Spirituality as a Subject of Academic Studies in Continental Theology of the Twentieth Century
Petr
St Tikhon’s Orthodox University, Moscow
DOI: https://doi.org/10.24204/ejpr.v7i2.127
Abstract
I examine mystical experience through the history of European religious thought, its modern state, and different spiritual practices of the Patristic epoch. The survey gives some definitions: mystical experience is situated in the field of spirituality along with practices of its acquisition – ascetics; and the fruits of it – theology and doctrine. The second part of the article is devoted to a wide field of Christian texts as a representative example of the same experience of the crystallization of mystical experience in ancient tradition, providing a few general types. Reading of religious texts is related very closely with the spiritual condition of the reader and supposes that he/she changes radically in the process of reading, being involved in some existential- hermeneutic circle.
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