Pobedonostsev: The Church (Part III)

We are reproached by Protestants with the formalism of our service,
but when we examine their ritual we continue to prefer our own ; we
feel that our service is simple and majestic in its deep, mysterious
significance. The office of our priest is so simple, that it needs but
pious attention to the words he utters and to the actions he
accomplishes : from his lips the sacred words are their own
interpretation, their deep and mysterious voices reach the souls of
all, and unite our congregations in sentiment and in thought. Thus the
simplest, most artless man may without exertion repeat the prayers,
feeling in communion with the congregation. The Protestant service,
with all its external simplicity, demands that the prayers be recited
in a certain tone. Only deeply spiritual and very talented preachers
may retain their simplicity, the immense majority is driven into that
artifice and affectation which we notice first of all things in
Protestant churches, and which produce in unaccustomed witnesses a
sensation of weariness. When we hear the preacher, with his face
turned to a congregation seated on benches, pronounce the prayers,
lifting his eyes towards heaven, and crossing his hands conventionally
while giving his words an unnatural intonation, we experience a
painful sentiment : how uncomfortable, we think, he must be ! Still
more painful is it when, having ended the service," he ascends the
pulpit and begins a long sermon, turning from time to time to drink
from a glass of water and to recover breath. Seldom do we hear in
these sermons a living word, and then only when the preacher is a man
of talent or of rare spiritual nature. For the most part the preachers
are the journeymen of the Church, with extraordinary, whining voices,
infinite affectation, and vigorous gestures, who turn from side to
side, repeating in varying tones conventional phrases. Even when
reading their sermons, which seldom occurs, they have recourse to
gestures, intonations, and intermissions. Sometimes the preacher,
pronouncing a few words and phrases, cries out and strikes the pulpit
to give emphasis to his thoughts. We feel here how faithfully our
Church has been adapted to human nature in excluding sermons from its
services. By itself, our whole service is the best of sermons, all the
more effective since each hears in it, not the words of man,
but the words of God. The ideal of that sermon is to lead to faith and
love, according to the Scriptures, and not to awaken emotion in a
congregation which has come together for prayer.