Abstract

In this article I would like to show the relationship between education in a religious spirit and the experience of melancholy. That relationship I will present the basis of a series of films by Ingmar Bergman , in which the Swedish director focuses on the analysis of religious experiences of his heroes. Secondly, however, an important source of knowledge about the relation between religion and state of melancholy will be a writings of the Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard, in which the thinker, emphasizing the autobiographical threads, highlights the dramatic choice life on a religious way. The phenomenon of religious melancholy is presented in two meaning: 1. as a mental state which is a negative consequence of education in the spirit of religious piety and caused by that feeling of guilt for sins and conviction about the threat posed by God, understood as an instance of punishing. 2. in the second sense melancholy will be understood as a “crisis of hope” and spiritual despair caused by the human inability to determine their position before God. Melancholy will mean in this case, the inability to choice between live with God or life in opposition to God. Will be identical to the state between hatred and love for God. Key words KIERKEGAARD, BERGMAN, RELIGION, EDUCATION