Dostoevsky And Memory Eternal: An Eastern Orthodox Approach to the Brothers Karamazov

Why do Orthodox memorial litanies melodically reiterate “memory eternal” with such feeling and such energy? And why did Orthodoxy’s greatest novelist end his last great work so triumphantly with these same words? By going very deeply into a single passage in Dostoevsky’s masterpiece, “The Brothers Karamazov,” Donald Sheehan leads us not only into the the center of the novel, but into the heart of the Orthodox faith as well. Rarely does an essay combine theological reflection, literary interpretation, and personal narrative so powerfully and so seamlessly. And rarely does an essay move the reader so profoundly while providing such original and penetrating insights. Like much of the writing this journal seeks to present, this text will reward repeated readings with new and surprising layers of understanding and inspiration.

Central to Eastern Orthodox Christendom is the singing, at the end of every Orthodox funeral, of the song known as “Memory Eternal” (in Church Slavonic: Vechnaya Pamyat). This song also concludes Dostoevsky’s great, final novel, The Brothers Karamazov, when, following the funeral of the boy whom Alyosha Karamazov (and the circle of schoolboys around Alyosha) had deeply loved, Alyosha speaks to the boys about the funeral and about the meaning of the resurrection, with this brief song as their steady focus.

My thesis is simply this: to know something of this song’s meaning is to comprehend both the Eastern Orthodox faith and Dostoevsky’s greatest novel.

We can best approach the meaning of this song through following the connection between the Orthodox funeral services and the crucifixion of Christ. Fr. Pavel Florensky, recently canonized by the Church in Russia, articulated the connnection by first asking, “What did the wise thief ask for on the cross?” (144) and then answering by quoting from St. Luke’s Gospel:........

I liked the three points near the beginning, "The Contribution of Cappadocia to Christian Thought" where the author talks about freedom, uniqueness, and love. So much of life's value comes when we transcend our everyday life. A passage from Emerson talks about the power of individual thought and will:

Your sickness, they say, and your puny habit, require that thou do this or avoid that, but know that thy life is a flitting state, a tent for a night, and do thou, sick or well, finish that stint. Thou art sick, but shalt not be worse, and the universe, which holds thee dear, shall be the better.

We must be very suspicious of the deceptions of the element of time. It takes a good deal of time to eat or to sleep, or to earn a hundred dollars, and a very little time to entertain a hope and an insight which becomes the light of our life.

We dress our garden, eat our dinners, discuss the household with our wives, and these things make no impression, are forgotten next week; but in the solitude to which every man is always returning, he has a sanity and revelations, which in his passage into new worlds he will carry with him.

Never mind the ridicule, never mind the defeat: up again, old heart! -- it seems to say, -- there is victory yet for all justice; and the true romance which the world exists to realize, will be the transformation of genius into practical power.

Experience from Essays: Second Series (1844)

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