СВЕТО
THE SACRED

Summary/Abstract: Having indicated difficulties in understanding the sacred in our secularized times, the author attempts to clarify the phenomenon by relying on commentaries by Rudolf Otto and Mircea Eliade. He emphasizes that Otto demonstrated that the sacred, as a religious category, cannot be reduced to the good. The sacred is a complex category that consists of irrational and rational moments. After detailed consideration of different dimensions of perception of the sacred, the author concurs with Ottos’s statement that the problem of the Western European man is the unfamiliarity with the perception of the sacred. The author also devotes considerable attention to Eliade’s delicate interpretation of the relation between the sacred and the profane, whether it be an object or a person, whether it be space and time. He concurs with Eliade’s judgement that profane has become predominant in lives of most of contemporary people, unlike mythical times when a man aimed at imitating an archetype. Having stressed that the ultimate goal of religion is man’s spiritual transformation, i. e. becoming sanctified, the author concludes that the destiny of the world depends on whether it will be reaffirmed or not.

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