Lyudmila Ulitskaya about her faith, attitude towards the (today’s) church and eternal questions to which there are no right answers.
Interest in what her faith is expressed outraged our interlocutor. But rarely do we dare to ask this really intimate question. To find out where to look for your own answers.
Psychologies: The subject of your book, Daniel Stein, Translator, keeps asking himself the question, “What did Jesus believe?” What or who do you believe in?
Ludmila Ulitskaya: Brother Daniel is a professional in his way, and I am an amateur. For this reason, I am not obliged to anyone to build a consistent picture, I am not obliged to explain why I believe in Grace, but not in Salvation, I believe in Transfiguration, but not in posthumous punishment. And my other advantage is that I can not answer this question at all. Not out of pride, but out of a feeling that in this particular area there are many things that are not described in words or are described, but very clumsily. And my aesthetic sense does not allow me to conduct public conversations on this topic. I’m not a patriarch!
Then what is the first expression of your faith? In actions, in feelings, in following certain rules or restrictions?
L.W.: Frankly, I think this question is the most unceremonious of all possible. Next in line: who do you sleep with? I am deeply convinced that faith is a deeply personal matter. The late brother Daniel Rufeisen, who served as the prototype for Daniel Stein, answered this question: “My faith is my secret.” Nevertheless, there are many people who will easily answer – according to the catechism. Unfortunately, I cannot give such a simple answer.
As for the observance of certain rules of conduct and restrictions, they are the main evidence of faith for all of us, ordinary people … A person’s actions (or inactions) speak more about his faith than declarations and statements. Recently, I don’t see saints around me who would perform miracles, healings and other deeds for the glory of God. Although I know that such people occasionally appear. But today in society there is an acute shortage of just decent people, not saints, but simply following the well-known rules. This, by the way, is the logic of the Pharisees. I reconsidered my attitude to this well-known parable: the Pharisee, as you know, fulfilled the rules and boasted of that, which was reproached to him. The publican, that is, a person from the tax inspectorate, did not follow any rules, and besides, he also stole from taxes. But he was aware of his sinfulness and lamented about it. He said: forgive me, a sinner. And he was, as is known from the text, forgiven for these words. What he did next is not said. Looks like he went on stealing. But the Pharisee did not repent, because he did not steal, did not kill, and paid the church tithe. But he despised the publican because he was a thief. So, I confess that I am on the side of the Pharisee. Of course, he is arrogant, but he is a decent person.
“I do not deal with suffering in a Christian way. I can’t reconcile my faith with the death of little children.”
That is, behavior, it turns out, is more important than faith?
L.W.: Rules of conduct and restrictions exist for both religious people (they are motivated by the idea of good behavior in the face of the Creator in order to avoid posthumous punishment) and for atheists (they are motivated by the ethics that humanity has developed for survival, after all). But I would rather say that they are motivated by their own conscience. And what is conscience is a topic for a separate interesting conversation. This seems to me to be a general position.
Tertullian is often credited with the quote – which is actually false – “I believe, because it is absurd.” Speaking from within, not from the mind, how do you find the strength to believe (or not?) at the beginning of the 100st century, after everything that has happened in the world over the past XNUMX years?
L.W.: This is a difficult question. Logically, it is impossible to believe in God after the Holocaust. But faith is not subject to logic. I was lucky – in my youth I met wonderful people of the older generation, Christians. Yes, and the church was essentially catacomb, persecuted. It was then that I formed my idea of Christianity, the main content of which is Christ. Today’s church is victorious, wealthy, and flattering to authority—of a very different nature. She does not seem to take Christ into account. I know that there, in the depths, there are both excellent Christians and honest, disinterested priests who are not infected with greed and cruelty, servility, contempt for the church people. My faith with the life of the church today hardly coincides. Although I really love the liturgy, the church service, I love many people whom I meet in the church when I enter it. But I want to be honest and not do anything in life out of fear or inertia. Only out of love and freely. I hate violence, and ecclesiastical in particular. And where I stand today – I myself would like to know.
