Enjoy Mount Athos! I hope you can visit Konstamonitou Monastery. It was the first Monastery I stayed at during my time on the Holy Mountain, and I'm still struck by its beauty and lack of modern amenities. It really seems to have shunned modernity more than others I've visited.
Hi Paul - love your work and wanted to express it publicly. I came (back? I was baptized but not raised catholic) to Catholicism during Covid for many of the same reasons you turned to the Orthodox faith - deep roots, basically. Thanks for writing about your faith and encouraging those of us doing it in more obscurity to keep following the Narrow Way.
Also - is there a “dictionary” you provide that defines what you mean by terms like “liberalism”? Have you heard about the emergent movement? I agree something is happening, just want to make sure I’m following Christ rather than “being on the right side of history” or “saving the world”
"I see two great problems here. The first is the violent reciprocity that turns left and right into warring factions and confines each one ever more tightly in its proper box. What the enemy says is wrong – entirely and a priori – simply because the enemy has said it....
This is the first problem: making judgments whose only grounds are the dynamic of enmity: the enemy of my enemy is my friend, whatever the enemy says or thinks is wrong, and so forth. On this basis, once Donald Trump has said that the cure for COVID shouldn’t be worse than the disease, as he did last spring, then this thought becomes unthinkable and unspeakable by his opponents simply because Donald Trump has said it. This inability to think the enemy’s thoughts is fatal to sound reasoning. That the cure must not be worse than the disease is a principle that goes back to Hippocrates and remains true even in the mouth of a scoundrel. Reflexive polarization creates false dichotomies, cleaving opposites that should be held together into warring half-truths"
I wrote an essay about 'liberalism' a couple of years back in which I went into that in some detail. It's linked to in this piece. I don't know the movement you mention.
Thank you, Paul. God bless you and your company on the Holy Mountain. May the Theotokos and the angels protect you always. Looking forward as usual to your continued writing.
Thank you, once again, for the thoughtful and inspiring post. I, too, found the end of last year a point at which I wanted to pull a thread out of the tapestry of my journey and re-examine it. Originally intending to go into the ministry, my life took a circuitous route which, eventually, led to the realization that without a belief in something transcendent, life has little worth. I wrote about it a bit on my Substack https://everythingisbiology.substack.com/p/can-a-praying-mantis-help-blind-children
The simple gist of the story is that I agree with you. I find myself now returning to a more traditionalist set of beliefs similar to those from which I began my journey. It is a commitment to something greater than oneself that sets one truly free... And your perspective offers a clear and meaningful vision for doing so. Thank you very much for your inspirational writing. Sincerely, Frederick
Have a wonderful journey to Mt. Athos, Paul. Your writing and that of several others has inspired me to visit a small Orthodox church in the woods of New England. Only about 15 people attend the services. Its candlelit, incense-smelling interior and the lovely acapella singing of the liturgy and prayers makes it a port in the storm. What has been most appealing has been the kind, welcoming attitude of its congregation. Thank you for giving readers like me the inspiration to find such a church.
Just six months ago a Russian Orthodox Church put down roots five minutes from my home. I’ve watched it grow from a couple of men and women repairing and painting an empty building to a now full parking lot for services.
It’s just a 25 minute drive to my Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest (ICKSP) parish, a traditional Latin Mass parish. I discovered the forerunner to the parish twenty years ago this past Christmas Eve, and that night I returned to the church of my youth.
Talk about baggage. The Latin Mass has had a tough 58 years as the Silent Generation and Boomers took a wrecking ball to the Roman Catholic Church. We happy few are keeping the flame alive, and with the arrival of the ICKSP in 2019 and the 2020 lockdowns, our parish has grown from 250 to close to 1,000. Most of that growth are young single men and young families.
Fortunately, the the bitter and nasty fights of the late 1960s to 2013 when Pope Benedict XVI fled from the wolves is ancient history to the Millennials and Gen Z. It seems the more the Vatican persecutes the Latin Mass, the more attractive it becomes to young people. The Roman Calendar and the cycle of feasts and penitential fasting and works and a liturgy that has roots to the way Jesus and the Apostles worshipped helps us to be in this world but not of it.
Something is definitely afoot, as small and capital “O” orthodox Christianity are punching above their weight as liberalism collapses.
"...and as a result it will attract enemies, often public and sometimes powerful."
Are we here already, Paul?
I've been waiting for this moment since I entered the (still popularly irrelevant) Orthodox Church 18 years ago.
I realized, it's so quiet and spacious here, you can really just get to the business of a spiritual life without much bother.
