What has happened in Russia is coming to the West. America and the free West must also face this universal anti Christian phenomenon of state atheism and its Gulag. This is the message Solzhenitsyn has given in his American addresses, such as that at the Harvard commencement in 1978, where he castigated America for its loss of will, its love of pleasure, its satisfaction with legalism in human relations.
we are satisfied with the freedom to worship as we wish, we easily mix a few hours weekly devoted to church matters with an overwhelming preponderance of worldly things in our lives; few of us are really transformed by Orthodox Christianity. But Fr. Dimitry calls on Orthodox Christians to counter attack. He says: “Christianity must become the content of the whole life… We must illuminate all questions with Christianity; it cannot be limited within strict bounds. The Church at the present time must include also the club and the workers’ assembly. We must bring the Church to the life which is outside the church building… The Christian cannot close himself up in some kind of shell; he must be pained over the pains of others.” “Everyone who can respond must respond… Atheism is a plague. It must be stopped—otherwise it will spread over everyone, devouring everything.”
Let us have no illusions—the kind of deep Christianity they know is not accessible to us. We are the products of Disneyland and a society of fakery and plastic everything—including plastic Christianity and plastic Orthodoxy. Let us be humble enough to recognize it.
**But Fr. Dimitry calls on Orthodox Christians to counter attack. He says: “Christianity must become the content of the whole life… We must illuminate all questions with Christianity; it cannot be limited within strict bounds. The Church at the present time must include also the club and the workers’ assembly. We must bring the Church to the life which is outside the church building… The Christian cannot close himself up in some kind of shell; he must be pained over the pains of others.” “Everyone who can respond must respond… Atheism is a plague. It must be stopped—otherwise it will spread over everyone, devouring everything.”**
A stern warning.