Ancient Americas, Appropriated

Modern representations of the pre-columbian past, john walter scott, jesus christ visits the americas (1969).

John Walter Scott (1907–1987) was a prolific American illustrator known for his pulp fiction covers. In the 1960s, he was commissioned by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (the Mormon Church) to paint several large murals for their facilities. His painting Jesus Christ Visits the Americas (also called Jesus Teaching in the Western Hemisphere ), completed in 1969, is a massive canvas of 47” x 121” that now hangs in the LDS Convention Center in Salt Lake City. It depicts a central article of faith of the Mormon religion: that, following his resurrection, Jesus appeared among the peoples of the Americas, themselves descendants of the Israelites, to spread his Gospel. Those who received his teaching were the Nephites, while a second branch of New World Israelites, the Lamanites, refused to be converted by their former brethren. The two factions eventually engaged in a war that the Lamanites won. Having met their destruction, the Nephites left a set of inscribed golden plates recording their history. These were revealed by the angel Moroni to a New Yorker, Joseph Smith, in the 1820s, and, with the help of a pair of stones (urim and thummim, which the angel provided and which possessed mystical power), he translated what would become known as the Book of Mormon. Joseph Smith was far from the only nineteenth-century Euro-American to posit Old World origins for the native peoples of the New World, most often as the Lost Tribes of Israel. However, his account, unique in being obtained through divine revelation, was by far the most detailed version, as well as the most successful one. Nearly two centuries later, after such theories have long been disproven through a variety of scientific evidence, adherents of the Mormon faith remain the only significant group to still believe these claims.

christ visits the americas painting

In John Scott’s painting, Christ occupies a central position. He stands in an open plaza at the top of a short, broad set of stairs, wearing a white robe and cape, and with his hands held slightly out from his sides to display the nail holes from his crucifixion visible to the crowd that surrounds him. The setting in which the scene takes place represents “Bountiful,” the name of the city-state identified in the Book of Mormon as the location of Christ’s appearance. It is shown in a semi-ruined state, reflecting the belief that a great cataclysm occurred at the time of the Crucifixion, with the sky turning black and the earth quaking. For the architecture itself, Scott largely followed Maya examples—including Puuc-style decorative elements and a stepped pyramid reminiscent of the Castillo at Chichen Itza—from Yucatán, Mexico, reflecting the common correlation of Bountiful with this region in Mormon thought.

christ visits the americas painting

This is despite the fact that these buildings were constructed hundreds of years after Christ’s purported visitation of the Americas, an anachronism mirrored by the Nephites’ wearing of golden ornaments, when metalworking didn’t come to the region until late in the first millennium CE. Indeed, many aspects of the costumes seen in the painting appear to be based on South American models, such as the crescent headdress of a figure towards the far left, and the tunic with an “Inca Key” design worn by the balding man to the right of center.

christ visits the americas painting

There are further aspects of the painting and its source material that complicate a simple geographic identification with a single place, including an architectural element from the Feathered Serpent Pyramid at the Central Mexican site of Teotihuacan at the upper left (placed beneath a Puuc-style deity mask despite these representing distinct architectural traditions separated by both time and space) and a flower planter at right that mimics the base of an Aztec sculpture of the god Xochipilli.

christ visits the americas painting

In terms of the landscape itself, the presence of high jagged mountains in the background of the painting have nothing in common with the flat karstic shelf of the Yucatan peninsula. The effect is a condensing of all ancient American civilization—and territory—into a single pivotal moment, whereby the appearance of Christ at Bountiful comes to stand for his evangelizing of the entire hemisphere. And while the Book of Mormon details numerous different groups or factions of First Americans, they are all claimed as descendants of the Israelites, thereby establishing a unitary basis for the characterization of all Indian people.

If the Book of Mormon asserted that the First Americans shared a common origin with all Judeo-Christian peoples, the Indians who were encountered by Europeans beginning with Columbus in 1492 were understood, according to Church doctrine, to be in a fallen state. Descendants of the Laminates, their dark skin was deemed to be an outward sign of their sinfulness, a curse by God for turning away from him. As Scott depicts in his painting, the Nephites, who remained in God’s good grace and who received the blessing of Christ, were conceived as having fair skin, as was Jesus himself. This explicit association between race and morality in Mormon thought had its origins with Joseph Smith in the 1830s, but the foregrounding of the whiteness of Christ and his chosen people in Scott’s painting should also be understood through the lens of the racial tensions of the late 1960s, a time when the Church was experiencing protests by Civil Rights activists protesting its discriminatory policies, which it sought to justify through theological grounds. Indeed, Mormonism’s tenets establish an ideological legitimization for the European domination of the Americas, beginning with the Spanish Conquest (as punishment for the sinfulness of the Lamanites) and continuing with 19th-century Anglo-American notions of Manifest Destiny (as the fulfillment of a promise of redemption to God’s chosen people).

The assertion that the significant cultural achievements and monumental remains of ancient American civilizations were actually accomplished by people from the Old World not only establishes a long Judeo-Christian lineage in the Western Hemisphere; it also, and more insidiously, refuses to recognize the creative agency and territorial claims of the indigenous population. With the exception of the Mormon Church, popular theories about the Old World, biblical origins of ancient American civilizations had largely fallen out of favor by the early twentieth century. Claims that Native American culture was based on knowledge obtained from outside sources persist, however. Rather than deriving from the Old World civilizations, this outside source of knowledge is now typically conceived as originating from extra-terrestrial or inter-dimensional beings. In this context, the selection of John Scott by the LDS to complete this painting (among others) seems uncannily apt. While he was likely chosen based on his cleanly legible and popularly accessible illustrative style, his wider oeuvre consists primarily of covers for adventure and sci-fi novels, including many scenes featuring aliens. As an example of imagery projecting magical explanations for the origins and achievements of Native Americans, it is not too much of a stretch to consider Jesus Christ Visits the Americas as part of the larger genre of pulp fantasy art that was the mainstay of the artist who painted it.

____________________________________________

For more on the ancient Americas in Mormon thought, see:

Evans, R. Tripp. 2004. Romancing the Maya: Mexican Antiquity in the American Imagination, 1820–1915 . Austin: University of Texas Press.

Pasztory, Esther. 2015.  Aliens and Fakes: Popular Theories about the Origins of Ancient Americans . Solon, ME: Polar Bear & Co.

On race and religion in America, see:

Blum, Edward J. and Paul Harvey. 2012. The Color of Christ: The Son of God and the Saga of Race in America . Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.

“Behold My Beloved Son” (3 Nephi 11:7)

The Savior in the Americas

I Am Jesus Christ

christ visits the americas painting

Behold Your Little Ones

christ visits the americas painting

  • Navigate to any page of this site.

christ visits the americas painting

  • In the menu, scroll to Add to Home Screen and tap it.

christ visits the americas painting

  • In the menu, scroll past any icons and tap Add to Home Screen .

Photo of Publication Cover

From Jerusalem to Zarahemla

Literary and historical studies of the book of mormon, s. kent brown, when did jesus visit the americas.

S. Kent Brown, “When Did Jesus Visit the Americas?” in  From Jerusalem to Zarahemla: Literary and Historical Studies of the Book of Mormon  (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 1998), 146–156.

Conflicting views exist about when Jesus appeared to his New World disciples. Did he appear directly after his ascension to the Father? Some believe that his appearance followed the forty days with his disciples in Palestine, while others believe that an entire year had passed after the resurrection when he appeared in the Americas. Observations from the text suggest that he mercifully waited for the people to recover from the destruction that attended his crucifixion. Compelling details help us approach an answer to this puzzling question.

Even in the bright light of written commentary and artistic depiction, a question persists about the dating of the risen Jesus’ visit to the Americas. One view holds that approximately one year had passed following the severe destruction that attended Jesus’ death. [1] A second view suggests that the Savior’s visit occurred in connection with or soon after his initial appearance to his disciples in Jerusalem following the resurrection (see Luke 24:28–43; John 20:11–18). [2] A third view, which stands between these two, maintains that the Savior’s manifestation occurred only following his forty-day ministry (see Acts 1:3–4). [3]

Among those who either avoid the question or take an ambiguous stand are George Reynolds and Janne M. Sjodahl, who wrote, “Some time after the terrible events which denoted His death, exactly how long we know not, a multitude assembled near the temple, which was in the land Bountiful.” [4] Daniel H. Ludlow did not attempt a solution but simply stated that he was aware of the three views. [5]

Among artistic representations that depict Jesus as arriving directly after the destruction of the Nephite cities and the subsequent period of total darkness is Arnold Friberg’s well-known painting, now reproduced in virtually all inexpensive copies of the Book of Mormon and once featured on the cover of the Gospel Doctrine manual for 1967–68. The original painting was part of a series done during 1952–57, now hanging on the lower floor of the South Visitors’ Center on Temple Square in Salt Lake City. We note especially the portrayal of recent destruction in the right foreground and the fallen posture of some of the people—as if they were struggling to their feet just after spending the past three days in darkness (see 3 Ne. 8:23).

A painting by Ronald Crosby exhibits a similar posture toward the question of whether a substantial period of time had elapsed. From 1967 to 1991, the Joseph Smith Building on the Brigham Young University campus was home to Crosby’s painting of Jesus’ visit to the Nephites. In that painting Crosby has depicted recent destruction, particularly in the left background. In a telephone conversation, the artist said that he had tried to capture the scene of Jesus’ appearing to the Nephites “as soon after” the destruction and darkness as possible.

Calendar Issues

In seeking a solution to the question, we must first review two passages in 3 Nephi that seem to chronicle the relative timing of Jesus’ death and subsequent visit. The first passage informs us that “in the thirty and fourth year, in the first month, on the fourth day of the month, there arose a great storm” which brought the destruction and period of darkness (8:5). We note particularly that it was at the beginning of the thirty-fourth year by Nephite calendrical reckoning that these events occurred.

The second key passage observes that “in the ending of the thirty and fourth year . . . soon after the ascension of Christ into heaven he did truly manifest himself unto them [Nephites and Lamanites]—showing his body unto them, and ministering unto them” (10:18–19). Here we note that it was apparently at the end of the same year, the thirty-fourth, that Jesus appeared to those assembled at the temple in the land of Bountiful (11:1).

But much depends on how we understand the meaning of the phrase “the ending.” [6] The calendrical system that the Nephites used at Jesus’ visit dated from the ninety-first year of the reign of the judges (3 Ne. 1:1; 2:8), the year of the appearance of the sign of Jesus’ birth (1:15–21). In this connection at least two problems of the Nephite calendar remain unsolved: (a) whether the Nephites employed a solar or a lunar calendar, and (b) whether the new calendrical sequence dated from the very day, night and day when the sign appeared, or whether the Nephites merely retained the existing annual cycle, renumbering it from ninety-one to one. [7] In any case, it is evident from 3 Ne. 2:4–8 that they may have used as many as three calendars concurrently during the years immediately following the sign of Jesus’ birth.

Thus far, the chronology seems clear. According to the Book of Mormon, the destruction and associated darkness had occurred at the opening of the year, and the subsequent appearance of the risen Jesus evidently came at its closing. But as we mentioned above, this chronological sequence has not been accepted everywhere. To date, discussion has focused on two items—chronometrical notations and circumstantial evidences. Let us now examine these two matters.

Expressions of Time

Concerning the chronological notes, the first potential difficulty arises from the fact that the prophet Mormon, while abridging the record of 3 Nephi, interrupted his work for an indefinite period just before copying the report of Jesus’ visit: “An account of his [Jesus’] ministry [among Nephites and Lamanites] shall be given hereafter. Therefore for this time I make an end of my sayings” (3 Ne. 10:19). We must ask whether the interruption of Mormon’s work could have impaired his sense for the timing of this most important moment for his people. Joseph Fielding Smith noted the interruption in Mormon’s work, as did Sidney Sperry. [8]

It seems highly unlikely that Mormon became careless—even with the interruption in his editing—in handling an event that he chose to place at center stage in his abridgment. We have only to recall that Mormon’s work exhibits throughout a thorough care in treating details of sequence and place. [9] In reviewing Mormon’s huge effort represented in the Book of Mormon, we have to be impressed with his consistent attention to detail as he rewrote large segments of the material that came into his hands, particularly the large plates of Nephi. These sections have always exhibited a steady consistency. If we were to urge that Mormon erred in his chronological note in 3 Ne. 10:18, we would have to accept the consequent view that he committed a totally unexpected blunder while introducing the risen Jesus’ ministry, the major event narrated in his literary work.

Consequently, since we can fault none of Mormon’s efforts at chronological accuracy, there is no reasonable cause for questioning his remarks regarding the events associated with the beginning and the ending of the Nephites’ thirty-fourth year.

The second chronometrical issue concerns Mormon’s note that the Lord’s special manifestation came “soon after the ascension of Christ into heaven” (10:18). The ascension itself has been understood variously as that which took place on the day of Jesus’ resurrection or that which followed his forty-day ministry (see Acts 1:3). [10] Whichever the case, Mormon’s notice that Jesus’ manifestation fell “soon after the ascension” would seem to place the event earlier rather than later. The reply consists first in pointing to Mormon’s single chronometrical observation—doubtless trustworthy, as noted above, and made in the same verse—that the visitation occurred at “the ending of the thirty and fourth year,” that is, well into its latter half. This position is the one taken by Elder Bruce R. McConkie in The Mortal Messiah: “Then ‘in the ending’ of that [thirty-fourth] year (see 10:18–19), several months after the Ascension on Olivet, Jesus ministered personally among the Nephites for many hours over many days.” [11] An earlier view expressed by Elder McConkie seems to indicate a belief that Jesus’ visit to the Nephites occurred simultaneously with his forty-day ministry among his disciples in Palestine, [12] a position which he later abandoned. Additionally, Mormon’s expression “soon after” (10:18), especially when compared to his rather clear chronological remark about “the ending” of the year, may lack sufficient precision upon which to build a firm case one way or the other.

In this connection we must consider one further chronological notation in a passage far removed from the action of 3 Nephi. Although it may shed little light on our topic, we read in a note made by Moroni several hundred years after the fact that “Christ showed himself unto our fathers, after he had risen from the dead; and he showed not himself unto them until after they had faith in him” (Ether 12:7). [13] This passage seemingly points to a rather substantial period between the Savior’s resurrection and his appearance in America; but undue weight should not be placed upon it. The primary purpose of Moroni’s statement in Ether 12:7 was to illustrate his prior instruction to his readers: “Dispute not because ye see not, for ye receive no witness until after the trial of your faith. For it was by faith that Christ showed himself unto our fathers, after he had risen from the dead” (12:6–7).

In dealing with chronometrical statements in the Book of Mormon, nothing has so far impelled us to abandon the literal meaning of Mormon’s statement concerning “the ending” of the thirty-fourth year. We now turn to evidence that is largely circumstantial in character. We can rely upon such features only to tell us whether the drift of our interpretation is tending in the proper direction.

Circumstantial Evidences

On behalf of the view that Jesus came early to the Nephites, the most compelling observation is that the Savior would not have caused those faithful Nephites and Lamanites to wait an entire year for his appearance, especially because his instructions—momentously—brought the era of the law of Moses to a close. [14] This view possesses an interesting merit. Even the response that one year does not represent much time may seem a bit weak. We might suggest, however, the likelihood that the people, having just suffered through severe destruction and loss of loved ones, may not have been physically and emotionally able to receive the Savior. Is it not reasonable to suppose that the Lord knew the Nephites’ spiritual and physical state following such a calamity and thus delayed his visit so that their minds would be relatively free of pain and anxiety? While we cannot speak with certainty, this seems to be a reasonable assumption.

