https://youtu.be/OEgRNKYCv9Q?si=q6R-PYsCdDJUw4sh

I don't disagree with everything he says in the video, especially the criticism of over simplifying gender roles. However I absolutely disagree with his idea of pathological pacifism to the point of allowing invaders to rob and kill not only yourself but also your household with your wife and children. I don't hate the guy and used to love watching his videos, but he's practically teaching his followers to purposely go extinct violently for the 'love of Christ'. Easy to say if you're childless in a monastery. Not easy if you're someone who lives in CA where trafficking is a horrifying reality that involves children. I pray to God that I never have to violently defend my loved ones, but at the same time, I'm not going to be useless if push came to shove protecting a household.

Hi friends,

I first heard about Tia on this sub, so I'm letting you all know that I subscribed to her Substack (mostly so I could read one article behind the paywall, but I totally intend to read more of it). Recently she sent me a chance to give free subscriptions to 3 people. So if you are interested, shoot me a DM with your email address.

She escaped from extreme patriarchy and fundamentalism and wrote a book about it called The Well-Trained Wife. So the subscription might be most appropriate for ladies, but I'm sure most of us could probably glean something of value from her writings.

Bit of a rant

I have a friend who converted to Orthodoxy a couple years ago. He's super into it. He has icons, goes multiple times a week, and has for a while now. He even started dating a girl in the church.

But here's the funny part: I've gone with him to church twice. And It's been one of the most profoundly unwelcoming experiences of my life. This is an Antiochan church and most of the people there are cradles. There's a sizeable minority of Greeks as well.

And my god...the divide. Both times I went I instinctively followed and sat with my friend. Both times we spent the service and coffee hour surrounded by other converts, mostly young and middle aged people. Both times the young, Greek Priest basically ignored all of the converts and spent his time with the cradles for the entirety of coffee hour. He even ignored my friend once when he approached him to ask a question. The cradles plan events and parties together. And while they won't necessarily stop converts from going, they make no attempt to include them.

I'm an atheist. But my experiences at that church have been so tense and awkward that it made me miss the sporadic visits to non-denom churches I had as a kid. Like, at least Pastor Jeff pretended he wanted you to be there.

The obvious contempt the cradles have for the converts genuinely makes me wonder why these people bother. Some of these people, like his girlfriend, have been going there for their entire lives! His gf even told me she was ostracized while growing up in the Parish because her mom was a convert. She'd been around some of these people her whole life and they STILL didn't want her around!

And yet my friend buys it. Doesn't see a problem. He's complained about the exclusionary behavior a couple times, but only when it was egregious (e.g. a woman insisting his girlfriend not wear a veil since she was "just an American"). And recently he's even started getting in on the anti-western sentiment. And that was honestly just too far for me. Really dude? All this to appease a group of people who clearly don't even want you around?

And things have only progressed from there. He practically lives at church. It's all he talks about. And its showing no signs of stopping any time soon. He even skipped a trip we had planned with some mutual friends to go camping to- you guessed it- go to church.

That's not even the half of it. The church has a fair amount of converts and the ways they're otherized makes me wonder why they even come. Funnily enough, my only other direct experience at an Orthodox church was one that consisted almost entirely of Russian Immigrants- and they were far more welcoming by comparison.

I'm really trying not to paint with broad strokes here. But I've seen too many similar posts on this sub not to share my experiences. I don't want to generalize but it my Orthodox experience has made me feel as though many of these churches are just ethnic clubs with a tax exemption.

Rant over

Tldr friend is passively excluded at a church, sees no problem with this.

My opinion is that by and large the reason eastern Orthodoxy had become more appealing to protestants in the west or westernized countries like where I was from was because of the purposeful information gap created by the church itself. I see a lot of people assume that eastern Orthodoxy doesn't have problems, didn't participate in oppression or is more healthy and united than Catholicism or protestant churches but that's actually false. however I don't even blame them you have to be there to know what actually is happening

Hi everyone...

!Happy Reformation Day ;)!<

I've browsed and lurked on this subreddit for a few months now, and I figured that it would be prudent to leave my own mark here apropos to my own exodus from the Eastern Orthodox Church, that being the central theme of this subreddit.

