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15 - A Confession - Leo Tolstory · Philosophy and Faith

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  Speaker 1: Chapter fifteen of a confession by Leo Tolstoitt. How often
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  Speaker 1: I envied the peasants for their illiteracy and lack of learning.
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  Speaker 1: Those statements in the creeds, which to me were evident absurdities.
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  Speaker 1: For them contained nothing false. They could accept them and
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  Speaker 1: could believe in the truth. The truth I believed in
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  Speaker 1: only to me unhappy man. Was it clear that with
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  Speaker 1: truth falsehood was interwoven by the finest threads, and that
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  Speaker 1: I could not accept them in that form. So I
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  Speaker 1: lived for about three years at first, when I was
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  Speaker 1: only slightly associated with truth as a catashuman, and was
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  Speaker 1: only scenting out what seemed to me clearest. These encounters
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  Speaker 1: struck me less. When I did not understand anything I said.
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  Speaker 1: It is my fault. I am sinful. But the more
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  Speaker 1: I became imbued with the truths I was learning, the
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  Speaker 1: more they became the basis of my life. The more
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  Speaker 1: oppressive and the more painful became these encounters, and the
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  Speaker 1: sharper became the line between that which I do not
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  Speaker 1: understand because I am not able to understand it, and
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  Speaker 1: what cannot be understood except by lying to one's self.
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  Speaker 1: In spite of my doubts and sufferings. I still clung
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  Speaker 1: to the Orthodox Church. But questions of life which had
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  Speaker 1: to be decided, and the decision of these questions by
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  Speaker 1: the Church, contrary to the very basis of the belief
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  Speaker 1: by which I lived, obliged me at last to announce
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  Speaker 1: communion with Orthodoxy as impossible. These questions were first the
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  Speaker 1: relation of the Orthodox Eastern Church to other churches, to
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  Speaker 1: the Catholics, and to the so called sectarians. At that time,
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  Speaker 1: in consequence of my interest in religion, I came into
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  Speaker 1: touch with believers of various faiths, Catholics, Protestants, old Believers, Molochans,
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  Speaker 1: and others. And I met among them many men of
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  Speaker 1: lofty morals who are truly religious. I wished to be
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  Speaker 1: a brother to them. And what happened, that feeling which
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  Speaker 1: promised to unite all in one faith in love, that
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  Speaker 1: very teaching in the person of its best representatives, told
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  Speaker 1: me that these men were all living a lie, and
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  Speaker 1: that what gave them their power of life was a
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  Speaker 1: temptation of the devil, and that we alone possessed the
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  Speaker 1: only possible truth. And I saw that all who do
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  Speaker 1: not profess an identical faith with themselves are considered by
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  Speaker 1: the Orthodox to be heretics, just as the Catholics and
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  Speaker 1: others considered the Orthodox to be heretics. And I saw
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  Speaker 1: that the Old Orthodox, though they try to hide this,
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  Speaker 1: regard with hostility all those who do not express their
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  Speaker 1: faith by the same external symbols and words as themselves.
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  Speaker 1: And this is naturally so, first because the assertion that
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  Speaker 1: you are in falsehood and I am in truth is
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  Speaker 1: the most cruel thing one man can say to another.
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  Speaker 1: And secondly, because a man loving his children and brothers
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  Speaker 1: cannot help being hostile to those who wish to pervert
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  Speaker 1: his children and his brothers to a false belief. And
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  Speaker 1: that hostilities increased in proportion to one's greater knowledge of theology.
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  Speaker 1: And to me, who considered that truthly in union by love,
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  Speaker 1: it became self evident that theology was itself destroying what
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  Speaker 1: it ought to practice. This offense is so obvious to
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  Speaker 1: us educated people who have lived in countries where various
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  Speaker 1: religions are professed, and have seen the contempt, self assurance
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  Speaker 1: and invincible contradiction with which Catholics behave to the Orthodox
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  Speaker 1: Greeks and to the Protestants, and the Orthodox, to the
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  Speaker 1: Catholics and the Protestants, and the Protestants to the two others,
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  Speaker 1: and the similar attitude of old believers, Pashchovities, Russian Evangelicals, Shakers,
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  Speaker 1: and all religions. That the very obviousness of the temptation
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  Speaker 1: at first perplexes us. One says to oneself, it is
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  Speaker 1: impossible that it is so simple, and that people do
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  Speaker 1: not see that if two assertions are mutually contradictory, then
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  Speaker 1: neither of them has the sole truth which faith should possess.
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  Speaker 1: There is something else here. There must be some explanation.
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  Speaker 1: I thought there was, and sought that explanation, and read
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  Speaker 1: all I could on the subject, and consulted all whom
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  Speaker 1: I could, and no one could give me any explanation
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  Speaker 1: except the one which causes the Sumski Hussars to consider
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  Speaker 1: the Sumski Hussars the best regiment in the world, and
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  Speaker 1: the Yeo Uchans to consider the best regimen of the
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  Speaker 1: world as the Yeo Lukhans. The ecclesiastics of all the
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  Speaker 1: different creeds, through their best representatives, told me nothing but
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  Speaker 1: that they believe themselves to have the truth and the
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  Speaker 1: others to be in error, and that all they could
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  Speaker 1: do was to pray for them. I went to arkamandrites, bishops, elders,
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  Speaker 1: monks of the strictest orders and asked them, But none
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  Speaker 1: made any attempt to explain the matter to me, except
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  Speaker 1: one man who explained it all, and explained it so
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  Speaker 1: that I never had to ask anyone any more about it.
