What is the role of Russian Orthodoxy in modern Russian history? Has it been a progressive or regressive force? Sergei Bulgakov's answer, conceived amid the prevailing winds in late Imperial Russia, is as relevant today as it was a century ago. Bulgakov's call for an open public square represented an attempt to reconcile opposing forces in the Russian Empire on the eve of war and revolution: imperial officials, the revolutionary intelligentsia, Russian Orthodox prelates, and the provincial parish clergy. On one hand, their challenge was to sustain an ongoing conversation about religious...