# Did *Resurrection* cause the 1901 excommunication? — the primary record

**Hypothesis under test.** The popular line is that the communion / church-service
satire in *Resurrection* Part I, chs XXXIX–XL (the Mass at the prison church) was the
proximate trigger of the Holy Synod's «Определение» No. 557 of 20–22 February 1901
(O.S.) that severed Tolstoy from the Orthodox Church.

**Method.** Build from the primary record: the wording of the decree itself, Tolstoy's
diary Feb–Mar 1901, and his «Ответ Синоду» (Reply to the Synod, 4 April 1901). Treat
the mainstream "Resurrection caused it" framing as a claim to weigh against the
documents, not a baseline to confirm.

**Verdict (stated up front): COMPLICATES.** The decree's indictment is doctrinally
*broad* — rejection of the Trinity, the divinity and resurrection of Christ, the virgin
birth, the afterlife, and *all* the sacraments. The Eucharist is named, but as the
*climax / culminating count* of that broad indictment, not as its sole or initiating
charge. The communion chapter is the most-cited single offence and very plausibly shaped
the decree's rhetoric and timing; it is not, on the face of the document, "the cause."
Reasoning and evidence below.

---

## 1. The decree wording — what it actually charges

**Provenance.** «Определение святейшего синода от 20—22 февраля 1901 г., № 557, с
посланием верным чадам православныя греко-российския церкви о графе Льве Толстом.»
First published in *Церковные ведомости* (1901, № 8, 24 February O.S.), then in the
general press. Two independent text paths are used here:

- **(corpus)** — Tolstoy quotes the operative passages *verbatim* inside his Reply
  (PSS t. 34, pp. 245–253), introducing each with «В постановлении сказано…» / «сказано
  также…». These quotations are reproduced below from
  `extracts/v34_245_253_Otvet_Sinodu.txt` and are corpus-verbatim.
- **(web-sourced)** — the decree as printed in V. M. Skvortsov, *По поводу отпадения от
  православной церкви графа Льва Николаевича Толстого* (СПб. 1901), via
  azbyka.ru/otechnik/Vasilij-Skvorcov/…/4 (UTF-8). Used to confirm wording Tolstoy did
  not quote and to check his quotations.

The two paths agree on substance; minor wording variants are flagged.

### 1a. Opening characterisation (web-sourced)

> Известный миру писатель, русский по рождению, православный по крещению и воспитанию
> своему, граф Толстой … явно пред всеми отрекся от вскормившей и воспитавшей его
> Матери, Церкви Православной …

Tolstoy's verbatim quotation of the same opening (corpus):

> «Известный миру писатель, русский по рождению, православный по крещению и
> воспитанию, граф Толстой, в прельщении гордого ума своего, дерзко восстал на господа
> и на Христа его и на святое его достояние, явно перед всеми отрекся от вскормившей и
> воспитавшей его матери, церкви православной».

*(working English)* "A writer known to the world, Russian by birth, Orthodox by baptism
and upbringing, Count Tolstoy, in the seduction of his proud mind, has boldly risen
against the Lord and against His Christ and against His holy possession, and has openly
before all renounced the Mother that nourished and raised him, the Orthodox Church."

### 1b. The broad doctrinal indictment — the list of rejections

Tolstoy's verbatim quotation (corpus), the core operative sentence:

> что я «отвергаю бога, во святой троице славимого создателя и промыслителя вселенной,
> отрицаю господа Иисуса Христа, богочеловека, искупителя и спасителя мира,
> пострадавшего нас ради человеков и нашего ради спасения и воскресшего из мертвых,
> отрицаю бессемейное зачатие по человечеству Христа господа и девство до рождества и
> по рождестве пречистой богородицы».

Then, separately quoted by Tolstoy: «не признает загробной жизни и мздовоздаяния»
and «что я отвергаю все таинства».

Same passage as printed in the decree (web-sourced), fuller form:

> отвергает личного живого Бога, во Святой Троице славимого, Создателя и Промыслителя
> вселенной, отрицает Господа Иисуса Христа — Богочеловека, Искупителя и Спасителя
> мира, пострадавшего нас ради человеков и нашего ради спасения и воскресшего из
> мертвых, отрицает бессемянное зачатие по человечеству Христа Господа и девство до
> рождества и по рождестве Пречистой Богородицы Приснодевы Марии, не признает загробной
> жизни и мздовоздаяния, отвергает все таинства Церкви …

*(working English)* "…rejects the personal living God, glorified in the Holy Trinity,
Creator and Provider of the universe; denies the Lord Jesus Christ — God-man, Redeemer
and Saviour of the world, who suffered for us men and for our salvation and rose from
the dead; denies the seedless conception in His humanity of Christ the Lord and the
virginity before and after birth of the Most Pure Mother of God, Ever-Virgin Mary; does
not acknowledge the life beyond the grave and retribution; rejects all the sacraments of
the Church…"

This is the heart of the indictment, and it is **doctrinal and total**: God-in-Trinity,
the divinity / atonement / resurrection of Christ, the virgin birth, the afterlife, and
the sacraments *as a class*. None of this turns on *Resurrection*; it is the standing
content of Tolstoy's religious writings of the 1880s–90s (*A Critique of Dogmatic
Theology*, *What I Believe*, *The Kingdom of God Is Within You*, the *Gospel in Brief*).

