>>717368797
Incorrect. It does place value on the proper way of things, but being concerned about the superficial rituals above the underlying faith is literally what Jesus spent half the Gospels bashing the pharisees for.
Protestants go too far in the other direction - ignore what anybody else says about how to do things, ignore everything the saints and fathers wrote; you are your own best judge of good and evil, as long as you just mean well. It's the easiest way to mislead yourself.
What's true is that Orthodoxy does make it easy to just follow the rituals as routine, go to church every sunday, put up your candles say your prayer rules, and not actually put in any effort into your faith. But that's a human failing everywhere at all times. If you've ever lived in a Catholic majority country you should be aware that a gigantic chunk of self-identified Catholics don't actually do anything to practice their faith, it's just a cultural identification at this point. As a Catholic what's the difference between him and an Orthodox and he probably won't even be able to name the filioque.
Protestants just say "lol as long as you believe Jesus was real you are already saved, do whatever", it's the ultimate not-thinking denomination.
Every religion will have people who are either lazy or just want someone to tell them what to do without thinking about it. In any given population, the majority of people are not intellectually curious. Orthodoxy, as far as I can tell, at least does the most to encourage actually practicing things related to your faith in your daily life.
>>717369321
It's prevalent in Slavic countries because those are the ones where Orthodoxy is usually the dominant religion, so that's where you get the most people "identifying" as Orthodox purely culturally and without any particular interest in actually being faithful.
