Doctor Zhivago Religion Quotes

How we cite our quotes: (Part.Chapter.Paragraph)

Quote #7

The Holy Virgin on the icon freed her narrow, upturned, swarthy palms from the silver casing. She was holding in them, as it were, the first and last letters of her Byzantine title: Meter Theou, the Mother of God. (10.5.2)

In the middle of Doctor Zhivago, Pasternak decides to let us look in on a peasant woman named Galuzina. One of the reasons he does this is because throughout this book, we've only really been exposed to educated people like Zhivago, who thinks about religion in a very philosophical way. For the peasant Galuzina, though, religion isn't something you can just think about and question. It's the total truth of everyday existence—the unchanging thing that keeps you connected to all the people who came before you.

Quote #8

With tears of pity for himself, he murmured against heaven in a voiceless whisper for having turned away from him and abandoned him. (13.9.7)

When he thinks he's dying of illness, Zhivago curses heaven (and probably God) for abandoning him. This actually creates a parallel between him and Jesus Christ, who said something similar while he was hanging on the cross. It turns out, though, that God hasn't deserted Zhivago at all, because he wakes up from his fever soon after to find himself lying in the arms of his lover, Lara Antipova.

Quote #9

"Such a work—the latest in time, not yet supplanted by anything else, performed by the entire inspiration of our time—is Christianity." (13.17.7)

For Zhivago, history is made up of great movements and great art. For him, the last of these great movements was Christianity. In his mind, all of modern Western religion stems from Jesus Christ, and whether you believe in Christianity or not, you have to agree that it has completely molded much of the modern world.