From Trad Catholic to Eastern Orthodox

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign. So today we have the first host of the Crisis Point podcast with us today, Michael Warren Davis. Welcome to the program, Michael. [00:00:23] Speaker B: Hey, Eric. It's great to be here. Yeah, I started, I was thinking about this. I, I started this podcast with Phil Lawler. What was it? 2017? 2018. And it's, you're doing it. I'm actually a dedicated listener still. [00:00:37] Speaker A: Oh, thank you. [00:00:38] Speaker B: You do a phenomenal job. The production values are slick. You're, you're a real pro. It's awesome. [00:00:43] Speaker A: I'm trying. I don't, you know, as you know, we don't have a ton of resources behind it, but we, we, we do what we can, so. Yeah. So anyway, for those who don't know, Michael is, was the editor in chief of Crisis magazine right before I was. And I just, I have to say this publicly because I'll make it very clear. You were extremely gracious to me when I took over. I mean, you were so helpful making sure I was set up, any dumb questions I had. You were very patient. I mean, it really was made the transition super easy for me because, like, any question I had for months there, I would just be like, hey, how do you do this? What about this? And you just jumped right in. And you were happy to help. In fact, I think if I remember correctly, at least once or twice, you kind of. When I was on vacation, you took over for me because you knew how to run everything in the background, which was, which was great as well. So I just want to thank you because it was, it was very kind of you. You didn't have to do that, but, but you did anyway, so thank you. [00:01:40] Speaker B: Yeah, you're welcome, Eric. I was, you're, you're an awesome guy. I was, I was sad to be leaving Crisis. I love Crisis. Still do, always will. But I was very glad that you were taking over. I, I, I've liked, I've always liked you since you were a contributor to Crisis and you've done a great. And since we're just going to love on each other a little bit, I think that you've, you're, you're, you've done a great job. I mean, I don't have access to the metrics anymore, but I'm sure that you've grown the, the platform exponentially since you've taken over. You're just doing a phenomenal job. [00:02:10] Speaker A: We do what we can. We try not to click bait. I know that's always a temptation, as you know very well. It's hard at times, but we do what we Can. But okay, so just to get it out right here at the beginning, for those who probably saw the title of things like that, Michael. So he. Before. And we're going to talk, go into this more when obviously, when he ran Crisis, he was a Catholic. That's. He wasn't faking it, people. But since then, which was. So that was four and a half years ago, is when I took over Crisis 2021. So since then, you have converted to Eastern Orthodoxy? I think it was about a year ago or so, something like that. Approximately. [00:02:48] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:02:48] Speaker A: Yeah, about a year ago or so. And so I just thought, you know, I really want to have you on the program and really to talk about this. And this is not going to be a debate. This is not going to be an apologetics session for either of us. This is really what I'm. Well, I'm hoping it is, I should say is like, if you and I had run into each other somewhere and we just sat down and I was like, hey, what's going on? Why did you become Orthodox? And I will say for. Because obviously most of my audience is Catholic, I will say, I think it's very educational for us as Catholics. I just did a podcast on Tuesday that talked about how few people who are Catholic are actually practicing and why people leave the Catholic Church, stuff like that. And I think it's very instructive for us to actually listen to people who left the church. Now, most people don't do what you did. Most people either become like an evangelical or they just stop practicing the faith completely. And so you're not, you're not the norm, if I think you know that. But at the same time, I know especially within Traditional Catholicism over the past, especially during the Francis pontificate, there has been this temptation pool, what have you, towards Eastern Orthodoxy. Maybe that would solve some of the, the problems we have in our minds, things like that. So I thought this would be a good, great opportunity just to kind of chat with you, talk about what's going on. So if you don't mind, I would like to start a little bit at the beginning of, like, your, your upbringing. I can't even remember if you're a convert or what, like how. Because I know by the time you're in crisis, you went to a tlm, you know, Traditional Catholic parish. And I know later you went Eastern Catholics. But can you take us back, give us the kind of overview of your life as a Catholic at the very least? [00:04:35] Speaker B: Yeah, sure. So I, I converted to Catholicism when I, I think I was 21. 22, 2016. I should probably know that more off the top of my head, but. And I was a Catholic for, I guess eight years would be the timeline. I, I don't. Yeah, I. 2015, 2016 sounds right. I was received. I was received into the church at a diocesan Latin Mass parish. I eventually, when I got married, we moved a little bit north and I transferred to a fraternity parish, Fraternity of St. Peter. I was very, we were very happy. I was very happy at my diocesan Latin Mass. I was very happy at our fraternity parish. And then. But eventually, sort of as circumstances transpired and things like that, and I had some questions and some concerns and some spiritual, sort of a spiritual crisis, and we eventually started going to a Malkite parish and, and I, I went to. Eventually went to work. So I. In the. Well, when I was in the Latin Mass community, I. I served as U.S. editor of the Catholic Herald, which is a London based magazine. Then I worked as editor in chief of Crisis. Then I was contributing editor for the American Commission Conservative. And then when I became Melkite, I went to work for the Melkite hierarchy of Newton, the Melite Catholic Diocese of Newton, as they prefer to be called now. And I was their communications director. So I worked in the chancery in Newton, Massachusetts. What's that? [00:06:10] Speaker A: I was just real quick. Did you actually end up becoming Melkite or just go to the. This is more geeky for people who understand this. Did you have, did you actually become Melkite or did you just attend a Melkite church? Did you actually transfer to become an actual Melkite? [00:06:25] Speaker B: I, I had filed for canonical transfer. It was. The process was. There was a new bishop. The process was taking a bit longer than it usually does and I ended up withdrawing my request when I told the bishop, who was also my boss, that I was becoming Orthodox. And he was very gracious about it was not. And I will say there's a lot of people who doubt Melkite's loyalty to the Catholic Church. I don't know if there's a lot of people, but there are some people. That's not been my experience, especially with Bishop Francois. He's very, he loved Pope Francis. He loves Pope Leo. He was very, very faithful to all the ecumenical councils. This is. I, I'm sure that you do find that there are Eastern Catholics who, who, who doubt portions of the Catholic faith. But of course there are people. [00:07:14] Speaker A: Right. [00:07:14] Speaker B: All kinds of parishes that doubt. [00:07:16] Speaker A: Yeah. Right. [00:07:16] Speaker B: Yeah. So I know that's a misconception, but. Sorry. [00:07:19] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. I love I love the Malkites. When I lived in Washington, D.C. area, I attended irregularly, probably maybe six to nine times a year. I went to the Holy transfiguration parish in McLean, I think it is Virginia, which is just a phenomenal parish. I went to there before I ever went to a tlm. That's the first time I saw a real liturgy that was like, okay, these people are serious about what they're doing. And, and I do know the Melkites, they do kind of have that reputation of kind of skirting the line a bit. Let's just say, you know, they had that, you know, of like, okay, how, you know, the whole Orthodox and communion with Rome and things like that. And they've had some bishops in the past who have, you know, definitely written some things Zogby people like, you know, who that are definitely more in line. But I feel like the fact is it'd be so easy for them just to become Orthodox. You can't question their Catholicism because, I mean, my goodness, what have they gone through? They get love from nobody. I mean, the Catholics hold them in a little bit of like, distrust. The Orthodox obviously don't, you know, are like, you're not, you're not part of our communion. They're not happy with them. So it's like, if you can still do that and you still remain with that communion with Rome, I, I have a hard time questioning your, your commitment to the Catholic faith at that point. So I'm with you right there. I just want to real quick though, what were you before you, you became Catholic? [00:08:47] Speaker B: Before I became Catholic, I was Anglican. I went to an Anglican Catholic parish. So I, I like to say that I, I have bounced around a bit, but there's been a fairly consistent eastward trajectory from Canterbury to Rome, I guess Constantinople. So I think that it was at least, at least, as there's a certain logical progression maybe, I don't know. But I, I, I don't, I don't think it was completely random. [00:09:15] Speaker A: At least now when you went from Anglicanism, it sounds like you jumped directly into TLM Traditional Catholicism. You didn't go first to a Novus or a parent. That almost sounds like you're, and you say you're Anglo Catholic. Sounds like liturgy. Good liturgy was always kind of has been there. Why was it that, what I mean, like, why did you choose like to become Catholic? And was it, was it traditional Catholicism that really attracted you to Catholic faith originally, or was it just Catholicism in general? And the TLM parish happened to be the one you, you were nearby or what? [00:09:50] Speaker B: You know, I've. No one's ever asked me that question and I've been dying to talk about it. [00:09:54] Speaker A: Oh, good. [00:09:56] Speaker B: Because it's actually, it's funny. I was. I had my conversion experience at an ordinarian parish, which would be. [00:10:03] Speaker A: I've done everything. [00:10:05] Speaker B: Yeah, well, you know, I, But I decided not to become ordinary. I actually, I love the ordinarian. I think it's phenomenal. I. There's a. There's a wonderful ordinary parish about less than an hour from our home. And I know the priest, I know the community very well. And this is an absolute. But this. In my. Where I was in my life at that point. I, I had been to the Latin Mass a couple of times with my best friend from college. College who was a kind of stereotypical trad cat devoted to Blessed Carl of Austria. Great guy. And, and, and I was kind of more Anglophile, you know, so we had this, these sort of parallel affectations. But the. I'd been to the Latin Mass with him a couple of times and I hated it. It was old St. Mary's in Chinatown in D.C. oh, yeah. And I didn't, I did not like it. It was. I was like, he's just. The priest isn't looking at me. He's, you know, he's not speaking English. He's. It's funny because I think a lot of people kind of assume that it was. That it was just sort of going from fanciness to fanciness, and that that was not. That was not the case. The reason I went to the Latin Mass is because I did love the Anglican liturgy so much, and I didn't like the traditional Latin Mass, but I wanted to. I wanted to. I said to myself, john Henry Newman didn't wait for someone to accommodate his liturgical practice preferences. Again, not that there's anything wrong with. With having one's liturgical preferences accommodated, but I thought if I want to make sure that I'm doing this for the right reasons, that I'm converting to Catholicism because I believe that it's true and not that I'm just going to do a kind of version of Anglicanism where they don't have priests and gay marriage. Right. Or women priests in gay marriage. So I. And, but, but