Reading room

The Three Hermits

Leo Tolstoy

Volga legend. A bishop visits three old hermits on an island who pray with a naive prayer and teaches them the Lord's Prayer; as he sails away he sees them running across the water to ask him to repeat it because they have forgotten it. The bishop understands that their prayer reaches God. Published in 1886. It belongs to the popular stories Tolstoy wrote after his conversion for the Posrednik press, in plain language and with the structure of a parable.