I. M. Andreyev
TRUE ORTHODOX CONVERT
FROM THE RUSSIAN INTELLIGENTSIA
AT THE DAWN of the 20th century, the Russian intellectual class — the intelligentsia — had wandered far from the Orthodox Christian roots of Russian life. The promising beginnings in the mid-19th century of a genuine Orthodox philosophy able to meet the challenge of Western ideas (Kireyevsky, Khomiakov) had few followers. With a few exceptions (such as Constantine Leontiev) the Russian intelligentsia in the second half of the 19th century went far away from the Orthodox Church, turning ever more to Western revolutionary ideas, ending in materialism and Marxism.
The natural reaction against this materialism in the late 19th century did not take an Orthodox form. The powerful religious philosophy of Vladimir Soloviev influenced many to return to religion of a sort — but to a "free" religion, not the Orthodoxy of Byzantine and Russian tradition. As a result, the Russian religious "renaissance" of the early 20th century was remote from Orthodoxy; it was a current of religious "freethinking" that prepared the ground for "renovationism” in Russia and for religious "liberalism" and outright heresy in the Diaspora.
In many minds the impression remains that the Russian intelligentsia, even when religious, is basically free-thinking, modernist, renovationist, even when its members join the ranks of the Orthodox clergy, while they are opposed only by "narrow church circles" which have no "creativity," but simply preserve the church tradition of the past without any answer to the "problems of the time.”
Such an over-simplified view does not do justice to the integrity of the genuine bearers of tradition, who transmit the Orthodox patristic philosophy of life without the great crises and “conversions” and fanfare of the intelligentsia, and perform indeed a difficult and creative task in living and transmitting it against all the attacks of the modern world; nor does it pay sufficient attention to those members of the intelligentsia whose conversion from materialism and Western ideas is complete and not partial, and who therefore become part of the preservers of tradition and cease being a pant of the rebellious intelligentsia.
These latter “converts” are invariably and especially disowned by the liberal intelligentsia, and their views are not seen as worthy of respect. But their experience of philosophical and spiritual growth is of great value, whether for younger Russians or Western converts whose experience in our times (so hostile to tradition) is much closer to theirs than to those who never rebelled. One such convert, an inspiring example for our times, was I. M. Andreyev, whose conversion and spiritual growth can be followed for the most part in excerpts from his own writings.
IVAN MIKHAILOVICH ANDREYEVSYY (Andreyev being his literary pseudonym) was born on March 14, 1894, of well-to-do parents in St. Petersburg and attended secondary schools in that city. He had at least one brother and one sister (the poetess Maria Shkapskaya). He evidently was raised in Orthodox piety (he twice had contact with St. john of Kronstadt), but in late adolescence he entered a period of "rebellion." His outlook at the end of his secondary schooling may be seen in the following account by someone who knew him then, Nicholas Sergeev (private letter of February 7, 1977):
"Ivan Mikhailovich came to the sixth class of the Vyedensky Gymnasia in 1911-12; where he had been before that I don't know. He sat two seats away from me; he was a serious boy, never joked, was a fairly good student . . . I sang in the choir of our house church, but I never saw I. M. in church. In the seventh class, I believe in November, 1912, we were all thunderstruck when we found out from the newspapers that a revolutionary group had been discovered (in our school and in the Wideman Gymnasia) — I.M. and a student of the class ahead of him, in whose room a mimeograph machine and proclamations had been found (the latter killed himself). We didn't see I. M. in the Gymnasia after that. I can only write what was said: there was a trial; the participants of the group were taken under the protection of the millionaire Shacht and sent to study in Switzerland.”
The beginning of Andreyev‘s intellectual and spiritual path, therefore, is clear: he was an unchurchly, deadly-serious, revolutionary-minded youth, such as were common in the Russia of the early 20th century.
Apparently he finished his secondary schooling in Switzerland, and we next hear of him in Paris. “In 1914 I was a young student of the Philosophy Department of the Sorbonne, and I had the right of attending lectures at the College-de-France. There I listened to Lalande and Bergson.” He also attended the lectures of Emile Durkheim, Levy-Bruel, and other noted philosophers and scientists of that time, and completed his studies in the department of philosophy at the Sorbonne. Most of all he was under the influence of Bergson: “Bergson lectured with inspiration, improvised, thought out loud, created on the lecture platform, and ruled the minds of the young generation, especially of Russians. I was among the latter.” (“The Path of Prof. S. A. Askoldov,” in Orthodox Way for 1955, Jordanville, p. 55; all sources translated from Russian.)
