In 1918 Evdokimov studied theology in Kiev, but was soon mobilised into the White Army, surviving the death and tumult of cavalry attacks, a time of which he rarely spoke. Arriving in Paris in 1923 Evdokimov enrolled at the Sorbonne, and the Institute of Saint Sergius where Sergius Bulgakov329 and Nicolas Berdiaev were decisive influences, which Evdokimov notes in Quelques jalons sur un chemin de vie.330 They confirmed for him the prophetic mission of Orthodoxy in the West and the importance of the Holy Spirit in the Church and in the world. Clément recounts that as priest and professor Bulgakov inspired in Evdokimov ‘the “Orthodox instinct”; the need to dive into the thought of the Fathers to live the liturgy; “to consume the eucharistic fire”; to discover the icon.’331
Berdiaev, however, appeared also to ‘unveil’ deep intuitions: ‘the weakness of God before the tragic freedom of man’, ‘the antinomy of the abyss and the cross’, ‘a renewed understanding of the Trinitarian mystery’, ‘an apophatic anthropology of man as microcosm and microtheus’.332 Evdokimov recalls the eschatological character of
327 Ibid. 328 Ibid.
329 See Aidan Nichols, Wisdom from Above; also Nichols, Light, p. 1. Bulgakov was considered by
many to be the most creative and important theologian of the renewal, and brought the Church’s tradition into dialogue with modernity, see Michael Plekon, ‘The Russian religious revival and its theological legacy’, p. 204. See also Rowan Williams’ study: Sergii Bulgakov: Towards a Russian Political Theology (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1999).
330 Paul Evdokimov, ‘Quelques jalons sur un chemin de vie’, Le buisson ardent (Paris: Lethielleux,
1981), p. 15. This collection includes most of Evdokimov’s articles; see also Clément, Orient- Occident, pp. 109, 192.
331 Evdokimov, ‘Quelques jalons’, p. 15. 332 Clément, Orient-Occident, pp. 109-10.
Berdiaev’s theology, and that the face of Berdiaev was unforgettable, bestowing dignity on whomever he looked. Clément judges Evdokimov’s position to be closer to Berdiaev’s, but that his writing and thought was more ecclesial, in the manner of Bulgakov; and herein, for Clément, lies Evdokimov’s genius: an ability to synthesize and in so doing to go beyond his masters.333
Evdokimov commenced writing around the time of the deaths of Bulgakov (1944) and Berdiaev (1948). Choosing not to enter into the criticism levelled by some contemporaries, including Vladimir Lossky, at the older generation of Russian philosophers, he attempted to reply in the spirit of the Fathers to the ‘Fathers of modern thought’ such as Marx, Nietzsche and Freud, and to speak creatively to the very heart of contemporary cultural crisis, from the perspective of
transfiguration in the Holy Spirit and an active eschatology.334 Gabriel Matzneff exclaimed in a television discussion, that a book such as Evdokimov’s Les âges de la vie spirituelle, can turn the destiny of a young person around as much as a meeting with Nietzsche. As noted above, Clément considered this book to be Evdokimov’s masterpiece; Evdokimov sought to open up a sense of the transcendent for people caught in contemporary modern materialistic society, speaking of the value of silence, prayer and contemplation. He describes the spiritual route of ascesis, that Clément experienced and wrote of in his spiritual autobiography L’autre soleil, dividing Les âges de la vie spirituelle into three stages, ‘Encounter with God’, ‘The Obstacle and The Struggle’ and ‘Charisms of the Spiritual Life’, interpreting the sayings of the Desert Fathers and the founders of monasticism in a synthesis with astonishing insights into the characters created by Dostoevsky. He astutely remarks: ‘If Freud and Jung professed their
admiration for the psychological insight of Dostoevsky, it was because he had been nourished on the works of the great spiritual writers.’335 In the war-torn world of the twentieth century, ascesis reflects the needs of the era, it is symptomatic that St Thérèse of Lisieux, loved by Clément and Evdokimov,
