Russian Sophiology has returned. For decades, speaking of Fr. Sergius Bulgakov or any of the Russian Sophiologists was usually to invoke a niche interest. Yet today, judging by translations and secondary literature, Fr. Bulgakov in particular has emerged as a force in systematic theology that far exceeds mere historical or confessional interest. His contemporary relevance as a daring theologian and religious thinker par excellence has not only caught the eye of contemporary Eastern Orthodox theologians, but (arguably even more so!) from Roman Catholic and Anglican thinkers as well. And while the major works of his systematic and experimental thought are now largely translated, we are only now getting the first glimpses of the more personal writings.
Roberto De La Noval has previously translated Bulgakov’s harrowing encounter with terminal throat cancer in The Sophiology of Death: Essays on Eschatology, and now he has teamed up with Mark Roosien to present Bulgakov’s spiritual diary from 1924-1925, a time of exile for him and his family, in translation and theological context. It should provide, even if implicitly, one of the greatest possible defenses of Fr. Bulgakov’s theology. The spiritual diary does not paint a portrait of someone addicted to novelty; it paints a remarkably ordinary picture of conventional spiritual topics and moods. He records the cycles of the spiritual life assiduously, marking all the difficulties of cultivating gratitude, patience, and forbearance. He speaks constantly of love for God and the great labor and joy that is prayer. He encounters the same cycles of joy, tedium, despondency, and contentment that would be familiar terrain in most spiritual writers East or West. This diary presents a man of extraordinary intellectual gifts and vision encountering the same everyday duties and tasks of any husband, father, and priest.
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