© 2009 Association of Christian Economists

The Marxist movement that emerged in Russia in the late nineteenth

century was a reaction to the extremes of the rapid rise of capitalism

and industrialization, and aimed at nothing short of grabbing the reins

of power in order to end the exploitation of “the toiling masses” and

put political power in the hands of the workers. The end result of the

Bolshevik Revolution, however, was a system of state capitalism, in which

the state owned the means of production, exploited the workers, and—due

to its inefficient planning system—left them with a low standard of living

in comparison with their counterparts in the West.

The liberalization of the command economy was barely underway

when the Soviet Union imploded, but its legacy confounds the process of

market development to this day. Despite the significant expansion of the

Russian economy during the post-Yeltsin period, much of the post-Soviet

economy is still in great need of market adjustment, with the increase in

the country’s GDP being brought on by the price of oil in the international

market more than anything else. In many ways, the transformation of the

Soviet economy from plan to market is probably a more formidable task

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than developing markets from scratch, as existing enterprises are privatized

and converted in market-irrational conditions and locations and with outdated

and often useless manufacturing equipment. Moreover, those with an

entrepreneurial spirit were routinely eliminated from Soviet society, while

everyone else was constantly bombarded with an ideology that equated

profit with theft. In fact, when initially launched, the introduction of market

incentives seemed to most Russians to resemble the black market, and it

is therefore no surprise that the whole enterprise of market reform seemed

just as corrupt.

accoutrements of Western materialism and capitalism, from Benetton

to Louis Vuitton, from Bentleys to solid gold cell phones. A look down

the side streets, however, will exhibit the excesses of capitalism that the

Marxists critiqued over a century ago—from old women selling socks

to make ends meet, to beggars, the homeless, and pick-pockets. Despite

its century-long detour, Russia today finds itself wrestling with the same

questions it faced in the Russian Empire’s final days: how can the blessings

of economic development and modernization be attained while at the same

time avoiding the sins of materialism and excess?

The demise of Communism brought with it a moral and political

vacuum, and an extreme form of market capitalism has come to fill that

void. As noted Russian economist Vladimir Mau very poignantly phrased

fishing in troubled waters can be a profitable pursuit” (Korop, 2004). It

also leads to immoral activity, however, both on the part of business and

consumers. As an initial attempt to address this situation, in 2000 the

In a text riddled with scriptural references, the Church sought to spell out

the nature of work, idleness, pay, and the enticement of ever and ever

greater wealth that becomes possible with modern forms of technology.

to guide individuals who now had to sell their labor in a market economy,

but it was quite inefficient in guiding the country’s new business class

and entrepreneurs. A few years later, the Church turned to Mau himself,

and organized a committee to instruct the faithful on proper behavior in

All-World Russian People’s Council in February 2004. This document was

drafted to resemble the Ten Commandments, and to make the Church’s

believers, more comprehensive, and simply easier to grasp (and easy to

refer to—shortly afterwards a convenient credit-card sized version was

distributed). Convened at the request of Fr. Vsevolod Chaplin of the Office

of External Church Relations of the Moscow Patriarchate of the Russian

Orthodox Church, and chaired by Vladimir Mau, this committee sought to

simplify the church’s teachings while also being precise. In sharp contrast

specific guidelines regarding labor, pay, wealth, contracts, safety, deceit,

and private property.

When seeking to guide the Church’s faithful in navigating the new

free-market economy, the Church is able to draw upon a rich Orthodox

theological tradition that includes John Chrysostom, Nil Sorskii, and

Sergius of Radonezh. Yet another Russian Orthodox theologian who

has much to say about the excesses of capitalism is Sergei Bulgakov.

