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Byzantine Sacred Arts Bearing The Mystic Ideal Of Human Deification As Ontological Therapy

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In this context, Byzantine sacred arts bearing the mystic ideal of human deification as ontological therapy, can become de-alienating pharmakon by opening a horizon in which man’s (even cyberman’s) essence as homo theologicus can be properly restored and saved. Most modern and contemporary aesthetic doctrines loyal to their post-Kantian heritage have disposed of almost any trace of mystic origin and transcendental telos as a useless waste. For this reason, they prove useless against the onto-emptying power of cyberculture. Byzantine Orthodox aesthetics as an ontological therapeutic way with mystic origin and transcendental telos, can contribute to the de-oblivion of man’s essence in four basic ways: 1. by re-appropriating space through sacred architecture as an epiphanical “locale” where man can dwell anew in the neighborhood of Being, 2. by re-interpreting man’s “being in the world” as an ex-static interplay with Sacred that restores his sensorial perceptions through sacred icons and music, 3. by re-centering his life upon the ontological principle of self-identity against the interactive rationality of cyberlogic, and 4. by re-substantiating human self-experience as homo theologicus.
In the light of Byzantine onto-therapeutic theology, we can interpret our own being-in-the world as a reaching-out towards the other as epiphany himself of Transcendence. We can recall our essence as self-identical personhood by affirming ourselves as preserving care for other’s being, i.e. as

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