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Mother Russia by Luba George Click here for Full Issue of EIR Volume 15, Number 14, April 1, 1988 Mother Russia by Luba George Optina Pustyn monastery reopened a family that exerteda powerful influ­ It's part of the same preparations for 1988 millennium ence over czarist policy and the (KGB predecessor) Okhrana-promoted the celebrations, as the canonization of Dostoevsky's mentor. idea of "founding a new religion . Christianity purged of dogmas." He rejected theTrinity, the Resurrection, Last Dec. 21 the newspaper Mos­ Union. These sources stress what and immortality of the soul. Tolstoy'S cow News announced that the Russian EIR's historical research has other­ disciple, Maxim Gorky, shared Tol­ Orthodox monastery at Optina Pustyn wise demonstrated, that the elders of stoy's gnostic world view. After the will be reopened. The famous mon­ Optina Pustyn were the shadowy gu­ Bolshevik revolution, he defined astery, founded in the 14th century on rus of 19th-century Moscow. They communism as a transitional path to theMount Athos monastic model, and exerted almost singlehanded control establishing the "New Jerusalem . located near Kaluga, northwest of over Russia's literary-cultural life, up the one truepath to a Universal Fusion Moscow, played a central role in to 1917 directly, and beyond 1917 in­ (sliyanyie) for the sake of the great spawning anti-Western Russian liter­ directly. cause, the cause of universal god­ ature in the 19th century. It was the The most important was Starets building (bogostroitelstvo)." flagship of the monastic revival in Amvrosi (1812-91). Pilgrims came Another Optina Pustyn guru to be Russia, launched from Venice and Mt. from all over to consult with him, in­ canonized is the Mount Athos-trained Athos in order to build the cult of ir­ cluding the leading literary propo­ starets Paisi Velichovsky (1772-94), rationality there, into a mighty weap­ nents of Russian racialism, Pan-Slav­ who trained a force of 1 ,000 monks to on against Western civilization. The ism, and Eastern mysticism: from the disseminate his Russian translation of expansion from 300 Russian monas­ leading Slavophile Ivan Kireevsky the Philocalia, the compendium of teries in 1762, to over 1,000 in 1917, (who later came to live in the monas­ manuscripts from the irrationalist was indispensable preparation for the tery) to writers like L. Tolstoy, F. school of hesychasm, first assembled oligarchy's Bolshevik project. Dostoevsky,V. Solovyov, M. Gorky, in Venice in 1782. After the Bolsheviks came to pow­ V. V. Rozanov, K.N. Leontyev, and As a member of one of Russia's er, Optina Pustyn was temporarily Bazarov. All either belonged to the 12 leading noble families has written, closed. Now, after70 years, it is being Russian aristocracy or were patron­ in preparation for the upcoming mil­ reopened,in time for the 1988 Russian ized by powerful oligarchic families lennium, concerning Optina Pustyn: Jubilee. (Volkonskis, Turgenevs, Ignatievs). "It built the basis for the teachings of Keston College in the U.K., which As Optina Pustyn acolytes, all spoke the Slavophiles, who were of the con­ specializes in East bloc religious af­ of the need to create a "new religion," viction that the Russian people must fairs, reports that the Moscow Patriar­ a "New Jerusalem," that would purge not follow the Western path pro­ chate will use the millennium celebra­ the "contaminated" Russian soul of scribed by Peter the Great, rather that tions of the Christianization of Kievan pro-Western ideas. it, in order to exist as a nation of cul­ Rus in June to glorify (canonize) new Two outstanding literary products ture, should develop its own (non­ saints. These include Starets ("Elder") of the Optina Pustyn school, Dostoev­ Western) way, based on its own cul­ Amvrosi (Ambrose) of Optina Pustyn; sky and Tolstoy, led Muscovite cul­ tural principles; these stood in stark Prince Dmitri Donskoy, the hero of tural warfare against Western ideas. contradiction to the fundamentals of the 1380 Battle of Kulikovo against Fyodor Dostoevsky,the darling of the West European culture." the Mongols; the icon painter Andrei violently anti-Semitic, anti-Western Reopening Optina Pustyn will Rublov, and others. Pamyat Society on the rise today, in mean the recreation of its cultural pol­ Exiled members of the Russian his Diary of a Writer-all but un­ icy-shaping priesthood, a true "Coun­ nobility view the reopening of Optina known in the West-proclaimed the cil of Elders," in the clerical side of Pustyn and thecanonization of Starets "superiority" of the "Great Russian the Russian elite. For the post-Gor­ Amvrosi as signs of dramatic growth Aryan Race." The character Starets bachov succession fight, the Russian in the role of the Russian Orthodox Zosima in his Brothers Karamazov Orthodox Church's institutional clout Church in Russian cultural-spiritual was modeled on Amvrosi. will increase tremendously.-To be life, and as an institution in the Soviet Count Leo Tolstoy-the scion of continued. EIR April 1, 1988 International 55 © 1988 EIR News Service Inc. All Rights Reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without permission strictly prohibited..
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