Orthodoxy and Russian classical literature. Metropolitan Clement: “Real Russian writers perceived their work as service Orthodox writers of the 19th century

If until this day you have been putting off regular reading of Christian literature, then there are two reasons for this grace-filled deed. Firstly, March 14th— Orthodox Book Day. The holiday is very young, introduced 4 years ago. But reading for a Christian is an important part of spiritual work. And now, the other day, a wonderful time for spiritual exploits begins!

The most important book for a Christian should undoubtedly be the Holy Scripture. In addition, these are patristic works, the lives of saints. In addition, recently a lot of different books by Orthodox authors have appeared on the book market. And, of course, we must remember that not all of them are equally valuable. Among these books there are completely non-Orthodox in essence, there are those in which genuine Orthodox teaching is mixed with occult or pseudoscientific ideas. Every person has their own favorite books. According to the website lib.pravmir.ru, we offer you 10 most read modern books, useful in spiritual work.

1. - book by Archimandrite Tikhon Shevkunov. Published in 2011. The book aroused great interest among the reading public. Thus, by October 2012, the total circulation of the book was one million one hundred thousand copies. As Archimandrite Tikhon himself said: “I told almost all the stories that were included in the book during sermons. All this is part of our church life.”

2. is the last work of the Orthodox author Viktor Likhachev, who passed away in 2008. The writer did not have time to finish his book, but he hoped that everyone who reads it would recognize himself in it, feel that boundless love for Russia, for the Russian village that the author had, and let into his heart faith in God and hope that that the Angels, our heavenly patrons, will never leave us...

3. " Prologue in teachings for every day of the year"— the book was compiled in 2007 by Archpriest Viktor Guryev. “Prologue” is an ancient Russian hagiographic collection, originating from Byzantine month books, in which the lives of saints are arranged in accordance with the days of their church memory. In addition, the “Prologue” is decorated with understandable and often entertaining passages from the ancient Patericons, parables imbued with thoughts of repentance, mercy, Christian love for one’s neighbor, spiritual perfection and salvation of the soul.

4. "Father Arseny"- this book, published from the pen of an unknown author, clearly shows the reader the triumph of love over evil, life over death. Father Arseny is the image of a holy elder - a zealous man of prayer, sober, meek, who has completely surrendered himself into the hands of God. The first editions spread throughout Russia and beyond its borders and made the book “Father Arseny” one of the most beloved in the Orthodox world.

5. "Soul after death"(O. Seraphim Rose) - there is probably no book that so clearly, accessiblely and understandably reveals a person’s post-mortem experience and gives the concept of the angelic and otherworldly world. The book contains two thousand years of experience of the holy fathers. The publication has a twofold purpose: firstly, from the point of view of Orthodox Christian teaching about the afterlife, to provide an explanation of modern “posthumous” experiences that have aroused such interest in some religious and scientific circles; secondly, cite the main sources and texts containing Orthodox teaching about the afterlife.

6. "Red Easter"(Pavlova N.A.) - it was after this book that the author became widely known. The book is already 11 years old, but it does not lose popularity. It tells the story of the three Optina new martyrs - Hieromonk Vasily and the monks Ferapont and Trofim. These are three completely different people, their paths to God were special. The ascetic life is amazing; many readers note that after this book they immediately want to visit Optina Pustyn.

7. “Who will hear the linnet?”(Likhachev V.V.) — a novel about the Motherland and the Russian soul. He leads the reader along the roads of the Russian province. The main character is drawn into real adventures: he carries a miraculous icon, evading a bandit pursuit... And internally, he goes through the path of spiritual growth: from unbelief to faith, from confusion to blessed peace, from mental blindness and deafness to insight and hearing miracle of God.

8. "Heavenly Paths"(Shmelev I.S.) - a novel about the fate of the skeptic-positivist engineer Viktor Alekseevich Weidenhammer and the believer, meek and internally strong Darinka, a novice of the monastery who left the monastery to connect her life with Viktor Alekseevich. Through suffering and joy, in mysterious and incomprehensible ways to the worldly mind, these heroes are led to the Source of Life. The internal plot of the book is “spiritual warfare” with passions and thoughts, temptations and attacks of dark forces.

9. "Chief of Silence"(Vsevolod Filpyev) - the book addresses eternal questions - love and hatred, loyalty and betrayal, truth and lies. The characters in the book resolve these issues differently and sometimes unexpectedly. An action-packed, realistic narrative draws the reader into the events that take place in the winter of 2002 in Moscow and North America. Together with the heroes, the reader finds himself in St. Petersburg of the 19th century and in the historical times of princes Boris and Gleb. The parable story is intended for a wide range of readers, and everyone is free to interpret it in their own way.

10. "Repentance is left to us"(abbot Nikon Vorobyov) - letters addressed to his spiritual children, laity and monastics. Father Nikon edifies, instructs, calls for repentance and patience, shows what needs to be done, what thoughts need to be kept, consoles, teaches how to properly relate to sorrows: “The Fathers have long said about our times that people will be saved only by sorrows and illnesses. Healthy and happy people forget about God, about the future life: they live as if they will live forever on earth and will never die. And sorrows and illnesses force a person to break away from earthly interests and turn to God... Save your souls through repentance, patience and humility.”

Enjoy reading!

Prayer before reading spiritual books:

Lord Jesus Christ, open the eyes of my heart, so that when I hear Your Word, I understand it and fulfill Your will. Hide not Your commandments from me, but open my eyes, that I may understand the wonders of Your law. Tell me the unknown and secret of Your wisdom! I trust in You, my God, and I believe that You will enlighten my mind and meaning with the light of Your mind and that then I will not only read what is written, but also fulfill it. Make it so that I do not read the Lives of the Saints and Your Word as a sin, but for renewal and enlightenment, and for holiness, and for the salvation of the soul, and for the inheritance of eternal life. For You, Lord, are the illumination of those who lie in darkness, and from You is every good gift and every perfect gift. Amen.

Veronica VYATKINA

I remember very well the saint’s words: “People are self-loving and cannot exercise dispassionate judgment on themselves” (St. Basil the Great), but when there is very little time left before realizing that you have already reached old age, you involuntarily turn your thoughts back to the years that have passed.

From this “reverse” you very rarely remain positive and come into symphonic agreement with the unforgettable priest from “The Elusive Avengers”: “We are all weak, for we are only human.” I still want to sum up the results of the past years, and it’s always nice to remember what touches, inspires and inspires joy. And there is nothing shameful or unorthodox in joy. The Apostle said unequivocally about this: “However, brethren, rejoice, be improved, be comforted, be like-minded, be peaceful, and the God of love and peace will be with you” (2 Cor. 13:11).

It is clear that today the meaning of words and definitions has changed. The world has even brought its own meanings to seemingly clear concepts, far from faith and God, but we are Orthodox, and we love akathists, and every verse there is “Rejoice!”

I count back more than five decades and I definitely remember:

The sieve gallops across the fields,

And the trough in the meadows...

Mom is reading, but I feel sorry for Fyodor, and how could I not feel sorry if:

And the poor woman is alone,

And she cries, and she cries.

A woman would sit at the table,

Yes, the table left the gate.

Grandma would cook cabbage soup

Go and look for a saucepan!

And the cups are gone, and the glasses,

There are only cockroaches left.

Oh, woe to Fedora,

Woe!

My father didn’t read Chukovsky and Marshak to me. He knew otherwise by heart. I learned about what friendship is and who a hero is from Simon’s lines:

– You hear me, I believe:

Death cannot take such people.

Hold on, my boy: in the world

Don't die twice.

No one in our life can

Kick you out of the saddle! –

Such a saying

The major had it.

Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin taught me how not to be a coward and not be afraid at night:

Poor Vanya was a bit of a coward:

Since he is late sometimes,

All sweaty, pale with fear,

I walked home through the cemetery.

Years passed. Fairy tales from the three-volume book by Alexander Nikolaevich Afanasyev, together with Pinocchio and the Snow Queen, were replaced by the wizard from the Emerald City with Oorfene Deuce and the underground kings, then Jules Verne came with Captain Grant, Ayrton and Nemo.

Childhood - it had an amazing feature: from morning to evening - an eternity. Nowadays we count this time according to the principle: Christmas - Easter - Trinity - Intercession... and Christmas again. Everything is fleeting, and sometimes it seems instantaneous. In childhood it’s different, every day is amazing, with amazing news and exciting events. Everything for the first time.

School years - the discovery of Russian classics. It was impossible not to open it, since the teacher was Maria Ivanovna. So all the countless good stories and stories about “Maryivanovna” are about my teacher. It is thanks to her that, until this day, I quote the incomparable Skalozub, appropriately and inappropriately: “If evil is to be stopped: collect all the books and burn them,” as I paraphrase Molchalin: “At my age, it is “worthy” to dare to have your own judgment.” Maria Ivanovna gave us the ability to understand the works being studied not only from a literature textbook, but also from the point of view of their ever-present modernity (this is the main difference between the classics and literary pulp). And although the teacher’s surname was absolutely Soviet - Komissarova, it is now clear that she did not think from the perspective of socialist realism. This is probably why, when my friend and I decided to defend poor Grushnitsky and accuse the proud Pechorin from “A Hero of Our Time,” Maria Ivanovna silently but with a smile returned our essays, which simply did not have a grade.

Many years later, in high school and in the army, when I first opened the Bible, it became clear that I knew many of the subjects of Scripture. Our historian, without pointing to the source, told us about the flood, and about Job, and about Abraham. His lesson almost always ended with a beautiful, as he said, “legend”, which, as it later turned out, was a presentation of the Bible.

It was not easy with books in those years, but I wanted to read. And even when I spent half of my first salary on the Rostov semi-legal book market, my parents did not mutter, because for them the truth that “a book is the best gift” was truly indisputable.

As the years passed, times changed dramatically. We were no longer afraid to pronounce the names of those writers whose existence we knew only from “critical” devastating articles in Soviet newspapers. Although in the army the political officer took away from me “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich,” which had been confiscated from libraries, he returned the magazine upon demobilization. And the institute teacher on strength of materials, seeing that instead of studying Hooke’s law and Bernoulli’s hypothesis, I was reading “A calf butted an oak tree,” he just grinned, shook his finger, and after the lecture asked for Soev’s brochure “until the morning.”

By the age of maturity, already, one might say, family, by the age of thirty, along with thick literary magazines with texts by Yu.V. Trifonova, V.D. Dudintseva, A.P. Platonova, V.T. Unknown N.S. came to Shalamov. Leskov, I.A. Bunin, I.S. Shmelev and A.I. Kuprin.

It was then through books that a meaningful interest in Orthodoxy began. It was already possible to find the Gospel, and in the Rostov Cathedral to buy the “Journal of the Moscow Patriarchate”, where there were always (just a few pages!) sermons and historical articles. At the immensely expanded Rostov book market, not only “Bulletin of the Russian Christian Movement,” but also books by Sergei Aleksandrovich Nilus, along with hastily stitched reprints of “The Ladder” and “The Fatherland,” began to be sold almost freely.

Faith became a necessity, as it was understood and realized that the basis of all beloved works was precisely the Orthodox culture, the Orthodox heritage.

At a small village railway station in the Belgorod region (I don’t remember what brought me there) I met a priest my age, in a cassock (!), with the latest issue of “The New World” in his hands, which was incredibly surprising. We met. We started talking. We went to have tea with the priest, enthusiastically discussing the latest literary novelties.

Tea was somehow forgotten, but two cabinets with theological literature, ancient publications, unknown authors and mysterious, still incomprehensible titles became essentially decisive in later life. They just changed it.

Once during Lent, my Belgorod priest suggested that I go to the wisest and holiest place in Rus'. “Where is this going?” – I didn’t understand. “To Optina. The monastery has already been returned.” I already knew something about Ambrose of Optina and the monastery elders, since “On the Bank of God’s River” by S.A. Nilusa and the Jordanville book by Ivan Mikhailovich Kontsevich “Optina Pustyn and Its Time” were among my favorites. We arrived for a couple of days, but I stayed at the monastery for almost a whole year. Initially I decided that I would stay until Easter. Everything is too unusual. An amazing service, still incomprehensible monks and a constant feeling that you are not living in real time. The past is so closely combined with the present that if I met Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoy with Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol on the hermitage path, I would not be surprised...

Optina made us reread and rethink our classics of the 19th century. Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky became understandable, Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol was loved, and the Slavophiles turned out to be not only fighters for the Third Rome, but also interesting writers.

In the evenings I chose a corner in the monastery hotel and read books there. The monks at that time did not yet have separate cells and lived wherever they could. One of them, tall, thin, wearing glasses, somewhat similar to me, noticed my personality and asked me a couple of times why I wasn’t sleeping and what I was reading. It turned out that this interest was not just curiosity. Soon I was called to the monastery economist and offered to work in the publishing department of the monastery. To be in Optina among monastic services, smart monks and books and studying books... I couldn’t believe it.

Our restless leader, the then abbot, the current Archimandrite Melchizedek (Artyukhin), is a man who treats the book with reverence. It is not surprising that the first edition of Abba Dorotheos’s “Soulful Teachings” after the 1917 Revolution was published in Optina, just as the reprint edition of all the volumes of “The Lives of the Saints” by St. Demetrius of Rostov became a landmark event.

Time is passing quickly. A quarter of a century has already passed since those monastic days. 25 years of priesthood, which is impossible to imagine without a book. The book is the joy that taught, educated, educated and led to faith.

An Orthodox contemporary, I am sure of this, needs to read constantly. And not only the holy fathers, theologians and Orthodox writers. Great works have God’s foundation, that’s why they are great.

