Understanding and following tradition in the changing world: fr. A. Men' historical conception aspects

In the presented paper questions are being examined, topical both for historical science and for social point of view - the search of the principles of tradition preservation and development, adequate to conditions of the changing world, is very important for contemporary followers of traditional religious cultures. Fr. A. Men' devoted greater part of his creativity and service to the search and development of these principles, though his creative work that is wide-known and discussed in religious environment, extremely insufficiently included in the scientific historical discourse. Fr. A. Men' is a notable thinker and preacher of XX century, his historical conception is interesting and considering his service and social status, is unique by its approach to interpretation of culture basics. His position and comprehension of the personal perception importance, ideas of cross-cultural principles, formed to a large extent in 1970-80s, are actual for contemporary situation in the multicultural world. The paper examines basic ways of overcoming challenges of following religious tradition in conditions of policulturalism, discovered by fr. A. Men in his creative work, mainly a work dedicated to the history of religions. The cultural and religious context is researched, which is basic principles of tradition perception in Orthodox culture. Among them teleologi-city, the conception of the all-embracing Revelation, its discovery in the world and of true interpretation and following importance. For traditional cultures followers seeking for observing tradition in historically changing conditions emerge a variety of issues and motivational problems which define challenges in establishing cross-cultural communications. Basic approaches of cultural diversity perception are being defined: dichotomic perception, hierarchical approach, features of fr. A. Men' approach are analyzed. Fr. Alexander places emphasis on personality and its conscious creative search, on formation, which is unique and unconventional. Particularly, in informatization environment and policulturalism, when it is inevitable to have non-standard situations and it is necessary to search for answers and define attitude towards them. He reveals ways and principles of tradition and its spirit following and essence in non-traditional environment, he emphasizes necessity of the development of ability of picking out the essence and build relations with the essence and the surroundings.

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