Konstantin Léontiev : rencontres avec l’Orthodoxie, le Catholicisme et l’Islam

K. N. Leontiev (1831-1991) was born in a traditional aristocratic family that observed the rituals of the Orthodox Church in a rather perfunctory manner. However he experienced a dramatic conversion at the age of 30, when he was deadly sick in a remote town of the middle-east where he worked as a Russian Consul. As a result, he became a fervent Orthodox believer and visited a number of well-known monasteries before becoming a monk at the very end of his life. His Orthodoxy was close to the Byzantine tradition and did not indulge in the liberal tendencies of the time. So Leontiev strongly criticised the humanistic trends of Tolstoy’s and Dostoïevsky’s novels as well as the reforms of Alexander II that diluted the good monarchical order inspired by true Orthodoxy. Nevertheless, Leontiev was very tolerant and even sympathised up to a certain point with Catholicism and the ideas of Vladimir Soloviev. He was in favour of an oecumenical church which could preach the gospel more efficiently, on condition that the authority of the Orthodox church would not be denied. Leontiev admired the social order that the Muslim faith provided and its respect of other confessions. So he was not in favor of a Russian or international intervention in the Slavic countries dominated by Muslim rule as this would mean a weakening of religion and a strengthening of liberal and atheistic ideas in the population concerned.