The assessment of the Moscow Council by the theologians of the "Paris School"

This article by Paul Valliere examines how theologians of the "Paris School" approached the Moscow Council of 1917-1918. Drawing on historical and ecclesiological study, it analyzes the reasons for the relative silence of these thinkers in the face of this major event, before reviewing the positions of Sergius Bulgakov, Georges Florovsky, Jean Meyendorff and Alexander Schmemann. The central idea is that, apart from Bulgakov — the only actual member of the Council — the Parisian theologians did not truly receive this event in the ecclesiological sense of the term, limiting themselves to occasional commentary. The article makes a twofold contribution: it highlights the gap between the Russian revolutionary context and that of the emigration, and it shows how the divergences between inclusive conciliarism and episcopal neo-patrism shaped contrasting assessments of a Council whose reception remains, according to the author, an ongoing process.