Fr. Tom Soroka: Welcome to Ancient Faith Today. This is Fr. Tom Soroka, and I’m so glad that you’re with us this evening. We’ll be taking your calls in a bit at 1-855-AF-RADIO; that’s 1-855-237-2346. Trudi will be answering your calls tonight, so please make sure to turn the show volume off before you come on air. You can also join us in the chat room which is now open by going to ancientfaith.com/live. Another way to connect with us is to go to facebook.com/ancientfaithtoday and place your question in the thread for tonight’s show. You can also send us an email at aft@ancientfaith.com, and remember that our show is being simulcast live weekly on the AFR Facebook and YouTube pages. So let’s get started.

They say there’s no more American religion than that of Mormonism, or, more properly called, according to its practitioners, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. So we’ll refer to them mostly as LDS. The LDS religion informally began in the spring of 1820 in Palmyra, New York, when Joseph Smith, Jr., at the age of 14, went into a grove of trees to pray. He asked God which church to join. Smith reportedly saw God, and he claims he also saw Jesus Christ, and they told him to join no church. Then he formally founded the LDS church on April 6, 1830.

The early history of the LDS church is a dramatic one. The idea that God and Jesus appeared to a 14-year-old boy caused many to be angry with Smith and his followers. The Mormons were hounded from state to state. In 1838, they were even driven out of the state of Missouri by official order of the governor. One direct result of that order was the Haun’s Hill Massacre, where 17 Mormons were killed. Eventually Utah became a haven for the followers of this new religion, and even then the federal government hounded the followers with laws against polygamy and land ownership to drive them out of existence.

Even so, by the 1850s, the movement grew to over 50,000 Mormons. By most account, there are today about 15 million members of the LDS church across most countries of the world. Besides their non-orthodox understanding of basic Christian theology, they’re known for having another testament of scriptures called the Book of Mormon. They have missionary zeal. They embrace clean living and morality. And they’re known for their secretive rites performed in large Mormon temples across the world.

So how do we as Orthodox Christians present the Gospel as understood in the Orthodox Christian faith to Mormons? Tonight have a priest whose ministry is presenting the truth of Orthodox Christianity in a powerful and, frankly, incredible way. His parish is literally bursting at the seam with new members, and it is quite unprecedented. Fr. Justin Havens is the head priest and pastor at Saints Peter and Paul Orthodox Church in Salt Lake City, Utah. He has lived in Salt Lake City since 2004. He is a convert to the Orthodox faith. He was raised in a Protestant setting on Long Island, New York. During his spiritual journey and after researching many churches, faiths, and philosophies, he discovered with great joy and relief the ancient, original Orthodox Church while at college in New Mexico. After baptism, his career plans changed from becoming a physician to becoming a priest, that is, a spiritual physician. His wife, Seraphima, is also a convert to the Orthodox faith and is, as he terms her, his much-better half and spiritual support. Together they joyfully raise nine children, all born in Utah.

Fr. Justin has a zealous love for the missionary work of the Church, and is especially engaged in bringing the ancient faith to the wonderful people of Utah. Fr. Justin Havens, welcome to Ancient Faith Today!

Fr. Justin Havens: Thanks, Fr. Tom. I really appreciate your having me on.

Fr. Tom: Well, I have been a secret follower of yours for years now. I’ve been watching the incredible things happening in your parish. I know that you’re building a new church because you’ve long since run out of space, and we’re going to get to your parish in a second, but before we get started talking about the topic of the night, which is the LDS church, or the Mormons as we commonly know them, let’s get to know Fr. Justin a little bit. Tell us about yourself. We heard a little bit about your spiritual journey, but let’s hear a little bit more. How did you come to Christianity, and how did you come to the Orthodox faith?

Fr. Justin: Well, thanks, Father. I don’t want to talk about myself too much, but, long story short, I had a holy, saintly mother, God rest her soul. My first baptism as an Orthodox priest was my own mother, which was the culmination of a journey for her, but an amazing mother who raised me with great joy, but seeking, you know. I came from a poor fisherman family. Eastern Long Island: awesome place to grow up. And just seeking, you know. I was a typical American. I went to the Presbyterian church, and then went bowling with the Catholic youth group, and then we went… You know. I didn’t really know much. Small town: I went to church, but to be honest with you, my own fault, it didn’t really hit home for me. I was still seeking; I was still struggling. And then when I went to college, I went to New Mexico, a school called St. John’s College in Santa Fe, New Mexico, which is kind of a Great Books college, the original kind of thing. I went there and I searched everything. I abandoned any kind of Christian roots and studied the Upanishads and Buddhism and everything, just threw myself into it, and just lost.

I’m thankful for that period of kind of going through a kind of hell, a personal hell of life without—I always believed in God, but life without Christ. Thankfully, after all that searching, I was in class doing the Greek New Testament and had a professor, and I was amazed by his words about the Gospel. I’d never heard this kind of approach about the Gospel and had kind of written off Christianity. I said, “What are you about? What are you?” And he said, “Meet me in the circle on Sunday morning.” [Laughter] Long story short, he picked me up, took me to a tiny little Russian Orthodox church in the mountains of Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Fr. Tom: Wow!

Fr. Justin: I walked in, it was in Slavonic, but I knew. The second I walked in, I knew that God was there and it scared the… daylights out of me, because I knew it was not a philosophy but an encounter, a divine encounter.

Fr. Tom: That’s incredible.

Fr. Justin: And so I could run but I couldn’t hide, and it was from there a big shift in life. I was baptized in the Pecos River, freezing cold in New Mexico, and then met my wife who was also a convert to Orthodoxy, who went through Columbine, was almost killed at Columbine and survived that. That would be a good podcast for you to do. She survived that and struggling and met each other and got baptized, and we were off to seminary and change of life.

Fr. Tom: I’m going to reach out to her for sure. You know, your conversion is incredible because it doesn’t seem that you had any prior knowledge of the Orthodox faith. He just took you, and you were overcome with the beauty of it?

Fr. Justin: Yeah, you know, it’s funny. I grew up in New York, and I’m not sure what this says about our life as Orthodox Christians, but I grew up in New York. I had Greek friends, and they owned diners, and ever diner in New York has an icon, the Mother of God, behind the— but I just kind of thought it was Eastern Catholicism. I had no idea what Orthodoxy was, and I had friends… I had driven by the church in Sea Cliff. Do you know what I mean? I had no idea about it at all; I mean, nothing. Nothing until my professor… And I met a young man, actually, in college, in a powerful experience the same week. There was a man in the cafeteria who had so much love, just looking out for people who had no friends, and I went up to him and said, “What are you about?” And he said, “Oh, I’m an Orthodox Christian.” And I said, “Two people! In one week.” [Laughter] And now he’s a priest as well, Fr. Daniel Bethancourt, in Shreveport, Louisiana.

Fr. Tom: Wow!

Fr. Justin: So, pretty amazing how God shoved me. It was beautiful. It wasn’t a pamphlet; it wasn’t a book—it was people, my first exposure. So that was beautiful.

Fr. Tom: That is just an amazing testimony of God working in ways that we can’t even understand, and we think that we’re going to argue people into the kingdom of God, and instead he shows them beauty and peace. So thank God that you listened to him. Thank God for your professor also.