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  Speaker 1: I said that for every unbeliever turning to belief, and
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  Speaker 1: all our young generation or in a position to do so,
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  Speaker 1: the question that presents itself first is why is truth
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  Speaker 1: not in Lutheranism nor in Catholicism, but in Orthodoxy? Educated
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  Speaker 1: in the high school, he cannot help knowing what the
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  Speaker 1: peasants do not know. That the Protestants and Catholics equally
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  Speaker 1: affirm that their faith is the only true one. Historical
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  Speaker 1: evidence twisted by each religion in its own favor, is insufficient.
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  Speaker 1: Is it not possible, said I, to understand the teaching
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  Speaker 1: in a loftier way, so that from its height the
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  Speaker 1: differences should disappear as they do for one who believes truly?
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  Speaker 1: Can we not go further along the path like the
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  Speaker 1: one we are following? With the old believers? They emphasize
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  Speaker 1: the fact that they have a differently shaped cross in
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  Speaker 1: different aliluliahs and a different procession around the altar. We reply,
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  Speaker 1: you believe in the Nicene Creed, in the seven sacraments,
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  Speaker 1: and so do we what us hold to that, and
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  Speaker 1: in all other matters you do as you please. We
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  Speaker 1: have united with them by placing the essentials of faith
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  Speaker 1: above the unessentials. Now with the Catholics, can we not say,
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  Speaker 1: you believe in so and so, and in so and so,
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  Speaker 1: which are the chief things as for the filioquic and
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  Speaker 1: the pope, do as you please? Can we not say
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  Speaker 1: the same to the Protestants, uniting with them in what
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  Speaker 1: is most important? My interlocutor agreed with my thoughts, but
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  Speaker 1: told me that such conceptions would bring reproach of the
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  Speaker 1: spiritual authorities for deserting the faith of our forefathers, and
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  Speaker 1: this would produce a schism. And the vocation of the
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  Speaker 1: spiritual authorities is to safeguard and all its purity, the
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  Speaker 1: Greco Russian Orthodox faith inherited from our forefathers. And I
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  Speaker 1: understood it all. I am seeking a faith the power
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  Speaker 1: of life, and they are seeking the best way to
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  Speaker 1: fulfill in the eyes of men's certain human obligations and
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  Speaker 1: fulfilling these human affairs, they fulfill them in a human way,
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  Speaker 1: however much they may talk of their pity for their
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  Speaker 1: erring brethren, and of addressing prayers for them to the
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  Speaker 1: throne of the almighty. To carry out human purposes, violence
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  Speaker 1: is necessary, and it always has been applied, and is
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  Speaker 1: and will be applied. If of two religions, each considers
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  Speaker 1: itself true and the other false, then men desiring to
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  Speaker 1: attract others to the truth will preach their own doctrine.
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  Speaker 1: And if a false teaching is preached to the inexperienced
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  Speaker 1: sons of their church, which has the truth, that church
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  Speaker 1: cannot but burn the books and remove the man who
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  Speaker 1: is misleading its sons. What is to be done with
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  Speaker 1: a sectarian burning, in the opinion of the Orthodox, with
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  Speaker 1: the fire of false doctrine, who, in the most important
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  Speaker 1: affair of life in faith, misleads the sons of the church,
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  Speaker 1: What can be done with him except to cut off
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  Speaker 1: his head or incarcerate him. Under the Tsar Alexis Mikailovitch,
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  Speaker 1: people were burned at the stake. That is to say,
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  Speaker 1: the severest method of punishment of the time was applied,
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  Speaker 1: And in our day also the severest method of punishment
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  Speaker 1: is applied detention in solitary confinement. The second relation of
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  Speaker 1: the Church to a question of life was with regard
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  Speaker 1: to war and executions. At the time Russia was at
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  Speaker 1: war and Russians, in the name of Christian love, began
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  Speaker 1: to kill their fellow men. It was impossible not to
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  Speaker 1: think about this and not to see that killing is
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  Speaker 1: an evil repugnant to the first principles of any faith.
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  Speaker 1: Yet prayers were said in the church for the successes
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  Speaker 1: of our arms, and the teachings of the faith acknowledged
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  Speaker 1: killing to be an act resulting from faith. And besides
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  Speaker 1: the murders during war, I saw it during the disturbances
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  Speaker 1: which foire w Christian dignitaries and teachers and monks of
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  Speaker 1: the wesser and stricter orders, who approved the killing of helpless,
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  Speaker 1: erring youths. And I took note of all that is
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  Speaker 1: done by men who professed Christianity, and I was horrified.
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  Speaker 1: End of Chapter fifteen