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 Lyubostynya. 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 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 story of Christ through the prism of Indian philosophical and religious thought. Vladyka's later work "The One Lover of Man" is, like "Theodoulos", also a story about Christ, but this time seen from Europe - through the prism of European philosophical and religious thought.

Editor of the Serbian edition

Introduction

Dust

Sit down, Theodoulos. Let's sit down with you, take a break from the dust. You ask what we should sit on? Let's sit right here, on the road, on the dust! Let us sit on what has been sitting on us for a long time, on the dust dear to us, which has tired us. Let's sit down with ourselves.

Do not frown, Theodoulos. What, don't you like this road dust? But look: after all, your body was created from this very dust - the most precious dust in the world for you. From this very dust are created all bodies, all eyes, all hands, all heads, all hearts; all the stars are made of it.

Have you not heard at the funeral service of the dead: "I remember the prophet, crying out: I am earth and ashes"? Have you not walked through some old cemetery among identical graves and asked yourself: "Who is the king and who is the warrior, who is rich and who is poor?" Thou hast seen all that was once made of dust unequal.

Both you and I are marching towards this sameness - hastily, without delay, we are hurrying to where all living things go - into dust, into ashes, into soundless peace, into the footstool for new travelers: two-legged, four-legged, hundred-legged. The dust of our brain will no longer think. The dust of our heart will not feel. The dust of our eyes will not see, the dust of our ears will not hear, the dust of the tongue will not speak. We will be this road dust on which you and I sit and at which you frown so much, my Theodoulos.

Why are you frowning at this road dust going from one unknown city to another unknown city? Why do you frown sullenly at her, and do not frown at the dust of your body, eyes, mouth, tongue, hands and feet? Aren't they the same and the other, aren't they all the same? If you were consistent, you would equally love or hate both dust, or you would be indifferent to both.

You'll get dirty, you say? What will you get dirty? The garment of thy body, the garment of thy garment? The external can only stain the external. What stains, cleans. If the grease stains, then the soap cleans. Isn't water the same dust? If the dust of the road soils your clothes, the water will clean them. If something gets dirty inside you, only the inner can purify it. But let's not talk about internal pollution and purification now. This is something high and distant. It's better to sit quietly, dust on dust, and talk about dust.

Motley City

Look, Theodoulos, what a motley world surrounds us! How diverse everything is: how many colors, shapes, sizes. And below, on earth, and above, in the vault of heaven. What is all this, if not dust, just like mine, and your body, and mine, and your eyes, and mine, and your heart?

Truly, this world is a Motley City. Who built it? How did he build it? Why did he build it? These are three agonizing questions, and there is no fourth. We know only one thing: it was built of dust.