Thanks for the shout-out and for the thoughtful video. I'm watching this rather late, but I think I will still have a cup of coffee while I listen to you.
Hi there, I am from the UK but live in Vietnam as I got married. My wife is Catholic and through I became interested in Orthodoxy last year and started practising strongly last year. There is no Church except one which is inside a russian military base in Vung Tau so obviously I cant go there. I will be staying here for some time, maybe for the rest of my life. God called me after I'm married, if he called me before I would definitely become a monk. My patron saint is Saint Joesph Hesychast - my problem is finding an father online who would be willing to be my spiritual father in my unique situation. Perhaps you could point my in the right direction ? God bless you - Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on us, sinners. Most Holy Theotokos, help us.
I was a Traditional Catholic too for many decades. I lost my belief in the papacy after realising that there had not been a Pope in my lifetime. I am 62 years old. If I can go back to 1958, then why not 1054?
Speaking of a clerical personality, at a largely convert parish in Chicago, the priest was a well-known speaker and writer, who drew a great many new Orthodox Christians. When eucharist was offered, three lines formed with a junior priest and a deacon serving in the second and third lines. The line of the primary priest was always longer, as if the body and blood of christ was more efficacious chalice.
I mean even when I help my English Speaking Priest help in the big Slavonic Service, he always had a smaller line than the rector. It may be a respect thing. But you're right that the Body is the Complete Body even in the smallest speck.
Hello, Protestant inquirer of 2 years here. I appreciate you bringing up some harder issues surrounding Orthodoxy and people's experience of it instead of glossing over certain things in an effort to paint the Church in a better light to outsiders. For better or worse, I feel I am at the cusp of ending my Orthodox journey because of frustrations regarding unity of the Church. It seems to me that the Orthodox Church is just "a church" with many problems, divisions, etc. Albeit, a beautiful, mostly theologically sound, and historic one. But best or favored isn't the same as only. I recognize Protestants and Orthodox/Catholics often mean different things by the word "church", but I hope you'll bear with me as I try to explain my rationale here. My intuition is that fewer and fewer people baptized into the Orthodox Church are actually maintaining the church phronema (a debatable topic of what this is), especially with the wave of converts and inquirers we see in America (myself included). So, there is a movement to preserve this phronema, but I'm not optimistic about the success of that over time... in any case, just the fact that the struggle is happening is enough to tell me that many Orthodox acknowledge that what unites them is something altogether immaterial. Everyone knows what the "Orthodox Church" is, but no one can define it in its fullness without appealing to something "abstract" or unquantifiable, like the fact that it's Christ's body or the fact that they seek to walk in the ways of the apostles and maintain the faith they were delivered or it encompasses the life of the Holy Spirit. Once you bring in anything more concrete than that (like who's in communion with each other or who listens to what bishop, teachings by specific church fathers, etc.), you run into exceptions to the rule, contradictions, politics, and divisions. So, I am questioning what all this means... my Protestant view of the church has always been that it is "invisible" in the sense that no one can pick a concrete quantifier and neatly identify all who are a part of Christ's body. The Holy Spirit is the invisible binder, which we can identify with in faith but not by any other physical means. I do see the Church as synonymous with "those people who are saved", because we can't be saved apart from being united with Christ. I think this is how many Protestants see the church, consciously or unconsciously. And many Orthodox too, acknowledge that we don't know how individuals will be judged by God. And yet, they can look at Protestants collectively and say they are not in the ark of salvation?? No... it just doesn't make sense to me. I'm rambling, but I hope you can understand at least some of what I'm trying to say. My goal in life is to love and serve the Lord and love and serve my neighbor all the days of my life. Soooooo many people know and love the Lord (enough to die for him!) "apart from the Church". If the fullness of the Orthodox Church is not necessary for this goal, why should I treat it like it is???
@@abigailwillis1656 So, I think that Orthodoxy has much the same object as any branch of Christianity: to love and serve the Lord Jesus, to obtain forgiveness of sins, and to be in union with God through the Holy Spirit. But, and here's the important part, Orthodoxy has means to do that that simply don't exist in another Church, with tradition and theology that excel every other Church, and none of those characteristics can easily be "synthesized." You can't fake the depth that you experience in an Orthodox monastery or at an Orthodox cathedral, because it represents the old growth of an actual ancient organic thing that stretches back to God incarnate. So, even if you find Orthodoxy frustrating, messy, or scandalous, Orthodoxy is still desirable, if only by process of elimination.
