Bulgakov Sergei Nikolaevich, Russian philosopher, theologian, Orthodox priest: biography

Sergius Nikolaevich Bulgakov
(1871 - 1944), archpriest, Russian religious philosopher, economist. One of the most significant representatives of Orthodox thought abroad, a participant in the ecumenical movement. Born on June 16 [1] 1871 in the city of Livny, Oryol province, in the family of a priest.

In 1885 he graduated from the Livensky Theological School as the first student [2], and until 1888 he studied at the Oryol Theological Seminary, where he lost his faith. In 1890 he graduated from Yelets Gymnasium. Became a Marxist. In 1894 he graduated from Moscow University [3].

He published the work “On Markets in Capitalist Production” in 1896, and “Capital and Agriculture” (2 volumes) in 1900. Master of Science in Political Economy (1901).

In 1901-1905 - teacher at the Kyiv Polytechnic. Professor of political economy at the Kyiv Polytechnic Institute. Privat-docent of Kyiv University.

In 1904, together with N.A. Berdyaev, he edited the magazine “New Path”, in 1905 he edited the magazine “Questions of Life”.

In 1906 he was elected a member of the Second State Duma.

In 1906 - 1910 - professor at the Moscow Commercial Institute. Participated in the collection “Milestones” (1909).

Doctor of Political Economy (1912). Professor at Moscow University (1917).

Member of the All-Russian Council (1917-1918) from the Tauride diocese, member of the Supreme Church Council.

On June 11, 1918, he was ordained to the priesthood by Bishop Theodore (Pozdeevsky) of Volokolamsk. For taking holy orders he was expelled from Moscow University.

In July 1918 he moved to Crimea. Professor of political economy and theology at Tauride University in Simferopol. After the defeat of the troops of General Wrangel - Archpriest of the Yalta Cathedral.

On January 1, 1923, he was expelled from Russia to Constantinople.

In 1923-1925 - professor of church law at the Russian Faculty of Law in Prague. Founded the Brotherhood of Saint Sophia in Prague.

In 1925 he moved to Paris.

In 1925-1944 - professor of dogmatics, Old Testament and Christian sociology at the St. Sergius Orthodox Theological Institute in Paris. From 1931 - inspector of the institute, from 1940 to 1944. - dean Doctor of Ecclesiastical Sciences "Honoris Causa" (1943).

Prominent participant in the ecumenical movement. Vice-Chairman of the Commonwealth of St. Albanius and St. Sergius. Head of the Russian Student Christian Movement (RSCM).

Died on July 13, 1944 in Paris. He was buried in the Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois cemetery near Paris.

Childhood and family

Bulgakov Sergei Nikolaevich was born on July 16 (28), 1871 in the city of Livny, in a large family of a priest, rector of a small church at the cemetery. Sergei's father raised his children (and he had seven of them) in Orthodox traditions. The family regularly attended church services, the children listened and later read the holy books themselves. Sergei recalled with gratitude his childhood years, when he came into contact with the beauty of Russian nature, supported by the solemn grandeur of the liturgy. It was at this time that he experienced a harmonious union with God. He was raised as an exemplary Christian, and in his early years he sincerely believed in God.

Years of study

At the age of 12, Sergei Bulgakov began studying at theological school, at which time he was, in his words, “a faithful son of the Church.” After graduating from school, he entered the theological school in his hometown of Livny. At this time, he seriously thinks about connecting his life with serving God. Four years later, having completed his studies at the school, Bulgakov entered the theological seminary in Orel. Here he studied for three years, but during this time there was a significant change in his worldview; he was experiencing a deep religious crisis, which doomed him to disbelief in God. Having lost faith in Orthodoxy, in 1987 Bulgakov left the seminary and after that he studied at a classical gymnasium in Yelets for another two years. Later he entered Moscow State University, the Faculty of Law. In 1894, he successfully passed the final exams and received a master's degree with the right to teach.

Christianity professes faith in a single trinitarian supermundane God, the Absolute Spirit, living His absolute life in a single nature and self-revelation (Sophia).
The world is a creation of God, which is brought into existence from non-existence by the creative act of God. Between God and the world there is an immutable abyss, just as between the Creator and creation, but at the same time the world also has a divine basis (Sophia). Man is its focus, as a real image of God, having within himself a spark of the Divine spirit. Man has an immortal personal spirit associated with the animal soul and body. The spirit is a personal principle in a person, which remains self-identical, continuing its single life both in the earthly shell and after death, in the afterlife state of temporary disembodiment, and in the life of resurrection, when it again puts on a glorified body. The personal self develops and grows in its life, in its different eras and eons, in relation to its content, but it itself, as a personal beginning, has in itself the stamp of eternity and is not subject to evolution. Christianity in this sense is essentially personalistic; the personal self in a person belongs to the Image of God in him, like the Divine hypostasis. The world is a living and living nature - in pre-man (animals) and in man, a nature inspired by created animal souls. The spiritual and spiritual-physical principles in man differ in their nature, like the divine and the created. As having the image of God and a particle of the Divine, man is a created god, God by grace, called to lead creation—a microcosm in a macrocosm. Man was created by God in its entirety, having spirit, soul and body, and in this respect he is not subject to evolution, although the fullness of his powers is revealed in development. Along with man, there is an angelic world of disembodied created spirits who do the will of God in the world, like ministering spirits, angels, due to their conformity to man, their co-humanity, although it is limited in them by their incorporeality. They are not creators, but servants of God, “angels.” Man fell to the brink of his existence due to his inherent freedom, plunging into cosmism and losing his dominant position in the world, which thereby lost its harmony. For the restoration of man, for his redemption from sin and the salvation of the world, God himself, namely the Second Hypostasis of the Divinity, the Logos, descended from heaven, assumed human nature, became the God-man, and communicated this God-manhood to the entire human race and confirmed it through the descent of the Holy Spirit, which united the earthly and heavenly things, Christ with life according to this faith (works). The state of the earthly church, in which we accomplish our salvation in our freedom, overcoming the Old Adam within ourselves by life in the New Adam, is not final, but transitional. After the fulfillment of the times and dates of history, when the bride of Christ the Church prepares herself for marriage, the Second Coming of Christ will take place, the end of this world will come, its transformation by the Holy Spirit, the judgment of Christ over the living and the dead and the life of the next century. The limit here is the deification of creation, when Christ reigns and hands over the kingdom to the Father, and God will be all in all. The Church, with its teaching and grace-filled sacraments, is the divine-human life in which salvation is accomplished - by living faith in the Lord Jesus Prot. Sergius Bulgakov Christianity and Steinerism

Early views

Already in the first years of the seminary, Sergei Bulgakov experienced great doubts about religious postulates and experienced a deep crisis of faith, which pushed him not only to leave the seminary, but also to draw closer to the Marxists who were very popular at that time. He works intensively in this new philosophical direction and quite quickly becomes the leading theoretician of Marxism in Russia. However, he soon realizes the inconsistency of this theory and evolves towards idealism. In 1902, he even wrote an article “From Marxism to Idealism,” in which he explains the change in his views.

These changes in his views are fully consistent with the spirit of the times; the Russian intelligentsia of that period was characterized by a fascination with German idealism and subsequently religiosity. Acquaintance with Bebel and Kautsky, the works of V. Solovyov and L. Tolstoy lead him to search in the field of Christian politics to resolve the issue of good and evil. For some time, Bulgakov became interested in cosmism, following Nikolai Fedorov. These quests, which he himself designated as “social Christianity,” absolutely fit into the evolution of Russian philosophical thought of this period.

Gradually, Bulgakov’s thought matures and takes shape; the path of his philosophical quest perfectly reflects his first significant work - the book “Non-Evening Light”.

Essays

He experienced significant influence from I. Kant, F. M. Dostoevsky and V. S. Solovyov, from whom he learned the idea of ​​unity. He sought the salvation of Russia on the path of religious revival and in this regard, he saw all social national relations and culture as overvalued on religious principles. The idea of ​​the Incarnation of God became dominant in Bulgakov’s teaching, i.e. the internal connection between God and the world he created - Sophia (“the wisdom of God”), which manifests itself in the world and man, making them involved in God. The sophiology he developed was set out in the works: “Non-Evening Light” (1917), “On God-Humanity. Trilogy" ("Lamb of God, 1933; "Comforter", 1936; "Bride of the Lamb", 1945). Other works: “Two cities. Studies on the nature of social ideals" (vol. 1-2, 1911), "Quiet Thoughts" (1918), "The Burning Bush" (1927), "Jacob's Ladder" (1929).

Publications

• From Marxism to idealism. - M., 1903. 347 p.; - Frankfurt, 1968.
• Two hail. - M., 1911. 313 p.; Gregg Press Farnham (Engl.), 1971.
• Philosophy of farming. - M., 1912; Gregg Press Farnham (Engl.), 1971. 334 pp. (In Japanese - Tokyo, 1926).
• Non-Evening Light. - M., 1917. 425 pp.; Gregg Press Farnham (Engl.), n.d.
• At the feast of the gods. - Sofia, 1921. 118 p.
• Saints Peter and John. - Paris, 1926. 91 p.
• The bush is unburnt. - Paris, 1927. 288 p.
• Die Tragoedie der Philosophie. - Darmstadt, 1927.
• Friend of the Groom. - Paris, 1927. 276 p.
• Karl Marx as a religious type. - Warsaw, 1929. 39 p.
• Jacob's Ladder. - Paris, 1929. 229 p.
• About the miracles of the Gospel. - Paris, 1932. 115 p.
• Icon and icon veneration. - Paris, 1931. 166 p.
• Lamb of God. - Paris, 1933. 224 p. (French translation - 1943).
• The Orthodox Church. - London, 1935. 224 p. (French translation - 1932; Romanian - 1933).
• Memorandum on the Wisdom of God. - Paris, 1935. 64 p.
• Comforter. - Paris, 1936. 447 p. (French translation - 1947, Italian - 1972).
• The Wisdom of God. - London, 1937. 220 p.
• Joy of the Church. - Paris, 1938. 98 p.
• Bride of the Lamb. - Paris, 1945. 621 p.
• Autobiographical notes. - Paris, 1946. 165 p.
• Apocalypse of John. - Paris, 1948. 353 p.
• Philosophy of the name. - Paris, 1953. 278 p.
• Life beyond the grave. - Paris, 1955. 16 p.
• The Vatican Dogma. - South Canaan (Pa), 1959. 91 p.
• Dialog zwischen Gott und Mensch.- Marbourg, 1961.
• Orthodoxy. - Paris, 1965. 403 p.

