The Quarterly Journal of St. Philaret’s Institute

The reason for writing the article was the author’s translation of the report of the Russian philosopher and theologian archpriest Sergiy Bulgakov (1871–1944) “Religion and Art”. The report was made by the theologian at one of the symposiums of the Fellowship of St. Albanius and St. Sergius. The English text of the report was published in the collection of the symposium, published in 1934 in London. To date, the report has not been translated into Russian, which is why a wide range of Russian specialists did not know its contents. The paper examines the relationship between religion and art through the prism of Christian theology. The report can be roughly divided into four parts. The first part of the report examines the ontological status of Beauty as an objective principle that reveals the Divine glory in creation. In the second part, Bulgakov substantiates the position that art, being symbolic in nature, is intended to testify to the spiritual basis of the world, and the symbolic realism of art finds its highest expression in cult creativity, where artistic inspiration receives religious sanctification. In the third part, special attention is paid to the analysis of the icon as a religious phenomenon in which the unity of the visible image and the invisible Archetype is realized. In the context of dogmatic disputes about icon worship, the theological justification for the portrayal of God through the incarnation of Christ is revealed. In the fourth part, Bulgakov opens the eschatological perspective of restoring the original beauty of the world. Bulgakov’s concept outlined in the report is compared with the aesthetic system of the Swiss Catholic theologian H. W. von Balthazar. The influence of V. S. Solovyov, the priest Pavel Florensky, the poet V. Ivanov, and Sister Ioanna (Reitlinger) on her is shown. The author concludes that the content of the report is one of the first variants of Orthodox theological aesthetics.