Fr. Justin: Now he’s a priest, my godfather. He was my godfather and then he was ordained. He’s the ROCOR priest in Santa Fe, New Mexico, now. He was ordained at St. John’s relics, and I was his sponsor at ordination. So it’s funny how God works.

Fr. Tom: That is amazing. I want to remind our listeners: 1-855-AF-RADIO; that’s 1-855-237-2346. Fr. Justin, the chat room is bursting at the seams, like your parish. Let’s hear a little bit about your parish. I know that you’re a humble guy, so you’re not going to… [Laughter] Just give it all to us, because I want people to just see what you’re doing there.

Fr. Justin: Well, I’m going to… I can toot my parish’s horn all day long.

Fr. Tom: Good, excellent.

Fr. Justin: Because my parish is amazing. It’s amazing. When I came here, I was not even a deacon, not even ordained, just in the choir and chanted, and very quickly there was two priests, they both retired, I became a deacon—the next thing I knew, I was the priest. It was a very ethnic parish when I first came. There was the Greek Orthodox parishes; we have a good relationship, but everybody else came to us: the Russians, Romanians, Bulgarians, Georgians, everyone. So the Serbians to this day call it the Russian church. [Laughter]

Fr. Tom: Wow!

Fr. Justin: And the priest who founded it was kind of: gather all the people, the Slavs. I can kind of get along in Russian. I can serve in Slavonic and I can understand basic confessions and things, so it was a great blessing for me to come and meet these people. But very quickly, with the sense of: We need to reach out to the average American person. And God bless Metropolitan Philip and especially Metropolitan Joseph, who is very close to me and dear to me, who said, “Now it’s time. It’s time to launch.” And, thank God, we helped begin a Russian Orthodox church here in town, very natural. There’s a Serbian Orthodox church we helped create. So then it became natural: We need to reach out to Americans, and then the key was just daily services. We started doing daily services when I was ordained, and then it grew and grew and probably quadrupled since then. And [it’s] very diverse, which I love and think is very important. I would say half of our community is people who were raised in the faith—Russians, Romanians, Bulgarians, Georgians. We do the Lord’s Prayer in nine or ten languages on Sunday.

And then the other half are converts, from all backgrounds—Buddhists, Muslims, atheists—but the majority, I would say, are from an LDS background. And it’s awesome, because everyone is there because they want to love Christ and the Church first, but without losing the awesome things. So we’ll do a little bit in Greek, we’ll do a little bit in Slavonic and Arabic, we’ll do a little bit in whatever I can do in Romanian and Georgian. It’s just fantastic. There’s no politics, literally; I’m not lying. It’s true, that can happen in Orthodoxy. Our parish council meetings are fun. We enjoy being together, and it’s really a dream as a priest. Sin itself is enough for a parish, but it’s awesome, and it’s just growing and growing and growing.

Fr. Tom: It’s like Pentecost in your church, all these languages, 5,000 people. It’s incredible.

Fr. Justin: I want 5,000 people, I can tell you. But it really has grown naturally. For a while it was just me, and I got overwhelmed and it was too much, but, by the grace of God and the blessing of Metropolitan Joseph, our people dug deep and we were able to have a second full-time priest, and we have a wonderful assistant now, and we have Liturgy every single day in the parish.

Fr. Tom: That’s incredible.

Fr. Justin: It’s just classes and early-morning Liturgies, Tuesday morning, 6:00 a.m., and we have Bible studies and really new catechumens constantly. We baptized 20-something around Pentecost, and we have 20-something more catechumens already.

Fr. Tom: That’s just amazing to see God work through all the good things that everyone is doing in your parish.

So let’s get to the subject at hand. Now, when I titled this podcast, I did use the term “Mormon,” because I think most of our people, that’s what they would kind of colloquially know as the LDS church; they would use that term, “Mormon,” but recently there was a little bit of a change in their name, that is, that I think their president of the church had pronounced that they should not use the term “Mormon”; they should use the term “Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.” So let’s just very briefly talk about that. I do want to say, from the very beginning, we have a phone number; we’re asking people to call in. If you are Orthodox and you have questions about this for Fr. Justin, call. If you are a member of the LDS church, we would love to hear from you. We know that you’re out there, and we want to share the faith with you; we want to speak with you. So if you have some questions for Fr. Justin, please call. So, Fr. Justin, how do you deal with that? I noticed you used the term “LDS” and not “Mormon.”

Fr. Justin: Yes, and I think they’re humble people and in general they know “Mormons,” but I think there’s been some persecution, rightly or wrongly, and there’s a sensitivity, and I think in missionary work, in the footsteps of St. Innocent and things, it’s good to know them, meet them where they’re at. So I think there’s an emphasis on “LDS.” And then, more recently, even not just “LDS,” but they’re explicit: “I’m a latter-day saint, Church of Jesus Christ, Latter-day Saints.” It’s a mouthful, but I respect that, because the reason for it is good. The reason for it is: Let’s be really clear about who we are. And so I think in the missionary work, so many people offend from the get-go, and they’re very soft-hearted people, sensitive—in a good way, and in a bad way too.

So if they’re offended—and many Protestants come in and tell them, “You’re not Christians! You’re not this…” And, of course, by traditional standards, they’re not. We’ll talk about that, but from the beginning I’m always happy to call it LDS. We’re working on a book, God willing, and some things about introduction to Orthodox Christianity for LDS, for Latter-day Saints, because if your ancestors crossed the country in a handcart and would give their lives for this, it may not be true, but we’re happy to honor that in some way, some little tiny ways. So in general I usually say “LDS,” but they’re not offended by “Mormon.” They know that we both know that, but I usually say “LDS,” and that seems to be just fine for “Latter-day Saint.”

Fr. Tom: Very good. So what is the greatest challenge, then, in presenting Orthodox Christianity? Obviously, you are simply a presence there, and you get people that were born in the faith or that were already Orthodox and they’re moving to Utah, you get converts, but you are also attracting LDS members into Orthodox Christianity. What’s the greatest challenge, specifically, when people of the LDS faith come to you? What are the hurdles that you have to overcome?

Fr. Justin: I mean, I think initially it’s just exposure, because Salt Lake City is kind of like Jerusalem or Moscow or something. You know what I mean? For an LDS person: everybody, the vast majority… So you’d be in the vast minority, where somewhere else you’d be the vast majority. It dictates culture and movies like Napoleon Dynamite, if you don’t know that… Little things. It’s just cultural, and it’s everywhere. So we’re kind of like… To them, any other religion is kind of “fringe.” It might be somewhere else. It’s very different here in Utah, but I think exposure… And I think a big part of it is just kind of what I call the ability to get them to suspend judgment for a moment, because, for most of them, they’re raised in it, it’s what they do, it’s what they know. There’s no real separation of church and state here. Your family, your workplace, they’ll ask at a job interview, “Which ward do you go to? Which state do you go to?” And they don’t mean it in a bad way; they just assume that you’re LDS.

Fr. Tom: Interesting. It’s cultural in Utah.

Fr. Justin: Oh, it’s a whole life, and it’s quite beautiful in that sense, in the moral sense. But for them, the idea that… I mean, as Orthodox Christians, we say “the Church.” They use this term; they do it in the same way. So their kind of dependence on it is automatic, and they’re very sometimes skeptical—which I get—to think through it too much and to suspend judgment, actually think: “Could there be other truth? Could this not be the original faith? Could this not be…?” So I think somehow having them suspend judgment, I think the beauty of the Orthodox Church has been a way.

