From the diary of Fr. John of Kronstadt in denouncing the false teachings of Count L. Tolstoy

Instead of a preface (from a letter to the Editor) The other day I received an anonymous letter from a Tolstoyan, in which he scolds me for writing a weak refutation of Tolstoy’s nonsense, that I am a pygmy, I oppose the colossus - Tolstoy, and, having only one talent, I want to fight on paper with ten talents (Tolstoy) ... In order not to remain in debt to Tolstoy and his admirer and to answer both “stronger”, I decided to publish something else - because it’s true strong and - it is easy to defend against those who fight against her, even if they are “colossi” - Tolstoyans imagine themselves to be colossi, however, no offense to them, - with feet of clay... And it is true that Tolstoy is a colossus, but in his own sphere, in the field of romantic and dramatic literature - and in the religious field he is a real pygmy who knows nothing. And if I say one more thing in denunciation of Tolstoy and his comrades, I ask them not to be angry for the naked and harsh truth. I no longer wanted to respond to Tolstoy’s insane verbs, but if I am sharply called upon to do so, then, out of duty to the Truth and the Church, I respond by publishing excerpts from my diary, containing my thoughts and feelings about Tolstoy’s soul-destroying heresy. The present time is a time of struggle with sin, with the passionate flesh, the world lying in evil, and the devil, the culprit of sin, - a time of teaching all virtues: attention to oneself, sobriety, self-denial, vigilance, abstinence, meekness, humility, kindness, obedience, chastity, leniency towards others, mercy; - now is not the time to rest and indulge in pleasures, for our crafty, evil and cunning enemies do not sleep for a minute, and our adversary - the devil, like a roaring lion, is looking for someone to devour (1 Pet. 5:8). This truth must be instilled in all Christians of every rank, rank, gender and age, especially youth studying in various institutions. “Watch and pray, so that you do not fall into misfortune,” says the Lord to His disciples, and He says the same to us (Matthew 26:41). What are we doing? We doze and sleep. “As a sleeping man, his enemy came and all the tares in the midst of the wheat and went away” (Matthew 13:25). So Tolstoy diligently sows his chaff teaching in the field of Christian hearts. The Tolstoyans, as well as other heretics, schismatics, sectarians, and all Christians living wickedly, rejected God’s covenant for themselves. What a covenant about the salvation of the human race through the incarnation, cross and death of the Son of God, a covenant about the need for repentance, communion of the Holy Mysteries, belonging to the one Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church, a covenant about the performers of the Christian sacraments - shepherds. All drunkards, adulterers, money lovers, and unrepentant people reject God’s covenant for themselves and perish. These thoughts brought tears to my eyes!... Writers of this world, ignorant of Divine things, come with confidence and learn from us, spiritual teachers: and we will teach you. But you will not go, you will push us away with contempt, you cannot be devoted to us, for we teach a teaching “not of this world,” not from your wisdom. “Who are we going to?” Peter asks himself with the other Apostles. “You have the words of eternal life (John 6:68). We have left everything behind and become dead in Your footsteps - what will happen to us? – (Matthew 19:27). The Lord promised them rebirth and eternal glory and power to judge all the tribes of Israel (Matthew 19:28). Tolstoyans! Where are you going with Count Tolstoy, your teacher? Does he have words of life? Are they not words of madness, unbelief, blasphemy, curses and death? What will happen to you in the end? Eternal damnation and destruction! Tolstoy, in his daring writings, dreams of striking Christianity and Christians, reducing them to insignificance with his daring denial and ridicule - the contents of St. by the universal Church is Christianity, which is glorified by God with eternal, unfading glory, which has demonstrated the greatest vitality, strength, and beneficence. But he mortally beats himself and his followers, for he has deprived himself and them; for, having rejected the Savior, these heretics no longer have a sacrifice for sin, but a certain terrible expectation of judgment and the jealousy of fire, wanting to consume their opponents (Heb. 10:27). Do the proud Tolstoyans think about this? “Vengeance is mine,” says the Lord, “I will repay.” (Rom.12:19). O Christ God, how long will Leo Tolstoy mock You and Your Church? How long will Russia and Europe be seduced? Again he writes blasphemy against the Church and its ministers, again he slanderes us to the whole world! “Finally, Vladyka, show the whole world his hellish malice!” Wake up! He is carried away by the beauty and destruction of half the world. - Oh, forerunner of the Antichrist! Do you, Orthodox Christians, want to know what I think about Leo Tolstoy? And this is what I think and say: he declared war on the Orthodox Church and all Christianity. And just as the Lucifer and Satan with his ridge rejected the third part of the stars of heaven, i.e. angels, and made them like-minded with himself, so our Leo, the son of disobedience, carrying his spirit within himself, with his “roar and tail” (Rev. 12:4) also rejected almost a third part of the Russian intelligentsia, especially from youth, following himself, following his godless teaching, his lack of faith. – His godless printed works testify to this. Do they gather grapes from thorns and figs from thorns? By their fruits you will know them, says the Lord (Luke 6:44). The thorn of Russia and the entire Christian world is the Russian Count Tolstoy, a former novelist, and then an impostor theologian, who has no understanding of theology, who dressed up in the clothes of a peasant in order to make fun of his and Russia’s faith and to more conveniently attract both a Russian and a short-sighted foreigner to his side, to the way of his thoughts, and more conveniently to pour out his heretical poison into their souls. Is there any father, says the Lord as an example, who, when his son asks for a fish, would give him a snake (Matthew 7:9) - Tolstoy does exactly this. He offers a snake instead of fish to his family, to all of Russia, and to Christians of all countries and languages. He wants to wrest from everyone faith in the Savior, faith in the Trinity, in the Church and in all the saving truths that St. taught us to believe. Church, and without which it is impossible for any sane person to live. Thus, according to the godless article published by Leo Tolstoy (in London) at the beginning of November 1902, entitled: “Appeal to the Clergy,” one can see a true Russian novelist, capable of writing only novels with an apt analysis of everyday human life and human passions; but at the same time, to the marrow of the bones, imbued with conceit and pride, lordly arrogance and hatred of everything that bears the stamp of faith in Christ and in the Church, with devilish malice towards the clergy. The entire essay consists of preconceived false opinions about the clergy and their activities. Tolstoy wants to destroy faith in everything holy, mysterious, in that by which a person lives, is saved, consoled, strengthened in spirit and body; everything that bears the stamp of immutable truth: - faith in the Trinity God, in the creation of the world, in the redemption of humanity by the Son of God - he rejects all this as a fairy tale, subjects it to ridicule and wants to reinterpret all Christian dogmas in his own way, believes only in his own mind, ascribes to himself alone the discovery of the truth and only recognizes himself as a teacher. But, alas, all his positions are false, and therefore all his conclusions are false. Tolstoy thinks, speaks and writes on the basis of atheism and complete denial of everything sacred that bears the stamp of God's revelation; pride, conceit, self-adoration, contempt for God Himself and the Church - this is its fundamental basis; he has no other reason. Before us is a sophist, and he can easily distract those ignorant of the truths of faith, those who have not experienced the saving faith of Christ, from the true faith and lead them into destructive unbelief. In slandering the Church, Tolstoy wants to find self-justification and praise for himself as a true hero of truth, and wants to distract everyone from the Church, just as Satan separated a third of the angels from God. Before writing a refutation of this work by Tolstoy, you need to know (analyze) the state of Tolstoy’s soul in which he writes his deliberate lies, which he strives to give the appearance of truth. Under the vivid impression of excommunication from the Church, he decided to throw as much dirt as possible at