# Chapter XV explained — A Confession

> Chapter companion for A Confession by Leo Tolstoy.

## What happens

Tolstoy describes his envy of peasants' illiteracy, which allows them to accept religious creeds without the intellectual conflicts he faces. He recounts his three-year struggle within the Orthodox Church, ultimately renouncing communion due to the Church's hostile stance toward other Christian denominations and its justification of war and executions. A conversation with a church official reveals that the Church prioritizes institutional preservation over the unifying truth of love, leading Tolstoy to reject organized religion.

## Themes in this chapter

### Faith and Doubt

Tolstoy's intense struggle between his desire to believe and his intellectual rejection of church doctrines; his envy of peasants' simple faith.

### Moral Corruption of Society

The church's justification of war and executions, and its hostile treatment of other Christian groups, contradicting the principle of love.

### The Search for Life's Meaning

Tolstoy's quest for a faith that provides the power of life, leading him to reject institutional religion in favor of a more universal truth.

## Character check-ins

### Narrator

Envies peasants' illiteracy; struggles with doctrinal absurdities; seeks faith but finds church practices contradictory; consults church officials; renounces Orthodoxy.

### Leo Tolstoy

Describes his personal crisis of faith; interacts with believers of various faiths; questions the exclusivity of Orthodox truth; horrified by church-sanctioned violence.

### Christ

Referenced implicitly as the basis of Christian love that Tolstoy sees betrayed by church actions.

## Key lines

> How often I envied the peasants their illiteracy and lack of learning! Those statements in the creeds which to me were evident absurdities, for them contained nothing false; they could accept them and could believe in the truth⁠—the truth I believed in.

Tolstoy frequently wished he were as uneducated as the peasants, because the doctrines he found obviously absurd were perfectly acceptable to them, allowing them to believe in the same truth he sought.

_Highlights Tolstoy's envy of simple faith and his intellectual burden._

> I said that for every unbeliever turning to a belief (and all our young generation are in a position to do so) the question that presents itself first is, why is truth not in Lutheranism nor in Catholicism, but in Orthodoxy?

Tolstoy argues that any educated person considering faith must first ask why Orthodoxy is the sole true religion, given the competing claims of other Christian denominations.

_Reflects Tolstoy's critique of religious exclusivity._

> And I understood it all. I am seeking a faith, the power of life; and they are seeking the best way to fulfil in the eyes of men certain human obligations.

Tolstoy realized that while he sought a faith that gives life meaning, church officials were merely concerned with fulfilling social duties and preserving institutional authority.

_Key moment of insight into the difference between spiritual truth and institutional religion._

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/a_confession_se/chapters/xv
- Book: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/a_confession_se
- All chapters: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/a_confession_se/chapters