Father Sergii Bulgakov on the Mother of God

Abstract Bulgakov’s theology was rooted in his life experience; this essay begins by tracing significant features of the recovery of his faith as recounted in his Autobiographical Sketches, bringing out two points especially: his sense, while still a Marxist, that he could not be reconciled to nature without God, to be expressed in his intuition of God’s Wisdom, Sophia. His first theological treatise, written in the West, The Burning Bush, was explicitly directed against Catholic Mariology and the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception. He rejects this by directly criticizing the doctrine, characteristic of the Catholic theology he encountered, of natura pura, nature on its own, untouched by God—for Bulgakov self-contradictory. His own development of Marian theology is drawn from liturgical texts, rather than theological argument; Mary’s sinlessness comes from her faithfulness to divine grace and calling. She is closely associated with Sophia and with the Holy Spirit.