Hence, in the words of L. Uspensky, "one should not simplify the problem: if something did not exist in the first centuries of Christianity, this does not mean that it is not necessary in our time" [158]. And, therefore, if Gregory the Theologian says something that John the Theologian did not say, this is not necessarily a distortion of the Apostle's word. The Church is a living organism, and development is characteristic of the living. And so the Baptist claim that they have returned to "apostolic simplicity" is unconvincing: you cannot force an adult to get back into the cradle and wear children's clothes, no matter how cute they may be. Christianity is already adult. It is two thousand years old, and this tree, which has grown over two millennia, cannot be cut back to the size and shape of the sprout from which it began at the dawn of Christianity.

It is natural for a person to express the most important things in his life through the forms of art, and it is impossible to forbid any religious painting only on the assumption that the apostolic community did not know it! It is natural for man to seek the realization of his faith, it is natural to strive to bring into the possession of reason what he has acquired in the experience of Revelation – not in order to test Revelation with reason, but in order to teach reason to live with Revelation, so that the experience that is given to the heart may be made the subject of intellectual consideration. And if the Church did not immediately use philosophical tools to explain its faith and hope, this does not mean that all the achievements of post-apostolic theology should be abolished. Christ compared the Kingdom of God to a growing seed, a tree, a leaven. And why blame the tree for the fact that it did not remain a seed, but absorbed all the complexity of the world and man! The tree left behind by Christ "behind Himself" sprouted through history, absorbing its juices and dissolving them with the currents of Heaven. And only a person who is ashamed of Christ and the mystery of the Incarnation of God can say that the Church has "tied herself in vain" to "this world."

Yes, the Scriptures are the norm of Christian faith and life, it is a tuning fork. But can a tuning fork replace the entire choir? Does the multiplication table replace the real work of a mathematician? Does the publication of a textbook of Russian grammar veto the appearance of Pushkin's poems or Dostoevsky's novels? It is impossible to contradict the canon. But you can't contradict the rules of the Russian language either. Does the establishment of rules of speech make the subsequent development of literature superfluous? Does the recognition of Paul's Epistles as inspired make us disparage Augustine's Confessions?

What does Orthodoxy mean in general? It is the Gospel plus the grateful acceptance of its impact on those people of different times, cultures, and peoples who have fully opened themselves to Christ's message. Orthodoxy is trust in history. For the Orthodox, it is inconceivable that the experience of revelation and communion with God, which the apostles had, then suddenly became inaccessible. This "new teaching" seems strange to us, that Christ forgot His disciples for a millennium and a half and left them in error in matters of importance for salvation (for this contradicts the dogma of the Creator's love for mankind).

Orthodoxy is alien to total suspicion, which believes that "there was one Christian in the world and he was crucified." Orthodoxy believes that in the space of two millennia of Christian history there were many people who heard the Gospel with their hearts and did not distort it either in their lives or in their preaching. In the classic book of monastic spirituality, in "The Ladder", it is said that "a monk is one who holds only to God's words and commandments in all times and places and deeds"[159]. And, according to the remark of Archpriest. According to John Meyendorff, the Church in her "Symbol of Faith" calls herself apostolic, and not patristic, because the holy father becomes the one who in adequate words was able to preach the original apostolic faith in his time and manifest the Gospel life in himself.

For the Orthodox worldview, the Gospel parables about the Kingdom of God are very dear. These are parables about the patience and humility of God. The Kingdom of God does not come "in a noticeable way," it does not simply invade history from outside, it is thrown into the human world, but gradually matures and sprouts within this world. Such are the parables of the grain, of the leaven, of the "mustard seed."

And especially dear to the Orthodox heart are the farewell words of Christ: "Behold, I am with you always, even to the end of the age" (Matt. 28:20). From these "all days" Protestant ecclesiology is forced to exclude those days that have elapsed between the time of the apostles and the appearance of the denomination in whose name the Protestant preaches (in the mild version this is the time from the Emperor Constantine to Luther, in the hard version – from the apostles to, say, the emergence of the Pentecostals).

The Orthodox, on the other hand, cannot draw a line between the era of the "real Church" and the centuries of "semi-pagan pseudo-Christianity." We cannot limit the time of the action of the Spirit of Christ to the period of the life of the apostles. We do not see a turning point between the apostolic Church and the subsequent one. We also see the gifts of the apostles in the Christians of subsequent generations ("The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faith, meekness, self-control" – Gal. 5:22-23). I saw these gifts in my contemporaries. Will Protestants say that they have not seen them among the Orthodox? Well, this will be a judgment that characterizes only their experience, their world, but not the world of Orthodoxy.

