Our attitude towards Orthodoxy

Negative attitude towards Orthodoxy

I will not hide the fact that evangelical Christians have very different attitudes towards the Orthodox Church.
There are those who have a very negative attitude towards the Orthodox Church. These are people who ended up in prison due to the fault of the Orthodox Church. Not everyone is able to cope with the root of bitterness in such a situation.
In any case, any hostility, especially hatred, cannot be justified, but it can be understood.

My mother is Orthodox

My mother is from the most religious family in her large village.
When the choice arose - a pioneer tie or church, the choice was obvious to her.
But since they did not let you into school without a tie, she paid for her faith with her education.

My father was a military man and an atheist. It was extremely dangerous for military personnel to believe in God, they can expel you, so I never heard of my mother's faith.
When I came to God in the evangelical church and began to serve, my mother did not condemn me for the fact that I did not come to "our" CHURCH, but on the contrary, she was glad that I came to GOD.
And I am grateful to my mother for baptizing us all in childhood.

My attitude

2 Chronicles 36:18-21 And all the vessels of the house of God, great and small, and the treasures of the house of the Lord, and the treasures of the king and his princes, he brought all to Babylon.
And they burned the house of God, and broke down the wall of Jerusalem, and all the palaces thereof they burned with fire, and all the precious things thereof they destroyed.
And he carried away those who were left by the sword to Babylon, and they served him and his sons until the reign of the king of Persia,
until the land celebrated her Sabbaths to fulfill the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah. All the days of desolation she kept the Sabbath until the fulfillment of seventy years.

Russia was in captivity for the same 70 years. This speaks of two things that are hard to argue with.

1. That God treats the Orthodox Church as His child. God punishes only His own. He turns away from those who turn away from Him, which in itself is a greater punishment.
2. The Orthodox Church deserved to be punished. "The Tale of the Priest and His Worker Balda" was not written out of thin air. There were such priests and there are similar ones today. But everyone also knows Alexander Men, that he is a man of God.

It would be good for the Orthodox Church to take these facts into account and delve into itself and its teaching.

A few years ago there was an amazing revival in a small Anglican church near London.
This shows that it is not difficult for God to revive the Orthodox Church. And such a revival can be the most influential for Russia.
The emergence of evangelical churches shows that the Orthodox Church is not in line with the times.

When stagnation came to the Catholic Church, there was no stagnation with God and a fresh branch appeared - the Protestant Church, because life always breaks through.
A revival in the Orthodox Church would unite the entire church in Russia.

The Biblical Concept of Church

There are 3 concepts of church in the Bible:

1. Church as a gathering of a group of believers in one place (Matt. 18:20).
2. All who call upon the name of the Lord in a given city (1 Cor. 1:2).
3. The Universal Church - all believers of the earth.

It does not matter what I think about the church, how I think, what we think, etc.
What matters is what God thinks. He does not have a national church. He has children, obedient and not so.

Nationalism

Unfortunately, people confuse politics, the national question, nationalism and religion.
But these are completely different things. Today there are so many needs in Russia that there is enough room for each church, just serve.
At all times there were religious leaders of different confessions who were striving for power.

As a result - the times of the Inquisition. It is important to be in your place. God does not have an Orthodox church, Catholic or Protestant.

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The History of the Emergence of Orthodoxy

The Roman Empire was not built on empty space, it replaced the empire of Alexander the Great.
Greece popularized the Greek language throughout the empire of Alexander the Great, for the first time the alphabet had vowels (previously the alphabet consisted only of consonants).

By the way, the Latin alphabet was created on the basis of the Greek.

Compare the maps and you will see that the Eastern Roman Empire is the post-empire of Alexander the Great, where the international language was Greek.
Christianity originated in Judea and went further - first to Egypt and Greece, and only then to the West.
That is why the first Christian Bible was in Greek. The Greek translation of the Old Testament was used - the Septuagint, and therefore the New Testament was written in Greek. It is one book.

In the West, Greek was practically unknown, Latin dominated there. Therefore, a translation was required to read the Holy Scripture.

So, in the East, the Bible was read almost in the original language (the New Testament in the original language).
And the Gospel came to the West from the East, that is, the Western Church is younger.
Let's conclude - where should the center be? - Where the Gospel came from and where they know how to read the Scripture.
That is - ...

Okay, we know that the center was not where it should be wisely, but in Rome, because it is the capital of the empire and it is easier to control the church.

By the way, Rus' adopted Christianity in 988, and the Great Schism occurred only in 1054.
But even then, Rus' was choosing a version of Christianity - Eastern or Western. This was before Orthodoxy.