The second view is less strong. It is apparently based on the remark that, just before the Savior appeared at the temple, the survivors “were marveling and wondering one with another, and were showing one to another, the great and marvelous change which had taken place” (3 Ne. 11:1). It may be natural to suppose that this verse described a scene not one year after the destruction, by which time the alterations in the landscape would have become somewhat familiar, but reported a situation directly following the great catastrophe. The answer to this interpretation is rather straightforward. In the first place, the usual human response to catastrophe is not to gather quickly to discuss the changes resulting from the event. Instead, people are thrown immediately into deep mourning for the lost (cf. 8:23–25; 10:8). Second, we must surmise, the able-bodied survivors went straight to work not only to rescue others buried in the debris of buildings [15] but also to recover the bodies of loved ones in order to provide them with proper burial. Next must have come the tremendous efforts required to rebuild and refurbish in order to protect self and loved ones both from natural elements and from enemies. Such a process would slowly return life to a level of normalcy. It is difficult, therefore, to imagine people conversing in groups at the temple, as described in 3 Ne. 11:1, if the catastrophe had occurred but recently. Moreover, discussions concerning the changes in life and circumstance would have been fittingly natural—especially if an entire year had passed since the destruction—simply because people had to respond to the tremendous human problems posed by the catastrophic events and would not likely have found an earlier opportunity to gather at the temple. This lack of opportunity would certainly have been the case if travel there involved significant distances for many. Consequently, when people finally did congregate, they had a lot to discuss. Thus it is reasonable to assume a lengthy period between the destruction and the gathering at the temple if only because the conversation was rather casual.

Buttressing the view that substantial time had passed and life had returned to some normalcy is the remark that, at the end of the Savior’s first day among the Nephites, all the people went to their homes and were able to contact friends and discuss the day’s events (19:1–3). Such a “settled condition could scarcely have existed immediately following the great destruction at the time of the Savior’s death.” [16] But there is more. The evidence now takes the form of seemingly tiny points in the account of Jesus’ appearance. We refer to several small but significant details of circumstance that stand together to demonstrate that a long time had passed before the Savior’s manifestation.

The first two particulars form an integral part of Jesus’ introduction of the sacrament of bread and wine. We note with considerable interest that, during the first day of his visit, “Jesus commanded his disciples that they should bring forth some bread and wine unto him” (18:1). Later, after “the disciples had come with bread and wine” (18:3), Jesus hosted a banquet in which those present were filled (18:3–9)—all of this taking place on the same day. Where, we naturally ask, did the disciples obtain the bread and wine, especially on such short notice? The answer, I suggest, bears directly on our question.

In the case of the wine, while it is possible that some jars and skins survived the three destructive hours described in 3 Ne. 8:5–19, it is more likely that virtually every storage facility and instrument suffered damage, if not total ruin, since according to the account the desolation was severe.

While “there was a more great and terrible destruction in the land northward” (8:12)—implying less severe damage in the south—and while “there were some cities which remained” (8:15), even in the areas least affected “the damage thereof was exceedingly great, and there were many [of the inhabitants] in them who were slain” (8:15). The catastrophe was so widespread that “the face of the whole earth became deformed” (8:17). Moreover, if we assume a recent collapse of buildings and homes, could anyone be expected to dig through tons of rubble in a matter of minutes in order to find sufficient uncontaminated, unspilled wine for a large crowd? One may argue, of course, that the wine stored in the temple at Bountiful miraculously escaped harm. But such a suggestion lacks substantiation from the text. Rather, in the passage we clearly sense that Jesus’ request for wine was not extraordinary and did not require an extensive search for a cache unexpectedly preserved. This conclusion is strengthened by the simple observation that it was not until the second day of his visit that Jesus’ own supernatural powers came into play when he miraculously provided the wine and bread: “Now, there had been no bread, neither wine, brought [on the second day] by the disciples, neither by the multitude; but he truly gave unto them bread to eat, and also wine to drink” (20:6–7). We are thus led to deduce that the ready accessibility of wine on the first day points not to a moment almost directly after the destruction but rather to a time substantially later when people had tended and harvested the remaining vineyards and refurbished the means to store the processed wine.

While the previous point is essentially circumstantial in character, the following tightens the knot. It concerns the bread and its ready availability on the first day. We note that the Nephites and Lamanites must have made bread daily, as did all known ancient cultures, because of the lack of preservatives. Consequently, the fact that bread was within reach on request illustrates the likelihood that, on the day that Jesus appeared, bread had been baked—unless it was Sabbath. From all indications, that day began like any other day—without any special expectations on the part of those assembling at the temple. [17]

If we were to insist, in this connection, that Jesus had come almost immediately after the destruction, we would need to explain how kilns and ovens used for baking escaped the terrible ruination that devastated the whole society. The answer, in my view, lies in a different direction. The bread blessed by the risen Jesus and then consumed during the ensuing meal had probably been prepared and baked in the early-morning hours of the first of Jesus’ three-day ministry. Bread could not have been prepared from contaminated water and scattered flour supplies—if any survived—nor baked in crushed ovens. Once again, if we were to hold that Jesus’ appearance followed almost directly after the wreckage, we would have to argue for a miraculous preservation of supplies of water and flour as well as kilns, in addition to an amazingly rapid return to normality in the daily routines of those who had suffered so severely.

A third passage sheds further light on the chronometric issue. When the risen Jesus turned to the matter of “other scriptures . . . that ye should write, that ye have not” (23:6), he specifically drew his disciples’ attention to a prophecy of Samuel the Lamanite concerning “many saints who should arise from the dead” (23:9). For our discussion, the following exchange between Jesus and his disciples is key: “And Jesus said unto them [the Twelve]: How be it that ye have not written . . . that many saints did arise? . . . And it came to pass that Jesus commanded that it should be written” (23:11–13). In addition, the text affirms that “Nephi remembered” when Jesus recalled that many had arisen and had appeared “unto many and did minister unto them”—probably comforting the survivors of the destruction at their loss (23:11–12). These events were obviously associated with Jesus’ own resurrection and thus must have followed almost immediately after the lifting of the darkness (10:9). Clearly, Nephi the record keeper had simply forgotten to include in his account this notable proof of the resurrection. In correcting this oversight, Jesus reminded both him and the rest of the Twelve that such an important feature was to be recorded. Moreover, Jesus’ remarks indicate that enough time had passed to make this notation in the record. To summarize, then, the language of the passage plainly leads us to conclude that Jesus was referring to an unrecorded series of events in the reasonably distant past rather than to recent occurrences.

Finally, Daniel H. Ludlow has suggested two more convincing evidences for Jesus’ appearance several months after his resurrection. When the Savior selected his twelve disciples on the first day, all twelve of them were present in the congregation of twenty-five hundred people. Such a circumstance would have been highly unlikely unless the meeting were an important gathering of the Church, or at least a meeting of the faithful from throughout the whole land. Such a meeting could not have been called and held immediately after the great destruction. The roads and terrain were then simply impassible (8:13, 17). Further, when the Savior commanded the multitude to gather the remainder of the people together on the following day, his hearers knew exactly where to go—that is, they knew which cities had been destroyed and which had not—and people were able to gather back the next day. Thus, the roads must have been repaired. [18]

The cumulative evidence reviewed here weighs in the direction of the Savior having come to the Nephites only after a substantial period of time. That period must have extended well into the latter half of the year—presumably between October and April—if we correctly understand Mormon’s chronological notations concerning the timing of both the destruction (3 Ne. 8:5) and the manifestation of the Savior (10:18). The one serious consideration that weighs in favor of only a brief interlude is the supposition that the Lord would not have left his faithful followers so long without a personal visit. But it is at least as reasonable to hypothesize that, given the situation following the destruction, it was more timely that the Savior delay his visit. Moreover, in terms of the internal evidence from the text, the heft of the documentation suggests that life had returned to some normalcy. This conclusion derives from a series of notations in the text, including remarks that, after the first day of the Lord’s ministry, people returned home and discussed the events of the day with friends (19:1–3) and that bread and wine were readily available at Jesus’ request (18:1–3). Implied in the concept of a substantial period is the notion that enough time had probably passed to allow a new harvest, which would resupply stores both of grain and of produce from the vine lost in the catastrophe. Thus, Mormon’s chronological note that the risen Jesus appeared “in the ending” of the thirty-fourth year is confirmed by particulars connected with Jesus’ first day among Nephites and Lamanites in the Americas.

This article has been revised from its first appearance as “Jesus among the Nephites: When Did It Happen?” in A Symposium on the New Testament (Salt Lake City: Church Educational System, 1984), 74–77.

[1] See Sidney B. Sperry, Book of Mormon Studies (Salt Lake City: Deseret Sunday School Union Board, 1947), 101; The Book of Mormon Testifies (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1952), 294; Book of Mormon Compendium (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1968), 401; Joseph F. McConkie and Robert L. Millet, Doctrinal Commentary on the Book of Mormon (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1987–92), 4:50; see also J. N. Washburn, Book of Mormon Lands and Times (Bountiful, Utah: Horizon Publishers, 1974), 186.

[2] See Milton R. Hunter, Christ in Ancient America (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1959), 97–98.

[3] Reid E. Bankhead and Glenn L. Pearson, The Word and the Witness: The Unique Mission of the Book of Mormon (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1970), 34; James E. Talmage, Jesus the Christ, 3d ed. (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1916), 724. On Jesus’ forty-day ministry, see S. Kent Brown and C. Wilfred Griggs, “The Postresurrection Ministry,” in Studies in Scripture, Vol. 6: Acts to Revelation , ed. Robert L. Millet (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1987), 12–23.

[4] George Reynolds and Janne M. Sjodahl, Commentary on the Book of Mormon (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1955–61), 7:133.

[5] See Daniel H. Ludlow, A Companion to Your Study of the Book of Mormon (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1976), 260.

[6] In the other two instances wherein Mormon employs the phrase “in the ending of the [such and such] year,” the context points to the very end of the year since Mormon notes events of the following year immediately thereafter (Alma 52:14–15; Hel. 3:1–2).

[7] These complexities are noted by John L. Sorenson, “Seasonality of Warfare in the Book of Mormon and in Mesoamerica,” in Warfare in the Book of Mormon, ed. Stephen D. Ricks and William J. Hamblin (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book and F.A.R.M.S., 1990), 445–77, especially 448–53; and by John P. Pratt, “Book of Mormon Chronology,” in Encyclopedia of Mormonism, ed. D. H. Ludlow (New York: Macmillan, 1992), 169–71.

[8] Joseph Fielding Smith, Answers to Gospel Questions (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1957–66), 4:27; Sperry, The Book of Mormon Testifies , 295; Book of Mormon Compendium , 401.

[9] See Eldin Ricks’s summary of Mormon’s literary work in Story of the Formation of the Book of Mormon Plates, 3d ed. (Salt Lake City: Olympus Publishing, 1966); Grant R. Hardy speaks of “Mormon’s honesty as a historian”; “Mormon as Editor,” in Rediscovering the Book of Mormon, ed. John L. Sorenson and Melvin J. Thome (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book and F.A.R.M.S., 1991), 15–28.

[10] See also Ludlow, A Companion to Your Study of the Book of Mormon , 260; Bankhead and Pearson, The Word and the Witness , 34; Ora Pate Stewart, Branches over the Wall (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1950), 129; and Talmage, Jesus the Christ , 724.

[11] Bruce R. McConkie, The Mortal Messiah (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1981), 4:307.

[12] See Bruce R. McConkie, Mormon Doctrine (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1958), 52.

[13] See also Sperry, Book of Mormon Compendium , 401.

[14] Smith, Answers to Gospel Questions , 4:28–29.

[15] The collapse of buildings during the devastation was foreseen by Nephi (2 Ne. 26:5; cf. 1 Ne. 12:4).

[16] Sperry, The Book of Mormon Testifies , 294, n. 4; repeated in Sperry, Book of Mormon Compendium , 401, n. 4.

[17] The question has to be asked why the people had gathered. Was it a festival? We can speculate that if the end of the thirty-fourth year had indeed come, then the occasion for assembling may have been a New Year festival. But we lack evidence from the text.

[18] Report of the Church Correlation Committee, 5 April 1984.

185 Heber J. Grant Building Brigham Young University Provo, UT 84602 801-422-6975

Helpful Links

Religious Education

BYU Studies

Maxwell Institute

Articulos en español

Artigos em português

Connect with Us

Subscribe to Our Newsletter

  • Style & Technique
  • Scripture Reference
  • About the Catalog
  • What’s in the Catalog
  • Definition of Terms
  • Endorsements
  • Citing This Website
  • Statement on Race
  • Uncategorized
  • Come, Follow Me
  • Art Contests
  • Publications
  • Exhibitions
  • Artist Spotlights
  • Advanced Search

[Christ Visits the Americas]

by Abrams, Alice

christ visits the americas painting

Click to Enlarge

Linoleum block print

Alice Abrams. Used with permission.

Alice Abrams, [Christ Visits the Americas], 2020. The Book of Mormon Art Catalog, [URL].

Literature:

Instagram @aliceisms_illustrations on 1/11/20

Artist Information

Name: Abrams, Alice

Location(s): United States

State or City: Washington

Gender: Female

Instagram: @aliceisms_illustrations

Technique & Style

Figurative, Print

Jesus Christ

ancient city, ancient temple, plant, ray of light

Mormon Art: Painting the Gospel

Heather Johnson 2 May 2019 min Read

christ visits the americas painting

Harry Anderson, The Baptism of Jesus, Painting. religionnews.com

The Church of the Latter Day Saints (also known as the LDS or Mormon Church) was founded by Joseph Smith in the 19th Century and currently has over 12 million members across the world. It has its headquarters in Salt Lake City, Utah and is best recognised by its incredibly distinctive temples. Although known for its striking architecture, the art which is housed within these temples is just as intriguing.

The LDS Church has a history which is intertwined with art and in 1890, several art missionaries were actually sent by the church to Paris to develop their artistic skills in the hope that they could eventually paint murals in the temples.

Mormon Temple; Mormon art

‘Mormon Art’ is highly explicit in its representation of Christ and the gospel, leaving little room for interpretation. In fact, for many people these paintings are a source for education as they teach and illustrate stories from the Book of Mormon. What is especially unique about the paintings commissioned by the church and those displayed within LDS temples and museums is the backdrop they are painted against. Take for example, The Baptism of Jesus by Harry Anderson. In this painting we see Jesus’s baptism depicted vividly in oil paint, a scene which many Christians would expect to see set in the River Jordan, as is described in the Bible. However, paintings such as this one, which were made for the LDS church, also reflect the narrative of the Book of Mormon and its focus on the Americas. As a result, we see Jesus being baptised against a background which can also be interpreted as looking similar to the Americas; a location which is regularly depicted in Mormon Gospel Art.

Mormon art

If we look at the painting below – Sermon on the Mount by Harry Anderson-  we are also able to see this American-centred narrative exemplified, as we see Jesus depicted before many followers in a location which many people have proposed to be Utah. The greenery which surrounds the gathering and blue waters which are painted behind seem to be very far removed from the surroundings that we expect to see such scenes set in.

