Panin, Ivan

IVAN PANIN was born in Russia in 1855. A firm agnostic and nihilist, he was exiled for participating in plots against his government, emigrated to Germany, and eventually to the United States. Here he graduated from Harvard as a Master of Literary Criticism, delivering outstanding lectures at premium venues. His conversion to Christianity in the late 1880's was an event that produced no small public stir, as his agnostic position was well-known and had been considered unassailable. In 1890, his attention was caught by the first chapter of John, in which the article is used before God in one in...