THE SECRET TRADITION OF THE SACRAMENTS

SACRAMENT: GOOD NEWS TO THE FLESH

MAN IS BORN INTO THE WORLD

WHO IS THE AUTHOR OF THE NEW TESTAMENT?

TO WHAT SHALL I LIKEN THE KINGDOM OF GOD?

THREE ANSWERS ABOUT TRADITION

RUSSIA ON THE VERGE OF THE COUNTER-REFORMATION

AFTERWORD FOR CULTUROLOGISTS

v.2.1 Small formatting, correction of coding for Greek quotations

Protestants about Orthodoxy. The Inheritance of Christ. Christian life. Hardcover, 672 pages 2007 5-93313-028-1

Protestants about Orthodoxy. The Legacy of Christ

Preface

With a student of St. Tikhon's Orthodox Theological Institute, where I teach, once there was an incident that was both funny and characteristic. Like any young Muscovite, he has already been repeatedly harassed by street preachers. Usually they start a conversation with an invitation: "Would you like to come to our party (meeting, student circle, seminar, etc.)?" He had already learned to recognize his excessively sociable peers from sects from afar, and therefore, when another smiling couple headed towards him at the subway station, he inwardly prepared to immediately rebuff them so as not to waste time on arguments.

But he had prepared an answer to one question, and he was asked another. As a result, the dialogue took place as follows: "Tell me, do you believe in God?" – "No, I am Orthodox!"

Of course, avoiding the challenges of Protestants, from explanations with them is not always useful and not for everyone. So, despite the fact that this book is called "To Protestants about Orthodoxy", it is not intended only for Protestants. It is also for those Orthodox who intend not to shy away from the invitations and challenges of Protestant preachers, but to defend their Church by entering into discussion with them. In addition, it can be useful for those Orthodox people who simply want to know their spiritual tradition.

At the end of the Soviet era, it seemed to the people of the Church that the glacial atheistic period would end, people's souls would begin to freeze from the vulgarity of materialism and unbelief, and gradually the people would return to their spiritual history, to their traditions, to Orthodoxy. Without noisy actions, without propaganda obtrusiveness, but through the gradual warming of hearts in Russia, both stone cathedrals and temples of human souls will begin to revive.

During the years of persecution unheard of in history, the Russian Church lost more than 200,000 clergymen killed alone. More than half a million clergymen were repressed[1]. In Russia, there has never been such a number of ministers of the Church at the same time. The enormity of this figure means that several generations of priests were knocked out – not "natural" generations, but rather military "conscriptions", when another immediately took the place of the arrested altar servant.

A young man from a village studied with me at the seminary, in which a church had never been closed during the years of Soviet rule. But in the mid-20s, the Chekists loomed near the temple - and arrested a priest, a deacon, a warden, church singers, a sexton and a watchman. But the temple was not closed. People walked around, sighed and decided: why should the church stand idle, we must serve in it. And the walkers went to the bishop and asked to give them a new priest or to ordain one of the villagers themselves as a priest and deacon. The new clergy served for four years. And a black funnel arrived. All the "churchmen" were arrested again. And again, the temple was not closed. And again there were people who threw down a quiet challenge to the authorities and took upon themselves the cross of the priesthood... This story was repeated five times. And each time there were people who were ready to go to the chopping block for Christ's sake. They were knocked out. Alexander Solzhenitsyn calls it "artificial selection" that was carried out on the Russian people: knocking out the best, surviving the worst...

And so the crippled Church turned to the crippled people. Quietly, half-audible, without the glitter of the show and without the tinsel of slogan rhetoric... Too quiet. The megaphones of the consumer cult, supported by the speakers of foreign sects, drowned out the voice of the Russian Church. Foreign sects, including Protestant Christians, decided to take advantage of the weakness of the Church and the ignorance of people. They do not know Orthodoxy, they do not love it, and therefore they are determined to finish it off. What the Communists did not have time to do, the American missionaries are trying to bring to an end. Only instead of referring to Marx and Lenin, in their criticism of Orthodoxy they refer to the Old Testament: they say, you paint icons contrary to Moses and do not observe the Sabbath...

Following the Communists, American-Korean Protestants cultivate in the Russian people a rejection of the spiritual tradition that for a millennium inspired all the best that was in Russian culture and in Russian history. Protestants teach Russian Orthodox Christians that there is no need to pray for the repose of our fathers and ancestors. Protestants teach us that there is no need to baptize our children. They teach the residents of Russia to chant in unison: "Thank you, America, for being there."

And at the same time, their preachers are capable only of criticizing Orthodoxy in absentia. They can still stun a parishioner who really knows neither the Bible nor Orthodoxy. But to justify their attacks on Orthodoxy in the face of truly Orthodox theology is not. And, therefore, people to whom Orthodoxy is dear, to whom Russia is dear, must master the treasure of Orthodox thought, not to know about it from afar and admire it from a distance, but to enter into it themselves.