When Tolstoy speaks of Christianity, he's referring to his more objective, philosophical, non-supernatural interpretation of his translation of the Gospels: The Gospel In Brief. For context: https://www.reddit.com/r/TolstoysSchoolofLove/s/g6Q9jbAKSo
"I had such a need then to believe in order to live, but I unconsciously concealed from myself the contradictions and obscurities of Christian teaching. But this giving of meaning to the rituals had limits. If the main words of the Litany became clearer and clearer to me, if I somehow explained to myself the words, "Remembering our most Holy Lady the Mother of God and all the saints, let us give ourselves and one another and our whole life to Christ the Lord," if I explained the frequent repetitions of prayers for the tsar and his family by their being more open to temptation than others and therefore more in need of prayers, if I explained the prayers about trampling our foe and adversary beneath our feet, if I explained them by the fact of evil being that enemy—those other prayers, like the cherubim and the whole sacrament of oblation and "the chosen warriors" and the like, which make up two thirds of all services, either had no explanation or else I felt as I brought explanation to them that I was lying and by that completely destroying my relationship to God, completely losing any possibility of faith.
I felt the same in celebrating the major church feasts. To remember the Sabbath, that is, to devote a day to turning to God, I found understandable. But the chief feast day was a remembrance of the resurrection, the reality of which I could not imagine and understand. And this name of resurrection was also given to the day celebrated every week. And on those days there took place the sacrament of the Eucharist, which was completely incomprehensible to me. The other twelve feast days apart from Christmas commemorated miracles, something I was trying not to think about so as not to deny them—the Ascension, Pentecost, the Epiphany, the feast of the Intercession of the Holy Virgin, etc. In celebrating these feasts, feeling that importance was being given to what was for me the opposite of important, I either invented palliative [relieving symptoms without dealing with the cause of the condition] explanations or I shut my eyes so as not to see what was tempting me.
This happened to me most strongly when taking part in the most usual sacraments, those considered to be the most important, baptism and taking communion. Here I came up against actions that weren't incomprehensible but wholly comprehensible; these actions I found tempting and I was put into a dilemma—either to lie or to reject them.
I will never forget the feeling of torment I underwent when I took communion for the first time in many years. The services, confession, the ritual prayers—all that I could understand and brought about within me the joyous recognition of the meaning of life opening up to me. Taking communion itself I explained to myself as an action commemorating Christ and signifying cleansing from sin and a full understanding of Christ's teaching. If this explanation was artificial I didn't notice its artificiality. I was so full of joy, submitting and humbling myself before the confessor, a simple, timid priest, and exposing all the filth of my soul; I was so full of joy at my thoughts merging with the aspirations of the fathers who wrote the ritual prayers; I was so full of joy to be one with all believers, past and present, that I did not feel the artificiality of my explanation. But when I went up to the "Tsar's Gates" the priest made me repeat what I believe, that what I swallow is true flesh and blood, and I felt cut to the heart; it wasn't just a false note struck, it was a brutal requirement of someone who clearly had never known what faith is.
But now I let myself say it was a brutal requirement; then I didn't even think that, it was just inexpressibly painful for me. I was no longer in the situation I had been in my younger days, thinking that everything in life was clear; I had come to faith because apart from faith I had found nothing, really nothing but annihilation, so I couldn't reject this faith and I submitted. And I found a feeling in my soul that helped me to bear it. This was a feeling of self-abasement [the belittling or humiliation of oneself] and humility. I humbled myself; I swallowed this flesh and blood without any feeling of blasphemy, with the desire to believe, but the blow had been struck. And knowing in advance what was waiting for me, I could no longer go a second time. I continued in the same way to perform the rituals of the church precisely and still believed that in the Christian teaching I followed lay the truth, and something happened to me that now I find clear but then seemed strange.
I was listening to an illiterate peasant pilgrim talking about God, about faith, about life, about salvation, and knowledge of the truth was revealed to me. I became close to the people as I listened to his views on life and faith, and more and more I came to understand the truth. The same happened to me during a reading of Chetyi-Minei and the Prologues (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Menaion_Reader); this became my favorite reading. Apart from miracles, which I regarded as fables to express thoughts, this reading revealed to me the meaning of life. There were the lives of Macarius the Great, of Prince Joseph (the story of Buddha), there were the words of John Chrysostom; there were the stories of the traveler in the well, of the monk who found gold, of Peter the publican; there was the story of the martyrs who all declared the same thing, that death does not exclude life; there were stories of the salvation of men who were illiterate and foolish and knew nothing of the teachings of the church.
But I only had to meet educated believers or take up their books to find some doubts in myself rise up in me with dissatisfaction and an angry desire for argument, and I felt that the deeper I entered into their words, the further I went from the truth and walked toward the abyss." - Leo Tolstoy, Confession, Chapter Fourteen
What was his name? What did he say exactly that moved Tolstoy so? All we know is that some average joe, with no great wealth or station, decided to set the fear for himself (selfishness) aside that would've otherwise have stopped him, to teach something he felt as though needed to be taught, and that people weren't gaining the knowledge of whatsoever otherwise. No matter how many of his peers or contemporaries might look at him differently; no matter what consequences might be waiting for him for doing so, it didn't stop him from speaking out about something that he knew was being buried underneath the hypocrisy of his day that surrounded him.
Words of a knowledge he knew would only lead to a better, brighter future for not just those he may have loved and cared for, but for all those with ears and a means to understand them; and for all those living things presently suffering and dying at the hands of a human being, and of course and especially for all the countless that have yet to be born, only destined to suffer the same fate. And for all those he may save therefore, by setting himself aside (selflessness) and acting upon this great incentive; will; truth, that led to inspire men like Tolstoy, that led to inspire you and I, and you and I inspiring the people of today and subsequently of tomorrow, potentially stopping even just one of the present or the future from acting upon their instincts (selfishness; hate), saving therefore even just one, out of the countless of the present or future from being destroyed by either their own hands, or by the hands of another.