Towards the Spiritual Convergence of America and Russia: American Mind and Russian Soul, American Individuality and Russian Community, and the Potent Alchemy of National Characteristics

Thoughts

The Sophia, Lenin, and the Search for a New, Spiritual Russia

Those who nobly bear “Russian Soul [61] exist now — and shall for much time to come — in a tremendous tension, a great struggle between extremes, a profound contrast in their inner and outer lives, between “heaven and earth”, spirit and matter — between the solicitations and teachings of the Sophia, and “wisdom” of Marx and Lenin [62]. Between the spiritual truths incorporated into the Uspenski Sobor, and those of the Mausoleum of Vladimir I. Ulyanov.

Inside of the Moscow Kremlin, the Italian Aristotle Fioravanti’s golden, heaven-arching domes of the Third Rome [63], bespeak the heights of spirit toward which the Russian Soul may strive. Aside Red Square, stands a very earthly counterpart, which has somewhat the form of an Euclidian geometric volcanic eruption. The Cathedral is closer to a calm, consoling breath of spirit; the other to an angry stone, exploding upwards, out of the earth.

The “Assumption of the Virgin”, to heaven and eternity, is represented in that structure in which all the Czars were crowned; in the other, a (partial) earthly physical corpse of the founder of the Soviet state has been embalmed and preserved for the earthly memory ‘of all time’. [64]

The people of Russian soul, live, in their inner and outer lives, somewhere between the disparate opposition represented by these two extremes. Dimitri Karamazov felt himself to be a man tom, Orthodoxly, between the angel and insect in Man [65]. Are not the people of Russian Soul stretched, as it were, somewhere between the spiritual heights, and sub-earthly depths, incorporated in these two structures?

The Russian Soul exists, I believe, somewhere between the inner heights of Sophia [66] and the outer, worldly remains of Lenin. Seven decades after the triumph of the revolutionary — with his Western, profoundly secular doctrines — when now his earthly wisdom and accomplishment is in profound question and re-examination; perhaps it is again time, that the deep, religious, “Sophianic” aspect of Russian history and soul can be publicly considered, as fair and essential portion of the spiritual and intellectual worries and concerns of current and future Russia.

It was once said, that ‘if you scratch a Russian, you find a Tatar.’ [67] Would it not be better — and more hopeful to the spiritual progress of Mankind — if it were now more truthful to say: ‘scratch a Soviet, find a Christian’? However that may be — and the reception of a film like “Repentance”, and the thought of someone like Nicolas Berdyaev, certainly gives one much cause to wonder — while Russia has been “Soviet” for seven decades; it has been Christian, in one way or other, for ten centuries. In other words, it has been officially an atheist state for only seven percent of its history since the mass baptism in Kiev in 988 AD. That leaves ninety-three percent of its past history, heritage and traditions influenced by Christianity. Statistics of spiritual history perhaps worth considering.

A militant earthliness did its horrible best, to destroy a perhaps too otherworldly spirituality. Now that the wearisome failure of this enforced communism — to achieve an earthly utopian brotherhood, “a heaven on earth” — is no longer an endangered, fear-filled “heretic”’s truth; it is time that Russia and Russian souls look wisely and clearly at the truths of heaven and earth, history and Man, spirit and matter, all from which they must learn.

They must somehow ‘come to terms’ both with the spiritual search for Sophia, and their agonized history of militant atheism; with, as one might indicate it, Vladimir S. Soloviev, and Stalin. It must seek to find some understanding of life as can explain both the best and worst of itself — to itself. Certainly Russia’s dramatic and traumatic contrasts, demand questions almost un-reasonably deep and real, of life and Man, history and society: questions far greater and more profound than any socio-economic-political order, or disorder, structure or restructure; theory or etc., shall ever be able to explain. It is a painful fact — which Russia faces in surfeit to many in the West — that the history of this people and country, cannot be understood, от heartfully accepted, without its being comprehended by some profoundly deep, wise and large conception of life, death, suffering and Man. No such adequate solution can be found amongst worldly, secular, “horizontal” wisdoms. The past seven decades of Soviet history, by themselves, are far too agonized — in heart and soul, body, mind and spirit; for the individual, the collective society and culture — as that they can in any way be adequately explained by some secular system or other. It is a fact of life, that Russia must come to some spiritual reconciliation and understanding with itself. Nothing less is sufficient to the human being — individually or collectively considered — to comprehend this agonized history, in a light adequate to a traumatized mind, and in a depth tolerable to a devastated heart.

Soviet Russia must look deeply into its own earthly and spiritual history, in order to come to such necessary accord with itself. Ultimately it must find such a comprehension as shall include and embrace both the ancient depths of its Christian heritage, the vehement materialism and atheism of Lenin, and the historical influence and impact of both.

