P. 228-34 (Proceeding from Discussion of Sophia in the Works of Pavel Florenskii)

I have placed the notes at the end of the document so that they won’t be encrypted. Please be aware that the article from which this was taken was written in 1990, adn that much new material has since been published, included Paul Valliere’s articles and books, as well as others (e.g., Bernice Rosenthal) which shed light on Bulgakov’s sophiology. KG

“Bulgakov/Sophia”

Excerpted from Kristi Groberg, “The Feminine Occult Sophia in the Russian Religious Renaissance: A Bibliographical Essay,” Canadian-American Slavic Studies 26, nos. 1-4 (1992):197-240. Special issue of CASS edited by Bernice G. Rosenthal.

p. 228-34 (proceeding from discussion of Sophia in the works of Pavel Florenskii):

Sergei Bulgakov (1871-1944) was a contemporary and friend of Florenskii’s. By 1888 Bulgakov had completed seminary training but was an ardent advocate of Marxism. 1890 found him enrolled at Moscow University as a student of political economy and the empirical sciences; his interests, however, were in philosophy and literature. He graduated in 1894 and started to publish writings on Marxist economy; at this time, Bulgakov experienced a spiritual crisis and began to read Fedor Dostoevskii and Vladimir Solov’ev. Gradually he embraced idealism and moved toward Orthodoxy. Traveling in the Caucasus (1894), he had his first revelation that someone or something had been revealed to him; later, he identified this as his first encounter with Sophia.[103] Then, while in the Dresden Gallery (1898) before Raphael’s Sistine Madonna, Bulgakov had a second mystical sophianic experience.[104] A third miracle happened in 1908 while he was on retreat in a northern monastery.[105]

Why or how Sophia gained conceptual significance for Bulgakov he did not explain, but he obviously accepted Solov’ev’s ideal and as early as 1905 published responsa to writings about her.[106] By 1912, he had applied a feminine sophiology in his doctoral dissertation, The Philosophy of theEconomy.[107] His first major work that dealt specifically with Sophia was The Unfading Light (1917), which provided a biblical exposition on the feminine Sophia; yet nevertheless Bulgakov concluded that there was a religious truth in pagan worship of the Great Mother, and that this feminine hypostasis of God was a mystery seldom considered by Christianity. Sophia was the Great Mother worshipped of old; she was Demeter, Isis, Cybele, and Ishtar, and he perceived Her in the hierarchies and pantheons of occultism, fairy tales, legends, folklore, beliefs, and superstitions.[108] Moved by the intuition that Sophia should be identified with the Platonic kingdom of ideas, Bulgakov sought a reconciliation between his perspective and Orthodox tradition. In addition he developed a sophianic creation myth in which Sophia was Beginning--a primordial Earth; in it he called her Eternal Femininity, but used other Great Mother terms such as Root of Being and Archetype of Creation. He wrote that not even in Eden was this archetype as fully realized as it was in Sophia. In her cosmic aspect she was Anima Mundi, the alchemical World Soul; she was Talent, Beauty, and the Church. In June of 1918 Bulgakov was ordained a priest; he then lost his professorship at Moscow University, after which he devoted himself to writing. During this same year he published Quiet Meditations (Tikhiia dumy) in which his fascination with Solov’ev’s poetics was evident; the mystery of the world was Eternal Femininity for Bulgakov, and he deemed Sophia the Eternal Feminine, the maternal womb of being, a living essence (ousia).

Bulgakov remained in Soviet Russia until 1922, when he was exiled as part of a group of intellectuals and clerics. His first stop was Constantinople, where he experienced another sophianic encounter in the Byzantine cathedral of Hagia Sophia. There, he saw the pagan Sophia of Plato mirrored in the Orthodox Divine Wisdom; in this most tangible of Sophia manifestations, he envisioned the origins of the Divine Symphony of Orthodox worship.[109] Bulgakov finally settled in Paris, where he joined the faculty of the Russian Theological Academy (St. Sergius). In 1924 he again visited Raphael’s Sistine Madonna, this time finding her image pagan in comparison to Orthodox Mother of God icons. During this year he published an article entitled “Hypostasy and Hypostaseity” in response to criticisms of his expressions of sophiology; in it he redefined his doctrine of Sophia: her hypostaseity denoted a being who was not hypostatic, but hypostasized (in other words, while not an actual historical figure, she was for some a personalized hypostasis of God).[110]

