СВЕТИ ЈУСТИН ЋЕЛИЈСКИ КАО ОРИГИНАЛНИ МИСЛИЛАЦ
SAINT JUSTIN OF ĆELIJE AS AN ORIGINAL THINKER

Author(s): Dimitry Tribushny
Subject(s): Christian Theology and Religion, Theology and Religion, Eastern Orthodoxy
Published by: Institut za filozofiju i društvenu teoriju
Keywords: Justin Popovich; Bogočovek; Russian Philosophy
Summary/Abstract: One of the main tasks in the study of Saint Justin – is to overcome the myths surrounding the Venerable. Modern ecclesiastical and historical research knows Justin (Popović) to be an ardent defender of Orthodoxy, reproducing the ideas of the early Fathers. His own theology is regarded as the theology of illumination, as the theology of reiteration. Can we therefore speak of original thought in the works by Saint Justin? Venerable Justin (Popović) is the only saint who dared to combine writings of the early Fathers with the Russian religious and philosophic renaissance. He introduces into the course of Dogmatic Theology the debatable notions of “pan-unity”, “theanthropism” (“God-manhood”), unknown to the Holy Fathers. In the theological system of the Serbian saint, we come across the key notions of the pan-unionistic philosophy – those of “ontogenetic affinity” not only of God and man, but the Creator and all creation, of the possibility and even the need for the Divine Incarnation, inherent in the very essence of the creation. Saint Justin denies the existence of the independent created nature and in some cases expresses ideas which are, of course only formally, close to pantheism: “In the end, the basis of everything visible is invisible: the basis of the man is his soul, the basis of the world is God. The invisible is the hypostasis of everything, the basis of everything, it is what the world and everything in it stands on”. In the system of Popović, the narrative regarding the soul of the world, typical of the Russian representatives of pan-unionism, remains unfinished: “After the fall: every person and creature are the fragments of the soul shattered by sin, the common universal soul and common universal body”. Obviously, the above mentioned ideas are alien to the school theology. In some cases, they are in direct contradiction to it. Yet, Saint Justin the innovator does not merely reproduce the intuitions of the philosophy of pan-unionism. He corrects them at the same time, and introduces them into church life and into the world of the Orthodox tradition. Thereby the Reverend widens our perception of the true boundaries of the Orthodoxy.

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