Why was Leo Tolstoy excommunicated from the Russian Orthodox Church in 1901?

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Portrait of Leo Tolstoy with a long white beard, wearing a dark shirt and looking slightly to the side. — Leo Tolstoy Russian writer Leo Tolstoy is widely regarded as one of the world's greatest novelists. His masterpieces are *War and Peace* (1865–69) and *Anna Karenina* (1875–77).

Leo Tolstoy was excommunicated from the Russian Orthodox Church in 1901 because he concluded that the church, along with all other Christian institutions, was a corrupt organization that had falsified the true message of Christianity.1

Tolstoy actively rejected core tenets of traditional religion, including the Holy Trinity, the immortality of the soul, all sacraments, and miracles. He viewed these doctrines as obfuscations of the teachings found in the Sermon on the Mount. Furthermore, he rejected the Old Testament and much of the New Testament, even composing his own version of the Gospels in which he portrayed Jesus not as the son of God, but as a wise man.1

By promoting his own interpretation of faith—which emphasized pacifism and nonresistance to evil—Tolstoy fundamentally broke with the established dogma of the church, leading to his formal excommunication.1