The Russians' Secret - Book Review (Part 6 of 6)

Leo Tolstoy - More to the Story

 

The Russians' Secret (hereafter TRS) spends a great deal of time on the Tolstoyan movement, based on the anarchist and extreme pacifist views of the novelist Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910). The authors note that Tolstoy was a harsh critic of the Russian Church, leading to his excommunication in 1901. But other important details were left out of TRS. 

Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910)

In the late 1870's, after completing the two novels War and Peace and Anna Karenina, Tolstoy underwent a profound spiritual crisis and emerged as a Christian anarchist, committed to nonviolent resistance as he interpreted the Sermon on the Mount, but denying Christ's resurrection and divinity. In 1881, Tolstoy produced his own translation of the Gospels wherein he, like the American Thomas Jefferson, eliminated Christ's miracles. For good reason St. John of Kronstadt (1829-1909) denounced Leo Tolstoy as “the worst heretic of our evil days, and surpassing in intellectual pride all former heretics” (“Count Tolstoi Denounced,” The New York Times, April 5, 1903).  In 1901, Tolstoy was excommunicated from the Russian Orthodox Church (“Decree of Excommunication of Leo Tolstoy,” Russian Orthodox Church, February 22, 1901).

Holy Hieromartyr Hilarion (Troitsky) of Vereya

Given TRS' focus on the theme of martyrdom, it would also seem fitting to mention St. Hilarion (Troitsky; 1886-1929), the New Martyr of Russia, and his book Christianity or the Church?, an important Russian Orthodox book which addressed Tolstoy's blasphemous doctrines and his conception of a “churchless Christianity.” With the figure of Tolstoy serving as a logical end and crowning pinnacle of religious nonconformity in the TRS chronicle, the following words from St. Hilarion provide a poignant reflection on their separation of Christianity from the Church:

The initial point in the false teaching of Tolstoy can be called his sharp separation of Christianity from the Church. Tolstoy had roundly condemned the Church, while at the same time admiring Christianity. For him, however, Christianity immediately became only a teaching, and Christ, only a teacher.

When any kind of teaching is placed before us, it is not that important for us to know whose teaching it is. For Tolstoy, the living person of Christ lost all significance and meaning. Having taken Christ's teaching, it appeared possible to forget about Him Himself.

He denied the God-man, referring to Him as “a crucified Jew,” and “a dead Jew.” With that, the Gospel is severed from its very beginning where the proclamation is made of the supernatural birth of the Son of God from the Virgin Mary, and it is severed from its end where the resurrection of the Son of God from the dead and His ascension into heaven is recorded.

Tolstoy did not limit himself to this cutting off of the Gospel from its beginning and its end; he also restructured its “middle” according to his own tastes. He thus compelled his Jesus to say only what he, the teacher of Yasnaya Polyana (the name of Leo Tolstoy's estate), commanded.

Christ Himself promised to send His disciples “another Comforter.” This “Comforter,” the Divine Advocate, is honored by the Church of Christ as the source of the new, abundant Church life which is the gift of Grace. The Apostle Paul, as we have seen, constantly speaks of the Holy Spirit living in the Church.

Nevertheless, Tolstoy denied the Holy Spirit. He called the Orthodox Church not Christ's but, mockingly, “the Holy Spirit's.” He then stooped to blaspheming the Holy Mysteries through which the member of the Church receives the Grace of the Holy Spirit for a new life. Baptism is a mystery of rebirth - for Tolstoy it became “the bathing of infants.” The Holy Eucharist, without which, according to the teaching of Christ Himself, one cannot have life within him (cf. John 6:53), became, in the blasphemous terminology of Tolstoy, “soup” which one “swallows from a little spoon.”

One can thank Tolstoy for at least being consistent. Having limited all of Christ's work to His teaching alone and, having denied the Church, it was a logical necessity for Tolstoy to come to all of his conclusions which destroyed Christianity itself. At least Tolstoy clearly demonstrated for us what results to expect from the absurd separation of Christianity from the Church and the negation of the Church in the name of imaginary Christianity. If one is to separate Christianity from the Church, then there is no need for the divinity of the Savior and the Holy Spirit is unnecessary.

Without the Holy Spirit, however, and without the divinity of the Savior, without the incarnation of the Son of God, the teaching of Jesus the Nazarene becomes of little value for life, just as any other teaching; for it is impossible to share the Socratic optimism, according to which knowledge is virtue.

The insolvency of Tolstoy's churchless understanding of Christianity is evident from the fact that Tolstoyism created no kind of life. Christianity is possible only in union with the living God-man Christ, and in the Grace-created union of people with the Church. In Tolstoyism there is neither one nor the other.

In place of the enthusiasm of the martyrs and ascetics of the Church, instead of the bond of love which binds the Apostles and believers so strongly that they have “one heart and one soul” - instead of all this, the followers of Tolstoy produced only grotesque and lifeless “Tolstoyite colonies.” “He that hath not the Son of God hath not life” (1 John 5:12). . . .

