By the river Chebar

(Speech delivered by Archpriest S. Bulgakov on the day of the 10th anniversary of the Paris Theological Institute) I'll start with personal memories. After the capture of Crimea by the Bolsheviks in 1920, I did not join the general evacuation, which was followed by other members of the V.Ts.U. (with M. Anthony and Bishop Veniamin at the head), and remained in my native land. Before me passed a wave of red terror, a terrible famine and the beginning of the persecution of the Church - the confiscation of church valuables, the beginning of the living church. In 1922, I was at a parish in Yalta, in complete theological solitude. There I imagined, having devoted my remaining strength to pastoral work, to end my days. I devoted my leisure time to research on the filioque, and those who came to me for a search and arrest found me looking at the volume of Minya (the publisher of the patristic works). In prison it was announced to me that I was subject to lifelong deportation abroad, along with other professors. This coincided with the time of the active onslaught of the Living Church; in Simferopol, a large process of “religious people” began, and, of course, my fate would have been decided in these days, when the hand of Providence unexpectedly lifted me up, and I found myself (at the beginning of 1923) in Constantinople. From there I was summoned by friends to the Russian faculty in Prague, but while still in Constantinople I had news that the idea of ​​​​creating a higher theological school was circulating abroad. This thought was already close to me before. Back in Russia, when the days of the old school were clearly numbered, together with his friend Fr. P. Fl. I made the greatest efforts to create a free and at the same time ecclesiastical, modern and faithful to tradition, theological school. Then this dream, of course, dissipated like a cloud in the face of the Bolshevik revolution. Now it seemed to promise to be realized again, albeit in a modified form, with the addition of the practical task of preparing the shepherd, and, however, the theological task remained paramount. And then two years later this miracle happened. Sergius, - a theological school arose in Paris, in the center of the world, among heterodoxy, and not only arose, but also lived and worked for 10 years. This decade is already an accomplished fact in the history of Russian Orthodoxy. Even if our work were to cease, it will remain in the tablets of history. In our school, everything was improvised: the material means of subsistence, which do not have any state or even public, lasting support, but come from Russian and foreign benefactors, like bread brought to the monastery of St. Sergius. Our budget plan includes only expenses, but not income, and its main basis is the miracle of Rev. Sergius. But its scientific staff also appeared improvised: along with representatives of the older generation, who were given by Providence, instead of a cruel death, another 10 years of theological work, representatives of the new generation, unpatented theologians, like wartime officers, flocked here, who brought with them their enthusiasm for love and fidelity to the Church. A unique group of theologians was formed, despite all the diversity of individual images, marked by the unity of destiny and calling: to serve the Church with theological thought and scientific work - such is our Russian “Oratorio”. Docendo discimus (teaching, learning). New Russian theology is born out of needs and in connection with teaching, and from the works and days a whole theological literature has grown, a special school has been created - Parisian theology, which, despite the complex and even dissonant harmony, has some common face and constitutes a single whole. It, this theology, was not and did not want to be unmindful of kinship and heedless of tradition, but it was torn out of its rut ​​and torn off from its native soil. It grew in a spiritual foreign land, like the leaders of Israel in the Babylonian exile. For they not only wept at the rivers of Babylon, but also had great prophetic visions, like Ezekiel at the river Chebar and Daniel at the court of the kings. Coming into contact with the high wisdom of the East, they not only preserved, but more fully and deeply comprehended the secret of their own chosenness. The people of God, who were thrown out of the promised land into the kingdom of Babylon, taking with them the treasure of their faith, did not perish, but were spiritually reborn. His national consciousness expanded to a universal one. Its history has gone from provincial to global. Those who returned from exile were able to restore the church and the fence of the law. The Babylonian captivity was a creative era in the history of Israel, and without it we would not have the Old Testament in its entirety. Of course, no people can be compared in their destinies with the chosen people, but we can find in them similarities with our own. We, the keepers of the covenants of Orthodoxy, experience something similar on this small island in the Babylonian ocean. We stand in the face of a heterodox and pagan world, and moreover, during the greatest world catastrophes, which have changed not only our sick homeland, but are also changing the face of the whole world. All of Christianity faces great and new tasks in its