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Two Representatives of Traditional Orthodox Spirituality - eEders Paisios and Siluan
Tupý, Martin ; Vopatrný, Gorazd Josef (advisor) ; Ventura, Václav (referee)
The thesis deals with traditional Orthodox spirituality. The thesis describes two personalities of Orthodox spirituality of the 20th century, whose examples show the fruits obtained and given by the Grace of God on the path of spiritual perfection as preserved in the Orthodox Church to this day. The first part outlines the doctrine of the creation of man and then the method of attaining the goal of the Christian life. The importance of the distinction between the creation of man in the image of God and in the likeness of God will be mentioned. This dynamic determines the whole setting of the doctrine of man's spiritual journey. It has a certain order and we can traditionally divide it into an active phase, praxis, and a phase of theoria, or seeing, looking. It is described how man, in cooperation with divine grace, is to progress on the path of perfection and spiritual growth through the active phase, which includes all good endeavors such as prayer, fasting, vigil, and can and ideally should arrive at the theoria phase, when man beholds the uncreated glory of God. Prayer plays a very important role here. That is why I also focus on hesychasm as a method of spiritual life, of which prayer is an important part. In prayer the heart as the spiritual centre of man has the most important place. This is...
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