the case among Catholics... Apparently, the Orthodox did not experience any theological problems in their new democratic environment, either in the Diaspora or in Greece (pp. 45-46).

In this case, it is important to pay attention to how not only the theological logic "works", but also the context. Apparently, they work randomly and independently of each other. We dare to say that Papanikolaou's main thesis is determined primarily by the context in which the author is immersed, since he proceeds from the need to reconcile his political context (the American political system) with your religious faith. At the same time, its logic turns out to be "arbitrary" in the sense that the corresponding argumentation is only one of the possible ones - within the framework of Orthodox theological discourse. And the fact that the leading Orthodox theologians of the past century (primarily of Russian origin), who lived in the same American context, were not concerned with issues of political theology, should also be attributed to the "arbitrariness" of their theological logic. Like Papanikolaou, this logic was rooted in the ascetic (or liturgical, in Schmemann) "tradition", but at the same time (or perhaps for this very reason?) its exhibitors "experienced no theological problems in their new democratic environment." At the same time, the context has its own power. Liberal democracy, however broadly understood, is a "fact" of some societies (including the American one) and is not a "fact" of other societies (in this case, "Orthodox" in ethno-cultural and religious terms). Context can generate a "logic of context justification" - including a logic of "use", as in the second case, especially since this logic has a long theological tradition. It is important to keep in mind that the logic of "participation" is not stimulated by the current political context.-

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In Orthodox countries, it is therefore perceived in them rather as speculative, that is, as "logic without context".

So, for example, the author's claim that Christian politics should be determined by the Christian attitude to the "wanderer", while identity politics is idolatrous, is understandable and justified in the"diaspora desert". However, it does not work well in spaces dominated by" Orthodox culture", where for Orthodox Christians," wanderers "are rather religious marginals and other" culturally alien elements", and not citizens as such.

The author's statement is ambiguous: since the eschatological character of the Church requires a missionary environment, it presupposes religious and ideological pluralism in society. The author himself shows that the ancient political theology (that is, the theology of "using politics", as in Eusebius and Chrysostom), which welcomes the Christianization of the political for the sake of "instructing people on the path of salvation", is if paternalistic (in modern terms), then not totalitarian, since it aims at God-human communication, impossible without free communication. human involvement. This means that the modern liberal understanding of freedom, which generates pluralism, has parallels with "Christian antiquity". However, this understanding is fundamentally different, because then we were talking about a different freedom and a different pluralism. The eschatological aspiration to salvation in eternity (most clearly expressed in asceticism) simply does not see the "political" as its referent. And "pluralism" in this case is referred not to the field of politics, but to the individualon the one hand, there are many human wills, and on the other, there are different wills "inside" the subject itself); "freedom" - to the constancy of the subject's fundamental decision to "be with God" (which can be called fundamentally positive freedom). In other words, the space of salvation is in a different dimension from the space of politics, and there is no (theoretical) logical connection.

A much stronger move is the author's appeal to the gospel commandment of love. According to Papanikolaou's logic, the " simultaneity "of the ascetic and political dimensions arises here because this commandment requires learning to love, which means practicing a Christian attitude to the"other". However, the theological concept of "love" (that is, the corresponding theological virtue, along with "faith" and "hope") in the framework of the politi-

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It is not as fruitful as it may seem at first glance, because it creates a lot of problems.

In the gospel commandment "love your neighbor as yourself", of course, one can hear not only ethics, but also ontology. Love is not just the "name of God", but the "dynamic structure" of the triune divine being itself (in the case of the trinitarian interpretation of the New Testament statement that "God is love" - 1 Jn 4:8), and here the idea of "relational personalism"is just appropriate. 10 However, the theological problem is that the triune divine being itself is not the same as God's name. that divine persons / hypostases co-exist in the space of a single and undamaged "nature", while human persons / hypostases co-exist in the conditions of an "ontological discord" between a single nature and a multitude of persons, that is, in a fallen, damaged "political" (interpersonal) space. Here, each individual is responsible for himself or herself and cannot be directly responsible for the community of individuals as a whole. Accordingly, the concept (commandment) of love is an imperative primarily for the individual. This commandment is indeed ascetic, since it is addressed to the individual, but not at all political. Christian love (agapic, caritative) is an individual virtue, not a" value " of social ethics. Even in the space of intra-communal church life, love is a spiritual imperative, not a valid organizational principle. Politics, on the other hand, is primarily a form of organizing a human community that cannot be realized based on maximalist appeals/imperatives. Of course, the commandment of love can be used to conceptualize and justify Christian attitudes and actions in the political sphere-in the paradigm of "participation" (as Papanikolaou does), but it is impossible to justify any form of polity( political being), including liberal democracy.
In other words, the theological justification of Christian participation in the modern liberal-democratic political "desert" is logically not a justification for this very "desert". And the fact that this is a "desert" is evidenced by the author himself, when he speaks about the rejection from a theological point of view, including the Orthodox one, of the secular-philosophical foundations and justifications of liberal democracy (with which he agrees).,

