Yakov Krotov

Revolution as Death of Communicaton

Any human society has some patterns of inter-personal contacts, from greetings to common meals etc. These patterns include some rituals, which help people to make small these small and big compromises which make any communication possible. The great art of when to speak and when to be silent, when put questions and when to answer.

For example, St. Amvrosiy of Optina told one his spiritual childs: when you want to help man whi is sinking and crying for help, don't give a hand. Throw him a rope. Then you keep the chance to remain alive if he will go down. The art of communication is the art of keep proper distance in inter-human relations.

Totalitarian society destroys this art and tradition completely. People are too afraid of treason. They communicate on the very surface of their existence. Above all, totalitarian society is very capitalistic in the most bad sense of the word -- well, Popes wrote a lot bout this. Bolshevism had the worst sides of capitalism without capitalistic virtues (which are obvious and precious.) And the worst of capitalistic sins is estrangement, alienation, when communication is "as if through dark glass." But still, post-Communist personality is in general very inexperienced in communication and this one of the main reasons of our material and spiritual problems.

Fr. Serge Keleher (Dublin) gives an example:

"I was horrified at this example: back before the Greek-Catholic Church regained legal rights in Ukraine, I was already bringing in Bibles, prayer-books, chalices and so on. In the underground, of course, there could be no question of "receipts", so to speak. But once the Church became legal, donors in the West naturally wanted some written evidence of both the need and the delivery of such materials. So when priests would ask me for this and that, I would ask them for letters requesting whatever they wanted. The priests froze! At first I thought they were afraid of the government. They weren't; they were afraid of the letter-writing process itself. In the Soviet educational system, they had never been taught how to write a business letter. The upshot of it was that if I would actually compose the letter, the priests were quite willing to reproduce it in their own handwriting and sign it."

The main obstacle to communication is power. Power tends to corrupt in a sense that power tends to break communication. Reasons can be given different (for the welfare of organization, to avoid temptation etc.) but the result of the same. Orwell's "1984" is about loss of communication: main heroes still loves each other, but they lost the ability to express this love through repentance.

The same true to inter-Christian relations. We constructed the huge system of Church power to keep Church unity, but this system produce new divisions. We loss ability to listen in depict proportion to the power which we receive. Pope doesn't listen to Russian Orthodox Catholics, Patriarch... This is why I enjoy modern society with its dispersion of power.

The same in the worship. Such details as singing etc. express the degree of our communication with each other and the Lord. Russian tradition is certainly less "parioshener-favourable" than Western one. But there is development, and now, for example. in Russian use the common singing of Credo and Pater Noster is obligatory. Westernization continues. Metr. Antoniy Hrapovistkiy in 1900-s struggled with Greek Catholics introducing in Russian Orthodox liturgy some elements of Lviv tradition-like common singing. Some details of the service can be interpreted differently -- for example, priest and deacon are always turned east, but this doesn't mean that they despise parishioners, they are turned to God.

I don't think that liturgical differences are of great meaning in modern civilization. The spirit of friendship and love doesn't depend directly from the direction of priest's glance. You can read the Gospel in vernacular and still understand it in most archaic way. Or v.v.