Introduction

After the Russian October revolution in 1917, which ended the Russian Empire, but also the period of cultural flourishing which is known as the “Silver Age” (1890–1920), and which resulted in a civil war of the Red army against the White army that lasted several years, many members of the Russian intelligentsia, including many philosophers and theologians, emigrated, or were exiled, to Europe. Most of these emigrants tried to continue their professional lives in various capital cities of Europe, such as Prague, Berlin, and Paris. The St. Serge Orthodox Theological Institute, founded in 1925 with the support of the YMCA by metropolitan Evlogii, became the new center of Russian religious philosophy and theology in exile. Soon however, the community of immigrant Russian religious philosophers and theologians in Paris was divided by conflicting opinions, and fell apart into various brotherhoods and movements.

One of the main conflicts became known as the “Sophia-controversy”: Sergei Bulgakov (1871–1944), one of the co-founders and later also dean of the St. Serge Institute, was heavily criticized because of his Sophiology, or study of Sophia (Divine Wisdom), and was even accused of heresy. Both Georges Florovsky (1893–1979) and Vladimir Lossky (1903–1958) played a pivotal role in the accusations of heresy pointed at Bulgakov’s Sophiology. Lossky even instigated a Church trial by convincing metropolitan Sergius of the Moscow Patriarchate to condemn Bulgakov’s doctrine of the Divine Sophia (Seiling 2005, p. 77), and published a text with his criticism, entitled Spor o Sofii (The Sophia controversy, 1936; Lossky 1996). Although Bulgakov was rehabilitated in July 1937 (Arjakovsky 2013, p. 395), the Neopatristic Synthesis coined by Florovsky emerged as the winning theological school from this Sophia controversy, and quickly dominated Russian-Orthodox theological development in the twentieth century (Gallaher 2011, p. 659; Gavrilyuk 2020, p. 540; Valliere 2001, 231), whereas Bulgakov’s Sophiology almost disappeared from Orthodox theological discussions. Only recently were attempts undertaken to re-value Sophiology with respect to the Neopatristic Synthesis (Obolevich 2016; Gavrilyuk 2020), or even to come to a synthesis (Asproulis 2019).

In this article, I want to dive deeper into the reasons for this Sophia controversy and will evaluate whether the Neopatristic Synthesis, both as elaborated by Georges Florovsky and by Vladimir Lossky, really is the completely opposed theological theory it appears to be (Gallaher 2013, p. 278) and even claims to be (Gavrilyuk 2020, p. 540), or, on the contrary, uses important sophiological insights. In other words, did the Neopatristic Synthesis justly replace Sophiology as the preferred theology of Russian Orthodoxy, or is there still room for a re-valuation of the sophiological stance in Orthodox theology?

After a brief excursion into the history of Russian émigré theology in the twentieth century, I will, firstly, go into Florovsky’s criticism of Bulgakov’s Sophiology, its presumed pantheism (Asproulis 2019, p. 222; Gallaher 2011, p. 661) and determinism (Lytvynenko 2014, p. 227), but also into their diverging opinions on Tradition (Sauvé 2010), Dogma, and (Western) philosophy (Gallaher 2011, p. 666; Lytvynenko 2014, p. 229). In my discussion of Florovsky’s criticism of Bulgakov, I will focus especially on the similarities in their views. Secondly, I will go into the differences between Lossky and Bulgakov, their “differing understandings of reason, the use of philosophy and the uncreated/created distinction” (Gallaher 2013, p. 279). Again, I will stress mostly their similarities, e.g., of method (Lossky’s apophatism and Bulgakov’s antinomical Sophiology), as well as their use of similar important categories, such as person-freedom versus nature-necessity, kenosis, individual versus person (Gallaher 2013, p. 279), and their “common emphasis on theosis and an understanding of truth and theology as being fundamentally experiential” (ibidem, p. 298).

This will lead to my conclusion that Neopatristic Synthesis does not completely oppose the sophiological stance, in some important respects even continues it, and certainly leaves room for a further elaboration of Sophiology in Orthodox religious philosophy and theology.

