01 — Life and Formation
Paul Evdokimov’s formation was violent before it was theological: a father killed when he was a small boy, a cadet corps education, a revolution, two years with the White armies, and a flight through Constantinople to Paris in 1923 with nothing. This section covers the Russian years and the loss of Russia, then the Paris years in which a refugee working nights at the Citroën plant became one of the first students of the St. Sergius Institute and, in 1942, a doctor of philosophy with a thesis on Dostoevsky and the problem of evil.
Tradition: Russian Orthodox (emigration)
Files
| File | Description |
|---|---|
| From St. Petersburg to Paris | Birth in 1901, the murder of his father, the cadet corps, Kiev, the White armies, and the emigration of 1923 |
| The Student Years and the Dostoevsky Thesis | The Sorbonne and St. Sergius, Bulgakov and Berdyaev, marriage to Natasha Brunel, Menton, and the 1942 doctorate |
Why This Section Matters
Two things in Evdokimov’s biography govern everything he later wrote. The first is that he never had a settled world: he was a displaced person for forty-seven years, and he refused French naturalization in order to remain, formally, a Russian refugee (“Paul Evdokimov, theologian,” Office français de protection des réfugiés et apatrides [OFPRA], Famous Refugees gallery). The second is that he remained a layman. He was formed in a theological institute among future priests, he taught in one for seventeen years, and he never sought ordination. His theology of the universal vocation to holiness — “interiorized monasticism,” marriage as an ascetic way, the royal priesthood of the baptized — is not an abstraction constructed from books; it is the theological account of the life he was actually living (Plekon, Living Icons, 2002, ch. on Evdokimov).
See Also
- 02 — The War and the Refugees — the next chapter of the life
- Fr. Sergius Bulgakov — his principal teacher
- Russian Orthodox Theologians — the emigration’s theological generation
References
- Plekon, Michael. Living Icons: Persons of Faith in the Eastern Church. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2002.
- Office français de protection des réfugiés et apatrides (OFPRA). “Paul Evdokimov, theologian.” Famous Refugees image gallery. (His refusal of French nationality; his refugee status.)