Russian Theology Research Articles

Russian Nationalist Orthodox Theology: A New Trend in the Political Life of Russia

Presently nationalist circles seem to promulgate a synthesis of Russian Orthodox Christianity with Marxism and ultra-patriotism. Russian nationalist Orthodox theology teaches that Jesus Christ was Russian or Slavic; it leans toward violence and is apt to quickly change the target oppressor who is broadly defined as anyone who is non-Russian or non-Orthodox. Russian nationalist Orthodox theology may be used at the Presidential Elections 2008 to boost an ultra-nationalist candidate.

Sergii Bulgakov, the Fellowship of St Alban and St Sergius, Intercommunion and Sofiology

Sergii Bulgakov and Georgii (Georges) Florovskii – arguably the two most influential Russian theologians of the twentieth century – cut their theological teeth during their work in the 1920s and 1930s for the Fellowship of St Alban and St Sergius. A history of the Fellowship suggests the degree to which twentieth‐century Russian theology was informed and defined by its interaction with Anglican theology and demonstrates the seriousness (and difficulty) with which Russian Orthodox émigrés in Western Europe approached the question of Orthodoxy’s relationship to other confessions. Bulgakov’s 1933 proposal for intercommunion brought to a head questions about Russian Orthodoxy’s attitude towards theological development that had long consumed Russian Orthodox émigrés, and widened political and theological divisions among intellectuals in the West and their more conservative émigré colleagues in the Balkans. Moreover, an examination of Bulgakov’s proposal sheds new light on his ‘Sofiology’ – a commitment that informed much of his life and work, and an ideal which his critics found overly romantic and influenced by ‘Westernising’ tendencies that called into question Russian Orthodoxy’s unique commitment to ‘the Truth’.

Reviews

Books Reviewed:Jan–Olav Henriksen, The Reconstruction of Religion: Lessing, Kierkegaard, and NietzscheEdward Farley, Faith and Beauty: A Theological AestheticOliver Davies, A Theology of CompassionJamie Ferreira, Love's Grateful Striving: A Commentary on Kierkegaard's Works of LoveCyril O’Regan, Gnostic Apocalypse: Jacob Boehme's Haunted NarrativeJoseph L. Mangina, Karl Barth on the Christian Life: The Practical Knowledge of GodEric O. Springsted, The Act of Faith: Christian Faith and the Moral SelfPaul Valliere, Modern Russian Theology: Bukharev, Soloviev, Bulgakov. Orthodox Theology in a New KeyOona Ajzenstat, Driven Back to the Text: The Premodern Sources of Levinas's PostmodernismEric Santner, On the Psychotheology of Everyday Life

Book Review: Modern Russian Theology: Bukharev, Soloviev, Bulgakov—Orthodox Theology in a New Key

Book Review: Modern Russian Theology: Bukharev, Soloviev, Bulgakov—Orthodox Theology in a New Key

Book Reviews

Books reviewed:William Horbury, W. D. Davies and John Sturdy (eds.), The Cambridge History of Judaism, Volume 3: The Early Roman PeriodLarry J. Kreitzer and Deborah W. Rooke (eds.), Ciphers in the Sand: Interpretations of The Woman Taken in Adultery (John 7:53–8:11)Marcus Barth and Helmut Blanke, The Letter to Philemon(Eerdmans Critical Commentary)Translated with commentary by Martin Abegg Jr., Peter Flint and Eugene Ulrich, The Dead Sea Scrolls BibleJoseph A. Fitzmyer, The Dead Sea Scrolls and Christian OriginsM. Bockmuehl, Jewish Law in Gentile Churches: Halakhah and the Beginning of Christian Public EthicsColin E. Gunton, Intellect and Action: Elucidations on Christian Theology and the Life of FaithJames K. A. Smith, The Fall of Interpretation: Philosophical Foundations for a Creational HermeneuticRobert John Russell, et al.(eds.), Neuroscience and the Person: Scientific Perspectives on Divine ActionJ. P. Williams, Denying Divinity: Apophasis in the Patristic Christian and Soto Zen Buddhist TraditionsDonald J. Goergen and Ann Garrido (eds.), The Theology of the PriesthoodPaul Janowiak, The Holy Preaching: The Sacramentality of the Word in the Liturgical AssemblyGeoffrey Wainwright, Is the Reformation Over? Catholics and Protestants at the Turn of the Millennia (The Père Marquette Lecture in Theology 2000)Gary B. Ferngren (ed.), The History of Science and Religion in the Western Tradition: An Encyclopedia (Garland Reference Library of the Humanities, vol. 1833)Andrew Wright, Spirituality and EducationWilliam Johnston, ‘Arise, My Love ≡’: Mysticism for a New EraPaul Valliere, Modern Russian Theology – Bukharev, Soloviev, Bulgakov: Orthodox Theology in a New KeyRowan Williams (ed.), Sergii Bulgakov: Towards a Russian Political TheologyNorman P. Tanner, The Councils of the Church: A Short HistoryTranslated with an Introduction by A. F. Norman Antioch as a Centre of Hellenic Culture as Observed by Libanius (Translated Texts for Historians)Selected and translated by Carolinne White, Early Christian Latin Poets (The Early Church Fathers)Wendy Mayer and Pauline Allen, John Chrysostom (The Early Church Fathers)Alexander Callender Murray (ed.), After Rome’s Fall: Narrators and Sources of Early Medieval History. Essays Presented to Walter GoffartJacques Verger, Men of Learning in Europe at the End of the Middle AgesI. S. Robinson, Henry IV of Germany, 1056–1106Frances Andrews, The Early Humiliati (Cambridge Studies in Medieval Life and Thought, 4th Series, 43)Cary J. Nederman, Worlds of Difference: European Discourses of Toleration, c.1100–c.1550Constance Hoffman Berman, The Cistercian Evolution: The Invention of a Religious Order in Twelfth‐Century EuropeAnne L. Clark, Elisabeth of Schönau: The Complete WorksNicholas Terpstra (ed.), The Politics of Ritual Kinship: Confraternities and Social Order in Early Modern Italy (Cambridge Studies in Italian History and Culture)Georg B. Michels, At War with the Church: Religious Dissent in Seventeenth–century RussiaAdrian Davies, The Quakers in English Society, 1650–1725Hugh McLeod, Secularization in Western Europe, 1848–1914 (European Studies Series)H. S. Jones, Victorian Political Thought(British History in Perspective)John Mantle, Britain’s First Worker–Priests: Radical Ministry in a Post–War Setting

