In February 1901, the Synod issued a "Definition" in which it announced the renunciation of the writer Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoy from the Church. The document was the result of many years of controversy between the writer and his associates - "Tolstoyans" and representatives of the clergy.
One of the most difficult, controversial and debated moments in the biography of the great Russian writer Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoy is his excommunication from the Russian Orthodox Church. Many believe that the Church anathematized the writer, but in fact there was no anathema. The most widespread point of view today is that Tolstoy himself disconnected from the ROC, and the Church had only to state this fact. In fact, the circumstances of this story are much more complicated.
The fact is that at the beginning of the 20th century, no one was anathematized in the Church: this religious procedure was abolished. Thus, the last person to be anathematized was Hetman Mazepa in the 18th century. Moreover, Tolstoy himself was not imprisoned, exiled to Siberia and not sent to England, but they did it with his supporters - and this was what hit the writer most painfully. However, as in many other similar cases, the official prohibitions only played into the hands of the “Tolstoyans”: the ban on printing his works widened the network of their underground distribution, and in the writer's creations they saw the truth hidden from the common people by the state and the Church.
According to the writer and journalist Pavel Basinsky, who has been researching the life and work of Leo Tolstoy for a long time, such prominent church figures as Archimandrite Anthony (Khrapovitsky), Archbishop Nikanor of Kherson and Odessa (Brovkovich), Archbishop of Kharkiv and Akhtyrsky Ambrose (Klyucharyov), Sviyazhsky Pavel (Lebedev), famous priests and teachers of theological academies, have been in polemics with Tolstoy since 1883. This fact is especially interesting because at that time none of Tolstoy's religious works were published even abroad.
Tolstoy himself was a believer, baptized in Orthodoxy, but in the last 20 years of his life he made it clear that he did not accept a number of the main dogmas of the Russian Orthodox Church. This is clearly expressed in the work "Resurrection", published in 1899, which described the coldness of the clergy, hastily performing the prescribed religious rites. At the same time, Tolstoy's supporters were distributing brochures describing the writer's own worldview. This own understanding of Christianity was called Tolstoyism. The writer did not accept the doctrine of the Trinity of God, denied the infallible authority of the Ecumenical Councils, church sacraments, the virgin birth, the reality of the resurrection of Jesus Christ and his divinity. He criticized the Church for putting her own interests ahead of the interests of all of Christianity.
Calls to excommunicate Tolstoy from the Church have been heard since the late 1880s. Alexander III was repeatedly asked to excommunicate Tolstoy from the Church, but he refused to commit this act, since he did not want to "add to the glory of Tolstoy a martyr's crown." Appeals became more active after the death of Alexander III and the accession to the throne of Nicholas II. The "Determination" of the Synod, adopted on February 20-22, 1901 and published on February 24 of the same year in the "Church Gazette", was a kind of answer to the questions of the clergy about "Tolstoyism." What is this new belief? What are the views? They seem to be good morally, but what is the reality?
The Synod text read as follows:
Promotional video:
By the grace of God
The Holy All-Russian Synod to the faithful children of the Orthodox Catholic Greek-Russian Church rejoice in the Lord.
We pray you, brethren, watch out for those who create strife and strife, except for teaching, but you will learn it, and turn away from them (Romans 16:17).
Initially, the Church of Christ endured blasphemy and attacks from numerous heretics and false teachers who sought to overthrow it and shake its essential foundations, which were confirmed by faith in Christ, the Son of the Living God. But all the powers of hell, according to the promise of the Lord, could not prevail against the Holy Church, which will remain undivided forever. And in our days, by God's permission, a new false teacher, Count Leo Tolstoy, has appeared.
The world famous writer, Russian by birth, Orthodox by baptism and upbringing, Count Tolstoy, in the seduction of his proud mind, boldly rebelled against the Lord and His Christ and His holy property, clearly before everyone he renounced the mother who nurtured and raised him, the Church Orthodox, and dedicated his literary activity and the talent given to him from God to spread among the people teachings that are contrary to Christ and the Church, and to destroy in the minds and hearts of people of the fatherly faith, the Orthodox faith, which established the universe, by which our ancestors lived and were saved and by which Until now, Holy Russia held on and was strong.
