St Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly 55:4 (2012) 415-436

T h e N a m e o f G o d C o n f l i c t

i n O r t h o d o x T h e o l o g y

Paul Ladouceur

I. The Conflict over the Name o f God

On Mount Athos and in Russia prior to World War I a major theological conflict took place over a doctrine known as “Name- praising” or “Name-glorification” (onomatodoxy, from the Greek; in Russian, imenoslavie). The Name-of-God conflict has its origins in 1907 with the publication of the book in Russia On the Mountains of the Caucasus, by Archimandrite Hilarión (1845- 1916).1 Archimandrite Hilarion’s quite unsystematic book includes dialogues with his Elder, Desiderius, development of certain themes by Hilarión, descriptions of the Caucasus Mountains, citations intended to support Hilarion’s assertions, Gospel commentaries, and selected letters. Like the popular anonymous Pilgrim’s Tale (the “Russian pilgrim,” 1884), the book is in the Russian mystical and hesychastic tradition, and its main subject is the Jesus Prayer: “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.” Hilarion’s teaching on the Jesus Prayer corresponds to the Eastern Christian ascetic tradition, following closely teachings on the Jesus Prayer in the Pbilokalia (1782) and complementary presentations by Saints Ignatius Brianchaninov (1807-1867) and Theophanes the Recluse (1815-1894).

1 The publication o f the first edition o f Schemamonk Hilarión s book Na Gorakh Kavkaza in 1907 was financed by Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna (Saint Eliz- abeth o f Russia, 1845-1918), aunt and sister-in-law o f Tsar Nicolas II. The book was reprinted in 1910 and 1912 and reissued in Russia in 1998. The full title o f the 1907 edition is On the Mountains o f the Caucasus. Discussions between Two Hermits on the Inner Union with the Lord o f Our Hearts by the Prayer o f Jesus Christ, or the Spiritual Practice o f Contemporary Hermits. Composed by a H ermit o f the Mountains, Forests and Canyons o f the Caucasus. The book has not been translated into English.

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It is Hilarions audacious statements on the Name of God, a secondary theme in the book, that triggered the “Quarrel of the Name.” The main thesis of onomatodoxy is expressed in the phrase “the Name of God is God himsel£” an abrupt and provocative formula borrowed from the popular pastor Saint John of Kronstadt (1829-1908). Hilarión writes:

God is present in his holy Name with his whole being and his infinite properties [...]. For every faithful servant of Christ, loving his Master and Lord, praying fervently and bearing his name piously and lovingly in his heart, this Name worthy of worship and all-powerful is what he is himself, namely the Lord Almighty, God and our very dear Redeemer Jesus Christ, born of the Father before all ages, consubstantial and equal to him in everything. [...] The Lord is a spiritual being, who must be contemplated in an immaterial fashion, and his Name as well. [...] It is impos- sible to separate the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ from his holy person. [...] We can only reside in him through prayer, by uniting our spirit and our heart to his most holy Name, in which he himself is present.2

Hilarión developed no theological or philosophical arguments to support his statements; rather, confirmation of the presence of God in his Name is based on the experience of ascetics after long years of practice of the Jesus Prayer.

2 Schemamonk Hilarión, Na Gorakh Kavkaza, cited in Hilarión Alfeyev, Le Mystère sacré de ΓEglise. Introduction à l'histoire et à la problématique des débats athonites sur la vénération du nom de Dieu (Fribourg, Switzerland: Academic Press, 2007), 21. Met- ropolitan Hilarión Alfeyev published a massive study of the Name o f God in Saint Petersburg in 2002. This is published in French in two volumes: Le Nom grand et glo- rieux, La Vénération du Nom de Dieu et la prière de Jésus dans la tradition orthodoxe (Paris: Cerf, 2007), a general study o f the divine Name in the Judeo-Christian tradi- tion, and Le Mystère sacré de l ’Église> which deals more specifically with the Athonite quarrel. Tom E. Dykstras unpublished Master s thesis “Heresy on Mt Athos: Conflict over the Name of God among Russian Monks and Hierarchs, 1912-1914” (St Vladi- mir s Seminary, 1988), is a useful history of the conflict. Online: <www.samizdat.com/ imiaslavtsy.html >. For an examination o f the name of God in the context o f a philoso- phy o f names, see Helena Gourko, Divine Onomatology: Name o f God in Imyaslavie, Symbolism, and Deconstruction (Saarbrücken, Germany: VDM Verlag, 2009).

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Initially, the book received an enthusiastic welcome in both Russian monastic communities and among the Christian intelligentsia, even in some ecclesiastical circles. But two years later a controversy broke out on Mount Athos concerning Hilarion’s statements on the Name of God, especially the statement “the Name of God is God himself.” A negative review of Hilarión s book by a monk of the Russian skete of Saint Elijah on Mount Athos unleashed a storm of indignation among the Russian monks of Athos, who divided into two camps, the imiaslavtsy, favorable to Hilarions teachings, and his opponents, called imiabortsy (“those who fight against the name”).3 Hilarions opponents considered his assertions idolatrous, bordering on pantheism and magic, as they seemed to deify the syllables and letters of the name of God, especially the name Jesus. They argued that the names of God are created realities, distinct from God, and therefore cannot be identified with God.

In 1912 the conflict spread to Russia, with both sides publishing articles and books in defense of their positions. Soon the supporters of Hilarions ideas had rallied against them the Holy Synod of the Church of Russia, the Russian government, most Russian media, which publicized only the texts of their opponents, the Holy Community of Mount Athos (which governs Mount Athos), and the Ecumenical Patriarchate. In April 1913, the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church heard three reports on the issue, all negative to the doctrine. Proponents of the “hard line” against the imiaslavtsy, led by Archbishop Antony (Khrapovitsky) (1864- 1936), prevailed in Russia. In May 1913, the Holy Synod sent a pastoral letter to the imiaslavtsy, rejecting their doctrine, which it equated with “magicism,” endorsing the decision of the Ecumenical Patriarchate condemning the new doctrine as heretical and blasphemous, and calling on the imiaslavtsy to abandon the “false

3 These are the names used by the supporters o f the doctrine. Imiabortsy (onamatomachi from the Greek) is derogatory. Archimandrite Hilarión was still alive

when the storm broke, but no one, neither the Holy Synod nor the supporters o f ono- matodoxy, thought o f asking him to elaborate on his ideas and his book. He died in 1916.

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wisdom” and to submit themselves humbly to “Mother Church.” A Synod delegation to Mount Athos, supported by Russian soldiers and a warship, obliged monks who declared themselves for onomatodoxy to board a steamship. The imiaslavtsy of the Saint Panteleimon monastery refused, offering “passive resistance, which received a forceful response resulting in injuries and possibly even deaths. Some 833 monks were deported to Russia, and subsequently other Russian monks voluntarily left the Holy Mountain: estimates range up to 1,500 monks in all, about half the Russian monks on Athos at the time.4

After 1913, the “quarrel of the Name” was conducted entirely in Russia. The monks expelled from Athos were distributed in various dioceses, which extended the dissent throughout Russia. They were persecuted by religious and civil authorities, barred from communion and celebration of the sacraments, most were stripped of their monastic robes and reduced to civil status. The harsh treatment meted out to the recalcitrant monks resulted in widespread public support, and their cause was taken up in the press and specialized publications by a number of prominent Orthodox intellectuals, including Nicholas Berdiaev (1874-1948), Sergius Bulgakov (1871-1944), Vladimir Ern 1881-1915), Paul Florensky (1882-1937), Anton Kartashev (1875-1960), Alexei Losev (1893- 1988), and Mikhail Novesolov (1864-1938).

Faced with evident sympathy for the monks on the part of Nicholas II and other members of the royal family, as well as the public uproar, the Holy Synod had no choice but to backtrack: the condemnations for heresy were abrogated, and in May 1914 the Synod lifted the excommunication for monks who signified that they accepted the dogmas of the Holy Church and referred the theological issue to a future Council. Onomatodoxy was on the agenda of the Council of the Russian Orthodox Church that met in 1917-18, and a sub-commission of the Council, composed mostly of persons favorable to onomatodoxy, including Sergius Bulgakov, was appointed to deal with matter. The sub-commission conducted

4 Cf. Hilarión Alfeyev, Le Nom grand et glorieux, 293.

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several meetings but did not complete its deliberations before the Council adjourned in September 1918, never to reconvene.

Several philosophers and theologians continued to reflect on the matter in the 1920s. An Onomatodoxy Circle” held a number of meetings in Moscow until 1925, at which time such gatherings became too dangerous and many participants had been arrested. Papers discussed at the meetings explored the linguistic, philosophical, and theological aspects of onomatodoxy.

The inability of the Church Council of 1917-18 to deal with onomatodoxy resulted in a relative “freezing” of the positions of the Church hierarchy toward the imiaslavtsy, most of whom were never fully reintegrated into the Church. Many imiaslavtsy took refuge in the Caucusus, where they played an important role in maintaining the faith in certain villages and valleys. The Communists dealt with onomatodoxy in their fashion: they deemed the doctrine a subversive ideology and fabricated a vast “clerical-monarchist conspiracy” aimed at overthrowing the Soviet government and restoring the monarchy, in which “counter-revolutionary onomatodoxy” supposedly played a lead role. Between 1929 and 1931, many imiaslavtsy were rounded up in the Caucasus, their monasteries closed, and were deported or executed. In 1930, 148 “worshipers of the Name” interned at the Solovki concentration camp on an island in the White Sea, perhaps monks deported from Mount Athos, refused to work or even give their name; they were shot, hands bound behind their backs to prevent them from making the sign of the Cross.5

The Soviets also persecuted the intellectual supporters of onomatodoxy still in Russia, including Alexei Losev and Mikhail Novesolov, who were sentenced in September 1931 to ten years in the camps and eight years of imprisonment respectively. Paul Florensky, arrested first in 1928 and released after a few years in exile, was sent to the camps in 1933, initially to the Urals then to Solovki. Losev was released in 1933 and continued his philosophical activities for the rest of his life, discretely concealing his religious commitment.

5 Pierre Pascal, La Religion du people russe (Lausanne: L’Âge d’homme, 1973), 128.

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Some of his fellows from the “Moscow Circle” of the early 1920s did not fare as well: Florensky was executed on December 8, 1937, and Novesolov sometime after January 1938.

