Bulgakov, Macarius

▪ Russian Orthodox metropolitan

original name  Mikhail Petrovich Bulgakov  

born 1816, Kursk, Russia

died 1882, Moscow

      Russian Orthodox metropolitan (archbishop) of Moscow and internationally recognized theologian and historian.

      The son of a country priest, Bulgakov took the name Macarius on becoming a monk. After studying at the Ecclesiastical Academy of Kiev, he joined the faculty and taught history. Called in 1842 to the chair of theology at the Academy of St. Petersburg, he became rector in 1850 and in 1854 was named to the Russian Academy of Sciences.

      Consecrated bishop in 1851, Macarius headed the episcopal sees of Tambov (1857), Kharkov (1859; now Kharkiv, Ukraine), and Vilna (now Vilnius) in Lithuania (1868); in 1879 he was appointed metropolitan of Moscow. During his administration, he furthered historical and theological learning by expanding the academies, by his own writing, and by assistance to others.

      Chief among Macarius' extensive works is Orthodox Dogmatic Theology, 6 vol. (1847–53). Condensed to three volumes and bound as a single handbook in 1868, the work became a popular student manual. Macarius was influenced by the positive, or historical, theology of Giovanni Perrone and other 19th-century Roman Catholic writers. While closely following Latin models in his methodology, he maintained the traditional dogmas of the Orthodox Church on controversial issues.

      During the period 1857–82, Macarius produced his 13-volume History of the Russian Church, from its 10th-century origins to the Council of Moscow in 1667. Although deficient in its evaluation of historical sources, the work is notable for the previously unpublished documents it reproduced. He also left three volumes of sermons and a History of the Russian Schism of the Old Believers, concerning the dissident group that repudiated the liturgical and doctrinal reforms of Nikon, the 17th-century patriarch of Moscow.

      Because his Orthodox Dogmatic Theology was translated into French and Slavic editions, Macarius' influence on Eastern Orthodox thought has been significant. Several of his specific teachings, however, have been questioned by 19th- and 20th-century Russian theologians who object to his Latin scholastic methodology.

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