Poetic and Liturgical Creativity in V. N. Lossky’s Theology

Abstract

In this article, the author aims to examine the interaction of poetic and liturgical aspects in the theological heritage of the famous Russian Orthodox theologian Vladimir Nikolaevich Lossky. The relationship between these components determines the originality of Lossky’s poetics, which acquired such spiritual and aesthetic features and artistic means that make it possible to enhance the impact of theological ideas. It is important in studying the work of V. N. Lossky to identify the specifics of the poetics and imagery of the scholar’s language, which are inevitably included in the theological context. Musicality occupies a special place in the construction of Lossky’s theological system as a theological resource that teaches a special type of spiritual and aesthetic behavior. The result of the unity of the poetic and the liturgical is truly spiritual beauty, called into the world through its theological understanding. It is spiritual beauty that gives rise to gratitude for the opportunity to perceive beauty, the emergence of joy from the presence of spiritual beauty in the place where a person opens himself to God and meets the Divine.