Sergii Bulgakov Research Articles

Speaking (about) Substance: The Metaphysics of Rowan Williams and some Russian Philosophers

AbstractRussian religious culture has been a constant and prominent element of Rowan Williams’ work. This article demonstrates the affinity of Williams’ metaphysics with the work of two Russian philosopher‐theologians, whose influence on Williams is explicit: Sergii Bulgakov and Aleksei Losev. This affinity is drawn out by a close attention to the significance of the concept of substance in Williams’ metaphysics. The concept of substance brings together language, metaphysics, and the doctrine of God in Williams’ work, in ways that converge strongly with the thought of Bulgakov and Losev. Via a scrutiny of language, these thinkers eschew an understanding of substance and transcendence that privileges isolated interiority, with substance instead taking a Trinitarian shape. To think metaphysically thus becomes a spiritual practice, as the metaphysician renounces an understanding of substance in the image of the isolated ego, conforming instead to the triune pattern of created being.

Philosophy of the Name by Sergii Bulgakov (review)

Philosophy of the Name by Sergii Bulgakov (review)

Christ as the Watermark of Divine Love: Expanding the Boundaries of Eastern Orthodox Ecumenism and Interreligious Encounter

The article is a personal theological reflection on ecumenism and inter-religious dialogue by one of the commission of drafters of the Ecumenical Patriarchate's 2020 social teaching text For the Life of the World: Toward an Orthodox Social Ethos (=FLOW). The text argues that FLOW, despite being innovative for Orthodoxy, needs its boundaries expanded theologically. The section on Christian ecumenism is still quite conservative in character. It acknowledges that the Orthodox Church is committed to ecumenism but it does not explicitly acknowledge the ecclesiality of non-Orthodox churches. The author puts forward a form of qualified ecclesiological exclusivism that affirms that non-Orthodox churches are tacitly Orthodox containing “a grain of Orthodoxy” (Sergii Bulgakov). Strangely, FLOW's section on inter-religious dialogue is much more radical than its section on ecumenism. The author builds theologically on FLOW's positive affirmation of other religions as containing “seeds of the Word”, in particular, Islam containing ‘beauty and spiritual truths' and Judaism as being Orthodoxy’s “elder brother.” The essay ends by sketching a Trinitarian theology of other religions drawing on ideas from Maximus the Confessor, Bulgakov, Hans Urs von Balthasar and Raimundo Panikkar amongst others.

Original Sin and the Fall: Five Views

Original Sin and the Fall: Five Views

Sergii Bulgakov’s Linguistic Trinity*

AbstractAs the work of Sergii Bulgakov has become more widely available in English, his Trinitarian theology has become a subject of particular interest. This article analyses his less well‐known works on the Trinity from the 1920s, arguing that the understanding of Trinitarian doctrine developed there is inseparable from Bulgakov’s analyses of language and consciousness. By analysing Bulgakov’s approach to the Trinity via language, this article will draw particular attention to his negotiation of the notion of divine transcendence. We will see that Bulgakov’s writings on the Trinity display, contrary to received opinion, a deep apophatic tendency, or recognition of divine transcendence. But we will also see that his more thoroughly linguistic approach to the Trinity, in which divine transcendence flows from what it means for God to be Love, contradicts his explicit discussion of divine transcendence elsewhere as a transcendence of the Father alone.

THE CONCEPT OF KENOSIS IN THEOLOGICAL THOUGHT OF V. N. LOSSKY AND ARCHPRIEST SERGII BULGAKOV: A COMPARATIVE CRITICAL ANALYSIS

It has been found that the discrepancies between V. N. Lossky’s and archpriest Sergii Bulgakov’s views on kenosis are explained by the fact that these thinkers built their teachings on different methodological foundations, using different sources and tools. For Lossky, kenosis was temporal in nature and was limited to the histological dimension, while for Bulgakov kenosis meant an eternal intrathroic metaphysical reality that manifested itself much earlier and on a much larger scale. If Bulgakov insisted that the Incarnation was determined by ontological necessity (ontological altruism), then Lossky, by contrast, was of the opinion that it was caused by the need to solve the human problem of sin and became possible only due to the free act of the Divine will.

