EDITORIAL zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA substance of their dreams are sorely needed, and we hope that these T H R E E ORTHODOX V I S I O N S O F E C U M E N I S M : articles can help in their own small way to show what is possible when B E R D Y A E V , BULGAKOV, L O S S K Y zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPON there is trust, faith, hope and love. zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA Tim Noble, Prague Ivana Noble, Prague In this paper I will explore three different visions of ecumenism found in three Orthodox thinkers of the last century, Nikolai Berdyaev, Fr Sergius Bulgakov and Vladimir Lossky. With the exception of Bulgakov, they are not the most frequently cited figures in relation to the ecumenical movement, and yet they all were deeply engaged in conversations and cooperation with Christians from other churches, and tried to spell out what these relationships meant for them and in what sense they made visible both already existing and desired unity. As they all are related to the controversial figure of Vladimir Solovyov, I will first briefly turn to him. Then I turn to Berdyaev's discovery of creative and free Orthodoxy, which should be instrumental in overcoming the divided life of the Christian world, followed by Bulgakov's sophianic and pastoral concepts of unity, and finally to Lossky's mystical-eschatological reading of the Christian sources and his devotion to various saints which did not follow divisions into confessional camps. In the conclusion I will ask what of these ecumenical visions could be fruitfully revived to provide inspiration in our search for unity, and strengthen our focus on what is experientially real. zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgf 1. Solovyov's Conversion When Vladimir Solovyov (1853-1900) decided to join the Roman Catholic Church while at the same time remaining Orthodox, it was a resolution of both a spiritual and intellectual process that had started This paper is part of the research project "Symbolic Mediation of Wholeness in Western Orthodoxy", GACR P401/11/1688. THREE ORTHODOX VISIONS OF ECUMENISM: BERDYAEV, BULGAKOV, LOSSKY 113-140 (CV2015/1:113-140) 4 IVANANOHI.K. I'UACUK zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA THREE ORTHODOX VISIONS OF ECUMENISM: BERDYAEV, BULGAKOV, LOSSKY unity to be reached the opposites need to be united. In the 1880s Solovyov became convinced that both the Orthodox and the Catholic churches were but parts of one universal church, the mystical body of Christ, and that the unity of this body was never really destroyed by the historical and purely external division. The external divisions were not unbridgeable givens and thus did not need to be respected as such. In 1896, Solovyov put his convictions into practice, as he accepted papal authority, made a profession of the Tridentine Creed, and received communion from the hands of Fr Nicholas Tolstoy in the chapel of Our Lady of Lourdes in Moscow. But this did not mean exchanging one part of divided Christendom for another. He did not consider See Vladimir Solovyov, "Three Meetings", in:zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA Poems of Sophia, trans, andzyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA e d . by his act as a conversion to the Roman Catholic Church. In his underBoris Jakim and Laury Magnus, New Haven: Variable Press, 1996; Judith Deutsch standing, he became a member of the universal church, and regarded Kornblatt, "Who Is Solovyov and What Is Sophia?", in: idem (ed.), Divine Sophia: himself as both Orthodox and Roman Catholic. In his last work,zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihg Russia The Wisdom Writings of Vladimir Solovyov, Ithica: Cornell, 2009, 1-97; Paul S. Fiddes. Seeing the World and Knowing God: Hebrew Wisdom and Christian Doctrine and the Universal Church, written in 1899, Solovyov explained why in a Late Modern Context, Oxford: OUP, 2013, 381-387. the primacy and the universal authority of the Pope were acceptable Katefina BauerovS writes: "In Solovyov's work, Sophia is primarily linked with the long before, first with his mystical visions of Sophia, and then by working out what he saw as its philosophical, theological and practical consequences. Solovyov's notion of pan-unity mediated by Sophia, as the unity of Truth, Goodness and Beauty was influenced by Ivan Kireyevsky (1806-1856), and his friend Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1821-1881). It involved the whole of the cosmos, and, especially in his later works, the church, which played a mediating role in the cosmos. In this light a division of the church into Eastern and Western parts became for Solovyov unbearable. According to him, for pan- 8 2 3 9 4 5 6 7 10 2 3 vision of the mystic unity of all, that is, pan-unity. In his work and life pan-unity "[I]n order to be that which it is, [the infinite] must... be the union of itself covers all aspects of reality: knowledge (of religions, politics, and society), human and its opposite." Vladimir Solovyov, "The Sophia: A 'Mystical-Theosophicalbeings together with all creation, and also of God himself. Pan-unity is the key idea Philosophical-Theurgical-Political' Dialogue", in: Judith Deutsch Kornblatt (ed.), that lies at the source of all his thoughts and is expressed by various terms: inteDivine Sophia, 128. gral knowledge, Godmanhood, sophiology, or theocracy." Katefina Bauerovi, "The See Leon Tretjakewitsch, Bishop Michel d'Herbigny SJ and Russia: a Pre-ecuMysticism of Pan-Unity: Sophiology Revisited", in: Ivana and Tim Noble, Katefina menical Approach to Christian Unity, Wurzburg: Augustinus-Verlag, 1990, 39. BauerovS and Parush Parushev, Ways of Orthodox Theology in the West, Yonkers, A facsimile of the original testimony of witnesses was published in the Polish magaNY: St Vladimir's Seminary Press, 2015, Chapter Four, pp. 157-197. zine K I T E Z H in December 1927. It was signed by Fr. Nicholas Tolstoy, the Russian This was despite the fact that h e also criticised Kireyevsky and slavophilism as Catholic priest who received Solovyov's Tridentine Profession of Faith, Princess a whole for tidying the vision of the Church unity to an idealized Russian OrthoOlga Vasilyeva Dolgorukova, and Dimitry Sergeyevich Nevsky, and read as follows: dox nation. See Karel Slidek, Vladimir Solovjov: mystik a prorok. Osobnost a dilo "After his confession heard by Fr. Tolstoy, Vladimir Seergeyevich in our presence Vladimira Solovjova pohledem (nejen) ceske reflexe, Velehrad-Rome: Refugium, read the Profession of Faith of the Tridentine Council in the church-Slavonic lan2009, 101. guage and then during the liturgy which was performed by Fr. Tolstoy according See Vladimir Solovyov, "Tpn peHHzyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA B naMHTb flocToeBcieoro", in: CotUHenux e to the Greek, or Eastern rite but with the mention of His Holiness, our Father, the deyx moMax, II, Mo cKBa: Mw c ji b . 1988, 290-323. Balthasar shows the influence Pope, he, Solovyov, received the Blessed Sacrament. Besides ourselves, at the memof St Maximus on Solovyov, see Hans Urs Von Balthasar, The Glory of the Lord: orable event, there was present also a young Russian girl who was helping about the A Theological Aesthetics, Volume III: Studies in Theological Style: Lay Styles, San house in Fr. Tolstoy's family; unfortunately, it has not been possible to ascertain her Francisco: Ignatius, 1986, 287-288; this statement is further developed by Jeremy name." Chrysostom Frank, "The Problem of Church Unity in the Life and Thought David Pilch, "Breathing the Spirit with both Lungs": Deification in the Work of Vlaof Vladimir Solovyov", in: St. Vladimir's Theological Quarterly 36/3 (1992), 194; dimir Solov'ev, Ph.D. Thesis, University of Bristol, 2015, see esp. pp. 124-133. See see also James Likoudis, "Vladimir Sloviev 'The Russian Newman': On ChrisDavid Grummet, Teilhard de Chardin: Theology, Humanity and Cosmos, Leuven: tian Politics and Ecumenism", in: The Catholic Social Science Review 16 (2011), Peeters, 2005. http://credo.stormloader.com/Ecumenic/soloviev.htm (downloaded 25/8/2015), footLike later for Bulgakov, the church as mother and the Mother o f God are both note 27. Hans Urs von Balthasar mentions the dispute concerning whether this event interpreted as Sophia's feminine expressions. See Vladimir Solovyov, La Russie el actually took place, and he concludes that the evidence is overwhelming. See Hans I'Eglise Universelle, Paris: Albert Savine, 1889, 258-62. Urs von Balthasar, Studies in Theological Style: Lay Styles, 282, fn 5. From the Karel Slidek points out that the divisions were for Solovyov's experience present in Orthodox side it has been contested by Heinrich Falk, "Vladimir Solowjews's 'StelRussian-Polish relations, where two Slavic nations, one Orthodox, the other Catholic lung zur katholischen Kirche"', in: Stimmen derZeit (1949), 421^435. lived in deeply embedded antagonism. See Sladek, Vladimir Solovjov, 99-104. zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA 8 9 1 0 4 5 6 7 114 H5 IVANA NOBLE, PRAGUE zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA THREE ORTHODOX VISIONS OF ECUMENISM: BERDYAEV. BULGAKOV, LOSSKY for the Orthodox too, while a year later, on his deathbed, he felt free whose father was a parish priest, there was a gradual rapprochement to receive the last rites from a Russian Orthodox priest. Solovyov's with the Church." conversion towards a universal church, although contested by most of Lowrie notes that since the time of Berdyaev's conversion towards his Orthodox contemporaries, had an impact on all three thinkers we Christianity, freedom played a central role. In his work from 1907,zyxwvutsrqponm Sub are going to look at now. zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA Specie Aeternitatis, he wrote that "freedom is above happiness and satisfaction ... freedom is God." Berdyaev, practising the freedom of the Spirit so vital for his Christian life, criticised the Holy Synod in 1913, and as a result was accused of blasphemy and was to be sent 2. Berdyaev's Vision of Ecumenism to Siberia for a lifetime exile. The war and the Bolshevik Revolution, however, interfered. Being knowledgeable in Marxism, knowing Nicolas Berdyaev's (1874-1948) vision of ecumenism grew both out well its own weaknesses and its distortions in the Bolshevik system, of his grasp of Orthodox tradition, and out of his contact, conversations Berdyaev became for the new regime an unwanted critic. He was twice and cooperation with Christians from other confessions. arrested, and then in 1922 expelled from the country. Although Berdyaev was baptized as a child, he had no other con11 12 16 13 17 nection with the Orthodox Church till his adulthood. He came from a liberal aristocratic family and his first conversion was to Marxism. This was formative of his attitudes and reflections. As Donald Lowrie puts it, in Berdyaev's young adulthood, "[ajlmost no one as yet considered entering the Church: in the minds of those thinkers [Berdyaev, Merezhkovsky, Kartasheff, Frank] the Russian Church was so completely identified with reaction that a believing Christian would scarcely be considered a member of the intelligentsia." Round 1905, after the February Revolution, Berdyaev was among a small group of those who found Marxism ultimately unsatisfactory, who were concerned with spiritual as well as social problems, with art and philosophy, and who turned to religion. Lowrie says, "Led by Bulgakov, 14 15 1 1 2 1 3 1 4 1 5 n6 See Vladimir Solovyov,zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA The Russian Church and the Papacy: An Abridgement of "Russia and the Universal Church", ed. by Ray Ryland, San Diego: Catholic Answers, 2001,92-93. See Gregory Glazov, "Vladimir Soloviev and the Idea of the Papacy", Communio 24 (Spring 1997), 135; Aidan Nichols, O. P., "Solovyov and the Papacy: A Catholic Evaluation", Communio 24 (Spring 1997), 156; James Likoudis, "Vladimir Soloviev 'The Russian Newman': On Christian Politics and Ecumenism", footnote 26 and 28. Paul Allen, Vladimir Soloviev: A Russian Mystic, Barrington: Lindesfarne Books, 302-306. In 1898 as a student he was arrested by the Tsarist regime for his illegal revolutionary activities, and sent to exile to northern Russia for three years. Donald A. Lowrie, "Ten Significant Dates in Berdyaev's Life", in: idem (ed.), Christian Existentialism: A Berdyaev Anthology, London: George Allen & Unwin, 1965, pp. 15-24, here 19. For Berdyaev, because of freedom, people were co-creators with God. Although remaining Platonist in his philosophy, after his conversion to Christianity Berdyaev followed the teaching of St Paul, and of the Church Fathers, especially Irenaeus, Athanasius, and St Maximus the Confessor. He accepted that human creative powers were weakened by the fall, but restored in the God-Man Jesus Christ. His belief in redemption and in the transfiguration of human nature helped him to see human existence eschatologically - as theanthropic - and in this light we need to see also his understanding of the unity of the church. 18 19 Like Solovyov, Berdyaev was strongly influenced by the Slavophiles, especially by Alexei Khomyakov (1804-1860), and by Dostoyevsky. The Christian tradition that he embraced was, for him, an experience of sobornicity, a possibility of going beyond himself to Christ, the "eter- 1 7 1!i 1 9 Lowrie, "Ten Significant Dates in Berdyaev's Life", 19. Lowrie, "Ten Significant Dates in Berdyaev's Life", 19. Compare to Nikolai Berdyaev, Sub specie aeternitatis: Onbimu (pwiocoqbcKue, couuajibHbie u numepamypubie (1900-1906), St Petersburg: Publishing House of M. V. Prirozhkov, 1907. See Nicolas Berdyaev, http://www.krotov.info/library/02_b/berdyaev/1914_sense. html Cjubicji meopnecmea. Omim onpaedauux vejioeexa, Moscow: G. A. Leman andS. I. Sacharov, 1916. See Nicolas Berdyaev, Meaning of Creative Act, New York: Harper and Brothers, 1954, 105-106, 110; Destiny of Man, New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1960,23, 69, 72, 99. zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFE 117 IVANA NOBLE, PRAGUE zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA nal contemporary" of a l l . In that contact with Christ, he believed, he was at the same time joined to his brothers and sisters, all the others who had the same experience of being united in "the memory which brings resurrection, the victory over corruption, the affirmation of eternal life." Echoing Khomyakov, he saw the Church, as the order of love and freedom that represented the unity of "the whole Christian world, to apostles, saints, and to all who are in Christ whether living or departed." Dostoyevsky taught Berdyaev about redeeming beauty but also about the proximity of good and evil, and the spiritual discipline necessary for the discernment. At the same time, Berdyaev says, Dostoyevsky "shared the inner divisions which belong to the Russian character". 20 21 22 23 The attempts to overcome these divisions were to be found in the concepts of integrated knowledge and sobornicity among the Slavophiles, but most of all by Solovyov's notion of pan-unity stemming from his understanding of divine-humanhood. Coming to the unity of the church, however, Berdyaev critically comments on Solovyov's converting to Roman Catholicism while remaining Orthodox, saying: "Solovyov's point of view is out of date, and in any case Solovyov never really experienced Catholicism spiritually from within." For Berdyaev, "Communion implies reciprocity: there can be no communion in unrequited love." 24 25 26 THREE ORTHODOX VISIONS OF ECUMENISM: BERDYAEV, BULGAKOV, L0 SSKY church and its appurtenance to one or another confession?" And in response to this question he proposes: "The sphere of the Church ought to be at once widened and narrowed." That means that the Church needs to recognize that it is not only the mystical body of Christ but also a social institution, acting in history, and as such it is "fallible and bears the same limitations as all social phenomena, everything historic: it has served worldly interests, has soiled its hands, has passed off the temporal for the eternal." Because of that the Church is in a permanent need of repentance of "treason toward God, toward Christ and the Holy Spirit." It is more than the personal sins of clergy or lay people, these are "the sins of the Church, the distortion of Christianity." And thus the people in the church, are to blame for the godlessness of the modern world, according to Berdyaev. He reminds his readers that: "Many have left the visible church with high motives of the love of truth, rather than for low motives." And i f the "new epoch in Christianity" has to have any meaning, the Church has to include the vast majority of people who are outside of the church institution into its work of salvation. 28 29 30 31 32 33 The unique mission of the Orthodox Church, according to him, does not consist in preserving something that others do not have, but in a greater freedom of the spirit than is found in Roman Catholic authoritarianism, or in the Protestant antithesis between freedom and grace. The true reality of the Church, its being, is inward and mysti34 For Berdyaev, until the Kingdom of God comes, the Church leads a divided life. In this context two questions emerge: Who is the true church, and where are its borders? Berdyaev asks: "Is the sphere of Cited in Lowrie, Christian Existentialism, 265. the Church as a mystic organism limited to the visible structure of the zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA Ibid. 35 27 8 2 9 Ibid. Ibid. Bcrdyacv speaks of Christ as "our eternal contemporary", cited in Lowrie,zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA Christian Ibid. Existentialism, 265. Ibid., 266. Nicolas Berdyaev, Freedom and Spirit, London: The Centenary Press, 1948, 331. Bcrdyacv says: "If the Pope condemns a book or the opinion of a fervent Roman In Russian original: http://www.krotov.info/library/02_b/berdyaev/1927_23_00.html zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA Catholic his action has a profound importance for the person concerned because it &ujiocodm>i ceododHoeo dyxa. TlpooneMamuKa u anonozux xpucmnaHcmea, I-II, proceeds from recognized authority." But only a naive realist would, according to Paris: Y M C A , 1927-28. Berdyaev, assume that this is what God thinks on the matter. He says: "Authority Bcrdyacv, Freedom and Spirit, 329-330. does not provide us with any outward demonstration of truth which is unshakeable, See Berdyaev, Dostoievsky: An Interpretation, London: Sheed & Ward, 1934, 226 tangible, or coercive in character; it provides no escape from the burden of freedom." For Bcrdyaev's interpretation of Solovyov, see Nikolai Bcrdyaev, PyccKM udesi, Berdyaev, Freedom and Spirit, 141-143. Paris: Y M C A , 1946, 169. Berdyaev criticized Protestantism saying: "The Protestant mind inclines towards Berdyaev, Freedom and Spirit, 356. individualism.. .The fault does not lie in the fact that Protestantism makes an exaggerBerdyaev, Solitude and Society, London: The Centenary Press, 1938, 111. ated claim to the freedom of the human spirit, but that it does not make a sufficiently Sec Bcrdyacv, Freedom and Spirit, 332. deep and radical affirmation of it." What causes it, according to Berdyacv, is "an 3 0 3 1 2 0 3 2 3 3 2 1 3 4 2 2 2 3 2 4 3 5 2 5 2 6 2 7 n8 IVANA NOBLE, PRAGUE zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA cal, and is something beyond buildings, clergy, rites, councils, etc. Its nature is spiritual, for it belongs to the spiritual rather than to the natural world." But the Church is always incarnate. "The visible Church is only the partial actualisation of the invisible Church; it is only an incomplete form of its substance and of the life of humanity and of the world." To affirm a visible unity of the universal church here and now meant for him nothing else but that a part of the church was mistakenly identified as a whole. 