Special thanks to Amber for recently directing my attention to “Sobornost.” Sobornost is a Russian Orthodox social church theory. It is a communal unity by free association in Christ finding expression in gathered church where harmony is attained by free consultation. “Sobornost is a kind of organic spiritual catholicity and conciliation. In ecumenical discussion Sobornost has become something of a shorthand description of Orthodoxy’s distinctive [Trinitarian] approach to ecclesiology,” says David Wright.
In this view the genius of Orthodoxy lay in avoiding polar weaknesses of the Church of Rome (where unity is imposed externally from above) and of Protestantism (individualist liberty) in a unique synthesis of freedom and unanimity, diversity and unity. More on this later.
Peace, dwight