In his writings and letters, scattered in many by him and his disciples all over the world, especially within the borders of our dear Fatherland, he preaches with the zeal of a fanatic the overthrow of all the dogmas of the Orthodox Church and the very essence of the Christian faith; rejects the personal Living God, glorified in the Holy Trinity, the creator and provident of the Universe, denies the Lord Jesus Christ - the God-man, Redeemer and Savior of the world, who suffered us for the sake of man and ours for the sake of salvation and rose from the dead, denies the divine conception through humanity of Christ the Lord and virginity before Nativity and after the birth of the Most Pure Theotokos, Ever-Virgin Mary, does not recognize the afterlife and reward, rejects all the sacraments of the Church and the grace-filled action of the Holy Spirit in them and, cursing the most sacred objects of faith of the Orthodox people,did not shudder to mock the greatest of the sacraments, the Holy Eucharist. Count Tolstoy preaches all of this continuously, in word and in writing, to the temptation and horror of the entire Orthodox world, and thus invisibly, but clearly before everyone, consciously and deliberately rejected himself from all communion with the Orthodox Church.
The attempts that were made to his reason were unsuccessful. Therefore, the Church does not consider him as her member and cannot count him until he repent and restores his communion with her. Now we testify about this before the whole Church to the confirmation of the righteous and to the admonition of the erring ones, especially to the new admonition of Count Tolstoy himself. Many of his neighbors, who keep the faith, with sorrow think that, at the end of his days, he remains without faith in God and our Lord Savior, having rejected the blessings and prayers of the Church and from all communion with her.
Therefore, testifying about his falling away from the Church, together we pray that the Lord grant him repentance in the mind of truth (2 Tim. 2:25). Pray, merciful Lord, do not even die of sinners, hear and have mercy and turn him to your holy Church. Amen.
Genuine signed:
Humble ANTONY, Metropolitan of St. Petersburg and Ladoga.
The humble FEOGNOST, Metropolitan of Kiev and Galicia.
The humble VLADIMIR, Metropolitan of Moscow and Kolomna.
The humble HERONIM, Archbishop of Kholmsk and Warsaw.
The humble JACOB, Bishop of Kishinev and Khotin.
Humble JACOB, bishop.
Humble BORIS, bishop.
HUMBLE MARKEL, Bishop.
February 20, 1901"
Following the resolution of the Synod, letters of the most varied nature were sent to Leo Tolstoy. Some of them contained curses, calls to repentance, and even threats. So, for example, criticism came from the side of Archpriest John of Kronstadt in 1902: “Tolstoy's hand went up to write such a vile slander against Russia, against its government!.. to disgust … Tolstoy's bad manners from his youth and his absent-minded, idle life with adventures in the summer of his youth, as can be seen from his own description of his life, were the main reason for his radical atheism; his acquaintance with Western atheists helped him even more to take this terrible path, and his excommunication by the Holy Synod embittered him to an extreme degree,having offended his county writer's pride, darkening his worldly glory … oh, how terrible you are, Leo Tolstoy, the offspring of vipers ….
At the same time, the famous Orthodox philosopher Vasily Rozanov, without challenging the decision of the Synod, emphasized that the Synod has no right to judge the Count:, the greatest phenomenon of religious Russian history in 19 centuries, albeit distorted. But the oak, crookedly grown, is, however, an oak, and it cannot be judged mechanically by a formal "institution" … This act shook the Russian faith more than Tolstoy's teaching."
The philosopher Dmitry Merezhkovsky echoed him: “I do not share the religious teaching of Leo Tolstoy … Still, we say: if you excommunicated Leo Tolstoy from the church, then excommunicate us all, because we are with him, and we are with him because we believe that Christ is with him."
The answer to the excommunication of the writer from the Church was not long in coming, but at first he followed not from Tolstoy himself, but from his wife, Sofya Andreevna. On February 26, 1901, she sent her letter regarding the publication of the Synod's “Definitions” in newspapers to the leading member of the Synod, Metropolitan Anthony (Vadkovsky) of St. Petersburg.
“Your Eminence!
Having read (yesterday) in the newspapers the cruel decision of the Synod about the excommunication of my husband, Count Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy, and seeing your signature among the signatures of the church pastors, I could not remain completely indifferent to this. There are no limits to my woeful indignation. And not from the point of view that my husband will die spiritually from this paper: this is not the work of people, but the work of God. The life of the human soul, from a religious point of view, is unknown to anyone except God and, fortunately, is not subject to. But from the point of view of the Church to which I belong and from which I will never depart - which was created by Christ to bless in the name of God all the most significant moments of human life: births, marriages, deaths, sorrows and joys of people … - which should loudly proclaim the law of love, forgiveness, love for enemies, for those who hate us, pray for everyone,- from this point of view, the order of the Synod is incomprehensible to me.