Once in Paris, Bulgakov’s sophiological teachings--in particular their feminine imagery--became the major point of contention among warring factions of the Orthodox Church outside Russia. During the 1920s he completed a trilogy, the first volume of which was The Burning Bush (1927), with its emphasis on sophiology in mariology.[111] During this year Bulgakov attended the First World Congress of Faith and Order in Lausanne, where he propagandized for Mary as a symbol for ecumenicism; urging devotion to her in prayer and worship, he insisted Mary was essential (as a common archetype) for a successful unity between Eastern and Western churches.[112] Among the responses to Bulgakov’s sophiology-mariology were those of his fellow émigrés Vladimir Il’in, who called Bulgakov, Florenskii, Rozanov, Ivanov, and Blok “Gnostics,” and V. V. Zenkovskii, who saw the problem of Sophia as one that could be satisfactorily concluded by overcoming “Platonism.”[113]

In the course of the 1930s, Bulgakov’s feminine Sophia became the subject of even greater controversy.[114] The first volume of his 1,500 page trilogy On Godmanhood, The Lamb of God, was published in 1933.[115] This book, which developed his sophianic theory, was denounced as heretical in 1935 by the Moscow Patriarchate under Metropolitan Sergei, and by the Holy Synod of the Emigré Russian Church at Karlovci, Yugoslavia. Between these two bodies and the Russian Theological Academy in Paris (under the direction of Metropolitan Evlogii, appointed exarchate by the Byzantine Patriarch), a power sturggle had been underway for some time. As early as 1925, the Emigré Russian Church had condemned the Paris group for its susceptibility to “Occultism, Theosophy, Spiritualism, and other immoral Eastern cults, Freemasonry and its organizations, especially the YMCA.”[116] Met. Evlogii, Bulgakov, and those around them were suspected of operating a “Brotherhood of Sophia” that was anti-Orthodox. In 1935 Bulgakov was deemed a heretic in the tradition of Böhme and Solov’ev and called a “Gnostic” (Gnosticism was read into his feminine terminology relating to Sophia).[117] Met. Evlogii saw nothing incorrect in this sophiology and stood behind Fr. Bulgakov’s right to interpret Orthodox theology. Bulgakov himself responded with a collection of writings entitled About Sophia,Divine Wisdom of God.[118]

The response from the religious community was overwhelming. Archbishop Serafim of Boguchar responded with a vigorous four-year attack against sophiology, initiated by his New Teachings on Sophia, DivineWisdom of God (1935), a second work of criticism and interpretation (1936), a massive document upholding the Emigré Russian Church against Bulgakov’s “assault” (1937), and two years later yet another publication (1939). Serafim was quick to condemn Bulgakov for Gnosticism and a feminine Sophia, and for expounding both Platonisms and the teachings of Kabala; he feared Bulgakov’s sophiology would destroy the entire Orthodox Church, and called upon him to recant in public.[119] In 1936-37, Bulgakov countered with explanatory articles and his book, The Wisdom of God, a synopsis of his sophiology.[120] In it he admitted that the Church venerated the Mother of God as Heavenly Queen, and that this bordered on idolatry; yet his main point remained that the dognma of divine maternity “is fully illumined only in the light of the doctrine of Sophia, the Divine Wisdom.” Bulgakov pointed to the Divine Office of Sophia, wherein he saw the “Mario-Sophianic” interpretation clearly: Mary could be given the name Sophia because she was a Spirit-Bearer, Head of the Church, and Universal Mother. “Thus it is,” he wrote, “that the Most Holy Mother of God is the created Sophia, and is acknowledged and venerated as such by the piety of the Church of Russia.”[121] 1937 also found him in attendance at the World Conference on Faith and Order in Edinburgh, where he again stressed the pivotal place of Mary in the Orthodox Church; prominent in Bulgakov’s thesis were the five basic themes of his sophiology.[122] Among his fellow émigré churchmen who responded critically to the controversy were Nikolai Arsen’ev and Vladimir Losskii.[123] Reactions to Bulgakov’s feminine Sophia were also found in philosophical and theological periodical journals published in Paris, Rome, Berlin, and other cities.[124] In 1939 a terminally ill Bulgakov examined his image of Sophia in the light of his impending death.[125] When he died in 1944, his sophiology was much commented on in eulogy and memorial, and works which discussed it were quickly published by the émigré community.[126]

[103] S. N. Bulgakov, “Dve vstrechi,” Avtobiograficheskaia zametki, ed. L. A, Zander (Paris: IMKA, 1946), pp. 103-12, hereafter Avtobiograficheskaia. For a basic treatment of Sophiology in Solov’ev and Bulgakov, see A. Walker, “Sophiology,” Diakonia 16, no. 1 (1981):40-54.