### 1c. The Eucharist — the culminating count

This is the decisive clause for the hypothesis. Tolstoy's verbatim quotation (corpus):

> Сказано, наконец, как последняя и высшая степень моей виновности, что я, «ругаясь над
> самыми священными предметами веры, не содрогнулся подвергнуть глумлению священнейшее
> из таинств — евхаристию».

As printed in the decree (web-sourced):

> ругаясь над самыми священными предметами веры православного народа, не содрогнулся
> подвергнуть глумлению величайшее из Таинств, святую Евхаристию …

*(working English)* "…mocking the most sacred objects of the faith [of the Orthodox
people], he did not shudder to subject to derision the greatest [Tolstoy quotes: the
most holy] of the Sacraments, the holy Eucharist…"

**Wording variant flagged:** Tolstoy quotes «священнейшее из таинств» ("the most holy of
the sacraments"); the Skvortsov-printed text reads «величайшее из Таинств» ("the
greatest of the Sacraments"). Same clause, near-synonymous superlative; the difference
may be a Tolstoy/typesetting variant or a textual recension. Substance is identical.

**Two things are true of this clause and both matter:**
1. The Synod itself frames it as «последняя и высшая степень» — the *last and highest
   degree* of guilt, i.e. the rhetorical climax. The Eucharist *is* singled out, and it
   is the offence the decree dwells on with most heat. This is what the Eucharist clause
   refers to: Tolstoy's flat, debunking description of the Mass — and the surrounding
   anti-Church satire — in *Resurrection*. So the communion chapter is demonstrably
   *present in the decree*, named, and given pride of place.
2. But it is the *capstone of a broad list*, not the foundation. The decree's logic is
   "he rejects God, Christ, the Trinity, the afterlife, all sacraments — **and** has now
   gone so far as to mock the Eucharist publicly." Remove *Resurrection* and the
   indictment 1a–1b still stands in full; remove the doctrinal rejections and the
   Eucharist clause has nothing to climax.

### 1d. The conclusion (web-sourced)

> Посему Церковь не считает его своим членом и не может считать, доколе он не раскается
> и не восстановит своего общения с нею.

*(working English)* "Therefore the Church does not reckon him her member and cannot, so
long as he does not repent and restore his communion with her." (Note the decree's own
self-description is a *declaration of self-separation*, not a canonical anathema — a
point Tolstoy presses in §3.)

---

## 2. Tolstoy's diary reaction, Feb–Mar 1901 (PSS t. 54, O.S.)

The corpus diaries contain **no entry on the days the decree appeared** (the Feb 8 / Feb
11 entries predate it; Feb 11–Mar 19 is a gap Tolstoy himself notes). The **first
reaction is 19 March 1901** — and it is strikingly cool. Verbatim
(`v54_090_093_1901_03_19.xml`):

> Прошел почти месяц. Нынче 19 Марта. За все это время ничего не написал, кроме
> обращения к Царю и его помощникам … За это время было странное отлучение от церкви и
> вызванные им выражения сочувствия, и тут же студенческия истории, принявшия
> общественный характер …

*(working English)* "Almost a month has passed. Today is 19 March. In all this time I
have written nothing except the address to the Tsar and his helpers… During this time
there was the strange excommunication from the church and the expressions of sympathy it
provoked, and at the same time the student affairs, which took on a public character…"

The register is the load-bearing evidence: «странное отлучение» — *the strange
excommunication* — listed in one breath between Хаджи-Мурат revisions and student
unrest. No mention of *Resurrection*; no sense of a single book as cause. Same entry,
point 1, records what Tolstoy treats as the *real* substance — the Coleridge epigraph on
loving truth above Church, which he calls «самый существенный ответ тем, которые боятся
отказаться от божественности Христа» ("the most essential answer to those who are afraid
to renounce the divinity of Christ"). He reads the conflict as doctrinal (the divinity of
Christ), not as fallout from a satirical chapter.

**28 March 1901** (`v54_093_093_1901_03_28.xml`), the one recorded thought:

> Записано только одно — то, что стало совершенно ясно, что все наше православие есть
> колдовство от страха. И корень всего — вера в чудесное.

