FAVORITE EPISODE Orthodoxy vs Catholicism EXPLAINED BY A PRIEST + Father Michael Butler

Why has this been kept from me all my life? What is Orthodoxy without losing my faith?

I'm gonna be provocative here. I am actually a convert from the Catholic Church. Was there something special that happened at that Orthodox service?

I heard the song that creation sings to its creator. Many people are assuming that Orthodoxy split off from Catholicism.

What is the real story? The Orthodox Church is the original church that goes all the way back to the time of the apostles.

What's the misconception about the Orthodox Church that you want to clarify? Misconception about the Orthodox Church?

Um. Mm, that's good. Hello, hello.

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Thank you so much for listening. Now let's get to the show. So I have questions today. Where did the

Orthodox Church come from? Did it even split from Catholicism? Like, what are the roots of it? Or is it something entirely different, like a whole new denomination, different beliefs, dogmas, doctrines?

I don't know. So today I wanted to bring on Father Michael Butler to help answer those questions.

Welcome to the show, Father Michael, and I'm so excited to have you here. Yeah, I am actually a convert from the

Catholic Church. I found Orthodoxy when I, yes, I was, I had a, one profound kind of lightning bolt conversion experience, actually, when

I was 15 years old. Sort of the whole backstory, which some people find interesting.

I lost my daddy when I was eight years old to an industrial accident, and my mother got mad at God and quit taking us to Mass, but I always,

I liked going to church, and I continued to do so. Mama remarried a little later.

She was 28 years old with, you know, widow with two young children, and my stepfather took us, you know, to another place to live.

So I went to confession for the first time in my life, really, and I do not remember the confession at all, except that the priest realized he had a very tender, wounded soul on the other side and was very gentle with me, which was beautiful.

But walking out of the church, now, I was in South Texas on the Mexican border, so it was very moderate, the temperatures, probably in the 60s, because it's subtropical down there like Florida.

It was February the 4th, 1975 at 4 .55 in the afternoon.

I remember it like - 4 .55? I remember it like it was yesterday. I know when it happened, and I walked out of that church and down the sidewalk, and the world changed.

The light went golden. I heard the sound or the song that creation sings to its creator.

I cannot describe the music except somehow, you know, grass is soprano and trees are bass. That's as close as I've ever been able to come, and I knew in an instant that there was a

God. He was personal and that he loved me, and it turned me inside out, and -

This was just leaving confession. Just walking out of a church from a confession, and I have lived, actually, the constant in my life is that I have lived the rest of my life out of gratitude for that moment, and I'm here with you today, you know, out of gratitude for that moment, and so that was the start, and I wanted to, you know,

I felt a calling that I had a vocation to be a priest, and I pursued that through university, and then my senior year in college,

I discovered the Orthodox Church on a visit to Pittsburgh. I was gonna do graduate work at Duquesne and discovered, actually, the

Byzantine rite of the Catholic Church, and through that, to compress the story, it started a huge fight.

I literally laid awake for about six weeks, wrestling. My head said I had to be Catholic. My heart said, you gotta be

Orthodox, and I finally decided to follow my heart, and I have never looked back.

It was also about the same time that I began dating the woman that I would eventually marry, so I said,

I'm gonna follow my heart on this one, too, so two thumbs up on following your heart in some situations.

20 out of 10, do recommend. Yeah. So, I just wanna zone in on that. It was a difficult, like, your whole life, up until college,

Catholic, and then you just experienced a Orthodox service and were converted, or, and then you kinda wrestled with that decision, or was there something that special happened at that Orthodox service that brought you in?

No, it was simply beautiful. It was just like what you had said at the beginning. You know, it was beautiful.

This is what worship is supposed to be like. Why has this been kept from me all my life? And it's part of what's always attracted me to Orthodoxy is that, well,

I will say this, and please, I preface this by saying this is completely inadequate and very partial, but beginning to attend an

Orthodox service now and again gave me just enough distance from my Catholic past to be able to articulate a little bit of what issue

I had with the Catholic Church. I didn't know I had one, but it sort of seemed to me, again, grossly inadequate, but it seemed to me that rather than sanctifying the world, the

Catholic Church had been secularized by it. And there is an aspect of Orthodoxy, as you know from your own experience, that is very incarnational, that, as you say, it does bring heaven to earth.

