John of Kronstadt's response to Leo Tolstoy on his appeal to the clergy

Russian people! I want to show you the godless personality of Leo Tolstoy, according to his last work, published abroad, entitled: “An Appeal to the Clergy,” that is, to the Orthodox, Catholic, Protestant and Anglican in general, which is clear from the very beginning of his work. Do not be surprised at my intention: it would be strange if, after reading this work, I did not want to say my word in defense of the Christian faith, which he so viciously and unfairly vilifies, along with the clergy of all Christian denominations. Nowadays it is necessary to say this word and visualize this godless personality, because many people do not know the terrible blasphemy of Tolstoy, but know him only as a talented writer from his previous works: “War and Peace”, “Anna Karenina”, etc. Tolstoy has distorted his moral personality to the point of ugliness, to the point of disgust. I'm not exaggerating. I have this essay in my hands, and here is a brief summary of its contents. With the usual swagger of a writer, with extreme self-delusion and with his head held high, Leo Tolstoy turns to the clergy of all faiths and places them before his judicial tribunal, presenting himself as their judge. Here you immediately recognize Tolstoy, as if by the claws of a lion. But what does he accuse the pastors of Christian churches of and what does he condemn for? The fact is that representatives of these Christian confessions accept, as an expression of the exact Christian truth, the Nicene Creed, which Tolstoy does not recognize and does not believe in, as disagreeing with his atheism. Then he denounces the pastors for the fact that their predecessors taught this truth mainly through violence (on the contrary, Christians were persecuted and raped in every possible way by pagans and Jews, from where many martyrs came) and even prescribed this truth (clerical style) and executed those who did not accept it (this never happened with the Orthodox clergy). Further, Tolstoy writes in parentheses: millions and millions of people were tortured, killed, burned because they did not want to accept it (at the same time it also goes to the Orthodox clergy). In Tolstoy’s words there is obvious slander and complete ignorance of the history of the Christian Church. Listen further to his false utterance: this means (that is, forcing one to accept the Christian faith through torture) has become less used over time and is now used, of all Christian countries (it seems) only in Russia. Tolstoy’s hand rose to write such a vile slander against Russia, against its government!.. Yes, if this were true, then Leo Tolstoy would have been executed or hanged long ago for his atheism, for blasphemy against God, against the Church, for his malicious writings, for seducing tens of thousands of Russian youth, for tens of thousands of Doukhobors, seduced, deceived, and ruined by him. Meanwhile, Tolstoy lives as a master in his Yasnaya Polyana and walks around in complete freedom. Next, Tolstoy attacks the clergy, do you know why? Because it instills Church teaching in people in a state in which they cannot (as if) discuss what is being transmitted to them: here he means completely uneducated workers who do not have time to think (what are the holidays and detailed extra-liturgical explanatory conversations of the shepherds of the Church for?), and, most importantly, children who accept indiscriminately and forever imprint in their memory what is transmitted to them. As if children should not take the word of truth on faith. Listen, listen, Orthodox, what the Russian Leo commands to the clergy of all countries: he very seriously and self-confidently asserts that the uneducated, especially workers and children, should not be taught faith in God, in the Church, in the sacraments, in the resurrection, in the future life, they should not be taught to pray, for all this, according to Tolstoy, is absurdity and because they cannot discuss what is taught to them, as if they have no meaning and receptivity, while the Lord, from the lips of a baby and those who piss, praises His own greatness and goodness; He hides His wisdom from the wise and prudent and reveals it to infants (Matthew 11:25); and from the proud Tolstoy he hid His wisdom and revealed it to simple, unlearned people, as the apostles were and as today’s simple and unlearned or little-learned people are, so that no flesh, no man, may boast before God (1 Cor. 1:29). Tolstoy wants to turn everyone into savages and atheists: both children and ordinary people, for he himself became a complete savage regarding faith and the Church, due to his lack of education in faith and piety from his youth. I think that if Tolstoy, from his youth, had been truly implanted in his mind and