Вестник Екатеринбургской духовной семинарии (Jul 2022)
Dogmatic Theology of Metropolitan Macarius (Bulgakov) and Theology of Other Confessions: Connection and Opposition
Abstract
The article focuses on the study of the dogmatic works of Metropolitan Macarius (Bulgakov) in relation to his criticism and reception of theology of other confessions. The dogmatic works of Metropolitan Macarius have a special place in the discussions about Western influence on Russian theology. On the one hand, he was one of the greatest representatives of the theological academic tradition and the author of classical dogmatic works which became didactic manuals for following generations of Russian theologians. On the other hand, his works got controversial assessments of contemporaries and descendants because of the ideas probably borrowed from the Western theology. All these opinions, however, remain statements without a concrete study of the texts of Metropolitan Macarius (Bulgakov), which this article is intended to correct. The article is thus aimed at identifying the Western Christian tradition in the theological heritage of Metropolitan Macarius. For this purpose, all the direct references of Metropolitan Macarius to the contemporary works of Western systematic theologians are described and analyzed. In the first part of this article the author deals with direct references of Metropolitan Macarius to Catholic dogmatic works, in the second — to Protestant dogmatic works, and finally the third part is devoted to a review of Macarius’ references to non-dogmatic works of Catholic and Protestant authors. The conclusions highlight the tendencies and features of the use of authors of other confessions by Metropolitan Macarius and emphasize the vastness of the material which Metropolitan Macarius was familiar with. At the same time, the nature of the references indicates that Metropolitan Macarius was thoroughly familiar with these authors, and not just heard about them. The range of the authors used by Macarius is wide in the sense of representing the palette of trends in Catholic and Protestant theology of the 18th–19th centuries and is not limited to only neo-scholastic authors, as has been repeatedly mentioned in the research literature.
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