Review of theological works

• Zander L.A. God and the world: In 2 volumes. - Paris, 1948. 865 p.

Complete bibliography

• In memory of Fr. Sergius Bulgakov: Collection / Comp. L. Zander. - Paris, 1945.

Pedagogical activity

After graduating from the university, Sergei Bulgakov (his biography is connected not only with philosophy, but also with teaching) remains at the department with the aim of writing a doctoral dissertation, and he also begins teaching political economy at the Imperial Technical School in Moscow. In 1898, the university sent him on a two-year scientific trip to Germany. In 1901, he defended his dissertation and received the position of ordinary professor at the department of political economy of the Kyiv Polytechnic Institute. In 1906 he became a professor at the Moscow Commercial Institute. Bulgakov's lectures reflect the path of his quest; many of them will be published as philosophical and socio-economic works. Later he worked as a professor of political economy and theology at the Taurida University and a professor of church law and theology in Prague.

Russian Economic UNIVERSITY Timeni G.V. Plekhanov

​(1871 – 1944)

Russian philosopher, theologian, Orthodox priest, economist, theologian, professor.

Sergei Nikolaevich Bulgakov was born on July 16 (28), 1871 in the city of Livny, in the family of a priest. After graduating from school, he enters theological school. After completing his studies at the school, he entered the theological seminary in Orel. In 1987, Bulgakov left the seminary and after that studied at a classical gymnasium in Yelets. Later he enters Moscow State University at the Faculty of Law. In 1894 he received a master's degree with the right to teach. After graduating from the university, Sergei Bulgakov began teaching political economy at the Imperial Technical School in Moscow. In 1898, the university sent him on a two-year scientific trip to Germany. In 1901 S.N. Bulgakov receives the position of ordinary professor at the department of political economy of the Kyiv Polytechnic Institute. In 1906 he became a professor at the Moscow Commercial Institute . Later he worked as a professor of political economy and theology at the Taurida University and a professor of church law and theology in Prague. In 1903 S.N. Bulgakov participates in the illegal founding congress of the Liberation Union. In 1906, he took an active part in the creation of the Union of Christian Politics, from which he became a deputy of the Second State Duma in 1907.

In 1918, Bulgakov was ordained a priest (Fr. Sergius). In 1919 he goes to Crimea. At this time, the Bolsheviks expelled Bulgakov from the teaching staff of the Moscow Commercial Institute. In 1922, he was exiled to Constantinople, and then came to Prague, where he began working at the Russian Institute at the Faculty of Law. In 1925 S.N. Bulgakov moved to Paris, where, with his active participation, the first Orthodox Theological Institute was opened, of which he became dean and professor. His most notable works of this time are: the trilogy “Lamb of God”, “Bride of the Lamb”, “Comforter”. As dean of the St. Sergius Institute, Bulgakov creates a real spiritual center of Russian culture in Paris.

Sergei Nikolaevich Bulgakov died on July 13, 1944.

Bulgakov S. N. About markets in capitalist production. Theoretical study / S. Bulgakov. - M.: Publishing house. M.I. Vodovozovaya, 1897. - 260 p.

Analyzing markets under capitalist production, the author concludes that

the process of commodity-capitalist exchange is the process of circulation of commodity capital, and the incentive motive for capitalist production is not consumption, but the increase in the value of capital.

Bulgakov S. N. From Marxism to idealism: collection of articles (1896-1903). - St. Petersburg: T-vo "General Use", 1903. - 347 p.

The proposed book includes articles devoted to various issues of social philosophy, published during 1896-1903 in periodicals. The question of the social ideal, which was first posed and resolved by the author in the field of positive Marxist sociology, was gradually formulated more clearly as a religious-metaphysical problem affecting the deepest roots of the metaphysical worldview and religious worldview.

Bulgakov S.N. Agrarian question: lectures given at the Moscow Commercial Institute in 1908/9 by academician. year / S. N. Bulgakov. — M.: [B. i.], [1909?]. - 356s.

Ideas about farming systems, private ownership of land, types of rent, production conditions, different forms of agricultural enterprise, agricultural cooperation are presented; the history of English, German, American agriculture is considered; The statistics of Russian land ownership in 1905 and its features are given.

Bulgakov S.N. History of economic teachings: lectures given at the Moscow Commercial Institute in 1908/9 by academician. year / S. N. Bulgakov. — M.: [B. i.], [1909?]. - 553s.

The course of lectures reveals the historical nature of political economy, the connection between the economic worldview and the general worldview of the era.

Bulgakov S.N. History of economic teachings: lectures given at the Moscow Commercial Institute in 1910/1911 by academician. / S. N. Bulgakov. — 2nd ed., rev. and additional — M.: Type. L. M. Prokhorova and N. A. Yashkina, 1911. - 553 p.

Bulgakov S. N. Two cities: studies on the nature of social ideals: in 2 volumes - M.: Put, 1911. - T. I. - XXI, 303 p.

The book contains studies and studies devoted to various issues of a philosophical, sociological, religious-historical, economic nature and united by one idea - to reveal the true nature of the cultural and social ideal.

Bulgakov S.N. Two cities: studies on the nature of social ideals: in 2 volumes - M.: Put, 1911. -T. 2. - 313 p.

This volume outlines the problems of early Christianity and modern socialism, the religion of “man-godship” among the Russian intelligentsia, reflections on the church and culture.

Bulgakov S.N. History of economic teachings: Lectures by prof. S.N. Bulgakov, read in Moscow. Commercial Institute in 1911/12 academician. / S. N. Bulgakov. – 3rd ed. (reprint without changes from 2nd). – M.: Typ.-lithographic. ON THE. Yashkina, 1912. – 553 p.

The history of economic doctrines is revealed as the history of socio-economic worldviews or the history of economic philosophy. The subject of study is the origin of modern economic consciousness. Bulgakov notes that economic philosophy must study both the general spiritual culture and the general worldview of a given era, from which this or that economic doctrine grows.

Bulgakov S. N. History of social teachings in the 19th century: lectures given at the Moscow Commercial Institute / S. N. Bulgakov. — 2nd ed. – M.: Printing house of S. P. Yakovlev, 1913. – 402 p.

In this course on the history of social philosophy, the author examines the issues

medieval worldview and the significance for social life of Lutheranism and the Reformation, Protestantism, and the English Enlightenment; the social ideas of Kant, the philosophy of history of Fichte and Rodbertus, and the economic views of Marx are analyzed.

Bulgakov S.N. History of economic teachings: lectures given in Moscow. commercial institute in 1912/13 / S. N. Bulgakov. – 4th ed. - M.: Book. magician “Higher. school." t-vastud. M.K.I. : Typ.-lithographic N. A. Yashkina. — Part II. – 1914. – 192 p.

This course of lectures examines mercantilism as the first worldview of political economy, its main features in theory and practice, the stages of its development, the doctrine of monetary and trade balance, the transition to the doctrine of free trade in England and France, socialism, its most important representatives.

Bulgakov S. N. Philosophy of Economics. - M.: Nauka, 1990 / S. N. Bulgakov. - 412s. - (Sociological heritage).

The fundamental work synthesizes the entire complex of social issues: philosophy, economics, sociology. In addition to this work, the book contains a number of articles, an essay about the author, and scientific apparatus.

For sociologists, philosophers, economists, social scientists.

Bulgakov S. N. Non-evening light: Contemplation and speculation / S. N. Bulgakov. - M.: Republic, 1994. - 415 p.

The most significant philosophical work, representing a kind of spiritual autobiography or confession. The author examines issues of faith and feeling, religion and morality, the nature of evil, society and churchliness, power and theocracy.

The book is intended for readers interested in problems of philosophy, religion and culture.

Bulgakov S. N. TWO CITIES: Studies on the nature of social ideals / S. N. Bulgakov; Russian Christian humanist. int. - St. Petersburg. : RKhGI, 1997. - 589 p. — (Series “Russian sociology of the twentieth century”).

The book contains studies and sketches written in 1904 -1910, devoted to various issues of a philosophical and economic nature.

The book was first published in 1911 and has not been reprinted until now.

Intended for a wide range of readers.

Bulgakov S. N. Works on sociology and theology: in 2 volumes. T. 1.: From Marxism to Idealism / S. N. Bulgakov; Institute of Sociology. - M.: Nauka, 1997. - 336 p. - (Sociological heritage).

This volume includes the author’s first major work, which indicates the spiritual path of the entire Russian people. The book was published in 1903 and has not been reprinted in full until now.

The book is intended for philosophers and anyone interested in the history of Russian philosophy.

Bulgakov S.N. Works on sociology and theology: in 2 volumes. T. 2.: Articles and works of different years. 1902-1942 / S. N. Bulgakov; Institute of Sociology. - M.: Nauka, 1997. - 826 p. - (Sociological heritage).

Bulgakov S. N. Philosophy of the name: [collection] / S. N. Bulgakov. - St. Petersburg. : Nauka, 1998. – 446 p. — (Series “The Word of Existence”).

Theoretical research on the nature of thought and words; an answer to the specific theological problem of “name-glorification”.

Bulgakov S. N. Works on sociology and theology: in 2 volumes. T. 1. From Marxism to idealism / S. N. Bulgakov. - M.: Nauka, 1999. - 336 p. - (Sociological heritage).

The first volume of selected works includes the author’s major work “From Marxism to Idealism,” which prophetically indicates the spiritual path of the entire Russian people.

