In one conversation, Dostoevsky applied to Russia the vision of John the Theologian about the woman clothed with the sun and willing in the agony to give birth to her child: the woman is Russia and the child to be born is the new Word which Russia must tell the world. Correct or not such an interpretation of the «great sign», but the new Word of Russia has been guessed correctly by Dostoevsky. This is the word of reconciliation for the East and West in the union of the eternal truth of God and of the human freedom.

Our Lord Jesus Christ came to set up the Church upon earth. The Kingdom of Heaven, of course, is not of this world, but in Heaven; but it is only entered through the Church which has been founded and established upon earth. … The Church is, in truth, a kingdom and ordained to rule, and in the end must undoubtedly become the kingdom ruling over all the earth. For that we have the divine promise.

… Russian hopes and conceptions demand not that the Church should pass as from a lower into a higher type into the State, but, on the contrary, that the State should end by being worthy to become only the Church and nothing else. So be it! So be it!

… the Christian society now is not ready and is only resting on some seven righteous men, but as they are never lacking, it will continue still unshaken in expectation of its complete transformation from a society almost heathen in character into a single universal and all-powerful Church. So be it, so be it! Even though at the end of the ages, for it is ordained to come to pass! And there is no need to be troubled about times and seasons, for the secret of the times and seasons is in the wisdom of God, in His foresight, and His love. And what in human reckoning seems still afar off, may by the Divine ordinance be close at hand, on the eve of its appearance. And so be it, so be it!

Dostoevsky's work means not only a crisis, but also the collapse of humanism, its inner exposure. In this the name of Dostoevsky must be placed next to that of Nietzsche. After Dostoevsky and Nietzsche, a return to the old rationalistic humanism is no longer possible; humanism has been surpassed. Humanistic self-affirmation and human complacency finds its end with Dostoevsky and Nietzsche. Further lies the path either to the God-man or to the superman, the man-god. It is no longer possible to stop at one human.

Dostoievsky in particular lays bare the contradictions inherent in the humanist ideal whose bankruptcy he demonstrates. Tormented by the problem of human destiny, which was the unique theme of his creative work, Dostoievsky revealed the profound tragedy underlying humanism. His whole dialectic is concerned to make its exposure as complete as possible.

The path of freedom is difficult and tragic, more beset than any other with heroic responsibility and martyrdom. The paths of necessity and compulsion are easier, less tragic and less heroic. That is why the historical process shows so many derogations from the path of freedom to that of compulsion. This is true of the religious as well as of the secular experience. The temptation is superbly expounded by Dostoievsky in his Legend of the Grand Inquisitor. The Grand Inquisitor wishes to relieve men of the burden of freedom, so that they nay all be happy. Mankind yielded to this temptation in the Inquisition and does so again in our own time in the religion of Communism, which is simply the doctrine of the Grand Inquisitor based on the fall from the path of freedom to that of compulsion, so that mankind may be delivered from the burden of its tragic destiny. This is the very essence of the historical drama, rooted in the conflict between the principles of freedom and compulsion, in the ceaseless supersession of the one by the other.