We built a new church; I didn’t mention that. We have our downtown church, an old synagogue. It’s beautiful; it’s fantastic. It’s stunningly beautiful, and then we have— we just bought five and a half acres a year ago. We just built a new church by the grace of God, and it’s going to open actually in the beginning of November. We’ll have services… We’ll have two campuses, kind of one community in two campuses: downtown and out in the country, right south of BYU, right in 95% LDS and everybody there.

Fr. Tom: Wow.

Fr. Justin: We have three huge gold domes from the highway with the idea kind of St. Vladimir-style. You know, “We didn’t know if we were in heaven or on earth,” and I think that’s been a way, just the beauty: iconography, the chanting, the services every day. That’s been a way to kind of just initially just pop their bubble and go: “Wow. Maybe there’s more than what we know,” and that begins a good conversation.

Fr. Tom: That’s amazing. Is there any specific issue, like, for instance, the theology? We were going to get to that in a question down the road, but John is asking from the chat room; he says—it’s a little bit long. He says:

What are the dangers in believing that the heavenly Father was once a human like you and I, as Mormons teach, and through spiritual progression we can become him through Christ? What is at stake if I don’t believe God is eternally existent, the Creator of all things, and consubstantial with the Son and the Spirit? What does one’s love for God amount to if he or she doesn’t assent to these doctrines? How does the incarnational theology of Orthodoxy look different than the incarnational theology of Mormonism, the difference between theosis and exaltation?

So that was actually a question that we were going to discuss, and that is: Is the idea that… Well, let’s begin with God. Let’s begin with God and godhood in Mormonism and theosis in Orthodoxy. While there seems to be a kind of a little bit of common language there, I suspect there’s a little bit of definition that needs to be taught. So how do you handle that particular issue?

Fr. Justin: Well, I’ve heard that question almost exactly. I hear that question every day, that question as it was formulated, because I think they can recognize the beauty in Orthodoxy in a number of things, but: So what’s the big deal? What’s the difference? Because they will go right to theosis. They will say, St. Athanasius: “God became man so that man could become god.” But of course, what is it, St. Isaac? I can’t remember, St. Gregory? “All things that God is by nature, we should become by grace.” And that’s a huge difference. So they think: Oh, we’re very much like Eastern Orthodox. I’ve met professors at BYU that I have a good relationship with, by the way, who love theosis and talk about the Cappadocian Fathers and try to fit it in with LDS theology, and of course there’s a big problem with this.

Now, I should say, there’s kind of a beauty to it, too, because if you compare an Evangelical or a certain kind of Protestant approach to the next life or heaven, it can seem static to a Mormon. In other words, we just hope we don’t go to hell, we hope we get in the back door, we hope we kind of get there. Whereas for an LDS person, there’s this idea of eternal progression, which I think we see in the Church Fathers, and I think that’s present, and the idea that… C.S. Lewis: “Further up, further in.” I think there’s a constant, explosive, dynamic power to what eternity’s going to be like, and that appeals to them, but the important thing is to make this distinction, that there’s always this distinction between the Creator and the creation. The way I explain it is a parabolic line approaches a straight line unto eternity, but it never hits it. In other words, there’s always a distinction between Creator and creation, and that is not present, and for us that’s an essential distinction: “There’s a God and I’m not him” kind of humility.

For us, I go through the Scriptures and show, from the Old Testament and the New Testament, that, but of course their understanding of God comes from this vision of Joseph Smith’s and a number of things, but if you go through the Old Testament, you can have a humble conversation. You can see that God the Father has a body, and that he would appear separately with Jesus. These are things that shock traditional Christians, and they don’t understand why, in all fairness to them. But when you go through the Scriptures, you talk about things—the holy Trinity, a number of things—it’s a big issue, but they’re amazed by that, and they don’t quite understand it. They love the idea and everything, but: huge difference. They say, “As God once was, we now are; as he is, so we shall become.” So it’s really… If you ask them, “When was God the Father?” They’ll say, “Well, it goes back really far.” “How far?” “Really far.”

I remember being with some people and asking, “Does matter pre-date God the Father?” And the nerve-center of BYU: “Yes. No. No. Yes.” And so the idea to us as Orthodox Christians that there could be stuff before there could be God is ridiculous, because who made it? And so for us, their idea of God is very different [from] our idea of God in some kind of way.

Fr. Tom: Right. That’s actually one point I kind of wanted to make sure that our listeners are with us, because one of the issues here is we use the term “God,” and we mean something by that. We mean the God who is uncreated, is ineffable, is inconceivable and ever-existing, whereas when they say “God,” they mean something totally different. They mean a kind of eternally progressing man that is sort of, what, a spirit being? And became or achieved godhood to such a degree that he created?

Fr. Justin: Correct. Yes, and I think for them it’s as normal as our approach to us, and it’s shocking otherwise; they’re the same way. So really simple conversation: vocabulary is super important. “God,” “God the Father”: they’ll say, “We believe in the Trinity,” and we’ll say, “No, no. Let’s talk about that.” And people often say, “You’re not Christians,” and I say, “When we say ‘Christian,’ we mean by this…” But they mean it. I mean, they do have a love for Christ and a love for the Savior, but who Christ is is wildly different. Like, they don’t believe that Christ is God, the God-man, the Theanthropos, in the same way that we do.

There’s a lot of initial things, but a lot of long conversations have to happen. But they’re willing to have them. The amazing thing is that they’re really serious. But the question is: What’s going to get them to have this conversation we’re having now and go through the Old Testament, because, to be frank, they’re not as well-versed in the Old and New Testament as we are. They’re more focused on their revelatory books, the Joseph Smith, and they still have those. But when you go through the Old Testament, you go through Church history, you go through that there wasn’t an apostasy, a number of things, in a humble, calm way, and you somehow show the beauty of Orthodoxy and they can suspend judgment, they’re amazed often, and very confused as to what to do with that knowledge.

Fr. Tom: See, I was just wondering if—I’m kind of speaking as a pastor. The unfortunate truth… Obviously, the teaching ministry is really up to us to lead that, and we have other people that are well-versed, and we trust them to teach and so forth, but we sort of have to admit sometimes that the vast majority of Orthodox Christians might have not a complete understanding of our doctrine. So I wonder if Mormons are like that, too. In other words, your run-of-the-mill LDS person is kind of… when they think of God, maybe they don’t really understand the LDS doctrine. Is that possible?

Fr. Justin: I don’t know. I think they’re more faithful to what they believe than [we] in some ways, as distinctive in that from us.

Fr. Tom: Wow.

Fr. Justin: Because they’re very serious, because next to every public school, there’s an LDS seminary in Utah, so they go there before school and after school sometimes. I mean, we struggle to get kids to come on Sundays. They’re there every day, sometimes before school. They’re very dedicated people. So what they are taught they do know. There’s been lots of changes, and different change in emphases over time, so I do think that the average LDS person goes to Sunday school. I think there’s more of a different approach, different emphases, less of an emphasis on polygamy and all these things people kind of pot-shot at and more focus… But I think they understand this whole idea of God as he’s distinct from us, how we’re different [from] other Christians; I think they understand that, but maybe just on a surface level, and a lot of them don’t know it deeply. They just know it as this is what I believe, go to Sunday school, do our thing, I love Jesus, he’s our Savior—even though it’s very different—and there’s not much deeper thought than that. But I think they could tell you kind of the basis of LDS theology.