heart with the Christian teaching, which is instilled in everyone from a very early age, then such a daring, notorious atheist, like Judas the traitor, would not have emerged from him. Tolstoy's bad manners from his youth and his absent-minded, idle life with adventures in the summer of his youth - as can be seen from his own description of his life in his pseudonym - were the main reason for his radical atheism - his acquaintance with Western atheists even more helped him take this terrible path, and his excommunication from the Church by the Holy Synod embittered him to the extreme, offending his count's pride as a writer, darkening his worldly glory. From here stemmed his shameless, naive, evil slander against the entire clergy in general and against the Christian faith, against the Church, against all sacred God-inspired Scripture. With his blasphemous writings, Tolstoy wants no less, if not more, than an apocalyptic dragon, to reject a third of the stars of heaven, that is, a whole third of Christians - especially intelligent people and part of the common people. Oh, if he believed the word of the Savior, Who says in the Gospel: whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to stumble, it would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck and drowned in the depths of the sea (Matthew 18:6). Let's go further into the depths of Tolstoy's imaginary wisdom. Woe, says the Scripture, to those who are wise in themselves and understanding before themselves. Tolstoy considers himself wiser and more truthful than everyone, even sacred writers, wise by the Holy Spirit, recognizes Holy Scripture as a fairy tale and reviles the clergy of all Christian confessions for teaching the sacred history of the V. and N. Testament, considering as fiction the legend about God's creation of the world and man, about good and evil, about God - he ridicules all the sacred writings of everyday life and the first covenant of God to man about keeping the commandment, the fulfillment of which it was necessary to confirm the will of the first people in obedience to their Creator and forever perpetuate their union with God, a blissful state and immortality even in the body; generally distorts and ridicules all further sacred history, without taking a single legend on faith. So, for example, he says that God, patronizing Abraham and his descendants, performs in favor of him and his descendants the most unnatural (!) deeds, called miracles (Tolstoy does not believe in them), and the most terrible (!) cruelties (this is God, merciful, philanthropic and long-suffering), so this whole story, with the exception of naive, sometimes innocent, often immoral fairy tales (!), this whole story, starting with executions sent by Moses (not by him, but by God, the righteous and long-suffering), and the killing by an Angel of all their firstborns before the fire, which burned 250 conspirators, and Korah, Dathan and Abiron fell into the ground, and the death of 14,000 people in a few minutes, and before the enemies were sawed with saws (it turns out that he heard the ringing, but does not know where it is: it is known that King Manasseh, the lawless king Jewish, ordered the prophet Isaiah to be sawed in two for his prophecy), and executed by Elijah (the prophet), who flew away (!) to heaven (not flown away, but ascended, as it were, to heaven by God’s command on a chariot of fire, by horses of fire), priests who did not agree with him and Elisha, who cursed the boys who laughed at him, torn and eaten for this by two bears; this whole story is (according to Tolstoy) a series of wonderful events and terrible atrocities (Tolstoy, rejecting the personal holy and righteous God, rejects his justice) committed by the Jewish people, their leaders and God Himself (!). Here's to you firsthand Tolstoy's godlessness and blasphemy against our righteous, merciful and long-suffering God! But these are just flowers and berries to come. Listen further to what Tolstoy says about the New Testament, that is, the Gospel. “You,” he reproaches the clergy of all faiths, “pass on to children and dark people (only children and dark people, and not all intelligent people?) the history of the New Testament in such an interpretation, in which the main significance of the New Testament lies not in moral teaching, not in the Sermon on the Mount, but in the coordination of the Gospel with the history of the Old Testament, in the fulfillment of prophecies and miracles (both and all the contents taught: Tolstoy does not know what he is saying, or deliberately distorts the truth); Then Tolstoy, in a mocking tone, speaks about the appearance of a wonderful star after the Nativity of the Savior, about the singing of Angels, about a conversation with the devil (which he does not believe in, although