Selection of Maxim Orlov,
village Gorval, Gomel region (Belarus).
Humanity has never lived and cannot live without religion. 1
A person can consider himself as an animal among animals living today, he can consider himself both as a member of the family, and as a member of society, a people living for centuries, he can and even absolutely must (because his mind irresistibly attracts this) to consider himself as part of the whole endless world living endless time. And therefore, a rational person has always established, in addition to his attitude to the closest phenomena of life, his attitude to the whole world, infinite in time and space and therefore incomprehensible to him, the world, understanding it as a whole. And such an establishment of a person's attitude to that incomprehensible whole, of which he feels himself a part and from which he derives guidance in his actions, is what was called and is called religion. And therefore religion has always been and cannot cease to be a necessity and an unavoidable condition in life. reasonable person and reasonable humanity. 2
A person without religion, that is, without any relation to the world, is just as impossible as a person without a heart. A person may not know that he has a heart; but both without a heart and without religion a person cannot exist. 3
A complete person, as he should be, this is a religious person. A person without religion is an animal, only the possibility of a person. 4
All the troubles of people from the lack of religion. You cannot live without religion. Only religion gives a definition of good and bad, and therefore a person only on the basis of religion can make a choice out of everything that he may wish to do. Only religion destroys egoism, only as a result of religious requirements a person can live not for himself. Religion alone destroys the fear of death; only religion gives a person the meaning of life; only religion establishes the equality of people; only religion frees a person from all external constraints. 5
If the religion in which you believed has been destroyed by your critical attitude towards it, immediately look for another, that is, another answer to the question: why do you live? As, they say, one cannot be a minute without a king: Le roi est mort, vive le roi *, so the less a minute cannot be without this king in the head and heart. Only religion, that is, the answer to the question: why do I live? will give such a thing in which you can forget yourself, your insignificant, perishing and annoying, and so unbearably demanding personality. 6
* The king is dead, long live the king.
___________________
Considering the causes of those calamities from which mankind suffers, going up from the closest causes to more basic ones, you will always come to the main reason for all and any calamities of people: the ambiguity or falsity of the established attitude of man to the world and its beginning, that is, to false religion. 7
... Religion, the very thing that alone gives a person the true blessing of life, religion in a perverted form is the main source of delusions and human suffering. 8
The correction of the existing evil of life cannot begin with anything else but with the exposure of religious lies and the free establishment of religious truth in oneself by each individual person. 9
Life is a serious matter, and in life the most serious thing is religion, that is, how a person understands himself and his attitude to everything, to God. And therefore it is dangerous and destructive to make religion a means to achieve any, not to speak of selfish, selfish or vain, but also any selfish goals, such as peace of mind. There can only be one goal of religion: knowledge accessible to humans the highest truth and submission to it of your life. 10
True religious teaching should be to show people the advantages of eternal, spiritual consciousness over the temporal and physical, to teach people to use the temporal and physical to achieve spiritual goals. 11
The essence of religion is not to see yourself alone and touching you, but Everything, infinite Everything, and your attitude to this Everything - God. This is religion. 12
Religion is a state in which actions are conditioned not by considerations of this only temporary life, but by considerations of the whole, eternal, endless life. 13
If religion does not connect human life with endless existence, it (...) is not religion. 14
Investigating religious issues, the most important for life, the whole life of a person, try to be free from what is suggested to you from the outside, and from considerations arising from your position, and be ready to follow the truth wherever it takes you. 15
Do not be afraid to cast away from your faith everything bodily, everything visible and tangible. The more you cleanse the spiritual core of your faith, the harder it will be for you. 16
A person can use the tradition that has passed to him from the wise and holy people of the past, but he himself must check with his mind what is transmitted, and reject from the tradition that which is not in agreement with reason, and accept what is in accordance with it. Each person must establish his own attitude to the world. 17
... At the head of everything (...) is the human mind, which is older than all books and bibles, from which all the Bibles originated, without which nothing can be understood, and which is given to each of us not through Moses or Christ, or the apostles, or through the church, but directly given from God to each of us, and the same to all. And therefore the mistake can be in everything, but not in the mind. And people can disperse only when they believe different human legends, and not a single one, the same for all and all directly from God to the mind. 18
... A person must understand and remember that the truth is revealed to him first and most surely not in a book, not in tradition, not in some gathering of people, but in his own heart and mind, as Moses said when he announced to the people, that the law of God should not be sought neither overseas nor in heaven, but in your heart, and as Christ said to the Jews, saying that you do not know the truth, because you believe in human traditions, and not the one he sent. God has sent us reason - one and infallible instrument of knowledge, which is given to us. 19
One should not be afraid of the destruction that reason commits in the traditions established by people. Reason cannot destroy anything without replacing it with truth. This is his property. 20
It is necessary not to suppress your mind, as the false teachers teach, in order to know the truth, but, on the contrary, to purify, strain it, test everything that is offered with it. 21
... The authority of reason is the strongest, and therefore, believing reason (...), I cannot be mistaken. God gave me from above a tool for knowing myself; I used this tool with one desire to know and fulfill his will, I did everything I could, and therefore I cannot be guilty, and I am calm. 22
Whatever I follow and whatever I recognize as truth, the reason for my decision will always be only my mind, and therefore you can follow not that [or] other teaching, but only your mind. 23
True religion is primarily a search for religion. 24
There are people who take upon themselves the right to decide for others their attitude to God and to the world, and there are people, the vast majority, who give this right to others and blindly believe what they are told. Equally criminal and pitiable are both. 25
There are two beliefs: belief in trust in what people say is belief in a person or in people, and there are many different such beliefs; and belief in your dependence on the one who sent me into the world. This is a belief in God, and this belief is the same for all people. 26
If the path along which I came to that joyful and completely satisfying consciousness in which I find myself is wrong in the opinion of other people, then this is completely indifferent to me, just as it would be indifferent for a person who came home, evidence that that he was not walking along real road. 27
Whoever believes in the human teaching about God, believes in the words about God, and not in God. Only those who cannot think without the concept of God believe in God. God for such a person is spiritually the same as for a person in material terms what he stands on and without which no material situation is inconceivable to him. 28
… The belittling of God most of all distorts the religious understanding of people and for the most part deprives people of any religion whatsoever - the guidance of actions. To establish such a religion, it is best to leave God alone, not to ascribe to him not only the creation of heaven, hell, anger, the desire to atone for sins, etc. stupidity, but not to ascribe will, desires, even love to him. Leave God alone, understanding Him as something completely inaccessible to us, and build our religion, attitude to the world on the basis of those properties of reason and love that we own. This religion will be the same religion of truth and love, like all religions in their true sense, from the Brahmins to Christ, but it will be more precise, clearer, more obligatory. 29
Christian humanity has long outlived that church faith, which for so many centuries was passed off as Christian, so now any serious consideration of the foundations of this faith will inevitably lead to its disintegration, like a rotten tree that stands like a living tree, but if you touch it, it will disintegrate into dust. 3 0
The superstition of the church consists in the belief that the religious truth, which is constantly being understood by people, has been revealed once and for all and that famous people, who have arrogated to themselves the right to teach people the true faith, are in the possession of this single, once and for all expressed religious truth. 3 1
It would seem that a small child should understand that there is no outward sign infallibility, which the churches ascribe to themselves, and that the assertion to oneself that I am the church, the holy spirit speaks through me, is the height of pride, madness, atheism. But surprisingly, this obvious deception persists even now. If we compare only different confessions that exclude and hate one another, and especially if we trace horrible story churches and cathedrals, from which it is clearly visible how these alleged decrees of the holy spirit were established by chance, secular power, threats, deceits, and how the alleged decrees of the holy spirit often contradicted each other, then one should not be surprised enough that this obvious deception still holds, and there are people - and many of them - smart, scientists who recognize it as the truth. 32
... As was Christianity in its beginning, under Christ and under the apostles, and under the martyrs - always humbly, almost secretly, so it remained to the end, so it is now ... (...) It is by its nature humble and imperceptible. It captures the human soul and all of humanity without a crackle, so that you don't even know when it entered and got stronger. 3 3
The so-called believers believe that Christ is God, the second person of the Trinity, who descended to earth in order to give people an example of life, and perform the most difficult tasks necessary for performing the sacraments, for building churches, for sending missionaries, establishing monasteries, managing the flock. corrections of faith, but one little thing they forget - to do what he said. 34
If a person studies the law of God, but does not make an effort to fulfill it, then such a person is like a farmer who plows but does not sow. 35
Faith is faith only when the deeds of life agree with it and in no case contradict it. 36
We do not require any special confession from people. A person who does not even recognize God is no stranger to us. If we demand anything, then only that people should draw the conclusions for life that follow from what they profess. 37
"The kingdom of God is within you, and the kingdom of God is taken by force (that is, by efforts)." I believe in this and do what I can for this effort, but you are offering me the performance of well-known rituals and the uttering of well-known words that will show that I recognize as infallible truth everything that people who call themselves the Church, recognize the truth, that as a result of this all mine sins will be forgiven - somehow someone will be forgiven, and not only will I not need to work the inner, hard and at the same time joyful spiritual work of my correction, but that I will somehow be saved from something and receive some kind of eternal bliss. 3 8
Deception, (...) that there is some means other than our own effort through which we can improve. To believe that there are such means, to rely on the sacraments, faith in redemption or prayer for perfection, is like a blacksmith, when he has an iron and a hammer in his hands, and there is an anvil, and a mining is fired, to invent in addition to hitting with a hammer by iron, a means of forging him or asking God to give him the strength to work. (...)
There is no more immoral and harmful teaching than that a person cannot improve on his own. (...)
Truth is that which is cognized by efforts and cannot be cognized by anything else. 39
Christ taught people to free themselves from external forms and rituals, because he knew that any performance of rituals kills the spirit and frees people from internal perfection and deeds of love. 40
The amazing fate of Christianity! They made it a home, pocket, neutralized it, and in this form people accepted it, and not only did they accept it, got used to it, they settled down on it and calmed down. 41
Christianity is in such a position that it must be discovered. 42
… To your question whether God is Christ or not, I answer that no; but since I think that God lives in each of us and it depends on each of us more or less to manifest him, then I believe that Christ manifested in the highest degree the God that lived in him. 43
... Christ said: you are gods. And he not only said, but his teaching is nothing more than the recognition of human dignity and the fact that man is the son of God. 44
Christianity, if only sincerely accepted, acts like the most terrible dynamite, tearing apart everything old and opening up new endless horizons. 45
True religious teaching is always perceived by people as something forgotten, suddenly remembered. True religious teaching raises a person to such a height from which a joyful world, subject to a reasonable law, opens up to him. The feeling experienced by a person brought up in a false religious teaching and recognizing the true, is similar to that experienced by a person locked in a dark stuffy tower when he climbed to the highest open area of the tower, from which he would see the previously unseen wonderful world. 46
Christianity is great because it was not invented by Christ, but because it is an eternal law, which humanity followed much before this law was expressed, and which it will always follow ... 4 7
The last commandment of Christ expresses his entire teaching: "Love one another as I have loved you, and therefore everyone will know that you are my disciples if you have love for one another." He does not say, "if you believe in this or that," but "if you love." Faith changes along with the incessant change in attitudes and knowledge; it is associated with time and changes with time. Love is not temporary; it is unchanging, eternal. 48
... There is and has always been only one truth of life, and therefore there is only one belief in this truth, and it is once and for all open in the hearts of all people: Buddha, Confucius, Laodzi, Socrates, Christ did only that they threw away the lie of personal delusions, growing on this truth, and showed the truth in all its purity. 49
There is no need to stick to antiquity at all costs. We must be ready to change the old order if it is harmful. A sailor who will set the same sails in all winds will not go far. 50
Religion moves, like everything moves, moves by what is freed from the superfluous, unclear, arbitrary, personal. True religious feeling is participation in this liberation. 51
... The movement is still going on, and suddenly, in the midst of this continuous movement that makes up the life of mankind, grounds are invented on which to recognize known condition enlightenment true, eternal, final. And the state inherent in the 3rd century is consolidated, and it is required that after 15 centuries it is recognized as appropriate. But Christianity is precisely in the movement towards the ideal, and because that which was consolidated and thus deprived of movement, thereby ceased to be Christian. 52
... The desire of people to create a form and recognize it as correct (...) is the main obstacle to Christianity - this is friction. And the task of people following Christ is to reduce this friction as much as possible. Forms for following the path of Christ, like points on an endless line, are endless, and none is more important than the other. The speed of movement is important. And the speed of movement is inversely related to the ability to determine the points. 5 3
... The strength of Christian life is not in varying degrees of perfection (all degrees are equal, because the path is endless), but in the acceleration of movement. The faster the movement, the stronger life... And this understanding of life gives a special joy, connecting with all people who stand at the most varied degrees, and not separating, as the commandment does. 5 4
The main and most necessary for religious life is the consciousness (...) that we do not stand, and not only move, but fly (...) with terrible speed. A completely different attitude to life, if you know or if you don't know, you don't remember it. Only forgetting this, people grab their hands, trying to hold on to what they fly past. You can't grab hold of your hands. 5 5
Thinking that you have to believe in the same way as grandfathers and great-grandfathers believed is like thinking that your baby clothes will fit you when you grow up. 56
I do not think that a temple erected by human hands was needed. This temple was erected by God. This is the whole world of living beings, and especially people, towards whom we can always exercise our faith. 5 7
... There is only one true religion (...). All this true religion has not yet been revealed to humanity, but part of it is manifested in all confessions. The whole progress of mankind consists in this more and more unification of all in this one true religion and in more and more understanding of it. And therefore, all who love the truth should try to look not for differences in religions and their shortcomings, but for their unity and dignity. 58
Non-believers seek proof of the truth of religion; there is no stronger proof than the one in all religious teachings and in the heart of every person when he conscientiously compares all religious teachings with each other and looks into his heart. 59
... In all great religions (...) there are two kinds of religious positions: some are infinitely different, varied, depending on the time, place and character of the people in which they appeared, and others, which are always the same in all religions ... (...) ... These, common to all religions, provisions should not only be believed, but must not be believed, because these provisions, besides the fact that they are the same in all religions of the world, are also written in the heart of every person as undoubted and joyful truths. 60
I don’t want to be a Christian, just as I didn’t advise and would not want to have Bramenists, Buddhists, Confucians, Taoists, Mohammedans and others. We must all find, each in his own faith, that which is common to all, and, abandoning the exclusive of ours, hold on to that which is common. 6 1