36 37 38 THREE ORTHODOX VISIONS OF ECUMENISM: BERDYAEV. BULGAKOV, LOSSKY When Berdyaev came to Paris, he was invited to take part in the zyxwvutsrq Decades de Pontigny, an annual ten-day meeting, where he met a number of French leading intellectuals. But he also organised meetings himself, first, bringing together Russian Orthodox theologians and philosophers with Roman Catholics and Protestants at the Russian Centre at 10 Boulevard Montparnasse. Later, when the Roman Catholic hierarchy forbade Catholic participation, he moved these to his own home in Clamart, and with the help of his friend, Jacques Maritain, continued to provide space and inspiration for numerous others Although Berdyaev was somewhat bored with the inter-confessional agenda of the meetings, the deep friendships despite confessional belonging and even more despite fundamental differences in opinion, continued to inspire him. In 1946 he taught at what was to become the Ecumenical Institute of the World Council of Churches in Switzerland. 41 42 Most of Berdyaev's work both in Germany and in France was the fruits of conversations with others. Berdyaev flourished in discussions with others, although, it also needs to be said that when he got bored, he moved on. Berdyaev was heavily involved with the establishment of the Russian Student Christian Movement. The style of meetings, lectures and discussions influenced the Religious Philosophical Academy he established during his time in Berlin to encourage intellectual lite among the exiles. Both in Berlin and then particularly Perhaps, due to these experiences he says: "It is impossible for us in Paris Berdyaev actively stepped into the local intellectual and spirnot to desire earnestly a reunion of the Churches, in which sinful diviitual life, and was instrumental in organising meetings of theologians sions of Christendom may be brought to an end", but abandoning one's and philosophers from various traditions and sharing their search for confession and opting for "a state of interconfessionalism" would lead, a Christian identity that would sustain them and their contemporaries according to him, to embracing an abstraction devoid of existence. in the quickly changing world. zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA 4 3 44 45 39 46 40 3 6 3 7 3 8 3 9 4 0 120 extreme antithesis between freedom and grace". Against such a view Berdyaev asserts that ultimately there is no difference between what a human being desires and what God desires, from within grace, autonomy and theonomy coincide into one. Berdyaev,zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA Freedom and Spirit, 146. Ibid., 329. Ibid., 334. He says further: "The visible Church cannot consist only of a minority of the elect for it has a message for the whole mankind and of the universe." Ibid., 337. "It is only by assimilating and identifying the part with the whole that the visible unity of the universal Church can be affirmed." At the same time he insists: "But although there is no apparent unity that does not mean that the principle of universality is not active in the visible sphere." Ibid., 348, 349. The book is Donald Lowrie, Rebellious Prophet: A Life of Nicolai Berdyaev, New York: Harper and Brothers, 1960. The story of the founding of the academy is on pp. 164-166. For Berdyaev's acrivities, see Tim Noble, "Springtime in Paris: Orthodoxy Encountering Diverse Others Between the Wars", in: Andrew Pierce - Oliver Schuegraf (eds.), Den Blick weiten: Wenn Okumene den Religionen begegnet: Tagungsbericht der 17. V/issenscliaftlichen /Consultation der Societas Oecumenica (Beiheft zur Okumenischen Rundschau 99), Leipzig: Evangclische Vcrlagsanstalt, 2014, 295-310. They were founded by a philosopher Paul Desjardins in 1910, they were interrupted by the First World War and then continued again from 1922. They lasted there till 1942, when, again, due to the war they were moved to Mount Holyoke in New York, and after war returned back to France. See on this, Francis Chaubet, "Les Decades de Pontigny (1910-1939)", in: Vingtieme Siecle: Revue d'histoire 57 (1998), 36-^4. For a list of the themes, see http://www.ccic-ccrisy.asso.fr/colloques2.html (downloaded 29/8/2015). Among Protestant participants we find Pastor Marc Boegner and Wilfred Monod, among the Catholics, Father Martin Gillet, Abbe Laberthonniere, Etiennc Gilson and Jacques Maritain. Berdyaev, Dream and Reality, 259 Among the Orthodox, both Berdyaev's old friend Sergei Bulgakov, and George Florovsky, were fairly frequent attenders. Others such as Lev Gillct, and the recently converted Elisabeth Behr-Sigel (though this was prior to her marriage), George Fedotov, and Boris Vycheslavtsev, also took part. The Roman Catholics included people like Etienne Gilson, Gabriel Marcel, and possibly others such as Yves Congar and Jean DaniSlou. Certainly, both knew Berdyaev and his work. The Protestant participation, unfortunatelly, disappeared. See Berdyaev, Dream and Reality, 260 See Lowrie, "Ten Significant Dates in Berdyaev's Life", 15-24, here 23. See Berdyaev, Freedom and Spirit, 355. This is what Solovyov did, according to Berdyaev; sec Freedom and Spirit, 356. Bcrdyacv himself is inconsistent in ascribing 121 I IVANA NOBLE. PRAGUE zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA When speaking about organic and genuine unity Berdyaev preferred to link it to the Christian world rather than speaking about one church whether interconfessional or one confession (or a group of confessions) assuming itself to be the whole. He insists that "the unity of the Christian world must be approached not from an external point of view, but from within. The churches will never be united by treatises signed by their respective governments or by mutual conventions and concordats. In order to achieve a real union of the churches it may even perhaps be necessary to avoid having union as our objective." 47 THREE ORTHODOX VISIONS OF ECUMENISM: BERDYAEV. BULGAKOV, LOSSKY I wish to be united with Joan of Arc, but not with bishop Cauchon who burnt her; I wish to be united with St Francis of Assisi but not with the ecclesiastics who persecuted him; I can be in union with Jacob Boehme, that great mystic who had the heart of a child, but not with the Lutheran clergy that condemned him. And it is the same everywhere and throughout the Christian world. 50 For the Christian world to be reunited, and to overcome the positivism and materialism of his time, a kind of "spiritual revolution" is needed. Berdyaev speaks about a holistic conversion which includes both a deepening of the mystical life and moving away from standing on the side of the powerful and grounding the social and political life in the genuine spirit of Christian love and solidarity with the needy. The mystical and the political tasks remain united for Berdyaev. And he sees the gift of freedom as a key to both. While Berdyaev did not belong to those who opposed the institutionalised form of the ecumenical movement, he always preferred spiritual ecumenism, the inward communion that transformed the outer relationships Berdyaev was convinced that the "Eastern and Western Christianity are to be distinguished not by the differences of dogma and ecclesial organisation, but by the character of their spiritual experience" Throughout the Christian world, distortions have taken place which led to the alienation of others, but also to a continuation of 3. Bulgakov's Abstract and Pastoral Visions a genuine quest for God which has an inward orientation towards communion. Thus he stated: zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA Fr Sergius Bulgakov (1871-1944) shared with Berdyaev both a Marxist past, the desire to find a socially and politically relevant Orthoa positive or negative role to other confession and even more so to other religions. doxy in Russia, and exile. Bulgakov came from a priestly family On the one hand, following his Platonic vision of unity, he says: "In the visible world there is no external unity in the Church; its ecumenicity is not completely actualized. and yet his own mature faith was born after twenty years of alienNot only the division of the Churches and the multiplicity of Christian confessions ation from the church, when he embraced first Marxism and later but the very fact that there are non-Christian religions in the world at all, and that a kind of Christian socialism. In hiszyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUT Autobiographical Notes Bulthere is besides, an anti-Christian world, proves that the Church is still in merely 51 52 48 4 9 53 potential state and that its actualization is still incomplete." On the other hand he insists that "Christianity should be capable of existing in a variety of forms in the Ibid., 357. universal Church." Berdyaev,zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA Freedom and Spirit, 348, 349. See ibid., 322. Berdyaev, Freedom and Spirit, 356. Berdyaev emphasized the value of communicaIbid., 357. He says: "But why has Orthodox and Catholic Christianity not sought tion from a person to a person. He said: "The symbolism of communication is that to modify social relationships in the spirit of Christian love, and why has it so often part of the inner life which transpires into the objective and disintegrated world. This supported a system founded on the anti-Christian principles of violence and cruelty? symbolism, which helps to establish communication as well as to indicate a state of Why has it so often in its history defended the rich and powerful at the expense of the disintegration, permeates both our knowledge and art." Berdyaev, Solitude and Socipoor and weak?" Ibid., 319. ety, 110. For him: "Only the Holy Spirit can unite the Churches; reunion can only For more details, see Sergius Bulgakov, "Autobiographical Notes", translated in be the result of grace and cannot be secured by purely human efforts." Such efforts James Pain and Nicolas Zernov (eds.), Sergius Bulgakov: A Bulgakov Anthology, on their own can contribute to further conflicts and divisions, according to Berdyaev. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1976, Iff, here 5-6; the whole text was pubSee Berdyaev, Freedom and Spirit, 356. lished posthumously in Russian, Sergius Bulgakov, Avtobiograficheskie zametki, He pleaded for an "inward and spiritual union of Christians of all confessions ...an Paris: YMCA, 1946; Winston F. Crum, "Sergius N. Bulgakov: From Marxism to attitude animated by love which permits of mutual recognition of other confessions Sophiology", in: St Vladimir's Theological Quarterly 27/1 (1983), 3-25; Anastassy as also living in the same spiritual world". Berdyaev, Freedom and Spirit, 356. (Brandon) Gallaher, "Bulgakov's Ecumenical Thought", in: Sobornost 24/1 (2002) Ibid., 349. zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA 24-55, here 29-31. 5 0 5 1 4 7 5 2 5 3 4 8 4 9 122 123 WANA NOBLE, PRAGUE zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA THREE ORTHODOX VISIONS OF ECUMENISM: BERDYAEV, BULGAKOV. LOSSKY gakov speaks about a staretz in the remote North of the country, who Williams places Bulgakov as well as Florensky among the defenders helped in his return, reconciliation and partaking in the Eucharist. of the "name worshippers" from Mount Athos, claiming that "the Dostoyevsky, the Slavophiles and in particular Solovyov and Pavel invocation of the name of Jesus in prayer affects the presence of the Florensky (1882-1937) opened for him new possibilities in Orthodivine Person". Bulgakov's notion of Sophia as active presence of God was informed both by the Palamite notion ofzyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcba energia and by Ilardoxy, provided it would get rid of its provincialism and exclusivism. ion's notion of name. Berdyaev was conversant with the Scriptures and the Fathers, as well as classical and modern Western philosophy. This underpins his seekEspecially in his pre-revolution theological writings we find a strong ing for the tangibility of the sacred presence of God. But here we need apophatic strand. It comes across in Bulgakov's theology of the to mention other prominent influences, namely Russian symbolism and light and of kenosis, the divine self-emptying calling for a human Dostoyevsky. They helped him to see how in Sophia "the creative response. While Bulgakov took inspiration from Solovyov, he came labour of common human life" could be combined with "the revealing to criticize his understanding of pan-unity as uniting of the opposites, of God's beauty in Christ," a theme so prominently present in Rusespecially when this was applied to Christology. This critique gave rise sian thought through the work of Dostoyevsky. Beyond that. Rowan zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA to his notion of antinomy, which had broad influence on other Orthodox theologians, including Vladimir Lossky. 54 60 55 56 61 57 62 58 63 59 64 Bulgakov was ordained priest in 1918, shortly before his fortySee Gallahcr, "Bulgakov's Ecumenical Thought", 31-32; he cites Scrgius Bulgakov, "Autobiographical Notes", 12. seventh birthday. A year later he was forced by the Bolshevik governFor the details about the relationship between Solovyov and Bulgakov see Natal'ja Anatolfcvna Vaganova.zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA Coqbuojiozux npomouepex Cepem EymaKoea, Moscow; Izdatclstvo PSTGU, 2011, 259-69. The first statement concerning the role of the Name o f Jesus came from Ilarion, a RusFor the relationship between Florcnsky and Bulgakov, sec Gallahcr, "Bulgakov's Ecusian monk on Mount Athos and a hermit in the Caucasus. (Ilarion, Hazopax KaeKa3a, menical Thought", 33-34; Katefina Baucrova, "Sctkanf he'sychasmu sc sofiologic Balapashinsk, 1907) After a period of controversy the Synod of the Russian Church condemned the "name worshippers". Anthony Khrapovitsky, later leader of ROCOR, u Solovjova, Florcnskeho a Bulgakova", in: Karcl Sladck (cd), Filokalie: Kniha, then Archbishop of Volhynia, was among those who radically opposed the "name Imuti. spiritualita. Olomouc: Velehrad. 2013, 118-31. worshippers". Against him and against S. V. Troitsky the "name worshippers" were Bulgakov was heavily influenced by St Paul, and among the Church Fathers, espedefended by a curious mixture of figures, Pavel Florensky, Eugenii Trubetskoi, but cially by Clement of Alexandria, Origcn, the Cappadocians, Maximus the Confessor, also by Ioann Sergiev, who appealed in the defence to the memory o f Fr John KronJohn of Damascus, Dionysius, whom he considered "the true father of apophaticism" stadt. Also Bulgakov published a brief article in defence of the "name worshippers", and Palatnas all feature frequently in his thought. See Paul Gavrilyuk, "The Recepsee Sergius Bulgakov, "AtJjOHCKoe neno" [The Athos Affairl, in: PyccKcm Mbicjib tion of Dionysius in Twentieth-Century Eastern Ortohodoxy", in: Sarah Coaklcy and (Russkaya mysl') (1913), 37^t6. He was then elected by the Council of the Russian Charles M. Stang (eds.). Re-thinking Dionysius, Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009, Church that was to meet in 1917 to the commission that was to examine major doctri177-194, here 180. nal disputes. The theme of "name worshippers" re-emerges in his work Owioco(puH See Catherine Evtuhov, The Cross and the Sickle: Sergei Bulgakov and the Fate UMem, and in a paper published in German, "Was ist das Wort", in: Festschrift fiir of Russian Religious Philosophy,1890-1920, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, T. G. Masaryk zum 80. Gehurtstage, Bonn, 1930, 25^16. See Williams, "General 1997, 210-215, where she refers to Bulgakov's Philosophy of the Name. With the Introduction", 8-10. symbolists, according to Rowan Williams, Bulgakov shared the idea that "Language Williams, "General Introduction", 8-9. has to be liberated from its servitude to the 'practical', the functional, so as to recover See Sergius Bulgakov, Ceem HeeeHepuuii: CosepuaHUX u yM03pemix, Moscow: its sacred quality: It must once again manifest realities that we do not habitually nyTb, 1917; in English: The Unfading Light: Contemplations and Speculations, see, the intersections of the world with the eternal." Rowan Williams, "General IntroGrand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2012. duction", in: idem (ed.). Sergius Bulgakov: Towards a Russian Political Theology, Edinburgh: T&TClark. 1999, 1-19, here 12. Williams points out that Bulgakov borWilliams speaks of "the governing model of kenosis, the divine self-emptying, in creation as well as in incarnation, and indeed in the life of the Trinity itself". Williams, rowed directly from Vyacheslav Ivanov, a leading Symbolist thinker. But Bulgakov "General Introduction", 18. did not agree with the symbolists' hostility to social reform, and in 1905-1917 criticized "art for the art's sake". Yet, while Bulgakov was too political for the symbolists, See Brandon Gallaher, "Antinomism, Trinity and the Challenge of Solov'evan Pantheism in the Theology of Sergij Bulgakov", in: Studies in East European Thought he was also too mystical for the social reformers. See ibid., 13. 64/3^1 (November I, 2012), 205-225. '' Williams, "General Introduction", 13. zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA 5 4 5 5 5 6 5 7 5 8 5 124 125 IVANA NOBLE, PRAGUE zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA ment to stay in Crimea, and in 1922, like Berdyaev, he was exiled from his homeland. Bulgakov first stayed in Prague, where, as a priest, he looked after the Russian refugees, and at the same time taught Church Law and Theology at the Russian Research Institute. In this time he became involved with the Russian Student Movement. Invited to take part in establishing St Sergius Orthodox Theological Institute, he moved from Prague to Paris, and from 1925 taught there as professor of dogmatic theology and also the first dean, positions he hold till his death in 1944. I will not go here in detail into the sophiological controversies which took place there in the second part of the 1930s, but will concentrate on his ecumenical vision. 65 THREE ORTHODOX VISIONS OF ECUMENISM: BERDYAEV, BULGAKOV, LOSSKY ible. Bulgakov was tempted to make a profession like Solovyov, and to accept the Roman pontiff as the source of ecclesial unity. This vision of ecumenism, however, was given a fatal blow in 1922-1923, when as a refugee in Constantinople he sought for a kindred spirit and met the Ukrainian Jesuit of Polish origin, Stanislas Tyszkiewicz, who was in charge of the Eastern rite centre in Istanbul. The experience with the Roman Catholic anti-Orthodox propaganda disguised as a help to the needy disgusted Bulgakov. In Istanbul another event marked his ecumenical vision, namely his first visit to Hagia Sophia, where Bulgakov experienced something similar to Solovyov's mystical encounters. As he said: "Hagia Sophia revealed herself to me as something absolute, undeniable, self-evident." Thus, papacy, which he for a time saw as the absolute principle of unity, was from now on replaced by Sophia. 