I think I can see where you are getting at. I'd say your own phronema sounds pretty protestant. I don't mean that as an insult, my own is pretty heavily influenced by the Catholicism I converted from, so I don't mean that as a slur, but its certainly the perspective you are coming from. Developing an Orthodox mind is a life time process, some do it better than others. It takes generations. Im sure that was also the case when Greeks or slavs converted from Paganism. You develop the correct mindset over generations of attending the services. I've been part of ethnic and convert heavy parishes, both bring a lot of good to the table. But in my experience the people you see week after week in church, at vespers, in line at confession etc are different than what you see online. Many Converts have the Orthodox mind in my experience. I think protestants (and Catholics and certainly some Orthodox as well) can be overly obsessed with "salvation" such. Who is saved and who is not. The Orthodox churchs offers the only sure path of salvation. It doesn't mean everyone who professes Orthodoxy will be saved. It doesn't mean God doesn't save people outside the canonical bounds of the church. The Ark analogy works because the only way to guarantee you won't drown is to stay on the boat. (once you are on the boat you must endure to the end as paul says) You want to pull as many people onto the boat as possible. Are some people who are not in the boat somehow rescued? Sure, Maybe, Likely even. Is it many or a few? What does that even mean? It isn't our job to say. We know God is merciful and Just. It would be incredibly imprudent to tell someone in the water to not worry about not being on the boat, they most likely won't drown. After all some people who stay in the water don't. If you are in the water and I'm in the boat anything short of saying "get in the boat or you will drown" would be a failure on my part to recognize the seriousness of the situation. I've seen cave diving warnings that say something to the effect of "nothing in this cave is interesting enough that it's worth dying over, don't go in here you will die." Im sure some people who foolishly don't take that advise go in and make it out alive, but the sign still rings true. Maybe if feels unfair. Maybe it doesn't logically make sense to you. But concerns over the "Exclusive Claims" of Orthodoxy are only different in degree rather than kind compared to the generic claims of Christianity about salvation. John 14:6 is very exclusive. No one can go to the Father except through the Son. Thats bad news for Muslims and Jews, let alone non monotheists. Then you have the whole discourse in John 6, specifically John 6:61 "Does this offend you?" On a personal level, yes, it does offend me. I've got nice Buddhist friends who are nice people. Nice Mormon friends who are nice people. I feel on a human level they "deserve" salvation based on....their niceness? 6:63 "It is the spirit that gives life, the flesh profits nothing" And lets be honest. None of them deserve salvation. non of us can "earn" it. Rest assured no one is hell is arbitrarily suffering punishment for crimes they did not commit and are just there as some sort of "Legal technicality" By widening the definition of "Church" to some nebulous invisible church of all true believers.....whatever that even means doesn't remove the issue of exclusivity Buddhists are still in trouble. The only way to "Feel" better about it or "make it feel fair" is to expand and expand the definition until you are either a universalist or a near universalist. "everyone goes to heaven except Ted Bundy and Hitler" type thing. I deserve to go to hell, you deserve to go to hell, Roman deserves to go to hell. All have sinned and the wage is death. The fact that we have the hope of paradise to look forward to is such an incredible gift. Hell is the default. Hell is not "excessive" or "unfair" no one in hell is punished beyond what they deserve. But the great news is the gates of Paradise are open to everyone via Christ, the way, the truth, the life. He opened the gate, he is the gate. The boat going there is the church. The church is also the body of Christ, The Chuch also literally feeds us the Body of Christ. The body of Christ we receive is literally the Way, the Truth, the Life. We consume him. He becomes a part of us in a literal, physical way. Christ bought all of us tickets for that boat ride. Its the only boat going there. I hope and and pray many people who didn't make it on the boat get washed up on the shore, or are hanging on the side. I think, in my estimation, this is the Orthodox way, or rather, at least An Orthodox way to think about it. Sorry for my rambling!