Image result for lds art; Mormon art

Comments have been made with regard to LDS Gospel Art that it is not the artistic skill or beauty of the paintings which is important but instead the religious intention of the image. It has also been considered by some scholars that the paintings commissioned by the church, such as those below, would receive little recognition outside of a Christian museum. Some art critics have even gone as far as to deem the paintings as ‘kitsch’.

Jesus Christ stands in white robes on a flight of outdoor steps while Book of Mormon–era people gather around to look at the wounds in His hands; Mormon art

Whatever your opinion on these paintings, they certainly provide a very interesting insight into beliefs of the Mormon Church and their ideas about Jesus Christ visiting the Americas. These paintings also offer us an example of art which has been valued far more for its educational and religious motive rather than its creativity.

  • religious art

Get your daily dose of art

Click and follow us on Google News to stay updated all the time

christ visits the americas painting

We love art history and writing about it. Your support helps us to sustain DailyArt Magazine and keep it running.

DailyArt Magazine needs your support. Every contribution, however big or small, is very valuable for our future. Thanks to it, we will be able to sustain and grow the Magazine. Thank you for your help!

christ visits the americas painting

Heather Johnson

Art Historian and writer with a love for everything creative. I am especially interested in the connection between art and emotion, as well as being very interested in religious art. UK based.

Recommended

christ visits the americas painting

Paul Gauguin in 10 Paintings

Paul Gauguin is a revolutionary and savage in the art of the late 19th century, an artist rejected by society. A man who quit his job at the stock...

Valeria Kumekina 27 November 2023

christ visits the americas painting

The Best Street Art in Athens, Greece

Athens is a strange city. On the one hand, you can see the monuments and relics of Ancient Greece that stand haughtily and imposingly. On the other...

Errika Gerakiti 8 May 2023

christ visits the americas painting

10 Sunny Beaches in Art

Do you remember the joy of being on the beach? How warm, how sunny, how glorious! If you miss the light and warmth, join us to explore the ten most...

Joanna Kaszubowska 23 October 2023

An Animated Cabinet of Curiosities – The Best Art GIFs

What happens when old paintings, photos, illustrations and posters which are available digitally are shared with digital artists to play with and...

Europeana 26 October 2020

Never miss DailyArt Magazine's stories. Sign up and get your dose of art history delivered straight to your inbox!

“Jesus Visited the Americas,” Book of Mormon Stories for Young Readers, 2020

“Jesus Visited the Americas”

Book of Mormon Stories for Young Readers

Jesus Visited the Americas

Illustrations by Apryl Stott

Read about this story in 3 Nephi 8–11

In the Book of Mormon, a prophet named Samuel taught people about Jesus. He said a bright star would shine when Jesus was born.

Some people believed the prophet and watched for the star. One night, the new star appeared! It was a sign that Jesus had been born in a land far away.

Years went by. One day the whole earth seemed sad. There were earthquakes and storms. It was a sign that Jesus had died.

The land stayed dark for three days. Then something wonderful happened. Jesus came to visit the Nephites and Lamanites! He was resurrected, which means He was alive again. He spent time with each person, one by one.

Jesus knows who I am. He can help me during dark and scary times. He is the Light of the World!

Coloring Page

Jesus Visited the Nephites and Lamanites

What would you tell Jesus if He visited you? One day you will see Him again!

Click on the picture to download.

Illustration by Apryl Stott

christ visits the americas painting

  • Biographies & Memoirs

Amazon prime logo

Enjoy fast, free delivery, exclusive deals, and award-winning movies & TV shows with Prime Try Prime and start saving today with fast, free delivery

Amazon Prime includes:

Fast, FREE Delivery is available to Prime members. To join, select "Try Amazon Prime and start saving today with Fast, FREE Delivery" below the Add to Cart button.

  • Cardmembers earn 5% Back at Amazon.com with a Prime Credit Card.
  • Unlimited Free Two-Day Delivery
  • Streaming of thousands of movies and TV shows with limited ads on Prime Video.
  • A Kindle book to borrow for free each month - with no due dates
  • Listen to over 2 million songs and hundreds of playlists
  • Unlimited photo storage with anywhere access

Important:  Your credit card will NOT be charged when you start your free trial or if you cancel during the trial period. If you're happy with Amazon Prime, do nothing. At the end of the free trial, your membership will automatically upgrade to a monthly membership.

Buy new: $26.32

Kindle app logo image

Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required .

Read instantly on your browser with Kindle for Web.

Using your mobile phone camera - scan the code below and download the Kindle app.

QR code to download the Kindle App

Image Unavailable

Latter Day Saint Journal: Christ visits the Americas

  • To view this video download Flash Player

Latter Day Saint Journal: Christ visits the Americas Hardcover – December 5, 2022

Purchase options and add-ons.

  • Print length 120 pages
  • Language English
  • Publication date December 5, 2022
  • Dimensions 8.25 x 0.48 x 11 inches
  • See all details

Amazon First Reads | Editors' picks at exclusive prices

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B0BPG8BP21
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Independently published (December 5, 2022)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 120 pages
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 12.8 ounces
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 8.25 x 0.48 x 11 inches
  • #686,179 in Biographies (Books)
  • #1,625,636 in Religion & Spirituality (Books)

Customer reviews

Customer Reviews, including Product Star Ratings help customers to learn more about the product and decide whether it is the right product for them.

To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. Instead, our system considers things like how recent a review is and if the reviewer bought the item on Amazon. It also analyzed reviews to verify trustworthiness.

No customer reviews

  • Amazon Newsletter
  • About Amazon
  • Accessibility
  • Sustainability
  • Press Center
  • Investor Relations
  • Amazon Devices
  • Amazon Science
  • Start Selling with Amazon
  • Sell apps on Amazon
  • Supply to Amazon
  • Protect & Build Your Brand
  • Become an Affiliate
  • Become a Delivery Driver
  • Start a Package Delivery Business
  • Advertise Your Products
  • Self-Publish with Us
  • Host an Amazon Hub
  • › See More Ways to Make Money
  • Amazon Visa
  • Amazon Store Card
  • Amazon Secured Card
  • Amazon Business Card
  • Shop with Points
  • Credit Card Marketplace
  • Reload Your Balance
  • Amazon Currency Converter
  • Your Account
  • Your Orders
  • Shipping Rates & Policies
  • Amazon Prime
  • Returns & Replacements
  • Manage Your Content and Devices
  • Recalls and Product Safety Alerts
  • Conditions of Use
  • Privacy Notice
  • Your Ads Privacy Choices

Online Collection

  • Explore By...
  • Museum Locations
  • Plan Your Visit
  • Directions & Parking
  • Food, Drink, & Shop
  • Free Admission
  • Accessibility
  • Visitor Promise
  • Virtual Museum
  • Exhibitions & Installations
  • Programs & Events
  • Collections
  • Support the Walters
  • Corporate Partnerships
  • Institutional Funders
  • Evening at the Walters
  • Mission & Vision
  • Strategic Plan
  • Land Acknowledgment

Image for Virgin and Child ("Virgin of Vladimir")

Creative Commons Zero

  • arrow_forward_ios

Virgin and Child ("Virgin of Vladimir") Thumbnail

This is a mass-produced replica of a famous miracle-working icon of the Virgin and Child, brought to Russia from Byzatium in the 12th century, known as the "Virgin of Vladimir", and currently kept in Moscow (State Tretyakov Gallery). The Virgin and Child are each identified by abbreviated inscriptions.

Provenance Provenance (from the French provenir , 'to come from/forth') is the chronology of the ownership, custody, or location of a historical object.

Henry Walters, Baltimore [date of acquisition unknown], by purchase; Walters Art Museum, 1931, by bequest.

  • social-item

Geographies

Measurements.

H: 1 15/16 x W: 1 13/16 in. (5 x 4.6 cm)

Credit Line

Acquired by Henry Walters

Location in Museum

Not on view

Accession Number In libraries, galleries, museums, and archives, an accession number is a unique identifier assigned to each object in the collection.

Do you have additional information.

Notify the curator

Image for

Tooltip description to define this term for visitors to the website.

  • Apple Podcasts
  • Temple Prep
  • Etymology Dictionary
  • Lectures on Faith.com
  • LDSSymbols.com
  • LDS Architecture Blog
  • Number in Scripture
  • Isaiah Explorer
  • ScriptureNotes
  • Septuagint (English)
  • Strong’s Condordance
  • The Book of Isaiah (IIT)
  • Webster’s 1828 Dictionary
  • About oneClimbs

Trending Posts

christ visits the americas painting

  • #32 – Exploring Miracles (New video format!)
  • How the same thing can lift one up and drag another down
  • Oh yeah, that’s why we’re here
  • “They with feigned words make merchandise of you…”
  • Talk: A Word of Wisdom
  • 31 – Lehi’s Vision
  • #30 – The Eye of Faith
  • My first appearance on the Shattering Triangles to discuss 1 Nephi 1-5

oneClimbs.com

When Did Jesus Visit the Americas? by S. Kent Brown

A long time ago when I was reading 3 Nephi it occurred to me that Christ didn’t actually appear to the Nephites until almost a year after his resurrection. I guess that from all the LDS art, especially Arnold Frieberg’s (who I’m a huge fan of) famous painting that seems to indicate the Savior coming to the Nephites right after the destruction. Well, this article does a great job at exploring some of these ideas, so here it is for your enlightenment.

S. Kent Brown, “When Did Jesus Visit the Americas?” in From Jerusalem to Zarahemla: Literary and Historical Studies of the Book of Mormon (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 1998), 146–156.

When Did Jesus Visit the Americas?

Conflicting views exist about when Jesus appeared to his New World disciples. Did he appear directly after his ascension to the Father? Some believe that his appearance followed the forty days with his disciples in Palestine, while others believe that an entire year had passed after the resurrection when he appeared in the Americas. Observations from the text suggest that he mercifully waited for the people to recover from the destruction that attended his crucifixion. Compelling details help us approach an answer to this puzzling question.

Even in the bright light of written commentary and artistic depiction, a question persists about the dating of the risen Jesus’ visit to the Americas. One view holds that approximately one year had passed following the severe destruction that attended Jesus’ death.[1] A second view suggests that the Savior’s visit occurred in connection with or soon after his initial appearance to his disciples in Jerusalem following the resurrection (see Luke 24:28–43; John 20:11–18).[2] A third view, which stands between these two, maintains that the Savior’s manifestation occurred only following his forty-day ministry (see Acts l:3–4).[3]

Among those who either avoid the question or take an ambiguous stand are George Reynolds and Janne M. Sjodahl, who wrote, “Some time after the terrible events which denoted His death, exactly how long we know not, a multitude assembled near the temple, which was in the land Bountiful.”[4] Daniel H. Ludlow did not attempt a solution but simply stated that he was aware of the three views.[5]

Among artistic representations that depict Jesus as arriving directly after the destruction of the Nephite cities and the subsequent period of total darkness is Arnold Friberg’s well-known painting, now reproduced in virtually all inexpensive copies of the Book of Mormon and once featured on the cover of the Gospel Doctrine manual for 1967–68. The original painting was part of a series done during 1952–57, now hanging on the lower floor of the South Visitors’ Center on Temple Square in Salt Lake City. We note especially the portrayal of recent destruction in the right foreground and the fallen posture of some of the people—as if they were struggling to their feet just after spending the past three days in darkness (see 3 Ne. 8:23).

A painting by Ronald Crosby exhibits a similar posture toward the question of whether a substantial period of time had elapsed. From 1967 to 1991, the Joseph Smith Building on the Brigham Young University campus was home to Crosby’s painting of Jesus’ visit to the Nephites. In that painting Crosby has depicted recent destruction, particularly in the left background. In a telephone conversation, the artist said that he had tried to capture the scene of Jesus’ appearing to the Nephites “as soon after” the destruction and darkness as possible.

Calendar Issues

In seeking a solution to the question, we must first review two passages in 3 Nephi that seem to chronicle the relative timing of Jesus’ death and subsequent visit. The first passage informs us that “in the thirty and fourth year, in the first month, on the fourth day of the month, there arose a great storm” which brought the destruction and period of darkness (8:5). We note particularly that it was at the beginning of the thirty-fourth year by Nephite calendrical reckoning that these events occurred.

The second key passage observes that “in the ending of the thirty and fourth year . . . soon after the ascension of Christ into heaven he did truly manifest himself unto them [Nephites and Lamanites]—showing his body unto them, and ministering unto them” (10:18–19). Here we note that it was apparently at the end of the same year, the thirty-fourth, that Jesus appeared to those assembled at the temple in the land of Bountiful (11:1).

But much depends on how we understand the meaning of the phrase “the ending.”[6] The calendrical system that the Nephites used at Jesus’ visit dated from the ninety-first year of the reign of the judges (3 Ne. 1:1; 2:8), the year of the appearance of the sign of Jesus’ birth (1:15–21). In this connection at least two problems of the Nephite calendar remain unsolved: (a) whether the Nephites employed a solar or a lunar calendar, and (b) whether the new calendrical sequence dated from the very day, night and day when the sign appeared, or whether the Nephites merely retained the existing annual cycle, renumbering it from ninety-one to one.[7] In any case, it is evident from 3 Ne. 2:4–8 that they may have used as many as three calendars concurrently during the years immediately following the sign of Jesus’ birth.

Thus far, the chronology seems clear. According to the Book of Mormon, the destruction and associated darkness had occurred at the opening of the year, and the subsequent appearance of the risen Jesus evidently came at its closing. But as we mentioned above, this chronological sequence has not been accepted everywhere. To date, discussion has focused on two items—chronometrical notations and circumstantial evidences. Let us now examine these two matters.

Expressions of Time

Concerning the chronological notes, the first potential difficulty arises from the fact that the prophet Mormon, while abridging the record of 3 Nephi, interrupted his work for an indefinite period just before copying the report of Jesus’ visit: “An account of his [Jesus’] ministry [among Nephites and Lamanites] shall be given hereafter. Therefore for this time I make an end of my sayings” (3 Ne. 10:19). We must ask whether the interruption of Mormon’s work could have impaired his sense for the timing of this most important moment for his people. Joseph Fielding Smith noted the interruption in Mormon’s work, as did Sidney Sperry.[8] It seems highly unlikely that Mormon became careless—even with the interruption in his editing—in handling an event that he chose to place at center stage in his abridgment. We have only to recall that Mormon’s work exhibits throughout a thorough care in treating details of sequence and place.[9] In reviewing Mormon’s huge effort represented in the Book of Mormon, we have to be impressed with his consistent attention to detail as he rewrote large segments of the material that came into his hands, particularly the large plates of Nephi. These sections have always exhibited a steady consistency. If we were to urge that Mormon erred in his chronological note in 3 Ne. 10:18, we would have to accept the consequent view that he committed a totally unexpected blunder while introducing the risen Jesus’ ministry, the major event narrated in his literary work.

Consequently, since we can fault none of Mormon’s efforts at chronological accuracy, there is no reasonable cause for questioning his remarks regarding the events associated with the beginning and the ending of the Nephites’ thirty-fourth year.