“Whoever starts by loving Christianity more than truth will very soon 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 began 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. 6 2
You are talking to me about joining the church. I think that I am not mistaken, believing that I have never separated from her - not from that one of those churches that divide, but from the one that has always united and unites everyone, all people who sincerely seek God (... ). I have never parted with this worldwide church, and more than anything else in the world I am afraid to part with it. 63
It is hard to believe that God gave only us, 400 million Christians, his true law, and even that we, Christians, do not agree, and the remaining 1000 million live according to a false law. It is hard not to believe that God gave all people one reason and conscience so that they all unite into one. 64
I think that we would discredit our common God if each of us attributed to him that he insists on those theological teachings in which we differ due to our human limitations. 65
[About Buddhism and Christianity.] Of course, they are all the same. And it cannot but be the same, just as there cannot be more than one trunk of a tree, just as there cannot but be one truth. (...) The same sea, which they only entered from the north, we from the south, and still others from the east or west. The difference is only in the shores, in the place from which to enter the sea, but the sea is one, and the farther from the coast, the less the differences and the more obvious that the sea is one. 6 6
I imagine the world as a huge temple, illuminated only in the middle. No matter how people gather in the dark corners of the temple, all these gatherings aimed at unification will only produce reverse action as is the case in all churches. The only way to unite is not to think about it, but to each one on his own to seek the truth, seek and walk towards the light that illuminates only a certain space in the middle of the temple. Only in this way will all people unite, and this is the true progress of humanity. Without thinking about unification, a Christian will discard everything that is untrue in his religion (...) and, approaching and approaching the light (to the truth), he will see how a Chinese, a Buddhist, who, without thinking about unification, approaches it from a completely different angle , will nevertheless do the same, and a real unity will be established between them ... 6 7
If we only adhered firmly to the rule that, uniting with each person in what we agree, do not demand from him consent to what he does not agree with, and would ask him not to demand the same from us, then we never would have violated the main covenant of Christ - unity, and would have been, without uttering the word Christ, much more Christians than if we, by whatever means, forced people to say that they believed in Christ and the various dogmas in which they did not believe it. 68
God is the whole infinite world. We, people, are in a ball, not in the middle, but in some place (everywhere in the middle) of this endless world. And we, people, make windows in our ball through which we look at God - some from the side, some from below, some from above, but we see all the same, although it appears to us and we call it differently. And the conclusion from what is seen in the windows is the same for everyone: we will all live in harmony, amicably, lovingly. Well, let everyone look out their window and do what follows from this look. Why push people away from their windows and drag them to yours? Why invite even give up your own - it is, they say, bad - and invite to yours? It's even impolite. If someone is dissatisfied with what he sees in his own, let him go up to another and ask what he sees, and let the one who is happy with what he sees tell what he sees. This is useful and possible. 69
I do not allow myself, and I do not consider it necessary, to discuss or condemn your faith, feeling, firstly, that if it is cruel and unkind to condemn the actions, character, even appearance of a person, then all the more cruel, unkind to condemn the most precious thing for a person, his holy of holies, his faith; secondly, because I know that a person's faith is formed in his soul by complex, secret internal ways and can change not at the will of people, but at the will of God. 70
… Everyone believes in his own way, and if he believes exactly, that is, established his attitude to God, then his faith is sacred. 71
... Knowledge of other religions most of all clarifies its own and strengthens in faith, and most importantly - its foundations. 72
All faiths have the same foundations. And it cannot be otherwise - the person is the same everywhere. 73
... Faiths are shaky and contradictory, but consciousness is one and unchanged. 74
Religion is eternal, universal - one: it is faith in that God who is in me and outside me, in all people and in all living things. 75
The truth is simple and clear, and open to babies. And the first basic truth is the truth of the unity of people. And unity is possible if we sacrifice to it our habits, our pride of mind, our desire to be right. 76
... Of all the faiths, there is only one true faith, this is faith in love ... 77
... Christ showed us the way, and the believers always saw him in front of them as a straight line. Our life's business is to reduce our movement to this straight line. 78
The duty of ours and of our contemporaries (...) is to try to establish the principles of true religion in an accurate manner ... 79
Devotion to the will of God is a prerequisite Christian life- excludes the possibility of a certain desire and therefore a petition, a prayer for this and that to happen. 80
What would be the position of the body if each cell could ask - and with success - God to place cells for it at will, or that she herself and those cells that are pleasing to her would not die. 8 1
What is most similar to faith: prayer of supplication is precisely disbelief - disbelief that there is no evil, that there is nothing to ask for, that if it is bad for you, it only shows you that you need to get better, that the very same thing is happening. what should be and what should you do, what you should. 8 2
How should God view prayer if there was such a God to whom one could pray? The same as the owner of a house in which water is supplied, to which residents would come to ask for water, should treat. The water is supplied, you just have to turn on the tap. Everything that they may need is also prepared for people, and God is not to blame that instead of using the held clean water, some residents are dragging water from a stinking pond, others are desperate from a lack of water and pray for what has been given to them in such abundance. 83
How strange and ridiculous to ask God. It is not necessary to ask, but to fulfill His law, to be Him. One human relationship to God is to be grateful to Him for the good that he gave me as a part of Him. The owner put his workers in such a position that, doing what he showed them, they receive the highest blessing available to their imagination (the blessing of spiritual joy), and they ask him for something. If they ask, it only means that they are not doing what is intended for them. 84
If you pray, you do it only for yourself, in order to remind yourself of what you are and what you should do, and therefore do not think that you can please God with prayer: you can please God only by obeying him. 85
Pray hourly. The most needed and the most difficult prayer- this is a memory among the movement of life about their duties to God and his law. Frightened, angry, embarrassed, carried away - remember who you are and what you have to do. This is prayer. It is difficult at first, but this habit can be developed. 8 6
Prayer is that, having renounced everything worldly, external, call up the divine part of your soul in yourself, transfer into it, through it enter into communion with the One Whom it is a particle, recognize yourself as a slave of God and test your soul, your actions , their desires according to the requirements not of the external conditions of the world, but of this divine part of the soul. 87
By prayer, I mean an appeal to everything that is incomprehensible to me, but the only truly existing, perfect, which I feel as a manifestation, a particle and with which I can have communication only in one way: love, love for him and all his manifestations in neighbors ... (...)
God is not a person, he cannot be a person, nor a conscious being, because both personality and consciousness are the properties of our limitedness; but, despite its incomprehensibility, there is one side through which we can communicate with him. This is love. Our whole life and its goal is an increase in love, and about this increase in love in oneself, about an ever greater merging of our soul with God, about this alone there can be a prayer for me. 88
Sometimes I pray at an inopportune time in the simplest way, I say: Lord, have mercy, I baptize with my hand, I pray not with a thought, but with one sense of consciousness of my dependence on God. I won't advise anyone, but it's good for me. Now I sighed in prayer. 89
… Sometimes I am baptized. Especially often, sitting down to work, I evoke and support in myself with this gesture from childhood the tenderly religious mood associated with it. I knew a wonderful man doctor, completely free-thinking, who, dying, showed his pupils to the icon of Nicholas hanging in the corner.
(…) Yes, external forms are indifferent, but only as long as they are not attributed to an important and obligatory meaning. When forms are indispensable, they are destructive to true life. 90
... The only one worthy of God and always heard by Him, and always to each of us affordable way Prayer is prayer by deeds done for Him, in view of Him. In the area embraced by this prayer, there are also words, but for the most part they are addressed to others, and not to oneself. Words are the organ of communication between people. Deeds, by which I mean both a spiritual state, and even a predominantly spiritual state, are a way of communicating with God.
And I think and say this, not at all denying prayer, but trying to expand its scope, to make it more real - I say in the spirit of the words of Christ: pray hourly. 91
... Why prayer (...) should be expressed only in words or bows, etc., which do not last long, as is commonly understood. Why can't prayer be expressed by prolonged actions of hands, feet (...)? If I go and work all day or a week for the widow, would that be prayer? I think it will. (…)… I came to the conclusion that prayer to God is superstition, that is, self-deception. - Everything that I have prayed and pray about, all this can be fulfilled by people and by me. I am weak, I am stupid, I have a vice (...), with which I am struggling. I feel like praying, and I pray with words; but isn't it better to expand my concept of prayer, isn't it better for me to look for the reasons for this vice and find that divine activity (...) that would be a prayer activity that counteracts this vice. 92
Prayer is the only way to be honest with yourself. People have made her such that she can be dishonorable. 93
Fruitful prayer is the restoration in your consciousness of that higher understanding of the meaning of your life, to which you have reached in the best moments. 94
... The living consciousness of one's own, not separate, but extra-worldly, extra-spatial and timeless life, driven by love, can completely replace any prayer and give a constant solid support to life ... 95
If a person has a sense of duty, a feeling that he is obliged to something, this person is already a religious person. 96
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14 PSS, vol. 35, p. 162.
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60 PSS, v. 90, p. 87.
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77 PSS, v. 80, p. 51.
78 PSS, v. 50, p. 107.
79 PSS, v. 76, p. 228.
80 PSS, vol. 41, p. 586.
81 PSS, v. 54, p. 63.
82 PSS, vol. 41, p. 585.
83 PSS, v. 53, p. 233.
84 PSS, t.55, page 274.
85 PSS, vol. 40, p. 382.
86 PSS, vol. 41, p. 586.
87 PSS, vol. 43, p. 151.
88 PSS, v. 79, pp. 80-81.
89 PSS, v. 55, p. 238.
90 PSS, v. 77, pp. 88-89.
91 PSS, vol. 87, p. 281.
92 PSS, v. 85, p. 79.
93 PSS, v. 54, p. 219.
94 PSS, vol. 41, p. 584.
95 PSS, v. 89, p. 62.
96 Makovitsky D.P. Yasnaya Polyana notes. - Moscow, "Science", 1979, "Literary heritage", v. 90, book 4, p. 342.
Tolstoy denied the Trinity, the divinity of Christ, the resurrection of Christ and His atoning sacrifice, eternal life, miracles, church sacraments, devils and angels, the immaculate conception, the fall of the first people and the fall of the human race. Recognizing the existence of God, he denies Him such an attribute as a person. God for him is a kind of impersonal principle, and therefore he cannot be loved and he cannot be prayed, but one can and should only worship and serve. Being tolerant of all religions, Tolstoy denies and harshly criticizes the Orthodox Church ...
How he came to his teaching, Tolstoy tells in his work "Confession" (1882). He came through hard thoughts, spiritual crises, breakdowns and supposedly insights. But Tolstoy's hypertrophied self played a cruel joke on him, further only confirming him in the truth of his position. Tolstoy recognizes only the moral teaching of Christianity. The beginning of the Gospel of John in his translation sounds like this: "In the beginning was the understanding of life." “The teaching of Christ is good and true” - he writes, but Christ is only a brilliant teacher of morality, however, along with other figures: Krishna, Buddha, Moses, Lao Tzu, Confucius, Muhammad, Socrates, etc.
Tolstoy is trying to create a new religion. He painfully ponders what life and death, matter and spirit are. But he fails to say anything deep about these subjects. The worst evil for him is violence. But violence cannot be defeated by violence. The only way to combat violence is by non-resistance. He comes to this conclusion after a religious upheaval. Non-resistance in Tolstoy is always associated with insubordination to violence. You only have to obey God. For Tolstoy, God is the “master”, He sends you into life, and He (and only Him) must be obeyed. Love is the opposite of violence. Service to God and love for one's neighbor - Tolstoy endlessly repeats this in his "Diary".
After the "Confession", Tolstoy's active journalistic activities began, in which he not only preached, but also bitingly criticized the government and the modern system of life. It is not published in Russia. But he has an assistant: Vladimir Grigorievich Chertkov - an aristocrat who believed in Tolstoy's teachings so much that he became more Tolstoy than Tolstoy himself. Dry, strong-willed and tough, Chertkov skillfully supports the opinion in Tolstoy that Providence itself chose him to preach the truth. In addition, Chertkov organizes the publication of Tolstoy's new works abroad and their shipment to Russia.
Tolstoy's preaching became popular among the intelligentsia and the upper class. They even say that there were two really popular people in Russia: Leo Tolstoy and Fr. John of Kronstadt. Both did not love each other, but if Tolstoy tried about Fr. John to be silent, then Fr. John, on the contrary, did not hesitate in expressions:
"New Julian", "new Arius", "Roaring lion", "crucifier of Christ", "apostate", "arrogance of the Lord", "malicious liar", "devilish malice", "rotten idol", "evil serpent", " flattering fox "," laughs at the title of the Orthodox peasant, mockingly copying it "," oh, how awful you are, Leo Tolstoy, the offspring of a viper ... ". Just a" pig. " "... You (Tolstoy. - NS ..), according to the Scriptures, should hang a stone around your neck and lower it into the depths of the sea, you should not have a place on earth" - wrote Fr. John. And here is what he wrote three months before his death: “Lord, do not allow Leo Tolstoy, a heretic who surpassed all heretics, to reach before the feast of the Nativity of the Most Holy Theotokos, Whom he badly blasphemed and blasphemed. Take it from the ground - this fetid corpse, which has put a humble face on the whole earth with its pride. Amen".
The fiery heart of the great pastor could not endure those blasphemies that Tolstoy did not hesitate to say about the Russian Orthodox Church. Naturally, not only Fr. John of Kronstadt. A multitude of bishops, priests and simply laymen believed that the Church could not remain silent about the teachings of Tolstoy, which he passed off as genuine Christianity. Under Alexander III, who highly valued Tolstoy's writing talent, it was impossible to condemn his teaching. But after his death, preparations began for the adoption of the relevant document. The original version of the document on Tolstoy's excommunication from the Church was written by K. Pobedonostsev, but the bishops sitting in the Synod edited it, removing the most harsh expressions, including the words “anathema” and “excommunication”. In February 1901, a document called "Definition" was published. It says:
“The attempts that were made to his reason were unsuccessful. Therefore, the Church does not consider him to be her member and cannot count him until he repents and restores his communion with her. "
"Therefore, testifying about his falling away from the Church, we pray together that the Lord grant him repentance in the mind of truth (2 Tim. 2:25)." There is no Anathema, but a statement of Tolstoy's falling away from the Church. But the canons do not recognize "falling away" without anathematization. Those. the "Definition" itself is not canonical, although in its consequences it is still an act of excommunication.
From Tolstoy's Answer to the Determination of the Synod:
"... The fact that I renounced the Church that calls itself Orthodox is absolutely true."
"... 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 most crude superstitions and witchcraft, which completely conceals the whole meaning of Christian teaching."
“... 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 allow church ministers to see me and my dead body would be removed as soon as possible, without any spells and prayers over it. how they take away any nasty and unnecessary thing so that it does not interfere with the living. "
"... The fact that I reject the incomprehensible Trinity and the fable about the fall of the first man, the story of God, who was born of the Virgin, redeeming the human race, is completely fair."
Like this...
Not so long ago (2001), the descendants of Leo Tolstoy asked Patriarch Alexy II to cancel the "Definition" about the excommunication of the great writer. The quotes from Tolstoy just quoted show that it was impossible to do this.
Nikolay Somin
07/08/2015 / Teimur Atayev
"All that terrible evil that he saw and learned during this time ... triumphed, reigned, and there was no way not only to defeat him, but even to understand how to defeat him."
L. N. Tolstoy. Sunday
Leo Tolstoy and religion ... An extensive topic. Immense. It seems to be explored in various planes, but always alive and arousing genuine interest. And it cannot be otherwise, if a person represents faith not as a mechanical exercise of rituals, but as a command of the soul and a consequence of a rational perception of life. Being an outstanding personality, L. Tolstoy did not accept formalism, to which officials from religion subordinated the desire of the believer to fulfill God's commandments. He could not and did not want to put up with the re-subordination of the spiritual and moral component of faith to its ritual shell. It was precisely these moods of the thinker, who expressed his thoughts in an excellent form, that provoked an angry reaction from the secular and church authorities. And it was they, no matter how some critics might assert the opposite, that raised Christian religious thought to a considerable height.