67 68 In his early work published in the year of his ordination, Bulgakov wrote about the potential of Eastern Orthodoxy to ground a united ecumenical church. As a first step towards this unity he saw the respectful While residing in Prague, Bulgakov became involved with the Rusreintegration of Western Christianity, which at this stage for him means sian Christian Student Movement, and this led to further contacts Roman Catholicism. The question now was how to do that. At especially with the Protestant Young Men's Christian Association the beginning of the 1920s, during Bulgakov's forced stay in Crimea, he encountered an educated Lithuanian Catholic priest, Fr Matthew, who convinced him that papacy and Russian Orthodoxy were compat-zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA See Gallaher, "Bulgakov's Ecumenical Thought", 39^10; he refers to Bulgakov, 69 66 y emeu Xepcouuca, written between 25 April and 30 August 1922, and a letter to Pavel Florenskii (dated 1 September 1922), describing how he realised that papal authority was the solution to the contemporary upheaval of Russia (cited in Bulgakov, Sous les remparts de Chersonese, Geneve: Ad Solem, 1999, 33, 287-291). Bulgakov noted: "Count Tyszkiewicz visited me and made a really negative impresWhile Sophiology was present throughout his work, in his later trilogyzyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA On Godsion ... The whole time he played the fool. He's really not very clever and repulsive manhood: The Lamb of God (1933), The Comforter (1936) and The Bride of the in a Polish way ('po-pofski protiven') ... It was clear to me that a person such as he, Lamb (1939, published posthumously in 1945), as Lossky critically noted, it lacks in spite of all his fervour, was out to 'seduce' Russians ... To be brief, it's not unity the apophatic reserve. This affected his understanding of the Holy Trinity, in particular the distinction between the inner divine life and divine economy, or to use but a trap ... and so very many Tyszkiewiczes are sitting about in Rome. Once again the Palamite language, between the divine essence and energies. See Vladimir that awful question arises: why are the papacy and Jesuitism historically the same Lossky, The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church, Crestwood: SVS, 2002, thing? ... Until now I was convinced that Dostoyevsky was completely wrong [in 80. See Gavrilyuk, "The Reception of Dionysius in Twentieth-Century Eastern / me BHHKa", in: his anti-Catholicism] ... and now I wonder." Sergius Bulgakov, "H 3zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfed Ortohodoxy", 181. See also, Bryn Geffert, "The Charges of Heresy against Sergii BecmuuKPXff (VestnikRKhD) 130 (1979), 258; in Constantin Simon, "how Russians Bulgakov: The Majority and Minority Reports of Evlogii's Commission and the Final See Us: Jesuit Relations Then and Now", in: Religion, State & Society 2V4 (1995), Report of the Bishops' Conference", in: St Vladimir's Theological Quarterly 49/1-2 343-357, here 347. Simon refers to Tyszkiewicz's anti-Orthodox propaganda, which (2005), 47-66; Alexis Klimoff, "Georges Florovsky and the Sophiological Condid not cease even after he moved from Constantinople to Rome, where he taught Oritroversy", in: St Vladimir's Theological Quarterly 49/1-2 (2005), 67-100; Stoyan ental Theology. According to him Tyszkiewicz refused to call the Russian dissidents Tanev, "ENEPFEIA vs EO <P IA: The contribution of Fr. Georges Florovsky to the Orthodox, but referred to their spirituality and their ecclesiology as an illness that rediscovery of the Orthodox teaching on the distinction between the Divine essence is seriously dangerous for the church. His position, however was not well received and energies", in: International Journal of Orthodox Theology, 2/1 (2011), 15-71; by his other Jesuit colleagues who were more open towards Orthodoxy. See ibid., Katefina Bauerovi, "The Experience and Theology of Russian Emigre's", in: Ivana 348, Simon refers to Stanislas Tyszkiewicz, "Quelques considerations sur la prepaNoble et al., The Ways of Orthodox Theology in the West, 241-275. rations des nos scholastiques pour l'apostolat en Russie (Letter from Tyszkiewicz to the Slavic assistant)", 30 April 1956, in the archives of the Russicum. See Gallaher, "Bulgakov's Ecumenical Thought", 38; he cites Bulgakov, "At the Feast See Sergius Bulgakov, AemoouoepaqbwiecKiie 3aMemm, Paris: YMCA, 1991, 94. zyxwvutsrqp of the Gods", in: The Slavonic Review 1/3 (1923), 604-622, here 617-618. 6 5 6 6 zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA I2(i 127 4 IVANA NOBLE, PRAGUE zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA ( Y M C A ) . In this circle Bulgakov met three American ecumenists, who were later very helpful in founding the new Orthodox school of theology in Paris; a Methodist, John Mott (1865-1955), the first secretary of the World's Christian Student Federation, his colleague Donald Lowrie (1887-1974), who had previously worked as a volunteer with prisoners of war in Russia, and an American Episcopalian Paul Anderson (1894-1985), who was the first director of the Y M C A Press in Paris. In 1927, already as dean of St Sergius in Paris, Bulgakov participated in the first Anglo-Russian Congress at St Albans, which gave rise to the Anglican-Orthodox Fellowship of St Albans and St Sergius in 1928. Bulgakov was elected vice-president. 70 71 THREE ORTHODOX VISIONS OF ECUMENISM: BERDYAEV, BULGAKOV, LOSSKY tion of the one true church. The unity and plurality problem needs to be resolved differently. Like Berdyaev, Bulgakov insists that a genuine ecumenism "cannot be a sort of amalgam or compromise, like a religious Esperanto, still less indifference to all dogmatic questions" What was for Berdyaev a spiritual quest, becomes for Bulgakov also a dogmatic and an ecclesial quest. And here there are some fundamental problems. 74 75 Bulgakov saw only two ways of realising unity: "the authoritarian monarchy of Catholicism" or the "Orthodox conciliarity (sobornost)". In his rejection of the first way and opting for the second one, he placed the Orthodox Church, now as an institution, above other churches. He said: "The Orthodox Church is aware that she is the true Church possessing the plenitude and plurality of the truth in the Holy Spirit", or that, unlike others, the Orthodox Church is the measure of Orthodoxy. Out of these deficient views, Bulgakov sees the vocation of Orthodoxy as follows: "To save the Christian world 76 77 78 Bulgakov's ecumenical vision is expressed in his exposition on the Creed in the bookzyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA The Orthodox Church (1933). He starts the book with an inclusive statement: "Orthodoxy is the Church of Christ on earth". Primarily, it is not an institution of any confession including his, "it is a new lite with Christ and in Christ, guided by the Holy Spirit." This Church is one, and he adds that it is inadmissiThis is, for him, "an ecclesiological axiom, evident to every Christian". Referring to ble to think of the pluralism of the different confessional churches as Ephesians 4: 4-6: "There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, being themselves the universal church or to accept the theory of the who is above all and through all and in all." See ibid., 104, 105. According to him, branches of the church, according to which each is a different opera-zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA 79 80 72 73 7 4 7 5 7 6 7 0 7 1 the different forms of historic Christianity, Orthodoxy, Catholicism and Anglicanism, are not different operations of one true Church. See ibid. Ibid., 215. Ibid., 216. He argued that the type of unity we find e.g. in Roman Catholicism, deviated For their support in founding St Serge, see Kalefina Baucrova and Tim Noble, "The from Orthodox tradition. There, he says, due to the assimilation of Roman Law, Ways from Diaspora to Local Churches", in: Ivana Noble et al.,zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA The Ways of Orthodox "the ecclesiastical organization possesses decisive value." Bulgakov, The Orthodox Theology in the West, 183-239, here 202-207. Church, 107. His critique of papacy, which we find further developed in pp. 106-112, These conferences were organised by Nicolas Zcrnov under the Student Christian however, needs to be understood in relation to his life-experience. Bulgakov also Movement, and brought together young Eastern and Western Christian students to criticized Roman Catholic refusal to participate in the inter-confessional, ecumenical discuss theology. The Orthodox were represented mainly by the Paris-based Rusmovement, see ibid., 217-218. And still, despite of his sharp criticisms, Bulgakov sian refugees, with a few Greeks and non-Chalcedonian participants. The Western admitted that in the Roman Catholic Church, there were always produced also "antiChristians were mainly High Church Anglicans, and initially also some evangelicals, toxins" against "the poisons of 'statehood', of judicial authority, or ecclesiastical Methodists and Scottish Presbyterians. The fellowship was founded in 1928. See monarchy." In his time he saw such anti-toxins e.g. in the liturgical movements among http://www.sobornost.org/Zernov_History-of-the-Fellowship.pdf The Fellowship of the Benedictines or the "Union" movement of the Priory of Amay (Belgium). See St Alban and St Sergius: A Historical Memoir by Nicolas and Militza Zernov pubibid., 216. lished in 1979, in: http://www.sobornost.org/about-2.php (downloaded 29/8/2015). Brandon Gallaher notes: "In the mid 1920s the relationship between the Orthodox He speaks here more of an ideal than of a lived reality of his time, when he mentions and the Anglicans was very close indeed. In the period of 1922-3, the patriarchates "the decentralized organization of Orthodoxy, that co-existence of national Churches, of Constantinople and Jerusalem, as well as the Churches of Cyprus and Sinai, recogautonomous but united". Ibid., 112. nised the validity of Anglican orders, given it was believed that the Anglican Church Ibid., 213. had a valid apostolic succession." Gallaher, "Bulgakov's Ecumenical Thought", 44. * See ibid, 114. Bulgakov speaks of Orthodoxy as a privileged attribute of the Eastern 7 7 7 8 7 9 7 2 Sergius Bulgakov, The Orthodox Church, London: The Centenary Press, 1935, 9. 