Our churches, our temples are modeled on the heavenly model that we see in the book of Revelation, that prophet

Isaiah saw when he saw heaven, that Moses saw on Mount Sinai when he saw the heavenly tabernacle.

Our churches are built on the same model. They're an archetypal structure designed to show heaven and earth intersecting.

And somehow I grasped that intuitively, and for me, it was an incredible moment.

Okay, let me tell you this, too. Orthodoxy appeals to men in waves, and currently, for the last six or seven years, we have had this huge influx of young men into the

Orthodox Church. I mean, I'm talking thousands are coming to Orthodoxy right now.

I must have three dozen. I get at least one visitor, one young man coming every single Sunday to check us out, and this has been going on for well over a year.

What is it? Like, what hooks them? I think there are a couple of things. First, ascendant meaning. They're looking for something really big, really substantial to believe in.

You know, a sense of holiness, ascendance, and tradition that we're not gonna change. We're not changing with the fads.

We're not so contemporary, meaningful, and relevant that God only knows what's gonna pass for worship this week or be embarrassing, you know, or happy, clappy, and all emotional where they'd feel uncomfortable.

It's fairly set. You know, the liturgy is fairly set. It doesn't change too much. I think they take comfort in that, but a transcendent purpose to believe in, and second, structure.

I think structure, that the liturgy is structured, that we have a rule of prayer, you know, that we all practice daily of morning and evening prayer.

There is a regular cycle of services. There are regular days during the course of the week and throughout the year when we fast.

There are days on which we feast. There is a spiritual father. I think for a lot of younger guys, they're sometimes looking for a dad 2 .0,

you know, and if the priest has half a lick of sense, he realizes, okay, I know what these guys are looking for, you know, and can fulfill that need, and part of the attraction to Orthodox for me was that also it's very personal.

In sort of the Catholic world, sort of the allegiance, if you will, is to the local parish.

Oh, I belong to St. Gabriel's. I belong to Our Lady of Perpetual Health. In Orthodoxy, there's a lot more personal and close contact with the priest as one's spiritual father.

So like anybody who's at all serious about his or her faith is going to have basically a regular spiritual director and a regular relationship with the pastor precisely for those spiritual things.

Interesting, yeah. And so, you know, for a lot of guys, younger guys who are trying to figure life out, who are trying to grow up, who are trying to get out of late adolescence and into early adulthood, and maybe are having a little trouble with that, another older man, a mentor, you know, a spiritual coach is very appealing and can be genuinely helpful to them in that.

So I think that's a lot of what's attracting the men. Yeah, that's a really good point. And you feel like based off your

Catholic experience and my own with my non -denominationals, like I have a pastor, I love Pastor JT, he's the best, but I just see

Pastor JT on Sundays during the early service. And you would say, like kind of in the same way the

Catholic priest would be kind of only available during mass, there wouldn't be any, they get off the stage and they know you by name, they're willing to meet with you in your living room.

Is that the main difference you're seeing here with orthodoxy? I think so. Our churches tend to be a little smaller. I had a good friend when

I was priest in Cleveland that's very tight with the local Catholic priest. He had 5 ,000 parishioners.

It's not possible to be intimate with 5 ,000 people. I have just over 300 here where I am and this is a good sized congregation for an

Orthodox church. Granted, I'm struggling a little nowadays, but I try to know everyone by name.

When we do have confession, it's face -to -face, I don't hide behind a screen. Oh, is that terrifying?

Oh my gosh. Terrifying? Yeah, I, okay. Beautiful. When I, this might be a funny story, but this was again, like me being a child, but I remember vividly, you know, going to confession on one of the

Sundays as a kid, but I remember just like telling him like, oh, I stole some candy, whatever, you know, I was a child, so one of my sins.

And he would always react like, oh, that's bad. And he'd always have these reactions where I'd be like, no, never.

May I apologize for it? We listen and we don't judge. No, so I can't imagine if I saw his face, that would be even more scary.

No, it's very good. In fact, we have a group, I think I have seven or eight that are, they're about seven years old, which is when we start kids coming to confession.