Here again it is not difficult to understand the course of Andreyev's intellectual growth. The young “revolutionary,” broadened by exposure to some of the leading scientific and philosophical minds of Europe, made the same jump “from Marxism to idealism” that was then being made by Bulgakov, Berdayev, and other famous members of the Russian intelligentsia. The philosophy of Bergson was a reaction against 19th-century materialism and atheism which strove to attain some higher reality by means of "intuition," making use of the then fashionable scientific philosophy in order to create a new philosophy of “creative evolution,” where in the world is viewed as a reality constantly changing, constantly being created, constantly striving towards something beyond itself. “God” Himself, according to Bergson, is constantly moving and changing, and the “worlds” He creates are in a constant process of "evolution," lower beings being transformed into higher with virtually no limit to the upward surge of this irreversible process: “There is a center from which worlds shoot out like rockets in a fireworks display . . . God, thus defined, has nothing of the already-made; he is unceasing life, action, freedom . . . All the living hold together, and all yield to the same tremendous push. The animal takes its stand on the plant, man bestrides animality and the whole of humanity, in space and in time, is one immense army galloping beside and before and behind each of us in an overwhelming charge able to beat down every resistance, and clear the most formidable obstacles, perhaps even death” (Bergson, Creative Evolution). Such a philosophy must have been alluring indeed to a 20-year-old "philosopher," just awakened to the insufficiency of a materialistic philosophy and the utter stupidity of atheism, but not yet ready to see any other way out of the crisis of modern European philosophy than a vague and romantic irrationalism. The philosophy of Bergson did not leave a deep trace on the mature world-view of Andreyev; it was, rather, an important stage in his assimilation of the best of modern "wisdom," which enabled him later to be a brilliant apologist for the higher wisdom of Orthodoxy. His older contemporary, Berdayev, never left this immature stage of "romantic idealism”; but Andreyev advanced, one step at a time, along a path that was to take him to true orthodoxy.
It was Bergson who introduced Andreyev to a more mature philosopher than himself. In Andreyev’s own words: "Once, after one of his inspired lectures, brilliant in form, Bergson asked those who surrounded him in the corridor: who, in their opinion, was the most remarkable thinker in the world at the present time? Seeing the perplexity of his listeners, he clearly and distinctly said: ‘It is a modest Russian philosopher, Askoldov by name.’ It was extremely flattering for me, a Russian student, to hear such an opinion about a Russian philosopher; but to my shame I had to acknowledge that I heard the name of Askoldov then for the first time and knew absolutely nothing about him" (Ibid. p. 55). A few years later he was to meet this remarkable and little-known Russian philosopher and become his disciple.
Andreyev returned to Russia after the outbreak of the Revolution, already much changed from when he had left. He was no longer under the spell of revolutionary ideas and took no part in the Revolution that swirled about him. He took up advanced studies in medicine and psychiatry at the Bekhterev Institute in Petrograd, and these studies also served for his intellectual and philosophical development. Later he was to say: “I came to God through science," and this statement well reveals his spiritual life's path: through a burning love for truth (as opposed to the opinions and prejudices that often usurp the name of science), he came finally to the Truth itself.
In the first years of the Soviet regime he was also studying literature at Petersburg University; indeed, his interest in psychiatry had originally been aroused by the depths of the human soul which he had found revealed in the novels of Dostoyevsky. In literature also he was seeking truth first and foremost.
The intellectual vigor and depth of Andreyev’s student years are truly astonishing. Obviously a man of genius, he received in these years three doctorates: in medicine, literature, and philosophy; a few years later he was to add a fourth: in theology.
Philosophically, Andreyev came at this time under the influence of N. Lossky, one of the most renowned Russian philosophers of the time, an “idealist” and "intuitionist" (but rather “liberal” in his Orthodoxy) who brought Andreyev a little closer to his own Orthodox roots. But the most important event in his intellectual life was his meeting, at Petersburg University in 1919, with S. A. Askoldov, the Russian philosopher who had been pointed out to him in Paris by Bergson.
The nature of the influence of Askoldov upon Andreyev cannot be understood by reference to the pitiable academic world of today, which is oriented to the passing down of fragmented knowledge and opinions and not a wholeness of world-view. "For the first time after Bergson,” writes Andreyev, "I experienced the spiritual awe of contact with a man of genius. I felt that I had found, at last, a real teacher" (Ibid, p. 56). "I learned from him true philosophizing" (Outlines of the History of Russian Literature, p. 305). Askoldov taught him much about philosophy and introduced him to his own philosopher-friends, such as Fr. Paul Florensky and Fr. Theodore Andreyev; but more importantly, Andreyev absorbed from his teacher a whole attitude of mind and soul which was just what he needed for his own further intellectual and spiritual growth. "Everything I came to know of what Askoldov had written produced on me an exceptionally powerful impression, because it directly and clearly answered to the deepest questions of my spirit" (Orthodox Way, 1950, p. 57).
Askoldov had a constant "will for righteousness and truth . . . Intellectual dishonesty always evoked in him an explosion of dissatisfaction” (Ibid.,p. 62). Andreyev himself inherited from his teacher this intellectual uprightness that could not tolerate the slightest dishonesty or fakery, whether in philosophy or church life.
