Russian Spirituality and the Theology of Negation

Toward the end of the twentieth century Russian culture found itself at a crossroads which cannot be ascribed to any political election but which rather presupposed a radical change in its religious and social orientation. Two somewhat opposing theses will be developed in this article. First I will discuss the processes of secularization in Russian culture and the necessity of a third, neutral zone between the sacred and the profane. Next, the dangers of social neutralization in culture and the necessity of retaining elements of the dual model along with the introduction of intermediate elements will be presented. We will hope that these theses are but partly contradictory; that is, when combined they will not cancel each other out, but will rather produce a ternary model of a cultural symbiosis between the extreme and the median, despite their apparent incongruity