And so I'm gonna be there with them. We're gonna walk them through it. I'm gonna put the stole over their head in pretense so they know this is what's gonna happen and explain it all to them.

I'm not a stranger. Granted, yeah, the first time you have to stand up in front of somebody else and say what you did wrong, it's a little terrifying and I get that, but you learn to be gentle with tender souls and honest to God, I'd rather hear children's confessions over adult confessions any day.

Honestly, I really would. I'm sure. You know, childish sins are, they're not beautiful, but you see that innocence that's still there and it's a genuine blessing to me to encounter that.

Yeah, I'm sure. And to be able to speak. And for one difference in Orthodox versus Roman Catholic approaches or all

Western confessions that may use, that may use Western confessions that use confession,

Western churches that practice confession, let me make it a little clearer, is that in the

Orthodox Church, I don't forgive sins. I can't, I don't say I absolve you.

Who's Michael Butler to be forgiving sins? We always use a sort of a passive voice way of saying this.

So all that you have said to me, an unworthy man, and all that you've not said due to ignorance or forgetfulness,

God forgives you now and in the life to come. I'm just a witness bearing testimony for what these children say before Christ.

I stand in for the entire congregation and hear their public confession to Christ. Okay, we're already getting into a few things, which is what are the main differences of Orthodoxy to let's say

Catholicism? I can just go straight to God. What's the point of confession in front of a priest? Because it tells us in scripture to confess our sins one to another, not to go goof off or do whatever it is that you do and then go and hide in your room and never tell anybody.

I tell you what, knowing that I was gonna have to spill this spill what I was thinking about doing to another priest, has stopped me from misbehaving a few times in my life.

Okay. Wow, that accountability. Remember, that's like a promise, y 'all believe the Bible, confess your sins one to another, that's in the imperative voice, that's not a suggestion, okay?

So go do it. So with the confession, many people are assuming that Orthodoxy split off from Catholicism, and we kind of see that similarity.

What is the real story? Yeah, the Orthodox Church is the original church that goes all the way back to the time of the apostles.

If you look at - Okay, walk me through that. Our Lord preached to his apostles, the apostles had their disciples.

Paul went around establishing bishops and elders in various cities. Those ordained people subsequently, the church spread.

They all wrote stuff. We have historical record, writings from the earliest

Christian times, bearing witness to the historical continuity of the Church of Christ.

It didn't end when the last apostle died, or as some think, when

Emperor Constantine proclaimed Christianity legal in the empire, the church has always been there, and there's a clear historical record to that, and we can trace our beliefs and our practices, our ordination and everything in an unbroken lineage all the way back to the

New Testament. That is the church. It ain't invisible. It didn't start with the Lutheran Reformation.

It didn't start with the break between the Catholic West and the Orthodox East, which

I'll get to in a moment. It still exists. I see. So this, like, again, just like simplifying it down for me is the church that I experienced with men on the left, women on the right, the head coverings, the modesty, no instruments in church, the confessions, the communions, the calendar, the fast and the feast, all of that was the same practices that the apostles were following and preaching to follow.

Very close. There's been some growth over time. I mean, we have the epistles of Saint Ignatius of Antioch, whose teacher,

Polycarp, probably knew John the Evangelist, that there were bishops in every city, that they gathered together on Sunday for the

Eucharist, that they believed it was the true body and blood of Christ, that there were bishops, priests, and deacons, already a hierarchical liturgy in the church, that there was a time of preparation for baptism.

All of that, it's clear, you know? Been there since the beginning. I hate to ask the big questions so early on, but where do we get

Catholicism then? Because I feel like they would argue the same exact thing. Well, they would. Okay, and here is where the

Catholics and us are going to have a little bit of a disagreement here. We will disagree on this thing. The church was one.

You know, the traditional date for the Great Schism, or the split, was 1054. And the only thing that happened, in the years, the centuries went by, fewer people in the

Latin -speaking West could speak Greek, which was the language of the eastern half of the

Roman Empire, and fewer people in the east could speak Latin. And so, linguistic difficulties, the barbarian invasions, which caused huge societal disruptions in the northern part of the

Byzantine Empire, certainly throughout the whole of Western Europe, caused huge cultural shifts.

