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The
Orthodox Church: A Visual Journey
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| Sophia, the
personification of Wisdom, was one of the most powerful religious
figures for significant groups in Judaism and early Christianity, and
she figured prominently in the early church's debates on Christology and
trinitarian theology. Current disputes over the place of Sophia
in Christian prayer and worship take place against the backdrop of a
long and sometimes contentious history.
Sophia has remained an important image for Orthodox Christians. The
Emperor Constantine dedicated the principal church in his new capital to
Christ as the Holy Wisdom (Hagia Sophia) of God, and the Emperor
Justinian rebuilt this "Great Church" as a model for all of Byzantine
Christianity. Later generations dedicated cathedrals in
 | Thessaloniki, |
| Ochrid, |
| Kiev, |
| Novgorod |
| Polotsk (11th century) and |
| Trebizond (13th century) |
to Sophia; also, the imagery of Sophia's
banquet (Prov. 9:1-1-6) often appeared in icons. Nineteenth-and
20th-century Russian Orthodox thinkers such as
| Vladimir Solovyov, |
| Sergey Bulgakov, and |
| Pavel Florensky, |
in trying to engage issues of modem life and
thought while remaining rooted in the Eastern mystical tradition placed
the study of Sophia (sophiology) at the center of their reflections.
While other Orthodox theologians often disputed the sophiologies these
thinkers proposed, they did not question the central importance of
Sophia herself.
The first Orthodox
theologian to have grasped the significance of sophiology, was Vladimir
Solovyov. Solovyov had three influential visions of Sophia, one in
1862, and two in 1875. In his "Lectures on Divine-Humanity" he develops
his idea of Sophia along Orthodox and Platonist lines. It has been
noted by David Matual that Solovyov's heterodox tendencies develop
toward more Orthodox tendencies as he grows older. His understanding of
Sophia gains an increasing connection to Mariology as it becomes more
Orthodox.
"She who began as
Sophia in Solovyov's more explicitly gnostic writings is fully revealed
as the Blessed Virgin Mary in his more ecumenical and "orthodox"
period." (Mary in the Eschatology of Vladimir Solovyov).
In Solovyov's
thought Sophia is expressed from different angles. Boris Jakim writes:
"Solovyov
identifies Sophia with the world-soul considered as the active
principle, a principle which progressively exemplifies in the created
world the eternal all-uniting idea in the Logos. Sophia is also
identified with the end of this process, with that which is produced,
i.e., spiritualized humanity, the community f persons united in Divine
humanity. Sophia is conceived in a variety of ways: as the eternal ideal
prototype of humanity, as the world-soul actively engaged in actualizing
this prototypical idea, and as the fully developed divine-human
organism. She is portrayed both as the active principle of the creative
process and as its realized goal, the Kingdom of God, the society of
those participating in Divine Humanity."(Lectures on Divine Humanity;
Editor's Introduction, pg. xiv, Vladimir Solovyov).
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Icon of Sophia, the Wisdom of God |
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