it, and all the sacred scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, all the services, all the sacraments, and especially the clergy of all churches. Tolstoy, having distorted the meaning of the Gospel, distorted the meaning of the Old Testament and conveys the distorted events in a mocking tone, undermining all respect for the Holy Scriptures in the readers; He boldly mocks everything that is dear to a Christian, which he is accustomed to look at from childhood with deep reverence and love, as the Word of God. Tolstoy transfers his abuse to the clergy, to the Church, to St. The Scripture of the V. and N. Testaments and on the Lord Himself, and says: was there such a harmful book in the world that did so much evil as the book of the V. and N. Testaments... This directly applies to Tolstoy’s works, it was not more harmful than them; The Renans, Buchners, Schopenhauers, Voltaires are nothing in comparison with our godless Russian Tolstoy. What Tolstoy wrote in his “Appeal” is, from a Christian point of view, pure madness. Is it possible to speak with an insane person who has lost common sense, sound faith, who denies the generally accepted living and life-giving truth, who denies that A is A, or - two times two is four, who does not recognize Alpha and Omega - with a person who recognizes the human mind, clouded and perverted by sin, as the starting point of faith and knowledge? Impossible! This is exactly what Count Leo Tolstoy is, rejecting the revealed Word of God - the Bible and the Gospel and placing his short-sighted, perverted mind as the starting point of all knowledge, superior to the Bible and the Gospel, considering the Bible and the Gospel to be a fairy tale, like the lives of saints. In the field of religion, Tolstoy showed all his mental dullness, all his groveling on the earth, all his mental pettiness, which could not rise even a little to the height of religious contemplation. “If you do not believe, you will not understand,” says the Lord. Tolstoy, who rejected faith in Revelation, in God, truly lost the opportunity to understand the works of God's wisdom. How could Leo Tolstoy write his last dirty work against the true, holy, apostolic, saving, God-glorified Church with countless signs and wonders, and hitherto glorified by Him? Yes, he could, but only with a complete loss of Christian conscience. In Tolstoy’s essay “Address to the Clergy” all lies and slander are shameless, blatant, and from the main false provisions, as I have already said, he draws false conclusions; in a word, in Tolstoy’s work the truth is perverted, the highest dogmas, indisputable, saving, are presented in a mocking, ironic tone; Tolstoy does not believe in the truths revealed by God Himself and necessary for the salvation of every person, but believes only in human reason and in the perfection of man by his own strength, without the grace of God. It is necessary that everyone, even those who do not believe in Christ and the Holy Trinity and in the sacraments of the Christian faith, treat persons and objects of faith honestly because faith is the heartfelt, precious treasure of countless people of every language, nation, every rank and status, and not in a swinish way, like Leo Tolstoy, and who among Christians is indifferent to those who blaspheme Christ, or the Holy Trinity, sincerely revered by the chosen people of all centuries, of all nations, title and status - he is unworthy of the title of man, and this is precisely Tolstoy and the Tolstoyans, who treat like swine the invaluable, dearest Name of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Holy Trinity, the Mother of God, and their venerable images and all the Saints. Someone will say that to scold in print a person who has been given freedom of speech and the press and who writes and publishes whatever comes to his mind is indecent and should not be done. And I will ask Tolstoy and his minions: to blaspheme the highest Names of the Trinity, Christ, the Mother of God and Saints, Holy miraculous icons and relics and to seduce Orthodox and non-Orthodox people - do you think it is possible? Yes, what kind of punishment according to the law should Tolstoy’s blasphemous tongue and his hand writing blasphemous words be subject to? According to scripture: whoever sins in any way is tormented by it. Tolstoy blasphemes with impunity, and is also revered as a famous old man, as a great writer, as a well-born count, and is called Lev Nikolaevich; What is Lev Nikolaevich like? He is not worth the Christian name. Would a Jew, a sincere believer in Jehovah, tolerate someone who began to treat this Holy Name in an unworthy manner; or a Mohammedan - one who would begin to revile Mohammed in his ear, although Mohammed is not what and who he is revered by? And Tolstoy uncontrollably vilifies the Christian faith and its true holy and saving teaching and its holy and life-giving sacraments; - oh, villainy worthy of execution (ap. Jude 7–8)! Jewish and Roman laws executed blasphemers and therefore the Jews shouted to Pilate: “according to our law, Christ must die. He created for Himself the Son of God” (John 19:7) (although He is truly the Son of God), and Tolstoy, before all the Russian people and before all Christian Europe, blasphemes Christ, Who was revealed to be the Son of God in power, according to the spirit of holiness, from the resurrection from the dead; believed in the world, justified in the spirit, preached in the world, exalted in glory (1 Timothy 3:16). “With your mouth I will judge you, you wicked servant,” says the Lord in the Gospel (Luke 19:22), and I will say, with your denials I will reject you, Leo Tolstoy, and I will turn your blasphemies on you. Tolstoy perverted the whole meaning of Christianity, he understood everything inside out, for everything can be perverted by the evil mind and human heart, calling light darkness and darkness light, sweet bitter and bitter sweet; the beautiful is ugly and vice versa; in the likeness of the ancient sophists, Tolstoy rejects the entire Creed, does not believe in the Trinity, nor in the incarnation, nor in the miracles of Christ, nor in His redemptive suffering, nor in the resurrection, nor in the ascension to heaven, nor in the second coming of Christ, nor in the future judgment, nor in the Church, nor in baptism, nor in the resurrection of the dead, nor in the future life. He wants people not to believe the Word of God, but to believe him, the self-proclaimed teacher Tolstoy, or to believe only human reason, perverted, darkened, blind, myopic. Why believe Tolstoy? What an authority he is! Who knows the blindness of the human mind: how people were mistaken before Christ came to earth, what was the darkness of ignorance of the true God, the darkness of idols. What light of reason shone with the coming of Christ to earth? What light there is in the Gospel! Leo Tolstoy tends all his blasphemous reasoning to convince, albeit short-sighted and self-important people, that in our knowledge and scientific research the head is our mind and the measure of its understanding, and what he does not understand, even if it were the highest and incomprehensible object of our faith - the Lord God - he should not accept and should not believe in that, as it does not fit the standard of reason, and that a person can achieve perfection without the help of God (he doesn’t believe in God), with his own mind. But Tolstoy himself showed to what extent such a person can reach: with his darkness from pride and self-conceit, his mind reached absurd and senseless positions - to disbelief in the Personal God, God in the Trinity (Mark 1:10), in the creation of the world from nothing, in the creation of man in the image and likeness of God (Gen. 1:27), in the initial test commandment of the Creator or the Creator’s entry into a covenant with a verbal creature, rationally free, in need of a covenant and its observance - into the free fall of man and the daring destruction of the covenant and his integrity of soul and body, his world and blissful state; into the necessity of the redemption of the God-Man, into the promises and prophecies about Him in the books of the Law of Moses, into the coming of the promised Savior. His preaching and all redemptive work. Tolstoy came to the point of rejecting the absolute necessary all-saving truths, and will perish forever. This is a lesson to everyone who trusts too much in their own minds and does not trust the testimony of the Truth itself, Jesus Christ Himself, who taught us the true teaching about the Trinity, the creation of the world and man, about temptation and the fall, about the need for repentance, communion of the Holy Mysteries, about the resurrection of the dead, about judgment and eternal torment and the kingdom of heaven. Tolstoy does not believe in the damage, corruption of the human race and every person at the very root (Adam and Eve), in the depths of his