Roger CORESCIUC - Catechesis, Knowledge and Hesychasm in the context of Romanian Secularized Culture

Roger CORESCIUC

Rev. Lect. PhD. Faculty of Orthodox Theology, Alexandru Ioan Cuza University of Iaşi, ROMANIA

Abstract:

Knowledge cannot be dissociated from love and the existential bearing of the Living Tradition of the Church. The educational act must be in a dynamic connection with the religious act and if the space of the chair is not one of proselytism, it is, however, a testimony of the existential religious act. Theology offers substance to knowledge, determines it to not stay closed in the strict universe of information, helping it to open and with the help of information, to the transformation in sight. Knowledge becomes sight when the educational act or the mystagogical catechesis become themselves iconic language. The problem that current hedonism raises not only regarding confessional education, but also regarding the educational act in its entirety, is a profoundly serious one. How does the Religion professor answer to this challenge of society, to this quest more or less controlled for pleasure, stability and safety? Does modern society lose its sense of silence, introspection and contemplation? The iconicity of the information transmitted can offer definitive solutions for the revitalization of the spiritual sense which re-imagines the world, offering it support for the discovery of the true desire for the Absolute.

Keywords:

Gregory Palamas, hesychasm, Mount Athos, philosophy, polytheism, Triads, knowledge, Sophrony

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