From Askoldov, Andreyev also learned of the often complex organic relationship between good and evil, and of the necessity to choose in real life “primary good" even if it is joined to a “secondary evil.” For example, the political and social order of Imperial Russia was a primary good (because founded on God and Orthodoxy) joined to secondary evils (moral defects of some of its representatives, social injustices, etc., while the Revolution even at its best offered a secondary good (the correction of injustices) joined to a primary evil (the overthrow of the God-ordained order, the installation of atheism). This is the key also, in Askoldov’s view, to understanding Antichrist, who will seem “good” to those who have lost the Christian hierarchy of values and do not see the warfare against Christ and His Church hidden beneath his mask of “humanitarianism."
Askoldov opened up to Andreyev the possibility for a modern man to believe in miracles and the immortality of the soul, and gave him "the key to a true understanding of contemporary world events: the recognition of our times as apocalyptic" (Ibid., p. 64). When reminded of the “mistakes” of those Christian thinkers in the past who thought their times also were apocalyptic, “Askoldov would usually reply that they had not been mistaken then; and he would give an example: It happens that people are near death, and this is known and felt by them, as also by the physicians who are treating them and by their close relatives. But then such a man suddenly recovers. One cannot say that he had not been near death; he had been near death, but then recovered. So also the world has been several times near death, and those who are sensitive in religious matters have felt it, and there was no mistake in this. So also now: the world is ‘near death’ " (Ibid., p. 64).
Askoldov further influenced Andreyev in religious ways by his “religious outlook of soul, thirst for purity, and gift of contrite tears of repentance" (Orthodox Way, 1950, p. 61). Once, during the Second World War, when the two were together in a small wooden house and had nowhere to flee during a fierce bombardment, Andreyev was astonished when Askoldov, in the absence of a priest, asked permission to confess his sins to him in the face of death. “I will never forget this confession: a more sincere repentance would be difficult to imagine" (loc. cit.).
In a word, Askoldov brought Andreyev, through his intellectual, moral and religious influence, to the threshold of a true Orthodox Christian consciousness. But soon the disciple was to outgrow the teacher. Askoldov, although Orthodox in religion, had some heretical views, and Andreyev began to argue with him over them, trying to persuade his teacher to become fully Orthodox and not hold to his mistaken views. The profound love and friendship of these two men, who were to share years of Soviet life, exile and war together, produced its most touching fruit on the deathbed of Askoldov in Germany in 1945, from where he wrote Andreyev that he had finally decided to burn his work "On Reincarnation,” having become fully reconciled with everything churchly, largely under Andreyev’s influence (Ibid., p. 60).
It was Askoldov who introduced Andreyev to the first of the more strictly "churchly” influences in his intellectual and spiritual life: Professor (later Priest) Theodore K. Andreyev, whose surname he was to take as his own out of his great respect for him. Andreyev thus writes of his first impression of this brilliant young professor: "In 1921-22 Prof. T. K. Andreyev would sometimes give lectures or, more frequently, debates. Especially striking was his talk at the ‘Home of Scientists,’ in the discussion after the lecture of Prof. N. O. Lossky in 1921, ‘On the Nature of the Satanic,’ when the young professor, with immense feeling and broad erudition, censured the renowned philosopher Lossky, reading as it were a counter-lecture on the theme of ‘The Origin of Evil’ ” (Fr. M. Polsky, Russia's New Martyrs, Jordanville, 1957, vol. II, p. 134). This was perhaps the first clear clash which Andreyev had witnessed in his mature years between the wisdom of this world, which he had been pursuing up until then, and -the Church's wisdom, which now began to conquer his mind and soul.
Later, in 1924, after serving briefly as a psychiatrist at the Nikolaevsky Military Hospital, as a professor at Petersburg University, and as a literature instructor in a Petrograd high school, Andreyev was living in a sanitorium near Tsarskoye Selo (sharing a room with Askoldov), where many of the residents were spiritual children of the newly-ordained Father Theodore Andreyev. Here frequent religious and philosophical discussions were held, and Fr. Theodore himself (and Andreyev after him) was noticeably maturing in the strictly Orthodox side of his philosophy, finding his former professor and friend, Father Paul Florensky, to be rather un-Orthodox and even in a refined state of spiritual deception. Father Theodore taught Dogmatic Theology and Liturgics in the“Pastoral Courses" which had been set up in Petrograd by a number of theology professors as an answer to the two other theological schools remaining in the city, a "renovated" and a “liberal” theological institute. Andreyev studied in this actual "theological academy" from 1924 to 1928 and here received his "catacomb" theological degree. A further church influence on Andreyev at this time was Fr. Sergei Tikomirov, spiritual father both of him and of Askoldov; he was a frequent visitor of Optina Monastery and had spiritual contact with its elders. In these years also, beginning after both Andreyev and Askoldov had lost their professorships in the University and were teaching in technical and high schools, the two began to form religious-philosophical groups with the best of their students, sharing with them their maturing Orthodox world-view, books from their library, and their enthusiasm for important religious questions. Out of these groups was formed, in 1926, a "Brotherhood of St. Seraphim of Sarov" — an indication of the direction in which their religious growth was taking them.