It will evoke not sympathy (unless only Moskovskiye Vedomosti), but indignation in people and great love and sympathy for Lev Nikolaevich. We are already receiving such expressions, and there will be no end to them, from all over the world.
I cannot fail to mention the grief that I experienced from the nonsense that I heard about before, namely: about the secret order of the Synod, the priests should not have funeral service in the church of Lev Nikolaevich, in case of his death.
Whom do they want to punish? - a deceased person who no longer feels anything, a person, or those around him, believers and people close to him? If this is a threat, then to whom and what?
Really, in order to service my husband's funeral service and pray for him in church, I will not find - or such a decent priest who will not be afraid of people before the real God of love, or not a decent one, whom I will bribe with big money for this purpose? But I don’t need that. For me, the church is an abstract concept, and I recognize its ministers only those who truly understand the meaning of the church.
If we recognize the church as people who dare to violate the highest law of Christ's love with their malice, then all of us, true believers and attending church, would have left it long ago.
And the guilty of sinful deviations from the church are not those who have gone astray, seeking the truth, but those who proudly admitted themselves at the head of it, and, instead of love, humility and forgiveness, became spiritual executioners of those whom God would rather forgive for their humble, complete renunciation of earthly blessings, love and help to people, life, although outside the church, than those who wear diamond mitres and stars, but who punish and excommunicate from the church are her pastors.
It is easy to refute my words with hypocritical arguments. But a deep understanding of the truth and real intentions of people - will not deceive anyone.
Countess Sofia Tolstaya.
February 26, 1901"
The letter from Tolstoy's wife caused a wide public outcry and was published in both domestic and foreign newspapers. Metropolitan Anthony's answer was soon also published - in Tserkovnye Vedomosti.
“Dear Empress, Countess Sofia Andreevna!
It is not that cruel what the Synod did, announcing your husband's apostasy from the Church, but cruel what he himself did to himself, renouncing his faith in Jesus Christ, the Son of the Living God, our Redeemer and Savior. It is on this renunciation that your sorrowful indignation should have been poured out long ago. And not from a scrap of printed paper, of course, your husband is dying, but from the fact that he turned away from the Source of eternal life.
For a Christian, life is inconceivable without Christ, according to whom “the one who believes in Him has eternal life and passes from death to life, but the unbeliever will not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him” (John III, 1. 16.36U, 24) and therefore only one thing can be said about the one who denies Christ, that he passed from life to death. This is the death of your husband, but only he himself is to blame for this death, and not anyone else.
The Church, to which you consider yourself to belong, consists of believers in Christ, and for believers, for its members, this Church blesses with the name of God all the most significant moments of human life: births, marriages, deaths, sorrows and joys of people, but she never does this and cannot do for unbelievers, for pagans, for blasphemers of the name of God, for those who have renounced it and do not want to receive any prayers or blessings from it, and in general for all those who are not members of it. And therefore, from the point of view of this Church, the order of the Synod is comprehensible, understandable and clear, like God's day. And the law of love and forgiveness is not violated by this. God's love is infinite, but She also does not forgive everyone and not for everything. Blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is not forgiven either in this or in the next life (Matt. XII, 32). The Lord is always looking for a person with his love,but sometimes a person does not want to meet this love and runs away from the Face of God, and therefore perishes. Christ prayed on the cross for His enemies, but He, in His high priestly prayer, spoke His word, bitter for love, that the perishing son had perished (John, XVII, 12). It is still impossible to say about your husband, while he is alive, that he died, but the perfect truth was told about him, that he fell away from the Church and does not become a member of it until he repents and is reunited with her.until she repent and reunited with her.until she repent and reunited with her.
In its message, speaking of this, the Synod testified only to an existing fact, and therefore only those who do not understand what they are doing can be indignant at it. You receive expressions of sympathy from the whole world. I am not surprised by this, but I think that you have nothing to console yourself with. There is human glory and there is the glory of God. “The glory of man is like a flower on the grass: the grass is withered, and its color has fallen, but the word of the Lord abides forever” (I Peter 1, 24, 25).