The second chronometrical issue concerns Mormon’s note that the Lord’s special manifestation came “soon after the ascension of Christ into heaven” (10:18). The ascension itself has been understood variously as that which took place on the day of Jesus’ resurrection or that which followed his forty-day ministry (see Acts 1:3).[10] Whichever the case, Mormon’s notice that Jesus’ manifestation fell “soon after the ascension” would seem to place the event earlier rather than later. The reply consists first in pointing to Mormon’s single chronometrical observation—doubtless trustworthy, as noted above, and made in the same verse—that the visitation occurred at “the ending of the thirty and fourth year,” that is, well into its latter half. This position is the one taken by Elder Bruce R. McConkie in The Mortal Messiah: “Then ‘in the ending’ of that [thirty-fourth] year (see 10:18–19), several months after the Ascension on Olivet, Jesus ministered personally among the Nephites for many hours over many days.”[11] An earlier view expressed by Elder McConkie seems to indicate a belief that Jesus’ visit to the Nephites occurred simultaneously with his forty-day ministry among his disciples in Palestine,[12] a position which he later abandoned. Additionally, Mormon’s expression “soon after” (10:18), especially when compared to his rather clear chronological remark about “the ending” of the year, may lack sufficient precision upon which to build a firm case one way or the other.

In this connection we must consider one further chronological notation in a passage far removed from the action of 3 Nephi. Although it may shed little light on our topic, we read in a note made by Moroni several hundred years after the fact that “Christ showed himself unto our fathers, after he had risen from the dead; and he showed not himself unto them until after they had faith in him” (Ether 12:7).[13] This passage seemingly points to a rather substantial period between the Savior’s resurrection and his appearance in America; but undue weight should not be placed upon it. The primary purpose of Moroni’s statement in Ether 12:7 was to illustrate his prior instruction to his readers: “Dispute not because ye see not, for ye receive no witness until after the trial of your faith. For it was by faith that Christ showed himself unto our fathers, after he had risen from the dead” (12:6–7).

In dealing with chronometrical statements in the Book of Mormon, nothing has so far impelled us to abandon the literal meaning of Mormon’s statement concerning “the ending” of the thirty-fourth year. We now turn to evidence that is largely circumstantial in character. We can rely upon such features only to tell us whether the drift of our interpretation is tending in the proper direction.

Circumstantial Evidences

On behalf of the view that Jesus came early to the Nephites, the most compelling observation is that the Savior would not have caused those faithful Nephites and Lamanites to wait an entire year for his appearance, especially because his instructions—momentously—brought the era of the law of Moses to a close.[14] This view possesses an interesting merit. Even the response that one year does not represent much time may seem a bit weak. We might suggest, however, the likelihood that the people, having just suffered through severe destruction and loss of loved ones, may not have been physically and emotionally able to receive the Savior. Is it not reasonable to suppose that the Lord knew the Nephites’ spiritual and physical state following such a calamity and thus delayed his visit so that their minds would be relatively free of pain and anxiety? While we cannot speak with certainty, this seems to be a reasonable assumption.

The second view is less strong. It is apparently based on the remark that, just before the Savior appeared at the temple, the survivors “were marveling and wondering one with another, and were showing one to another, the great and marvelous change which had taken place” (3 Ne. 11:1). It may be natural to suppose that this verse described a scene not one year after the destruction, by which time the alterations in the landscape would have become somewhat familiar, but reported a situation directly following the great catastrophe. The answer to this interpretation is rather straightforward. In the first place, the usual human response to catastrophe is not to gather quickly to discuss the changes resulting from the event. Instead, people are thrown immediately into deep mourning for the lost (cf. 8:23–25; 10:8). Second, we must surmise, the able-bodied survivors went straight to work not only to rescue others buried in the debris of buildings[15] but also to recover the bodies of loved ones in order to provide them with proper burial. Next must have come the tremendous efforts required to rebuild and refurbish in order to protect self and loved ones both from natural elements and from enemies. Such a process would slowly return life to a level of normalcy. It is difficult, therefore, to imagine people conversing in groups at the temple, as described in 3 Ne. 11:1, if the catastrophe had occurred but recently. Moreover, discussions concerning the changes in life and circumstance would have been fittingly natural—especially if an entire year had passed since the destruction—simply because people had to respond to the tremendous human problems posed by the catastrophic events and would not likely have found an earlier opportunity to gather at the temple. This lack of opportunity would certainly have been the case if travel there involved significant distances for many. Consequently, when people finally did congregate, they had a lot to discuss. Thus it is reasonable to assume a lengthy period between the destruction and the gathering at the temple if only because the conversation was rather casual.

Buttressing the view that substantial time had passed and life had returned to some normalcy is the remark that, at the end of the Savior’s first day among the Nephites, all the people went to their homes and were able to contact friends and discuss the day’s events (19:1–3). Such a “settled condition could scarcely have existed immediately following the great destruction at the time of the Savior’s death.”[16] But there is more. The evidence now takes the form of seemingly tiny points in the account of Jesus’ appearance. We refer to several small but significant details of circumstance that stand together to demonstrate that a long time had passed before the Savior’s manifestation. The first two particulars form an integral part of Jesus’ introduction of the sacrament of bread and wine. We note with considerable interest that, during the first day of his visit, “Jesus commanded his disciples that they should bring forth some bread and wine unto him” (18:1). Later, after “the disciples had come with bread and wine” (18:3), Jesus hosted a banquet in which those present were filled (18:3–9)—all of this taking place on the same day. Where, we naturally ask, did the disciples obtain the bread and wine, especially on such short notice? The answer, I suggest, bears directly on our question.

In the case of the wine, while it is possible that some jars and skins survived the three destructive hours described in 3 Ne. 8:5–19, it is more likely that virtually every storage facility and instrument suffered damage, if not total ruin, since according to the account the desolation was severe.

While “there was a more great and terrible destruction in the land northward” (8:12)—implying less severe damage in the south—and while “there were some cities which remained” (8:15), even in the areas least affected “the damage thereof was exceedingly great, and there were many [of the inhabitants] in them who were slain” (8:15). The catastrophe was so widespread that “the face of the whole earth became deformed” (8:17). Moreover, if we assume a recent collapse of buildings and homes, could anyone be expected to dig through tons of rubble in a matter of minutes in order to find sufficient uncontaminated, unspilled wine for a large crowd? One may argue, of course, that the wine stored in the temple at Bountiful miraculously escaped harm. But such a suggestion lacks substantiation from the text. Rather, in the passage we clearly sense that Jesus’ request for wine was not extraordinary and did not require an extensive search for a cache unexpectedly preserved. This conclusion is strengthened by the simple observation that it was not until the second day of his visit that Jesus’ own supernatural powers came into play when he miraculously provided the wine and bread: “Now, there had been no bread, neither wine, brought [on the second day] by the disciples, neither by the multitude; but he truly gave unto them bread to eat, and also wine to drink” (20:6–7). We are thus led to deduce that the ready accessibility of wine on the first day points not to a moment almost directly after the destruction but rather to a time substantially later when people had tended and harvested the remaining vineyards and refurbished the means to store the processed wine.

While the previous point is essentially circumstantial in character, the following tightens the knot. It concerns the bread and its ready availability on the first day. We note that the Nephites and Lamanites must have made bread daily, as did all known ancient cultures, because of the lack of preservatives. Consequently, the fact that bread was within reach on request illustrates the likelihood that, on the day that Jesus appeared, bread had been baked—unless it was Sabbath. From all indications, that day began like any other day—without any special expectations on the part of those assembling at the temple.[17]

If we were to insist, in this connection, that Jesus had come almost immediately after the destruction, we would need to explain how kilns and ovens used for baking escaped the terrible ruination that devastated the whole society. The answer, in my view, lies in a different direction. The bread blessed by the risen Jesus and then consumed during the ensuing meal had probably been prepared and baked in the early-morning hours of the first of Jesus’ three-day ministry. Bread could not have been prepared from contaminated water and scattered flour supplies—if any survived—nor baked in crushed ovens. Once again, if we were to hold that Jesus’ appearance followed almost directly after the wreckage, we would have to argue for a miraculous preservation of supplies of water and flour as well as kilns, in addition to an amazingly rapid return to normality in the daily routines of those who had suffered so severely.

A third passage sheds further light on the chronometric issue. When the risen Jesus turned to the matter of “other scriptures . . . that ye should write, that ye have not” (23:6), he specifically drew his disciples’ attention to a prophecy of Samuel the Lamanite concerning “many saints who should arise from the dead” (23:9). For our discussion, the following exchange between Jesus and his disciples is key: “And Jesus said unto them [the Twelve]: How be it that ye have not written . . . that many saints did arise? . . . And it came to pass that Jesus commanded that it should be written” (23:11–13). In addition, the text affirms that “Nephi remembered” when Jesus recalled that many had arisen and had appeared “unto many and did minister unto them”—probably comforting the survivors of the destruction at their loss (23:11–12). These events were obviously associated with Jesus’ own resurrection and thus must have followed almost immediately after the lifting of the darkness (10:9). Clearly, Nephi the record keeper had simply forgotten to include in his account this notable proof of the resurrection. In correcting this oversight, Jesus reminded both him and the rest of the Twelve that such an important feature was to be recorded. Moreover, Jesus’ remarks indicate that enough time had passed to make this notation in the record. To summarize, then, the language of the passage plainly leads us to conclude that Jesus was referring to an unrecorded series of events in the reasonably distant past rather than to recent occurrences.

Finally, Daniel H. Ludlow has suggested two more convincing evidences for Jesus’ appearance several months after his resurrection. When the Savior selected his twelve disciples on the first day, all twelve of them were present in the congregation of twenty-five hundred people. Such a circumstance would have been highly unlikely unless the meeting were an important gathering of the Church, or at least a meeting of the faithful from throughout the whole land. Such a meeting could not have been called and held immediately after the great destruction. The roads and terrain were then simply impassible (8:13, 17). Further, when the Savior commanded the multitude to gather the remainder of the people together on the following day, his hearers knew exactly where to go—that is, they knew which cities had been destroyed and which had not—and people were able to gather back the next day. Thus, the roads must have been repaired.[18]

The cumulative evidence reviewed here weighs in the direction of the Savior having come to the Nephites only after a substantial period of time. That period must have extended well into the latter half of the year—presumably between October and April—if we correctly understand Mormon’s chronological notations concerning the timing of both the destruction (3 Ne. 8:5) and the manifestation of the Savior (10:18). The one serious consideration that weighs in favor of only a brief interlude is the supposition that the Lord would not have left his faithful followers so long without a personal visit. But it is at least as reasonable to hypothesize that, given the situation following the destruction, it was more timely that the Savior delay his visit. Moreover, in terms of the internal evidence from the text, the heft of the documentation suggests that life had returned to some normalcy. This conclusion derives from a series of notations in the text, including remarks that, after the first day of the Lord’s ministry, people returned home and discussed the events of the day with friends (19:1–3) and that bread and wine were readily available at Jesus’ request (18:1–3). Implied in the concept of a substantial period is the notion that enough time had probably passed to allow a new harvest, which would resupply stores both of grain and of produce from the vine lost in the catastrophe. Thus, Mormon’s chronological note that the risen Jesus appeared “in the ending” of the thirty-fourth year is confirmed by particulars connected with Jesus’ first day among Nephites and Lamanites in the Americas.

This article has been revised from its first appearance as “Jesus among the Nephites: When Did It Happen?” in A Symposium on the New Testament (Salt Lake City: Church Educational System, 1984), 74–77.

[1] See Sidney B. Sperry, Book of Mormon Studies (Salt Lake City: Deseret Sunday School Union Board, 1947), 101; The Book of Mormon Testifies (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1952), 294; Book of Mormon Compendium (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1968), 401; Joseph F. McConkie and Robert L. Millet, Doctrinal Commentary on the Book of Mormon (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1987–92), 4:50; see also J. N. Washburn, Book of Mormon Lands and Times (Bountiful, Utah: Horizon Publishers, 1974), 186.

[2] See Milton R. Hunter, Christ in Ancient America (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1959), 97–98.

[3] Reid E. Bankhead and Glenn L. Pearson, The Word and the Witness: The Unique Mission of the Book of Mormon (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1970), 34; James E. Talmage, Jesus the Christ, 3d ed. (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1916), 724. On Jesus’ forty-day ministry, see S. Kent Brown and C. Wilfred Griggs, “The Postresurrection Ministry,” in Studies in Scripture, Vol. 6: Acts to Revelation, ed. Robert L. Millet (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1987), 12–23.

[4] George Reynolds and Janne M. Sjodahl, Commentary on the Book of Mormon (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1955–61), 7:133.

[5] See Daniel H. Ludlow, A Companion to Your Study of the Book of Mormon (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1976), 260.

[6] In the other two instances wherein Mormon employs the phrase “in the ending of the [such and such] year,” the context points to the very end of the year since Mormon notes events of the following year immediately thereafter (Alma 52:14–15; Hel. 3:1–2).

[7] These complexities are noted by John L. Sorenson, “Seasonality of Warfare in the Book of Mormon and in Mesoamerica,” in Warfare in the Book of Mormon, ed. Stephen D. Ricks and William J. Hamblin (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book and F.A.R.M.S., 1990), 445–77, especially 448–53; and by John P. Pratt, “Book of Mormon Chronology,” in Encyclopedia of Mormonism, ed. D. H. Ludlow (New York: Macmillan, 1992), 169–71.

[8] Joseph Fielding Smith, Answers to Gospel Questions (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1957–66), 4:27; Sperry, The Book of Mormon Testifies, 295; Book of Mormon Compendium, 401.

[9] See Eldin Ricks’s summary of Mormon’s literary work in Story of the Formation of the Book of Mormon Plates, 3d ed. (Salt Lake City: Olympus Publishing, 1966); Grant R. Hardy speaks of “Mormon’s honesty as a historian”; “Mormon as Editor,” in Rediscovering the Book of Mormon, ed. John L. Sorenson and Melvin J. Thome (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book and F.A.R.M.S., 1991), 15–28.

[10] See also Ludlow, A Companion to Your Study of the Book of Mormon, 260; Bankhead and Pearson, The Word and the Witness, 34; Ora Pate Stewart, Branches over the Wall (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1950), 129; and Talmage, Jesus the Christ, 724.

[11] Bruce R. McConkie, The Mortal Messiah (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1981), 4:307.

[12] See Bruce R. McConkie, Mormon Doctrine (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1958), 52.

[13] See also Sperry, Book of Mormon Compendium, 401.

[14] Smith, Answers to Gospel Questions, 4:28–29.

[15] The collapse of buildings during the devastation was foreseen by Nephi (2 Ne. 26:5; cf. 1 Ne. 12:4).

[16] Sperry, The Book of Mormon Testifies, 294, n. 4; repeated in Sperry, Book of Mormon Compendium, 401, n. 4.

[17] The question has to be asked why the people had gathered. Was it a festival? We can speculate that if the end of the thirty-fourth year had indeed come, then the occasion for assembling may have been a New Year festival. But we lack evidence from the text.

' src=

I created oneClimbs as a place to organize my thoughts and share my observations with anyone who might find the information useful. Though I may speak passionately or convincingly in some of this content, PLEASE don't simply take my word alone on anything. Always seek the truth of all things through study and prayer in the name of Jesus Christ.

' src=

There is some additional circumstantial evidence for a visit to the Nephites later in the year by the Savior you should consider.