Writing during the excesses of the Russian economy on the eve of the

Bolshevik Revolution, Bulgakov critiqued both socialism and capitalism

in presenting his own philosophy of economy. Many Russian clergy and

religious thinkers today are again looking back at Bulgakov for guidance

as they themselves see no hope in socialism and are disappointed with

capitalism. Fr. Maksim Kozlov of the University Church of the Sacred

Virgin Tat’iana at Moscow State University is one such figure.1 Referring

to Bulgakov, Fr. Maksim maintains that human labor which fulfills either

selfish individual goals or serves only the interests of the state, will not

lead to the kind of society that Russia most desperately needs. He stresses

the importance of personal discipline, control over one’s selfish impulses,

and a vision of the self as part of a larger whole. He believes these are

elements found in the teachings of the Orthodox Church in general and

Bulgakov in particular, and that Russia needs to recover these teachings in

order to build a new social order.

Other contemporary Orthodox thinkers share similar views. Marcus

Plested, the author of a new work on the Macarian legacy and protégé of

society” work is seen as “something to be endured (or ‘juggled’) in order

to purchase the necessaries and luxuries of life, in other words, to enable

one to consume,” adding that “it is a sad reflection on our conception of

human life that leisure also has become identified with consumption and

no longer a space for self-development, for contemplation, for spiritual

growth” (Plested, 2004, p. 3). While Plested’s ideas are very much in

line with those of Macarius, who argued that the pursuit of wealth is a

distraction from more important spiritual issues, in his critique one can

also discern a taste of Bulgakov, insofar as Plested seems to be saying that

labor should be seen as a gift.

Might Eastern Orthodoxy offer an alternative philosophy of economics

to the extremes of Bolshevik socialism and secular capitalism? It is our

contention that Sergei Bulgakov’s Christian philosophy of economy

presents a Christian understanding of economics that provides a muchneeded

corrective to the materialistic ideology that undergirds modern

economic thought. In the pages that follow, we examine his critiques both

of socialism and capitalism and then present his philosophy of economy

as an alternative Christian understanding that can provide a check on the

extreme market capitalism of contemporary society.

Born in 1871 in Livny to a poor priestly family, Sergei Bulgakov

experienced firsthand the plight of the rural Russian peasant. Following

in the family tradition, Sergei attended seminary at the age of fourteen

in Orel. Three years later, after losing faith at the seminary, he entered

a secular gymnasium to complete his studies. Evtuhov (1997, p. 25)

remarks that this was the beginning of his transition to becoming an

“intelligent.” This transition from the seminary to atheism was not

uncommon in late nineteenth century Russia. Like the great Russian

philosophers Chernyshevsky and Dobroliubov, who left seminary after

reading Feuerbach, Bulgakov was following an all too familiar pattern

in the life of Russian intellectuals.2 In 1890 following in his predecessor

Alexander Herzen’s footsteps, Bulgakov enrolled at Moscow University

to take a degree in political economy and law. He chose these fields

rather than literature and philosophy because he believed that these could

“more likely contribute to his country’s salvation” (Evtuhov, 1997, p. 28).

After graduation in 1894, he began graduate studies under the tutelage of

Aleksandr Chuprov, who also had a “clerical background.”

Bulgakov’s studies at Moscow University coincided with the Second

International—Marxism’s Golden Age. He became an avid Marxist,

having much in common with the thought of European Marxists in general,

although Lenin described him as a “legal Marxist” (Evtuhov, 1997, p. 29).3

From 1896 to 1898 Bulgakov published several unremarkable articles,

demonstrating his Marxist position (collected in Bulgakov, 1904). In 1898

he left for Western Europe to do research for his dissertation on Marxism

and agriculture. In Bulgakov (1900)—his dissertation—he argued against

Marx, holding that agriculture was not following the social development

called for in Marxist doctrine toward greater centralization, but rather was

in a process of decentralization. Needless to say, Bulgakov’s analysis was

perceived to be incorrect in that it did not fall in line with preconceived

communist ideology, and his dissertation was not accepted. However,

through his research, Bulgakov questioned the central tenets of Marxism,

and he began his drift away from the Marxist camps (Evtuhov, 1997, p.

