It’s refreshing to read someone engaging with the contemporary convert scene in American Orthodoxy who remembers what it was like in the 90s and earlier. You paint a picture I immediately recognize. I remember what it was like being an OCA “catechumen” (scare quotes because I was already baptized!) in the summer of 1999 and discovering Orthodoxinfo.org on my parents’ dial-up. I’d just waded into Orthodoxy and already I was learning that most of Orthodoxy was gravely compromised—it was exhilarating!
This kind of stuff gives people a high. And that explains both why the rigorists of the 80s and 90s went off into “non-canonical” bodies and also why the rigorists of our own decade don’t. Because, as you say, if they did, they couldn’t preen themselves online.
Why didn’t *I* go down the rigorist/schismatic root in my first few years? In part for social reasons and also logistics: there was no such church anywhere near where I lived and all my friends were in the OCA.
But I also think that my Anglican upbringing and formation instilled in me a sense of stable, “mere Christianity” – evangelical, catholic, ecclesial, and sacramental. This both kept me grounded and also forced me to always keep a door open for the ecumenical movement.
But this sense is not something many recent converts to Orthodoxy (or Catholicism) are bringing with them. Whether they’re coming from pop Evangelicalism or from not much of anything at all, their vacuous cultural background makes them particularly susceptible to the shock and awe of Orthodox liturgical esthetics, asceticism, and dogmatism. And they get drunk on it. It’s a form of romanticism that can have its place for a time. But at some point it must either give way to a more mature trust in God or it will start to stink.
Everything you write here rings true from my experiences except that the irrelevant and marginal family squabbles that I found myself in the middle of were anything but healthy and vibrant. They were dark and soul crushing. I am just beginning to come to terms with the sad fact that I spent almost 30 years of my life believing these absurd internecine conflicts were of importance. In my opinion they are mostly just distractions to the real work of being a Christian (loving God, loving neighbor, loving enemies, forgiving trespasses). These endless, unwinnable battles also make excellent smoke screens for nefariousness behavior(my first experience of this was with Fr Herman Podmoshensky and most recently with the revelations of the godparent of my children, Fr Matthew Williams).
The internet has only made the absurdity of it all more absurd. I was roommates with Justin Marler at Theophany Skete in the early 90’s when Death To The World was created. For all of its faults and even thought it was a disaster for many souls, at least the original movement took things seriously. They were actual punks becoming actual monks not just people LARPing behind computer screens.
After I left Fr Herman’s monastery in California, at the wise old age of 21, I returned home to Tennessee and ended up living at the Agape community, an Orthodox commune of sorts, that was in ROCOR. For all of the faults of that place and its leader Fr Gregory Williams, at least they put their money where their mouth was and attempted to live out, in flesh and blood, what they preached. Even though it was a total mess of a life and it all fell apart in the end.
Orthodoxy of today feels so empty and performative. I mean, if we routinely ignore and pretty much allow the most heinous behavior from priests to continue year after year while we drone on with golden tongues about the depth and beauty of Orthodoxy, what does it all even mean?
Oh my brother, I feel what you're saying. The only reason I could speak so lightly about those squabbles is that I, by good fortune and God's grace, was far away from them, reading about them. I am so sorry for everything you suffered. I can't imagine it. As drawn as I was back in my early convertitis days to that universe, something made me stay away from direct contact. But maybe the conflict is that there was grace in it too... I have heard this from other survivors in other maybe similar situations. Anyway, I don't know what to do -- reading about Gleb Podmoshensky and all the other revelations makes me more determined than ever to make sure that my own jurisdiction (OCA) really implements the best policies possible. If I can have any influence... But also, to stay ecumenically open. I think it is so important to remember what you've said -- that it is not about ritual and doctrinal purity first of all, it is about the love of Jesus lived out concretely in our lives.
I recently visited Platina BTW and it felt dead. I do not know how else to describe it. It even felt dead at Fr Seraphim's grave. I felt almost as if he wasn't even there. And I suddenly got a download -- the sin that hangs over that place has not been cleared. I think maybe that community needs actually to cease to exist, before Fr Seraphim can be glorified. The burden of the sin, and of the long schism that was created to justify it, has to be removed. Maybe even Fr Seraphim's relics need to be moved elsewhere. I say this because the experience was very different from what I experienced many times in San Francisco at St John's tomb.
It warms the soul to see both of you reading one another's stuff. You both express very real pitfalls and pains of the Church in totally different ways that bring a lot of healing.
