Englishmen have remarked that the Bible is read very seldom
in the home in Russia and Serbia. That is true. People read the Bible more
in symbols, pictures and signs, in music and prayers, than in the Book, Our
religion is not a book religion, not even a learned religion. _It is a
dramatic mystery_. The Bible contains the words, but in this dramatic
mystery there is something higher and deeper than words. Slav Christianity
is something greater than the Bible. Looking at an ikon, a Russian _mujik_
perceives the Bible incarnated in a saint's life-drama. Mystery of sin,
mystery of atonement, mystery of heroic suffering, mystery of the daily
presence of Christ among us in holy wine, in holy bread, in holy water, in
holy word, in holy deed, in every sanctified substance, even in matter as
in spirit, mystery of communion of sins and of virtues--all are recorded
once in the Bible, and all are recorded and repeated also in our daily
life--that is what we call our Slav Orthodoxy. We take the mystic outlines
of the Bible and do not care about the details. In those mystic outlines we
put our daily life, with its details of sins and sufferings. We conceive
the Christian religion neither so juristic as the Roman Catholics, nor so
scientific as the Protestants, nor even so reasonable and practical as the
Anglicans, but we conceive it rather as dramatic.

SLAV ORTHODOXY IS NOT SELF-SUFFICIENT.

We are quite conscious that our religion is not solely Christ's work. Every
drop of blood of a Christian martyr is a stone in the work. Every suffering
man with heroic Christian hopes, and every dying human being with
optimistic Christian belief is a collaborator of Christ, or is a founder of
our Church. The Church is not at all solely Christ's work, she is the
collective work of many and many millions who, in the name of Christ,
decisively took part in this mystic race of earthly life. That is just what
Christ wanted and prophesied. That is why He washed the feet of His
disciples.

The work of Tolstoi is the work of a man; Slav Orthodoxy is the work of the
generations. Orthodoxy was first defined by the Christian Jews and Greeks
during the first eight hundred years. During the other thousand years
Orthodoxy was enriched by the Slav Bible, _i.e.,_ by Slav religious
experiences, by Slav martyrs, saints, heroes, by Slav sins and repentances,
by Slav struggles and convulsions for Christ. It is a very large record, a
very large Bible inde