And Russia, if it do so wisely, must not only accept and embrace material, worldly, practical help and guidance from the West; but also some intellectual and spiritual clarity — but only from the best of the West.

Too Old, Holy Russia?

It shall not avail Russia ultimately or adequately — such is my contention — to attempt some simple return to, or reembrace of, its deep religious past [68]. Though religious life in Russia shall — with freedom — certainly remain a popular, primary source of meaning and understanding of life; for the deepest and truest — and contemporary — of Russian soul, it is more towards a living, creative spirit, and inspiration, that they must turn.

“Old Holy Russia” was destroyed in “body”, even if it was able to survive, in inner and outer “catacombs”, in soul and spirit Yet a corpse can not be simply revived, to live as it once did; it can only perhaps, somehow, be born anew — “resurrected”. (But this, per Saint Paul, [69] must be a new, risen “spiritual body”.) The people of Russia are no longer in the dreamy state of that “Old World” time. Unquestioning belief can not readily, or appropriately exist for such intellectual and mundane persons as much of life and world has forced most modern Russian men and women to become.

The best of Russia, and Russian Soul, should not rest satisfied with the religions which would only ‘bind them back’ [70] to a sacred past They are too awake, too “modern” for dreamy mysticisms, sleepy ceremonies, passively accepted ancient rituals — no matter how profound in ancient depthfilled meaning and content they may have been — or be. For example:

On April 9, 1988, in the Academic Divinity School Chapel at the Alexander Nevsky Lavra of St. Petersburg (Leningrad), the Millennial Easter was celebrated, as it was in many places in the USSR. Some of the very many people who came to this special occasion to participate, did so with religious devotion and adhering belief in their souls; others came to observe out of mere curiosity or interest, hope, need, or… But it was clear to sight, that very few of the people there, were able not only to escape, inwardly, from the very crowded conditions, but also to enter into the deep, religious mood and feeling which the ceremony should evoke. There was something fundamental, which, I believe, kept the people, crowded into that chapel, from the religious experience which presumably is still intended by the church ceremony. And that was the inner consciousness of the people. They were much too awake in their modern, daily inner and mental life, than in the appropriate moods and feelings of soul; they were much too psychically detached, from this ancient ceremony, and its religious content, to actually enter, in their souls, deeply into the service. They could not really, inwardly, participate in this ceremony around them; because of the inner psychology which they themselves bore. Not only was the service arcane to most, in the procedures and acts of the ritual; but the full spiritual significance and symbolism was certainly only vaguely known. However they may have thought and felt about the service; the souls present, were certainly not able to enter clearly with their minds, and deeply with their hearts, into this Millennial Easter service. It took place outside of them; while it needed to occur, of course, also, inside of them, if it was to be a true “religious experience”. Yet, it was clear that these modern Russians, were certainly not soulfully, religiously engulfed by the special ceremony.

However profoundly needful the people of “Russia Soul” are, of the Resurrection of Easter, these people of Soviet Russia were not open in soul, with the feelings necessary to truly experience this ceremony. Whatever sacred origins may have been the ultimate source of such ritualistic, Holy Celebration; these modern souls were not of such mood and spirit as to enter immediately into its reality. But — it seems to me — these Orthodox forms were not “foreign” because they were in Old Church Slavonic. But rather because they were, and are, ancient — too old to make a readily comprehensible presentation to the modern mind and soul. It occurred around them; but for bow many could one say that, deep in their souls, they were intimate participants of this important ceremony? They could perhaps, at best, hope that the ritual might do something to them; but this is far from feeling the full religious meaning and significance, as a part of one’s own heart and soul. A few generations of a vehement, aggressive, secular, atheist state, seems certainly to have preponderated over the inner and outer mood, soul and culture, which would otherwise probably belong with somewhat greater presence, to a culture and people with ten centuries of Orthodox Christianity. (As one could perhaps say it, the heights of Sophia, had been obscured by the inner earthliness and “wisdom” of Marx, Lenin, Stalin and Co…)

The contrast of such ancient ritual, religious belief and meaning, to the skeptical, detached, modern mind, was unintentionally acknowledged in San Francisco, California — at the Chrysopylae of the Pacific — during an Orthodox Service on July 7, 1989. Prince Vasili Romanov [71], a nephew of Czar Nicholas П, had died peacefully at age 81, on 24 June 1989, in Woodside California — not fifty miles south of the Golden Gate of California.