[104] Sergius Bulgakov, “From Marxism to Sophiology,” Review of Religion 1, no. 4 (1937):361-68. In Raphael’s artistic vision, the Virgin appeared to him in a dream, and thus was the model for his painting. Bulgakov was not the first Russian to experience an epiphany while looking at Raphael’s Sistine Madonna (c. 1513). She was an image revered by Odoevskii’s idealist Lovers of Wisdom (Obshchestvo liubomudriia) in the early nineteenth century, a group that believed the image of a woman was the primary vehicle for artistic beauty. See L. Pearson, “Raphael as Seen by Russian Writers from Zhukovsky to Turgenev,” Slavonic and East European Review 59, no. 3 (1981):346-69.

[105] W. F. Crum, “Sergius N. Bulgakov: From Marxism to Sophiology,” St.Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly 27, no. 1 (1982):6. This article addresses the feminine Sophia as essential to Bulgakov’s theology.

[106] The poet G. I. Chulkov, who had an abiding interest in extra-sensory phenomena, defined Solov’ev’s sophiology in terms of the poet as one who can unlock it in himself and others using the written word as symbol (he also claimed that Mary was a sub-hypostasis of Sophia). See his article, “Poeziia Vl. Solov’eva,” Voprosy zhizni 4-5 (1905):101-17; laterpublished with deletions as “O Sofianstve,” O misticheskom anarkhizme (St. Petersburg: Fakely, 1906; reprint Letchworth, Eng.: Bradda, 1971), pp. 45-68. It was to this that Bulgakov responded in S. N. Bulgakov, “Neskol’ko zamechanii po povodu stat’i G. I. Chulkov o poezii Vl. Solov’eva,” Voprosy zhizni 6 (1905):293-303. Another rebuttal was printed by S. M. Solov’ev, “Otvet G. Chulkova po povodu ego stat’i ‘Poeziia Vl. Solov’eva’,” Voprosy zhizni 8 (1905):232-36.

[107] S. N. Bulgakov, Filosofiia khoziastva (Moscow: Put’, 1912; reprint Westmead, Eng.: Gregg, 1971; Moscow: Nauka, 1990). His earlier “Khristianstvo i mifologiia,” Russkaia mysl’ 8 (1911):115-33, has some interesting feminine references.

[108] S. N. Bulgakov, Svet nevechernii (Moscow: Put’, 1917)’ reprint Westmead, Eng.: Gregg, 1971), pp. 230, 245, 331. On a similar note, see Charles Graves, Altaic Elements in the Sophiology of Sergius Bulgakov (Geneva: Corsier, 1946).

[109] S. N. Bulgakov, “V Aia-Sofii,” Avtobiograficheskaia, pp. 94-102, and in L. A. Zander, Pamiati o Sergeii Bulgakova (Paris: IMKA, 1945). Portions of this essay are translated as “Hagia Sophia,” in Sergius N. Bulgakov: ABulgakov Anthology, ed. J. Pain and N. Zernov (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1976), pp. 12-14, hereafter Bulgakov Anthology.

[110] S. N. Bulgakov, “Ipostas i ipostasnost’,” in Sbornik stateiposviashchennykh: P. B. Struve (Prague: Plamia, 1925), p. 353ff.

[111] S. N. Bulgakov, Kupina neopalimaia (Paris: IMKA, 1927). The other two volumes of the trilogy are Drug zhenika (Paris: IMKA, 1927) and LestvitsaIakovlia (Paris: Imprimerie de Navarre, 1929).

[112] See N. Zernov, “The Eastern Churches and the Ecumenical Movement in the 20th Century,” in A History of the Ecumenical Movement 1517-1948, ed. R. Rouse and S. C. Neill, 2 vols. (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1967), Vol. I, p. 656.

[113] Wl. N. Iljin, “Die Lehre von Sophia der Weisheit Gottes in der neuesten russischen Theologie,” West Östlicher Weg 2 (1929):170-85, 225-30; and V. V. Zenkovskii, “Preodolenie platonizma i problema sofiinosti mira,” Put’ 24 (1930):3-40. See also R. Knies, “Sophia, ein theologisches und philosophisches Vexierbild,” West-Östlicher Weg 1 (1928):47-55.