For context: I became a Christian when I was 16 and began going to an Episcopal church. After about two years I had left to become EO whilst I was in college, and for the majority of my time while enrolled I was EO. I met my fiancée my sophomore year. Towards the end of my undergraduate, I had some mounting issues with Eastern Orthodoxy that are too nuanced and verbose to describe in an OP, but in short I spoke with my fiancée about it (she became a catechumen but never converted like I did), and we both agreed that we wanted to leave the Orthodox Church. Now, mine was a very simple breakaway, because all I had to do was just not attend an Orthodox parish after graduating. I moved out of my parents' house a few months after graduating and got a fulltime job out of state that I've been working for a month now, and I am currently attending an Anglican (REC) church for the time being. I'm not confirmed Anglican nor do I intend to get confirmed, but I'm close with the rector of this church and it's where my fiancée and I enjoy attending as of now.

I've now been out of Orthodoxy for almost half a year now, and I must say that it's been a relief in many ways. While some days I do miss the liturgy and robust theology, I also call to mind the unrelenting strictness of the observances for Lent, Nativity Fast, etc. And this is all coming from a relatively moderate OCA parish, not some overzealous ROCOR cargo cult. A lot of the people were nice enough, but sometimes the expectation was for all the young men to hop behind the iconostasis to altar-serve, and for women to join the choir before getting married and pregnant, and walking around with a headscarf kissing icons all day. The interesting thing was that the parish was about 3/4 converts, and a lot of the last 1/4 were second or even third generation children of converts. That church is rapidly growing and young men and women show up and stay all the time, but it was just not a fit for my fiancée and I: we had to leave.

Those are just some opening thoughts to hopefully begin an open-ended discussion, as I haven't spoken to many ex-Orthodox out there, still less who are still Christian.

I don’t want to just ghost my priest, but at the same time I don’t want to have a conversation about this in real life, because at best he tries to talk me into staying and at worst it makes him feel really bad as a priest.

https://x.com/Gerashchenko_en/status/1851351189788741962

Most eastern orthodox are purely cultural and ethnically motivated. Nothing about them is inclusive. Their religion is literally self worship theologically through their “hesychasm” which has nothing to do with God at all and tells you to worship your own heart and through their “traditions” which all about being greek, russian, serbian, or whatever ethnicity they fall under. That’s why i give more respect to protestants and oriental orthodox. Anyway check out this insane video i have linked up.

Have you ever heard about annual Theophany miracle when Jordan river allegedly reverses its flow? Has anyone maybe witnessed it? What are your thoughts on it?

Here's a brief article featuring (low quality) video:

https://orthodoxtimes.com/an-annual-theophany-miracle-the-jordan-reverses-its-flow-video/

John Crowder is almost single-handily keeping my faith alive. He combines the best of Orthodox/Early Patristic teaching with the best of the gospel of grace rediscovered by the Reformation. He's come out Christian Universalist, which is something you can't get with Catholicism (my big hang-up with them.)

https://youtu.be/6Wz23C9UyNw?si=O8DOLo-1JOqbS7Fk

Overall this is just so encouraging.

From ex-ROCOR priest Nathan Monk, which also gives a hilarious take on the wane of horror flicks for younger generations, except the ones that still have some basis in reality (Halloween is the one referenced):

https://fathernathan.substack.com/p/how-watching-the-exorcist-with-my

Hi everyone. My friend just put me onto this group. So i thought i’d share my reasons for leaving orthodoxy. God bless you all.

https://youtu.be/jiQFvrDED7g?si=uonYtO2PMKM6vxrC

https://youtu.be/lsiCWZD1xf4?si=RZBqL9mtdiwr1skw

I am in no way trying to promote myself. Just here to share the journey with you all.

Is it true that women can't receive communion for over a month after giving birth? What century are we in? Who is emperor in Constantinople? And how does a modern believer in the equality of genders take EO seriously?

Asking as a Protestant with friends who converted. I keep wondering how/why they did it, and this fact I learned about women and the Sacrament blows me away.