> I recently visited Platina BTW and it felt dead.
Very sad to hear this but also totally unsurprised. I love Fr. Seraphim's writings and lectures. He was one of the main drivers in my early Orthodox conversion. When I learned that our parish has one of his relics behind the Altar, it was a day of joy.
The relic isn't available for public veneration due to his lack of canonization, but every Feast Day of All Saints of North America for the past three years, I have requested private veneration. The first time, I felt nothing. The next time, the stoll appeared almost to avoid my lips. This latest experience, I made sure that didn't happen - grabbed it with my grubby little mitts and smooched it hard with thanksgiving for all Fr. Seraphim's lovely writings, earnestly hoping for a response.
Nothing again. Less than nothing, really - I felt a deep sense of dis-ease. Like this was a soul I should be praying for, not asking intercession of. A short time later, we went to venerate the relics of St. Therese of Lisieux, and the grace clung to my clothes for many days afterwards. A totally different experience.
All of this was before learning about the darker aspects of the Platina Monastery, so this sentiment wasn't psychological. I don't know, it's hard to explain, but I can at least intuit why both of you guys experienced such Grace from St. John's tomb yet a comparative absence at Platina.
Powerful, ty for sharing that, rings true to me. BTW I missed St Therese’s relics when they came through Chicago in the early aughts. Have they come again recently?
Thank you brother! Forgive my cynicism. I may have to go through a level of cynicism that matched my older level of naivety before I come out on the other side. You really get it and you really care. I am grateful for people like you in the church.
Never heard of this Substack before today but I hope to see more content like this! As a convert in 2018 before the covid wave it really is crazy to see how much things have changed since then. Couldn’t imagine comparing to decades ago.
I think it can be agreed that the Tweedy, Chesterton Pocket-watch Catholic LARP and Late Czarist Orthobro Cosplay is equally ridiculous. But this twin phenomenon is just the physical manifestation of a much deeper issue playing out on both sides of our respective fences.
My realization that the Old Calendarists were "right" about everything but also highly uncharitable, isolated jerks broke my brain a couple years back and I don't think it's worked the same way ever since.
Largely about the sticking-points Loup mentions in this article: Ecumenism and canonicity as guided by modern Saints.
They hold fast to St. John of Shanghai's "points of reunification" with the MP: No Sergianism, clean house of the Stalinist Bishopric, canonization of specific Neomartyrs, anything else is a false reunion. They take St. Justin Popovic's warning of ecumenism as a "Pan-Heresy" very seriously and refuse Communion with most as a result. They are willing to de-canonize Saints like Paisios the Athonite and Maria of Paris who do not meet their highly particular, insular, but logically consistent regimen.
They are also fond of claiming Blessed Fr. Seraphim as one of their own, citing the censorship of modern printings of "Orthodoxy and the Religion of the Future," with its sweeping condemnations of World Orthodoxy and longing for the Catacomb Church to regain canonical control over the then-USSR having been removed, as evidence.
This is a highly abridged version. I don't share their lack of charitability nor do I think going down this rabbit hole is particularly beneficial for most. It was just an itch I had to scratch.
Loup does a great job summarizing the cultural and lived elements of this type of rigorism here, and it's comforting to learn that the historical record matches the lived experience of those who were Orthodox during this time period.
Hmm as much as I agree that Orthobros are annoying and missing the point by and large, I very much don't agree with your point that you need to split from communion in order to be in the church but dissident.
I mean you and I both have.... strongly heterodox positions! Do you think that we should split from the church as well?
In general I think the Orthodox Church is a family. We will have squabbles, things we disagree about, but at the end of the day we come together. I think it's fair for the Orthobros to do the same as the weird esoteric nutjobs like us and our friends here on the broader Substack community we're in.
The Orthobro rhetoric definitely needs to be toned down, and you do make good points about holding the old line of tradition and ecumenicism, but I don't want to try and narrow or police who is "allowed to be Orthodox" too much because I myself am a non-standard Orthodox believer.
No, you kinda missed my point. I am simply saying that they’re trying to have their cake and eat it too. They would like to present ecumenism as a heresy. Very well, then, let’s assume they’re right — that means their hierarchs are heretics. By their own standard, they should not remain in communion with these hierarchs (or anyone in communion with those hierarchs). The fact that they still are in communion with them means that either they don’t really take ecumenism seriously as a heresy, or that they don’t take seriously the need to sever communion with heretical archpastors.