Fr. Tom: Good. Fr. Justin, we have a caller. We have James from Tennessee. James, welcome to Ancient Faith Today. You’re on with Fr. Justin Havens. James, are you there?

James: Well, I appreciate that. Yes, can you hear me?

Fr. Tom: Yeah, I hear you great. Welcome. Perfect.

James: Great. Thank you. Yeah, I just want to say that it was… The one thing about Fr. Justin that really makes it so unique to the faith is his ability to… his kindness… You just know he loves you and cares about you, and when I came into the Church, I was at a place in my life where I was very broken, and I just felt so at peace there. I gravitated toward him, and I trusted him, you know, and I opened up to him and was willing to listen. He taught me so much, and I still carry that love for him today, even though I’m in Tennessee with my wife, Susan. I just wanted to call and thank him again for the love and friendship that’s been on a deeper level. It’s made being an Orthodox Christian a very rewarding experience, that the love of God is there, and you know it when you’re in his sphere. That’s all I’ve got. Love you, Father!

Fr. Tom: James, don’t go there. I want to ask you: From what religion did you come from into Orthodoxy?

James: Yeah, I was an ex-Mormon myself.

Fr. Tom: Okay, all right. And obviously Fr. Justin was very patient, and you speak very highly of him. That’s just a tremendous testimony to all the work that God is doing through Fr. Justin and through the church there. James, thank you so much. Fr. Justin, any words? [Laughter]

Fr. Justin: When I heard “James from Tennessee”—I haven’t talked to James in a long time! I mean, I don’t think James will be embarrassed by this, but James was homeless and struggling with drug addiction, and we used to have fights out in front of the church, but I always loved him and—struggle, struggle—and then he had some struggle, and he came running to the church barefoot one day and wanted to be Orthodox, and he stuck with it and changed his entire life. Clean, everything, returned to his wife, and was going to our Antiochian church there in Tennessee. It’s an awesome miracle, really, and he’s dear to everyone. I haven’t talked to him in a long time, so it made me chuckle to hear his voice.

Fr. Tom: James, God bless you. Thank you so much for calling, and thanks for sharing that. We really appreciate it.

James: Thank you.

Fr. Tom: God bless you. All right. We are going to go to a short break, and after that we’re going to come back, and we’re going to deal with some more questions. Hopefully we’ll have some callers. 1-855-AF-RADIO; that’s 1-855-237-2346. If you have any questions about Mormonism, about the Latter-day Saints church, if you are a member of the LDS church, we’d love to hear from you. We’ll be right back.

Fr. Tom: Welcome back to Ancient Faith Today. We’re with Fr. Justin Havens of Salt Lake City, Utah, Saints Peter and Paul Orthodox Church, and we’re talking about reaching out to members of the LDS church, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Fr. Justin, we have callers on the line. We have a question coming in from the chat room. Mrs. E says this:

I was just speaking with a few of our local missionaries (I assume she means Mormonism) regarding the Great Apostasy, and if that is a belief we as Orthodox ascribe to. The summary of the LDS belief is that after the last of the apostles died, the priesthood, including the keys to direct and receive revelation for the Church, was taken from the earth. I’m still new to the faith, baptized at Pentecost 2020, and I had a difficult time relaying the difference in history, which I believe is the key difference in our foundational beliefs. Any recommendations on bridging the gap for the next time we visit?

Fr. Justin, what say you?

Fr. Justin: Fantastic question, and I actually think this is the main issue. In other words, I think… We talked earlier about the basic huge difference about who God is and a number of things, but I don’t… I think that the reason they believe it is “this is the original; we can trace it back: there was an apostasy,” so I have found if we can have an honest conversation about history and the apostasy, it’s transformational. And there’s a big ignorance about history, Christian history, the first thousand years of history, so, precisely, that’s what’s believed. So Orthodox Christians: there never was an apostasy! In fact, that was the amazing thing to me. I wasn’t Mormon but: Did the original Church succeed? And in reading the holy Scriptures, reading the Apostolic Fathers, reading the Church Fathers, the patristic Fathers—unknown to me, unknown to LDS people generally. So the general belief is that things were good with the apostles, then everything was terrible darkness, and then essentially nothing. There was a great long period… They know definitely about Constantine. St. Constantine has a poor reputation, unfortunately, and by Nicaea; that’s the idea of Christianity’s being made up, so to speak, and lost. And then there’s a long, dark period until the revelation of Joseph Smith.

So when we come along and say, “Let’s talk about history,” and I do so in a very kind and loving way; I’ve done it at BYU classrooms and individual history and say, “There’s more history than you know. Let’s talk about St. Ignatius the God-bearer.” Who’s that? “He was the one that Christ put in his arms…” Oh, really!? What he says matters. And kind of building and talking and showing them that there never was an apostasy. For us, far from it. The Lord said, “I will establish my Church, and the gates of hell will never prevail against it.” So for us to believe in the apostasy would be to believe that Jesus lied or wasn’t true, or failed in his mission, that the Holy Spirit had failed at Pentecost, the apostles failed.

And a pretty poignant example of this is a friend of mine, Fr. John Finley, and I were in Salt Lake City one day. We took our cassocks off and were walking in the plaza downtown where the LDS church is. There’s a statue of Peter, James, and John, rebestowing the lost authority on Joseph Smith, and I think a guy named Oliver Cowdery, I think was his name. I said, “What’s happening here?” And they said, “Oh, well, it had been lost in the apostasy, and they’re receiving authority.” So the authority to teach that we all want. And Fr. John asked a great question. He said, “Why do they get a do-over?” They didn’t understand the question. He said, “Well, I thought, you know, if they failed in their mission—Peter, James, John, and the apostles failed, why, all of a sudden in the 1800s, why is it now—why can they bestow authority when it was lost in the first place?” No answer. Zero answer. It was a profound question, and it brought up a number of things.

A lot of these questions haven’t been answered, and when I’ve asked LDS theologians at BYU, their answer to me is, “Father, come on. Be gentle with us. You’ve had 2,000 years to work on this. We’ve just been around for a while.” [Laughter] Of course, I slam my fist down and I say, “Forgive me, but we’ve not been working on it; we’ve just simply carefully retained what was once given to the apostles.” And they’re amazed by that, and I start talking about history and say, “Frankly, not from a judgmental point of view, which makes more sense? The idea that Christ was telling the truth and that there is history, and you start to read it and you can see that: Okay, the Church wasn’t persecuted any more under Constantine, and things changed, but the Church was the Church was the Church, and you can trace it 100, 200, 300… All the different… That’s the case, and you can see it to this day. Or to believe all these other things and to believe that one person—we never believe the witness of one person—and the mountain and the tablets. And without any judgment, I start there and say, “Which just strikes you as being… in the sense we’re seeking truth here?” With a lot of love and a lot of respect, and that begins a conversation if they can humble themselves—pretty amazing conversations.

Fr. Tom: And Larry is asking: “How did it come about that you teach at BYU? And how are you received there?”

