The Tsar referred to Rasputin as ‘our friend’ and a ‘holy man’, and Rasputin had a considerable personal and political influence on Tsarina Alexandra, who believed that God spoke to her through Rasputin. Rasputin used to speak of salvation as depending less on the clergy and the church than on seeking the spirit of God within. He claimed that yielding to temptation (for him this meant sex and alcohol) was needed to proceed to repentance and salvation. During the years of World War I, Rasputin's drunkenness, sexual promiscuity and willingness to accept bribes in return for helping petitioners who flocked to his apartment, as well as his efforts to have his critics dismissed from their posts, made him cynical. Attaining divine grace through sin was one of the central secret doctrines which Rasputin preached to and practiced with his inner circle of high society ladies.
1 comment:
Yah, this is the kind of stuff the aristocrats would have you believe about him. The fact of the matter is that the petitioners 'who flocked to his apt.' were generally among the peasants and Jews who were deprived of all rights in the hightly anti-Semitic Russian society. They were denied educations, occupations, and were forced to live in the ghetto. Rasputin, the humanitarian that he was, tried to help these people overcome the oppressive laws of Russia. And he was also pro-peace and those 'critics' that you say he tried to have dismissed - he was trying to get cabinet ministers who would end the war and give the Jews equal rights. Pretty evil, huh? But Russian society always showed Jews to be an evil influence, too. So, they spread rumors to discredit him and it worked. The rumors of society became history. And the evil Romanovs who slaughtered entire towns of Jews, were seen as the good guys, and Rasputin who never harmed nor killed anyone in his life, became the bad guy. Read my book on him when it come out on Amazon in a couple of months.
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