BERDIAEV, NICHOLAS

BERDIAEV, NICHOLAS, philosopher-theologian (6 March 1874–24 March 1948). After studying science at the University of Kiev and philosophy at the University of Heidelberg, he was for a time a Marxist, but returned to the Russian Orthodox Church after the 1905 Revolution. He opposed the second Revolution, after which he taught philosophy at Moscow University. He supported himself throughout his life as a writer and journalist. Exiled from the Soviet Union in 1922, he moved to Berlin and then Paris where he taught free courses in philosophy and religion, editing the journal Put from 1926 to 1939, and concentrating mainly on his prolific writing career. Among his works relating to Christianity are The New Religious Consciousness and Society (1907), The Meaning of History (1923), The Destiny of Man (1931), Christianity and Class War (1933), The Fate of Man in the Modern World (1935), Freedom and the Spirit (1935), and Spirit and Reality (1937). Although his understanding of Christianity was non-traditional in part, especially regarding creation and will, he has contributed greatly to our understanding of 20th c. Christian ethics, symbol, social theory, and personality and spiritual freedom (q.v.).