Thaw. Fog. Dirty snow.

After Smith's book, after the conversation on Saturday with Andrei O., after the lecture yesterday at Wilmington, the question in my head is: what is true freedom? How to be free?

Wednesday 28 January 1976

Two days of rain that washed away all the snow, and today it is sunny, frosty, windy again. In the morning in New York: a script in "Svoboda", a visit to Veronika Stein, breakfast with Fr. Kirill Fotieff. The impression of the conversation with V.Sh. is sad: insanity and quarrels in the "dissident" environment. In fact, they did not bring anything truly new with them, but they adopted and even revived the old émigré tradition of quarreling both personally and "in principle". About Solzhenitsyn she says: he rebels, always rebels – also against God...

I received the 6th book of "Continent". The general impression, first of all, is boredom, lack of a real gift, a spark. These latter are only in Brodsky's amazing poem. In all other respects, there is some kind of organic confusion. Now, says Veronika, the collection of Litvinov-Shragin-Aksyonov should be published... See. But I don't feel a sacred impatience.

Last night, at the Drilloks' place, Katya T.'s engagement to Vasya L. I felt old, old, who had lived for a century, but also grateful for the diversity of my life, which had made me at least somewhat free, which had given me that detachment[609] which I always feel joyfully in myself.

Thursday, January 29, 1976

Today I began to give lectures. Surprisingly, even after thirty years you experience this feeling of novelty. I think this is a sure sign that here, more than anything else, is my true calling. For everything else (except, of course, the ministry) is always somehow under the stick, especially "spiritual" conversations.

Before sending Nikita his answer, Solzh. [Yenitsyn] gave the proofs to Misha Aksyonov to read. I found his "remarks" on the table:

"The article is brilliant and is probably the smartest and most profound answer possible. Quite rightly, the conversation has been transferred to the true level: it has been taken away from jurisdictional friction and slander to the level of worldview and church. It has been said very well about the vice of the "intelligentsia" approach to the Church. And the full significance of the "Old Believers' seduction" is quite correctly seen, not as an accidental aesthetic element, but precisely as a deep non-historicism, the desire to fall out of history, to leave oneself and lead the whole of Russia with oneself into the "sump" of the Russian nation, that is, into the sump of history itself... It is very well said about the vice of "ideologism", which began with the Old Believers. Your article is probably the most serious and profound criticism of his position that exists today... In relation to S. himself, this is perhaps the most harsh and accusatory article and should touch him to the core, because it touches his most important thing. But I think that pastorally this is a tactful article, and if he is a Christian, he will understand that by writing it as it is, you have simply fulfilled your pastoral duty to him. In general, it is very modern and relevant and should become a wedge in the dispute about the Church that has begun and is being conducted in Russia."

Friday, January 30, 1976

"Three Saints". A wonderful early Liturgy, and then the consecration of academic premises and students' rooms. In seminary and at lectures I feel cheerful, but at home I am overcome by a kind of laziness and inability to work. I sit down at the table, but after half an hour everything literally "falls out of my hands". And this is without any despondency or bad mood. Rather, it is a "decline in creativity".

The whole morning is spent in business conversations, except for a half-hour lecture. At home, after breakfast, I fell asleep! Maybe this is a sign of old age or at least aging?

Almost spring warmth in the yard.