I ended up very quick, you know, at the. Going to the Latin. This Latin Mass parish a couple of times. It. Very quickly I came to see the beauty in the Latin Mass. And I don't know if most people. What I hear, the experience that I have, I hear most people have is that they. They go to the Latin Mass and they're immediately kind of awed by it and they fall in love with it. I didn't have that experience, maybe because I'm stubborn or whatever. I don't have refined tastes or something. But I. The. The Latin Mass was for me, an acquired taste. But once I acquired it, I mean, I did fall. I fell in love that. I never lost my love for the Anglican liturgy either. But thanks for asking that, Eric. I think that's. Yeah, I thought that was a good question. Thank you. [00:12:31] Speaker A: Yeah. I. I actually went. My first Latin Mass I went to was old St. Mary's in. In D.C. and I was wildly unimpressed. [00:12:43] Speaker B: Wow. [00:12:44] Speaker A: I had gone sometimes I was in my regular parish. Is Novus Ordo pretty standard. I mean, it was a little more conservative than your average, but it. Anything different from your typical suburban Catholic parish. And I gone to the Melkite, though, liturgy a number of times at this point. For years, like, probably, like I said, a few times a year. And so when I went there, it was a low Mass. Didn't know what low Mass was. I literally. My. My wife and kids were out of town, so I just was like. I was like, you know, that's. I. I like doing that. When I lived in D.C. i love going to different. You know, like the. The different, like the Melkites and I think Maronite and like. And I was like, hey, I've been to a light mess. Let me do that. And I just remember I didn't know it had started 10 minutes in. I didn't realize it already started. And, like, I just walked out of there. I was like, I. I like the one. I do remember thinking, this is 2005, I think so. Before Samoron Pontificum, I remember thinking, like, wow, it's cool. There's all these young children, young families and stuff like that. You don't see that most parishes. I thought, that's cool. I. This is clearly. I understand the. [00:13:40] Speaker B: The. [00:13:41] Speaker A: The. That it seemed to be drawing in people that most Catholic parish didn't. But at the same time, I was just like. And then a few years later, I went again, and this time it was Feast of the Presentation with my daughter. And there was. It was like, I think a bishop celebrated. It was a pontifical Mass. They had all these. All the priests were there for a Service. It was 2009, and it was just like, such a big deal. And I was like, oh, I get it. In fact, one of the things I remember thinking at that liturgy Was, hey, this reminds me of the Melkite liturgy because, like, even little things, like how they kissed his hand, you know, when they gave him the. The. The. The Beretta, so, you know, kiss his hand, all that stuff, even little things like that. I. There's definitely. I could tell there was a difference. There's no question. But, like, that's what I. I connected me. But anyway, that's my story, which we're not here for. We're here for yours. So. So you went. [00:14:34] Speaker B: You. [00:14:34] Speaker A: You know, you were traditional Catholic, you know, as. In the sense that you went to. I know there's debates about what does it mean to be actually a traditional Catholic, but let's just say, obviously, you went to tlm. That was your regular D. Parish. You went to the fraternity parish. But I know, like, after you left crisis in 2001, I know you were getting. What's the word? Disaffected. Dis. Disenchanted. I don't know, something with Traditional Catholicism, because I remember. I think I even rejected one of your articles that was kind of more critical of Traditional Catholicism. But I did run a couple of them, and I remember, and I saw some other things you wrote other places, and I thought, boy, he really is getting down on Traditional Catholicism. I never really had a chance to talk to you about it. So I just want to talk to you about now. Like, what was it? That kind of. And we're in a safe space here. You can. You can say what you really think. It's okay. Yes, I know the YouTube comments will. Will eviscerate you for it potentially, and some will praise you for it, but really, what was it that kind of got you to be sour from. For, like, if I'm right, if I'm wrong about what I'm saying here, if I'm wrong about my, you know, perception, let me know. But what got you soured or whatever on Traditional Catholicism, then, you know, that's. [00:15:47] Speaker B: I think that's a perfectly fair read of what someone might have gathered from what I was writing. This actually happened recently when I was. I published a couple of articles, Unorthodox Apologetics do, sort of doing orthodox apologetics. And. And someone wrote to me and said, it makes me very sad that you've become so anti Catholic. And I had never thought of myself as anti Catholic. And that really kind of like, cut me to the heart. So I just stopped doing apologetics. If I don't know how to do apologetics without not coming across as hating Catholics, I'm just not going to do it. Because I still love. I still love the Catholic Church. I love my Catholic friends and family. I love all the many blessings that the Catholic Church gave me, has. Continues to give me in many ways. So that was. I was. I. I just thought, drop it there. And I think that, again, maybe it's because I'm sort of a pugnacious writer. I think that looking back, I think it's fair to. It would be a fair perception of what I had written to think that I had soured on the. On the Latin Mass community. Truly, that wasn't. That wasn't what I was feeling at the time. I mean, and I think that this is. This is. This is part of the irony is when I became Orthodox, a lot of people who, who didn't necessarily. Who shouldn't necessarily have known better. I mean, who. I'm not. I'm not that well known, but they. They would. They said that I was. They accused me of leaving the Catholic Church because I hated Pope Francis. And I think that if you who maybe had read a few more of my articles would probably think that it kind of went the other way, that I was right. Yes, I was. I became kind of a Pope explainer at the end of my career. [00:17:29] Speaker A: Right. Yeah, that. I mean, maybe not that extreme, but. Yes, it's exactly what I saw was. I thought. My perception was that you were kind of distancing yourself from the real anti Francis traditionalist, which I know people would put me in that category as well, so I get that. And so that. That's. That's what I was seeing before I. I think that's. Even before I knew you had started attending a Melkite church. [00:17:51] Speaker B: Sure. Yeah. Yeah, that's. And again, I mean, I think that. Gosh. Well, I mean, from. From my perspective, I always loved the. I always. I loved and continued to love the Latin Mass. I never got into the Luminous Mysteries. I know that you wrote about this recently. I couldn't do it. I. I never prayed the Luminous Mysteries. [00:18:15] Speaker A: See, you're more trad than I am. [00:18:17] Speaker B: I am. I'm pre 1054. I don't. I'm not pre1962. I'm pre 1054.I have. I'm not gonna. I'm not gonna throw out too many of those jokes. [00:18:27] Speaker A: You guys just keep on going back. Eventually you're just gonna be, you know, you know, 100 or something. I'm just kidding. [00:18:33] Speaker B: Yeah. Someone said, you can become Jewish next. I said, that's it. But that's an interesting topic. I think that if you want, maybe not in this show, but I think Dual Covenant Theology is something that I would. Oh, yeah, that really fascinates me. Obviously I don't think that it's true, but it's, it's something that I, I never really heard. The Orthodox are much more down on Dual Covenant Theology. So that's, that would be in it. That's, that just occurs to me that would be an interesting topic for Orthodox Catholics to discuss. But. [00:19:05] Speaker A: Yeah, but do you think though, like, during this time where you're being critical of traditional. I'm not and I don't, I don't like psychoanalyzing, so I'm not trying to do that. But just like, do you think during that time of being more critical of traditional Catholics that that was kind of a start of you thinking, okay, this isn't really the home for me that first was Eastern Catholicism. I mean, I'm trying to get like, what was it? Because obviously you would have stayed going to your fraternity parish if everything was hunky dory. So something. And I, I'm not, and I, by the way, I'm not going to, I'm not trying to discount theological reasons. I understand there's, I mean, as a convert myself from one religious tradition to another, I know there's always theological traditions. But I also know something has to get you looking into those theological questions more. And so I just am kind of curious, like, was it, I mean, it's completely legit if you say, listen, I just got tired of all the a hole trads online. I mean, if that's your answer, that's your answer. But like, I'm just trying to, I would like to know that because I think this is important for us Catholics who are listening and also just, I mean, the orthodox listening, you know, everybody listening, you know, kind of where what. [00:20:20] Speaker B: Happened there, the mask off moment is that I, I am the a hole tread on. I was the a hole travel. So it's not that, that genuinely was not that wasn't it? I mean it was if to, to give the, so to give the kind of the, the macro answer. I, I didn't leave the Catholic Church because I was angry with the Catholic Church. I entered the Orthodox Church because I love the Orthodox Church. But if to, for what might be useful to Catholics. I mean, the part of my answer which I think would be the smaller part, the less important part, but I mean, I think is certainly still part of it, I did perceive a tension between papal authority, the authority of the papacy and the authority of tradition. And I know that you and Peter, our friend Peter Kozniewski, Elijah Yassi, the people who consider, who sort of are called or call themselves papal minimalist. I know that you have an answer, an answer that, it's a very compelling answer. I was actually just talking to Elijah on Twitter right before we started here. And you, you guys are very intelligent and I, I respect your, your take on this, but for me, it wasn't, that wasn't compelling. I didn't find papal minimalism compelling or as I, I, I actually, I still consider myself a papal minimalist. The orthodox Church believes in the papacy, but I think that the Catholic Church doesn't teach people it doesn't function in a papally minimalistic way. So that's, that, that would be that part of my answer. [00:21:56] Speaker A: Yeah. And I think, okay, this is, I really getting this because obviously I would argue as a Catholic that like a papal minimalism is legitimate and that the orthodox, in effect, have a papal abolishment. I mean, I know you recognize that there's a, there's a Bishop of Rome, there's a, there's a, that there is the office of the Bishop of Rome and that all that and that it has a certain authority in the church that is a, I guess you could use above every other authority, but not in the way above is probably the wrong word. But I, I, I know orthodox believe that, but in practice I would say, but it just doesn't exist anymore. But that being said, would you say. Because like I have advocated for what would be called a papal minimalist view for years. Peter, our friend Peter Kwasnowski have, has as well. Tim Flanders, you know, over at 1 Peter 5, talking about the spirit of Vatican 1 and you know, our basic ARG for those who aren't as familiar with these internal debates as you and I are, essentially what we're saying is, is that the, the core teaching of the Catholic Church is not the same necessarily as how it has been practiced over the past 150 years and maybe and more as far as the role of the Pope. So kind of taking from which is, there's some irony here, taking John Paul II's idea of kind of rethinking the papacy. I remember I actually did a podcast called Rethinking the Papacy, and boy, I got hammered for that one. But like, I was obviously, I'm not saying I'm rethinking the. If