Pilgrimage and Spiritual Journey. To the Problem Statement

Abstract

The article is devoted to the actual problem of the humanities-the distinction between actual and spiritual journey. Based on the analysis of research in recent decades, the author comes to the conclusion about the contamination of two concepts in works on philology, philosophy and art history. The article expresses the thesis about the need to distinguish several types of journey, which is justified by examples from the history of culture. According to the author, spiritual and actual journey can overlap one another, a representative example of which is the «Frank Stories of a Wanderer to his Spiritual Father». Turning to the typology of spiritual pilgrimage, the author of the article notes that the existing conclusions of E. V. Falenkova need a serious correction. It is noted that monasticism and hermithood are difficult to distinguish, and a layman can be both a fool and a wanderer. As a result, the article offers its own typology, according to which such types as prayerful solitude, novitiate, foolishness and actual pilgrimage are distinguished. The validity of the separation of these types is demonstrated on the basis of many examples from Christian, ascetic and classical literature. As a conclusion, the author of the article expresses the hope that the proposed attempt to explicate the types of spiritual pilgrimage will help in solving the current humanitarian problem.