@@mrjustadude1hey man, I would just like to point out that making an argument that salvation is necessarily exclusive (which I agree to) and that salvation is found in the Church, as the Church is the body of Christ (which I also agree to), does not mean that the Orthodox Church is the one and only body of Christ. What exactly the Church is, is exactly the question being questioned. The concern with lopping off Catholics, Protestants, or Orthodox is not a concern over niceness. It is a concern of illegitimately kicking out of the Kingdom those who are call upon Christ. Long has it been held that the entrance into the Church is through baptism in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Catholics, Orthodox, and Protestants all practice this. The only issue you can bring up is whether or not the baptism without a priest is actually efficacious. But we know from scripture that it actually is. In the Old testament circumcision was the entrance into the Covenant, just as baptism is the enterence into the New Covenant. Moses's wife circumcised Moses's children and we know that that circumcision was efficacious because the angel of the Lord did not kill Moses, or the children, or Moses's wife. Moses's wife was not a priest she and was not even a man and yet the circumcision counted. We are told that the New Covenant is better than the old and so we can argue that the same rule for enterence into Covenant with God applies. Also, we are told unequivocally, that it is impossible to confess that Jesus Christ is Lord without the Holy Spirit. Once again, all three branches do this. This is important because in the old Covenant God revealed his presence before his people through the glory cloud that sat on top of the Tabernacle at Mount Sinai. In the New Covenant God revealed His presence through tongues of fire or a little glory clouds that sat upon individual believers. This revealed that God was now dwelling in his people and that his people are portable temples of God, or to use Peter's language, that we are living stones. What this means is that the church really is individuals who are indwelt with the Holy spirit, and the indweltness of believers is proved through the confession of our Lord Jesus Christ and living faith continues to die to sin and live to Christ. As individuals are now portable temples or houses of God, individuals are now actually priests to the everlasting God (1st Peter 2:9). This comes now full circle back to baptism issue. This is full circle because baptism is being done by believers who are actually priests. So the above point about all baptisms in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit being efficacious regardless if it is done with out a priest is somewhat of a moot point as all believers are actually priests. The conclusion of this whole matter is that all those you confess the name of our Lord Jesus Christ and are baptized the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are Christians and thus (presumably) indwelt by Holy Spirit. Jesus warned that blasphemy against the Son of man would be forgiven but that blasphemy against the Holy Spirit would not be forgiven. Slandering fellow believers and calling them not believers because they are not part of the Orthodox Church or any other Christian Church is not attacking the individual or even the individual institution but rather it is attacking the work of God, and that is a serious issue. So, let us put aside these childish arguments and show the brotherly love for each other as our King has commanded
I agree with nearly everything you said. And I do find Orthodoxy very desirable, in many ways. It is quite appealing to me among all the Christian groups I know. Perhaps even the MOST appealing. But, as I stated in my comment, I don't think "desirable", "favored", or even "best" are descriptors which necessarily rule out any other institution from being a place where you can meet, experience, get to know, and love/serve God. How does "best" equate to "only"? This is my single biggest issue with Orthodoxy, which I'm searching for satisfying answers to.
I'm not sure what objections there might be to a fully English liturgy in a branch of the Orthodox Church here in the U.S., one that would adapt itself to whatever other aspects of the American culture that was coherent with full Orthodox belief and practice. My understanding is that this is how missionaries like Cyril and Methodius approached inculturation. PS For me the biggest, most oppressive skandalon In the Orthodox Church today is full-throated support that Patriarch Kiril is giving to Putin's war in Ukraine. It reminds me of the anti-communist Catholic bishops and cardinals here in the 60's who were very gungho about the war in Vietnam. That skandalon drove out a lot of people, especially the young. Won't the same thing happen in Russia?
I am not against a liturgy completely in English, but a completely English liturgy would just be the Prayer Book, and that is not Orthodoxy. There also isn't an "American" culture in liturgical terms, because our native religious practice is too diverse, and it must include the Greeks and Russians who have been here doing it their way for longer than some states have been admitted.
The scandal is U.S. and NATO putting military bases up next to a border of a sovereign nation. Who does that? It's called provocing a conflict. Also chemical weapons labs. If you got this far not understanding any of that, nothing I or anyone can say can help you.
What drove young people out of RCism in the 1960s was the Church talking out of both sides of their mouths, condemning Communism with one breath while letting Communist sympathetic Bishops push for Liturgical Reform.
Thanks for the shout-out and for the thoughtful video. I'm watching this rather late, but I think I will still have a cup of coffee while I listen to you.
@@dalecaldwell Much appreciated!
I am Lutheran, love my christian papists and easterners.
Leaving the RCC and entering the Orthodox Church this year is the best thing I ever did - thanks be to God. ☦☦☦
Amen.
