Relationship between religion and philosophy in early Byzantine culture (IV-VII)

As a general background for researching the relationship between philosophy and religion in early Byzantium, the article describes the genesis of new approaches to understanding the world and man within the ancient philosophical traditions; the ethical content is fundamental for these approaches. A special attention is given to the doctrine of the Stoics and Neo-Platonism. The authors consider the ambivalence of medieval philosophy towards the ancient philosophical heritage and analyze positive and negative assessments of Greek Wisdom regarded, from the Christian point of view, as pagan. The article describes main features of the Byzantium ideology, which combined different cultural traditions and became a universal phenomenon as an important condition for developing Byzantine spirituality and culture. Against this background, the relationship between philosophy and religion are studied. It is shown that the new religion - Christianity was perceived as a practical way of life relevant to the ethical standards of the Gospel. It is highlighted that faith plays a key role for understanding these ethical standards. Attention is drawn to the way for developing a new understanding of human destiny within the theocentric thinking. A brief analysis of the doctrine of the knowledge of God as the foundation of the eastern patristic is made. The article describes the heretical doctrines such as Arianism, Monophysitism, Nestorianism as an important form of the relationship between philosophy and religion enabling the work of theological and philosophical though in the early Byzantine period. On this basis, the authors make up a conclusion that the influence of theological dispute about the nature and essence of God on defining a most essential moral and philosophical issues - the issues of a person's worth and the sense of human life and work. The ontological foundation of these disputes is also highlighted. In conclusion, the article summarizes the main points of the contradictory process of developing a new religious philosophy in early Byzantine Empire. Keywords: orthodox, religion, philosophy, Byzantinism, philosophy, ethics, knowledge of God, theocentrism.