being, that man on his own without God’s help cannot achieve any virtue, that all his efforts in this kind without God’s help are in vain, “without Me, it is said, you cannot do anything” (John 15:5) - but believe, contrary to the truth and the everlasting common experience, that man himself can achieve perfection with the help of modern science. Tolstoy is dangerously, disastrously mistaken and misleading youth and humanity in general not established in the faith, leading them away from the Church, which has the true mind of God, for it is said - “we are the mind of Christ imams” (1 Cor. 2:16), and imposing his lies on them and calling it the true teaching. In the work of L. Tolstoy, there is a logical lie: the basis is false, and the consequences are false. The proposal is false that the universal symbol of faith is false (originating from the Spirit of Truth), that St. The Trinity is not the Trinity, that God cannot be alone in the Trinity, the proposal is false that the Son of God was not incarnate and was not the Savior of the human race: not incarnate, not baptized, not suffering, not dying, not resurrected, not ascending to heaven, will not come to judge, that there will be no resurrection, no second coming; it is false that there is no third person - the Holy Spirit, that the Church is not true, but false, etc. – all these proposals are false and all conclusions are false; it is a lie that the dogmas of faith are taught at an age at which children do not understand anything, that it is in vain to teach them nonsense, as if they were fairy tales, or that it is in vain to teach ordinary people who do not understand anything, or who have no time to do this; the proposition that the Bible is a fairy tale, the Gospel is also false, the proposition is false that God, afraid to speak out, is angry (being righteously angry is another matter), that He is unjust; The premises are also false, as if there will be no retribution, there will be no eternal torment for unrepentant sinners. It is also false that the Church and the clergy preach lies and absurdity. Tolstoy, indeed, preaches an obvious lie and one cannot listen to him; believing him as a malicious liar is disastrous. He is a deliberate, malicious liar and what he claims about the objects of our faith is all false. In Tolstoy's head there is no alpha or omega, no intelligent personal Creator, no creature, no sin, no virtue, no fall, no uprising of man, no Savior, no being saved; no connection in the world and the human race, neither historical, nor logical, nor objective, true chaos in everything. He does not recognize the priesthood, the revealed legend about the beginning of the world and man and the life of the human race before the flood and after the flood, he does not believe in the legend about the flood and the life of people after the flood; does not see the purpose of the flood, does not recognize the moral law and the Lawgiver and Judge of the human race and each person individually; he rejects everything, considers everything to be a fairy tale: the connection of the Old Testament with the New and the wise, righteous and all-good destinies of God in the human race, - the gradual preparation of people to accept the promised Messiah - Savior through promises, prophecies and transformations - the coming into the world of the promised Savior, His seedless birth from the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary, in a word, rejects the God-manhood of Christ and everything tenets of the Christian faith. With such an unbeliever, who has blinded himself voluntarily, it is impossible to talk seriously about anything sacred. “No one knows the Son except the Father, nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and to him if the Son wills to be revealed” (Matthew 11:27), we read in St. Gospels. Without the revelation of God, the fallen human mind cannot comprehend the mystery of the Holy Trinity. And God reveals this secret to believers in the simplicity of their hearts; it is only possible to reveal this incomprehensible nature. Tolstoy, due to his pride, cunning and lack of faith, has not discovered this secret and he does not believe it and mocks it. He, in his blasphemous brochure, everything that is dear, holy, righteous, consoling, saving, enlightening - everything that lives, breathes, strengthens the Christian soul, takes everything away and gives nothing in place of what was taken away, and leaves the soul in chaos, emptiness, darkness, in a state of inconsolability and hopelessness. This is free madness; He, Tolstoy, has a violation of all the laws of thinking - all truth and righteousness, he has a satanic lie, full of shamelessness, cunningly woven, mocking our sacred things. Tolstoy, in his Appeal, boldly challenges popes, cardinals, bishops, superintendents, priests, pastors and the entire Christian clergy to competition with him and denounces all of them in tendentious lies and deceit; he claims that only he, Tolstoy, has the truth; that he and only he has the true mind, from him you only need to learn the truth - that the whole Bible, the whole Gospel is a lie, that all church history, all church teaching, all councils, all denunciations, all canons of ecumenical and local councils and St. fathers - deliberate deception. Dear sirs and gracious madams, male and female sex of the Christian race! Tolstoy wants to fool you all. But we are of sound mind, in common sense, our entire life, our heart assures us that we know the truth, that we have found the true faith and are saved by it, we are comforted by it, and by the hope of life in the next century. - How will this impostor Tolstoy assure us that the truth is on his side? No, Tolstoy is a complete ignoramus when it comes to religion. He does not know the wise plan of the divine economic salvation of the human race, does not allow the fall of the first people into sin and does not believe in the corruption and darkening of the entire human race by sin, does not believe in God’s nurturing of fallen humanity over the course of thousands of years and its redemption by the incarnate Son of God, and everything that Tolstoy rejects, namely, the religious education of children and their knowledge of the history of the Old and New Testaments, is especially necessary, both for Tolstoy, and for all children, and he, Tolstoy, does not know this, this, this necessary, this Christian alphabet and is a religious ignoramus, although one cannot help but recognize him as a novelist, and at the same time a clever well-known talker who knows how to compose beautiful in appearance and captivate the short-sighted in anti-theological networks. Here you can’t talk to Tolstoy, as if he were a madman with an idée fix; he believes only in himself and in people like himself with preconceived thoughts like him; here he has a devilish incorrigible pride, and he will die with it. Weigh their destinies, You Yourself, long-suffering Lord, save this darkened one! I have already said that Tolstoy breathes an irreconcilable hatred of the Church and its organs - the clergy; does not recognize their divine right to teach, perform sacred acts, and lead the verbal flock entrusted to them towards virtue and towards God - he rejects the truth and salvific value of their teaching; does not recognize the teachings of the Church as revealed by God; recognizes the absurd equality of all people, does not allow the subordination of the younger to the elders, subordinate to the authorities, loyal subjects to the Tsar, in a word - produces some kind of turmoil and confusion in everything, and, rejecting everything, instead of what was rejected, he gives nothing, leaving people only reason, which is so known for its absurd errors through all the past millennia, and asserting that people can reach perfection with their reason. So Tolstoy reached the point of absurdity, to unheard-of pride and insolence, rejecting all the revealed, saving, Christian teaching and the Church founded by God on earth. Tolstoy is unheard of pride and insolence embodied. He humiliates all popes, cardinals, metropolitans, bishops, superintendents, pastors and priests and judges them, and makes himself the judge of all; denounces everyone as false preachers and teachers, deceivers who preach what they themselves do not believe in, and only pretend to believe. This is, as they say, from a sore head to a healthy one. And how many sincere believers are there among clergy of other faiths, not to mention the members of the Orthodox clergy? Excommunicated from the Church, Tolstoy hated her and her ministers even more. Leo Tolstoy mocks all Christian beliefs, insults Christians of all ages, mocks all the holy patriarchs, prophets, apostles, saints, martyrs, saints and saints, and the very Matter of God, more honorable than the Cherubim and more glorious beyond comparison than the Seraphim, over the entire Christian worldview. Leo