Today, Orthodox Christians make little use of their own experience. But this experience is there. To become a missionary, it is not necessary to leave Orthodoxy for Protestantism. Moreover, if we put the question of missionary work in a theological perspective, if we think about which of the confessions has potentially richer missionary and "instructive" opportunities, it turns out that it is in Orthodoxy.

Protestantism chose one form of preaching: preaching through speech, appeal, story. Orthodoxy, recognizing and practicing the same verbal preaching, is also able, for example, to preach in colors. What is the name of the greatest Russian Christian preacher of the twentieth century? Who brought the most hearts to Christ? Who, in the darkest years of state atheism, stirred the souls of thousands of people again and again and turned them to the Gospel? No, this is not Father Alexander Men, not Metropolitan Nikolai Yarushevich, and not Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh. It is clear that this is not Billy Graham either. This is Andrei Rublev. His icons, as well as the "black boards" of other ancient iconographers, disturbed souls with their striking eyes, did not allow them to finally drown in the streams of atheistic mockery of the Gospel and Russia. Empirically, in fact, thousands and thousands of fates have proven that an icon can be a sermon. Why do Protestants, who are concerned with preaching, not use this method of addressing people?

And how many cases have there been when a person who could not be convinced by the most intelligent and skillful preachers repentantly changed simply from standing next to the priest, from his one word, from the warmth and depth of his eyes?! [133] It is not only words that can bear witness to Christ. So much light of the heart can be accumulated in a person that through his goodness and kindness people will recognize the Heavenly Father (cf. Matt. 5:16): "It was the presence of this tangible, obvious gift from above, that is, the super-ordinary human gift, that raised an indescribable excitement around John of Kronstadt: people reached out to him not for help for themselves, not because of their weakness, not in the midst of their suffering,  – they reached out to him as a living testimony of the heavenly powers, as a living sign that Heaven is alive, divine and grace-filled" [134].

As A. Bergson remarked, "the saints only exist, but their existence is a call." Here is an example of such a call from the life of Francis of Assisi. One day Francis said to a novice: "Let's go to the city to preach." They walked and talked quietly among themselves all the way about spiritual matters. We walked through the whole city, turned back and so reached the monastery itself. The young brother asked in surprise, "Father, when are we going to preach?" But Francis said, "Haven't you noticed that we have been preaching all the time? We walked decently, talked about the most worthy subjects, those who met looked at us and received peace and tranquility. After all, preaching consists not only in words, but also in behavior itself."

Monasteries, separated by walls from the world – are they not preaching to the world? How many people took the step from excursion to pilgrimage when visiting Russian monasteries? We went to the "state museum-reserve", and came to the Holy Trinity-Sergius Lavra and were surprised to find that it is possible to be a Christian even today. Is not the preaching of Christ the ringing of bells? [136] Does not an Orthodox church preach Christ – even with a sawed-off cross? Does not the priest who walks through the city in a cassock remind us of Christ? Do not the old Orthodox cemeteries preach the resurrection of Christ? After all, even children's baptisms and funeral services for old parents, condemned by Protestant dogmatics, are not for many the first contact with the Christian world and the first prayer to Christ? Vladimir Zelinsky has a testimony about the preaching of the Divine Service: "Most often, the educational function in our country is performed only by the divine service, the chant itself, the prayer structure or the warmth radiated by it... No one calls to the Orthodox Church, they come there themselves."[137]

The Orthodox tradition of preaching is in fact no poorer than the Protestant one, it provides even richer opportunities for missionary work than the Protestant one. And the fact that we misuse these opportunities is our sin, but not of Orthodoxy. "A careless, sluggish will, a heart alien to living pastoral zeal, a superficial and lazy mind try to see in all more or less persistent calls for the most active and intense evangelism something 'inspired from outside' and 'alien to our ancient foundations', 'you know,' they say, 'there is a little smell of the West here...'. Does it smell like the west here?! West?! So it is the "West" that says that evangelism is our necessary duty, that in the absence of a real organization of church preaching, the religious life of the people will die out? That without a serious catechesis of the flock, our divinely beautiful divine services will remain in vain, misunderstood, unexperienced, and the Holy Mysteries will be marked like beads under the feet of pigs? So, I ask, is this 'the West'? – What, then, is meant by the 'East', what is the organization of pastoral work? Tell. No, no, gentlemen uninvited defenders of the "East," do not slander Orthodoxy, do not impose on it a pagan attitude towards the people in matters of knowledge of God, do not elevate your carelessness and your soft head pillow to the dogma of Orthodox pastoral practice. I do not argue that this may correspond to your temperament and your routine of life, but it is terribly contrary to the essence of Orthodox Church pedagogy... Never forget that since the Tsar Bell fell and stopped ringing, it has turned into a simple historical antiquity-curiosity... The Ustav, as is known, at one all-night vigil indicates up to 7 cases when it is necessary to address the people with this or that instruction," wrote the missionary priest even before the revolution[138].