Modern Russian Theology

Modern Russian Theology

The Trinity of Love in Modem Russian Theology: The Love Paradigm and the Retrieval of Western Mysticism in Modem Russian Trinitarian Thought (from Solovyov to Bulgakov), by Michael Aksionov Meerson

The Trinity of Love in Modem Russian Theology: The Love Paradigm and the Retrieval of Western Mysticism in Modem Russian Trinitarian Thought (from Solovyov to Bulgakov), by Michael Aksionov Meerson

The Trinity of Love in Modern Russian Theology: The Love Paradigm and the Retrieval of Western Medieval Love Mysticism in Modern Russian Trinitarian Thought (From Solovyov to Bulgakov)

The Trinity of Love in Modern Russian Theology: The Love Paradigm and the Retrieval of Western Medieval Love Mysticism in Modern Russian Trinitarian Thought (From Solovyov to Bulgakov)

Incidences en Occident (et en Russie) du renouveau théologique russe au XXe siècle

Nicolas Lossky, Repercussions in the West, and in Russia of the twentieth-century Russian theological revival. The twentieth-century Russian theological revival is a heir to several trends that appeared in the nineteenth century: translation into Russian of the Philocalia, the Russian "religious philosophy" and the rediscovery of the patristic literature. In the twentieth century this revival produces two trends : the heirs of religious philosophy on the one hand and the patrologists and patristic theologians on the other. These two trends are complementary, especially insofar as their repercussions in the West are concerned. The meeting with the West takes place first of all in Prague, then in Paris and in England. In Prague, the Seminar of N.P. Kondakov plays an important part. In Paris, the foundation of the Institute of Saint Sergius and the creation of the Fraternity of Saint Photius have greatly contributed to this meeting. In England, Russian orthodoxy and Anglicanism meet within the framework of the Fellowship of Saint Alban and Saint Sergius which had been organized in the 1930's. In USSR, after studies made in underground groups, the "Parisian" theology is at present officially recognized more and more as the authentic Russian theology of the twentieth century.

Images of Muscovy

In this essay Professor Florovsky brings a rare combination of sympathetic understanding and restless questioning to the study of Russian culture. Cutting through a century of scholarly cliches about he finds inadequate not only the cultural provincialism of erudite liberals like A. Pypin and S. Soloviev, whose real interests lay in post-Petrine Russia, but also the simplified explanations of Old Russian cultural development presented by church historians like Golubinsky and sympathetic students like Buslaev and Fedotov.1 As in his penetrating Ways of Russian Theology, he quietly draws attention away from easy answers to difficult but important questions. It would be presumptuous for anyone-let alone a non-Slav far inferior in age and wisdom to Father Florovsky-to pretend to answer them, but one can at least gain valuable guidance for a fresh appraisal of old Russia by facing up to four major tasks that his discussion sets before us: (1) distinguishing different periods and regions within pre-Petrine Russian culture, (2) accounting for its intellectual silence, (3) analyzing its inner structure, and (4) appraising separately its historical fate and its intrinsic worth. (1) Any consideration of Old Russian culture invites one major division-which is both chronological and regional-between Kiev and Muscovy. There is, to be sure, a bridge between them through Vladimir-Suzdal; but the cosmopolitan, urban culture of the former centered on the Dnepr and the southwestern steppe is clearly distinct from the more monolithic and monastic culture of the latter centered on the Volga and the northeastern forests. The culture of Kievan Russia has been, as Professor Florovsky points out, exhaustively studied and somewhat idealized in recent years; but the impression has been created of a kind of cultural vacuum between the fall of Kiev and the rise of Petersburg.2

The Problem of the Church in Modern Russian Theology (II)

The Problem of the Church in Modern Russian Theology (II)

The Problem of the Church in Modern Russian Theology

The Problem of the Church in Modern Russian Theology