Fr. Justin: Let me be clear: I don’t teach at BYU. I don’t have a credential. They only have LDS professors there, but I have friends there, and amazingly well. They are very… LDS people… I love raising my kids here. I love the respect that they have for all religions. “Father, Father, Father!” You can go to New York where I’m from, you can go to LA—people just ignore you. Here, everyone stops. Everyone wants to talk about who the unknown God… It’s awesome. They’re very hungry people. I go there—very loving. I’m very direct; I think that’s why they’re shocked. People go and say, “We’re all the same thing,” and I say, “You know, no, if I believe what you believe, the Spirit would be gone and I’d be wearing a different shirt, but I’m wearing a dress and I’ve got this beard—so let’s talk about it, though,” and they appreciate that honesty, and the students especially, and they’ve appreciated that.

I’ve just talked in some classes there, talked at some events they’ve had about the history of Christianity as such, and always received with kindness, because I’ve always treated them kindly and said, “I disagree with you, but these things are important, so let’s talk about them in love.”

Fr. Tom: So when you’re around town—forgive me, because I think you just said this—you wear the traditional cassock and so forth?

Fr. Justin: Yes. Well, Metropolitan Joseph, when he ordained me to the priesthood in the Antiochian Church, he said, “Do the services every day,” and he said, “The cassock is the flag of the Church.” It’s unknown kind of around here. Salt Lake City is a little more cosmopolitan, but our new church in Provo, traffic will stop. You’ve got a guy with a beard and a dress. I always wear a cross… [Laughter] But, you know what? It’s always a conversation starter. “Father, what are you?” I mean, amazing conversations. Whereas I think… I have some friends in places where the collar is more comfortable; it draws people. Here, they think, “Oh, I already know what that means: You’re Catholic.” They think… The temptation… Orthodox, kind of Eastern Catholicism, but what the cassock does is it’s something new. It begins conversation, and really, they’re only kind, to be honest.

Fr. Tom: Amazing. All right. Let’s go to the phones. We have Christopher from Texas. Christopher, welcome to Ancient Faith Today. You’re on with Fr. Justin Havens.

Christopher: Hello. Can you hear me?

Fr. Tom: We can hear you perfectly. Welcome.

Christopher: Father, bless!

Fr. Justin: God bless you.

Fr. Tom: Lord bless you.

Christopher: Thank you. Fr. Justin, I have a very close friend of mine. He has three beautiful children, and he and his wife. Both grew up in the LDS. I guess because of some scandals, especially with regard to the monetary situation within the church, he has lost his faith, not only in Mormonism, but has become agnostic regarding God. And I’m wondering what the best way… What advice you would have to approach him with love and try to invite him to visit my Antiochian parish with me and introduce him to Orthodoxy? What would be the best process to help someone in that situation?

Fr. Justin: Well, it’s an awesome question. I mean, it’s a huge problem, to be honest; it’s a common thing, and it’s kind of one of my goals, because what happens is: it’s their whole life, right? For better or for worse, it’s their everything, so when the rug gets pulled from underneath them and they think, “Maybe this isn’t truth,” it isn’t a simple thing. Thank God, in a way it shows their integrity. “This isn’t true”: so then huge changes. Some of them, they’re 40 years old, start drinking, they start doing other things. They start living like an atheist, like an agnostic life, and it can be a disaster. They can go down a really bad path and just lost… My goal is to catch them before that, to be honest. As soon as they go there, they end up at the Evangelical churches here, and then they come stumbling into the Orthodox Church. But my goal is to catch them at the beginning of that and to go: “Wait, wait, wait: don’t despair. Your love for God is right. The original Church”—there is a Church? “There is a Church, but just not like you thought.” Just to redirect them to more deep teaching. But once that’s happened, it’s very difficult, because it’s everything they know, and it gets really jaded and it gets difficult.

But you know what? It’s deep in them. Mormons do this idea that you have to love God. There’s often guilt as one of the sins, but it’s… They can’t throw it off in the same way that people can sometimes. So, obviously, without sounding cliché: pray for them. I think that’s not done enough. Do a prayer rope for them or make five prostrations for your friend every day, and beg the Mother of God to bring them. That works. And then just have an honest conversation with them and say, “Listen, I know you’re burned and this and that. Listen, I’m not trying to… I’m a messed-up guy, and I’m going to church, and it’s like changing me. I know maybe you’re burned out and a number of things. Let’s have a cup of coffee; let’s have a beer”—maybe they’re having beer now—“and let’s just talk about life and things.”

And you’d better be living it, because they’ve seen all the tough words and everything, but to see an Orthodox Christian who is humble, who is pure, who doesn’t use the same language, who raises… Who’s that: your words have power. So I would pray for them, ask your priest to pray for them, spend time and love them, and just be very real about how the Church is healing you. I find that at just the right time they’ll know to come to you, given that freedom. I’ve baptized many, many people like that.

Christopher: Great. That’s a good answer.

Fr. Tom: Is there anything else?

Christopher: No, that was a great answer. Thanks very much, Fathers.

Fr. Tom: Thanks. Thanks for calling. Father, we have a question in the chat room. It says:

I have some LDS friends who are interested in Orthodoxy but struggle with what leaving their church tradition would mean for their family relationships and social lives. Fr. Justin, how do you approach this issue?

Fr. Justin: That’s really super difficult. It’s super difficult, and I think many societies, there’s a different cost, so to speak, for following Christ. Well, first of all, we have to look at the Scriptures. You have to love Christ more than mother, sister, brother, so and so… So I turn to the Scriptures always and say, “If something’s true, you’ve got to be after it no matter what.” You’ve got to give them a certain sense of boldness, and also say—and I’ve found that you can say to your relatives that you may not like this, but this is the person I need to be. And you know what? 20 years ago, 30 years ago, in an LDS culture, that was more difficult. Now, for better or worse, there’s more ecumenism, they’re more open. I think it’s watered-down, their theology in some ways, but they’re more open, they’re more kind. I’ve baptized many people, and they’re accepted, and even brought some of their families in.

But some places, they’re ostracized. That’s it. I’ve had some people come, and their families come to the baptism and just weep in the back. One person’s family said, “I wish you had been an atheist rather than do this.” It upends everything in their culture and everything.

So my twofold answer is, one, we seek the truth at all costs, and if you have Christ, you’re going to be… You’re going to love them more even though they may not like you. You’re going to have to seek him at all costs. But also, practically I think it’s a bit important for us as Orthodox Christians to be able to live the faith totally, but also be able to speak their language. They talk about eternal families. “What about eternal families? And what about all this?” And we need to speak their language. We’re trying to learn that now as Orthodox Christians, to explain the faith to them in a way that’s not so weird to them. Not that we change the faith! But just to explain it in a way that… Because Mormons are ultimate cultural Americans, ultimate down to the apple pie, just kind of all these things. And if you can soften it with their family—and I love to get their family, and they see me in their cassock, but I start talking with them and we chat and we laugh, and I explain things to them. They almost always warm up, and the families might go: “Well, I’m sad that so-and-so became Orthodox, but, you know, I’m glad he’s with you.” Little things like that: “I’m glad he’s with you. I’m glad he’s serving Christ.”

Fr. Tom: Wonderful.