36).

Rejecting Marxism, he turned to Kantian idealism and political

liberalism as providing the bases for modern Russian society. However,

his turn to liberalism saw a development of a gradual return to the Church,

which he had dismissed in his youth. Bulgakov was not alone in this turn

toward religion. Other members of the intelligentsia, Berdiaev, Florensky,

and Frank to name but a few notables, followed this same path (Evtuhov,

1997, p. 10).

This turn to idealism by Bulgakov witnessed also a rejection of

nineteenth-century positivism. During the early 1900s, Bulgakov’s work

demonstrated this rejection (Bulgakov, 1904). In this regard, Bulgakov

can be situated in the general European rejection of positivism and a return

to metaphysics at the turn of the century. Because positivism, and as we

shall see economic materialism, had failed to provide the solutions to the

ethical issues of the day, many of the intelligentsia turned to the question

of metaphysics as a possible solution. Eventually, for Bulgakov and his

cohort, this would lead many back to the Orthodox Church (Evtuhov,

1997, pp. 49–65).4

In the two essays “Ivan Karamazov as a Philosophical Type” (in

Bulgakov, 1904) and “The Economic Ideal” (Bulgakov, 1999), Bulgakov

presents his critique of positivism and the interpretation of historical

development that accompanied it. In the first work, he raises the issue

of ethics and metaphysics. In the second, he questions the philosophical

grounding of political economy. Arguing that political economy is

heteronomous rather than autonomous, he demonstrates that any political

economy has a world-view undergirding it. The two extremes are hedonism,

which asserts that all that exists is material, and asceticism, which denies

material reality. A balance is needed between these two extreme worldviews.

In addition, Bulgakov questions the third leg of positivism: the

utopian vision of progress. As Evtuhov (1997) has noted, for Bulgakov,

“positivism … as a code of social morality, provided a teleological vision of

history as progress toward a perfect earthly society, sacrificing the present

generation for those of the future” (p. 61). Bulgakov tells his students that

instead of blindly accepting and following this “linear, deterministic, and

purely external conception of history” they should examine their own

internal lives (p. 62). His rejection of positivism and determinism forms

the basis for his critique of Marxism.

In 1907 Bulgakov wrote an interesting piece denouncing Marxism

statements that Marxism is in fact a secular religion. In a fascinating

argument, Bulgakov demonstrates that the denial of the individual human

spirit is in fact a denial of religion, which is, according to Bulgakov, Marx’s

chief aim in his works.

Bulgakov argues that religion is an aspect of the human condition.

All human beings are religious. In fact religion serves as the highest value

that a person holds. Thus no person is non-religious. This is very similar

to the idea of Paul Tillich (1957) that faith is a person’s “ultimate concern”

(pp. 1–2).6 Socialism is understood as a secular faith due to the “ultimate

concern” of the Marxists to inaugurate the socialist utopia. Thus, in a sense,

Karl Marx becomes the spiritual father of socialism (Bulgakov, 1979, pp.

41–43).

The basic features of socialism, according to Bulgakov (1979), are

“the discarding of the problem of the person and of all concern for it” and

“the excessive abstraction” of the human person for humanity in general

(pp. 52–53). Marx completely ignores the human person as an individual.

Rather, Marx places human beings in social categories. Bulgakov states,

Marx remains quite aloof from the religious problem; he is not

disturbed by the fate of an individual but is totally obsessed by

not beyond the individual, is generalized by Marx in an abstract

formula. At the same time, he rejects with relative ease what is

left in a personality after the non-individuality has been deducted

from it or, with a light heart, he compares this remainder to zero

(p. 57).

Praxis becomes the solution for all problems, including metaphysical

ones. Bulgakov comments that focusing on praxis as the solution to the

metaphysical question is “very similar to an invitation to get dead drunk

and in this way to become insensitive to the pain of one’s own soul” (p.