Today there is a lot of debate about the future of the book. There is no longer any need to search for unread and immediately needed things. All you have to do is go online. The search engine will return dozens of links and even identify the place, thought or quote you are looking for. But still, in the evening you take another book from the stack, open it at random to feel the indescribable book smell, and then move on to bookmarking...

And now, when I read these lines, behind me there are shelves with necessary and favorite books - my constant joy, originating in βιβλίον (“book” in Greek), that is, in the Bible.

Back in 1994, Vladislav Listyev, in the TV show “Rush Hour,” asked the then head of the publishing department of the Moscow Patriarchate, Metropolitan Pitirim (Nechaev), whether reading representatives of the Church on television channels was not only new, but also caused a great resonance, because about who they were ministers of the Church knew only from the Soviet atheistic template or from rumors, which, as we know, tend to become overgrown with fabrications and outright lies. And suddenly it turns out that those in robes not only read the Bible in an incomprehensible language, pray and bow, but also navigate the culture of their people, in which Russian classical literature occupies one of the main places.

Why do I remember this dialogue of the murdered leader of worldly literature? Having received an affirmative answer, Listyev asked what exactly the Vladyka liked, and immediately received an answer - Anton Pavlovich Chekhov. It must be said that in the early 90s, any appearance of the already deceased Metropolitan? Yes, all because, over and over again, in conversations with believers, both in parishes and in the Orthodox segment of the Internet that permeates the whole world, disputes and discussions flare up: how much is it permissible and necessary for a believer to know the literary heritage of our ancestors, and especially Russians? classics? Perhaps the Holy Scriptures, the works of the holy fathers and the hagiographic heritage, that is, the lives of saints and ascetics of piety, are quite sufficient? And if at a parish it is easier to have a conversation on this topic, and the priest still has an advantage not only in position and rank, but also, if possible, to include specific examples from this heritage in his sermons, then on the World Wide Web and correspondence it is much more difficult. It would seem that you are talking with a completely sane, sincerely believing and educated interlocutor, but the result is disastrous. Categorical: “A priest has no right to read secular fiction! Scripture and tradition are enough.”

I remember with pain the discussion, two or three years ago, based on the clergy’s answers to the question of the Orthodoxy and World portal: “What would you recommend reading from fiction books during Lent?” It was not possible to reach a consensus; as far as I remember, there was a compromise only in relation to Ivan Sergeevich Shmelev. Of course, the opponents were not anathematized, but they were “banned” and subjected to devastating criticism hotly and harshly.

Time and time again this question is repeated and discussed. Moreover, the arguments almost never contain the words that all our literature has an ecclesiastical, that is, Orthodox, origin. When picking up a book, it is quite worthy to remember those who gave us the Slavic alphabet, made us “literate” in the original sense of the word, just as it would not be a sin to thank our own chroniclers, from whom the Russian book came.

Before you moan about the fact that among the current book ruins there are many openly sinful, confusing and tempting works, we must still remember that the head is intended for thought, that you are a person, the image and likeness of God, only when you know how to choose. It is the Orthodox faith that gives us lessons, instructions and examples on how to make this choice. And the Lord Himself indicated the first criterion for selection: “And why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye, but do not feel the beam in your own eye?” (Matt. 7:3). We, knowing these words, see in secular literature only the sins of writers, we talk about their philosophical and everyday mistakes, completely forgetting that we ourselves once, and even now, often fall into dark abysses.

Let me quote the Russian scientist, literary critic, professor of the Moscow Academy of Sciences, Mikhail Mikhailovich Dunaev, who recently appeared before God: “Orthodoxy establishes the only true point of view on life, and this point of view is adopted (not always in full) by Russian literature as the main idea, becoming such Orthodox in spirit. Orthodox literature teaches the Orthodox view of man, establishes the correct view of man’s inner world, and defines the most important criterion for assessing a person’s inner being: humility. That is why new Russian literature (following ancient Russian) saw its task and meaning of existence in kindling and maintaining spiritual fire in human hearts. This is where the recognition of conscience as the measure of all life values ​​comes from. Russian writers perceived their work as a prophetic ministry (which Catholic and Protestant Europe did not know). The attitude towards literary figures as spirit seers and soothsayers has been preserved in the Russian consciousness to this day, although in a muted manner.”

So what kind of literature kindles and maintains the spiritual fire in our hearts? First of all, Russian classics, starting from epics and ending with the ever-remembered Rasputin.

Where can one find an example of the transformation of the human soul from the passions of youth to the understanding and celebration of faith? In the works of A.S. Pushkin. He atoned for all the sins of his youth with his one verse, “The desert fathers and the blameless wives...” and a poetic letter to St. Philaret.

Or “Dead Souls” by N.V. Gogol. Where, if not in this prose poem, is the entire list of so-called “deadly” sins shown so colorfully, in detail, intelligently and with all the nuances? This book is a kind of practical instruction on what not to be. When attacking Gogol’s “Viy” and other stories about all kinds of evil spirits, look at the author’s spiritual prose, which causes such strong irritation among the same evil spirits, in human form.

The great and unsurpassed A.P. Chekhov. Stories where kindness and sincerity either win (which is more often) or cry about being forgotten. In short stories there are true stories about the weakness of the strength of a person who only relies on himself.

It's sad when F.M. They try to evaluate Dostoevsky through the prism of his disordered life and passion for gambling. God's talent multiplies in his stories and novels, and his downfalls and sins... Throw a stone at Fyodor Mikhailovich who does not have them.

And Tolstoy is permissible and necessary to read. Everyone. Even Leo. “War and Peace” and many stories, coupled with “Sevastopol Stories,” have not been surpassed in skill, breadth of plot, historical, moral and philosophical value. To evaluate the work of this great writer for his excommunication from the Church is the height of unreasonableness. It is better to understand that Lev Nikolaevich, who at the end of his life tried to make Christ a man out of God, forgot the Apostle’s warning: “Be sober, be vigilant, because your adversary the devil walks around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour” (1 Pet. 5, 8). I recommend reading the book by Pavel Valerievich Basinsky “The Saint against the Lion. John of Kronstadt and Leo Tolstoy: the story of one enmity,” where the author compares two contemporaries of that time.

Many of those who argue that secular literature, including classical literature, is harmful and unnecessary for an Orthodox person, ask a banal question: “How can I read this book if there is not a word about God?” But in the Book of Song of Songs of Solomon, the word God is not found even once, and it is included in the Bible!

Doesn’t the description of the beauty of nature and man, noble deeds and deeds, defense of the offended and the Fatherland make us remember the famous “With wisdom you created all things”?

Of course, you need to be able to choose what is useful and necessary. Distinguish good from bad. But for this purpose the Lord gave us understanding. The selection criterion for me personally is clear: any book where a person is defined in eternity, where there is an understanding of good and evil, where compassion, mercy and love dominate, is quite acceptable for our reading. And in first place are Russian classics. So let’s not be like Griboyedov’s Skalozub.

After the theme of the eternity of classical Russian literature, its enduring spiritual value and significance for a modern person who positions himself as Orthodox, I would like to step into the present day. I always want to find new, modern, interesting authors writing about Orthodoxy or from the point of view of Orthodoxy. To be honest, we must admit: we are not rich in literary names. Those for whom books are an integral part of life will probably easily list the names of prose writers, poets and publicists who know how to see reality through the prism of our faith. Now there are many literary groups, circles, societies, etc. But, unfortunately (or fortunately?), any literary community of the present day is, first of all, rhymes, rhymes. There are many poets, but there is not enough poetry.

Although there are also good stanzas that meet the challenges of the present day:

Everything that is called a nation

Everything that makes you proud

For normal patriots

Without clinical intrigues -

Keeps unchanged,

Wise, Pushkinsky, rich,

Our dear, free,

Russian, delicious, colorful language!

God grant that such discoveries be regular, and not just poetic ones.

There is much less prose, but we still need to name the priestly authors who are not only necessary, but also interesting to read: Nikolai Agafonov, Yaroslav Shipov, Andrei Tkachev, Valentin Biryukov. I do not classify them as “classics,” but there is no doubt that we have before us good works written in our Russian Orthodox tradition.

We often talk about the memory of our ancestors, about the coffins of our fathers, about continuity and traditions. Moreover, our tradition is a refraction of tradition in its Orthodox understanding. Several years ago, our Patriarch said: “...tradition is a mechanism and a way of transmitting values ​​that cannot disappear from people’s life. Not everything that is in the past is good, because we throw away garbage, but we do not save everything from our past. But there are things that need to be preserved, because if we don’t preserve them, our national, cultural, spiritual identity is destroyed, we become different, and most often we become worse.”

P.S. In addition to the classics, I highly recommend books from the “Lives of Remarkable People” series. In recent years, almost two dozen wonderful works about our saints and devotees of piety have been published. These books were written, for the most part, by Orthodox authors.

In the last decade, a tendency has been actively manifesting itself in Russian historical, philological and philosophical thought, according to which the spiritual rebellion of L.N. Tolstoy, “the crucible of doubts” by F.M. Dostoevsky, the tragic denial of Christianity by V.V. Rozanov, the religious searches of Russian thinkers outside the statutory church Orthodoxy (Vl. Solovyov or N.F. Fedorov) are considered almost as evidence of individual spiritual ugliness, as serious delusions of lonely minds against the background of general spiritual well-being and piety. Disagreements with official Orthodoxy are interpreted as apostasy, God-seeking is seen as nothing other than blasphemy.

A similar trend, long known as Ferapontism (named after the character of The Brothers Karamazov, monk Ferapont), was observed in the 19th century. An example was given: an arrogant and overly zealous hermit monk, who came to Elder Zosima (whose authority he ugly and unworthyly envies), publicly expresses complaints against his dying opponent: they say, he taught incorrectly, believed in a fashionable way, there is no material fire in hell confessed, did not fast according to the order of his schema, ate cherry jam, drank teas, was enticed by candy from parishioners, sacrificed his belly, gave laxatives (Purganets) to monks from dreams of evil spirits, and considered himself a saint (14: 303-304 ) . The apotheosis of the shameful provocation is the appearance of Elder Zosima Ferapont in the cell when he began to sweep away the devils with a birch broom.

Paradoxically, the birch broom was repeatedly used on F.M. Dostoevsky.

So, K.N. Leontyev reproached Dostoevsky for what the writer wanted learn monks, and not learn from them; for having matured in heart to the elementary requirements of Orthodoxy, to write and preach he can't do it right. Because there is very little in “Pushkin’s Speech” true religious content, so in essence this is a “cosmopolitan outburst” by the author of The Brothers Karamazov. Leontyev persistently denounced Dostoevsky for the unchurchishness of his Orthodoxy: heroes, at best, read only Gospel, and “to be Orthodox, it is necessary to read the Gospel through the glass of patristic teaching; otherwise, from Holy Scripture itself one can extract Skoptchestvo, Lutheranism, Molokanism, and other false teachings, of which there are so many and which all derive themselves directly from the Gospel (or from the Bible in general).” Leontiev suspected Dostoevsky that during the creation of Crime and Punishment he thought very little about the present ( i.e. about the church) Orthodoxy: Sonya Marmeladova " prayers does not serve confessors And monks not looking for advice, to miraculous icons And relics not applied."

Even in “The Demons,” despite fiery discussions about Christ, the characters speak “still not quite Orthodox, not patristic, not church-like,” so Christianity in Dostoevsky and in this novel is also somehow “uncertainly evangelical." And in “The Brothers Karamazov,” where Dostoevsky, according to Leontyev, “is trying with all his might to reach real church path,” a lot of things are wrong and wrong: the monks say not at all what they should, and not in the right way; little is said about divine services and monastic obediences; there is not a single church service, not a single prayer service; and for some reason the fasting Ferapont is depicted unfavorably and mockingly; and from the body of Zosima for something comes from corruptive spirit.« It wouldn't be like that, let’s say it was necessary to write about all this...”

It is quite obvious that the statements of K. Leontyev and other representatives of official Orthodoxy in relation to L.N. Tolstoy should have been much tougher and more uncompromising. So, in 1891, Leontiev wrote and published an article “Over the grave of Pazukhin” in the magazine “Citizen”. Complaining that the best Russian forces are passing away, he cannot hide his annoyance that the “good”, “correct” A.D. Pazukhin, a publicist-sociologist of a conservative trend, an employee of the Ministry of Internal Affairs left (as the Chief Prosecutor of the Synod, Count D.A. Tolstoy, two pillars of the Russian Church Alexy and Nikanor left), and nothing is done to the “bad” (“how many lowly ones does fate spare?” ", according to V.A. Zhukovsky).

Among the worst is the journal “Bulletin of Europe”, which fell into the quagmire of egalitarianism “Ajax of mystical and philosophical thought” by Vl. Soloviev and, of course, L.N. Tolstoy. “And the old madman Leo Tolstoy continues to preach with impunity and unhindered that there is no God, that every state is evil and, finally, that it is time to end the very existence of the human race on earth. And if he (Tolstoy. - L.S.) is not only alive and free, but we ourselves, all enemies of his nonsense, increase his criminal glory by objecting to him!.. What can we do? What to do? What to believe? What to hope for? The different currents of Russian life and thought are now so opposite and strong.<...>Religion is almost everywhere despised or openly persecuted.”

These are terrible words - unpunished and unhindered. So, do we need punishments and obstacles? Even more terrible words - if he is alive and free. So, it’s better that he didn’t exist at all, or at least not be at large? Does a Christian wish his dissentingly thinking and dissentingly believing compatriot (and therefore, probably his enemy) death or captivity (or death in captivity)?