Fr. Justin: Slowly—and then I’ve baptized the parents sometimes, too. So, no doubt, it can affect your job, it can affect your neighbors, it can affect your life, but my approach is: If you seek Christ with all your heart, he’ll take care of it. And then, real practically, it’s very rare that the family doesn’t grow to at least respect them.

Fr. Tom: Good. And the Lord rewards us for any loss that we have. Okay, we have another caller. We have Michael from Texas. Michael, you’re on Ancient Faith Today with Fr. Justin Havens.

Michael: Hello! Fathers, bless!

Fr. Justin: God bless you.

Michael: Okay, I have two questions. One for the air, one maybe for not the air. But this might be mis… propaganda, I guess? But I’ve always been taught that the Mormons believe that Jesus Christ is actually St. Michael, and Jesus and Satan are brothers.

Fr. Justin: I can answer that question. In all fairness, modern Mormons have distanced themselves from that. For us as Orthodox Christians, consistency is key. If you believe that polygamy was wrong once, you can’t just say, “Well, we don’t believe that any more.” Well, you did, right? For them, it’s no big deal. “Well, we don’t any more.” So if you bring up an old Mormon practice, in all honesty, they’ll go: “We don’t believe that any more.” We see that as massively just not consistent, but for them it’s very matter-of-fact that they have to focus on what they believe now.

But, yes, and I have some of the older texts, and I’ve seen that. Yes, very, very odd! The idea that Christ and the devil are brothers, and the Archangel Michael is God. And, yes, to us those are wild things. In all fairness, they don’t emphasize those, but when you look at the history of the LDS church, there’s been a lot of changes, and there definitely was a lot of this kind of understanding, which for us is shocking. Shocking: Jesus is the God-man. This is a shocking kind of revelation. But they don’t focus on it now, but that is true.

Michael: So it’s an evolving religion.

Fr. Justin: Say that again? I’m sorry.

Fr. Tom: It’s an evolving religion is what drew it.

Fr. Justin: I mean, it is. It’s based on that initial… To base a whole religion on one initial revelation that was kind of misconstrued or kind of interpreted a few times. You know, their big thing is they’re moral people, they’re doing all these things, but in terms of theology, it is hard to pin down sometimes. It is hard to pin them down in a way that’s so important to us. And for them, there’s a great amount or sense of emotionalism with them, like: “I just know in my heart that it’s true.” This is very important, too. “I just know in my heart that it’s true. If you pray, you’ll just realize that Joseph Smith’s a prophet.” And I always answer that question and say, “Your heart’s not a barometer for truth! The Lord says: What is in the heart of man? Lies, deceits, etc.” [Laughter] I say, “So you can meditate on Disney movies and feel good in your heart. That doesn’t mean it’s true.”

And they have no idea what to do with that, the idea that we have to test things and to be sober about this approach. There’s an emotionalism, and it becomes subjective very quickly. “Well, I just know in my heart Joseph Smith’s a prophet. I just know the revelation’s true.” Then you can’t have a real conversation any more. It becomes subjective. When you have an honest conversation: Let’s look at history. What’s up with this stuff with the Archangel Michael? But in a non-contra… In a very loving fashion, like: “We’re seekers of truth. Let’s talk about this, go over history.” And really amazing things will happen if they’re open to that, with love and prayer.

Fr. Tom: Very good. Michael?

Michael: Ah! So I was wondering if someone off the air could answer me about some Christminster, ROCOR Christminster?

Fr. Tom: Oh, are you talking about the Western Rite monastery?

Michael: Right.

Fr. Tom: Yeah, let’s…

Michael: I’ve heard they’ve been excommunicated or something like that?

Fr. Justin: Maybe that’s for another time.

Fr. Tom: Yeah, let’s send that in to aft@ancientfaith.com, and we’ll be happy to field that for you, Michael, okay?

Michael: Okay, thank you so much! Y’all have a good night!

Fr. Tom: Thank you for calling. God bless you. Thank you for calling.

Fr. Justin: Thank you.

Fr. Tom: Fr. Justin, we have more questions in the chat room. Don says:

The one time I went to a Mormon meeting-house for a family member’s daughter—I don’t remember what it was for—and they have the Lord’s Supper, which is bread and water, and I took it and ate it, because I didn’t want to offend anyone, but I felt a feeling of guilt afterwards. I know it is not the Eucharist, but my question is: If I am ever in that situation again, should Orthodox decline it, and would any LDS get offended if I did? I’m not Orthodox yet, just an inquirer.

Fr. Justin: Great question. Well, I’ll speak boldly, and forgive me—I think especially in this climate we have to make a distinction between who we are and kind of vote with our feet, so I generally tell people that we don’t really go to… When you’re a catechumen, for instance, you get engaged. When you get engaged, you stop dating other gals. We just kind of focus here. We’re not saying there’s not pieces of the truth elsewhere, but this is the river we’re drinking from, and we don’t go anywhere else. So a lot of Mormon sacraments are in the temple and things. You can’t go anywhere… But somewhere in the meeting-house, the blessing of a baby or something… And I tell them, “Don’t be offensive, but we really shouldn’t go if we’re Orthodox Christians, because our presence there is just kind of quietly saying that there’s some truth here as well.” So I’ve found people, they’ll always send them a card, maybe go to the lunch afterwards and things like that, just little ways of holding… And they find it offends at first, and kind of: “Why?” And initially, they go, “Wow. You actually believe something enough to stand up for that.” Like this modern idea that everything is true, everything is kind of true.

So if you were to be there—you’re an inquirer in the Orthodox faith; you’re not quite there yet, and you happen to go—certainly as an Orthodox Christian we wouldn’t take it, because we don’t… And that’s the case, I think, if you happen to be a visitor at any non-Orthodox circles. Like, I’ve been to the blessing of a bishop… I’ve stood in the back during a Catholic wedding or something, different things. And I’m just praying my prayer rope for them, and I think it’s important to have distinctions, to hold the line, but I wouldn’t participate in that way, to follow the holy Fathers and things like that. But just because it’s not… It’s kind of disingenuous for them, too.

I think it’s… Social pressure’s not a good thing, obviously, to follow, and also it’s water. That’s interesting, right? They used to believe… They had that word of wisdom, and it was changed to water. Initially, LDS people, when they came, they smoked, they drank, they did all these things, and it didn’t go well, and there was prophecy and a word of wisdom, and then they changed those. People often don’t know that, and that’s an interesting thing, ongoing prophecy, which is very different. If something is true, it’s always true.

So I would say this catechumen—God bless them! Get baptized, be Orthodox, and live it. Just kind of quietly excuse yourself from those things, out of love, and if you have to be in the back or something, we don’t participate. That seems unloving, but in a world where everything… I’ve found quite the contrary. People say, “I’m sorry, I can’t. I can’t do this.” I was in the back of a cemetery for a burial, and LDS bishop was there, and he said, “Do you want to do a prayer, Father?” and I said, “No, I’ll come later.” And later he said, “That’s real integrity. Wow. So let’s talk about it.”

Fr. Tom: Interesting.

Fr. Justin: So I think we can hold it in love. So we can’t change the past. God bless that man. Become Orthodox and share your faith.

Fr. Tom: Don, yeah, keep going, and God bless you. May God help you in your journey. We have another caller. Father, we have Chuck from Salt Lake City. Chuck, you’re on Ancient Faith Today with Fr. Justin Havens.

Chuck: Hey! Fathers, bless!

Frs. Tom and Justin: God bless you!

Chuck: Are you able to hear me?

Fr. Justin: Yes.

Fr. Tom: Perfectly.

Chuck: Father, can you hear me?

Fr. Justin: Yes, we can.

Fr. Tom: Yeah, we can hear you great. A little bit of road noise there.

Chuck: I’ll try to get into a quieter spot here, sorry.

Fr. Tom: That’s okay.

Chuck: I know Fr. Justin personally. I wanted to call in and express my gratitude to the work of Saints Peter and Paul. I grew up in the Greek Orthodox churches here in Salt Lake that arrived probably 70 years before the Antiochian church was established, and I think one of the big impediments to studying the faith to our LDS brothers and sisters has been the ethnocentrism that lived within Orthodoxy here and the language, using the mother-country languages so much that there was no appeal or a way to communicate the faith to the Mormons. And I really appreciate what Saints Peter and Paul have done, and I think every Orthodox jurisdiction should ponder more and more English, and that’s going to expand the appeal and the understanding of the attraction to the Mormons. And I also want to say, Father, other Orthodox jurisdictions have been here for 110 years and have never reached out into Utah County, and for you to have a new church in Payson is just a tremendous miracle in my opinion, because that is highly concentrated with LDS folk. We’re about 50% LDS in the Salt Lake Valley, and probably about 80% in Utah County. So God bless you for your work, Father. I really appreciate it!

Fr. Tom: Wow. Fr. Justin, what do you have to say to that?

Fr. Justin: Well, I know Chuck well, and I should say we’re not just our parish. There’s multiple Orthodox parishes. We all get along well. We do well, and Chuck has been instrumental in helping us over the years and founding also St. Anna’s, which is a Greek Orthodox mission, and all-English speaking, and really with the same vision as well. And all the churches are growing without competing with each other, which is so nice. Chuck’s been really supportive of that from the beginning. He himself has a Greek background. I think his mother was LDS and his dad was Greek, and he was baptized in college, so he understood both sides of it, so I think it’s beautiful to see that… It’s an honor for me to bring the faith and kind of stand of the shoulders on all the Greeks who came here and the mining and all the things, his relatives, and actually share the faith now. So, yeah, thank you, Chuck.

Fr. Tom: Very good.

Chuck: You’re welcome, Father.

Fr. Tom: Chuck, thank you. Be careful on the road there.

Fr. Justin: Yes, just out for an evening walk. It’s beautiful!

Fr. Tom: [Laughter] All right. Take care. God bless you.

Chuck: Bye-bye.

Fr. Tom: Very good.

Fr. Justin: Thank you.

Fr. Tom: Father, we have a statement I wanted to read to you in the chat room. I’m just wondering if you could respond to it please.

Fr. Justin: Sure.

Fr. Tom: It’s from Tessa. She says:

I am a current member of the LDS church, and Orthodoxy fascinates me. I have also noticed a lot of former members ending up agnostic, and this is because we are told that if the Mormon church is not true, then Jesus is not real, along with many other fallacies.

What’s your response?

Fr. Justin: Well, it’s sad. I hear that all the time. And, of course, the answer is: It’s not true. It’s absolutely untrue. And without being rude or mean, it’s people’s souls that are at stake here. I think it’s important to grab those people and to bind them up in love and to say: Absolutely God is real; and he’s from the beginning; and he’s Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; and he loves you; and he wants to totally transform your life; and I understand your burden. But let’s talk about that. There’s a lot of guilt about that. Even to this day, they believe and they get agnostic, there’s a fear still, and a fear of trusting again. And of course the beauty of Orthodoxy is you have your brain. You can look at history, you can look at things— Don’t believe in me; don’t take my word for it. Let’s read history together. Let’s look at this timeline. Let’s look at it. Let’s read the holy Fathers. If you’re not Orthodox Christian, and you’re not getting the wool pulled over your eyes by Fr. Justin or anybody else, this is hundreds of millions of Orthodox Christians all over the world. And that gives them a sense of: “I don’t want to be fooled again. I don’t want my heart broken again.”

And when they do commit, they make— I’ll tell you what, Father: people who were LDS who become Orthodox Christians: fantastic Orthodox Christians. “Where do I give, Father? How do I give my time? How do I tithe? How do I get…? Hey, I’ll watch the children. Yeah, I’ll clean the church.” Yeah, I mean, Father, I’m not satisfied with 25 or 50. I think it’s sad that we’re settling to think Fr. Josiah and I have a competition in who can baptize the most people; we kind of joke about it. [Laughter] But we’re happy with 25, 50. I mean, there’s so many lost soul’s, and the day of St. John Chrysostom’s exile when he was taken and killed, 3,000 people were being baptized. So I think we have to set our sights humbly but higher, for all these beautiful people.

That’s why I love being in Salt Lake City. I think it’s the richest mission field, maybe in the world, but especially in Utah. And I meet a gal like this gal, Tessa, here every day. So my message would be: It’s not true. It’s not true, and the life in Christ is so beautiful. I would want to say this, too, Father: the Church is a hospital for us; it’s not a set of beliefs. Holiness for us isn’t just being moral. You can be healed from your pornography. You can be healed from this. You can be healed, body and soul, and taste heaven. It’s the most fantastic thing on earth, and nothing holds a candle to it, in all humility. If you present your faith as an Orthodox Christian to someone lost like Tessa or anyone, and you live it, they will want to know. They’ll want to know, and that’s how the apostles did it. I feel confident, we just have to scoop them up; we can’t miss them.

Fr. Tom: Outstanding. Outstanding. We are just about out of time, but we’re going to go a little bit over, so I’m going to let our producer know, if she doesn’t mind. And we’re going to go to the phone again. We’re going to go to Anthony: Anthony from Arkansas, I think. Welcome to Ancient Faith Today. You’re on the phone with Fr. Justin Havens.

Anthony: Fathers! Anthony from Arizona, not Arkansas.

Fr. Tom: Arizona! [Laughter]

Anthony: That’s all right.

Fr. Tom: I had a little brain freeze there. Thank you very much. Sorry about that.

Anthony: How’re you doing, Father? It was great seeing you in Virginia, you know, and I got back here safely to Arizona, but I just wanted to make a comment for the listeners on this broadcast. I’ve told you this story before, but you mentioned earlier James who’d called in and you hoped you didn’t embarrass him by saying he was homeless and on drugs. Are you still there, Father?

Fr. Justin: Oh, yeah, I’m listening.

Anthony: Oh, okay. ...homeless and on drugs. One time I told you this story. We were in the basement of Saint Peter, Saint Paul, and Peter, who sponsored me, was downstairs with me after service, and James came towards us, and I knew he was going to ask for money for drugs, and he didn’t, and I just kind of let a sigh of relief out. And Peter said to me—and this makes the hair stand up on my arms—he said, “Jerry, do you believe we’re born in the image of Christ?” And I said, “Well, you know I do, Peter.” And he said, “Well, when you look at James, if you don’t see Christ, it’s not James’s fault; it’s your fault.” So my point being is when I talk to Mormons, Baptists, Methodists, agnostic people, atheists, spiritual people, blacks, whites—I always try to see the image of Christ in everybody, and I think what that does for me personally is it opens up a book, and they see that I see that in them, and they’re more open to talk to me about their religion and about Orthodoxy. That’s my statement. [Laughter]

Fr. Tom: Very good. Fr. Justin, any reactions?

