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On December 16, 2001 at St.Petersburg Theological Academy thanks to the effort of the Academy insiders and the Society itself an international meeting commemorated the centenary from the date of Vladimir Soloviev's death was arranged and successfully held. In addition to the members of the Society, Father Kyrill Kopeykin, the academic secretary of the Academy, and a number of students attended the meeting. The first speaker (after a small historical report of Father Kyrill), the President of Sol. Soc., Dr. S.Grib, was speaking about V.Soloviev as about a highly influential phenomenon of Russian Religious philosophy whose founder he is supposed to be. The main thought Soloviev adhered to, and which stands him out among his ancestors, as S.Grib underlined, was his conviction of the profound oneness of human- being and real God, of the creature and the Creator where the former is a co- worker of the Latter. Soloviev maintained that it is through humans that all the creation can come to its Creator, and this dynamic process may be called a Godmanhood process. The speaker dwelled on his personal existential comprehension of the philosophy of V.Soloviev, since Soloviev's ideas would help him to affirm reality of personal relations with Christ.

The report of Prof. A.Grib (a physicist from St.Petersburg Laboratory of Friedmann) dealt with one of the most controversial issues the dispute on the Western teaching about Filioque and the division between the so-called West and the so-called East. As A.Grib observed the Western world had changed the entire world for last 200 years, and that could have never happened in Russia. The reason for that A. Grib discloses in the filioque addition caused the split between Catholic and Orthodox Churches in 11th century. The matter is that filioque means that the Holy Spirit proceeds both from the Father and from the Son but not only from the Father as Orthodoxy asserts. The Son is Eternal Divine Logos, and during His incarnation He was born in time, He is united with the Father but He is His revelation observable by humans. The fact that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Son too makes cognition of the Divine actually possible through rationalizing the natural world. That is to say knowledge of the Unknowable becomes deducible from the created self-sufficient existence. The eastern tradition testifies the apophatic approach to defining the Divine which we can only experience but not wrap in words. So there is a special tradition of hesychasm (Gr quietness) in Russia saying that the sacred is out of words, it is unutterable, and any attempts to objectvate it were taken as blasphemy. A.Grib supposes that this difference in attitudes towards the Divine motivated the split between the Churches, after which the West chose to advance natural knowledge: it caused the emergence of theology and sciences, and finally led to the Inquisition, crusades and extended subdual in all senses of the world around, and to the actual state of affairs in the West (the reporter avoided making any evaluations).

This report aroused a heated argument in which the catholic presented expressed doubt concerning a direct connection of the filioque addition and the Western civilization.

The next speaker, A.Havard from Helsinki, emphasized Soloviev's rational understanding of Christian faith. He argued that for Soloviev the concept of panunity is not revealed by God but is a rational conclusion backed by his mystical experience.

The report of A.Krasilshchikov (St.Petersburg) was mostly aimed at outlining a logical and ontological framework Soloviev used in his works. The speaker attempted to show the internal logical completeness of the philosopher s reflections in determining such notions as panunity and Godmanhood.

The last speaker, I.Gladkovsky (St.Petersburg) told the conference about Soloviev s views on the natural world.

During the round table session arranged after a short break all the problems discussed in the reports were raised again and considered in a more thorough and comprehensive form.