I even ask sensible Orthodox young men to seriously think: is it worth going to the seminary right away? Maybe you should first get a university education in Oriental Studies? After all, in the next century we will no longer meet with the West, but with the East. There must be people in the Church who are prepared for this in advance. However, this is not only about China and the Chinese. Eastern religious ideas are already fermenting in the minds of many Russian philistines. And therefore, for missionary work in the Russian environment, it is already necessary to know the history and philosophy of Eastern religions.

Twenty years ago, people were amazed if they met a believing physicist: "Why, are you a physicist and a Christian at the same time? How can this be combined? In the same way, today they are amazed when they meet with Orthodox Orientalists: "How? Do you know Sanskrit (Chinese, Japanese...), do you read the primary sources of ancient Eastern teachings, do you know Eastern wisdom and at the same time you are not a Buddhist, but an Orthodox? Is there anything interesting in Orthodoxy? Tell me!"

So I sometimes ask those young men whose heads are in the right place, and whose hearts burn with a desire to serve the Church, to make this heavy sacrifice: to consciously immerse themselves in the world of Eastern magic, occultism, and paganism in order to protect Russia from this darkness later. No "missionary seminaries" will help here. It is necessary first to get a serious and specifically Oriental studies education – without this, in the Russia of the next generation, missionaries will not be able to reach out to people brought up on horoscopes, "mantras" and "koans". The missionaries of the next century should know much more than I do, because their opponents will be more well-read in Eastern occult wisdom than today's dilettantes like the Roerichs. And I already feel that neither Moscow State University nor the Academy is enough for me: the stock of knowledge should be greater than what I have (I have a religious education, but no special Oriental studies).

If any of the priests understood my concern and shared it, I ask them to keep in mind not only the addresses of seminaries, but also the addresses of the Institute of Asian and African Countries at Moscow State University, the Diplomatic University (MGIMO) and the Linguistic University...

However, in order to make my pain and my concern more understandable, I will say in the words of St. Nicholas, who preached Orthodoxy in Japan at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries: "And so far I am the only missionary here, and that is private. And when will this Russia, spread over half the world, seventy million people find a few thousand rubles and several dozen people in order to fulfill one of the most essential commandments of the Savior? Catholicism and Protestantism have spread around the world. Is it possible that Orthodoxy will not do anything here either? No, it can't be, God willing. With this 'God willing' I went to Japan, with him I go to bed every day and wake up, for him I struggled for seven years over the Japanese language" (Hieromonk Nikolai (Kasatkin), Letter to Metropolitan Innocent of Moscow)[870]. Years passed, the hieromonk became a bishop. But still - lonely. "Oh, how painful, how bitter it is sometimes for the soul for our dear Orthodoxy! I went to Russia to invite people to the feast of life and work, to the most direct work of serving Orthodoxy. He was in all four academies, calling the flower of Russian youth – for their intellectual development and, it would seem, for their piety and desire to devote their energies to the cause of the faith, in which they were brought up from infancy. And what happened? Of all of them, one, only one, responded to my call, and even that one did not give a very firm and decisive word, and he might betray it. All the rest, all positively, either did not want to hear, or asked about the benefits and privileges of the service. Such is the mood of the Orthodox clergy in Russia regarding the interests of Orthodoxy! Isn't it sad? They would look at what is happening abroad, in non-Orthodox countries. How zealous society has to serve as means! How many people, the best people, without long thought and regret, leave their homeland forever to carry the name of Christ to the most remote corners of the world! God, what is it? Did our unfortunate history kill us? Or is our character forever so immobile, sluggish, apathetic, incapable of being imbued with the Spirit of Christ, and Protestantism or Catholicism will take possession of the world, and with them the world will end its existence?" (St. Nicholas of Japan, diary entry of 4.3.1871) [871]. "I was very sad that there were still no workers for the Mission from the Lavra and Moscow, and, venerating the relics of St. Sergius, I could not refrain mentally from complaining: 'I will sue you before the Lord – why do you not give a missionary to Japan'" (St. Nicholas of Japan, diary entry of 30.5.1880) [872]. In the end, St. Nicholas realized that he would not expect understanding and help from the Russian clergy, that during his lifetime he would not be given the opportunity to see the growth of the mission he had created. "To know, so I will die without waiting for an assistant and successor. Orthodoxy is so poor in missionaries! And of the heterodox, – O God, what an boundless multitude of them!" (St. Nicholas of Japan, diary entry of 7.10.1903) [873]. "The Protestant world at the beginning of the twentieth century stands fully armed with four hundred and forty-nine missionary societies with a wall behind them of great churches and inexhaustible springs... By the way, I ask: what do we have against the pagans abroad? Here's what. In China, Father Innokenty, and even he will not return from Russia, where he was demanded by the Synod; in Korea – Father Chrysanthos; yes, in Japan, poor people, together with Father Benjamin, which is now in Nagasaki and is more suitable for Russians than for Japanese. In total: four missionaries. Lord, will You ever look upon the Orthodox Church to 'take away the reproach from Her?'" [874]. "You can't turn around their missionaries: wherever you want and as much as you want – in abundance! It is likely that in another thousand years there will appear in the Orthodox Church some such vivacity. And now it is a bird with one wing" (St. Nicholas of Japan, diary entry of 14.1.1904) [875]. A thousand years have not yet passed. But a hundred years later, missionaries had to be sent not to India and Japan, but to Russia. However, for this case, too, there were a little more than four of them[876]...