Righteous John of Kronstadt, in modern times (in 1990) canonized and canonized, repeatedly and extremely sharply spoke out against L. Tolstoy, seeing in him only a “count”, distant not only from the church, but also from the people. In his response to Tolstoy’s appeal to the clergy, John of Kronstadt called the writer a daring, notorious atheist, like Judas the traitor, a terrible blasphemer who had distorted his moral personality to the point of ugliness and disgust, a vile slanderer, a daring seducer of Russian youth, a spawn of vipers; he compared Tolstoy to an apocalyptic dragon, believing that the writer fell under the power and influence of Satan. “Tolstoy has become proud, like Satan, and does not recognize the need for repentance... Tolstoy dreams of himself as a perfect man or superman, as the famous madman Nietzsche dreamed; Meanwhile, what is high in people, that is, an abomination before God... Well, who, Orthodox, who is Leo Tolstoy? This is a roaring Lion, looking for someone to devour. And how many he has devoured through his flattering leaves! Beware of him."

In the recently published intimate diary of Fr. John of Kronstadt there is a recording from 1908, made on the eve of Tolstoy’s birthday and eightieth anniversary (this event was widely celebrated in Russia and throughout the world): “September 6. Lord, do not allow Leo Tolstoy, the heretic who surpassed all heretics, to reach the feast of the Nativity of the Most Holy Theotokos, whom he terribly blasphemed and blasphemes. Take it from the ground - it is a stinking corpse, stinking the whole earth with its pride. Amen". The recording was made at 9 pm, so, in fact, this is an evening prayer, where Father John asks God for the speedy death of another person...

Is this Christianity? Is this Christianity? - every reader of Tolstoy will reasonably ask today. The Russian Orthodox Church, neither then nor now, a hundred years later, does not comment on the words of the holy righteous man in the sense that it was just his personal opinion (and not the opinion of the entire Church); that other clergy thought and think differently than him; that it is impossible, unethical, incorrect, etc. to speak in THIS and THAT language about the great Russian writer. The Russian Orthodox Church has not yet decided to take back the cruel abuse of Fr. John of Kronstadt addressed to Tolstoy, leaving the age-old conflict to smolder - and it smolders, then fading, then flaring up again.

“The Orthodox Church is now functioning,” says the director of the Yasnaya Polyana museum-reserve, great-great-grandson of L.N. Tolstoy - taking into account the experience of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st, she could reconsider her synodal decision of a hundred years ago and publicly express her new attitude towards Tolstoy. Not as a heretic, an enemy of Orthodoxy, etc. The problem is that we cannot do anything from Tolstoy’s side. But the Church, for its part, can do something. Yes, there must be an extraordinary and very subtle solution. A solution that would somehow patch up this wound cut a hundred years ago. It is a subtle and wise decision. So that it does not offend orthodoxly believing Orthodox people and at the same time does not separate Tolstoy from the modern believing reader. This should not be a reversal of the Synod's determination. This must be a new, publicly expressed attitude of the Church towards one of the best sons of Russia in new historical conditions.”

There are many schemes describing the phenomenon of Tolstoy the artist and Tolstoy the preacher (similar schemes are applied not only to Tolstoy).

1. A novelist full of unbelief, who imagines himself as a teacher of humanity, preaches his crazy atheistic thoughts, confusing and confusing the Orthodox people of an Orthodox country. He who loves his Orthodox fatherland, his faith and his people must stop the crazy old man.

2. A great master of prose, an author of first-class novels, should be discussed only in this capacity. Everything else is a whim and a misunderstanding. It is necessary to separate Tolstoy the artist from Tolstoy the preacher: his entire philosophy taken together, and all his search for God, are not worth even a page of Anna Karenina.

3. The greatest artist of Russia, having discovered a new religion and following it, came to the conclusion that art is godless, because it is based on imagination, deception, manipulation, without any regret he sacrificed his great gift as an artist, content with the role of a preacher of a sermon that was dubious in his case , in which, nevertheless, he strived with all his might for the truth. The painful search for truth, truth-seeking were more valuable to him than the slight illusion of truth. Tolstoy was not interested in everyday truth, but in immortal truth, not just truth, but the light of truth illuminating the whole world.

4. Leo Tolstoy is not only the greatest writer, but also the creator of New Christianity. “Leo Tolstoy, the beauty of Russian life, the great writer of the world, crossed all boundaries in the tragedy of creativity, endured tragedy, did not fall into an epileptic fit, like Dostoevsky, did not die like Gogol, with him Russian literature went on a distant journey, to the New City, which she saw.” Tolstoy is a magnet that attracts the whole world.

Many schemes (for example, about “Russia, which we lost,” when the Bolshevik demons came and destroyed the great Orthodox power) are more propaganda than history. Therefore, the question of faith and disbelief of L.N. Tolstoy, F.M. Dostoevsky and other classical writers are better seen against the backdrop of the main search for Russian and European thought.

In 1901, the Russian Orthodox Church witnessed the fact of L. Tolstoy’s falling away from church Orthodoxy - for the great writer “clearly before everyone renounced the Mother who fed and raised him, the Orthodox Church, and devoted his literary activity and the talent given to him from God to disseminating teachings among the people , contrary to Christ and the Church, and to the destruction in the minds and hearts of people of the paternal faith, the Orthodox faith, which established the universe, by which our ancestors lived and were saved, and by which Holy Russia has hitherto held on and been strong” (from the “Definition of the Holy Synod from 20-23 February 1901 No. 557 with a message to the faithful children of the Greek-Russian Orthodox Church about Count Leo Tolstoy").

The church considered Tolstoy’s apostasy to be indisputable, and explained that it was worse than excommunication, that Tolstoy did not even need to be excommunicated, because he himself deliberately left the church, openly declaring in his writings his complete disagreement with it.

However, the formal definition of the Synod was accompanied by a set of private statements by spiritually authoritative people, which should have influenced society, perhaps much stronger than the fact of excommunication itself. In the eyes of Russian society, Orthodox fundamentalism presented Tolstoy as a criminal, a villain, a blasphemer, and almost a Satanist.

“Something terrible happened in Tolstoy’s heart, and I think that if the Apostle Paul himself had appeared before him in spiritual armor, Tolstoy’s soul would not have opened to the word of the Apostle,” this was at the “Religious and Philosophical Meeting” in St. Petersburg in 1902 said V.A. Ternavtsev.

Let me remind you of L.N.’s answer. Tolstoy on the Synod’s Testimony about the falling away from the Church, which was perceived by all educated Russian society as excommunication from the Church, expulsion from it, as a kind of church anathema. “The resolution of the Synod,” wrote Tolstoy, “is arbitrary, because it accuses me alone of not believing in all the points written in the resolution, while not only many, but almost all educated people share such disbelief is constantly expressed in conversations, in reading, in brochures, and in books.”

It is worth paying attention to Tolstoy’s definition of “almost all educated people.”

As V.A. testified Ternavtsev, at one of the meetings of the Religious and Philosophical Society, “he used the gift of almost prophetic clairvoyance against the Donor. And if the Russian Church is truly the Church, it could not remain silent... Here the Church performed an act of enormous moral significance: Pious Russia has broken away from thinking Russia» .

The huge, insurmountable gap between one Russia, church, monastic Russia, and secular, university, cultural Russia was finally recorded and proclaimed as a fait accompli.

Tolstoy's contemporaries of the mid-19th - early 20th centuries witnessed the greatest spiritual troubles of the Church, where nonbelievers stood under the guise of believers. It turns out that you could be a member of the Church without believing in it, you could pray and fast, but believe in goodness and love. The deception seemed all the more terrible because it came not only from people who drank their faith in nightclubs, but also from respectable, educated Russian citizens, who often had public authority, power, and even dignity.

Writers of the Russian Golden Age and the Russian Silver Age saw the final falling away from faith of almost the entire Russian educated class - faith in God and in the immortality of the soul did not fit into the concept of “progress”, into the concept of “scientific thinking”; religious education could not cope with the trends of the times.

The basic fact of Russian life, contemporary to Dostoevsky and Tolstoy, was that not only lost nihilists, but the overwhelming majority of Orthodox Russian society: generals and generals' wives, infernal merchants and adjutants, young ladies and dignitaries, Anglomaniacs and petty officials - all well-mannered people , educated and even often pleasant - they have so lost the idea of ​​​​the love of Christianity and its very essence that loving saint could only be an idiot to them or, at best, “Ivanushka the Fool.” Reasoning in this way, the Russian religious writer S.I. Fudel bitterly reproduced the situation in F.M.’s novel. Dostoevsky's "Idiot".

Why did thinking people, of whom Russia could rightfully be proud, find themselves, in the person of Tolstoy, torn away from the church? Why did Tolstoy, who wanted the good of Russia, and the Church, who also wanted her good, why did these forces collide in such a fatal way?

Why Tolstoy could not remain silent and spoke about his faith in a way that was completely different from what pious Russia demanded of him is the very essence of the problem. What Tolstoy wrote about Christ is brought together different feelings and experiences. But these are the intuitions of a BELIEVING PERSON who carefully reads the Gospel and perceives the Word literally. In this sense, he, being immensely gifted, did not sin against the Donor. Tolstoy, like most other believers before him, opposed the official church, believing that it was acting contrary to Gospel. Tolstoy wrote: “I believe that for success in love there is only one means: prayer, - not public prayer in churches, which is directly prohibited by Christ (Matthew 6: 5-13), but prayer, the example of which was given to us by Christ - solitary, consisting in restoring and strengthening in one’s consciousness the meaning of one’s life and one’s dependence only on the will of God.”

The same thing happened to Tolstoy as to other people of different faiths, hesitating, doubting people before him. The Christian Church has never been able to prevail over its ideological opponents through purely theological methods, the power of persuasion, and not the power of coercion or expulsion.

The Church did not encourage doubt. She warned believers that “excessive inquisitiveness” was not pleasing to God, and demanded blind, unreasoning faith. The source of heresies has always been only the Bible, which the heretics contrasted with the church and church teaching. The Bible in the hands of heretics becomes a most dangerous weapon against the Church - in 1231, a bull of Pope Gregory IX prohibited the laity from reading the Bible. From the middle of the 13th century, believers were forbidden to have the Bible and read it even in Latin - this was the prerogative of the clergy.

“If we had a person who at least partially risked accepting the mysterious and obviously dangerous words of the Gospel commandments, it was Leo Tolstoy,” wrote L. Shestov.

Why dangerous and why mysterious?

Any religion, any political or social teaching, any philosophical doctrine, having barely taken shape, inevitably receives controversy: heresy, like a shadow, follows any thought and any faith. What was ever invented, written, retold by some people at one time can always be disputed by other people at the same or at any other time.

“Interrogations,” that is, questions about Christianity (Orthodoxy) arise in people of a caustic, nervous mind: Orthodoxy, as V.V. wrote. Rozanov, highly responsive to the harmonious spirit, but highly unresponsive to the disturbed spirit. The first murmurers and scolders already had a disturbed spirit, expecting that the Kingdom of God would come in the very near future, as the Gospel promised (“Some of those standing here will not yet taste death, but will already see the Son of Man”; Matt. 16:28).

But Tolstoy’s educated Russian contemporary had a disturbed spirit (“turmoil and storm, anger and nerves”) and was already accustomed to reasoning. Russian writers could not agree on the point that the faith of Christ is the entire 19th century. Belinsky did not recognize Gogol’s appeal to the church, which “has always been the support of the whip and the servant of despotism,” “the servant and support of secular power,” and was indignant that Gogol associated Christ’s teaching with it. “What have you found in common between Him and any church, especially the Orthodox Church? He was the first to proclaim to people the teachings of freedom, equality and brotherhood, and through martyrdom he sealed and established the truth of His teaching. And it only lasted until then salvation people until it organized itself into a church and accepted the principle of orthodoxy as its foundation. The Church was a hierarchy, therefore, a champion of inequality, a flatterer of power, an enemy and persecutor of brotherhood between people - which it continues to be to this day. But the meaning of Christ’s word was discovered by the philosophical movement of the last century. And that’s why some Voltaire, who extinguished the fires of fanaticism and ignorance in Europe with a weapon of ridicule, is, of course, more a son of Christ, flesh of His flesh and bone of His bone, than all your priests, bishops, metropolitans, patriarchs.”

And it was true: while enlightened Europeans condemned the torture used by the Inquisition in the 18th century, the Church continued to defend it. The use of violence against enemies of the church was defended by Pope Pius IX, a contemporary of Dostoevsky, in his Syllabus.

According to Belinsky, Russia sees the meaning of its existence in the successes of civilization, enlightenment, humanity, and in awakening human dignity among the people. She does not need sermons and prayers, but civil rights and competent, responsible laws. Therefore, the most vital national issues in Russia are social, not religious: the abolition of serfdom, the abolition of corporal punishment.

The dispute between Belinsky and Gogol, which brought to public attention two systems of ideas, two manifestos of existence, extreme poles of thinking on the eternal question of ways to improve the life of the country, exposed the whole tragedy of the deepest misunderstanding everyone everyone and the fact of a total reluctance to see the opponent as a brother, not an enemy. The lack of necessary tolerance for the opinions of “dissenting thinkers”, the harsh, sometimes offensive tone of the polemics, expressions incompatible with the respect that should take place even in the case of serious disagreements with an opponent, nullified even the deepest reflections on faith, especially in those cases where they rhymed with the declaration of evangelical love for one's neighbor.

The Russian clergy, as attentive contemporaries testified, had little interest in Tolstoy the writer: “they did not have the patience” to read his novels, finding them boring and meaningless. “The majority of the clergy, both higher and lower, have not read - except by chance and in fragments - even War and Peace, and have absolutely no idea about Tolstoy’s other excellent and minor works.<...>Therefore, when the question came up about Tolstoy’s excommunication from the Church, the clergy subjectively presented him in a completely different way than the entire Russian society, and finally, than Russia. For the Church and the clergy, “to excommunicate Tolstoy” meant to express that “one of the writers, undeservedly exalted, who wrote novels from the empty life of a secular society, no longer completely Christian in morality and way of life,” began to heresy and insult the Church. They only knew about Tolstoy, that is, the clergy knew, that he depicted balls, races, amusements, hunting, battles - everything “not related to spiritual subjects.”<...>All this seemed “nonsense and pampering of the lordly soul,” idle without work and serious official duty.”