This happened years ago, before the current conflict. I traveled to the holy land for a pilgrimage, expecting maybe some sort of confirmation from God or a religious experience. Instead what I saw was: incredibly fractured churches based on ethnicity, patriarch, bishop, etc. members of the same orthodox subgroup not speaking to each other or kicking people out of holy sites because of some disagreement between their bishops. At the holy sites: orthodox from different countries pushing, shoving , elbowing, trampling each other to place a trinket to a rock or relic in hopes of getting holy powers transferred to it. People shouting slurs and insults and cutting each other in line. Clergy shouting at people to move back and go away, calling people stupid and other names. At the sepulchre, people jostled in a human mass in a loosely formed line. Some people prayed, some talked about various secular topics. The setup inside the sepulchre was dark, with candles, setting up the environment to make you feel like you were somewhere important. You were shoved inside by the monks in groups of a few people with strangers. The woman next to me dumped a whole bag of icons, crosses, and other souvenirs on the rock and spread it around to absorb the holiness of the site. She trembled in emotion and ecstasy, almost in tears as she placed her forehead in the rock. I had expected something of the same sort too. Feeling the presence of God. Feeling the holiness of the site. But I felt nothing. I had felt more emotion from ordinary liturgy or vespers. We were soon pulled out by the monk, and I continued on. Thinking about the allegations of the Greek patriarch lighting the Easter candles himself with matches inside the tomb. Or the unlikelihood that all of these holy sites were actually preserved as what they were said to be. I went to the holy land looking for confirmation, but I left even more confused than I had ever been.

Hello everyone, I am a homosexual and I am considering what my future is in the church. I grew up in a very strict religious household. We fasted, prayed, and read hundreds of orthodox texts. I know the theology like the back of my hand and had a very strong belief, bordering on ocd up until adulthood. One of the biggest issues that is separating me from the church is my homosexuality. I feel zero guilt over this, even though the church teaches it to be disgusting. The love I feel for people of the same gender is pure and wholesome. I feel true joy and happiness with sane sex partners. Even when I was truly faithful, I never felt guilt for any sexual sins and would just confess them despite not feeling bad about it. When I was a child, I thought I would become a monk, since I knew heterosexual marriage was not the thing for me. Now that I’m older, I know that I too, can have a loving and satisfying union with someone, just of the same gender as me.

So before I leave the church altogether, is there any path forward in the church for people like me? I don’t particularly want to go into monastic life. I am considering becoming one of the “for traditions sake” attendees like the other cradles, but then I’ll have to field awkward questions about my personal life. What do people do?

Heard that one all the time when I was still attending regularly. What they really should've been saying is "my pseudo-fascist ideology isn't actually an ideology. Why? Because I said so, that's why. Now shut up and get in line, but not behind our parish priest, who I don't actually listen to, because he isn't based enough. You need to be getting in line behind Jay Dyer, Dn. Ananias Sorem, and Fr. Moses McPherson, and if you don't like the authorities that I've chosen for myself, than you're out of line and probably a heretic."

Seems to me St. Paul had a thing or two to say about that kind of behavior.

https://youtu.be/yD5p3hji-5M?si=bJqhi5J2Jm3iqkWh

Other articles on growing Christian Nationalist ideology in Protestant & EO circles:

https://religiondispatches.org/unprecedented-anti-lgbtq-statement-by-orthodox-church-in-america-should-be-christian-nationalist-warning-sign-to-us-orthodoxy/

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2024/04/04/how_putins_brutal_christian_nationalism_seduced_the_american_right_150742.amp.html

https://religiondispatches.org/knighting-viktor-orban-for-defending-christianity-serbian-orthodox-patriarch-demonstrates-that-culture-war-is-the-only-theology-that-matters-to-the-global-right/

https://pescanik.net/kratki-kurs-za-mlade-fundamentaliste/

As the title says, enter the text and translate it on google from Serbian to English.

