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His extraordinary way of thinking was in most cases
incomprehensible to the Russian society of those days.
He was excommunicated and committed to anathema, his
friends and acquaintances turned away from him. In 1910,
at the age of 81, Lev Tolstoy left home and died on
the way to the station “Astapovo”.
Why was the end of his life so sad and where was he
going after leaving home? Perhaps, some of his letters
will throw light upon it.
Here is what he wrote about the Church: “The world
was doing what it wished to do and was letting the Church
keep pace with it providing as good explanations of
the meaning of life as it could possibly think of. The
world was setting its own mode of life which was entirely
different form the teaching of Christ, and the Church
was inventing allegories which would suggest that people
who violated the law of Christ lived in keeping with
it. As a result, the world started living the life which
was worse than that of pagans, and the Church came to
approve of it. Moreover, it claimed that such life was
what the teaching of Christ consists in”.
Yasnaya Polyana, March, 1909
The Russian woman who married the Muslim E. Vekilov,
wrote to Tolstoy that her sons wanted to convert to
Islam, and asked for his advice. This is what the writer
answered her: “As far as the preference of Mohammedanism
to Orthodoxy is concerned…, I can fully sympathize
with such conversion. To say this might be strange for
me who values the Christian ideals and the teaching
of Christ in their pure sense more that anything else,
I do not doubt that Islam in its outer form stands higher
than the Orthodox Church. Therefore, if a person is
given only two choices: to adhere to the Orthodox Church
or Islam, any sensible person will not hesitate about
his choice, and anyone will prefer Islam with its acceptance
of one tenet, single God and His Prophet instead such
complex and incomprehensible things in theology as the
Trinity, redemption, sacraments, the saints and their
images, and complicated services…”
Yasnaya Polyana, March, 15th, 1909
We can adduce another letter of his which explains
his world outlook which formed as a result of his long
painful search for the truth.
“I would be very glad if you were of the same faith
with me. Just try to understand what my life is. Any
success in life- wealth, honour, glory- I don’t
have these. My friends, even my family are turning away
from me.
Some- liberals and aesthetes- consider me to be mad
or weak- minded like Gogol; others- revolutionaries
and radicals- consider me to be a mystic and a man who
talks too much; the officials consider me to be a malicious
revolutionary; the Orthodox consider me to be a devil.
I confess that it is hard for me… And therefore,
please, regard me as a kind Mohammedan, and all will
be fine”.
Yasnaya Polyana, April, 1884
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