something is a teaching Catholic Church, I accept it, but how things are practiced can be different. But, Mike, this is a Long winded way getting my question, which is do you think the papal minimalism tact that Peter and I and some others are. I think Eric Ybarra kind of would. You'd fall, he'd fall into that as well. Do you think that was like an instigate for you to kind of be more like towards Orthodoxy? Because like, I do know people say that it's like a step from, you know, a Vatican one high papal maximalist, then you go to papal minimalist, and then you go. I mean, people have been telling me I'm going to Orthodoxy for 20 years. I mean I had my, my Orthodox moment 20 years ago where I was like thinking, you know, like, oh, maybe this is interesting. And then I just realized no. So do you think that is leading people to Orthodoxy? I mean, if you say yes, I'm going to feel awful. But I want you to say yes if you really think the answer is yes. [00:24:20] Speaker B: Well, that's interesting. I mean, so I guess I came to the. And this isn't probably the answer that is helpful or that you would want, but I came to a papal minimalist position. I found the arguments that were made by papal minimalists very compelling. But then I went back and I read the documents of Vatican 1 and the Relatio of Gasser, and then I went further back and read the ecumenical councils and I thought papal minimalism is consonant with the Church's tradition, but it's not, in my opinion, it's not consonant with modern Catholic teaching, with post schism Catholic teaching. So I had never kind of bothered to inform myself about what the, the, the. And I know that you, that lots of Catholics believe would say that I'm interpreting Vatican one incorrectly and I totally get that. But it's what I, the conclusion that I came to as a Catholic who was trying to be faithful to the, to the papacy, is that. And going back in, in reading Pastor Returnus and the, in the doc, the, the canons of Vatican 1 and whatnot, I came to the conclusion that the Catholic Church, papal minimalism is true, but the Catholic Church doesn't teach papal minimalism. Okay, honest answer. [00:25:43] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. And that's fair enough. I mean, because I, I did the same thing as you came to a different conclusion, obviously in that I was like, I really want to read Vatican One, the documents. I want to read the debates surrounding Vatican one. Obviously I'm blanket. What's the name of the Melkite Patriarch who is at Vatican 1? I think it was Gregory, wasn't it? Yeah, Gregory something. Anyway, and I Know, he, you know, he was definitely advocating for a papal minimalist view, maybe more minimalist than I would have. But, you know, but the point is, is like, you know, the debates there, and I, I, I've, I came to the conclusion by, from all that, that it's like the orthodox, for lack of a better term, just they crossed the line too far. Because like I said, I would say that the orthodox simply jettison the papacy. And I know that in theory, I know on paper that's not true, but in practice, the fact that, and I know you would say that, well, the bishops of Rome jettisoned the papacy by, you know, teaching heresy or whatever the case may be. So, but that's kind of, I think that's where the debate is. And that's one reason I really like Eric Ybarra's work, because I think. Have you read his book on the papacy? Yeah, yeah. And I think it's excellent. Yeah. Because I think he takes very seriously the arguments of both sides. And technically there's more than two sides, but you know, of both sides of the first millennium papacy, how it was practiced, and I like the way he concludes, has always been how I conclude. Like, when I look at the evidence, it's not that I think I look at Orthodoxy and say, boy, that's a bunch of idiots. Those people don't know what they're talking about. It's more like the weight just simply is more on the Catholic side. And that's where I come from as well. I know you would say just the weights are on the other side. So just I want to get into papal minimalism a little bit more. So the fact is, obviously you don't have a bishop of Rome that is a, you know, part of your communion. And so what, what would you see? I mean, how do you square what I think is a circle there of the fact that for over a thousand years now, there hasn't really been a Pope of Rome, a patriarch of the west or anything like that in the Orthodox churches. And yet, obviously there is a history of it in the first millennium in the teaching of Jesus Christ. But yet they're in practice. There hasn't been for the thousand years with Orthodoxy. [00:28:19] Speaker B: That's. No, that's a good question. So we, we would point to Canon 28 of Chalcedon, which says that the primacy of the Bishop of Rome was given by the Fathers, right. And that the equal privilege will be given to the Patriarch of Constantinople, though he will remain second in honor. And so the, when we believe that after the schism, the Patriarch of Constantinople naturally sort of takes over as the first among equals. The. So we, We. I don't, we wouldn't say that. Oh, excuse me. I'm getting over something still, so I apologize if I take breaks. So I, I think that it's worth pointing out. And you say that we would. You know, you. And I know you were joking, but you said that the, The Orthodox belief that, that Rome has jettisoned the papacy. I, I think what the. What's funny is that, you know, at different points in history, the Catholic Church has erected a Latin Patriarch of Constantinople, a Latin Patriarch of Antioch, a Latin patriarchal Jersey. There's still a Latin patriarchal Jerusalem. But the Orthodox have never even tried to do that in Rome. And I think that that is a sign of. Of a couple of things. One of them being that the great reverence that the Orthodox hold for the, The, The Apostolic See of Rome, for the holy Orthodox popes, and a real genuine desire felt by everyone to, for the, from our perspective, for the, for the Pope and the Catholic Church to return to the Orthodox Church. What is it, what does it mean that we haven't had a pope? That they're the Pope, or we would say the Pope hasn't, you know, or one might say the Pope hasn't been in communion with the Orthodox Church for, For so many centuries. It just, I think it just means a great sadness, not any lack, I would say, in the Orthodox Church that the Orthodox Church lacks anything. But obviously that this, that we, we love Catholics, we love the, we love Rome, the city of Rome, we love the, The Roman Sea, and desire more than anything for the two to be. For, you know, for, For Rome to return to the Orthodox Church. But I mean, I think that again, there's. We would not say that there's any lack in the sense that we're still able to hold binding synods, we're still able to function as a church. There's no theological or canonical deficiency in the Orthodox Church because of the schism. It's just a painful separation. [00:30:56] Speaker A: Well, I meant to ask you, what jurisdiction actually are you in in the Orthodox Church? [00:31:00] Speaker B: I mean, the oca, The Orthodox Church in America. [00:31:02] Speaker A: Okay, oca. And that was originally from Russia, right? Like, that was originally a Russian jurisdiction that then became its own. Is that correct? [00:31:11] Speaker B: It was, yes. It was granted autocephaly by the Patriarch of Moscow and. Oh, I think actually I should probably know this history a while ago. [00:31:20] Speaker A: That's okay. Yeah, yeah, I used to know that as well, but. Okay, so this is where I think, I feel like there's within the Orthodox Churches, and this is coming from the outside looking in, obviously, but there's obviously right now a big dispute between the Russian Orthodox Church and the Greek Orthodox Church. And so for those who aren't as aware, the Patriarch of Constantinople is a first among equals type of figure, but he's not the Orthodox Pope. For anybody who wants to start thinking that, that's not the way they look at it. But he does have a certain, if nothing else, a moral authority type of thing from his office. But yet the Russian Orthodox Church is by far the largest of all the Orthodox jurisdictions. And so that gives it a certain just power, just by authority, by virtue of that. And of course, the whole Russia and all that. I love Russia, by the way, so I feel like I can say things about them. But. Yeah, but there's obviously a huge, I think they're in schism still right now on some level. And so how do you look at that as an Orthodox, you know, coming from a Catholic background? Because one of the things that we pride ourselves on is I know we have heresies that bubble up within our Church, but like, you know, we have the importance of that unifying factor of the Pope. And here you have a situation where you have two, your major churches kind of going against each other. You have the Patriarch of Moscow basically going against the Patriarch Constantinople, who I know is not the Pope, but yet he is still the Patriarch of Constantinople. That's not nothing. So how do you kind of reconcile that in your brain that, that, that messiness between. And this is very common in Orthodox history to have schisms between various jurisdictions on and off here and there. And this just happens to be the latest one. [00:33:12] Speaker B: Yeah, that's a, that's a great question. So the, what we would point to historically is the Melladian schism. Do you know that history? [00:33:22] Speaker A: I'm not sure. No, I don't, I don't. [00:33:24] Speaker B: I didn't prep for this. So I don't know the exact dates. I think it's the, it's the sixth century. There was a, so there was a, a man named Melladius who was elected Patriarch of Antioch. And he was suspected by some of being a, an Aryan or semi Aryan. And so there was a rival patriarch elected named Paulinus and there were, there was a, this was, this caused a schism in the, in the Sea of Antioch and bishops lined up on both sides of the issue. And interestingly, Saint. So Saint Basil the Great wrote to Pope Damasus the first Damascene I and asked him to intervene and to choose the. To who. Who would you know to. To weigh in and. And declare one valid and the other invalid. And Damascene fell on the side of Pollinus. And there's an interesting letter that St. Basil writes to. To. Oh, I don't remember who it is. It's not Damasus, but he, he essentially he. He says, you know, congratulations to the supporters of Polonus who have earned the praise of men. But even if an angel come from heaven comes down and preaches another gospel, I will not believe that it's true. And likewise, I can never forget Melladius and the justice of his cause. And so this, this, this caught this. So the pope falls on. On the side of Paulinus Basil and I think Gregory of Nissa fall on the other side. They support Meladius. Melladius is actually chosen by one of the emperors to preside at the first Council of Constantinople. So he's presiding at the. At the council that ratifies the second half of the Nice CEO Constantinopolitan creed. He actually, he dies outside of communion with, with Rome. And yet he and Damasis. Actually it's. I think it's one more gen. There's one more generation of popes and patriarchs before they, before Maletius's line is recognized as being the valid patriarchs of Antioch. But Melladius and Damascene are both saints in both the Orthodox and the Catholic Church. So there is this, there's this rupture between Rome and Antioch, the legitimate patriarchs of Roman. The legitimate patriarchs of Antioch. There are people who line up on both sides, you know, heavy hitters in the. I think Athanasius supports population colonists as well. I could be wrong about that. But there's these heavy hitters that line up on both sides. And yet there's no sense that even though that there's these. There's a schism between these two patriarchates. There's no sense that one side took the Church with them or the other side was deprived of the Church. It was what we would call a local schism, just a schism between two patriarchs who are both in communion with all the other. With all the other patriarchs. And so it is. So, you know, sort of the situation between Constantinople and Moscow is