But as I watched the sort of 'growth' you mentioned- these zealous men who enter for the wrong reasons in the loudest way possible (then invariably burn out... after however long a run building their cult following, depending how charismatic they are)-
I realized,
"Damn. It wont stay quiet here.
Sooner or later these noisy clowns will attract the wrong sort of public attention from the wolves in social power."
But I've been 'unplugged' from all forms of public news for 15 years now.
So, not reading the signs, I ask:
Really?
Is 2025 going to be the year?
I'm saddened by this. I guess it makes sense with Russia and Ukraine and all.
But I'm saddened.
The Church will remain the church though; a quiet home of genuine spiritual transformation for those of us who want to do the work and know we are not yet loving or humble, and not yet caring for our neighbours and even enemies with the merciful and compassionate regard that their (and our) Creator wishes for his beloved church.
*Sigh*.
So be it.
The church survived the Roman Emperor (hint hint, ye desert-fathers-and-mothers-to-be out there?! ;-)
We can survive this.
For those outside who look in:
Please do not be deceived by the noise of our young men and "internet orthodoxy". It is not remotely what I have found the heart of this spiritual way to be. Go to an elder or eldress in some monastery.
Our faith is inescapably embodied, and relational.
Our "Holy Tradition" is called by the monks the "golden chain"- it is the living, inner truth of the spiritual path that can only be transmitted personally. You cannot read your way into it, or watch the right thing.
You must encounter it, in the heart of one who is truly a God-bearer.
Very Christmas theme, that. :)
To comprehend the true quality of Orthodox spirituality,
And may your pilgrimage to the Holy Mountain be blessed.
I'm just re-reading Scott Cairns "Short trip to the Edge," account of his own pilgrimage(s) there. Bringing back deep, fond memories of my own spiritual journey...
Godspead!
-Mark Basil
[afterthought, edit: upon reflection I think I have to fairly say, some of these young men actually find salvation eventually. Through a kind of 'second conversion' some few years after their noisy misguided entrance, exposure to *real* Orthodoxy from within Her loving, gentle embrace eventually touches their zealous hearts and their hearts break. And they learn to love. So I suppose I cant *only* lament their arrival; God knows they need saving too, even if they dont know it themselves, yet.]
Yes, 'the wolves in social power' seem to be turning their Eye of Sauron on the Church, for the above mentioned reasons. We'll see what happens. On a long enough timeline, none of it matters. The real heart of Orthodoxy remains beating quietly.
Prompted by online influencers or not, anyone coming to any ideology for the wrong reasons will wash out. There have always been cyclic revivals of religion in all societies and the fervor around them creates an volatile mix that burns out quickly and brings most of the converts with it. Even hundreds of years ago, long before TikTok.
We should of course prioritize the ethereal, the higher-order, the way... but its impact on our material worlds also matters deeply. Orthodox Christianity is based. It does keep women (and men and children) in their proper spheres. It does "stick it to the libs". As it must. How would it be any other way? While some newcomers may not initially be filled with the Holy Spirit, recognizing even a vague truth is a better than the alternative. And with some hope and prayer maybe they'll move closer to the core.
As faithful Christianity becomes more "right-coded" and more people start running away from Liberalism, all traditional churches are going to have the problem of people coming for more-or-less political reasons. I have got to the point where if I hear somebody is going to church to "own the libs" (yes, that seems to be a thing in some circles), I will tell them to not bother with church and find some other way to express their politics.
I have ended up in an Anglican church (ACNA), after being born in, raised in, and a long-time member of what is now an exhausted liberal protestant denomination. I am not ever likely to make the leap into Orthodoxy, but I am paying a great deal of attention to what the Orthodox have to say, because I think that the Orthodox have a lot of real insights to offer the rest of Christianity. My long-term prognostication is that Roman Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, and the liturgical forms of Protestantism will tend to converge, likely very much in the direction of Orthodoxy.
One of the best sermons I have heard in the past couple of years was on the last part of the Beatitudes (Matthew 5:10-12). The preacher of this sermon pointed out that if we live as faithful Christians, troubles will come our way because that is how the world responds to the faith, and that the proper Christian response to that is not to become defensive, or combative, or evasive, but to simply continue living a faithful Christian life and proclaiming the Christian gospel.
"and that the proper Christian response to that is not to become defensive, or combative, or evasive, but to simply continue living a faithful Christian life and proclaiming the Christian gospel."
This is a great summing up of the proper response.
How many times have I encountered (often older-generation) Christians moan and complain about this or that "persecution" of Christianity here in the west.
Persecution?!
Are you kidding me?