When last year the newspapers spread the news about the count's illness, the question arose for the clergy: should he, who had fallen away from the faith and the Church, be honored with Christian burial and prayers? Appeals to the Synod followed, and he secretly gave the leadership to the clergy and could give only one answer: it should not if he dies without restoring his communion with the Church. There is no threat to anyone here, and there could be no other answer. And I do not think that there was any, not even decent, priest who would dare to commit a Christian burial over the count, and if he did, then such a burial over an unbeliever would be a criminal profanation of the sacred rite. And why commit violence against your husband? After all, without a doubtdoes he himself not want a Christian burial over him? Since you - a living person - want to consider yourself a member of the Church, and it really is a union of living intelligent beings in the name of the living God, then your statement that the Church is an abstract concept for you falls by itself. And in vain do you reproach the servants of the Church for malice and violation of the highest law of love, commanded by Christ. There is no violation of this law in the synodal act. On the contrary, this is an act of love, an act of calling your husband to return to the Church and believers to pray for him. There is no violation of this law in the synodal act. On the contrary, this is an act of love, an act of calling your husband to return to the Church and believers to pray for him. There is no violation of this law in the synodal act. On the contrary, this is an act of love, an act of calling your husband to return to the Church and believers to pray for him.
The Lord sets the shepherds of the Church, and not they themselves proudly, as you say, recognized themselves at the head of it. They wear diamond mitres and stars, but this is not at all essential in their ministry. They remained shepherds, dressing in rags, persecuted and persecuted, they will remain so and always, even if they had to dress again in rags, no matter how much they blasphemed and no matter how contemptuous words were called.
In conclusion, I apologize for not answering you right away. I waited for the first sharp outburst of your grief to pass.
God bless you and bless you, and have mercy on the count - your husband!
ANTONY, METROPOLITAN OF ST. PETERSBURG
1901 March 16.
Soon Leo Tolstoy himself joined the correspondence. His "Reply to the Synod" was written in April 1901.
“I didn’t want to answer the synod’s decision about me at first, but this decision caused a lot of letters in which correspondents unknown to me - some scold me for rejecting what I don’t reject, others exhorting me to believe in that I did not stop believing, still others express with me a like-mindedness that hardly exists in reality, and sympathy to which I hardly have a right; and I decided to respond both to the resolution itself, pointing out what was unfair in it, and to the appeals to me by my unknown correspondents.
The synod's ruling generally has many shortcomings; it is illegal or intentionally ambiguous; it is arbitrary, unsubstantiated, untrustworthy and, moreover, contains slander and incitement to violent feelings and actions.
It is illegal or deliberately ambiguous because if it wants to be excommunication, then it does not satisfy the church rules according to which such excommunication can be pronounced; if this is a statement that someone who does not believe in the church and its dogma does not belong to it, then this is self-evident, and such a statement cannot have any other purpose than that, without being in essence of excommunication, it would seem as such, which actually happened, because it was so understood.
It is arbitrary, because it accuses me alone of disbelief in all the points written out in the decree, even as not only many, but almost all educated people in Russia share such disbelief and constantly expressed and express it in conversations, and in reading, and in brochures and books.
It is unfounded, because the main reason for its appearance is the widespread dissemination of my false teaching that seduces people, while I well know that there are hardly a hundred people who share my views, and the dissemination of my writings on religion, thanks to censorship, is so insignificant that the majority people who have read the synod's decree have not the slightest idea of what I have written about religion, as is evident from the letters I receive.
It contains an obvious lie, asserting that unsuccessful attempts to enlighten me were made by the church on the part of the church, while nothing of the kind has ever happened.
It is what in legal language is called slander, since it contains deliberately unfair statements that tend to my harm. It is, finally, incitement to bad feelings and actions, since, as it should have been expected, in people who are unenlightened and unreasoning, anger and hatred towards me, reaching the level of threats of murder and expressed in the letters I receive. "Now you are anathema and after death you will go into eternal torment and die like a dog … that anathema, old devil … damn it," writes one. Another reproaches the government for not being imprisoned in a monastery yet, and fills the letter with curses. The third writes: "If the government does not remove you, we ourselves will silence you"; the letter ends with curses. “To destroy the scoundrel you,” writes the fourth,- I have the means … “Obscene curses follow. I notice signs of the same bitterness after the synod's resolution when I meet with some people. On the very day of February 25, when the decree was published, walking across the square, I heard the words addressed to me: "Here is the devil in the form of a man," and if the crowd had been formed differently, it is very possible that I would have been beaten, as a few years ago, they beat a man near the Panteleimon Chapel.how they beat a man at the Panteleimon Chapel several years ago.how they beat a man at the Panteleimon Chapel several years ago.
So the decision of the synod is generally very bad; the fact that at the end of the decree it is said that the persons who signed it pray that I will become like them does not make it better.