First generation of Russian theology in exile: Sergei Bulgakov

Sergei Bulgakov was already a mature man of 51 when he was forced into exile with his family by Lenin on the so-called “Philosophy Steamer” (Chamberlain 2006) in December 1922. He was an esteemed religious philosopher, a leader of the so called Russian Religious Renaissance that had started at the turn of the century. He was ordained priest in 1918, after the implementation of the law on the separation of Church and State in 1917 and his participation as a lay theologian at the first All-Russian Church Council, 1917–1918.

Bulgakov had started to develop Sophiology as a political economist in his doctoral dissertation Filosofiia khoziaistva (Philosophy of Economy) in 1912, and would continue developing it in his religious philosophical work Svet nevechernii (Unfading Light), which was published in 1917. In 1919, he co-founded the “Brotherhood of St. Sophia” (Bratsvo sviatoi Sofii), which would exist until 1944. According to Seiling (2005, p. 72), the membership of the Brotherhood “in the early days was indeed diverse, including those who were unsympathetic or eventually hostile to sophiology in general or at least to Bulgakov’s project,” among whom was also Florovsky.

Bulgakov belonged to what Gavrilyuk (2020, p. 529) calls the “first generation” of Russian theologians in exile. In his new residence, Paris, France, he would continue developing Sophiology, now no longer in a political economic, or religious philosophical, but in a theological vein (Kessel 2020, p. 142). Here, together with other theologians of the first generation, he would also found the St. Serge Orthodox Theological Institute. He added two trilogies to his works on Sophiology, his smaller trilogy in the late twenties,Footnote 1 and his trilogy O Bogochelovechestve (On Godmanhood) in the mid and late thirties. The last part was published posthumously in 1945.Footnote 2

Bulgakov intended Sophiology to be an integration of sociological, philosophical, and theological knowledge about Sophia, the Wisdom of God (Kessel 2020, p. 152). He relates Sophia to the distinction that Georgii Palamas (1296–1359) makes into God’s nature and energies. This distinction will play an important role in neo-patristic theology as well. According to Bulgakov, Sophia is both the quality or nature of the inter-trinitarian relations between the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and the foundation of the relation of the Divine and created worlds.

Important elements in Sophiology are the understanding of salvation as the transfiguration of the world by inner-worldly human asceticism, and the “sophianization” of the world. Furthermore, Sophiology stresses “panentheism” as opposed to pantheism, the “all-in-oneness” or the ultimate unity of the Divine and human worlds, and the unifying power of Sophia. Bulgakov stresses the central role of the Church and of the sobornost’ (catholicity)Footnote 3 in the Church as Godmanhood, but also the tragedy of human freedom, and the tragic fate of human beings in history after the Fall.

Second generation of émigré theologians: Georges Florovsky and Vladimir Lossky

Both Florovsky and Lossky belong to the second generation of theologians in Gavrilyuk’s definition, in reference to those who were born in the 1890s and 1900s in Russia. Florovsky was about 27 and Lossky 19, when they emigrated to the West with their families. Lossky completed his studies in medieval philosophy in Prague and wrote his dissertation on Meister Eckhart at the Sorbonne in Paris. In 1925, Florovsky became professor in Patristics at the St. Serge Orthodox Theological Institute in Paris, on the invitation of Bulgakov. In 1932, Florovsky was ordained priest. His best known work is The Ways of Russian Theology (Originally published in Russian, 1937). In 1949, he moved to New York to become dean of St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Institute.

Lossky was member of an opposing Brotherhood to the Brotherhood of St. Sophia, namely the Brotherhood of St. Photius (la Confrérie Saint Photius), which was founded in 1925. In 1944, the Brotherhood of St. Photius founded the French St. Dionysius / St. Denis Orthodox Institute, and appointed Vladimir Lossky as its first dean and professor of dogmatic theology and church history. His most famous work is The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church (in French, 1944). Like Bulgakov and Florovsky, Lossky was also active as a member of the Anglican-Orthodox ecumenical Fellowship of Saint Alban and Saint Sergius.