The arrests, deportations, and executions of many of the imiaslavtsy and their intellectual supporters in the late 1920s and 1930s effectively put an end to the “quarrel of the Name” in the Soviet Union, but philosophical and theological reflection on the issues raised during the quarrel continued in the exiled Russian intellectual community. Serious consideration of onomatodoxy, begun in the heat of the action in the years 1913 to 1918, reached maturity in works of the “Moscow Circle” of the early 1920s and in writings of Russian theologians in exile, notably Sergius Bulgakov and Archimandrite Sophrony (Sakharov) (1896-1993).

II. Theology o f the Name

The quarrel of the Name was clearly more than a tempest in a theological pot of tea. In addition to the tragic human consequences in the 1910s, major theological and canonical issues were involved. Archimandrite Hilarión, author of On the Mountains ofthe Caucasus, and his principal defender, Hieromonk Antony Bulatovitch, were ill equipped to deal with the profound philosophical and theological issues at stake, as indeed were the opponents of the doctrine, who saw the matter primarily in terms of formal academic theology and Church authority and discipline. It was the religious philosophers who identified the underlying issues and worked toward possible solutions.

We shall consider the thinking of four leading intellectuals, philosopher-theologians, who reflected in depth on the onomatodoxy controversy: Paul Florensky, Alexei Losev, Sergius Bulgakov, and Archimandrite Sophrony (Sakharov). Florensky and Bulgakov were married priests, Losev a lay philosopher, Sophrony a priest-monk who spent twenty years on Mount Athos. Florensky, Losev, and Bulgakov were leading members of the Russian religious renaissance of the early twentieth century and they were direct participants in the debates on onomatodoxy in the 1910s. Their

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mature reflections on the issue date from the 1920s. Sophrony, although influenced by the religious philosophers, was closer to the Orthodox ascetic-mystic tradition than the others and his thinking on the Name of God was published in 1977, in the context of broad reflections on Orthodox spiritual life, especially prayer.6 Sophrony was not directly involved in the quarrel, but he heard a great deal about it after his arrival at the Saint Panteleimon Monastery in 1925. Bulgakovs reflections on onomatodoxy were written in 1920-22, just prior to his expulsion from the Soviet Union, but they were only published posthumously in 1953, under the title The Philosophy of the Name7

We will consider theological reflections on onomatodoxy under three major concepts or approaches: the Name as word, symbol, image, and icon; the relevance of the distinction between divine essence and divine energies to the theology of the Name of God; and the Name of God in religious experience. Although there are important differences among the thinkers in their use and application of these approaches to onomatodoxy, we shall present here a broad overview of their reflections.

1. The Name o f God as Word, Symbol Image, and Icon Several religious philosophers begin their consideration of onomatodoxy with an appeal to linguistics and semantics, the philosophy of language. Typically, this takes the form of an exploration of the relationship between the subject and the predicate in the key postulate of onomatodoxy, “the Name of God is God himself.” It is in the context of a philosophy of the Name that Alexei Losev and Sergius Bulgakov elaborated their reflections on onomatodoxy. For example, Bulgakov notes that the word “God” in the formula is a predicate, not an indication of a “substantial

6 See Archimandrite Sophrony, His Life Is Mine (Crestwood, NY: SVS Press, 1977). French version: Sa Vie est la mienne (Paris: Cerf, 1981). The original Russian text with additional material was published in Paris in 1990 under the title O molitve [On Prayer].

7 Sergius Bulgakov, Filosofiia imeni [The Philosophy o f the Name] (Paris: YMCA-Press, 1953). French translation: La Philosophie du Verbe et du Nom (Lausanne: L’Âge

d’homme, 1991).

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identity” between the Being of God and the Name of God, but in the sense that “the Name of God enters into the domain of the divine Being, that it is imbued with power, that it manifests what the Constantinopolitan Fathers called divine energy.”8

This is an important initial qualification, but a more fruitful approach focuses on the Name as symbol. A symbol is more than just a conventional sign (like a “ s t o p ” sign); it signifies or points to another reality which it invokes by means of a physical medium. The function of a symbol is thus to unite the perceiver of the symbol with that which is symbolized. Paul Florensky sees the symbol as the “union of two beings, two strata, one inferior, the other superior, a union in which the inferior encloses the superior within itself, allows itself to be penetrated by it, to become imbued with it.”9 Thus the Name of God in some fashion, but not in an absolute sense, “encloses” God within itself; it is penetrated and imbued by God.

Alexei Losev advances a philosophy which he called “absolute symbolism,” situated between “absolute apophatism” (God is absolutely unknowable and does not reveal himself) and “religious rationalism” (God reveals himself entirely, thus evacuating the divine Mystery). The names of God are symbolic, “revealing the infinite essence of God ... living symbols of God who manifests himself, or in other words, God himself in his manifestations to his creation.”10 Bulgakov adds:

The sacred Name of God is a very holy verbal symbol. It is precisely from this idea of symbol and the symbolic nature of speech that we can seize the significance of the Name of God and the fact of the real presence of divine power in it.11

For Bulgakov it is not humans who name God, but rather God names himself in human language; like Florensky, Bulgakov considers that the Name of God is the product of divine־human synergy.