This is so in general, but in particular the decision is unfair in the following. The decree says: “The world-famous writer, Russian by birth, Orthodox by baptism and upbringing, Count Tolstoy, in seducing his proud mind, boldly rebelled against the Lord and his Christ and his holy property, clearly in front of everyone renounced the his mother, the Orthodox Church."
The fact that I renounced a church that calls itself Orthodox is completely true. But I denied her not because I rebelled against the Lord, but on the contrary, only because I wanted to serve him with all the strength of my soul. Before renouncing the church and unity with the people, which was inexpressibly dear to me, I, by some indications doubting the correctness of the church, devoted several years to research theoretically and practically the doctrine of the church: theoretically - I reread everything I could about the doctrine of the church, studied and critically analyzed dogmatic theology; in practice, he strictly followed, for more than a year, all the instructions of the church, observing all fasts and attending all church services. And I became convinced that the teaching of the church is theoretically an insidious and harmful lie, but in practice it is a collection of the crudest superstitions and witchcraft,completely concealing the whole meaning of Christian teaching:
And I really renounced the church, stopped performing its rituals and wrote in my will to my loved ones, so that when I die, they would not admit church ministers to me, and my dead body would be removed as soon as possible, without any spells and prayers over it, like they remove every nasty and unnecessary thing so that it does not interfere with the living. The same as it is said that I “dedicated my literary activity and the talent given to me from God to spread among the people teachings that are contrary to Christ and the Church”, etc., and that “in my writings and letters, in the multitude of just like my disciples, all over the world, especially within the borders of our dear fatherland, I preach with the zeal of a fanatic the overthrow of all the dogmas of the Orthodox Church and the very essence of the Christian faith, “this is unfair. I never cared about spreading my teaching. True, I myself expressed in my works my understanding of the teaching of Christ and did not hide these works from people who wanted to get to know them, but I never published them myself; I told people about my understanding of Christ's teaching only when they asked me about it. To such people I said what I thought and gave, if I had any, my books.
Then it is said that I “reject God, in the holy trinity of the glorious creator and provident of the universe, I deny the Lord Jesus Christ, God-man, redeemer and savior of the world, who suffered us for the sake of men and ours for the sake of salvation and rose from the dead, I deny the seedless conception of Christ the Lord for humanity. and virginity before Christmas and after the birth of the Most Pure Mother of God."
One has only to read the missal and follow those rituals that are incessantly performed by the Orthodox clergy and are considered Christian worship, in order to see that all these rituals are nothing more than various methods of witchcraft, adapted to all possible cases of life. In order for a child, if he dies, to go to heaven, you need to have time to anoint him with oil and redeem him with the pronunciation of well-known words; in order for the parent to cease to be unclean, it is necessary to pronounce known spells; so that there is success in business or a quiet life in a new home, so that bread is born well, the drought stops, so that the journey is safe, in order to be cured of an illness, in order to ease the situation of the deceased in the next world, for all this and a thousand other circumstances there are known spells,which in a certain place and for a famous offering is made by the priest.
The fact that I reject the incomprehensible trinity and which does not make any sense in our time, the fable about the fall of the first man, the blasphemous story of God, born of a virgin, redeeming the human race, is completely true. But God is spirit, God is love, one God is the beginning of everything, not only do I not reject, but I do not recognize anything as really existing, except God, and I see the whole meaning of life only in fulfilling the will of God, expressed in Christian teaching. It is also said: "does not recognize the afterlife and reward." If we understand life after the grave in the sense of the second coming, hell with eternal torment, devils, and paradise - constant bliss, then it is perfectly true that I do not recognize such an afterlife; but eternal life and retribution here and everywhere, now and always, I admit to such an extent that, according to my years on the edge of the coffin,I often have to make efforts not to desire carnal death, that is, the birth of a new life, I believe that every good deed increases the true good of my eternal life, and every evil deed diminishes it.
It is also said that I reject all ordinances. This is perfectly true. I consider all the sacraments to be base, rude, inconsistent with the concept of God and Christian teaching by witchcraft and, moreover, a violation of the most direct instructions of the Gospel. I see in the baptism of infants a clear perversion of all the meaning that baptism could have for adults who consciously accept Christianity; I see a direct violation of both the meaning and the letter of the Gospel teachings in the sacrament of marriage over people who were previously united, and in the allowing of divorces and in the consecration of divorced marriages. In the periodic forgiveness of sins in confession, I see a harmful deception that only encourages immorality and destroys the fear of sinning.
