“Literature always has moral ingredient. Let’s take Nabokov for example. I consider him the greatest Russian writer. He masters the language as, perhaps, no other. But moral aspect almost levels and lacks in his works. I don’t understand what his works teach,” head of the Synodal Department for External Church Relations Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk said in his program The Church and the World on Rossiya 24 TV.
He noted that most important thing in literature for him is “its moral aspect.”
“But literary work shouldn’t turn in a moral teaching. There is an example of another great Russian writer, who was really great in his literary work, but when instead of novels he started writing morality books for peasants, it resulted in his conflict with the Church. I mean Leo Tolstoy,” the metropolitan said.