And also, the two churches, or the two halves of the Roman Empire, just sort of drifted apart from historical reasons, and over time, throw into the mix the rise of Islam, which the

Muslims took to pirating early on, and it became extremely dangerous to travel around the

Mediterranean. You know, trade and commerce, and just back and forth became dangerous.

I mean, you'd end up a galley slave if you were captured. I mean, and so, it's just cultural separation and isolation, kind of, they just sort of drifted apart.

And then, in 1054, a cardinal came to visit in Constantinople, and there was a rather pushy patriarch in Constantinople at the time, and Cardinal Umbert was kind of a pushy man himself, and there was a bit of a falling out.

So Cardinal Umbert marched into the cathedral of Hagia Sophia one Sunday, and laid a writ of excommunication against Patriarch Michael on the high altar, and then fled.

Okay, so that would explain the split. Yeah, and then Patriarch Michael says, well, to hell with this, we'll excommunicate

Cardinal Umbert as well. That was all that really happened. I mean, there continued to be interaction and trade.

I mean, there's reference in the 12th or 13th century in Byzantium, there was some

Catholic clergy came with Venetian traders, because when things were better, there was trade between the

Italian city -states and Constantinople. Bishops showed up, and they said, are we in communion with those guys?

I don't know, let's go check the records. So they went and checked the archives. It just seems like it. Everybody had communion together.

So things didn't really turn sour until 1204, when the

Fourth Crusade, rather than going on to the Middle East and taking care of the Muslims over there, sacked

Constantinople, threw out the Emperor, threw out the Patriarch, and set up a

Roman Catholic Latin Patriarch in the place of the ecumenical patriarchy.

That left a really sour taste in our mouth. And that's really the beginning of the hostilities.

You know, in 1966, the late Pope Paul VI and the late

Patriarch Athenagoras of Constantinople, they rescinded those excommunications from 1054.

They said, that was stupid. We shouldn't have done that. Let's just kill those. And they did. But over the course of time, the

Catholic Church has added some teachings and some practices, which the whole universal church never approved of.

See, in orthodoxy, we do, and in the early church, everything was done by councils. The bishops all got together.

They debated, they came to a conclusion, and that was the way that decisions were made.

That was the way doctrine was established. They worked it out and fought it out and debated it.

But because of historical reasons, the Pope of Rome got to be really important and claimed universal authority over the whole church.

It was never accepted in the rest of the church. So people in the sea, and later on in the 19th century, infallibility came up.

Those are big sticking points for us. Secondly, they have a note. They added a word to the creed, which had been written by us at the

Council of Nicaea in 325 and amended a little in the year 381. And they said that the

Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and from the Son. That was never part of the original creed.

It was never agreed to by the universal church. It was a one -sided insertion in the

Latin West and we never agreed to that. And we have serious theological differences over that. It's not worth going into in this interview, but there are ramifications to it.

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Take a breath, slow down, and dwell in the good things. Now, back to the show. With the apostles, we have an unorthodox church, and around 325 is the

Council of Nicaea. At what point did we have that break into what is known as the Catholic Church?

The Catholic Church and the Orthodox were one in the same for centuries. As I said, they gradually grew apart.

And at some point, like I say, probably with the sacking of Constantinople was a real low point.

But our clergy do not, we consider each other in schism. We do not concelebrate with each other.

I can't invite a Catholic priest to come here. I cannot receive communion in a Catholic Church. We do not acknowledge the decrees of the

Roman Catholic Councils or the decrees of the Pope. Do they have sacraments? Yes. Does their church produce saints?

Absolutely. But we are not in communion with each other, and we say that they have a number of doctrines, most notably papal primacy and infallibility, the filioque and the creed, which was never part of the tradition of the church.

So those are, I mean, for big reasons, that. For sort of foundational theological reasons, those are the real ones.

Do you mind explaining those a little bit more? Because I understood like one of those words. Papal primacy is that the notion that the

Pope has universal jurisdiction over the entire church. Got it. And Orthodoxy does not agree with that. No.

The only person with jurisdiction over my church is my local bishop. Okay. And he sits on a synod with other bishops of the

Orthodox Church, and together they decide how the church is run. Whereas in the Roman situation, the

Pope of Rome can put himself into the business of any diocese, any order, any parish directly.

