TOLSTOI'S EXCOMMUNICATION.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXII, Issue 147, 22 June 1901, Page 5 (Supplement)

TOLSTOI'S EXCOMMUNICATION.

The text of Tolstoi's reply to the decreif of excommunication issued against him bjj the Holy Synod has been published In Paris, Tolstoi begins his letter, which Is date* from Moscow, April 4 (17), with th« follows ing extract from Coleridge:—"He wtoobe** gins by loving Christianity better than truth* will proceed by loving his own sect 01? church better than Christianity, ana end, I« loving himself better thnii all." He 4e* scribes the decree as illogical, intentionally equivocal, arbitrary, and unjustifiable, ondt says it has Incited many persons to acts oti violence against him, and he lias receive^ several letters threatening him with deatJU It is perfectly true, he says, that he ha* renounced the 80-called Orthodox Churchy but that act was tfie consequence ot bis de<; sire to serve God with all hie might. H«| has devoted several years to the study oQ i the teachings of the Church, and has com«t ito the conclusion that in theory this teach-* ing was an astute and injurious lie, and lrt practice a compound of gross superstitious ami sorcery. : ■>

Count Lyof Nlisolaivlteh Tolstoi was bora in 1628 at Yasnaia Poliana, in the Russian Province of Toula. At the age of 23 lie* entered the army, and fought against us tat the Crimean war, his Sketches of life &t Rebastopol giving him at once a literary repu* tatlon. He then devoted himself to Htera* Hire, his masterpieces being his novels, "War and Peace," a tale of the inr&stan ol Russia by Napoleon; "Anna Karenina," aadi "The Cossacks." Latterly he has devoted himself to religious teaching. Ws motto being, "Resist not evil," which he insists i* the one rulti of life as set forth in the Sermon on the Mount. His views are further; set forth in "Christ's Christianity" and "M£ Religion," and the "Krentascr SonaUjj works which hnvc been translated intoi every known language. In October, IKWj Count Tolstoi deposited his memoirs «n4 dir.rie* in the Rnmranzaff Xw™' «n «g condition that they shall not be PoUtehei untii 10 years after his death. In INovember the same year he made over his wholo forthe same year nt nnfl living. In September last year thd President of the Holy Synod exrommnnl. pnted him. nnd thus mmmoneeil Dm action which has led to ♦"*- Connfs bnntsbment. «