Meanwhile, L.N. Tolstoy, completely in the spirit of his time, at the height of his fame and creative flourishing, “changed his fate” - he was an artist, and became a religious philosopher. The turn to religion and God-seeking that Tolstoy made in the seventies of the 19th century is, perhaps, not so much a religious search for the solitary God-seeker Tolstoy, but rather a strong echo of religious tension, fermentation, confusion, spiritual anxiety and even spiritual anguish of his time. The people, who poorly understood the essence of Orthodoxy, were drawn to sects; in the "Diary of a Writer" 1876 and 1877. Dostoevsky writes about the sects of the Khlys, Stundists, and Molokans that appeared in Russia. “By the way, what is this unfortunate thing? Several Russian workers among the German colonists realized that the Germans lived richer than the Russians and that this was because their order was different. The pastors who happened to be here explained that these orders are better because the faith is different. So groups of dark Russian people united, began to listen to how the Gospel was interpreted, began to read and interpret themselves, and what happened was what always happened in such cases.<...>Without a doubt they (sects. - L.S..) came out of the same ignorance, that is, from complete ignorance of their religion” (25: 10–12).

But not only dark commoners wandered in search of a new faith, trying to interpret the Gospel at their own peril and on their own conscience, and most importantly - “ from the very beginning, from the very creation of the world, from what a man is and what a woman is, what is good and what is bad, and even: is there a God or not?” (25: 11), interpret with such passion and thirst, as if the precious property of the Orthodox faith, acquired over centuries, no longer meant anything and was worth nothing. Educated society was also occupied with the same thing, almost for the first time after the school catechism, discovering the Gospel, which became the source of religious and philosophical creativity of many high minds and impetuous souls.

Andrei Bely, proclaiming L. Tolstoy the creator of a new Christianity, expressed the general melancholy of dissatisfaction with Christianity with the old, official Orthodoxy. The search for a New Church is the leitmotif of the spiritual quest of the entire Silver Age. The search for the correct faith in an Orthodox country (which already had the correct faith) had become by the beginning of the twentieth century (even before any Bolsheviks) an everyday phenomenon, on which both the recoiled people and the restless intelligentsia agreed.

Berdyaev wrote about Dostoevsky as the creator of new Christianity. “It is Dostoevsky who gives a lot for the Christianity of the future, for the triumph of the eternal Gospel, the religion of freedom and love. Much has become dead in Christianity, and it has developed cadaveric poisons that poison the spiritual sources of life. Much in Christianity is no longer like a living organism, but like a mineral. Ossification has set in. With dead lips we utter dead words from which the spirit has flown away... Christianity, transformed into dead scholasticism, into a confession of soulless abstract forms that have undergone clerical degeneration, cannot be a regenerating force.”

In the most fashionable literary salons in St. Petersburg (for example, Merezhkovsky and Gippius) the following was said: “The Church is needed as the face of the evangelical, Christian religion, the religion of Flesh and Blood. The existing Church cannot, due to its structure, satisfy either us or the people close to us in time.” Even sectarianism, Old Believers, and the esotericism of closed religious communities seemed to many to be a spiritually deeper and more popular phenomenon than traditional, official Orthodoxy. Here is the core, the core of the problem.

So, N.F. Fedorov, the same age as Tolstoy, teaches “those who seek the heavenly city,” and among his students is Vl. Soloviev, for whom Fedorov is “a dear teacher and comforter.” So does V.V. Rozanov, a brilliant student of Dostoevsky, composes his pagan theology, his “Apocalypse”. Many Russian God-seeking interlocutors are looking for God, in whom, like Shatov in Dostoevsky, they frantically want to believe. And it turns out, according to Rozanov, that “correct”, official Christianity, is maintained ... by coldness, indifference. “It’s a terrible thing: “stand still, don’t move,” don't get excited, the main thing is don't get excited: otherwise everything will fall apart,” this is the slogan of the times, the slogan religions, churches!.. From this it turns out that all “ardent believers” “fell into heresy”: an amazing feature in Christianity! Rozanov ranks Tolstoy, along with Dostoevsky and Gogol, among the great mystics of our literature, although Tolstoy parted ways with the Church irrevocably (“They did not understand each other: they didn’t even know”).

It is worth recalling other words of V.V. Rozanova. “Tolstoy, with the full presence of his terrible and criminal delusions, mistakes and impudent words, is a huge religious phenomenon, perhaps the greatest phenomenon of religious Russian history in the 19th centuries, although distorted. But an oak tree that has grown crookedly is still not an impersonal “institution” that has not grown at all, but was made by hand.”

The reproach to Tolstoy that he “could not remain silent”, and did not remain silent in matters of faith, seems to me generally not correct in relation to the writer, who lived with a sense of his truth, put his artistic creativity on the altar of this truth. It is pointless to praise Tolstoy for exposing the ulcers of his age and the vices of his state, and to scold him for exposing the untruths of contemporary religious life; in his eyes they are one and the same. “The world will perish if I stop,” this statement by Tolstoy (a reminder of his unloved Napoleon) best expresses his self-awareness.

There is no doubt that L. Tolstoy is one of the seekers of Truth. He was much closer to them than to his hero Stiva Oblonsky, who endured the Orthodox service with some kind of “numbness in his legs” and lived, like the vast majority of people in his circle, in a cocoon of religious and church indifference. This is how Pushkin’s Onegin lived, to whom even everyday Orthodoxy was alien, this is how the flower of the Russian nobility lived, among whom it was customary to make fun of the passionate religiosity of single eccentrics.

“My falling away from the faith,” Tolstoy admitted, “happened in me in the same way as it happened and is happening now in people of our educational background. It seems to me that in most cases it happens like this: people live the way everyone else lives, and everyone lives on the basis of principles<...>having nothing to do with religion<...>, creed<...>confesses<...>far from life and independent of it<...>. According to a person's life, his deeds<...>there is no way to know whether he is a believer or not.”

The history of the Russian restless soul, who fell away from faith, whose place in the human heart was taken by culture, everyday life, custom, duty, was of burning interest to Dostoevsky, and he, intending to dedicate the huge novel “Atheism” to such a person, was going to read for this “almost the entire library of atheists , Catholics and Orthodox." “There is a face: a Russian man of our society, and in years, not very educated, but not uneducated, not without ranks, - all of a sudden, already in years, loses faith in God. All his life he was engaged only in service, did not get out of a rut, and until the age of 45 he did not distinguish himself in anything. (The solution is psychological; deep feeling, man and Russian man). The loss of faith in God has a tremendous effect on him.<...>He stalks new generations, atheists, Slavs and Europeans, Russian fanatics and desert dwellers, priests; By the way, he falls heavily on the hook of the Jesuit, the propagator, the Pole; descends from him into the depths of Khlystism - and in the end finds both Christ and the Russian land, the Russian Christ and the Russian God” (28, book 2: 329).

Tolstoy writes his “Confession” (1879) ten years after Dostoevsky’s unrealized plan, seven years after “Stavrogin’s Confession” and at the very time when Dostoevsky is composing “The Poem of the Grand Inquisitor” for Ivan Karamazov.

Dostoevsky, who promised (in a letter to A.N. Maikov) that his hero, all of a sudden who lost faith, after many trials and temptations will find the Russian Christ, could not forcibly to do this neither in relation to Stavrogin nor in relation to Ivan Karamazov. Leo Tolstoy did not find the Russian Christ, as the official Church understood him, but found his own, self-made faith, striving to expose “false church Christianity” and establish “its true understanding,” sincerely believing that it was not Tolstoyism that he preached, but the Gospel. For Tolstoy, the Gospel is not the metaphysics of God-manhood, but a practical teaching about doing good, for what a person does for another person, he does for God. All Christian ethics rests on this covenant of Christ (Matthew 25:40), in which for Tolstoy the only meaning and nerve of Christianity.

It was Dostoevsky, thirty years earlier than Tolstoy, who raised the question of the compatibility of faith and education. “The point is an urgent question: is it possible to believe, being civilized, that is, European? - that is, to believe unconditionally - in the divinity of the Son of God Jesus Christ (for all faith consists only of this... Destroy one thing in faith - and the moral foundation of Christianity will collapse, for everything is connected" (11: 178). " Indeed, - commented N. Lossky, - the greatest difficulty for a modern educated person lies in the teaching that Jesus, born in Palestine 20 centuries ago and crucified on the cross, was not just a man, but God incarnate. It is possible that Dostoevsky sometimes had problems doubts regarding this dogma, but they could have been, at least in the last ten years of his life, only short-term, transitory." Civilization answers this with facts and the answer is negative: none of the Europeans managed to retain a pure understanding of Christ.

So is it possible for a society to exist without faith - through science alone? Is morality possible outside of faith? And from here follows the main, fatal question: “If Orthodoxy is impossible for the enlightened (and in 100 years half of Russia will be enlightened), then, therefore, all this is hocus pocus, and all the power of Russia is temporary. For to be eternal, you need complete faith in everything. But is it possible to believe? (11: 179).

Dostoevsky considers the last point to be the main, fiery question of the existence of Russia: is it possible to believe in everything that Orthodoxy tells us to believe in? "In that All, the whole knot of the people’s life and all its purpose and existence lies ahead” (Ibid.).

But educated Russia, contemporary with Dostoevsky and Tolstoy, believed that religion was harmful because it suppressed the education of the mind and forced a person to be kind not out of his own conviction, but out of fear of punishment. Following the figures of the Enlightenment, the great supporters of reason, Russian educated society turns to the Holy Scriptures with categorical questions: is the text of the Gospel authentic, is what is written in it reliable? Then it seemed that science was omnipotent, that it was within its competence to subject not only the texts of the Holy Scripture to philological anatomy, but to scientifically analyze its metaphysical essence.

The history of biblical criticism is no less instructive and dramatic than the history of scientific natural science. Tertullian's famous statement: “After Christ we do not need any curiosity, after the Gospel we do not need any research” did not come true. Comparing texts and discovering contradictions in Scripture, people followed the same path taken by the Roman Celsus, the ancient critic of Christian doctrine, and the ancient writer Porphyry. Both sifted the Holy Scriptures through the sieve of common sense, and the “True Word” of Celsus, known to us only from quotations from Origen, caused lively concern among Christian apologists.

Critical and analytical approaches, the criterion of reason, the spirit of skepticism and free-thinking, characteristic of the New Age, could not help but touch the strongholds of religion. The method of comparative study of religions, internal and external analysis of the Holy Scriptures took possession of the minds of enlightened Europeans. Along with rationalistic criticism, an analytical approach to the ancient monuments of mankind was developed, and methods of layer-by-layer study and interpretation were used. Anatomically, centimeter by centimeter of Scripture was dissected; scientists identified its ancient basis and later growths, heterogeneous inclusions, various editions, and explored the earthly roots of Christianity. All of them, without exception, seemed to be acting for the benefit of science and humanity.

Note that many representatives of rationalist criticism were either priests or professional biblical scholars: the French priest Jean Meslier, and Charles Dupuis, a theologian by training, the founder of the mythological school of the origin of Christianity, and David Strauss, who received a theological education at the University of Tübingen, and Bruno Bauer, professor of the theological faculty of the University of Berlin (Karl Marx listened to his lectures), and Ernest Renan, “immortal”, member of the French Academy, who received a Catholic education in Paris.

Belinsky called D. Strauss’s book “The Life of Jesus, Critically Revised” (1835–1836), which had a huge influence on European and Russian minds, the end of the Middle Ages in Europe in the sphere of religion. Biblical chronology, history, ethics, divine revelation itself became the subject of philological and cultural-historical analysis. The method of unreasoning faith and the method of critical reading of sources were radically different. Already in our time, from the rostrum of the international congress of historians in Rome in 1955, there was a call from Pope Pius XII to remove Christ from the competence of reasoning science and leave him entirely in the field of irrational faith.

Is it possible to believe that the passion for rationalism, criticism, analytics, the sphere of “reasoning” science was unnecessary, fatal, a dead-end zigzag in the development of Christian civilization? I think no. Humanity was obliged to walk this path, to know all its temptations, all the peaks and all the downs. Humanity was obliged to fully appreciate what reason is, if only in order to give itself an account of what a mind left to itself is. Only through experience was it possible to understand that the moral principles in a person, left to his own strength, are conditional. Let us remember what Dostoevsky wrote in the drafts for “Demons”: “Figure out what a beast means if not the world that has abandoned faith; a mind left to itself alone, rejecting, on the basis of science, the possibility of direct communication with God, the possibility of Revelation and the miracle of the appearance of God on earth” (11: 186). Disbelief is akin to man because, Dostoevsky wrote there, that he “puts the mind above everything, and since the mind is characteristic only of the human body, he does not understand and does not want life in another form, that is, the afterlife, he does not believe that it higher. On the other hand, man is naturally characterized by a feeling of despair and damnation, for the human mind is so structured that it constantly does not believe in itself, is not satisfied with itself, and therefore man is inclined to consider his existence insufficient” (11: 184). This was written in the summer of 1870, without any connection with Tolstoy, but it seems that it is about Tolstoy.