10. Papanikolaou expounds in detail the relevant theology of Metropolitan John Zizioulas, on which he essentially draws, juxtaposing the Orthodox understanding of the individual and the secular concept of human rights.

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however, he does not want to deal in detail, deliberately limiting himself to the more general, if not vague, definition of liberal democracy given above).

Abstracting away from psychology and remaining within the limits of ascetic theology, we should remember that evangelical love is not an affectation or even an attitude, but that "mystical energy" that "was poured out into our hearts by the Holy Spirit given to us" (Rom 5:5). In other words, the "event of love" is something exclusive, extraordinary, connected with personal existence, that is, the breakthrough of God into the world through the instance of a particular person. The social and political consequences of such a "love event" cannot be predicted or calculated in terms of political order and political dynamics. In other words, "love" in the Christian sense cannot be a constitutive element of the political system, since it belongs to a different dimension of human existence and is an "empty concept"from the point of view of political theory and practice. And the modern political principle of separation of religion (church) and state, contrary to the author's opinion, just points to this.

Let us emphasize once again: love in the theological sense can be the "driving force" of political participation/action of Christians, since Christians can make a spiritual effort and "practice love" in the political space even before the grace-filled divine energy" mystically " fills and fulfills these efforts (moreover, without such an effort, synergy is also impossible with a God who is transcendent to the world). However, it should not be forgotten that such a religiously grounded practice of "participation" will always be exclusive and marginal in the scale of politics as a whole, that is, it cannot be claimed as the implementation of a certain general political "social ethics".

Here is an obvious contrast between the political theology of "use" and the political theology of "participation" and, accordingly, two different ideas about the "common good", to which the author also appeals (albeit in the most general form, allowing for different interpretations)11. In the case of theology of" use", the common good is associated with the presence of religious integrators of political life (today, for example,"traditional Christian values"). In the case of the theology of "participation", political life remains fundamentally non-positive in relation to religion (the church), so that it is not necessary to be a part of it.-

11. See chapter four of the book "God-Human Communion and the Common Good".

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The common good is determined not by religious goals ("vertical"), but by extra-religious goals (i.e., "horizontally secular"). But in both cases, Christian social ethics is problematic. Attempts to extend traditional Christian ethics as an individual ethics (both the ethics of asceticism and the ethics of love) to the political space lead to a logical contradiction, since social ethics is by definition opposed to the ethics of an isolated individual. To bridge the gap between these ethics (individual and social) is to make a revolution, to create a new synthesis.

For Papanikolaou, such a synthesis - namely, the synthesis of the Orthodox mysticism of "divine-human communion" and modern liberal democracy-does not arise. And it does not arise because the "ethics of theosis" (if we recall its initial intuition) cannot be transformed into a social ethics that has political significance. But, in addition, this synthesis simply cannot arise for the reason that the author fundamentally refuses to polemicize with the philosophical foundations of secular social ethics, limiting himself to "fitting" individual Christian elements to the existing political practice.

Once again, let's return to the above: Christian principles on which the author relies and "develops" (in a dialogue with other Christian theologians), - such as the Eucharistic experience of a community of unique personalities, 12 as "ascetic" opposition to the sinful passions of anger, hatred and fear, as non - violence, as "speaking the truth" associated with the practice of confession, 13 all these principles can serve as guidelines for Christian participation in politics.14 And it is quite possible that this "will contribute to the formation of a political space that resembles liberal democracy." But, on the other hand, the same Christian principles can also be proclaimed outside of any theoretical and practical connection with liberal democracy.