8 Sergius Bulgakov, La Philosophie du Verbe et du Nom , 206.9 Paul Florensky, “The Name o f God” (July 1921), cited by Hilarión Alfeyev, LeM ys-

tère sacré de l ’Eglise, 316.10 Cited by Hilarión Alfeyev, Le Mystère sacré de l ’Eglise, 324, 328.11 Sergius Bulgakov, La Philosophie du Verbe et du Nom, 186.

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The contention is thus that the Name of God is a symbol pointing to God himself and uniting the believer with God. The syllables and sounds of the Name are only the external “envelope” of the symbol, which is contained in the sense or referent of the syllables and sounds, not in syllables and sounds themselves. That which a symbol invokes is somehow present in the symbol itself: hence God is mysteriously present in his Name, without being identified with it.

Bulgakov advances two other patristic notions to elucidate the nature of the Name of God, the image of God in humanity, and the icon. He attaches considerable importance to the human facility to name things, a facility of divine origin (cf. Gen 1:19-20):

This onomato-poetic facility ... represents an aspect of the divine image in humanity, which it possesses by essence. We can thus understand why humans have and create names, why they give a name to each and every thing and why they have names themselves. ... Name in general (and the ability to name) reaches an ontological level inaccessible to the critique of psychology: image of God in humanity, a component of its nature.12

Bulgakov develops extensively the idea that the Name of God is a verbal icon: “The Name of God conceals itself at the same time that it reveals itself in speech, in our human parlance, in sound, which becomes a kind of icon of the Name, fearsome, incomprehensible and transcendental, of the T of God.”13 The icon is “developed Name” and just as there are many icons depicting Christ, there are many names of God, each of which represents “the seal of the Name of God in speech.” Similar to icons, the names of God are the result of divine-human synergy: “As in an icon, divine power and human speech join [in the names of God] without division and without confusion. Humans speak and name, but that which is named is given, is revealed.”14 For Bulgakov, the Name of God is superior to the icon because, as in the eucharist, the Name is transformed, the

12 Sergius Bulgakov, La Philosophie du Verbe et du Nom, 196.13 Sergius Bulgakov, La Philosophie du Verbe et du Nom , 184.14 Sergius Bulgakov, La Philosophie du Verbe et du Nom , 179.

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natural is absorbed by the divine, whereas the icon remains external to the divine nature.

Archimandrite Sophrony picks up the idea that the revealed Names of God have a special quality: “We know that not only the Name ‘Jesus’ but also all the other Names revealed to us are ontologically linked with God. And we know this by experience in the Church.”15 Like Bulgakov, Sophrony points out that the sacraments, and in fact all Christian worship, are carried out by the invocation of the divine Names, above all that of the Holy Trinity. He also affirms the existence of the name Jesus prior to creation, contrary to the imiabortsy, who claim that it is a human creation:

The Name “Jesus” was given by revelation from on high.It originates in the divine and eternal sphere and is in no way the product of human intelligence, even though it is expressed by a created word.16

The concept of symbol or icon applied to the Name of God is certainly helpful, a starting-point in a doctrine of the Name of God. But nonetheless it is limited, in that to consider a symbol itself divine is to run the risk of slipping into idolatry. A further refinement is necessary to eliminate this possibility. Thus the idea of symbol easily spills over into the distinction between the divine essence and the divine energies, to which all the religious thinkers on onomatodoxy appeal.

2. The Name of God as Divine EnergyThe religious philosophers were quick to realize that the distinction between the divine essence and the divine energies is the crucial theological key to understanding onomatodoxy. Although this distinction is found in the Cappadocian fathers in the fourth century, it was only fully developed by Saint Gregory Palamas in the fourteenth century, during the quarrel over hesychasm. The Palamite theology of the divine energies was enshrined in decisions of councils of the Church of Constantinople between 1341 and 1351, but in subsequent centuries it was quietly “forgotten”

15 Archimandrite Sophrony, Sa Vie est la mienne, 133.16 Archimandrite Sophrony, Sa Vie est la mienne, 137.

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in Russian and Greek academic theology, which fell under the influence of Western scholasticism. The doctrine of the divine energies, together with its concomitant doctrines, apophatism and divinization (theosis), was only revived in Orthodox theology beginning in the 1920s. The essence-energies distinction did not feature as basic theological elements of the imiabortsy, trained in the formal theology of the Russian academies.

The doctrine of the divine energies states that the divine essence, God־in־himself, is unknowable to any creature, whereas God makes himself known in creation by his divine energies, which are inseparable from the divine essence yet distinct from it. Humans know and experience God through his energies. The unknowability of the divine essence is the foundation of apophatic theology, while the experience of the divine energies, revelation, and the Incarnation of the Logos of God are the basis not only of positive theology, but of all experience of God. There is a crucial corollary: divine energies are not created, they are God himself, 4 operation, self-disclosure, self-revelation of the Divinity,” in Florensky’s words.17 Energies are indeed God, but God is more than his energies.

