Man in Christ and man in contemporary existentialism
Article summary proposed by the Contacts review with LLM assistance
This article by Hieromonk Athanase Jevtic, drawn from an Orthodox theological conference held in Greece in 1969, offers a study in theological anthropology comparing two emblematic figures of existentialism: Dostoevsky and Sartre. Taking as its starting point the Gospel scene of the two thieves crucified alongside Christ, the author develops a rigorous patristic synthesis according to which man can only attain his fullness in Christ, the sole true foundation of human existence. Against Sartrean anthropology, which leads to nothingness, absurdity, and alienation — "hell is other people" — the author sets the Orthodox tradition, inherited from Maximus the Confessor and Gregory Palamas, for which man is constitutionally the image of the divine Logos. The contribution of the article lies in its demonstration that contemporary existentialism, far from being a humanism, reveals a dehumanization to which only Orthodox Christology offers an anthropologically coherent response.
This article has not been translated yet — it is available in its French version here.
The rest of this article is reserved for subscribers of the Contacts review.
Subscribe to read more
Digital subscription · Immediate access to the Contacts library