What is "sobornost"

n. (context philosophy theology English) A unity of people in loving fellowship.

Sobornost ( "Spiritual community of many jointly living people") is a term coined by the early Slavophiles, Ivan Kireyevsky and Aleksey Khomyakov, to underline the need for co-operation between people, at the expense of individualism, on the basis that the opposing groups focus on what is common between them. Khomyakov believed the West was progressively losing its unity because it was embracing Aristotle and his defining individualism. Kireyevsky believed that Hegel and Aristotle represented the same ideal of unity.

Khomyakov and Kireyevsky originally used the term sobor to designate co-operation within the Russian obshchina, united by a set of common convictions and Eastern Orthodox values, as opposed to the cult of individualism in the West.

Sobornost is a theological journal published by the Fellowship of St Alban and St Sergius. It publishes articles on "the life and thought of the Eastern Churches and their relationship with Western Christendom." In 1979, Sobornost incorporated the Eastern Churches Review.