The book is intended for philosophers and anyone interested in the history of Russian philosophy.

Bulgakov S.N. Works on sociology and theology: in 2 volumes. T. 2. Articles and works of different years. 1902-1942 / S. N. Bulgakov. – M.: Nauka, 1999. – 826 p. – (Sociological heritage).

The second volume includes articles and “dialogues” by S. N. Bulgakov on philosophy, theology and sociology, written from 1902-1942.

This work is intended for philosophers and everyone interested in Russian philosophy.

Bulgakov S. N. Prototype and image: works in 2 volumes. T.1. Non-evening light / S. N. Bulgakov; [prepared text, intro. article by I.B. Rodnyanskaya, comment. V.V. Sapova, I.B. Rodnyanskaya]. – St. Petersburg. : INAPRESSESS ; M.: Art, 1999. - 416s

The publication presents selected religious and philosophical works of an outstanding thinker and representative of the Russian spiritual renaissance of the early 20th century.

Bulgakov S.N. Prototype and image: works in 2 volumes. T. 2. Philosophy of the name; Icon and icon veneration. Applications / S. N. Bulgakov; [prepared text, intro. article by I. B. Rodnyanskaya, commentary. N.K. Bonetskaya and I.B. Rodnyanskaya]. - St. Petersburg. : INAPRESS ; M.: Art, 1999. - 438 p.

This volume publishes the author’s “most philosophical” book, “The Philosophy of the Name,” a dogmatic essay on icon veneration; as appendices - the works “Hypostasis and Hypostasis”, “The Holy Grail”, “Reflections on War” and “Two Encounters”.

The publication is supplied with an annotated index of names.

Bulgakov S. N. Works on Trinity / S. N. Bulgakov; [comp., prepared. text and notes A. Reznichenko]. – M.: OGI, 2001. – 330 p. — (Series “Studies on the history of Russian thought”).

The book includes theological works “Hypostasis and Hypostasis”, “Chapters on the Trinity” and “Judas Iscariot - the Traitor Apostle”, different in genre, devoted to the same topic - the Trinity, the Trinity as the basis of metaphysics.

Bulgakov S. N. Orthodoxy / S. N. Bulgakov. - M.: Publishing house AST; Kharkov: Folio, 2001. - 471 p. — (R.H. 2000. Religious philosophy).

The book includes essays on the teachings of the Orthodox Church and autobiographical notes from the author.

For a wide range of readers.

Bulgakov S. N. Non-Evening Light: Contemplations and Speculations / S. N. Bulgakov. - M.: Publishing house AST, 2001. - 666 p. – (R.H. 2000. Religious philosophy).

The work covers almost all sections of religious philosophy: religious epistemology and methodology, ontology and cosmology, religious anthropology, philosophy of history and culture.

Bulgakov S. N. From Marxism to idealism. Articles and reviews, 1895-1903 / S. N. Bulgakov; comp. V. V. Sapov. - M.: Astrel, 2006. - 1007 p.

Works of the early period of creativity of S. N. Bulgakov, most of which are published for the first time. The publication is supplied with comments and an annotated index of names and cited literature.

Addressed to philosophers, historians of Russian social thought, sociologists and economists.

Experiences of social activity

Having joined the Marxists, in 1903 Sergei Bulgakov participated in the illegal founding congress of the Liberation Union, whose members were N. Berdyaev, V. Vernadsky, I. Grevs. As part of the activities of the Union, Bulgakov disseminated patriotic views, being the editor of the magazine “New Way”. In 1906, the philosopher took an active part in the creation of the Union of Christian Politics, from which he became a deputy of the Second State Duma in 1907. However, soon the views of the anti-monarchists cease to be close to him, and he goes over to the opposite side. From this moment on, he no longer makes attempts to join social movements and focuses his activity on writing philosophical and journalistic works.

Religious philosophy

In 1910, Sergei Bulgakov, whose philosophy was approaching the main point of its development, met Pavel Florensky. The friendship of the two thinkers significantly enriched Russian thought. During this period, Bulgakov finally returned to the fold of religious, Christian philosophy. He interpreted it in an ecclesiastical and practical aspect. In 1917, his landmark book “The Non-Evening Light” was published, and also this year Sergei Nikolaevich took part in the All-Russian Local Council, which restored the patriarchate in the country.

The philosopher at this time thinks a lot about the ways of development for the country and the intelligentsia. He experienced the revolution as a tragic death of everything that was dear to him in life. Bulgakov believed that at this difficult moment, priests had a special mission of preserving spirituality and humanity. The civil war intensified the feeling of the apocalypse and pushed Sergei Nikolaevich to the most important decision in his life.

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Bulgakov is the flesh and blood of the Russian religious and philosophical renaissance of the early twentieth century, which raised in all its severity the question of the religious justification of human creativity, thought and culture. The fate of his legacy is closely linked with the fate of Russian religious philosophy. What frightens many people about Bulgakov is his freedom, his boldness, which allowed him to talk on equal terms not only with Plato and Spinoza, Kant and Fichte, but also with the Fathers of the Church - Athanasius the Great and Gregory of Nyssa, Leontius of Byzantium and Gregory Palamas. Many tried to challenge the right of a philosopher and theologian not only to humbly expound the teachings of the “greats,” but also to intervene in their dispute, deciding at the end of his life to experience the impressive “sum,” which was his “great trilogy” “On God-Manhood.” Have there been many thinkers in the history of Russian thought, Russian philosophy and theology who felt so free at this intellectual “feast” of great interlocutors? Bulgakov's doctrines may be dogmatically vulnerable and contested, but we must remember that he was the heir not so much of the form as of the spirit of Church Tradition, without the spirit of which no creative theology and no creative philosophy are possible.

Excerpts from the chapter “FATHER SERGY BULGAKOV” in the book by philosopher N.O. Lossky "History of Russian Philosophy"

Sergei Nikolaevich Bulgakov was born on June 28, 1871 in Livny, Oryol province, into the family of a priest. After reading a number of courses at the Faculty of Law of Moscow University, Bulgakov became a professor of political economy at the Kiev Polytechnic Institute in 1901, and an associate professor at Moscow University in 1906. In 1911, Bulgakov and a group of other university professors and associate professors resigned in protest against the government's violation of university autonomy.

In his youth, Bulgakov was a Marxist. Subsequently, like other gifted Russian economists and journalists (P. Struve, Tugan-Baranovsky, Berdyaev, S. Frank), he adopted a more advanced worldview. Back in 1900, in his book “Capitalism and Agriculture,” Bulgakov argued that the law of concentration of production does not apply in the field of agriculture, because it is characterized by tendencies towards decentralization. Under the influence of Kant's philosophy, Bulgakov came to the conclusion that the basic principles of public and personal life should be developed on the basis of the theory of absolute values ​​of goodness, truth and beauty.

In 1904, Bulgakov, having finally broken with Marxism, wrote the book “From Marxism to Idealism.” And in the same year he and Berdyaev decided to publish their own magazine. First they acquired the New Path, and later founded the magazine Questions of Life. Bulgakov gradually moved from idealistic philosophy to the ideal-realism of the Orthodox Church.

O. Sergius Bulgakov and E.I. Bulgakov. 1943

In 1918 Bulgakov accepted the priesthood. In 1922, the Soviet government accused more than a hundred scientists, writers and public figures of hostility towards the Soviet regime and expelled them from Russia. Among those expelled were Bulgakov and a number of other philosophers - Berdyaev, I. A. Ilyin, Lapshin, Lossky, Frank. At first Bulgakov lived in Prague and then moved to Paris. Since 1925, Bulgakov occupied the chair of dogmatic theology at the Paris Orthodox Theological Institute, in the founding of which he took part.

On July 12, 1944, Sergei Nikolaevich Bulgakov died of a cerebral hemorrhage.

Bulgakov personally experienced a meeting with the Divine. In the book “Non-Evening Light” he talks about the most important moments “From the history of one conversion.” I will give excerpts from his book.

“I was in my 24th year, but for almost ten years faith had been undermined in my soul, and, after violent crises and doubts, a religious emptiness reigned in it. The soul began to forget religious anxiety, the very possibility of doubt faded away, and from a bright childhood only poetic dreams remained, a gentle haze of memories, always ready to melt away. Oh, how terrible this sleep of the soul is, because you may not wake up from it for a lifetime! Simultaneously with mental growth and scientific development, the soul uncontrollably and imperceptibly plunged into the sticky mud of complacency, self-respect, and vulgarity. A kind of gray twilight reigned in her, as the light of childhood faded more and more. And then suddenly something came... Mysterious calls began to sound in her soul, and she rushed towards them...

It was getting dark. We drove along the southern steppe, covered in the scent of honey herbs and hay, gilded with the crimson of a blissful sunset. In the distance the nearby Caucasian mountains were already turning blue. It was the first time I saw them. And fixing my greedy gaze on the opening mountains, drinking in the light and air, I listened to the revelation of nature. The soul has long been accustomed, with a dull, silent pain, to seeing in nature only a dead desert under a veil of beauty, as if under a deceptive mask; Apart from her own consciousness, she did not put up with nature without God. And suddenly at that hour the soul became agitated, rejoiced, and trembled: what if there is... if not desert, not a lie, not a mask, not death, but He, the good and loving Father, His robe, His love... And if... if my children, holy feelings when I lived with Him, walked before His face, loved and trembled from my powerlessness to approach Him, if my adolescent grief and tears, the sweetness of prayer, my childish purity, ridiculed by me, spat upon, polluted, if all this is true, and what is deadening and empty - blindness and lies? But is this possible? Didn’t I know from seminary that there is no God, how can we even talk about this? Can I admit these thoughts even to myself, without being ashamed of my cowardice, without experiencing a panicky fear of “scientific science” and its Sanhedrin? Oh, I was as if in a vice, captive of “scientific”, this scarecrow of crows staged for the intelligentsia rabble, the half-educated crowd, for fools! How I hate you, fiend of half-education, spiritual plague of our days, infecting young men and children! And I myself was infected then, and spread the same infection around me...”

“And again you, O mountains of the Caucasus! I saw your ice sparkling from sea to sea, your snow turning red under the morning dawn, these peaks pierced the sky, and my soul melted with delight. And that which only flashed for a moment, only to immediately go out on that steppe evening, now sounded and sang, intertwined in a solemn, wondrous chorale. The first day of the universe was burning before me. Everything was clear, everything became reconciled, filled with ringing joy. My heart was ready to burst with bliss. There is no life and death, there is one eternal, motionless today. Now let go, it sounded in the soul and in nature. And an unexpected feeling expanded and grew stronger in my soul: victory over death! I wanted to die at that moment, the soul asked for death in sweet languor, in order to joyfully, enthusiastically go into what towered, sparkled and shone with the beauty of primordial creation. But there were no words, there was no Name, there was no “Christ is risen”, sung to the world and the mountain heights... And this moment of meeting did not die in my soul, this apocalypse, the wedding feast, the first meeting with Sophia... But what they told me about in the solemn radiance of the mountain, I soon recognized again in the timid and quiet girl’s gaze, on other shores, under other mountains. The same light shone in the trusting, frightened and meek, half-childish eyes, full of the shrine of suffering. The revelation of love told me about another world that I had lost... "

“A new wave of rapture for peace has arrived. Along with “personal happiness,” the first meeting with the “West” and the first admiration for it: “culture,” comfort, social democracy... And suddenly an unexpected, wonderful meeting: Our Lady of Sistine in Dresden, You Yourself touched my heart, and it trembled with Yours call

While passing through, we hurry on a foggy autumn morning, as tourists do, to visit Zwinger with its famous gallery. My knowledge of art was completely negligible, and it is unlikely that I knew very well what awaited me in the gallery. And there the eyes of the Queen of Heaven, coming in the clouds with the Eternal Child, looked into my soul. They had immeasurable power of purity and insightful femininity - knowledge of suffering and readiness for free suffering, and the same prophetic sacrifice was seen in the childishly wise eyes of the Child. They know what awaits Them, what They are doomed to, and they are coming to freely give Themselves, to do the will of the Sender: She “accept the weapon in the heart,” He Golgotha... I didn’t remember myself, my head was spinning, joyful and at the same time bitter flowed from my eyes tears, and with them the ice on the heart melted, and some kind of vital knot was resolved. It was not an aesthetic excitement, it was a meeting, new knowledge, a miracle... I (then a Marxist!) involuntarily called this contemplation prayer...”

“I returned to my homeland from abroad having lost my ground and already with a broken faith in my ideals. The “will to believe” matured in my soul, the determination to finally make the leap, insane for the wisdom of the world, to the other side, “from Marxism” and all the isms that followed it to... Orthodoxy. However, the years passed, and I still languished behind the fence and did not find the strength to take the decisive step - to begin the sacrament of repentance and communion, which my soul yearned for more and more. I remember how one day, on Maundy Thursday, entering the church, I (then “deputy”) saw people taking communion to the stirring sounds of “Your Last Supper...”. I rushed out of the church in tears and walked weeping along a Moscow street, exhausted from my powerlessness and unworthiness. And this continued until a strong hand pulled me out...

Autumn. Secluded, lost in the desert forest. Sunny day and native northern nature. The embarrassment of powerlessness still possesses the soul. And I came here, taking advantage of the opportunity, in the secret hope of meeting God. But here my determination finally abandoned me... I stood at Vespers, emotionless and cold, and after it, when the prayers “for those preparing for confession” began, I almost ran out of the church, “went out, weeping bitterly.” In anguish, he walked, not seeing anything around him, towards the hotel, and came to his senses... in the elder’s cell. It led me there: I went in a completely different direction due to my usual absent-mindedness, now reinforced by depression, but in reality - I knew this for sure then - a miracle happened to me... The father, seeing the approaching prodigal son, once again hurried to meet him. From the elder I heard that all human sins are like a drop before the ocean of God’s mercy. I left him forgiven and reconciled, in trepidation and tears, feeling as if carried on wings inside the church fence. At the door I met a surprised and delighted companion, who had just seen me leaving the temple in confusion. He became an involuntary witness to what happened to me. “The Lord has passed,” he said touchingly later... And then evening, and again the sunset, but not the southern one, but the northern one. In the transparent air, church domes stand out sharply and autumn monastery flowers appear white in long rows. Ridges of forests stretch into the blue distance. Suddenly, in the midst of this silence, from somewhere above, as if from the sky, a church bell sounded, then everything fell silent, and only a few later it sounded evenly and continuously. They called for the all-night vigil. As if for the first time, like a newborn, I listened to the gospel, tremblingly feeling that he was calling me to the church of believers. And on this evening of the blessed day, and even more so the next, during the liturgy, I looked at everything with new eyes, for I knew that I was called, and I was really participating in all this: both for me, and for me, the Lord hung on the tree and shed His most pure Blood, and for me here, by the hands of the priest, the most holy meal is being prepared, and this reading of the Gospel concerns me, which tells about the supper in the house of Simon the leper and about the forgiveness of the much-loved harlot wife, and it was given to me to taste the Holy Body and the Blood of my Lord."

“The basis of religion, then, is the personal experience of the Divine, and this is the only source of its autonomy. No matter how proud the wisdom of this age may be, powerless to understand religion due to the lack of the necessary experience, due to its religious mediocrity and deadness, that is, those who once saw God in their hearts have completely reliable knowledge about religion, know its essence.”

Anglo-Russian Congress of the RSHD. Sitting F.T. Pyanov, Elizaveta Skobtsova, Fr. Sergiy Bulgakov, V.V. Zenkovsky, 1931

While Bulgakov lectured on political economy, his transition from Marxism to idealism, and then to Orthodoxy, gradually took place. By 1911, he wrote several essays on the essence of the historical process, the shortcomings of “scientific” atheistic socialism, the character of the Russian intelligentsia, early Christianity and its victory over paganism. In 1911 - 1916 Bulgakov wrote his main religious and philosophical work, “The Never-Evening Light.” But first of all, let’s say a few words about the early essays, collected in two volumes: the first volume is entitled “From Marxism to Idealism,” and the second, “Two Cities.” In the second volume of his essays, Bulgakov speaks as follows about the conclusions to which he came: “Having started as a pure social activist, but subjecting to research the basis of the ideals of society, I learned that this basis is in religion. “Is there Good, is there Truth? In other words, this means: is there a God? “There are two main paths of religious self-determination,” says Bulgakov, “to which their various ramifications lead: theism, which finds its completion in Christianity, and pantheism, which finds it in the religion of man-theism and anti-Christianity.” “History in this sense is the free action” of the human spirit and the struggle between two cities - the Kingdom of Christ - the Kingdom not of this world and the earthly kingdom - the Kingdom of Antichrist. “In the Russian soul, with its religious passion, combined at the same time with the lack of cultural self-education, the collision of two principles occurs with particular force and devastation and gives rise on one side to the dark fanatical “Black Hundreds”, mistaking itself for Christianity, and on the other side such fanatical man-godliness..." In our time, the most striking manifestation of man-theism is the socialism of Marx. Having freed himself from Marxism, Bulgakov analyzed the religious and philosophical foundations of this teaching, inherited by Marx from Feuerbach.

Having gone through the revolution of 1905, the people realized the satanic aspect of the revolutionary movement and thought about the role that the intelligentsia played in it. Bulgakov wrote a number of articles about the character, mistakes and merits of the Russian intelligentsia. These articles were included in the second volume of “Two Cities” under the general title “The Religion of Human God among the Russian Intelligentsia.” The most important article, “Heroism and Asceticism,” was first published in the collection “Vekhi.” In this article, Bulgakov says that “in no country in Europe does the intelligentsia know such widespread mass indifference to religion as ours. Russian intellectuals believe in science instead of God and strive, as Dostoevsky noted, to “settle without God forever and finally.” As a deputy of the Second State Duma, Bulgakov observed the activities of politicians and “clearly saw how, in essence, far from politics in the proper sense, that is, from everyday prosaic work - repairing and lubricating the state mechanism - these people stand. This is not the psychology of politicians, not calculating realists and gradualists, no, this is the impatient exaltation of people waiting for fulfillment

Speaking about ideas, Bulgakov, like Florensky, emphasizes the difference between ideas and concepts: “... in an idea, both the general and the individual exist as one, both the generic personality of the individual and the collective individuality of the genus are united. In its idea, the genus exists both as a unity and as the completeness of all its individuals, in their non-repeating characteristics, and this unity exists not only in abstracto, but in concrete.” This is especially applicable to humans. “Humanity is truly one Adam - both the old and the new, and the primordial, and reborn in Christ, and the words of the Lord Jesus that He Himself is present in the hungry, and in the thirsty, and in the prisoners, and in all suffering humanity, must be taken in their full meaning. However, at the same time, individuation remains no less real, the opposition of individual people as individuals to Christ the humanity within them.”

If in “The Unevening Light” the theory of the existence of two Sophias, divine and created, is only outlined, then in “Lamb of God”, “Comforter” and “Bride of the Lamb” it is already developed in detail. Bulgakov's teaching about the divine Sophia is based on the difference between the concept of the divine Person and the concept of divine nature (ousia). He talks about what has personality and nature; the divine Spirit is a triune person and one nature, which may be called ousia or Godhead. Divine nature means divine life ens realissimum, that is, positive unity, including “everything that corresponds to the divine without any restrictions.

The Divine Sophia has significance not only for God as his life, but also for man, and through him for all creatures as their prototype: “Man is created by God in God's likeness, which is the ens realissimum in man, through which man becomes created by God.” . “The Divine Sophia, as a panorganism of ideas, is eternal humanity in God, the Divine prototype and basis of human existence.” There is a certain “analogical identity” between God and man as a prototype and image. The Logos, in which the divine Sophia is personified, is the eternal man - the heavenly Man, the Son of God and the Son of man. Sophia as the Divinity in God is “the image of God in God himself, the realized Divine idea, the idea of ​​all ideas realized as beauty.” God's relationship to the divine Sophia is love: “in Sophia, God loves Himself in His self-revelation, and Sophia loves the personal God, who himself is both Love and reciprocal love.”

“She is life and a living being, although not personal.” The Divine Sophia is not a person or even an external individuality: her hypostasis is the Logos, revealing the Father as a demiurgic hypostasis. The Logos, in which the divine Sophia is hypostasized, is the eternal man, the heavenly man, the Son of God and the Son of man.

“Every creation is sophic because it has a positive content or idea, which is its basis and norm. However, we should not forget that creatures also have another aspect - a lower one, the “substratum” of the world, matter as “nothing”, raised to the level of fxrj ov (being) and filled with the desire to embody the sophian principle.”

The main concept of Christian metaphysics is the concept of incarnation. A distinction must be made between the ideas of materiality and corporeality. Bulgakov saw the essence of physicality in “... sensuality as a special independent element of life, different from the spirit, but at the same time not alien or opposite to it.”

“Sensibility is quite clearly different both from the substantial-volitional core of the personality, and from the thinking involved in the Logos, the intelligent vision of ideas, their ideal contemplation: along with will and thought, there is also a sensory experience of ideas - their corporealization.” So, says Bulgakov, “we have found one of the main features of corporeality as sensuality: it establishes the reality of the world.” “It remains to understand,” he continues, “ideas as endowed with the fullness of reality, that is, with sensuality or corporeality.” “Speaking about corporeality, we discuss only the general philosophical side of the issue, leaving without attention the different “planes” of corporeality. Meanwhile, here, undoubtedly, one can distinguish between bodies of different refinements, i.e., not only physical, but “astral, instantaneous, ethereal” and, perhaps, other bodies.” One day I noticed that Father Sergius was not feeling well. To my question about the cause of the malaise, he replied: “My astral is upset.”

Particularly noteworthy is the fact that physicality is a condition for beauty, “...spiritual sensuality, the tangibility of an idea is beauty. Beauty is as absolute a beginning of the world as Logos. She is the revelation of the Third Hypostasis, the Holy Spirit.” “... beauty is sinless, holy sensuality, the tangibility of an idea. Beauty cannot be limited to any one sense, such as vision. All our senses have their own ability to perceive beauty: not only sight, but also hearing, smell, taste, and touch...”

Bulgakov's teaching about ideas endowed with physicality expresses one of the characteristic features of Russian philosophy - its concreteness. The same feature is inherent, as already indicated, in Florensky’s philosophical teaching.

The fact that Florensky and Bulgakov arrived at the same results in completely different ways shows that “all roads lead to Rome,” which means that the truth can be achieved by a variety of methods. And this is not surprising, since Bulgakov’s theological method consists of using religious experience (not only personal, but also general church experience). When I spoke of “achieved truth,” I was referring to the teachings of Bulgakov and Florensky about supreme beings who lead various areas of the world, and not their completely untenable interpretation of Plato.

This same feature of Russian philosophy - its concreteness - is also associated with Bulgakov’s defense of such an essential cult for Orthodoxy as the worship of icons. In his book “The Icon and Its Cult,” he points out the difficulties of defending the cult of the icon, which is still theologically unjustified, for the iconoclasts proceed from the obviously correct position of the unimaginability of the Divine.

Relying on the dogma of the indivisibility of substance or the non-confusion of the two persons in Christ, they argue that the image of his body is not an image of his divinity - and, therefore, not an icon of Christ. Bulgakov overcomes this difficulty with the help of three antinomies - theological (God is divine nothingness, God the Holy Trinity), cosmological (God in Himself, God in creation) and sophiological (uncreated Sophia - Divinity in God, created Sophia - Divinity outside God, in world). The key to resolving the problem of the cult of the icon is Bulgakov’s teaching about the uncreated Sophia as the image of God and the prototype of creation. All creatures, and especially man, were created after the image of God and, according to their positive properties, are a living icon of the Divine.

Dostoevsky said: “Beauty will save the world.” This true beauty, that is, the transformation of the world, sophiurgy, is possible “only in the depths of the Church, under the life-giving effect of the grace of the sacraments continuously flowing in it, in an atmosphere of prayerful inspiration.” This completion of God's creative activity is achieved in a new zone, and not within the boundaries of earthly history: “The goal of history leads beyond history, to the “life of the next century,” and the goal of the world leads beyond the world, to “a new earth and a new heaven.” Historical failures have a beneficial effect because they heal people from the tendency to worship humanity, the nation or the world and an unhealthy belief in humanitarian progress, the driving force of which is “not love, not pity, but the proud dream of an earthly paradise...”.

The individually defined human self receives a plan for its life from God. However, the individual accepts this plan freely in the sense that he can more or less reject it. Man's personal plan, given to him by God, is something of his genius; A person's talent, something of it, lies in the way and to the extent in which a person accepts his genius. Thus there are different degrees of sinfulness and different degrees of evil. Victory over evil means that individuality is destroyed through love. “Individual” existence must be overcome.

Death is the separation of the spirit and soul from the body. Therefore, postmorten human existence is spiritual-psychic, without any admixture of mental-physical life. Under this condition, a person’s spiritual experience becomes richer. Considering his past as a synthesis, a person begins to understand the meaning of life (388), condemn himself and gradually, perhaps in the process of eternity of time, overcomes all evil in himself. Only such a person deserves the kingdom of God. Thus, there is no eternal hell. There is only “purgatory, and in it man remains temporarily.” As for non-Christians, they may “receive the light of Christ upon their death.”

If eternal paradise were prepared for some creatures, and eternal hell for others, then this would indicate the failure of the creation of the world and the impossibility of theodicy. Father Sergius calls the doctrine of the eternal torment of hell “the corrective-criminal code of theology.” It is unacceptable that short-lived and limited human sin should be punished with eternal torment. “The fact that we were created by an omniscient God is, so to speak, an ontological proof of future salvation.”

In conclusion, I will dwell on the main provisions of Bulgakov’s philosophy of language, set out by him in his great work “Philosophy of Words”. These provisions are valuable not only from a linguistic, but also from a religious and philosophical point of view. In 1924, Father Sergius read the introduction to this book at the Russian Academic Congress in Prague. It was published in “Festschrift T. G. Masaryk zum 80 Geburtstage” (“In honor of the 80th anniversary of T. G. Masaryk”) under the title “Was ist das Wort? (“What is a word?”). According to Bulgakov, sound mass is the word, as the Stoics taught: it is matter, idealized by form, having meaning or idea. A verbal idea can have various embodiments: sound, gesture, written signs. However, just as Beethoven's symphonies were written for orchestra, the verbal idea is primarily embodied in the sounds of the human voice. The connection between an idea and its implementation is not an external association. Bulgakov categorically rejects psychological theories that reduce everything to a psychological process in the human mind and consider the word as a sign alien to meaning for communicating this mental process to others, people.

When the word appeared in cosmic reality, says Bulgakov, a double process took place, taking place in two opposite directions: the idea was freed from the complex integrity of existence and at the same time created for itself in the microcosm of human individuality, in accordance with the vocal capabilities of man, a new body - the word. The cosmos itself speaks through the microcosm of man in words - living symbols, active hieroglyphs of things, for the real soul of verbal sound is the thing itself. So, for example, the soul of the word “sun” is the firmament itself. The plurality of languages ​​does not exclude the unity of the “inner word,” just as the same Chinese characters are pronounced differently in different provinces of China. The Babylonian confusion of languages ​​resembles the decomposition of a white ray of light into numerous spectral colors. Such decomposition, however, does not affect the “inner word.” This is evidenced by the possibility of translation from one language to another. Bulgakov's theory that the plurality of languages ​​is a consequence of the disintegration of humanity due to the growth of subjectivism and psychologism, that is, a harmful focus on the subjective, individual characteristics of speech, is of significant value. Bulgakov's arguments about Kabbalah's attempts to consider letters simultaneously as the original elements of language and cosmic forces are also of great importance.

Bulgakov’s philosophy of language naturally aligns itself with the so-called “name-glorification”. In “The Unevening Light” he writes: “The name of God is, as it were, the suppression of two worlds, transcendental in the immanent, and therefore “name-glory,” in addition to its general theological meaning, is in some way a transcendental condition of prayer, stating the possibility of religious experience. For God is known experientially through prayer, the heart of which is the invocation of the transcendent, the naming of Him, and He, as it were, confirms this name, recognizes this name as His own, not just responding to it, but actually being present in it.”

The life of Father Sergius was filled with vigorous creative activity. In his works he touched upon many problems and gave them an original solution. Bulgakov should be given great credit for the struggle that he carried out in the early period of his activity against human deification, demonism and other varieties of modern anti-Christianity. Particularly noteworthy in Bulgakov’s speculative system is the philosophy of language, the theory of beauty and the cosmos as an animate whole. In the field of theology, his substantiation of the doctrine of universal salvation is extremely valuable, as well as his teaching that the incarnation is not only a means of saving humanity from sin, but also something more significant, namely, a necessary condition for the deification of created persons. It follows from this that, in connection with the creation of the world, the Son of God is the God-man from eternal ages. Equally worthy of appreciation are Father Sergius’s remarks on the “mystical penetration” of paganism, the spiritual power manifested in the miracles of Christ, and the relationship between the Holy Spirit and the Mother of God. Father Sergius put the age-old dispute between the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches about the filioque on a new basis by pointing out that the words “begotten” and “proceeding,” applied respectively to the Son and the Holy Spirit, do not mean their causal relationship with God the Father, but various aspects of self-revelation, the absolute personality. If the parties consider the controversial issue from this point of view, then the theological conflict between them will cease.

Let's consider Bulgakov's teaching about the uncreatedness of the human spirit. In his opinion, God “breathed” into man the “breath of life.” God gives this “breath,” that is, the outpouring of his own essence, personal existence. Thus, human spirituality has its origin in God. However, this does not mean that man, as an uncreated person, becomes on the same level with God, the Son and the Holy Spirit, for the Son is born of the Father and is uncreated. Maybe man, like the Holy Spirit, comes from the Father? Fortunately, Father Sergius does not go to such extremes, for he significantly modified this teaching in his latest works. In The Lamb of God he states that at creation man “receives his personality from God breathing into him the Divine Spirit. Thus, God’s creation becomes a living soul, a living man, a self for whom, in which and through which its humanity is manifested.” In “The Comforter,” Bulgakov’s teaching is modified as follows: “Man is a super-created element in the world, which is the bearer of the spirit emanating from God, and a personality, although created, is not. less in the image of God." These words obviously should be interpreted in the sense that the spirit that came directly from God and created man is spirituality, and not the real self of man. As for the actual personal self, to which this divine spirituality is given, it was created by God in his own image, and partly self-created. Even this concept of the super-creatureship of man is hardly satisfactory if we remember that, according to Bulgakov, the creature itself, and especially the creature in the image of God, in its positive content is a simple embodiment in a concrete form of the divine Sophia content. Father Sergius himself said more than once (especially in “The Comforter”) that his system may seem pantheistic. Not entirely agreeing with this, he remarked: “Yes, in a sense this is also pantheism, but quite pious, or, as I prefer to call it, in order to avoid misunderstandings, panentheism.” Panentheism, he says, is “a dialectically inevitable aspect of Sophian cosmology.”

Like many other theologians, Father Sergius interprets the words “God created the world from nothing” as if they would refer to some “nothing” from which God created the world. In reality, however, these words, in my opinion, express the simple idea that in order to create the world, the creator does not need to borrow any material either from himself or from outside. God creates the world as something new, something that has never existed before and is completely different from it. True creativity only happens when something new appears. The system of Father Sergius does not recognize such creativity. In his opinion, God creates all the positive content of the world from himself, but the non-divine aspect of the world is so insufficiently proven that his theory should be considered as a peculiar kind of pantheism. Therefore, it is not surprising that we find in it the main shortcomings of pantheism: firstly, it is not logically justified; secondly, it cannot explain the nature of freedom; thirdly, it does not take into account the source of evil.

In his works, Bulgakov considered the most complex problems of Christian metaphysics, which, in his opinion, could be resolved in various ways. Since all problems are interconnected, each solution affects a number of other countless problems and cannot be final, because it requires constant explanation, clarification and addition. All this can only be done by many people working in an atmosphere of calm and harmony. Disputes on such matters can only be fruitful in an atmosphere of goodwill, tolerance and the restraining passions of spiritual discipline.

Unfortunately, the Moscow Patriarch and the Synod of the Russian Church in Karlovac sharply and recklessly condemned the theories of Father Sergius Bulgakov even before they began to be discussed in theological literature. And this made it almost impossible to calmly discuss the sophiological problem.

Responding to the criticism of Metropolitan Sergius, Father Sergius Bulgakov wrote in his report to Metropolitan Evlogy: “I solemnly declare that, as an Orthodox priest, I recognize all the true dogmas of Orthodoxy. My sophiology is alien not to the actual content of these dogmas, but only to their theological interpretation and is a personal theological conviction, to which I have never attached the significance of an obligatory church dogma.”

Indeed, Father Sergius never opposed the dogmas of the Orthodox Church. Bulgakov's critics argue that his teaching about the divine Sophia introduces a fourth hypostasis into divine existence. This criticism is a logical conclusion from Bulgakov's teaching, which Father Sergius himself never made. Therefore, everyone who values ​​freedom of theological thought must admit that the teaching of Father Sergius could be subject to criticism or certain condemnation from his opponents, but not from the Moscow Patriarch. The friendly attitude of Metropolitan Evlogy towards the activities of Father Sergius is therefore very instructive. At the funeral of Father Sergius, Metropolitan Evlogy said: “Dear Father Sergius! You were a true Christian sage, you were a teacher of the Church in the sublime sense of the word. You have been illuminated by the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Wisdom, the Spirit of Reason, the Comforter, to whom you have devoted all your academic activities.” The activity of any original religious thinker causes sharp controversy, and only after a certain period of time in the life of the church the negative and positive sides of his theories are clearly outlined.” The same fate awaits the teaching of Father Sergius Bulgakov, who will undoubtedly be recognized as one of the outstanding Russian theologians.

https://azbyka.ru/library/lossky_istoriya_russkoy_philosofii_01-all.shtml

The Path of the Priest

In 1918, Bulgakov was ordained a priest. The dedication takes place on June 11 at the Danilovsky Monastery. Father Sergius works closely with Patriarch Tikhon and gradually begins to play a fairly significant role in the Russian Church, but the war changed everything. In 1919, he goes to Crimea to pick up his family, but he will not be destined to return to Moscow. At this time, the Bolsheviks expelled Bulgakov from the teaching staff of the Moscow Commercial Institute. In Simferopol he works at the university and continues to write philosophical works. However, the Soviet government that arrived there soon deprived him of this opportunity.

Mikhail Bulgakov: a writer who did not deserve peace

Estimated reading time: less than a minute.

Mikhail Bulgakov (1891–1940) did not live two months before his forty-ninth birthday. Anniversary - because forty-nine are seven segments of seven years. Each of them has a certain completeness, and from them one can judge how a person disposed of that gift, which Pushkin, in a moment of despondency, called vain and accidental. In Bulgakov’s fate, the questioning motive “Who called me out of insignificance with a hostile power, / Filled my soul with passion, / Excited my mind with doubt?..” sounds incredibly poignant - it’s a different matter as for Pushkin’s acceptance of God’s will, revealed in “The Captain’s Daughter” and in the later lyrics, he didn’t have time to get there. But the vector of his path was undoubtedly this.

We don’t know very much about childhood and adolescence, that is, relatively speaking, the first two seven years in the life of Mikhail Afanasyevich, but judging by the family in which he was born and raised, with what love he described his wonderful house on Andreevsky Spusk in “Belaya Guards" and how much his six brothers and sisters, as well as the cousins ​​raised in the family, meant to him, it was an unusually happy time of his life. It was overshadowed by the fatal illness of her father, a professor of theology at the Kyiv Theological Academy, and the subsequent confrontation between a sixteen-year-old teenager and her mother, who was as strong and strong-willed as her firstborn. Psychologically, it was this long-lasting, sometimes fading, sometimes intensifying conflict that became perhaps the main reason for young Mikhail’s departure from the Church, although in a broader sense of the word, being a writer by birth, Bulgakov was doomed to go through the temptations and seductions with which the rich world was filled , but a very turbid time of the Silver Age.

However, having left the ritual side of Orthodoxy and becoming a de-churched person, which can be considered the main event of his youth, he always felt an emptiness in his soul, a kind of spiritual black hole, and the topic of faith and unbelief attracted him, like a kind of mental illness. He dedicated his sunset novel to her, but it is noteworthy that books about childhood and its loss, and this matter has always been textbook for Russian literature (including for the literature of that time: Shmelev, Gorky, Bunin, Kuprin, Prishvin, Alexei Tolstoy - all you can’t list), Bulgakov didn’t write. And in general, in his varied prose and drama, rich in a variety of motifs, there are very few images of children (though “The White Guard” ends with children’s voices, but this is rather an exception). Perhaps because he did not have his own children, and not to have them was the zemstvo doctor’s own decision, made after he became dependent on morphine. With an incredible effort of will, he managed to recover from it, but the serious illness, which occurred in the middle of the fourth seven years of his journey, which biographically coincided with war, revolution and internecine unrest, became the personal psychological reaction of the Russian intellectual to the catastrophe of the seventeenth year.

Unlike many of his contemporaries (from Blok and Andrei Bely to Mayakovsky and Klyuev), Bulgakov did not see in the revolution any desire for freedom or a new world, but only the hopeless chaos and horror that the new Huns brought with them, and in their very first In the article “Future Prospects” published in 1919, the twenty-eight-year-old author, who had already experienced a lot and experienced a lot, expressed a sharp rejection of Bolshevism. Then, at the turn of two seven years, he made another very important choice for himself: he left medicine forever for literature. Fate did not allow him to make another choice - to leave Soviet Russia to emigrate along the path of his future heroes from the play “Running”: a typhus louse stopped the flight of the aspiring writer to Constantinople, and, having fallen ill under the rule of the Whites, Bulgakov recovered when the Reds came to Vladikavkaz.

A convinced enemy of them, he could hardly imagine that the rest of his life would be connected with an alien power and under the Bolshevik heel he would have to survive and write. However, this is exactly what happened, and the new seven years of his life (from 1919 to 1926) became for him a time of painful growth into Soviet reality, a kind of humility before a powerful historical force, which he never loved, ridiculed its ugliness, but at the same time felt towards she had a certain respect and demanded the same respect from her for himself. And - paradoxically - at the cost of incredible efforts, labor, human and literary courage, he achieved this. The year when Bulgakov turned thirty-five years old and, by Dante’s standards, he had gone halfway through his earthly life, and by the standards of his destiny, five-sevenths of the way, became the year of his largest and most amazing lifetime triumph: on the stage of the Moscow Art Theater, despite censorship and evil criticism , intelligence reports, summons to the Lubyanka and staff intrigues, the premiere of the play “Days of the Turbins” took place with its belief in the eternal values ​​of the human race - home, family and love, and this was the essential thing that Bulgakov took out of the terrible historical cataclysm that almost destroyed Russia .