Do you not listen to the readings of the martyrs?- torn apart by wild animals for the sport of onlooking dominant culture?
No,
We are faaar from persecuted.
What we're actually feeling is just a little discomfort now, from not being in charge anymore. Not the most powerful, respectable path, anymore.
And this is a good place, not a bad place, for us to be!
At coffee hour dont bemoan and complain about this sort of thing, brothers and sisters.
Instead rejoice and be exceedingly glad!
For was not far worse done to the prophets of old?
Instead also weep and hang your head, for is our own modern faith not so lukewarm in contrast with the prophets of old, that we complain at the slightest hint of cultural discomfort?
The Lord has to teach his contemporary believers with velvet gloves here in the west, at the changing of the guard, and *still* we complain and grumble.
Man up, people.
Love is gracious under duress, and does not demand on its own way.
Just to say I’ve just discovered the ‘Richard the Fourth’ YouTube channel. It’s really excellent, well worth listening to. Many points of contact with your work, Paul. Have a wonderful retreat on Mt Athos.
Do you get paid by the “ruction”? ✌🏻
If I did, I'd be a rich man.
Enjoy Mount Athos! I hope you can visit Konstamonitou Monastery. It was the first Monastery I stayed at during my time on the Holy Mountain, and I'm still struck by its beauty and lack of modern amenities. It really seems to have shunned modernity more than others I've visited.
Hi Paul - love your work and wanted to express it publicly. I came (back? I was baptized but not raised catholic) to Catholicism during Covid for many of the same reasons you turned to the Orthodox faith - deep roots, basically. Thanks for writing about your faith and encouraging those of us doing it in more obscurity to keep following the Narrow Way.
Also - is there a “dictionary” you provide that defines what you mean by terms like “liberalism”? Have you heard about the emergent movement? I agree something is happening, just want to make sure I’m following Christ rather than “being on the right side of history” or “saving the world”
While we wait for Paul's response,
I'll share something I found extremely helpful about the bankruptcy of the "Left/Right" political paradigm.
Scroll down to David Caley's section titled:
ON THE NEED FOR POLITICAL REALIGNMENT
here:
https://www.davidcayley.com/blog/2020/12/3/pandemic-revelations-1
it's lengthy but highly worth your time imo.
Here's an excerpt:
"I see two great problems here. The first is the violent reciprocity that turns left and right into warring factions and confines each one ever more tightly in its proper box. What the enemy says is wrong – entirely and a priori – simply because the enemy has said it....
This is the first problem: making judgments whose only grounds are the dynamic of enmity: the enemy of my enemy is my friend, whatever the enemy says or thinks is wrong, and so forth. On this basis, once Donald Trump has said that the cure for COVID shouldn’t be worse than the disease, as he did last spring, then this thought becomes unthinkable and unspeakable by his opponents simply because Donald Trump has said it. This inability to think the enemy’s thoughts is fatal to sound reasoning. That the cure must not be worse than the disease is a principle that goes back to Hippocrates and remains true even in the mouth of a scoundrel. Reflexive polarization creates false dichotomies, cleaving opposites that should be held together into warring half-truths"
I wrote an essay about 'liberalism' a couple of years back in which I went into that in some detail. It's linked to in this piece. I don't know the movement you mention.
Thank you, Paul. God bless you and your company on the Holy Mountain. May the Theotokos and the angels protect you always. Looking forward as usual to your continued writing.
Ain't it the truth that we don't know ourselves!
Dana
Thank you, once again, for the thoughtful and inspiring post. I, too, found the end of last year a point at which I wanted to pull a thread out of the tapestry of my journey and re-examine it. Originally intending to go into the ministry, my life took a circuitous route which, eventually, led to the realization that without a belief in something transcendent, life has little worth. I wrote about it a bit on my Substack https://everythingisbiology.substack.com/p/can-a-praying-mantis-help-blind-children
The simple gist of the story is that I agree with you. I find myself now returning to a more traditionalist set of beliefs similar to those from which I began my journey. It is a commitment to something greater than oneself that sets one truly free... And your perspective offers a clear and meaningful vision for doing so. Thank you very much for your inspirational writing. Sincerely, Frederick
Rio Grande Theophany
I’m new at this.
Behind the procession.
Then in it, it becomes, as it flows around me.
Babies, in furry hoods in strollers, blink.
The eyes of the bigger children search the chamisa for the glint of water.
The old parents of parents take the shortcut to the shore.
The seas didn’t part, we did, to take the land.
The chants echo as we pass
Under the footbridge tunnel.
With such a long line, others so far ahead,
We have become our own antiphony.