In general, the position of a person who asserts, "I have not seen," "I have not seen," "I have not come across," is always weaker than that of those who say, "But we have been there," and that which we have heard, seen with our eyes, that our hands have examined and touched, we declare to you, that ye also may have fellowship with us. Yes, yes, I am here applying to Protestants the argument that we (both Orthodox and Protestants) so often use in polemics with non-believers. How can a person who does not have, who has not experienced any religious experience at all, judge religion? Will not his judgments be as competent as those of a deaf man about music? Isn't the value of "scientific-atheistic" treatises like the dissertations of a man born blind on the history of painting? Protestants know and use the argument of the traveler to the skeptical homebody: if you, neighbor, have not been to Jerusalem and do not know the way there, this does not mean that Jerusalem really does not exist, that it is impossible to get there, and that all the stories of travelers are nothing more than fiction. So, it is precisely on the basis of religious experience that this argument of the traveler can be readdressed to Protestants: brothers, if you have not made pilgrimages to Orthodox monasteries, if you have not felt a quiet breeze of the spirit in the monastic cells, if your heart has not soared with relief after confession and you have not felt the blood of Christ in your veins after communion, then at least do not rush with your denials. Not everyone had such a sad and fruitless experience of touching Orthodoxy. Otherwise, there would be no Orthodoxy.

And even if we start talking about the sins and illnesses of modern Orthodoxy, it will still not be possible to draw a line between the "sinless church" and the "sinful church." "The whole Church is the Church of the penitents, it is the whole Church of the perishing," said St. John the Baptist in the fourth century. Ephraim the Syrian[162]. The sins familiar to us from ourselves, from our contemporaries, and from the history of the Church, existed both in apostolic times and in apostolic communities (lust for power, disputes, schisms, ambition, lack of understanding of Christ, exaggerated material interest, legalism, and libertinism[163]). Christ says to the Apostolic Churches: "You have forsaken your first love [...] I know thy works; thou hast a name that thou art alive, but thou art dead [...] I do not find that thy works are perfect in the sight of my God [...] thou art neither cold nor hot [...] thou say, "I am rich, I have become rich, and have need of nothing"; but you do not know that you are miserable, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked" (Rev. 2:4; 3:1-2; 3:15-17). And already the apostles had to say to their disciples: "You walked well: who stopped you?" (Gal. 5:7).

For a long time there is a story in monastic books about two monks who went on business to the city and were seduced by prostitutes there. Returning to the monastery, they repented, and for the correction and lamentation of their sins, the council of elders determined that they should spend some time in their cells without any communion, but only in prayer. At the end of this time of penance, both sinners left their cells. One was pale, and his eyes were red with tears. The other is cheerful and without traces of weeping. The brothers asked the first, "What were you doing at that time?" "I cried and asked the Lord to forgive me my sin. Then they asked the second: how did you spend this time? "I rejoiced and thanked God that He forgave me my sin and allowed me to return to the monastic life. The elders consulted and said that both ways were good... These two monks are the two main moods of historical Orthodoxy. We know our sin and do not deny it (although it does not consist in the veneration of icons, as it seems to Protestants). But we also know the goodness of God. "For what then? if some were unfaithful, will their unfaithfulness destroy the faithfulness of God? Nohow. God is faithful, but every man is a liar" (Romans 3:3). When an Orthodox person reads this word of the Apostle, then by "everyone" he understands himself as well. Therefore, I can fully say: "God is faithful, and every Orthodox person is a liar." Would a Pentecostal dare to say, "Every Pentecostal is a liar"? Or have they found a way to use the words "all" and "everyone" while excluding themselves from these "all"?

We know that Christians can sin, and therefore we can peer into the chiaroscuro of history. Orthodoxy accepts history: the gift of Christ has not been extinguished, has not faded. His presence, His action in His people has not diminished with the change of generations. But if the Spirit of God breathes in all ages, if Christ is really with us all the days (with us, and not only with the apostles until the day of their death), then is it possible to evade the study and acceptance of the experience of life in Christ that has been accumulated during these "all days"?

We do not place this experience above the apostolic one. We test the works of the Holy Fathers by the Gospel yardstick. But the Gospel is given in order to be put into practice. And life is so complex and diverse. God cannot be contained in books. A person cannot fit into books. Human situations are complex and innumerable. That is why Orthodoxy says: the Gospel is a measure for us, a rule. But life is not reduced to a collection of rules. Not in the sense that it allows exceptions to the rule, but in the sense that the same advice can be carried out in very different ways by different people in different circumstances.

So what did Orthodoxy accumulate during those centuries when, according to Protestants, Christians did not exist on earth? First of all, knowledge of the depths of the human soul. The difference between Protestant and Orthodox literature is obvious: Protestant literature has a missionary character, it leads people to accept God and to the Gospel. Protestant literature speaks of what happens in a person on the border of faith and unbelief (however, Protestant pamphlets do not reach the depths of Dostoevsky and St. Augustine).