Orthodox World Acceptance as Path to World Transfi guration in the Works of I.A. Ilyin (“World Acceptance” Concept Letter to P.I. Novgorodtsev)

I.A. Ilyin's book “On Resisting Evil by Force” (1925) stirred much attention even before its publication. The subsequent responses from the camp of the God-seekers, who took a post-revolutionary position, still serve as an argument for some researchers in favor of the fact that I.A. Ilyin's point of view, outlined in the book, has nothing to do with Orthodoxy. However, the concept of “World Acceptance”, dated 1922, and found in the thinker's archive, allows us to look differently at I.A. Ilyin's position and the motives of writing the book. Turning to the context of the epoch, the ideological quest in which Russian thinkers in exile found themselves in the period of 1922–1926, the article reproduces the correspondence dispute that became the cornerstone at that historical moment. The dispute was based on the difference of views on how the Orthodox Church and Orthodox Christians can relate and respond to historical political challenges. Most of the Russian thinkers adhered to the view of world renunciation, the elevation of the Church over political issues, and sometimes papal caesarism. Ilyin, referring to the history of Russia, while denying papal caesarism and сaesarepapism, pointed out that “in reproach of Byzantium”, Russian Orthodoxy, without denying the world, seeks always to infl uence its transformation. Ilyin saw the possibility of overcoming the spiritual crisis in the return of this «Orthodox idea» as the ideal of religiosity, proof that Orthodoxy called for perfection in worldly life, and not only within the Church as an organization.