Thursday, December 11, 2025

It is the 11th of December 2025. Welcome to the Christian History Almanac, brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org; I’m Dan van Voorhis.

One of the things about doing this show for over 2000 episodes, but doing so in concert with the rest of the writers and podcasters at 1517 (thanks for supporting us, if you can, at 1517.org) is that the .org is deeper than you could probably imagine. Go ahead and try the search function! Hear a word or name on this show you want to dig into deeper? In fact, I often use the search engine to search not only for this show but also for other shows and articles.

So, this brings us to today’s show and the man I believe to be the most important Orthodox Christian of the 20th century. He was the dissident one-time Marxist-Leninist Alexander Solzhenitsyn, born on this, the 11th of December in 1918. And I’ve mentioned him before, had I done a whole show? I went to the search engine and found we did a very brief intro to him in 2020, so he’s due for another- but also- our own Gillespie’s podcast has dedicated shows to him- as has Adam Francisco’s Faith and Reason Exchange as has Chad Bird written about him… why has this soviet, one time atheist turned Eastern Orthodox Christian grabbed our attention?

As mentioned, Alexander Solzhenitsyn was born on this day in 1918, so his life will be parallel to both the end of World War I and the beginning of the Soviet Union. His father was a landowner who had to give it up with the coming of the Bolsheviks, but was killed in a hunting accident months before Alexander’s birth. He was raised in general poverty by his mother, a well-educated Ukrainian who encouraged Alex’s own education. He studied mathematics and physics, but before he could go into teaching, the Germans invaded (this was 1941), and he was called up to the war’s disastrous Eastern Front.

He was a successful soldier, earning ranks and awards, but he also carried on correspondence with a military friend, coded, but critical of Stalin. For this, he was arrested and spent 8 years in a Soviet Gulag. It was here that he began to turn from his adopted Soviet atheism back into the Christian faith.

When Stalin died in 53, he was given some freedoms to teach, under surveillance, but was also diagnosed with cancer. Both the gulag and the hospital serve as the backdrop to his great works: A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, The Gulag Archipelago, and The Cancer Ward.  

With Khrushchev’s “secret speech” in 56 and the so-called “De-Stalinization” of the USSR, he was granted some freedom to teach and write, which he did with his cancer going into remission. The novella about Ivan Denisovich garnered him global popularity, but as the USSR clamped down, he found himself harassed and under increased surveillance. He was granted the Nobel Peace Prize in 1970 but could not travel to receive the award. By 1974, he would be stripped of his citizenship and sent to West Germany. He moved to Switzerland and then to the U.S., where he was feted- his “Gulag Archipelago” being one of the great works of literature exposing the Soviet system.  

But for my money, what makes him so significant for the church are two works: his 1974 “Live Not By Lies” was a plan, but also a critique of totalitarianism and a faulty world view that saw man as the measure of all things. And his 1978 commencement speech at Harvard (which was required reading for my students)- expecting a condemnation of the USSR and embrace of the West, the crowd heard nothing of it. Instead, he critiqued his old “empire” but the Western one as well- a comfortable form of Christianity that embraced the same materialism and what he called “legalism” or the idea that if the law says it’s good, it must be… the same kind of “lie” that led to the tragedies of the USSR.

When the Soviet Union fell, he returned to his home country- outliving the Soviet regime but never quite comfortable- perhaps appropriate for any Christian who sees themselves as a pilgrim looking for their eternal home.

You could be uncomfortable with his “Russophilia” or his Orthodoxy, but his penetrating and deeply Christian critique of empire and lies and hope found in the transcendent God and his Son were at the core of his life and writing. Check out his Harvard address, or the short Ivan Denisovich. Alexander Solzhenitsyn died in 2008. Born on this day in 1918, he was 89 years old.

The Last word for today comes from the daily lectionary and some “Second Advent” stuff from 2 Peter:

8 But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. 9 The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.

10 But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything done in it will be laid bare

This has been the Christian History Almanac for the 11th of December 2025, brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org.

The show is produced by a man who was admittedly concerned when he heard that the coastal states were playing with De-Stalinization as a means to make drinking water… he is Christopher Gillespie.

The show is written and read by someone who might hold to a 6000-year  creation… I’m Dan van Voorhis.

You can catch us here every day- and remember that the rumors of grace, forgiveness, and the redemption of all things are true…. Everything is going to be ok.