Georges Florovsky and the Russian Religious Renaissance

Georges Florovsky is the mastermind of a “return to the Church Fathers” in twentieth-century Orthodox theology. His theological vision—the neopatristic synthesis—became the main paradigm of Orthodox theology and the golden standard of Eastern Orthodox identity in the West. Focusing on Florovsky’s European period (1920–1948), this study analyzes how Florovsky’s evolving interpretation of Russian religious thought, particularly Vladimir Solovyov and Sergius Bulgakov, informed his approach to patristic sources. Paul Gavrilyuk offers a new reading of Florovsky’s neopatristic theology, by closely considering its ontological, epistemological and ecclesiological foundations. It is common to contrast Florovsky’s neopatristic theology with the “modernist” religious philosophies of Pavel Florensky, Sergius Bulgakov, and Nicholas Berdyaev. Gavrilyuk argues that the standard narrative of twentieth-century Orthodox theology, based on this polarization, must be reconsidered. The author demonstrates Florovsky’s critical appropriation of the main themes of the Russian Religious Renaissance, including theological antinomies, the meaning of history, and the nature of personhood. The distinctive features of Florovsky’s neopatristic theology—Christological focus, “ecclesial experience,” personalism, and “Christian Hellenism”—could be best understood against the background of the main problematic of the Renaissance. Specifically, it is shown that Bulgakov’s sophiology provided a polemical subtext for Florovsky’s theology of creation. The study sheds light on less explored aspects of Florovsky’s intellectual biography, including his participation in the Eurasian movement and his teaching at the St Sergius Institute in Paris, based on unpublished archival material and correspondence with the leaders of the