That is why we must ask the fundamental question: how much of a "participatory theology" can be a full-fledged political theology at all? Can any attempt to adapt Christianity to a particular political regime be considered Christian political theology?

12. See chapter two of the Eucharist or Democracy?

13. See chapter five of Speaking the Truth, Political Forgiveness, and Free Speech.

14. We cannot here describe in detail the corresponding reflections of the author and refer the reader to the book itself.

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Of course, such a minimalist position can be accepted within the framework of political theology as a theological " discipline." But its theoretical credibility is not very high. Similarly, the credibility of the modern "usage theology" is not very high, since it is also adaptive, and not strictly theological. Of course, the advantage of the latter is that it has a political ideal. However, it has inherited this ideal from the past, and it is only trying to "apply" it to the current political situation (for example, by rethinking the idea of "symphony" 15).

A careful reading of Aristotle Papanikolaou's book suggests that modern Orthodox political theology, in order to be convincing, must be the result of a clash between the church and society, not in particular "Orthodox contexts", but in the general historical context of modernity (including the so-called late modern or postmodern). And in this case, we cannot do without a theological analysis of the secular philosophical foundations of political modernity (including liberal democracy), to which the church, which does not agree with them, must oppose its own religious vision of the political as such. That is, a modern Christian political philosophy, and hence a Christian political ideal (but one that is not just a version of its pre-modern variants).

The fact that no non-adaptive political theology has yet emerged within the framework of modern Orthodox theology is probably due to the dominance of asceticism and neo-patristics in it, that is, an appeal to "theological antiquity", which does not set theological tasks related to modern political problems. Modernity is perceived not as an essential challenge, but as a "context" that is alien to Christianity both in itself and in its philosophical foundations.

This may seem paradoxical, but Papanikolaou's book once again shows exactly this state of"theological affairs." The author appeals to the "asceticism of God-human communion" constructed by himself in order to find parallels between, so to speak, purely religious ideas and practices, on the one hand, and modern secular values and practices, on the other. At the same time, he makes a logical mistake when, for example, he juxtaposes the "deep" (the Eucharistic theology of the individual) with the "superficial" (the secular con --

15. See Mikhail Suslov's article in this issue of the journal.

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the concept of human rights 16). In this sense, it does demonstrate a non-radical view of the political on the part of Christian Orthodoxy17, that is, a view that seeks primarily to reconcile traditional and dominant Orthodox theology with a specific political context.

At the same time, Papanikolaou did a very serious job in his book. As already mentioned, this is a very provocative book. It can also be called a breakthrough, since the author boldly invades the field of political theology from the Orthodox confessional space, touching on a wide range of relevant problems and offering solutions to them.

It should be emphasized that in this article we could not analyze all the themes of the book and the author's turns of thought - this would have required a much larger volume. We have limited ourselves to reviewing his main premises and theses, leaving out the presentation and evaluation of specific aspects of his political theology, which is very rich in content. We encourage anyone who is interested in Christian political theology in general, and especially in its Orthodox version, to read this book carefully. And we are sure that for Orthodox theologians who also dare to enter the field of modern political theology, this book by Aristotle Papanikolaou will be one of the main "referents", and perhaps even a"starting point".

Bibliography/References

Varshavsky V. The unnoticed generation. New York, 1956.

Milbank, J. (2013) Beyond Secular Order. The Representation of Being and the Representation of the People. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.

Papanikolaou, A. (2012) The Mystical as Political: Democracy and Non-Radical Orthodoxy. Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press.

Varshavskiy V. (1956) Nezamechennoe pokolenie [Unnoticed generation]. New York.

16. See chapter three of the book "Personality and Human Rights".

17. Here you should pay attention to a new book by one of the leaders of "radical Orthodoxy" J. Milbank (Milbank, J. Beyond Secular Order. The Representation of Being and the Representation of the People. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2013), which is directly related to political theology and deserves the closest attention (despite the fact that the author, as before, sometimes gets bogged down in the "genealogy of ideas", and his own - modern - position remains insufficiently clearly articulated).

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