In his aptly titled essay, “On the Holy Grail,” Sergei Bulgakov meditates on the meaning of the verse in John where Christ’s side is pierced with a spear and “blood and water flow out.” Bulgakov’s thesis is straightforward: It is not the legendary grail of Western mythos that is interesting or vital, but rather the fact that when Jesus spills his blood upon the earth, the earth is charged and changed and maintains the seeds of its own transfiguration even when Christ dies, descends, and ascends to heaven. Clearly, the church has always maintained that Christ is present in the Eucharist and in the Spirit which he bequeaths, but Bulgakov thinks that the fact that this presence resides also in the earth itself, which is the holy grail, needs to be thought about much more seriously. He argues that this seed of transfiguration is none other than the Heavenly Sophia getting to work in nature, achieving her destiny in her Creaturely Image. This destiny reaches its origin and goal in the perfect picture of creation which exists with God eternally (and which is the essence of God). In the West it is talked about as the goodness of nature beneath the bentness of man’s will.
Here at the Land of Unlikeness, we could think of no better way to break into Bulgakov’s Sophia thesis than to join forces with the rest of you and throw a Sergei Bulgakov Blog Conference to be held in September later this year. The details are still sketchy, but we already have a few participants and many others are pondering. More participation is welcome, both in the form of a 1500 word contribution or in the form of a response to a post. Please send your contribution ideas to editor at thelandofunlikeness.com, or simply reply to this thread. Stay tuned for more details in the very near future.
The (Tentative and Still Growing) Lineup
Matthew J. Aragon Bruce (Princeton Theological Seminary) - “The Preface on Apollinaris”
Ben Boswell (Catholic University of America)
David W. Congdon (The Fire and the Rose)
Cynthia Nielsen (Per Caritatem) - “An introduction to Bulgakov”
Halden Doerge (Inhabitatio Dei) - “Eucharist, Eschatology, and World in the Ecclesiology of Bulgakov”.
Respondent: Joshua Brockway (Catholic University of America)
Aron Dunlap (The Land of Unlikeness) - Sophiology
Maximus Daniel Greeson (Paideia) - “Vladimir Lossky’s Critique of Bulgakov’s Sophiology”
Dan McClain (The Land of Unlikeness)
Brendan Sammon (The Well at the World’s End)
Scott Sharman (University of Toronto-St. Michael’s College) - “Hypostatic Motherhood and the Mother of God”
Gregory Voiles (Catholic University of America) - “The Divine Humanity of the Church”
May I make a request or at least a suggestion: Please solicit someone to write a piece on Bulgakov’s eucharistic theology, particularly with reference to his “The Eucharistic Dogma” in *The Holy Grail and the Eucharist*. Thanks!
Fr. Kimmel,
Thanks for the suggestion. At this point, I’m not sure who is out there that could write such a piece. Is there anyone out there reading this that could write on Bulgakov’s Eucharistic theology? Fr. Kimmel, would you be interested in writing that?
I would love to participate in this conferences, and actually I’d ;love to work on Bulgakov’s Eucharistic theology. So, if that’d be welcome, please let me know.
I will definitely participate, but I have nothing to contribute at this time
I’m a PhD Candidate from the University of Toronto, focusing on Bulgakov and Russian theology. I am very interested in being a part of this. I have recently completed a research project on Bulgakov’s Mariological treatise, The Burning Bush (as yet unpblished in English). The Mother of God Bulgakov’s favorite example of ‘realized sophiology,’ and as such is very important to his understanding his entire project. I would very love to contribute something about his Marian thought if this would fit the agenda.
I would like to contribute? May I?
Hi all,
I would like to contribute as well. May I? I would like to juxtapose Moltmann and Bulgakov and explore the continuities and discontinuities in their view of the Spirit’s role in the Parousia.
We need more Orthodox to represent!
I would like to contribute; can you put be down on the list?
As a proposed theme: Bulgakov and Apollinaris.
I just noticed (and don’t know how I overlooked it) someone else is doing one on Apollinaris. I could do the response?
Henry, thanks for the interest. I’ve emailed you
-dwm