It is in this context that supporters of onomatodoxy asserted that the Name of God is a divine energy. Florensky, for example, considers that the Name of God functions as a symbol and becomes the locus of a synergetic encounter between God and humans, the co-penetration of two energies, divine and human. He writes:

The Name of God is God, but God is not name. God’s essence is superior to his energy, even though this energy expresses the essence of the Name of God ... The Name of God appears as a reality disclosing and manifesting the divine being. The Name of God is therefore superior to itself, it is divine and is thus God himself. ... Just as God is knowable, God is not limited by the knowledge that humans have of him, God is not name and his nature is not the nature of name.18

17 Cited by Hilarión Alfeyev, Le Mystère sacré de l ’Eglise, 316.18 Cited by Hilarión Alfeyev, Le Mystère sacré de lÉglise, 317-19.

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Losevs “absolute symbolism” has characteristics typical of the essence-energies distinction, which encompass the experience and doctrine of noetic light of the Eastern mystics, and the Jesus Prayer, a prime locus of divine-human encounter. Building on a formula first put forward by Florensky, Losev advances these propositions:

The Name of God is divine energy, inseparable from the very essence of God and is therefore God himself. However,God is other than his energies and his Name. God is neither his Name, nor name in general.19

The notion that the divine energies are at once distinct from the divine essence yet inseparable from it is critical to understanding the application of the doctrine to onomatodoxy. Losev mentions several characteristic divine energies and elaborates:

The Light of God is inseparable from the divine essence, the Power of God is inseparable from the divine essence, the Perfection of God is inseparable from the divine essence, [hence] the energy of the divine essence is inseparable from God himself and is God himself; the Name of God is insepa- rabie from the divine essence and is therefore God himself.20

The use of the Palamite essence-energy distinction with respect to the Name of God raises a subtle point: Is the Name of God a divine energy as such or a manifestation of divine energy, which remains transcendent to the Name ? While some of our authors do not make this distinction, others merge the two notions or alternate between them. Bulgakov writes:

The actions of God in the world and notably in humans reveal themselves as divine names (as shown by the wisdom of the Aeropagite [Pseudo-Dionysius]); these are manifes- tations of his energy ... [The] “attribution” of names is a manifestation of the energy of God and a human response. However, this manifestation is distinct from the energy while being at the same time inseparable from it. Distinct because it actualizes itself in humans and by human means; insepa-

19 Cited by Hilarión Alfeyev, Le Mystère sacré de l ’Église, 325.20 Cited by Hilarión Alfeyev, Le Mystère sacré de l ’Eglise, 327.

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rabie because, in keeping with the general nature of speech, a divine energy speaks of its own in humans, reveals itself by a word, and this, as a Name of God, is like its incarnation.21

Archimandrite Sophrony also appeals to the essence-energy distinction as the key to understanding the significance of the Name of God, especially the Name Jesus:

As a vehicle of meaning and knowledge, as an “energy” of God in his relation with the world and as his proper Name, the Name “Jesus” is ontologically linked with him ... For us it is a bridge which unites us to him; it is channel by which we receive divine strength. Coming from the Holy God, it is holy and sanctifies us when we invoke i t ... God is present in this Name as in a receptacle, as in a precious vase filled with perfume. Through it, the Transcendental becomes perceptibly immanent. As divine energy, it proceeds from the divine Essence and is itself divine.22

3. The Name o f God as Religious ExperienceLike Archimandrite Hilarión, Archimandrite Sophrony writes of prayer, the Jesus Prayer in particular, and the Name of God from the perspective of a long monastic life devoted to prayer. Sophrony begins his consideration of the Jesus Prayer by citing Jesus’ words, “Until now you have asked nothing in my Name ... Most assuredly, I say to you, whatever you ask the Father in my Name he will give you” (Jn 15:24, 23).23 Sophronys main interest, like that of Hilarión six decades earlier, is to give a teaching on the Jesus Prayer, not specifically to expound a theology of the Name of God. Sophrony s approach to the Jesus Prayer is certainly conditioned by the theology of the Name of God. His sympathies are clearly with onomatodoxy, and he presents a theology of the Name very much in keeping with that of the religious philosophers. Sophrony was familiar with Bulgakov s Philosophy of the Name and, although he does not name Bulgakov, he draws on several themes and ideas from Bulgakov that contribute to his approach to

21 Sergius Bulgakov, La Philosophie du Verbe et du Nom , 173.22 Archimandrite Sophrony, Sa Vie est la mienne, 132-33.23 Archimandrite Sophrony, Sa Vie est la mienne, 120.

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the Name of God, particularly the Name Jesus, in the context of the spiritual experience of practitioners of the Jesus Prayer.

The religious experience of onomatodoxy arises from the invocation of the name of Jesus, which occupies a unique place among the names of God. Bulgakov in particular examines the name Jesus, which, just as the name Jehovah-Yahve was revealed to Moses (Ex 3:14), is a name revealed to the Virgin Mary (Lk 2:31). But there is a radical difference between the two names, a difference which forms the basis of the invocation of the name of Jesus:

If, in the Old Testament, the Name of God is terrifying and mysterious, that of Jesus is “very sweet,” while still full of power: by it we communicate with the love of God, we taste the grace of the divine Name ... For the Jew of old, the Name of God was like the summit of Sinai, surrounded by dark clouds and lightning, which only Moses approached; any invocation of the Name, other than in the formal rite fixed by the Law, was in error and sinful. The Name of Jesus is given “at all times and at every hour” (concluding prayer of canoni- cal Hours). We must be very conscious of this difference, this opposition, between the Name of the transcendent Divinity, distant and terrifying ... and the Name of Jesus, of which every human heart is the temple, of which every member of the faithful is the priest.24