Tolstoy is the most evil and impudent heretic of all former heretics. All St. The Gospel, the entire Orthodox Christian faith and the Church bear within themselves the proof of their origin from God, and in them lies “her and amen” - they are spirit and life. “Do you want to depart from Me” (John 6:67), the Lord God asked His disciples, when many of them, tempted by His teaching, apparently incompatible with their concepts and habits, left Him. And Peter answered: “Who should we go to? You have the words of eternal life." So we, too, having experienced all the vitality, all the soul-saving sweetness of our faith and church, say with complete confidence, with complete conviction of our hearts: to whom will we go except You, Lord? – You have the verbs of eternal life. Only You have the source of life, only in Your light will we see the light, and besides You we will not find it in anyone, and, of course, even less so in Leo Tolstoy, wandering, mired in the impenetrable darkness of delusions. Two words about the need to teach children sacred history. The teaching about the right saving faith, about the fall of the first people, about the corruption of the sins of the entire human race, about the redemptive work of the Savior are necessary in the most accessible form for everyone, and especially for children. The first thing that needs to be instilled in children is the doctrine of God the Creator and Savior, and this is what our atheist does not allow. Count Tolstoy is an example of complete lack of education in the Christian sense, a spoiled gentleman even in infancy; Not everyone can be brought up in the manner of this favorite of fate, born in a shirt, in a noble and rich house; not everyone can be a count, with his remarkable mind, which would be worthy of better activity; not everyone should write the notorious novels “War and Peace” and “Anna Karenina”, which, in fact, humanity could easily do without and not feel the slightest need for them, but teach children in a simple, accessible form the biblical and church history about God in the Trinity glorified as the Creator of the world and man, and the common Provider and Savior of all, about the creation of man and all creatures, about the Fall man and the hereditary sinful corruption of the entire human race, about the appearance of the promised Savior in the world, about His life, teaching, miracles, about His saving suffering for us, atoning death, His resurrection from the dead - there is a necessity and a common need for all Christian children - and precisely because Leo Tolstoy was not taught these elementary Christian truths, he came out so angry, roaring at the faith and the Church of Christ, a lion, looking for someone to devour (and, unfortunately, swallowed many). If we do not teach children from a tender age the teachings of faith and the fear of God, - and in them, due to the general sinful corruption of the human race, all sorts of sinful instincts will develop and strengthen - anger, caprice, willfulness, disobedience, disobedience, envy, pride, laziness towards prayers and piety, coldness towards God and the Church of God, lies, deception, cunning and deceit, carnal secrets sins and the like. What will come of them? What children, what fathers and mothers, what sons of the fatherland, subjects and servants of the tsar, what defenders of the fatherland, what writers, what loyal officials and bodies of various administrative departments, what farmers, what artisans? People without the fear of God, without conscience, without civic honesty and loyalty, with all sorts of bad inclinations. Only faith and fear of God keep a person at the height of his Christian and civil dignity; take away his faith and fear of God and you will not see anywhere honest, selfless people, people of duty, honest service, devoted to the Tsar and the Fatherland; the prisons will be filled with all sorts of criminals, and you will prepare the fall of society and the state. Truth exalts the people and the sins of the tribes diminish, says the Wise. In his pride and free-thinking, Tolstoy rejects and destroys two divine Testaments - the Old and the New, and all the advice of God about the salvation of the human race was neglected and put into nothing, and he despised all the wise, all the good and righteous views of God about us, as if they did not exist. And therefore God will destroy you completely and destroy your memory from the land of the living... You say, Tolstoy, that children should not be taught the law of God and that they do not supposedly understand the works of God; but they are wiser than you, for it is said: “Out of the mouth of babes and those who piss, you have perfected praise” (Matthew 21:16). The Pharisees and scribes blasphemed the Lord, just as you do now, Leo Tolstoy, but the kindly children praised them wisely and sincerely. What do you say to this, Tolstoy? Or will you say that these are fairy tales, nothing more than fables? Yes? From the blasphemous writings of Count Tolstoy it is clear that the all-saving Christian faith did not in the least touch his proud, unbelieving heart, did not have any beneficial effect on him, and he remained a true atheist. “Thou hast hidden this from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed it (the mystery of faith) to infants” (Matthew 11:25). Tolstoy mocks the Holy Scripture of the Old and New Testaments, which is an immutable shrine for all Christian peoples, and at teaching it to children or the common people, who supposedly do not understand this story, although this is absurd, and he himself preaches nonsense and nonsense and wants his nonsense, his godless thoughts to be memorized by children and common people, and thus everyone would become atheists and moral savages, worse than the ancient and modern pagans who bow to a piece of wood, or make sacrifices to idols, as if all their well-being depends on them (idols). – Tolstoy laughs at the Russian people in the most base way, wanting to lead everyone into a state of savagery and distract everyone from their forefathers’, saving faith, in a word, he wants to lead everyone with him to hell, thinking: perish, so everyone perish, and not me alone. Your Excellency, it’s better to go alone on your broad road, leading to the bottom of hell. Why lead others? After all, there are already many, many like you. Wide is the gate that leads to destruction, and many follow you through it. Tolstoy rejects the Old Testament and the prophets, while the fulfillment of the prophecies on Jesus Christ irrefutably proves His divine-human dignity and the saving power of the faith of Christ and the church planted by Him on earth; in a word, Tolstoy rejects everything, both the Old Testament and the New Testament, and, given false provisions, draws false conclusions. Tolstoy rejects the beginning of all things - the Word of God the Father, the Son of God, in Whom all things were, Who is Alpha and Omega - the beginning and the end (Rev. 1:8). Tolstoy, denying the Personal Trinitarian God, all-good, beginningless, ever-present, all-wise, righteous, holy, blessed, all-perfect, omnipotent, allows only the mysterious, impersonal principle that gave life to man (it’s strange how an impersonal being gave rise to the personal - this is Tolstoy’s absurdity), not allowing His justice, which should punish the impudent detractors of His holiness and truth, for example the same Leo Tolstoy, proclaiming to the whole world that God is the author of evil. Man's destiny is eternal life with God and in God (Phil. 1:23); but God will not accept anyone into cohabitation with Him who does not repent and give up addiction to sin; “The wicked will not abide with Him; the wicked will remain lower before His eyes” (Ps. 5:5-6), says the Psalmist David. “What fellowship is light with darkness, righteousness with lawlessness” (2 Cor. 6:14). And as we are all sinners, we must all repent and hate sin and give up sin, and not work against sin. And in order to lag behind sin, not to work for sin, we received from God all sorts of powers and methods: free will, natural reason, conscience approving good and condemning evil; the special grace of God in baptism, confirmation, repentance and communion; we have a God-given fast; touching, conducive to repentance, divine service; the living and active Word of God; teachings of shepherds; civil laws that promote the correct flow of public life. So, God will not accept anyone with sin. This we all must firmly remember; no proud person, no unbeliever, like L. Tolstoy or the Tolstoyans, no one given over to envy, fornication, intemperance, gluttony and drunkenness, no thief, covetous and covetous person, no one given over to laughter, for it is said: “Woe to you who laugh, for you will mourn and weep” (Luke 7:25). Creation can exist and prosper in no other way than by firmly observing the laws of the Creator. Look at nature, at the sky, the sun, the