domestic "church", trying to involve miriskusniks. Of the latter, only Filosofov took the idea seriously and became the third member of the so-called Troyebratstvo (The Brotherhood of Three) built loosely upon the Holy Trinity format and having to do with the obscure 12th century idea of the Third Testament. Merezhkovsky developed it into the Church of the Holy Ghost, destined to succeed older churches – first of the Father (Old Testament), then of the Son (New Testament). The services at Troyebratstvo (with the traditional Russian Orthodox elements organized into a bizarre set of rituals) were seen by many as blasphemy and divided the St. Petersburg intellectual elite: Vasily Rozanov was fascinated by the thinly veiled eroticism of the happening, Nikolai Berdyaev was among those outraged by the whole thing, as were the (gay, mostly) members of Mir Iskusstva. Sergei Diaghilev accused Filosofov of committing 'adultery'. The latter in 1905 settled down in Merezhkovskys' St. Petersburg house, becoming virtually a family member. In 1904 Peter and Alexis, the third and final novel of Christ and Antichrist trilogy was published (in Novy Put, Nos.1–5, 9–12), having at its focus the figure of Peter the Great as an "embodied Antichrist" – an idea the author shared with Russian raskolniki. The novel's release was now eagerly anticipated in Europe where Merezhkovsky by this time has become a best-selling author, Julian the Apostate having undergone ten editions (in four years) in France. But when The Daily Telegraph described the novelist as "an heir to Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky's legacy," back in Russia critics denounced this praise so unanimously that Merezhkovsky was forced to publicly deny having had any pretensions of this kind whatsoever. 1905–1908 After the Bloody Sunday of January 9, 1905, Merezhkovsky's views changed drastically, the defeat of the Imperial Russian Navy by the Imperial Japanese Navy helping him see, as he put it, "the anti-Christian nature of the Russian monarchy." The 1905 Revolution was now seen by Merezhkovsky as a prelude for some kind of a religious upheaval he thought himself to be a prophet of. The writer became an ardent supporter of the civil unrest, writing pro-revolutionary verse, organizing protest parties for students, like that in Alexandrinsky theatre. In October 1905 he greeted the government's 'freedoms-granting' decree but since then was only strengthening ties with leftist radicals, notably, esers. In The Forthcoming Ham (Gryadushchu Ham, 1905) Merezhkovsky explained his political stance, seeing, as