58). Thus, Bulgakov understands that the major problem with Marx is the

denial of the human being and of the human spirit; in essence, Marxism

denies human freedom. Uniquely, Bulgakov ties this to the anti-religion

stance of Marx himself.

Throughout the work, Bulgakov insists that Marx is not a Hegelian,

but is rather a devotee to Feuerbach’s anthropotheism. Marx, as a disciple

of Feuerbach, is bent on the spreading of this new gospel. In 1844

Marx published an article entitled “Toward the Critique of the Hegelian

Philosophy of Right.” Bulgakov (1979) argues that in this article Marx

unites Feuerbach’s philosophy with the mission of the proletariat. “The

proletariat is entrusted with the mission of the historical realization of

atheism, i.e., of man’s practical liberation from religion” (p. 85). Bulgakov

understands this as the sole goal of Marxism. Only when human beings

realize that they are not individuals, but rather are products of social forces

and members of the proletariat, will they be liberated (saved) according

to Marx. Furthermore, Bulgakov believes that the only impact that Marx

had on European socialist thought was in the religious-philosophical area,

not in economics. Thus, Marx turned socialism into a “means for battling

religion” (p. 109).

Harkening back to his early work against positivism, Bulgakov’s

forthrightly that Bulgakov was not against the social sciences, and

particular sciences were the targets of his criticism. In Bulgakov (2000),

we see his critique of historical determinism and the scientism of the

social sciences. He writes, “The currently popular doctrine of social

determinism, which conceives human life as a mechanism of cause and

effect and views history as subject to immutable laws, conflicts with our

understanding of life as a ceaselessly interactive synthesis of freedom and

groups individuals into their common characteristics, it denies history and

human creativity. Furthermore, social determinism is not a conclusion

reached by the social sciences, but is rather a premise of social science

in order to characterize groups of people. However, the “uniformity and

typicality” which sociology utilizes to group human beings is in actuality

“unreal.” Sociology and the other social sciences are based on a fiction.7

Similarly, Marxism is based on this same fiction, which understands human

beings according to a “uniformity and typicality.”

economists are Marxists, even if they hate Marxism” (pp. 40–41). This is due

to the fact that “all constructions of the economic man, whether individual

or collective, are in fact based on the image of an economic machine;

hence political economy’s inevitable and total fatalism—the obverse side

of its methodological determinism” (p. 256). Thus, social determinism,

based on a fiction which denies human individuality and creative freedom,

produces a science that is unable to take into consideration the human

being, the very subject of its study.

Consequently, economic materialism, and Marxism as a representative

of it, confuses science with metaphysics. Economic materialism moves

from the metaphysics of Hegel’s dialectic to science, becoming the moral

calculus of Jeremy Bentham and utilitarianism. Economic materialism

can now explain all human activity as self-interest.8 Marxism moves the

theory from individual self-interest to class interest (Bulgakov, 2000, pp.

268–71). In addition, by promoting a social deterministic understanding

of historical progress, economic materialism suffers from “a philosophical

delusion of grandeur,” for it has raised itself “to the rank of historical

ontology.” According to Bulgakov (2000), Marx substituted political

economy as the basis of his ontology, which for Hegel was logic. Bulgakov

materialistic interpretation of history … whereas by its logical structure

it is a sociological rather than a historical doctrine” (p. 277). The problem

lies in that history and sociology by their very natures are incompatible.

Sociology deals with generalities, while the subjects of history are

particular individuals. Marxism and economic materialism fail as proper

understandings of the nature of reality. In the end economic materialism

becomes a hero cult. Ironically, it denies the individual, while giving

saintly status to the thought of an individual in a socialist cult (p. 283).

Bulgakov (1999) uses a similar critique in his criticism of liberal

capitalism. It is important to remember that Bulgakov labels all

economists as Marxists. This is due to the fact that political economy is

about economic materialism and the economic laws that derive therefrom.