About life, religion and faith
Every person, writes L. Tolstoy, lives for his own good and does not feel "himself living" if this desire is not for himself. Gradually, however, he sees that worldly life, "made up of interconnected individuals who want to destroy and eat one another," not only cannot be good for him, but will probably be "a great evil." He comes to the understanding that on earth a person "can have neither good nor life." But if “you have to live,” the implementation of this is impossible “without guidance in choosing your actions” and without answering the question about the meaning of life.
A person cannot but see in history, he continues, that the movement of common life is not in the intensification of the struggle of creatures among themselves, but in the reduction of disagreement in society, when the world, out of enmity and disagreement, through submission to reason, comes more and more to agreement and unity. Therefore, the only good is one in which the struggle with other creatures would disappear, and the good itself did not stop. The key to this is love, which attracts a person to "the sacrifice of his carnal existence for the good of others." To love - "means to desire to do good", and "only such love gives full satisfaction to the rational nature of man." Having plunged "his life into submission to the law of reason and into the manifestation of love", the person feels within himself and around not only "the rays of light of that new center of life, to which he goes", but also the effect of this light passing through him, on those around ( 1).
In this context, L. Tolstoy raises, under religion, "such an attitude, established by him to the infinite life that surrounds him, which is consistent with the mind and knowledge of man, which connects his life with this infinity and guides his actions" (2). Therefore, religion is the engine of "the life of human societies," and without it, rational existence is impossible. Faith is a special state of mind that allows a person to be aware of his position and obliges him to "known actions" (3).
But if a religious doctrine asserts meaningless propositions that do not explain anything, but only confuse the understanding of life even more, the thinker writes, then this is not faith, but its perversion, which has lost its main properties. true faith... L. Tolstoy writes about this in contrast to what many mean by faith, "the performance of rituals that help them to get what they want, as church Christianity teaches them to do this" (3).
In his understanding, faith is the answer to how to live in the world "not in front of people, but in front of the One who sent me into the world." Therefore, one must believe not "in miracles, in sacraments, in rituals", but in "one law" suitable "for all the people of the world" (4). At the heart of true faith is leadership not "by external rules, but by an internal consciousness of the possibility of achieving divine perfection" (5). Therefore, it is like the "spring of living water" (6) and does not need temples, adornments, singing, large gatherings, but on the contrary, "always enters the heart only in silence and solitude" (4).
"The teaching of Christ is that there can be no mediators between God and people and that what is needed for life is not gifts to God, but our good deeds. This is the whole law of God." Therefore, the main business of life is becoming "better and better" (4). Anyone "can destroy his soul or save it." Salvation presupposes hard work, patience and mercy (2), and the achievement of these virtues is ensured by suppressing one's own passions (3). Therefore, the true church - "the union of people is true and therefore equally believers" - is always internal, that is, "the kingdom of God is within you" (4). In other words, "the kingdom of God on earth" implies the highest good on earth - "the peace of all people among themselves" (6).
Speaking through the lips of Prince Dmitry Nekhlyudov, the writer claims that "people will achieve the highest blessing available to them" only through the fulfillment of God's commandments. Compliance with the postulates is "the only reasonable meaning of human life," and "any deviation from this is a mistake that immediately entails punishment" (7). Since we were created according to the will of God, the thinker reasons, then we must follow His postulates, which will allow us to be happy. And to achieve universal happiness there is only one means: "it is necessary that everyone should act with others as he would like to be treated with him" (8).
Those who follow God's postulates "will be happier" than those who do not fulfill them, for Christ "teaches such a life in which, in addition to salvation from the destruction of personal life, here, in this world, there is less suffering and more joy than during personal life." (6). People come to the truth in different ways, but how close they are to it - "it's not for us to judge." At the same time, the delusion of many is obvious, and a person can understand this only when he takes a critical look at what he considers correct and stops blindly “working on the basis of that very false understanding of life that he needs to change” (9).
These thoughts Leo Tolstoy propagandizes and brings to people in a vivid artistic form. Considered the prototype of the writer, one of the heroes of the novel "Anna Karenina" - Konstantin Levin - asks the question of who he would be and how he would live his life without faith, not knowing "that one must live for God and not for one's own needs." And he himself answers: "I would rob, lie, kill. Nothing of the main joys of my life would exist for me." Therefore, he calls the obvious and undoubted "manifestation of the Divine" through the "laws of good" revealed to the world, in the recognition of which the hero is "united with other people into one community of believers", called "the church." From the moment of realizing this, Levin assesses every minute of his life not only not meaningless, but having “an undeniable sense of good, which I have the power to put into it” (10).
Why not Christianity?
L. Tolstoy admits that with coming to faith his desires changed, and good and evil changed places. He compares himself to a person who "in vain looks for the meaning of a heap of small mixed pieces of marble" from a false drawing, but suddenly "from one largest piece" guessed "that this is a completely different statue." The new emerging in its place, "instead of the previous incoherence of the pieces", becomes a single whole.
Following this statement, the writer reveals his previous perception of the Church as an organization, in addition to "the meaning of love, humility and self-denial" bearing and "dogmatic and external meaning." First, he tries to come to terms with this side of religion, which seems alien to him, but not useless. However, over time, he moves away from the Church because of the "strangeness" of her dogmas and her recognition of "persecution, executions and wars." The main thing that undermines his confidence in this institution is the Church's indifference to what the thinker perceives as the essence of Christ's teaching, and her addiction to what seems to him insignificant (6).
According to him, "allowing the killing of any kind of people destroyed the main basis of Christian teaching," therefore, it could not be combined with the deprivation of life other than interpretations that changed the "very essence" of Christianity. But when this was realized, "Christianity, having perverted, ceased to be a religion." Church faith has become a matter of "custom," "profit," or a poetic mood, and there is no room left for religion, which must unite people and guide their actions (11). In other words, the teaching of Christ about humility and love was formally exalted by the clergy, but at the same time much that was incompatible with it was approved.
The Christian mood, which constituted "the meaning of my life," continues the writer, was directly destroyed for another reason. I did not need church rules for observing the sacraments, fasts, prayers, but others based on Christian truths were not provided. In this context, L. Tolstoy calls it surprising that the places in the Gospel, which became the basis for a number of dogmas adopted by the Church, were the most obscure, while the most accessible were those "from which the fulfillment of the doctrine followed." In contrast to this, in the church doctrine, dogmas and the "duties of a Christian" derived from them were fixed "in a distinct way," and following the ideas of Jesus was spoken of in "vague, mystical expressions."
In the context of what has been said, L. Tolstoy also touches on Judaism, emphasizing the confusion of the Jewish people by "innumerable external rules imposed on it by the Levites under the guise of Divine laws." Not only a person's attitude to God, he states, but holidays, civil and family relations, and even details of personal life are recognized by the command and law of God. However, Jesus, like all prophets, takes from the "law of God" perceived by people and, throwing away the layers, "his revelation of the eternal law" connects with these foundations. In spite of the reproaches against him for violating the God presented by the "law", his teaching "passes into another environment and into the ages", but even here it turns out to be not immune from new interpretations. As a result of this, "substitution of human base inventions in the place of Divine revelation" takes place once again, and again "the letter covers the spirit" (6).
In his "Preface to the Gospel" the thinker explicitly states that "under the name of the Christian teaching" it was not the ideology of Jesus that was preached, but the teaching of the church (12), which, having become confused, obscure and hypocritical, prohibited the reading of the Gospel; recognized "the worship of icons, relics, the infallibility of the Pope", as well as "the obligatory obedience to secular power" (instead of recognition as such on the part of "one God") (11).
"By ecclesiastical interpretations", the teaching of Jesus Christ was not a law about improving life" for oneself and for others, "but a rule -" what should be believed by secular people, so that, while living badly, they can still be saved in the next world. " this contradicted the simple and clear Gospel, and therefore, until his complete liberation "from the church teaching," he "did not understand the teaching of Christ about life in all its meaning" (6).
We are tormented by spiritual thirst
L. Tolstoy confesses that over the years, reflecting on why humanity, having the opportunity to live happily, "destroys generations after generations," he "pushed aside the root cause of this madness." At first, he associated what was happening with the wrong economic structure and state violence, but over time he came to the conviction: "the main reason for everything is false religious doctrine" (8). Through "false education and bribery, violence and hypnosis," the rulers are able to "spread false teaching", hiding from people "the true teaching, which alone gives an undoubted and inalienable benefit to all people" (13).
We are so accustomed to the religious lies around us, writes L. Tolstoy, that we do not notice all the horror, stupidity and cruelty with which the teaching of the church is overwhelmed. But "children notice, and their souls are incorrigibly disfigured by this teaching." After all, when a pure, innocent, non-deluded and still not deceiving child asks about the principles "by which a person should be guided in this life," we answer him "with a rude, incoherent, often just stupid and, most importantly, cruel Jewish legend." He is taught as a holy truth that once "some strange, wild creature" called God, created the world and man, after whose sin, "the evil God punished him and all of us for this," and then "redeemed from himself by the death of his son. " Therefore, the "main business" of humanity is to propitiate "this god" and get rid of "the suffering to which he has doomed us."
Considering what is happening to be useful for the child, listening with pleasure to his repetition of all these terrible stories, the writer states, we are not aware of the terrible spiritual upheaval that is taking place at this moment in the child's soul. The main life purpose for him it becomes "ridding himself of the eternal punishments deserved by someone, the torments that this god has imposed on all people." Thus, instead of the natural awareness of his responsibility in the field of morality, the child is taught the need for blind faith in "immoral stories" and swallowing okroshka from wine and bread. This means that "teaching the so-called law of God to children" becomes the most terrible crime against them. But those in power need this deception, for "their power is inextricably linked with it" (8).
In the novel Resurrection, the writer's spiritual experiences are reflected in the description of the divine service in the prison church: “the priest, dressed in a special, strange and very uncomfortable brocade clothing, cut out and laid out pieces of bread on a saucer and then put them in a bowl of wine, saying various names and prayers. " At the same time, the sexton first read, and then sang "various Slavic, in themselves little understandable, and even less from quick reading and singing" prayers. Their essence boiled down mainly to the wish of well-being to the sovereign and his family. Bible verses were spoken "in such a strange, tense voice that nothing could be understood." On the other hand, passages from the Gospel were read very clearly about how Christ was resurrected before flying to heaven and sitting on right hand his Father ", expelled seven demons from Mary Magdalene, and then announced:" whoever believes and is baptized will be saved. "
The meaning of the sacrament was that "the pieces cut out by the priest and placed in wine, with certain manipulations and prayers, turn into the body and blood of God." The main action was the even and smooth wave of the napkin by the priest "over the saucer and the golden bowl". It was believed that "at this very time, the body and blood are made of bread and wine, and therefore this place of worship was furnished with special solemnity." He who tasted it as if "ate a piece of the body of God and drank a sip of his blood", about which the deacon sang loudly.
Following this, the priest, "standing in front of the alleged forged gilded image (with a black face and black hands) of the very god whom he ate, lit by a dozen wax candles, began to sing in a strange and false voice, either singing or saying" praises and prayers. At the end of this long process, he went to the middle of the church with a gilded cross, and the others began to approach him, and he "thrust the cross and his hand into the mouth and sometimes into the nose of the prisoners who were approaching him," who tried to kiss them.
Describing what was happening in the church, the writer notes that none of those present "had it occurred to spirit and truth; most importantly, he forbade not only to judge people and keep them in captivity, torture, shame, execute, as was done here, but forbade all violence against people, saying that he came to release the prisoners to freedom. "
L. Tolstoy christened everything that happened "the greatest blasphemy", and not only because the priests imagine eating and drinking the body and blood of God, but also because they subject people to "the most severe tortures" and hide from them the "greatest blessing" that Christ brought them. But people knew "that one must believe in this belief." The priest knew about this, because "for fulfilling the requirements of this faith, he had already received income for eighteen years." The sexton, who had completely forgotten "the essence of the dogmas of this faith," knew only that for remembrance, prayer, and even warmth "there is a certain price that real Christians willingly pay." The prison authorities and overseers, who had never delved into the basis of Christianity and what was done in the church, "believed that one must certainly believe in this faith, because the higher authorities and the tsar himself believe in it." Most of the prisoners, with the exception of a few, also believed that gilded icons, candles and crosses contained " mysterious power, through which one can acquire great comforts in this and in the future life "(7).
It is not surprising that this reasoning was followed by the definition of the highest state body of ecclesiastical and administrative power in Russian Empire- of the Most Holy Governing Synod - about the excommunication of Count Leo Tolstoy from the church, however, without anathema.
Excommunicated
This document states that the Church of Christ has more than once faced blasphemy and attacks "from numerous heretics", including "the new false teacher, Count Leo Tolstoy." Emphasizing the merits of the Orthodox Church, which "nurtured and educated" the writer, the authors express their indignation at the fact that the talent given from God he uses "to spread among the people teachings contrary to Christ and the Church", to destroy the "Orthodox faith" in the minds and hearts of people. Further, it is said about his preaching of the overthrow of "all the dogmas of the Orthodox Church and the very essence of the Christian faith": the rejection of "the personal living God, glorified in the Holy Trinity", the denial of "The Lord Jesus Christ - God-Man", non-recognition and mockery of church sacraments. Taking into account L. Tolstoy's conscious and deliberate rejection of himself "from all communion with the Orthodox Church," the latter "cannot consider him a member until he repent and restores his communion with her" (14).
According to the wife of the thinker Sofya Andreevna, "this stupid excommunication" caused "indignation in society, bewilderment and discontent among the people." L. Tolstoy "received a standing ovation, brought baskets with fresh flowers, sent telegrams" (15).
In a letter to Metropolitan Anthony (Vadkovsky) of St. Petersburg and Ladoga, she writes that "the life of the human soul, from a religious point of view, is unknown to anyone except God and, fortunately, is not subject to." Establishing her belonging to the Church, "from which I will never depart," S. Tolstaya emphasizes that for her this structure "is an abstract concept, and her servants" she recognizes exclusively those who understand the true meaning of the church. Guilty of "sinful deviations" from the church, Sofya Andreevna calls not lost people, but proud mentors, instead of "love, humility, and forgiveness" who have become "spiritual executioners" of those whom God will more accurately forgive "for their" complete renunciation of earthly blessings "life ( "although outside the church") than "those who wear diamond mitres and stars, but punish and excommunicate her shepherds" (16).
Speaking about sending a copy of the letter to the then Chief Prosecutor of the Holy Synod, Konstantin Pobedonostsev, Sofya Andreevna recalled how, after reading the draft, Lev Nikolaevich said with a smile: want to teach them with your writing "(17).
His reaction to the Synod's Determination came later. Calling the document illegal or deliberately ambiguous, containing "slander and incitement to violent feelings and deeds," L. Tolstoy admitted that he had indeed "renounced the Church that calls itself Orthodox." However, the writer identified the reason for this step not as a rebellion against the Lord, but, on the contrary, a desire to serve Him "with all the strength of the soul."