In anointing of oil, just as in chrismation, I see the methods of crude witchcraft, as in the veneration of icons and relics, as in all those rituals, prayers, and spells with which the missal is filled. In communion I see the deification of the flesh and the perversion of Christian teaching. In the priesthood, in addition to an obvious preparation for deception, I see a direct violation of the words of Christ, who directly forbids calling anyone teachers, fathers, instructors (Matt. XXIII, 8-10).
Finally, it is said, as the last and highest degree of my guilt, that I, "swearing at the most sacred objects of faith, did not shudder to mock the most sacred of the sacraments - the Eucharist." The fact that I did not shudder to describe simply and objectively what the priest does for the preparation of this so-called sacrament, then this is completely true; but the fact that this so-called sacrament is something sacred and that to describe it simply as it is done is blasphemy is completely unfair. It is not blasphemy to call a partition a partition, not an iconostasis, and a cup, a cup, not chalice, etc., but the most terrible, never-ending, outrageous blasphemy is that people, using all possible means of deceit and hypnotization, - assure children and simple-minded people,that if you cut pieces of bread in a known way and while pronouncing certain words and put them in wine, then God enters these pieces; and that he, in whose name a piece is taken out alive, will be healthy; in the name of whom such a piece is taken out of the dead, it will be better for that person in the next world; and that whoever eats this piece, God himself will enter.
It's awful!
No matter how anyone understands the person of Christ, his teaching, which destroys the evil of the world and is so simple, easy, undoubtedly benefits people, if only they do not pervert it, this teaching is all hidden, everything is converted into a crude witchcraft of bathing, smearing with oil, body movements, spells, swallowing pieces, etc., so that nothing remains of the teaching. And if when any person tries to remind people that it is not in these sorceries, not in prayers, mass, candles, icons, the teaching of Christ, but in the fact that people love each other, do not pay evil for evil, do not judge, do not kill each other friend, then a groan of indignation will rise from those who benefit from these deceptions, and these people publicly, with incomprehensible audacity, speak in churches, print in books, newspapers, catechisms that Christ never forbade the oath (oath), never forbade murder (execution, war),that the doctrine of non-resistance to evil with satanic cunning was invented by the enemies of Christ (Speech by Ambrose, Bishop of Kharkov).
Awful, the main thing is that people who benefit from it deceive not only adults, but, having authority, and children, the very ones about whom Christ said that woe to the one who deceives them. The terrible thing is that these people, for their small benefits, do such a terrible evil, hiding from people the truth revealed by Christ and giving them a benefit that is not balanced even in a thousandth part of the benefit they receive from it. They act like that robber who kills an entire family, 5-6 people, to take away an old coat and 40 kopecks. of money. They would willingly give him all his clothes and all his money, if only he did not kill them. But he cannot do otherwise. It is the same with religious deceivers. One could agree 10 times better, in the greatest luxury to support them, if only they did not destroy people with their deceit. But they cannot do otherwise. This is just awful. And therefore it is not only possible to expose their deceptions, but it should be. If there is anything sacred, then it is no longer what they call a sacrament, but this duty to expose their religious deception when you see it. If a Chuvashin smears his idol with sour cream or whips it, I can indifferently pass by, because what he does, he does in the name of his alien superstition and does not touch what is sacred to me; but when people, no matter how many of them there are, no matter how old their superstition is and no matter how powerful they are, in the name of the God whom I live and the teaching of Christ that gave life to me and can give it to all people, preach gross witchcraft, I can not see it calmly. And if I call what they do by name, then I do only what I have to do, which I cannot but do, if I believe in God and Christian teaching. If instead ofin order to be horrified at their blasphemy, they call blasphemy the exposure of their deception, this only proves the power of their deception and should only increase the efforts of people who believe in God and in the teaching of Christ in order to destroy this deception, which hides the true God from people.
About Christ, who drove bulls, sheep and sellers out of the temple, they should have said that he blasphemed. If he came now and saw what is being done in his name in the church, then with even greater and more legitimate anger he would probably have thrown away all these terrible antimensions, and spears, and crosses, and bowls, and candles, and icons, and all that, whereby they, conjuring, hide God and his teaching from people.
So this is what is fair and what is unjust in the Synod's ruling about me. I really don't believe what they say they believe. But I believe in many things that they want to assure people that I do not believe.