Congrats on the baby! It’s a beautiful time to be alive, enjoy it brother!
Hi there, I am from the UK but live in Vietnam as I got married. My wife is Catholic and through I became interested in Orthodoxy last year and started practising strongly last year. There is no Church except one which is inside a russian military base in Vung Tau so obviously I cant go there. I will be staying here for some time, maybe for the rest of my life. God called me after I'm married, if he called me before I would definitely become a monk. My patron saint is Saint Joesph Hesychast - my problem is finding an father online who would be willing to be my spiritual father in my unique situation. Perhaps you could point my in the right direction ? God bless you - Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on us, sinners. Most Holy Theotokos, help us.
I was a Traditional Catholic too for many decades. I lost my belief in the papacy after realising that there had not been a Pope in my lifetime. I am 62 years old. If I can go back to 1958, then why not 1054?
Speaking of a clerical personality, at a largely convert parish in Chicago, the priest was a well-known speaker and writer, who drew a great many new Orthodox Christians. When eucharist was offered, three lines formed with a junior priest and a deacon serving in the second and third lines. The line of the primary priest was always longer, as if the body and blood of christ was more efficacious chalice.
I mean even when I help my English Speaking Priest help in the big Slavonic Service, he always had a smaller line than the rector. It may be a respect thing.
But you're right that the Body is the Complete Body even in the smallest speck.
Much less chit-chat, more substance.
@@hieromonkphilipvreeland7929 🤣
Hello, Protestant inquirer of 2 years here. I appreciate you bringing up some harder issues surrounding Orthodoxy and people's experience of it instead of glossing over certain things in an effort to paint the Church in a better light to outsiders.
For better or worse, I feel I am at the cusp of ending my Orthodox journey because of frustrations regarding unity of the Church.
It seems to me that the Orthodox Church is just "a church" with many problems, divisions, etc. Albeit, a beautiful, mostly theologically sound, and historic one. But best or favored isn't the same as only. I recognize Protestants and Orthodox/Catholics often mean different things by the word "church", but I hope you'll bear with me as I try to explain my rationale here.
My intuition is that fewer and fewer people baptized into the Orthodox Church are actually maintaining the church phronema (a debatable topic of what this is), especially with the wave of converts and inquirers we see in America (myself included). So, there is a movement to preserve this phronema, but I'm not optimistic about the success of that over time... in any case, just the fact that the struggle is happening is enough to tell me that many Orthodox acknowledge that what unites them is something altogether immaterial. Everyone knows what the "Orthodox Church" is, but no one can define it in its fullness without appealing to something "abstract" or unquantifiable, like the fact that it's Christ's body or the fact that they seek to walk in the ways of the apostles and maintain the faith they were delivered or it encompasses the life of the Holy Spirit. Once you bring in anything more concrete than that (like who's in communion with each other or who listens to what bishop, teachings by specific church fathers, etc.), you run into exceptions to the rule, contradictions, politics, and divisions.
So, I am questioning what all this means... my Protestant view of the church has always been that it is "invisible" in the sense that no one can pick a concrete quantifier and neatly identify all who are a part of Christ's body. The Holy Spirit is the invisible binder, which we can identify with in faith but not by any other physical means. I do see the Church as synonymous with "those people who are saved", because we can't be saved apart from being united with Christ.
I think this is how many Protestants see the church, consciously or unconsciously. And many Orthodox too, acknowledge that we don't know how individuals will be judged by God. And yet, they can look at Protestants collectively and say they are not in the ark of salvation?? No... it just doesn't make sense to me.
I'm rambling, but I hope you can understand at least some of what I'm trying to say.
My goal in life is to love and serve the Lord and love and serve my neighbor all the days of my life. Soooooo many people know and love the Lord (enough to die for him!) "apart from the Church".
If the fullness of the Orthodox Church is not necessary for this goal, why should I treat it like it is???
@@abigailwillis1656 So, I think that Orthodoxy has much the same object as any branch of Christianity: to love and serve the Lord Jesus, to obtain forgiveness of sins, and to be in union with God through the Holy Spirit. But, and here's the important part, Orthodoxy has means to do that that simply don't exist in another Church, with tradition and theology that excel every other Church, and none of those characteristics can easily be "synthesized." You can't fake the depth that you experience in an Orthodox monastery or at an Orthodox cathedral, because it represents the old growth of an actual ancient organic thing that stretches back to God incarnate. So, even if you find Orthodoxy frustrating, messy, or scandalous, Orthodoxy is still desirable, if only by process of elimination.
