The concept “sobornost’” of A. S. Khomyakov in the context of ideas about the unity and plurality in Byzantine philosophy

The article discusses the concept “sobornost’” coined by A. S. Khomyakov in its relation to the patristic ideas about the unity and plurality. Due to the certain controversy around the fact whether A. S. Khomyakov was familiar with the patristic literature or not, the problem of the patristic sources of the concept “sobornost’” remains unclear. This article presents the experience of the “indirect” correlation of the concept “sobornost’” with Byzantine philosophy through the insight into its concepts of the unity and plurality. Such an approach made it possible to distinguish to a certain extent the concept under consideration from the discursive boundaries defined by the context and to reveal its content in relation to certain patristic grounds. First of all, the concept “sobornost’” is viewed in the article as a theological, or rather, an ecclesiological term expressing the church principle of “unity in plurality”. As a result of the study, it was established that the reception baselines of patristic theology by A. S. Khomyakov, which found their expression in the concept “sobornost’”, can be discovered mainly within the tradition of Christian Platonism.