The Slate is Washed Clean

Whoever is a believer in Christ is a new creation. The old way of living has disappeared. A new way of living has come into existence. (GOD'S WORD® Translation (©1995)
Therefore if any man [be] in Christ, [he is] a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.(King James Bible)</b>

Sequence to Not A Priest's Business:

Vanka's malicious intentions of beating Dyusha to death were completely hindered by Father Konstantin's intervention, which later ensues a very swift but intense fist fight. Konstantin, being more the muscular and experienced one, had soundly knocked out Vanka, and calmly bade a stunned and wide-eyed Dyusha to return home with him.

Weakened form the exhausting night, and his brutal gashes and bruises form Vanka's beating, Dyusha was half-carried by Father Konstantin. The torrent of events, complied with the revelation of Father Konstantin's former life as a thief and convict rendered the lad speechless.
At length, Father Konstantin asked Dyusha as to why he had left.
Ashamedly, the lad answers because he is unworthy of being take into the family, and the guilt of rendering Lyubova-who had woken form the unconsciousness a day after the incident- and he is still is an evil and worthless creature.
Father Konstantin, who had lived a similar life to Dyusha, commiserated acutely and thoroughly with the lad.
Solemnly and in such striking calm manner-almost spiritual in a sense- Konstantin hold the lad protectively in fatherly way, as he felt like a father towards Dyusha, for he too, was an orphan and an outcast.
He tells Dyusha of how God eradicates the old life, and creates a new life. Though Dyusha was serf, a bastard, and an outcast considered even more lower than a trite animal, God created him and he must see himself as God see each man.
He tells Dyusha, every man is veil in his heart, as with Fall. But likewise each man can choose in conscious to be good or evil, and Dyusha, though never taught one single moral, has chosen good, whether he realized he or not.
He tells Dyusha he wishes strongly to have him as his own son, and make him the heir of the family, just as God does with those who accept Christ as their Lord and Savior.