Approach to God from a Black Door. Joseph Stalin. Threshold 7

There were presented: the AD (Angel-Destroyer), the AG (Angel-Guardian), Joanna.

Witnesses: the poet and diplomat Feodor Tutchev, the classic Ivan Turgenev, the publicist and philosopher Ivan Kireevsky, the critic and publicist Vissarion Bielinsky, the philosopher Nikolai Berdyaev. The terrorist and nihilist Nechayev. The philosopher Sergius Bulgakov, the founder Karl Marx, the writer, philosopher and revolutionary Alexander Hertsen, Sergei Zhelyabov, a member of the "Narodnaya Volya" (People's Freedom).

In the viewing room crackle of the film reader was heard and two pairs of feet in sandals were seen. The black sandals smelt tar.

The witness Hertsen spoke about idealists of forties years of 19th century.

'What touched these people whose breath recreated them? They neither think of their own profit, nor care of their status position; all their efforts are directed to common welfare without any personal profits; some forget about their wealth, other about their poverty and go without hesitation to solutions of theoretical problems. Their interests for truth, life, science, art and humanity absorb everything.'

'Where in which corner of the modern West you can find groups of hermits of thought, ascetics of science and fanatics of beliefs whose hair becomes grey but whose aspirations are always young?'

Dostoyevsky also speaks about Russian boys 'solving damned problems'.

The witness Ivan Turgenev:

'In philosophy we have always searched for everything in the world, except pure thinking.'

'Dream is the best thing in the world,' Kereevsky thinks.

The witness Vissarion Belinsky:

'I don't want to have happiness as a gift when I feel anxiety about each of my blood brother.'

'A fate of a subject, an individual or a personality is more important than fates of the entire world and the health of Chinese emperor.'

'Isn't Chinese emperor a personality? The AD filled with indignation.'

Let's not interrupt Biellinsky. There are many contradictions here but how much fire!"

'Now I'm in a new extremity; this is an idea of socialism that has become for me a new idea, a reality of realities, a problem of problems, alpha and omega of faith and knowledge. Everything is from it, for it and to it.'

"Notice, how many biblical terms are here! It's just like in Josef's works."

'I'm all the more and more a citizen of the universe. Crazy thirst for love gorges my inside more and more, my depression is harder and more oppressive.'

'I begin to love humanity in Marat's way: in order to make happy the smallest part of it I would destroy the other part by fire and sword.'

"And you mention Joseph all the time," the AG nodded his head. Just listen:

'Socialism, socialism or death.'

"It's interesting what Bielinsky means by socialism. Of course, it's not only redivision of property. Judging to mentioned above 'The Letter to Gogol', this is a longing desire to perform Christ's Truth right now and immediately."

"A utopian idea about God's Kingdom on the earth, the descent of Heaven to the earth" as witness Dostoyevsky told," the AD livened up. "It's a new tower of Babel, a gravest sin!"

"No, son of darkness, it's not so simple. Your boss again consciously got all wrong and bewildered the witness Dostoyevsky. Why are people commanded to pray, 'Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven'? Isn't it 'the descent of Heaven to the earth'? What has the tower of Babel to do with it? The Lord Himself 'became a man, so that we could become Godlike people, i.e. he descended to the earth".

"Thy Kingdom come. OK, let it be said about the Kingdom that is 'within you'. But is the Kingdom possible when they daily turn people into slaves and beasts? And doesn't it follow that nothing should be turned for the better? Let slavery be change into feudalism and then capitalism but in no way for the better. This is a sin and utopia! Who devised this idea? The hand is familiar."

"We do our best. People accept it."

"I will tell you why they accept it."

'And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.

For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved.

But he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought in God' (John 3:19-21).

"Come to the light alone," grumbled the AD, "and don't prevent people from living."

"Does it mean that we can't come together? Doesn't it mean that one may come to capitalism but not to the light?

"One may do that but outside the church."

"Dostoyevsky said:

"Socialism is not only a problem of laborers or so called the fourth estate but it is mainly an atheistic problem - a problem of modern embodiment of atheism, a problem of the tower of Babel, a construction without God, not for reaching Heaven from the earth but for descending Heaven to the earth."