Describing the path traveled from doubts to a thorough study "theoretically and practically" of the church doctrine, he concludes that "the doctrine of the church is theoretically an insidious and harmful lie, but in practice it is a collection of the most gross superstitions and witchcraft, which completely conceals the whole meaning of Christian doctrine. And I really denied. from the church, stopped performing its rituals and wrote in his will to his loved ones, so that when I die, they would not allow church ministers to see me, and my dead body would be removed as soon as possible, without any spells and prayers over it, as they remove any nasty and an unnecessary thing so that it does not interfere with the living "(18).
In general, the excommunication of L. Tolstoy from the church looks like a result of the confrontation between the authoritative writer and official religious structures, and such an assessment persists to this day. Thus, the Russian poet and philosopher Peter Kile notes that L. Tolstoy, being and wishing to "remain a good Christian", criticized, "tearing off all the masks, as he created his works of art, the dilapidated church" (19).
In turn, literary critic Pavel Basinsky calls the divergence of Tolstoy and the Orthodox Church "a deep Russian drama." While "all the enlightened nobility were thoroughly unbelievers," this deeply religious person worries about the fate of the church, squeezed "in the grip of the state." However, his categorical views and directness, on the one hand, and rash decisions of the churchmen, on the other hand, make "constructive dialogue" impossible (20).
The subtlety here is that within the framework of the formed by that time in Russia political system religious structures were not an independent link in the power hierarchy. And it is difficult to assume that the excommunication of a person not of an all-Russian, but of a global scale took place independently of the secular authorities. And this suggests that the tsarist government had its own scores with the wayward count.
Harvest failure - from God, hunger - from the king
The relationship of L. Tolstoy with Tsar Nicholas II did not work out, so to speak, since his coronation in 1896. As you know, the celebrations on this occasion, which took place on the Khodynskoye field on the outskirts of Moscow, led to a terrible tragedy. According to Nicholas II himself, the crowd, from the very night expecting a free "distribution of lunch and a mug, threw themselves on the buildings, and then there was a terrible crush", moreover, it’s awful to add, about 1300 people were trampled! "(21).
The festivities, which turned into a tragedy, aroused the outrage of the Russian intelligentsia. The senseless cruelty of what happened on Khodynka was realistically described by the poet and publicist Fyodor Sologub (22). Lev Nikolaevich did not stand aside either. In his diary, he assessed the incident as a "terrible event" (23), and in a letter to the Russian art historian Vladimir Stasov stressed that the "madness and abominations" of the coronation worried him terribly (24).
Further more! In 1989, L. Tolstoy was grieving at the news of a crop failure in Russia and criticized the authorities because of the dire situation in the villages. He writes that the laws existing in Russia are reduced "in reality to the absence of any laws and the complete arbitrariness of officials assigned to the management of the peasants" (25).
Surely, the authorities did not disregard this criticism, as well as the earlier publication of L. Tolstoy in connection with the famine in 1891, which was banned by the Moscow censorship. Then the writer was indignant: why is it necessary to slander the people, determining the cause of their poverty to be lazy with drunkenness? After all, it is obvious that "our wealth is conditioned by his poverty." In other words, "the people are hungry because we are too full," which means that in order to saturate the people, it is enough simply "not to eat them up" (26).
At the same time, the writer did not limit himself to verbal enthusiasm and harsh attacks against the authorities, but also took an active part in helping those in need: he traveled around villages, set up free canteens and bakeries in which bread was baked and sold at a low price (27).
From the first years of Nicholas II in power, L. Tolstoy actively supported the religious "opposition". In 1897, he wrote that "in Russia, not only is there no religious tolerance, but there is the most terrible, brutal persecution for the faith, the likes of which is not found in any country, not only Christian, but even Mohammedan" (28).
This letter was written in defense of the Molokans, who were considered "heretics". This is evidenced by the fact that he was sent to the autocrat the next day after L. Tolstoy's note in his diary for May 9: “Today the Patrovian Molokans have arrived, I wrote a draft letter to the king” (29).
The Molokans did not recognize icons and the cross, did not venerate saints, denied the need for a priestly hierarchy, did not commit sign of the cross, considered it sinful to drink alcohol. For religious reasons, they refused military service, in connection with which the authorities took their children away from them to be sent to Orthodox monasteries. Molokan was exiled to the outskirts of the Russian Empire, in particular, Azerbaijan. The community of Russian Molokans still lives happily in the Ismayilli region of Azerbaijan (30).
L. Tolstoy repeatedly pleaded with Nicholas II for the Molokan, especially for the return of his selected children. In one of his letters, he writes: “All religious persecutions, except that they lower the prestige of the government, deprive the rulers of the love of the people, not only fail to achieve the goal for which they are established, but produce the opposite effect” (31).
L. Tolstoy also rendered considerable assistance to the Dukhobors, which meant adherents of Russian Orthodoxy, who rejected the outward ritual of the church and confessed only to God. In the first half of the XIX century. they also began to be exiled to Georgia and Azerbaijan, and later several thousand Dukhobors emigrated to undeveloped regions of Canada.
In order to provide material assistance to emigrants, L. Tolstoy established a charitable foundation out of his royalties for "Resurrection". In 1899, he wrote to his wife Sophia: “There is more money than I thought. If you didn’t send, then send 10,000, and leave the rest” (32). Answering that she had already sent 9,000, she added: "You can send again, it is not very expensive and is easy to do" (33). At the same time, L. Tolstoy suggested to the Dukhobors: “It would be nice to consider this money, as well as other funds that you receive from good people and from working brothers, as a common property and not to share heart to heart, but to give more to those who have more need "(34).
However, the most tangible blow of the writer to the policy of Nicholas II was his anti-church attitude, and this issue requires a little clarification.
Clash of "two kings"
It is known that after his marriage to the Byzantine princess Sophia Palaeologus in 1472, the Grand Duke of Moscow Ivan III adopted the family coat of arms of the Byzantine emperors - the two-headed eagle. A few years later, a sword with an Orthodox cross appears in the paws of the bird. As Fyodor Dostoevsky wrote, the Russian people call their sovereign "Orthodox Tsar" and accept him as "a guardian, a unifier, and when the command of God thunders, they will also liberate Orthodoxy and all Christianity that professes it, from Muslim barbarism and Western heresy" (35) ...
This emphasis is important, since Nicholas II absorbed this idea from his early youth, which was largely facilitated by his teacher Konstantin Pobedonostsev. The emperor believed that the absolute monarchy rests on Orthodoxy, autocracy and nationality - three pillars, even during the reign of Nicholas I, represented by the Russian minister Sergei Uvarov as the main condition for the "political existence" of the empire (36).
According to the Russian general Alexander Mosolov, at the dawn of the formation of personal orientations, the Tsarevich acquired an unshakable faith "in the fatefulness of his power." His calling came from God, he "responded" only to Him and his conscience (37).
Perhaps, if the sarcasm of the author of "Resurrection" was limited to criticism of Russian Orthodoxy at the everyday level, there would be no serious reaction from the authorities. However, the novel turned out to be the quintessence of denouncing not only the church, but also through the subtleties storyline state institutions... Petersburg could not close their eyes to this, even when it was a question of a writer of this magnitude, since it was a question of the security of the established power system. It is no coincidence that the authoritative Soviet and Russian film director Alexander Mitta, calling "Resurrection" the most realistic and socially demanded novel by L. Tolstoy and describing it as "a bleeding slice of Russian life from the palaces of the aristocracy to brothels and stinking prisons", notes that rarely a work is so strong influenced the minds of people (38).
Even the above facts are enough to understand that the Russian sovereign had a grudge against L. Tolstoy. And not small. Moreover, the writer came from a noble family, known since 1351 and was a corresponding member of the Imperial Academy of Sciences. As the grandson of General Nikolai Volkonsky, Count Tolstoy was closely related to the princes Golitsins, Gorchakovs, Trubetskoy and belonged to the aristocratic elite of the Russian nobility.
It is not surprising that the Russian autocrat considered L. Tolstoy's anti-church line as proof of the anti-state nature of all the thinker's activity. And in the secular society of that period, the work of L. Tolstoy was perceived as a challenge to the imperial system. According to the famous journalist and publisher Alexander Suvorin, there were "two tsars" in the state: Nicholas II and Leo Tolstoy. “Which of them is stronger? Nicholas II can do nothing with Tolstoy, cannot shake his throne, while Tolstoy undoubtedly shakes the throne of Nicholas and his dynasty. manuscripts and in foreign newspapers. Try someone to touch Tolstoy. The whole world will scream, and our administration is holding its tail "(39).
By the way, Alexander Spiridovich, seconded at that time to the Moscow security department (the future major general of the Russian gendarme corps), wrote that he and his employees "heard more than once" about the imperial command "not to touch in any way" Leo Tolstoy, who was under the protection of his majesty "(40).
But for all "not to touch", even a cursory glance at the relationship of Nicholas II with the great writer suggests with a significant degree of probability that Count Tolstoy was excommunicated from the church directly on the initiative of Nicholas II. But this step by the authorities not only did not calm the situation, but also contributed to even greater alienation, in the words of A. Suvorin, "two kings."
Resisting evil with a feather
Two months after excommunication, in his Address to the "Tsar and His Assistants," L. Tolstoy called it impossible for society to be "good for some, and bad for others." Therefore, the authorities "catch, imprison, execute, exile" people by the thousands, and the number of those who are dissatisfied with this only increases (41).
In a letter to Nicholas II, the writer states that a third of Russia is "in a position of enhanced security, that is, outside the law." An army of policemen is growing, prisons and places of exile are overcrowded, ordinary workers are ranked among political criminals. Troops are "sent out with live ammunition against the people," resulting in "fratricidal bloodshed." Speaking about the absurdities of "prohibitions" (in the aspect of censorship) and the cruelty of religious persecution, L. Tolstoy goes even further. He calls the confidence of the tsarist power in the peculiarity of the "Russian people" Orthodoxy and autocracy as a double untruth. This is a delusion, he writes, urging Nicholas II not to believe that the shouts of "hurray" at the meeting of the tsar with a crowd of people are a manifestation of "devotion to you." Often the people "whom you take for the exponents of the people's love for you are nothing more than a crowd assembled and rigged by the police, which is supposed to represent the people loyal to you." But if you heard the peasants, driven from the villages, "in the cold and in the slush" waiting for the "Tsar's passage", you would not have heard declarations of love. And in general, "in all estates, no one is ashamed of" scolding the king "and laughing at him." Therefore, L. Tolstoy sums up, autocracy "is an obsolete form of government that can meet the requirements of the people somewhere in central Africa, separated from the whole world, but not the requirements of the Russian people, which are increasingly enlightened by the general enlightenment throughout the world." It is possible to support the autocracy and "the Orthodoxy associated with it only, as is done now, by means of all violence," but such measures "can be used to oppress the people," and not "rule them" (42).
In 1908, L. Tolstoy writes that the "inhuman violence and murder" carried out by the authorities, in addition to direct harm inflicted on the victims and their families, inflict "the greatest harm on the entire people." These crimes, he says, are hundreds of times greater than those committed by thieves, robbers and all revolutionaries combined. Moreover, anti-popular actions are carried out under the guise of being supported by "institutions inseparable in terms of the people with justice and even holiness: the Senate, Synod, Duma, Church, Tsar." Thus, "representatives of the Christian government, leaders, mentors, approved and encouraged by church officials," destroy in people "the last remnants of faith and morality, committing the greatest crimes: lies, betrayal, all kinds of torture," up to endless murders. All this is carried out by those in power in order to "live a little more themselves in that corruption in which you live and which seems good to you" (43).
Within the framework of an ardent anti-government attitude, L. Tolstoy did not revise his attitude towards the church in the least. Commenting in his diary on the visit of the Bishop of Tula to Partheny (Levitsky) Yasnaya Polyana in 1909, the writer comes to the conclusion that the bishop, "obviously, would like to convert me, if not convert, then destroy, reduce mine, according to them - a harmful influence on faith in the church." In this regard, L. Tolstoy calls the bishop's request to "let him know when I am going to die" especially unpleasant. “No matter how they came up with something to convince people that I“ repented ”before I died,” he writes. Following this, he fixes his unwillingness to return to the church and receive communion before death, for for me any such external action as the sacrament would be a renunciation of the soul, of goodness, of the teachings of Christ, of God. Summarizing what has been said, L. Tolstoy bequeathed to bury him "without the so-called worship, but to bury his body in the ground" (44).
Probably, the death of the writer that followed soon became a relief for the authorities. But she, naturally, did not change the attitude of Nicholas II himself towards him. After L. Tolstoy passed away, S. Tolstaya turned to the ruler with a request to acquire Yasnaya Polyana as state property: “It is our ardent desire to transfer his cradle and grave under the protection of the state. I considered it the last duty in his memory to keep his material and spiritual wealth inviolable in the hands of the Russian state. "
The letter also dealt with manuscripts that the writer's widow wished to leave "in Russia and for Russia," donating them "for eternal storage in one of the Russian state or scientific repositories." On May 10, 1911, she "undertook to hand over the letter" to the sovereign (45), but he found the purchase of Count Tolstoy's estate by the government "unacceptable" (46).
Outwardly, the reason for the dissatisfaction of S. Tolstoy's request was again manifested by the Holy Synod. Ober-Prosecutor Vladimir Sabler said that "the perpetuation of Tolstoy's memory at the expense of the state will be understood as a desire to consolidate his teaching in the public consciousness," and this is unacceptable "in view of the Decree of the Holy Synod about his falling away from the Orthodox Church."
True, from the side of Nicholas II Sofya Andreevna was granted a pension "from the state treasury in the amount of 10,000 rubles a year," in connection with which the writer's widow sent a letter to the Minister of Finance Vladimir Kokovtsov "with gratitude to the emperor" (47).
It is quite symptomatic that after the Bolsheviks came to power, V.I.
It turns out that L. Tolstoy turned out to be "their own" for the communists?
Is Leo Tolstoy a revolutionary?
On the whole, Lenin saw "screaming contradictions" in the works and views of the great writer. Considering him a genius artist who left "not only incomparable pictures of Russian life, but also first-class works of world literature," Lenin saw the writer's social significance in the presence in him of a strong and sincere protest "against public lies and falsehoods"; sober realism; tearing off "all kinds of masks"; ruthless criticism of "capitalist exploitation"; exposing "government violence"; comedy "trial and government controlled" (49).
L. Tolstoy "with great strength and sincerity castigated the ruling classes, with great clarity" demonstrated "the inner lie of all those institutions with the help of which modern society is supported": the church, the court, bourgeois science (50).
On the other hand, Lenin wrote, L. Tolstoy is "a worn-out, hysterical little man called a Russian intellectual" who preached one of the "most disgusting things in the world" - religion, who wanted to "put priests in their place in government positions - priests by moral conviction. " In Lenin's opinion, this was the most important internal contradiction of the writer, since, reflecting "the simmering hatred, the ripening desire for the best, the desire to get rid of the past," he simultaneously displayed "the immaturity of daydreaming, political bad manners, and revolutionary softness" (49).
In turn, Georgy Plekhanov noted that for social development, L. Tolstoy's "moral preaching" had negative meaning... He saw the reason for this in the "metaphysical idealism" of the writer, which led him to the conviction that the only way to solve Russian problems was to turn "the oppressors on the path of truth." L. Tolstoy considered it possible to “morally correct the oppressors, prompting them to refuse to repeat evil deeds,” but, according to G. Plekhanov, “it did not occur to him to ask himself whether the power of the torturer over the tortured and the executor over the executed was not conditioned by any social relations, for the elimination of which one can and should use violence "(51).
We must admit that both Marxists approached the work of L. Tolstoy from the standpoint of his contribution to the development of the revolutionary movement in Russia. But does a revolution always presuppose the violent demolition of the state system and the physical elimination of political opponents? Was it not with such an approach that L. Tolstoy fought a significant part of his creative life? Is it not in the eradication of such a view of things (and against the background of the statement of the cruelty of the ruling and oppression of the working masses), he saw the purpose of religion !?
The main leitmotif of the teachings of L. Tolstoy was a call for human love for humanity and nature through the spiritual and moral format of faith. And if so, can you not call him a revolutionary of the human spirit? After all, he actually sought to bring new sensations into the relationship of man with God! It is no coincidence that Maxim Gorky, who is considered to be a "proletarian" writer, wrote about Tolstoy: "The thought that, noticeably, sharpens his heart more often than others, is the thought of God" (52).
However, for Lenin, L. Tolstoy's rejection and rejection of the tsarist power were of much greater importance than his religious views. As the People's Commissar of Education Alexander Lunacharsky emphasized, L. Tolstoy called for the abolition of private property and the church, which became "the assertion of the rule of the ruling class" (53).
So there is nothing strange in the fact that by the above-mentioned government decree Yasnaya Polyana was transferred to Sophia Andreevna for life. The following year, the People's Commissariat of Education issued L. Tolstoy's daughter, Alexandra Lvovna, a letter of protection declaring the estate and its property "national treasure" (48).
In 1920, Lenin signed a decree on the nationalization of the House of L. Tolstoy in Moscow. A year later, Yasnaya Polyana became "the national property of the RSFSR" (54). A. Tolstaya organized a cultural and educational center here, with the support of the Soviet government opened a school. However, as she writes in her memoirs, the communists soon began to demand "Marxist coverage of Tolstoy when giving explanations in Tolstoy's museums"; intensified "anti-religious propaganda, children of priests were expelled from schools" (55).
Could it be different under the conditions famous relationship Soviet power to religion? In particular, A. Lunacharsky, calling L. Tolstoy "a great ally" of the communists in the struggle against the "church system", emphasized the divergence with him "in his deeply religious views": "We are atheists - he believed in God as a spirit , as in truth, as in love, which, in his opinion, lies at the basis of the whole world and the very existence of human consciousness "(56).
Comments, as they say, are superfluous. Could a person who believes in God, as in truth, become completely "his own" for the Bolsheviks?
By the way, in this context, the fate of L. Tolstoy bears no small resemblance to the fate of the outstanding Azerbaijani educator Mirza Fatali Akhundov. In the sense that a significant layer of their political and religious views was not only rejected by the authorities, but also remained incomprehensible to the common people.
Two kindred souls
The author has already turned to the image of M.F. Opposing the dogmatic approach to the provisions of Islam on the part of religious officials, the Azerbaijani enlightener criticized the ritual layers presented by the clergy as the basis of faith to a greater extent.
MF Akhundov also directed a considerable part of his criticism to the address of the secular authorities, capable of "only various types of violence" against the people, subjecting them to "terrible tortures and torments." At the same time, the thinker recorded that in the case of tasting the "sweetness of freedom" and realizing the "rights of mankind," the people would never "agree to such a shameful slavery," rushing to the sciences and approaching progress. But "this path is impracticable" as long as "your hated religion exists."
The final chord can indeed be interpreted as the anti-Islamic position of Mirza Fatali. But only if this quote is taken out of context. As far as it seems, M.F. Akhundov did not mean religion itself, but the artificial complications introduced into it.
Indignant at depriving people of spiritual freedom, he notes that "the clergy forces us to fulfill every stupid demand of theirs under the guise of religious demands", which is associated with considerable damage "to our pockets and health." And "we do not dare to utter a word against his will, fearing hellish torment, being frightened by him from an early age by this future inquisition."
At the same time, according to him, only in the case of understanding the essence of religion with the help of sciences will the people understand "what it is, what is the need for it and in what form it should be." In a different development of events against the background of "countless different ramifications" morality will be "completely forgotten through them" (57).
As you can see, the paths of L. Tolstoy and MF Akhundov had much in common? Standing for the happiness of the people, they were rejected by the clergy and remained misunderstood by the common people - in no small measure because of the rejection of their views by those in power? Count L. Tolstoy was excommunicated, and the burial of M.F. Akhundov in the Muslim cemetery was obstructed. Surely, someone can say about a kind of tragedy of two great people who were unheard during their lifetime. But how correct is such an assessment if what they said remains modern and timely even after a hundred years?
In the light of the broached Islamic component in the work of M. F Akhundov, we note that the theme of Islam occupied a special place in L. Tolstoy's reflections.
L. Tolstoy on the unity of world religions
The doctor of the Tolstoy family, writer and translator Dusan Makovitsky notes that the thinker treated Islam with respect and put it, as it is, much higher than church teaching. “Mohammed,” said L. Tolstoy, “constantly cites the Gospel. He does not recognize Christ as a god and does not pass himself off as a god. Mohammedanism? It is clear to me that Mohammedanism is better, "and it" helped me a lot "(58).
The writer's genuine interest in Islam, as well as his numerous positive statements about Islam, led many to believe that he almost accepted Islam. However, as can be seen from the writings and revelations of the thinker, with all due respect to Islamic spirituality, his main idea was the unity of mankind, regardless of nationality and religion.
Tatiana Arkhangelskaya, who studied the legacy of L. Tolstoy for a long time and worked as a presenter research assistant the house-museum of the writer in Yasnaya Polyana, writes that the writer often received works from all over Russia and from other countries, including about Islam. In particular, the work of A. A. Devlet-Kildeev "Mohammed as a prophet" has a dedication from 1899: "To the highly respected Great Illuminator Count Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy from his admirer of the Bashkir Muslim Arslan Ali Sultanov." In 1910 Yasnaya Polyana regularly received a two-week scientific-literary and public journal "Muslim", published in Paris. In No. 19 of this edition, L. Tolstoy's answer to a question from the Tatar writer Mirsayaf Krymbaev was published: "Is it possible, adhering to the religion of Mohammed, to reach a happy, perfect life?" (expressing doubts about the viability of Islam) (59).
In this letter, L. Tolstoy records the presence of a common basis for all religions: "love for God, that is, for the highest perfection, and for one's neighbor." At the same time, he points to the false interpretations inherent in all religious teachings, added "to the basic religious truth" by their followers. According to him, a similar "happened and is being accomplished" in Islam, and the task of people is to free the teachings from everything that hides its true essence.
L. Tolstoy emphasizes that those who wish to serve the progress of mankind must "not deny indiscriminately" religion, but on the contrary, realizing its deep foundations, try to cleanse them of "growths." Fortunately, in Islam there is much less "dead external forms" than "in all other great religions." Directly in the Qur'an "you can find much that is true and profound" (60).
In the understanding of the great writer, "strict Mohammedanism with its main dogma of one God" appeared in opposition to distorted Christianity, which degenerated "into idolatry and polytheism" (3).
In a letter to the Supreme Mufti of Egypt Muhammad Abdo, whom he considered an "enlightened man", L. Tolstoy calls him a man of "the same faith with me." Recognizing the fact of the existence of different religions, the writer asserts the existence of only one true faith, which consists in "recognizing God and His law, in love for one's neighbor" and fulfilling what is desired for oneself in relation to others. This is why “all true religious principles” are the same for Jews, Buddhists, Christians and Muslims. But "the more religions are filled with dogmas, prescriptions, miracles, superstitions, the more they separate people," giving rise to "unfriendliness." The ideal goal of mankind - common unity - is achievable only with the simplicity of religion and its purification from layers (61).
To the teacher living in Semipalatinsk, the author of several articles about the writer in Muslim magazines Rakhmatulla Yelkibaev, whom he calls a kind brother, L. Tolstoy voices his opinion that the true religion is one, and "part of it is manifested in all confessions." A significant combination of these parts in this "true religion", coupled with its understanding, will allow humanity to progress. In this light, it is important for "all those who love the truth" to try "to look not for differences in religions and their shortcomings, but for their unity and merits." This is precisely what, according to L. Tolstoy, he is trying to implement in relation to "all religions", including "Islam, which is well known to me" (62).
The truths of the common religion of our time for all people, writes L. Tolstoy, are understandable and close to everyone's heart. Therefore, for parents, rulers and mentors, "instead of obsolete and ridiculous teachings about Trinities, Mothers of God, atonements, Buddhas and Mohammed who fly to heaven, in which they themselves often do not believe", it is better to instill in children and adults the simple, clear truths of this single religion. Its metaphysical essence lies in the presence of the spirit of God in a person, and the practical rule is to act towards others in the way you would like to be treated with you (3).
In January 1910, responding to the Samara mullah Fatih Murtazin, later editor and publisher of the Ik'tisad magazine, the writer calls Muslims "completely right" in their non-recognition of "God in three persons." Prophets Muhammad and Jesus, like Buddha, Confucius and many others, he considers the same people, "like everyone else." He sees their difference exclusively in a more faithful fulfillment of the will of the Most High. Along with this, he considers as "erroneous" the statements that the Koran is the word of God, transmitted "through the angel Gabriel to Magomed" (63).
Despite this, the views of L. Tolstoy found support in the Muslim environment. According to one of the biographers of the writer Pavel Biryukov, the Indian Muslim Abdullah Al-Mamun Suhrawardi, when asked about his attitude to the thinker, calls himself a student of L. Tolstoy, as he is a champion of "peace and non-resistance." "It may seem paradoxical," writes Suhrawardi. "But the paradox disappears if you read the Koran, as Tolstoy reads and interprets the Bible - in the light of Truth and Reason." Here P. Biryukov exclaims: "How touching is this unity of souls between such heterogeneous appearance by persons. And how comforting that this inner homogeneity exists between people "(64).
In a letter to the Tatar Muslim Asfandiyar Voinov, L. Tolstoy recognizes the "agreement" of the adherents of Islam with the "main points" of his teaching, "expressed in the response to the Synod", as joyful for him. “I value spiritual communication with Mohammedans very much,” the writer concludes.
According to the Tatar researcher Azat Akhunov citing this text, the growing popularity of L. Tolstoy among Muslims caused concern of the authorities, and the Kazan missionary Yakov Koblov was entrusted with discrediting the writer in the eyes of the Muslim public (65). Soon, his conclusion appeared on the difficulty of determining "how authentic this correspondence, which was distributed in Kazan in lithographic form, although signed by Leo Tolstoy" (66).
The uniqueness of L. Tolstoy was manifested in the fact that he let the religious teachings of Islam, like Christianity, through his inner world. It is this nuance, as it seems, became fundamental for the alignment of the Muslim religion with ideas in his worldview " true Christianity"- as a basis for ideal society united by a common worldview. We agree that it sounds utopian, but the writer tried to find his views and practical application - both in his own life and through advice to people who turned to him with questions.
An example is his correspondence with Orthodox woman who was married to a Muslim whose both sons were Orthodox Christians but wanted to convert to Mohammedanism. We are talking about the wife of the lieutenant colonel of the Russian army, topographer Ibrahim Vekilov (future major general, head of the military topographic department of the General Staff of the National Army of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic) Elena Efimovna Vekilova.
But before moving on to the text of the letter and the thinker's answer, it is advisable to provide a small sketch about the Vekilov family.
Leo Tolstoy and the family of Ibragim Vekilov
In 1866, 12-year-old Ibrahim Vekilov, who lost his father, was enrolled in the training courses under the personal tutelage of director Mamleev, who agreed to teach the boy Russian. After graduating from high school, Ibrahim life was sent to the St. Petersburg Military Topographic School. In 1879, with the rank of ensign, he began serving in the headquarters of the Caucasian Military District located in Tiflis. He led the work on clarifying the state border of Russia with Iran; under his leadership, maps of a number of regions of the Caucasus and Crimea were created (67).
However, in his personal life, he had to face great difficulties. Despite his services to the tsarist government, he was denied permission to enter into an official marriage with a girl who fell in love with a Russian nationality - Elena Ermolova, the daughter of a petty official. The basis was the then law of the Russian Empire on the admissibility of marriage only between fellow believers, which excluded the marriage of a Muslim to a Christian. The way out of the situation was to renounce their religion, which was unacceptable for both Ibrahim and Elena, whose parents threatened her with excommunication from the family if she converted to the Muslim faith (67).
In the hope of changing the situation, I. Vekilov writes a letter about the legalization of marriage to the already known K. Pobedonostsev, the chief prosecutor of the Holy Synod, but in response he is advised not to even dream of marrying a Russian: “We will take your children away, you have no rights to paternity over them "(68).
In 1883, I. Vekilov was included in the Russian-Persian commission, which was engaged in clarifying the border from the Caspian Sea to Afghanistan, and the next year he took Elena to Turkestan. There they have two sons, but they cannot legalize the marriage until 1891. This year, Lieutenant Colonel I. Vekilov, under the Russian-Ottoman agreement, is sent to Istanbul to create topographic maps Kara region and the military map of the Bosphorus. Here he turns for help to the Bulgarian Orthodox priest Georgy Misarov, who not only married Vekilov and Ermolov in church, but also provided the married couple with a confirmation document.
In 1894, after returning to Russia, I. Vekilov renewed his petition for the official recognition of their marriage by submitting a petition to Tsar Alexander III. The sovereign, taking into account the merits of I. Vekilov, allowed, as an exception, "unlike others", to legalize marriage. But at the same time it was stipulated that the children born should be baptized and brought up in the Orthodox faith (67).
Ten years later, however, the socio-political situation in the Russian Empire forced the tsarist authorities to issue a decree that somewhat expanded the rights of "persons belonging to heterodox and non-religious confessions" (70). And in 1905, the Regulation of the Russian Committee of Ministers "On strengthening the principles of religious tolerance" was adopted, which prohibited the persecution of people for the transition from the Orthodox faith "to another Christian confession or creed." They were recognized as belonging to their chosen "religion or creed" (71).
It is noteworthy that, according to the then Chairman of the Committee of Ministers, the future Russian Prime Minister Sergei Witte, when discussing issues of religious tolerance, K. Pobedonostsev, faced with the opinion of Metropolitan Anthony, which "runs counter to the idea of a police-Orthodox church" which he is twenty-five years old. cultivated as Chief Prosecutor of the Holy Synod ", stopped attending Committee meetings (72).
Be that as it may, the Regulations of 1905 really weakened the reins in the confessional environment of Russia, which allowed the sons and daughters of I. Vekilov to raise the question of their acceptance of Islam. According to L. Vekilova, sincere relations predominated in the family, therefore "the moral thoughts and doubts of the children could not but worry the parents." But the influence of his father, the environment of Muslim friends and relatives, the desire to become among them "their own" tipped the scales in the direction of Islam. And all three, already adults, no matter how much they wanted to upset their mother, asked her to allow them to convert to Islam. Grandfather Ibrahim was glad of this, although he was tolerant of Orthodoxy, and grandmother Elena was "unable to make any decision." Having been brought up in the strict norms of Christianity, she "decided to shift the responsibility for solving this issue onto the shoulders of Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy," sending him a letter in 1909 (69).
