The Land of Unlikeness

by Joshua Brockway
Bethany Theological Seminary
The Catholic University of America

With Halden Doerge I must claim my limited knowledge of of Sergi Bulgakov. In fact, this is my first venture into his corpus. This said, I must claim my perspective as liturgical and ecclesiological. By this I mean that I approach Doerge’s article as a student of liturgy, ultimately asking how liturgy shapes an ecclesisological vision. Doerge interestingly leaves this in the hands of others as he notes at the close of his article when he confess he does “not sink very deep into the riches of Bulgakov’s ecclesiology,” The effect of this omission is to leave open the place and function of the Church in this “Christification” of the world. Even though Doerge notes that Bulgakov’s “ecclesiological vision is thoroughly cosmic in scope,” he does not draw the link between the liturgical prayer, sacrifice, and praise and the kenotic “self-oblation” of Christ.

Theologies of the Eucharist have often asked how the prayers of the Church, including the oblation inherent in the Eucharistic liturgy, relate to the sacrifice of Christ. In the West at least this leads to conversations about time and space, namely that the Church’s repetition of the sacrificial meal continues the incarnation in various times and places. Bulgakov’s move to see the World, and not the Church itself, as the Grail of the Christ’s blood seemingly removes this quandary. Yet, it begs the question what what the Church is doing in the world, and what it does in its times of worship. Is the Eucharist then a commemorative prayer whereby the Church recalls the transformation of the world which has already been done, or is there something transpiring in the liturgy?

This response is not to diminish Doerge’s helpful, and intriguing, synthesis of Bulgakov’s vision of cosmic transfiguration. I simply wish to draw out the ecclesiological implications of such a vision. If I might venture a guess as to the solution to my question, I would begin with the epicletic emphasis in Orthodox liturgies and Bulgakov’s pneumatology and sophiology. Yet, as I said in my opening sentence, I must plead my ignorance of Bulgakov and defer to the following conversations. Thank you Dan for hosting such a fruitful conversation and Halden for a provocative look at Bulgakov.