[DJkillos]

Here are her "experiences" with Russian Orthodox and some hearsay passed on by her FIL (baptist missionary that was "in charge of setting up seminaries to train pastors because there is so little in the way of pastoral training avalible to them there."

Certainly there is very little in the way of *baptist* pastoral training - probably not much at all. OTOH, there are graduate level seminaries in Russia which are overflowing and new ones are being founded quite rapidly since the Church was freed.

Hearsay about Russia:

1. the RO church in Russia is simply Putin's tool and not a whole lot more. Well, gee, that doesn't really concide with the news now does it - the ROC, especially in the past couple of years been quite vocal in opposing some of the policies of the government that contradict the tenets of the faith. Prime Minister Putin and President Medvedev are both true believers and practicing Orthodox Christians (with a high profile of visibility) so what's wrong with having the two most influential leaders of one of the largest most powerful nations in the world being practicing Christians?

2. Most Russians who go to church there, go because it is the socially acceptable thing to do And most Americans who go to Church do so because it is the socially acceptable thing to do (not to mention the business/publicity benefits). At least in Russia people actually go to Church.

3. they have very little knowledge of the Bible. Gotta define "knowledge of the Bible" and also how you quantify how much a person has. No, most Orthodox can't do "chapter and verse" prooftexting, but any Orthodox Christian who has paid even the least attention in Church can probably quote or recognize a huge amount of scripture (since the services are composed of mostly scripture). My Russian parishioners often surprise me with questions about scripture that have a profound depth to them.

4. if you went to Russia you would not recognize the faith as the same one you practice. Well, that could be true - if you went to Russia and attended Orthodox services there, you would not recognize them as the same baptist services from the US. OTOH, if you are Orthodox and you go to Russia, you will be right at home and even without understanding the language be able to worship just as you do in an Russian Orthodox parish here in the US.

5. It is very oppressive, a social things mostly, not spiritual That's a purely subjective observation - one that depends entirely on the mood of the person experiencing it.

Her experience:

6. (her) area has a lot of recent immigrants and the Russian Orthodox church here is rather oppressive because...

7. Very specific styles of dress for the women (goodness, I know loads of baptist churches that are this way! Grew up in one of them!) People dress in the clothes they have. Some new Russians are very very elegant and dress as if they were going out on the town to come to liturgy (or for that matter to make dinner). Other new Russians have absolutely no fashion sense and dress in some of the most atrocious outfits (pink cowboy boots with orange sweat pants and a polka dot top). Some of the old "baba"s tend to dress in very "frumpy" and dark clothing - because that is appropriate for widows (and given the high mortality rate in Russia, there are a lot of widows in the older generation).

8. lots of rituals (too bad she doesn't understand the meaning behind those "rituals"...to baptists, "ritual" is almost a bad word, which shows a misunderstanding of what they are) Can't argue with that - yes, we do have a lot of rituals. But then so do most baptists but they don't define them as "rituals" its just "the way that we've always done it."

9. and reading scripture is severely discouraged. How does she know this? Did someone come into her home and confiscate all her Bibles? Or perhaps no one carried a Bible in Church (that's a Baptist "ritual" after all - not an Orthodox one) because we come to Church to pray and to worship God, not to study our textbooks and follow along as the "professor" (errrr "Pastor") gives a lecture (errrrr sermon). This is especially amusing as there is a rather lively discussion on another list about the multitude of ways that we as priests use to encourage our people to read the scripture more frequently.

10. apparently the group she is familiar with kicks out kids that start "reading the bible, accepting Christ, and getting baptised" (there is so much in this last one, that I'm having trouble putting into words...she obviously does not understand that they are ALREADY baptised...there is nothing wrong with accepting Christ, but it's not a magical prayer and that's the end of it, and I don't know of anyone in the EO that is forbidden from reading the bible...this seems a great stretch of the truth to me.) I'm guessing that the kids aren't "kicked out" so much as they leave because they feel they are misunderstood (I'm also guessing that these "kids" are in the midst of adolescent rebellion and culture shock/identity crisis having come from Russia to the US at a critical time in their lives). To assume that this is just a religious issue is such a profound oversimplification of the complex cross cultural and developmental issues that come up, especially in kids who are brought to the US between the ages of 12 - 18. If the "churches" that "evangelize" these kids would focus on strengthening the faith that they have rather than teaching them a new one and uprooting every family and social value that they have, there might be less of an issue.

Your friend needs to stop being an "ugly American" (demanding the the "whole world should be just like us" - a prize to whoever identifies that pop song lyric) and at least try to understand a different culture and to embrace (rather than remake) people of a different background.

Fr David Moser