By 1926 Andreyev had read a number of Orthodox patristic sources, under whose influence he came to intellectual maturity in Orthodoxy, and had visited a number of Orthodox monasteries, where he saw true Orthodoxy in practice. "Bergson, Lossky, Askoldov: these are the three stages of my philosophical development — philosophical, but not religious. On the latter path I had entirely different teachers: Bishop Theophan the Recluse, Bishop Ignatius Brianchaninov, the Optina Elders, and the ever-memorable Father john of Kronstadt — and then the Philocalia, and, in general, Orthodox patristic literature. With Optina Elder Nectarius I engaged in a long correspondence, and with Elder Dositheus I was in personal contact. Twice I had had personal contact with Father john of Kronstadt also. Being taught by them the strictly Orthodox spiritual method (if one can thus express oneself), I made it secure by means of unforgettable impressions of visits to remarkable Russian monasteries (Valaam, Solovki, the Kiev Caves Lavra, Sarov, Diveyevo, Optina Monastery, and others). As a result, the choice became clear to me between the conservative Orthodoxy of Father john of Kronstadt and the ‘modernized’ Orthodoxy of V. Soloviev and his school. Without wavering, I chose the former path" (Outline: of the History of Russian Literature, p. 304).
Having come to true Orthodoxy, Andreyev finally, on a pilgrimage to St. Seraphim's Diveyevo Convent, had an experience which he describes as his "spiritual birth." It was the custom for pilgrims to Diveyevo to remain at least 24 hours in the Convent and perform there the “rule” laid down by St. Seraphim himself: to walk three times around the "canal" of the Mother of God (the path around the Convent), saying a special rule of prayer by prayer-rope, praying for all one’s relations and close ones, and at the end expressing one’s most heartfelt, most needed desire, which would unfailingly be granted, according to one’s prayer. Andreyev thus describes his experience:
"When, at the end of my third circuit of the ‘canal’, having performed the whole rule, I wished to express my heartfelt desires, something miraculous occurred to me, evidently by the great mercy of St. Seraphim. I was suddenly gripped by an entirely special, quiet, warm, and fragrant joy — an undoubting conviction with my whole being of the existence of God and of an entirely real communion in prayer with Him. And it became entirely evident and clear to me that any request for anything earthly would be equal to the prayer: Lord, depart from me and deprive me of Thy wondrous gift . . . And inwardly I fervently addressed God, ‘O Lord, give me nothing, take away from me all earthly prosperity, but only do not deprive me of the joy of communion with Thee, or, if it is impossible to preserve this always in our life, then grant me remembrance of heart, grant me the possibility of preserving to death the remembrance of this present blessed minute of the sensing of Thy Holy Spirit!’
"The next day we went to Sarov. We venerated the relics of St. Seraphim with great emotion, with spiritual fear and reverence. I sensed that I had been spiritually born the preceding day at Diveyevo. Everything had become new within me. Previously I had not understood such a simple truth, that spiritual things are more distinct from those of the soul than the latter from bodily things. But now I understood this all well. Within, in the depths of my soul, it was quiet, calm, joyful. The outward miracles at the shrine of St. Seraphim, which occurred before my eyes, did not astonish me. All this seemed simple and natural . . .
“My whole life after my pilgrimage to Sarov Monastery changed. The Lord took away from me, in accordance with my prayer at the canal, all earthly goods, but He preserved forever in me the remembrance of that moment when, in His limitless kindness, by the mercy of the Most Holy Mother of God and the prayers of St. Seraphim, I, a sinner, totally undeservedly, was vouchsafed to experience in myself the quiet, joyful, gentle and fragrant wafting of the Holy Spirit of the Lord” (“A Pilgrimage to Sarov and Diveyevo in 1926,” in Orthodox Way, 1953, pp. 20-21, 25).
Thus did Andreyev, after his intellectual maturity, come to spiritual maturity. He himself was later to describe to his students these years of his intellectual and spiritual formation as his full growth from "body" (science, medicine) to "soul" (literature, philosophy) to "spirit" (theology, true Orthodoxy), using the threefold division of the human personality discussed by St. Seraphim, Bishop Theophan the Recluse, and many other Fathers, on the basis of the words of St. Paul (I Cor. 2:14-15, etc.). By "spirit,” of course, is not meant a separate component of man's nature, as some heretics have taught, but only the higher part of the soul, where contact with God and the spiritual world is opened up, as opposed to the lower part of the soul, which is occupied with the normal human pursuits of art and science, philosophy and culture. The awareness — in first-hand experience — of this critical distinction between soul and spirit was later to give to his teaching a depth and preciseness which few philosophers and thinkers attain.