"I'm asking about the Scripture or about testimonies of the Holy Fathers in this important problem. As for Dostoyevsky, he played cards and roulette."

"And often lost," the AD sighed, "for high stakes. But let's not judge him."

"I will tell you what, son of darkness, it's harped by those who 'neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved'."

"OK, don't be nervous; conserve your strength for Joseph's sake."

"You know that it directly relates to Joseph. "There will be no rich, no poor, no kings and subjects but there will be brothers, people, and, according to apostle Paul's words, the Christ will give his power to Father, and Father-Intellect will again ascend the throne in the new heaven and over the new earth."

"Father-Intellect is an undoubted mistake of Bielinsky."

This is an attempt to follow the fashion. It's rather a touching attempt than a seditious one."

"It's a very seditious one. You like to justify everyone."

The witness Berdyaev, 'Russian atheism was born as something oppressed that rebels against the injustice and evil of the world. Different governance of the world should be organised, under which there would be no unbearable sufferings, and man wouldn't be a wolf to man but a brother. Those who were injured by human sufferings because of their pity for humanity didn't accept empire and didn't want to have authority, power and might.'

"I would like to add, 'didn't accept unrighteous empire and unrighteous authority and power'. Isn't it what the Lord commanded? Here is a classic example of divergence between Church of Christ and social church. The result of that is atheism. Rejecting the distorted teaching, 'boys' rejected God. They were throwing the baby out with the bath water.

Thankfully, Bielinsky understood that. And many others too. Bielinsky said, 'People are so stupid that they must be led to happiness by force'.

He also said, 'Liberated Russian nation wouldn't go to the parliament but to bars to drink wine, break glasses and hang noblemen'.

"Don't you think we have forgotten about Hertsen?"

"OK, let's listen to Hertsen."

'Under influence of lower middle classes everything changed in Europe. Everybody likes pretending instead of being'. 'Stinginess of wealthy lower middle classes is opposed with envy of have-nots lower middle classes: on the one hand, there are bourgeois-owners who obstinately refuse to give up their monopolies and on the other hand there are have-not bourgeois who want to take away wealth from their hands but have no strength, i.e. on the one hand there is stinginess and on the other hand there is envy. As there is no real moral origin in all of that, places of personalities in both sides are determined by their environment or by their public statuses.'

"Perhaps, reading these lines, Joseph thought about werewolves, about his friends fighting in the dust for coins. A proletarian is a reverse side of a bourgeois - this was learnt very well by him!

By the way, here is a tricky question: who is the author of the words:

'Proletarians are the most inhuman people who are the most void of riches of human nature. They are poisoned by envy and hatred'.

"Don't they belong to Joseph?"

"Not if I know it," grinned AG, "Joseph could conceal his thoughts and beliefs. This was said by Karl Marx himself.

"And we entrusted revolution to those people! They believed neither in ideals, nor in proletariat."

"But they believe in mammon instead."

'Capitalism is a religion of the golden calf. Capitalism is not only offence and oppression of the have-nots; first of all, it is offence and oppression of human personality, every human personality. A slave, a bourgeois himself and the beginning of proletariat are consequences of human sin', testifies Berdyaev. 'A bourgeois is a slave of the invisible world where he wishes to take up a position. He values people not by their being but by their property. A citizen of 'this world', king of the earth. He has established himself and become rooted; he is satisfied and doesn't feel vanity and smallness of earthly blessings. The only infinity he acknowledges is infinity of economic enrichment.'

'A bourgeois is always a slave. He is a slave of his property and money, a slave of his thirst for enrichment, a slave of bourgeois public opinion, a slave of his social status; he is a slave of those slaves whom he exploits and whom he is afraid of.'

'He created a huge material kingdom, places himself and others under it. In bourgeois luxury beauty perishes.'

'A bourgeois irresistibly tends to create a fictitious world enslaving man and corrupting the world of true values. A bourgeois creates the most fictitious, the most unreal, the most horrible in its unreality kingdom of money. A bourgeois is not what he is but what he has.'

"Let's call this bourgeois kingdom Vampiria," the AG said, "which drives the entire world into slavery of mammon. It was the bitterest enemy of Joseph. It was condemned by the Scripture and it was for some reason guarded and blessed by the official church.

