ABSTRACT
The proper theme for the Russian Orthodox philosophers and so-called lay theologians of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries was not so much the doctrinal argument as the 'spirit' of Orthodoxy, and the same can be said about the contemporary Greek Orthodox philosopher Christos Yannaras and many other thinkers. The Byzantine system of theological reflection has a certain keyword, which seems to be quite untranslatable in any other language, including – and this gives pause for thought – the languages of the Orthodox world, e.g., the Russian language. As for younger Orthodox nations and cultures such as the Russian one, they did not in general inherit the Greek habit of dogmatic controversy. But, for the Orthodox liturgical sense, worship as a whole, not exclusively at the moment of Transubstantiation, is a mystery of the transcendent Presence.