In 1926 Andreyev reached philosophical and religious maturity; in 1927 his period of testing began. In the latter year Metropolitan Sergius issued his infamous “Declaration,” and the Orthodox faithful were divided into two camps. Andreyev, together with most of those in his circle of friends — Askoldov, Fr. Theodore Andreyev, Fr. Sergei Tikhomirov, even Fr. Paul Florensky — protested the “Declaration” and joined the opposition to it, out of which was formed the present-day Catacomb Church. In this critical choice the soundness and rightness of Andreyev's spiritual formation was confirmed.
Andreyev’s activities in first protesting the "Declaration" and then suffering imprisonment (at Solovki from 1929-31) and banishment for his religious views, are described in some of his articles which are printed below. During the 1930's he was an active participant in the Catacomb "]osephite" movement while serving as a physician and psychiatrist wherever he was able to do so; it is known that he attended the catacomb services of Father Ismael Rozhdectvensky and was his spiritual son for a while. Just before the Second World War he was chief physician of the Regional Psychiatric Hospital in Novgorod. When the Germans advanced he found himself in the occupied zone, and when they retreated he went to Germany, settling finally (in 1950) at Holy Trinity Monastery near Jordanville, New York. Here he joined the faculty of Holy Trinity Seminary, which during his time (the 1950's and 1960's) included some of the most remarkable minds of the Russian Diaspora, who were indeed a group of tradition-minded Orthodox thinkers without rival in the whole Orthodox world for the depth and refinement of their thought in theology, philosophy, and literature, and for the wholeness and balance of their view of the present-day church situation. (Apart from the two theologian-rectors, Archbishops Vitaly and Averky, one may name Archimandrite Constantine, Fr. M. Pomazansky, I. M. Kontzevitch, N. Talberg, and others.)
Unfortunately, owing precisely to the lack of depth and refinement among Orthodox Christians in general today, and also to the ingrained modesty and humility of these superb products of genuine Orthodox tradition, these Orthodox thinkers, Andreyev among them, have seldom been appreciated at their full value, and even those who have lived and studied in their midst have too seldom realized what treasures they could have mined from their wealth of Orthodox knowledge and experience. Their spiritual and intellectual maturity, their old-world refinement, their subtle art of understatement, the complexity yet wholeness of their Orthodox world-view — all this has largely gone over the heads of a younger generation (whether Russian, Greek, or convert) that too often seeks easy answers to over-simplified questions, that is so easily scandalized by slight flaws that it misses the whole point of a profoundly Orthodox life's work, whose spiritual immaturity and lack of intellectual culture simply cannot follow the thought processes of a mature Orthodox thinker, whose lack of artistic and literary sensitivity can lead to false spirituality, making one unaware of the elements of the lower part of “soul” which can usurp the higher place of the "spirit" if one is not trained to distinguish them, whose deficiency in Orthodox feeling renders it blind to the Orthodox giants in its midst. We all suffer from this. All the more, then, must we strive to understand these giants who have now all but departed, leaving all would-be defenders of Orthodoxy in a very precarious position against the increasingly subtle temptations of an anti-Christian age. Without a broadening and deepening of our Orthodox world-view, without absorbing at least something of the genuine Orthodox teaching of the great men who have handed down Orthodoxy to us — we will scarcely survive.
Archbishop Vitaly of Jordanville highly valued Andreyev as an Orthodox confessor and thinker; on numerous occasions he blessed him to put on the church-server's sticharion and give sermons in the monastery church. His students remember him as a very enthusiastic, eloquent, and inspiring lecturer (on the Sorbonne level rather than the usual seminary level!), teaching subjects in which he wholeheartedly believed and to which he was thoroughly committed. He was absolutely intolerant only of one thing: fakery, whether in spiritual or intellectual life.
In America, Andreyev was an active participant in church life as well as in scholarly and scientific societies. He was a director of and regularly gave addresses on medical subjects to the Pirogov Society (an organization of Russian physicians in the United States) and participated in and gave lectures to the Pushkin literary society. Outside the Seminary, his most beloved church work was bound up with the St. Vladimir Society, founded by Archbishop Vitaly with the aims of building a St. Vladimir Memorial Church in Cassville, New Jersey (where he is now buried) before the thousandth anniversary of Russia's Baptism (1988), and constantly reminding Russians in America of their Orthodox roots in Holy Russia. Andreyev was editor of the annual St. Vladimir Calendar, where he printed his own and many other theological and philosophical articles in defense of true Orthodoxy and documenting the origin and history of the Catacomb Church in Russia. Every year on St. Vladimir's feast day, when Russians from all over the Eastern United States would come on pilgrimage to the Memorial Church, Andreyev would give flaming addresses on true Orthodoxy, the combating of worldliness and atheism, the future resurrection of Orthodox Russia, and the principles of Orthodox monarchy (without which he found the future of Russia to be unthinkable).
I. M. ANDREYEV is not easy to classify as an Orthodox thinker. Corresponding to his four doctor's degrees, he was a qualified physician and psychiatrist, historian of literature, philosopher and theologian. His writings reveal elements of all these intellectual strands simultaneously, and that is what gives them a rather unique quality and value.