I believe in the following: I believe in God, whom I understand as spirit, as love, as the beginning of everything. I believe that he is in me and I in him. I believe that the will of God is most clearly, most understandably expressed in the teaching of the man Christ, whom I consider to be God and whom I consider to be the greatest sacrilege. I believe that the true good of man is in the fulfillment of the will of God, but his will is that people love each other and, as a result, would act with others as they want, that they would act with them, as it is said in the Gospel that that's the whole law and the prophets. I believe that the meaning of the life of each individual person is therefore only in an increase in love in oneself, that this increase in love leads the individual in this life to more and more good, gives after death the greater good, the more there is love in the person,and at the same time and more than anything else, it contributes to the establishment of the kingdom of God in the world, that is, such a system of life in which the strife, deception and violence reigning now will be replaced by free consent, truth and brotherly love of people among themselves. I believe that for success in love there is only one means: prayer - not public prayer in churches, directly forbidden by Christ (Matthew VI, 5-13), but prayer, the example of which is given to us by Christ, is solitary, consisting in restoration and strengthening in his consciousness the meaning of his life and his dependence only on the will of God.- not public prayer in churches, directly forbidden by Christ (Matthew VI, 5-13), but prayer, the model of which was given to us by Christ - solitary prayer, consisting in the restoration and strengthening in our consciousness of the meaning of our life and our dependence only on the will of God …- not public prayer in churches, directly forbidden by Christ (Matthew VI, 5-13), but prayer, the model of which was given to us by Christ - solitary prayer, consisting in the restoration and strengthening in our consciousness of the meaning of our life and our dependence only on the will of God …
They insult, grieve or seduce someone, interfere with something and someone, or do not like these beliefs of mine - I can change them just as little as my body. I have to live alone, myself alone and die (and very soon), and therefore I cannot believe in any other way than as I do. Preparing to go to the God from whom he came. I do not say that my faith was undoubtedly true for all time, but I do not see another - simpler, clearer and meeting all the requirements of my mind and heart; if I recognize such, I will immediately accept it, because God needs nothing but the truth. I can’t return to what I have just left with such suffering, just as a flying bird cannot enter the shell of the egg from which it emerged. “Anyone who begins by loving Christianity more than truth,very soon he will love his church or sect more than Christianity, and end up loving himself (his calmness) more than anything else, said Coleridge.
I went the other way. I started with the fact that I loved my Orthodox faith more than my calmness, then I loved Christianity more than my church, but now I love the truth more than anything in the world. And until now, the truth coincides for me with Christianity, as I understand it. And I profess this Christianity; and to the extent that I confess it, I live calmly and joyfully and calmly and joyfully approach death.
April 4, 1901. Moscow.
They did not rush to publish the writer's answer: "Answer to the Synod" was published only in the summer of 1901 and only in church publications, and in an abbreviated form. According to the censor, he removed from the text 100 lines in which Count Tolstoy "offends religious feelings." The publication was accompanied by a ban on reprinting the material, so the letter never appeared in other newspapers. However, the full text was published in England that same year. In Russia, Leo Tolstoy's text was published "uncut" only in 1905.
Attempts to reconcile Tolstoy with the Church have been made since the deterioration of his health in 1902. In many ways, the initiator of the reconciliation was the count's wife, Sofya Andreevna, who, although she was not a deeply church person, but firmly adhered to Orthodox views, which is why she had conflicts with her husband more than once. Sophia Andreevna was particularly worried about Tolstoy's influence on children who gradually deviated from Orthodoxy. The writer himself resolutely rejected such conciliatory initiatives: “There can be no talk of reconciliation. I die without any enmity or evil, but what is the church? How can there be reconciliation with such an undefined subject? " Two years before his death, in January 1909, Tolstoy wrote in his diary after the visit of the Tula bishop Parthenius: “Yesterday there was a bishop. It is especially unpleasant that he asked to let him know,when I die. No matter how they came up with something to assure people that I “repented” before I died. And therefore I declare, it seems, I repeat that I just cannot return to church, take communion before death, just as I cannot speak obscene words or look at obscene pictures before death, and therefore everything that will talk about my dying repentance and communion, - False. I say this because if there are people for whom, according to their religious understanding, communion is some kind of religious act, that is, a manifestation of striving for God, for me any such external action as communion would be a renunciation of the soul, of goodness, from the teaching of Christ, from God. In this case, I repeat that I also ask to bury me without the so-called divine service, but to bury the body in the ground so that it does not stink. "No matter how they came up with something to assure people that I “repented” before I died. And therefore I declare, it seems, I repeat that I just cannot return to church, take