During the eulogy of the memorial service at the Holy Trinity Cathedral, thoughts were expressed by the churchman which make this contrast clear. After reminding those present of the transitory character of all the things in this world, he spoke, approximately, the following words: “If there is not a life after life; if Vasili is not, right now, moving into a new life; then this ceremony [and here he included, by implication, much of life on earth] is meaningless.” In these words, by this clear-minded Russian Orthodox Priest — who lead this service with rituals from very old and ancient sources — the contrast of reason, skeptical, earthly reason, and religious belief and faith, was brought into precisely clear relation. “Belief” was speaking to skeptical reason; saying, to such modern, mundane minds as most people in the West commonly bear, that even though you do not know, or, perhaps, even believe, that Vasili Romanov is right now, in fact, moving towards God’s heaven; if it is not indeed so — in spite of the fact that the surrounding skeptical culture and mind would doubt or deny this — then this ceremony itself, and all of life which suffers the reality of being a transitory fact in this earthly world (Sic Transit Gloria Mundi), is ultimately meaningless. Agnostic “reason”, when confronted and affronted (as Ivan Karamazov was) by the unavoidable death and suffering in life and human history, would rightfully conclude, that life is meaningless. If the beliefs of the Orthodox religion are not Realities, Truths — that there is in fact, a life after death: some continuance of earthly existence beyond the grave, some immaterial meaning and order — then earthly, secular, skeptical reason, is realistic in finding, life as it is, ultimately senseless. Such was the meaning, the unvoiced background of the churchman’s words.

At the Divinity School Chapel in Leningrad (originally Czar Peter the Great’s “Window to Europe”), at the Millennial Easter, it was presumed, that people would simply accept the ritual in itself — though few were inside of it, or it inside if them. In San Francisco, at the Far West’s Chrysopylae, the beliefs of Orthodoxy, as to the heavenly being of Man, and the spiritual background of human existence, were held in clear distinction, relation, and challenge, to the modern mind. If the “beliefs” of Orthodoxy do not have truthful realities, towards which they are held; then we are in fact, unreasonable fools, who here speak of Vasili Romanov’s “life after life”. Such was the unvoiced meaning.

There was not, in this ceremony at Chrysopylae — though its procedures and contents were as arcane and “foreign” (even in English) as were those of Leningrad’s Millennial Easter Service — the unconscious presumption that “belief” alone, was present, or adequate, in those attending. Belief — however uncertain its contents might seem to reason — was distinguished from reason, in order that it could be asserted. The implication here was that belief was contrary to the prevailing opinions of reason.

Russian souls, in general, no longer do, nor easily can, dream inside of their religious past; this these two services make clear. The Russian people in Leningrad, were too “modern-minded” to readily and immediately enter into the old rituals and services of the Millennial Easter. Their hearts, minds and souls were filled with too much modern, secular (“horizontal”) content, thought, worry, and feeling, than that they could become easily reoccupied with the appropriate (“vertical”) feelings, emotions and reverence. The Orthodox service for the “passing-on” of a nephew of the last Russia Czar of Old Holy Russia — in 1989, at the Far West’s Golden Gate — faced — with its necessary faith of old — clearly and directly, the skeptical, mundane reason of the West. Reason has its own view and truth in life; but belief asserted its own — however unreal or fantastic they may seem to reason.

Do we here find revealed, limits to which the mind of Man can strain? Is this meeting of science and the modern, secular mind, with an old religious faith, some ‘final dialogue’, in some final act of a script in the intellectual and spiritual history of Mankind? Do old faith and modern mind, here, face each other, for their “final words” to each other. Do we hear final statements, by the skeptical human mind and innocent heart?)

This religious faith of old will not do, by itself, for the modern mind and soul. It must, certainly, not be simply rejected. No, it must be learned from. But it is not adequate, appropriate or sufficient in itself. Not in the “Window to Europe”, nor at the far Western Edge of the West, is such old faith — with its ancient traditions, rituals and ways — in and by itself, immediate or adequate to the modern conditions of heart, mind or soul; culture, civilization, or society. The modern mind, by its very character, seeks to understand what it experiences and accepts. These ceremonies come from a time of Man and soul, too ancient to be immediately accepted. They must, at least, be mediated by the mind’s reasoning and understanding, before the awake modern soul can truly embrace them. The best of modern men and women of Man can not, and should not, allow, that the deepest questions, wonders and worries of life, are “answered”, or assuaged, by forms, rituals and doctrines more akin to an earlier dream’s passivity. Such passive acceptance and belief is untimely, for the awake modern mind.