7 3 Ibid., 9. 128 zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA part of the Church, when he refers to "the unchangeable unity and the continuity of tradition" that is "preserved by the Orthodox Church", now meaning the institution, 129 IVANA NOBLE, PRAGUE zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA THREE ORTHODOX VISIONS OF ECUMENISM: BERDYAEV. BULGAKOV, LOSSKY from the indefinite subdivision to which Protestantism leads and from aration of confessions, even i f by now he disagreed with Solovyov's solution of the problem. despotic uniformity as advocated by Rome". At the same time, Bulgakov hoped for re-establishment of unity with Besides Bulgakov's engagement with the Anglicans, he also parAnglicans in the near future. And here a different facet of Bulgakov's ticipated in the initiatives which gradually led to the establishment ecumenical vision can be found, that which grows more explicitly from of the World Council of Churches. In 1927 Bulgakov together with a lived contact with others. In 1933 and in 1935 Bulgakov presented Metropolitan Evlogii attended the first world conference of Faith and two proposals concerning partial intercommunion between the OrthoOrder in Lausanne. Bulgakov managed to alienate the Protestant repredox and Anglicans who participated in the meetings of the fellowship sentatives there, as he spoke of the Virgin Mary as the mystical unifier of St Alban and St Sergius. And even if the proposals were sideof the universal church. A similar incident happened in 1937 at the tracked as too radical, they continued to be of inspiration to some of the second meeting of Faith and Order in Edinburgh. In his sophiological Anglican as well as Orthodox members. Bulgakov did not see comunderstanding, the Mother of God was the Wisdom of God calling her mon Eucharistic table as the eschatological end in history, this would various children to unity, she was "the mystical head of humanity in be either a contradiction in terms or utter impossibility. Shared comthe Church, the Bride of the Lamb". munion was possible, when there was enough of the common faith, and Despite the accusations of heresy during the sophiological controa willingness to repent what each participant's tradition contributed to versies in his own church, and the mismatch between his desire for the collective sin of breaking of the universal church. Like Solovyov, a common veneration of Theotokos and the attitude of the Protestant Bulgakov believed that the universal church goes deeper than the sep-zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA majority, Bulgakov was considered as the most senior and influential 81 85 82 83 86 84 87 8 1 8 2 8 3 8 4 and not in its deepest sense by the "ecclesiastical societies", meaning churches without historic apostolic succession, but neither by Roman Catholicism. See ibid., 105. Ibid., 112. First, it is not clear whether he means the vocation of the universal Orthodoxy or the vocation of the particular Orthodox Churches, but when the theme re-emerges, and Bulgakov says that the this vocation, is given by the election, the second interpretation seems to be more accurate. See ibid., 213. Orthodox theologian in ecumenical circles. He was invited to lecture tours in Canada and the United States, and was counted on to take part in the formation of the World Council of Churches. In 1939 he was, however, diagnosed with throat cancer, and the rapid advance of the illness forced him to stop his active ecumenical work. As we have seen, in Bulgakov we find different ecumenical visions in different periods of his life. Moreover, his abstract vision described See ibid., 217. For the details, see Anastassy (Brandon) Gallaher, "Bulgakov and intercommunion", zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA Sobornost 24/2 (2002), 9-28. Bulgakov wanted to include the hierarchy into the proGallaher summarises: "Open communion (such as Solov'ev's attempt to become cess. He proposed that the Anglican and Orthodox bishop could bless the priests of Roman Catholic while remaining Orthodox) - a church experiment through personal the other confession and through this sacramental act of unity enable them for the union - must be defined as an individualistic attempt to breach church divisions witheucharistic celebration for all the members of the fellowship. See the second proout recourse to any dogmatic minimum. It certainly ignores the proper canonical posal of Bulgakov, in Gallaher, "Bulgakov and intercommunion", 12-15. Bulgakov authorities." Gallaher, "Bulgakov and intercommunion," 24. recommended a special sacramental blessing of the Anglicans by the Orthodox, to Paul Valliere, Modern Russian Theology: Bukharev, Soloviev, Bulgakov: Orthodox safeguard Orthodox ecclesiology, without entering into a theological debate concernTheology in a New Key, Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 2000, 283; See Bulgakov's "The ing the validity of Anglican orders. According to an Anglican historian Roger Lloyd, Papal Encyclical and the Lausanne Conference", in: The Christian East 9/3 (1928), Florovsky claimed "that the sacramental blessing could not absolve schismatics from 127; in Gallaher, "Bulgakov's Ecumenical Thought", 43. the duty and obligation of submitting to the sacrament of penance before admission Brandon Gallaher, "Fr. Sergius Bulgakov", in: Pantelis Kalaitzidis, Thomas Fitzgerto the Church". Roger Lloyd, The Church of England in the Twentieth Century, Vol. II ald, Cyril Hovorun et al. (eds.), Orthodox Handbook on Ecumenism: Resources (1919-1939), London: Longmans, 1950, 281; in Andrew Blane, Georges Florovsky; for Theological Education, Volos: Volos Academy Publication, 2014, 201-206, here Russian Intellectual and Orthodox Churchman, Crestwood: St. Vladimir's Seminary 202. See Sergius Bulgakov, "The Question of the Veneration of the Virgin Mary at the Press, 1993, 65. Edinburgh Conference" which includes a short introduction and "A Brief Statement While on the Anglican side this proposal was much more welcome, among the Orthoof the Place of the Virgin Mary in the Thought and Worship of the Orthodox Church", dox side, Nicolas Zcrnov continued to appreciate this possibility throughout his life. Sobornost 12 (1937), 28, cited in Gallaher, "Bulgakov's Ecumenical Thought", 43. zyxwvutsrq ISO 131 IVANA NOBLE, PRAGUE zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA THREE ORTHODOX VISIONS OF ECUMENISM: BERDYAEV. BULGAKOV. LOSSKY His vision of ecumenism was not formulated in terms of abstract inzyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA The Orthodox Church, and his pastoral vision, which he tried to put principles. In fact, Lossky despised such approaches, and considered into practice in the Fellowship of St Albans and St Sergius, differ. At them as false, devoid of life. And even if the ideals are right as such, the abstract level, however, Bulgakov held surprisingly narrow views, the ideologies that are built on them are not, because the ideologies when compared, for example, to Berdyaev, but also, as we will see, no longer stem from the actual experience, from "the deep and healthy to Lossky. Unfortunately, his abstract vision had greater impact on spring, which alone could transform them into 'thoughts of power'." the subsequent generation of Orthodox theologians, even on those who Thus, when ecumenism becomes an ideology, Lossky is not interested. openly opposed his sophianic project, such as Fr Georges Florovsky, We can only speculate whether for this reason he kept a distance to while his pastoral vision still awaits rehabilitation. zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA the initiatives gradually leading to the formation of the World Council of Churches, while he participated in the Fellowship of St Alban and St Sergius. 4. Lossky's Vision of Shared Call and Aim 89 Vladimir Lossky (1903-1958), although, like others, exiled with his family from Russia, took his position differently. As his son, Fr. Nicolas Lossky, reminds us, he had made a free choice to live in the West. France was for him not only an asylum, but his new beloved homeland. Through his love for France he learned to love the whole of the western world, and while criticizing some aspects of its cultural and religious tradition, he did so from within, from a deep appreciation of what nourished and sustained his own life. Lossky was, like Berdyaev, part of the Orthodox Church under the Moscow Patriarchate, and he was associated with the Institute of St Denys. He agreed with the mission of the institute to teach theology in French, to open its courses also for non-Orthodox believers, and to seek new ways to find indigenous expressions of French Orthodoxy, participating in the western Christian world together with others and bringing its specific gifts, which in his understanding included particularly the mystical tradition stemming from the church fathers. In the Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church, which he wrote in 1944, to introduce what he saw as most valuable in Orthodoxy to western readers, Lossky cites two leading western theologians, one Roman Catholic, Yves Congar, and one Protestant, Karl Barth, on what kind of ecumenism is needed and why. Congar stated: "We have become different men. We have the same God but before him we are different men, unable to agree as to