Either way, they’re hypocrites. They’re in communion with bishops who teach that the Roman Catholic Church is a “sister church,” that east and west are the Church’s “two lungs.” OK is that a heresy or not? If it isn’t, they need to stop being asinine rigorists and yelling about heretical Catholics. At the very least they must acknowledge that it is an acceptable theological opinion — they’re in communion with bishops who teach it! If it is a heresy, then they need to be consistent and leave the communion of those bishops who teach it! Obviously my preference is that they don't go into schism -- I'm just pointing out that their behavior is *already* schismatic even if they're not taking the formal step. They're trying to be schismatics while still receiving the mysteries in a church they think is compromised by false doctrine!
Ahh ok I see so you're basically calling them hypocrites. Yeah ok I can see that. If they are going to outright say that the hierarchy is heretical than perhaps they should split.
Then again, idk I also have a lot of problems with the hierarchy! I would not be so bold as to say they're heretics while I'm not though. But I'm ok with flirting with heresy, while I'd imagine the Orthobros want to define who's a heretic and who isn't.
They have the rigidity of recent converts, and, sadly, the internet enables them to spread their superficial understanding to all the world. I am glad that wasn’t possible when I converted; I might have been tempted to indulge in some ignorant, self-righteous proclamations of Orthodox theology to those who knew better. The thought makes me shiver.
Excellent.... And the title alone made me LOL heartily! For whatever reason I have always had negative interest in any kind of purist rigorism in the Church and this has shielded me well. (Being cradle Orthodox is probably a massive part of it. You just see how the sausage gets made from a young age so there is absolutely no room for idealising the Church, I think.)
It’s refreshing to read someone engaging with the contemporary convert scene in American Orthodoxy who remembers what it was like in the 90s and earlier. You paint a picture I immediately recognize. I remember what it was like being an OCA “catechumen” (scare quotes because I was already baptized!) in the summer of 1999 and discovering Orthodoxinfo.org on my parents’ dial-up. I’d just waded into Orthodoxy and already I was learning that most of Orthodoxy was gravely compromised—it was exhilarating!
This kind of stuff gives people a high. And that explains both why the rigorists of the 80s and 90s went off into “non-canonical” bodies and also why the rigorists of our own decade don’t. Because, as you say, if they did, they couldn’t preen themselves online.
Why didn’t *I* go down the rigorist/schismatic root in my first few years? In part for social reasons and also logistics: there was no such church anywhere near where I lived and all my friends were in the OCA.
But I also think that my Anglican upbringing and formation instilled in me a sense of stable, “mere Christianity” – evangelical, catholic, ecclesial, and sacramental. This both kept me grounded and also forced me to always keep a door open for the ecumenical movement.
But this sense is not something many recent converts to Orthodoxy (or Catholicism) are bringing with them. Whether they’re coming from pop Evangelicalism or from not much of anything at all, their vacuous cultural background makes them particularly susceptible to the shock and awe of Orthodox liturgical esthetics, asceticism, and dogmatism. And they get drunk on it. It’s a form of romanticism that can have its place for a time. But at some point it must either give way to a more mature trust in God or it will start to stink.
Father, all very well said and I think your diagnoses are correct!
You have unleashed your firebrand side, I see!
If, like me, one has seen the rather rotten fruits of rigorism in others, one is no longer drawn by its siren call.
Everything you write here rings true from my experiences except that the irrelevant and marginal family squabbles that I found myself in the middle of were anything but healthy and vibrant. They were dark and soul crushing. I am just beginning to come to terms with the sad fact that I spent almost 30 years of my life believing these absurd internecine conflicts were of importance. In my opinion they are mostly just distractions to the real work of being a Christian (loving God, loving neighbor, loving enemies, forgiving trespasses). These endless, unwinnable battles also make excellent smoke screens for nefariousness behavior(my first experience of this was with Fr Herman Podmoshensky and most recently with the revelations of the godparent of my children, Fr Matthew Williams).
The internet has only made the absurdity of it all more absurd. I was roommates with Justin Marler at Theophany Skete in the early 90’s when Death To The World was created. For all of its faults and even thought it was a disaster for many souls, at least the original movement took things seriously. They were actual punks becoming actual monks not just people LARPing behind computer screens.
After I left Fr Herman’s monastery in California, at the wise old age of 21, I returned home to Tennessee and ended up living at the Agape community, an Orthodox commune of sorts, that was in ROCOR. For all of the faults of that place and its leader Fr Gregory Williams, at least they put their money where their mouth was and attempted to live out, in flesh and blood, what they preached. Even though it was a total mess of a life and it all fell apart in the end.
