What is the experience of our missionaries, especially those who grew up in an Islamic environment? I personally know one Uzbek priest, he received a solid theological education, was engaged in translating the liturgy into his native language. But whether his works are used in Tashkent, what happens to the mission there, what his experience teaches us in general – we know nothing about this, this topic, in fact, is not in demand in the church environment. He himself was converted somehow, became a priest – that's good, that's enough.

Why does this happen? I see two main reasons, and the first of them is socio-political. It is easy to come from America and preach, but if your own local diocese takes up this work, you can imagine what a protest it will cause... Not even for Muslim believers, in fact, no one will prevent them from going to the mosque and keeping uraza as before, but rather from those politicians who are actively playing the card of ethnic Islam. So, it turns out that we are not necessarily Muslims by birth, so then you are not all Orthodox? Is the centuries-old balance being disturbed?! The honest answer will be: yes, far from all, and what seemed unshakable has long been violated in our society, so now we need to give everyone a free and conscious choice. Only such an answer can come out of place.

But it's not just about politics. In explaining our faith to others who are different from us in their culture, worldview, and language, we will inevitably have to redefine the truths of faith for ourselves, and simply repeating pious phrases will not help, but will only hinder. We will have to separate the foundations of our faith, which are obligatory for all, from the external and folklore, and recognize the right of each people to build this external in its own way, as our ancestors once did (anyone who has been to Greece saw perfectly well that there is a difference in the way of life between Russians and Greeks, with complete unity in faith). And moreover: we will have to express these truths of faith to an unusual, unprepared audience, which is in no hurry to agree, but, on the contrary, asks extremely uncomfortable questions. Are we ready for this?

Now, it seems, they are not ready at all. Accusatory pathos addressed to Muslims, or Protestants, or the West, or everyone in general – after all, it sometimes comes from impotence, from the inability to explain the merits of one's faith. If I can't defend my own, I'll attack someone else's, prove (to myself, first of all) that everything is much worse for them than for us. But this is not missionary work at all. The purpose of a true evangelist is not to blaspheme someone else's, but to tell and show in practice what is so good about us.

And if we do not learn to do this in the very near future, we will have to come to terms with what is already becoming a reality in some Islamic regions of our country: Orthodoxy is understood there as the ethnic religion of Russians, and the supranational, worldwide idea of Christianity is associated almost exclusively with Protestantism. And it's not just about the Islamic context. Already in Siberia, the picture has become quite typical: in a small town there are one or two Orthodox churches and several Protestant communities. Yes, churches can be quite crowded, but if we count the residents of such a city who regularly attend Sunday services, then I think the figures for Protestants and Orthodox Christians will be comparable. But missionary activity among Protestants is an order of magnitude or two higher.

Perhaps one of the main reasons for our inaction and our complacency is that Orthodoxy in Russia seems to us to be something given once and for all, something that will not disappear and will diminish. In our lifetime, perhaps, it will be so. But we are Orthodox in order to think not in terms of the current moment, but in a historical perspective. The great churches of Antioch and Alexandria once seemed like such strongholds, and what about them now? Tiny Antakya on the outskirts of Turkey, small Copts in Egypt – they have survived, of course. But this is not the fate I would wish for my local Church.

The only Copt I know personally is a colleague of mine, who advises translation projects in the Middle East. Only he himself is a Protestant, and this does not surprise me at all.

19. Orthodoxy from scratch?

Who did not dream of great discoveries in childhood... A caravel or a frigate cuts through the ocean waves, and shouts from the mast about the land that is near, and the boat is already launched, and the captain girds himself with his sword to give the island a new name and hoist the banner of his kingdom over it. And curious people look from the shore — and who knows, aren't they bloodthirsty? — natives. They marvel at this miracle, a huge wooden fish in which pale-faced people, or even gods, swam in, who can make them apart!

And then everything is not so romantic: you need to look for water and grow food, build housing and defensive structures, trade and fight with these very natives, in a word, start a new life in a new place. And one day another ship will anchor in the harbor, on which settlers from a distant and almost forgotten homeland will sail to start life anew in this harsh land and arrange everything here better and easier than it was at home. They will sail in search of happiness.

Today, everything is not so romantic at all: airports and train stations, passport control, and the natives are not savages in palm leaf skirts, they wear the same jeans and drink the same cola or beer. And in general, they look, as a rule, much more civilized than migrants looking for a better life. But the problems, in fact, are the same. And looking at how millions of our former and current fellow citizens are leaving our country, how the very borders of this country are changing, cutting off from it those who did not even think about emigration, one cannot help but wonder: what will happen to the Russian diaspora in a hundred or two years? What will it preserve in the diaspora: language, culture, religion? The Jews, for example, for thousands of years have preserved their religion, but not the language, the Gypsies are exactly the opposite, the Chinese manage to preserve both, but the Irish lost their language even in their homeland, but taught everyone else beer and songs of their country...

But now, of course, I want to talk not about beer, not about songs, and not even about language, but rather about Orthodoxy. For centuries now, wave after wave, generation after generation, our countrymen find themselves on foreign shores, and there some preserve the faith of their fathers, others regain it for themselves — and there are more of them, it must be said. Yes, at home they could go to the church, which was part of the landscape for them, but on other shores the landscapes are not the same as before. And the churches that come across in the main squares of cities are not Orthodox at all. You can go there too. But you often have to go to an Orthodox church in a neighboring city (and transport is expensive!), and on the only day off, and you have to maintain the church on your own meager means...

A luxurious church complex is being built in Paris now, and other Orthodox churches there are in perfect order. And in the thirties of the last century, the liturgy was served in the garage, the emigrants simply did not have enough money for another room. Only those who prayed at that service later remembered this garage with icons as something most beautiful and precious in life. There they met something that they did not find in the Kremlin and St. Petersburg cathedrals, in the best monasteries of abandoned Russia... Is it only because these people turned to faith in a desperate time, when they had lost everything earthly and could only hope for heavenly things? Or for some other reason?

I was told by a Russian priest serving outside of Russia, and then his words were confirmed by another priest, a European, serving in an Orthodox church in his native country: it is easier to start from scratch. There are too many demands on Orthodoxy, firmly inscribed in the familiar landscape. And it's not even about those crowds who come to bless willows and Easter cakes and sort out the Epiphany water, not about those parishioners who bring to baptize babies and bury the dead, not wanting to know anything else. They have one requirement: to be ritually served, and they do not particularly interfere with the worshippers.