Under the Law of Moses, the Isrealites were commaned to go to the temple 3 times per year–on Passover, 40 days after Passover or what we call Pentacost and The Day of Atonement. The Day of Atonment was the holiest day of the year in the Hebrew calendar and occured in the fall (near the ending of the year). This was the only day that the high priest and all of Isreal vicariously through the hight priest were allowed to enter the Holiy of Holies. Additionally this was the day that Jehovah came to His temple annually when righteousness abounded with the people. So I ask: What better day could there be for the risen Lord to come to His temple in Bountiful, to a righteous people who followed the Law of Moses than the Day of Atonment? If He was to fullfull the Law of Moses, every part of it, woudnl’t he necessarily come on that day?

' src=

Excellent observation, Bob.

I’m more inclined to believe that it WAS closer to around 6 months between the time of the destruction (late March or early April) and the coming of Christ in the fall. It would most certainly be appropriate for him to arrive on that particular day.

The fact that they were assembled at the temple makes the case even stronger. I wonder if they were in the process of carrying out the day of Atonement rituals and if so, at what point the Savior appeared.

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

Type above and press Enter to search. Press Esc to cancel.

  • Home  
  •  / Our doctrine
  •  / Principles of National Restoration
  •  / Holy Russia
  • / Vladimir Soloviev, prophet of Russia's conversion

VLADIMIR SOLOVIEV prophet of Russia’s conversion

Vladimir Soloviev, à l'âge de vingt ans.

T HE conversion of Russia will not be the work of man, no matter how gifted he may be, but that of the Immaculate Heart of the Virgin Mary, the Mediatrix of all graces, because this is God’s wish, which he revealed to the world in 1917. The life and works of Vladimir Soloviev are a perfect illustration of this truth of Fatima. He whom our Father regards as « the greatest Russian genius of the 19th century », was in his own way a prophet of the “ conversion ” of his beloved Country, announcing the necessity of her returning to the bosom of the Roman Church. «  Rome or chaos  », such was his catchphrase, Rome whose anagram is not a matter of chance, but a providential sign, a definition: ROMA , AMOR . Led by this incomparable guide, we would like « to anticipate in our thoughts, our hearts and our prayers this consecration, this long-awaited conversion, which must mark the beginning of a time of sacred peace throughout the world, the beginning of the universal reign of the Most Blessed and Immaculate Heart of Mary, and through Her, of God’s Kingdom » (English CRC, December 1982, p. 23).

A PERSONAL CONVERSION

Through the example of his life, Soloviev recalls the indispensable means of this immense work: self-renunciation, personal and collective sacrifice, in Russian the podwig , the only way in which the Church, nations, saints and heroes can become the instruments of God’s designs. If he managed to surpass his master Dostoyevsky by his « truly universal Catholicism and far superior mystical vision », this was not without without a conversion of mind and heart on his part.

Our Father summarises the principal stages of his life as follows: « Born of an honourable Muscovite family, of part Kievian ancestry, Vladimir Soloviev began, in a world where only Germany counted, by being a victim of all the poisons of the West. He himself relates how he was a zealous materialist at the age of thirteen, had read Renan’s Life of Jesus at fifteen, and had become an evolutionist and therefore (!) an atheist and a nihilist at eighteen, in « It was Spinoza and then Schopenhauer who pulled him out of this bottomless void. Whereupon in 1872 a mysterious encounter with “  Wisdom  ” suddenly shook him out of the scientific naturalism in which he had been vegetating and made him aware, as he says, of invisible Beauty, the “  Sophia tou théou  ”, the daughter of God. He thus became the fervent witness of Wisdom’s indwelling in the world and of Her desire for total incarnation and universal queenship. His quest for wisdom, scientific, aesthetic and mystical, had commenced. He was nineteen years old. The quest would never end for this new style Russian pilgrim ; it would be of an unparalleled fruitfulness despite its touching brevity. He died of exhaustion in 1900, at the age ! » (English CRC, December 1982, p. 35)

We will limit ourselves in this article to his prophetic insights on the Union of the Churches. In his Lessons on Theandry (1878) – he was then twenty-five ! – our philosopher applies himself to contemplating the Wisdom of God at work in history, perfectly incarnated in Jesus and His virginal Mother, as well as in the Church as she awaits her eschatological transfiguration. The most serious sin, throughout this history, has been that of schism. Who is responsible for this vast Vladimir Soloviev began by throwing all responsibility for it on the Catholic Church, so much so that he provided the inspiration for Dostoyevsky’s famous “ myth of the Grand Inquisitor ” in The Brothers Karamazov . But, at the beginning of the 1880’s, through studying the question more closely, he understood that the sin of schism was in fact that of the East. This was a stroke of genius on his part for which our Father commends him greatly:

« I must beg pardon of my master Msgr. Jean Rupp, of Solzhenitsyn, Volkoff and so many others, but it seems obvious to to me, as it did to Soloviev in the end, that the schism of Moscow in setting itself up as the third Rome was the beginning of all the ills suffered by these admirable Christian peoples of European Russia . And I must say so because this rupture still weighs heavily on the world of today and because it is precisely of this rupture that Our Lady of Fatima speaks when She foretells “  the conversion of Russia  ”. (English CRC, December 1982, p. 24)

Let us follow Soloviev in his commendable mystical conversion which has opened up a path of light for his people, allowing a spring of grace and mercy to gush forth.

AN EVANGELICAL DISCOURSE

In 1881, Soloviev published a long article, still very antipapist, entitled Spiritual power in Russia . There the pope was presented as Antichrist institutionalised ! Our theorist placed all his hope in the regenerative mission of Holy Russia and in the Tsar who was to be her « divine figure, religious guide and animating wisdom ». But were the Russian people still capable of accomplishing such One particular event was to shake Soloviev’s patriotic faith. On March 1, 1881, Alexander II was assassinated by revolutionaries. A few days later, Soloviev gave a Discourse in which he recommended that his successor, Alexander III, show mercy to the regicides. Certainly not as a matter of weakness or abdication before the Revolution, even less out of the spirit of non-violence that a certain Tolstoy was already preaching, but « as an example of Russian piety », that famous podwig « which lies at the heart of the Russian people’s evangelical soul, of which the tsar is the living icon ». Alas, Soloviev was not understood... This was a painful stage in his life, the first step he had taken beyond his master Dostoyevsky.

The following year, he published another article entitled “  Schism in the Russian people and society  ”. Delving deep into the past, he accused Metropolitan Nikon of having broken, at the time of Peter the Great, the communion, the Sobornost , so beloved of the Russian people, by excommunicating Raskol, the fierce guardian of traditional popular religion... Ever since then, the Orthodox hierarchy, enslaved to the imperial power, had proved powerless to govern and sanctify Orthodoxy. It was nothing now but a shrunken, secularized “ local Church ” which, if it were to be restored and revived, would need to open itself up to “ the universal Church ”.

In the spring of 1882, Soloviev was powerfully affected by an unusual dream. In his dream he met a high-ranking Catholic ecclesiastic and entreated him to give him his blessing. The priest refused, so Soloviev insisted, declaring, « The separation of the Churches is the most disastrous thing possible. » Finally, the ecclesiastic agreed to give him his blessing.

This premonitory dream was to awaken in Vladimir Soloviev a burning desire for reconciliation with Catholicism, and to stimulate him to write a series of articles to be published every month in his friend Aksakov’s slavophile newspaper Rouss and then to be collected together in a work with the resonant title: The Great Controversy and Christian Politics . One particular maxim constantly reappeared under the Russian writer’s pen:

«  FIRST AND FOREMOST WE MUST WORK TO RESTORE THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH, AND TO MAKE THE FIRE OF LOVE BURN IN THE HEART OF CHRIST’S SPOUSE . »

By an irony of fate, the term “ Controversy ”, which for Soloviev referred to the conflict between Rome and the East, was going to give place to a bitter controversy between himself and his Orthodox and slavophile friends.

A MARVELLOUS AND ADORABLE WISDOM

T HE world’s beauty appeared to Soloviev as a living figure, a real existence, changing and yet immortal. He saw her and held her as the queen of his spiritual universe under her venerable name of Sancta Sophia . At the end of his life, in 1898, he celebrated the Three Encounters he had had with this Beauty which for him was Wisdom.

“ Three times in his life he had been overwhelmed by the radiant visit of Wisdom who appeared to him in the form of an absolutely heavenly female being, dazzling him and enlightening him profoundly. Not without reason certain authors think that all his religious and even philosophical works derive from this illumination. ”

And let us immediately point out, in order to acclimatize the Western reader who is highly likely to be disconcerted by these accounts, that trustworthy interpreters of Soloviev have attributed a marian character to these visions. For them, the whole of the Philosopher’s work derives from the AVE MARIA GRATIA PLENA . “ It is a marvellous perspective ”, adds Msgr. Rupp. “ Wisdom is closely allied to the Immaculate who is its seat. ” ( Le message ecclésial de Soloviev , p. 340)...

What I am going to say next will perhaps surprise my reader. Nothing is more biblical than this vision, and I am astonished at the astonishment of theologians and their impatient criticisms. This Sophia was already well known, hymned and even boldly adored by the scribes of the Old Testament under this very name of Wisdom. Far from being “ pantheist ”, this idea, this vision touches the essence of created beings, and is clearly poles apart from the Platonic idea and far more profound than Aristotle’s substance; it lies at the very heart of being, there where nothing exists except relationship to God, the term of a will and a wisdom that are infinite, there where exists a pure reflection, a fragment of the image of God’s beauty.

George de Nantes , A mysticism for our time , French CRC no. 133, p. 7.

THE GREAT CONTROVERSY

Dostoyevsky

In January 1883, he fired the opening shots with an open letter to Aksakov: « As I reflected on the means of curing this interior disease (of Christianity), I became convinced that the origin of all these evils lies in the general weakening of the earthly organisation of the visible Church, following her division into two disunited parts. » He demonstrated that, in order to establish herself on earth and to endure throughout history, the Christian religion had need of a higher authority, and he explained that it was therefore essential to restore « the union of all Christian and ecclesiastical forces under the standard and under the power of one central ecclesiastical authority ».

On February 19, Soloviev gave a talk in homage to his master Dostoyevsky. It was almost a panegyric of the Roman Church ! He declared his ardent hope for the reconciliation of the two Churches, for the two parts of the universal Church which should never have been separated and whose centre lay in... Rome . As a result of this speech, he saw himself banned from speaking in public. The newspapers made no mention of his speech. For the first time, and it would not be the last, Soloviev was the victim of the censure of Constantin Petrowitch Pobiedonostev, Russia’s Grand Inquisitor and the Tsar’s adviser on religious matters. Pobiedonostev championed a sacral conception of political power, akin to that of the French legitimists of the time, but he was fiercely Orthodox, and any opening towards the Catholic religion was pitilessly censured.

Soloviev responded to this censure with a smile. So his speech had been described as « infantile chattering » ? « If we are not converted », he said to his friends, « and become like little children again, we will not enter the Kingdom of Heaven. » He went on: « When I was a pretentious little boy [teaching German philosophy: Kant, Hegel, Fichte, Schopenhauer and Nietzsche], people listened with great respect to my “ truly infantile ” prattling. And now it is fitting that the only way I can attain the perfection of humility is by everyone ! »

At the same time, he wrote to Aksakov: « It is necessary to defend Catholicism against the false accusations being brought against it... Consequently, in advocating a reconciliation with Catholicism, I assume that Catholicism is not in principle erroneous, for one cannot be reconciled with error . » Now there we have a true ecumenism ! The life of Soloviev, writes our Father, « was ».

To the charge of “ papism ” levelled against him, Soloviev responded in March 1883 with an admirable profession of faith, already Catholic:

« It seems to to me that you concentrate only on “ papism ” whereas I focus first and foremost on the great, holy and eternal Rome, a fundamental and integral part of the universal Church. I believe in this Rome, I bow before it, I love it with all my heart, and with all the strength of my soul I desire its rehabilitation for the unity and integrality of the universal Church. And may I be accursed as a parricide should I ever utter one word of condemnation against the Holy Church of Rome . »

THE REALISATION OF THE DREAM

In May 1883, on the occasion of the coronation of the Emperor Alexander III, the Moscow press complained that too many concessions were being made to restore diplomatic relations with the Vatican broken in 1866, but Soloviev protested: such an agreement was necessary, were it only to improve relations with the Catholics of Poland. The Pope was represented at the ceremony by his special envoy Msgr. Vincenzo Vanutelli. Had not Alexander III written to Leo XIII shortly beforehand: « Never has unity between all Churches and all States been so necessary, in order to realise the wish expressed by Your Holiness of seeing the peoples abandoning the disastrous errors responsible for the social malaise and returning to the holy laws of the Gospel... »

A few days after the ceremony, Soloviev was crossing Moscow in a hired car. Suddenly, he recognized the route he had followed in his dream the previous year. Soon he came to a stop in front of a house from which a Catholic prelate was just leaving: it was Msgr. Vanutelli in person... There was the same hesitation of this latter to give his blessing to a schismatic, and the same entreaties of Soloviev, who finally !

In the summer of 1883, our author wrote two articles on The Catholic Question . According to Soloviev, it was for Russia to take the first step towards the Catholic Church. Imagine !

His articles were not of the sort to leave his readers indifferent. On the Orthodox side, there was an increasing irritation, while on the Catholic side, surprise soon gave way to enthusiasm. The news crossed the borders, spreading to Poland and even to Croatia, where Msgr. Strossmayer was finally seeing his desires realised. The jurisdiction of his diocese of Djakovo extended into Bosnia and Serbia, that is into Orthodox territory. Endowed with a superior intelligence and animated by great apostolic zeal, this Croatian bishop keenly felt the need for a true, intelligent and benevolent ecumenism. He wrote in 1883 to one of his friends, Father Martynov:

« In my opinion, the principal task of the Catholic Church and of the Holy See this century is to draw as closely as possible to the Slav nation, principally the Russian nation . By winning it over to the divine unity of the Catholic Church, we would at the same time win over everyone in the world who still possess a positive faith. »

Bishop Strossmayer and the cathedral of Djakovo

IN THE RADIANCE OF THE IMMACULATE

In the summer of 1883, Soloviev wrote five long letters to a Russian Uniate priest on the subject of The Immaculate Conception of the Most Blessed Virgin Mary . At the same time he translated Petrarch’s “ Praise and prayer to the Most Blessed Virgin ”, wherein he contemplated Her “ clothed in the Sun, crowned with stars... Her glance radiating infinity ! ” It is highly significant that Soloviev was simultaneously attracted by the mystery of the Catholic Church and the mystery of the Immaculate Virgin. The dogma of the Immaculate Conception was the first Catholic dogma which he embraced, and his favourite painting was the Immaculate Conception by Murillo.

In The Foundations of the Spiritual Life (1884), he exalted the « All Holy and Immaculate » Virgin Mary. In Russia and the Church Universal (1889), he would praise Pope Pius IX for having quoted, in support of his dogmatic definition, the Old Testament texts referring to Wisdom, the “  Sophia  ” of his personal intuitions:

« If, by the substantial Wisdom of God, we were exclusively meant to understand the Person of Jesus Christ, how could we apply to the Blessed Virgin all those texts in the Wisdom books which speak of this Wisdom ? However, this application, which has existed from the very earliest times in the offices of both the Latin and Greek Churches, has today received doctrinal confirmation in the bull of Pius IX on the Immaculate Conception of the Most Blessed Virgin. » (quoted by Msgr. Rupp, Le message ecclésial de Soloviev, p. 338)

In September 1883, when the sixth chapter of The Great Controversy was published, a rumour spread through Moscow that Soloviev had “ passed over ” to Catholicism, but there was no truth in it. Moreover, curious though this may seem to us, he was not looking “ to pass over to Catholicism ”, but only to open Orthodoxy up to the universality of the Roman Church.