The gift of thought, the gift of reasoning is not a weakness, but a strength of Tolstoy. He analyzed his life, his beliefs, his activities and came to the conclusion that they did not improve a person. He saw the futility of the superstitious concept “PROGRESS”, he saw the futility of everything, he could not answer the most important question WHY? Why am I? Why Humanity? He was not satisfied with knowledge and science; they did not provide answers to the main questions. So in Dostoevsky, his Prince Stavrogin argues: “Science does not give moral satisfaction; does not answer the main questions” (11: 177). There is nothing more reckless than calling Tolstoy positivist. He went through all the positive knowledge, he saw their helplessness. Science did not answer Tolstoy's questions. The wise die, just like the fool, the fate of the good and the evil is the same. Wandering in knowledge only increased despair.

Tolstoy went through all the rational exits and answers and found four possible exits: 1. Ignorance. 2. Epicureanism. 3. Output of strength and energy. Life is evil - we must destroy it. 4. The way out of weakness is to pull the strap. Faith required renunciation of reason, since only it gave the opportunity to live and answered the question WHY. Faith is knowledge of the meaning of human life, as a result of which a person does not destroy himself, but lives.

The faith of the majority of people in his circle was an epicurean consolation, distraction, fun, almost a game. However, religious faith is a gift. Fate gave Tolstoy, instead of a mystical gift, a literary gift. This should hardly be considered a spiritual deformity - a person born without legs or arms, with six fingers or gills instead of lungs. And who said that you need to be gifted according to this or that recipe, according to this or that recipe? One can hardly agree with the opinion of those who considered Tolstoy to be religiously mediocre. Perhaps the faith that Tolstoy invented was less inspired than the teachings of Christ. Probably not as durable. The Church responded to his search with disagreement and believed that it had freed itself from dissenters and dissenters. From a heretic.

Two weeks after the death of Alexander II, Pobedonostsev received a letter from L.N. Tolstoy with a request to convey a message to the new sovereign. It was written in connection with the upcoming death sentence for the participants in the assassination attempt on Alexander II - members of the People's Will party Zhelyabov, Rysakov, Mikhailov, Kibalchich, Perovskaya. Tolstoy begged the son of the murdered tsar to have mercy on the murderers of his father. “A more terrible situation cannot be imagined, more terrible because one cannot imagine a stronger temptation for evil,” wrote Tolstoy.<…>Every revolutionary struggle will melt away like wax from the face of fire before a human king who fulfills the law of Christ.” Tolstoy's letter to Alexander III raised the question that by killing revolutionaries, one cannot fight them. We must fight them spiritually, that is, set an ideal against them that would be higher than their ideal.

Tolstoy hoped for Pobedonostsev’s help. “Dear sir Konstantin Petrovich! I know you to be a Christian and... this is enough for me to boldly turn to you with an important and difficult request to hand over to the sovereign a letter written regarding the terrible events of recent times...” Pobedonostsev answered him in a completely different tone. “After reading your letter, I saw that your faith is one, and my church faith is different, and that our Christ is not your Christ. I know mine as a man of strength and truth, healing the paralytic, but in yours I saw the traits of a paralytic who himself requires healing. That is why, out of my faith, I could not fulfill your instructions.” Which of the two was more Christian?

Tolstoy did not accept Christianity as mere metaphysics. He tried with enthusiasm and inspiration to restore evangelical ethics to its rightful place as a religion of love. Practical Christianity is learning to do good for another person, and not just talk about good with quotes from the Gospel. Tolstoy felt that he could wait no longer, that times and deadlines were coming. There has always been so little mercy and non-violence in Russia...

The Church did not simply deprive Tolstoy of the title of a member of the Church, it did not simply record the fact that Tolstoy’s teachings have nothing in common with church teachings. This was done for reasons of political principle, and not because all those who did not share its dogmas with the Church were automatically excommunicated from it. “We have a trend of positivists,” Archimandrite Sergius said at the Religious and Philosophical Meeting in St. Petersburg, “but they do not spread their teachings and do not count their followers in the tens of thousands. We have positivists, but they present their teaching in the form of books that are not accessible to everyone. L. Tolstoy is accessible to everyone and had many followers.” The Russian Church saw that L. Tolstoy was dangerous for members of Russian society precisely because he was not in a spiritual union with the Church. "L. Tolstoy dominated society and was dangerous to many. He acted against Christianity, and yet he hid behind Christianity and the gospel. That is why the Church announced the fall of L. Tolstoy from the church.”

Supporters of the Synodal definition said then that Tolstoy, who wrote his dogma, presented it as real Orthodox and that he was excommunicated so that he would not be mistaken for a real Orthodox theologian. The question was discussed: whether Christianity goes against science, whether the Church can excommunicate representatives of science from its communication. No and no, said representatives of the clergy. “One thing is a matter of the mind, another is a matter of the heart, one thing is science, philosophy, another is propaganda. L. Tolstoy is dangerous not as a scientist, but because he became an idol both for himself and for others.”

And one more fragment from the meeting of the Religious and Philosophical Society in St. Petersburg. Priest John Yanyshev reasonably noted: “All the opponents of the Church - Nietzsche, Spencer, and Darwin - have been sorted out thread by thread in spiritual literature and refuted. Why don’t they read it?” The answer of one of the meeting participants, E.A., is also significant. Egorova: “Obviously, spiritual writers do not have the power of talent that would force them to read...”

It is worth paying close attention to the words of D. Merezhkovsky, who spoke about what the faith of the people was and what it became. “Never before to such an extent as at the present time has the peasantry been opposed to Christianity... “No land” - this once quiet complaint turned into a desperate cry, a roar of peasant and national rebellion. The earth screams, and the sky is deaf... Christianity, having gone to heaven, left the earth, and the peasantry, despairing of earthly truth, is ready to despair of heavenly truth. Earth - without sky, sky without earth." “The Russian God-bearing people became the most godless of all peoples and the peasantry ceased to be Christianity. The peasantry is looking for land, only land, as if completely forgetting about heaven and despairing of heavenly truth. The Church babbles something about God, but it is so pitiful that it seems that it does not hear or understand itself. The autocracy, when signing the constitution, did not remember that it was “Orthodox,” and that it could not renounce its anointing without asking those from whom it received this anointing.”

“The transition to socialism and, therefore, to atheism was accomplished among the peasants and soldiers so easily, as if they had gone to the bathhouse and doused themselves with new water.” This is absolutely certain, this is reality, and not a wild nightmare,” wrote V.V. Rozanov, witness of the Russian revolutionary apocalypse.

“There was no such violence, such blasphemy, such obscenity of autocratic power that would not have been blessed by the Orthodox Church.” “After thousands of years of effort to create something resembling a politically real body, Russia has created, instead of a body, a ghost, a monstrous chimera, a half-god, half-beast - an Orthodox autocracy that oppresses Russia like delirium.”

The Russian intellectual, as long as he remains himself, that is, a Russian European, cannot understand Orthodoxy, just as Europe does not understand it - this is the general conviction of that very thinking Russia, which was separated from pious Russia. What is the faith of the Orthodox people in the Orthodox Tsar in its final and metaphysical foundations? January 9, 1905: I will send people to the Tsar, thinking that they have the same faith and that they are the Tsar’s children. “And the face of the Russian land was drenched in Russian blood.” Under the guise of Christ, the people saw the face of the Beast. The autocrat appeared as an impostor of Christ.

One cannot help but see how deeply these political meanings entered into Tolstoy’s spiritual rebellion against the dominant state Church.

Does religious thought Tolstoy the whole depth of his religious creatures? Certainly not. Not only does he believe in God, but he even believes in him as few of those who remain in Christianity do. Dostoevsky wrote that the deepest Christian thought is expressed in the reconciliation of Vronsky with Karenin over the dying Anna. A piercing touch to Christianity - Platon Karataev. The question of Tolstoy's faith and unbelief is not only a question of his personal religiosity. This is a question of the entire path of Russian culture in the 300 years after Peter, whom his contemporary writer Feofan Prokopovich called Christ. This is the whole range of the problem of Caesar and God, church and state.

Speaking at a meeting of the Religious and Philosophical Society with the abstract “Leo Tolstoy and the Russian Church,” D.S. Merezhkovsky argued: “The main thing to remember is that on the part of L. Tolstoy there was no malice or ill will in his fall from Christianity: it seems that he did everything he could - he fought, suffered, searched. He had a great hunger for God here on earth; it’s simply hard to believe that it didn’t count for him there either.<...>Between a writer like L. Tolstoy and all his readers there is a sense of mutual responsibility, like a secret mutual guarantee: you are for us - we are for you; We cannot leave you, even if you yourself left us; you are too dear to us; you are ourselves in our final essence. We cannot, we do not want to be saved without you: together we will be saved, or together we will perish. It seems so to us, because we love him."

Tolstoy is criticized for his excessive moralism as if public morality is our strongest point. Religious literary criticism scolds Russian writers for their humanism, for their “soul-nurturing humanity” - as if the humanistic principle had ever triumphed on Russian soil, in Russian social and state life. Leskov called Tolstoy "the great Russian writer of my homeland" and a Christian practitioner. That is, a Christian in conscience, in thoughts, in actions. This recognition is worth a lot in our time, when it is fashionable, prestige, and status to be (SEEM) a Christian, when Orthodoxy is perceived not as a need of the heart, but as a state religion, which every government official is obliged to join for the sake of his official position. Obviously: Tolstoy would have been a fierce opponent of confession of faith as membership in the ruling party. “There can be a true religious feeling everywhere, but not in conjunction with state violence of the church,” he wrote.

I will again quote Leskov, who said almost twenty years before Tolstoy’s excommunication (letter to A.S. Suvorin, October 9, 1883): “Christianity is a doctrine vital, and not abstract, and it is spoiled by the fact that it was made abstract. “All religions are good until they are spoiled by priests.” We have Byzantineism, not Christianity, and Tolstoy fights against this with dignity, wanting to indicate in the Gospel not so much the “path to heaven” as "meaning of life". There are places where he even comes into contact with Buckle's ideas. Old Christianity has simply, apparently, become obsolete and can no longer do anything for the “meaning of life.” There is no reason to be angry with churchliness, but it is not what you need to worry about. Its time has passed and will never return, while the goals of Christianity eternal» .

This is about the attitude of Russian writers towards Tolstoy. It is also worth noting how conciliatory and how hopeful Merezhkovsky’s words about the conflict between Tolstoy and the Church sounded in 1902. “It was impossible for the church not to testify to the fall of Tolstoy as a thinker from Christianity. But perhaps this is not the last word of the Church about him..."

Apparently, even today, a century later, there remains only a distant hope for a rapprochement of positions. “As you know,” explained the representative of the Moscow Patriarchate, secretary for relations between the Church and society of the Department for External Church Relations, priest Mikhail Dudko, “the Holy Synod only stated that Tolstoy is outside the Church. Tolstoy himself did not want to be a member of the Orthodox Church; he never repented of his views, which placed him outside the Church, and often spoke offensively both to individual representatives and to the Church as a whole.” “Of course,” the priest noted, “a person can renounce his errors and return to the bosom of the Church through repentance, but no one can do this for him, neither relatives nor sympathizers.” In his opinion, “some little-known facts of the biography of Leo Tolstoy indicate that the writer had desires for reconciliation with the Church, but, unfortunately, for various reasons, including due to the influence of the people around him, such reconciliation did not take place.” The representative of the Moscow Patriarchate emphasized that “by issuing an act of excommunication, the Church does not send a person to hell, and does not determine the posthumous fate, since only God can do this, however, the Church states that this or that person does not believe in what he is an object of faith of the Church and does not live as the Church prescribes to live.” Today, to reconsider the decision of the Holy Synod means to show disrespect for Tolstoy himself, for his openly expressed will and for the undoubted fact that he himself did not want to be a member of the Russian Orthodox Church. Today we can only pray that the Lord will have mercy on him,” Father Mikhail Dudko said in conclusion, explaining that this can only be done in private, and not in church-wide prayer.

The discussion continues. And how can one not recall Pushkin’s “Unbelief,” which is almost two hundred years old and which is all about the same thing: “the mind seeks deity, but the heart does not find it.”

O you who with stinging reproach,
Considering gloomy unbelief a vice,
Flee in terror of the one who from the first years
Madly extinguished the light that was pleasing to the heart;
Humble your cruel frenzy of pride:
He has the right to your indulgence,
To tears of pity; listen to your brother's groan,
The unfortunate man is not a villain, he suffers from himself...

NOTES

K.N. Leontyev. About universal love. Note 1885 // Leontyev K.N.

“It should generally be noted,” wrote N. Lossky, “that the mocking and absolute denial of such miracles as the virgin birth testifies to the extremely superficial nature of modern enlightenment. Every scientific law is subject to many restrictions, and only a few of these restrictive conditions are known to science. In addition, biological processes in general are not subject to laws, but only to rules that can be abolished by the creative ingenuity of an organism that develops new ways of life.<…>Thus, the faith of ordinary people in the miraculous birth of Jesus Christ testifies to the freedom of their spirit; on the contrary, people who proudly call themselves “free-thinkers”, by their decisive denial of miracles, testify to the fact that their minds are naively and slavishly subordinate to the transitory theories of science” (Ibid. p. 172).

For many centuries, Orthodoxy had a decisive influence on the formation of Russian self-awareness and Russian culture. In the pre-Petrine period, secular culture practically did not exist in Rus': the entire cultural life of the Russian people was concentrated around the Church. In the post-Petrine era, secular literature, poetry, painting and music were formed in Russia, reaching their apogee in the 19th century. Having spun off from the Church, Russian culture, however, did not lose the powerful spiritual and moral charge that Orthodoxy gave it, and until the revolution of 1917 it maintained a living connection with church tradition. In the post-revolutionary years, when access to the treasury of Orthodox spirituality was closed, Russian people learned about faith, about God, about Christ and the Gospel, about prayer, about the theology and worship of the Orthodox Church through the works of Pushkin, Gogol, Dostoevsky, Tchaikovsky, and other great writers, poets and composers. Throughout the seventy-year period of state atheism, Russian culture of the pre-revolutionary era remained the bearer of the Christian gospel for millions of people artificially cut off from their roots, continuing to testify to those spiritual and moral values ​​that the atheistic government questioned or sought to destroy.