Answers to the questions of life must be clearly and consciously approached, recognized and embraced; such is this time, of self-conscious Man. Somehow, in a new way, science, modern earthly reason, and belief, must find a relation appropriate to the modern condition. This is the truthful, honest, dignified way, for modern man to live, and be, and know. What shall occur if men and women of Man, when they should be awake; attempt to return, spiritually, to sleep and dream…? Was Old, Holy Russia so enamored of its old holiness, that it could be awakened from this old dream, only by the secular violence of a successful Bolshevik Revolution? Has Russia, and the men and women of God in Russia, learned sufficiently, from the vehement earthliness of the first seven decades? Might Vasili A. Romanov have died peacefully in Russia, had not Old, Holy Russia slept so late, and dreamt so deep, in its ‘old dream’ of mind and soul? Is Russia’s future not related to a new spiritual [72] awakening?

The wisdom and the comprehension of life, bespoken by the Orthodox Church, can, and certainly must, be earnestly considered and understood, by the modern mind. But the presumption that the modern mind and soul can merely accept, without question, any such host of rituals and services, is unacceptable and inappropriate to the consciousness of the our time. It is simply outdated; too old, for contemporary men and women of Man, to simply or naively accept rituals, forms and patterns, as if they were immediately comprehensible or experienceable. This they most certainly are not.

If it is the mind of science (scire- [73])which has helped to bring us into the awake, deliberate, and conscious experience of life and world, which is the common fact of our daily inner lives; then, this consciousness must needs also be applied to religion, and related to the great “cursed questions” of life. We cannot retreat into some earlier dream-state of innocent faith. Old Holy Russia should no longer be imagined as adequate to creative minds, hearts and souls of this time. As Medieval European Christendom has passed away; so has Old Holy Russia. Forever. And if, to Russia, the modern mind came later, historically; it is, nevertheless, just as impossible to return to that earlier mind and soul, as it would be to somehow truly revive, or reenter, into the time and mind of Medieval European world of Christendom.

It is contrary to the direction of life, as well as inappropriate and untimely, for Russia to try to return to these earlier conditions of mind, soul and culture (though the idea of the Easter Resurrection, and life after life, should forever receive serious meditation by the individual and society). It would certainly not lead well forward; were Russia to try to progress, without learning deeply from its own past experience. But it must also go forward, into a new spiritual life. The ancient truths of life and Man, as well as the rituals and doctrines of the Orthodox church, must be consciously recognized and understood — by the modern mind. But such a meeting must also be a surpassing…

East Needs West?

Old Holy Russia can never be healthily revived. But a new, living, spiritual Russia can and must be sought. Yet Russia would be misled in assuming, that the prosperous “material plenty” of the West, is surrounded and interwoven by some such grand and profound wisdom of life, as is so necessary to the “Russian Soul’s” religious past, traumatic recent history, disoriented present, от spiritual task into the future. The West has certainly, deep and profound contributions to make, even to the potent spiritual future development of Russia. But this can come only from the very best of the West’s spiritual, intellectual and cultural history [74]; and Russia should not await, and expect to find, any such special spiritual depth and substance, amidst the common contemporary culture and civilization of the West. (See Addenda.) Russia can look to the West for much; and perhaps from each distinct nation, culture and people, it can receive a slightly different contribution — be it practical, cultural, intellectual, spiritual. But it would be profoundly erred to imagine, that the slick and comfortable life in the West, is founded on, or surrounded by, some profound spiritual comprehension of life and death adequate to Russia’s needs. This it, most deeply, is not.

Do not presume, oh Russia, that just because the West has achieved such a “high standard of living” — in the earthly (“horizontal”) world — that it has also real, living answers to the (“vertical”) “cursed questions” of life, which the best of you seem, characteristically, to know and feel. For it does not also, have such a ‘high standard of soul, cultural or spiritual living’.

Accept from the West our practical ways, procedures and capacities; look to our political systems, and take the best that can be adapted to your own culture, history and character; embrace that of our economic systems as may help mollify your lamentable economic and material conditions; use the West’s achievements in science and technology: take from the West all that can help you to advance and progress. But never forget the great spiritual idea of Russia; nor imagine that the common West can adequately show you how to blend a “high standard of living” in regard to physical, mundane, earthly life and civilization, with some profound, creative, vital culture of soul [75] and mind; or a wise orientation to the spiritual questions of life — far the individual, the collective, culture, or civilization: the complete inner and outer life of Mankind. If you merely follow the casual life in the West, with its spiritual agnosticism, its sensualism, its earthiness, even its religious ways; you will find no real, sufficient answers, or understanding, of that which made Old Russia “Holy”, and may make a new Russia spiritual. The common West, as it is, can simply not answer all the questions of life and death; economic and political order; social justice and civilization, in ways appropriate to all that which has made Russia unique. Open to the West; but strive wisely, to take only the best from the West — never forgetting the special character of Russian Soul and Spirit — that towards which only the very best of the spiritual and intellectual history of the West, can be of any real, healthful, creative contribution.