communion before death, just as I cannot speak obscene words or look at obscene pictures before death, and therefore everything that will talk about my dying repentance and communion, - False. I say this because if there are people for whom, according to their religious understanding, communion is some kind of religious act, that is, a manifestation of striving for God, for me any such external action as communion would be a renunciation of the soul, of goodness, from the teaching of Christ, from God. In this case, I repeat that I also ask to bury me without the so-called divine service, but to bury the body in the ground so that it does not stink. "No matter how they came up with something to assure people that I “repented” before I died. And therefore I declare, it seems, I repeat that I just cannot return to church, take communion before death, just as I cannot speak obscene words or look at obscene pictures before death, and therefore everything that will talk about my dying repentance and communion, - False. I say this because if there are people for whom, according to their religious understanding, communion is some kind of religious act, that is, a manifestation of striving for God, for me any such external action as communion would be a renunciation of the soul, of goodness, from the teaching of Christ, from God. In this case, I repeat that I also ask to bury me without the so-called divine service, but to bury the body in the ground so that it does not stink. "that I “repented” before I died. And therefore I declare, it seems, I repeat that I just cannot return to church, take communion before death, just as I cannot speak obscene words or look at obscene pictures before death, and therefore everything that will talk about my dying repentance and communion, - False. I say this because if there are people for whom, according to their religious understanding, communion is some kind of religious act, that is, a manifestation of striving for God, for me any such external action as communion would be a renunciation of the soul, of goodness, from the teaching of Christ, from God. In this case, I repeat that I also ask to bury me without the so-called divine service, but to bury the body in the ground so that it does not stink. "that I “repented” before I died. And therefore I declare, it seems, I repeat that I just cannot return to church, take communion before death, just as I cannot speak obscene words or look at obscene pictures before death, and therefore everything that will talk about my dying repentance and communion, - False. I say this because if there are people for whom, according to their religious understanding, communion is some kind of religious act, that is, a manifestation of striving for God, for me any such external action as communion would be a renunciation of the soul, of goodness, from the teaching of Christ, from God. In this case, I repeat that I also ask to bury me without the so-called divine service, but to bury the body in the ground so that it does not stink. "just as I cannot speak obscene words or watch obscene pictures before death, and therefore everything that will speak about my dying repentance and communion is a lie. I say this because if there are people for whom, according to their religious understanding, communion is some kind of religious act, that is, a manifestation of striving for God, for me any such external action as communion would be a renunciation of the soul, of goodness, from the teaching of Christ, from God. In this case, I repeat that I also ask to bury me without the so-called divine service, but to bury the body in the ground so that it does not stink. "just as I cannot speak obscene words or watch obscene pictures before death, and therefore everything that will speak about my dying repentance and communion is a lie. I say this because if there are people for whom, according to their religious understanding, communion is some kind of religious act, that is, a manifestation of striving for God, for me any such external action as communion would be a renunciation of the soul, of goodness, from the teaching of Christ, from God. In this case, I repeat that I also ask to bury me without the so-called divine service, but to bury the body in the ground so that it does not stink. "communion is a certain religious act, that is, a manifestation of striving for God, for me any such external action as communion would be a renunciation of the soul, of good, of the teaching of Christ, of God. In this case, I repeat that I also ask to bury me without the so-called divine service, but to bury the body in the ground so that it does not stink. "communion is some kind of religious act, that is, a manifestation of striving for God, for me any such external action as communion would be a renunciation of the soul, of good, of the teachings of Christ, of God. In this case, I repeat that I also ask to bury me without the so-called divine service, but to bury the body in the ground so that it does not stink."
It is a well-known fact that Tolstoy bequeathed to bury himself without the prescribed church rites. However, few people know that this was the second testament of the writer, published after the notorious "Definition". According to Pavel Basinsky, the count drew up his first will in 1895: in it he asked to bury himself “in the cheapest cemetery, if it is in the city, and in the cheapest coffin - as beggars are buried. Do not put flowers, wreaths, do not speak. If possible, then without a priest and funeral service. But if this is unpleasant for those who will bury, then let them bury it as usual with the funeral service, but as cheap and simple as possible. " However, knowing the stubbornness of her husband, Sofya Andreevna still did not dare to disobey the last - indeed the last - will of Tolstoy, and buried him without much ceremony. "Everything is correct, and everything is soulless …",- she later writes in her diaries.
Alexander Umrikhin
