Pierre Teilhard de Chardin’s “Universal Mass” and “the Extra-temple Liturgy” by F.M. Dostoevsky and Russian Religious Thinkers

Abstract

The article deals with the problem of typological kinship between the ideas of Christian evolutionism proposed by French scientist, philosopher, theologian P. Teilhard de Chardin and the active Christian line of Russian thought of the late 19th — first third of the 20th century, which is most closely connected with the traditions of Russian literature, and above all with F. M. Dostoevsky’s works. Appealing to the testimony of V. S. Varshavsky, who claimed that during the emigrant period, N. A. Berdyaev met with P. De Chardin, the author of the article emphasizes the
need for scientific research in order to establish the circumstances of these meetings, as well as shows the lines of possible acquaintance of emigrant religious and philosophical circles with the ideas of Teilhard de Chardin. It is revealed that the common feature of Russian thinkers’ works and the French philosopher and theologian is the desire to reconcile scientific and religious worldviews, the assertion of God-human
activity, anti-secular pathos. The idea of the “extra-temple liturgy” by N. F. Fedorov, V. S. Solovyov, F. M. Dostoevsky, the idea of expanding the liturgical service to the entire space of history and the world, including all spheres of human activity and creativity in it, is compared with the idea of the “Universal Mass” by P. Teilhard de Chardin, put forward in the mystical and philosophical study of the eponymous name in 1923. It is shown that in this study, as in the texts of Russian religious thinkers, religious-philosophical and artistic principles are intertwined.