Today, you don't need to go to China to convert the Chinese to Christianity! They themselves seep into our Siberia "in small groups of one hundred thousand people." And this is our chance. After all, the Chinese, cut off from their native communist or Confucian environment, may be more receptive to the adoption of Christianity. Today, in every diocese there are already priests who work with prisoners, as well as priests who work with universities. So why not raise missionary priests in those dioceses where there are already large Chinese colonies (these are Moscow and Siberia) who would know the Chinese language, know Chinese culture, history, philosophy, and preach specifically in Chinese dormitories? Is there really not enough foresight or money to send several young men to study in Moscow or hire tutors for them right on their place?

What if these are not only "colonies"? Suddenly, about Khabarovsk or Krasnoyarsk, one day we will have to say those terrible words that the Russian émigré poet Arseny Nesmelov (who died after 1945 in a Soviet transit prison) said about the now Chinese Harbin:

Dear city, proud and slender,There will be such a day,That they will not remember that you were built by the Russian hand.Let the fate be so bitter,Let us not lower our eyes; Remember, old historian,Remember us.

Interviewer: In your opinion, if the fall of the Orthodox Russian kingdom – the Third Rome – is final, is this a sign of an imminent end for all mankind?

А.К.: Maybe so. Or maybe it is a bell announcing the coming of age of Orthodox Christians. We will learn to walk without crutches. Let us learn to be Orthodox not by order. Let us learn to defend Orthodoxy with our words, deeds and prayers, and not with the help of state power. This is the time of coming of age. Whether we pass this exam for the age of majority depends on us.

AND WE ARE NOT GIVEN TO DISTINGUISH DEFEAT FROM VICTORY...

People who have just come out of a terrible period of persecution can be unpleasant to hear that their deliverance is not final. My heart turns to such words that give hope and comfort: well, that's it, we have suffered, only victories and triumphs await us ahead. The Lord will not allow us to defeat again... The mood is understandable. It is less understandable when these sentiments begin to crush Orthodox theology.

Several times I heard that Orthodox people reacted with hostility to my book "On Our Defeat." They really want to be given the opportunity to triumph before the universal end. So that everything would become "as of old": so that the Orthodox Tsar and Patriarch would sovereignly rule over Russia, or better yet, the whole world. So that a peaceful and pious life would spread everywhere over the earth... But where then will the fierce resistance of the peoples to Christ suddenly appear? Why will the Antichrist suddenly triumph in the midst of this grace? Why will the Lord suddenly pour out the cup of His wrath on the world and on the Church, if everything has finally become so splendid in them?