Through Asceticism to Creativity: The Influence of Nikolai Berdyaev’s Philosophy on St Maria Skobtsova’s Spirituality
Through Asceticism to Creativity: The Influence of Nikolai Berdyaev’s Philosophy on St Maria Skobtsova’s Spirituality

Summary/Abstract: This paper argues that for St Maria Skobtsova, creativity is connected with asceticism or rather a critique of a certain understanding of asceticism based on the anthropological claims of creativity developed by the Russian religious philosopher Nikolai Berdyaev. Berdyaev warns of the dangers of a narrow view of asceticism that can lead to a struggle against life itself and not against its fallen consequences. This view is also shared by St Maria in her project for a new monasticism. This narrow view of asceticism that both Berdyaev and St Maria denounce lacks an authentic eschatological earning for the otherworldly and tries to adapt to the limited horizon of the fallen world in a one-sided rejection of its sinfulness that envelops it as a spiritual totality. The overcoming of this narrow ascetical spiritual vision is achieved in creative activity that also ennobles asceticism, thus giving it its proper character in the Christian life. This understanding is grounded in an anthropology that recognizes the divine image of the human being that is called to a creative participation in God’s creative work, a spiritual vision that both Berdyaev and St Maria share in their own particular ways.

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