"The history of the Russian Orthodox culture shows that the Transfiguration was included in the list of the assumedly crucial theological and traditional values": it was stated by Aleksandr Sorokin, professor at the Academy of Saint Petersburg, in his speech at the XV International Ecumenical Meeting, "The Transfigured Christ in the Orthodox spiritual tradition", which began in Bose yesterday. In ancient Moscow and in Saint Petersburg explained Sorokin , many were the churches and monasteries dedicated to the Transfiguration. "There may be a bond he added with reference to people’s religiosity between it and the harshness of the climate: hard living conditions make man rely more strongly on the Maker, who can turn the ice-clad land into a garden". "Even the doctor in Bulgakov’s novel ‘The heart of a dog’ is named Preobrazeskij, which means ‘of the transfiguration’: the book meant to show the powerlessness of the God-less man". In the Russian culture: "Transfiguration is opposed to progress; it was the fruit, just before the First World War, of their opposition to the Western civilisation, which sacrifices everything to material progress. After all, twentieth-century Russia too was weakened by ‘progress’, as the Communist leaders meant it".
