Translated by Thomas Allan Smith

In The Burning Bush -- the first component of his -minor theological trilogy- -- the great Russian Orthodox theologian Sergius Bulgakov explores the place of Mary the Mother of God in Orthodox theology and devotional practice, in the process critiquing certain aspects of Roman Catholic Mariology. Drawing heavily on the Orthodox Church's liturgical texts and iconography and on his own developing Sophiology, Bulgakov offers a rich explanation of the unique, mysterious role played by the Mother of God as the realization of the human...

Few of Sergius Bulgakov's professional writings achieve the lyrical heights of Jacob's Ladder. In it he discusses the doctrine of angels and their importance for contemporary humanity. He includes reflections on the meaning of love, the sexes, death, and the Christian hope of resurrection, meditating on the Wisdom of God in the creation.
This work completes the word picture of divinized and Sophianic creation begun in The Burning Bush and The Friend of the Bridegroom, which together constitute what scholars call Bulgakov's -major, - or first, trilogy.