Saint John of Kronstadt

From the Diary of Fr. John of Kronstadt, in Denunciation of the False Teaching of Count L. Tolstoy

19th c. · Asceticism & Spirituality · English translation, 2026

13,331 words · 1.1 hr read· Moderate

Source edition: Из дневника о. Иоанна Кронштадтского, в обличение лжеучения графа Л. Толстого (azbyka.ru; from the pre-revolutionary Russian edition)

Cover art: Peter the Great Interrogating the Tsarevich Alexei (1871) — Nikolai Ge (Wikimedia Commons, Public domain)

Private diary pages, not a public letter: Father John of Kronstadt returning again and again to the same reckoning with Leo Tolstoy in the years after Tolstoy's excommunication, naming him antichrist and serpent in language far more unguarded than his formal public reply to the same controversy.