The Name Jesus is a divine-human Name, not the external “envelope” of the Name, which can also be a simple human name, but only when it refers to Jesus the incarnate Logos. Just as the Logos “became flesh and dwelt among us” (Jn 1:14), so also the pre-existent Name of Jesus became incarnate in Jesus the Christ. For Bulgakov, just as Christ is the universal human being, so also the Name Jesus is the universal Name, “the Name of all names.”25

One of the crucial questions which arose in the onomatodoxy quarrel touched on the nature of prayer and more particularly on the efficacy of the invocation of the Name of God, especially the name Jesus, the heart of the Jesus Prayer. The imiabortsy argued that

24 Sergius Bulgakov, La Philosophie du Verbe et du Nom , 200-201.25 Sergius Bulgakov, La Philosophie du Verbe et du Nom , 197-98.

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the efficacy of the invocation was contingent on the state of the person invoking the Name, on the fervor or personal disposition of the person praying. Bulgakov and others are strongly critical of this “psychologism” or subjectivism as applied to prayer, arguing that God is present in his Name independently of the psychological or subjective dispositions of the person praying. The supporters of onomatodoxy apply an objective realism to the invocation of the Name of God and draw a parallel with the invocation of the Name of God in sacraments, especially the eucharist:

Just as the Holy Eucharistic Species are invariably Body and Blood of Christ, be this “for salvation” for some or “for judgement and condemnation” [...] for others, so the Name of God is a divine energy, regardless of our attitude, pious or sacrilegious.26

The issue penetrates to the very nature of prayer, the central act of all religion:

Prayer becomes prayer to God, it acquires its objective value as the union of the human being with God precisely because of the presence of God in prayer, due to the indwelling, simultaneously transcendental and immanent, of the Name of God. This is the ontological foundation, the substance, the virtue, the significance of prayer ... All prayer is miracle, if we mean a rupture into the immanent and a piercing of the transcendental. This miracle is the Name of God, which is the Divinity.27

Hence liturgy is characterized by ontological objectivity; it is not dependent on the “disposition of the spirit” of the celebrants, but is accomplished “in the Name of God,” Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, “not as a metaphor, as the imiabortsy think, but as a mystical reality.”28 More specifically, the formula of John of Kronstadt picked up by Archimandrite Hilarión

26 Sergius Bulgakov, La Philosophie du Verbe et du Nom, 202.27 Sergius Bulgakov, La Philosophie du Verbe et du Nom, 202.28 Sergius Bulgakov, La Philosophie du Verbe et du Nom , 203.

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simply signifies that the Name is divine, that it participates in the domain of the energies of God.. .The Lord is present by his energy, by his “simplicity,” by the indivisibility of his natures...The presence of [the Divinity One]...manifests the eternal and inaccessible mystery of the divine Incarna- tion and condescendence, the mystery of the presence of God in his Name, confirmed by the sacrament of prayer.29

Archimandrite Sophrony is more cautious about dismissing entirely the psychological or personal aspect of prayer. A starets (spiritual father) himself, Sophrony, like his religious philosophy predecessors, distances himself from any hint of attributing magical power to the words themselves of prayer, including the Jesus Prayer, but he nonetheless stresses the importance of the attitude of the devotee in prayer:

When we are conscious of what we have said in prayer, our prayer becomes a formidable act, even a triumphant one.... We do not attribute magical power to the words [of the divine Names] as such, as audible phenomena, but when they are pronounced as a true confession of faith and in a state of fear of God, reverence and love, then in truth we have God together with his Names.30

Sophrony speaks of the power of the Name from personal experience that can only be termed mystical; at times he is circumspect, at times more direct:

Now that the most profound sense of all divine Names has been unveiled by Christ’s coming, we also should tremble— as this happens to numerous ascetes among whom I had the possibility of living—when we pronounce the holy Name of Jesus. An invocation of the divine Name fills our entire being with the presence of God, transports our intellect to other spheres, communicates a special energy and a new life to us. A divine light, of which it is not easy to speak, accom- panies this Name.31

29 Sergius Bulgakov, La Philosophie du Verbe et du Nom , 206.30 Archimandrite Sophrony, Sa Vie est la mienne, 133.31 Archimandrite Sophrony, Sa Vie est la mienne, 133.

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I remember starting the Lords prayer, “Our Father” and my soul swooned in blissful awe. I could not continue. My mind stopped, everything in me fell silent. ... Only once did it happen to me with such force. ... Some time afterwards, something similar happened to me when I was invoking the Name of Jesus Christ. I was obliged to stop pronouncing his Name: the effect was too much for me: my soul, without word, without thought, trembled at the nearness of God. ...The following day I celebrated the Liturgy and Christ-God was in me and with me and outside of me and in the holy sacraments of his Body and Blood. And the divine Name and the words of the liturgical texts issued from my mouth like a flame. I continued in this state for three days.32

As a general remark it should be stressed that onomatodoxy is not a doctrinal pronouncement and should not be examined under a theological microscope as dogma or heresy. Rather, it is an attempt, no doubt feeble and inadequate, as is any endeavour to put words on ineffable mystical experience, to express the experience of invocation of the Name of God and more particularly the Name Jesus in the life of prayer. As pre-revolutionary theologian Eugene Troubetskoy ( 1863-1920) wrote in 1913 while reading Bulatovich s Apology:

