Each day this week, we will publish a different response to the question posed to Russian priests: How should we preach Christ in modern society? Enjoy!
by Priest Alexander Dyachenko
Modern people have access to a wide range of information. It is something we didn’t have in my time and we had barely nothing to choose from. So in real life we were content with very little information, relied on real human relations, and were able to listen.
Evil is aggressive. Pride, nurtured by idle chatter and twaddle, usually sings with somebody else’s voice. Information is ample, yet knowledge is poor. Meanwhile, IQ levels have been falling steadily. It is difficult to choose a correct answer. True, there are also the elect of God, those who have been kissed by the Lord. They will surely find Him, no matter where you hide Him. But what about the others?
They will need time. Time accumulates life experience—the experience of disappointments. The chaff should be left aside. The Orthodox faith is comprehensible to highly intelligent and simple people alike, and in both cases purity of heart and humility of spirit are needed. Yet without a desire for a personal meeting with God all efforts are doomed to failure. What is needed is a personal search in the hope of meeting somebody who knows Christ and brings this knowledge with love. Anyone who seeks (or even simply desires) will find (cf. Mt. 7:8).
Preaching Christ, either today or tomorrow, we are sure to return where a worthy example, a look of love, and a warm touch of hand led us to repentance, creating a new reality inside us.
