Bulgakov Sergei Nikolaevich, Russian philosopher, theologian, Orthodox priest: biography. Biography Sergei Nikolaevich Bulgakov short biography

Bulgakov Sergey Nikolaevich (1871–1944) - philosopher, theologian, economist, priest. In 1896 he graduated from the law faculty of Moscow University and left for Germany, where he studied political economy and joined Marxism. Upon his return, he defended his master's thesis "Capitalism and Agriculture" and until 1906 held the Department of Political Economy at the Kiev Polytechnic Institute. In 1903, his book was published. "From Marxism to Idealism". Participated in Sat. "Problems of Idealism", "Milestones", "From the Depth", which reflected B.'s spiritual crisis, his departure from Marxism and an appeal to a religious worldview. In 1905 he published a philosophical and religious magazine. "Questions of life", from 1906 - prof. political economy of the Moscow University and a deputy of the State Duma, received the priesthood in 1918, in 1919 he moved to the Crimea, where he taught political economy and theology. As a philosopher, B. proved himself in writing a two-volume Sat. "Two cities" and Prince. "Philosophy of Economics". The works "Non-Evening Light" and "The Tragedy of Philosophy" completed the philosophy. period of B.'s work, the thinker gradually becomes a theologian. In 1923 B. was expelled from the country - first to Prague, in 1924 B. took the post of dean of the Paris Theological Institute. From 1927 to 1945 he created two theological trilogies - The Burning Bush, The Bridegroom's Friend, Jacob's Ladder, The Lamb of God, The Comforter, The Bride of the Lamb, as well as The Apocalypse of John and The Philosophy of the Name.

The last two works were published posthumously (respectively in 1948 and 1953), B.C. Solovyova had a decisive influence on B., especially the doctrine of Sophia the Wisdom of God as the eternally existing in the Divine plan of the world soul, feminine in its essence, containing divine love and emanate it into the world. At the same time, B. emphasized the dual nature of Sophia - both divine-heavenly and created-human. The most important place in the structure of B.'s philosophizing was taken by the transcendentalism of I. Kant and F.V. Schelling. Sophia was understood by B. also as the ideal basis of the world, located between the Creator (Absolute) and creation (cosmos).

The ontological foundation of the world consists in the “continuous, metaphysically continuous Sophianity of its foundation”, which acts not only as a basis, but also as a norm, “ultimate task”, “Aristotelian entelechy”. In the anthropological aspect of being, Sophia acts as a “world soul”, “historical humanity”, “whole humanity”, which is a transcendental subject of history, the existence of which gives “dynamic connectedness” to the empirically disparate actions of individual individuals. Human activity was understood by B. as economic activity, which in a deep metaphysical sense is also sophian. The transcendental subject of knowledge for B. is the same as the transcendental subject of the economy - “historical humanity”, “Divine Sophia”, the Philosophical and theological system of B. can also be considered as a meaningful background for his historical and philosophical research, incl. on the history of Russian culture (numerous analytical characteristics of the work of Vl.S. Solovyov, N.F. Fedorov, F.M. Dostoevsky, L.N. Tolstoy, A.S. Pushkin, etc.)

in the second - asceticism, i.e. orientation to the internal structure of the personality, awareness of one's duty, one's own duties. In this concept, the reformist orientation of B.'s work, the regularity of his appeal to the theoretical and practical issues of Christian politics, and the pathos of his development of the concept of "Christian socialism" are most obvious. Christianity, according to B., must understand and accept the truth of socialism, rejecting, however, its claims to a complete solution of the problem of social evil within the framework of history. B. devoted a number of works to the analysis of the fate of Russia, seeing the source of her tragedy in the crisis of Byzantine Orthodoxy, which was not and could not be perceived by the people authentically and degenerated into ritual belief. The path to the revival of Russia, according to B., is repentance and the inner religious transformation of a person, his spiritual self-determination.

Russian philosopher, theologian, economist, publicist. Author of fundamental works on philosophy and theology, which influenced the evolution of Russian thought.

Bulgakov Sergey Nikolaevich(16 (28). 06.1871, Livny, Oryol province. - 07.13.1944, Paris) - economist, philosopher, theologian, publicist and public figure. Born in the family of a priest. In 1881 he entered Livenskoe religious school, and in 1884 - to the Oryol Theological Seminary. In 1890 he entered the Faculty of Law of Moscow University, after which he was left at the Department of Political Economy and Statistics to prepare for a professorship.

In 1895 he taught political economy at the Moscow Technical School. In 1897, his first significant work, "On the Markets in Capitalist Production", was published, written from the standpoint of the so-called "legal Marxism".

In 1898, Bulgakov passed the master's exam and was sent on a two-year trip abroad (Germany, France, England). Here he wrote his master's thesis "Capitalism and Agriculture" (St. Petersburg, 1900. Vols. 1-2), deeply studied German classical philosophy, especially I. Kant and F. W. Schelling. In the same years, he met the leading German Social Democrats: K. Kautsky, A. Bebel, V. Adler and others. Plekhanov evaluates him as "the hope of Russian Marxism."

Upon Bulgakov's return to Russia, approximately from 1901, his gradual transition to idealism begins, which was first expressed in his participation in the collection "Problems of Idealism" (M., 1902; Art. "Main Problems of the Theory of Progress") and then was clearly indicated in the book "From Marxism to Idealism" (St. Petersburg, 1903).

Since 1901, having defended his master's thesis, Bulgakov lives in Kyiv, where he is elected an ordinary professor of political economy at the Kyiv Polytechnic Institute and assistant professor at Kyiv University. At the same time, his lecture activity began, which soon brought him widespread fame.

In August 1903, he took part in an illegal congress, which laid the foundation for the "Union of Liberation" (the future core of the Cadets Party), since 1904, together with Berdyaev, he edited the magazine "New Way" and "Questions of Life".

The revolution of 1905 led him to a final disillusionment with the ideas of Marxism and socialism (however, he never denied the relative correctness of the latter, considering socialism as a kind of socio-political "minimum" of Christian politics).

In 1906, Bulgakov participated in the creation of the Union of Christian Politics, and in 1907 he was elected to the II State Duma from the Oryol province as a non-partisan "Christian socialist."

In 1906, Bulgakov moved to Moscow, where he became assistant professor at Moscow University, and in 1907, prof. political economy of the Moscow Commercial Institute.

Beginning in 1907, Bulgakov's work noticeably increased and then religious and philosophical problems began to prevail. In 1909, he took part in the collection "Milestones" (Art. "Heroism and Asceticism"), in 1911, in the publishing house "Way", in the organization and work of which Bulgakov played a prominent role, his collection "Two Cities" was published ( in 2 tons).

In 1912, Bulgakov's first monograph "Philosophy of Economics" was published (with the subtitle "Part One. The World as Economy"), in which all the problems of political economy and social philosophy Marxism has been radically reworked from the standpoint of religious philosophy. In the same year, Bulgakov defended it as a doctoral dissertation.

When publishing the first part of Philosophy of Economics, the publishing house Put announced that the second part, Justification of the Economy (Ethics and Eschatology), was being prepared for publication, but in the course of work this plan changed significantly, and as a result, in 1917, Bulgakov published The book "Non-Evening Light. Contemplation and Speculation", which he considered the actual continuation and completion of the "Philosophy of Economics".

It is a kind of result of the entire previous period of Bulgakov's philosophical development, the limiting point of the evolution of his worldview within the framework of religious philosophy. The next step in this evolution - the adoption of the priesthood in the summer of 1918 (which was preceded by Bulgakov's active and fruitful participation in the work of the All-Russian Local Council, which restored the patriarchate) - was quite consistent and natural for him.

In 1918, Bulgakov left Moscow for the Crimea, where his family was and from where he was deported to Turkey at the end of 1922 by decision of the Soviet government. During the four years of his stay in the Crimea, Bulgakov wrote a series philosophical writings, published after his death: "Philosophy of the Name", "The Tragedy of Philosophy", etc. At this point, the period of Bulgakov's own philosophical work ends.

From May 1923 until the summer of 1925, Bulgakov was a professor of church law and theology at the Faculty of Law of the Russian Scientific Institute in Prague and then finally settled in Paris, where he was a professor of theology and dean of the Orthodox Theological Institute. From 1925 to 1938 Bulgakov made a number of trips to Europe and America.

Theological heritage of Fr. Sergius very extensively: “St. Peter and John", "The Burning Bush", "The Apocalypse of John", "Orthodoxy", a trilogy - "The Lamb of God", "The Bride of the Lamb", "The Comforter", etc. True, and as a theologian, Bulgakov is very philosophical and even "sociological" , as evidenced by his articles such as “The Soul of Socialism” (New City, 1931. No. 1; 1932. No. 3; 1933. No. 7), “Nations and Humanity” (Ibid. 1934. No. 8), “Orthodoxy and socialism” (Way. 1930, No. 20), a small pamphlet “Christian Sociology” (Paris, 1927) and a posthumously published book “Christianity and the Jewish Question”.

significant role in the life of Fr. Sergius was also occupied with his ecumenical activity, which did not receive an unequivocal assessment in Church Orthodox circles (as, indeed, all of his theological work).

Bulgakov's worldview, if we also take into account his transition "from Marxism to idealism", does not fit into a single formula. Most researchers distinguish three stages in his creative evolution: legal Marxism (1896-1900), religious philosophy (1901-1918), and theology (since 1919). The evolution of B.'s views throughout his life was organic and never contained the slightest bit of what is commonly called "renegacy".

L. A. Zander counts four “personal factors” that give Bulgakov the appearance of a purely “Russian thinker”: 1) soil, 2) eschatological, 3) an extraordinary ability for philosophical and theological synthesis, 4) a purely Russian desire to reach the end in everything (Zander L. A. God and the World. Paris, 1948. T. 1. S. 11-12).

At the first (Marxist) stage of Bulgakov's work, these traits had the following effect. After analyzing the ideas of K. Marx about final destinies humanity - first of all, the idea of ​​​​progress and Zukunftstaat "a (the state of the future)," Bulgakov came to the conclusion that it was impossible to sociologically substantiate the global patterns of social development. driving motive of Marxism and socialism in general.

As for the prospects for the development of capitalism in Russia, without denying them, Bulgakov emphasized that capitalist Russia, in order to preserve its national specificity, must remain a predominantly agrarian and peasant country.

At the second stage of his career, Bulgakov focused on all those problems that, in his opinion, did not receive adequate development in Marxism. The main work of this stage should be considered the “Philosophy of Economics”, in which, in addition to answering its main question, formulated in Kantian: “How is economics possible?”, Bulgakov gave his understanding of the nature of philosophical and scientific knowledge.

In the same book, he for the first time in an expanded form outlined his version of sophiology - a doctrine that has not been fully comprehended and not evaluated so far. Considering that historical materialism, in which the spirit of modern economism was embodied with the greatest force, cannot simply be rejected, but must be "positively surpassed", Bulgakov tried to build his own philosophical system, combining the achievements of the German classical philosophy(mainly epistemological) with traditional Russian (in the spirit of the Christianized Plato) ontologism.

Many critics rightly saw in Bulgakov's "German" terminology only a kind of philosophical "coquetry" that was completely alien to him. However, this is not quite true. Although the synthesis as a whole did not work out, it helped Bulgakov overcome the Hegelian and Marxian dialectics, which in one way or another led to the triumph of "historicism" (to use K. Popper's term).

The extremes of epistemology and ontologism, according to Bulgakov, can be overcome with the help of the concept of Sophia, which, in the very first approximation, can be interpreted as the eternal plan of God about the world and man. It is the concept of Sophia that allows Bulgakov to consider himself a "religious materialist", avoiding the hypostasis of general concepts with the "invention" of the habitat of ideas ("smart place" by Plato) and that "blurring" of the physical (or material) substance of the world, which often occurs within the framework of idealistic epistemology (especially in its neo-Kantian version).

In addition, with the help of the concept of Sophia, Bulgakov tries to establish a continuous hierarchy of entities from God to man and thereby overcome (to a certain extent) the gap between the Creator and the Creature, which is typical, for example, for Protestant liberal theology.

Bulgakov's next book, The Non-Evening Light, is devoted to solving those philosophical and theological problems that were only formulated and posed in the Philosophy of Economics. This book, together with "Quiet Thoughts" (Moscow, 1918), can be considered Bulgakov's last philosophical work, after which the theological period of his work begins.

Back in the Crimea in 1918-1922. Bulgakov wrote several philosophical works (published posthumously) in which theology and philosophy are so closely intertwined that it is difficult to unequivocally decide from which positions they were written. These are “Philosophy of the Name” (Paris, 1953), “The Tragedy of Philosophy” (M., 1993; German translation: Darmstadt, 1927), philosophical dialogues “At the Walls of Chersonissus” (Symbol. Paris, 1993. No. 25).

Of particular interest is The Tragedy of Philosophy, in which Bulgakov substantiates the futility of efforts human mind build a comprehensive philosophical system.

Starting from 1922-1923. Bulgakov's work is predominantly theological in nature. His sophiological ideas were evaluated from the point of view of Orthodox orthodoxy as a heretical bias and an attempt to introduce a fourth hypostasis.

The ecumenical activity of Fr. Sergius, to whom he devoted much energy during his pastoral ministry, in some of its aspects is regarded as "liberal".

The “sociologism” of his thinking can be attributed to the peculiar features of Bulgakov the thinker at all stages of his creative evolution (despite the fact that in his “Philosophy of Economics” there is a rather strong criticism of “sociological reason”). The project of "Christian sociology", nurtured by Bulgakov all his life, was not fully implemented, but bore fruit in the development of specific social problems, which he dealt with throughout his life. Among such problems is the "national question", the nature of society (Bulgakov came close to the problem of the "social body", actively discussed in the 20th century).

