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A Mass for a Heretic? The Controversy over Lev Tolstoi's Burial

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2017

Abstract

When Lev Tolstoi emerged as a religious teacher in the 1880s, taking a sharply polemical stance against the Orthodox faith, the leadership of the Russian church groped for ways and means to stem the spread of the pernicious new heresy among the Russian public. The most ambitious but also the most disastrous attempt was made in 1901 when the synod promulgated an official pronouncement (poslanie) against him. This document, which created a worldwide scandal, was undertaken by the church itself and not, as has been widely assumed, at the instigation of the state authorities. In its poslanie the synod declared that Tolstoi could not receive an Orthodox burial unless he repented. This strategy badly backfired, since Tolstoi under no circumstances wanted such a burial and therefore made no move toward repentance. At the same time many Russians, including fervent believers, felt that the church itself with its requiem ban had sinned against the Christian injunction of all-embracing love. When Tolstoi died in 1910 and the burial issue became acute, the synod strenuously, but unsuccessfully, searched for a way out of its predicament.

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Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies. 2001

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References

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2. This literature stretched from high-pitched aggressive pamphlets to detailed, erudite theological dissertations. See Kolstø, Pål, Sannhet i løgn: Lev Tolstoj og den ortodokse tro (Truth in falsehood: Lev Tolstoi and the Orthodox faith), Acta Humaniora, no. 14 (Oslo, 1997), 321432.Google Scholar

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4. Pominovenie is a short liturgy of intercession for one or more deceased that is read as part of a regular service, while a panikhida is a separate service. Strictly speaking, a panikhida is not a requiem since no Eucharist or other sacraments are celebrated. Although the term requiem admittedly has a Catholic ring, I will nevertheless use this word since all possible substitutes, such as “prayer for the departed” or “commemorative service“ are either long and cumbersome or have a Protestant ring that would be even more misleading. Even though otpevanie, panikhida, and pominovenie are three distinct services, they were often confused with each other in the requiem debate that followed Tolstoi's death. It is also quite clear that if one of them were to be permitted there would no longer be any reason to deny the performance of the other two. The Orthodox Church does not have any detailed teaching on purgatory but nevertheless prays for the dead. Panikhida is usually read on the third, ninth, and fortieth day after bereavement, and then every year on the day the soul departed. In addition, one may always come to church at any time and place and ask for a panikhida to be performed. Whether or not the supplicant is related to the deceased is immaterial.

5. It is true that Orthodoxy does not adhere to the Counter-Reformation Roman Catholic dictum of extra ecclesiam salus nulla. Even so, the eastern church also maintains that “membership in the church is the most important precondition for salvation.” See, for example, Father Konstantin Aggeev, Po povodu tolkov v sovremennom obrazovannom obshchestve, vozbuzhdennykhposlaniem Sv. Sinoda o grafe L. Tolstom (Kiev, 1901), 16. The Orthodox Church, moreover, rejects the Augustinian distinction between the visible and the invisible church, insisting that there is only one true church, itself.

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