Eucharist, Eschatology, and World in the Ecclesiology of Sergei Bulgakov by Halden Doerge
Sergei Bulgakov is unique among Orthodox theologians, Russian and otherwise for all manner of reasons, not the least of which involves his distinctive ecclesiology. Bulgakov’s The Bride of the Lamb provides perhaps the most innovative work in Orthodox ecclesiology in the twentieth century. In what follows, I will attempt to make a provisional exploration into the fabric of Bulgakov’s ecclesiology looking particularly at a constellation of coordinates that are operative in the shape of his thought. I hope to explore the way in which Bulgakov’s ecclesiological thought is a dynamic theological articulation, which circulates between the nodal points of the Eucharist, eschatology, and the world. Bulgakov’s ecclesiology is, through and through informed by a dynamic conceptual interplay between these three major foci. My aim in this essay is limited simply to the observance of some of these dynamics. I hope that in so doing I will illuminate some of the key contributions of Bulgakov to the ecumenical task of exploring the nature of the church and its place in the shape of redemption.
It should be noted at the outset that I am no expert on Bulgakov and those more knowledgeable about his thought than I will certainly be in a good position to correct any imbalances and misapprehensions in what follows. In the interest of space and focus, I am here taking my cues from two of Bulgakov’s works alone, his shorter dogmatic treatises, The Holy Grail and the Eucharist and his massive treatment of ecclesiology, The Bride of the Lamb. In both of these works Bulgakov binds together an integrated view of the redemption, originating in the Christic self-oblation of the Lamb.
The first thing to be noted in approaching this endeavor is found in Bulgakov’s treatment of “The Holy Grail.” Herein, Bulgakov engages in a form of inquiry that is rightly described by the translator as “mystical lyricism” (The Holy Grail and the Eucharist, p. 9). Here Bulgakov attempts a “dogmatic exegesis” of John 19:34 which recounts Christ’s side being pierced by the spear of Longinus and the blood and water flowing forth from the wound. Bulgakov recounts the standard legends of the Holy Grail, which culminate in the Arthurian poems of the Middle Ages, but then goes on to theologically reimagine the idea of the Holy Grail from a radically different point of view. According to Bulgakov, the Holy Grail is not a chalice, which caught the blood and water from Christ’s side, but rather is the world itself into which Christ’s shed blood and water flowed.
The blood and water that flowed from Christ’s side on the cross of course represent baptismal water and Eucharistic blood in Bulgakov’s view. However, he makes a radical point of distinction here. There is a crucial difference between Christ’s poured-out blood and water and the elements of the Eucharist and the waters of baptism shared in in the church. The differentiation is not a substantial one, but a differentiation of mode. For Bulgakov, “the blood and water that came out of His side were not Eucharistic in intent” (The Holy Grail and the Eucharist, p. 33). What is crucial for Bulgakov is that the blood and water which poured from the wound of Christ, though identical to the Baptismal and Eucharistic elements substantially, is different in that it is not offered to the faithful for communion, but rather is poured out into the substance of the world as such (see The Holy Grail and the Eucharist, pp. 34ff). The blood and water that are poured out into the Holy Grail, the world, are not given “for the communion of the faithful but for the sanctification and transfiguration of the world” (The Holy Grail and the Eucharist, p. 34).
