Chapter 13 - A Requiem for a Heretic? The Controversy over Lev Tolstoi’s Burial

Summary

The final chapter in the saga of the Russian Church and its relationship to Tolstoi came with the prolonged polemics over his burial in 1910. This controversy started immediately after the promulgation of the Circular Letter, which laid down a ban on burial with Church rites. The chapter contains a wealth of new material: Probably the most important concerns the solution eventually agreed by the Church leadership in an attempt to extricate itself from the predicament in which it had placed itself with the requiem ban: While Tolstoi was drawing his last breath at the Astapovo railway station, the prelates finally decided to grant him burial in consecrated soil – with non-Orthodox, non-confessional but still Christian rites. However, this decision was not put into effect, or published, due to opposition from Tolstoi’s family. In that way, Tolstoi’s wish not to have any priests at the graveside during the burial was respected. However, the story did not end here, as an anonymous priest three years after his death turned up at Iasnaia Poliana and asked permission from the widow, Sof’ia Andreeva, to perform a requiem at the grave. When this was granted and became public, a new round of polemics ensued.