From this brief biographical information, some oppositions already come to the fore. In the first place, as Valliere (2001, p. 231) suggests, the difference in generation, which makes a generational conflict probable between Bulgakov on the side of the fathers, and Florovsky and Lossky on the side of the sons. Of importance, furthermore, is the political opposition between the two Orthodox Brotherhoods. On the one hand, the Brotherhood of St. Sophia was supported by Metropolitan Evlogii of the Patriarchal Exarchate of Russian Parishes under Constantinople (further the “Exarchate”), who approved of the foundation of the St. Serge Orthodox Theological Institute. On the other hand, the Brotherhood of St. Photius remained loyal to the Russian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate and the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad. The Brotherhood of St. Photius therefore supported the allegiance of the Church to the soviet state, while the Brotherhood of St. Sophia was very critical of the soviet state.

A third opposition is related to their engagement in the ecumenical Fellowship of St. Alban and St. Sergius, in which they took different sides in the debate on intercommunion with the Anglicans in the Fellowship: Bulgakov approved of intercommunion, while Florovsky and Lossky were against intercommunion (Arjakovsky 2013, p. 371). The Brotherhood of St. Photius in fact had a much more missionary than ecumenical agenda and wanted to save the Western Christians by converting them to Orthodoxy (Seiling 2005, p. 74). And finally, according to Zaviyskyy (2011), this clash between the Neopatristic Synthesis and Sophiology in fact was a replay of the clash that had already occurred in pre-revolutionary Russia between the apologists of imiaslavie (Glorification of the name of God, 1913–18) and their critics. Imiaslavie had been an important subject at the First All Russian Church Council of 1917–1918, during which Bulgakov had been engaged in the commission on imiaslavie as one of its apologists.

In this context, we can reuse the division of approaches in Orthodox theology by Paul Valliere into a substantive versus a formalist approach (Valliere 2001, p. 229; in Lytvynenko 2014, p. 223). On the one hand, Valliere classifies Bulgakov and his Sophiology, which goes “beyond the Fathers,” as belonging to the substantive approach. According to Valliere, the revision of the fathers in Sophiology and the Russian School of theology affects the substance, or the actual message of the fathers (Valliere 2001, p. 229). On the other hand, Valliere classifies Florovsky, Lossky, and neopatristic theology, which “returns to the Fathers,” as belonging to the formalist approach. In this case, the revision of the fathers only affects the outward forms of Orthodox theology. The substantive approach is more controversial, according to Valliere (2001, p. 230), and contains the idea that “the content of theology somehow develops over time, that modern Orthodox theologians are licensed to say things that the fathers did not say.” As Valliere suggests, it was the controversiality of this revisionism that provoked the critical attacks of Florovsky and Lossky on Bulgakov’s Sophiology.

Florovsky and Bulgakov: criticism and similarities

Florovsky accused Bulgakov’s Sophiology of pantheism, and critically discussed Bulgakov’s term “panentheism,” which is a central category in his system of Sophiology (Asproulis 2019, p. 222). Florovsky criticizes as well the determinism of Sophiology, and puts his own apophaticism versus Bulgakov’s cataphaticism. According to Florovsky, Sophiology consisted of “a variety of German Idealism, a peculiar Gnosticism and generally an illegitimate utilization of philosophy for the expression of Christian dogmas” (Gallaher 2011, p. 661). According to Gavrilyuk (2020, p. 530), Florovsky’s ```return to the Church Fathers’ was designed to combat the perceived distortions of Orthodox Theology.” This “pseudomorphosis” had started already in the sixteenth century, but Florovsky saw it continued in Bulgakov’s Sophiology. In a sense, Sophiology attempted to go “beyond the Fathers” (Gallaher 2013, p. 278), and acknowledged that new theological problems could develop, which was problematic for Florovsky.

According to Florovsky, Sophiology “shared the Platonic, Gnostic, and pantheistic elements associated with Soloviev’s philosophy” and “lacked a Christological focus” (Gavrilyuk 2020, p. 531). In Gavrilyuk’s words “Florovsky connected Russian sophiology with pagan monism, pantheism, cosmism, determinism, Origenism, German Idealism, and organicism” (ibid.). Bulgakov’s solution was to locate the ideal world and the ideal humanity, or Sophia, on the boundary between created and uncreated (ibid., pp. 531–532). Therefore, according to Florovsky, Bulgakov aligned “the ideal world too closely with the divine essence, similar to Platonism and German Idealism” (Gavrilyuk 2020, p. 532). Herewith, Bulgakov, according to Florovsky, blurs “the ontological distinction between the transcendent Creator and contingent, time-bound creatures” (ibidem), or, in other words, “risks obliterating the distinction between God and creation (Lytvynenko 2014, p. 227). Furthermore, Florovsky insisted that in Orthodox church tradition, the Wisdom of God had always been associated with the Second Person of the Trinity, while Bulgakov associated it with the Person of the Holy Spirit (Arjakovsky 2013, p. 395). In addition, Florovsky criticized Bulgakov for giving the impression that Wisdom was a fourth Person of the Trinity (ibid.).