moon and the stars, at the earth, at all creation, how it accurately observes the laws of the Creator. Leo Tolstoy rejected the Creator and crossed out the word creature from the Russian language, because he does not recognize that creatures are creatures created by a personal rational Principle. The height of Tolstoy’s audacity lies in the fact that, in view of his imminent death, he is not afraid of God and His judgment and considers himself right, like his disciples, and does not impose any measure on his blasphemy; to blaspheme, to blaspheme to the end, to be mad, to be mad to the end! Heroism is purely satanic, and even to a superlative degree, for Satan himself fears God and trembles at the torment prepared for him, and his disciple has surpassed his teacher. – Here is the ending of “War and Peace” and “Anna Karenina” and other writings of Leo Tolstoy! What exalted pride! Know our Lion, who came out of Yasnaya Polyana and roared loudly not only to the entire clearing, but to the whole world. Strong mouth; powerful nerves. And this is on the edge of the coffin! And what will happen after the grave? All hell will awaken. All the pharaohs will rise and the Rephaim will wake up; all the Nero, Cliguli, Decii, Domitians, Julians - all persecutors of Christ and Christianity, and will say: ah, Russian Leo of the last times; You have far surpassed us too: and from among Christians you have emerged the most arrogant and the most crafty persecutor of the Mother Church that raised you. Join us forever and drink the cup that you have prepared for yourself, burn in the unquenchable fire prepared for your father, the devil, whom you diligently served. “Whoever falls on a stone will be crushed, and if he falls on it, he will erase it” (Matthew 21:44). The unclean wave - Tolstoy - boldly attacked the indestructible Stone-Christ, and scattered in stinking splashes, sprinkling stinking mud on all his followers. Tolstoy's followers are all ungodly and non-communal - the so-called scientists of this century - freethinkers who consider themselves superhuman. And Tolstoy himself is the rotten fruit of Western free-thinking scholarship. The world lies in evil and barks at its God. A student of a real school is an unbeliever due to his reading of Tolstoy. The zemstvo school teacher is an unbeliever due to his passion for Tolstoy, but wants to be a believer. The poison of Tolstoy's teachings in families; mothers and fathers cry over their children who are unbelievers, who have abandoned the Church and who do not obey and do not honor their parents; girls - student students, non-believers and fighting for Tolstoy; employees of liberal newspapers, in the family of Astrakhan, taking up arms for Tolstoy and scolding us. You hid this from the wise and reasonable (Tolstoy and writers like him) and you revealed it as an infant. For such was my good pleasure in Your sight (Matthew 11:25). Woe to those who are wise in themselves and understanding before themselves. Has not God turned the wisdom of this world into foolishness (1 Cor. 1:20). For when the world did not understand God through its wisdom in the wisdom of God, God deigned to save those who believe by the violence of preaching (1 Cor. 1:21). In his vain wisdom, Tolstoy could not recognize God in His wisdom, but he became completely stupid, darkened, imagined himself to be wise, and became prouder than anyone who is said to be God or venerable, as if he should sit in the church of God as God, showing himself that God exists (2 Thess. 2:4), for, having rejected the Gospel, he forces everyone to believe in himself as God. Understand him, intellectuals: after all, first of all, he is fooling you, laughing at you. “Have you seen a wise man in his eyes? There is more hope in a fool than in him” (Proverbs 26:12). Leo Tolstoy, having spent his entire life studying exclusively secular literature, and spiritual literature only critically and skeptically, with biased methods not in favor and not in submission to the Word of God, but in arguing and blaspheming it, not knowing the real church services, fell into religious savagery, stupidity and thoughtlessness regarding everything spiritual, at the suggestion of the devil, he fell into disbelief, mockery of everything that bears the stamp of the church and the divine, over all worship, sacraments, rituals, sacred vestments (established by God in the Old Testament). So, all those who followed him in unbelief in the true God and in the Light of Christ, which enlightens every person coming into the world, intellectuals and secular writers fell into savagery and spiritual unthinking; for God hides His wisdom from the wise and prudent of this world, as unworthy, and reveals it to simple believing souls. Lord, who are we going to? Verbs of the belly of the eternal imashi. – There is no other name under heaven given among men, but through Him we must be saved... (Acts 4:12). This is the Lord of all. The only source of life is the Lord and His Church. To whom should we go, modern intellectuals ask? Let's go to Tolstoy, to Tolstoy, and they go to the current idol - Tolstoy, and from him, and not from Christ, from his blasphemies, intricacies, they learn life, blasphemy against the Holy Church and Her Saving Sacraments. – I was convinced of this myself. If anyone seduces one of these little ones, then, according to the word of the Divine Teacher, it would be better for him if they hung a millstone around his neck and threw him into the depths of the sea (Matthew 18:6). Leo Tolstoy has seduced and continues to seduce tens of thousands of people, printing and sending out his blasphemous writings in large numbers, with the aim of seducing especially young students, mainly those with secondary and higher education, and many young men and women have been poisoned by them! What, according to God’s justice, does our Russian heretic deserve, how many executions? And what do those who allow him to distribute his disastrous brochures and give him complete freedom to say whatever he wants deserve? Many will die through Tolstoy, who participated in his connivance. You, Leo Tolstoy, have many accomplices for your disastrous teaching. Firstly, the prince of darkness himself, who is the devil and Satan, who deceives the entire universe. Tolstoy does not believe in evil spirits, which he calls devils; and they taught him and continue to teach him from his youth to this day every sin, every lie and untruth; It was they who taught him to reject Revelation, God in the Trinity, Christ the Savior, the Church, the Mother of God, the Saints and to go against all truth; it is they who create all the chaos in his head; It is they who teach people every sin; It was from their lies that Christ came to save believing people, from the hell prepared for them and their servants; It is they who will meet Tolstoy after death, which awaits him impatiently, and they are greedily ready to seize Tolstoy and others like him with gnashing of teeth and terrible laughter. Hear all Christians! Secondly, your accomplices, Leo Tolstoy, are all like you, like Chertkov and many Russian retrainers like you and seduced by your senseless teaching. Thirdly, your old unclean rags, which you inherited from your father, help you - I mean that evil yeast on which you were conceived and formed into the type of person - that ugly moral development and the environment in which you grew up; the complete moral bad manners in which you grew up, the lack of faith and that churchlessness in which you grew up, the lack of faith and that churchlessness in which you lived and were self-willed. It is impossible for people who have not prepared themselves for it through faith, repentance, correction, and virtue to inherit the kingdom of God. Remember the parable of those invited to supper. – “Not one of those men was called to partake of My supper (Luke 14:24): for many are called, but few are chosen” (Matt. 22:1–14). Leo Tolstoy plays the mute game and goes against human common sense, against every logical law, just to pour out his bile on Christ, on the faith of Christ, on the church. How low and absurd he is in his reasoning. It is impossible to fall lower than this; it seems that there is no one more senseless than Tolstoy. Read his latest brochure impartially and see for yourself. What has the author of “War and Peace” come to? Entering a strange garden that was unfamiliar to him, he broke his neck and head. Then it reached the point of madness, to the point of absurdity! “He who rejects Me and does not accept My words has judgment for himself: the word that I have spoken will judge him at the last day” (John 12:48). Blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven to people. If anyone speaks a word against the Son of Man, it will be forgiven him, but if anyone speaks against the Holy Spirit, it will not be forgiven him, either in this age or in the next. Or recognize the tree