Review by Deacon Andrei Kuraev Introduction. Priest Daniel Sysoev. Preface. First  Meeting I. Tradition and Scripture.  II. On the Church  III. Ordination  IV. On Confession Second Meeting  V. On Icon Veneration  VI. Form of the Cross ("Stake" or "Cross")  VII. On the Baptism of Infants  VIII.

On the Name "Jehovah's Witnesses" Third  Meeting IX. On the Holy Trinity  X. On the Divinity of Christ  XI. On the Feasts  XII. On the Veneration of the Saints  XIII. On the Veneration of the Virgin Mary

                                            Priest Oleg Stenyaev Foreword to the Reissue of the Book "Dispute with Jehovah's Witnesses"     Brethren! If any of you deviate from the truth, and any one converts him, let him know that he who turns a sinner from his false way will save his soul from death, and cover a multitude of sins  (James 5:19-20).   From the author

St. John Chrysostom taught: "Heretical teachings that do not agree with those we have accepted must be cursed and impious dogmas denounced, but people must be spared in every possible way and prayed for their salvation." These words still sound quite relevant today.

Once upon a time, the "sons of Thunder" – the Apostles James and John – demanded that fire be brought down on the heads of the Samaritan sectarians: "Lord! Do you want us to say that fire should come down from heaven and destroy them, as Elijah did? But He turned to them, and rebuked them, and said, "Ye know not what spirit ye are" (Luke 9:54-55). Sometimes we Christians really forget what time we live in and what kind of Spirit we are moved by.

Lopukhin's Orthodox Explanatory Bible explains: "In response to the angry declaration of the sons of Zebedee, whom the Lord Himself called the sons of thunder (Mark. 3:17), who, like the prophet Elijah, wanted to bring fire down on the foolish Samaritans, the Lord replies that they obviously do not understand that, as disciples of Christ, living already in the New Testament, and not in the Old, like Elijah, they should not resort to those harsh measures of admonition to which the prophets of the Old Testament resorted.

And Elijah also had the Spirit of God in him, but that Spirit was different, manifesting Himself differently than the Spirit under whose influence the disciples of Christ are" (P.T.B. vol. 3, p. 186).

The preaching of Orthodoxy does not proceed from the denial of anything, but, on the contrary, from the affirmation of the positive Teaching of the Orthodox Church. For the Church "is the Church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth" (1 Tim. 3:15). It is the Protestants who are "protesting", and we are asserting. And when you are slipped compromising evidence on sectarians, you should know that it was written by a sectarian-minded person.

Perhaps this clever man considers himself Orthodox, but in fact he is only approaching Orthodoxy. And I was sick with such a spiritual fever, I wrote all sorts of examinations, pamphlets and denunciations. And then I understood: it is necessary to preach the positive Teaching of the Church. And what is the positive meaning of church preaching? In Christ, of course. In the Epistle to the Philippians, Ap.