The next seven years, from 1926 to 1933, turned out to be the most intense and vibrant in his literary life: triumph, abuse, new productions and failures, the banning of the play “Running,” the fateful year of 1929, when he renounced Bulgakov to At that time, Stalin, who secretly patronized him, gave into the hands of the literary Sanhedrin, the filming of three plays - “Days of the Turbins”, “Zoyka’s Apartment” and “Crimson Island”, and then a ban on the production of “The Cabal of Saints”; a letter to the leaders with a request to be released abroad, a call from Stalin on Good Friday 1930, getting a job at the Art Theater, forbidden love and separation, and - as a kind of completion of this part of the journey - marriage to Elena Sergeevna Shilovskaya and finally finding his home. And then there was silence in his lifetime. Almost calm. Or, better said, a dead swell. This swell accompanied his last and strangest, the seventh seven years of his life. It was disrupted by the desperate attempts of the writer, who felt like a captive, hostage, almost dead, to obtain permission to go abroad, exhausting rehearsals and the production of Moliere, which was reviled in Pravda, failures with Alexander Pushkin and Ivan Vasilyevich, trips to the American embassy , friendly parties, a final break with the Art Theater and a move to the Bolshoi, where all the librettos he wrote turned out to be unclaimed, just like the plays. Bulgakov was not arrested or oppressed, he was paid a lot of money for his service in the theater, but he was not noticed as a creator and was whispered as if: do not be distracted by vanity, write your main thing. And he wrote as if in his fate there was present that highest plan that exists about every writer, but not everyone is given the opportunity to know it or come to terms with it.

It’s hard to say whether Bulgakov figured it out or came to terms with his own. Judging by the story of “Batum,” his last attempt to break through and shout “I’m alive!” - No. I haven't figured it out. He left this life not only with written but unpublished works that, decades after his death, would shock the whole world, but with the consciousness that his life had been lived unsuccessfully and absurdly. One can almost certainly say that he did not want such a fate, he was ready to exchange the block of his posthumous glory, which he had no doubt about, for pieces of lifetime recognition, but who knows - if his earthly fate turned out to be different, more prominent, brilliant, loud, with prizes, awards and European capitals seen in reality - he would have written that book, about which to this day they argue about what it carries in itself - blasphemy, doubt, convulsion, despair or, on the contrary, an affirmation of love and mercy in contrast to what was happening in life then?

This novel - “The Master and Margarita” - is very easy to criticize, destroy, condemn as heretical from a strictly orthodox position; it is even easier to suspect Bulgakov of connections with dark forces and attribute to him a dark occult experience. Everything is possible and all this has been done more than once, but it is much more important and more merciful to understand and feel the drama of a person who all his life wanted to live according to his own will, but lived according to someone else’s.

“Two angels sit on my shoulders. Angel of laughter and Angel of tears. Their eternal bickering is my life,” Rozanov once said about himself. To an even greater extent, the struggle between light and darkness filled the content of the life of the one whose 120th birthday we are now celebrating. He wanted peace, but at the end of his life he realized that there would be no peace and silence - this is just a beautiful fiction that his beloved girlfriend composed for the blind Master, but in reality there is only darkness and light, light and darkness passing through the entire being of a person . It is not for us to guess what principle triumphed in the descendant of two ancient priestly families, but one thing can be said for sure: he was not released, as the fifth procurator of Judea, the equestrian Pontius Pilate, was released at the word of a merciful woman. Bulgakov is one of those writers who did not deserve peace.

On the screensaver there is a fragment of a photo: Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov on the balcony of his apartment in Nashchokinsky Lane. 1935 Photo by ITAR-TASS

Emigration

In 1922, Sergei Bulgakov, whose books were not pleasing to the new Soviet government, was exiled to Constantinople along with his family. He was given a document to sign, which stated that he was being expelled from the RSFSR forever and would be shot if he returned. From Constantinople the Bulgakovs move to Prague.

Sergei Nikolaevich never sought to leave his homeland, which was very dear to him. All his life he spoke with pride about his Russian origin and actively supported Russian culture, which was forced to exist abroad. He dreamed of someday visiting Russia, but this was not destined to come true. The Bulgakovs’ son Fyodor remained in their homeland, whom they never had the chance to see again.

Prague period

In 1922, Sergei Bulgakov came to Prague, where he began working at the Russian Institute at the Faculty of Law. At this time, Prague was called the “Russian Oxford”; after the revolution, such representatives of religious philosophy as N. Lossky, G. Vernadsky, P. Struve, P. Novgorodtsev worked here. For two years Bulgakov taught theology here. In addition, he performed services in the student church of Prague and in one of the suburban parishes.

The Bulgakovs lived in an institute dormitory called “Svobodarna”, where a brilliant team of Russian scientists and thinkers gathered. Father Sergius became the founder of the magazine “Spiritual World of Students,” which published the most interesting articles of theological content. He also became one of the main organizers of the Russian Student Christian Movement, whose members included leading Russian emigrant thinkers and scientists.

Parisian period

In 1925, Father Sergius and his family moved to Paris, where, with his active participation, the first Orthodox Theological Institute was opened, of which he became dean and professor. Since 1925, he has made many trips, traveling to almost all countries of Europe and North America. The Parisian period is also distinguished by Bulgakov's intense philosophical work. His most notable works of this time are: the trilogy “Lamb of God”, “Bride of the Lamb”, “Comforter”, and the book “The Burning Bush”. As dean of the St. Sergius Institute, Sergei Bulgakov creates a real spiritual center of Russian culture in Paris. He organizes the construction of a complex called the “Sergievskoye Compound”. Over the 20 years of his leadership, a whole town of buildings and temples appeared here. Father Sergius also worked a lot with young people, becoming a famous educator and mentor for students.

Great trials befell Bulgakov during the Second World War; at that time he was already seriously ill, but even under these conditions he did not stop his work on creating religious and philosophical works. He was very worried about the fate of his homeland and all of Europe.

Archpriest Sergius Bulgakov: “Give everything to God”

July 13 is the day of remembrance of Archpriest Sergius Bulgakov.

The beginning of the twentieth century, the so-called Silver Age, is a heyday in the history of Russian thought. The intellectual atmosphere at that time was full of searches in a wide variety of fields: philosophy, science, art, religion...

A special place among the figures of the Silver Age belongs to Sergei Nikolaevich Bulgakov (later Father Sergius). Having gone through the characteristic path of the intelligentsia of that time “from Marxism to idealism”, from atheism to faith, he reflected this in his work - first scientific, and then philosophical and theological. And although it was already clear to the contemporaries of Father Sergius that some of his works were not devoid of dogmatic errors and should be studied with caution, nevertheless, the burning of a caring spirit could be felt even in the economic articles of Bulgakov the Marxist. To a much greater extent, this can be said about the later works of the thinker - in particular, about his diaries, excerpts from which we present to the attention of readers today.

Every day begins a new life, like this book, and reveals a new immensity of God's mercy. God makes it possible to love Him and pray to Him, to rejoice in love and to live. And how lazy is my heart, which wants to push away from the effort of this day and thinks to itself: not this ordinary day, but another... some tomorrow. Meanwhile, in every moment of life there is everything: God, the world, and our own soul. And it is only blindness and inertia of the soul to wait for some deliberate moment to stop him, telling him: you are wonderful!

Truly, every moment of life is so beautiful, for God gives it, and don’t be lazy, my soul, to know this and implement it... And when the moments are taken away, the lights of life go out, then we will see how beautiful, truly beautiful every moment is, and then it will be too late... Lord, expand my heart to know how wonderful the moment of life that You give is, so that, rejoicing, I can thank You, and in this joy all earthly sorrow will dissolve.

The Lord sends people, He gives meetings, He shows the way. There is nothing accidental in human relationships; people are made for each other. Pray for those who love you and friends, pray for those who hate you, pray for those who do not pray for themselves, who are burdened and blinded. After all, everyone needs your prayer...

Let no man proudly imagine that he knows his path and that this is the path of good, for through the work of prayer the knowledge of his paths is given from the Lord. Teach, Lord!

Don’t think about people, about your affairs, how they will work out, how your relationships with people will develop, how difficulties will be resolved. "Don't worry about it in the morning." You do not know the duration of your life, nor all the conditions that change with you. This confusion and anxiety that attack you, all this is like a rich man who wanted to provide for himself for the future, when God took away his soul. We need to know and firmly know what to do today: the Lord gives us today, always full of new, unknown, mysterious possibilities. Every day there is a new secret from God, a secret about our lives. God would not give days if they were not an unfolding mystery. And we must look for a place for ourselves among these opportunities, we must walk before Him, checking our next step. Be careless with the holy gospel carelessness, like children. Your over-concern is sinful, your desire to think about and arrange your life in such a way as to protect it from all circumstances is sinful. Give it up. An Angel is watching over you, the guardian of our souls and bodies, all the saints, the Mother of God, and you just watch and guard your heart, give it and bring it to God, fill it with the oil of love and joy.

Be ready to give everything to God - your will, your mind, your desires, so that, in spite of everything, and in the face of everything, you can say: Your will be done. Only this, no less, is required by love for God.

Lord, here I am beginning a new day of Your goodness, a new page of life. Help me so that it does not remain empty, due to my laziness, like most of the days of my life, and so that it does not become covered with my vile sins, voluntary and involuntary, knowledge and ignorance, but grant that even the smallest grain of service to You will mark this day , keep me and my close friends as holy angels on this day, cover them from all evil, let them all fulfill Your will on this day, may you not repent, most good Lord, for giving us, unworthy, this day of our life. In the Name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

It is this ordinariness of every day that constitutes the content of life, and it is necessary that the ordinariness be clear, serious, worthy, majestic.

After prayers, the Lord, through a guardian angel, places His word on the heart, and the hotter and more humble the prayer, the more powerful and clear this inner word sounds. We are looking for miracles and signs and do not see that hourly miracle that is constantly happening in the innermost heart. And this voice of the guardian angel, if we listen to it worthily, gives an answer to our difficulties and questions and anticipates those temptations and tasks that await us during the coming day.

The most important thing in our lives is human meetings, human hearts that are inflamed with love not by will or by their own strength; this is the divine destiny of man, who is given by God to love and be loved on earth and to suffer for the sake of love. Suffering can be different: illness, loss, separation, unevenness, but always love, which gives the highest, the only joys, is paid off by suffering, and do not complain about this suffering, if possible, love it as your love, only through suffering do you acquire the right to be unselfish, not self-pleasuring , but genuine sacrificial love. The Mother of God herself unites the human hearts of Her chosen ones. She protects them and overshadows them with Her Cover. And look at Her. What was Her love for Her Son? Was this purest and highest love a love of joy and pleasure? Therefore, cowardice, murmuring, and despondency are a sin against love, they are a rejection of the example of the Mother of God. And “don’t worry about it in the morning” - in days of imaginary hopelessness. The Lord miraculously removes heaviness from the heart, gives solutions, has mercy and saves. Thank the Lord for His gifts, especially for the great gift of love that He gave to His creatures, for without this gift, under the difficulty and weight of which we sometimes groan and complain, our whole life would be empty and dead. And if anyone is truly worthy of our sympathy and pity, it is the one who is poor in love, who has no one to love, who loves little.

The conviction of your uniqueness very subtly and inconspicuously takes root in the heart and reigns in it, and you need to go through a lot on the path of humility and repentance in order to actually accept with all your heart that you are not the only one or only the only one in your sins. The merciful Lord humbles each person, sending life lessons and circumstances that experimentally reveal to him his weakness. For gifted and strong people, “rich” people, it is more difficult to come to terms with, because they remain conscious of their strength longer, but every person inevitably faces such an insight on the path of life. But it is not yet humility; or rather, it is only a negative condition for it, requiring positive ones. In the absence of them, this disappointment in oneself poisons the soul with evil despondency, envy, and an underground develops in a person. It is necessary to overcome it with the subduing power of humility, which consists in acknowledging one’s weakness and accepting it as a well-deserved punishment for sins and as God’s will for oneself. You need to stop feeling your weakness as weakness, something that should not be for you, but as your own state - you cannot be anything else and you should not strive, you should not imagine yourself or yourself. Everything human is insignificant before the grace of God and everything human is not of equal value. Therefore, weakness is not essential for eternal salvation.

A person can interfere with his sins and his pride with the infusion of God's grace, but he cannot add anything to it. Anyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but everyone who humbles himself will be exalted. You need to get away from this very questioning of your human rights and properties, look up, not down, and this departure - into humility - will give true freedom, childlike lightness, peace and joy. There is no peace and joy without sincere and deep humility, there is no impartiality without it. Acquiring humility is the most important thing for a person, without which he cannot embark on the path of spiritual activity. Therefore, you must always be attentive to seeing the good in people, and, seeing yourself as poor, reproach yourself and consider yourself unworthy of the fact that you live by the grace of God.

M.V. Nesterov. Philosophers (Pavel Florensky and Sergius Bulgakov)

Anyone who has reached old age is freed by it from the passions of the flesh; while remaining in the body, he is alien to its passions; Through the experience of a long life, he comprehended what he needed in his youth, and the closeness to God, which is given by standing at the earthly threshold, gives special freshness to his spirit. Old age in God is the most precious asset of humanity, its spiritual sediment, pure moisture. But old age is the crown of all life: as life is, so is old age, you need to earn old age. People are afraid of old age, they don’t want it, but you need to love old age, want it as freedom in God. My youth will be renewed like an eagle, and old age is this eternal youth of the spirit renewed in God.

Another year has passed, a new page of the book of life, burdened with new sins and temptations, has turned over in eternity and will appear before my damnation at the Last Judgment of Christ. O Lord, my Lord, how long will I anger You and test Your patience? I see my weakness, my sin, I languish over it and remain in it. But I glorify Your miracles, O Lord, which You have shown me in this world. All life is a miracle, a miracle is Your gifts, my loved ones, family, friendship, all my joys. A miracle is work for You, for Your work on earth, which You have honored me with, unworthy. The miracle is Your mercies with which You crowned me. You will ask for an answer and justification for every year of life given to us, and what river? And yet, I see how great and beneficial this year has been, how much God has given me, how many hopes and opportunities it contains. I surrender myself to Your will: whatever You want, do it, there is no my will, there is no desire, tell me Your path, I will go there.

Humble yourself to the will of God. If you see that circumstances are developing in a powerful and commanding way, but not the way you want in your most sincere, ardent and pure wishes, submit to the will of God in this, humble yourself. Force yourself to love the right hand of God, who leads you, to want not what you want, but what God wants for you, even if your heart ached and was weak. This is the highest wisdom and the highest humility. Maybe not soon, but sooner or later the truth of God and the love of God leading you will be revealed to you, you yourself will understand the limitations of your current desires and thank the Lord. Therefore, don’t let your heart be troubled if things don’t go your way. If you have done everything that you could and considered useful and necessary, wait for a test from the Lord and submit to Him. Do not torment your heart with excessive concern for the future; you don’t know if or how this future will be for you. You darken your heart with sadness, which is always sinful, and you do not rejoice at the joy given to you now. Cast your sorrow on the Lord, and He will nourish you. Calm your troubled heart.

It is truly scary to see yourself, and you should neither be frightened nor poisoned by fear, falling into despondency and despair about yourself. This will only be new pride in reverse; you must endure yourself, and acquire the spirit of patience.

You yourself - alas! - you need forgiveness and leniency from everyone. And most of all, most immeasurably of all, your guilt is not before those who sting you or are at enmity with you, but before those who love you. O terrible and unpayable debt, the guilt of love, the poverty of love, selfishness, the mediocrity of love, its ingratitude! Turn your gaze to yourself, take it away from those who tempt you, and cry, cry for the sins of love before your loved ones, those who love you undeservedly, ungratefully. And can anyone say to himself that he is not a debtor in love, that he loves as his conscience tells him? At the hour of death, at the Last Judgment, we will see this powerlessness and coldness of our love and callousness, we will cry and be horrified, but it is too late. Burn, my heart; God, light it, light it with Your love, and in the fire, like garbage, all the tares of the heart, all its sinful splinters, will burn and be scorched.

Only love gives wisdom, only love gives insight, only love gives forgiveness. The lover gains the ability to look at the other from within himself. We are separated from each other by a wall of selfishness, self-care, self-interest. Our gaze is obscured by the partiality of our judgment and vision; we always, when thinking about others, mean ourselves, we feel ourselves, but not him. We must feel him himself, and then our eyes will open. And the experience of love gives this experience of wisdom, knowledge of another, one’s loved one, one’s friend. God gives us this miracle of love, so that our lives are constantly enriched by it, becoming richer in God. When you experience a painful heaviness and dryness in your heart, when your addictions cloud your spiritual eyes, try to lose your temper, pray, tearfully pray to the Lord for love, for the one for whom your soul hurts, for whom it is wounded. And God will give you, in response to your prayer, the wings of your soul, all your burdens will melt away, and you will find the joy and bliss of love. Love does not seek its own, it is selfless; the only self-interest she wants is for the good of your neighbor. If your love is selfish, then it is not love; your selfishness is still strong in it. Be brought up in the love of love, bear the labor of love, lift up the cross of love, and it will become easier and more joyful for you. This is the mystery and power of the cross, the power of the meekness and humility of Christ, which makes the yoke good and the burden light. You will see the illness of your love and the movement of your heart: if it is light and clear and joyful, full of the joy of love, it means that it is free from the attack of selfishness, but if it is darkened, offended, then it is sick, a loving heart knows no offense, it does not only forgives them, but it simply does not feel them. Learn to love, work in love.

Love does not seek its own. And we are always looking for our own and ourselves, even in love. And only the grace of love frees us from ourselves. You can make sacrifices, give up your own, but still fundamentally seek and want your own, no matter how sublime and subtle it may be. But the law of love is: let him deny himself. You need to want in your loved one and for your loved one only what he needs, and not what you want, you need to crucify yourself in love, cut off your will, deny yourself... This is the way of the cross of love, without which it cannot ripen and bear its fruit. Why does the Lord require everyone to follow the way of the cross in His footsteps? Why does He place such a seemingly unbearable burden on our shoulders? Because without this fiery test, love would not have been born in us, it would not have realized its strength, its inspiration, its fearlessness. Perfect love conquers the fear of sacrifice. Perfect love is ready to do anything for the sake of love, for it knows itself and knows its eternal nature. But from human love - which usually represents an indistinguishable mixture of selfishness, passion, battles with pure love - a long and difficult path leads to the victory of love in love. This path is long and painful for a person, but every step in it, internally justified, is rewarded. Love is a talent that constantly multiplies if it is given to the growth of love and is not placed in the ground. O God, strengthen the weak heart, overcome exhaustion. You see our hearts. Thy will be done!

Archpriest Sergius Bulgakov

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Sophiology of S. Bulgakov

Bulgakov's philosophical concept is inextricably linked with theology. The central idea - Sophia the Wisdom of God - was not new to religious thought; it was actively developed by V. Solovyov, but for Father Sergius it became a deep inner experience, a revelation. Bulgakov's religious and philosophical works lacked integrity and logic; he rather confesses in his books and talks about his own mystical experience. The main spiritual concept of his theory, Sophia the Wisdom of God, is understood by him in different ways: from embodied femininity as the basis of the world to the main unifying force of existence, universal wisdom and goodness. Bulgakov's theory was condemned by the Orthodox Church; he was not accused of heresy, but mistakes and miscalculations were pointed out. His theory did not acquire a completed form and remained in the form of rather diverse reflections.

Personal life

Bulgakov Sergei Nikolaevich lived an eventful life. Back in 1898, he married the landowner’s daughter Elena Ivanovna Tokmakova, who went through all life’s trials with him, and there were many of them. The couple had seven children, but only two of them survived. The death of three-year-old Ivasek became a deep, tragic experience for Bulgakov; it pushed the thinker to think about the wisdom of the world. In 1939, the priest was diagnosed with throat cancer; he underwent severe surgery on his vocal cords, but learned to speak after that through incredible efforts. However, in 1944 he suffered a stroke, which led to his death on July 13, 1944.