*(working English)* "Only one thing recorded — that it has become completely clear that
all our Orthodoxy is sorcery out of fear. And the root of it all is belief in the
miraculous." Again the frame is the whole sacramental system as «колдовство» (sorcery) —
the same word he aims at *all* the sacraments in the Reply — not the communion scene in
particular.

**31 March 1901** (`v54_093_094_1901_03_31.xml`): «Ответ Синоду, кажется, кончил. … Продолжаются
приветствия и ругательства.» — "The Reply to the Synod, it seems, I have finished… The
greetings and abuse continue." It is the *letters* provoked by the decree, not the decree
itself, that he says moved him to write (confirmed by the PSS commentary, §3).

---

## 3. The Reply to the Synod — what Tolstoy says he actually rejects

`extracts/v34_245_253_Otvet_Sinodu.txt` (PSS t. 34, pp. 245–253; dated 4 April 1901).
Tolstoy answers the decree point by point, and his own structure confirms the breadth.

On the Church as a whole (verbatim): «То, что я отрекся от церкви, называющей себя
православной, это совершенно справедливо.» — he *concedes* the renunciation, dating it
to years of study of dogmatic theology, not to any novel.

On the Trinity / virgin birth (verbatim): «То, что я отвергаю непонятную троицу и не
имеющую никакого смысла в наше время басню о падении первого человека, кощунственную
историю о боге, родившемся от девы … то это совершенно справедливо.»

On the sacraments **as a class** (verbatim): «Сказано также, что я отвергаю все таинства.
Это совершенно справедливо. Все таинства я считаю низменным, грубым … колдовством …» —
he then walks through baptism, marriage, confession, unction, chrismation, ordination,
*and* communion, condemning each. Communion is one item in that list:

> В причащении вижу обоготворение плоти и извращение христианского учения.

On the Eucharist specifically (verbatim) — Tolstoy's answer to the climax clause:

> То, что я не содрогнулся описать просто и объективно то, что священник делает для
> приготовления этого, так называемого, таинства, то это совершенно справедливо; но то,
> что это, так называемое, таинство есть нечто священное и что описать его просто, как
> оно делается, есть кощунство, — это совершенно несправедливо.

*(working English)* "That I did not shudder to describe simply and objectively what the
priest does to prepare this so-called sacrament — that is perfectly true; but that this
so-called sacrament is something holy, and that to describe it simply, as it is done, is
blasphemy — that is perfectly untrue."

This is the one place where Tolstoy *and* the Synod meet on the communion question — and
note what it concedes: he affirms he wrote the flat description (the *Resurrection*
manner: «назвать перегородку — перегородкой, а не иконостасом, и чашку — чашкой, а не
потиром»), and defends it. So the communion chapter is genuinely in play between them.
But Tolstoy embeds it inside the same total rejection of sacrament-as-sorcery, and his
positive credo at the end (verbatim: «верю в бога, которого понимаю как дух, как любовь,
как начало всего…») is a complete alternative theology, not a quarrel about one rite.

The PSS editorial commentary (`v34_575_577_Otvet_commentary.txt`) states the trigger
mechanism plainly and **distinguishes long-laid plan from proximate occasion**:

> Отлучение Толстого от церкви было задумано царским правительством еще в 1880-х гг.
> Толчком к опубликованию отлучения послужило появление в 1899 г. романа «Воскресение»,
> в котором Толстой разоблачил лицемерие казенной церкви и создал сатирический образ
> Топорова, недвусмысленно намекавший на обер-прокурора «святейшего» синода
> К. П. Победоносцева.

*(working English, Soviet-era PSS editor A. I. Opulsky)* "The excommunication of Tolstoy
was conceived by the tsarist government as far back as the 1880s. The impulse to
*publish* the excommunication was the appearance in 1899 of the novel *Resurrection*, in
which Tolstoy exposed the hypocrisy of the official church and created the satirical
figure of Toporov, an unmistakable allusion to the Over-Procurator… Pobedonostsev."

This is the crux, and it is the corpus's own editor saying it: the *content* was decades
old; *Resurrection* was the «толчок» to **publish** — and, the commentary stresses, the
personal sting was the **Toporov caricature of Pobedonostsev**, not the communion scene
as such.

---

## 4. Pobedonostsev and the politics (attributed scholarship)

- **The Toporov caricature.** It is the standard reading (English Wikipedia, *Resurrection
  (Tolstoy novel)*, and the PSS commentary above) that the character **Toporov** in
  *Resurrection* is a transparent caricature of **Konstantin Pobedonostsev**, lay
  Over-Procurator of the Holy Synod 1880–1905. «Топоров» (from топор, "axe") answers
  «Победоносцев»; the PSS editor calls the allusion «недвусмысленный» (unmistakable).
  This personal mockery — of the very official who supervised the Synod — is what makes
  *Resurrection* matter to the **timing and motive** of the decree, more directly than
  the Mass chapter does.

