You have returned from a long expedition in which you studied folk art. And now you cannot hide your admiration for how the common people, unlearned and uneducated, could create such wonderful works.

You rightly admire.

The people could create all this only by Divine inspiration.

With their sublime creations, the people bore witness to the existence of God and His Providence. For without God's help, it is impossible to explain all this incomprehensible in beauty and wisdom work of the common people, peasants and peasant women, illiterate shepherds and millers. The answer to the mystery is that the people relied on God in everything and prayed to Him, and God gave His Holy Spirit, Who directed the thoughts, feelings, words and deeds of the people. And the educated man, who relies only on himself, is left by the Lord to himself, and he creates what man can create without God.

How could a Galilean fisherman, very simple and illiterate, write the fourth Gospel? How did Peter the fisherman write his divine messages? The earth cannot explain this; Without a doubt, Heaven intervened here. The holy people of God, enlightened by the Holy Spirit, did not speak from themselves, but spoke from God. And just as you are now amazed at the common people, so once the Jews were amazed at Christ, saying, "How does He know the Scriptures without studying?" Jesus, answering them, said: "My teaching is not mine, but Him who sent Me" (cf. John 7:15-16).

And although the person of Christ is exceptional in all respects, the same words can be said about the people: the wisdom of the people is not from the people, but from God. The people feel this and carry it in their hearts: they feel and believe that without God the song is not sung, without God the house is not built, without God lace is not woven, without God Glory is not celebrated.

Letter 170

Peter I., on faith in nature

You would like a "new faith" and offer faith in nature and its laws. If your knowledge of the history of our people and other Christian nations had not been impoverished, it would have been obvious to you how unfounded your proposal is. There is nothing new or unusual in what you are proposing. For this was the faith of our pagan ancestors before the adoption of Christianity. And the Christian faith, which we hold onto, is a new faith in comparison with that ancient, pagan faith. Therefore, if you want a new faith, you have it. If you want faith in nature and in its elements, then you want not a new, but a revival of an old, old faith. See how accurately the Apostle Paul speaks about this in his Epistle to the Galatians: "So we, too, while we were children, were enslaved to the material principles of the world; but when the fullness of time came, God sent His Son (the Only-begotten), Who was born of a woman, and was subject to the law... But now, having come to know God, or, better, having received knowledge from God, why do you return again to the weak and poor material principles and want to enslave yourself to them again? (Gal. 4:3-4, 9). Do you see where you are going?

For thousands of years, our gloomy ancestors lived in the darkness of paganism, in slavery to the material principles of nature. Scarcely have we escaped from the jaws of matter to the heights of spiritual Deity and to the freedom of the children of the one God of life, you now wish to go back and again push us back into darkness and slavery! What is nature if not God's creation? What is it if not a fragile reed next to the almighty God? And you want to tear your life away from Him and bind it to a weak reed! Which is bigger: a pot or a potter? You value the pot more than the potter! This comes from shortsightedness and fear.

You are afraid of the dust of the universe and the wind that carries it, and in fear you want to worship it, following the example of your ancient pagan ancestors. Do you not see that even the human spirit has shown itself to be stronger than the elements of nature, and how much stronger is the Spirit of God? Why, then, do you want to throw the human spirit under the feet of matter? Can a master be a servant's slave?

Abandon the unworthy and petty thoughts of the pagan Slavs. With such thoughts they were savages and would remain savages for thousands of years. Just as a butterfly will not become a caterpillar again and will not return to the shell from which it flew out, so we will not return to the decayed shell of the ancient pagan faith.

May Christ enlighten and sanctify you.