Two Thinkers Discussing Palamism: Fr. Sergius Bulgakov’s Sophiological Palamism and Fr. Georges Florovsky’s Neo-Palamism (the 1920s)

Abstract

This article develops previous studies of the author on the ways of reception of Palamism in the Russian thought of the early 20th century. Here he reconstructs the historical and intellectual context of reception of Palamism in Sergius Bulgakov and Georges Florovsky, and shows how Florovsky’s understanding of Palamism was formed in the context of his polemical repulsion from Bulgakov’s Sophiology. The author distinguishes two stages in Florovsky’s appeal to Palamite theology: in the 1920s and the 1950s. In this article, the first of them is considered. This stage was due to the fact of the communication between Florovsky and Bulgakov in the 1920s. In this regard, the author considers Bulgakov’s Sophiology, and highlights Pre-Palamite (1910s) and Palamite (1920s) stages in it. In his fundamental work “The Unfading Light” (1917), Bulgakov mentions Sophia as the “fourth hypostasis” in the Godhead. In order to soften this teaching, in his article “Hypostasis and Hypostaticity” (1924) Bulgakov introduces the concept of “hypostaticity” as referring to Sofia, and introduces the Palamite distinction between essence and energies, taking Sofia as a divine energeia, thus endowing an energeia with “hypostaticity”. This step contains pantheistic tendencies. Also, Bulgakov offers the “formulas of Palamism”, suggesting that the divinity of the energies is different from one of the essence. The author reconstructs the intellectual context of these formulas and shows their dependence on the interpretation of Palamism by Pavel Florensky and Sergius Troitsky (despite the fact that they were opponents in the Name-Glorifying dispute). Next, he turns to the correspondence of Georgy Florovsky with Sergei Bulgakov in 1926, and analyzes Florovsky’s polemics with Bulgakov’s sophiological Palamism reflected in it. It is shown that in the course of this polemic, Florovsky, wishing to eliminate Bulgakov’s tendency to the hypostatizing of energeia, speaks of energeia as an accident. Then the author turns to Florovsky’s essay “Creation and Createdness” (1928) and shows that it offers a new reading of Palamism in comparison with Bulgakov’s (and Florensky’s) interpretation of it. Unlike previous researchers, the author sees in this work a direct polemic with Bulgakov’s “Hypostasis and Hypostaticity” concerning the theme of hypostaticity of energeia. In addition, Florovsky here revises and rejects the idea of energeia as an accident and insists that energeia is the same divine as the substance of the Godhead. The author conceives this as a new reading of Palamism for that time and the first step of the Neo-Palamite movement in the 20th century.