- **Pobedonostsev's authorship and his ambivalence.** The PSS commentary states the
  «Определение» was «составленное Победоносцевым» (composed by Pobedonostsev), edited by
  Metropolitan Antony (Vadkovsky) of St Petersburg and other Synod members, and approved
  by Nicholas II. *Against* this, a strand of secondary scholarship (surfaced via web
  search; e.g. socialbites.ca summarising the historiography, and Tchaikovsky-Research's
  Pobedonostsev page) holds that the decision was *driven by Metropolitan Antony* while
  **Pobedonostsev himself hesitated / opposed publication**, fearing it would amplify
  Tolstoy rather than diminish him. *I flag this as contested:* the corpus (Soviet PSS)
  makes Pobedonostsev the author and prime mover; some later accounts soften his role to
  reluctant participant. Attribute, do not adjudicate — and treat the "Pobedonostsev
  reluctantly signed" line with caution, as it partly serves a later rehabilitative frame.

- **On *Resurrection* as precipitant of the *timing*.** Historian Yuri Prokopchuk and
  others (per web search summaries) point to *Resurrection* as the turning point that
  intensified the church conflict and "contributed to" the excommunication decision —
  i.e. it raised the temperature and the political cost of leaving Tolstoy alone. This is
  consistent with the corpus's own «толчок к опубликованию» framing. The careful claim
  the scholarship supports is *Resurrection precipitated the publication and timing of a
  long-prepared act*; the looser claim *Resurrection's communion chapter caused the
  excommunication* is not what either the decree or the scholarship actually says.

---

## 5. Verdict — COMPLICATES

The popular "the communion chapter in *Resurrection* got Tolstoy excommunicated" line is
a **simplification that the primary record complicates** in three specific ways:

1. **The indictment is broad, not communion-shaped.** The decree's operative charges
   (§1b) are the Trinity, Christ's divinity / atonement / resurrection, the virgin birth,
   the afterlife, and *all* sacraments — the standing content of Tolstoy's 1880s–90s
   religious works. The Eucharist clause (§1c) is explicitly the decree's **«последняя и
   высшая степень»**, the *climax* of that list, not its basis. So the communion satire
   is real, named, and rhetorically central — but as the capstone of a doctrinal case,
   not its foundation. (This is the half the popular line gets right, hence *complicates*
   rather than *refutes*: the Eucharist genuinely is the offence the Synod dwells on.)

2. **The corpus distinguishes long-laid intent from proximate occasion.** The PSS editor
   (§3) dates the *intent* to the 1880s and casts *Resurrection* (1899) as the
   **«толчок» to publish** — and locates its sting in the **Toporov caricature of
   Pobedonostsev** (§4), a political-personal provocation, as much as in the Mass scene.
   The novel's role is best stated as *precipitant of timing and publication*, not cause
   of the rupture.

3. **Tolstoy's own contemporaneous record reads it as doctrinal and systemic.** His first
   diary reaction (§2) is the cool «странное отлучение», filed beside student unrest, with
   the *divinity of Christ* (Coleridge) named as the real issue; his 28 March entry
   indicts «все наше православие … колдовство от страха». His Reply (§3) concedes the
   Church-renunciation and the rejection of *all* sacraments, treating communion as one
   item in a total alternative theology. He never frames a single chapter as the cause.

**Net:** the evidence **extends and complicates** the received view rather than confirming
it. Defensible synthesis: *Resurrection* — and especially its caricature of Pobedonostsev,
with the communion satire as the most-quoted single offence — was the **proximate
trigger that made the Synod publish, in February 1901, an excommunication whose doctrinal
substance had been accumulating since the 1880s.** The communion chapter is the climax
the decree reaches for, not the reason it was written. Best summarised as **complicates**
(with a clear *extends* component on the Pobedonostsev/timing axis).

---

### Provenance notes / uncertainty flags
- Corpus-verbatim quotations (Tolstoy's text and his embedded quotation of the decree)
  are from PSS t. 34 and t. 54 extracts in this folder; an automated matcher can check
  them against the corpus.
- Decree passages marked **(web-sourced)** are from the Skvortsov 1901 printing via
  azbyka.ru and from web-search summaries; treat as web-sourced, not corpus-verified.
- Flagged textual variant: «священнейшее из таинств» (Tolstoy's quotation) vs
  «величайшее из Таинств» (Skvortsov text) in the Eucharist clause — synonymous
  superlatives, substance identical.
- Pobedonostsev's exact role (author / prime mover vs reluctant participant) is
  **contested** between the Soviet PSS commentary and later accounts; reported, not
  adjudicated.