Russian literature of the 19th century is rightly considered one of the highest peaks of world literature. But its main feature, which distinguishes it from Western literature of the same period, is its religious orientation, its deep connection with the Orthodox tradition. “All of our literature of the 19th century is wounded by the Christian theme, all of it seeks salvation, all of it seeks deliverance from evil, suffering, the horror of life for the human person, the people, humanity, the world. In her most significant creations she is imbued with religious thought,” writes N.A. Berdyaev.

The above applies to the great Russian poets Pushkin and Lermontov, and to writers - Gogol, Dostoevsky, Leskov, Chekhov, whose names are inscribed in golden letters not only in the history of world literature, but also in the history of the Orthodox Church. They lived in an era when an increasing number of intellectuals were moving away from the Orthodox Church. Baptisms, weddings and funeral services still took place in the temple, but visiting the temple every Sunday was considered almost bad manners among people of high society. When one of Lermontov’s acquaintances, entering the church, unexpectedly found the poet praying there, the latter was embarrassed and began to justify himself by saying that he had come to the church on some instructions from his grandmother. And when someone entered Leskov’s office and found him on his knees praying, he began to pretend that he was looking for a fallen coin on the floor. Traditional churchliness was still preserved among the common people, but was less and less characteristic of the urban intelligentsia. The intelligentsia's departure from Orthodoxy widened the gap between it and the people. All the more surprising is the fact that Russian literature, contrary to the trends of the times, maintained a deep connection with the Orthodox tradition.

The greatest Russian poet A.S. Pushkin (1799-1837), although he was raised in the Orthodox spirit, even in his youth moved away from traditional churchism, but never completely broke with the Church and in his works repeatedly turned to religious themes. Pushkin's spiritual path can be defined as the path from pure faith through youthful unbelief to the meaningful religiosity of his mature period. Pushkin went through the first part of this path during his years of study at the Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum, and already at the age of 17 he wrote the poem “Unbelief,” testifying to inner loneliness and the loss of a living connection with God:

He silently enters the temple of the Most High with the crowd
There he only multiplies the melancholy of his soul.
With the magnificent celebration of ancient altars,
With the voice of the shepherd, with the sweet singing of choirs,
His unbelief is tormented.
He does not see the secret God anywhere, nowhere,
With a darkened soul the shrine stands,
Cold to everything and alien to tenderness
With annoyance, he listens to the quiet one with prayer.

Four years later, Pushkin wrote the blasphemous poem “Gabriiliada,” which he later renounced. However, already in 1826, a turning point occurred in Pushkin’s worldview, which is reflected in the poem “The Prophet.” In it, Pushkin speaks about the calling of a national poet, using an image inspired by the 6th chapter of the book of the prophet Isaiah:

We are tormented by spiritual thirst,
I dragged myself in the dark desert,
And the six-winged seraph
He appeared to me at a crossroads.
With fingers as light as a dream
He touched my eyes.
The prophetic eyes have opened,
Like a frightened eagle.
He touched my ears,
And they were filled with noise and ringing:
And I heard the sky tremble,
And the heavenly flight of angels,
And the reptile of the sea underwater,
And the valley of the vine is vegetated.
And he came to my lips,
And my sinner tore out my tongue,
And idle and crafty,
And the sting of the wise snake
My frozen lips
He put it with his bloody right hand.
And he cut my chest with a sword,
And took out my trembling heart
And coal blazing with fire,
I pushed the hole into my chest.
I lay like a corpse in the desert,
And God’s voice cried out to me:
“Rise up, prophet, and see and listen,
Be fulfilled by My will,
And, bypassing the seas and lands,
Burn the hearts of people with the verb."

Regarding this poem, Archpriest Sergius Bulgakov notes: “If we did not have all the other works of Pushkin, but only this one peak sparkled before us with eternal snow, we could quite clearly see not only the greatness of his poetic gift, but also the entire height of his vocations." The keen sense of divine calling reflected in The Prophet contrasted with the bustle of secular life, which Pushkin, by virtue of his position, had to lead. Over the years, he became increasingly burdened by this life, which he repeatedly wrote about in his poems. On his 29th birthday, Pushkin writes:

A vain gift, a random gift,
Life, why were you given to me?
Or why fate is a secret
Are you sentenced to death?
Who makes me a hostile power
From nothingness he called,
Filled my soul with passion,
Has your mind been agitated by doubt?...
There is no goal in front of me:
The heart is empty, the mind is idle,
And it makes me sad
The monotonous noise of life.

To this poem the poet, who at that time was still balancing between faith, disbelief and doubt, received an unexpected response from Metropolitan Philaret of Moscow:

Not in vain, not by chance
Life was given to me by God,
Not without the secret will of God
And she was sentenced to death.

I myself am capricious in power
Evil has called out from the dark abysses,
He filled his soul with passion,
The mind was agitated with doubt.

Remember me, forgotten by me!
Shine through the darkness of thoughts -
And it will be created by You
The heart is pure, the mind is bright!

Amazed that the Orthodox bishop responded to his poem, Pushkin writes “Stanzas” addressed to Philaret:

In hours of fun or idle boredom,
It used to be that I was my lyre
Entrusted pampered sounds
Madness, laziness and passions.

But even then the strings of evil
Involuntarily I interrupted the ringing,
When your voice is majestic
I was suddenly struck.

I shed streams of unexpected tears,
And the wounds of my conscience
Your fragrant speeches
The clean oil was refreshing.

And now from a spiritual height
You stretch out your hand to me,
And the strength of meek and loving
You tame your wild dreams.

Your soul is warmed by your fire
Rejected the darkness of earthly vanities,
And listens to Philaret's harp
The poet is in holy horror.

At the request of the censors, the last stanza of the poem was changed and in the final version it sounded like this:

Your soul is burning with your fire
Rejected the darkness of earthly vanities,
And listens to Seraphim's harp
The poet is in holy horror.

Pushkin’s poetic correspondence with Filaret was one of the rare cases of contact between two worlds, which in the 19th century were separated by a spiritual and cultural abyss: the world of secular literature and the world of the Church. This correspondence speaks of Pushkin’s departure from the unbelief of his youth, the rejection of “madness, laziness and passions” characteristic of his early work. Pushkin's poetry, prose, journalism and drama of the 1830s testify to the ever-increasing influence of Christianity, the Bible, and Orthodox church life on him. He repeatedly rereads the Holy Scriptures, finding in them a source of wisdom and inspiration. Here are Pushkin’s words about the religious and moral significance of the Gospel and the Bible:

There is a book in which every word is interpreted, explained, preached to all ends of the earth, applied to all kinds of circumstances of life and events of the world; from which it is impossible to repeat a single expression that everyone does not know by heart, which would not already be a proverb of peoples; it no longer contains anything unknown to us; but this book is called the Gospel, and such is its ever-new charm that if we, satiated with the world or depressed by despondency, accidentally open it, we are no longer able to resist its sweet enthusiasm and are immersed in spirit in its divine eloquence.

I think that we will never give the people anything better than Scripture... Its taste becomes clear when you start reading Scripture, because in it you find the whole of human life. Religion created art and literature; everything that was great in the deepest antiquity, everything depends on this religious feeling inherent in man, just like the idea of ​​beauty together with the idea of ​​goodness... The poetry of the Bible is especially accessible to pure imagination. My children will read the Bible in the original with me... The Bible is universal.

Another source of inspiration for Pushkin is Orthodox worship, which in his youth left him indifferent and cold. One of the poems, dated 1836, includes a poetic transcription of the prayer of St. Ephraim the Syrian “Lord and Master of my life,” read at Lenten services.

In Pushkin of the 1830s, religious wisdom and enlightenment were combined with rampant passions, which, according to S.L. Frank, is a distinctive feature of the Russian “broad nature”. Dying from a wound received in a duel, Pushkin confessed and took communion. Before his death, he received a note from Emperor Nicholas I, whom he knew personally from a young age: “Dear friend, Alexander Sergeevich, if we are not destined to see each other in this world, take my last advice: try to die a Christian.” The great Russian poet died a Christian, and his peaceful death marked the completion of the path that I. Ilyin defined as the path “from disappointed unbelief to faith and prayer; from revolutionary rebellion - to free loyalty and wise statehood; from dreamy worship of freedom - to organic conservatism; from youthful love - to the cult of the family hearth.” Having passed this path, Pushkin took a place not only in the history of Russian and world literature, but also in the history of Orthodoxy - as a great representative of that cultural tradition, which is completely saturated with his juices.

Another great poet of Russia M.Yu. Lermontov (1814-1841) was an Orthodox Christian, and religious themes appear repeatedly in his poems. As a person endowed With mystical talent, as an exponent of the “Russian idea”, aware of his prophetic calling, Lermontov had a powerful influence on Russian literature and poetry of the subsequent period. Like Pushkin, Lermontov knew the Holy Scriptures well: his poetry is filled with biblical allusions, some of his poems are reworkings of biblical stories, many epigraphs are taken from the Bible. Like Pushkin, Lermontov is characterized by a religious perception of beauty, especially the beauty of nature, in which he feels the presence of God:

When the yellowing field is agitated,
And the fresh forest rustles with the sound of the breeze,
And the raspberry plum is hiding in the garden
Under the shadow of a sweet green leaf...
Then the anxiety of my soul is humbled,
Then the wrinkles on the forehead disperse, -
And I can comprehend happiness on earth,
And in the sky I see God...

In another poem by Lermontov, written shortly before his death, the reverent feeling of the presence of God is intertwined with themes of fatigue from earthly life and the thirst for immortality. Deep and sincere religious feeling is combined in the poem with romantic motifs, which is a characteristic feature of Lermontov’s lyrics:

I go out alone on the road;
Through the fog the flinty path shines;
The night is quiet. The desert listens to God
And star speaks to star.
It’s solemn and wonderful in heaven!
The earth sleeps in a blue glow...
Why is it so painful and so difficult for me?
Am I waiting for what? Do I regret anything?..

Lermontov's poetry reflects his experience of prayer, the moments of tenderness he experienced, his ability to find solace in spiritual experience. Several of Lermontov's poems are prayers expressed in poetic form, three of them are entitled "Prayer". Here is the most famous of them:

In a difficult moment of life
Is there sadness in my heart:
One wonderful prayer
I repeat it by heart.
There is a power of grace
In the consonance of living words,
And an incomprehensible one breathes,
Holy beauty in them.
Like a burden will roll off your soul,
Doubt is far away -
And I believe and cry,
And so easy, easy...

This poem by Lermontov gained extraordinary popularity in Russia and abroad. More than forty composers set it to music, including M.I. Glinka, A.S. Dargomyzhsky, A.G. Rubinstein, M.P. Mussorgsky, F. Liszt (based on the German translation by F. Bodenstedt).

It would be wrong to imagine Lermontov as an Orthodox poet in the narrow sense of the word. Often in his work, traditional piety is contrasted with youthful passion (as, for example, in the poem “Mtsyri”); Many of Lermontov’s images (in particular, the image of Pechorin) embody the spirit of protest and disappointment, loneliness and contempt for people. In addition, Lermontov’s entire short literary activity was colored by a pronounced interest in demonic themes, which found its most perfect embodiment in the poem “The Demon.”

Lermontov inherited the theme of the demon from Pushkin; after Lermontov, this theme will firmly enter into Russian art of the 19th - early 20th centuries until A.A. Blok and M.A. Vrubel. However, the Russian “demon” is by no means an anti-religious or anti-church image; rather, it reflects the shadowy, seamy side of the religious theme that permeates all Russian literature. The demon is a seducer and deceiver, a proud, passionate and lonely creature, obsessed with protesting against God and goodness. But in Lermontov’s poem, good wins, the Angel of God ultimately lifts the soul of a woman seduced by a demon to heaven, and the demon again remains in splendid isolation. In fact, Lermontov in his poem raises the eternal moral problem of the relationship between good and evil, God and the devil, Angel and demon. When reading the poem, it may seem that the author’s sympathies are on the side of the demon, but the moral outcome of the work leaves no doubt that the author believes in the final victory of God’s truth over demonic temptation.

Lermontov died in a duel before he was 27 years old. If in the short time allotted to him Lermontov managed to become the great national poet of Russia, then this period was not enough to develop mature religiosity in him. Nevertheless, the deep spiritual insights and moral lessons contained in many of his works make it possible to inscribe his name, along with the name of Pushkin, not only in the history of Russian literature, but also in the history of the Orthodox Church.

Among the Russian poets of the 19th century, whose work is marked by the strong influence of religious experience, it is necessary to mention A.K. Tolstoy (1817-1875), author of the poem “John of Damascus.” The plot of the poem is inspired by an episode from the life of the Monk John of Damascus: the abbot of the monastery in which the monk labored forbade him to engage in poetic creativity, but God appeared to the abbot in a dream and commanded him to lift the ban from the poet. Against the background of this simple plot, the multidimensional space of the poem unfolds, including the poetic monologues of the main character. One of the monologues is an enthusiastic hymn to Christ:

I see Him before me
With a crowd of poor fishermen;
He quietly, peacefully,
He walks among the ripening grains;
I will delight in His good speeches
He pours into simple hearts,
He is a hungry herd of truth
Leads to its source.
Why was I born at the wrong time?
When between us, in the flesh,
Carrying a painful burden
He was on the path of life!..
O my Lord, my hope,
Mine is both strength and protection!
I want all my thoughts for you,
A song of grace to you all,
And the thoughts of the day and the vigil of the night,
And every heartbeat,
And give my whole soul!
Don't open up for someone else
From now on, prophetic lips!
Rattle only the name of Christ,
My enthusiastic word!