[114] B. Newman, “Sergius Bulgakov and the Theology of the Divine Wisdom,” St. Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly 22, no. 1 (1978):39-43, hereafter “Sergius Bulgakov”; Newman, p. 50, describes Bulgakov sophiology from an Orthodox viewpoint, but states that usage of feminine pronouns is essential to Bulgakov’s doctrine of Sophia. See also E. Behr-Sigel, “La sophiologie du Peré Boulgakov,” Revue d’histoire et de philosophie religieuses 19 (1939):155-56.

[115] S. N. Bulgakov, O Bogochelovechestve, Vol. I: Agnets Bozhii (Paris: IMKA, 1933)--see chs. 1 and 2, “Divine Sophia” and “Creaturely Sophia,” pp. 112-69. In French: Du verbe incarné. L’agneau de Dieu, trans. C. Andronikoff (Lausanne: L’Age d’Homme, 1982). See also Bulgakov’s La Sagesse Divine etla theanthropie, trans. C. Andronikoff (Paris: Aubier, 1943-44), a two-part work the first part of which is Du verbe incarné. The second part, Le paraclet, C. Andronikoff’s translation of Uteshitel’ (see below), was published separately by Aubier in 1946; in it, Bulgakov refers to Sophia by quoting, p. 191, Dostoevskii: “Mother, the moist earth.” The other volumes in the trilogy, which caused no controversy, include Uteshitel’ (Talinn: IMKA, 1936) and Nevesta Agntsa (Paris: IMKA, 1945).

[116] Z. N. Gippius, as quoted in H. E. Volkmann, “Die russische Emigration in Deutschland,” Marburger Östforschungen 26 (1966):125. Some of these epithets were a response to Bulgakov’s lectures: Na piru Bogov. Pro i contra (Sofia: Rossissko-bulgarskoe kn-vo, 1921).

[117] The decrees of Metropolitan Sergei (Stragorodskii) were published in Moscow in brochure form, each with the same title, on September 7 and December 27, 1935: Ukaz Moskovskii Patriarkhii preosviashchennomuMitropolitu Litovskomu i Velenskomu Elevferiiu. The Metropolitan specifically objected to Bulgakov’s doctrine of Sophia as Eternal Feminine.

[118] S. N. Bulgakov, O Sofii, Premudrosti Bozhiei (Ukaz MoskovskiiPatriarkhii i dokladnye zapiski prof. prot. Sergeia Bulgakova Mitropolitu Evlogiiu) (Paris: IMKA, 1935). This work also contains the ukaz of the Moscow Patriarchate, Bulgakov’s reports to Met. Evlogii, an earlier report on the Sophia controversy and a refutation made by Bulgakov in 1927: “Dokladnaia zapiska predstavlennaia professorom prot. Sergeiiam Bulgakovym Mitropolitu Evlogiiu vesnoi 1927g.” Bulgakov’s memorandum to Evlogii was published separately in Dokladnye zapiski MitropolituEvlogiiu po povodu opredleniia arkhiereiskogo sobora v Karlovtsakhotnositel’no ucheniia o Sofii Premudrosti Bozhiei (Paris: IMKA, 1936). On the controversy in general, see M. d’Herbigny, S. J., and A. Deubner, eds., “Eveques russe en exile. Douze ans d’epreuves (1918-1920),” OrientaliaChristiana Periodica 21, no. 67 (1931), throughout; C. Lialine, “Le débat sophiologique,” Irénikon 6, no. 13 (1936):168-206, 328-29, 675-705, discusses Bulgakov’s image of Sophia and the condemnation of it; J. N. [Iuliiana N.] Danzas, “Les reminiscences gnostiques dans la philosophie religieuse russe moderne,” Revues de sciences philosophiques et théologiques 25 (1936):658-85.

[119] Arkh. Serafim [N. B. Sobolev], Novoe uchenie o Sofii PremudrostiBozhiei (Sofia: Sinodal’no izd-vo, 1935); Protoierei S. N. Bulgakova kaktolkovatel’ Sviashchennago Pisaniia (Sofia: Sinodal’no izd-vo, 1936); Zashchita Sofiianskoi eresi protoiereem S. Bulgakova pred litsomArkhiereiskogo Sobora russkoi zarubezhnoi tserkvi (Sofia: Sinodal’no izd-vo, 1937); Zashchita Sofiianskoi eresi protoiereem S. Bulgakova pred litsomArkhiereiskogo Sobora russkoi zarubezhnoi tserkvi (Sofia: Sinodal’no izd-vo, 1939).