Orthodoxy of today feels so empty and performative. I mean, if we routinely ignore and pretty much allow the most heinous behavior from priests to continue year after year while we drone on with golden tongues about the depth and beauty of Orthodoxy, what does it all even mean?
Oh my brother, I feel what you're saying. The only reason I could speak so lightly about those squabbles is that I, by good fortune and God's grace, was far away from them, reading about them. I am so sorry for everything you suffered. I can't imagine it. As drawn as I was back in my early convertitis days to that universe, something made me stay away from direct contact. But maybe the conflict is that there was grace in it too... I have heard this from other survivors in other maybe similar situations. Anyway, I don't know what to do -- reading about Gleb Podmoshensky and all the other revelations makes me more determined than ever to make sure that my own jurisdiction (OCA) really implements the best policies possible. If I can have any influence... But also, to stay ecumenically open. I think it is so important to remember what you've said -- that it is not about ritual and doctrinal purity first of all, it is about the love of Jesus lived out concretely in our lives.
I recently visited Platina BTW and it felt dead. I do not know how else to describe it. It even felt dead at Fr Seraphim's grave. I felt almost as if he wasn't even there. And I suddenly got a download -- the sin that hangs over that place has not been cleared. I think maybe that community needs actually to cease to exist, before Fr Seraphim can be glorified. The burden of the sin, and of the long schism that was created to justify it, has to be removed. Maybe even Fr Seraphim's relics need to be moved elsewhere. I say this because the experience was very different from what I experienced many times in San Francisco at St John's tomb.
It warms the soul to see both of you reading one another's stuff. You both express very real pitfalls and pains of the Church in totally different ways that bring a lot of healing.
> I recently visited Platina BTW and it felt dead.
Very sad to hear this but also totally unsurprised. I love Fr. Seraphim's writings and lectures. He was one of the main drivers in my early Orthodox conversion. When I learned that our parish has one of his relics behind the Altar, it was a day of joy.
The relic isn't available for public veneration due to his lack of canonization, but every Feast Day of All Saints of North America for the past three years, I have requested private veneration. The first time, I felt nothing. The next time, the stoll appeared almost to avoid my lips. This latest experience, I made sure that didn't happen - grabbed it with my grubby little mitts and smooched it hard with thanksgiving for all Fr. Seraphim's lovely writings, earnestly hoping for a response.
Nothing again. Less than nothing, really - I felt a deep sense of dis-ease. Like this was a soul I should be praying for, not asking intercession of. A short time later, we went to venerate the relics of St. Therese of Lisieux, and the grace clung to my clothes for many days afterwards. A totally different experience.
All of this was before learning about the darker aspects of the Platina Monastery, so this sentiment wasn't psychological. I don't know, it's hard to explain, but I can at least intuit why both of you guys experienced such Grace from St. John's tomb yet a comparative absence at Platina.
Powerful, ty for sharing that, rings true to me. BTW I missed St Therese’s relics when they came through Chicago in the early aughts. Have they come again recently?
Just recently for the 100th Anniversary of her canonization and Feast Day! October 1st through December 8th.
Thank you brother! Forgive my cynicism. I may have to go through a level of cynicism that matched my older level of naivety before I come out on the other side. You really get it and you really care. I am grateful for people like you in the church.
Never heard of this Substack before today but I hope to see more content like this! As a convert in 2018 before the covid wave it really is crazy to see how much things have changed since then. Couldn’t imagine comparing to decades ago.
I try to keep it in the realm of actual spirituality, but sometimes, I just get a bee in my bonnet...
This dude is straight fire.
I think it can be agreed that the Tweedy, Chesterton Pocket-watch Catholic LARP and Late Czarist Orthobro Cosplay is equally ridiculous. But this twin phenomenon is just the physical manifestation of a much deeper issue playing out on both sides of our respective fences.
You're getting very spicy and I dig it.
My realization that the Old Calendarists were "right" about everything but also highly uncharitable, isolated jerks broke my brain a couple years back and I don't think it's worked the same way ever since.
How were they right?
Man, this would be another long one.
Largely about the sticking-points Loup mentions in this article: Ecumenism and canonicity as guided by modern Saints.
They hold fast to St. John of Shanghai's "points of reunification" with the MP: No Sergianism, clean house of the Stalinist Bishopric, canonization of specific Neomartyrs, anything else is a false reunion. They take St. Justin Popovic's warning of ecumenism as a "Pan-Heresy" very seriously and refuse Communion with most as a result. They are willing to de-canonize Saints like Paisios the Athonite and Maria of Paris who do not meet their highly particular, insular, but logically consistent regimen.