He has local control from Rome. We say that's way too much authority. That was never the practice in the ancient church.

That was never the system set up by the councils when the church agreed together that this is the way we're gonna run everything.

It was a later thing done in the Latin West. And papal infallibility is the notion that says that the

Pope of Rome, when he is speaking formally, when he is articulating dogma for the

Catholic Church, he is infallible. He is incapable of making error when he's giving voice to the dogmatic teaching of the

Catholic Church. Infallibility feels like it should just be reserved for Jesus. Is that the correct type of thinking on that?

Now, how is Jesus going to tell us what to believe about this or that when a particular issue comes up?

I mean, the church has the authority given by Christ to bind and to loose, okay? That's where the church has authority to say, you're in, you're out, this is right, this is wrong, this is what

Christians must do, this is what Christians cannot do. And as times change and new situations come about, the church has got to speak to things.

There's nothing in scripture about transgenderism. What, are we going to be silent on one of the big moral issues of our day because St.

Paul never said anything about it in his epistles? No, the church has got to say something. Yeah.

No, so now we can't just leave that up to Jesus. It's a dereliction of our duty as the church to present the gospel to the world.

Got it. So when we look at dogmas and like the really core of the Christian belief systems, what are the differences on where the

Orthodox Church stands versus the Catholic Church? Yeah, on dogmatic matters, we're probably about 95 % the same.

Please remember the core tenets of Christianity were debated and worked out in the early centuries of the church when the church was still one.

So the Nicene Creed, like I say, apart from the fact that most Western Christians say that the

Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and from the Son, apart from that one little phrase, we all believe exactly the same creed.

We all believe that Mary is the mother of God. We all believe that Christ is one person in two natures without division, separation, admixture, or confusion.

You know, we all, you know, most of the dogmas are really the same. With that issue of end the...

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It won't cost you anything extra, and it keeps this channel going. Now, back to the show. Son, does that mean that you guys have a different view on the

Trinity? What is your view? That the Holy Spirit proceeds only from the Father, because that's what Scripture says.

The Holy Spirit who proceeds from the Father, and the Father will send him to you. So we believe that the

Father begets the Son, and he aspirates, breathes out. There's not a good word in English.

Breathes the Holy Spirit, and then the relationship between the Spirit and the Son is that the Holy Spirit abides upon the

Son, and that's the relationship between them. Oh, okay. So if it was like a sandwich, it'd be like God on top, and then the

Holy Spirit, and then the Son below. See there, now it gets interesting, doesn't it? Because you just established a hierarchy among three equal persons, didn't you?

I did, but just visually. No, see, but see, that's where it gets, that's where it gets so much fun for me.

But it gets really gnarly, you know, because yeah, are all the persons equal?

They're all equally divine. Father, Son, and Spirit are all equally divine, but in Orthodoxy, we also hold there is simultaneously a hierarchy.

So one of the fathers on top, since he is the source, the archi, the origin of the

Son and the Spirit, but they're all equal. So one of the peculiarities of Orthodox thought that gets played up and sort of makes everybody else go, what are you doing, is that we really do,

Orthodox is much more comfortable with ambiguity than most other confessions are. So we can say that the

Holy Trinity is perfectly equal and has a full hierarchy within itself, perfectly contradictory terms, and we're 100 % cool with that.

Okay. Bread and wine and the Eucharist, 100 % body and blood of Christ, 100 % bread of wine, one sacramental reality.

The math is weird, but it works everywhere and it starts turning up. And that's one of the fun parts about Orthodoxy is because everything is so interrelated and there is a lot that is very symbolic and archetypal.

You begin to notice the patterns. And when you begin to see the patterns working here, there, and all the way through, it becomes really very exciting, especially if you can discover a new one along the way.

I think it was C .S. Lewis who said that God has a certain family style.

And when you kind of catch on to what he's doing, you begin to just, it turns up everywhere. Yeah. And it's really kind of fun to see.

So what would you say is the main difference, just to keep it super simple for somebody that's maybe at a crossroads and they don't know which way to go?

Church organization, Catholicism is, you know, is papal -centered or Pope -centered.