Turning to L. Tolstoy, she wrote that the sons of the Vekilovs (one is a student at the Technical Institute in St. Petersburg, the other is a cadet at the Alekseevsky military school in Moscow) were asking her permission to "convert to their father's faith." She outlined the reason for their decision not "material calculation", but only the desire to "come to the aid" of the Azerbaijani people, "to merge" with which they were "hindered by religion." Although this is not prohibited in the light of the latest government decrees, she, as a mother, was worried about "the persecution of foreigners that exist in our country." Having expounded these thoughts, Elena Efimovna asked the writer's advice (67).
In his reply, L. Tolstoy, approving the desire of the sons of the Vekilovs "to promote the enlightenment" of the Azerbaijanis, emphasized the impossibility on his part "to judge how much a transition to Mohammedanism is needed." At the same time, speaking about their preference for Islam over Orthodoxy, especially for "noble reasons", he expressed his sympathy for "such a transition." "For me, who puts above all Christian ideals and Christian teaching in its true sense," the writer states, "there can be no doubt that Mohammedanism in its external forms is incomparably higher than Church Orthodoxy." Therefore, if a person is faced with a choice, "for every reasonable person there can be no doubt" in the preference of Islam, which recognizes the dogma of "One God and his prophet", instead of "a complex and incomprehensible theology - the Trinity, the atonement, the sacraments, the Mother of God, the saints and their images ". Islam has only to "reject everything unnatural, external in its doctrine", basing it on the "religious and moral teaching of Mohammed" in order to naturally merge with the basic principles of "all major religions, and especially with the Christian teaching" (73).
After receiving this answer, all the children of Ibragim and Elena Vekilov, with the blessing of their parents, accepted Islam and changed their names: Boris became Faris, Gleb became Galib, and Tatyana became Reikhan.
As you can see, L. Tolstoy tried to implement his own views in practice, and this was manifested in his attentive attitude to the letters of people. He answered almost everyone, regardless of their position in society, nationality or religion. And in great detail, like Elena Vekilova. Great Personality! Lump! Dedicated her life to humanity. In the truest sense of the word.
Spirit revolutionary
Probably, for many, Lev Nikolaevich will forever remain an exceptionally great writer. But even a cursory glance at his life activity testifies to the versatility of this outstanding thinker, philosopher, sociologist, historian and just a brilliant citizen of his Fatherland. All this confirms once again: patriotism, love for the Motherland, roots, land is manifested not through loud statements about freedom and independence, but through deeds. In the person of L. Tolstoy, they were embodied both through his direct actions and through his literary, artistic and journalistic path.
A brilliant mind, amazing performance, the highest intellect, outlook, knowledge of languages, interest in the culture of the peoples of the world - everything was launched in order to help people find happiness. This is an indicator not only of the breadth of the soul and the highest moral standards of the writer, but also of service to the Truth. The one that led and leads people to the light and gives hope for the future.
Therefore, it is impossible to agree with the Russian philosopher Nikolai Berdyaev, who considered L. Tolstoy responsible for "the Russian revolution," since "he did a lot to destroy Russia." According to him, L. Tolstoy is "a real poisoner of the wells of life," and his teaching is "a poison that decomposes all creative energy" and " back side rebellion against the divine world order "(74).
However, our hero is rather a revolutionary of spirit, a revolutionary of consciousness. Not destructive, but, on the contrary, constructive. For the way to this great person identified through religion. “A person is a weak, unhappy animal until the light of God burns in his soul,” he wrote. “When this light comes on (and it is lit only in a soul enlightened by religion), a person becomes the most powerful creature in the world. it cannot be otherwise, because then it is not his power that acts in him, but the power of God. So this is what religion is and what is its essence "(3).
As the well-known Russian film director Andrei Konchalovsky put it in an interesting way, L. Tolstoy “sought God and found him. Found in his soul” (75). And hence the conviction: the writer was the winner. Not just yourself. Not only standard, routine and stereotyped, but also their era. Therefore, he is unsurpassed, and his contribution to the religious thinking of humanity is incredible. Bulky.
As M. Gorky said, if Lev Nikolaevich "were a fish, he would, of course, only swim in the ocean, never swimming in the inland seas, and especially in the fresh waters of rivers (52). P. Biryukov compares him to a mirror , in which "the rays of the mental and moral development of our century are collected, and as from an optical focus it casts a bright light on humanity thirsting for this light" (76).
We will add on our own that L. Tolstoy was an analyst of the human soul. In his pursuit of Truth, the only means were goodness and love. That is why it is relevant for any time, regardless of the socio-economic formation in the yard. And this is its uniqueness!
Leo Tolstoy and Christianity
Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy is a genius Russian writer. His work is characterized by painful, intense searches for the moral ideal, the meaning of life, the search for answers to the most important questions for a person: What is the meaning of life? how to live? is there a purpose in life worthy of man? He looked for answers to these questions on the paths of familiarization with the natural life of the common people, on the paths of familiarization with nature. We know him as the author of the great novels "War and Peace", "Anna Karenina" and many other works.
At the age of 46–47, Lev Nikolayevich is experiencing a severe spiritual crisis; in the literal sense, he is experiencing a "breakdown" of his worldview, which until then was largely similar to the worldview of people of that time, his education, and his cultural circle. after the crisis, along with works of art, he wrote numerous philosophical, theological and moral edifying works. In them, Tolstoy sternly denounces, as he calls them, Russian and world "untruths" - "untruths" state, public, church. The word "untruth" in his mouth means the same thing that we usually mean when we say the word "evil." He also mercilessly criticizes contemporary science, popular philosophy, art ... What does he not criticize ?! We can say that he mercilessly criticizes the culture that has developed by his time. Shakespeare, Beethoven and many other great cultural figures were the targets of his critical attacks. It seems to me that a lot of his criticism is completely fair and deserves attention to this day. Much, but not all!
In his criticism, Tolstoy, in particular, comes to a conscious confession of anarchism, that is, to the assertion that state power, as such, is an evil that has no justification and which must be fought by disobeying this power. Moreover, he comes to the conclusion that any power is evil. At the same time, he opposes the violent, revolutionary correction of the state of affairs in society. He argues that each person should first of all correct and improve himself, and not strive to “improve” the life of other people, especially by violent means. The state, he says, must be abolished. But this abolition should be carried out only as a result of the peaceful, non-violent refusal of people to fulfill their state duties and responsibilities.
This critical, and sometimes even destructive, work of Tolstoy is based on his peculiar reinterpretation of Christianity. He strove to rely on the teaching of Christ, however, he understood it in such a peculiar way that there is reason to doubt that he was a Christian.
All his life Tolstoy searched for God and the meaning of life, especially after the crisis. But what drove Lev Nikolaevich in his search? Fear of death! It was the fear of death that made him seek God.
In August 1869, when Tolstoy was 42, he went to the Penza province to buy the estate. I spent the night in the city of Arzamas. And at night in the hotel with him shone one of the strongest fits of fear of death. This is how he later described it: “There was no way to fall asleep. Why did I come here? Where am I taking myself? From what, where am I running? .. I am running away from something terrible and I cannot escape. I am always with me, and I am tormenting myself ... Not Penza and no possessions will add or subtract anything to me ... I am tired of myself. I am unbearable, painful to myself ... But I can not get away from myself ... But what kind of stupidity, - I said to myself, - what am I longing for, what am I afraid of? " “Me,” the voice of death answers inaudibly. - I'm here". Frost kicked me on the skin. Yes, death. She will come, she is - here she is, and she should not be ... Everything "was overshadowed by the horror for his lost life ... Horror - red, white, square.(I would like to draw the reader's attention to the fact that this ingenious figurative characterization of horror is very reminiscent of the “Suprematist” canvases of Kazimir Malevich - his black, white and red squares! - VC.) It breaks somewhere and does not break. Painful, agonizing, dry and spiteful, I did not feel a drop of kindness in Me, but only an even calm anger towards myself and towards what made me. "
Pay attention to the last words: Tolstoy is angry "at what made him." This means that he is angry with God. His soul was captured by the forces of evil. And what are these "forces"? These "powers" are demons. The soul of Tolstoy in the described episode is captured by demons! This episode is a wonderful artistic description of demonic content. The main sign of godlessness is anger at God, leading a person to despair, and sometimes to suicide ... In such states, Tolstoy was close to suicide. He speaks about this quite often in his works after the crisis. Tolstoy did not believe in the existence of demons. And this unbelief of his, undoubtedly, greatly facilitated the efforts of demons aimed at mastering his soul.
Horror before death pursued Lev Nikolaevich until the end of his life. It was this horror that pushed him in search of God. But this horror, this numb fascination with death by Tolstoy has a non-Christian character. They are diametrically opposed to the Christian attitude towards death, an attitude that found vivid expression in the victorious exclamation of the Apostle Paul: “Death, where is your sting? Hell, where is your victory? " (1 Cor. 15:55). The Christian does not panic before death, because he knows for sure that Jesus Christ conquered death. And if we die in Christ Jesus, then only our flesh dies (temporarily!). The soul is the most valuable thing in us! - it is not subject to corruption or torment, it will go to God.
So, Tolstoy's spiritual quest was "guided" by the non-Christian horror of death. But Lev Nikolaevich also had a second "leader" - his pride. Pride is also a non-Christian feeling and attitude towards life. We can say that pride is anti-Christian in nature.
Pride was the dominant character trait of Tolstoy. Many of his contemporaries spoke about this. Among them is his older brother Sergei: “Our Lyovochka is proud. He always preaches humility and non-resistance, but he is proud, despite this. "
And what could the chilling horror of death, multiplied by pride, produce? What kind of "God" will a person find, driven by these feelings, by these "leaders"? Anything but not. Christ! Therefore, it is absolutely not surprising that Leo Tolstoy, who talked a lot about Jesus Christ, never became a conscientious Christian, for he never believed in Christ as the only begotten Son of God.
Jesus Christ, according to Tolstoy, was just one of the teachers of the morality of mankind, like Buddha, Confucius, Socrates, Mohammed, like Tolstoy himself and many other philosophers and religious teachers of mankind. Christ is not God. He did not work miracles. He did not rise again. He only taught people goodness. He is a man, like her we are, but outstanding person, an outstanding teacher of morality. Leo Tolstoy thought so.
Well, what about God? What kind of "God" did Lev Nikolaevich "find" after all? About his understanding of God, he wrote something like this: God is unlimited Everything, of which a person is aware of himself as a limited part. God is a spirit that embraces the whole world and coincides with the world. The human soul is part of God.
According to Tolstoy, man is consubstantial with God. the Hindus speak about God in much the same way. "If a proud intellectual has a religious outlook," the researcher Lodyzhensky, a contemporary of the writer, justly wrote, "if he, like Tolstoy, recognizes the Divine, then he will immediately recognize himself as consubstantial with the Divine, contrary to Christian teaching."
Not every mystical experience, that is, the experience of the mysterious communication of man with God, was categorically denied by Tolstoy and arrogantly called “nonsense,” because he himself did not have this experience. His pride stood as an insurmountable blank wall between him and God, between him and Jesus Christ.
Tolstoy claimed to create “ new religion". And what did he ultimately create? The essence of his "religious" teaching can be expressed very simply: live ascetic, do not do evil; then after death you will attain merging with God - with the “Universal Spirit”. But there is absolutely nothing new in these statements by Tolstoy. Hindus have been talking about this for about three thousand years. So Tolstoy, in his consciously professed religious convictions, was much closer to the Hindus than to Christ.
It must be said the truth: as a theologian, thinker and religious philosopher, Tolstoy was of little talent. His religious and philosophical writings are unconvincing, boring, boring, verbose, full of logical inconsistencies and very often incomprehensible. Being a sincere person, Lev Nikolaevich himself somehow noticed this. Here are his own words: “Sometimes it (he means his religious views. - VC.) it seems to me to be true, and sometimes it seems to be nonsense. "
He is a writer of genius. For me, he is the most brilliant writer of those whose works I have read. His gift as a writer did not leave him until the end of his life. Every talent is a gift from God. God tells us a lot through writers, artists, people of art, if they completely surrender to their, more precisely to God's, gift. So it was with Tolstoy. When he forgot the incongruities that he uttered about God, and completely surrendered to his artistic gift, he wrote wonderful Christian stories, stories, fairy tales. In his artistic creation he was very often a true Christian. To be convinced of this, it is enough to read at least his stories: "How people live", "Where is love, there is God", "How much land does a man need?" and many others.
From the book From "Words of a Pygmy" the author Akutagawa RyunosukeTOLSTOY When you read Biryukov's "Biography of Tolstoy", it is clear that "My Confession" and "What is My Faith" are lies. But no one suffered as Tolstoy suffered when he told this lie. His lies ooze scarlet blood more than his truth
From the book of the Word of the Pygmy the author Akutagawa RyunosukeTOLSTOY After reading Biryukov's "Biography of Tolstoy", you understand that "My Confession" and "What is My Faith" are lies. But no one’s heart suffered like the heart of Tolstoy, who told this lie. His lies bled harder than his truth
From the book Away from Reality: Studies in the Philosophy of Text the author Rudnev Vadim PetrovichLN Tolstoy Kostochka (Byl) My mother bought plums and wanted to give them to the children after dinner. They were on a plate. Vanya never ate plums and smelled them all. And he liked them very much. I really wanted to eat. He kept walking past the sinks. When no one was in the room, he could not resist, grabbed
From the book On Morality and Russian Culture the author Klyuchevsky Vasily Osipovich"Kostochka-1" (L. N. Tolstoy - M. Proust) When I remember the smell of those plums that my mother bought then and wanted to give them to the children after dinner and which were on a plate, but I never ate plums and therefore smelled everything them, and I liked their smell so much that I wanted to immediately eat one
From the book Volume 2. "Problems of Dostoevsky's Creativity", 1929. Articles about L. Tolstoy, 1929. Recordings of a course of lectures on the history of Russian literature, 1922-1927 the author Bakhtin Mikhail Mikhailovich"Kostochka-2" (L. N. Tolstoy - J. Joyce) Yes, fancy olive-colored plums bought by his mother when Stephen was still quite willing to give them to the children after dinner lay poured on a plate Stephen never ate plums never ate and smelled them all he liked everything very much and
From the book Ethics of Love and Metaphysics of Self-will: Problems of Moral Philosophy. the author Davydov Yuri NikolaevichLN Tolstoy From M. Gorky's notes "Leo Tolstoy" - Karamzin wrote for the tsar, Soloviev - long and boring, and Klyuchevsky for his own amusement. Sly: you read it - as if praising, but if you look into it - you scolded. Someone reminded of Zabelina. - Very sweet. Such a clerk.
