On Russian land the feet of the Mother of God have trod

Sergei Bulgakov who, at the height of the unleashing of atheism, asked Patriarch Tikhon to become a priest and was ordained on the day of Pentecost 1918, published a curious dialog, "At the Feast of the Gods," in a collection of articles about the Revolution, published under the name “De Profundis," featuring characters who are Russian theologians and intellectuals. We read:

Writer: Why do you seek the living among the dead? Why do you show so little faith? Our Russia lives, and as of old the Russian Christ in slavish, profaned guise, without a glimmer of goodness, walks about her… the Russian soul will hear the sacred call and, with a cry of insane joy, will fall at the feet of its teacher. ... We have nothing except this faith, nothing except this hope. But the Russian land knows this, and it will save the Russian people, on Russian land the feet of the Mother of God have trod. . . .

Refugee: Just before the October overturn I chanced to hear the confession of a man close to me. With great agitation and tender emotion he told how, during a time of intense prayer before the revealed image of the Mother of God, suddenly, with complete clarity, there sounded in his heart, "Russia is saved." … We need not fear for Russia. Russia is saved by the power of the Mother of God. And, you may trust, all of Orthodox Russia is firmly convinced of this. 

Excerpt from De profundis, a collection of articles by Sergei Bulgakov, published in October 1918 in Moscow, of which there are only two known copies in the West. The book was re-published in Paris by Ymca Press, 1967. The Feast of the Gods appears on pp. 107-171.