Thus, using Tolstoyism as an example, we see that churchless Christianity leads to a terrible distortion and even to the destruction of Christianity itself. It is refuted by its own complete lifelessness.

Tolstoy and the Optina Elders

TRS authors note that at the end of his life, Tolstoy longed for “the desert,” to “return to his Christian roots and talk with a starets: the old celibate Yosef, at Optina. But he did not get there” (p. 180). Actually he did get there, although he didn't meet with Elder Joseph that time. Several times Tolstoy visited the Optina Elders, the most important spiritual leaders of the 19th century in the Russian Church. 

The Optina Elders

After visits in 1877 and 1881, Tolstoy returned for a meeting with St. Ambrose (1812-1891), a starets and hieroschemamonk, in 1890, the year before Ambrose's death. The meeting was difficult for the elderly monk, who was wearied by Tolstoy's pride. At the urging of his sister Maria, a nun of the Shamordino Convent nearby, Tolstoy returned to Optina in 1896 when he met with St. Joseph, a starets who brought a momentary peace to Tolstoy. 

Despite his refusal to reconcile with the Orthodox Church, even at the end of his life, Tolstoy fled his home seeking the wisdom and solace of the Optina Elders. Tolstoy approached the hermitage on the morning of October 29, 1910. At the last minute he lost his resolve, fearing that he would not be received, as he regretfully told his sister Maria at the nearby convent. His daughter Alexandra (Sasha) soon arrived and roused Tolstoy again to flight. Together with Tolstoy's physician, they made their way to the Astapovo railway station. With dismay the Optina Hermitage received the news of Tolstoy's retreat. 

Approaching death, Tolstoy delegated that a telegram be sent to Optina with the request that they send him Elder Joseph. Instead St. Barsanuphius journeyed to Astapovo, but, despite repeated appeals, he was not allowed by Tolstoyan disciples to meet with Tolstoy. On November 20, 1910, Leo Tolstoy died of pneumonia at the age of 82.  

In the wake of the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917, Optina Hermitage was closed in January 1918. Exile and executions ensued. In the words of the TRS authors, 

When fighting broke out again in October, 1917, members of these “Tolstoyan” societies risked their lives to rush out among the soldiers of both sides with the tract, Brothers, Stop Killing One Another! Evangelical Christians, Molokans, Mennonites, and Tolstovets all hoped for a speedy end to the revolution and the opportunity to live in peace. They all wondered: Would the Bolsheviks be more kindly disposed to Christ’s defenseless example? Lenin, it was said, spoke well of Lev Tolstoy. (p. 184)

Indeed, Vladimir Lenin wrote several essays about Tolstoy. During the last 20 years of his life, Tolstoy articulated the anarchist critique of the state. While rejecting anarchism's espousal of violent revolution, Tolstoy continued to recommend to his readers books by anarchist thinkers like Kropotkin, a Russian proponent of anarchist communism, and Proudhon, who is considered by many to be the “father of anarchism.” 

Tolstoy's ideas were quite revolutionary. Although Lenin thought Tolstoy's concept of non-resistance to evil hindered the success of the 1905 Russian Revolution, he also concluded that Tolstoy's hatred for feudalism and capitalism marked the prelude to proletarian socialism. So it is no accident that the leader of the Bolsheviks valued Tolstoy's beliefs, and called the writer “the mirror of the Russian revolution.” 

Conclusion

This essay has offered an Orthodox response to TRS. From an Orthodox point of view, the historical record of the book is highly selective and biased against the Russian Church. The authors' negative interpretation of Russia's conversion to Orthodoxy is inconsistent with the historical data. The book conflates Russian Orthodox saints with schismatics and Protestants as “Russian believers,” which is ambiguous and misleading. Moreover, the authors' hijacking of various Russian Orthodox saints, unbeknownst to the reader, and Orthodox spiritual practices such as the Jesus Prayer, also calls into question their own premise about Russia's “conversion.” 

On the other hand, the radical Christian dissident groups featured in TRS opposed the Russian Orthodox Church, the holy Eucharist and other holy mysteries, infant baptism, the priesthood, clergy, icons, crosses, relics, incense, Slavonic hymns, and temples with towers and shinning domes. Like the Tolstoyan followers who prevented the dying Tolstoy from his desired contact with the Orthodox starets, the authors of TRS are thwarting their readers from the true history of Holy Russia. The Russian Orthodox Church has much more to offer the target audience of TRS, even while remaining faithful to the book's themes of persecution, nonresistance, nonconformity, voluntary poverty, and church/state relations. 

For the most part, whenever the authors are writing about the saints, virtues, and spiritual practices of the Russian Church, any connection to Orthodoxy is concealed from the reader. Hopefully this essay will inspire those same readers to discover for themselves the beauty of Orthodoxy in Russia. The best-kept secret of the The Russians' Secret is the Russian Orthodox Church.