A view from the east. The Council of Florence (1438—1439) in Russian historiography and theology of the 19th and 20th centuries

Sergius Bulgakov considered the Council of Florence as the theological and spiritual foundation for the real, though invisible, unity of the Churches of East and West. He was following in the footsteps of Vladimir Solovyev, who deemed the Council of Florence one of the historical preconditions for the reunion of the Churches. After a survey of Old Russian sources on the Council of Florence and a short discussion of codicological studies on them, the article offers a reconstruction of the events connected to Russian participation in the Council. In the second part, different historical-critical accounts and theological reinterpretations of the Council in Russian theology from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries are analyzed.