The central thread of his Orthodox teaching is the defense of true Orthodoxy. On the most obvious (“jurisdictional”) level, this meant a defense of the True-Orthodox (Catacomb) Church of Russia to which he had belonged and for which he became one of the chief apologists in the free world. Among the Russian “jurisdictions” of the Diaspora, he found only the Russian Church Outside of Russia to have the spirit of the Catacomb Church inside Russia, the others being modernizing separatists from it, spiritually akin to the Moscow Patriarchate which at various times they have recognized to have “spiritual” authority over them. His defense of the Catacomb Church was always on a very high level, always on theological and spiritual grounds, and even in the height of polemical arguments, and after his own bitter experience in the Soviet Union, he never went to unnecessary extremes in his condemnation of the betrayal of Orthodoxy by the Moscow Patriarchate. Even in his celebrated and provocative article, "Does the Moscow Patriarchate Have Grace?" (Orthodox Russia, 1948, nos. 17, 18, 19), after enumerating the reasons why one might doubt that the Mysteries of the Moscow Patriarchate are grace-filled he carefully steps back from any incautious statement with the very wise observation that "the falling away of a Church from God and the conversion of it into a ‘synagogue of satan' is a process. But the Soviet church has entered on the path which will lead it to this ‘synagogue’ — of this there can be no doubt.” Without presuming to make any judgment himself on this question, he leaves it to the decision of a future Council of the whole Russian Orthodox Church. This whole article in general is quite profound philosophically and theologically, setting forth the same idea as the "catacomb documents” of 1971: that the Soviet authority is not a true authority requiring obedience, according to St. Paul (Rom. 13:1), but an illegitimate anti-Christian authority. With great insight he speaks of the "mystical power" of Communism, which he sees as a new phenomenon in human history, a direct preparation for the reign of Antichrist. In other articles he subjects Communism itself to a relentless scientific and philosophical criticism, showing that while it was powerless to prove the truth of atheism and materialism, it did prove (with its endless murders, tortures, crimes, and destruction) the existence of objective evil and its founder, the devil. (See "On the Character of Scientific-Atheistic Propaganda in Soviet Russia," Orthodox Way, 1956; "Christianity and Bolshevism,” St. Vladimir Calendar, 1955.) His outlines of the History of the Russian Church from the Revolution to the Present Day (Jordanville, 1952) is virtually the only book of its kind that examines the "jurisdictional" history of 20th-century Russian Orthodoxy from the point of view of faithfulness to Christ and church tradition. For Andreyev, the concept of true Orthodoxy is entirely permeated with the experience of the new catacombs of our century: everything he wrote has a feeling of urgency, seriousness, and deep commitment that is often not understandable to those who have not lived under conditions of persecution, betrayal, and secret (often literally underground) church meetings. His teaching constitutes a catacomb theology and philosophy for Orthodox Christians today, remote from the idle academic exercises of most "Orthodox theologians" in the 20th century.
All of Andreyev’s writings reflect his philosophical background, but he made perhaps the best use of his philosophical mind in his articles on the uses and limitations of science. Trained scientists themselves are seldom able to look sufficiently far outside their specialty in order to place science in a broader and deeper philosophical context; and those who attempt to evaluate science from the viewpoint of theology or academic philosophy are often too general and imprecise in their conclusions. Andreyev, however, being both a trained scientist and a philosopher — as well as a theologian — was in a uniquely advantageous position to view all
three fields of knowledge in proper perspective. His article, "Christian Truth and Scientific Knowledge" (Orthodox Way, 1961) brilliantly defines the spheres and methods of these two kinds of knowledge and points out how there can be no conflict whatever between true science and true Christianity. "Only with a superficial knowledge do there arise false contradictions between faith and knowledge, between religion and science. With a deeper knowledge these false contradictions disappear without a trace. . . A broad, deep scientific and philosophical education not only does not hinder faith in God, but makes it easier, because the whole arsenal of the authentic attainments of scientific-philosophical thought is a natural apologetic material for religious faith. Moreover, honest knowledge often has a methodical opportunity of uncovering corruptions of faith and exposing superstitions, whether religious or scientific-philosophical” (p. 72).