very. Is very similar in the sense that I can go to a. Actually everyone in the United States can receive from everyone else. It doesn't really matter. But certainly as a member of the Orthodox Church in America, I can receive from A I can receive from a priest of the ecumenical throne. I could perceive from a priest of the Moscow Patriarchate. A priest or sorry, a member of the Antiochian Patriarchate could receive the Eucharist from a priest of the Moscow Patriarchate or the Ecumenical Patriarchate. It's because it's. That's the nature of a local schism. So it's true that there are lots of local schisms in Orthodox history, but there's. Interestingly, there's also lots of local schisms in the history of the early Church, including those that involve the Pope. And again, there's no sense that the. That in the instance of schism, one side is holy in the right, the other side is holy in the wrong. Or at the very least one side is inside the church and the other side is outside the Church. That doesn't. Interesting that it's not necessarily implied by what we would call schism or rupture communion. [00:37:26] Speaker A: So would you say like for example, right now that you're in communion with both the Russian Orthodox Church and the Greek Orthodox Church? [00:37:34] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:37:35] Speaker A: Even though they're. They're in schism kind with each other. And would a. I'm not saying they would want to necessarily, but could a Russian Orthodox, let's say a guy from Moscow, Russian Orthodox travels to Constantinople, would he feel like he could go to Greek Orthodox liturgy and receive communion there? Or because they're directly in schism, is he discouraged from doing that? [00:38:01] Speaker B: I recently heard that it's actually, that it, it's actually only gone one way. I could be wrong about that, but I don't want to. I don't want to say something that's untrue. I think that. So Moscow is, is angry with Constantinople because of the schism in Ukraine and they have, they have broken communion with the Ecumenical Patriarchy. I understand my. What I heard recently, I think it was from UBI Petrus, who's. Who knows these things. Right. I think that he said that Constantinople has not broken communion with Moscow. So in that if that's true, then, you know, actually, yes, a Russian Orthodox Christian traveling in Constantinople could receive from them. But these things generally don't involve the laity anyway. It would be more consequential for the. [00:38:47] Speaker A: Priests then in my understanding. I don't want to get. Neither of us probably could get into the weeds of the Moscow Constantinople split right now. But my understanding though is there is some accusations from Moscow that the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew is. Is claiming things authorities that he does not have that they would say he does not have like, I think they've even accused him almost being like Orthodox Pope, trying to be like an Orthodox Pope. So it is kind of a messy situation. But I. Ultimately we know it originates in the conflict in Ukraine. I mean that's, that's why if that didn't exist, I don't think, you know, there wouldn't be this schism right now. What about though? So what seem, but what I see from the outside again is you have some significant, what I would call significant differences though between the jurisdictions in that some of these jurisdictions seem to be totally okay with like artificial contraception and others are not. And obviously, you know, from being a Catholic, that's a big deal for us that, you know, we, we take pride if for lack of a better term of the fact that we have withstood the modern pressures to accept the morality of artificial contraception. And you know, Paul VI being, you know, the example of standing up to that. But like, but it seems like. I know. In fact, I think I thought the OCA was a little more liberal than like for example, the Russian Orthodox Churches. I don't remember who's who, but. But what doesn't that seem to be. Go beyond just, you know, a spat over maybe Ukraine, like a political spat that turns into a local schism, as you say. Because that seems to go a little deeper than just a political spat. [00:40:36] Speaker B: Yeah, that's a good question. So I think, just briefly, it would be worth pointing out that no one in the Orthodox Church believes that the different approaches to contraception merit schism. That's not what anyone is breaking communion over. [00:40:51] Speaker A: Right. [00:40:51] Speaker B: The, the simple answer is that to the larger question is that the Orthodox Church for you know, it views all contraception as sinful. I mean, not to get into too much detail, but my spiritual father forbidden me from practicing nfp. NFP would for us would fall into the category of contraception. [00:41:12] Speaker A: Wow. Okay. [00:41:14] Speaker B: But we would, we would say that some, many priests, bishops, etc would say that through the practice of economy, it's, it's the, the one spiritual father may permit one to practice contraception, certain forms of contraception as a matter of prudential judgment. And this is abused obviously. And not to, not to, not to do, you know, he tit for tat or whatever. But I mean, I think from our perspective it would be comparable to the abuse of the annulment system in the Catholic Church. Right. From our perspective it's, it's, it's just, it's, the teaching is not bad, it's just widely mispracticed okay. [00:42:04] Speaker A: Yeah. Whereas Catholics would, I think, clearly say there's. There's a whether. While there is such a thing as an annulment, but it should be safe, legal and rare. It should, you know, should. We would say the artificial contraception is without exceptions like the prohibition. There is no economy for it because it's an intrinsically immoral act that obviously, I know you know this, but I'm kind of staying this for, for the audience as well. [00:42:31] Speaker B: We did the same divorce, right? [00:42:32] Speaker A: I mean, yeah, I was gonna say then the divorce is the other one. I know it was like. And I, I really, I don't. I'm not trying to say anything against any person here, but like, I know it was. It scandalized a large number of Catholics when Rod Dreher said that his priesthood basically said it was okay for him to divorce. And I, I don't know anybody's personal situation. I'm not trying to say anything about that. I'm just simply saying that it was a public orthodox figure saying his priest said, yes, it's okay to divorce. And I, I know lots of Catholics were just like, see, this is the problem. I mean, Orthodoxy is allowing divorce and in any situation. So even if Roger has the, you know, like I said, his personal situation, I don't know it, so I can't speak on that. But, like, just the fact that you have and I, I know we know there have been Catholic priests, I'm sure, who have done that, who have. I know Catholic priests have counsel for divorced divorce, but we also know that's 100 against what the Catholic Church teaches. And I just think that, that, that that's a key difference. And I know that teaching allowing divorce in the Orthodox Church goes back very far back, but what's the general, like, defense of it from, like an orthodox viewpoint? How did you struggle at all to accept that when you went from Catholicism? Because I'm sure when you were Catholic, you, You believe there is no exceptions for divorce. I'm not sure that, but I would guess. But then, now there are some situations for divorce. Did you trip over that at all? Was that a problem at all? [00:44:03] Speaker B: You know, it's. This is going to sound bad, but I mean, I, I think that. Forgive me, Eric, and I don't mean this. I'm not trying to be confrontational. I think that sometimes from our perspective, Catholics would confuse based for traditional. Right. And so for. We would argue, we would argue that, you know, there's divorce is discussed in Scripture. We would see it's in the canons of St. Basil, there were certain popes in their canons, in their codes of canon law who allowed for divorce. So you do see divorce being allowed canonically in the history of the Church. It's not, it's. It's always viewed as something that's regrettable and to be discouraged. And again, we would certainly say that there's too. There's actually less divorce in the Orthodox Church than there is in the Catholic Church. Again, not point, but just to say that it is a, it is a practice that is misused in the, in the modern church, certainly. So did, did this cause me to stumble? No. You know, ironically, it was kind of the opposite. I always knowing what little I knew about church history, it seemed strange to me that the Catholic Church didn't allow for divorce or, or not that they didn't allow for divorce because that's perfectly accepted. It's perfectly acceptable for a bishop to say, I will not allow divorce. But to say that it's divorce isn't possible seemed to me to go against history. The other thing was that Pope Francis said something that kind of. I remember it was when I was. I think it was when I was at crisis. He said someone asked him about the abuse of the annulment process. And Francis, Francis basically said something like, well, the majority of Catholic marriages are invalid anyway. [00:45:55] Speaker A: Yeah, I remember that. [00:45:57] Speaker B: And that I found that a little bit terrifying because if, if you pretty much anyone can get in the Catholic Church, just as a matter of practice, anyone can get an annulment. I think Newt Gingrich has had two or three. And that is on one level, though. I mean, when the criteria are so. Is so. Are so subjective in many ways, it's hard to, it's hard to argue against the idea that if someone comes to you and says, as a, you know, say that you were a canonical court and says, I didn't know that my, my husband's actually depressed and mental. Undisclosed mental illness as grounds for an annulment. How do you, how do you argue against that? The. I think that there's a. Whether or not this isn't an argument for it being true, but there's a certain compelling simplicity in the orthodox position. I think that, you know, a marriage is valid because the celebrant of the, of the sacrament is the. Is not the couple in the Catholic Church, the celebrant of a marriage is the couple in the Orthodox Church, it's the priest. So you're married in the Orthodox Church, if a priest says you're married and you stay married, until an orthodox priest or bishop says that you're not married anymore. And there's at least clarity in that system that there doesn't. That can be difficult to have, maybe in the Catholic Church. I'm trying to be as, as ironic about that answer as possible, but I think you, I think you get what I'm getting. [00:47:19] Speaker A: Yeah, you don't have to be ironic if you don't want to. It's okay. [00:47:23] Speaker B: We're friends. I want to be. [00:47:24] Speaker A: That's right, exactly. So I think. Yeah. Okay, so that answers the question. But it also brings up something I wanted to circle back to because you mentioned him, which is Pope Francis. And I've read a number of your things you've written about, like, why you became Orthodox and some other things like that. And I know you're saying that, you know, Pope Francis wasn't really a cause of you leaving, but we also know there have been people, traditional Catholics, who have left the Catholic Church because of Pope Francis, essentially. Some have gone to agnosticism or something like that, and some have gone to Orthodoxy or whatever the case may be. So you're, you're, you're. When you were, you know, the first years as a, you obviously became a traditional Catholic, became Catholic under Francis, you know, you ran crisis for, for over a year or so, which, you know, we're known. You know, I think we've been called like an anti Francis wragge, which I never thought we were, but I understand we're definitely critical. I mean, did that not all, like, have any impact on you saying, well, maybe this papacy thing isn't really what it's all cracked up to be because you saw a pope who was clearly doing some things that, if nothing else, seemed odd. Or did you always just say, no, I think he's, he's doing a fine job? [00:48:43] Speaker