Unity of the Church and the World Conference of Christianity

There is a lot of talk about the reform of theological schools. It is clear and undeniable for everyone that the church authorities intend to carry out reform in a strictly ecclesiastical direction. And before our eyes, an amazing metamorphosis took place, although not uncommon in recent years. The most ardent “progressives” suddenly declared themselves resolute supporters of stagnation. Either the old theological school seemed worthless, then suddenly it became good, so nothing better can be done than to leave it as it is now. It would seem, how could one not want to strengthen churchliness in a church school! Not so! The least heard speeches are in defense of churchliness. We finally agreed, it seems, to the point of complete absurdity. The church authorities, you see, have little understanding of what true churchliness consists of, and therefore it is good that the draft statutes of the secondary theological school will be submitted to legislative institutions for consideration. There they understand true churchliness better and care more about the interests of the Church than the church authorities and, in general, the outstanding hierarchs of the Church who drew up the new charter of the theological school. Therefore, they are waiting with hidden impatience that the synodal bill in the Duma will fail and the reform will be developed in a different direction. And this is how people who call themselves church people reason; they even publish their reasoning in “church books!” magazines (see "Church Bulletin", 1911. No. 38. Especially stlb. 1185). Such speeches simply emanate horror. It is in our “spiritual” seminaries that there is no need to strengthen churchliness! I recently received a letter from a teacher of homiletics and liturgics at one of the seminaries, and it hurt me when I saw what we have under the guise of a “theological seminary.” Here is the letter: “My affairs are not going well. It is difficult to teach theological subjects in a seminary, especially ones like mine. Teaching preaching to people dressed in blue trousers with stripes is, to say the least, a strange thing. It just seems ridiculous to send them to the pulpit to deliver a lesson to the Orthodox people! Sometimes it gets very difficult. You feel that everything is wrong, that no one has any interest in the future service of the Church. It turns out to be some kind of game of hide and seek. The consciousness of this falls heavily on the soul, and you just want to run away somewhere where this deception does not exist. How do they serve us? For all my coolness, I’m completely turned over. Sometimes I just want to just run to the altar and shout: “Father rector (archpriest - V.T.)! Why are you standing here and not paying any attention to these outrages?” They read - they don’t hear anything, it’s just random. They sing ugly. There is no charter. How can we teach them the rules in this state of affairs? I say one thing, but in church it’s completely different - go ahead! What regulations are there! Nobody pays attention to this. The inspector (a secular one, of course - V.T.) only thinks about how the service will end as quickly as possible, and is dissatisfied if someone reads separately. I thought about taking on this matter myself, but I don’t have the courage. This means antagonizing the rector, the inspector and the entire bursa. The latter is already beginning to be dissatisfied with my direction. The only hope for reform..." This is not written by some church fanatic, the author is not planning to become a monk, at the academy he was not averse to being liberal in church matters, and he judged the theological school in the same way as various “church” publicists judge now. Isn’t it clear how great the lie of modern “theological” seminaries is if such bitter cries are heard from someone from whom you least expect them! It is time, long ago, for the Russian Orthodox Church to establish real theological schools that would serve only it, which is now in such need of ministers and defenders! Theological school must be a church school! You might be interested in: