The publication began with the observation that Desnitsky's name as a biblical scholar is widely known, although the author of the text, by his own admission, had never once seen him. The occasion for the analysis was Desnitsky's newly released Russian translation of the Apostle Paul's Epistle to the Galatians, offered as a 'popular' version.
Contested Passages in the Translation
The author of the publication lists several places where, in his opinion, Desnitsky's translation diverges from the Synodal Version. Instead of the exclamation 'God forbid!' (Da ne budet!), which, it is noted, Desnitsky himself cited as a possible variant, the translation has 'Under no circumstances!' The author links this phrasing to what Desnitsky and Asya Stein probably say to each other in their daily family life.
In another place, where the Synodal Version says 'Even so we, when we were children, were in bondage under the elements of the world', Desnitsky reads: 'So we too, while we remained infants, were subject to elementary and material rules.' The author calls this a replacement of a 'capacious ontological metaphor' with 'clothen' words.
The line 'Ye did run well...' is rendered by Desnitsky, according to the author, as 'You were making your run splendidly.' The author remarks that even if the Greek original contains the word 'run', the translator ought to have had a 'Russian ear'.
Finally, the passage 'From henceforth let no man trouble me: for I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus' in the translation reads: 'And let no one henceforth cause me extra trouble – my belonging to Jesus is proved by the marks on my body.' The author declines to comment on this, in order, as he puts it, not to fall into 'blasphemous scurrility'.
From the preface to the translations, Desnitsky's admission is quoted that, as a first- and second-year student at the philology faculty of Moscow State University, he 'understood practically nothing' in the New Testament epistles. The author concludes: 'Time passes, but people do not change.'
The Column 'Escape from the Church' and the Priest's Response
The second part of the publication is devoted to Desnitsky's column on under the headline 'Escape from the Church'. The priest Svyatoslav Shevchenko, commenting on it, wrote that the word 'escape' can mean departure only from somewhere a person was forcibly held. According to him, after reading it one gets the feeling that the author 'is already sitting on his suitcases'.
Shevchenko quotes what he considers the key phrase from Desnitsky's 'Once they – or, more precisely, we – came to church as to a world different from dreary Soviet propaganda or the riot of wild capitalism.' The priest interprets it thus: people were not coming to Christ but seeking 'an island of opposition to existing reality'. He asserts that when the Church ceased to be an opposition, it became uninteresting to them, and he asks whether it might not be better that such people leave the Church.
'In my subjective view, the danger for the Church lies precisely in the fact that such intellectuals will after all remain in it with their interest lost,' Shevchenko wrote.
In his opinion, if they stay, they will turn into an opposition within the Church, for example, to fight for 'honest elections'.
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