Academic Periodical

The article outlines the principles of philological hermeneutics, namely those of large context, mutual elucidation of epochs, meta-discursive language, personal communion, semantic vertical (“‘descending’ to the reality of the text from another altitude”). It is assumed that the originality of Averintsev’s hermeneutic method is associated with the influence of Eastern Christianity, in particular with that of St Isaac of Nineveh, St Ephraim the Syrian, St Gregory of Nazianzus who 
described the experience of mystical knowledge of God. The poem “Annunciation” is considered the image of cognition-understanding that Averintsev offers as an alternative to traditional hermeneutic procedures.