Sergii Bulgakov’s Reinvention of Theocracy for a Democratic Age

Sergii Bulgakov’s Reinvention of Theocracy for a Democratic Age

In the Afterglow of the Russian Silver Age: Sergii Bulgakov's "Judas Iscariot–Apostle–Betrayer"

In the Afterglow of the Russian Silver Age: Sergii Bulgakov's "Judas Iscariot–Apostle–Betrayer"

The ‘Sophiological’ Origins of Vladimir Lossky's Apophaticism

AbstractVladimir Lossky (1903–58) and Sergii Bulgakov (1871–1944) are normally taken as polar opposites in modern Orthodox theology. Lossky's theology is portrayed as being based on a close exegesis of the Greek Fathers with an emphasis on theosis, the Trinity and the apophatic way of mystical union with God. Bulgakov's ‘sophiology’, in contrast, if it is remembered at all, is said to be a theology which wished to ‘go beyond the Fathers’, was based on German Idealism and the quasi-pantheist and gnostic idea of ‘sophia’ which is a form of the ‘Eternal Feminine’ of Romanticism. In short, Lossky's theological approach is what people normally think of when they speak of Orthodox theology: a form of ‘neo-patristic synthesis’ (Georges Florovsky). Bulgakov's theological approach is said to be typical of the exotic dead end of the inter-war émigré ‘Paris School’ (Alexander Schmemann) or ‘Russian Religious Renaissance’ (Nicolas Zernov). Lossky, we are reminded, was instrumental in the 1935 condemnation, by Metropolitan Sergii Stragorodskii of the Moscow Patriarchate, of Bulgakov's theology as ‘alien’ to the Orthodox Christian faith. Counter to this widely held ‘standard narrative’ of contemporary Orthodox theology, the article argues that the origins of Vladimir Lossky's apophaticism, which he characterised as ‘antinomic theology’, are found within the theological methodology of the sophiology of Sergii Bulgakov: ‘antinomism’. By antinomism is understood that with any theological truth one has two equally necessary affirmations (thesis and antithesis) which are nevertheless logically contradictory. In the face of their conflict, we are forced to hold both thesis and antithesis together through faith. A detailed discussion of Lossky's apophaticism is followed by its comparison to Bulgakov's ‘sophiological antinomism’. Lossky at first appears to be masking the influence of Bulgakov and even goes so far as to read his own form of theological antinomism into the Fathers. Nevertheless, he may well have been consciously appropriating the ‘positive intuitions’ of Bulgakov's thought in order to ‘Orthodoxise’ a thinker he believed was in error but still regarded as the greatest Orthodox theologian of the twentieth century. Despite major differences between the two thinkers (e.g. differing understandings of reason, the use of philosophy and the uncreated/created distinction), it is suggested that Lossky and Bulgakov have more in common than normally is believed to be the case. A critical knowledge of Bulgakov's sophiology is said to be the ‘skeleton key’ for modern Orthodox theology which can help unlock its past, present and future.

THE CHRISTOLOGICAL FOCUS OF VLADIMIR SOLOV'EV'S SOPHIOLOGY*

AbstractVladimir Solov'ev (1853–1900) is one of the major influences on Sergii Bulgakov's “sophiology” and has been praised by both Hans Urs von Balthasar and John Milbank. However, his theology has often been read as a mere “religious philosophy” unduly influenced by Gnosticism and German Idealism. The article argues that Solov'ev's theology is more accurately understood as a unique form of Christology which integrates Gnostic and Idealist thought into Chalcedonian orthodoxy. Solov'ev's most important contribution is a sophiological reading of Christology which attempts to found the created on the uncreated without collapsing one into the other or ontologically juxtaposing them.