I read Bulatovich’s book and am increasingly persuaded that the key to the problem lies not in this weak and clumsy theology, but in life, which is profound and elevated and does not reduce itself to this theology. One has only to draw near to feel the warmth and joy that radiates from it.33

III. Theologies in Conflict

The “quarrel of the Name” was a tragic confrontation between two visions of the Christian life, two modes of spirituality, two “theologies,” two traditions in the Russian Orthodox Church: the academic-moral tradition, to which belonged most of the Church hierarchy, characterized by a rational approach to theology inherited

32 Archimandrite Sophrony, On Prayer (Crestwood, NY: SVS Press, 1998), 47.33 Cited by Hilarión Alfeyev, Le Mystère sacré de l'Eglise, 382.

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from Western scholasticism, and the ascetic-mystical tradition, which traces its pedigree back to the Desert Fathers, through the long history of Orthodox spirituality and monasticism, to the “Philokalic revival” in Orthodox spirituality, stimulated by the publication of the Philokalia in 1782, which reached deep into the Russian soul in the nineteenth century. Throughout most of the nineteenth century these two groups maintained a state of peaceful coexistence, but Hilarión s book struck a sensitive chord and ultimately represented a challenge that some hierarchs could not ignore, both for personal reasons and for the prestige and authority of the Church.

The conflict between the two groups brought to light another fundamental split that developed in the second half of the nineteenth century, between the Church hierarchy and the intelligentsia. Large segments of the Russian nobility, the upper classes, and the intelligentsia had deserted the Church by the end of the nineteenth century. The basic program of the intelligentsia, the overthrow of the imperial regime, put it at odds with the Church, closely identified with the detested monarchy. The late nineteenth century nonetheless saw the flowering of a remarkable religious renaissance among leading members of the intelligentsia, but the Church was even unable to see eye to eye with this true Christian intelligentsia. It was members of this group, the Florenskys and the Bulgakovs, who flew to the rescue of the beleaguered imiaslavtsy, who were unable to express adequately the theological sense of their spiritual experience.

The conflict over the Name of God recalls the great fourteenth- century quarrel over hesychasm, in which Mount Athos was also the center of the storm. The issue then was not dissimilar to that of the early twentieth century: the claim of the hesychasts who asserted that they had a real experience of God in their prayer life, experience sealed by visions of Divine Light, was confronted by a rationalistic theology inspired by the humanism of the early Renaissance, which denied that it was possible for humans to have a real experience of God, who is unknowable. In the fourteenth century, Saint Gregory Palamas, himself an Athonite, became the articulate spokesman of the hesychasts, especially by developing the

433The Name of God Conflict in Othodox Theology

idea latent in Eastern Christian theology since the Cappadocian Fathers, the distinction between the divine essence and the divine energies. But the twentieth-century hesychasts had no Gregory Palamas in their midst, and it was their supporters among the Christian intelligentsia who took up the challenge of confronting the profound philosophical and theological issues underlying onomatodoxy.

The imiahortsy had an erroneous point of departure for their critique of onomatodoxy: an attempt to assess religious experience, the life of prayer, both liturgical and personal, in terms of a rational, scholastically-inspired dogmatic theology, which evacuates the mystical and transcendental nature of true prayer. The real tragedy occurred when ambitious hierarchs, nourished on a formalistic approach to religion and religious experience, seized on the Athonite critique of Archimandrite Hilarions book and cast the issue as doctrinal, conflicting with the rather superficial accepted wisdom of the official Church, and seemingly threatening its authority. Even faced with the origin of the formula “the Name of God is God” in John of Kronstadt, an eminent and beloved pastor, they were unable to approach onomatodoxy in the context of prayer and liturgy.

Although the defenders of onomatodoxy among the Christian intelligentsia were pre-eminent thinkers, philosophers, and theologians, true intellectuals, ironically they were far more attuned to the experiential, mystical dimension of the faith and the Church than the hierarchs who made up the chief opposition to onomatodoxy and who must be held responsible for the tragic dénouement of the “Athonite affair.” It was this handful of intellectuals who stood up to be counted, both in heat of the action and afterwards, even at the risk of their lives.

Archimandrite Sophrony places the doctrine of the Name of God squarely in the ascetical-mystical tradition of the Orthodox Church, as did the author of On the Mountains of the Caucasus. Onomatodoxy is considered in the light of the life of prayer, in the context of “our spiritual growth,”34 rather than from the perspective

34 Archimandrite Sophrony, Sa Vie est la mienne, 136.

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of academic theology remote from praxis. Sophrony and the religious philosophers were intellectuals with a keen sense of the continuity between the spiritual life, and ultimately mystical experience, and Orthodox theology, what Vladimir Lossky characterized as “the Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church.”35 Sophrony was more theologically inclined than his monastic predecessor of the early twentieth century, and he had the benefit of the mature reflections of Bulgakov and others on the subject.

