The Quarterly Journal of St. Philaret’s Institute

This publication presents Fr. Sergius Bulgakov’s address from March 9, 1934, regarding “partial intercommunion” — the Eucharistic communion  
of Anglicans and Orthodox Christians, members of the Fellowship of St. Alban and St. Sergius (presumably in connection with the “Healing of the Schism” conference held in Paris in 1934), introduced into scholarly circulation for the first time. The document is located in the archive of archpriest Sergius Bulgakov at the St. Sergius Institute (Paris) and consists of a typewritten text with pencil corrections made by Fr. Sergius. The issues raised by Fr. Sergius extend far beyond the Anglican-Orthodox dialogue and hold significant theological importance. For instance, the document allows us to trace changes in Bulgakov’s understanding of Eucharistic communion. From the conviction that the path to restoring Christian unity lies through the Eucharist and that sacramental unity must precede achieving dogmatic agreement (1933), Fr. Sergius concludes that the true foundation of unity is spiritual or mystical unity, and that all sacramental-canonical establishments are meant to follow charismatic initiatives (1935). The document proposed for publication from 1934 illustrates the nature of this movement. An important step along this path was a rethinking of the experience of ecclesial sobornost’ — Fr. Sergius suggests it be understood not “mechanically-quantitatively”, but “qualitatively”, as “a new historical ecclesial creativity”. The document also analyzes ecclesiological positions such as: “the existence of Orthodoxy beyond institutional Orthodoxy”, “the cellular structure of the Church’s organism”, and the opposition between “charismatic” and “canonical” ways of organizing the Church throughout history.