They are also fond of claiming Blessed Fr. Seraphim as one of their own, citing the censorship of modern printings of "Orthodoxy and the Religion of the Future," with its sweeping condemnations of World Orthodoxy and longing for the Catacomb Church to regain canonical control over the then-USSR having been removed, as evidence.
This is a highly abridged version. I don't share their lack of charitability nor do I think going down this rabbit hole is particularly beneficial for most. It was just an itch I had to scratch.
Loup does a great job summarizing the cultural and lived elements of this type of rigorism here, and it's comforting to learn that the historical record matches the lived experience of those who were Orthodox during this time period.
Getting some real Monthy Python vibes from this catalogue of factions. Splitters!
ahaha 1000%
This is the worst AI article I've ever read.
Are you f*cking kidding me? LOL. Go away.
I just thought it was funny to comment please sir have mercy on me.
You got me so bad LOL well played sir
???? lmao.
Sheesh. To this kind of religion the only response is: “I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.”
Written with fire, sir
thank you, thank you
Always here for Orthobro nuking. As a Catholic, the Great Schism can only be viewed as a tragedy, and I pray for reunion.
Hmm as much as I agree that Orthobros are annoying and missing the point by and large, I very much don't agree with your point that you need to split from communion in order to be in the church but dissident.
I mean you and I both have.... strongly heterodox positions! Do you think that we should split from the church as well?
In general I think the Orthodox Church is a family. We will have squabbles, things we disagree about, but at the end of the day we come together. I think it's fair for the Orthobros to do the same as the weird esoteric nutjobs like us and our friends here on the broader Substack community we're in.
The Orthobro rhetoric definitely needs to be toned down, and you do make good points about holding the old line of tradition and ecumenicism, but I don't want to try and narrow or police who is "allowed to be Orthodox" too much because I myself am a non-standard Orthodox believer.
No, you kinda missed my point. I am simply saying that they’re trying to have their cake and eat it too. They would like to present ecumenism as a heresy. Very well, then, let’s assume they’re right — that means their hierarchs are heretics. By their own standard, they should not remain in communion with these hierarchs (or anyone in communion with those hierarchs). The fact that they still are in communion with them means that either they don’t really take ecumenism seriously as a heresy, or that they don’t take seriously the need to sever communion with heretical archpastors.
Either way, they’re hypocrites. They’re in communion with bishops who teach that the Roman Catholic Church is a “sister church,” that east and west are the Church’s “two lungs.” OK is that a heresy or not? If it isn’t, they need to stop being asinine rigorists and yelling about heretical Catholics. At the very least they must acknowledge that it is an acceptable theological opinion — they’re in communion with bishops who teach it! If it is a heresy, then they need to be consistent and leave the communion of those bishops who teach it! Obviously my preference is that they don't go into schism -- I'm just pointing out that their behavior is *already* schismatic even if they're not taking the formal step. They're trying to be schismatics while still receiving the mysteries in a church they think is compromised by false doctrine!
Ahh ok I see so you're basically calling them hypocrites. Yeah ok I can see that. If they are going to outright say that the hierarchy is heretical than perhaps they should split.
Then again, idk I also have a lot of problems with the hierarchy! I would not be so bold as to say they're heretics while I'm not though. But I'm ok with flirting with heresy, while I'd imagine the Orthobros want to define who's a heretic and who isn't.
Very much so, it’s their whole raison d’etre in a way. And they want to paint the whole tradition as unanimously agreeing with them.
They have the rigidity of recent converts, and, sadly, the internet enables them to spread their superficial understanding to all the world. I am glad that wasn’t possible when I converted; I might have been tempted to indulge in some ignorant, self-righteous proclamations of Orthodox theology to those who knew better. The thought makes me shiver.
Excellent.... And the title alone made me LOL heartily! For whatever reason I have always had negative interest in any kind of purist rigorism in the Church and this has shielded me well. (Being cradle Orthodox is probably a massive part of it. You just see how the sausage gets made from a young age so there is absolutely no room for idealising the Church, I think.)
Oh my goodness -- we need more cradle voices in the current maelstrom of raging convertitis!
Most excellent. OrthoBros (and OrtthoGals) can try one patience.
Thank you.
https://substack.com/@stevenberger/note/c-185870683?r=1nm0v2&utm_source=notes-share-action&utm_medium=web