There is life

The presentation of the new book by Abbot Peter (Meshcherinov) “Life in the Church” (An Experience in Catechetical Presentation) took place at the Pokrovsky Gate Cultural Center, Blagovest-info reports. The book, published in 2011 by the Lepta Book publishing house, is a series of catechetical conversations. As the author writes in the preface, this is “an attempt at a holistic presentation of church teaching and practice for people who have just entered the Church.” The presentation was led by journalist Ksenia Luchenko.

Introducing the publication, the author explained that the book is based on catechetical lectures, which he gave for a number of years at the Center for the Spiritual Development of Children and Youth at the Danilov Monastery (CDRM). The first experience in publishing this series was the book “Conversations about Faith and the Church,” which was published in 2004. Time passed, lectures at the Central Children’s Church and communication with young people continued, people came to confession and asked questions that were impossible to answer in a nutshell and I wanted to give them a book... However, among the large amount of church literature in sight of Fr. Peter did not find a suitable “church manual”: complete, brief, written in modern language. I had to write such a book myself.

According to Lepta editor-in-chief Olga Golosova, the book contains “no lies—not only to the reader, but also to oneself.” In addition, in the course of lectures, the author managed to convey that special joy of the Kingdom that Christ revealed and which Orthodox authors so often forget about, she said.

“Life in the Church” - this title of the book seems very general, but Archpriest Georgy Mitrofanov discovered a special meaning in it. “I represent the opponents of Fr. Petra. They will say: “Aha, that means there is no life in the Church, but he considers himself the bearer of life!” I feel like we have no life at all. We have already had several generations who did not live, but survived. People have suffered spiritually in more than one generation; they are characterized by reluctance, inability, and inability to live. Many people think that it is possible not to live in the Church: to calm down in a new nirvana, not to take responsibility... Father Peter is trying to show that there is life and that it is in the Church, that it requires great effort.” Fr. Georgy also noted “the truth of Fr. Peter": "Enough talking about love, about compassion - this is the same deficiency in the Church as in society." “Let’s stop lying to each other in the Church and start living in the Church,” said the priest. Life, truth, Christocentricity - these, in his opinion, are the three key concepts to characterize the book.

O. Ilya Solovyov, a historian of secular education, presented a retrospective analysis of the relationship between faith and enlightenment among the Russian people in the twentieth century, and his conclusions were directly related to the assessment of the work of Fr. Petra. “The second baptism of Rus'” in the 1990s. was not accompanied by enlightenment to the extent required by the scale of this phenomenon. And now the attitude towards the Church is changing, and not only in a positive direction. This is the fault of all members of the Church: we did not sufficiently convey the Gospel Gospel to people, we took scholastic pre-revolutionary textbooks as a model. Today, the Church needs the living word about Christ more than ever; all modern society is waiting for it,” said Fr. Elijah, emphasizing that “with a clear conscience” is ready to recommend the book by Fr. Petra to everyone.

Priest from Ryazan Fr. Konstantin Kamyshanov read the book and has no doubt that it will be in great demand in the Ryazan diocese. “Most of the Ryazan priests can no longer do the old thing, some kind of volcano has awakened...” - this is how he characterized the need for a new word in the environment that he knows well. According to him, the Church should not only “give answers to questions”, “sort out people’s grief,” but “offer love, kindle people’s hearts.”

O. Dimitri Sverdlov believes that the book by Fr. Petra is so far the only work on a new round of development of this genre - a systematic presentation of religious doctrine. Such a book should not only be republished, but should continue to be written all the time, with the participation of new authors and taking into account the fact that “the new experience of the Church is entering into new social realities.”