Is There No Privacy?
Eric Scheske on Universal Responsibility
One of the most beautiful chapters in literature is the “Thoughts and Teachings of the Elder Zossima” in Dostoyevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov. It recounts the last day and words of Fr. Zossima, the revered Elder of Alyosha Karamazov’s monastery, who speaks to those gathered at his bedside and asks them, through anecdote and counsel, to lead a life of virtue and love.
The love he asks them to have is a fervent and tangible love that stems from a deep sense of the intimate link between each person and every living thing. “Every one of us is responsible for all men and for everything on earth, not only responsible through universal responsibility of mankind, but responsible personally—every man for all people and for each individual man who lives on earth.”
THIS ARTICLE ONLY AVAILABLE TO SUBSCRIBERS.
FOR QUICK ACCESS:
subscription options
Order
Print/Online Subscription
Get six issues (one year) of Touchstone PLUS full online access including pdf downloads for only $39.95. That's only $3.34 per month!
Order
Online Only
Subscription
Get a one-year full-access subscription to the Touchstone online archives for only $19.95. That's only $1.66 per month!
bulk subscriptions
Order Touchstone subscriptions in bulk and save $10 per sub! Each subscription includes 6 issues of Touchstone plus full online access to touchstonemag.com—including archives, videos, and pdf downloads of recent issues for only $29.95 each! Great for churches or study groups.
Transactions will be processed on a secure server.
more from the online archives
27.5—Sept/Oct 2014
The Culture of Death's Campaign Against the Catholic Church by Brantly Millegan
24.6—Nov/Dec 2011
on the Tyranny of Modern Freedom versus the Freedom of Jesus by Gillis J. Harp
calling all readers
Please Donate
"There are magazines worth reading but few worth saving . . . Touchstone is just such a magazine."
—Alice von Hildebrand
"Here we do not concede one square millimeter of territory to falsehood, folly, contemporary sentimentality, or fashion. We speak the truth, and let God be our judge. . . . Touchstone is the one committedly Christian conservative journal."
—Anthony Esolen, Touchstone senior editor