Does faith make life easier or harder? And does it help a person to become better, more tolerant, to develop, to grow above himself?
L.W.: Faith makes life easier – it helps a lot to live, makes life more comfortable, makes it possible sometimes to refuse to solve complex issues, placing the decision on higher powers. Faith can help a person become kinder and better, but this does not happen automatically. We know many cases where faith helps to commit atrocities. Among today’s terrorists there are many Muslims who commit atrocities for the sake of Allah, that is, for the sake of faith. For the sake of faith, the fires of the Inquisition burned, the crusaders waged bloody wars, the Catholics fought the Protestants. But we know the names of Christians who saved Jews during World War II and did it not out of love for the Jews, but out of love for the Lord. Even today we sometimes meet wonderful Christians who, like Mother Teresa, work for the benefit of the poorest and most outcast people. But among such selfless people we also meet atheists. I cannot give a simple answer to this complex question.
The characters in your books are people who often endure a lot of suffering. How do you deal with suffering based on your faith?
L.W.: Suffering is a very painful issue for believing Christians. It seems to me that a huge proportion of the suffering in the world has nothing to do with the suffering on the cross of Jesus Christ. The Church says that “He took our sins upon Himself.” But, apparently, not all, and there are still quite a few, and these sins bring a huge amount of suffering into the world. And it is not always the bearers of sin that suffer, but quite often completely innocent beings. I don’t deal with suffering like a Christian. I cannot reconcile my faith with the death and suffering of little children. I believe that people should be freed from suffering as much as possible. I have lived most of my life in a country where teeth were pulled without pain relief and women had abortions without anesthesia, because sadism is one of the principles of our power. Yes, I know such cases when prolonged near-death suffering burned out his ego in a person, and the only desire that remained was to die in order to end the suffering. They say that there is moral torment of great intensity – I can’t say anything, I didn’t experience them, but I don’t trust Raskolnikov’s suffering. Suffering alone does not make people better. Maybe even more violent. But occasionally a miraculous phenomenon occurs when a person, from experiences and suffering, becomes more compassionate towards others and thereby becomes better. But this is not a rule at all, and far from always a person becomes better from the endured trials.
In a word, I try to suffer less, for which I use pills in some cases, in others I try to realize the roots of suffering and remove them as far as possible, and sometimes suffering subsides from the friendly participation and love of loved ones. But in any case, I am far from thanking heaven for the suffering sent. I think that we must learn to accept them without grumbling, patiently and courageously. This is a very high school. There is little strength. This is the place to ask for help. And in this sense, we can say that suffering leads to faith. But I would like something else – faith free and joyful …
“Do you want me to read you a Jewish parable? And I read about some Rebbe Zusya, who had to repay the debt by morning, but there was no money. The students were worried about where to get the money from, but the Rebbe was calm. He took a piece of paper and wrote down twenty-five ways that money could come. And on a separate note, another twenty-sixth. The next morning the money came from somewhere. Then the students read the entire list of twenty-five possible ways, but it did not contain the case due to which the money came. Then Rebbe Zusya opened a separate piece of paper – it says: “God does not need the advice of Rebbe Zusya.”
* Hereinafter, excerpts from Lyudmila Ulitskaya’s novel “Daniel Stein, Translator” (Astrel, 2011).
Read more:
- Live and believe
“Every triumphant Church, both Western and Eastern, completely rejects Christ. And you can’t get away from it. Would the Son of Man, in worn sandals and poor clothes, accept into his circle this Byzantine pack of courtiers, greedy and cynical, who today make up the church establishment? After all, even an honest Pharisee was under his suspicion! Yes, and why should they? They all anathematize, excommunicate each other, denounce each other for the wrong “confession” of faith. And Daniel all his life went to one simple thought – believe as you want, this is your own business, but keep the commandments, behave with dignity. By the way, you don’t even have to be a Christian to behave well. You can even be nobody. The last agnostic, wingless atheist.
Are faith and science compatible for you or just don’t intersect?
