Sophiology, Ascesis and Prophecy

Abstract

Evaluations of Bulgakov’s life and work have consistently insisted upon his spiritual integrity. Memoirs from the time of his final illness and death famously record the transfiguration of his face and the manifestation of the uncreated light. He was known for his skill as a confessor and spiritual director. And then there are Alexander Schmemann’s ‘three images’ of Bulgakov and, per- haps chief among them, the image of Bulgakov celebrating the Divine Liturgy. Schmemann recalls the intensity of Bulgakov’s celebration, the sense that ‘there was accomplished here something involving the whole created world, something of the pre-eternal, the cosmic,’ before going on to assert the profoundly liturgical character of Bulgakov’s theology. This chimes with Bulgakov’s own explicit articulation of the inspiration of theology: ‘the deepest origins of the theologian’s inspiration must be nourished from the altar.’ Yet for someone like Schmemann, Bulgakov’s seemingly excessive speculative tendencies cannot be so easily reconciled with his liturgical devotion.