Khomiakov and the Mystery of Sobornost

The publisher recently let me know that in July they had released a study sure to be of interest to all students of ecclesiology, conciliar history, Russian theology and philosophy, and ecumenical relations: Alexei Khomiakov: The Mystery of Sobornost', eds., Artur Mrówczyński-Van Allen, Teresa Obolevitch, and Paweł Rojek (Pickwick, 2019), 260pp.

About this collection we are told:

Alexei Khomiakov (1804–1860), a great Russian thinker, one of the founders of the Slavophile school of thought, nowadays might be seen as one of the precursors of critical thought on the dangers of modern political ideas. The pathologies that Khomiakov attributes to Catholicism and Protestantism—authoritarianism, individualism, and fragmentation—are today the fundamental characteristics of modern states, of the societies in which we live, and to a large extent, of the alternatives that are brought forth in an attempt to counter them. Khomiakov’s works therefore might help us take on the challenge of rescuing Christian thought from modern colonization and offer a true alternative, a space for love and truth, the living experience of the church. This book serves as a step on the path toward recovering the church’s reflection on its own identity as sobornost’, as the community that is the living body of Christ, and can be the next step forward toward recovering the capacity for thought from within the church.