What sunheat was on us in the January air
Is sucked into the notes
And bounces off the walls
And returns to us as shivers.
We emerge as slow serpentine, chanting, singing.
Strangers on paseo-strolls gawk at the banners, the robes,
The byzantine almost tangible in the air.
On the banks, there are ancient formations
And remembering-rites.
A group of the young men fidget
And glance again and again
At the not-so-grande languid Rio.
Aha!
Now!
Nikolay the priest hefts the giant crucifix
And throws it into the course
For the life of me, I can’t fathom this yet.
The young men grin, elbowing each other solemnly,
And strip to trunks and bravery.
I can see the puckered pores from here.
I can see the
Wind.
In their eyes I see:
They once watched from strollers
And dreamed of this day.
They are held back by invisible starting lines
Till they can throw themselves into the glinting waters
To retrieve the Wood
Before it floats downstream.
In this
All waters are holied.
We thirst.
I apologize. Stanza spacing and italics disappeared.
All a best foot forward!
(This evening looked up your visit to Gumfreston Church in Pembrokeshire... keep the holy wells coming.)
Many years!
Have a wonderful journey to Mt. Athos, Paul. Your writing and that of several others has inspired me to visit a small Orthodox church in the woods of New England. Only about 15 people attend the services. Its candlelit, incense-smelling interior and the lovely acapella singing of the liturgy and prayers makes it a port in the storm. What has been most appealing has been the kind, welcoming attitude of its congregation. Thank you for giving readers like me the inspiration to find such a church.
Wonderful! I'm happy to hear it.
Just six months ago a Russian Orthodox Church put down roots five minutes from my home. I’ve watched it grow from a couple of men and women repairing and painting an empty building to a now full parking lot for services.
It’s just a 25 minute drive to my Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest (ICKSP) parish, a traditional Latin Mass parish. I discovered the forerunner to the parish twenty years ago this past Christmas Eve, and that night I returned to the church of my youth.
Talk about baggage. The Latin Mass has had a tough 58 years as the Silent Generation and Boomers took a wrecking ball to the Roman Catholic Church. We happy few are keeping the flame alive, and with the arrival of the ICKSP in 2019 and the 2020 lockdowns, our parish has grown from 250 to close to 1,000. Most of that growth are young single men and young families.
Fortunately, the the bitter and nasty fights of the late 1960s to 2013 when Pope Benedict XVI fled from the wolves is ancient history to the Millennials and Gen Z. It seems the more the Vatican persecutes the Latin Mass, the more attractive it becomes to young people. The Roman Calendar and the cycle of feasts and penitential fasting and works and a liturgy that has roots to the way Jesus and the Apostles worshipped helps us to be in this world but not of it.
Something is definitely afoot, as small and capital “O” orthodox Christianity are punching above their weight as liberalism collapses.
LaTayne Scott- your poem is beautiful. Thank you.
Glory to God.
"...and as a result it will attract enemies, often public and sometimes powerful."
Are we here already, Paul?
I've been waiting for this moment since I entered the (still popularly irrelevant) Orthodox Church 18 years ago.
I realized, it's so quiet and spacious here, you can really just get to the business of a spiritual life without much bother.
But as I watched the sort of 'growth' you mentioned- these zealous men who enter for the wrong reasons in the loudest way possible (then invariably burn out... after however long a run building their cult following, depending how charismatic they are)-
I realized,
"Damn. It wont stay quiet here.
Sooner or later these noisy clowns will attract the wrong sort of public attention from the wolves in social power."
But I've been 'unplugged' from all forms of public news for 15 years now.
So, not reading the signs, I ask:
Really?
Is 2025 going to be the year?
I'm saddened by this. I guess it makes sense with Russia and Ukraine and all.
But I'm saddened.
The Church will remain the church though; a quiet home of genuine spiritual transformation for those of us who want to do the work and know we are not yet loving or humble, and not yet caring for our neighbours and even enemies with the merciful and compassionate regard that their (and our) Creator wishes for his beloved church.
*Sigh*.
So be it.
The church survived the Roman Emperor (hint hint, ye desert-fathers-and-mothers-to-be out there?! ;-)
We can survive this.
For those outside who look in:
Please do not be deceived by the noise of our young men and "internet orthodoxy". It is not remotely what I have found the heart of this spiritual way to be. Go to an elder or eldress in some monastery.
Our faith is inescapably embodied, and relational.
Our "Holy Tradition" is called by the monks the "golden chain"- it is the living, inner truth of the spiritual path that can only be transmitted personally. You cannot read your way into it, or watch the right thing.
You must encounter it, in the heart of one who is truly a God-bearer.
