Aleksei Khomiakov

[Christos Anesti]

I've been reading "On Spiritual Unity, A Slavophile Reader" again and I'm on the first part which has a few letters written by Aleksei Khomiakov. Really good reading. Here are some parts I liked:

On Faith:

"Faith is the consequence of a revelation accepted as revelation. Faith... is not an act of reason alone, but an act of all the powers of the mind, grasped and subjugated in their most intimate depths by the living truth of the revealed fact. Faith is not only thought or felt, it is thought and felt at the same time. In short, faith is not knowledge alone, but knowledge and life at the same time" ​

On Infallibility and teaching in the Church:​

"The Eastern Patriarchs, meeting in council with their bishops, solemnly declared in their response to an encyclical of Pius IX that 'Infallibility resides solely in the universality of the Church united by mutual love; and that the protection of both the constancy of dogma and the purity of rite was entrusted not to any hierarchy but to the people of the Church as whole, which is the body of Christ.' This formal declaration of the entire Eastern clergy, received with a respect full of fraternal gratitude by the local church of Russia, acquired all the moral authority of an ecumenical witness; and this is certainly the most remarkable fact of ecclesiastical history in recent centuries. There is no teaching Church in the Church [ in a previous section of this brochure, not given here, Khomiakov asserts that , in both the Roman and Protestant communions, there is a separation between the "teaching Church" (the hierarchy ) and the "Church of disciples]​

Is it the case then that there is no more teaching [ in the true Church]? There is, and much more than anywhere else, for this teaching is no longer confined within narrow limits. Every word inspired by a sense of authentically Christian love, of living faith or hope, is a teaching. Every act stamped with the Spirit of God is a lesson. Every Christian life is a model and an example. A martyr dying for the truth, a judge rendering justice not for people but for God, a laborer whose humble toils is accompanied by a constant elevation of thought toward the Creator- live or die to bestow a loft teaching upon their fellow human beings. And when it is necessary, the Divine Spirit will place on their lips words of wisdom that the savant of theologian will not find. 'The bishop is both the teacher and the disciple of his flock,' said Bishop Innocent, the contemporary apostle of Aleutian Islands. All individuals- however high the place they occupy in the hierarchic scale or however low and hidden they are in the obscurity of the humblest situation- both teach and are taught.​

 

[Christos Anesti]

On Examination:

Examination should, so to speak, consider not only the visible universe but also the power and purity of the visual organ. Its point of departure is therefore the most humble acknowledgment of its weakness; for not only a satanical pride but even an unprecedented dementia would characterize all those who would attribute to themselves both moral perfection and the perfection of reason. But that is what they would have to do if they would attribute individual independence to themselves, considering that in this system a mere shadow of sin already implies the possibility of error, or rather its necessity in the case where people permit themselves excessive confidence in their own powers or in the gifts of grace that have been personally given to them. Therefore, Truth can exist only where there is immaculate holiness, that is, in the totality of the universal Church, which is the manifestation of the Divine Spirit in humanity."

 

[ProScribe]

I've never read this particular author but looks like literature about the Church and spirituality.

Also, when these types of OP's are made its sort of hard to make a response to them.