Eschatological Vision of Jesus and Millenarian and Totalitarian Inclinations of Russian Orthodox Eschatology

Every Christian generation must rethink how it understands the mystery of Christ. Jesus, a practicing Jew, meditated on the Scriptures of the past, preferring the enigmatic and rich expression «Son of Man» to refer to Himself, while at the same time trying to understand the actions of the God of Israel in His time. This «Son of Man» Christology had the advantage of not evoking a political emancipatory Davidic Messiah, but instead hinted at a figure who would play a fundamental role at the end of time. Jesus, in his self-consciousness and in his teaching, gradually achieved a unique synthesis of three figures: the Messiah, the suffering Servant, and the Son of Man. The end of time is the time in which, from the point of view of faith, a person lives after the death of the «Son of Man» on the cross and His Resurrection, in accordance with the «no longer and not yet» of His Kingdom, actively awaiting victory over the last enemy — death. In Russian eschatology, both Orthodox and «secular» (in the sense of a specific «religiosity», which also applies to Soviet and post-Soviet ideology), one can often notice a shift in the inevitable tension of the believer’s heart (which, on the contrary, should accept and preserve both sides of Judeo-Christian eschatology) either vertically, towards liturgical or state triumphalism, or horizontally, towards utopia. Often the victim of these different kinds of radicalism is individual freedom.

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