So a friend of mine—solid Southern Baptist guy—moved to Russia for work, and he said, “I just want to find a church, keep growing spiritually, you know?”
Next thing I know, he’s emailing me like he just stepped out of a Dostoevsky novel. He’s sweating incense and babushkas are haunting his dreams.
So I thought, instead of trying to explain it, I’d just share the letter he sent me.
Brace yourself. This either has to be a comedy monologue or a cry for help.
Dear Brother,
Good evening, or as they say here—dobry vecher, though I accidentally said dobro vetro once, which means “good wind,” and now the old ladies at church call me "The Breeze."
Anyway. I’m an American Baptist who moved to Russia… and decided to start going to an Orthodox church.
I thought I was going to church. Turns out, I accidentally joined a medieval mystery cult.
Let me tell you, first Sunday I showed up, all confident, khakis pressed, Bible in hand, “Hey y’all, where’s the pastor?”
A guy at the candle stand happens to know a little English, and he just blinks at me. “You mean… Father Vladimir?”
“No, I mean the guy who gives the sermon and then we go to brunch.”
He just kind of tilts his head and says, “The sermon will be... after the third litany, between the Gospel reading and the Great Entrance.”
I said, “Right. So... when’s brunch?”
He just handed me a beeswax candle and slowly backed away like I was unstable.
Now listen—I’m used to Baptist church. We got pews, air conditioning, a band, and a timer on the sermon.
Orthodox church?
There are no pews, no clocks, and the choir is invisible.
They’re singing like angels from somewhere behind a wall of icons, like liturgical ninjas.
I never saw them. I think they live back there permanently.
And the smoke!
Baptist churches smell like donuts and freshly printed bulletins.
Orthodox churches smell like heaven—or a forest fire in a perfume factory.
I coughed once during the Trisagion and a little old lady appeared out of nowhere, handed me a prayer rope, and judged me silently for forty-five seconds straight.
I think she was from the KGB. The “Kommittee for Graceful Bowing.”
And the service?
Baptist service: 90 minutes, max. If it runs long, people start looking at their watches and threatening to switch to the Methodists.
Orthodox Liturgy? I don’t even know. There is no time in Orthodoxy.
You go in at 9 AM. You come out at some point in the afternoon spiritually elevated and physically dehydrated.
At one point I leaned over and asked, “When does the service end?”
The guy by the candle stand whispers, “It’s eternal.”
I said, “Wow. That’s deep.”
He said, “No. I mean it literally doesn’t end. After this we have the moleben, the akathist, and then we’re blessing some wheat later.”
I said, “Cool cool cool... I just wanted coffee.”
Now let’s talk about crossing yourself.
As a Baptist, I never did this growing up. So I kept messing it up.
Right to left, not left to right. If you do it wrong in an Orthodox church, a babushka will materialize out of thin air and whack your hand like it’s part of the liturgy.
It’s like spiritual Simon Says with real consequences.
I crossed myself the wrong way once and four women in headscarves gasped like I’d denied the Trinity.
One of them just whispered “Catholic.”
I didn’t feel judged. I felt… excommunicated.
I tried to learn how to fit in.
I grew a beard. I bought a prayer rope. I even wore all black one Sunday.
Suddenly, people started calling me Father John.
I said, “No no, I’m just visiting.”
They said, “Too late. You look like you’ve already read the Philokalia and survived.”
Someone tried to confess to me during coffee hour.
And then there’s the language barrier.
Trying to learn Russian while also trying to learn Orthodoxy is like learning how to juggle while hang-gliding in a thunderstorm.
I tried to say, “Lord, have mercy” in Church Slavonic.
Instead, I said something that meant “O turnip of righteousness, illuminate my tractor.”
The choir actually stopped singing.
At one point the priest said, “Blagoslovi, Vladiko,” and I confidently echoed it back… except I mispronounced it and apparently asked him to bless my shovel.
I now hold the record for fastest accidental canonization of gardening tools.
Icons?
Baptist churches don’t really do icons.
At most, you’ve got a watercolor Jesus with great hair and suspiciously European features.
Here? Icons everywhere.
On the walls, the ceiling, your calendar, your tea bags.
They’re all staring at you like, “We were burned at the stake. You can stand through the third antiphon.”
They told me to venerate the icons.
“Just approach, cross yourself, bow, and kiss it.”
Simple instructions.
Unless you forget which part comes first and wind up bowing to the candle stand and kissing the janitor’s mop.
The whole thing is so choreographed.
You’re supposed to move together, face the right way, know when to sing, when to bow, and when to stand still like a terrified spiritual meerkat.
I missed a turn during the censing and faced the wrong direction.
A deacon rotated me gently, like I was a confused Roomba.
But I’ll tell you what: it’s beautiful.
There’s reverence.
There’s mystery.
There’s depth, like you just stepped sideways into another world—where the saints are alive, time folds in on itself, and the choir doesn’t even need microphones because their voices bounce off centuries of prayer.
And unlike back home, nobody claps after the choir sings.
They just make the sign of the cross 37 times and light a candle like, “Yes. Acceptable.”
I came in looking for tradition.
I found 2,000 years of tradition, plus some fasting instructions, plus an icon of a weeping saint who looks like he knows all my browser history.
The Baptists gave me a Bible.
The Orthodox gave me a library. And a headache. And a spine realigned by constant standing.
But also… a home.
So yeah, I’m still figuring it out.
Somewhere between standing, crossing, bowing, kissing, and accidentally blessing someone’s goat—
I think I’m starting to get the hang of it.
But if y’all ever see me doing a full prostration at the wrong time or facing west when everyone else is facing east,
please… just gently rotate me and whisper, “It’s not time for that yet.”
May God Bless you all.
And pray for me. I think next week’s service is in Old Georgian.
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