This is to all who are considering leaving but are afraid. Outside of Orthodoxy there is happiness despite what the Orthodox claim when they say true happiness and love is outside of the church and only with Christ. At first, leaving will be hard and you may lose friends but there is many people willing to be your friend who you may not be able to associate with while in the church. You also don’t have to worry about committing a sin every hour of the day and instead you can do the best you can and focus on what is good. You also don’t have to exhaust yourself with prayer and condemnation with yourself and fasting. You can live a completely normal life filled with love, excitement, happiness and all the rest. When bad times come just look into yourself and you will find strength to endure.

Anyone go through the phase of falling in love with the aesthetics of orthodoxy only to deconstruct and fall out of that hypnosis? Idk how else to put it , but that's sort of how I feel.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oflw7aHJZ6k&ab_channel=TranscendingModernity

And before anyone gets on me about it, yes, I'm aware Fr. Andrew called out that Orthodox Christians "need to be more Christlike." But, without talking about who is feeling unloved, the how, and the why of it all, he's just offered an empty platitude. So, you say, u/jarofhearts333, who are these people who are not loved by Orthodoxy? Ask the woman who feels devalued because she can't go behind the altar - or, better yet, ask the woman who doesn't care about that teaching of the church but still feels devalued because she overheard some orthobro (of whom "The Lord of Spirits" has produced many, by the way) talk about how childless women are worse than useless in society. Ask an LGBT person - or family member or friend of an LGBT person - how they feel hearing continuous homophobia thrown around and always capped off with "of course, gay people are still welcome here." Ask a Jew how they feel about the antisemitism in so many hymns of Pascha and of the resurrection in general. Ask the homeless person on the street corner if the Eastern Orthodox churches in his city have ever bothered to reach out to them. Ask the captive in prison if the Orthodox have a well-established prison ministry. Ask any of those who Jesus would call "the least of these, my brothers," all of those who the high and mighty and rich view as beneath them if the church has ever done anything for them other than make them feel "not loved or loved very well." For the most part, and especially with the influx of fundamentalists and orthobros, the answer to all of these questions doesn't reflect very well on the church.

So what can the church do about it? Well, it could take a long, hard look at its teachings and ask if they reflect that the image and icon of God is found in every human being, no matter how tarnished it may be, or it could make an effort to step up its outreach and ministry to the destitute. But that would require some self-reflection from a clerical class too caught up in the smell of its own farts to care about anything other than playing games, cashing out, or seeing who can simp for Putin the hardest, depending on the jurisdiction. Sometimes its all three at once! And yes, I am also aware that there are individual parishes and priests out there who are genuinely devoted to doing good in the world, but these are the exception, not the rule, and these exceptions are quickly being extinguished by the influx of Dyerites and the correlated efflux of normal Christians who don't give a rat's ass about the nineteenth canon of Logikemachos the Evryproctos and just think that Christianity is about caring a little bit more about your neighbor. This, Fr. Andrew, is why so many of us are here instead of on the "ask your priest" sub. And, truthfully, I don't think I even did more than scrape the surface of how the church has left far too many people "not loved or loved very well." I didn't even touch on the incredible amounts of racism, ethnocentrism, nationalism, and other forms of racial bigotry on open display in so many Orthodox churches, for example. The issue of people "not loved or loved very well" is not one that can be papered over or swept under the rug with the aid of a few empty platitudes. It is a rot that has crept into the very soul of the Orthodox Church and corroded it from the inside out.

I want to preface this by saying that I am not struggling with my faith per se. I love Jesus Christ and many practices of the Church. The beauty of the paschal season is incomparable to any other faith. But my main problem is with the inflexibility of the Church and the behavior of some of the folks in our parish.

If you're not ethnic (in my case, Arab) or an extremely scrupulous convert who is essentially a fanatic, you're going to have trouble making friends and fitting in. I married into a family that has Arab roots, but they're very American and I find the ostentatious and materialistic culture of certain Arab Americans to be very alienating. The status seeking and lack of charity is bizarre to me. The Church is opposed to any kind of innovations that may make the participation in the life of the Church easier, like offering more services, making confession simpler, or doing more work in the community. However, having large food festivals where we charge the community money to come into our church and eat, or charging parishioners 20 bucks a head for a lunch is just fine. It feels very mercenary and I have no one to talk about it with. Many of the young families that our parish attracts seem troubled, and I'm worried that the clergy/hierarchy cannot see this (often because there is a large cultural barrier) and the outreach and evangelism is inadequate and misguided at best.