Orthodoxy is conciliar. Got it. We have the same sacraments. We have 95 % the same doctrines, dogmas.

There's just very few, very few that, you know, that differ. And in this respect, the Orthodox will claim that the

Catholics added stuff to the faith, and that's their mistake. And that the Protestants took a whole lot out, and that's their mistake.

I was just about to say, if we introduce the Protestants, where do those differences come in?

Yeah, exactly there. Because the Protestants reacting to Catholicism are basically a reactionary in their thinking and in their practices.

Which is why I also say Orthodoxy, like Catholicism, are pre -denominational.

We don't get to be lumped in with a bunch of Protestant churches. Okay, so you would say that Catholicism, Orthodoxy, and Protestant, they're all three very different things.

And when we get into denominations, most of those stem from Protestant. They all stem from Protestants.

Okay, that's great to know. That's the thing, they are Protestants. Okay, okay.

So if I'm not very - Orthodox and Catholicism, one and the same, over time, split apart.

I'm not gonna lay blame ones that are the others, enough to go around. But, say if this is the Catholic thing, then out of the

Catholics came the Reformations. Luther's, Calvin's, the English Reformation. And then from then, the multitude of Protestant denominations, sects, parachurch organizations, and whatnot.

Oh, so Protestantism came out of the Reformation, from Catholic. And then

Orthodoxy never changed, still traditional. Yeah, yeah. Well, partly - Okay, so one of the last things, and kind of leading into this that I wanna go into, is how do we explore

Catholicism as a Protestant, or Orthodoxy as a Protestant, without, I wanna say, cheating on our beliefs?

Can we, quote, lose our faith? Okay, I'm gonna speak very much as an

Orthodox priest here. This is, there are significant differences between Orthodoxy and the

Protestant world. The Protestant churches have abandoned and discarded a huge amount of the traditional practices and teachings of the ancient

Christian church. In that respect, I think that y 'all are somewhat diminished. That is not to say that people with, if you'll pardon me, a lot less of the truth sometimes do a hell of a lot more with it than those of us who may have a fuller tradition.

I have seen extraordinarily holy people in the Protestant world, and I have some very good friends that, in some respects, put me to shame.

On the other hand, though, to abandon the fullness of the church, the fullness of the truth, which is what we believe that we have, and to walk away from that is,

I think, extremely dangerous. You ask, can you lose your faith if you're a

Protestant visiting an unorthodox church? If by your faith you mean your relationship to Christ, certainly not.

I'm gonna be provocative here. Are you in danger of losing some of the traditions of men that y 'all have introduced into the

Christian faith? Absolutely, because you'll be exposed to what the church has been doing for 2 ,000 years.

I mean, we still sing, at our evening service, we still sing a hymn that was composed about the year 150.

We've been singing it every day for 2 ,000 years. The service, everything that I do is described by St.

Carol of Jerusalem in the year 350. We're still doing it the same way.

And there are reasons for that, because it's meaningful and it has some validity there. So, are you gonna lose your faith in Christ?

No, I would hope that it would be strengthened. Are you going to begin to question, perhaps, some of your

Protestant beliefs? And that, yeah, you probably will.

What I would simply say, for those who are interested, though, is come and see. Come and see, and see if your heart is moved.

And if it is, look a little deeper. There's a richness here. On that note, if I'm gonna give it a taste, do

I have to fully convert, or is there a middle ground where I can incorporate some

Orthodox teachings into my Protestant life? Or do I have to both feet in, or can

I have one foot over here, one foot over there? I have, listen, okay, that's a very modern, very

Western, very American question. When you ask that, first, can you have one foot in both worlds?

No, not really. What do you do at the Sunday Eucharist? Is it just, oh, you know, is it the body and blood of Christ, or is it, oh, it's just a commemoration and an ordinance, and we do it quarterly because Jesus said so?

Are you gonna have a priesthood? Are you gonna confess your sins? Are you gonna look for absolution?

Are you going to be obedient to feasting and fasting? Or are you gonna do your own thing? And so what

I hear in your question is, can I pick up pretty little bits of Orthodox culture, like prayer ropes or icons or nice incense, and bring them into my

Protestant home and use them as ways to enhance my own spirituality? You probably could, but the issue is that you're not really being obedient to Christ or his church.