I think I can see where you are getting at.
I'd say your own phronema sounds pretty protestant. I don't mean that as an insult, my own is pretty heavily influenced by the Catholicism I converted from, so I don't mean that as a slur, but its certainly the perspective you are coming from.
Developing an Orthodox mind is a life time process, some do it better than others. It takes generations. Im sure that was also the case when Greeks or slavs converted from Paganism. You develop the correct mindset over generations of attending the services.
I've been part of ethnic and convert heavy parishes, both bring a lot of good to the table. But in my experience the people you see week after week in church, at vespers, in line at confession etc are different than what you see online. Many Converts have the Orthodox mind in my experience.
I think protestants (and Catholics and certainly some Orthodox as well) can be overly obsessed with "salvation" such. Who is saved and who is not.
The Orthodox churchs offers the only sure path of salvation. It doesn't mean everyone who professes Orthodoxy will be saved. It doesn't mean God doesn't save people outside the canonical bounds of the church.
The Ark analogy works because the only way to guarantee you won't drown is to stay on the boat. (once you are on the boat you must endure to the end as paul says) You want to pull as many people onto the boat as possible. Are some people who are not in the boat somehow rescued? Sure, Maybe, Likely even.
Is it many or a few? What does that even mean? It isn't our job to say. We know God is merciful and Just.
It would be incredibly imprudent to tell someone in the water to not worry about not being on the boat, they most likely won't drown. After all some people who stay in the water don't. If you are in the water and I'm in the boat anything short of saying "get in the boat or you will drown" would be a failure on my part to recognize the seriousness of the situation.
I've seen cave diving warnings that say something to the effect of "nothing in this cave is interesting enough that it's worth dying over, don't go in here you will die." Im sure some people who foolishly don't take that advise go in and make it out alive, but the sign still rings true.
Maybe if feels unfair. Maybe it doesn't logically make sense to you. But concerns over the "Exclusive Claims" of Orthodoxy are only different in degree rather than kind compared to the generic claims of Christianity about salvation. John 14:6 is very exclusive. No one can go to the Father except through the Son. Thats bad news for Muslims and Jews, let alone non monotheists. Then you have the whole discourse in John 6, specifically John 6:61 "Does this offend you?"
On a personal level, yes, it does offend me. I've got nice Buddhist friends who are nice people. Nice Mormon friends who are nice people. I feel on a human level they "deserve" salvation based on....their niceness? 6:63 "It is the spirit that gives life, the flesh profits nothing" And lets be honest. None of them deserve salvation. non of us can "earn" it. Rest assured no one is hell is arbitrarily suffering punishment for crimes they did not commit and are just there as some sort of "Legal technicality"
By widening the definition of "Church" to some nebulous invisible church of all true believers.....whatever that even means doesn't remove the issue of exclusivity Buddhists are still in trouble. The only way to "Feel" better about it or "make it feel fair" is to expand and expand the definition until you are either a universalist or a near universalist. "everyone goes to heaven except Ted Bundy and Hitler" type thing.
I deserve to go to hell, you deserve to go to hell, Roman deserves to go to hell. All have sinned and the wage is death. The fact that we have the hope of paradise to look forward to is such an incredible gift. Hell is the default. Hell is not "excessive" or "unfair" no one in hell is punished beyond what they deserve. But the great news is the gates of Paradise are open to everyone via Christ, the way, the truth, the life. He opened the gate, he is the gate.
The boat going there is the church. The church is also the body of Christ, The Chuch also literally feeds us the Body of Christ. The body of Christ we receive is literally the Way, the Truth, the Life. We consume him. He becomes a part of us in a literal, physical way.
Christ bought all of us tickets for that boat ride. Its the only boat going there. I hope and and pray many people who didn't make it on the boat get washed up on the shore, or are hanging on the side. I think, in my estimation, this is the Orthodox way, or rather, at least An Orthodox way to think about it.
Sorry for my rambling!
@@mrjustadude1hey man, I would just like to point out that making an argument that salvation is necessarily exclusive (which I agree to) and that salvation is found in the Church, as the Church is the body of Christ (which I also agree to), does not mean that the Orthodox Church is the one and only body of Christ. What exactly the Church is, is exactly the question being questioned. The concern with lopping off Catholics, Protestants, or Orthodox is not a concern over niceness. It is a concern of illegitimately kicking out of the Kingdom those who are call upon Christ.
