Abstract

The article deals with some important aspects of priest Paul Florensky’s doctrine of the name. The article makes a general conclusion that protection of onomatodoxy for Florensky was the protection of the very essence of Christianity - as he understood this essence based on his own religious and philosophical convictions. It is pointed out that, according to Florensky’s opinion, only the “symbolic” world structure, that he identified, was capable of assuring the reality of deification, and, therefore, “Name Fighting” asserted nothing else but the inwardness of the mortal world, which meant the negation of deification and withdrawal of the main ideas from Orthodox Christianity and Christianity. The author concludes that Florensky's doctrine of the Name is a direct consequence of his conception of a symbol, where God turns out to be inseparably though not integrally connected with the man and the world. This is no pantheism, but, in father Florensky’s interpretation, “a sacred secret”, which cannot and must not be discussed within the “framework” of rational thinking.