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by Artur Mrowczynski-Van Allen (Author), Matthew Philipp Whelan (Translator), William T. Cavanaugh (Foreword by)
""The totalitarian state clearly intends to eliminate all those forms of organic community that rival the absolute loyalty of the individual to the state. This god is a jealous god. . . . Mrowczyński-Van Allen's diagnosis is therefore no less relevant after the fall of the Berlin Wall. And his proposed cure is no less salutary. He appeals to the work of Grossman and other voices from the East to oppose the idolatry of the deified self with the icon, which opens up a distance in which giving and forgiving can occur. Eastern voices are so helpful because they refuse to quarantine theological questions; the borders between theology, politics, and literature are fluid and porous, because they are all a part of an integrated life. The holism of totalitarianism must be opposed by another kind of holism that replaces the idol with the icon. At the same time, the aspiration of secularism to separate politics from theology, and power from love, must be opposed by a politics based on an opening of human persons to God and to each other, the kind of self-donation found in Grossman, and for Christians, on the Cross."" --From the Foreword by William T. Cavanaugh
Author Biography
Artur Mrowczynski-Van Allen is director of the Slavic Department at the International Center for the Study of the Christian Orient in Granada, Spain. He is Currently Professor at the Instituto de Filosofia "Edith Stein" and the Instituto de Teologia "Lumen Gentium" (Granada), where he teaches Philosophy of History and Political Philosophy. He is also member of the Scientific Council of the Centro Studi "Vita e Destino, Vasily Grossman" (Turin), and Consultant of Episcopal Commission for Interconfessional Relations of the Episcopal Conference of Spain (Madrid). . He is coeditor of La Idea Rusa: Entre el anticristo y la Iglesia: Una antologia introductoria (2008).