B: I, as a Catholic, I felt like I shouldn't, I should be very reticent. My criticism of Pope Francis out of filial love and as an orthodox Christian, I feel like I should be reticent about criticizing the Pope because it can look like sour grapes. I don't, I mean, I would not have poped the way that Francis poped, to put it simply. Right. Like, I would have, I would have done things differently. [00:49:13] Speaker A: Right. [00:49:14] Speaker B: For sure. But at the same time, I mean, again, I was, I was trying to be faithful to the, what I saw as the president in the Catholic Church. So, I mean, with the, when it came to. So there are, There are people who argue very articulately that Pope Francis does not have or that the Pope, one. Any pope does not have the right to suppress the Latin Mass. I You know, there's, I don't, I don't see that I. And so I mean for instance, Pope Nicholas III after the, during, during the attempted reunion of the Orthodox and the Catholics, one of the conditions that he placed on the Greek Church was that they stopped using the Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom. And he said unity of faith does not allow for divinity diversity in its expression. I think just the. Is the quote. And so at the fall of Constantinople, the only the Latin Mass was allowed to be celebrated in Hagia Sophia. And the emperors of Constantinople were. Were Catholic pre, pre Eastern Catholics. Right? There was no, there wasn't the concept of Eastern Catholicism. That's essentially what they were except they were again, they were lat. They were Latin Catholics. They were just in the East. So the, It. It seemed to me that, that the idea that, and I think that this is something that Catholics may, it may benefit Catholics to wrestle with a bit. I mean the, the historically there I, it seems to me that there has been a recognition that that popes are able to modify the liturgy or even abrogate whole rights as they see fit. It's not obvious to me what in canon law would prevent them from, from doing this. And also, I mean I think that my, my argument when I was sort of in the Pope explaining tail end of my career in Catholic media is that there is a lot of hostility to Francis coming from traditionalist Catholic circles and some of that is certainly just is or was justified. At the same time, the Pope kind of has all the cards right. You, there's, there's. The lady doesn't have any power, little if any power and if Pope. And again, my, my point is and this is kind of my argument against papal minimalism. If the Pope My, My question is twofold. One, what can't the Pope do? And two, if he does it, what are you going to. What do we do about it? If the Pope decides signs a thing saying ex cathedra, the Latin Mass is abolished, what can you do and who can do it? And so this. It seemed to me that if that the, the. The. The proper approach for traditionalists was to. And I I, you know, I wrote about this in articles the, the traditionalists who wanted to save the Latin Mass, the proper approach would be to kind of chill out on the Internet, hold back on the, on criticizing Pope Francis, criticizing the bishops and things like that. I guess where it the. It was kind of realized Part, part of what made me orthodox was realizing that this isn't how things worked historically. And you have, and I, you know that, you know that the Pope, that the tradition is not the Pope's private property, that he can do what with whatever he wants. We would probably have different ways of explaining that. But I mean it just, you hear people like Pius IX say, I am the tradition, I am the church. Francis with the traditiones custodes seems to be in that tradition. He seems to be in the, to me, he seems to be in the tradition of Pius ix, Nicholas III basically saying, the liturgy is my private property. I can do with it what I want. But that's not, that's not what we see in the early Church. That doesn't sort of map onto what we see in the early Church. Does that answer your question? [00:53:18] Speaker A: It does. I, I just, I'll kind of give my own thoughts for a minute. I have a follow up question about, I would just say that the Pope and I, you know, Peter Kwasnowski explains it better than I do because he's a lot smarter than me. But like the Pope is bound to certain boundaries, certain rules, certain things. And I, and I think that's expressed in Vatican I when it, when it says that, and I'm not going to, it's a paraphrase, but something in fact of how the bishop of Roman successor Saint Peter is like, the purpose of it is to pass on what has been handed on. It's not to invent it explicitly says something to the effect of it, not to invent new doctrines. And so we would argue, we meaning the, I guess you call us Babel, minimalist, whatever you want to call us of the Catholic world, that the Pope does have limits on his authority. Not in a sense that he couldn't. Like, well, first of all, he has the universal jurisdiction. You know, he can, you know, he is infallible. Infallible. But he couldn't do something like declare Mary as the fourth person of the Trinity or something like that just outside of his ability. And so something like the Apostolic Liturgy, he can't just abolish. But my question, like, and I do think there is a role for the laity. Like I, I'm, as somebody who can be a rabble rouser myself and somebody who's been highly critical of Francis in the past online. I know I'm, I might sound a little hypocritical for this, but I do think there is, there are dangers to that. I do think there are times in which it does More harm than good. But I also think there is a place for that. And I think you saw that, for example, in the Aryan crisis when you literally had laypeople who just wouldn't let Aryan bishops or priests, you know, into their parishes because they're like, no, you're heretics. And I think that kind of census fidelium does have an impact. Does it mean, you know, yet enough people on Twitter complaining about something that does something? No, I'm not saying that. But there is a real sense of a bottom up type of ecclesiology where not in the hippie, dippy, leftist way, but just in a way of like, you know, that, that we do have some role to play in all this. Not that I have a specific role, like a Pope or a bishop or a priest even would, but I have. But as a whole, the lady have this role and we have a duty even sometimes to speak out. But my question is, how would that be different from the Orthodox Church if, let's say an Orthodox Patriarch just went a little loopy and decided, I'm going to ban the Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom and I want to do this new liturgy, let's call it a new order, a Novus, or. And he did that. What would be done in that situation? I mean, would other patriarchs step in? Do the lady have any role? I mean, would it just be like, okay, you just gotta suck it up and do what the Patriarch says? I know that's very far fetched, but I also think it's far fetched to say some of the things people say that the Pope could do. And, but so, like, what would you say there? [00:56:18] Speaker B: No, that's a, that's a fair question. I mean, and this is not liturgically, but I mean, historically there have been patriarchs that have gone off the rails, right? And the story is, was patriarchal. [00:56:29] Speaker A: You had a lot of them in the first one. Come on, let's admit it. I mean, that was when those bishops of Rome were just like, we're just going to keep it simple. Where a lot of those patriarchs in the east were like, hey, let's get all complicated and end up in falling into heresy. [00:56:41] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's, there's, I mean, Nestorius of Constantinople, there's. Is it Severus of. Is it Severus Dioscorus of Alexandria? Who's the, who leads the mism. So there's, yeah, there's definitely there's. They, they abound. So what, what, what we would do now is what we. What, what happened in the early church is that there would be a senate or a council, there would be local resistance. I mean, if they tried to change the Divine Liturgy, I mean, it would. No one would. No one would comply. Or a very, very small number of hyper political bishops might. But I mean, if the EP tried to do that, there would be a couple of Greek bishops who would go along with him. The, the majority would revolt. The Russian bishops would absolutely reject him, the Bulgarians, the Romanians, the oca. It wouldn't. It wouldn't go anywhere. [00:57:35] Speaker A: Is there a way to depose the Ecumenical Patriarch by counsel? [00:57:38] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:57:39] Speaker A: Okay, so, but who would be in that council? Would that be just people in his jurisdiction or would include the other jurisdictions? [00:57:45] Speaker B: Oh, that's a good question. Well, I mean, sure. So the Holy Synod of Constantinople, I guess, could in theory depose the Ecumenical Patriarch. But even if his synod was kind of going along with him, the. A universal senate, an ecumenical council could depose a patriarch. Yeah. [00:58:04] Speaker A: Okay. Does the oca. I sometimes just think of these kind of geeky questions, but, like, does the OCA have. It doesn't have a patriarch, right. [00:58:11] Speaker B: No. [00:58:12] Speaker A: Okay, but it's all Cephalus. But it's not. Doesn't have its own. It doesn't have a patriarch. Right. Because that's a higher standard. So. Okay, but it originated out of the Russian church. [00:58:25] Speaker B: Yeah. So if there was, if there was a day when the, the Orthodox jurisdictions of America were united, however they were united, they would almost certainly be given. They would. The head of the church would almost certainly be given the title patriarch. [00:58:38] Speaker A: Yeah. Do you think that's a problem in Orthodoxy? The fact that here in America there's like all the different jurisdictions and you know, the, as you know, the early church, the idea you only have one bishop in one place. And I'm not saying the cat. I know the Catholic Church, we have a few in a few places as well, like particularly Antioch, but like, you guys have a lot of different jurisdictions here in America. That. How does that, how do you reconcile that with the early church model, which I know you're, you know, or try to emulate, but it seems to be kind of going against that. You have all these. And they're basically most of them based on ethnic. Ethnic. Ethnicities. [00:59:20] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah, that's a fair question. I. Ironically, I think this is something that I'm not, I'm not just trying to be cute, but I mean, I think that this is something that the Orthodox do a little better because overlapping. So this is the problem of overlapping jurisdictions. And largely overlapping ethnic jurisdictions. Right, but that exists in the Catholic Church, too. In my. My state of New Hampshire, there's a Latin. There's a Latin bishop that has jurisdiction over the Latin Catholics. There's a Maronite bishop that has jurisdiction over the Maronites, there's a Malkite bishop who has jurisdiction over the Melkites, and there's a Ukrainian Greek Catholic bishop who has jurisdiction. And these are. Is that four. There are four separate flocks, each with their own bishop the other bishop has no authority over. So this. And it is largely. They are largely ethnic divisions. Of course, you know, a Latin, a white person or whatever can join a Milky Church, but then again, I could also join a Greek Orthodox Church. I could join a Russian Orthodox Church. The. One of the big differences is that when I be. When I was trying to become Elkhead, I had to file for a transfer of canonical inscription, right? When I. When I. If I want to move from an OCA parish to a Greek Orthodox parish, I just go. I just pick up and move. And you're. You're the bishop that you're under. Not for priests, obviously, but as a layman, the bishop that you're under is not determined by paperwork. It's just wherever you. Whatever parish you attend. And there's usually. I mean, they say that as a courtesy, you should ask your priest to sign a letter saying why you're transferring. So that there's no. But that's. I mean, it's. That's more of a formality than anything. [01:01:02] Speaker