ЈУСТИН ПОПОВИЋ И АНГЛИКАНСКИ ТЕОЛОЗИ: ПОСРЕДОВАЊА
JUSTIN POPOVIĆ AND ANGLICAN THEOLOGIANS: MEDIATIONS

Author(s): Bogdan Lubardić
Subject(s): Christian Theology and Religion, Theology and Religion, Comparative Studies of Religion
Published by: Institut za filozofiju i društvenu teoriju
Keywords: Serbian refugee theologians; Justin Popovic; Walter Freer; Oxford University; World War I; Anglican theology; Orthodox theology; Fyodor Dostoevsky; Francis Thomson; mediations; brotherhood; otherness
Summary/Abstract: During the Great War the Faculty of Theology in Oxford received a group of some 60 theological refugees from Serbia: seminarians, professors and clergy. In this way the Serbian Church’s seminarian system of formation of theologians was preserved, including the corpus of teachers and pupils. Amongst the first to arrive, in 1916, was Fr Justin Popović (1894–1979), recently sainted as St Justin the New of Ćelije (2010). Popović is rightly regarded as one of the most influential Serbian theologians in the 20th century. In Oxford he was accepted to read for a Baccalaureus Litterarum higher undergraduate degree (1916–1919). His thesis was titled The Religion of Dostoevsky. The said thesis was the only thesis written by several of the Serbians in Oxford, during WWI, not to receive the merit of certificated degree from the University’s examiners. This study essay explores pro et contra arguments in regard to such an outcome. Alongside, we endeavour to demonstrate that, next to a negative view of Western Christianity, Fr Justin Popović, nevertheless, in certain passages of his published opus, does indicate a positive relation as well. We venture to claim that this more positively inclusive side of Fr Justin’s relation to Western — Anglican Christians, albeit quietly present, remains indicative of a dimension of mystical fellowship forged by those on both sides who have offered their whole lives to God in Christ. It is this in Fr Justin’s earlier oeuvre that brings him closer than expected to his Anglican brothers. Оn Fr Justin’s terms, however, this empathy of love and admiration towards one’s Anglican (or western Christian) (br)other, precisely because it is expressive of love, keeps pointing to the truth as well: i.e. the truth of the one Church (which for Fr Justin is the Orthodox Church). This makes his mystical empathy with chosen Anglicans paradoxical, but not contradictory. Namely, Popović does ground love discourse in truth discourse, but this does not prevent love to remain love. If this more inclusive side of Popović’s reflections on Western Christians (viz. Anglicans), regardless of its paradoxical nature, is taken into conside- ration by a non-Orthodox – “Western” – Christian, and is spiritually understood as a promising “contact-point” (Anknüpfungspunkt), then Popović’s uncompromising (dogmatic-canonical) strictures in regard to Western Christian denominations (especially his claim that the Orthodox Church is the only Church) might not present a sufficient reason for their premature departures from his spiritual, theological and philosophical oeuvre. On the contrary, they may come to contemplate – and profit from – the magnificence of Fr Justin’s saintly experience of living in Christ the Godman by the Spirit.

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