L.W.: What you are talking about boils down to axioms: you can build a picture of the world based on the fact that there is some higher mind (in a particular case, let’s call it God), or you can build a picture of the world based on the fact that there is no higher mind. But there is a powerful force of evolution, which is seen as a synonym for the development, growth, complication of living matter … These pictures are different. But there is also something in common: a person’s thirst for knowledge of the world, which expresses itself in both cases. If we proceed from the fact that some particle of the Creator is reflected in the existence of the creature, then the most human in a person seems to me to be his involvement in the world of higher reason. He is both the fruit of it and the accomplice.
The scientific approach involves experience and control. A believing person in his study of the world refuses this approach: he trusts the given (and even speculation) more and is less inclined to check his experience. Let’s say it carefully: enlightenment and Grace are available to the believer. To the scientist – only scientific tools. Faith does not explore the world, but gives its own explanations of its structure. Science studies it. It cannot be ruled out that at some point these two approaches will meet.
Voltaire said that if God did not exist, he would have to be invented. What do you think, if you personally did not believe or believed otherwise, what would change for you?
L.W.: Yes, I always believe differently: in childhood in one way, in youth – in another, in old age – in a third way. I can hardly imagine a person who manages to keep the content of faith unchanged throughout his life. By the way, I was in awe when I saw the first nail of those with which Christ was crucified. Then it turned out that in the world there are several dozen of them in different churches. The last one, which I saw in the city of Monza, near Milan, was embedded in the crown of the Lombard kings. She crowned many emperors, including Napoleon the First. These nails are irrelevant in my faith. As well as many other curious artifacts. The hand of St. Catherine, dried, wrinkled – it is kept in a monastery on the Sinai – causes only one desire: to bury her as soon as possible with Catherine. Modern Christianity bears many ancient pagan motifs. If you think about the second part of your question, you will remove it. Because everything changes every day. This is the quality of the world in general and the modern world in particular. Even the most dogmatic faith is forced to change in content. Not insisting. Not insisting on a single word! So I think today.
For you, in general, is the question of belonging to school, tradition, religion fundamental? Judging by the book “Sacred Trash”, this is what you are thinking a lot about now.
L.W.: Today, it really doesn’t matter to me who they call me, which party I belong to: for the Jews, I will forever remain an apostate, for Christians, most likely, a lost sheep, for those engulfed in the flames of jihad, an enemy by blood. There is one purely Christian image – the Last Supper, where the Teacher says goodbye to his students. And it always takes my breath away when I look at this meal on an icon, in a picture, even on a magnet that is attached to my refrigerator. And I think about those crumbs that dogs pick up from the floor. And I must also admit that in desperate moments of my life I prayed – but it was really a land, a death number – and my relatives prayed at my request, and the whole church prayed, or maybe two – and everyone who was going to die survived … It was a church prayer. And I remember it well. And what label will hang on me is not important. Let this be my secret. Or maybe I don’t even know about it…
“He said that we never know what trials and difficulties we still have ahead of us, and that it would be good if I learned to enjoy things that are not related to family and relationships with people. So that I can better look at other things: at the trees, at the sea, at all the beauty that surrounds us, and then the broken ties will be restored, and I will be able to go to church and receive help from the source that is always prepared for us. And so that I would think less about my feelings, and in general would think less about myself. And it must be ready for serious tests. And he wants me to visit him someday in Israel. He promised to show me everything he knows and loves there. He told me to write letters to him, and he would either not answer at all, or very briefly. He said he would always pray for me. And he ordered me to pray too – to imagine that you are holding all your beloved people in the palms of your hands and raising them to the Lord. And that’s all. Then I told him that since my adolescence I had lost faith and today I don’t know at all whether I am a Catholic. He smiled at me so friendly, ran his hand through his hair and said, “Baby, do you think God only loves Catholics? Do what your heart says, be merciful, and the Lord will not leave you. And pray.” I came to the hotel and immediately tried it, and got a full hand of everyone I love, and those who are loved by those I love, and Rita, of course. Gathered them all and said: “Lord, do not forget about mine …”