he is his true father, for it is said: “You are the devil of your father”; John 8:44), about the transformation of water into wine, the Lord’s walking on the waters, about miraculous healings, the resurrection of the dead, about the resurrection of the Lord Himself and His ascension to the sky. Finally, Leo Tolstoy agreed that the sacred books of the Old Testament do not even deserve the title of a fairy tale, but calls them “the most harmful books in the Christian world, a terrible book.” At the same time, we involuntarily exclaim: oh, how terrible you are, Leo Tolstoy, spawn of vipers, who opened his mouth to blaspheme the inspired scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, which constitute the shrine and priceless treasure of the entire Christian world!! Do you really think that any people with intelligence and conscience will believe your crazy words, knowing from their youth that the books of the Old and New Testaments have in themselves the stamp of divine inspiration? Yes, we affirm that the books of the Old and New Testaments are the most reliable truth and the first necessary basic knowledge for the spiritual life of a Christian, and therefore the education of children of every rank and status and the royal children themselves begins with them. Apparently, only Leo Tolstoy started from the wrong place, and that is why he reached such savagery and blasphemy against God and his Creator and his teacher, the Mother, the Church of God. Listen to what Tolstoy next says about himself, of course, and not about anyone else, because what he rants does not apply to anyone. It is impossible to introduce a substance alien to it into a living organism - without this organism suffering from the effort to free itself from the alien substance inserted into it and sometimes dying in these efforts. Unhappy Tolstoy: he almost died in his efforts to become an apostate, and yet he achieved his death, finally becoming an apostate. Listen further to its absurdity to be convinced that Tolstoy, in his anger at the faith and the Church, is slandering it, falling away to the influence of Satan. These are his words! “What terrible harm must be produced in the human mind by those expositions of the teachings of the Old and New Testaments, alien to modern knowledge, common sense, and moral sense, instilled in him at a time when he cannot discuss” (this is faith, like trust in the truth). I answer this. We have all known the history of the V. and N. Testaments since childhood and have received from studying them the most life-giving, saving knowledge and high religious pleasure. Tolstoy, due to his cunning and passion for godless German and French writers, could not experience this, for the Lord hid His pure wisdom from his daring mind. Tolstoy subordinates the infinite mind of God to his blind and proud mind and resolutely does not want to believe, as in an impossible matter, in the creation of the world from nothing, in the global flood, in the ark of Noah, in the Trinity, in the fall of Adam (which means in the need for an all-redemptive sacrifice), in the virgin birth, in the miracles of Christ, and argues that for a believer in all of the above, the requirement of reason is no longer necessary and such a person cannot be sure of anything. in what truth. “If the Trinity is possible,” Tolstoy continues to mock, “the virgin birth and the redemption of the human race by the blood of Christ, then everything is possible, and the demands of reason are unnecessary.” - Hear, Christians, how Tolstoy puts his blind mind above God, and since he, Tolstoy, cannot understand the highest mystery of the Divine - the Trinity in Persons and unity in essence, he considers the existence of the Trinity itself and the redemption of the fallen human race by the blood of I. Christ impossible. “Drive a wedge,” he says, “between the floorboards of the bin; No matter how much grain is poured into such a bin, it will not hold. In the same way, in the head, in which the wedge of the Trinity, or God, who became man and redeemed the human race with His suffering and then flew away again (what a distortion of Holy Scripture!) to heaven, has been driven into heaven, no reasonable, solid biography can no longer hold.” I answer: Tolstoy really drove a wedge into his head - proud disbelief - and therefore fell into complete nonsense regarding faith and real understanding of life, and turned his whole life upside down. In general, Tolstoy firmly believes in the infallibility of his mind, and calls religious truths revealed to people by God Himself meaningless and contradictory propositions, and calls those who accepted them with their minds and hearts as if they were sick people. (Isn’t Tolstoy himself sick because he doesn’t take them?) Tolstoy’s entire essay “Address