399 Sergius Bulgakov, the Burning Bush. on the Orthodox Veneration

Book Reviews / Ecclesiology 8 (2012) 389–420 399 Sergius Bulgakov, The Burning Bush. On the Orthodox Veneration of the Mother of God, translated by Thomas Allan Smith (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2009). xxiv + 191 pp.£15.99. ISBN 978-0-8028-4574-0 (pbk). The declaration of the Council of Ephesus of 431 that Mary could properly be called Theotokos was the dogmatic basis for her veneration in the churches of both East and West. In Eastern Orthodoxy and Western Cathol- icism Mary came to figure largely in liturgical commemoration, popular devotion and iconography. But the Orthodox Church never added further dogmatic definitions of Mary’s status, being content to express its devotion to the Mother of God in liturgical texts and iconography. By contrast the Roman Catholic Church, in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, gave dogmatic expression to beliefs that had become widely held in the West in preceding centuries. The Immaculate Conception of the Mother of God was proclaimed in 1854, her Assumption in 1950. Eastern Orthodoxy rejected both of those dogmas. Sergius Bulgakov began writing The Burning Bush, first published in 1927, as a refutation of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception. In the course of its composition, he broadened its scope to make it an exposition of the Orthodox veneration of Mary. It was a matter of intimate personal concern to Bulgakov, for he claimed three personal experiences of the Mother of God, the first being an encounter in 1898 with a Roman Catholic image, the Sistine Madonna in Dresden. In his book, whose title refers to a Russian icon of the Theotokos with its own liturgical feast day, Bulgakov draws on tradition as well as scripture to expound his theme. For him as an Orthodox, the Church’s tradition, expressed in liturgical hymnography and iconography, is a source of Christian doctrine no less inspired than scripture, the earliest witness to the tradition. So the first chapter, on the absence of personal sin in the Mother of God, ends with a collection of liturgical texts testifying to Mary’s purity and holiness from her birth. Mary’s freedom from personal sin does not, in Bulgakov’s view, mean that she is freed from original sin. Bulgakov approves of the intention of the dogma of 1854 but disapproves of its mode of expression, which he sees rooted in a Western understanding of the human condition and of divine grace that is not shared by the Christian East. The Roman Catholic dogma, he believes, separates Mary from the rest of the human race, not least from her ancestors under the old covenant. It is true that in her case the power of original sin is more notional than real, and manifests itself only in her mor- tality, not in any personal sinfulness. She was freed from original sin, not by © Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2012 DOI 10.1163/17455316-00803012 400 Book Reviews / Ecclesiology 8 (2012) 389–420 her ‘immaculate conception’ but the ‘baptism’ that she received, together with the apostles, when the Spirit was given at Pentecost. Yet Mary had already been restored to original righteousness, and so was able to conceive without sexual intercourse, in a inexplicable spiritual manner which Bulgakov believes was God’s original intention for women before the Fall. The longest chapter in the book is devoted, not to polemics, but to the glorification of the Mother of God as it finds expression in her liturgical feasts and those of her Son. These feasts, from her Nativity to her Dormition, mark the stages in her growth in holiness, the steps on her ascent from earth to heaven. Her Nativity, indicating her special sanctity, is the begin- ning of her holy life. At her Entry into the Temple she becomes the Temple of the temple. The Annunciation is the completion of her Divine Mother- hood, the moment when the Holy Spirit comes to dwell in her, as in a temple, for the purpose of the incarnation. From this moment the Virgin Mary becomes the Mother of God, and the Spirit’s indwelling signifies the divini- sation of human nature in her person. Her Divine Motherhood develops as her Son, the pre-eternal God, is born and grows towards his perfect stature. With him she endures suffering; and it is only after Pentecost and her Dormition that she becomes the Mother of God and Queen of heaven and earth beyond the limits of time for all eternity. Bulgakov knew of Roman Catholic preparations for the dogma of the Assumption; and while he had no objection to its content, he saw no need for it and affirmed the Eastern Orthodox tradition that Mary died, was buried, and on the third day was raised to glory, representing the resurrection and glory of the world. So Mary became the embodiment of Divine Wisdom, and the fullest personal expression of the Holy Spirit. She shares in the life of God, not by nature like her Son, but by grace. In her, human nature is divinised and reaches its destined goal. She is humankind’s intercessor in heaven, to whom the Orthodox Church prays, ‘Most Holy Mother of God, save us.’ Running through all Bulgakov’s theological thought is the concept of Sophia, that feminine figure of Wisdom in the Old Testament which seems sometimes divine, sometimes created. The New Testament associ- ates Wisdom with Jesus Christ, and that association continued in the Greek theological tradition. In medieval Russia, however, Wisdom came to be associated with the Mother of God, an association reflected in both hymnography and iconography. For Bulgakov, ‘Divine Sophia is the pre-eternal self-revelation of the Most Holy Trinity … the Glory of God … the Divine All …’ He sees the Mother of God as the personal expression of Sophia in creation, and in her the Holy Spirit unites both earthly and heavenly .

Load more