A: Don't they, though, have. Don't some of the jurisdictions have different views on baptism as far as whether or not it's full immersion or spring or whatever the case may be like. And also like for you, for example, as a convert, did you get baptized when you became Orthodox? [01:01:17] Speaker B: So. Well, I was received by chrismation in the U.S. okay. [01:01:21] Speaker A: And I know, though, that some jurisdictions, they would baptize you if you came over as a Catholic. [01:01:26] Speaker B: Right. [01:01:27] Speaker A: If you went to one of those jurisdictions, wouldn't you have a problem that they'd be like, you're actually not. We need to baptize you because you weren't baptizing the Orthodox Church or. [01:01:35] Speaker B: No, no. So the. This. There is a. There's actually. It's a defined heresy. It's called pantalaymanism. It's named after Father Pantalayman, who is the founder of Holy Transfiguration Monastery in Brookline, Massachusetts. And he. He. Unfortunately, he died in schism. He. He. He's not a member of the canonical Orthodox Church. But he taught that unless you're received into the Orthodox church via baptism, you are not truly a member of the Orthodox Church. And this view was rejected by every jurisdiction in the Orthodox Church. And so if you are received by Chrismation in the oca, as I was, you can attend a parish of the Russian Orthodox Church outside of Russia, and you can. You can receive communion there. They will not baptize you. [01:02:31] Speaker A: Would. Would a comp. If you had gone straight to Rokor, would they have baptized you? [01:02:35] Speaker B: Likely they would have received me by baptism, yeah. Okay. But they do not. But they. They. So if you. Father John Whiteford, a fantastic Rokor priest in Texas, he has a. He has a video explaining this, that essentially the Orthodox position is and always has been. I mean, and this goes back to the early centuries as well. St. Basil talks about it as well in his canons that some receive through baptism, some receive through Chrismation, some receive through confession. But the. The principle is that the. You're. You're. You're received in the manner that your bishop says that you are received. If I was received through Chrismation by order of my bishop as grace Benedict, then I'm received, and every other jurisdiction recognizes that. [01:03:21] Speaker A: I will say, okay, and this is me trying. I'm not trying to be unironical or over that. That just seems a little bit crazy to me. I'll be honest. Maybe it's my Western, we got to have our laws type of thing, but because baptism is so important. I mean, it's. It's. It's so important for salvation, and I think we all agree on that. The idea that, like, your baptism may or may not be valid, depending. I mean, kind of like when you're. When you're brought into these churches, like by Rokor, making you get baptized, they're at least suggesting what we would call in the West a conditional baptism, that there's a chance that that baptism you received. Were you baptized as an Anglican and then Presbyterian? [01:04:06] Speaker B: I spent a couple years when I was a baby. [01:04:09] Speaker A: Oh, my God, you really have been everything, haven't you? Too bad. [01:04:12] Speaker B: The problem is, it kills your problem. [01:04:15] Speaker A: Though, because you went from Geneva to Canterbury, then back. So your. Your west to east doesn't really work. [01:04:20] Speaker B: Scottish Presbyterians. It still works. [01:04:27] Speaker A: I thought I got you there. I thought maybe you should go completely west to east. But no, you really, truly are doing the direct line there. I mean, I don't know. Moscow might be next. I mean, if you're really going east. [01:04:38] Speaker B: I mean, and then I think the story. I'd have to join the Assyrian Church. [01:04:42] Speaker A: Yes, there you go. Yeah, right. You really keep going. So. But, no, but back to my, my point, which was I, I really, I have a. That, that kind of just. I can't accept that because to me it's like Rokor is saying we're not going to accept your baptism as necessarily valid, so we're just gonna go and baptize you. I mean, safe and sorry type of thing. And Catholic priests do that today with Protestants because Protestant basins getting so weird. They sometimes do that. And because in your case, in fact, I would imagine if you, if you ask a Ro. I don't know this, but like, I wouldn't be surprised, I guess, if Rokor priests, for example, if you said, oh my, I was baptized as a Presbyterian, what do you think they'd be like, oh, you need to get baptized in the Orthodox Church. But yet you were able to get like, what I would say is like almost a loophole, a back door to be able to receive and be in communion with the Rokor Church. And you're still, your baptism is still Presbyterian. And so like I said, I'm not trying to be confrontational here as well. I'm just kind of saying in my brain it does not add up. And I just, I, I want to be. Be honest about that. That, that, that seems to be a kind of an issue. And to me it seems to go to the core of the kind of more, I guess I'll say more loosey goosey kind of world of the Orthodox Church, which I know a lot of times you guys take, I don't want to say pride, because that's a sin, but, you know, I mean, you, you revel in that. You, you, you unders. You accept that. And as somebody who's like a big, like kind of almost libertarian, like decentralized for government and stuff like that. Like, I, I get that, but that, that's where I would say, I just don't see how that, that works really, that a Presbyterian baptized guy can now receive communion in Russian Orthodox Church outside of Russia. I. And I know they're like, anyway, so it just, it doesn't add up to me. [01:06:32] Speaker B: No, that's fair. That's. I think that's one of the most common and one of the most compelling, I guess, criticisms of the Orthodox Church. But I mean, I think that you kind of hit the nail on the head when you said that it happens in the west as well. It's just conditional baptism. It's a similar. I asked My fraternity, our diocesan Latin as priests, if I could be received by baptism because I belong to the PC usa, very liberal jurisdiction. And I. They didn't have any record of my baptism. We're pretty sure I was baptized. My mom remembers it, but they didn't have any record. And goodness knows what they were. What formula they were using at the time. And the priest, my priest said, he said no, it was. I don't want to get him in. [01:07:21] Speaker A: Trouble, but yeah, I don't want to give him intro either. But that was wrong for him to do if they didn't have a record of it. Because you're supposed to. You're supposed to have a record of it. Because I remember when I came into the Catholic Church, I had to get a record from my Methodist church where I was baptized of my baptismal record. It was a very awkward conversation because my mom and dad were still attending that church. And I had to call up the office and said, I need my baptism records into this Catholic Church because I'm becoming Catholic. And they would not. And this was a priest who was. Let's just say he was a Vatican II type priest. He was very, you know, kind of very liberal, but even he was like, no, you got. We. I have to have a record of your baptism or else we won't. [01:07:59] Speaker B: I will. So I will say that I. I was trying to abridge it, but I thinking, realizing how this sounds, I want to clarify. We had a copy of my baptismal certificate and they. The. The parish kind of forged. They took a. What was obviously a new certificate and just filled in the information. So it wasn't like they didn't go back into their record, but they did send him a doctor. [01:08:22] Speaker A: He, at least on his end, he believed. [01:08:24] Speaker B: He realized that there was an irregularity. I. I realized afterwards. So that was. But I was, you know, I was. I remember saying to him, like, you know, there's. There are conditional baptisms in the, The Catholic Church. And. [01:08:35] Speaker A: Right. [01:08:35] Speaker B: You know, I Often for circumstances like this, and, and he said, he said, no, this is the process. No, that doesn't actually change whether or not my Presbyterian baptism was valid in the eyes of the Catholic Church. But there's just. There's kind of an assumption that, you know, the ontological change that happens in baptism, God can affect by another way. Right. And if you're, if you're doing, essentially, if you're doing your best, there's an exercise of divine economy and your God sort of fills in the gaps that are left by the inevitable failings and ignorance of human beings. So this is kind of. I think that's more or less the, the orthodox position is that God's. Ultimately, we do our best and God takes care of us. And this, this, this, this trust in God's mercy, but also this practice of economy, this, this variation from. I mean, you have. I'm sure, I'm sure that there are some, some priests who practice conditional baptism more often than other priests. This variation exists in the Catholic Church to a different. To a lesser degree. But I think that the. I think the logic is essentially the same. [01:09:49] Speaker A: So when you went to the Orthodox Church, I assume you told them this history of your baptisms and things like that, and they just, they said, well, we'll just Chrismate you, and then you're good to go. Is that, I mean, not that simply. [01:10:02] Speaker B: Obviously, but it's the same as in the Catholic Church. Yeah, there was my. Again, my, My mother was at my baptism. We had a copy of my baptismal certificate. So there was, there was some sort of sacrament type thing that happened in the Presbyterian Church when I was a baby. Yeah. Right. [01:10:18] Speaker A: Okay. One kind of last thing I want to talk about is prospects for reunion with the Catholic Church between Orthodox churches in the Catholic Church. I mean, personally, I would love it to happen. I just don't see it plausibly happening anytime soon in my lifetime or anything like that. And I think, frankly, a lot of the ecumenical work that gets done doesn't help any. I've, you know, my book Deadly Indifference, I talk about, you know, against ecumenism. I've always said the only ecumenism I think is worthwhile with Catholics is the orth with the Orthodox because they're the. They're an actual apostolic church with sacraments. We can actually corporately reunite with them. We can't corporately reunite with the Presbyterians. We just have to bring them in one at a time, you know, essentially, or a whole bunch at a time. But what do you think, though, about realistically, like, what has to happen, would you say, for the Catholic Church to be, as you, from your perspective, reunited with the Orthodox churches? [01:11:20] Speaker B: I was talking to Tim Flanders about this over text. I've just, I mean, this over the past week and, you know, I don't know. I'll probably get in trouble with some for saying this. I don't really know. What if by ecumenism we mean Catholics and Orthodox kind of get together and find things that we agree on for the sake of promoting, like, Christian love between our communions? I'm fine with That I, I think if we, if, if there's nothing wrong with pointing out our agreements. I think that there's a huge problem with pretending that we agree where we don't. And that's, I think that that's what most people think of when they say the word ecumenism. So if we have, if, if you have an ecumenical g. I guess the problem is that ecumenical gatherings where we just talk about the things that we agree on or we actually agree on is kind of a pointless gesture. [01:12:12] Speaker A: Right. [01:12:13] Speaker B: But, you know, but to the extent, I mean, if, if, if, if being ecumenical means acknowledging that that Catholic, most of what the Catholic Church teaches is true, that Catholics love Christ and try to be faithful in their discipleship to him. I mean, that's, I, I would, I would hate not being able to say that I couldn't do it. But there's, but as you say, I mean, yes, there are so the, I'm not qual, I'm, I'm not going to give an opinion on what would be necessary for you. I'm not, I'm not a theologian. I'm not, I'm not qualified to say that. But I mean, I think