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Reply to the Synod's Edict

Leo Tolstoy

Public reply, dated 4 April 1901, to the Holy Synod's decision declaring him separated from the Orthodox Church. Tolstoy accepts that he has renounced the Church, rejects its dogmas and sacraments and sets out what he believes: in God as spirit, love and the source of all, and that God's will is expressed in the teaching of the man Jesus.