"petrified" means intact,
or whole, or undestroyed or living always in the same dress, but still
living, then the famous Professor may be right. Yet this petrified Church
has always come victorious out of any test to which she has been put. The
Christian Church is always on trial, and I think she is never so much
Christian as when she is being tested. She does not shine or develop or
make progress otherwise than through hard tests. Christianity is founded
upon a drama and not upon a science; therefore its growth and development
are dramatic and not scientific. Let us take an example. Eastern Orthodoxy
was put to the test for centuries to fight for its existence and its ideals
against the ruling Islam. Roman Catholicism was put to a similar test in
Spain. German Protestantism was put to the test of German science. What
happened? Islam was defeated in Russia and in the Balkans, not only
physically, but morally and intellectually. The epoch of the catacombs and
the bloody days of Nero and Diocletian have been repeated once more in the
Balkans, in Russia, and are still being experienced in Armenia and Asia
Minor. The killed and martyred kings, princes, bishops, priests and laymen
from these countries will not be ashamed before the martyrs from the
Coliseum. Orthodox Christianity stood the test very well. It saved itself;
it gave the inspiration for resistance; it showed itself superior even
afterwards when the enslaved countries were liberated. Holy Russia counts
her greatness from the time when she got rid of Islam. During the five
years of their freedom Serbia, Greece and Bulgaria built more than the
Turks built during 500 years of Turkish rule.

Roman Catholicism in Spain came through its test very badly. Before the
Islamic invasion, and after it for a long time, the Christian population
showed itself inferior to the Moors, in work, in justice, in progress. But
to the honour of Roman Catholicism I must say that it stood the test very
well in Croatia and in Hungary in its struggle against Islam. German
cathedral Protestantism failed in its test. It is destroyed as a religion,
it exists only as an archival science. It ceased to be what Christianity
really sought to be--a drama; it is transformed into an indifferent
scientific medium for reading, exploring, classifying, comparing,
criticising. It is no more a living, dramatic being--no more the serving,
ruling and suffering Christ. There is very little heroic or divine in it!