calling to shepherd the peoples, for which it has hitherto proved unsuitable. All of Christianity is realizing in a new way the need for church-wide unity and is seeking it along the paths of ecumenism, which are not unknown to us either. Spiritual provincialism, although preserved in quiet depths until the first storm, has already lost its right to exist; it remains only as a motionless Old Believers, supported by laziness of thought. Our ancestors did not face the problems of theological thought and life self-determination that we faced here from the very beginning of our existence; they were entrusted to us by Providence as our business, as our tasks. Our cause in Paris is not only local and provincial, but also global; and not because we live in a world city (it is possible, while living in it, to remain in a remote province, which we constantly observe), but because we live with the world, have entered into its creative awe. Church eternity generally fulfills its existence in time, and each historical era has its own face, adopts a special tonality, and is determined by its characteristic problems. And Parisian theology wants to be and is modern in relation to its modernity, just as those whom the Church pleases as universal teachers were contemporaries of their modernity, and therefore the leaders of their era. The stamp of the era clearly lies on our theological creativity, and since the new is synonymous with creativity, this is our modernism, for which we are reproached by people who are trying powerlessly to stop the sun and abolish history. But this modernism is and wants to be a living tradition, which we serve to the best of our ability in fidelity to the Church. The miracle of creativity is not accomplished without creative daring, and its inspiration seeks its own paths, for, truly, in the house of the Father there are many abodes. But there is one condition under which theological creativity is only possible, this is freedom of search, without which sincerity and inspiration are lost. With all its merits and achievements, the previous theological school did not have this benefit to the same extent as we, who are honored with this gift from our hierarchical head, and, it seems, we all feel the need to express our conviction that this merit will be written in golden letters in the tablets of history. Yes, we were free in our theology, we were given trust, and, I dare say, we justified and justify it. For our freedom is church freedom, of faithful and loving sons of the Church, and not of rebellious slaves. We want free devotion to the Church - fidelity to its tradition, but creative fidelity. They will probably say that the gift of spiritual freedom is not only a precious gift, but also a dangerous one. This may be true, but is it permissible to seek safety first of all? Everything creative contains an element of risk and uncertainty. Isn’t Christianity itself dangerous before the court of common sense, and should we appeal to safety in these days of general confusion? The Apostle followed Christ on the waters, being safe, but began to drown as soon as he became afraid of his path. And is there a way guaranteed in his safety, in the midst of this world hurricane, in this oceanic storm? Only love for Christ and His Church can give us this saving confidence. There is one feature that Parisian theology can testify to itself in order to justify its freedom and even its very existence: it is born from prayer; moreover, from the inspiration of the Divine Eucharist, at the altar. Not only externally, but also internally, our school is connected to the church, and our wretched workers' churches are located directly under the church. This marks the natural hierarchy of values ​​in our hearts as well. Lex orandi est lex credendi - says the theological formula. And without false pride, but also without hypocritical modesty, we can say that the theological work of the past 10 years represents a special page of Russian Orthodox theology, opening, as it were, a new chapter. It already inalienably belongs to history, no matter how small our strength may be, no matter how difficult the conditions of our work. The theological works of the leaders of our school are not even quantitatively inferior to, and perhaps relatively exceed, the works of our Western brethren over the past 10 years. There is a special collective work, written and unwritten, published and unpublished - the Parisian Theology. We offer it to the Church with all respect and dedicate it to our homeland with all fidelity. We call our spiritual leader and patron Rev. Sergius, and let his image be prominent in our work - the image of humility combined with inspiration and active love. We want to continue his creative feat at the dawn of the 14th century in another place and under different conditions in our days, churchly, nationally, universally. May his prayer and contemplation of God, his service to the brethren and all those who suffer, his pain for the soul of the people and for the destinies of the homeland and the world be a guiding image for us. Rev. Sergius, as a testimony to his inspiration, created the church of St. Trinity, God-Love. This church is spiritually the cathedral of the entire Christian world, the image of the Universal Church. And may our work be accomplished under the dome of this church!