I am willing to put my preferences aside to raise my children in the Church with my husband and do it as a family. But I feel so jealous of my Protestant and Catholic friends who participate in social events at their church with other moms. In my part of the country church has an important social function, and I definitely feel left out of that.

When I was orthodox, I was told many things would happen if I left. I would live in sin. I would be miserable. I would miss receiving communion. God would punish me until I was brought to my knees in repentance. At some point, I would see the rubble of my life and sprint back to my local parish.

I’m a couple months into my journey away and I feel more alive than ever. I’m realizing that I don’t want to hurt people, not because the rules show me how to love them, but because I know them and I know how to love. Of course I’ll make mistakes, but life is about having the courage to fall and get back up. Isn’t that what the church teaches? I’m not scared of dying in sin anymore because I believe god knows my heart, if there is a god worthy of worship. I’m learning that fantasies are not the same desires, and that fantasies don’t disappear just because I don’t want to have them. So I can lean into them, explore them, and walk away never wanting to do it in real life. I feel less guilty for being who I am, but I still have work to do. I’m in communities with people who want authentic relationships, not with people keeping up appearances and competing for holiness, not communities dominated by fear of breaking the rules. As a person with multiple disabilities, I no longer have to fight to be included. I’ve found the people who are eager to accommodate me instead of expecting me to bang on the doors and scream for help before acting. Since I’ve stopped fasting, I can go out to a fun event on a Friday night and not plan fasting meals. I’m learning how to connect my mind and body, how to feel things instead of suppress them. Even the marriage with my wife is getting better because we’re not trapping our relationship within the rules, but trusting ourselves and each other to love and make mistakes together.

I know what I would’ve said as an orthodox Christian. It’s satanic pleasure. Give it more time and my life will fall apart. It’s just a bait and switch from the devil. To be honest, my life wasn’t roses and honeybees when I was orthodox. The Orthodox Church and other denominations claim to not teach a prosperity gospel, yet somehow that doesn’t apply to apostates. Life has ups and downs, seasons of great joy and profound sorrow, no matter what I do. What I can do is stop worrying if God is punishing me for sinning. I can stop spending time hoping God will rescue me from the valleys and spend my energy on walking through the valley. I’m no longer distancing myself from tragedies in the world by saying that God has a plan and focusing on what I can do to help now.

What do people miss when they leave? Is it rituals that mark important transitions in life, commemorate the dead, and help us let go? I can have those without the church. Is it community? I found that outside of the church. Is it the transcendent, meditation, and spiritual guidance? I’ve found all of it outside of the church. Certainly orthodox Christian’s can’t claim to have better spiritual guides just by being orthodox. I’ve been to seminary and I’ve heard the stories. It goes wrong as many times as it go well. The same applies to guides beyond parish walls.

Perhaps I’ll regret this post in time. Perhaps I’ll sprint back to orthodoxy in repentance. Maybe I’m wrong about everything I’m saying. Just as I said when I was orthodox, I will follow god wherever god leads me. If there is a god, he has lead me away from the church and deeper into my true self, deeper into the love of neighbor. And for now, that’s what I want to do. There isn’t a way to know if I’m right or wrong about life until I die. So I’ll live it using the spiritual and psychological tools that fulfill me and do my best to make my small corner of the world a better place. Isn’t this what the most beautiful parts of orthodoxy teach?

Last year I discovered Batushka and was blown away by their mix of Orthodox chanting and black metal guitars with screaming. The weird thing is that I'm not really into black metal, but these guys really hit for me since I left Orthodoxy and Christianity. I also like their blasphemous icons. It's incredibly cathartic and oddly soothing for me to listen to.

Other music has helped me, of course. Bands like Nine Inch Nails, TOOL, Twin Temple, and etc have been a great help since my departure from Christianity. However, Batushka and Patriarkh will always have a special place in my blackened apostate heart since Orthodoxy was the last straw for me.