Part 1

Part 2

Prayer

Part 1

Part 2

Mysterious Book

Part 1

Part 2

Prophet

Part 1

Part 2

Liturgy

Part 1

Part 2

Winner

Information about the original source: "Orthodoxy and Modernity. Electronic Library." (www.lib.eparhia-saratov.ru).

Conversion to epub, mobi, fb2 formats: "Orthodoxy and the world. Electronic Library" (lib.pravmir.ru).

Instead of a preface

The work "Theodoulos" St. Nicholas [

1] wrote in the winter of 1941-1942 in the monastery of Lyubostynia. Vladyka said that the work was not completed and that he needed to write a few more chapters, but later he did not manage to return to this work. Nevertheless, the incompleteness of "Theodoulos" is not felt, since each chapter in it is devoted to a separate theme and is finished.

The Germans, having occupied Yugoslavia in 1941, from the very first days began to search and dig up the Žiča monastery, demonstrating complete distrust of its abbot, Bishop Nicholas. Very often they visited Žiča and interrogated Vladyka for hours, until at last they openly told him that they would not tolerate him, such an active bishop, and that he should leave and hand over diocesan affairs to someone else. By decision of the Holy Synod of Bishops, Bishop Vikenty of Zletovo-Strumica was appointed to replace the saint; Bishop Nicholas was transferred to the monastery of Lyubostynya and imprisoned there. It happened on St. Peter's Day in 1941.

Vladyka spent a year and a half in Lyubostyn; Here he worked a lot - he wrote. Not bound by any diocesan affairs, he devoted all his time to creativity. And he wrote a lot. I believe that the Lyubostyn period will rightly be singled out by researchers as a separate and very important period in the life and work of Bishop Nicholas. In December 1942, Vladyka was transferred to the Vojlovica Monastery in Banat.

"Theodoulos" is one of the first and most significant works of the bishop created in the monastery of Lubostynia. Vladyka, in his own words, wanted to show by this work how much higher and deeper the world of Gospel ideas is even the most refined and deepest, in his opinion, system of pre-Gospel thinking, the Indian system, and even more so surpasses the intellectual achievements of other peoples. Therefore, after expounding in several chapters in the Introduction to the Theodoulos the "wisdom of India," he concludes: "Give me, Theodoulos, a nutshell, and we will pour into it all the human wisdom of India, accumulated over thousands of years: all the Vedas, all Buddhism, all the tantras and mantras, and the whole Mahabharata, and the mysterious word 'aum'. In one nutshell are placed the four basic, main ideas of Indian wisdom." In other words, Bishop Nicholas's "Theodoulos" is a view of the history of Christ through the prism of Indian philosophical and religious thought. Vladyka's later work "The One Lover of Mankind" is, like "Theodoulos", also a story about Christ, but this time seen from Europe - through the prism of European philosophical and religious thought.