333 Ibid., p. 110.
334 Ibid., p. 117.
speaks of spiritual childhood; and teaches her ‘little way’, inviting us to sit down ‘at the table with sinners’.336
While studying at the Sorbonne Evdokimov worked at night in the Citroen factory, cleaned rail wagons and served in restaurants, as many did during this inter-war period. Evdokimov remained a lay theologian, firmly believing in ‘the universal priesthood of the laity’,337
and the value of their service. He married Natacha in 1927 and they had a daughter Nina and son Michel in 1928 and 1930. They were joined by Evdokimov’s mother and lived at Menton; sadly in 1936 Natacha was diagnosed with cancer. In 1940 Italian troops occupied Menton, Evdokimov again became a refugee and after a brief sojourn at Prades,338 they passed the remainder of the war at Valence. Clément recounts that during this time, while Evdokimov cared for his ailing wife the children and their home, he prepared a philosophical thesis which viewed Dostoevsky through the prism of Russian religious philosophy. He understood him as announcer of a Christianity renewed by the experience of atheism, as a ‘pneumatophore’, carrier of the
spirit,339 who explores all the dissociations of the contemporary person to flash the loving and silent light of Christ in these ‘underground passages’.340
Evdokimov wrestled with the question posed by the apocalyptic events of the twentieth century: if the world is a theophany (as he knew it to be since childhood and from the sophiology of Bulgakov) what explanation is there for evil throughout history? His response lies in the kenosis of God that preserves the freewill and choice of humankind. In this work Clément believes Evdokimov identified the driving force of his own destiny: that of Aloicha Karamazov sent into the world by his staretz to witness to a monachisme intériorisé,341 which did not negate life but
transfigured it, that did not reject woman, but found a meeting place there beyond all moralist notions, in ‘the sacrament of love’,342
a phrase taken from St John Chrysostom, and used in the title of Evdokimov’s next book, Le Mariage, sacrament de l’amour (1944). His mother died in 1942, Germans occupied the
336 Ibid. 337 Ibid., p. 113.
338 Thomas Merton’s birthplace, 1915. 339 Clément, Orient-Occident, p. 201. 340 Ibid., p. 111.
341 Ibid., p. 201.
342 Ibid., p. 111. Clément’s analyses the importance of Evdokimov’s thesis, published as
‘free zone’, and in 1945 his wife died of cancer. Evdokimov worked in the Resistance and with protestant friends in CIMADE,343 an organisation which helped young displaced refugees from Europe and the Third World. Resistance for him was non-violent and had the aim of saving lives. Clément sees Evdokimov’s true calling was as an exile himself, living out the text of Leviticus 19: 33-34, that calls us to care for the stranger and commands that ‘you will love him as yourself, because you were strangers yourselves in the land of Egypt.’ In a certain sense we are all ‘displaced persons’, refugees, and exiles from paradise: homo viator. The poor have been given a ‘privilege’: to show the face of Christ and the figure of the Poor One, who had nowhere to lay his head, walking through our world; He has given to refugees a special destiny, the astonishing grace to trace the image of God coming on earth.344
Caring for refugees, displaced people and students after the Second World War, increased Evdokimov’s conviction that ‘the broken condition of the world and society demanded a “social ecclesiology”. He called for a unified Christian witness to an “ecumenical epiclesis”,’345
together calling down the Holy Spirit. Evdokimov followed the teaching of Bulgakov,346 by living the principles of social ecclesiology. He and his close collaborator Maria Skobtsova,347 who died in a concentration camp and was recently canonised by the Orthodox Church,
worked with the poor and persecuted: their lives were ‘celebrations of the liturgy after the liturgy, the service of God in the service of the neighbour outside the church building.’348
343 Comité Inter-Mouvements Auprès des Evacués. 344 Clément, Orient-Occident, p. 112.
345 John A Jillions, ‘Orthodox Christianity in the West’, in Cambridge Companion to Orthodox
Christian Theology, pp. 276-292, (p. 287).
346 Cited in Michael Plekon, in ‘Living Tradition – Social Theory working with theology: the case
of Fr Sergius Bulgakov’, pp. 1-8, Institute for Ecumenical Studies, Ukrainian Catholic University, Second Conference: Radical orthodoxy: a Christian answer to Post-Modern Culture.
<www.geocities.ws/sbulgakovsociety/ucupaper.doc> [Accessed 8.9.15]. . See also Williams, Sergii Bulgakov: Towards a Russian Political Theology.
347 Maria Skobtsova (1891-1945) took monastic vows and rented a house in Paris, her ‘convent’,
where she sheltered refugees and helped Jews during the German occupation. Her spiritual director was Fr Sergius Bulgakov. She was sent to Ravensbruck and died in 1945, when she took the place of a Jewish woman. She was canonised in 2004.
348 Michael Plekon, ‘“The Sacrament of the Brother/Sister”: The Lives and Thought of Mother
Maria Skobstova and Paul Evdokimov’, St Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly, 49 (2005), pp. 313- 334. See also Christopher P. Klofft, ‘Gender and the Process of Moral Development in the Thought of Paul Evdokimov, Theological Studies, 66 (2005), pp. 69-89.