that there, there, there are two schools of thought. One of them is that it's, it really just comes down to Catholics would have to renounce papal infallibility and, and the filioque, or at least stop using the filioque in the Creed. I don't think that there's any way that the Catholic Church can do that without falsifying the. Without essentially. I mean, But I guess this is the point. Without admitting that, you know, the Catholic Church has been wrong since the schism and I don't know if corporately the Catholic Church would ever do that. The other, the other is that Catholics just have to throw out everything that's happened since 1054. Right. And explicitly reject all the dogmas, the Immaculate Conception, embrace the essences, energies, distinction, sign on to the Palamite synods and things like that. So those are kind of the two, the two schools of thought. Again, I just, I, I, I, I really, there's the more minimalist. Right. And then the more maximalist. And I don't think either of them are likely. I don't see them, I don't see either of them ever happening, personally. Unfortunately. [01:14:06] Speaker A: I think the most realistic thing that would happen is you would have potentially groups of Orthodox that could become Catholic like has happened in the past when they become Eastern Catholic. That's, that's, we've, that's Already happened. And I personally, I am very, I'm very disappointed that the Catholic Church made such a big deal in recent history of disavowing itself from that, the, the, you know, the Eastern Catholic way of coming in. Like, I'm not saying everything about was perfect. I, I know, you know, some Jesuits did some things, you know, I get all that but just I felt like they threw him under the bus frankly, because I think the, the Eastern Catholics who came in, they sacrificed a lot and they really did believe that they, you know, in the, in the, in the primacy of the papal primacy and being in communion with Rome and that, that was important. So I could see that happening where some bishop maybe and a lot of his flock decide, but that's not going to bring over, it's not like every Orthodox isn't going to be like oh yeah, I'm going to become, you know, Catholic now because of that. So I could see that potentially happening. I mean you could, I don't see how you could have a group of Catholics doing that like in a corporate way to Orthodoxy. I could see individual Catholics like you, you know, doing that and maybe that number grows. I mean, I hope it doesn't. But like, you know, I understand that that could happen. I think honestly the only way it happens like a real reunion where we have, I mean they're always gonna be holdouts, but where you have a real true, vast majority of both communions are now in communion with each other I think is because this would happen because of some external thing, evil in the world or what have you that makes it where everything gets focused very much some kind of black swan event, some type of real evil that, that brings people together and somehow these issues that both you and I think there's just no way they can be resolved. They somehow get resolved. And like I'm with you like because the, or I mean honestly I, I get in so much trouble with some of my, my trad friends and even non trad friends with this. But I wouldn't have a problem if one day said we, we don't say the filioque in the Creed anymore. I wouldn't, I would have a problem if we had to say it was heretical. I don't that that would make no sense because if you say it for a thousand, over a thousand years, you can't also now say it's heretical because that would be a problem for our whole ecclesiology and our theology. But if they just said okay, don't say it anymore. I, I, I I'm like, okay, that's fine. Not that's fine, but you know what I mean, it's like if that was what it took. I mean I, I remember I posted. [01:16:50] Speaker B: That on if the Pope made that. [01:16:52] Speaker A: Decision or maybe, yeah, I mean I said this on, on X. I, I think I gave a poll about this or something and I, I got way more heat than I thought I was going to. Was basically like if that kept you from, kept us from a full and corporate reunion between the Catholics and the Orthodox was simply that we stopped saying the filioque and nothing else. Everything. Let's say I'm just like, for this hypothetical nothing else, would you do it? And to me the answer is so blindingly obvious. Of course you would. Because we didn't say it for a long time in the, in the West, Rome didn't make it part of it, it's creed until the 11th century. So clearly it's not heretical or somehow wrong to not say it. We don't make the Eastern Catholics say it today. So like if that was the only thing, and I was shocked by honestly how many Catholics were like, nope, still wouldn't do it. And some of course wanted to do the whole like, well actually that would never happen because I know it would never happen. It's a made up scenario. It's, it's, it's, it's, it's an imaginatory thing to try to make us think what, what are the things that would keep us from, you know, being united. So anyway, so I don't see it happening either anytime soon. Like I, in my grandchildren's lifetime even or anything like that. But I, I pray for it. I, I pray for it and you know, and if the Lord wants it to happen and you know, I think it will happen, but I, I'm with you. I mean, the funny thing is I think what we're doing today is technically, you know, it's ecumenism. But I just, I've gotten so disillusioned by that word. It's like, I just don't really. Because I think what often happens is that these, and I've been to these ecumenical gatherings, so I know it's just a bunch of people who like their cocktail parties and they like basically saying how great the other one is and like how we agree on all this stuff. It's like, what does that do? Like, maybe there wasn't a time when you look at the history of the Catholic and Orthodox relations where it was 100 antagonistical for so long. Okay, I get the idea of, let's move away from that a little bit, at least let's remind ourselves that we have a lot in common. But that only goes so far. We've, we've gotten past that point. Now it's like, okay, let's have a real discussion. Like, this is where it's like, okay, what do you actually think? And here's what I really think. And here's where I think you're wrong. And here's where I think, you know, those I think are healthy. [01:19:15] Speaker B: And that's a degree. And I was talking to a friend of mine, Eastern California Catholic friend of mine about this recently, where I think that his. Historically, and I mean not, not even to. To. To more or less the present day most official ecumenical dialogue is between a team of Italian professional theologians and a team of Greek professional theologians, both of whom never met members of the other church until they were in their late 60s when they started going to these formal events. And so there's a. And they're cho. They're always chosen for a certain reason. Right. Because they tend to be more liberal, more educated. [01:19:55] Speaker A: Right. [01:19:56] Speaker B: And so there it is, this kind. It's this kind of. This tea ceremony of modernism. And it's very stiff and very high. It's hyper intellectual, where in. In very, very much about playing a word game. Whereas you say we're just, We. We find ways of tweaking language so that we have an agreement where there is actually still. And I was, I mean, I said this in a recent. You know, I love the Oriental Orthodox churches. I mean, if you've ever met a Coptic Christian, you just, you love the cops, you love the Ethiopians. And there are people who want to say that the difference between the. The. And there are people on both sides, Catholics or Orthodox or whoever, though, on the Chalcedonian side, and then Oriental Orthodox on the non Chalcedonian side who will say that our disagreement is simply one of language. Right. [01:20:50] Speaker A: Right. [01:20:50] Speaker B: Yep. Well, then why don't they sign on to the Council of Chalcedon or why don't we jettison the Council of Chalcedon? There we can find these clever ways of agreeing with each other, this, you know, these, these little linguistic games that we can. Where we can find a statement that seems to reconcile the differences. But if we can't, if we can't sign on to or reject the Council of Chalcedon, there is evidently still a deeper difference that we have to settle, and it's okay, but we have to work through that and not pretend that, the difference. And I think that that's kind of. That's where I was getting. Whereas you're a convert, I'm a convert. We're Americans. We've grown up around. You've grown up around Catholics, around Orthodox Christians. I've obviously grown up around Catholics, and I was Catholic. And so we're not like these distant cousins who are meeting for the first time and really have no familiarity with each other. And it's kind of a stiff formal conversation across the boardroom table. We're two old friends who have this, you know, this theological disagreement, and we're having a candid conversation about it. And you know that I love Christ and I know that you love Christ. Right. And you know that we're both striving to be faithful. And St. Mark of Ephesus said, let's, let's, let's, let's, let's love our, our common Fathers and let's hold to our common traditions and let's venerate our common saints. And we know that. We know that about each other because we know each other. And I think that. I think this bodes well for the future of the ecumenical movement. If we have this kind of, this underlying friendship. It's not a professional dialogue, but it's we Catholics and Orthodox engage each other as friends. There's more, There's. I think there's more genuine desire to find agreement, but there's also more courage in the face of authentic disagreement. We're not going to be as afraid to disagree with each other because we know that there's this, there is this kind of base level, this foundation of love and friendship. [01:22:42] Speaker A: Yeah. First of all, I just had to laugh when you use Saint Mark of Ephesus as your example and you're talking about humanism. [01:22:50] Speaker B: No, there's a great. The Father Christian cap is cappies caps K A P P E S. He has, he has a great. I wish I had it with me. He has, he's, he's The Dean of St. Cyril Methodius, the Byzantine Catholic seminary, and he has a phenomenal essay on Mark of Ephesus. We're from a Catholic perspective, saying that, you know, Mark, the, the, the impression we have of Mark as this kind of fanatical anti Westerner could not be more false. And reading this essay, as an Orthodox Christian, reading this essay made me realize, you know, the, the, the people who are fanatically anti Catholic in the Orthodox Church actually are not being faithful to the Orthodox tradition. This is not how the, the pillars. I think I have Them over my shoulder. There they are, the pillars of Orthodoxy. Where can I point? [01:23:39] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, right, right. [01:23:41] Speaker B: Ephesus and Photius, and that's not how they engage with the West. So I think that if, if more orthodox Christians read the Pillars of Orthodoxy, men who absolutely did not, you know, were not were very candid about their disagreements with Catholics and with the West. I mean, Photius was part of the, part of the great Church, very candid about their disagreements, but also loved the Western tradition, loved the Holy popes, loved the Western. For the Latin Fathers, which a lot of some orthodox today are very skeptical of Augustine. It's a tragedy. Augustine is, Augustine is obviously the, the first or second most important theologian in church history. So anyway, that's my little. [01:24:23] Speaker A: Yeah. And it's funny because I have like two experiences. I consider two experiences with ecumenism. The first was in the pro life movement as a Protestant and then as a Catholic. And I was like, this is, this is great because I literally remember having arguments with. This is when I decided to become. When I was Catholic with Protestants in jail and we're arguing with theological stuff. I'm sure the other people in jail thought we were a bunch of weirdos. I