It is also important to remember that Bulgakov holds political economy

to be heteronomous, not autonomous. Every economic system, therefore,

operates within a specific world-view. For economic materialism this

world-view is Epicureanism or hedonism. Bulgakov (1999) states that

Epicureanism is “characterized by an extreme simplicity and crudity; it is

normally associated with positivism or materialism, denying all principles

in life and all reality unknown to the senses” (pp. 30–31). Epicureanism

becomes associated with aestheticism in order to remove its coarseness.

However, aestheticism tied with Epicureanism dismisses the higher

metaphysical appreciation of beauty and descends into materiality—i.e.,

sensuality. Commenting on this move in liberal capitalist society, Bulgakov

(1999) writes,

But enough of this bourgeois fantasizing, with its seasoning

hedonism. In [Werner] Sombart’s picture, historical development

moves from feral humanity (as Soloviev described it) to swinish

humanity, and at the end of this sad historical path, what we meet

as its self-satisfied goal of consummation is a truly Philistine

figure ‘not ethical but aesthetic’, with the ideals of a woman of

fashion! In this civilization for hairdressers, where is there any

place for bringing to birth the agonies of reflection, wrestling

with the torments of conscience, the struggles … of love and selfdenial,

the unremitting battle with self? Where in this universal

restaurant can our poor spirit find room for its cosmic questions?

Spirit is here surrendered without any pretence at a struggle to

the claims of sensual gratification; its birthright is sold for a

mess of pottage. And to compensate for the absence of ideals, we

are offered the prospect of ‘living in the midst of beauty’. The

drowning of the spirit in sensuality, life without ideals, spiritual

This materialistic world-view of all economics denies the spiritual

dimension of human being. Bulgakov (2000) writes

Each economic age has its spirit and is in turn the product of this

spirit; each economic age has its particular type of ‘economic

man’ generated by the spirit of economy, and we can declare him

a ‘reflex’ of given economic relations only if we subscribe to that

logical fetishism of which political economy becomes a victim

when it regards economy—the development of the forces of

production, various economic organizations, and so on—through

the prism of abstract categories without regard to their historical

concreteness (pp. 217–218).

Bulgakov’s orthodox understanding of the human person goes back

to the debates over the understanding of the three persons of the Holy

Trinity in the fourth century. For the Cappadocian Fathers, Basil, Gregory

Nazianzus, and Gregory Nyssa, the nature of the person can never be

distinguished apart from the individual expression of that nature. Thus,

there is no such thing as a human nature; rather, there are only individual

human beings who share a common nature of humanness. To attempt to

understand this nature apart from the individual hypostases is foolhardy

and leads eventually into theological heresy. Because of his orthodoxy,

portrayal of human being.9 It is a mythological creature that the social

science community accepts de facto in its attempt to understand human

“nature” as if it could be understood apart from individual human beings

(Bulgakov, 1999, p. 25). Because capitalism, inasmuch as it is a product

of a materialistic world-view, understands the human being only as a

producer/consumer and not as a spiritual being capable of exercising her

freedom apart from the laws of economy, it too must be understood as a

work of the Antichrist.10

What then is the answer that Bulgakov provides instead of economic

materialism? Rosenthal (1991, pp. 65–67) argues that Bulgakov sought

a solution that on the one hand would not follow the path of Protestant

individualism that led to liberal capitalism11 but on the other would be

faithful to the ethos of Orthodox Russia, which would lead Russia into

the modern world. His solution was to utilize Orthodox Christianity as

the basis for understanding economics, rather than subscribing to the

presuppositions of economics, which, as he argued, represented a different

understanding of the human person. It must be stated forthrightly that

worldviews that supported the economic systems. Furthermore, because

political economy did not just remain in the analysis of economic activity

but served as a predictor of all human activity and sought to explain all

aspects of human life, Bulgakov saw the need to question the legitimacy

of this science. For what began as a social science came to masquerade as

a philosophy of history (Evtuhov, 1997, pp. 184–185). Bulgakov seeks to

provide a Christian basis for political economy, not simply to dismiss it.

