Summary
Vladimir Medenica: Angel with a thousand eyes
Just as an icon is not a picture, and church singing is not an ordinary song (music), so a biblical narrative is not just a story or a short story. And the icon, church singing and biblical narration are parts of a sublime, artistic whole called the liturgy. Absolutely otherworldly, irremovable and permanent, it is eternally present in them, unlike the works of human hands, however "eternal" seems to be given in the form of art. Nevertheless, in its highest manifestations, art is a reaching for the beyond, a sigh and a cry addressed to heaven from this "weeping valley", it is literally the daily bread that man creates and eats in the sweat of his face. That is why the Holy Spirit comes down to support human efforts with his grace on such requests as Dostoevsky's creation. And in this - no matter how paradoxical it may sound - lies one of the reasons why Dostoevsky's work does not give the impression of high art to many, especially not to those whose taste was "schooled" in works of "secular" art and in the belief of some kind of autonomy of art. Because Dostoevsky's work is already a foretaste of conceit, something that instead of the "transitory eternity" of human hands contains, in its extremely excited, almost nervous search for the Kingdom of God, the calm presence of the Absolute Beyond."
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