Sergii Bulgakov and the Task of Theology

Bulgakov's theology is not only a continuation of a tradition of Russian religious philosophy that he inherited, but is also an attempt to reconceive the task of theology in the West, where others (Barth and some Catholic theologians) also felt the need to break away from traditional patterns. Bulgakov's conception of theology is ecclesial, even priestly, rooted in his (at times, daily) celebration of the Divine Liturgy, and based on his reading of the Fathers of the Church. Theology grows out of a relationship with God experienced in prayer, especially liturgical prayer, and provides a `personalist' approach in contrast to the traditional `cosmological' approach and the modern `anthropological' approach (to use Balthasar's terms), but based on a notion of person as shaped by community, rather than person as individual. Finally this approach to theology is related to the notion of the Wisdom of God, `Sophia,' which throughout remained important to Bulgakov.

Пассивное противостояние диамату на пути к онтологии и феноменологии: Имяславие и критическое неогумбольдтианство (русские религиозные философы и Густав Шпет)

The article discusses the alternative order of “language criticism” as developed by the main representatives of Russian “religious” hesychast philosophy on the one hand and phenomenological “Neo-Humboldtianism” on the other. The article draws on the works written in the early and late twenties by Aleksei Losev, Sergii Bulgakov, Pavel Florenskii and Gustav Shpet and demonstrates their substantial alterity with regard to Stalin's philosophical ideology applied to language studies and general humanities. The main object of our study is the descriptive analysis of Russian “imiaslavie” together with Russian linguistic phenomenology debated through the perspective of European semiotics (Ferdinand de Saussure). The article strives to demonstrate the distinctiveness of these Russian intellectual traditions and their possible idiosyncrasy within the semiotic scientific paradigm.

Shadow Sophia in Christological Perspective: The Evolution of Sin and the Redemption of Nature1

Drawing on animal ethological studies, this article considers the possibility of a form of morality existing in animals and its relationship with human morality. Given this capacity, I argue that first we need to reflect more carefully on human sin and evil in evolutionary terms. Second, I question the adequacy of the traditional divide between “moral” and “natural” evil as well as consider the possibility of anthropogenic evil. Third, I suggest that a theological response to nonhuman morality should include discussion of the atonement, but traditional categories prove inadequate. Fourth, drawing on Sergii Bulgakov, I explore the idea of shadow sophia as representing a multivocal theodicy that is capable of holding together a tapestry of different theological responses to evil. Finally, I discuss the redemption of nature in the light of the foregoing discussion.

