Sergei Bulgakov’s “Sophic” Economy: An Eastern Orthodox Perspective on Christian Economics

Abstract: The demise of Communism brought with it a moral and political vacuum, and an extreme form of market capitalism has come to fill that void. Russia today finds itself wrestling with the same questions it faced in the Russian Empire’s final days: how can the blessings of economic development and modernization be attained while at the same time avoiding the sins of materialism and excess? This article examines the Christian economics of Russian Orthodox theologian Sergei Bulgakov, which we argue provides an alternative understanding of the economic process to the materialism of both capitalism and Marxism. Bulgakov believed that both aptly describe the fallen situation of humanity, and felt that they failed to grasp that Christianity can provide the freedom of the individual to transcend material nature and bring it back into communion with God through participation in Sophia.

JEL: A12, A13, B31

Keywords: Russian Orthodoxy, Marxism, capitalism, materialism