Here is Bulgakov’s key point, the Eucharistic and Baptismal elements, Christ’s blood and water are poured out on the cross and remain in the world. Bulgakov insists that this outpouring of Christ’s wound on the cross indelibly alters the fabric of the world, binding it forever to Christ, sanctifying it and preparing it for its final transfiguration at the parousia. For Bulgakov the very metabolism of the world, its cosmological fabric is transmuted by the flowing forth of Christ’s water and blood into it. There is a real sense for Bulgakov that Christ’s own human substance remains diffused into the world through his self-oblation. The world, in Christ’s outpouring is “Christified”, permanently bound to Christ, united with him and impelled on by this union towards its eschatological transfiguration by the Spirit. Indeed, for Bulgakov it is the fact of Christ’s blood and water pouring into the heart of the world that even makes it possible for the earth to sustain, to bear the Pentecostal coming of the Spirit whose eschatological epiphany is recounted in radically apocalyptic terms. The biblical images of the sun turning to darkness and the moon to blood in the day of the Lord (cf. Joel 2:28-32; Acts 2:17-31) are the manifestation of this pneumatological intensity, which the world can only endure on the basis of its Christic reconstitution through being transfigured into the Holy Grail. (see TThe Bride of the Lamb, pp. 419-421)
In short, for Bulgakov, Christ’s passion and resurrection radically transfigures the reality of the world in a distinctively eschatological and Eucharistic manner. The world is, in a sense Eucharisticized and Baptized by the blood and water of Christ’s body in a manner that inclines it to, and sets it on the path toward its eschatological destiny. Christ imparts his divine humanity to the world itself, allowing his blood and water to remain in the earth. In so doing he binds himself to the world, making it a place upon which his presence can rest in its epiphanic, eschatological fullness. “This blood and water mad the world a place of the presence of Christ’s power, prepared the world for its future transfiguration, for the meeting with Christ come in glory” (The Holy Grail and the Eucharist, p. 44). Thus, for Bulgakov, “the reception and the sending down of the Holy Spirit into the world depend upon the Incarnation, upon the profound, radical transformation of the world’s natural being”. Only thereby does “the world become capable of bearing the Pentecost, of receiving the fire of the Holy Spirit without being consumed by it.” (The Bride of the Lamb, p. 419).
What Bulgakov here presents is a vision of redemption that is at once apocalyptic and Eucharistic (see The Holy Grail and the Eucharist, p. 45). In Christ’s passion the world is constituted anew as the place of his presence, on which his Spirit rests, impelling the world towards it eschatological future, the transfiguration of creaturely reality in the union of the earthly and heavenly Jerusalem (see The Bride of the Lamb, p. 522-524). The whole shape of the world, constituted by Christ’s blood and water is Eucharistic. It is this construction of the world in and through Christ’s blood and water that make the coming transfiguration of the world into a cosmic redemption rather than a cosmic holocaust. Christ’s suffusion of the world with his very humanity renders the world a place capable of bearing the weight of the divine glory even as it transfigures the world in a purgative cleansing fire. The world is destined to “undergo a catastrophic trancensus: on the one hand, it will perish in a cosmic fire; on the other hand, it will be transformed inwardly.” (The Bride of the Lamb, p. 417) Thus, the Christic outpouring of Christ’s humanity into the fabric of the world is what renders possible the Pneumatic mission of the Spirit to renew and transfigure. “It is precisely the Holy Spirit who accomplishes the transfiguration of the universe: the energy of the Holy Spirit destroys the sinful, imperfect old world and creates a new world, with the renewal of all creation. This is the power of the Fire that burns, melts, transmutes, illuminates, and transfigures.” (The Bride of the Lamb, p. 421)
For Bulgakov this dynamic vision of the redemption of the world, which is at once Trinitarian, Eucharistic, and apocalyptic is grounded in the ecclesial reality which exists in the world, seen preeminently through the sacramental life. It is the church that is the center of God’s eschatological outpouring of purgative, transfiguring grace, which proclaims and anticipates the eschatological destiny of the redemption, the marriage supper of the Lamb. Bulgakov’s ecclesiological vision is thoroughgoingly cosmic in scope, seeing in the Eucharistic life of the church the future of the world, which was pre-accomplished in Christ’s kenotic outpouring of his humanity into the world, constituting it as the Holy Grail, the chalice of God’s grace, transfigured by the fire of the Spirit and offered up to the Father as a divine sacrifice of praise.
These observations, of course, do not sink very deep into the riches of Bulgakov’s ecclesiology, most notably they fail to explore the connection between Bulgakov’s configuration of eschatology, Eucharist, and world and his Sophiology, which begs exploration and analysis. That is a task I leave to others and to ensuing conversation.
“There is a real sense for Bulgakov that Christ’s own human substance remains diffused into the world through his self-oblation.”
“Christ’s suffusion of the world with his very humanity renders the world a place capable of bearing the weight of the divine glory even as it transfigures the world in a purgative cleansing fire.”
