But no, Myalo throws himself into very unprofessional comparative studies of the religious symbolism of different traditions in order to prove to me that I have no right to use Voloshin's epithets to explain my impressions of Roerich's paintings.

With my consent, I quoted the review of Maximilian Voloshin: "The plant kingdom is mysteriously alien to Roerich's work. The trees in his paintings are found only in the form of rough-hewn logs, from which the log houses of the hillforts are built and pointed palisades are built, similar to bared teeth, or in the form of heavy, richly and crudely painted ships, reminiscent of predatory amphibians. There are so many stones and so little soil on Roerich's land that there is nowhere for a tree to grow there. He is indeed an artist of the Stone Age, because of the four elements he has known only the earth, and in the earth only its bony basis – stone. In front of his paintings, all the Celtic legends about evil stones living a magical life are involuntarily recalled... And in the rest of the growing, singing, shining and speaking world, Roerich sees only what is blind, dumb, deaf and stony in it. The sky becomes an opaque stone for him, sometimes red-hot during sunsets, and under the dull crimson vault he throws heavy stone clouds... And not only does Rörich see the air, the trees, the man and the flowing sea as stone, but even the fire becomes the caustic teeth of yellow stone... And people, animals are visible to him only from the point of view of a stone. Therefore, his people do not have a face. This happens when you walk through a museum of weapons among forged armor that preserves the likeness of a person... Roerich has no people – there are only robes, armor, animal skins, shirts, ports carved from stone, and they all walk and act on their own. There is no face, no look... The horror of a gaping emptiness is in this absence of face" (Maximilian Voloshin)[561].

And then something strange begins.

As soon as Voloshin says that there are too many stones and too few human faces on Roerich's canvases, Myalo rushes to be indignant at "Kuraev's strange disregard for stones" (p. 170) and to prove that a stone can be a good symbol...

It is worth mentioning the permeation of Roerich's canvases with cold, the non-warmth of their color scheme (by the way: "N.K.R. loves cold more. He says that his occult work should always be done in clean air and cold")[562] - and Myalo again rushes into battle, proving that cold is a symbol of grace (p. 166), and ice in the Orthodox tradition is supposedly "one of the principles on which the world has been established" (ibid.).

And when I said that I was alarmed by Roerich's vision, in which, "like lightning, the Giant Fiery Scaly Fish falls to the ground, head down", Myalo again hastens to make a diagnosis: "Fire in general is somehow incomprehensible and alien to Kuraev in its Divine, bright hypostasis and exists only as hellfire. And therefore the deacon is ready to interpret almost any fiery or lightning vision as an unequivocal evidence of the seer's commitment to Lucifer – deliberately "forgetting" other Gospel texts and images. Thus, speaking of the vision of the Fire Fish falling from heaven, visited by E. I. Roerich in 1911 (i.e. even before its direct contact with the "poisonous"); He comments: "At the same time, E. I. Roerich quite rightly explains that the Fish is a symbol of Christ. But the fact is that Christ Himself says: "I saw Satan fall from heaven like lightning" (Luke 10:18). In Roerich's vision, Christ falls from heaven like lightning..." (vol. 1, p. 221). When I come across this, I ask myself: does Kuraev really believe that no one else has read the Gospel? Opening the Gospel freely, we can read: "For as the lightning proceedeth from the east, and is seen even unto the west, so shall the coming of the Son of man be" (Matt. 24:27). Or: "As the lightning flashing from one end of heaven flashes to the other end of heaven, so shall the Son of Man be in His day" (Luke 17:24)" (p. 69).

That's right – fire and lightning can be symbols of God. But let's take not one, but two key words of Roerich's vision: "lightning" and "overthrow". The simultaneous use of these two symbols is found only in one biblical passage - the one that speaks of the overthrow of Satan... [563]

Yes, the symbols of fire, stone and ice have a good load in the system of Christian symbolism. But they have - in it! - and negative comprehension. Theosophists, on the other hand, give an apparently un-Christian meaning to these symbols.