as good and its fruit as good; or recognize the tree as bad and its fruit as bad; for a tree is known by its fruit. You spawn of vipers, how can you do good while being evil. For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. A good man brings forth good things from a good treasure; and an evil man brings forth evil from an evil treasure. I tell you that for every idle word that people say (or print, write), they will give an answer on the day of judgment (Matthew 12:31-36). Tolstoy blasphemes the Christian faith and the Church. But how does a person’s tongue rise to blaspheme what is true, beautiful, vital, saving? A tree is known by its fruits: what fruits has the Christian faith brought? The best fruits, as evidenced by the entire history of the church. Secular writers only look at the ground and do not raise their heart’s eye above the ground; but man was created primarily for heavenly things, and not only for earthly things, and his body and bodily eyes are turned to heaven. Worldly writers are too one-sided and incomplete, and when they want to talk about objects of faith, they mostly speak only to mock them and interpret them according to their one-sided, erroneous understanding, like Count Tolstoy and others like him. How is Tolstoy possible in our time? How can such a writer be possible? such a madman? such a repeat offender? How is such blasphemy against everything sacred that a person values ​​more than his life possible? Who is this Tolstoy, who dictatorially judges everyone and places himself above the general court, attributing to himself, as it were, divine infallibility! Who is this one who boldly encroaches with his judgment on the sound, right, pure meaning of everything chosen, wise by God and the pure, high life of humanity and laughing at immutable truths, generally proven, life-giving, solid, like an immovable rock and like a pillar firmly erected! This is a man who is not at all spiritually educated, a proletarian of thought and moral instability from his very youth, as he himself admits, a man completely ignorant of religious truths, a nihilist to the core, not believing in anyone or anything except himself, as a Russian count, a famous writer; he claims, for example, that Russia should not fight with anyone and shed anyone’s blood, except in the case when the robbers attack him, Count Tolstoy, or Yasnaya Polyana - then the government must defend the Polyana by force of arms and shed soldiers’ blood so that the count’s blood is not shed on Yasnaya Polyana, since it always had the appearance and property of a clear, and not a gloomy, clearing. Do you think that the count named Tolstoy, who thinks like this, is in his right mind? You don't blame me for this irony; I don’t want to be ironic at all, but his words themselves call for it; I only speak the truth. Didn't Tolstoy just lose sight of the laws of common thinking! Apparently so, Lev Nikolaevich! However, you are joking too much at the expense of common human sense. Have mercy, with your lion's paw you hit the faces of popes, cardinals, pastors, priests, and all of them, in your opinion, are deceivers, scoundrels, but you are a righteous, sincere person, supposedly telling the truth to all clergy, rulers, and superiors. Well, if you are smart and not crazy, then you should be judged most severely for this abuse of persons respected in rank (it is not your business to judge them for their deeds, you are not called to do that): you laugh publicly and think to go unpunished! No, this can't be! You will suffer severe punishment - you are seducing not just one of the small ones, but all Christian peoples, accustomed by divine right to look at these faces with respect. According to the scripture, you should hang a stone around your neck and lower it into the depths of the sea; you should have no place on earth. Think about it, a well-fed and carefree rich Russian count wants to wrest from all Russians and even the French, Italians, Germans, Austrians and even the British faith in the Savior of sinners, who has the words of eternal life, in the Doctor of all weak believing humanity, in the unsetting Sun of Truth, in the Only Comforter of all sorrowing believers. – The Russian people and the entire intelligentsia, and all Christian humanity! Find out by the fruits presented to you by L. Tolstoy! What is his teaching, what is this teacher. - Son of Gehenna! Don’t laugh, Count and all Tolstoyans, at this terrible word - you will soon get enough of it and plunge into it for all (if you do not repent) of eternity; the count wants to draw everyone into it, like Satan, to deprive everyone of Him who alone can deliver from it, as it is said: fear Him who, after killing, can lead you into the wilds of fire; I tell you, fear Him (Matthew 10:28). And so, by the fruits of this atheist, this scolder of all Christian humanity, you will know who he is. This is the Antichrist, this is the beast that came out of the abyss (Rev. 11:7), with ten horns (Rev. 13:1), butting on all four sides, on all the countries of the world, so that, if possible, he could bring at least some into it with him for all eternity. “If the count had tasted at least a little of the fruits of Christ’s faith, he would never have mocked her and us like that, but he, apparently, was not even an hour a true Christian and was always an atheist.” I can’t help but wonder how this snake, full of deadly poison, could appear in Russia - marvel at heaven, marvel at all the Angels of God and all the Holy Men, how could the Russian count become a vessel of Satan and accept into himself all the fullness of him, all his apostasy from God, all his enmity against God and those who believe in God. Just as the ancient sophists and philosophers turned the gift of the word, which was supposed to express the truth, into a play on words, calling white black and black white, or calling virtue sin and sin virtue, so Leo Tolstoy lost all respect for the word and for truth, and truth, and turned his writing talent into play with words, moreover, into the most impudent, satanic blasphemy; and even surpassed Satan himself: for Satan believes in God and trembles at Him (James 2:19), and the demons believed in Jesus Christ and loudly recognized Him as the Son of God (Luke 4:34), and Tolstoy does not believe in the Son of God and laughs at the truth of the Gospel. The Church continually blesses the Lord, the Creator, the Provider and the Savior and the Righteous Judge day and night, and Leo Tolstoy dares to blaspheme Him in his writings, calling Him cruel and the culprit of - terrible to say - terrible signs in people. - Hear, Orthodox people. These are the original words of Tolstoy, I borrowed them from his printed sheets published in England by Chertkov, a Russian renegade, a renegade. – Tell me, has L. Tolstoy gone mad? Books by V. and N. He considers the Testament lower than any fairy tales, calls them immoral fairy tales and teaching them to children is a crazy, immoral thing, and calls himself a great true teacher. What a godless, atheist and antichrist teacher! How it hurts your heart when in your eyes they revile the shrine with which you live and breathe, you have been consoled since your youth - they revile that which constitutes a shrine for Christian humanity of all centuries, for which countless hosts of martyrs, saints, saints and all saints, in general the best and noblest of people, suffered with joy, which constitutes the immutable truth by which the mind and heart and the whole being of man are enlightened, nourished and strengthened a sincere believer? And Leo Tolstoy, like a pig (sorry for the word), tramples all this underfoot, in front of all Christians. – The pagan writers Celsus and Porphyry did not swear at the Christian faith as much as Leo Tolstoy swears. The Yasnaya Polyana count is in the great delusion of self-delusion, seriously thinking that he is right. Oh, how Satan blinded him for his pride and arrogance! And how many people fell into deception through him! How rapidly the animal instincts develop and demand satisfaction among the atheists and churchless Tolstoyans, and how the old man, whom the Church teaches every Christian to put aside, acts ungodly in them; Meanwhile, they (the atheists) will follow him and fulfill his lusts! - Convert them and enlighten them, Lord, and put Your light into them, if they are able to accept it, before the darkness of hell completely covers them. Like the branches of a living tree (Universal Symbol of Faith), Tolstoy cut with his daring pen all the members of the Christian Creed, and wants frantically, madly wants to deprive humanity and especially the Christian world of saving faith, which gives every sincere believer the greatest consolation and support in all the difficulties and sorrows of life. If you transgress in another way (illegally), that thief is also a robber (John 10:1). Tolstoy invades the sheepfold of the