The Delayed Parousia and Other Disillusionments as a Model for Today

The main subject of this article is the massive disillusionment of many Christians, in one way or another connected with Russian Orthodoxy, with their ecclesiastical tradition. As a model for overcoming this crisis, the so-called “delayed Parousia” of the first century A.D. is proposed, when the delay of Christ’s Second Coming became the main stimulus for the creative development of Christianity and its incorporation into the polis society and social structures of the early Roman Empire. Such aspects of the problem as the building of relations between church and state, the presentation of the foundations of faith in the language of modern philosophy, and the overcoming of a dictatorial past, particularly the consequences of war, are addressed separately.