Halden, these are beautiful ideas. You said that Bulgakov engages in mystical lyricism, but is there any sense in his work, or in your interpretation of his work, of a conceptual framework that allows us to get at how exactly this union occurs? Obviously, union with Christ is widespead in the NT, but for Paul it doesn’t seem to be solely a mystical union. To speak of a cosmological transmutation is to speak of an actual, physical (even though also more than physical) change in the cosmos, so although “mystical” does not necessarily negate actuality, it does not get at what the change really looks like in space-time. Not only that, but ecclesiologically, mystical union, to me, is a term that leaves me wondering what this actually means in history.
One of the many things I appreciate about the major Sophiologists (Solovyov, Florensky and Bulgakov) is that they help bring back out into theological discussions the cosmic significance of Christ’s work — they are, in a way, the true successors of the kind of Christology engaged by St Maximus the Confessor. They help relate, as your presentation shows, how Christ’s work is not just for the sake of humanity (even if centered in humanity), but for the whole of creation.
Obviously, there are major differences between the Sophiologists and Maximus because the Sophiological concern is to bring out this cosmic tradition into modern, individualistic times, and they have to deal with the progress in philosophy and theology that the patristic tradition could not have predicted (Scholasticism, Descartes, Kant, Hegel, and Marx). Adaption to modern circumstances in relation to the wisdom of the ages is always the way one engages true theological progress, and the Sophiologists here have provided one way which progress can be had (if people will follow on from their lead).
It is with Bulgakov’s understanding and reinterpretation of the Holy Grail where I find there is a way for this tradition to also engage, not only ecclesiastical questions (and with it, ecumenism, which Bulgakov was keenly interested in), but also more speculative questions. One which is important to me, and one which I have brought out before in discussions with friends, is how it could help us understand our role in the universe if and when alien life is ever found. For a vision of the earth-as-Holy-Grail which means the earth, and all those who live on it, serve the universe in a way that pious myth has given to the Grail itself.
Darren, thanks for the comment. As far as Bulgakov offering a “conceptual system” for how these thoughts about the Holy Grail, the world, etc. relate, I think that is found in his Sophiology, particularly his discussion of the relationship between the divine and the creaturely Sophia. I don’t particularly feel qualified to speak to this issue myself, but given that there are sizeable number of posts coming that deal with Bulgakov’s Sophiology, perhaps those will shed more light on this important question.
Hello. I don’t know if it’s too late to post a reply here or if the conversation has moved on. However, I am doing some work on Bulgakov’s ecclesiology under Prof Andrew Louth at Durham, UK, and wanted to welcome the existence of this discussion and conference (which I have only just discovered!).
I suspect the emphasis in the above article on the outpouring of Christ’s bodily fluids into the dust and thereby preparing Creation to receive the Spirit, especially in its categorical distinction from sacrament, is somewhat polemical.
It is right to say that Bulgakov is thoroughly cosmological in his understanding of Christ’s work. Indeed the whole point of his sophiology is to explain the possibility of any relation between an ‘infinite’ and ‘eternal’ God with a ‘finite’ and ‘temporal’ cosmos without recourse to pantheism. It is also right to say “Christ’s suffusion of the world with his very humanity renders the world a place capable of bearing the weight of the divine glory even as it transfigures the world in a purgative cleansing fire” and “the Christic outpouring of Christ’s humanity into the fabric of the world is what renders possible the Pneumatic mission of the Spirit to renew and transfigure.” But only if it is qualified in a way that appears to be mainly absent from the article until the penultimate paragraph.
The quotation from the Bride of the Lamb on p419 continues a few lines later with Bulgakov saying “the world receives the Spirit’s sanctifying power through the Church and, through her sacraments, is sanctified in man.” The point is that humanity IS the dust of the earth into which the blood and water are poured – we are the location of the hypostasis of creaturely sophia, that is, the personhood of all created matter. That is why creation in Gen 2 is a dual act of creation (Bride p83ff) – one in which matter and indivuality is created (out of creaturely sophia), the other being the divine breath bestowing personhood and freedom. The locus of God’s interaction with the cosmos must be, and can only be, personal.
This of course places humanity in an incredible position with relation to the rest of the cosmos, in terms of responsibility and gift: to be God’s gift to creation and simultaneously offer creation’s praise back to God. In the current climate of impending global environmental disaster Bulgakov’s ecclesiology has much to say about our relationship with creation.
However, I, too, wonder what the implications and extent of this thesis are if alien life is ever to be found.
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