From the book OPENNESS OF THE ABOUT. MEETINGS WITH DOSTOEVSKY the author Pomerants Grigory SolomonovichTolstoy the Playwright Foreword I. Tolstoy's dramatic works fall chronologically into two groups. The first group includes plays: "Infected Family" and "Nihilist". These plays were written by Tolstoy in the 60s, shortly after his marriage (September 1862), in the era of the family
From the book Philosophy the author Spirkin Alexander Georgievich From the book Great Prophets and Thinkers. Moral teachings from Moses to the present day the author Huseynov Abdusalam AbdulkerimovichAlexey Tolstoy Alexey Tolstoy is a contemporary of the Symbolists. He performed with them and not even with the first generation, but somewhat later. But he has little innovation. It lies on the border between the old direction and the new one. Tolstoy portrays the same social strata as the old
From the book Ethics the author Apresyan Ruben GrantovichTolstoy criticizes Schopenhauer In his "Confession", Tolstoy describes in detail, step by step, those doubts about the validity of Schopenhauer's thesis about the meaninglessness of life, which arose in his soul after a short-term fascination with Schopenhauer's philosophy. At the end
From the book History of Freedom. Russia author Berlin Isaiah From the author's book6. L.N. Tolstoy The genius writer Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy (1828–1910) was an original Russian thinker. Criticizing the socio-political structure of contemporary Russia, Tolstoy relied on moral and religious progress in the consciousness of mankind. Idea
From the author's bookL. N. TOLSTOY: RESISTANCE TO EVIL BY VIOLENCE From the point of view of the Russian writer and thinker L. N. Tolstoy (1828–1910), the drama of human existence consists in the contradiction between the inevitability of death and the thirst for immortality inherent in man, arising from his rational essence.
From the author's bookLN Tolstoy The statements below are taken from the philosophical writings of LN Tolstoy. They give general idea about him
From the author's bookTopic 13 TOLSTOY According to L.N. Tolstoy, human life is filled with moral meaning to the extent that it obeys the law of love, understood as non-violence. Not to answer evil for evil, not to resist evil with violence - this is the main requirement of Tolstoy's program.
What constituted the religious core of Tolstoy's personality? Hundreds of thousands of works have already been written on this topic in all languages of the world, but each era requires one more time to return to this topic: it is of such great relevance for readers. After all it comes about the excommunication from the church of the pride of the Russian nation, the most famous Russian person of the early twentieth century. And the most mysterious thing here is that Count Leo Tolstoy for the last 30 years of his life has constantly emphasized that he is a religious person who recognizes the need for life with God. Why then excommunicate him?
It would be important to understand what events in his youth could have a decisive influence on the formation of first a critical and then a hypercritical attitude of Tolstoy to the Church. There is much we do not know here, but I would like to draw your attention to one well-known moment, which Tolstoy later recalled more than once. This is a kind of discovery made by Moscow school students, friends of Tolstoy, which shocked him so much at the age of 11: There is no God! This news was vividly discussed by the Tolstoy brothers and was found to be trustworthy. Tolstoy writes about this: “I remember that when I was eleven years old, one boy who had died long ago, Volodenka M., who studied at the gymnasium, came to us on Sunday, as the latest novelty, announced to us a discovery made at the gymnasium. The discovery consisted in the fact that there is no God and that everything we are taught is nothing but inventions (this was in 1838). I remember how the older brothers became interested in this news, and they called me for advice. All of us, I remember, became very animated and took this news as something very entertaining and very possible ------- "..
Tolstoy became orphaned very early: already at the age of eight he was left without mother and father, and therefore there is no need to talk about a systematic religious upbringing in his case. However, the count was one of the most zealous readers of the 19th century, both in terms of the amount of reading and the quality of reading. This conclusion is confirmed by his Yasnaya Polyana library. And the Gospel has always played a significant (perhaps decisive) role in his life. However, he perceived the Gospel text through the prism of the knowledge and ideas of the European educated person of that time. First of all, mention should be made of the ardent passion for the ideas of Jean-Jacques Rousseau. That is, the time that mainly falls on the XVIII century, when the French encyclopedists proclaimed a call to progress, knowledge, science, the fight against the absolutism of power, ignorance, prejudices - primarily religious.
So, from the Age of Enlightenment, the writer brought out three simple ideas... The first is the idea that the simple and the natural is preferable to the cultural and the complex. The second is the idea that the bearer of this simple and natural is the Russian people. And finally, the third is the idea that the world and life of man is ruled by an absolute and impersonal God. A very special place in the spiritual biography of Tolstoy belongs, as I said, to one of the main figures of the French Enlightenment - Jean-Jacques Rousseau. His influence can be traced in almost all spheres of thought that attracted Tolstoy: education, schooling, history, science, religion, politics, attitude to modernity, and so on.
I will quote a letter sent in 1905 by Tolstoy to the founders of the Rousseau Society in Geneva:
“Rousseau and the Gospel are two of the most powerful and beneficial influences on my life. Russo does not age. More recently, I had to re-read some of his writings, and I experienced the same elation and admiration that I experienced reading him in my early youth. "
And it was in Russo that Tolstoy found the main idea of his worldview - the critique of civilization, that is, the modern state and society, which actually suppress a person, kill everything natural in him and at the same time call themselves Christian.
Special mention should be made of Optina Hermitage in the life of Tolstoy. Optina Hermitage in the 19th century was the largest spiritual center of the Russian Orthodox Church, this monastery began to revive in fact at the beginning of the 19th century and attracted attention for a hundred years, until its closure, because devotees of piety lived in this monastery, monks who among the people they were called elders. A noteworthy fact: Tolstoy, who was perceived by the Mona-khami of the desert as an apostate, excommunicated from the church, visited Optina more often than any other Russian writer, with the exception of the philosopher Konstantin Leontyev, one of the leaders of Russian conservatism. Leont'ev also, after his religious conversion, often visited Optina Hermitage, and from 1887 for the last four years of his life he lived in a monastery.
What can we say about Tolstoy's religious views and their differences from church Christianity? Highly important source To understand the spiritual constitution of Tolstoy and the evolution of these views, there are a kind of "creed", that is, short entries in the diary that appear early enough and in which the writer sets out something most important in the field of his personal faith.
Here is the most famous passage of this kind, which dates back to 1855:
“Yesterday, the conversation about the divine and faith led me to a great, tremendous thought, the realization of which I feel able to devote my life to. This thought is the foundation of a new religion, corresponding to the development of humanity, the religion of Christ, but cleansed of faith and mystery, a practical religion that does not promise future bliss, but gives bliss on earth. I understand that only generations, consciously working towards this goal, can bring this idea to fruition. One generation will bequeath this thought to the next, and someday fanaticism or reason will bring it to fruition. To act consciously to unite people with religion is the basis of a thought that, I hope, will captivate me. "
In this text we see all the most important that is in the "religion of Tolstoy." It must match intellectual development of humanity, there is no place for mystery and fairy tales, there is no place for bliss after death, but a practical moment is very strong in it - the construction of the Kingdom of God here on earth. Moreover, as Tolstoy will continue to write, the foundation of this practical religion is not faith and not the Church, and not the Resurrection of Christ, but moral commandments.
If you study the early diaries of Tolstoy, the number of all kinds of moral rules that the writer prescribes for himself is striking. These rules are designed to regulate his life, make it pure and righteous, and help him overcome his shortcomings. But this does not always work. And Tolstoy constantly breaks himself, repents of dissolute life and laziness, creates new rules, plans and schedules of life, breaks them again, repents again. The titanic moral work that a fairly young man is doing on himself is really impressive and has few analogues in the spiritual history of the 19th century. Count Tolstoy is consistently and persistently engaged in the "felling of the forest" about which he wrote in one of his early stories, only now it is a clearing in the more often unbelief, a sin in the "forest" that was religious life his contemporaries.
The writer entered the results of his reflections on what he had read in his diary. The first entry here refers to 1847, and the last was made in 1910, a few days before his death. Thus, Tolstoy kept a diary for 63 years with some not very significant interruptions. This is already unusual even for the zealous inhabitants of the 19th century. Tolstoy's diaries are really a laboratory, a testing ground, a collection of sketches, and not only in the field, as Tolstoy himself said, of art.
Already in this latter respect, Tolstoy's notes are very interesting. Reading them, you understand why the Russian philosopher of the Silver Age, Dmitry Merezhkovsky, called Tolstoy "the seer of the flesh." But it is important that Tolstoy tries to analyze the laws of the spirit with the same method. Those definitions of faith, God, "I", his place in the world, which he gives in his diary today, and can radically reject tomorrow, turn Tolstoy's diary into a completely special document on the history of religiosity and spiritual thoughts XIX century. It is in this way that Leo Tolstoy comes into conflict with church Christianity. He rejects the Church, the sacrament, prayer in its traditional sense; henceforth, for him, the Church is a historical form of subtle deception, servility to the possessing classes and state power.
It should be noted that in their memoirs, all persons close to Tolstoy emphasize the very unexpected nature of the upheaval that took place in the writing-body at the end of the 70s of the 19th century. In particular, his cousin, the maid of honor of two empresses, one of the most perceptive Russian women of the 19th century, Countess Alexandra Andreevna Tolstaya, points out in her memoirs that suddenly in 1878 her nephew was a preacher of something completely new, with which she could not agree in any way , Is a denial of the divinity of Christ and the redemptive nature of his deed. In other words, Christ is now for Tolstoy only a man who saved no one and cannot save anyone by his birth and resurrection, but who preached the divine teaching of his father.
It is generally accepted that Tolstoy's spiritual crisis occurs precisely at the end of the 70s - the beginning of the 80s. Indeed, during this period, the writer experienced a deep worldview change, which led to a change in his attitude towards the Church and the appearance in the next 30 years of his life a number of works of a religious and philosophical orientation. In these works, Tolstoy attempted to theoretically substantiate his new views on religion, morality, art, politics, civilization, the peasant question - on practically all pressing issues of Russian life.
But there were crises in Tolstoy's life before. The new turning point bears a fundamental character. If earlier Tolstoy was looking for a way to adapt his own views to church Christianity (as was the case, for example, in the late 1850s), to find a place for himself, an educated person, in the Church, now he radically rejects such a possibility. He rejects not only the sacrament, not only church dogma, but also his actual presence in the Church and is looking for a way to understand the Gospel in a new way.
Of course, this position was not something new or a personal invention of the writer. Tolstoy preached the type of Christianity that was already very popular in Europe, and the writer discussed his views with some correspondents. First of all, I would like to name here the philosopher Nikolai Strakhov and the already mentioned great-aunt, Countess Tolstaya. At the same time, it is obvious that the powerful imprint of his personality and individual characteristics lies on the constructions of Tolstoy.
The experiments of a new translation of the Gospel, which the writer begins to undertake, were of particular importance for Tolstoy, as well as attempts at its unconventional interpretation. Indeed, the convincingness of his criticism of church dogma depended on how convincing his criticism of the church's understanding of the New Testament was. First of all, the “liberation of the Gospel” was aimed at criticizing everything miraculous in it. The slightest mention of any miracle was to be removed from the Gospel text. This primarily applies to the main Gospel event - the Resurrection of Christ. Let us note that Tolstoy's “Gospel” ends not with the resurrection of the Savior, but with his death on the Cross, and all the miracles of Christ are either interpreted purely rationally or simply denied as inauthentic late insertions.
But Tolstoy's work on the Gospel text was not only about freeing the Gospel from the mystical element. In fact, this work cannot be called a translation in the strict sense of the word, it is a very arbitrary interpretation. I will give just one example of this kind. Let's compare the following two passages. These passages refer to the 3rd chapter of the Gospel of Matthew, verses 5 and 6, they speak of John the Baptist. The traditional, that is, the synodal, translation says the following: "Then Jerusalem and all Judea, all the surrounding area of Jordan went out to him and were baptized by him in Jordan, confessing their sins." They went out to John the Baptist. Here is the Tolstov's version of this text: “And to John came the people from Jerusalem and from the villages across Jordan, from all the land of Judah. And he bathed in Jordan all those who confessed their delusions. " Well, it is quite obvious that the sacramental meaning laid down by the Evangelist Matthew completely disappears, some kind of senseless bathing remains, it is not clear why it is necessary. And in general, on this there is still such a touch of justice, that is, someone had to confess to the Forerunner in his delusions, and for this he bathed this person for a century. And there are a lot of such places in Tolstoy's Gospel.
From the point of view of the writer, God is an impersonal master and father, the beginning of the principles of reason, the bearer of the spiritual deep "I" of man. And in this sense, Tolstoy's God is immortal. In fact, Tolstoy's God is a spiritual essence in man, which manifests itself in love, therefore this God can develop and improve. This development is the approach of mankind to the Kingdom of God on earth.
I will cite another quote from Tolstoy's diary on this score:
“If there is any God, then only the one whom I know in myself, as myself, as well as in all living things. They say: there is no matter, substance. No, it is, but it is only that, whereby God is not nothing, is not living, but living God, whereby He lives in me and in everything.<…>We must remember that my soul is not something - as they say - divine, but there is God himself. As soon as I am God, I realize myself, so there is no evil, no death, nothing but joy. "
It is very important to make the following note to this passage. For Tolstoy, worshiping a personal God, turning to him with a prayer, a request is the same action (meaningless) that the Chuvash peasants perform when they smear their idol with sour cream to please him. At the same time, it is strange how Tolstoy does not think that the whole New Testament is saturated with the spirit of God-word-personalism, that is, the perception of God as an independent person, to which therefore one can and should be addressed with prayer. Suffice it to recall, for example, the prayer of Christ himself in the Garden of Gethsemane or the numerous prayers of the first Christians included in the Book of the Acts of the Apostles. It can be seen from this source that members of the first Christian community perceive God and the risen Christ as a living person constantly present in their lives.
Tolstoy asserts that in human nature, in his consciousness, there is a spiritual, divine, primitive law of nature, an instinct for good and a feeling of divine life in oneself, the presence of God in oneself. The task of co-knowledge is to harmonize the mind and feelings of a person. This idea of correspondence is already present in "Cossacks" and in "War and Peace": the instinctive wisdom of Kutuzov is opposed by the aggressive and self-confident European activism of Napoleon. That is why, somewhat later, Tolstoy found similar ideas among the philosophers of the East - Confucius, Lao Tzu and others - about the presence in a person of some objective moral law.
According to Tolstoy, Christianity, like any religious teaching, contains two sides: firstly, the teaching about people's life is an ethical teaching, and, secondly, an explanation of why people need to live this way. These two sides can be found, according to Tolstoy, in all religions of the world. So is the Christian religion. He writes: "It [religion] teaches life how to live, and gives an explanation of why it is necessary to live this way."
From the point of view of Tolstoy, Christianity, to a greater extent than any other of the great historical religions, has lost the ethical teaching that once constituted its main part. Tolstoy proves this idea, comparing Christianity with other religions: "All religions, with the exception of the Church-Christian, require from those who practice them, except for rituals, the performance of still known good deeds and abstinence from evil." Judaism, for example, requires circumcision, Sabbath observance, anniversary year and many other things. Mohammedanism also requires circumcision, daily fivefold prayer, worship, pilgrimage, and so on. And this, from the point of view of Tolstoy, is the case with all religions. “Whether these requirements are good or bad, but these are the requirements of actions,” writes Tolstoy.