In Andreyev’s own case, his scientific and philosophical knowledge was especially valuable in defending Orthodox Christianity against its contemporary attackers. In his textbook, Orthodox Christian Apologetics (the only one of his books to be translated into English, Jordanville, 1957), he attempts to give "a basis for an organically-whole Orthodox conception of the world” (p. 5). In this book he makes full use of scientific facts but does not overestimate their value, realizing that "in the utilization of scientific facts it is necessary to be extremely cautious not to become overly absorbed in strictly scientific proof as do Roman Catholics, remembering that all sciences give only a temporary hypothetical knowledge, while the object of Apologetics is the eternal and unchangeable truth” (p. 7). He also resists the temptation of overemphasizing criticism of anti-Christian views, "to which inexperienced Christian apologists are exposed," seeing that Apologetics "should not squander its efforts in trivial criticism of private, narrow-minded fallacies," but should emphasize "the radiantly-bright image of Christian truth,” presented in the most understandable way, which “convinces one much better than the most exact logical proofs" (p. 6). Faithful to these principles, the book is calm and moderate in tone, broad in scope (making maximum use of non-Orthodox sources when they are relevant), and quite definite in its conclusions, even in spheres which some Orthodox apologists, less scientifically equipped, would prefer to leave indefinite or hazy. Thus, for example, he does not avoid the question of "evolution" where it touches on the origin of man, and he comes to conclusions, on the basis of scientific and patristic evidence, rather different from his youthful faith in Bergson's evolutionism: "the animal ancestors of mankind exist only in the invention of the Darwinists; they exist nowhere in nature and never existed . . . To deny the fact that man has existed only about 8000 years is hardly possible" (pp. 66-7). His criticism of scientiļ¬c “uniformitarianism,” and his ideas on the "evolution of the laws of nature” give food for a more thorough patristic investigation of some of the important questions raised by the theory of evolution.
Interestingly, Orthodox Christian Apologetics has penetrated the Iron Curtain and was used extensively by the Moscow priest Fr. Dimitry Dudko in his talks to his flock in 1974 (published in English as Our Hope, Crestwood, N.Y., 1977) — thus proving its apologetic value in present-day Soviet Russia. In Fr. Dimitry's urgent moral tone, in his emphasis on the importance of suffering, and in his ability to come quickly to the point of an intellectual question, he is akin to Andreyev; but he lacks the preciseness in church questions which Andreyev acquired by his catacomb experience. Despite the fact that Fr. Dimitry quotes more extensively from Andreyev (pp. 68-72, 95-99) than from any other single source in his book, and that he gives his name and the title and date of publication of Orthodox Christian Apologetics - still the translator (who gives information in footnotes on virtually all other writers mentioned) gives no word of information as to who "I. M. Andreyev” might be. A sad but symptomatic commentary on our times: that one of the profoundest Russian minds of the century is a name "unknown" to scholarship — precisely because he rejected the wisdom of this world and chose the path of "conservative," genuine Orthodoxy.
Of Andreyev’s theological writings one may cite especially his Orthodox Christian Moral Theology (Jordanville, 1966), where he sets forth the general principles of Christian conduct according to patristic teaching, with strict adherence to the Orthodox hierarchy of values, according to which moral conduct is entirely dependent on religious principles and can never be divorced from them to form an "autonomous morality.” He also devoted several articles to the Most Holy Mother of God, contrasting the Orthodox veneration of Her to Protestant and Roman Catholic ideas, and describing his beloved "Blue Feast" — the Annunciation.
Perhaps the most penetrating of Andreyev’s writings are those devoted to Russian literature. His Outlines of the History of Russian Literature in the 19th Century (Jordanville, 1968) is a collection of essays which are virtually unique in literary criticism. They are written with a theological dimension and depth, a philosophical wholeness of world-view, and a psychological insight that are to be found together in no other thinker. His essay on V. Soloviev in this collection is a masterpiece which sensitively analyzes this religious philosopher's "spiritual experiences" and shows them, on the basis of Orthodox patristic writings, to be classic examples of prelest, spiritual deception. Without losing sympathy for Soloviev (especially in his last years, when he came closer to Orthodoxy), Andreyev uses this article to set clearly against each other the "renovated" Christianity of Soloviev and his followers and the "conservative" Orthodoxy of the Holy Fathers. The "renovationists" attacked the Russian Church especially of the last two centuries as being in a state of "paralysis" (or, in the words of more recent renovationists, "Western captivity"), blind to the multitude of holy ascetics and confessors which that Church has produced precisely in these centuries. "We need no 'renaissances' of Christianity, no ‘new religious self-consciousness,’ for Orthodox Christianity has never died and can never die, and there is no ‘new’ religious consciousness that leads to salvation!” (p. 279).
The essay on Dostoyevsky in the same book is a remarkable example of a deeply Christian literary criticism. With deep psychological insight, he seeks the reality of Dostoyevsky’s growth in Christianity, judging his mature Christian message in the light of the Orthodox hierarchy of values, without overlooking the flaws that were also present. Especially striking in this essay is Andreyev's answer to Ivan Karamazov's humanitarian concern over the sufferings of children; he cites the Orthodox Lives of Saints which describe the heavenly crowns attained by children for their innocent sufferings.
Other of Andreyev’s writings (for example, "On the Orthodox Christian Moral Upbringing of Pre-school Children", Orthodox Way, 1959; on St. John of Kronstadt, Orthodox Way, 1958; on the principles of Orthodox monarchy, Orthodox Way, 1951; on the Imperial Martyrs and the need for the Russian people to repent for their regicide and apostasy, (St. Vladimir Calendar, 1972) reveal him to have been a thoroughgoing convert to true "conservative" Orthodoxy, without those many "qualifications" by which numerous converts, both new and old, have shown their failure to understand the wholeness of the Orthodox world-view.
