Heretical Orthodoxy
Lev Tolstoi and the Russian Orthodox Church

Offers a new account of Tolstoi's relationship with the Orthodox Church, showing how the novelist was influenced by his Christian heritage.

Pål Kolstø (Author)

9781009260404, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 22 September 2022

340 pages
23.5 x 15.9 x 2.3 cm, 0.61 kg

Lev Tolstoi was not only one of the world's most famous writers, he was also a deeply concerned thinker and hugely influential critic of the Church whose impact was felt long after his death. For an entire generation, Tolstoi set the agenda for ethical and religious thought, in Russia and beyond. Most of Tolstoi's main ideas drew on his Christian heritage – selected and creatively combined. While he claimed that his life's work consisted of rediscovering the pure doctrine of Christ as it had been before the Church perverted it, in fact he radically reinterpreted the Christian faith he had encountered in his own life, Russian Orthodoxy. This book offers a new and comprehensive account of Tolstoi's relationship with the Orthodox Church and its teachings, and shows how the Russian Church reacted to the “Tolstoi phenomenon” and attempted to counteract the influence of this new “heretic" - with scant success.

Preface
1. Introduction
2. Tolstoi as a practicing orthodox
3. Examination of dogmatic theology
4. Tolstoi, orthodoxy and asceticism
5. Lev Tolstoi and orthodox forms of spirituality: elders
6. Tolstoi and the wanderer tradition in Russian culture
7. Tolstoi and he ideal of 'the Holy Fool'
8. Father Sergius: Kasatskii's spiritual journey to holy foolishness
9. Tolstoi and the social ideal of the Eastern Church: John Chrysostom
10. The Church mounts a counter-attack: threat perceptions and combat strategies
11. Between 'almost orthodox' and 'Antichrist': images of Lev Tolstoi in Russian orthodox polemics
12. The 'excommunication' and its aftermath
13. A requiem for a heretic? The controversy over Lev Tolstoi's burial
14. Summary and conclusions.

Subject Areas: Christian spirituality & religious experience [HRCS], Christian Churches & denominations [HRCC], Religion & beliefs [HR], European history [HBJD], History [HB]