06 — The Defense and the Aftermath

What happened after the acts of 1935. Bulgakov, who had not been heard, replied with formal memoranda (dokladnye zapiski) to his own hierarch, Metropolitan Evlogy; these were published with the first Moscow ukaz in O Sofii Premudrosti Bozhiei (Paris: YMCA-Press, 1935). Nikolai Berdyaev attacked the ukaz in the polemical essay “The Spirit of the Grand Inquisitor” (1935). Evlogy appointed a theological commission chaired by Archpriest Sergius Chetverikov; it divided, producing a majority report in June 1936 and a minority report in July 1936 signed by Fr. Georges Florovsky. A conference of the jurisdiction’s bishops on 26–29 November 1937 concluded that the charge of heresy was unproven but that Bulgakov’s opinions showed serious flaws requiring correction. No formal condemnation was ever issued in his own jurisdiction, and he continued as dean of St. Sergius until his death.

Tradition: Russian Orthodox (emigration; the Ecumenical Patriarchate’s Western European exarchate)

Files in This Section

File Description
Bulgakov’s Replies and the Berdyaev Polemic The dokladnye zapiski to Metropolitan Evlogy, their argument, their publication, and Berdyaev’s furious intervention
Evlogy’s Commission and the 1937 Conference The Chetverikov commission, the majority and minority reports of 1936, the bishops’ conference of 26–29 November 1937, and Bulgakov’s continued deanship

The Discipline of This Section

The outcome in Bulgakov’s own jurisdiction is a matter of record and is reported as such: the heresy charge was examined and found unproven; serious flaws requiring correction were found; no formal condemnation was issued. None of that is a verdict on whether sophiology is true, and this collection does not present it as one. Nor does it cancel the acts of Section 05, which stand. What Section 06 establishes is the concrete canonical situation in which Bulgakov lived out his last nine years: censured by two Russian hierarchies, examined and not condemned by his own, and serving as a priest and a dean to the end.

See Also