remember there's an Orthodox there too at one point, one of them. And you know, we're just like arguing about. I'm like, that's. That was very healthy because why. We're literally in jail together for the same reason. So we're not questioning each. Each other's like, credentials as a, as a believer in Christ is like, you know, somebody who, who loves God and wants to do the right thing. We're, we're right there together. So when we're literally yelling at each other practically, which was my finest hours always when I was younger, but about these. Yeah, it was, it was, it was. I thought it was extremely healthy. And then years later I was this. Before I became, you know, more traditional and was going to traditional Mass. But I was involved in some ecumenical stuff. I go. Some ecumenical stuff in D.C. like USCCB sponsored, particularly with the Catholics and Orthodox. And I remember going to like these meetings and I just, I was, I just couldn't handle it. I just. Because I was like, everybody's just playing kissy nicey to each other. I'm like, are we ever going to talk about the fact that we disagree with each other, that we actually do have some substantial disagreements, that we're not all just supposed to sing Kumbaya and it doesn't matter. If it doesn't matter, then why are we in schism? Why, why do we not. Why are we not in communion if it doesn't matter? And so that's when I really started to turn on the, the whole kind of cocktail humanism. But I'm still a proponent of Catholics interacting with Orthodox, with Protestants, and really, you know, working towards a common goal. But, like, with the understanding, like we think the common goal is everybody becomes Catholic. I mean, but they would never say that in these things. But it's like, well, what's the point then, if you're not going to say that? And I'd be totally fine with the Orthodox guy who says, we think the common goal is for all you people to become Orthodox. Okay, that's what I want to hear. It's like when I had. One of my friends had a job I had, was Jewish, and he was. I can't remember, I always get confused to different types of Judaism, but, but he was very faithful to Judaism. And, you know, he was a practicing. Unlike a lot of Jews are, but he was actually practicing. And I remember we would just be very frank with each other. We had good relationship. It was mostly a business relationship. We actually very, you know, got to be good friends. And, and, you know, we were very blunt about what we thought. I was like, I, I want you to become Catholic. He's like, he's like, yeah, but he didn't really care if I became Jewish. I mean, because that's kind of how a lot of Jewish people are. But he was like, yeah, but Judaism is true, and, you know, Catholicism is just false. Like, that's healthy. That's the way we should be talking to each other. [01:27:14] Speaker B: Yeah. Chesterton said, what is. Well, what's the quote? It makes no sense to say this is my opinion, but it may be wrong. If you think it may be wrong, it's not your opinion. I think that's, I just, I, I think about that all the time. It's like, you know, it's, you can, you can have humility but also have firm convictions. I don't have humility, but I've, I've met people who have genuine humility and also much. Who are much humbler than I am, but also much firmer in their convictions. Not as powerful. [01:27:45] Speaker A: Isn't it true when you meet somebody who's truly humble, where you just know it? I mean, there's something about it. I don't know, it's almost like this essence they have that you, you, you gather very quickly as far as humble, you also realize how hardcore they are. Like they're just. Firm is probably the better word. Just very firm in their beliefs and you're not going to shake them from it. But they have this extreme humility and, and it should be a lesson for those of us, I think, I think you're probably far more humble than you think you are. But like, you know, but yeah, I think it's just one of these things where true humility does not mean you're wishy washy and like, oh, you might be right. I may know. It's like, no, I really believe what I believe. But yeah, it's how you deal with other people, probably more importantly. So I think, I think we're going to cut it here. I was thinking about. I have a note here to go into what you think about Catholic Senate. Ality just not going to do it. We're just kind of leave that for what it is. Maybe we'll have another chat sometime. But I appreciate you coming on very much, Michael, and I, of course, I want to say again, I appreciate for handing on Crisis to me graciously and, and making it work a lot easier for me. So. Oh, last thing I do want to ask you. What are you doing right now? Like, what are you up to? I. I didn't know. I put down former editor chief, Crisis magazine on the thing because I know what you're up to right now. [01:28:59] Speaker B: So. [01:28:59] Speaker A: What are you up to right now? [01:29:01] Speaker B: So, yeah, I. So I have a. Most of my writing goes on substack. Okay. I have a subset called Yankee Athenite. And I'm also in the process of founding a press with some former colleagues of mine from the. I used to. Until recently, I was the managing director of St. Vladimir Seminary Press. [01:29:24] Speaker A: Oh yeah. [01:29:25] Speaker B: And I have some. Some former colleagues and I. And some have. Are starting a new press called Spruce Island Books. We're working with the D of Alaska of the Orthodox Church in America. We're going to be doing a lot of service books, books on native Alaskan Orthodox spirituality. I don't know if. If this is of interest to people, but the, The Church of Alaska is called the. The Dice of Alaska is called the Mother Church of all America because. [01:29:53] Speaker A: Right. [01:29:54] Speaker B: That's where the Russian missionaries first made contact with the native Alaskans. And to this day, I mean, the overwhelming majority of native Alaskans are still Orthodox. It's a beautiful story, but just this past week there was a. A Yupik saint, Mother Olga of Alaska, who. Sorry, my. My wife. I don't know. I don't want to get too into this but my wife has had. We've had fertility problems and we. She had a miscarriage, our first pregnancy. And. And then this. Our. Our daughter, who was born a few months ago, we had all the signs of a miscarriage, a very late stage miscarriage. And mother Olga, who was a. A midwife, she died in the 60s, I think. And we started praying to Mother Olga and immediately all the miscarriage symptoms stopped. And our daughter is this huge, fat, little, little baby. And she's. Her name is Fotini. I wanted to name her Olga. That was a bridge too far for my. [01:31:02] Speaker A: I was gonna say why. Why isn't she named Olga? Come on. [01:31:05] Speaker B: I know, I know. [01:31:08] Speaker A: Congratulations, by the way, on. [01:31:10] Speaker B: On her. [01:31:10] Speaker A: On her birthday. Yeah. That's great. [01:31:12] Speaker B: Thank you. Yeah. So that's. It's Alaska. I mean, it's. There's a. There's a documentary called Sacred Alaska that. I mean, I think even if. Cat. If you have no real interest in Orthodox theology, you should. It's just a beautiful documentary about what a deeply enculturated American Christianity looks like, a traditional American Christianity, because these, these people have been Orthodox for 300 years and it's all still the same. Same icon, same vestments. They love the Church Slavonic. They refuse to call themselves Orthodox. They're always Russian Orthodox. They prefer to be called Russian because that's what they know. They love the Russian people. They love the. That the Russians brought them the faith in Christ. It's beautiful. So I'm very excited about getting to work so much with the Diocese of Alaska and the native Alaskan priests and whatnot. So that's. Yeah. Good. [01:32:00] Speaker A: Didn't Father Seraphim Rose, like, did he go up there since. Somebody up there. So I thought. I felt like he had some connection to Alaska or maybe it was the, The. The kind of what he. The, The. The abbey or whatever you call. I can't remember what it's called that he founded. Like, didn't they get some connection to Alaska or something? [01:32:17] Speaker B: Yeah, so they, they were. They're the St. Herman Brotherhood. St. Herman, that's right. [01:32:21] Speaker A: That's right. [01:32:22] Speaker B: And St. Herman is the first major. We have him. Mercy. We have. Father Seraphim is here. [01:32:30] Speaker A: Right. [01:32:31] Speaker B: And St. Herman is here. [01:32:33] Speaker A: Okay. [01:32:34] Speaker B: So he. St. Herman was the first missionary to Alaska. He was a hermit from Balaam Monastery who went to. And he lived on Spruce island, hence the name. Spruce Island. Okay. [01:32:45] Speaker A: Okay. Very good. Yeah, I. Okay. Like, I, like there's something about me that I always. I know I already said we're going to finish. But I'm, I'm thinking new stuff to say now, but if you don't mind. But I just brought, you know, I mentioned Father Sarah from Rose. I love like people who are just super hardcore. Like, you know, St. Francis Assisi is one of my favorite saints. But I tell you why I read that biography of Seraphim Rose. Oh my gosh, that dude. I mean, hardcore of hardcore. I mean, I just, I obviously, I know. I mean, I think later in life he moderated a little bit, but you know, he obviously is very anti Catholic. Is. I don't even like to use that term, but, you know, I mean, he definitely was, you know, not a fan. Yes. Very critical. That's a good way. So. [01:33:37] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:33:37] Speaker A: But like, at the same time, I just don't know how you don't admire somebody like that. I just don't know how you don't. Because I just, you know, reading about him and kind of his life, just the clear passion for Christ and love for him and wanting to serve him faithfully, you know, I would have loved if he became Catholic. I don't mind saying that, but at the same time it doesn't mean, I don't think that he just didn't live like a, a life that was just like, just incredible, I guess is the best way to put it. [01:34:10] Speaker B: So, yeah, there are people who, in the Orthodox Church who are more critical of his, some of his views and his theology and whatnot. But this is one thing that everyone says is that is as an ascetic, is a struggler. I mean, he was unmatched in the modern world. There's no one, no one like Father Seraphim. [01:34:27] Speaker A: Yep, yep. And so when he brought, I'm pointing out his icon too. I was like, yeah, I, I, I just, yeah, because like I, I've looked at some. This funny thing is, is I, I love reading about his life, but sometimes when I read some of his writings, I'm kind of like, yeah, no, I'm not really going there. So, so it's kind of a funny thing. I think it's okay to distinguish that a little bit. But anyway, okay, so I will put a link to your substack in the show notes. Everybody. I still want you to be Catholic. Just make that clear. But you know, my friend Michael has a substack, so I'm going to put a. And so you can listen to, you know, he read what he, what he has to say about that. And I wish you well with the Spruce Island. You said publishing. [01:35:05] Speaker B: Is that what's called books. Yeah. [01:35:08] Speaker A: I wish you well. I hope that. I hope that works out for you. [01:35:10] Speaker B: So thank you. Thank you for having me on, Eric. It's. It's such a joy. Always a joy to talk to you and good to be back on the Crisis Point. [01:35:17] Speaker A: That's right, the originator. I mean, you're, you, you're the OG of the Crisis Point Point podcast. We had to have you back at some point. [01:35:23] Speaker B: Phil is the og. Phil Lawler is the OG of everything to do with media. [01:35:28] Speaker A: That actually is true. And, and his wife is the one who came up with the, the name Crisis magazine, so. [01:35:34] Speaker B: That's right. [01:35:34] Speaker A: Yeah, that. So the Lawlers are definitely. They're, they're the definite crisis OGs of them all, so. [01:35:40] Speaker B: And thank you for taking such good care of Crisis as an institution. It's very dear. [01:35:45] Speaker A: Yeah, that's great. Okay, everybody, until next time, God love you.