the nature of our relationship with him." Barth, addressing the type of ecumenism which is desirable, 90 91 88 Lossky, Sept jours sur les routes de France, 22. In this aspect perhaps, most illuminating is a passage in his reflection of a journey he undertook in June 1940, when he wanted to become a soldier and defend France against German invaders. In Seven Days on the Roads of France, Lossky writes first about the "artificial soul", about the "ideology" of the holy war, of crusades, but then he says that such ideology has different forms: the fight for democracy, freedom, human dignity, western culture, Christian civilisation or divine justice. See ibid, 21-22. See Vladimir Lossky, Essai sur la theologie mystique de I'Eglise d'Orient, Paris: Aubier, 1944; the first English translation appeared in 1957. Vladimir Lossky also presented a historically structured introduction to Palamism in a series of lectures See Nicolas Lossky, "Preface", in: Vladimir Lossky,zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA Sept jours sur les mutes at the Ecole practique des Hautes Etudes at the Sorbonne in 1945-6, which was de France: Juin 1940, Paris: Cerf, 1998, 7-14. Nicolas Lossky writes that his published posthumously as Vision de Dieu, Neuchatel: Delachaux & Niestle\; father Vladimir especially appreciated the French martyrs and saints, especially in English, The Vision of God, London: The Faith Press - Clayton, WI: American St Genevieve and Juan of Arc. who both saved France in the times of war. but also Orthodox Press, 1963. the medieval ideal of knighthood, which deeply inspired his life, and can be found even in his work for the Brotherhood of St Fotius, an organisation for young Russian emigrants under the Moscow Patriarchate to support living out and developing Orthodoxy within French culture, which Vladimir entered in 1928 and was heading for several years. Sec ibid. 10-11. 132 Yves Congar, Chretiens desunis: Principes d'un 'ecumenisme' catholique, Paris: Cerf, 1937,47; in English Divided Christendom, London: Bles, 1939,47; in Vladimir Lossky, Essai sur la theologie mystique de I'Eglise d'Orient, 19; in English: The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church, Cambridge: James Clarke & Co, 2005, 21. zyxwvutsrqp 133 IVANA NOBLE, PRAGUE zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA THREE ORTHODOX VISIONS OF ECUMENISM: BERDYAEV, BULGAKOV, LOSSKY Paris, under Lot and Etienne Gilson. Both inspired him to write a thesaid that it is when: "The union of the Churches is not made, but we sis on his greatest theological love, Meister Eckhart, something which discover it". became a life-long project. Lossky had an academic training in phiLossky's own contribution is to rehabilitate the "mystical centre", losophy but not in theology. Here he was self-taught, and it is possible which, according to him, emerges in any form of the living tradition, to say that the most important theological themes in his works, such which is a permanent source of both renewal and unity. Lossky unites as apophaticism, antinomy, the person-nature distinction, the kenothe desire to acquire the mind of the Fathers with what he calls "the sis of the Son and of the Spirit, come from reading Bulgakov. And religious factor," which in historical studies was often displaced by yet, in 1935-36 he was drawn into the sophiological controversy, and other factors, such as political, social, or cultural. According to him under pressure from the Metropolitan and future Patriarch Sergius both Eastern spirituality and dogmatic theology, to which he dedicates (Stragorodsky) he wrote an analysis of Bulgakov's theology in which this book, but also Western spirituality and dogmatic theology need to he criticized sophiology for becoming a kind of Christianised version focus on "an inner experience of truth," where knowledge transcends of pantheism, and for blurring a clear Trinitarian teaching. itself, and ultimately leads to union with God, tozyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA theosis. For him, "all the history of Christian dogma unfolds itself about this mystical A polemical track can be found in Lossky's theology of various pericentre," and theological doctrines that rose out of that centre "appear ods, when he thinks that the living stream of tradition is under a threat. as foundations of Christian spirituality." The relationship between But it does not come from an Orthodox confessional superiority comeastern and western Christianity cannot have any other meaningful proplex. In fact, the belonging to one or other confessional camp does not gramme. The experiential approach to ecumenism for which Lossky In order to be fit for the theme, Lossky had to study Aquinas, and later Dionysios, who, argues goes back to his student days. 92 96 97 98 93 94 9 6 besides Eckhart heavily impacted on his own theological work. Another influence which we should not omit, was Fr Scrgius Bulgakov. Fr. Nicolas Lossky says that it In St Petersburg between 1920 and 1922, before his family was is vital to understand the key role of his father's teacher and friend, Etienne Gilson exiled, Vladimir devoted himself to French medieval studies. There who stimulated his interest in Western mysticism, especially Meister Eckhart, but also he became familiar with the work of Ferdinand Lot (the husband of the whole of the medieval western theology and philosophy. All else was a waste of time for Vladimir, according to Fr Nicholas, including the books that he wrote Myrrha Lot-Borodine), a medievalist from the Sorbonne under whom because others asked him to. See Notes from the interview with Fr Nicolas Lossky, he later studied in Paris. His life-time interest in the mystical theParis, 3 May 2010. His thesis Negative Theology and Knowledge of God in Meister ology of Meister Eckhart also started there. He continued in his Eckhart was posthumously prepared for publication by Olivier Clement, and Etiene Gilson wrote a preface for the book. See Vladimir Lossky, Theologie negative et studies under Nikodym Pavlovich Kondakov in Prague, and then in zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA 95 connaissance de Dieu chez Mailre Eckhart, Paris: Vrin, 1960. 9 2 9 3 See Aristotle Papanikolaou, "Eastern Orthodox Theology," in: Chad Meister - James Karl Barth, "L'Eglise et les eglises", in:zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA Oecumenica 3/2 (July 1936), cited in Lossky, Beilby (eds.), The Routledge Companion to Modern Christian Thought, London: Essai sur la theologie mystique de I'Eglise d'Orient, 20; in English, The Mystical Routledgc, 2012, 538-48, here 544; Brandon Gallaher, "The 'Sophiological' Origins Theology of the Eastern Church, 22. of Vladimir Lossky's Apophaticism", in: Scottish Theological Journal 66/3 (2013), See Vladimir Lossky, TheMystic al Theology of the Eastern Church, 13,9, 10-11. At 278-98, here 281. the same time Lossky is aware of the simple fact, that "the personal experiences of Vladimir Lossky took a very strong position against Bulgakov, accusing him of a very different masters of spiritual life ... more often than not remain inaccessible to us," unclear Trinitarian teaching. Alexander Schmemann, who was very fond of Bulgakov because we do not have a standpoint from which to understand them and even less on a personal level, found fault with him because, though he did indeed start with an to judge them, but can still be nourished by their fruits that continue to live in the interpretation of the Fathers, he tried to get "behind them", and instead of using Helchurch. See ibid., 20-1. lenist categories, which Schmemann held to be permanently valid, he used Russian Ibid., 10. religious philosophy of his day. So, instead of transforming the thought of his time Three of the teachers were particularly influential on young Lossky in St Petersso that it corresponded to the spirit and method of the Fathers, he transposed the theburg, Olga Antonovna Dobiasz-Rozdestvenska, a former pupil of Lot, and Ivan ology of the Fathers so that it corresponded to the spirit and methods of his time. See Michailovich Grevse, an expert on western church fathers, who turned his attention Alexander Schmemann, "Russian Theology: 1920-1972, An Introductory Survey", to Eckhart, and Lev Platonovich Karsavin, who inspired his broader interest in the in: St. Vladimir's Theological Quarterly 16 (1972), 172-94. zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcba teaching of the church fathers. Sec N. Lossky, "Preface", 9. 9 7 9 8 9 4 9 5 134 135 1VANA NOBLE, PRAGUE zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA interest him much. He is aware that identities are complex, whether national or ecclesial. In his wartime reflections he speaks about himself as a Frenchmen, while he calls his friend, Maxim Kovalevsky, a Russian refugee." As a Frenchmen he seeks admission to the army to defend his country, he asks French saints for protection, be it St Joan of Arc, St Genevieve, whom he venerates as patroness of Paris, or St Aigan, a bishop who saved Orleans from the Huns. He understands these saints as part of his church, or himself part of their church, or still better, part of one church, which deep down is not and cannot be divided. 100 THREE ORTHODOX VISIONS OF ECUMENISM: BERDYAEV. BULGAKOV, LOSSKY broke with the Moscow Patriarchate, and started the Orthodox Church of France. In 1954-55 he also participated in ecumenically organised patristic research events, the International Augustinian Congress, and the second International Conference of the Patristic Society. In ecumenical circles Vladimir Lossky criticized what he saw as some theological and spiritual deviations of the Christian West. They included the juridical spirit which pushed away from theology a sense of mystery and a respect for the unknown and the unknowable, or the separation of the abstract dogmatic principles from lived spirituality. He pointed out that the Western insertion ofzyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWV Filioque, in consequence, weakened the role of the Spirit in Western theology. Following the Palamite heritage, he argued for the real character of the communion between God and creation, visible in the saints whose lives were transformed by the uncreated light. Theology, in his understanding, had an anagogical task, to lift people up to the call and task of theosis. 