to the Clergy” is filled with the most shameless lies of which a person who has broken ties with truth and truth is capable. Everywhere false premises and the most absurd conclusions are deduced from false propositions. The author set out to seduce everyone from the path of truth, to lead everyone away from faith in God and from the Church; tries to corrupt everyone and lead them into destruction; this is obvious from his entire present work. It is not worth answering all of Tolstoy’s individual thoughts - they are clearly absurd, blasphemous and intolerant for Christian feelings and ears; so they are contradictory and beat themselves - they finally killed the soul of Leo Tolstoy himself and made it completely impossible for him to turn to the light of truth. “Do not answer a fool according to his foolishness,” says the wise Solomon, lest you be like him” (Prov. 26:4). And indeed, if you respond to Tolstoy because of his madness, to all his senseless blasphemies, then you yourself will become like him and become infected with a noxious stench from him. “Do not answer a fool according to his madness,” continues Solomon in another sense, lest he appear wise in himself” (v. 5). And I answered the madman according to his madness, so that he would not appear wise in his own eyes, but a real madman. Is it not madness to reject the personal, all-good - wise, righteous, eternal omnipotent Creator, one in essence and threefold in persons, when in the human soul itself, in its single being, there are three equal powers: mind, heart and will, in the image of the three persons of the Divine? Doesn’t humanity respect numbers – the number three more than all numbers, that is, by its very nature it honors the Trinity that created creation? Does not humanity feel its fall and its dire need for redemption and a Redeemer! Isn’t God the God of miracles and isn’t the very existence of the world the greatest miracle? Doesn't humanity believe in its origin from one forefather? Doesn't it believe in the flood! Doesn’t he believe in hell, in reward according to deeds, in the bliss of the righteous, although not all according to the revelation of the word of God? Isn't it cruel for Tolstoy to go against the grain? Is it possible to rant with Tolstoy, who rejects Alpha and Omega - the beginning and the end? How to speak seriously with a person who does not believe that A is A, B is B? You should not answer a madman according to his madness. The main, fundamental mistake of Leo Tolstoy is that he, considering the Sermon on the Mount of Christ and His word about non-resistance to evil - misinterpreted by him - as the starting point of his work, did not understand at all the Sermon on the Mount, nor the commandment about spiritual poverty, the need for humility and repentance, which are the basis of Christian life, and Tolstoy became proud, like Satan, and does not recognize the need for repentance and repentance. by some of his own, he hopes to achieve perfection without Christ and His grace, without faith in His redemptive suffering and death, and by non-resistance to evil he means indulgence in all evil - essentially, non-resistance to sin, or indulgence in sin and human passions, and paves the way for all lawlessness, and thus becomes the greatest accomplice of the devil, destroying the human race, and the most notorious enemy of Christ. Instead of grieving and lamenting the sins of himself and others, Tolstoy dreams of himself as a perfect man or superman, as the famous madman Nietzsche dreamed; Meanwhile, what is high in people is an abomination before God. The Savior's first word to sinful people was the commandment to repent. “From then on Jesus began to preach and say: Repent, for you will bring the kingdom of heaven near”; and Tolstoy says don’t repent - repentance is cowardice, absurdity, without repentance, without Christ, we will achieve perfection with our reason, and we have achieved it, he says: look at the progress of the human mind, human knowledge, romantic, historical, philosophical literature, various inventions, factory products, railways, telegraphs, telephones, phonographs, gramophones, balloons. For Tolstoy, there is no highest spiritual perfection in the sense of achieving Christian virtues - simplicity, humility, purity of heart, chastity, prayer, repentance, faith, hope, love in the Christian sense; he does not recognize Christian feat; he laughs at holiness and saints - he adores himself, worships himself as an idol, as a superman; I, and no one but me, dreams of Tolstoy. You are all mistaken; I have discovered the truth and teach all people the truth! The Gospel, according to Tolstoy, is a fiction and a fairy tale. 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. Archpriest John Sergiev (Kronstadt) You might be interested in: