On not following the thought processes of a mature Orthodox thinker

-all this has largely gone over the heads of a younger generation (whether Russian, Greek, or convert) that too often seeks easy answers to over-simplified questions; that is so easily scandalized by slight flaws that it misses the whole point of a profoundly Orthodox life's work; whose spiritual immaturity and lack of intellectual culture simply cannot follow the thought-processes of a mature Orthodox thinker-

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Father Seraphim Rose did the Introduction for the book "Orthodox Apologetic Theology".  God willing, I am planning on doing a review on this wonderful book but in the meantime, the above quote in it has been making its way to the forefront of my mind.

Father Seraphim, writing about the book's author, I.M. Andreyev, laments how Andreyev was under appreciated by the world at large but as well by so many Orthodox Christians.


In Andreyev Father Seraphim saw a man of such  profundity that his thought was dismissed  because it could not be grasped precisely because it was moored very deep within the Orthodox Church.  I.M. Andreyev as well was possessed of a keen and cultured intellect which he had steered toward the acquisition and expounding of Truth.

The following is the entire paragraph where the above quote is to be found:

Unfortunately, owing precisly to the lack of depth and refinement among Orthodox Christians in general today, and also to the ingrained modesty and humility of these superb products of genuine Orthodox tradition, these Orthodox thinkers, Andreyev among them, have seldom been appreciated at their full value, and even those who have lived and studied in their midst have too seldom realized what treasures they could have mined from their wealth of Orthodox knowledge and experience. Their spiritual and intellectual maturity, their old-world refinement, their subtle art of understatement, the complexity yet wholeness of their Orthodox world-view—all this has largely gone over the heads of a younger generation (whether Russian, Greek, or convert) that too often seeks easy answers to over-simplified questions; that is so easily scandalized by slight flaws that it misses the whole point of a profoundly Orthodox life's work; whose spiritual immaturity and lack of intellectual culture simply cannot follow the thought-processes of a mature Orthodox thinker; whose lack of artistic and literary sensitivity can lead to false spirituality, making one unaware of the elements of the lower part of "soul" which can usurp the higher place of the "spirit" if one is not trained to distinguish them; whose deficiency in Orthodox feeling renders it blind to the Orthodox giants in its midst. We all suffer from this. All the more, then, must we strive to understand these giants who have now all but departed, leaving all would-be defenders of Orthodoxy in a very precarious position against the increasingly subtle temptations of an anti-Christian age.