Bulgakov’s understanding of economics is actually quite simple.

He begins his discussion of political economy by noting that life is a

continuous struggle between freedom and necessity, or organism versus

mechanism. The struggle for life is the struggle for food and material

needs. Thus, in actuality life is a constant struggle against nature—i.e.,

material necessity. Economy is this struggle against nature. Furthermore,

motivates humanity to defend life. Bulgakov writes, “The struggle against

the antagonistic forces of nature for the purpose of defending, affirming,

and broadening life, with the aim of conquering and taming these forces,

struggle against the forces of nature. Thus economy is labor; the basis for

life itself is human labor.

Human labor is necessary to triumph over the necessity of nature.

Labor in itself is a subjective-objective act that enables the joiningtogether

of human endeavor with the mechanistic character of nature

(pp. 77–78). Labor enables humanity to work with nature to conquer it

and to humanize it without obliterating it. Labor transforms nature yet

nature retains its essential attributes. In this regard, the primary example

for Bulgakov is the incarnation of Jesus Christ, the second person of the

Trinity. In the incarnation and resurrection of the Son of God, human flesh

is divinized, yet remains flesh after the resurrection (pp. 87–88). Likewise,

in the transformation of nature by human labor, it remains nature, albeit

humanized.

The war between humanity and nature, however, is a result of the Fall

of humanity. One of the results of the fall is that human beings must now

eat by the sweat of their brow (Gen. 3:19). What was to be a natural act

in creation, through the participation of human beings in offering creation

back to the Creator, now becomes a matter of life and death. Human labor,

instead of being directed back towards the Creator, is now directed back to

the human being in order for survival.

With the fall of humanity came the fall of creation. Bulgakov refers to

a separation occurs in the very order of creation. Economic activity is

itself, the Divine Sophia, and in the material world. Humanity attempts

to overcome this division in the created order by “transforming its

mechanistic character once more into an organism and its lifeless products

into the living forces that generated them, changing nature—which has

become an object—once more into a subject-object, reestablishing the lost

economy becomes a “work of art, in which each product glows with its

own idea, and the world as a whole turns into a cosmos—a chaos that has

been conquered, tamed, and illuminated from within” (Bulgakov, 2000, p.

135). According to Bulgakov, each individual economic act participates

in this transformation of nature and the recovery of the lost identity in the

created order.

While the world-soul Sophia (or ideal humanity) works toward the

recovery of the lost identity, it can only do this through individual human

beings. Bulgakov is insistent that the individual is the only locus for the

transformation of the material world, for only individuals have a will. It is

the human will that enables creativity; otherwise, the process would not

be complete. Human beings must willingly participate in the economic

process of material transformation. However, it is human participation in

take place. Because human beings are the only creatures that exist in both

realms of creation,13 they are the only means by which this transformation

can occur. However, human beings as created beings can only create

likenesses that pre-exist metaphysically in the Divine Sophia.14 Otherwise,

“if creation takes matters into its own hands, seeking a model outside of

the divine Sophia, it shapes a shadowy, satanic world alongside the given,

created one.” For human beings to attempt to create from nothing, which is

the Divine prerogative, is Satanism (Bulgakov, 2000, pp. 143–146).

It must be noted, however, that Bulgakov does not understand the role

of the individual in the process of economics and politics as is customary

in the West. Bulgakov approaches the issue of the individual and society

term has no English equivalent, it can roughly be translated as conciliarity,

but it is best understood as the idea that human beings retain their

freedom while participating in human society, and that human society is

a participatory process through which human beings actualize themselves

as unique hypostases.

understanding of human society as a social contract whereby individual

human beings surrender their freedom to the social process in order to

receive the protection of their individual human rights.15 The Russian

concept instead allows for the retention and even expansion of the

freedom of the individual in the social process, for it is in the social

process that the human being is capable of actualizing her freedom. For

the transcendental subject of political economy: the divine Sophia. Sophia

or ideal humanity is the subject of political economy, not the individual.