First of all, you're picking and choosing things, which is a very American cafeteria -style

Christianity, and people are going to do it, and I know people do that. Oh, that's good, cafeteria -style, wow, that's good.

And so you're just taking something that is a devotional object for us and turning it into an ornament or a decoration for your home.

It kind of cheapens it, if I could say that. If you don't understand the whole understanding of the

Orthodox prayer of the heart, the Jesus prayer and the depth of meaning behind that, oh, yeah, you could pick up an

Orthodox prayer rope and say whatever you want to with it, or be super cool like some of the

Ortho bros are and wear one on your wrist so that you can - Ortho bros. Show that you're really

Orthodox. You can do that, but really, do you want to go there? Nah, I don't really think you do.

So my personal preference is that you kind of leave our stuff alone. Got it.

Come and see, take the whole package so that it all makes sense and has its appropriate place and its appropriate valuation.

Got it. You mentioned the icons. We would agree that it's idolatry. How can I see it from your eyes?

It's not adult idolatry. First of all, like I quoted St. Basil before, the honor shown to the image passes to the prototype, to honor an icon is to honor the person depicted in it.

And Philip says to Christ, show us the Father. He says, Philip, you've seen me, you've seen the

Father. And we know that Christ himself is the incarnate logos of God. So God has a human face.

And if he had a human face, we can depict it. And if you deny that we can depict it, then you fundamentally deny the reality that Christ came in the flesh.

So it's sort of required. We have to be able to paint a picture of God. Okay. That makes sense.

Thank you for explaining that. With other people depicted in icons, not just Jesus, what is the role of depicting other people that are not

Christ? Because they are also saints and share in God's glory, and the church believes that they are saved.

That is, they are the great cloud of witnesses mentioned in the book of Hebrews, and they are our friends. They are alive in Christ, just like we are.

And we can ask them to pray for us just like I can ask you to pray for me. Got it. So there's no worship of them.

No, absolutely not. No, and that's very clear. It's much, it's harder in English because we don't have the clear language.

In Greek, it's very, very clear. Latria is worship. It's reserved exclusively for God.

Proskynisis is veneration. It's to hold an honor. We hold an honor, all of the saints, but we do not worship anybody but God.

And do you feel like getting one of the martyrs to pray for you is better than having me pray for you?

Is that kind of the angle there? Possibly. I don't know the pool you have with our Lord.

Not as good as you. I don't know about that. But, I mean, at least in the case of Mary, the mother of God.

Okay, these are fair. And she is our greatest saint anyway. You know, and even she was the first one to say yes to God, you know.

I feel like you're clarifying so much for me right now, and I really appreciate it. Thank you. I'm not trying to offend you at all.

It's just I know I'm being ignorant. No, I'm not offended in the least. What's the most important thing someone should understand about orthodoxy?

Well, that's a really loaded question. I'd have to have a long sentence. I couldn't do it in 25 words or less, but it would somehow involve that this is the church which

Christ founded. In it is true life. Everything that the Orthodox Church does and teaches and offers to us is designed to bring us into a closer union with God to cure our souls and to heal our souls.

And as one of our services says, yeah, it is the ark, and in her is true salvation.

And it is possible to work out your salvation in the Orthodox Church. Okay, last question. I'm sorry, that's -

What's the misconception about the Orthodox Church that you wanna clarify? Misconception about the Orthodox Church that we're somehow something alien and foreign or that you have to be

Greek or Russian or Romanian to be Orthodox. That's good. You don't.

It's the church which Christ founded. And America is an immigrant country by and large.

So people who came from Orthodox countries brought their faith with them. And that's why we have some ethnic labels, but it's open to everybody.

I'm a native Texan. Ethnically, my people are French, Irish, and Native American.

And if they'll take me and ordain me a priest, they'll take anybody. So, you know, maybe the dirty little secret is that Orthodoxy is a little promiscuous that way.

I mean, they'll take just about anybody. But yeah, I think that's probably the misconception because I get it all the time.

Well, thank you so much for your time today. This has opened my eyes to the world of Orthodoxy that I've already been a part of, but now more interested to explore and comfortable to explore.