[120] Articles include S. N. Bulgakov, “Zur Frage nach der Weisheit Gottes,” Kyrios 1 (1936):93-101 and “Eshche k voprosu o Sofii, Premudrosti Bozhiei,” Put’ 50 (1936):1-24. S. N. Bulgakov, The Wisdom of God: A Brief Summary ofSophiology, trans. P. Thompson, O. F. Clarke, and X. Braikevitch (New York: Paisley, 1937; London: Willians & Norgate, 1937) [from an unpublished manuscript, “Premudrost’ Bozhiia”], hereafter Wisdom; see especially ch. 6, “The Veneration of Our Lady,” pp. 173-96. The translators have chosen to use feminine pronouns only in the chapter on Mary; in my opinion this is misleading if not incorrect. Selections from this work are reproduced in “The Wisdom of God,” Bulgakov Anthology, pp. 144-56.

[121] Wisdom, pp. 173, 189-90.

[122] See Sergius Bulgakov, “The Question of the Veneration of the Virgin at the Edinburgh Conference and a Brief Statement of the Place of the Virgin Mary in the Thought and Worship of the Orthodox Church,” Sobornost’ (n.s.) 12 (1937):28-31.

[123] N. Arsen’ev, Mudrovanie v bogoslovii? Po povodu “sofianskoi”polemiki (Warsaw: Drukarnia Synodalna, 1936) and V. N. Losskii, Spor oSofii (Paris: Confrerie de Saint Photios, 1936); the latter explains Met. Sergei’s criticisms of Bulgakov. Later Losskii wrote that he was appalled at Bulgakov’s sophiology for daring to approach the “mystery”: V. N. Lossky, The MysticalTheology of the Eastern Church, trans. Fellowship of St. Alban and St. Sergius (London: Clarke, 1957), pp. 80-81. Losskii too approached the feminine divine image; see V. Lossky “Mariology,” in The Orthodox Church in theEcumenical Movement, ed. C. G. Patelos (Geneva: World Council of Churches, 1978), pp. 187-98; originally published in Ways of Worship, ed. P. Edwall, et al. (London: SCM Press, 1951), pp. 263-76. Closely oriented is the work of his father, N. O. Losslii, whose Chuvstvennaia, intellektual’naia imisticheskaia intuitsiia (Paris: IMKA, 1938) touches on Bulgakov’s feminine Sophia, and his Ucheniia o Sergiia Bulgakova o vseedinstve i oBozhestvennoi Sofii (South Canaan, Penn.: St. Tikhon Press, n.d.), which focuses on her; see also his “Preemniki Vl. Solov’eva,” Put’ 3 (1926):14-28. The Mary theme is continued in G. V. Florovsky, “The Ever-Virgin Mother of God,” Creation and Redemption (Belmont, Mass: Nordland, 1976), pp. 171-88; original in The Mother of God, ed. E. L. Mascal (London: Dacre, 1949), pp. 51-63.

[124] Some of these are cited by periodical title in Samuel D. Cioran, VladimirSolov’ev and the Knighthood of the Divine Sophia (Waterloo, Ont.: Wilfred Laurier University Press, 1977), p. 264 n. 62. Full runs of most of the Russian émigré periodicals can be found in the library of St. Vladimir’s Seminary in New York. See also N. A. Berdiaev, “Dukh Veliki Inkvisitora,” Put’ 49 (1935):72-81, which supports Bulgakov’s right to theological interpretation and chastizes the Emigré Church for anti-intellectualism.

[125] S. N. Bulgakov, “Sofiologiia smerti,” Avtobiograficheskaia, pp. 139-47.

[126] See E. Lampert, The Divine Realm (London: Faber & Faber, 1944), which develops Bulgakov’s sophiology; L. A. Zander, Bog i mir. Mirosozertsanieottsa Sergiia Bulgakova, 2 vols. (Paris: IMKA, 1948), some of which is in Zander’s “In Memory of Father Sergius Bulgakov,” Sobornost’ (n.s.) 32 (1945):5-12, wherein he writes that Bulgakov was enlightened by the Spirit of Wisdom; P. I. Fidler (whom Bulgakov brought into the Church), Sagesse etProphesie. Le conflict de l’origine et da la fin (Paris: IMKA, 1954). See also Zander’s “Die Weisheit Gottes im russischen Glauben und Denken,” Kerygma und Dogma 2 (1956):29-53.