The religious philosopher Nikolai Berdyaev was exiled from Russia by Lenin. But this didn't prevent him from summing up:

'The old regime rotted away and had no proper defenders. The holy Russian empire, which was rejected by Russian intelligentsia struggling with it for the whole century, fell. Those religious beliefs that supported autocratic monarchy were weakened and corrupted among people. Real content disappeared from official phraseology 'Orthodoxy, autocracy and people'; this phraseology became insincere and false... For Russian left-wing intelligentsia revolution was always both religion and philosophy... Russian atheism, nihilism, and materialism gained a religious character. Russian people from national labour group, even leaving Orthodoxy, kept on searching for God, God's truth and the meaning of life... Russian idea is an eschatological one, turning to the end. From hence Russian maximalism appeared. But in Russian consciousness even an eschatological idea takes a shape of aspiration for universal salvation. Russian religiousness has a universal character. First of all, Christianity is accepted as a religion of Resurrection'.

Joseph searched for God and God's truth beyond Vampiria and its official church. That's why he left the seminary.

Dobrolyubov and Chernyshevsky were seminarians too. Being pious and ascetic Dobrolubov in his childhood scourged himself when ate too much jam.

"He was outraged by spiritually vile way of life and Orthodox clergy from where he appeared; he can't reconcile his faith in God and God's Providence with existence of evil and unjust sufferings. From hence was his passion for vulgar materialism and mania for natural sciences."

'Nihilism was accused of negation of morality. In reality, in Russian amorality there is a strong pathos: pathos of indignation at evil and untruth, reigning in the world, and pathos, aspiring for better life where there would be more truth. Rejection of the world lying in evil was present in Orthodox asceticism, eschatologist and Russian dissent' (the witness Nikolai Berdyaev).

'He wished nothing of his own; he was a complete sacrifice. At that time too many Orthodox Christians successfully arranged their earthly and heavenly matters' - this is a testimony about Nikolai Chernyshevsky. Gendarmes carrying him to penal servitude said. 'We have been charged to carry a criminal but we are carrying a saint'.

'The best of Russian revolutionaries agreed to be persecuted, to be in need, prison, penal servitude and to capital punishment, having no hope for another otherworldly life in contrast to Christians of that time who took great care of blessings of their earthly lives (at the expense of other people, the AD hissed) and expected to gain blessings of heavenly life'.

"Let all of them go into hell," the AD began to clap, "I can't understand who you support. You support those who forgot that they mustn't serve god and mammon simultaneously or..."

"I support Joseph and others. God judge them. Revering the Truth, the Russian church refused to preach social justice and human dignity in God's image. This social truth was searched by nihilists, and Russian populists whom peasants often deliver up to official authorities.

Then terrorists and Marxists came."

"You have again forgotten about Hertsen," the AD was filled with indignation, "call Russia to revolt. Its faith in good intentions of kings ruins it."

"The objection sustained. Of course, Joseph was familiar with this call. He also read 'Catechism of Revolution' by the terrorist Nechayev. It declares iron discipline, hard centralization and asceticism, which is harder than asceticism of Syrian monks. A revolutionary must have nothing of his own, like a monk: no family, no property, no outside interests, except interests of revolution, and even no name.

When a monk took monastic vows his name was also changed. It was also widely used by Russian revolutionaries, including Joseph.

The speech of the witness Zhelyabov at the court particularly confirms the dissention between Church of Christ and official church."

"The defendant Zhelyabov," the AD corrected.

"It's at their office he was a defendant but in ours he is a witness":

'I was baptized in Orthodoxy but I deny Orthodoxy though I acknowledge the essence of Jesus Christ's teaching. This essence of the teaching takes a place of honour among my moral motives. I think this teaching to be true and just and solemnly acknowledge that faith without deed is dead and that every Christian should strive for the truth and for the rights of the oppressed and the week, and if needed suffer for them: such is my faith'.

"I only mean that when church turns its back to 'accursed problems', all kinds of atheists, nihilist and, unfortunately, terrorists begin to deal with them. And the end of it is revolution washing unrepentant sins by blood, though in most cases by innocent one. They said that revolution gorges its sons. In the first place it gorges best sons."

