Собор и соборность к столетию начала новой эпохи

The article considers sobornost’, primarily, as a con­cept, which is closely connected with the idea of personal communication in a form capable of recognizing and respecting private diff erences (in the opposite of merging with the loss of individuality and freedom and individualism, rejecting any forms of organization and institutionalization). In the broadest sense, the principle of logic in the terms of sobornost’ can be explained as the principle of conciliar integration. Leaving aside a number of idealizations and schematizations, sobornost’ can be defi ned as “the soul of Orthodoxy” (S.N. Bulgakov). The concept of sobornost’ in its genesis and development can be traced, starting with the works of V.S. Solovyov (who started from the “Crisis of Western Philosophy” and realized attempts to overcome the opposition of empiricism and rationalism) and F.M. Dostoevsky (who tried to overcome the opposition of aesthetics and utilitarianism). Such attempts of overcoming the seemingly insurmountable contradictions of abstract principles seem to be the characteristic feature of Russian religious thought and its conciliar logic. A special place in the interpretation of the concept of sobornost’ is occupied by such persons of Russian religious philosophy as N.A. Berdyaev, S.N. Bulgakov, P.A. Florensky and S.L. Frank, who made a great contribution to the philosophical understanding of sobornost’ in its connection with the problems of unity, truth and the Church. It should be noted, that the appeal to the idea of sobornost’ among these thinkers occurred in a tense socio-political environment, when pre-revolutionary Russia passed through a diffi cult, from an institutional and a spiritual point of view, period.