A Letter to My Parish

As you might know from the news or social media our Orthodox Faith has been in the news across the country. 

The New York Times recently published an article about the “surge” of people, including many young men, who’ve come to the Orthodox Church. The article was generally fair but there have been some who seem to be focused on finding elements of political activism as the major factor in people entering our Faith. This is simply not so. 

A second statement, recently amended, by a Congressman from South Carolina implied that certain elements of our Church in the US are essentially state actors on behalf of the Russian government and claimed that a delegation of American Orthodox leaders, including our own Bishop John, might use their meeting with the current administration to express their concerns regarding the persecution of the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church to further Russian political interests. Again, this was met with very direct refutation and the congressman involved has slowly backtracked his claims. 

Things like this should be expected as Orthodoxy begins to draw attention in the larger culture. We’re still a tiny fraction of US Christians, but our rapid growth has drawn attention and a fair amount of it can be speculative and based on a shortage of accurate information or rooted in unexamined stereotypes. People who may know little about Orthodoxy other than what they saw in the movie “My Big, Fat, Greek Wedding” are noticing us, asking questions, and sometimes making assumptions from their own worldviews rather than actually listening to authentically Orthodox leaders and people. 

My encouragement, first, is for all of us to remember that in our current cultural milieu all media has some sort of bias, and we should be careful consumers of it regardless of the source. Ask questions and don’t believe everything you see in print or on your screens as fact in and of itself. Second, and of most importance, is for all of us to faithfully and joyfully live out our Faith and be the embodied truth of what the media can at best see only in shadows. Let our love for God and neighbor worked out in our everyday lives be a living witness so that, as our Lord says, the people around us will see our good works and glorify God. —