Truth Reveals Itself through Love: Fr. Vsevolod Shpiller’s Critique of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn as a Pastoral Admonition

Abstract

In February 1974, just days after author A.I. Solzhenitsyn’s deportation from the Soviet Union, Fr. Vsevolod Shpiller, a well-known Orthodox priest serving in Moscow, gave an interview to Novosti Press Agency in which he provided a negative appraisal of Solzhenitsyn as a Christian writer. While Shpiller was quickly denounced by numerous dissidents as a traitor and stooge of the state, his vast correspondence suggests that the views expressed were the reflection of a clearly articulated approach to Christianity that emphasizes the creative building up of the Christian image and the transfiguration of the world from inside oneself through the acquisition of the Holy Spirit. Shpiller believed that the political objectification of spiritual processes brings about their destruction. The interview provided an opportunity to admonish Solzhenitsyn, whom Shpiller knew personally, and to share with the wider Orthodox Christian audience what the priest believed to be at the essence of Christianity.