“Orthodoxy manifests itself: It does not prove itself” (St. Fr. Pavel Florensky)
The priest intellectual Fr. Pavel Florensky who perished in a Soviet labor camp wrote the above comment about our faith. He meant that learning the Orthodox Christian religion is a matter of the heart discovered in the soul of a seeker. It’s not found in the mind alone. One doesn’t come to know God; he or she experiences Him. The one who insists on a rational explanation of faith in God more than likely will go away having his atheism or skepticism renewed.
A classic treatise on spirituality, “The Idea of the Holy,” (Das Heilig) by Rudolf Otto, begins with a call to the reader to recall some experience in his lifetime that transcended everything that might explain it. A numinous overwhelming sensation, he termed it. Otto insisted that each human has such an event in his storehouse of memories; however, if the reader is unable to recount such a transcendent moment of awe, he will get nothing from his book.
Once after Beethoven had played one of his sonatas on the piano a woman asked, “What does it mean?” The great composer pondered the question a long moment: “What does it mean?” he repeated. Returning to the stool he played out the sonata once again: “That’s what it means,” he shouted. Some experiences defy explanation.
The One we call Lord has commanded us in the gospel read at our own baptisms to: “Go forth and preach, teach, and baptize.” That divine Order remains a challenge for everybody, but it’s too often shrugged off. We leave it to specialists and evangelists. But it is our concern to share the faith. Because we may not be among the clergy or one of the theologians does not exempt us from evangelism. Indeed, the difficulties are formidable, but you can succeed if you speak to the heart of the person you wish to win for Christ. Just assume you are addressing the soul of the one you would bring to Christ in Orthodoxy. You will offer a word about the Word of life if you always begin where the other person is spiritually. What does she know about the Bible? What parts are dominant, and what parts are unknown or ignored? And how well do you know the Bible? Can you describe the way that the Church has understood and even expanded on the basic gospel message?
The external features of the Orthodox Church may intrigue the person you are to win over to the Lord. The icons may fascinate them, as well the mosaics, the worship and tradition—and you can build on that, provided their interest is more than superficial. All that we do has a deeper meaning, and the purpose of our sounds and actions are intended to draw the worshipper ever deeper into a union between him or her and the Holy Trinity. Too many are like bathers at the seaside who like the water but never go in, lest they get wet. We have visitors, spectators who dabble in things Orthodox. Iconography is in vogue nowadays. There are real and self-professed experts who can lecture on the hundreds of Theotokos styles, discern by color icons from Novgorod or Moscow, but would never deign to venerate any of them. Orthodoxy is not for spectators or dilettantes; it is the way to be one with Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
As St. Fr. Florensky implied in his quotation above, icons are more than paint and form on wood. They honor those chosen to be portrayed, those who in their lives had become most like God to whom they offered their lives and to whom they surrendered their wills.