An interdisciplinary genre in the Theological Literature: the spiritual autobiography and its landmarks for the Orthodox space
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.15503/jecs20181.145.150Keywords:
Saint John of Kronstadt, Saint Silouan the Athonite, mystique experience, meeting with God, repentance, sufferanceAbstract
Aim/Thesis. Important for all the Christian confessions, spiritual autobiography has, unfortunately until now, been insufficiently investigated and highlighted by contemporary researchers.
Concept/Methods. Therefore, using information from sources like Confessions of Saint Augustin, but also recent works like the one of Saint Silouan from Athos, Saint John of Kronstadt or Nicolas Berdiaev, using these representative sources for the Orthodox sphere and other volumes, studies and articles, we will try to analyse this genre, to emphasise its interdisciplinary valences, and to show which are landmarks in the Orthodox sphere. We will also try to present its particularities here, its common points with other confessional spheres (Catholic or Protestant), and its practical importance for the Christian life. The information provided by the aforementioned sources will be investigated using deductive, analytic, and inductive methods (and also, the narrative one when the situation will request it).
Results and conclusion. The investigation will show to the reader why, despite of the fact that is a peripheral genre of Theological literature, spiritual autobiography is important for investigation and it helps to create bridges between different spiritualties and investigation domains, but also its potential practical use.
Originality/Cognitive value. The analysis is also important because there we will show that, a long time before the rediscovering of subjectivism and subjectivity in literature (which happened in the 20th century, with Modernism), in the theological space this topic was not only known but also valorised in this genre. As methods, we will both use the deductive and the analytic, but we will also not neglect the narrative one.
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