'[As] I live, saith the Lord GOD, surely because my flock became a prey, and my flock became meat to every beast of the field, because [there was] no shepherd, neither did my shepherds search for my flock, but the shepherds fed themselves, and fed not my flock; Therefore, O ye shepherds, hear the word of the LORD;

Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I [am] against the shepherds; and I will require my flock at their hand, and cause them to cease from feeding the flock; neither shall the shepherds feed themselves any more; for I will deliver my flock from their mouth, that they may not be meat for them' (Ezekiel 34:8-10).

'Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD unto them; Behold, I, [even] I, will judge between the fat cattle and between the lean cattle.

Because ye have thrust with side and with shoulder, and pushed all the diseased with your horns, till ye have scattered them abroad;

Therefore will I save my flock, and they shall no more be a prey; and I will judge between cattle and cattle.

And I will set up one shepherd over them, and he shall feed them, [even] my servant David; he shall feed them, and he shall be their shepherd' (Ezekiel 34:20-23).

"What does it remind you of? The boy dreamed that he, Joseph, would accept 'a rod of iron from David's hands and become the Lord's shepherd. 'David' was one of conspiratorial names of Joseph.

However, among English puritans there appeared a slogan 'God loves the rich'. Material prosperity was considered as a sigh of 'heavenly chosen ones'. They were called 'fathers-pilgrims'. Messianism and American way of life little by little becomes a doctrine of young 'kingdom of mammon', which on their opinion should be served and protected by the Lord God Himself.

In this connection I would like to ask: what is better: faith in this unjust god, protector of vampires and predators, or atheism that was called by Berdyaev 'Approach to God from the Black Door'?

'Militant atheism is a revenge for slavish ideas about God and for adaptation of true Christianity for ruling powers. Atheism can be an existential dialectical moment in purifying the idea about God. Rejection of spirit can be deliverance of spirit from service role for dominant interests of the world. There can't be class truth, but there can be class lie, and it matters much in history' (Nikolai Berdyaev).

"What fun! Do you justify atheism?"

"I'm explaining it. Anyway, The Lord prefers 'cold ones' to 'lukewarm ones':

'I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot.

So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth' (Revelation 3:15-16).

The rich man of the Gospel and many others with him light-heartedly celebrated while the hungry and ragged bagger Lazarus suffered on footsteps of his house. Only for this thing the rich man got into hell.

Being in a position of the Gospel rich man, Leo Tolstoy felt that he was the unhappiest of people; he suffered and sought. Perhaps, he sought in wrong places but he wasn't a 'lukewarm one'.

'Not flesh but spirit becomes depraved nowadays,
And man is desperately sad.
He craves to get to light from night shade,
But obtaining light, he murmurs and rebels.
Being burnt and scorched by his unbelief,
He bears unbearable things now.
He realizes his own death,
And longs for faith but doesn't ask for it.
No matter how hard his grief is,
He will never say with prayers and tears before the locked door,
'Let me in. I believe, o my God,
Help thou mine unbelief' (the witness Feodor Tutchev).

"Finishing the part, let's sum up'.

The witness Sergius Bulgakov:

As the historic events develop, the religious sense of Russian drama, which, being manifest in political and social crisis, is rooted in spiritual disintegration and internal dissention of Russian people, reveals itself clearer and clearer. We have learnt by experience that it is impossible to break the commandment 'But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you' without being punished. We were concerned exclusively about 'all these things', neglecting man's spiritual world, this truly creative power of history. And we lost spiritual balance and dispersed every which way in pursuit of 'all these things, which collapsed more and more and divided people...

The birth of a new man which is discussed in conversation with Nicodemus can take place only in the inmost recesses of human soul. The most decisive collision of good and evil takes place now not in parliaments or people's assemblies but in people's souls, and historic fates of Russia are decided now in that invisible inner conflict, and to us the terrible word of Moses is applied, i.e. a dying will of the prophesying leader of Israel to his people that predetermined its earthly fates, 'I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, [that] I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live' (About Contradictions in Modern non-religious world outlook).

The part finished or the film tape tore. The film reader stopped, and...