A significant place in the philosophical heritage of Bulgakov is occupied by articles devoted to the analysis of the work of Russian thinkers and writers V. S. Solovyov, Fedorov, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Pushkin and others.

main works

Two cities. In 2 vols. M., 1911.
Philosophy of economy. M., 1912.
Light is not evening. Contemplation and speculation. M., 1917.
Quiet thoughts. M., 1918.
St. Peter and John. Paris, 1926.
Friend of the Groom. Paris, 1927.
The bush is unburned. Paris, 1927.
Ladder of Jacob. Paris, 1929.
Orthodoxy. Paris, 1965; M., 1991.
Apocalypse of John. Paris, 1948; M., 1991.
Autobiographical notes. Paris, 1949.

BULGAKOV Sergei Nikolaevich

O. Sergiy (1871-1944), philosopher, economist, publicist, public figure and theologian, who influenced Bulgakov's work, especially in the novel The White Guard. B. was born on July 16/28, 1871 in the town of Livny, Oryol province, in the family of a priest. He studied at the Oryol Theological Seminary until 1887, then at the Yelets Gymnasium, and from 1890 at the Faculty of Law of Moscow University, from which he graduated in 1894 and was left to prepare for a professorship. In 1896, he published the first book, On Markets in Capitalist Production, written from a Marxist standpoint. In 1898, Mr.. B. married Elena Ivanovna Tokmakova (1868-1945). In the same year he received a two-year scientific mission to Berlin. In 1900 he defended his master's thesis "Capitalism and Agriculture", published at the same time, where the limited applicability of Marxist theory to Russian agriculture was shown. This caused dissatisfaction among the members of the Academic Council, who adhered to orthodox Marxist positions, and in Moscow for B. there was no professorship. In 1901 he was elected an extraordinary professor at the Kyiv Polytechnic Institute, where he taught political economy. In 1903, he participated in the founding of the Marxist Union of Liberation. Since 1904, B., together with N. A. Berdyaev, edited the St. Petersburg magazine "New Way", in 1905 he returned to the church, attending confession for the first time in many years, and in the same year in Moscow founded the Religious and Philosophical Society in Memory of V S. Solovyova. As part of the activities of this society in Kyiv, he met A.I. Bulgakov, Bulgakov's father. The rejection of Marxism was recorded in the book of articles From Marxism to Idealism (1903). In 1905, at the news of the Manifesto on October 17, B., wearing a red bow, went to a demonstration along with students, but at some point, in his own words, “felt quite clearly the spirit of the Antichrist spirit” and, having come home, threw away red bow in the toilet. In 1906, B. was one of the founders of the Union of Christian Politics, and in 1907 he was elected to the State Duma from the Oryol province as a non-party "Christian socialist", he published articles where he preached the ideas of Christian socialism. However, after the dissolution of the Duma on June 3, 1907, he became completely disillusioned with the revolution and became a staunch monarchist. In 1909, he participated in the collection "Milestones", the authors of which called on the intelligentsia to turn from revolution to religion. In 1911, a collection of articles by B. "Two cities" was published. In 1912 B. He defended his book "Philosophy of Economics" as a doctoral dissertation. In 1917, the most significant philosophical work of B. “Non-Evening Light”, the second part of the “Philosophy of Economics”, according to B. - “a kind of spiritual autobiography or confession”, and in 1918 - a collection of articles “Quiet Thoughts” was published. In 1917-1918. B. actively participates in the work of the All-Russian Local Council of the Orthodox Church, is a number of its policy documents. On June 11, 1918, B. took the priesthood at the Danilovsky Monastery in Moscow. In 1917, B. published the brochure “Christianity and Socialism”, where he stated: “In the hearts of men there is ... a struggle, the question is being decided who to bow and believe: Christ, whose kingdom is not of this world, or the princes of the world this. The same struggle is going on in the soul of socialism. In 1918, B. in Kyiv published a separate edition of the article “At the feast of the gods (Pro and Contra). Modern Dialogues”, intended for the collection “From the Depths”, which continues the line of “Milestones” (was released in 1921, but almost the entire circulation was confiscated). The article "At the Feast of the Gods" had a significant impact on Bulgakov. Since 1919, Mr.. B. became a professor at Simferopol University, where he taught political economy and theology. Later he lived in Yalta. On September 20, 1922, officers of the Cheka conducted a search at B.'s. On October 13, he was arrested and taken to Simferopol. There, B. was ordered to be deported abroad. On December 30, he sailed from Sevastopol to Constantinople, where he arrived on January 7, 1923. From Constantinople B. in the same 1923 he moved to Prague, and in 1925 he settled in Paris, where he became a professor of theology and dean of the Orthodox Theological Institute. Abroad, B. wrote and published almost exclusively theological works (some of them were published posthumously): The Burning Bush (1927), Jacob's Ladder (1929), St. Peter and John" (1926), "Friend of the Bridegroom" (1927), "Lamb of God" (1933), "Bride of the Lamb" (1945), "Comforter" (1936), "Apocalypse of John" (1948), "Orthodoxy" ( 1964), a collection of sermons "Church Joy", etc. He also created religious and philosophical studies "The Tragedy of Philosophy" (1927) and "Philosophy of the Name" (1953). B. died in Paris on July 13, 1944 from a cerebral hemorrhage. He was buried on July 15, 1944 in the Sainte-Genevieve-des-Bois cemetery. B. had children: daughter Maria (1898-1979) and sons Fedor (born in 1902) and Ivan (Ivashechka). The latter was born on December 25, 1906 and died in the Crimea from nephritis on August 27, 1909. Ivashechka's death had a significant impact on B.'s worldview. As noted by B. Lev Aleksandrovich Zander (1893-1964), “the death of Ivashechka's son... was experienced by Fr. Sergius not only as a personal grief, but also as a religious revelation. He remembered this all his life. A picture from Ivashechka on his deathbed always adorned his room ... ”B. himself wrote on September 27, 1909 to the philosopher and literary critic G. A. Rachinsky (1859-1939):

“How can you describe what you experienced? I will say one thing: I have never experienced such torment in my generally prosperous, although not free from losses, life. This boy of ours (Ivashek, 3 years old, 7 months old) was special, extraordinary, with heavenly light in his eyes and a smile. I always remember that he was born on the night of Christ, when the bells rang for matins. The herald of heaven and went to heaven.

In religious-philosophical, and later in theological works, B., like his friend and philosophical associate Ya. . The doctrine of Sophia (sophiology) in B. acts as the basis of the All-Unity - the universal doctrine of God, the World and Man. According to B., expressed in the “Light of the Never Evening”, “a separate human individual is not only a self-closed microcosm, but also a part of the whole, it is he who is part of the mystical human organism, according to Kabbalah, Adam-Kadmon. After the incarnation of God, the Lord Jesus Christ is such an all-perfect all-human all-organism: entering the Church, which is His Body, a person enters into this absolute organism, in relation to which the original mystical unity of Adam-Kadmon is, as it were, a lower, natural basis. There is a mystical organic nature of humanity, already laid down in Adam the First. Each human personality, having being-for-itself, is its absolute center; but it also does not have an independent existence, finding its center outside itself, as a whole. The philosopher thus asserts that the existence of each human person acquires meaning only in the Divine Absolute located outside of it. In Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita, Yeshua Ha-Nozri becomes such a Divine Absolute with his ethical preaching of the Absolute Good, and outside of him, both the cruel Pontius Pilate and the brilliant Master lose the meaning of their lives.