Fr. Justin: Yeah, I baptized Anthony many, many moons ago, and he’s traveled the whole world…

Anthony: 2009, Father.

Fr. Justin: Yep, and I just baptized a little man in a little river in Virginia a month or two ago. It’s a long story, and I bumped into him after many years there. It’s a small world in Orthodoxy.

Anthony: Well, thank you, Father.

Fr. Tom: Thank you very, very much. Appreciate it, Anthony.

Anthony: I’m glad I ran into your station. I really enjoy it. Thank you.

Fr. Tom: Thanks for calling—from Arizona! From Arizona.

Anthony: Yeah, that’s correct.

Fr. Tom: Fr. Justin, we have a statement here from Matthew. He says:

A question: Do you think there is much similarity, or any at all, with respect to Orthodoxy and Mormonism being experiential religions? I am thinking of something like “O taste and see that the Lord is good.”

Fr. Justin: That’s interesting. I mean, hard to say, because if you compare the LDS services in the ward house, and even the ones in the temple, they’re very different [from] our services, very, very different, and I think that… I mean, the Liturgy: “O taste and see that the Lord is good,” they’re very, very different. So I don’t see much similarity. They have a love for mystery. Their temple rites are kind of shrouded in mystery. They’re very different [from] the average… just go to the local ward, as they call it, the local church; very, very different, even odd. I think the temple rite’s even odd to younger people nowadays. They’re really distinct.

But experiential? I don’t see that the same. The Orthodox liturgy, the Orthodox sense of holy Communion, all of these things—when they come, they’re in awe of it, generally, and it’s not their normal experience, but they’re always amazed by it. So I don’t see a similarity necessarily there. The similarity I see, the big one, is theosis, this kind of talk about… That seems like a common thing that they grab onto, but not beyond that to me, to be honest.

Fr. Tom: Right. Very, very good. All right, Father, we’re going to take our last call. We have Miriam from Nevada. Miriam, you’re on Ancient Faith Today with Fr. Justin Havens. Welcome!

Miriam: Hi! Father, bless. So I just wanted to tell our story of how we found Fr. Justin’s parish, was through Mormon missionaries knocking on our door, actually.

Fr. Tom: What!

Miriam: [Laughter] Yeah, so we were kind of in a state where we were looking into Christianity, and we live in Elka, Nevada, which is a very Mormon town. The missionaries would knock on my door—and I was raised in Lebanon, so I knew that this might not be something I would take as my religion. So we started looking more and more and reading more history into Christianity to debate them, and finally we come across a video of Fr. Justin being interviewed on YouTube, and we just wanted… We knew we wanted to go and meet him.

Fr. Tom: Wow.

Miriam: We became catechumens later, but it’s funny because another set of missionaries came back. [Laughter] And we talked to them, because we were… We knew more about it, and told them, and they are now asking us for pamphlets and printables and things like that, so it was pretty amazing.

Fr. Tom: [Laughter] Wow! That is incredible! Fr. Justin, you’re making a dent there, and even the missionaries are quoting you!

Fr. Justin: You know, they’re hungry people, Father. It actually… We need to be doing a lot more missions and evangelism. I mean, at least I’m trying to do what I can here, but people are so hungry. They’re really seeking God, and even the… The thing here is: “Hey, we’re the original”—no, let’s talk about it. They want the original. They’re hungry, and so we do need… We’re going to work on, God willing, specific things like an introduction, the main issues about eternal families, things that matter to them, to help them understand that Orthodoxy isn’t some radical departure from morality or something, just to make it open so they can suspend judgment for a moment and see the ancient faith. If so, it’s going to be… It’ll be stunningly beautiful, even more than it is now.

Fr. Tom: Miriam, anything else?

Miriam: No, we just wanted to drop by and say that.

Fr. Tom: That’s an amazing story. I loved that. Thank you so much. Thanks for sharing it. Really appreciate it. God bless you.

Miriam: Thank you.

Fr. Tom: Fr. Justin, wow! That was incredible! First of all, the hour flew by. The work that you are doing and your parish is doing is amazing. And any last, final thoughts before we wrap up the program tonight?

Fr. Justin: Well, a couple. One, I want you to come visit, Fr. Tom. We should talk in person. It would be nice.

Fr. Tom: I’d love to.

Fr. Justin: I’d like to talk in the future about something that continued… kind of more exposure for Orthodox Christians to LDS people. I think it’s worthwhile. But I would just say this to Orthodox people: You have to know your faith and you have to live your faith. Not just—yes, the history of the Church, Ecumenical Councils, but if you say that without uprooting your passions and changing, it’s hollow, so I really think the ascetical life of the Church is really important, not just for monks but for all of us: prayer and fasting and going to the services as much as possible, and living our faith—this actually gives our words power, that gave the fishermen power. They weren’t smart; they were holy. Old grandma can be a theologian and missionary, so I think we need more emphasis on holiness and purifying ourselves so our words matter, in addition to knowing our faith.

And I really think, to LDS people: you’re precious—they’re awesome people; they’re like a white canvas for Orthodox Christianity, if they can just suspend judgment and look at history and look at the beauty. And I hope that others hear this and listen to it later and know that Christ—Christ, the God-man, the true God-man, not the son of God, not another god: the ultimate, the only true God—is calling them to eternity and to purification. I hope that they hear it and come to the waters of baptism.

Fr. Tom: Amen. The fields are white for harvest, dear Father.

Fr. Justin: Amen. They are, yes.

Fr. Tom: And may God continue to bless your ministry, to bless your parish. May he increase the work of your hands, and thank you for being such a good witness to the Orthodox faith and really showing us the way forward. God bless you. Thank you so much for your time tonight.

Fr. Justin: Thank you, Father. Pray for us.

Fr. Tom: We will.

Thank you to Fr. Justin Havens for joining us tonight and sharing his incredible knowledge and passion—you could hear it in his voice—for the Orthodox faith and for reaching people with the Orthodox faith. We also want to thank Trudi for engineering the program; congratulations to her on flying solo tonight. And for everybody in the chat room; the chat room was on fire tonight! I have never seen so many people in the chat room! All the callers—it was just amazing. You made this so much fun. God bless all of you.

Here are some final thoughts. If we Orthodox Christians are truly serious about the growth of the Church, then we have to get comfortable with the idea of going where it makes us uncomfortable. The world is a big place with many different philosophies and religions, and yet our mission from the Master is clear: Preach the Gospel to every creature. We are the inheritors of an incredibly rich faith. We don’t have to do anything special. We simply need to be sincere lovers of God, worshipers of Christ, and bearers of the Holy Spirit. The Orthodox Christian faith is what every human was created for. Show them the beauty of the Orthodox faith and God himself will provide the growth.

And that’s our show for tonight. Remember to like us on Facebook at facebook.com/ancientfaithtoday. Share our program after that’s posted; give us your feedback, and contact us with any ideas or topics you might want to hear about. Join us next Tuesday evening for another edition of Ancient Faith Today. Good night, everybody!