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?

I have heard such gossip. But only the deacon of the Alma-Ata diocese, Alexander Lisikov, dared to expound them in print in the magazine (for some reason calling itself a newspaper) "Vedi". I read this article without much surprise – the level of theological knowledge of this "zealot of Orthodox piety" and the extent of his mastery of logic were known to me from his other publications.

During the time spent in the diocesan school, he did not even learn to use the word Gospel correctly ("The meaning of the quotation from the Gospel (Rev. 13:7) you did not present quite correctly... Higher in the text of the Gospel (Rev. 11:7-8)..."[877].

In the mouths of the Holy Fathers (admittedly, nameless ones) he considers it possible to put words that are simply ridiculous: "The Holy Fathers say this: 'Distribute a hundred Gospels to a hundred people, and in a year you will receive a hundred religions, if they are not guided by the Typikon and the Book of Rules of the Holy Apostles.'" This is the first time I hear the Typikon contain an interpretation of the Gospel. Maybe it also contains an interpretation of Revelation?..

But such peculiar theological knowledge did not prevent him from embarking on the path of denouncing his bishop, as well as taking upon himself the task of combating the "heresy of Deacon Andrei Kuraev."

All his criticism is concentrated on the first paragraph of my pamphlet: "Christianity is almost the only worldview on earth that is convinced of the inevitability of its own historical defeat. Christianity proclaimed one of the darkest eschatologies: it warned that in the end the forces of evil would be "given ... to wage war with the saints and to conquer them" (Rev. 13:7). The Gospel promises that the gates of hell will not be able to prevail against the Church, that the Church is invincible (cf. Matt. 16:18). But "invincible" does not necessarily mean "victorious." In the perspective of earthly history, it is not the world-historical triumph of the Gospel, but the world-wide dominion of the Antichrist."

It is strange, by the way, that my critic, quoting this text, for some reason puts an ellipsis before the first phrase – thereby creating the impression that something precedes it. No, it was the very first phrase that provoked his attacks.

It is even stranger that, in objecting to this assertion of mine, the critic cites the same Gospel quotation ("the gates of hell shall not prevail against it"), which in my book is included in the very first paragraph.