His seventh and final chapter aroused a lively debate, one that is ever topical. The question turned on the attitude of the Byzantine Greeks in conflict with the Crusaders of the West. Soloviev wrote: « On the day that Constantinople fell, seeing the Turkish armies poised to attack, the final spontaneously expressed cry of the Greeks was, “ Better Islamic slavery than any agreement with the Latins. ” I do not mention this as a reproach to the unfortunate Greeks. If, in this cry of implacable hatred, there was nothing Christian, then neither has there been anything especially Christian in all the formal and artificial attempts to reunite the Churches… »

Aksakov, his Orthodox pride deeply irritated by this remark, retorted: « What does he mean, nothing Christian ? May the Greeks be blessed a hundred times over for having preferred a foreign yoke and bodily torture to the abandonment of the purity of their faith in Christ and for having thus preserved us from the distortions of papism at the precise moment [ the beginning of the 13th century ! ] when it had reached the height of its deformity. May they win eternal glory for this ! »

Nonetheless, Soloviev continued his search for truth, surmounting every obstacle. His article “  Nine Questions to Father Ivantsov-Platonov  ” published in December 1883, created a deep stir even in the West. Here he put nine questions to his former master in Orthodoxy on those points of controversy which set the Church of the East against the Church of Rome. Here is the setting:

« How is it that the countries of the East are separated from the Roman Church ? Did the latter proclaim an heretical proposition ? One would be hard pushed to maintain this, for the addition of the Filioque to the Creed, which is put forward to justify the separation, does not have the character of a heresy. Furthermore, it is absurd to say that the Roman Church is in a state of schism with regard to the Eastern Churches. Thus, the latter’s separation from the former has no basis. Let us acknowledge this and, putting aside all human viewpoints, let us work towards Unity or rather let us work so that Unity, which already has a virtual existence, may become a reality. »

THE THREAD OF AN ANCIENT TRADITION

During 1884, the Russian philosopher studied Catholic dogmatics. He read the works of Perrone, the theologian of Gregory XVI and Pius IX, as well as the texts of the Councils. He was particularly interested in Popes Gregory VII and Innocent III, whom he read in the original text.

At the same time he had a great enthusiasm for the Croatian priest George Krijanich who « had come from Zagreb to Moscow in the 17th century to spread the ideal of the Holy Kingdom of God, Roman Catholic and panslavic, gathering together under the sceptre of the tsars and the crook of the Pope all the Slav peoples who would thereby be freed and protected from the twofold burden pressing them on both sides like a vice, the Germanic powers and the Turks. Thus the Croats would work to free themselves from Austrian control and at the same time they would assist the Serbs, their Orthodox brothers, to shake off Moslem domination.

« To realise this grand design, capable at one blow of powerfully advancing the Kingdom of God on earth, Krijanich came to Moscow and preached on the subject of Russia’s reconciliation with Rome . This should not be difficult, he said, because the Russians had only fallen into schism through ignorance and not through heresy or malice. He himself was already preaching that everyone should recognise their own individual faults, be they unconscious or involuntary, and the need for expiation. God’s blessings would follow as a result, immense and eternal blessings. Sergius Mikhailovich Soloviev, our great man’s father, a historian and the author of a monumental history of Russia, admired Krijanich as “ the first of the Slavophiles ” and also, in his eyes, “ the most paradoxical ”, so alien did Catholicism then appear to the Russian consciousness. » (English CRC, December 1982, p. 32)

Soloviev intended to prove the contrary. And it was just at this time that he entered into friendly relations with the Croatian Bishop Strossmayer, thereby resuming the thread of an ancient tradition, one which was apparently marginal but which in reality was pregnant with a splendid future. Early in December 1885, Soloviev for the first time received a letter from the Croatian bishop. He replied to him on December 8, “  the blessed Day of the Immaculate Conception of the Most Blessed Virgin  ”:

« On the reunion of the Churches », he wrote, « depends the fate of Russia, the Slavs and the whole world. We Russian Orthodox, and indeed the whole of the East, are incapable of achieving anything before we have expiated the ecclesiastical sin of schism and rendered papal authority its due . » And he ended with these words: « My heart burns with joy at the thought that I have a guide like you. May God long preserve your precious leadership for the good of the Church and the Slav people. » In his pastoral letter of January 1886, the bishop of Djakovo quoted large extracts from this letter.

Encouraged by such support, in 1886 Soloviev undertook a study on Dogmatic development and the question of the reunion of the Churches , which provoked the fury of Orthodoxy. However, at a conference given at the ecclesiastical Academy of Saint Petersburg, Soloviev attempted to justify himself: « I can assure you that I will never pass over to Latinism. » He thereby sought to register his attachment to the Eastern rite. No question for him of adopting the Latin rite ! After that, he set out on a journey to Europe.

FIRST STAY IN ZAGREB (1886)

At the beginning of July, he was the guest of the honourable Canon Racki, President of the Yugoslav Academy of Zagreb, founded by Msgr. Strossmayer, and a personal friend of the latter. Every morning the Orthodox Soloviev assisted at the Catholic Mass with great enthusiasm. He made the sign of the cross in the Catholic manner, but prayed in the Greek manner, crossing his arms on his chest. He willingly admitted to his host – and this was not due to any desire to please on his part – that Croatian Catholics, like the Ukrainians, were more religious than his Orthodox compatriots !

Following an article published in the Croatian journal Katolicki List , Soloviev for the first time encountered opposition from a Catholic priest.

During his stay in Zagreb, he also published a letter in the Russian newspaper Novoie Vremia , wherein he refuted the widespread opinion in Russia that the Croats were the instruments of the Austro-Hungarian government’s attempt to Latinize the Eastern Slavs.

In August, he joined Msgr. Strossmayer in the Styrian Alps, and spent ten marvellous days with him. These two minds were truly made to get along. The mutual admiration they felt for one another reinforced their spiritual friendship. But Soloviev continued to receive Holy Communion at the hands of the Orthodox priest of the Serb parish of Zagreb... Rising above the inevitable criticisms, he then wrote a letter to Msgr. Strossmayer, summarising their initial conversations:

«  The reunion of the Churches would be advantageous to both sides . Rome would gain a devout people enthusiastic for the religious idea, she would gain a faithful and powerful defender. Russia for her part, she who through the will of God holds in her hands the destinies of the East, would not only rid herself of the involuntary sin of schism but, what is more, she would thereby become free to fulfil her great universal mission of uniting around herself all the Slav nations and of founding a new and truly Christian civilisation, a civilisation uniting the characteristics of the one truth and of religious liberty in the supreme principle of charity, encompassing everything in its unity and distributing to everyone the plenitude of the one unique good. »

Such was his transcription of the well known Catholic principle: «  In necessariis unitas, in dubiis libertas, in omnibus caritas : unity in essentials, liberty in matters of doubt, and in all things charity . Such must be the Charter of Catholic ecumenism under the crook of the one Shepherd. From the start of this crisis, such has been the invitation we have made to our bishops and to our brothers. Today, it is also the will of the Holy Father », wrote our Father in his editorial for September 1978, dedicated to John Paul I, another Saint Pius X without knowing it (English CRC no. 102, p. 6).

When he informed his friends of Soloviev’s letter, Msgr. Strossmayer presented its author as « a candid and truly holy soul ».

Msgr. Strossmayer and Soloviev had agreed to meet again in Rome for the jubilee pilgrimage of 1888. The Croatian bishop decided to pave the way in Rome by writing to Leo XIII’s Secretary of State, Cardinal Rampolla. He presented his Russian friend as «  toto corde et animo catholicus  ». The Pope at first took a personal interest in the affair: « Here is a sheep », he said, « who will soon be clearing the gate of the sheepfold. » But curiously, there was to be no follow-up. It seems that Leo XIII failed to appreciate Soloviev’s genius... However, things were different in France, where an unassuming and ardent rural parish priest latched on to everything that his apostolic zeal could extract from the lightning advances made by the Russian thinker ( see inset , p. 19).

Soloviev returned to Russia at the beginning of October 1886, rather discouraged by the criticisms directed against him on all sides: there were the Orthodox, some of whom had accused him of bringing Orthodoxy into disrepute abroad... and certain Catholics, like Fr. Guettée in France, a modernist priest with little to commend him, whom he had met in Paris in 1876 and who had recently published an article of rare violence against him !

THE “ RETURN OF THE DISSIDENTS ”

June 18, 1887: a young Capuchin, Leopold Mandic, from Herzeg Novi in Bosnia, under the jurisdiction of Msgr. Strossmayer, and studying at the friary in Padua, heard the voice of God inviting him to pray for and promote the return of the Orthodox to the bosom of the one Church of Christ. «  The goal of my life , he would later say, must be the return of the Eastern dissidents to Catholic unity; I must therefore employ all my energies, as far as my littleness allows, to co-operate in such a task through the sacrifice of my life . » Fifty years later, he would still remember this grace: «  June 18, for the record: 1887-1937. Today, I offered the Holy Sacrifice for the Eastern dissidents, for their return to Catholic unity . » Thus the Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate united, in this one same “ ecumenical ” work, the ardent heart of a young Capuchin destined for the altars, the apostolic wisdom of a bishop and the brilliant intuitions of a great thinker.

In January 1887, from the Monastery of Saint Sergius where he had celebrated Christmas, Soloviev wrote an article in which he provided philosophic justification for the three Catholic dogmas which the Orthodox reject, namely the Filioque, the Immaculate Conception and papal infallibility . Here is a « basis for working towards the reunion of the Churches », he explained. A few months later, he published in Zagreb (on account of the censure directed against him in Russia) his book The History and Future of Theocracy .

There he retraced the vast movement of history towards the establishment of the Kingdom of God. Universal Theocracy, the successor of Jewish Theocracy, cannot be conceived, he explained, without an integrally Christian politics, and he concluded with a splendid anthem to Christ Pantocrator receiving from His Father all power on earth and in Heaven and acting through His emissaries, the Apostles and their successors. Soloviev always believed in the privileged vocation of Russia within the Catholic community of Christian nations, even if he stigmatized what he called “ the sin of Russia ”, which was to oppress and hate all those it dominated, in particular Polish Catholics, Greek Uniates, Ruthenians and Jews !

Like a true prophet, he was vigorous in preaching repentance to his people . In order that they might be faithful to their vocation within the great Slav family, Soloviev asked them to give up their inordinate ambitions, to return to a truer and more Christian conception of their destiny, and to accomplish this within the only international organization which could direct its course, Catholicism, that is to say Roman universalism.

«  One of my theses is that the cause of the Reunion of the Churches in Russia demands a podwig (sacrifice) even heavier to bear than that which, already demanding great self-denial, was needed to ensure Russia’s receptivity to Western culture, an event truly disagreeable to the national sentiment of our ancestors .

«  Well ! this sacrifice consists in drawing closer to Rome and it must be attained at all costs. In this lies the remedy for the Russian sin . »

It goes without saying that Soloviev earned himself new enemies with his book. It cost him great personal suffering, but he could not fail the Truth, which he contemplated with ever greater clarity... What greatness of soul this universal genius possessed !

SAINT VLADIMIR AND THE CHRISTIAN STATE

1888 marked the ninth centenary of the baptism of Saint Vladimir, the first prince of Kiev, whose kingdom after his conversion became « the model of Christian States, with evangelical morals », writes our Father (English CRC, December 1982, p. 23). Soloviev used the occasion to give a conference in Moscow, where he reaffirmed that Russia’s destiny was to turn towards Rome, as King Vladimir had ! However, having hardened itself in its schism, the Muscovite hierarchy was no longer animated by the spirit of St. Vladimir. Hence the fury of the Orthodox hierarchs !

At the same time, Msgr. Strossmayer had gone to Rome for the Jubilee. In vain did he wait for Soloviev there. The latter, fearing perhaps that he had made a definitive break with the Orthodox world which he dreamed on the contrary of winning for the Union, had given up the idea of making this journey. It must also be said that Vatican diplomacy hardly inspired more confidence in him. Leo XIII was revealing himself less and less slavophile, reserving his favours for the Germany of old Bismarck and the young William II ! Msgr. Strossmayer lamented this in a letter to Fr. Martynov: «  The Pope is acting against the Slavs. The Roman prelates are like people insane and think only of temporal power !  »

What a difference between Leo XIII and his successor, St. Pius X, who was, in the words of Msgr. Rupp and our Father, the greatest slavophile pope of our times !

Early in May 1888, Soloviev was on a visit to Paris. To explain his thinking to the French public, he gave a conference on the Russian Idea , « the true national idea eternally fixed in the design of God », who longs to spread His light over the whole world. However, Soloviev remained lucid about his own Church: « If the unity of the universal Church founded by Christ only exists among us in a latent state, it is because the official institution represented by our ecclesiastical government and our theological school is not a living part of the universal Church. »

In passing, he described the destruction of the Greek-Uniate Church by the Orthodox as a «  veritable national sin weighing on Russia and paralysing her moral strength  ». That is still the case today...

In July, Kiev celebrated the feast of the baptism of St. Vladimir. From Zagreb Msgr. Strossmayer sent a telegram in which he exalted Russia’s future role in the manner of his friend Soloviev. Scandal ! His remarks were universally reported by the press. Cardinal Rampolla informed the Croatian bishop that Leo XIII was seriously displeased ! The bishop of Djakovo also earned himself the bitter reproaches of Emperor Francis Joseph of Austria, which is more understandable given the rivalry existing between the two Empires.

In the summer of 1887, Soloviev published in the Universe , the newspaper of Louis Veuillot, three articles on St. Vladimir and the Christian State which caused a great stir. Then he journeyed to Croatia where he remained for one whole month with Msgr. Strossmayer. This meeting was rather sad, for the two friends were increasingly aware that their attempt to reunite the Churches would not succeed, at least in their lifetime.

It was in Djakovo that Soloviev finished the immense prologue to his magisterial book, Russia and the Church Universal , in which one can already glimpse signs of the discouragement that would overwhelm the thinker in the latter part of his life. We know from Fatima that the work of the conversion of Russia, something humanly impossible, has been entrusted to the Immaculate Heart of Mary who has a particular love for this Nation such as to inspire jealousy in others. But this only makes it all the more extraordinary that our prophet should have traced out the course of this conversion, like a true Precursor !