The light of Agni Yoga cannot have the same source as the Uncreated Light contemplated by the Orthodox Saints. Otherwise, the spirits would not have knocked on the Orthodox Saints at the Roerichs: "Zealots of the Church and servants of darkness, of course, will not endure the spark of Fohat." (Infinity, 391). Not all "zealots of the Church" are Saints. But all Orthodox Saints are "zealots for the Church." And so spiritualistic informers count them on a par with the "servants of darkness". This means that the "spark of Fohat" and the Holy Spirit of Christianity are antipodes. And it is unseemly for a Christian to identify the rotten light of Lucifer with the radiance of God.

And the stones for Theosophists do not at all signify the firmness of Peter's faith and not the inviolability of Christ as the support of the Church. Stone is dear to them "in the sense of a psychomagnet. Along this path, peoples can expand the sphere of communication with distant stars"[564] The Roerichs' stone is by no means a symbol of loyalty[565], but "a mysterious sacred object"[566], "the teraph of the Brotherhood is the stone of the far-off worlds... The stone contains a certain substance that helps to store vibrations with distant worlds. We keep it in a special room" (Nadnezhnoye, 134). Can such a stone be identified with Christ?

And this cobblestone-"meteorite" serves to communicate with a certain "Cosmic Magnet" located in the constellation of Orion: "The stone is a particle of the Stone that fell from Orion and is now stored in the White Brotherhood"[567] A meteorite sent from Orion fell to Earth in the Himalayas. The place of its fall became Shambhala, and through this meteorite, which fell at the beginning of the history of the earth, Orion supervises the earth's evolution and through the meteorite communicates with the "aliens" disguised as earthlings. Part of the meteorite is sent to different places on earth, where the "mahatmas" want to expand their zone of influence and produce a new "evolutionary push", it is called Cintamani. "That mysterious meteor from the Orion creation, a fragment of which is in her (E.I. Roerich – A.K.) since 1923. "The stone rests on a pillow," the Teacher reported, "which lies on a base of marble and is separated by a circle of metal. There, after the rhythm, we silently saturate the space. The vault lies deep, and the White Brotherhood converges on the galleries for a night vigil."[568] For the Roerichs themselves, this stone is associated with the "mahatmas" and is a powerful energy teraph... So the semantic associations that arise in the Roerichs when they hear about the "Stone" are completely different from those of Christians who comprehend the same word.

Ksenia Grigorievna shows a striking inattention to the mystical Orthodox tradition, which constantly warns that "fire" and "light" in visions can be signs of the most terrible danger. "Satan himself takes the form of an angel of light" (2 Corinthians 11:14). Numerous sayings of the Holy Fathers, warning that fallen spirits can appear in a fiery environment and call themselves by the holiest names, are cited in the works of St. Ignatius Brianchaninov[569]. K. Myalo too hastily identifies the fire of the Gospel with the fire of Agni Yoga. Not all fire and light mentioned in religions comes from the One Source. Otherwise, it would have to be said that the Zoroastrian fire-worshippers are related to the Orthodox hesychasts, and the priests who offered human sacrifices to their god of the Sun, i.e. to the light, were brought to their senses by the same Angels who concelebrate the Orthodox Liturgy.

I am ready to express a judgment that is very easy to verify in practice. I maintain that the rejection of Theosophy by Christians depends on the degree and spirituality of the Christians. The more experienced and prayerful monk Ksenia Myalo shows the Agni Yogi books with records of conversations with spirits, the stricter will be the judgment of this monk. Ksenia Grigorievna, would you try to verify this statement of mine?

If Myalo seriously insists that the symbols she mentioned can only be given a positive load, then what will she achieve in the end? Now, if someone says that this character has an icy heart, this can no longer be regarded as a negative characteristic: after all, Myalo proved that ice in Christian symbolism is the basis of the universe and a symbol of grace... If someone notices the fossilization of someone's soul, then this will also have to be interpreted as a positive assessment, as an indication of "cosmicness" in the light of the recommendations of the Roerich Xenia Myalo.