Protestants also see the defect of Orthodoxy in the fact that the Orthodox have somewhat devalued the Gospel by seeing in the works of the Holy Fathers and in the acts of the Council a kind of continuing revelation of God. The Gospel is sufficient for salvation, and if someone adds or subtracts even a word from it, he sins mortally. The study of the Gospel is the only way to resolve theological questions. Yes, Orthodoxy does believe that God did not cease to reveal His will to people after the last apostle put the last point in his book. Yes, although it is impossible to speak of the Divine inspiration of the books of the Fathers, we still feel the Divine enlightenment of the pages of the Holy Fathers. Through consonance with the Gospel, we establish whether the Holy Father wrote something from himself or whether he was moved by the same Spirit that acted in the apostles. But does not Protestantism build its own "tradition"? Are not Ellen White's books, with her thousands of fully spiritualistic visions (very similar to the voices of Helena Blavatsky and Helena Roerich), accepted by Adventists as the foundation of their faith, as obligatory and authoritative doctrinal literature? [139]. And was Protestantism itself born simply from the study of Scripture, and not from some mystical experience? A word to Luther: "How often has my heart trembled, how often have I been tormented, and have made to myself the only very strong objection of my adversaries: Are you the only wise one, and all others have erred for so long? And what if you err and deceive so many people, who will all be condemned to eternal punishment? And this continued until Jesus Christ strengthened me with a certain Word of His and strengthened me to such an extent that my heart no longer trembles, but despises these objections of the papists. So the religious life of Protestants is not limited to the study of the Bible.

It is said that Orthodoxy with its "conciliarity" extinguishes individual religious initiative, does not allow a person to stand before God one-on-one. In fact, it is easy to see that the Protestant community has much more control over the lives of its members. An Orthodox parishioner is more likely to complain about his abandonment, about the fact that no one is interested in him, that he is not being led along the path of salvation. And if a Protestant misses one meeting, the next morning there will be a series of calls from "brothers and sisters": why wasn't he there?

They say that Orthodoxy and Catholicism are "expensive" religions, and Protestantism is "cheaper". The argument, of course, is not theological, but it is still false. Orthodox churches are supported by free donations from people and by payments for one-time services. Moreover, those services, for the performance of which a payment is given in a fairly significant amount, are performed by a person once in a lifetime: baptism, wedding, funeral. The sacraments to which an Orthodox Christian most often resorts – confession and communion – are performed free of charge. And only a memorial note with a prosphora and a candle leave a barely noticeable trace in the wallet. In the majority of Protestant communities, there are strictly defined monthly fees – "church tithes". Often, "tithing" is understood literally, as a requirement to put 10 percent of all income at the disposal of pastors. In a number of Protestant countries, a "church tax" has been introduced, which is collected by the state (for example, Germany and the Scandinavian countries). So for an ordinary parishioner to be Orthodox is less "expensive" than to be a Protestant.

It is also said that the Orthodox do not pray to God themselves: the priest reads the prayers for them, who is the mediator between God and the parishioners, while in Protestantism everyone prays for himself. If we are talking about prayer meetings, and not about home and private prayers (where any person prays, of course, quite independently), then everything looks exactly the opposite.

Priests and readers in Orthodox churches consciously read prayers dispassionately, without emotion – on one note. Everyone knows the saying "Read not like a sexton, but with feeling, with sense, with arrangement." So, sextons read this way not because they are tired of reading the same prayers for the hundredth time, but because they are specially taught to read in this way – in a chant (that is, without "arrangement"), dispassionately (that is, without "feeling") and without emphasized edification (that is, without "sense").

The fact is that different people come to church, with different needs and feelings. Church prayers (and above all the Biblical Psalms) contain the entire palette of human feelings – from anger to tenderness, from praise to repentance. Each service carries both joyful and sorrowful words. It is almost impossible to feel all of them simultaneously and equally deeply. Therefore, a person who comes to church with joy will measure the movements of his praying heart with the joyful and thankful words of the service. The one in whose heart at this hour the sigh of repentance sounds more audible will compose in his heart those words of repentance that are also scattered throughout the service. So, if the sexton reads "with expression," he will emphasize in the prayers exactly those places that best correspond to his momentary state, and it may not coincide with the prayerful mood of all the other parishioners. He is sad today – and he will hastily swallow joyful exclamations and accentuate penitential ones. He became more cheerful – and now the repentant pain is no longer conveyed to the parishioners. Highlighting any of the themes in the symphony of the divine service will inevitably lead to the fact that some of those who come will be superfluous on this day. He came with repentant contrition – and only "Hallelujah" is imposed on him. Imagine what would happen if the psalmist began to read the Six Psalms "with expression"! It would no longer be possible for the rest to pray – the moods and preferences of the reader would be imposed on everyone. The monotonous reading of the sexton, which has become proverbial, protects the freedom of prayerful work of the listeners. It is "other people's words" that leave much more freedom for a person to build his own prayer than "improvisation". In general, the purpose of Orthodox worship is not to arouse any feelings, but to transform them.

The smooth flow of the Orthodox service presupposes that each visitor chooses for himself the series of images that is closer to his current spiritual needs. They do not squeeze a tear out of him and do not vomit delight. He plunges into the slowly flowing river of meanings and from hearing to his heart conducts those streams that he personally needs now. The rules of Orthodox church prayer allow you not to listen to the entire course of church readings – if one thought meets your heart's feeling, you can "lag behind" the course of the service, stay alone with this thought in your prayer, and then return to common prayer.

On the contrary, at a Protestant meeting, there is constant emotional pressure on the audience. The one who is now reading his prayer, with breaths, intonations, gestures, squeezes out exactly the emotion that seems to him to be the most important now. Everyone has to participate in the feelings of the pastor or the pronouncer of this prayer.