In the poem by A.K. Tolstoy includes a poetic retelling of the stichera of St. John of Damascus, performed at the funeral service. Here is the text of these stichera in Slavic:

Whatever worldly sweetness remains uninvolved in sorrow; Whatever glory stands on earth is immutable; all the canopy is the weakest, all the sleep is the most charming: in one moment, and all this death accepts. But in the light, O Christ, of Thy face and in the delight of Thy beauty, which Thou hast chosen, rest, as a Lover of mankind.

All human vanity does not endure after death; wealth does not endure, nor glory descends; having come to death, all this is consumed...

Where there is worldly attachment; where there is temporary dreaming; where there is gold and silver; where there are many slaves and rumors; all the dust, all the ashes, all the shade...

I remember the prophet crying: I am earth and ashes. And again I looked at the tombs, and I saw the bones exposed, and I said: who is a king, or a warrior, or rich, or poor, or a righteous person, or a sinner? But rest, O Lord, with the righteous Your servant.

But here is a poetic arrangement of the same text, performed by A.K. Tolstoy:

What sweetness in this life
Are you not involved in earthly sadness?
Whose wait is not in vain?
And where is the happy one among people?
Everything is wrong, everything is insignificant,
What we have gained with difficulty -
What glory on earth
Is it standing firm and immutable?
All ashes, ghost, shadow and smoke,
Everything will disappear like a dusty whirlwind,
And we stand before death
And unarmed and powerless.
The hand of the mighty is weak,
The royal commands are insignificant -
Receive the deceased slave,
Lord, to the blessed villages!..
Among a pile of smoldering bones
Who is the king? who is the slave? judge or warrior?
Who is worthy of the Kingdom of God?
And who is the outcast villain?
O brothers, where are the silver and gold?
Where are the many hosts of slaves?
Among the unknown coffins
Who is poor and who is rich?
All ashes, smoke, and dust, and ashes,
Everything is a ghost, a shadow and a specter -
Only with You in heaven,
Lord, harbor and salvation!
All that was flesh will disappear,
Our greatness will decay -
Receive the deceased, Lord,
To Your blessed villages!

Religious themes occupy a significant place in the later works of N.V. Gogol (1809-1852). Having become famous throughout Russia for his satirical works, such as “The Inspector General” and “Dead Souls,” Gogol in the 1840s significantly changed the direction of his creative activity, paying increasing attention to church issues. The liberal-minded intelligentsia of his time met with misunderstanding and indignation Gogol’s “Selected Passages from Correspondence with Friends” published in 1847, where he reproached his contemporaries, representatives of the secular intelligentsia, for ignorance of the teachings and traditions of the Orthodox Church, defending the Orthodox clergy from N.V. Gogol attacks Western critics:

Our clergy is not idle. I know very well that in the depths of the monasteriesand inbe quietirrefutable writings in defense of our Church are being prepared from cells... But even these defenses are not yet readywill serve to the complete conviction of Western Catholics. Our Church must be sanctified in us, and not in our words... This Church, which, like a chaste virgin, has been preserved alone from the times of the apostles in its immaculate original purity, this Church, which is all with its deep dogmas and the slightest outward rituals as would be blown straight out of the sky for the Russian peoplebut, which alone is able to resolve all the knots of bewilderment and our questions... And this church is unknown to us! And we still have not introduced this Church, created for life, into our lives! There is only one propaganda possible for us - our life. With our lives we must defendshu the Church, which is all life; We must proclaim its truth with the fragrance of our souls.

Of particular interest are the “Reflections on the Divine Liturgy”, compiled by Gogol on the basis of interpretations of the liturgy belonging to the Byzantine authors Patriarch Herman of Constantinople (8th century), Nicholas Cabasiles (14th century) and St. Simeon of Thessalonica (15th century), as well as a number of Russian church writers. With great spiritual trepidation, Gogol writes about the transfusion of the Holy Gifts at the Divine Liturgy into the Body and Blood of Christ:

Having blessed, the priest says: translating by Your Holy Spirit; The deacon says three times: Amen - and the Body and Blood are already on the throne: the transubstantiation is complete! The Word calls forth the Eternal Word. The priest, having a verb instead of a sword, performed the slaughter. Whoever he himself was - Peter or Ivan - but in his person the Eternal Bishop Himself performed this slaughter, and He eternally performs it in the person of His priests, as in the word: let there be light, the light shines forever; as in the word: let the earth grow the old grass, the earth grows it forever. On the throne is not an image, not a form, but the very Body of the Lord, the same Body that suffered on earth, suffered being strangled, was spat upon, crucified, buried, resurrected, ascended with the Lord and sits at the right hand of the Father. It retains the appearance of bread only in order to be food for man, and that the Lord Himself said: I am bread. The church ringing rises from the bell tower to announce to everyone about the great moment, so that a person, wherever he is at this time - whether he is on the road, on the road, whether he is cultivating the land of his fields, whether he is sitting in his house, or is busy with another matter, or is languishing in sick bed, or within prison walls - in a word, wherever he was, so that he could offer prayers from everywhere and from himself at this terrible moment.

In the afterword to the book, Gogol writes about the moral significance of the Divine Liturgy for each person who takes part in it, as well as for the entire Russian society:

The effect of the Divine Liturgy on the soul is great: it is performed visibly and personally, in the sight of the whole world and hidden... And if society has not yet completely disintegrated, if people do not breathe complete, irreconcilable hatred among themselves, then the hidden reason for this is the Divine Liturgy, reminding a person about holy heavenly love for a brother... The influence of the Divine Liturgy could be great and incalculable if a person listened to it in order to bring into life what he heard. Teaching everyone equally, acting equally on all levels, from the king to the last beggar, he tells everyone the same thing, not in the same language, he teaches everyone love, which is the connection of society, the hidden spring of everything that moves harmoniously, food, the life of everything.

It is characteristic that Gogol writes not so much about the communion of the Holy Mysteries of Christ during the Divine Liturgy, but about “listening” to the liturgy, being present at the divine service. This reflects the common practice in the 19th century, according to which Orthodox believers received communion once or several times a year, usually in the first week of Lent or Holy Week, with communion preceded by several days of “fasting” (strict abstinence) and confession. On other Sundays and holidays, believers came to the liturgy only in order to defend and “listen” to it. This practice was opposed in Greece by the collivads, and in Russia by John of Kronstadt, who called for frequent communion.

Among Russian writers of the 19th century, two colossuses stand out: Dostoevsky and Tolstoy. Spiritual path of F.M. Dostoevsky (1821-1881) in some ways repeats the path of many of his contemporaries: upbringing in a traditional Orthodox spirit, a departure from traditional church life in his youth, a return to it in maturity. The tragic life path of Dostoevsky, who was sentenced to death for participating in a circle of revolutionaries, but was pardoned a minute before the execution of the sentence, spending ten years in hard labor and exile, was reflected in all of his diverse creativity - primarily in his immortal novels “Crime and Punishment”, “Humiliated and Insulted”, “Idiot”, “Demons”, “Teenager”, “The Brothers Karamazov”, in numerous stories and short stories. In these works, as well as in “The Diary of a Writer,” Dostoevsky developed his religious and philosophical views based on Christian personalism. At the center of Dostoevsky’s work is always the human personality in all its diversity and inconsistency, but human life, the problems of human existence are considered from a religious perspective, presupposing faith in a personal, personal God.

The main religious and moral idea that unites all of Dostoevsky’s work is summarized in the famous words of Ivan Karamazov: “If there is no God, then everything is permitted.” Dostoevsky denies autonomous morality based on arbitrary and subjective “humanistic” ideals. The only solid foundation of human morality, according to Dostoevsky, is the idea of ​​God, and it is God’s commandments that are the absolute moral criterion towards which humanity should be guided. Atheism and nihilism lead a person to moral permissiveness, opening the way to crime and spiritual death. The denunciation of atheism, nihilism and revolutionary sentiments, in which the writer saw a threat to the spiritual future of Russia, was the leitmotif of many of Dostoevsky’s works. This is the main theme of the novel “Demons” and many pages of “A Writer’s Diary.”

Another characteristic feature of Dostoevsky is his deepest Christocentrism. “Throughout his entire life, Dostoevsky carried an exceptional, unique feeling of Christ, a kind of frenzied love for the face of Christ... writes N. Berdyaev. “Dostoevsky’s faith in Christ passed through the crucible of all doubts and was tempered in fire.” For Dostoevsky, God is not an abstract idea: faith in God for him is identical to faith in Christ as the God-man and Savior of the world. In his understanding, falling away from faith is a renunciation of Christ, and turning to faith is turning, first of all, to Christ. The quintessence of his Christology is the chapter “The Grand Inquisitor” from the novel “The Brothers Karamazov” - a philosophical parable put into the mouth of the atheist Ivan Karamazov. In this parable, Christ appears in medieval Seville, where He is met by the Cardinal Inquisitor. Having taken Christ under arrest, the inquisitor conducts a monologue with Him about the dignity and freedom of man; Throughout the entire parable, Christ is silent. In the inquisitor's monologue, the three temptations of Christ in the desert are interpreted as temptations by miracle, mystery and authority: rejected by Christ, these temptations were not rejected by the Catholic Church, which assumed earthly power and took away spiritual freedom from people. Medieval Catholicism in Dostoevsky’s parable is a prototype of atheistic socialism, which is based on disbelief in the freedom of the spirit, disbelief in God and, ultimately, disbelief in man. Without God, without Christ, there can be no true freedom, the writer asserts through the lips of his hero.

Dostoevsky was a deeply religious man. His Christianity was not abstract or mental: labored through his entire life, it was rooted in the tradition and spirituality of the Orthodox Church. One of the main characters of the novel “The Brothers Karamazov” is Elder Zosima, whose prototype was seen in St. Tikhon of Zadonsk or the Venerable Ambrose of Optina, but who in reality is a collective image that embodies the best that, according to Dostoevsky, was in Russian monasticism . One of the chapters of the novel, “From the conversations and teachings of Elder Zosima,” is a moral and theological treatise written in a style close to the patristic one. Into the mouth of Elder Zosima Dostoevsky puts his teaching about all-encompassing love, reminiscent of the teaching of St. Isaac the Syrian about the “merciful heart”:

Brothers, do not be afraid of the sin of people, love a person even in his sin, for this similarity to Divine love is the height of love on earth. Love all of God’s creation, both the whole and every grain of sand. Love every leaf, every ray of God. Love animals, love plants, love everything. You will love every thing, and you will comprehend the mystery of God in things. Once you comprehend it, you will tirelessly begin to understand it more and more, every day. And you will finally love the whole world with complete, universal love... Before another thought, you will become perplexed, especially seeing the sin of people, and ask yourself: “Should I take it by force or by humble love?” Always decide: “I will take it with humble love.” If you decide to do this once and for all, you will be able to conquer the whole world. Love humility is a terrible force, the strongest of all, and there is nothing like it.

Religious topics are given a significant place on the pages of the “Diary of a Writer,” which is a collection of essays of a journalistic nature. One of the central themes of the “Diary” is the fate of the Russian people and the meaning of the Orthodox faith for them:

They say that the Russian people do not know the Gospel well and do not know the basic rules of faith. Of course, so, but he knows Christ and carries Him in his heart from time immemorial. There is no doubt about it. How is a true representation of Christ possible without the doctrine of faith? That's another question. But the heartfelt knowledge of Christ and the true idea of ​​Him fully exist. It is passed down from generation to generation and has merged with the hearts of people. Perhaps the only love of the Russian people is Christ, and they love His image in their own way, that is, to the point of suffering. He is most proud of the title of Orthodox, that is, one who most truly professes Christ.

The “Russian idea,” according to Dostoevsky, is nothing more than Orthodoxy, which the Russian people can transmit to all humanity. In this Dostoevsky sees that Russian “socialism”, which is the opposite of atheistic communism:

...The vast majority of the Russian people are Orthodox and live the idea of ​​Orthodoxy in full, although they do not understand this idea responsibly and scientifically. In essence, in our people there is no other “idea”, and everything comes from it alone, at least our people want it that way, with all their hearts and with their deep conviction... I’m not talking about church buildings now and not about the clergy, I am now talking about our Russian “socialism” (and I take this word opposite to the church precisely to clarify my thought, no matter how strange it may seem), the goal and outcome of which is the national and universal Church, realized on earth, since the earth can contain it. I am talking about the tireless thirst in the Russian people, always present in them, for great, universal, nation-wide, all-brotherly unity in the name of Christ. And if this unity does not yet exist, if the Church has not yet been fully created, no longer in prayer alone, but in deeds, then nevertheless the instinct of this Church and the tireless thirst for it, sometimes even almost unconscious, are undoubtedly present in the hearts of our many millions of people. The socialism of the Russian people lies not in communism, not in mechanical forms: they believe that they will be saved only in the end by all-world unity in the name of Christ... And here we can directly put the formula: whoever does not understand Orthodoxy and its ultimate goals in our people, he will never understand our people themselves.

Following Gogol, who defended the Church and the clergy in his “Selected Places,” Dostoevsky speaks with respect about the activities of Orthodox bishops and priests, contrasting them with visiting Protestant missionaries:

Well, what kind of Protestant are our people really, and what kind of German are they? And why should he teachShould I speak German to sing psalms? And isn’t everything, everything he seeks, contained in Orthodoxy? Not in him Is it the truth and the salvation of the Russian people alone, and in future centuries for all mankind? Isn’t it only in Orthodoxy that the Divine face of Christ has been preserved in all its purity? And perhaps the most important pre-elected purpose of the Russian people in the destinies of all mankind consists only in preserving this Divine image of Christ in all its purity, and when the time comes, to reveal this image to a world that has lost its ways!.. Well, by the way : What about our priests? What have you heard about them? And our priests, too, they say, are waking up. Our spiritual class, they say, has long begun to show signs of life. With tenderness we read the edifications of the rulers of our churches about preaching and good living. Our shepherds, according to all the news, are resolutely setting about writing sermons and preparing to deliver them... We have many good shepherds, perhaps even more than we can hope for or deserve.

