Makarii Bulgakov (1816-1882)

Metropolitan Macarius (Митрополит Макарий, born Mikhail Petrovich Bulgakov, Михаил Петрович Булгаков; 1816–1882), was the Metropolitan of Moscow and Kolomna in 1879–82 and member of many learned societies, including the Russian Academy of Sciences.

In 1841, he graduated from the Kiev Ecclesiastical Academy, of which he served as a dean in 1851–57. His popular student manual, Orthodox Dogmatic Theology, steeped in the Latin methodology, was originally printed in 6 volumes in 1847–53. In 1866 Macarius started the publication of his landmark History of the Russian Church, for which he is best remembered. The 12th volume of his magnum opus, covering the patriarchate of Nikon, was released posthumously.

Macarius has been considered one of the three major church historians of the Russian Empire, along with Filaret Gumilevsky and Yevgeny Golubinsky.

Of Tatar descent, he was a distant relative of the major Eastern Orthodox theologian Sergei Bulgakov.