Orthodox Church by underground means, printing his blasphemous writings abroad in England, and distributing them in Russia by the tens of thousands. This is a real thief and robber. By its fruits every believer can know that he is exactly like this. They do not gather figs from thorn trees and do not gather grapes from bushes (Luke 6:44). Tolstoy is in an impenetrable mental fog, or in darkness and the shadow of death - and this is in the middle of a sunny Gospel day - and wants to bring this fog, this shadow of death, over everyone. He does not recognize revelations, does not believe in the inspiration of Holy Scripture and considers it a fairy tale, church history too: - he considers all revealed teaching to be a lie, and he considers himself alone, his reason, his word - his word alone as the truth (his roars, his writings). He does not believe that A is A, and teaches that all those professing the Christian faith are lost, deceived, or self-deceived, that they are victims of hypnosis, that they need to awaken in order to recognize Tolstoy’s nonsense, and, according to his concept, the truth - in order to honor the human pseudo-philosophical mind and the romantic nonsense of scientific infidels as the source of perfection. And demons believe in God and tremble (James 2:19), but Tolstoy does not believe in God, but only in a mysterious, impersonal principle; and in his speculations he reaches the point of absurdity. What is his intention in his waste papers, which breathe his extreme hatred against the Church? – To shake the Church at its foundation, destroying the faith of Christians in the Bible and the Gospel, in the Divine Service and the Sacraments, and in the grace of the priesthood. Tolstoy blasphemes the Christian faith and its servants in every possible way, not knowing and not wanting to know its righteous and impartial history; vilifies it as if it had been recently composed by some ordinary person for his own selfish purposes. To know any ordinary secular institution, one must know its real history, origin, and then judge it correctly; Meanwhile, Tolstoy does not want to know the history of the faith and the Church of Christ or does not trust it and sins against the laws of reason and justice and wants to see in the faith of Christ only lies and deception and even nonsense and a complete contradiction of human reason. Now I pose the following question: in order to correctly recognize the psychological and literary personality of Tolstoy, is it not necessary to turn to the past of his life, to his previous works, in which his mental make-up and his worldview are visible, from which his last blasphemous works degenerated? Yes, it is necessary to know Tolstoy’s former life, which he himself described in his pseudonym. And what do we see from it? We see his complete unsuitability and inability for religious thoughts and writings, his complete ignorance of the faith of Christ, the teachings of the faith, the history of Christian saints and saving dogmas, and the history of the Church; he was only capable of writing: “War and Peace”, “Anna Karenina” and other similar novels - and it was not his business to interpret the Gospel and understand it according to his worldly view. Tolstoy, as a spiritual man, and not a spiritual one, does not accept what is from the Spirit of God, therefore he considers it madness, and cannot understand, because this must be judged spiritually (1 Cor. 2:14). Tolstoy does not believe in a personal, holy, righteous and righteously punishing God of sinners and therefore curses Him when he reads or hears about His righteous punishment of sinners, and considers the Old Testament executions of the wicked to be an expression of His cruelty and malice. Let the tongue of the one who roars at God Himself perish. Rotten idol, do you really dream that everyone will listen to your rotten, arrogant speeches? Whether you sit down, whether you go out, whether you go in, I know everything, I know your insolence against Me. Because of your insolence against Me, and because your arrogance has reached My ears, I will put My ring in your nostrils and My bit in your mouth, like a horse (Is. 37:28). The Bible teaches us through its divinely inspired writers, especially through the prophets, that God is the Creator, Provider and righteous and long-suffering Judge of all nations of the earth and all kingdoms of men and punishes one people through another. Tolstoy does not recognize this, he does not recognize a personal God, but some mysterious, impersonal principle, indifferent to everyone and everything, and to Tolstoy himself. The Yasnaya Polyana heretic forgot or lost sight of the law of causes and actions in world actions and phenomena and allowed chaos in world history: thus, he does not recognize the creation of the world as a personal, all-wise, beginningless, all-good and all-powerful Creator - His covenant with rational creatures, violation of the covenant, definition of punishment, curse, expulsion from paradise, labor by the sweat of the brow, impoverishment of the gifts of nature, possession of people the devil, deprivation of the inner kingdom of God, darkening of the mind, weakness of man's will for good, ignorance of the true God, desire for evil, serving the creature instead of the Creator; - sorrows, illnesses, temporary and eternal death, the promise of the Savior under the name of the Seed of the woman, prophecy about Him, His prototypes - various and numerous, the fulfillment of the promise of God, the coming of the Savior, temptation in the desert from the devil, the Gospel sermon about repentance, the baptism of the Redeemer for us, the teaching of Him and the apostles, various miracles, the foundation of the Church on the rock that is Christ, the transfiguration, suffering, cross and death of the Savior for the sake of victory over death, His resurrection, stay on earth for forty days and the appearance of the Risen One to the disciples and many believers and the ascension of Jesus Christ into heaven. Tolstoy lost sight of all this, moreover, he does not admit it and, in self-delusion, dreams that he made an amazing discovery in the world - in the field of thought and faith, such a discovery that no one had ever reached before him - and that he only, having, as it were, a colossal mind, discovered something that his people, creeping on the earth, were never supposed to be able to discover. Colossal madness! Wild madness! Tolstoy built all his false thinking out of thin air, without any sufficient foundation, and all his wisdom is castles in the air, immediately disappearing with the correct illumination of the mind and the Word of God. Tolstoy does not believe in the Word of God, does not believe in the Church, in its teachings and sacraments, in its all-saving, all-pacifying worship, and together with his followers perishes in his apostasy, in his pride, in his unbelief, in his lawless, vicious life. If Tolstoy and the Tolstoyans are afraid of the eternal misfortune that awaits them after death, then they must immediately return to the path of truth, the true faith from which they have fallen and heartily repent of their passion for the teaching of Antichrist. It is a great misfortune to live without guidance and maternal nourishment for lost children, without the light of truth, which only the saint possesses. The Church and which she alone sheds on all who believe in her and are devoted to her sincerely, humbly, without proud inquisitiveness and daring questioning. The mystery of God is hidden from those who pretend to be wise and reasonable and is revealed to simple, uncunning, unproud minds and hearts. L. Tolstoy rises up in especially disgusting abuse in his last works against the great sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ - for he does not know what he is doing (Luke 22:34) ... Since sin and corruption entered human nature through disobedience, through eating of the forbidden fruit, for which reason it was subjected to death and slavery of the devil; then truth, incorruption and life were to be realized again in people who believed and were obedient to the Word of God through eating the fruit of life, that is, the most pure Body and Blood of Christ the Giver of Life (John 6:54), God and Man, who fulfilled for us all the righteousness of the law, who offered Himself as an atoning sacrifice on the cross and redeemed us from sin, curse and death. The poison of the serpent, the poison of sin and death, which entered the entire human being through the womb, had to be expelled from it through a strong antidote, which is communion with faith and repentance of the most pure Body and Blood of Christ, and this great sacrament is not only an antidote, but also the communication to man of truth and holiness and the life of Christ, the Divine life, or deification. He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me and I in