God, Man and the Church

A major work of theology and ecclesiology by a pre-eminent Russian theologian of the late 19th-century. It is a penetrating examination of man's relationship - both as an individual and in society - with God. For Solovyev, personal religion can only be satisfied in social religion. Private prayer finds its fulfilment in the Church's liturgy, and the Church is the highest expression of man's religious aspirations. Solovyev's mystical understanding of the Church provides the basis for a fundamental analysis of the idea of the state from a Christian viewpoint. Published in 1937, Donald Attwater's translation of God, Man and the Church, which made the work available in the English language for the first time, has become a classic in its own right.