Very Christmas theme, that. :)
To comprehend the true quality of Orthodox spirituality,
you could also watch:
Sacred Alaska
https://sacredalaskafilm.com/
Blessed Feast Paul!
And may your pilgrimage to the Holy Mountain be blessed.
I'm just re-reading Scott Cairns "Short trip to the Edge," account of his own pilgrimage(s) there. Bringing back deep, fond memories of my own spiritual journey...
Godspead!
-Mark Basil
[afterthought, edit: upon reflection I think I have to fairly say, some of these young men actually find salvation eventually. Through a kind of 'second conversion' some few years after their noisy misguided entrance, exposure to *real* Orthodoxy from within Her loving, gentle embrace eventually touches their zealous hearts and their hearts break. And they learn to love. So I suppose I cant *only* lament their arrival; God knows they need saving too, even if they dont know it themselves, yet.]
Thanks Mark. Much wisdom here.
Yes, 'the wolves in social power' seem to be turning their Eye of Sauron on the Church, for the above mentioned reasons. We'll see what happens. On a long enough timeline, none of it matters. The real heart of Orthodoxy remains beating quietly.
Prompted by online influencers or not, anyone coming to any ideology for the wrong reasons will wash out. There have always been cyclic revivals of religion in all societies and the fervor around them creates an volatile mix that burns out quickly and brings most of the converts with it. Even hundreds of years ago, long before TikTok.
We should of course prioritize the ethereal, the higher-order, the way... but its impact on our material worlds also matters deeply. Orthodox Christianity is based. It does keep women (and men and children) in their proper spheres. It does "stick it to the libs". As it must. How would it be any other way? While some newcomers may not initially be filled with the Holy Spirit, recognizing even a vague truth is a better than the alternative. And with some hope and prayer maybe they'll move closer to the core.
As faithful Christianity becomes more "right-coded" and more people start running away from Liberalism, all traditional churches are going to have the problem of people coming for more-or-less political reasons. I have got to the point where if I hear somebody is going to church to "own the libs" (yes, that seems to be a thing in some circles), I will tell them to not bother with church and find some other way to express their politics.
I have ended up in an Anglican church (ACNA), after being born in, raised in, and a long-time member of what is now an exhausted liberal protestant denomination. I am not ever likely to make the leap into Orthodoxy, but I am paying a great deal of attention to what the Orthodox have to say, because I think that the Orthodox have a lot of real insights to offer the rest of Christianity. My long-term prognostication is that Roman Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, and the liturgical forms of Protestantism will tend to converge, likely very much in the direction of Orthodoxy.
As far as hit pieces against Orthodoxy: that has already begun. This was on NPR almost three years ago: https://www.npr.org/2022/05/10/1096741988/orthodox-christian-churches-are-drawing-in-far-right-american-converts . I agree with you though, that this is likely to intensify.
One of the best sermons I have heard in the past couple of years was on the last part of the Beatitudes (Matthew 5:10-12). The preacher of this sermon pointed out that if we live as faithful Christians, troubles will come our way because that is how the world responds to the faith, and that the proper Christian response to that is not to become defensive, or combative, or evasive, but to simply continue living a faithful Christian life and proclaiming the Christian gospel.
"and that the proper Christian response to that is not to become defensive, or combative, or evasive, but to simply continue living a faithful Christian life and proclaiming the Christian gospel."
This is a great summing up of the proper response.
How many times have I encountered (often older-generation) Christians moan and complain about this or that "persecution" of Christianity here in the west.
Persecution?!
Are you kidding me?
Do you not listen to the readings of the martyrs?- torn apart by wild animals for the sport of onlooking dominant culture?
No,
We are faaar from persecuted.
What we're actually feeling is just a little discomfort now, from not being in charge anymore. Not the most powerful, respectable path, anymore.
And this is a good place, not a bad place, for us to be!
At coffee hour dont bemoan and complain about this sort of thing, brothers and sisters.
Instead rejoice and be exceedingly glad!
For was not far worse done to the prophets of old?
Instead also weep and hang your head, for is our own modern faith not so lukewarm in contrast with the prophets of old, that we complain at the slightest hint of cultural discomfort?
The Lord has to teach his contemporary believers with velvet gloves here in the west, at the changing of the guard, and *still* we complain and grumble.
Man up, people.
Love is gracious under duress, and does not demand on its own way.
Peace;
-mb
Just to say I’ve just discovered the ‘Richard the Fourth’ YouTube channel. It’s really excellent, well worth listening to. Many points of contact with your work, Paul. Have a wonderful retreat on Mt Athos.