In all his writings, as in his life, Andreyev was a man of great heart. He suffered terribly from the low level of church and moral awareness in our times, both in the Soviet Union and in the free world. It is very likely that his creative years would have been even more fruitful than they were if he had not been weighed down by the feeling that few seem to care deeply for God, for Orthodoxy, for their fellow man. One article especially (printed as an appendix to his Moral Theology) reveals his deep Christian concern, something which truly seems now to be vanishing from the face of the earth.
This article, entitled simply “Weep!” and dedicated to the memory of Dostoyevsky (who more than any other figure in Russian literature described human suffering and its meaning), tells simply of one of the cold and "senseless" crimes of a large American city. A 29-year-old mother in New York City, in a fit of rage, beat to death her two-month-old son, leaving him unimaginably deformed; and she expressed no regret over her crime. Andreyev describes the wounds suffered by the small body with sickening clinical detail — and then stops, knowing that many readers will protest against such "unnecessary" details. "People have become deaf to sufferings. They either do not hear or do not wish to hear about what is done, not in a nightmare, but in reality.” He calls to the Orthodox conscience of his readers. "All for one and one for all are guilty: this is the essence of the social ethic of Christianity . . . We are all guilty, for we are sinful; we do evil, contribute our evil to the universal ‘storehouse of evil.’ And this evil accumulates into an immense universal energy of evil and seeks for its incarnation the vessels of bodies without grace, and when it finds them it becomes incarnate in them and they perform great evil deeds . . . Let each one think of himself . . . What were you doing on that evening when this unbelievable but authentic evil deed was performed? Perhaps it was your sin, your immoral deed, your malice which turned out to the the last drop which caused the vessel of evil to overflow. This is the way we must reflect, if we are Christians . . .
"Weep, brothers and sisters! Do not be ashamed of these tears! . . . Weep1 And let these tears be the fount in which the Lord will baptize the child-martyr, who was probably unbaptized, being chrismated — in place of oil — with his innocent child's blood. Weep! Let your tears also be a fount of a different energy, an energy of good that fights against the energy of evil, which by its power will save at least one child from innocent tortures and at least one criminal mother from an unforgivable sin. Let these tears also awaken many of the indifferent . . . Do not be ashamed to weep with tears of grief, compassion, and repentance."
These words are Andreyev's testament to us, the fervent cry of his soul. A man of rare erudition and sensitivity, he poured all of his talents into serving God with the whole of his burning heart and soul. For him true Orthodoxy was not a catchword, and not simply a means that whoever would preserve his soul shall lose it, and whosoever shall lose his soul for My sake shall find it (Matt. 16:25); therefore, deeply rooted in true Orthodoxy, he spent his life in losing his soul, sacrificing himself for the sake of others, out of love for Christ.
True Christianity has become so weak today that all of this may seem strange to many who regard themselves as perfectly Orthodox. Few understood Andreyev in his own lifetime; he was too deep, too burning for them. In a way he was a sign of the future resurrection of Holy Russia, for which he fervently hoped. Having experienced deeply and fully the attraction of the best of modern wisdom, he ended — no merely by renouncing it — but by surpassing it through making his own the higher wisdom of the Holy Fathers. His "convert" experience is invaluable to us and gives us a key to understanding the heart of true Orthodoxy, the Catacomb Church, in Russian today.
In the latter part of his life Andreyev himself suffered a cruel blow from the coldness of the modern world: he was attacked and beaten by hoodlums in a New York City elevator. He never fully recovered from this, and in his last years his intellectual creativity was gone. For the last months of his life he was mostly unconscious. But even thus, in a way his prayer to God at the Diveyevo "canal" was answered: "O Lord, take away from me all earthly prosperity . . ." Deprived of his greatest earthly gift, his brilliant intellect, he lived on the spiritual capital which he had acquired up to then. In his address on "The Psychology and Psychopathology of Old Age" (St. Vladimir Calendar, 1970), originally delivered before the Pirogov Society, Andreyev emphasizes that "a great consolation in all sorrows of life in mature years, and especially in old age, is the religious feeling that has been reserved. This consolation can give a quiet calm old age and help one to calmly accept death as a sleep in the hope that eternal life exists in another better world."
As God is faithful to those who truly serve Him, we cannot but believe that He answered, in those last years, the second half of Andreyev's petition at Diveyevo as well" "Do not deprive me of the joy of communion with Thee, grant me to preserve to death the remembrance of this present blessed moment of the sensing of Thy Holy Spirit."
The true experience of the Holy Spirit, faithfulness to true Orthodoxy with one's whole heart and soul: this is the message of I. M. Andreyev to those who have not become too cold in heart to hear it.
[Orthodox Word magazine #73 Mar-Apr 1977]