Despite these points of criticism, Gallaher (2011, p. 662) quotes Meyendorff to back up his argument of the influence of Bulgakov on the development of Florovsky’s neo-patristic theology, as it was in large part “developed in reaction to sophiology,” and even “its characteristic “Patristic” focus emerged from Florovsky’s desire to refute the sophiologists’ claim that both their thought and their use of philosophy had patristic (i.e., traditional) precedent (especially in the work of Palamas)” (Gallaher 2011, p. 662). By Florovsky’s own admission, Bulgakov was the person who initially spurred him on to turn to the Fathers. It wasn’t just Bulgakov’s Sophiology that was inspired by German Idealism, but “Florovsky’s theology is also very much a development of German Idealism” (Gallaher 2011, p. 679).

Gavrilyuk (2020, p. 528) claims as well that “Georges Florovsky’s ‘neopatristic synthesis’ was a response to his ‘modernist’ predecessors, such as Pavel Florensky and Sergius Bulgakov.” He calls the Sophia affair a “confrontation with modernism,” but also a response to the “trauma of the Bolshevik revolution as well as the associated experience of exile” (Gavrilyuk 2020, p. 529). Furthermore, Florovsky admitted that he was inspired by Pavel Florensky to recognize the centrality of the category of “creaturehood,” and not by the Fathers of the Church (Gavrilyuk 2020, p. 532). Similarly, Florovsky developed his account of freedom and personhood in conversation with his Russian and Western contemporaries (ibid.). A further similarity is in their understanding of the importance of “ecclesial experience” for Orthodox academic theology in order “to recover its own voice” (Gavrilyuk 2020, p. 539). This similarity with Bulgakov’s Sophiology would become even more apparent in the neo-patristic sacramental theology of Alexander Schmemann (1921–1983), who belonged to the third generation of émigré philosophers and theologians in Gavrilyuk’s classification (2020, p. 538).

Lossky and Bulgakov: criticism and similarities

According to Seiling (2005, p. 71) the “Sophia affair” or Sophia controversy in 1935 was the definitive clash between the two brotherhoods and was instigated by Vladimir Lossky, who convinced metropolitan Sergii of the Patriarchate of Russia to condemn Bulgakov’s doctrine of the Divine Sophia. Lossky accused Sophiology of being gnostic, and that it “erased the division between the Creator and creation” (Seiling 2005, p. 77).

According to Gavrilyuk (2020, p. 535), both Florovsky and Lossky consider patristic theology to be “a spiritual vision focused on the divine revelation, rather than speculative philosophy,” while, according to Lossky (1996, p. 20; in Gavrilyuk 2020, p. 535), for Bulgakov’s Sophiology “speculative philosophy rather than divine revelation is a controlling factor.” Both Florovsky and Lossky “rejected the organicism, determinism, impersonalism, and rationalism of the idealist philosophy of history,” whereas Sophiology, according to them, is “deterministic, undermining divine and human freedom” (Gavrilyuk 2020, p. 535).

Gallaher (2013, p. 279) identifies the major differences between Lossky and Bulgakov in their “differing understandings of reason, the use of philosophy and the uncreated/created distinction.” Lossky, according to Gallaher (2013, p. 288), is very suspicious of the role of reason in theology as this could lead to “conceptual idolatry about the divine” (288), and, unlike both Bulgakov and Florovsky, he completely dismisses the role of philosophy in theology.