Long has it been held that the entrance into the Church is through baptism in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Catholics, Orthodox, and Protestants all practice this. The only issue you can bring up is whether or not the baptism without a priest is actually efficacious. But we know from scripture that it actually is. In the Old testament circumcision was the entrance into the Covenant, just as baptism is the enterence into the New Covenant. Moses's wife circumcised Moses's children and we know that that circumcision was efficacious because the angel of the Lord did not kill Moses, or the children, or Moses's wife. Moses's wife was not a priest she and was not even a man and yet the circumcision counted. We are told that the New Covenant is better than the old and so we can argue that the same rule for enterence into Covenant with God applies. Also, we are told unequivocally, that it is impossible to confess that Jesus Christ is Lord without the Holy Spirit. Once again, all three branches do this. This is important because in the old Covenant God revealed his presence before his people through the glory cloud that sat on top of the Tabernacle at Mount Sinai. In the New Covenant God revealed His presence through tongues of fire or a little glory clouds that sat upon individual believers. This revealed that God was now dwelling in his people and that his people are portable temples of God, or to use Peter's language, that we are living stones. What this means is that the church really is individuals who are indwelt with the Holy spirit, and the indweltness of believers is proved through the confession of our Lord Jesus Christ and living faith continues to die to sin and live to Christ. As individuals are now portable temples or houses of God, individuals are now actually priests to the everlasting God (1st Peter 2:9). This comes now full circle back to baptism issue. This is full circle because baptism is being done by believers who are actually priests. So the above point about all baptisms in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit being efficacious regardless if it is done with out a priest is somewhat of a moot point as all believers are actually priests.
The conclusion of this whole matter is that all those you confess the name of our Lord Jesus Christ and are baptized the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are Christians and thus (presumably) indwelt by Holy Spirit. Jesus warned that blasphemy against the Son of man would be forgiven but that blasphemy against the Holy Spirit would not be forgiven. Slandering fellow believers and calling them not believers because they are not part of the Orthodox Church or any other Christian Church is not attacking the individual or even the individual institution but rather it is attacking the work of God, and that is a serious issue.
So, let us put aside these childish arguments and show the brotherly love for each other as our King has commanded
I agree with nearly everything you said. And I do find Orthodoxy very desirable, in many ways. It is quite appealing to me among all the Christian groups I know. Perhaps even the MOST appealing. But, as I stated in my comment, I don't think "desirable", "favored", or even "best" are descriptors which necessarily rule out any other institution from being a place where you can meet, experience, get to know, and love/serve God. How does "best" equate to "only"? This is my single biggest issue with Orthodoxy, which I'm searching for satisfying answers to.
Response to Roman
I'm not sure what objections there might be to a fully English liturgy in a branch of the Orthodox Church here in the U.S., one that would adapt itself to whatever other aspects of the American culture that was coherent with full Orthodox belief and practice. My understanding is that this is how missionaries like Cyril and Methodius approached inculturation.
PS For me the biggest, most oppressive skandalon In the Orthodox Church today is full-throated support that Patriarch Kiril is giving to Putin's war in Ukraine. It reminds me of the anti-communist Catholic bishops and cardinals here in the 60's who were very gungho about the war in Vietnam. That skandalon drove out a lot of people, especially the young. Won't the same thing happen in Russia?
I am not against a liturgy completely in English, but a completely English liturgy would just be the Prayer Book, and that is not Orthodoxy. There also isn't an "American" culture in liturgical terms, because our native religious practice is too diverse, and it must include the Greeks and Russians who have been here doing it their way for longer than some states have been admitted.
Patriarch Cyrill of Russia didn't support the invasion. I don't know why various English outlets deliberately mistranslate what he said.
The Ukrainian government is fully shutting down and persecuting the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, so please get your facts straight
The scandal is U.S. and NATO putting military bases up next to a border of a sovereign nation. Who does that? It's called provocing a conflict. Also chemical weapons labs. If you got this far not understanding any of that, nothing I or anyone can say can help you.
What drove young people out of RCism in the 1960s was the Church talking out of both sides of their mouths, condemning Communism with one breath while letting Communist sympathetic Bishops push for Liturgical Reform.