Pierre Rosniansky

This article by Pierre Rosniansky offers a theological and social reflection on the meaning of work from an Eastern Christian Orthodox perspective. Adopting both a speculative and historical approach, the author examines the crisis of meaning experienced by modern man, uprooted from his cosmic origins by industrial civilization and the dominance of technology. He distinguishes three conceptions of work — autonomous, endured as a curse, or experienced as a blessing — before questioning the figure of the one who works, contrasting the individual and the person. Drawing on John Chrysostom and Maximus the Confessor, he identifies the patristic foundations of an anthropology of work. The article also traces the historical attempts at an Orthodox socio-Christian trade unionism and concludes with the necessity, for Orthodox thought, of articulating salvation, creation, and culture within an integral vision of human vocation.

This article by Pierre Rosniansky examines the social dimension of Christianity as it was developed by Russian religious philosophy in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Proceeding through documented study, the author analyzes the contributions of major thinkers of the diaspora — Bulgakov, Berdyaev, Fedotov, Mother Maria Skobtsova — as well as movements such as "Orthodox Action" and the "New City." The central idea is that Russian Orthodox thought, rooted in the concept of sobornost and confronted with the Marxist challenge, developed a properly theological vision of the social question, irreducible to Western Christian socialism. The article highlights the convergences and divergences with Catholic social doctrine, particularly around the personalism of Maritain and Mounier, underscoring Berdyaev's decisive contribution to this encounter. It thus helps to restore a little-known dimension of Orthodox social theology.