To Protestants about Orthodoxy

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.

In a Protestant prayer house, it seems to me, it is much more difficult to fulfill a desire that is familiar to many, many people – to go to a weekday service for ten minutes, to stand quietly and discreetly, to collect one's thoughts, to be in church one-on-one with God, to pray for one's own and to leave just as imperceptibly. The smooth and discreet flow of the everyday Orthodox service does not prevent a person from turning directly to God with his thoughts. Reading, singing, and Church Slavonic recitative create a general mood, and what exactly this or that person will express from his heart in this or that common aspiration to God depends only on him. Even the fact that the language of our services is not very clear – even this can help the birth of personal prayer. If I go to church for five minutes, and I still do not understand what the reader is reading, then I will pray in my own words and for my own. And the fact that it is quieter here than outside, and quieter not only physically, but also spiritually, will help me to look better into myself... And in Protestant churches, hymns are too loud, the words of prayers are too loud and insistent, the sermons are too imperative and self-confident. There is a minute of silent prayer – but if you have crossed the threshold at the wrong moment, then it will be difficult to maintain your silence. Praying to God on our own behalf and regardless of what is happening in the congregation is much more difficult here.

They say that Orthodox Christians pray memorized from a book, and Protestants – from the heart, in their own words. But, strange as it may seem, it is precisely the "words of others" that leave much more freedom for a person to build his own prayer than "improvisation". The canonical prayer of the priest in the church protects the prayer work of others. A priest can be untalented, insincere, and unspiritual. But he doesn't say his own words! And therefore, his speech is still both spiritual and talented! He speaks words that have been filtered out over millennia. A Protestant pastor can have the same unattractive qualities. His parishioners, however, in this case are doomed to listen to his attempts at "inspired prayer."

The Orthodox "rite" makes the priest inconspicuous. The same intonation, the same words and the same melodies are sung by priests of the most diverse spiritual merits. The Orthodox clergyman does not focus his attention on himself. It is not so much that he conducts the service, as the service conducts him. On the contrary, the Protestant preacher is forced to put himself in the center of attention. He is forced to speak with affectation, in an extremely strained voice, gesticulating strongly, turning from side to side, repeating in different ways common phrases used by everyone.

They say that an Orthodox simply reads a book, "reads", and does not pray. According to my observations, there is much less prayer in the public prayer proclamations of Protestants. Look closely at a person who prays loudly in the presence of other people. After all, he does not think "to God" – but about how to say "about God" better. He thinks not so much about his vital spiritual needs, but about how to express himself more effectively in the presence of his fellows. He has no time to pray – he "creates", painfully gives birth to impromptu[141].

In general, "all the persecutors of the traditional rite do not notice that in reality they introduce only ... A new rite. Thus, Protestantism, having raised its bold hand against the age-old and aesthetically beautiful Catholic rite, only replaced it with another, poor and dry, prosaic rite, within which, however, it is no less possible to be an Old Believer than in the most magnificent ritual. Thus, our sectarians replace the divine beauty of Orthodox liturgics with boring and mediocre "psalms", dry Protestant rites.

Here is a report on the Baptist rite of baptism: "At the end of the choir singing, Brother A. N. Karpov invites the congregation to sing in common singing a cheerful, joyful hymn No 306 from the Collection of Spiritual Songs, which the faithful sing with a special spiritual uplift: "I am at the shore of the burial, at the grave of the water, as a sacrifice to God without doubt I give myself with all my soul. Oh, receive me, O Saviour, into Thy faithful Church; I believe, my Redeemer, in Thy Blood shed"... The clock struck 7. The presbyter-baptizer approaches the baptistery filled with water and descends into it by the steps. Before beginning the baptism, he performs a brief prayer in his mind in the baptistery, chest-deep in water, after which, to the accompaniment of the choir, which sings the hymn "That wondrous tidings I firmly believe," one by one the baptized approach the baptistery... Throughout the baptismal process, the choir sings the hymn "That Wonderful Tidings I Firmly Believe," repeating each verse several times until all forty have been baptized. The baptism is over. After thanking the Lord, brother A. N. Karpov also went to change clothes. At the pulpit at that time there was brother Y. I. Zhidkov, who proposed to sing hymns No 113 and No 229 from the Collection of Spiritual Songs in common singing. After the singing of the choir, Brother Y. I. Zhidkov proposes to sing another hymn in common singing: "How Happy I Am" (Collection, No 305), which the faithful sing with great enthusiasm. "By faith in Him I was baptized, rejecting sin and the power of the flesh," these words are sung with a particularly joyful feeling by the newly baptized. During the singing, voluntary donations are collected for the needs of the church: the maintenance of the premises, heating, lighting, repairs, the purchase of wine for the breaking of bread, the publication of the magazine "Bratsky Vestnik", for various business trips of the brothers and the salaries of both the ministers of the church and other employees working in the Moscow community and in the All-Union Library. And what is freer, deeper, more humane, more poetic than the Orthodox rite of baptism?

According to Protestants, the Orthodox revere man-made, human shrines too much, which for them obscure the Living God. But it is Protestants who gain faith in creation – for them the Word of God is the Bible. The Logos was incarnated not so much in the flesh of Jesus as in the lines of the book. An Orthodox person will not say that God lives in an icon or that God is an icon. A Protestant is ready to say this about the Bible. When talking to Protestants, the most difficult answer to the question is what Christ left to people after His Ascension. They insist on repeating the Bible. I try to explain to them that Christ left Himself to us, left His Spirit in the Body of His Church – but my interlocutors stand their ground to the last opportunity: the Savior has left us books, books, we will live by books, we will be guided by books, the Revelation of God is contained for us in the book...