On the contrary, official church Christianity - as Tolstoy declares somewhat unexpectedly and in complete contradiction, unfortunately, with the historical truth - does not make any ethical demands on its followers. Tolstoy writes: "There is nothing that a Christian must necessarily do and from which he must necessarily abstain, if not to consider fasts and prayers, which the Church itself recognizes as optional." Tolstoy believes that since the time of Constantine the Great, the Christian church, I quote, “has not demanded any actions from its members. She did not even make any demands to abstain from anything. "
A little later, Tolstoy formulates the main thesis of his religious system: all religions of the world consist of a moral core, that is, an answer to the question of what needs to be done, and a mystical periphery - what to believe in. Mysticism is error and superstition, and the moral basis of all religions is completely the same and is expressed in its fullest form in the Sermon on the Mount. Let me remind you that the Sermon on the Mount is a sermon spoken by Christ and placed in full in the Gospel of Matthew, these are chapters five, six, seventh, that is, three chapters in which Christ formulates the foundations of the moral teaching of Christianity in a compact form. It is strange that such an intelligent person like Tolstoy does not see the blatant contradiction of this idea. After all, the demands of the Sermon on the Mount, for example, to love enemies or, say, not to care about tomorrow, are completely revolutionary in nature and do not fit into the ethics of Judaism or Islam.
Russia learned about the "religion of Tolstoy" thanks to the publishing activities of his closest friend and fellow-thinker Vladimir Chertkov. This is a representative of the richest aristocratic family, in the past a brilliant officer of the Guards. And this young man became the most devoted student of the great writer. Chertkov's activities in the literal sense of the word had a worldwide scale. Obviously possessing the qualities of an outstanding manager, he organized the worldwide distribution of the writer's books and ideas. It was thanks to Chertkov that Tolstoy's outlook became a kind of brand.
In Russian life, the second half of the XIX century there was an antipode of Leo Tolstoy, and such an antipode was the long-term chief prosecutor of the Holy Synod, Konstantin Petrovich Pobedonostsev. It is probably very difficult to find people more different than Tolstoy and Pobedonostsev. Tolstoy is the conscience of his generation, a fighter for the truth, a defender of the offended, a person with unlimited moral authority. Pobedonostsev in the eyes of his contemporaries is the embodiment of political evil, which is associated with political arbitrariness. The Chief Prosecutor of the Synod is the creator of the system of counter-reforms, the persecutor of everything progressive and creative, this is the same dashing person who ultimately turned Russia into an icy desert.
And in the duel between Tolstoy and Pobedonostsev, in the minds of Russian society and even the political elite, Pobedonostsev was doomed to defeat in advance. That is why, after the excommunication of the writer in 1901, in the eyes of this society and this elite, he immediately became both the main culprit, and the main creator of this act, and the object of caustic satirical attacks. The Ober-Prosecutor of the Synod and his policy were associated with the personality of the famous founder of the Spanish Inquisition Torquemada, with the personality of the Grand Inquisitor Do-Stoevsky, and more offensive comparisons are “a ghoul who spread his wings over Russia”, this is “the evil genius of Russia” and etc. On one of the kari-katur, for example, Pobedonostsev was depicted as bat holding a young girl in chains, in which, naturally, Russia was guessed.
In the lives of Tolstoy and Pobedonostsev, there was also a personal conflict, and a very sharp one. It took place in 1881 and was associated with the issue of the execution of the people who were assassins of Emperor Alexander II. Tolstoy asked the new tsar, Alexander III, for a pardon, but the newly appointed chief prosecutor demanded death penalty... This conflict developed for almost 20 years, and in 1899 it was resolved by a scandal. And one of the most important steps that brought this scandal and, accordingly, the appearance of the synodal act on Tolstoy, was the publication of the novel Resurrection, the last big novel of Tolstoy. Reading Russia - at least that part of it that had access to foreign editions of the novel - was shocked by the unprecedented mockery of the Orthodox faith and at the same time recognized the official Toporov as the chief prosecutor of the Synod Pobedonostsev.
In Tolstoy's new novel, I recall, the entire Russian state machine was subjected to devastating satire - power, administration, prisons, and so on. And in two chapters of the first part, the Orthodox liturgy was depicted in a completely blasphemous form. Tolstoy shows the actions of an Orthodox priest as completely meaningless, and instead of the usual high style characteristic of the Church, he deliberately uses everyday terms: for example, instead of “cup” - “cup”, instead of “liar” - “spoon” and etc.
Until the publication of the novel Resurrection, the Russian Church, not to mention the Russian state, showed great tolerance towards Tolstoy. TO late XIX For centuries, Tolstoy's criticism of church doctrine and clergy acquired an aggressive, bitter character, especially after the history of the sect, which was especially close to Tolstoy. In 1905, the Dukho-bora not only declared their refusal to take up arms, but even publicly burned the weapons in their community and were exiled from Russia to Canada. But in relation to the writer from the side of the Synod, not a single critical word was said in the official church press. Tolstoy could be criticized in sermons, in theological writings, in publicistic articles, but, I emphasize again, officially his teaching was not subjected to any church condemnation. Now the situation has changed fundamentally. Leo Tolstoy allowed himself open blasphemy, and, I repeat, hundreds of thousands of people around the world got to know him, because thanks to Vladimir Chertkov, the Resurrection novel was actually, as we would say now, online translated into main European languages and distributed in huge circulations ... And at the same time, in his works, Tolstoy constantly emphasized that he was a religious person and a Christian. Well, even in our time, in an era when absolutely everything is confused in the minds and hearts of people, such a strange discrepancy would require clarification, but at the beginning of the twentieth century the situation was even more complicated.
Indeed, for the Russian Church, the picture is ambiguous and potentially very dangerous, given the authority that the writer had in Russia and throughout the world. It was a kind of trap. To keep silent means to receive serious reputational losses, given that already in Sino-de they began to receive indignant letters from those who managed to read Resurrection in an uncensored edition and who saw in the novel a deliberate insult to the feelings of believers, how would we just said. And to speak out publicly against Tolstoy is no less dangerous, given that any speech of the Synod against him will be perceived negatively. However, it is noteworthy that the question of the excommunication of Tolstoy could only be raised after the death of Emperor Alexander III, who called the writer nothing more than "my Tolstoy" and constantly asked not to touch him, so as not to make him a martyr, but from the emperor - his executioner.
The church authorities themselves have made every effort to avoid scandal and public outrage. That is why the words “anathema” and “excommunication” in the final version of the synodal document were replaced by the more neutral, but less definite term “rejection”. And this is a very fundamental point. By anathema is meant the most severe of the church punishments, which had the meaning of separating the guilty from the church and condemning him to eternal destruction, right up to repentance. In other words, in church law, anathema is understood as the complete excommunication of a Christian from communion with the faithful children of the Church, from church sacraments, and this punishment is used as the highest punishment for serious crimes, which are treason to Orthodoxy, that is, deviation into heresy or schism. And in this sense, the word "anathema" can be replaced by "curse." At the same time, the Church always distinguished between complete excommunication, that is, anathema, and small excommunication. Lesser excommunication is the temporary excommunication of a member of the Church from church fellowship, serving as a punishment for lesser sins. For example, the latter type of excommunication took place in church practice in a situation where some Christians renounced their faith in an era of persecution. For several years young Gorky was excommunicated from the church for attempted suicide. True, for him it was, of course, no longer important, but nevertheless such a fact took place.
In the practice of the Orthodox Church, anathema was not so much a punishment as a warning to a person, and here you can clearly see the difference from the practice of the Catholic Church, in which the word "anathema" was replaced by the term "curse." Precisely because the anathema was not only and not so much a punishment as a warning, the doors of the Orthodox Church for the excommunicated were not closed forever. Subject to his sincere repentance and fulfillment of the necessary church instructions (first of all, as a rule, public repentance), his return to the church was possible.
What is the synodal act of 1901 from this point of view? It has the character of a solemn church confession and announces that Leo Tolstoy is no longer a member of the Church and cannot return to it until he repents. In addition, the document certifies that without repentance for Tolstoy, it will be impossible for either a Christian burial or a memorial prayer, not to mention Eucharistic communion, that is, participation in communion, to which, in fact, Tolstoy even then did not strive. The Synodal Act of 1901, as Pobedonostsev had suggested, was greeted by most of the Russian educated society extremely unfavorably. The Russian intelligentsia supported the writer, contrary to the Synod, and reacted with great indignation to the Synodal Act. With indignation and irony. This is what Chekhov had in mind when he wrote in one of his letters: "The public reacted with laughter to the excommunication of Tolstoy."
The last question that will interest us is the last years of Tolstoy's life, his departure and death. Preliminarily, it must be said that Tolstoy's family life cracked quite early, in fact, even before the spiritual transformation. But in recent years, this life has become even more difficult and tragic, and mainly because of the story of the writer's will, which he signed secretly from his family, in the forest, in the summer of 1910, which led to an open conflict with Sophia Andreevna Tolstoy. And as a result of this conflict on October 28, 1910, that is, ten days before his death, Tolstoy was forced to secretly flee from the family nest.
Tolstoy's departure from Yasnaya Polyana was an event that was of great importance for all of Russia, if not for the whole world. Sergei Nikolaevich Durylin, a well-known literary critic and philosopher, reports that on the day of the first news of the departure, the newspapers were literally tore from their hands, and Durylin remembers such an attitude towards printed products only once in his life - on the day of the declaration of war with Germany in 1914. For Russian newspapers and magazines and for the entire Russian reading society, the question was as follows: is it an escape or a pilgrimage, a triumph or a tragedy, a search for a way out of an impasse or a search for a plot for a new work? Indeed, with what feeling did Tolstoy leave the estate, what was behind this departure? Why did he go specifically to Optina Pustyn?
Some people really want to present the matter in such a way that Count Tolstoy ran away to nowhere, he simply left everyone, as he wrote in his diary a little more than a month before leaving. I will cite this eloquent testimony to the state of Tolstoy's soul: “From Chertkov, a letter with reproaches and denunciations. They tear me apart. Sometimes I think: get away from everyone. " In other words, Tolstoy just wanted to go somewhere, having no idea of either the direction of movement or its purpose. There is a different kind of reasoning. The writer knew in advance that he would go to Optina Hermitage and meet with the elders there, and it is this circumstance that testifies to the penitential state of Tolstoy's soul.
It seems to me that both points of view are not true. Tolstoy's departure is the end of his life and the end of those searches that were the main thing in his outlook on the world. We know today that the writer stayed in the pilgrimage hotel of Optina Pustyn, where he was recognized immediately, and took a walk to the skete, in which at that moment the great Optina elder Joseph, the successor the Monk Ambrose, a man of great love and mercy - Tolstoy met him, most likely, in 1896 during his next pilgrimage to the monastery. But standing at the threshold of the door to the Optina skete, Tolstoy did not find the strength to cross this threshold, the meeting with the elders did not take place. Perhaps it was the most tragic encounter in the life of a writer.
After visiting Optina Pustyn, the writer goes to Shamordino, where his sister Marya Nikolaevna Tolstaya, the closest and dearest to him in this moment, whom he called all his life exclusively Mashenka. We do not know how the fate of Tolstoy could have developed in the future, if he had managed to stay with his beloved younger sister for a long time. But fearing a chase organized by his wife, the writer was forced to leave Shamordino. On the way, he caught a cold, fell ill with bilateral pneumonia and died at the Astapovo station. Moreover, in the last days Because of the firm position of Chertkov, another Optina elder, the Monk Barsanuphius, was not admitted to him for conversation and confession.
Leo Tolstoy is the only person in Russia at the beginning of the twentieth century who enjoyed unlimited, truly absolute freedom in the family, in his native village, in society, state, and culture. Perhaps he was the only person in the world of this magnitude. He was born in a beautiful, indeed very clear Yasnaya Polyana, a typical Russian estate with a birch alley, Voronka river, apple orchards, family houses and houses, children, grandchildren, servants, hunting, hiking and horseback riding, apiary, flower greenhouses, peasant schools, evening tea, reading, games and concerts. He lived there most life and according to all the laws of the genre, logic, justice was simply obliged to die there! He was fabulously rich, he could take writing fees or publicly renounce them after. He enjoyed worldwide fame. Tolstoy could write whatever he wanted without fear of any censure from the government. Moreover, without writing a single line of the next new work, he could claim to publish it anywhere and to receive any fee, while other writers, for example Dostoevsky or Leontyev, could simply starve, and literally starve ... In the family, every desire of Tolstoy was fulfilled with haste and diligence. Diligent students, led by Chertkov, with pencils and notebooks in their hands, caught his every word. The best artists and sculptors of Russia and the world painted his portraits, sculpted in clay, carved in marble, and so on. It was in front of his portrait, after the excommunication of the Synod, that stormy enthusiastic demonstrations were staged at exhibitions. It was he who was photographed for the first time in color in Russia by Prokudin-Gorsky. It was his voice that was recorded on the phonograph.
But Astapovo was a real trap for Tolstoy. The writer found himself in a clever mouse, which to a large extent he himself created. Sick and helpless, he lay on the bed, not understanding what was happening not only in the world, but even beyond the threshold of his room and in it. Knowing nothing about his wife and children, knowing nothing about the attempts of the Orthodox priest to talk to him before his death and to admonish him. Immediately after Chertkov's arrival in Astapovo, the strictest supervision was established by the pi - tel. The door to the house of the station chief, Ozolin, was always locked, and the key to it was kept by Chertkov's assistant, Sergeenko, who was on duty in the anteroom. Chertkov was always in Tolstoy's room. The entrance to the house was possible, apparently, only by some kind of password.
That is why Tolstoy did not even know that the Optina hieromonk Barsanuphius specially arrived at the Astapovo station with holy gifts in order to try to talk with the writer before his death. Thus, at the last, most crucial moment in his life, the great writer of the Russian land, as Turgenev said about him, whose departure from Yasnaya Polyana was watched with intense attention by the entire civilized world, found himself in tragic loneliness. His fate becomes the subject of the experiences of the Russian emperor, the Council of Ministers, the Prime Minister Stolypin, the Synod, the Cathedral of the Elders of Optina Hermitage, and finally family members. But Tolstoy knows nothing about this.
The remarkable Russian writer Boris Zaitsev writes about this very vividly:
“But how does his life end? To die not only in enmity with the Church, but also with his own girlfriend after almost half a century of common life, having a whole host of children. Flee from your home, end your days at the station master, amidst discord, domestic Guelphs and death-lin, parties at war among themselves. And to be buried in the Yasnopo-Llyansky park, where one could bury some favorite Italian greyhound. "
The circle of alienation that had been created around Tolstoy for more than 20 years has closed.
During Tolstoy's Astapov disease, the Russian press discussed the issue of the possibility of his forgiveness by the Church. This issue has been discussed to this day, for more than 100 years. From time to time, certain persons, for example, Tolstoy's relatives, make appropriate requests to the Synod. But, from my point of view, the abolition of the synodal act is impossible for two reasons: first, such a step would be an act of great disrespect for Tolstoy himself, for his freedom, for everything that he said about the Church. After all, the writer himself recognized the justice of the church act, its accuracy in stating the fact that Count Tolstoy deliberately left the Church and does not want to return to it. Secondly, the abolition of the church definition would automatically mean the opportunity to pray for Tolstoy in words that he himself perceived as blasphemy. Open an Orthodox prayer book, read at least a small excerpt from an Orthodox panikhida and ask yourself: can we pray for Tolstoy like that?
The Church still has great respect for the last will of the great Russian writer.
