Best lecture

One of its best professors, Alexey Afanasyevich Dmitrevsky, professor of Liturgics and Church Archeology, recently left the Kyiv Academy. As a former listener of his, I can’t help but reflect on the influence that he had on me and some of my comrades at the Academy through his participation in readings on the choir in the church of the Brotherly Monastery, where students of the Kyiv Academy pray. Of course, respected Alexey Afanasyevich was one of the favorite professors in the audience for his lectures on Liturgics. But here he gave more, perhaps, to the mind than to the heart. As a professor who made a name for himself in Liturgics, he more than once in the audience revealed to his listeners all the beauty of Christian worship, its poetry. But his living word was confirmed when I had to hear him read on the choir in the church - chants and prayers, analyzed by him in the audience. “Here the professor, with his reading, gave to the heart something that will not be erased for the rest of his life... It was on Maundy Thursday for Passion. Worship in itself, even with the mere memory of it, awakens a prayerful feeling. The deep poetry of the antiphonal chants of this service, until I had to hear them in the reading of the professor, was not known to me, they did not reach my heart. As a rule, more attention was given to Vorotnikovsky’s touching “The Prudent Robber”... Arriving at the left choir on the choir, where the student readers usually stood, I saw Professor Alexei Afanasyevich. After reading the 1st Gospel, the first verses of the 1st antiphon were sung. The reading that rang out involuntarily made me listen... “Let us imagine our pure feelings of Christ and, like his friends, we will devour our souls for his sake”... the professor read clearly, distinctly, somehow especially heartfeltly, sincerely, and his reading fell on the heart, the mind clearly perceived every word, every thought that rose so prominently in the reader’s mouth... A special silence reigned in the church. The antitheses with which the hymns of the Passion are rich were especially expressive. “For the sake of Lazarev’s uprising, Lord, I call the Jewish children Hosanna to You. More humane,” the reader said in a raised tone... A short pause. “The lawless one, Judas does not want to understand,” he concluded more quietly. What an antithetical thought!!! The meek, loving Lord Savior, grieving for Judas, and the evil, cunning Judas - stood before our eyes during this reading in the following verses of this antiphon. The further the reader read, the more he captured his attention, revealing the beauty of the antiphons. So he reached antiphon 11 and 12. There is also an antithesis here: the Savior and the Jews. “For the good that you have done, Christ, the Jewish race, condemned the crucifixion, gave you food and gall to drink”... Dissatisfied with the betrayal of their Benefactor to the shameful execution of the cross, the Jews stand at the cross of Christ and nod their heads with an evil, malicious smile, exclaiming blasphemy and abuse to the Divine Sufferer. And He seemed to so meekly and sorrowfully say to them: “My people, what have I done to you, or why have you suffered from the cold? You have enlightened your blind, you have cleansed your lepers, you have raised your living spirit on your bed. My people, what shall I do to you? and what do you repay us with? for manna bile, for water tsets, for hedgehog love you nailed me to the cross...” This antiphon always evokes tears of tenderness when you read it, even to yourself, but at the same time you always remember how touchingly, sincerely Alexei Afanasyevich read these pearls of liturgical poetry... And one can hear his heartfelt reading. It remained the best lecture of my life. At the same time, one involuntarily thinks about the strong influence on the soul of those praying that reading in church should have if it is done so carefully and earnestly, performed by a reader who understands all the inner beauty of what is being read, its deep meaning that speaks to the mind and heart. It’s not for nothing—the Orthodox Church ordains him to be a reader. On the other hand, the poetry of our liturgical hymns, prayers, psalms, etc. has such beauty of thought, such heartfelt passages that careless reading of them is a profanation of all that is holy, not to mention that it is a sin before God. Remembering the influence that the professor of Liturgics indelibly created with his reading, who fulfilled his duty as a teacher in this by his living example, I would like our theological school, the seminary, which trains pastors who are duty-bound to take care of the splendid Divine Service, to pay special attention to this important matter. It is impossible not to note with particular pleasure that in some seminaries teachers of Liturgics and Homiletics, whose responsibilities include teaching seminarians good reading in church, participate in reading in the choir. Here they teach by their living example that a good reader on the choir can awaken a feeling of prayer in those praying and in this way he is, as it were, a church teacher. After all, it was not for nothing that our church fathers prepared for shepherding the clergy, in which, of course, reading during the Divine service was one of the first duties. The example of the teacher himself is the best condition for a good influence on the student. This especially needs to be said about theological school, where each teacher is not just a teacher of his subject, but an educator of the future shepherd. A teacher of Liturgics, the science of worship, will not fulfill his task if he does not instill in his seminary student the love of participating in readings in church. And this, it seems to us, can be achieved, first of all, not by word, but by deed, by personal example.