In the "modern dialogues" "At the Feast of the Gods", modeled on "Three Conversations" (1900) by V. S. Solovyov, B. talked about the fate of Russia in conditions when the coming of the Antichrist in the person of the Bolsheviks have already taken place. B. wrote about some invisible hand, “which needs to bind Russia”, about the feeling that “some kind of mystical conspiracy is being carried out, a kind of black providence is on the alert: “Someone in Gray” (an infernal character in the popular play by Leonid Andreev (1871- 1919) "The Life of a Man" (1907). - B.S.), who is more cunning than Wilhelm, is now at war with Russia and is looking for her to bind and paralyze. In Bulgakov's "White Guard" "someone in gray" materializes in the military leader of the supporters of independent Ukraine S.V. Petlyura, marked with the "number of the beast" - 666, and in the military leader of the Bolsheviks L. D. Trotsky, likened to Apollyon, the "angel of the abyss", the destroying angel of the Apocalypse. Myshlaevsky's reasoning in The White Guard and Days of the Turbins about the "God-bearing peasants of Dostoevsky" was inspired not only by Fyodor Dostoevsky's (1821-1881) novel "Demons" (1871-1872), but also by the following interpretation of this image in the work "At the Feast gods": "Recently still dreamily worshiped the god-bearing people, the liberator. And when the people stopped being afraid of the master and shook with might and main, they remembered their Pugachev ones - after all, people's memory is not as short as the master's - then disappointment began ... We still have to wade through the fog cast by Dostoevsky, he is the God-bearer - then composed. And now it suddenly turns out that nothing is sacred for this people, except for the belly. Yes, he is right in his own way, hunger is not an aunt. After all, when we were put on quarters of bread, we also became much less exalted. Bulgakovsky Myshlaevsky swears at the "God-bearing peasants" who support Petlyura, but are immediately ready to throw themselves at the feet of "your honor" again, if you properly shout at them. B. in "At the Feast of the Gods" comes to a disappointing conclusion about the people:

“... Let our people now turn out to be a theomachist, a rebel against shrines, this would be only negative self-evidence of their religious spirit. But after all, more often than not, he behaves simply like a boor and cattle, who does not care about faith at all. As if there are no demons in him, there is nothing to do with him. You can be healed from demonic possession, but not from bestiality.” And then through the mouth of another participant " contemporary dialogues” refutes, or at least casts doubt on this conclusion: “... What is the difference now between your “God-bearing people”, degraded in its rank for bad behavior, from that ancient “cruel-forged people”, which, after all, was also not particularly firm in his ways as a “God-bearer”? Read from the prophets and see how they repeat there too - well, of course, more ardently and more inspirationally - the same denunciations that are now pronounced over the Russian people.

Bulgakov, in that version of the end of The White Guard, which was not published due to the closure of the Rossiya magazine, put similar words into the mouth of the "unsympathetic" Vasilisa: "No, you know, no revolutions can be made with such pigs ..." , moreover, Vasilisa himself, lusting for the milkmaid Yavdokha, in his thoughts is ready to kill his unloved wife Wanda. He seems to be likened to the people in terms of the level of consciousness, but not because of hunger, but because of the same base aspirations as those of the “God-bearing peasants”.

Elena's prayer for the recovery of Alexei Turbin goes back to "At the Feast of the Gods" in the "White Guard". B. gives the following story: “Just before the October Revolution, I had to hear the confession of a person close to me. He told with the greatest emotion and tenderness how, during his fervent prayer before the revealed image of the Mother of God, it suddenly sounded quite clearly in his heart: Russia is saved. How, what, why? He does not know, but to change this minute, to doubt it, would mean for him to forget the most cherished and reliable. So it turns out, unless my friend composed it, that we should not be afraid for Russia in the last and only important, final sense, for Russia is saved - by the Mother of God.

Elena's prayer at Bulgakov's, addressed to the icon of the Mother of God, also had an effect - brother Alexei with God help overcame the disease: “When the light ripened, lit up, the rim above the swarthy face of the Mother of God turned into gold, her eyes became friendly. The head, tilted to one side, looked at Elena ...

From her knees, Elena looked from under her brows at the jagged crown above the blackened face with clear eyes, and, holding out her hands, said in a whisper:

You send too much grief at once, Mother Intercessor. So in one year you end your family. For what?.. There is only one hope for you, Blessed Virgin. At you. Beg your Son, beg the Lord God to send a miracle...

Elena's whisper became passionate, she was confused in words, but her speech was continuous, flowed ... Completely inaudible came the one to whom Elena called through the intercession of a dark-skinned maiden. He appeared next to the ruined tomb, completely resurrected, and blissful, and barefoot. Elena's chest expanded greatly, spots appeared on her cheeks, her eyes filled with light, filled with dry, tearless weeping. She pressed her forehead and cheek to the floor, then, stretching out with her whole soul, she strove for the light, no longer feeling the cruel floor under her knees. The light swelled, the dark face embedded in the crown obviously came to life, and Elena's eyes lured more and more new words. Perfect silence was silent behind the doors and windows, the day was getting dark terribly fast, and once again a vision arose - the glassy light of the heavenly dome, some unprecedented, red-yellow sandy blocks, olive trees, the cathedral blew a black centuries-old silence and cold into the heart of the cathedral.

Mother intercessor, - Elena muttered in the fire, - beg Him. Won He. What is it worth to you. Have pity on us. Have pity. Your days are coming. Your holiday. Maybe he will do something good, and I will beg you for your sins. Let Sergey not come back... Take it away, take it away, but don't punish him with death... We are all guilty of blood, but don't punish him. Don't punish. There he is, there he is...

The fire began to split, and one chain beam stretched long, long to Elena's very eyes. Then her crazy eyes saw that the lips on her face, bordered by a golden scarf, were glued, and her eyes became so unprecedented that fear and drunken joy tore her heart, she drooped to the floor and did not rise again.

The success of Elena's prayer and the appearance of the Son of God to her, along with the recovery of Alexei Turbin, symbolize in the "White Guard" the hope for the recovery and revival of Russia. Bulgakov takes upon himself and the intelligentsia as a whole part of the blame for the spilled blood. The image of Jesus Christ revealed to Elena later in The Master and Margarita developed into the image of Yeshua Ha-Notsri. We also note that if B.'s "modern dialogues" take place on Holy Week 1918, then Elena's prayer in the "White Guard" - on the eve of Christmas.