Each individual participates in Sophia through the use of her freedom in

economic acts of creativity. By participating in the ideal humanity, each

individual then becomes truly human, in the context of collective humanity.

Liberal capitalism, by emphasizing the rights of the individual, actually

dehumanizes the person, separating the person from true participation

in economic society. In this regard, liberal capitalism and the worldview

underlying it are anti-Christian.16

Christianity provides the model for an understanding of the economic

process. In Christianity humanity “receives his task of re-creation, of

economic activity from God” (Bulgakov, 1999, p. 149). Instead of being

subject to the necessity of material creation, Christianity offers the

opportunity for human beings to exercise their freedom to bring about the

restoration of fallen creation. “Economic activity overcomes the divisions

in nature, and its ultimate goal—outside of economy proper—is to return

the world to life in Sophia” (p. 153). Christianity provides a different

understanding of the economic act. Instead of being subject to the forces

of nature and struggling against death, Christianity stresses labor as an act

of re-creation and joy, in offering the created world back to the Creator. In

this way, humanity participates in the resurrection of Christ. As Evtuhov

(1997) comments,

Bulgakov’s sophic economy reiterates a very old theme of

Russian Orthodoxy. Just as a person attending the Orthodox

liturgy and partaking of the Eucharist experiences the cosmic

drama of Christ’s Resurrection…so each man relives the Fall

and Resurrection as he works in his field. His labor resurrects the

soil, redeems it from the inert, lethargic sleep into which Adam

plunged it with his original sin (p. 155).

Labor becomes joyful in the fulfillment of the priestly task of humanity.

The Christian economics of Sergei Bulgakov provides an alternative

understanding of the economic process to the materialism of both

capitalism and Marxism. Bulgakov did not disagree with the descriptive

nature of economic materialism, for both capitalism and Marxism aptly

describe the fallen situation of humanity. What he disagreed with was the

prescriptive characteristics of economic materialism. Both capitalism and

Marxism fail to grasp what Christianity can provide: the freedom of the

individual to transcend material nature and bring it back into communion

with God through participation in Sophia. Instead, Marxism in particular

becomes a religion of humanity, providing for the redemption of humanity

through participation in the proletariat’s march toward economic freedom.

The choice was simple for Bulgakov. Humanity can follow the teachings

of Marx and economic materialism, succumbing to a false gospel, a false

understanding of humanity, the teachings of the Antichrist, or it can follow

the teachings of Christ, which celebrates human freedom over economic

necessity and the joyful transformation of creation in the Resurrection of

Christ. As Rosenthal (1991) has so aptly stated, “The Gospels proclaim not

freedom in and through the economy but from the economy. ‘Economism’

is the economic captivity of man, but Christianity proclaims a higher

freedom: it preaches not power, but impotence; not wealth, but poverty;

not wisdom in this century of ‘economic magic’, but the holy fool” (p.

72). In other words, the human being has a choice in how he will actualize

his freedom: either “he can be God’s likeness and can participate in the

re-creation of Eden, or he can corrupt the earth, having become only

flesh like humanity on the eve of the Flood, or he can become the devil’s

tool in his fleshly and worldly separation from God” (Bulgakov, 2000,

p. 221). The choice is between Christ and Antichrist. Bulgakov chose

Christ, forsaking the religion of atheistic Marxism for Russian Orthodox

Christianity, electing ordination to the priesthood in 1917, which he would

serve out in exile to the Russian emigrant community in Paris until his

death in 1944. The question yet remains of how Russians of today will

choose. Socialism is so severely discredited that it is no longer a viable

option, but is the “wild west” capitalism taking root in Russia today the

only alternative to it? Perhaps Bulgakov’s insights might yet be tapped into

by the Russian Orthodox Church and her faithful as they seek out some

alternative or “third way” that can bring the blessings of free economic

exchange without the sins of materialism.

