In his book, Priest Georgy Chistyakov reflects on the foundations of the Christian faith, the history of the Bible and the Church, and their creative impact on morality and culture.

Orthodoxy, faith, Christ, Gospel, Liturgy, miracle, fear of God ru Igor Grushin FB Editor v2.0 February 15, 2009 http://tapirr.com/ekklesia/chistyakov/razm_sevang/ind.htm; http://www.ccel.org/contrib/ru/xml/Chistyakov_Gospel.zip 839968D0-D5F6-4447-8113-49DAAFBDA868 2.0 Priest Georgy Chistyakov. Meditation with the Gospel in hand. "The Way" 1996 5-86748-070-4

Priest Georgy Chistyakov

Meditation with the Gospel in Hand

Belief or Idea

Today, when you talk to people who admit that they do not believe in God, but at the same time admit that they would like to believe, you are almost always faced with the fact that they explain their unbelief by the fact that they know little or nothing about God, about the Gospel, about the Church, and, most importantly, about its rites. It is impossible not to pay attention to the fact that these people see in faith, treating it with great respect, some special knowledge that is closed to them. They always emphasize that they did not go to Sunday school, that they were not taught to think about God, and they say that this is why it is difficult for them to believe. Both people who are far from the Church and those who consider themselves to be part of it, or, not relating themselves to the Church, nevertheless consider themselves Orthodox, confuse faith and convictions, faith and theological, philosophical, and even political views, faith and morality. As a result, knowledge of God is replaced by knowledge of God. And now the supporter of the "Russian idea," autocracy, or simply the Russian way of life, nostalgically recalling how "in the old days grandfathers lived," a connoisseur of church antiquities, icons or singing, or the culture of our past in general, begins to think that he is an Orthodox Christian. This is how the Christianity of the mind or the Orthodoxy of ideas is born, in other words, the Orthodox is not a faith, but an ideology. And some, simply thinking that it is impossible to be Russian and not be Orthodox, only consider themselves to be Orthodox and cannot even explain what their Orthodoxy consists of. This is not even an Orthodox idea, it is something reminiscent of an entry about religious affiliation in a passport and nothing more.

Christianity begins with genuflection

At the same time, we somehow forget that Christianity begins with genuflection. "Enter into thy chamber, and shutting the door," the Saviour tells us in the Sermon on the Mount, "turn with prayer to thy Father who is in secret" (Matthew 6:6). Indeed, it is with this illogical, inexplicable desire to turn to God, to speak to Him, with the need to see in God not "Him" to talk about, but "You" to whom we can talk, with the need for a personal encounter with Jesus, that our faith begins. Not to share the views of other Orthodox Christians, but to have a deeply personal need for communion with God – this is what it means to be a Christian. The need to pray, to lock oneself in an empty room, to kneel, etc., is precisely a need, but in no way a duty or obligation.

A few years ago, when the children's Bible was not yet freely sold, an employee of the Academy of Sciences, being on some business related to a trip abroad, in the Patriarchate, bought it there for his son. I bought it, because I believed that a child should know Homeric poems, the Mahabharata and Ramayana, the song of the Nibelungs, etc., including the Bible. He bought it, gave it to his six-year-old son and forgot about it.

A few days passed; Either he himself or his wife went into their son's room in the evening and saw the boy standing on his knees in bed and praying. No one taught him this, no one talked to him about God at all, but when he opened the Bible, he himself suddenly felt an impulse of his heart to God. The impulse that comes from the depths of his self and is inexplicable is probably the mustard seed from which the tree of faith grows (cf. Matthew 13:31-32). If this seed in the heart, which, let us not forget, is smaller than any other seed, has not fallen, then it is not faith, but ideology. Religion without a core is either a way of life with fasts, with its own style (in dress, behavior, etc.), with customs and even with church services, or a way of thinking with adherence to certain principles and theories, but not life with Christ and in Christ.

First of all, one thing makes us Christians – the need to pray, to open our hearts to Jesus, the need to carry the Gospel everywhere in our bag and read it, listening to what the Lord is telling you. We are often asked: how often should I be in church, at confession, take communion, and so on? To this I always answer: you don't owe anything at all if you don't need it.