Вестник Свято-Филаретовского института (Nov 2023)
Practical Ecclesiology: Archpriest Sergius Bulgakov’s Thought on the Church and its refraction in the activities of the social-missionary association “Pravoslavnoe Delo”
Abstract
The article examines the activities of the social-missionary association “Pravoslavnoe Delo”, created in 1935 in émigré Paris by mother Maria Skobtsova, the spiritual daughter of Archpriest Sergius Bulgakov, who comprehensively supported the work of the organization. The article focuses on a dual relationship: on the continuity and overlap between the religious thought of mother Maria and the theology of Fr. Sergius Bulgakov, and on how the ecclesiological views of both thinkers became the foundation for the practical work of the “Pravoslavnoe Delo”. The very first experiments of the philosophical thought of Elizaveta Skobtsova are connected with her definition of the “main channel’ of the Russian thought. She regards the Bulgakov’s sophiology as the creative result of this channel the main intuition of which is “God-participation of the world”. After her monastic vows, mother Maria reflects on the proper response of the Church to the social challenges of the 20 th century, relying in her reflections on Fr. Sergius’s thought about socialism as a challenge of the time, to which the Church must give the answer. Both thinkers reflect on the ecclesiological basics for such an answer: Bulgakov builds an ecclesiology of “living sobornost’” that opposes the atomized fragmentation of the collective. Developing the ideas of Fr. Sergius, mother Maria evolves the ecclesiology of the “Liturgy outside the church walls”, pouring out of the center as communion with the Eucharistic sacrifice into the world, embracing everyone. Both thinkers reflect in this domain on the role of creativity, on the rootedness of ecclesiology in the Eucharist, on the role of suffering and compassion. The idea of the Church as a “living polyunity” becomes the foundation of the activity of the “Pravoslavnoe Delo”, with its approach to every person in need as a true personality, whose help should be provided holistically, at the level of body, soul and spirit. An important point is also the fraternal unity of those who provide such assistance: they must be a “small Church” that unites the rest to the creative common life in Christ.
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