If Gogol and Dostoevsky came to the realization of the truth and salvation of the Orthodox Church, then L.N. Tolstoy (1828-1910), on the contrary, moved away from Orthodoxy and stood in open opposition to the Church. Tolstoy says about his spiritual path in “Confession”: “I was baptized and raised in the Orthodox Christian faith. I was taught it from childhood and throughout my adolescence and youth. But when I left the second year of university at the age of 18, I no longer believed in anything that I was taught.” With stunning frankness, Tolstoy talks about the thoughtless and immoral lifestyle that he led in his youth, and about the spiritual crisis that struck him at the age of fifty and almost led to suicide.

In search of a way out, Tolstoy immersed himself in reading philosophical and religious literature, communicated with official representatives of the Church, monks and wanderers. Intellectual search led Tolstoy to faith in God and return to the Church; he again, after a break of many years, began to regularly go to church, observe fasts, confess and take communion. However, the sacrament did not have a renewing and life-giving effect on Tolstoy; on the contrary, it left a heavy mark on the writer’s soul, which was apparently connected with his internal state.

Tolstoy's return to Orthodox Christianity was short-lived and superficial. In Christianity, he accepted only the moral side, but the entire mystical side, including the Sacraments of the Church, remained alien to him, since it did not fit into the framework of rational knowledge. Tolstoy's worldview was characterized by extreme rationalism, and it was this rationalism that did not allow him to accept Christianity in its entirety.

After a long and painful search that never ended with a meeting with a personal God, with the Living God, Tolstoy came to the creation of his own religion, which was based on faith in God as an impersonal principle guiding human morality. This religion, which combined only individual elements of Christianity, Buddhism and Islam, was distinguished by extreme syncretism and bordered on pantheism. In Jesus Christ, Tolstoy did not recognize God incarnate, considering Him only one of the outstanding teachers of morality, along with Buddha and Mohammed. Tolstoy did not create his own theology, and his numerous religious and philosophical works that followed the Confession were mainly of a moral and didactic nature. An important element of Tolstoy’s teaching was the idea of ​​​​non-resistance to evil through violence, which he borrowed from Christianity, but took to the extreme and contrasted with church teaching.

Tolstoy entered the history of Russian literature as a great writer, the author of the novels “War and Peace” and “Anna Karenina”, numerous novellas and short stories. However, Tolstoy went down in the history of the Orthodox Church as a blasphemer and false teacher, who sowed temptation and confusion. In his works written after the “Confession,” both literary and moral and journalistic, Tolstoy attacked the Orthodox Church with sharp and vicious attacks. His Study of Dogmatic Theology is a pamphlet in which Orthodox theology (Tolstoy studied it extremely superficially - mainly from catechisms and seminary textbooks) is subjected to derogatory criticism. The novel “Resurrection” contains a caricatured description of Orthodox worship, which is presented as a series of “manipulations” of bread and wine, “meaningless verbosity” and “blasphemous sorcery”, supposedly contrary to the teachings of Christ.

Not limiting himself to attacks on the teaching and worship of the Orthodox Church, Tolstoy in the 1880s began to rework the Gospel and published several works in which the Gospel was “purified” of mysticism and miracles. In Tolstoy's version of the Gospel there is no story about the birth of Jesus from the Virgin Mary and the Holy Spirit, about the resurrection of Christ, many of the Savior's miracles are missing or presented in a distorted form. In an essay entitled “Connection and Translation of the Four Gospels,” Tolstoy presents an arbitrary, tendentious, and at times frankly illiterate translation of individual Gospel passages with a commentary reflecting Tolstoy’s personal hostility to the Orthodox Church.

The anti-church orientation of Tolstoy's literary and moral-journalistic activities in the 1880-1890s caused sharp criticism of him from the Church, which only embittered the writer even more. On February 20, 1901, by decision of the Holy Synod, Tolstoy was excommunicated from the Church. The resolution of the Synod contained the following formula for excommunication: “...The Church does not consider him a member and cannot count him until he repents and restores his communion with her.” Tolstoy's excommunication from the Church caused a huge public outcry: liberal circles accused the Church of cruelty towards the great writer. However, in his “Response to the Synod” dated April 4, 1901, Tolstoy wrote: “The fact that I renounced the Church, which calls itself Orthodox, is completely fair... And I became convinced that the teaching of the Church is an insidious and harmful lie, practically a collection the grossest superstitions and witchcraft, completely hiding the entire meaning of Christian doctrine.” Tolstoy’s excommunication was, therefore, only a statement of a fact that Tolstoy did not deny and which consisted in Tolstoy’s conscious and voluntary renunciation of the Church and of Christ, recorded in many of his writings.

Until the last days of his life, Tolstoy continued to spread his teachings, which gained many followers. Some of them united into communities of a sectarian nature - with their own cult, which included the “prayer to Christ the Sun”, “Tolstoy’s prayer”, “Muhammad’s prayer” and other works of folk art. A dense ring of his admirers formed around Tolstoy, who vigilantly ensured that the writer did not betray his teachings. A few days before his death, Tolstoy, unexpectedly for everyone, secretly left his estate in Yasnaya Polyana and went to Optina Pustyn. The question of what attracted him to the heart of Orthodox Russian Christianity will forever remain a mystery. Before reaching the monastery, Tolstoy fell ill with severe pneumonia at the Astapovo post station. His wife and several other close people came here to see him, who found him in a difficult mental and physical state. Elder Barsanuphius was sent from Optina Monastery to Tolstoy in case the writer wanted to repent and reunite with the Church before his death. But Tolstoy’s entourage did not notify the writer of his arrival and did not allow the elder to see the dying man - the risk of destroying Tolstoyism by breaking Tolstoy himself with him was too great. The writer died without repentance and took with him to the grave the secret of his dying spiritual tossing.

In Russian literature of the 19th century there were no more opposing personalities than Tolstoy and Dostoevsky. They differed in everything, including aesthetic views, philosophical anthropology, religious experience and worldview. Dostoevsky argued that “beauty will save the world,” and Tolstoy insisted that “the concept of beauty not only does not coincide with goodness, but rather is the opposite of it.” Dostoevsky believed in a personal God, in the Divinity of Jesus Christ and in the salvific nature of the Orthodox Church; Tolstoy believed in the impersonal Divine existence, denied the Divinity of Christ and rejected the Orthodox Church. And yet, not only Dostoevsky, but also Tolstoy cannot be understood outside of Orthodoxy.

L. Tolstoy is Russian to the core, and he could only have arisen on Russian Orthodox soil, although he betrayed Orthodoxy... writes N. Berdyaev. - Tolstoy belonged to the highest cultural stratum, a significant part of which had fallen away from the Orthodox faith by which the people lived... He wanted to believe as the common people, not spoiled by culture, believe. But he did not succeed in this in the slightest... The common people believed in the Orthodox way. The Orthodox faith in Tolstoy’s mind clashes irreconcilably with his mind.

Among other Russian writers who paid great attention to religious themes, it should be noted N.S. Leskova (1831-1895). He was one of the few secular writers who made representatives of the clergy the main prominent heroes of their works. Leskov’s novel “Soborians” is a chronicle of the life of a provincial archpriest, written with great skill and knowledge of church life (Leskov himself was the grandson of a priest). The main character of the story “At the End of the World” is an Orthodox bishop sent to missionary service in Siberia. Religious themes are touched upon in many other works by Leskov, including the stories “The Sealed Angel” and “The Enchanted Wanderer.” Leskov’s famous work “Little Things in Bishop’s Life” is a collection of stories and anecdotes from the life of Russian bishops of the 19th century: one of the main characters of the book is Metropolitan Philaret of Moscow. The same genre includes the essays “The Bishop’s Court”, “Bishops’ Detours”, “Diocesan Court”, “Priestly Shadows”, “Synodal Persons” and others. Leskov is the author of works of religious and moral content, such as “The Mirror of the Life of a True Disciple of Christ”, “Prophecies about the Messiah”, “Pointer to the Book of the New Testament”, “A Collection of Fatherly Opinions on the Importance of the Holy Scriptures”. In the last years of his life, Leskov fell under the influence of Tolstoy, began to show interest in schism, sectarianism and Protestantism, and moved away from traditional Orthodoxy. However, in the history of Russian literature, his name remains associated primarily with stories and tales from the life of the clergy, which earned him reader recognition.

It is necessary to mention the influence of Orthodoxy on the work of A.P. Chekhov (1860-1904), in his stories referring to the images of seminarians, priests and bishops, to the description of prayer and Orthodox worship. The action of Chekhov's stories often takes place during Holy Week or Easter. In “The Student,” a twenty-two-year-old student at the Theological Academy tells two women the story of Peter’s denial on Good Friday. In the story “On Holy Week,” a nine-year-old boy describes confession and communion in an Orthodox church. The story "Holy Night" tells the story of two monks, one of whom dies on the eve of Easter. Chekhov's most famous religious work is the story "The Bishop", which tells about the last weeks of the life of a provincial suffragan bishop who had recently arrived from abroad. In the description of the rite of the “twelve Gospels” performed on the eve of Good Friday, Chekhov’s love for the Orthodox church service is felt:

During all twelve Gospels, he had to stand motionless in the middle of the church, and he himself read the first Gospel, the longest, the most beautiful. A cheerful, healthy mood took possession of him. He knew this first Gospel, “Now is the Son of Man glorified” by heart; and, while reading, he occasionally raised his eyes and saw on both sides a whole sea of ​​lights, heard the crackling of candles, but no people were visible, as in previous years, and it seemed that these were all the same people who were then in childhood and in their youth, that they will still be the same every year, and until when - only God knows. His father was a deacon, his grandfather was a priest, his great-grandfather was a deacon, and his entire family, perhaps from the time of the adoption of Christianity in Rus', belonged to the clergy, and his love for church services, the clergy, and the ringing of bells was innate, deep in him , ineradicable; in church, especially when he himself participated in the service, he felt active, cheerful, and happy.

The imprint of this innate and ineradicable churchliness lies on all Russian literature of the 19th century.

This same churchliness was reflected in the works of the great Russian composers - M.I. Gl Incas (1804-1857), A.P. Borodin (1833-1887), M.P. Mussorgsky (1839-1881), P.I. Tchaikovsky (1840-1893), N.A. Rimsky-Korsakov (1844-1908), S.I. Taneyeva (1856-1915), S.V. Rachmaninov (1873-1943). Many plots and characters of Russian operas are associated with the church tradition, for example, the Holy Fool, Pimen, Varlaam and Misail in Mussorgsky's Boris Godunov. In a number of works, for example, in the Easter overture “Bright Holiday” by Rimsky-Korsakov, in the overture “1812” and Tchaikovsky’s Sixth Symphony, motifs of church hymns are used. Many Russian composers use imitation of bell ringing, in particular Glinka in the opera “A Life for the Tsar”, Borodin in “Prince Igor” and the play “In the Monastery”, Mussorgsky in “Boris Godunov” and “Pictures at an Exhibition”, Rimsky-Korsakov in several operas and the overture “Bright Holiday”.

The element of bells occupies a special place in Rachmaninov’s work: bell ringing (or its imitation with the help of musical instruments and voices) sounds at the beginning of the 2nd piano concerto, in the symphonic poem “Bells”, “Bright Holiday” from the 1st suite for two pianos , preludes in C sharp minor, “Now you let go” from “All Night Vigil”.

Some works by Russian composers, for example Taneyev’s cantata to the words of A.K. Tolstoy’s “John of Damascus” are secular works on spiritual themes.

Many great Russian composers also wrote church music: “Liturgy” by Tchaikovsky, “Liturgy” and “All-Night Vigil” by Rachmaninov were written for liturgical use. Written in 1915 and banned throughout the Soviet period, Rachmaninov's All-Night Vigil is a grand choral epic based on ancient Russian church chants.

All of these are just individual examples of the profound influence that Orthodox spirituality has had on the work of Russian composers.

In Russian academic painting of the 19th century, religious themes are represented very widely. Russian artists have repeatedly turned to the image of Christ: it is enough to recall such paintings as “The Appearance of Christ to the People” by A.A. Ivanova (1806-1858), “Christ in the Desert” by I.N. Kramskoy (1837-1887), “Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane” by V.G. Perov (1833-1882) and a painting of the same name by A.I. Kuindzhi (1842-1910). In the 1880s, N.N. turned to Christian themes. Ge (1831-1894), who created a number of paintings on gospel themes, battle painter V.V. Vereshchagin (1842-1904), author of the Palestine series, V.D. Polenov (1844-1927), author of the painting “Christ and the Sinner”. All of these artists painted Christ in a realistic manner inherited from the Renaissance and far from the tradition of ancient Russian icon painting.

Interest in traditional icon painting was reflected in the work of V.M. Vasnetsov (1848-1926), author of numerous compositions on religious themes, and M.V. Nesterov (1862-1942), who owned many paintings of religious content, including scenes from Russian church history: “Vision to the Youth Bartholomew”, “Youth of St. Sergius”, “Works of St. Sergius”, “St. Sergius of Radonezh”, “St. Rus'". Vasnetsov and Nesterov took part in the painting of churches - in particular, with the participation of M.A. Vrubel (1856-1910) they painted the Vladimir Cathedral in Kyiv.