In “At the Feast of the Gods,” B. accused the intelligentsia of neglecting religion: “For some reason, now suddenly everyone bristled when the Bolsheviks appointed the celebration of May 1 on Holy Wednesday, while they themselves everywhere and systematically did essentially the same thing.” A special decree of the All-Russian Church Council, drawn up with the participation of B. and announced on April 20, 1918, in connection with the intention of the Soviet government to arrange on May 1, 1918 "a political celebration with a procession through the streets and accompanied by orchestras of music" reminded the faithful that "the aforementioned the day coincides with Great Wednesday. In mournful days Holy Week all noisy street festivities and street processions, regardless of who and on what occasion they are arranged, should be considered as a grave insult to the religious feeling of the Orthodox people. Therefore, calling on all the faithful sons of the Orthodox Church to fill the churches on the said day, the council warns them against any participation in the said celebration. Whatever the changes in Russian state system People's Russia was, is and will remain Orthodox. Bulgakov in The Master and Margarita, obviously being familiar with both the work of B. and the decision Church Council, timed the beginning of the action to May 1, 1929, when the holiday of international solidarity of workers again fell on Holy Wednesday. It was on the evening of this day that Woland appeared in Moscow with his retinue and predicted death under the wheels of a tram to the chairman of MASSOLIT Mikhail Alexandrovich Berlioz on the Patriarch's Ponds, probably also because Mikhail Alexandrovich was holding a festive meeting of the board of his organization on this mournful day. It is significant that there are twelve writers in the board of MASSOLIT. B. in "At the Feast of the Gods" talks about the poem by Alexander Blok (1880-1921) "The Twelve" (1918):

''A poignant thing, it seems, is the only significant thing that appeared in the field of poetry during the revolution. So, if it's about the Bolsheviks, then it's great; and if it's about Bolshevism, then it's creepy to the last degree. After all, there these 12 Bolsheviks, torn to pieces and naked spiritually, in blood, “without a cross”, turn into the other twelve” - into the twelve apostles of the new faith, led by Jesus Christ. In The Master and Margarita, the twelve communist writers, “naked in spirit” and “without a cross,” are funny, although they are also terrible, because they are capable of ruining any talent, such as the brilliant author of the novel about Pontius Pilate. B. in “modern dialogues” still wondered: “Maybe there really is such a depth and mystery in Bolshevism that we still have not been able to understand?”, Although he was convinced that if the Bolsheviks showed “real Christianity”, then "only snowy, with an icy heart and a cold soul." At the same time, he admitted: “For me, in general, shaking up this junk on the topic of the rapprochement of Christianity and socialism has long lost all taste.” Bulgakov's Massolitite writers have grown cold both in heart and soul, they are not suitable for the role of apostles of any kind of doctrine, and, as the poet Alexander Ryukhin admits to himself, pouring vodka into melancholy in the restaurant of the Griboyedov House, they do not believe in what they preach, what they write about . Griboedov's house is doomed to perish in the flames of a fire, for in it writers carelessly indulge in worldly joys during the mournful days of Passion Week.

In the feuilleton The Adventures of Chichikov (1922), placing the Gogol hero in post-revolutionary reality, Bulgakov, along with N. A. Berdyaev’s article Spirits of the Russian Revolution (1918), took into account, perhaps, B.’s words from “modern dialogues” about , that "the revolutionary Chichikovs are busy to sell dead souls, and on the sly and Elizaveta Sparrow for a man to let go."

B.’s confession in “At the Feast of the Gods” that ““comrades” sometimes seem to me to be creatures completely devoid of spirit and possessing only lower mental abilities, a special kind of Darwinian monkeys - homo socialisticus, obviously prompted Bulgakov to the idea of ​​his story “ Heart of a Dog" (1925). There, a similar homo socialisticus turns out to be Polygraph Poligrafovich Sharikov, in whom the proletarian Klim Chugunkin, who has only “lower mental abilities”, crushed all the good that was in the pretty dog ​​Sharik.

Perhaps B. also served as one of the prototypes of Privatdozent Sergey Golubkov in the play "Running" (1928), since Golubkov is an anagram of Bulgakov's surname. The hero of the play is not only a privatdozent, but also the son of a "famous idealist professor." We also note that the autobiographical Dr. Bakaleinikov and Dr. Turbin are named as the "future assistant professor" in the story "On the Night of the 3rd" (1922) and in the end of the novel "The White Guard" intended for the magazine "Russia". Golubkov flees from St. Petersburg, while he previously lived in Kyiv, and, once in the Crimea and Constantinople, largely repeats the path of B. and at the same time remains an autobiographical hero. In the Bulgakov family, there was a legend about kinship with B. (the father of the writer, A. I. Bulgakov, like the philosopher, was from the Oryol province). It is possible that Bulgakov created the image of Golubkov in "Running" not without the influence of this legend.

Bulgakov Encyclopedia. - Academician. 2009 .

See what "BULGAKOV Sergei Nikolaevich" is in other dictionaries:

Famous Russian writer. Genus. July 16, 1871 in the city of Livny, Orel Province, in the family of a priest; He received his secondary education at the Oryol Theological Seminary and the Yelets Classical Gymnasium, then took a course at the Law Faculty of Moscow. ... ... Big biographical encyclopedia

- (1871 1944) Russian philosopher, economist, theologian. From 1923 he lived in exile in Paris. From legal Marxism, which Bulgakov tried to combine with neo-Kantianism, he moved on to religious philosophy, then to Orthodox theology. Major writings... Big Encyclopedic Dictionary

Bulgakov, Sergei Nikolaevich, a famous writer. Born in 1871 in Livny, in the family of a priest; studied at the Oryol seminary and the Yelets gymnasium, graduated from the law faculty of Moscow University. Having passed the master's exam, Bulgakov ... Biographical Dictionary

- (1871 1944) philosopher, theologian, economist, priest. In 1896 he graduated from the law faculty of the Moscow University and left for Germany, where he studied political economy and joined Marxism. Upon his return, he defended his master's thesis ... ... Philosophical Encyclopedia

Bulgakov, Sergei Nikolaevich- BULGAKOV Sergey Nikolaevich (1871 1944), philosopher, theologian and economist. In 1923 he emigrated from Russia. From legal Marxism, which Bulgakov tried to combine with neo-Kantianism, he moved on to religious philosophy, then to Orthodox theology. Illustrated Encyclopedic Dictionary

- (6/16/1871, Livny, ≈ 7/13/1944, Paris), Russian bourgeois economist, philosopher and theologian. Professor of political economy in Kyiv (1901–06) and Moscow (1906–18). In 1918 he received the priesthood. Since 1923 in exile. Since 1925, professor at the Russian Theological Institute ... ... Great Soviet Encyclopedia

Wikipedia has articles about other people with that surname, see Bulgakov. Wikipedia has articles about other people with the same first and last name: Bulgakov, Sergey. Sergei Nikolaevich Bulgakov ... Wikipedia

- (1871 1944), Russian theologian, philosopher, economist, priest (since 1918). From Marxism, which Bulgakov tried to combine with neo-Kantianism, in the early 1900s. moved to religious philosophy, in the 1920s. to Orthodox theology. encyclopedic Dictionary

Sergei Nikolaevich Bulgakov Mikhail Nesterov Philosophers (Florensky and Bulgakov) 1917 Date of birth: June 28 (16) ... Wikipedia

- (1871, Livny, Oryol province 1944, Paris), theologian, philosopher, economist, publicist. Born in the family of a priest. After graduating from the Livny Theological School in 1884, he entered the Oryol Theological Seminary in 1885, which he left in 1888 under ... ... Moscow (encyclopedia)

(1917-1922)
France France (1925-1944)

Sergei Nikolaevich Bulgakov(July 16, Livny, Oryol province - July 13, Paris) - Russian philosopher, theologian, Orthodox priest, economist. The creator of the doctrine of Sophia Wisdom of God, condemned by the Moscow Patriarchate in 1935, but without accusing him of heresy.

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Biography

Born into a family country priest. He studied at the Livny Religious School and at the Oryol Religious Seminary (before ), then for two years at the Yelets Classical Gymnasium.

In 1898, Bulgakov married Elena Ivanovna Tokmakova, the daughter of the owner of the Oleiz estate in the Crimea, I.F. Tokmakova. Having received a scholarship for a two-year internship in the West, he and his wife went to Germany (in an apartment on Klopstockstrasse in December 1898, the first child, a daughter, appeared in the Bulgakov family). Here Bulgakov had the opportunity to verify the results of his research in personal communication with representatives of the German Social Democracy; the result of his scientific research was the two-volume work "Capitalism and Agriculture", which became his master's thesis.

The following years are the period of the greatest public and journalistic activity of the philosopher. He participates in many undertakings that mark a religious and philosophical revival in the journal "New Way" and "Questions of Life", the collection "Questions of Religion", "About Vladimir Solovyov", "On the Religion of Leo Tolstoy", "Milestones" (), in work "The Religion of the Philosophical Society in Memory of Vladimir Solovyov" and the publishing house "The Way", where in -17 years the most important works of Russian religious thought were published. In his work during this period, a transition was made from lectures and articles on the topics of religion and culture (the most important of them were collected by him in the two-volume book Two Cities) to original philosophical developments.

The process of a gradual return to the Church Orthodox worldview ends already in the revolutionary years with the adoption of the priesthood (). With this completion, Bulgakov immediately begins to play a prominent role also in church circles, actively participating in the work of the All-Russian Local Council of the Orthodox Church (1917-1918) and closely collaborating with Patriarch Tikhon. Having perceived the October Revolution unconditionally negatively, Father Sergius quickly responded to it with the dialogues “At the Feast of the Gods”, written in the style and spirit of Vladimir Solovyov’s “Three Conversations”; the dialogues were included in the collective collection "From the Depths" (1918; 2nd ed. M., 1991).

Final years, death

own philosophical doctrine

At the turn of the 19th-20th centuries, Sergei Nikolayevich was disappointed in Marxism, because he considered it incapable of responding to the deep religious needs of the human personality and radically changing it. He returns to Christianity as a mature man, having been tempted by other possibilities of salvation. His personal spiritual path becomes a landmark for the spiritual path of Russia, demonstrating the possibility of avoiding the catastrophe hanging over the country. In 1905, during the days of the first Russian revolution, Bulgakov wrote an article "Heroism and asceticism", in which he speaks of the "two ways" of the Russian intelligentsia. Heroism is the way that the majority goes. This is an attempt to change society by external means, replacing one class with another, with the use of violence and terror and with complete disregard for the spiritual and moral content of one's own personality. Asceticism is a different path, involving, first of all, a change, the transformation of one’s own personality, “for from the heart, according to the word of the Gospel, come evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemy. It defiles a person…” (Matthew 15:19). This path requires a feat not external, but internal. Bulgakov warns that the path of heroism is leading Russia to a bloody tragedy.

With his theology, Fr. Sergius provoked accusations from the Moscow and Karlovtsy jurisdictions of the Orthodox Church. The conflict had both political and theological reasons. The ecclesiastical and political background of the conflict was expressed in the confrontation between the Karlovac (pro-monarchist) and Moscow (under heavy pressure from Stalin) churches of the free "Evlogian" church, which since 1931 was subordinate to the Constantinople Ecumenical Throne. In the sphere of theology, the fear of raising new theological questions made itself felt. In 1935, Bulgakov's teaching was condemned in decrees of the Moscow Patriarchate, and in 1937 also of a foreign Bishops' Council in Karlovtsy. However, a commission of professors from the St. Sergius Institute and a diocesan commission (1936), convened by Metropolitan Evlogii, rejected all accusations of heresy.

sophiology

Bulgakov says that God created the world out of His own being, placed outside of Himself. Here about. Sergius resorts to the biblical concept Sofia- the wisdom of God, which is identical with nature, God's hands. And this Divine Sophia, placed outside of Itself by the creative act of God, becomes Sophia created and is the basis of the created world. Its creatureliness lies in its position in time and becoming. The created Sophia is manifested in the potentialities of being, which, like seeds sown in the ground, must germinate, but the possibility of their germination and the quality of growth are directly related to the self-determination and activity of man - the hypostasis of the created Sophia. “Earth” and “mother” are Bulgakov’s key definitions of matter, expressing its conceiving and giving birth power, its fruitfulness and fruitfulness. The earth is "saturated with limitless possibilities"; it is “all-matter, because everything is potentially contained in it” (Light Nevernight. M., 1917, p. 240-241). Although after God, according to His will, but matter is also a creative principle. Mother Earth not only gives birth, but also brings forth everything that exists from its bowels. At the pinnacle of her generative and creative effort, in its ultimate tension and ultimate purity, she is potentially the “God-Earth” and the Mother of God. Mary comes from her depths and the earth becomes ready to receive the Logos and give birth to the God-man. The Earth becomes the Mother of God, and only in this is the true apotheosis of matter, the rise and crowning of its creative effort. Here is the key to Bulgakov's entire "religious materialism".

Bulgakov explores philosophical foundations language and in another book of the same period, "Philosophy of the Name", dedicated to the apology of imyaslaviya and related to the similar apologies of Florensky and Losev. Classification is derived from correspondence philosophical systems, which allows us to see in their main types various monistic distortions of the trinity dogma, which excludes monism and requires complete equality, consubstantiality of the three principles, united in an elementary statement (“I am that I am”) and understood as ontological principles. As a result, the history of philosophy appears as the history of a special kind of trinitarian heresies. Bulgakov concludes that an adequate expression of Christian truth is fundamentally inaccessible to philosophy and is achievable only in the form of dogmatic theology.

In contrast to the sophiology of Solovyov and Florensky, where Sophia the Wisdom of God is the beginning, mediating between God and the world, “the world in God”, the collection of ideal archetypes of all that exists in God forever, Sophia in Bulgakov’s presentation is not the beginning, along with God, but there is the very nature of God, Ousia, the Essence of the Triune God: “Divine Sophia is ... the nature of God, ousia, understood ... as a revealing content, as the All-Unity” (Lamb of God, p. 125). Thus, she is not the fourth incarnation, for which Fr. Sergius, and at the same time, can be identified with each of the hypostases of the Holy Trinity, because she is the one nature of God, the life Holy Trinity. Sophia can be identified with the Logos, since she is Wisdom; she can be identified with the Holy Spirit because she is the Glory and Beauty of God, she can be related to the Father because she is the peace of God. But Sophia is not a hypostasis, a Person, although she is personal through and through, permeated with the rays of the Holy Trinity. By analogy with the world of God, the created world was also created: it also has a nature, a created Sophia and a hypostasis, Adam, a many-man human personality, which was created in the image of God.

The key concept in the theology of Fr. Sergius is the God-manhood of Christ and our God-manhood. For about. Sergius, it becomes fundamentally important to reveal the Chalcedonian dogma through the positive correlation of the two natures in Christ, which is based on the identity of the Divine and created Sophia: “Being identical in foundation, they are different in the way of their being,” he writes. The positive correlation of natures in Christ also opens the path of deification before man.

In accordance with the concept of God-manhood, she develops the doctrine of the world process, which in its entirety, from the act of creation, through being in the fall and to the final Transfiguration, is presented as a "God-human process", the reunion of the creature with God. The earliest and most complete development of Bulgakov's doctrine was about the economy, which includes both economic and scientific and technical human activity. Reflecting the dual nature of the fallen being, the economy combines in itself the free creative “labor of cognition and action”, in which the sophianity of the world is revealed, and “the slavery of nothingness”, the service of the natural necessity born of the fall. An important place in the Divine-human process belongs to art. Bulgakov interprets it as the ability to see and show the sophianity of the world, for one of the main names of Sophia is Beauty. But like everything in fallen being, art also bears the stamp of inferiority: it strives and cannot become theurgy, an effective transformation of the world. The phenomena of sex, creativity, power, and others are analyzed in a similar way: Bulgakov sees everywhere both the sophianic, good beginning, and the seal of fallenness, non-existence. IN last years this is joined by an analysis of the “last things”, death (Sophiology of death // Vestnik RSHD. 1978, No. 127; 1979, No. 128) and the end of the world (the eschatology of the “Bride of the Lamb”).

Considering the world under the sign of dynamics, process, Bulgakov’s teaching about the world is presented as a whole as the theology of history, where Sophia as the Church is at the center, since “the Church acts in history as a creative force” (Bride of the Lamb, p. 362), and the Divine-human process can be understood as the formation of the entire universe by the Church. In its general type and appearance, in a number of leading motives and ideas, his system resembles the great theological systems of modern Western Christianity, approaching the teachings of Teilhard de Chardin and, somewhat less, Tillich.

Grades and legacy

According to the memoirs of Archbishop Nathanael  (Lvov): “Once, under Metropolitan Anthony [Khrapovitsky], there was a conversation about Fr. Sergius Bulgakov. The entire entourage of Mr. Anthony belonged to Fr. Sergius is negative. But Vladyka Anthony also said to me about him: “Unfortunate father Sergius, unfortunate father Sergius. After all, this is a very smart person, one of the smartest in the world. He understands many things that only very few understand. And it's terribly proud. It is hard not to become proud if you know that this is clear and completely understandable to you, and no one around you can understand this. This consciousness uplifts and prides. Only God's grace, attracted by humility, which Fr. Sergius, apparently, was not enough, only she can protect the soul from such pride.

Selected bibliography

List of works by S. N. Bulgakov

• (Article in the collection "Problems of Idealism", Moscow, 1902)
• (Public lecture, Kyiv November 21, 1901)
• From Marxism to Idealism. - M., 1903-318 p.
  • On the regularity of social phenomena // From Marxism to Idealism, M., 1903 - S. 1-34
  • Law causality and freedom human actions // From Marxism to Idealism, M., 1903 - S. 35-52
  • Economy and Law // From Marxism to Idealism, M., 1903 - S. 53-82
  • Ivan Karamazov  (in Dostoevsky’s novel The Brothers Karamazov) as a philosophical type // From Marxism to Idealism, M., 1903 - P. 83-112
  • Main problems theory progress // From Marxism to Idealism, M., 1903 - S. 113-160
  • Soul drama Herzen // From Marxism to Idealism, M., 1903 - S. 161-194
  • What does the philosophy of Vladimir Solovyov give to modern consciousness? // From Marxism to Idealism, M., 1903 - S. 195-262
  • On the economic ideal // From Marxism to Idealism, M., 1903 - S. 263-287
  • On the social ideal
  • Tasks of political economy // From Marxism to Idealism, M., 1903 - S. 288-316
• Dogmatic theology  (review). // Journal "Orthodox Thought". - 1928. - No. 1. - S. 317-347
• Soul drama Herzen, Kyiv, 1905.
• Karl Marx as a religious type (His relationship to religion man-god L. Feuerbach), Moscow, 1906.; Warsaw, 1929.
• (Article from the collection "Milestones", Moscow. - 1909)
• Two cities. M., 1911. - 313 p.
• Russian tragedy ("O "Besakh" Dostoevsky), Moscow, 1914.
• Zion, Moscow, 1915.
• "Light non-evening". Contemplations and speculations Moscow, "The Way", 1917. - 417 p.
• "On the feast of the gods." Pro and contra. Contemporary dialogues. Article from the collection "From the Depths", Moscow-Petrograd, 1918.
• Apocalypse by John Ymca-Press, 1948. - 353 p.
• Philosophy of the economy, New York, 1982-321 p.
• Philosophy economy  (Speech at doctoral dispute), September 21, 1912.
• "The walls of Chersonis" Yalta, 1923.
• "St. Peter and John. Two Chief Apostles" Paris, Ymca-Press, 1926. - 91 p.
• Kupina Unburnt. The experience of the dogmatic interpretation of some of the features in the Orthodox veneration of the Mother of God - Paris: YMCA-Press, 1927. - 288 p.
• Ladder  Jacob. About angels. Paris, 1929. - 229 p.
• Icon and icon veneration. - Paris, 1931. - 166 p.
• On the Miracles of the Gospel - Paris: YMCA-Press, 1932. - 115 p.
• Bride of the Lamb - Paris: YMCA-Press, 1945-621 c.
• Joy church. Words and teachings - Paris: 1938. - 98 p.
• Una Sancta (Foundations ecumenism) // Path. - 1938. - No. 58. - S. 3-14.
• Word on the day of the Nativity of Christ, December 25, 1934 (January 7, 1935)
• "Water jumping to life eternal". Word on the eve of Theophany, Sergius sheets. Paris. 1935.
• Orthodoxy - Paris: YMCA-Press, 1965. - 403 p.
• Philosophy Name - Paris: YMCA-Press, 1953. - 278 p.
• Lamb God - Paris: YMCA-Press, 1933. - 468 p.
• Lamb God (Abstract) // Way. - 1933. - No. 41. - S. 101-105.
• Comforter. About God-manhood. part II Paris: YMCA-Press, 1936. - 447 p.
• Comforter. About God-manhood. part II  (Abstract) // Path. - 1936. - No. 50. - S. 66-69.
• "Negative theology" - Questions of philosophy and psychology. - M., 1915. - Year XXVI, book. 126(I). - pp. 1-86; Year XXVI, book. 128(III). - pp. 244-291.
• Friend Groom (Io. 3, 28-30). On the Orthodox veneration of the Baptist - Paris: YMCA-Press, 1927. - 276 p.

B ulgakov Sergey Nikolaevich(1871-1944), Russian philosopher, economist, theologian. From 1923 he lived in exile in Paris. From legal Marxism, which Bulgakov tried to combine with neo-Kantianism, he moved on to religious philosophy, then to Orthodox theology. Major works: "Philosophy of economy" (1912), "On God-manhood. Trilogy" (1933-45), "Philosophy of the name" (published in 1953).