1 Information on Fr. Maksim comes from Daniel (2004; 2006).

2 Evtuhov (1997, pp. 26–27). Dostoevsky portrays this pattern in the

3 Evtuhov (1997) writes that there were two Marxist camps during these

years. The first group accepted the Marxist view of social development

and the collapse of capitalism while being willing to supplement it

with insights from Kantianism and positivism. The other group, to

which Lenin belonged, accepted Marxism as doctrine, unwilling to

change or modify it. Evtuhov rightly places Bulgakov with the first

group.

4 For a history of this change in European social thought see Hughes

(1937). For Bulgakov, part of this change could be due to the influence

of the work of Soloviev which he began to read during this time period.

See Solovyov (1996) for his critique of positivism.

5 Bulgakov (1907). English version available as Bulgakov (1979).

6 Valliere (2000) notes this similarity as well: “On Tillich’s view modern

secular ideologies cannot simply be unmasked and dismissed, as

traditionalist critics might be tempted to suppose; they must be taken

(p. 236).

7 For a similar critique of social science, see Milbank (1990, pp. 51–

146).

8 The linkage to rational choice theory of the Chicago School is

apparent.

9 Rosenthal (1991) writes, “[Bulgakov] detested all philosophies based

on ‘economic man’, capitalism as well as Marxism, and favored a kind

of Christian socialism” (p. 61).

10 In an excellent review of modern neo-conservative economics in

Britain, Boyle (1999, pp. 13–68) points to this same phenomenon of

categorizing human beings only as “producers/consumers.”

11 Bulgakov was familiar with the work of Weber and Tawney.

12 In his later mature theological work, Bulgakov came to understand

the divine Sophia as the nature of God himself. In his defense of his

Sophiology, Bulgakov (1993) describes Sophia: “The tri-personal

intrinsic Wisdom and Glory alike, which we accordingly united under

divine life, the sum and unity of all his attributes” (p. 54, emphasis

in the original). Yet, the divine Sophia is to be distinguished from

the creaturely Sophia. The divine Sophia serves as the prototype by

which the creaturely Sophia is made manifest. As Bulgakov states,

“The created world, then, is none other than the creaturely Sophia, a

principle of relative being, in process of becoming, and in composition

with the non-being of ‘nothing’” (p. 72).

13 Bulgakov (1993) writes, “Divine Sophia as humanity, or rather as a

principle within humanity, is not as yet identical with humanity. For

the human being is a hypostasis, in which alone humanity, human

nature, exists. Thus Sophia in itself does not as yet express the whole

of humanity, which necessarily requires a hypostasis. Human beings

receive this at the time of their creation by the breath of the spirit

of God. This is their Ego, in which, and through which alone, their

humanity lives” (p. 79).

14 Bulgakov (1993) states that the Fathers of the Church understood that

the creation of the world was founded upon divine prototypes found

in God himself. While the Fathers did not specify that the prototypes

were to be found in the divine Sophia, Bulgakov locates them there

(pp. 64–65).

15 It is fascinating that in the West, both neo-conservatives and Rawlsian

liberals accept the presuppositions of the Enlightenment: the primacy

of the individual and rationalism. Bulgakov (1999, pp. 237–267) rejects

the Enlightenment and its children because it offers an alternative

story and eschatology to Christianity. Economism and sociologism are

based on paganism.

16 Bulgakov (1999, p. 160) states that to support the secular political

system is to support the Beast.

Dame Press.

Obshchestvennaya Pol’za.

Obshchestvennaya Pol’za.

Obshchestvennaya Pol’za.

Trans.). Belmont, MA: Nordland Publishing Company.

New York: Lindisfarne Press.

(C. Evtuhov, Trans.). New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

World Affairs, Boston University.

College Station, TX: Texas A & M University Press.

University Press.

Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, Inc.

Publishers.