him. “Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood will have eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day,” says the Lord (John 6:54). This is our Christian, divine philosophy and our Christian, saving theology. Here is our answer to the atheist, who has lost faith and common sense, to Leo Tolstoy, who blasphemes our Divine mysteries. “Truly I say to you, whoever does not receive the Kingdom of God like a child will not enter it,” said Christ! (Mark 10:15). Do you hear, Leo Tolstoy, evil serpent. How cunning you were! You became proud, like Satan, blaspheming the Holy Gospel, the Holy Trinity, Christ of God, the Mother of God, the Saints, and the all-saving Sacraments. When analyzing L. Tolstoy’s latest work, “Address to the Clergy,” one must keep in mind the reasons why he so brazenly addresses the clergy of the entire Christian world and so boldly reproaches the Church for its imaginary lies and untruths. Tolstoy, recently excommunicated from the Church by a formal act of the Synod published everywhere, could not forgive her for this act of excommunication, and so he throws reproaches and the most blatant slander at the Christian churches and representatives of the churches of the whole world, blaspheming the entire Church for the incorrectness of its teaching, and its clergy for allegedly knowing lies and negligence about the good of the Christian peoples, and most of all laughs at the Orthodox Church, which legally excommunicated, cut it off from her body like a rotten member falling to death. Instead of humbling himself and repenting of his apostasy, Tolstoy became even more proud, puffed up with satanic pride and mocked the Church with satanic laughter, which “is the pillar and foundation of the truth” (1 Tim. 3:15). You will be justified by your words and condemned by your words. Tolstoy and many writers wrote and write against themselves; their words will condemn them on the day of judgment (Matthew 12:30–37; John 8:24). Tolstoy and the Tolstoyans! With your insane opposition to the truth of God and mockery of it, you, unfortunate ones, laugh at yourself and at humanity, which naturally thirsts for truth and is deprived of it through you. But the Truth has foretold you: “Woe to you who laugh now, for you will mourn.” Hear the formidable word of Truth: “God is not mocked” (Gal. 6:7). And the Lord will show His righteous wrath on you to destroy you from the face of the earth. The truth was worth an immeasurably great price for people: the descent to earth of the Son of God, His incarnation, His teaching and countless miracles, His suffering and death and resurrection from the dead. The Savior Himself said: “I have come, that I may bear witness to the truth, and that everyone who is of the truth will obey My voice” (John 18:37). And you reject the truth that has cost people so much, ridicule it, mock it. But God cannot be mocked; the Lord will mock you. It is scary to fall into the hands of the living God. – The Lord will come in the darkness of His holy angels to expose people in all their deeds of wickedness ( Jude 1:14–15 ) and in all the cruel words that ungodly sinners spoke against him. Almost two thousand years have passed of Christian history and the glory of Christ and His followers and the holy, glorious saving Church, founded by Him on earth, and His glorious victorious struggle with all sorts of enemies: Herods, Caesars, writers - Celsus and Porphyries, heretics, schismatics, sectarians, iconoclasts, enemies and persecutors of all centuries, and the Holy Church remained true, glorious, invincible, saving now; and now her word shines in all corners of the world. And the daring, senseless heretic of Yasnaya Polyana, who knew only to write light, playful novels, decided to enter into a fight with our glory, protected and preserved by God and glorified from generation to generation by faith and the Church, in order to pour out his bile and slander on it with his accomplices, the Chertkovs and the like. Will our Church be denigrated? Doesn’t it have its own glorious history, and even now isn’t it glorious in itself? By subverting faith in God, in Christ, in the Church, you, Tolstoyans, are subverting Russia, you are preparing its political destruction, for Russia has spread and become strong, enlightened and respected from its enemies - only through the Orthodox faith, through the intercession and intercession of the Mother of God (To the chosen Voivode, victorious, as having been delivered from the evil ones, let us sing in gratitude to Thy servants, Mother of God) and the holy saints of God, and especially by the power of the Cross of the Lord. After this, how do you, Orthodox Christians, think about the Russian Leo Tolstoy, who does not recognize either a personal God or a personal immortal human soul! This is a daring madman and a lack of faith in people, an enemy not only of Russians, but of all humanity. Not believing in a personal God, he, Tolstoy, considers prayer, which was recognized as necessary by people of all centuries, of every condition and of every cult, to be meaningless and stupid. He, a madman, does not attach importance to the words: Creator and creation, not recognizing the rational Creator; he does not consider himself a creature, but some kind of evolutionary product; and he does not attach any significance to many other biblical words, at least, for example, the words: Savior, sinner, since he considers sin a simple word, non-existent, and himself as sinless, having no need for a Savior, and dreams that he will achieve perfection by himself... And this man considers himself the smartest, and his followers and admirers consider him the same; he laughs at all people who believe in God, in Christ, in redemption, in their salvation in Christ, in resurrection, in immortality, in judgment, in heaven and hell. Count Tolstoy went mad with pride, with his title as a writer, with his title as a count! He portrays himself as a peasant, a bast worker, but this is a deception, he is portraying himself, throwing dust in the eyes of all, in his opinion, fools who bear this peasant title and people of all other dignities and titles. He laughs at the title of Orthodox peasant and copies it in mockery. And how did he deceive everyone? - the ability to speak fluently, eloquently, that is, learned secular eloquence, which, it should be noted, is easily given to all those naturally gifted with reason, who have learned grammar, rhetoric, logic, and who have read a lot of secular eloquence. This is who, in my opinion, Count Leo Tolstoy is. He was born, raised, grew up and was allowed by Providence to expose the people of the present time, unfaithful, frivolous, devoted to vanity and every passion, to expose their unbelief, senselessness, and religious atheism. Scripture says that in the last time, the Antichrist, God will “send deceit to people, so that they will believe lies” (2 Thess. 2:11). And so they believe Tolstoy... An image of this world comes, that is, everything elemental, material, all earthly orders and disorders; all kingdoms, all languages, all sects, schisms, superstitions, and human errors will pass away; wars for the dominance of races and peoples; there will be no separate territories for Russia, Germany, England and for different tribes and peoples, strife, quarrels, indignations - all the passions that now possess people - will cease; writing and printing and endless tongues and the loquaciousness of talkers will cease, there will come an end to all the works of human hands; there will be one kingdom of God, one people of God, one language, unlike any of the current earthly ones, which had only a temporary, transitory significance after the Babylonian pandemonium; There will be one King and Father of the future century - Christ, whom the atheists with Count Tolstoy at their head are now mocking. There will be one God all in all; - He alone will unite everyone into one kingdom, into one house, the image of which is now the Orthodox Church of Christ with its only infallible, most holy, eternal and omnipotent Head. This will be an eternal kingdom of truth and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. All kingdoms will pass away with their earthly temporary decrees and laws, with their institutions, classes, ranks, positions; The rich people of the earth will be deprived of all earthly riches (Apoc.) and all earthly dignity will receive their end; deeds will be required, and everyone will be judged according to their deeds, as a man, as a creature created in the image of God and given reason, conscience, internal and external law, as a citizen, as a child of his parents and the Heavenly Father. And this time and this trial will reveal Tolstoy and all evil in all its nakedness. Be horrified, Tolstoy and the Tolstoyans, of this time and this judgment, the terrible and final judgment! “Unless you repent... you will all perish” (Luke 13:3).