Page:Tolstoy - Essays and Letters.djvu/295

Rh publication of the Synod's Edict I also noticed indications of anger of this kind in some of the people I met. On the very day (February 25) when the Edict was made public, while crossing a public square I heard the words: 'See! there goes the devil in human form,' and had the crowd been composed of other elements I should very likely have been beaten to death, as happened some years ago to a man at the Panteleymon Chapel.

So that, altogether, the Synod's Edict is very bad; and the statement, at the end, that those who sign it pray that I may become such as they are, does not make it any better.

That relates to the Edict as a whole; as to details, it is wrong in the following particulars. It is said in the Edict: 'A writer well known to the world, Russian by birth. Orthodox by baptism and education— Count Tolstoy—under the seduction of his intellectual pride has insolently risen against the Lord and against his Christ and against his holy heritage, and has publicly, in the sight of all men, renounced the Orthodox Mother Church which has reared him and educated him.'

That I have renounced the Church which calls itself Orthodox is perfectly correct.

But I renounced it not because I had risen against the Lord, but, on the contrary, only because with all the strength of my soul I wished to serve him. Before renouncing the Church, and fellowship with the people which was inexpressibly dear to me, I—having seen some reasons to doubt the Church's integrity—devoted several years to the investigation of its theoretic and practical teachings. For the theory, I read all I could about Church doctrine, and studied and critically analyzed dogmatic theology; while as to practice, for more than a year I followed strictly all the injunctions of the Church, observing all the fasts and all the services. And I became convinced that Church doctrine is theoretically a crafty and harmful lie, and practically a collection of the grossest superstitions and sorcery, which