Early period

Born in the family of a hereditary priest. He studied at the Oryol Theological Seminary, having experienced a crisis of faith, left it in 1888 and completed his education at Moscow University in 1894 at the Department of Political Economy and Statistics. Until the early 1900s. joined the course of legal Marxism and was engaged in research in the field of political economy, published the books "On Markets in Capitalist Production" (1897) and "Capitalism and Agriculture" (vols. 1-2, 1900). At the turn of the century, he departed from Marxist ideology, turned to the philosophy of German classical idealism, as well as to Russian thought, the work of Dostoevsky and Vl. Solovyov. Such an evolution was characteristic of the Russian intelligentsia of that time, and soon Bulgakov became one of its recognized spiritual leaders. He participates in the collection "Problems of Idealism" (1902), publishes a collection of his articles under the program title "From Marxism to Idealism" (1903), actively participates in many undertakings of the unfolding religious and philosophical revival - in the journals "New Way" and "Questions of Life". ", collections" Questions of Religion "," About Vladimir Solovyov "," On the Religion of Leo Tolstoy "," Milestones ", in the work of the Religious and Philosophical Society in Memory of Vl. Solovyov and the publishing house "Way", where in 1911-17 the most important works of Russian religious thought were published. In 1906 he was elected to the 2nd State Duma (as a non-party "Christian socialist"). The most important of the lectures and articles of this period were collected by him in the collection "Two Cities" (vols. 1-2, 1911). In the philosophical developments of the 1910s (the monographs "Philosophy of Economics", 1912, and especially "The Light of Never Evening", 1917), Bulgakov outlines the foundations of his own teaching, which goes in line with the sophiology of Solovyov and P. A. Florensky, but which also experienced a noticeable influence of the late Schelling.

Revolution years
The process of a gradual return to the Church-Orthodox worldview ends already in the revolutionary years with the adoption of the priesthood (1918). Bulgakov actively participates in the work of the All-Russian Local Council Orthodox Church(1917-18) and closely cooperates with Patriarch Tikhon. He responded to the October Revolution with the dialogues "At the Feast of the Gods", written in the style and spirit of Solovyov's "Three Conversations" and included in the collective collection "From the Depths" (1918; reprinted 1991). During the Civil War, while in the Crimea, Bulgakov intensively worked on philosophical writings. In The Philosophy of the Name (1920; published 1953) and The Tragedy of Philosophy (1920-21, published in German translation 1927), he concludes that Christian speculation can be expressed without distortion exclusively in the form of dogmatic theology, which since then and becomes the main area of ​​his work.

In exile
In 1922 Fr. Sergius is included in the lists of scientists and cultural figures compiled by the GPU on the initiative of V. I. Lenin, subject to expulsion abroad. December 30, 1922 he leaves the Crimea and after a short stay in Constantinople in May 1923, he holds the position of professor of church law and theology at the Faculty of Law of the Russian Scientific Institute in Prague. With his close participation, the Orthodox Theological Institute was created in Paris (1925). From the moment of its opening until the very death of Fr. Sergius was its permanent head, as well as a professor of dogmatic theology. Under his leadership, the Sergius Compound (a complex of institute buildings with a temple in the name of St. Sergius Radonezh) has grown into the largest center Orthodox spirituality and theological science. One of the main founding fathers of the Russian Student Christian Movement, Bulgakov participated in its first congresses in Psherov (Czechoslovakia) and Argeron (France) and then continued to supervise it. In the 1930s, he became one of the influential figures and ideologists of the ecumenical movement, in whose work he joined in 1927 at the World Christian Conference "Faith and Church Organization" in Lausanne. In 1939, Bulgakov was diagnosed with throat cancer, he underwent several operations, was on the verge of death and largely lost the ability to speak. However, before last days life in occupied Paris, he continued to serve the liturgy and lecture (which cost him great effort), as well as work on new compositions.

Publicism
Bulgakov's journalism always came to the fore at critical moments in the life of Russia: the revolution of 1905-07, the beginning of the First World War, 1917. Its spectrum is unusually wide: religion and culture, Christianity, politics and socialism, the tasks of the public, the path of the Russian intelligentsia, the problems of church life, the problems of art, and others. Heroism and asceticism") as an ideological movement that called on the intelligentsia to sober up, move away from utopianism and rabid revolutionism, to spiritual work and a constructive social position. The ideas of social Christianity developed by him include an analysis of the Christian attitude to economics and politics (with an apology for socialism, which was gradually waning), criticism of Marxism, but also of the bourgeois-capitalist ideology, projects of the "party of Christian politics", responses to the topic of the day (from the standpoint of Christian liberal-conservative centrism), etc. The theme of Russia is decided, following Dostoevsky and Vl. Solovyov, on the paths of Christian historiosophy. The beginning of the First World War was marked by Slavophile articles full of faith in the universal vocation and the great future of the state. But already in the dialogues "At the Feast of the Gods" and others, the fate of Russia is depicted in tones of apocalyptic and disturbing unpredictability.

Philosophy and theology
Bulgakov's teaching went through two stages in its development: philosophical (before his expulsion from Russia) and theological, but all the way it remained the doctrine of Sophia and God-manhood, the Christian doctrine of the world and its history as reunification with God. Its driving motive is the justification of the world, the affirmation of the value and meaningfulness of being in all material and bodily fullness. Arguing with German idealism, Bulgakov rejects the thesis according to which reason and thinking are the highest principle, which has the exclusive prerogative of connection with God. Bulgakov's justification of the world includes the justification of matter, and he sometimes defined the type of his philosophical outlook by the expression "religious materialism" taken from Solovyov. Using, like the fathers of the Church, the ideas ancient philosophy, Bulgakov makes Christian adjustments to them. Matter is not only "meon", an unformed universal substratum of sensible things, it is also "earth" and "mother", which, by the will of God, participates in the existence of the world as a creative process that continues the act of creation. The crown and goal of this creativity is the earthly birth of the God-man Christ, in which matter acts as the God-Earth and Mother of God, and the world ascends to union with God. The connection between God and the world is determined by the concept of Sophia the Wisdom of God.

sophiology
The sophological system of dogmatic theology was developed by Bulgakov mainly in the "big trilogy": The Lamb of God (1933), The Comforter (1936), and The Bride of the Lamb (1945). Here Sophia approaches "ousia", the essence of the Holy Trinity. This rapprochement, like its consequences, aroused objections and controversy; in 1935, Bulgakov's teaching was condemned in the decrees of the Moscow Patriarchate, as well as the foreign Bishops' Council in Karlovtsy. V. N. Lossky, who gave a critical analysis of the doctrine, finds that its essence is “the absorption of the personality by a Sophian-natural process that destroys freedom” (“The Dispute about Sophia”, Paris, 1936). Bulgakov answered his opponents, but the "dispute about Sophia" did not receive a final decision. Criticism of Sophian ideas, however, does not affect many important topics and sections of Bulgakov's system, his analysis of the religious aspects of history, the material activity of man, the phenomena of sex, creativity, and art.