« RUSSIA AND THE CHURCH UNIVERSAL »

Soloviev does not hesitate to delve deep, extremely deep, into the past. To realise its designs in the world, divine Wisdom wished to become incarnate, and the Verb to take flesh like our own. As that was not enough, He also wished to unite to Himself a social and historical body, one that could reach the universality of mankind and communicate to all men His own divine Life. In this magnificent perspective, Soloviev compares the formation of that Body through which God wishes to be united with humanity to that effected in the womb of the Virgin Mary at the time of the Incarnation, and to that which operates every day in the Eucharistic mystery... What was needed for this work was a solid foundation, a Rock:

« This bedrock has been found », he writes, « it is Rome. It is only on the Rock [of Peter and his successors] that the Church is founded. This is not an opinion, it is an imposing historical reality . »

It is also an evangelical truth: «  You are Peter, and on this Rock I will build my Church . » Here Soloviev addresses the Protestants who seek to outbid each other in their attacks against the Primacy of Peter by quoting Jesus’ own words to His Apostle when he was obstructing the Master’s path: «  Get behind me, Satan !  » Soloviev’s response once again shows the clarity of his intelligence and his perfect knowledge of Catholic dogma:

«  There is only one way of harmonising these texts which the inspired Evangelist did not juxtapose without reason. Simon Peter, as supreme pastor and doctor of the universal Church , assisted by God and speaking for all, is, in this capacity, the unshakeable foundation of the House of God and the holder of the keys of the heavenly Kingdom. The same Simon Peter, as a private person, speaking and acting through his own natural forces and an understanding that is purely human , can say and do things that are unworthy, scandalous and even satanic. But personal defects and sins are passing, whereas the social function of the ecclesiastical monarch is permanent. “ Satan ” and the scandal have disappeared, but Peter has remained.  »

Soloviev’s doctrine agrees with that of Vatican Council I and with that of our Father who, at the same time as he makes us venerate Peter’s magisterium, magnificently illustrated by Blessed Pius IX, St. Pius X and John Paul I, accuses John XXIII, Paul VI and John Paul II of being instruments of “ Satan ” for the ruin of the Church.

However, Christ wished that it should be around Peter that the unity of faith and charity should be formed: «  Since the unity of the faith does not presently exist in the totality of believers, seeing that not all of them are unanimous in matters of religion, it must lie in the legal authority of a single head, an authority assured by divine assistance and the trust of all the faithful . This is the ROCK on which Christ founded His Church and against which the gates of hell will never prevail.  »

Why did this ROCK settle in Rome, and not in Jerusalem, Constantinople or Moscow ? Here we have a further brilliant response from Soloviev: historically Rome represented the order, civilization and terrestrial Empire that would best allow the Church to become the universal spiritual Empire desired by Christ. In a mystical view of the history of Salvation – we would say divine “ orthodromy ” – Soloviev shows how God, wishing to extend salvation to the whole world,  decided one day that His Kingdom should leave Israel for Rome, so that the capital of the pagan Empire should become “ the conjoint instrument ” of His designs:

« The universal monarchy was to stay put; the centre of unity was not to move. But central power itself, its character, its source and its sanction were to be renewed... Instead of an Empire of Might, there was to be a Church of Love. » One thinks of Constantine’s conversion and his imposition throughout the Roman Empire of laws favouring Christianity, and of Theodosius declaring the Christian religion the religion of State. What decisive support for the Gospel ! The remarkable Roman civilization, already the heir of Greece, was put at the service of the Cross of Christ !

Soloviev had some wonderful expressions to describe this, as for example the following: «  Jesus unthroned Caesar... By unthroning the false and impious absolutism of the pagan Caesars, Jesus confirmed and immortalised the universal monarchy of Rome and gave it its true theocratic foundation . »

« Let us not think », comments our Father, « that our theosophist loses his way in a contemplation of evangelical love and freedom. Fully aware of the frailty and shortcomings of humanity, he declares that it is essential, for its effective salvation, that supreme divine power be joined to the firmest social structure, to the virile principle , and not as formerly to the female principle of a virginal flesh for the Incarnation. This firm principle is the imperial monarchical institution which is Rome and Caesar. Converted, elevated and unabolished, the Power of Rome continues in the Pope for the service of the universal community.

« It is only this divino-human pontifical paternity that is capable of forming the basis of the universal fraternity of the peoples, not only through its spiritual influence but also through its authority and its supranational organization. In this monarchy, sacred but popular, the Pope, the Universal Emperor, clearly remains the servant of the servants of God and is, for that very reason, the sovereign Head of the Nations. Opposed to any kind of papolatry, antagonistic to all the encroachments of papism, and quite capable of denouncing such a Pope as Satan, Soloviev raised an imperishable monument to the glory of Rome and pointed out – him, a member of the Orthodox Church – the path of the world’s salvation, which lay in one place only, in the universal Christian order of a restored Roman Catholic Church ... » (French CRC no. 131, July 1978, p. 6)

In his lifetime, Soloviev ran up against a wall of hostility and incomprehension: « I am not so naive », he said, « to seek to convince minds whose private interests are greater than their desire for religious truth. In presenting the general evidence for the permanent primacy of Peter as the basis of the universal Church, I have simply wanted to assist those who are opposed to this truth, not because of their interests and passions, but merely because of their unwitting errors and hereditary prejudices. »

The final period of his life might seem to some like a decline and a renunciation of his prophetic insights, but our Father writes: « Soloviev was too great a mind to be discouraged or to modify his ideas in accordance with the fluctuations of his worldly success. What is certainly true is that his bitter experiences gave him a better knowledge of the Evil that was at work in the world, throwing up formidable obstacles to God’s designs and going so far as to erect a kind of caricature of them. This he denounced as the power of the Antichrist, the Prince of this world, announced in the Scriptures. » (French CRC no. 132, August 1978, p. 12)

At the beginning of the 1890’s, relations between Soloviev and the Orthodox Church deteriorated. «  Given the papaphobia reigning among us , he wrote to a friend, sometimes revealing its underhand character and at other times its stupidity, and always in any event unchristian, I considered and I continue to consider that it is necessary to draw people’s attention to the Rock of the Church laid by Christ Himself and to its positive significance . »

As he persisted in his criticisms, even going so far as to compare the Greco-Russian Church with « the Synagogue », the Orthodox hierarchy, in the person of Pobiedonostev, the Holy Synod’s prosecutor, employed the ultimate weapon at its disposal: it deprived him of the sacraments. One day in 1894, being seriously ill, Soloviev asked to receive the sacraments. His Orthodox confessor refused to give him absolution unless he renounced his Catholic views. Soloviev refused to yield, preferring to forego confession and Holy Communion.

AN AUTHENTIC CONVERSION

The moment had come. On February 18, 1896, he went to see Fr. Nicholas Alexeyevich Tolstoy, a Catholic priest of the Eastern rite exercising his ministry in Moscow. This priest, a former officer, owed him his vocation, his formation (Soloviev having been his teacher) and his conversion to Catholicism. That February 18 was the feast day of Pope St. Leo so dear to Soloviev. Before Mass, he read on his knees the Tridentine symbol of the faith containing the Filioque and a formula declaring that the Church of Rome must be regarded as the head of all the particular Churches. Then he received the Body of Christ at the hands of the Catholic priest.

On the following day, Fr. Tolstoy was denounced and arrested. He managed to escape and to reach Rome first, then France. It was only in 1910 that he would give an account in the Universe of the authentic conversion of Soloviev, and in 1917 that the two witnesses present at the scene would confirm the celebrated Russian’s profession of the Catholic faith. Nevertheless, this conversion was disputed not only by the Orthodox but also by Catholics imbued with a false ecumenism like Msgr. d’Herbigny of sinister memory. But in this matter the facts are indubitable. His entry into the Catholic Church did not, however, in Soloviev’s mind, exclude him from what he called « the true and authentic Eastern or Greco-Russian Church ». Never did he embrace the Latin rite. After the exile of Fr. Tolstoy, as there were no longer any Catholic priests in Moscow apart from those belonging to the Latin rite, Soloviev decided to refrain from receiving the sacraments...

In 1897, a census of the whole of Russia was carried out in which a question was asked about religion. «  I am both Catholic and Orthodox; let the police work that out !  » Soloviev answered.

« Self-important people from Rome and Moscow declared themselves scandalized », writes our Father. « The hour had not yet come for the podwig , for self-renunciation and reconciliation in truth and justice ( pravda ), and for the restoration of the wholly divine unity of communion in love ( sobornost ). Msgr. Rupp thinks that we achieved it with Vatican II. Alas, no ! I hope for and expect it to come with Vatican III... but only after the trial, after conversion and expiation... and after Our Lady’s humble requests have been met. » (English CRC, December 1982, p. 36)

UNDER THE SIGN OF MARY

«  This glow from Heaven emanates from Mary, And vain remains the attraction of the serpent’s venom.  »

On July 17, 1900, sensing death approaching, Soloviev sent for a priest. He was most insistent about this: « Will it be morning soon ? When will the priest come ? » The next day, he made his confession and received Holy Communion at the hands of an Orthodox priest. He died peacefully a few days later, on July 31, «  in the communion of Russian Orthodoxy to which he had ever been faithful, without however disowning the Catholicism of his heart, assured by the example of the Fathers of Russian Christianity, Saints Cyril and Methodius, Saint Vladimir, and so many strastoterptsi , innocents who had suffered the passion , and startsi , slavophiles and romanophiles at the same time, without schism or constraint, in the love of Holy Church and Holy Russia, the Kingdom of God to come !  »

But all this is too beautiful for us not to revisit it, so our Father has decided that we will study in more depth the work of this great Russian thinker, in three parts to appear in subsequent editions of Resurrection , Deo volente:

The vocation of Russia in the designs of God and the concert of the Christian nations: up to and including Putin ?

The Immaculate Virgin Mary , throne of Wisdom, essential beauty of the created world, our ultimate recourse !

The Antichrist unmasked by Soloviev . This was the last service the “ inspired prophet ” rendered to his beloved Russia: that of putting her on her guard against the seductions of the Antichrist. In Rome, at the same time, St. Pius X was also announcing his advent in his encyclical E supremi Apostolatus of October 4, 1903: « The Antichrist is present among us. The Evil shaking the world should not affright us, it will only last a short while. What must fall will fall, and the Church will be reborn from the trial, assisted by her Saviour and ready for extraordinary developments. »

Brother Thomas of Our Lady of Perpetual Help He is risen ! n° 8, August 2001, pp. 13-22

Reference */?>

  • Holy Russia
  • Vladimir Soloviev, prophet of Russia's conversion
  • The Immaculate Conception and the Divine Sophia
  • Soloviev (Vladimir)
  • Our founder
  • The 150 Points of the Phalange
  • Catholic Counter-Reformation Analyses
  • Preparing the Catholic Renaissance
  • Principles of National Restoration
  • New publications on the CRC website
  • Archives HE IS RISEN!
  • Books of Accusation
  • Make a donation
  • CCR Glossary
  • VOD website
  • Nederlandstalige site
  • Articoli in italiano
  • Artículos en español
  • Artigos em Português

External links

  • Articles containing Greek-language text
  • Articles containing Russian-language text
  • Articles with unsourced statements from December 2012
  • Pages with broken file links
  • 12th-century paintings
  • Byzantine art
  • Russian culture
  • Vladimir-Suzdal
  • Eastern Orthodox icons of the Virgin Mary
  • Visitor attractions in Moscow
  • Icons of the Tretyakov Gallery
  • Pages with script errors
  • All articles with unsourced statements

Navigation menu

Personal tools.

  • Request account
  • View source
  • View history
  • Recent changes
  • Random page
  • Infogalactic News
  • Buy an account
  • What links here
  • Related changes
  • Special pages
  • Printable version
  • Permanent link
  • Page information
  • Cite this page
  • This page was last modified on 28 September 2015, at 07:54.
  • Content is available under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License unless otherwise noted.
  • This article's content derived from Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia ( See original source ).
  • Privacy policy
  • About Infogalactic: the planetary knowledge core
  • Disclaimers
  • Mobile view

Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License

  • Articles   >

The Moscow Metro Museum of Art: 10 Must-See Stations

There are few times one can claim having been on the subway all afternoon and loving it, but the Moscow Metro provides just that opportunity.  While many cities boast famous public transport systems—New York’s subway, London’s underground, San Salvador’s chicken buses—few warrant hours of exploration.  Moscow is different: Take one ride on the Metro, and you’ll find out that this network of railways can be so much more than point A to B drudgery.

The Metro began operating in 1935 with just thirteen stations, covering less than seven miles, but it has since grown into the world’s third busiest transit system ( Tokyo is first ), spanning about 200 miles and offering over 180 stops along the way.  The construction of the Metro began under Joseph Stalin’s command, and being one of the USSR’s most ambitious building projects, the iron-fisted leader instructed designers to create a place full of svet (radiance) and svetloe budushchee (a radiant future), a palace for the people and a tribute to the Mother nation.

Consequently, the Metro is among the most memorable attractions in Moscow.  The stations provide a unique collection of public art, comparable to anything the city’s galleries have to offer and providing a sense of the Soviet era, which is absent from the State National History Museum.  Even better, touring the Metro delivers palpable, experiential moments, which many of us don’t get standing in front of painting or a case of coins.

Though tours are available , discovering the Moscow Metro on your own provides a much more comprehensive, truer experience, something much less sterile than following a guide.  What better place is there to see the “real” Moscow than on mass transit: A few hours will expose you to characters and caricatures you’ll be hard-pressed to find dining near the Bolshoi Theater.  You become part of the attraction, hear it in the screech of the train, feel it as hurried commuters brush by: The Metro sucks you beneath the city and churns you into the mix.

With the recommendations of our born-and-bred Muscovite students, my wife Emma and I have just taken a self-guided tour of what some locals consider the top ten stations of the Moscow Metro. What most satisfied me about our Metro tour was the sense of adventure .  I loved following our route on the maps of the wagon walls as we circled the city, plotting out the course to the subsequent stops; having the weird sensation of being underground for nearly four hours; and discovering the next cavern of treasures, playing Indiana Jones for the afternoon, piecing together fragments of Russia’s mysterious history.  It’s the ultimate interactive museum.

Top Ten Stations (In order of appearance)

Kievskaya station.

christ visits the americas painting

Kievskaya Station went public in March of 1937, the rails between it and Park Kultury Station being the first to cross the Moscow River.  Kievskaya is full of mosaics depicting aristocratic scenes of Russian life, with great cameo appearances by Lenin, Trotsky, and Stalin.  Each work has a Cyrillic title/explanation etched in the marble beneath it; however, if your Russian is rusty, you can just appreciate seeing familiar revolutionary dates like 1905 ( the Russian Revolution ) and 1917 ( the October Revolution ).

Mayakovskaya Station

Mayakovskaya Station ranks in my top three most notable Metro stations. Mayakovskaya just feels right, done Art Deco but no sense of gaudiness or pretention.  The arches are adorned with rounded chrome piping and create feeling of being in a jukebox, but the roof’s expansive mosaics of the sky are the real showstopper.  Subjects cleverly range from looking up at a high jumper, workers atop a building, spires of Orthodox cathedrals, to nimble aircraft humming by, a fleet of prop planes spelling out CCCP in the bluest of skies.

Novoslobodskaya Station

christ visits the americas painting

Novoslobodskaya is the Metro’s unique stained glass station.  Each column has its own distinctive panels of colorful glass, most of them with a floral theme, some of them capturing the odd sailor, musician, artist, gardener, or stenographer in action.  The glass is framed in Art Deco metalwork, and there is the lovely aspect of discovering panels in the less frequented haunches of the hall (on the trackside, between the incoming staircases).  Novosblod is, I’ve been told, the favorite amongst out-of-town visitors.