104 The war period brought Lossky closer with Christians from other churches both spiritually and intellectually. Afterwards he took part in the seminars organised by Marcel More, which gathered theologians and philosophers from various confessions. Meetings and a common quest with others mark his understanding of unity in a similar way as we found in Berdyaev. In 1947 Lossky, already dean He was aware that both with regard to juridically broken Orthodoxy of the newly founded Institute of St Denys, participated for the first and with regard to confessionally broken Christianity, the past could time in the Fellowship of St Alban and St Sergius. Over the years, he not be changed, and yet healing was needed. In his view, it would not made many Anglican friends, and these ecumenical contacts survived come through any other door than that of repentance. For Lossky, such even his leaving of St Denys, when in 1953 the Kovalevsky brothers zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA healing could be conferred only by the great Mystagogue, the Holy Spirit. 105 101 106 102 103 107 See Lossky,zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA Sept jours sur les routes de France, 17. 'Ibid., 22, 25, 35-37, 69-70. These seminars led to founding a periodical, Dieu vivant. Lossky was in the editorial board and published there his studies in 1945^*8. See "La fheologie de la lumiere chez Saint Gregoire de Thessalonique", Dieu vivant 1 (1945), 95-118; "Du troisieme Attribul dc l'Eglise", Dieu vivant 10 (1948), 77-89. According to his son, Nicolas Lossky, The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church, these were originally lectures for his Catholic friends who knew Orthodoxy only from Since then, it has changed jurisdictions several times, today they are under the Coptic the polemical writings of an Assumptionist Jugie: See Notes from the interview with Orthodox Church of Alexandria. See "A Propos de 1' Eglise Catholique Orthodoxe Fr Nicolas Lossky, Paris, 3 May 2010. Olivier Clement writes about how Lossky de France' Questions posees par six theologiens orthodoxes (Pere Cyrille Argenti, introduced him to the practice of Jesus prayer, which was at that time shared also Pere Boris Bobrinskoj, Olivier Clement, Michel Evdokimov, Nicolas Lossky, Jean with the Catholics, and in the group there was also Fr Sophrony, who later founded the Tchekan)", in: Supplement au Service Orthodoxe de Presse (SOP) 39 (June 1979), monastery in Essex. See Olivier Clement, L'autre soleil, Paris: Desclfe de Brouwer, document 39.A, 1-18. 2010, 120, 135, 139-154. See Vladimir Lossky, Orthodox Theology: An Introduction, Crestwood, NY: In 1945, when the Institut of St Dionysios was founded, Lossky was nominated its St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 2001, 32-3; The Mystical Theology of the Eastern dean, and he taught there dogmatic theology and church history. An example of Church, 238-9; In the Image and Likeness of God, Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir's his teaching emphases can be found in a course in dogmatic theology which was Seminary Press, 2001,99. edited by his pupil and friend Olivier Clement. See Vladimir Lossky, Theologie See Aristotle Papanikolaou, Being with God: Trinity, Apophaticism, and Divinedogmatique, Paris: Aubier, 1944; compare also to the re-edited version including additions from his lectures in 1957-58; Theologie dogmatique, eds. Olivier Clement Human Communion, Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2006, 24. et Michel Stavrou, Paris: Cerf, 2012. zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA Lossky, The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church, 239. 136 1.37 IVANA NOBLE, PRAGUE zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA 5. Conclusion zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA The three Orthodox thinkers whose visions of ecumenism I have explored in this paper represent a remarkable heritage, which has been slightly overshadowed by the forms of Orthodox ecumenical theology and engagement that has been more strictly tied up with the World Council of Churches. Of course, none of the positions discussed here was perfectly coherent, which is also good, because this does not make them into instructions that could be mechanically followed. Rather they testified a deep personal search, messy, creative, open-ended. Where they deviated from the experiential realities, they became less useful. THREE ORTHODOX VISIONS OF ECUMENISM: BERDYAEV, BULGAKOV, LOSSKY three, Bulgakov's abstract vision, which included the superiority of the Orthodox Church as an institution, had the strongest following. However, as was also pointed out, the problem of ascribing the Orthodox Church the role of a supreme judge of what is and what is not Orthodox, was at least partly deconstructed by Bulgakov's pastoral practice. And, perhaps, this strand of his heritage is still waiting to be more fully appreciated. There, maybe like Lossky, Bulgakov sensed that he did not need to be accepted in a western church, whether Roman Catholic or Protestant, because he felt that he was already part of one Christian stream of life, united in its roots, vivified by one Spirit. Living deeply from this stream meant also discovering its inherent unity. To conclude, I want to say that each of the thinkers bring insights Berdyaev rightly criticized Solovyov for not having been at home from which the contemporary search for common ground and a comwith lived Catholicism when he made the step towards becoming part mon journey can learn. These insights include Berdyaev's notion of of the Roman Catholic Church as well as remaining in the Orthodox the Christian world but also his emphasis that the aim of ecumenism one. We can further point out that for him the Western Church equated is in the process, and that i f unity is not the final and explicit aim, it with Roman Catholicism. This comes from the lack of experiential could, perhaps, be more easily reached. Further examples are Bulknowledge of the varied and fragmented face of the Western Christiangakov's desire for partial communion, and his proposals as to how this ity. Berdyaev himself at times adhered to the comparison of Orthodoxy might be possible, or Lossky's spiritual and practical ecumenism based when it works to other Christian confessions when they do not work, as in sharing the treasures of tradition and inhabiting the shared places when he says that the Orthodox Church preserved more freedom than with the same heavenly presence of the saints who lived there before us. Roman Catholicism, and less separation between grace and freedom They all form an admirable heritage to be creatively developed, includthan Protestantism. Similar faults can also be found in Lossky, as ing the anarchic solution of Solovyov, to whom they formed a kind of he seems to exaggerate the validity of his own theological discoveries. response. A l l are real to the degree they moved beyond the realm of And we can rightly question whether, for example, thezyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA Filioque was abstraction and engaged with real others. the cause of eliminating the role of the Spirit in Western theology or 108 whether an understated sense of the mystery of God is connected to lacking the essence/energy distinction. 109 But the abstract view is most visible in Bulgakov's account in The Orthodox Church. Although here Bulgakov, like Berdyaev, spoke about the Christian world, the role of the Orthodox Church as an institution in that Christian world was different. Bulgakov lacked a middle term that would enable him to talk about the Eastern Church analogically to the Western church, with an eschatological distance And yet of the to partaking fully in the universal Orthodoxy. 110 See Berdyaev,zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA Freedom and Spirit, 141-146. See Lossky, In the Image and Likeness of God, 71-96. ""Bulgakov, The Orthodox Church, 9. 1 0 8 1 0 9 138 Summary: Facing the current division among Orthodox Theologians concerning relationship to the ecumenical movement, this article sets to explore various visions of Christian unity, especially those that did not flow into the institutional face of ecumenism represented mainly by the World Council of Churches. Starting with Vladimir Solovyov's notion of pan-unity which led him to embracing Roman Catholicism while remaining Orthodox, three approaches to unity are examined: Nikolai Berdyaev's perception of Orthodoxy as necessarily belonging to a broader Christian world, Fr Sergius Bulgakov sophianic and pastoral approaches to others, Vladimir Lossky's insights into the inherent unity of the mystical tradition and communion of saints. In the conclu- WANA NOBLE, PRAGUE zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA sion it is spelled out in which ways each of the thinkers developed and challenged Solovyov's approach, but also how their different visions of ecumenism, provided and still can provide inspiration tor searching for a Christian unity complementing the official institutional negotiations. Keywords: Orthodox Theology - Ecumenism - Vladimir Solovyov Nikolai Bcrdyacv - Fr Scrgius Bulgakov - Vladimir Lossky. 1.4.1)