Rebellion Against the Church in the Name of Christ – Nikolai Leskov’s Rebel Priests and Russian Cultural Tradition

Abstract

The paper discusses an important figure of Nikolai Leskov’s numerous literary works: a clergyman who does not accept rules in force in the Church, as he regards them as obstacles to true religion and people’s relationship with Christ. This character is analyzed in the context of Christian understanding of categories of obedience and disobedience, their biblical sources, as well as older Russian spiritual, cultural and literary tradition, namely “holy fools” and the Archpriest Avvakum. It also deliberates later transformations of the rebel priest figure in early-twentieth-century Russian literature in conjunction with the social changes and leftist political sympathies of the Russian clergy of that period.