Again, as we saw with Florovsky, a major difference between Lossky and Bulgakov is that “Bulgakov blurs the line between the created and the uncreated” (Gallaher 2013, p. 295). Indeed, as Sauve (2010, p. 191) confirms, “the same points outlined against Sophiology in Florovsky’s works (that creation is contingent, that God is absolutely distinct from creation, and that creation is absolutely free) can be said of Lossky’s understanding of the patristic texts.” Furthermore, according to Lossky, Bulgakov refutes apophaticism, and develops a positive [or cataphatic, author] philosophy based on the idea/reality of “Sophia” (Gallaher 2013, p. 285).

According to Gavrilyuk, Lossky accused Bulgakov of confusing not only “the fundamental ontological distinction between the created and uncreated,” which made it deterministic, undermining divine and human freedom, but also that [distinction] between “temporal and eternal, by systematically collapsing them in the idea of Godmanhood,” herewith running the risk of turning the historical divine incarnation into a cosmic process (Lossky 1996, p. 42; in Gavrilyuk 2020, p. 535). Arjakovsky (2013, p. 387–388) counted “a list of twenty points of accusation” against Sophiology in Lossky’s Spor o Sofii (1936; Lossky 1996). Lossky accused Bulgakov “without proof” among other things of neo-Appolinarianism, of pantheism, of not recognizing apophatic theology as the only true theology, of confusing nature and person, and of ascribing the quality of the person solely to the Father.

Despite these differences, Gallaher (2013, p. 278) argues that the “origins of Vladimir Lossky’s apophaticism, which he characterised as ‘antinomic theology’, are found within the theological methodology of the sophiology of Sergii Bulgakov.” Antinomism was also the center of the Sophiology of Pavel Florensky (1882–1937). Gallaher openly poses the question “How different is the theology of these two great thinkers from their neo-patristic opponents?” (2013, p. 280), and refers to Aristotle Papanikolaou, who has even gone so far as to argue that Lossky is a “tacit Bulgakovian” who “co-opts the ‘central categories’ of Bulgakov (e.g. antinomy, person-freedom vs nature/necessity, kenosis and individual vs person) and ‘apophaticises’ them in a ‘self-consciously anti-sophiological theology’’’ (Papanikolaou 2013, p. 544; in Gallaher 2013, p. 281).

Furthermore, according to Gallaher (2013, p. 298), their “common emphasis on theosis” draws Bulgakov and Lossky together, as well as their “understanding of truth and theology as being fundamentally experiential, always involving paradox, awe, transformation and encounter.” Gallaher concludes that “just as Bulgakov may be read as a closet (if not the first) neo-patrologue so too Lossky may be a tacit sophiologist” (ibid.).

Conclusion

On the basis of all these similarities, Gavrilyuk is tempted to include Bulgakov “on the list of neopatristic theologians,” but adds that it would require a new chapter to do so (Gavrilyuk 2020, p. 540). It is, however, an uncontested fact, according to Gavrilyuk, that “the neopatristic theologies of Florovsky and Lossky would have been impossible without Bulgakov’s sophiology functioning as agent provocateur of a ‘return to the Church Fathers’’’ (ibid.). Similarly, he even calls Lossky a “tacit sophiologist,” and claims that the sacramental theology of Schmemann and his eschatological visions bear “great resemblance to Bulgakov’s sophiology” (Gavrilyuk 2020, p. 540). The neopatristic “narrative of polarization” of Florovsky and Lossky, in which neopatristics came to stand for everything that the modernist theology of the Russian Religious Renaissance was not, is historically misleading, as Gavrilyuk (2020, p. 541) concludes.

This survey of recent literature on the subject of the relation of Sergei Bulgakov’s Sophiology and the Neopatristic Synthesis in the work of Georges Florovsky and Vladimir Lossky points to an unanimous conclusion that Sophiology and neopatristic theology are not the polar opposites they are taken to be, and, on the contrary, have much in common, despite existing and real differences. Furthermore, neopatristic theology was proven to take its point of departure and further development in Bulgakov’s Sophiology. The reasons for the dominance of neopatristic theology and the oblivion of Sophiology in the history of Orthodox theology of the twentieth century were shown to be less of a theological nature, than of a political nature, as well as proceeding from a generational conflict between Orthodox theologians in a situation of exile. The conclusion of this paper is that there are no compelling reasons to prevent a re-evaluation of Sophiology. As Gavrilyuk (2020, p. 541) hopes, this should be the task of contemporary Orthodox theologians in the twenty-first century.