It is in this light that we should see Hilarión Alfeyev s positive contemporary assessments of the contributions of Bulgakov and Sophrony to the evolution of Orthodox reflection on the theology of the Name. Alfeyev considers that the doctrine of Sergius Bulgakov on the Name of God, contained in The Philosophy of the Name, is “the most complete and the most relevant expression of the onomatodoxy doctrine of the Name of God,” while that of Archimandrite Sophrony appears “the most accurate, the most concise, at the same time the most sound theologically,” and that it “completes the process of maturation of the doctrine of the Name of God in Russian theology.”36

Bulgakov s consideration ofonomatodoxy is more philosophically based and more robust and exhaustive theologically, while that of Sophrony is more biblically and liturgically based, and it integrates more thoroughly spiritual and existential aspects of the Name of God in prayer with theological considerations. This is more a matter of personal disposition and emphasis than a reflection of fundamental differences. Sophrony is perhaps more cautious than Bulgakov in his theological reflections and language—for example he does not use the contested “onomatodoxy formula,” nor does he consider the Name of God to be superior to the icon, as does Bulgakov.

In turn, Hilarión Alfeyev is more cautious still than the principal supporters of onomatodoxy. For example, he rejects the “onomatodoxy formula” on the grounds that we cannot affirm the

35 Vladimir Lossky s classic The Mystical Theology o f the Eastern Church was originally published in French in 1944. In English: Crestwood, NY: SVS Press, 1976.

36 Hilarión Alfeyev, Le Mystère sacré de l ’Eglise, 385·

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identity of God with his Name (assuming that the verb “to be” in the formula is understood in the sense of identification), that we believe that God can be named and that the Names of God can adequately express the divine essence. The formula is nonetheless useful, he finds, if it is understood along the lines that “God is present in his Name” or that “God resides in his Name.” Similarly, he rejects the straightforward contention that the Name of God is a divine energy, “if the term energy is used in a Palamite sense and thus designates an energy co-eternal with God, inseparable from his nature, independently of the existence of the created world.”37

In his caution, Alfeyev cites approvingly the only text that we have from Vladimir Lossky on onomatodoxy, remarks contained in a letter written in 1938. For Lossky, the dogmatic question of the Name of God is as important as that of icons and just as the dogmatic expression concerning icons resulted in the “triumph of Orthodoxy” in the ninth century, so the Orthodox doctrine of the Names “should provoke a new triumph of Orthodoxy, the manifestation of new beatifying and sanctifying forces.” Lossky rejects both the rationalist modern-day iconoclasts of the Name, typified by Antony Khrapovitsky, and the radical “worshippers of the Name,” who divinize the sounds of the divine Name, pointing instead to the theology of Gregory Palamas and to spirituality as the basis of a solution. He cites a formula of Archbishop Theophanes of Poltava, “The Divinity resides in the Name of God,” and comments: “When this formula will be clear, filled with spiritual experience and spiritually obvious, many questions will automatically fall by the wayside and many difficulties will then appear childish.”38

Writing in the 1930s, Georges Florovsky, in his monumental Ways of Russian Theology, made only a few general remarks on onomatodoxy. But in these few remarks he puts his finger on the heart of both the historical and the theological aspects of the controversy:

In the history of Russian theology one detects a creativeconfusion. Most harmful has proven the gulf separating

37 See Hilarión Alfeyev s theological conclusions in Le Mystère sacré de l ’Église, 381 -88 .38 Cited by Hilarión Alfeyev in Le Mystère sacré de l ’Église, 387-88.

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theology and piety, theological learning and devotional prayer, the theology of the schools and the life of the Church. A split or schism between the “intelligentsia” and the “people” occurred within the Church itself ...This is so characteristically expressed in the 1912—13 “Athos contro- versy” concerning the names of God and the Jesus Prayer.39

In a footnote he says about the “onomatodoxy formula”:

It would seem that this was not so much a theological asser- tion as much as it was simply a description of the reality of the prayer. But even this reality seemed too daring. Psychol- ogism in the explanation of prayer appeared to many safer, more humble and more pious.40

It seems that neither Lossky nor Florovsky was familiar with the thinking of the religious philosophers on onomatodoxy. Although both lived in Paris in the 1930s, they were on opposite sides of the theological fence from Sergius Bulgakov, yet quite possibly both would have found Bulgakov s “theology of the Name” quite satisfactory as an Orthodox approach to the issue.

The failure of the Council of the Russian Orthodox Church of 1917-18 to deal with onomatodoxy means that it is still an open question. Should the issue resurface in an ecclesiastical context, at a century’s interval from the tragic events of the 1910s, there is now a solid philosophical and theological base to work toward more considered doctrinal and canonical conclusions than was the case then. Any consideration of the issue has to be based on a holistic vision: theology, spirituality, and liturgy cannot be separated. The expression “the Name of the Lord” occurs frequently in Orthodox liturgy, almost invariably referring to or invoking the Name of God as identical to referring to or invoking God. At the end of the Liturgy of Saint John Chrysostom, the choir and the people sing: Blessed be the Name of the Lord both now and forever.”

39 Georges Florovsky, Puti russkogo bogosloviya [The Ways o f Russian Theology] (Bel- grade, 1937); English version in The Collected Works o f Georges Florovsky, Vol. VI (Vaduz: Bücher Vertriebsanstalt, 1972), 290.

40 Georges Florovsky, The Ways o f Russian Theology, 376.

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