On the Edge of Silence. A Spiritual Diary

Born in 1871 in Livny, a small town in south-western Russia, and died in 1944 in Paris, Sergei Nikolaevich Bulgakov was one of the greatest thinkers of the 20th century inspired by Orthodox Christianity, so much so that some, given the breadth of his theological work, have even compared him to Origen. After initially embracing Marxism, Bulgakov – who was a close friend of Pavel Florensky – returned to the religious faith he had known in his childhood, eventually becoming a priest in 1918, a decision which, three years later, led to his dismissal by the Communists and subsequently his exile from his homeland. After moving around several times, he settled in Paris in 1925, where he held the chair of dogmatic theology at the prestigious St Sergius Orthodox Theological Institute. During his years in Paris, Bulgakov wrote many works that aroused considerable reservations on the part of the ecclesiastical authorities. A testimony as evocative as it is significant concerning the early days of his exile is the "Spiritual Diary", now published for the first time in Italian, expertly edited and translated by Lucio Coco. It is a notebook containing reflections and meditations written over the period from 21 March 1924 to 25 June 1925. Readers will find no notes on daily life: the author does not recount events but instead focuses on numerous spiritual themes that become the subject of profound inner exploration, at the heart of which lie the presence of God and the great enigma of human existence, characterized by the dramatic and unsettling presence of evil. Under the date of 29 November 1924, we read: “At times it seems that you are not far from God, but that God is far from the world, and mistrust imperceptibly creeps into the soul and fills it with its coldness, with an icy solitude”. However, even in the face of the most agonising and shattering doubt, one is called upon not to lose heart, in the certainty “that there is a way forward on the wings of faith, on the wings of glorious action and revelation”. For the person who, by virtue of faith in God, knows how to answer the questions that their heart and mind pose to them every day, the immense space of gratitude opens up: “Giving thanks is possible for us only to the extent of our strength: as we live, so we give thanks. If we live in boredom and drowsiness, if our prayer is cold and listless, then not even the soul has the wings to give thanks’. 

    

Sergei Nikolaevich Bulgakov
: On the Edge of Silence. A Spiritual
Diary. EDB, 148 pp., 19 euros