Panna Sophia

It is winter 1627, Europe is in the middle of religious wars. A young protestant priest Jan Amos Comenius hides with his family from persecution. They face two ultimate choices, either they convert to the Catholic religion, or they leave their homeland for good. Jan Amos is invited to visit a sick girl who claims to see strange images and hears voices. He is expected to provide explanations. He is in doubt not only about the truthfulness of the girl’s visions; he is undergoing a crisis of faith. He resists the feeling that responsibility for one sick girl means responsibility for something much more profound. Little by little, Jan Amos finds a way through to the girl, and her visions become a support for his attitudes. The question is no longer whether they are true but how to deal with the images conveyed, how to interpret them. Martinius, a Lutheran priest brings news from the battlefields. A discussion ensues between him and Jan Amos. What seemed elusive is suddenly crystal clear to Jan Amos. He opposes Martinius’ realistic position and denounces the endless repetition of wars which are promoted by the perpetuation of fear and restriction of knowledge. Kristina dies, but her awakening to a new life transcends the contradictions of this world, a way to attain wisdom. The exile is imminent.

Eduard Fiedler has been working on the “Panna Sophia” film project since the beginning as an expert consultant and co-author of the first versions of the treatment and script. The film’s subject matter relates to philosophical and theological research in the field of Trinitarian ontology and Comenius’ pansophic Trinitarian metaphysics, which we are currently pursuing as part of our junior project “Trinitarian Ontologies: A New Philosophical Investigation into Trinitarian Relationality”.

However the expert collaboration on the film is not only a surprising and attractive form of popularization of Trinitarian ontology and Comenius’s thought, but above all an acceptance of spiritual artistic creation as part of the very process of studying Trinitarian and relational rationality, which responds to the problematic dualistic and antagonistically dialectical tendencies of some currents of modern or postmodern philosophy. At the same time, it is shown in this way that Trinitarian ontology or Christian metaphysical thought is not some speculation remote from life and culture, but can represent an inner moment of the creative process through which spiritual works of art emerge, leading the audience out of reductive forms of rationality and into a fuller understanding of reality in the light of God’s wisdom.