Komsomolskaya Station

Komsomolskaya Station is one of palatial grandeur.  It seems both magnificent and obligatory, like the presidential palace of a colonial city.  The yellow ceiling has leafy, white concrete garland and a series of golden military mosaics accenting the tile mosaics of glorified Russian life.  Switching lines here, the hallway has an Alice-in-Wonderland feel, impossibly long with decorative tile walls, culminating in a very old station left in a remarkable state of disrepair, offering a really tangible glimpse behind the palace walls.

Dostoevskaya Station

christ visits the americas painting

Dostoevskaya is a tribute to the late, great hero of Russian literature .  The station at first glance seems bare and unimpressive, a stark marble platform without a whiff of reassembled chips of tile.  However, two columns have eerie stone inlay collages of scenes from Dostoevsky’s work, including The Idiot , The Brothers Karamazov , and Crime and Punishment.   Then, standing at the center of the platform, the marble creates a kaleidoscope of reflections.  At the entrance, there is a large, inlay portrait of the author.

Chkalovskaya Station

Chkalovskaya does space Art Deco style (yet again).  Chrome borders all.  Passageways with curvy overhangs create the illusion of walking through the belly of a chic, new-age spacecraft.  There are two (kos)mosaics, one at each end, with planetary subjects.  Transferring here brings you above ground, where some rather elaborate metalwork is on display.  By name similarity only, I’d expected Komsolskaya Station to deliver some kosmonaut décor; instead, it was Chkalovskaya that took us up to the space station.

Elektrozavodskaya Station

christ visits the americas painting

Elektrozavodskaya is full of marble reliefs of workers, men and women, laboring through the different stages of industry.  The superhuman figures are round with muscles, Hollywood fit, and seemingly undeterred by each Herculean task they respectively perform.  The station is chocked with brass, from hammer and sickle light fixtures to beautiful, angular framework up the innards of the columns.  The station’s art pieces are less clever or extravagant than others, but identifying the different stages of industry is entertaining.

Baumanskaya Statio

Baumanskaya Station is the only stop that wasn’t suggested by the students.  Pulling in, the network of statues was just too enticing: Out of half-circle depressions in the platform’s columns, the USSR’s proud and powerful labor force again flaunts its success.  Pilots, blacksmiths, politicians, and artists have all congregated, posing amongst more Art Deco framing.  At the far end, a massive Soviet flag dons the face of Lenin and banners for ’05, ’17, and ‘45.  Standing in front of the flag, you can play with the echoing roof.

Ploshchad Revolutsii Station

christ visits the americas painting

Novokuznetskaya Station

Novokuznetskaya Station finishes off this tour, more or less, where it started: beautiful mosaics.  This station recalls the skyward-facing pieces from Mayakovskaya (Station #2), only with a little larger pictures in a more cramped, very trafficked area.  Due to a line of street lamps in the center of the platform, it has the atmosphere of a bustling market.  The more inventive sky scenes include a man on a ladder, women picking fruit, and a tank-dozer being craned in.  The station’s also has a handsome black-and-white stone mural.

Here is a map and a brief description of our route:

Start at (1)Kievskaya on the “ring line” (look for the squares at the bottom of the platform signs to help you navigate—the ring line is #5, brown line) and go north to Belorusskaya, make a quick switch to the Dark Green/#2 line, and go south one stop to (2)Mayakovskaya.  Backtrack to the ring line—Brown/#5—and continue north, getting off at (3)Novosblodskaya and (4)Komsolskaya.  At Komsolskaya Station, transfer to the Red/#1 line, go south for two stops to Chistye Prudy, and get on the Light Green/#10 line going north.  Take a look at (5)Dostoevskaya Station on the northern segment of Light Green/#10 line then change directions and head south to (6)Chkalovskaya, which offers a transfer to the Dark Blue/#3 line, going west, away from the city center.  Have a look (7)Elektroskaya Station before backtracking into the center of Moscow, stopping off at (8)Baumskaya, getting off the Dark Blue/#3 line at (9)Ploschad Revolyutsii.  Change to the Dark Green/#2 line and go south one stop to see (10)Novokuznetskaya Station.

Check out our new Moscow Indie Travel Guide , book a flight to Moscow and read 10 Bars with Views Worth Blowing the Budget For

Jonathon Engels, formerly a patron saint of misadventure, has been stumbling his way across cultural borders since 2005 and is currently volunteering in the mountains outside of Antigua, Guatemala.  For more of his work, visit his website and blog .

christ visits the americas painting

Photo credits:   SergeyRod , all others courtesy of the author and may not be used without permission

Massachusetts family finds looted World War II artifacts in attic, helps return them to Japan 

One of 22 historic artifacts that were looted following the Battle of Okinawa

Twenty-two historic artifacts that were looted after the Battle of Okinawa in World War II have been returned to Japan after a family from Massachusetts discovered them in their late father’s personal items in an attic, according to the FBI.

The collection included six painted scrolls from the 18th and 19th centuries, a hand-drawn map of Okinawa dating to the 19th century and various pieces of pottery and ceramics, the FBI Boston Field Office said Friday.

A typewritten letter detailed the collection process and confirmed they were looted during the last days of World War II. The artifacts had been considered missing for over 80 years.

In 2001, the Okinawa Prefectural Board of Education registered some of the artifacts with the FBI’s National Stolen Art File, a database of art and cultural property that law enforcement agencies in the U.S. and abroad have reported stolen to the FBI.

The family found the artifacts while they were sorting through the belongings of their deceased father in an attic. He was a World War II veteran, although he never served in the Pacific Theater. They contacted authorities after they researched the items and determined that some of them were in the National Stolen Art File.

“This is what makes a culture. And without it, you’re taking away their history,” said Special Agent Geoffrey Kelly, the art crime coordinator for the FBI in Boston. “It’s really important for us as stewards of artifacts and cultural patrimony to make every effort that we can to see that these go back to the civilizations and the cultures in the countries where they belong.”

The FBI was able to authenticate the artworks, and the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Asian Art examined the artifacts to ensure they were properly packed before their return to Japan.

“This case highlights the important role the public plays in recognizing and reporting possible stolen art. We’d like to thank the family from Massachusetts who did the right thing in reaching out to us and relinquishing these treasures so we could return them to the people of Okinawa,” Jodi Cohen, special agent in charge of the FBI Boston Division, said in a statement.

On Friday, Denny Tamaki, the governor of Okinawa prefecture, announced the return of the artifacts to the people of Okinawa, according to the FBI.

IMAGES

  1. John Walter Scott, Jesus Christ Visits the Americas (1969)

    christ visits the americas painting

  2. Particolare di Gesù Cristo visita le Americhe

    christ visits the americas painting

  3. Jesus Teaching in the Western Hemisphere (Jesus Christ Visits the

    christ visits the americas painting

  4. Pin on LDS Church

    christ visits the americas painting

  5. The Light of Christ

    christ visits the americas painting

  6. Christ In America Painting at PaintingValley.com

    christ visits the americas painting

COMMENTS

  1. John Walter Scott, Jesus Christ Visits the Americas (1969)

    His painting Jesus Christ Visits the Americas (also called Jesus Teaching in the Western Hemisphere), completed in 1969, is a massive canvas of 47" x 121" that now hangs in the LDS Convention Center in Salt Lake City. It depicts a central article of faith of the Mormon religion: that, following his resurrection, Jesus appeared among the ...

  2. Jesus Teaching in the Western Hemisphere (Jesus Christ Visits the Americas)

    John Scott, Jesus Teaching in the Western Hemisphere (Jesus Christ Visits the Americas), 1969. The Book of Mormon Art Catalog, [URL]. References; Artist; Insights; Additional Info; References ... Come, Follow Me: Book of Mormon Learning and Teaching Resources, 2020. Book of Mormon—Gospel Art Book, All Gospel Art, Gospel Art Kit. Ensign ...

  3. Jesus Christ Visits the Americas

    Media. Verse 8 is about Christ's visit to the Americas. A poem about Jesus Christ's birth, resurrection, and second coming. Visual and music highlight this portrayal of the Savior's visit to the inhabitants of ancient America, providing a unique view of His caring, compassion, and love for His children.

  4. Detail from Jesus Christ Visits the Americas

    37 September 14-20: 3 Nephi 8-11. 14 March 30-April 12: Easter. Easter. Artwork of Jesus Christ. High Quality Images for Print. A detail from Jesus Christ Visits the Americas, by John Scott.

  5. Jesus Visited the Americas

    Jesus Visited the Americas. Image. A young Jesus visits the Nephites. He is standing on a wall looking at the people. There are trees in the background with a blue sky. Illustrations by Apryl Stott. In the Book of Mormon, a prophet named Samuel taught people about Jesus. He said a bright new star would shine when Jesus was born.

  6. "Behold My Beloved Son" (3 Nephi 11:7)

    I Am Jesus Christ. "The Bible and the Book of Mormon Testify That Jesus Christ Is the Savior of the World," by Greg Olsen. "Jesus Christ Appears to the Nephites," by Arnold Friberg. "Behold, I Am Jesus Christ," by Dennis Von Smith. "Christ in America," by C. C. A. Christensen. "Coming of Christ," by Colleen Wallace.

  7. When Did Jesus Visit the Americas?

    But much depends on how we understand the meaning of the phrase "the ending.". [6] The calendrical system that the Nephites used at Jesus' visit dated from the ninety-first year of the reign of the judges (3 Ne. 1:1; 2:8), the year of the appearance of the sign of Jesus' birth (1:15-21). In this connection at least two problems of the ...

  8. Jesus Teaching in the Western Hemisphere (Jesus Christ Visits the Americas)

    Artwork of Jesus Christ. Jesus Teaching in the Western Hemisphere (Jesus Christ Visits the Americas), by John Scott (62380); GAK 316; GAB 82; Primary manual 1-44; Primary manual 3-17; Primary manual 4-45; 3 Nephi 11:8-41; 12:12-26.

  9. Christ Visits the Americas

    Christ Visits the Americas. by Mackay, Dustin. Scripture. 3 Nephi 11. Date. c. 2019. Citation. Dustin Mackay, Christ Visits the Americas, c. 2019. The Book of Mormon Art Catalog, [URL]. ... The Book of Mormon Art Catalog does not sell artwork or image rights and does not receive revenue from this website. All images are protected by copyright ...

  10. Did Jesus Really Visit the Americas?

    Serve. Callings Sharing the Gospel Volunteer and Serve Temples Family History. News. Newsroom Events Broadcasts. About Us. Who We Are Our Story What We Believe Learn More with Missionaries. Resources. My Home Donations Temple Appointments Leader and Clerk Resources Missionary Portal FamilySearch.org Ward Directory and Map Calendar Meetinghouse ...

  11. [Christ Visits the Americas]

    Alice Abrams, [Christ Visits the Americas], 2020. The Book of Mormon Art Catalog, [URL]. References; Artist; Insights; References Literature: Instagram @aliceisms_illustrations on 1/11/20. ... owner, or the Book of Mormon Art Catalog. When possible, copyright information is included within the information listed for a particular artwork. Where ...

  12. Mormon Art: Painting the Gospel

    John Scott, Jesus Christ Visits the Americas, detail. www.lds.org Arnold Friberg, Jesus Christ Appears to the Nephites. www.lds.org Harry Anderson, The Second Coming. www.lds.org Whatever your opinion on these paintings, they certainly provide a very interesting insight into beliefs of the Mormon Church and their ideas about Jesus Christ ...

  13. Jesus Christ Visits the Americas

    After Jesus Christ's Resurrection, He visited faithful believers in the Americas to establish His Church there, as He did in Jerusalem. Based on the account of that event in the Book of Mormon, this video seeks to explore the joy of the Savior's arrival. The Book of Mormon: Another Testament of Jesus Christ is a book of holy scripture like ...

  14. PDF By John Scott Jesus Christ Visits the Americas

    Jesus Christ would soon be born. (See Helaman 13-16.) A 10-year-old boy named . Mormon was chosen to write on the plates when he grew older. At age 24 he began combining the most impor-tant stories from all the records onto a set of metal plates. (See Mormon 1.) Before Moroni died, he buried the plates in a place . called Cumorah. About 1,400

  15. Jesus Visited the Americas

    Scriptures General Conference Come, Follow Me Gospel Library Media Library Music Library Life Help Inspiration. Serve. Callings Sharing the Gospel Volunteer and Serve Temples Family History. News. Newsroom Events Broadcasts. About Us. Who We Are Our Story What We Believe Learn More with Missionaries. Resources.

  16. PDF The Visit of Jesus Christ to the Americas

    The "Descending God" with. holes in the palms of his hands. Statue from Tulum, Mexico. Dated 900 AD to 1200 AD. When Hernandez Cortez, Catholic Priests, and other early explorers first arrived in the Americas, they looked for crosses on buildings and temples. The cross in their minds would have represented a Christian belief in Jesus Christ.

  17. Latter Day Saint Journal: Christ visits the Americas

    The cover has a watercolor painting of Jesus Christ visiting the Americas, at the temple, in the land Bountiful, soon after his resurrection in Jerusalem, as recorded in the Book of Mormon. I feel very privileged to have painted this painting. This Journal is a Hard Back cover, with 120 pages. The last page has a larger picture of the painting.

  18. Virgin and Child ("Virgin of Vladimir")

    This is a mass-produced replica of a famous miracle-working icon of the Virgin and Child, brought to Russia from Byzatium in the 12th century, known as the "Virgin of Vladimir", and currently kept in Moscow (State Tretyakov Gallery). The Virgin and Child are each identified by abbreviated inscriptions.

  19. When Did Jesus Visit the Americas? by S. Kent Brown

    From 1967 to 1991, the Joseph Smith Building on the Brigham Young University campus was home to Crosby's painting of Jesus' visit to the Nephites. In that painting Crosby has depicted recent destruction, particularly in the left background. In a telephone conversation, the artist said that he had tried to capture the scene of Jesus ...

  20. Vladimir Soloviev, prophet of Russia's conversion

    Vladimir Soloviev, aged twenty. T HE conversion of Russia will not be the work of man, no matter how gifted he may be, but that of the Immaculate Heart of the Virgin Mary, the Mediatrix of all graces, because this is God's wish, which he revealed to the world in 1917. The life and works of Vladimir Soloviev are a perfect illustration of this ...

  21. Theotokos of Vladimir

    History. As a work of art, the icon is dated to the earlier part of the 12th century, and a date shortly before its arrival in Russia about 1131, according to the chronicles, seems plausible. Like other Byzantine works of high quality, it is thought to have been painted in Constantinople, and is regarded as the finest panel icon surviving from the Comnenian period, the few survivors from which ...

  22. The Moscow Metro Museum of Art: 10 Must-See Stations

    Take a look at (5)Dostoevskaya Station on the northern segment of Light Green/#10 line then change directions and head south to (6)Chkalovskaya, which offers a transfer to the Dark Blue/#3 line, going west, away from the city center. Have a look (7)Elektroskaya Station before backtracking into the center of Moscow, stopping off at (8)Baumskaya ...

  23. PDF When Did Jesus Visit the Americas?

    A painting by Ronald Crosby exhibits a similar posture to­ ward the question of whether a substantial period of time had elapsed. From 1967 to 1991, the Joseph Smith Building on the Brigham Young University campus was home to Crosby's paint­ ing of Jesus' visit to the Nephites. In that painting Crosby has

  24. Massachusetts family finds looted World War II artifacts in attic

    "This case highlights the important role the public plays in recognizing and reporting possible stolen art. We'd like to thank the family from Massachusetts who did the right thing in reaching ...