The Word Made Self: Russian Writings on Language by Thomas Seifrid

MLR, I02.2, 2007 607 Lyngstad also informsus in the foreword that thiswill be a subjective account: 'I shall not flinchfrom making value judgements about thenovels' (p. xiv). Nor does he; after a patient unpacking of the layersofmeaning in a novel, he is forthrightabout his own evaluation of it.Since he has provided us with the evidence, this is fairenough, and one is free to disagree as Iwould, forexample, with his conclusion about Pan, that the novel's meaning, 'in the final analysis, appears to be undecidable' (p. 65). At times he is a littlemoralistic in his judgements, as when in the final chapter he laments thedeplorable dearth of 'highervalues' inHamsun's novels (p. 333), or 'the absence of an all-encompassing logos,or telos, to his novelistic production' (p. 327), as ifsearching, touse Virginia Woolf's expression, fora line down the centre tohold itall together.Hamsun does not provide such a thing-and given his artistic credo, why should he? He reinvents himselfwith each novel. It is a pity thatLyngstad has decided thatHamsun's short stories, poems, and plays falloutside the scope of this study; although his works in the latter two genres do not bear comparison with the novels, a brief look at themwould have given the book amore satisfying completeness. Nevertheless, this is a volume which conveys a fuller sense than any other study inEnglish ofHamsun's importance as a world writer, a novelist who, forall his faults,was amaster of language, whose prose echoes down the corridors of themind. Let us hope that itcontributes, belatedly, to awider recognition of his genius. Like all perceptive criticism, itshould at thevery least send us back with freshenthusiasm to thenovels themselves. UNIVERSITY OF EAST ANGLIA JANET GARTON The Word Made Self: Russian Writings on Language. By THOMAS SEIFRID. Ithaca, NY, and London: Cornell University Press. 2005. 240 pp. $45. ISBN 978-o 80I4-43I6-9. The differences and similarities of theplace of literature inRussia vis-ai-vis Western Europe have been the subject ofmany studies. The place of philosophy inRussian culture, however, has receivedmuch more summary treatment; indeed, the existence and even desirability of a Russian tradition of analytical philosophy have sometimes been questioned. In thisbook Thomas Seifrid shows that,with an established liter ary language and tradition, thought on language and selfhood began to develop in Russia once the stiflingcensorship ofNicholas I's reign had passed, and was stopped only by Stalinist repression. He acknowledges the disparity between the twomain influences on the thinkers he discusses: Western thought on language, particularly that deriving fromGerman Romanticism, and native Orthodox-based thought on the Word (logos). He explains this background with admirable thoroughness, as he does the contemporary developments which illuminate the debates of the philoso phers under discussion. References are similarly comprehensive and are helpfully presented in footnotes rather than endnotes. Thus both theRussianist with only a basic knowledge ofWestern philosophy and the philosopher wanting to know more about Russian interpretations of familiar concepts arewell served. Seifrid begins by arguing that theKharkov linguistAleksandr Potebnia was one of the first to attempt to link the two traditions of thoughtmentioned above. His innovation consisted of his development ofAlexander von Humboldt's definition of the formofwords: the 'outer form' consisted of theirphonetic qualities; these in turn express themeaning or 'content' of a word; but-Potebnia maintained-the word's 'inner form' isdetermined through theetymological origins of the roots ofwhich it is constructed. He claimed that thisdemonstrated how individuals perceived theirown thought, and that theword was therefore amanifestation of selfhood in theworld. 6o8 Reviews Andrei Bely and Velimir Khlebnikov saw the convergence of the qualities of the sign and the referent in theword as a point where the particular and the universal coincided. Both attempted toallocate absolute meaning to lexical units inanticipation of the revelation of an absolute language. Osip Mandelshtam's and Vladimir Ern's more personalistic views of logos round off what, among other things, is a very useful survey of philosophical developments parallel to the literary and aesthetic reactions of the Silver Age to civic thought of the I86os and I870s. We then see how twoof themain figuresof the religious renaissance inRussian phi losophy, Pavel Florenskii and Sergii Bulgakov, developed theTrinitarian...

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’.

Book Reviews

Book reviewed in this article:Jesudas M. Athyal and John J. Thatamanil eds, Metropolitan Chrysostom on Mission in the Market PlaceSergii Bulgakov, Towards a Russian Political Theology, edited with a commentary by Rowan WilliamsIrimie Marga, In dragoste hi adevàr. Dialogul teologic oficial ortodox‐catolic, de la Rodos la Balamand ‐ In Love and Truth: The Official Orthodox Catholic Theological Dialogue, From Rhodes to BalamandGeoffrey Wainwright, Lesslie Newbigin: A Theological Life

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

Sergii Bulgakov. Towards a Russian Political Theology. Edited with commentary by Rowan Williams. Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1999. Pp. x + 310. £24.95.

Sergii Bulgakov. Towards a Russian Political Theology. Edited with commentary by Rowan Williams. Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1999. Pp. x + 310. £24.95.

REVIEWS

Journal Article REVIEWS Get access Sergii Bulgakov. Towards a Russian Political Theology. Edited with commentary by ROWAN WILLIAMS. Pp. X+310. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1999. ISBN 0 567 08650 X. £24.95 AIDAN NICHOLS, OP AIDAN NICHOLS, OP Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The Journal of Theological Studies, Volume 51, Issue 2, October 2000, Pages 784–786, https://doi.org/10.1093/jts/51.2.784 Published: 01 October 2000