Mariology and Sophiology on the Way of Beauty

Russian Orthodox Sophiology: Bulgakov and the Saint Sergius Institute in Paris (20th century) on the via pulchritudinis

Sophiology is a mystical theological current developed in Russia and in the diaspora of Orthodox theologians at the Saint Sergius Institute in Paris in the twentieth century: Sergei Bulgakov, Olivier Clément, Paul Evdokimov, Georges Florovsky, Nicolas Lossky. Inspired by Eastern Christianity and taking up Gnostic and Neoplatonic elements, it conceives of the Church and of history as a manifestation of Sophia, an entity understood as eternal harmony, unity produced by the divine organism of Christ, perfect ideal humanity, contained ab aeterno in the total essence of God Christ.

The comparison with contemporary Orthodox thought therefore impels us to rediscover, above all, the contemplative and sapiential source of the via pulchritudinis. This means returning to the living source of divine wisdom. Here beauty, precisely as a reflection of Gospel radicalism, can become an event of prophecy and of compassion, showing, along Mary’s ascetic path of holiness, how a life transfigured by the light of the communion that comes from Christ is possible.

From this perspective, beauty can then present itself anew as care for the human quality of the Christian, the interior substance of ecclesial experience as the radiance of the Gospel light and the action of the Spirit:

“Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good/beautiful (kala) works and glorify your Father who is in heaven” (Mt 5:16).

As has been clearly observed, it is not a matter here of doing beautiful works before men, but of letting shine forth the light that shines in the depths and that can spring only from an interior life animated by faith in the One who died and rose again in Christ.

Only by reconsidering this perspective can theology perhaps rethink itself, going beyond certain formal schematisms, and rediscover the fullness of the substantial relationship between the spiritual and the material.

It is not only a matter of generating a livelier interaction between logic and emotion, desire and knowledge, reason and symbol, but above all of giving concrete realization and interior form to that beauty which creates all communion. Hence, a beauty as a spiritual reality sensibly incarnate in the fullness of the gift, of the event of communion, and of the personal relationship. To welcome this beauty, the fruit and visible incarnation of love fulfilled, means to welcome and allow oneself to be transformed anew by paschal beauty, which brings consciousness closer to the experience of fraternal communion, as the eternal memory of the Risen One.

Contemplating Mary’s sophianic experience, we see how Christian beauty can be conceived and lived as an experience of holiness, a special ontological participation in the divine light, capable of bearing witness, within earthly historical reality, to heavenly beauty as a reality.

By following to the end the path of philokalic asceticism — the Orthodox doctrine in which the person passes through the three spiritual states of katharsis (purification), theoria (knowledge of God) and theosis (divinization), and whose name means love of beauty — with the experience of the Incarnation in Mary at its center, one attains the purest realization of love and of man’s response to God’s call through that here I am which reaches its fulfillment, that spousal yes which becomes flesh. In this lies the source of wisdom in Mary, the wisdom of love as perfect beauty.

While in the West Mary is first and foremost the Virgin, a being almost entirely different from us in her heavenly purity, free from all carnal contamination, in the East she is always defined and glorified as Theotokos, Mother of God. This is the most common and familiar characterization, proposed above all by the living liturgical tradition, by hymnography, and by iconography, which present her with the Child in her arms in their countless symbolic variations. These are two emphases which, although not necessarily mutually exclusive, lead to two different conceptions of Mary’s femininity in the Church and of her role. What Eastern Christianity intends to emphasize is not so much a specific cult of Mary, but rather the possibility of an encounter of light and joy, proper to the whole life of the Church, but which is realized in Mary, offering itself in its universality. In her, as an Orthodox hymn sings, All creation rejoices.

But what is the source that generates this joy?

What is the reason why all generations will call me blessed?

Among the various possible answers, Orthodox theology refers first of all to this one: in her love, in her obedience, in her faith and humility, Mary accepts being the temple of the Holy Spirit, the humanity of God. The Mother of God consents to give her whole life to the Other, thus bringing the Other to full realization. By accepting totally and unconditionally the life of the Other as her own life, giving herself entirely to the Other, she becomes the true expression of our response to God. The true fruit of joy and beauty.

Mary is the Virgin, but this virginity, as many Orthodox theologians emphasize, must not be understood as a denial of her own femininity and corporeality; it is not a mere absence, but the fullness and totality of her experience of love, the totality of the gift of herself to God. In reality, love is a thirst and a hunger for fullness of meaning, for complete fulfillment, for perfect virginity, in the ultimate sense that Scripture gives to this term: in the end, the Church will be presented to Christ as a chaste virgin (2 Cor 11:2).

Virginity as interior integrity, purity of heart, is the goal of all authentic love, not as a rejection of corporeality, but as its full realization in love. Mary is the Mother, and motherhood must be understood as the fulfillment of femininity, because it is the fulfillment of love as a creature that offers itself. By accepting this nature, she fulfilled the femininity of creation.

The joyful mystery of Mary’s motherhood is therefore not opposed to the mystery of her virginity. It is the same mystery. She is not a mother in spite of her virginity. On the contrary, she reveals the fullness of motherhood because her virginity is the fullness of love. The end and fullness of every life, of every love, is to welcome Christ, to give Him life in us. Here lies the origin of an existence transfigured by beauty, an existence (Mary’s) that becomes the dwelling place of beauty and the throne of Wisdom.

The intimate bond between Sophia and Mary (Sophiology and Mariology) is already present in the original founding act of the Orthodox Slavs, as emerges from the Chronicle of Bygone Years, which refers to the construction of the church of Saint Sophia in Kiev (from 1037)

by Prince Yaroslav the Wise. From this particular Chronicle (halfway between history and devotion) we learn that the first churches in Russia dedicated to divine Wisdom

(built on the model of Hagia Sophia in Constantinople) celebrated their dedication feasts on the occasion of Marian feasts

(the Dormition and the Nativity of the Virgin). Hence the spontaneous connection that arose in Russia between Sophia and the Mother of God.

In the background of this bond there is undoubtedly the presence of biblical culture in its passage from the Old to the New Testament: “Wisdom has built a house” (Prov 9:1). The image of personified Wisdom (Christ) building a house (the Church) is thus interpreted in the light of the dogma of the Incarnation. Christ is incarnate in the Virgin Mary; therefore the Mother of God is, in a certain sense, the Temple of Christ. Wisdom can then be understood both as Christ and as the Church of Christ, that is, the Mother of God. From this first trace, this connection between Sophia and Mary takes shape and becomes rooted in the whole Russian spiritual tradition, abundantly evoked by the liturgy and hymnography, by iconography, and by the many spiritual, mystical, and theological writings.

To deepen your reflection on Mariology and Sophiology on the Way of Beauty, consult John Paul II’s encyclical Redemptoris Mater, which presents Mary as the creature in whom divine Wisdom and Beauty shone forth in a unique way.

Deepen your studies: explore Mariology, Marian Theology, Marian apparitions, and the Postgraduate Program in Mariology.

Discover the oldest Marian image in the Catacomb of Priscilla.