Fr. Evan Armatas: Good evening and welcome to Orthodoxy Live, your live call-in show about the Orthodox faith, her teachings and her traditions. I’m your host for the show, Fr. Evan, and we’re streaming to you live here. It’s January 8, 2023. First live program of the year. I know for many of you it still comes in the midst of your celebrations of our Lord’s Nativity, especially for those of you who are celebrating on the old calendar; today is that feast of the Nativity. For those of you who are celebrating the new year and just getting back to work or school, whatever it might be: Happy new year! Of course, for those of us on the new calendar, this past Friday, on January 6, we celebrated our Lord’s Theophany.

So I have to share with you, as the new year started, a couple of changes have occurred for me in my life as a parish priest. I had a beloved assistant, Fr. Gabriel, who was not with me all that long—he arrived right around the start of COVID—and our sister parish just south of us in Boulder, Colorado, lost their priest this summer. Every attempt to place a new priest in that parish didn’t work out. So Fr. Gabriel, as of January 1, began his ministry there. Just a shout-out to Fr. Gabriel and the parish of Ss. Peter and Paul down in Boulder: God bless you! And Fr. Gabriel: Many years to you! What an wonderful and incredible young priest he is. We’ll miss you terribly.

On my end, my community has continued to grow. Praise God for that. This past week was indicative of just all that’s going on, an incredible week sacramentally and pastorally, I was sharing with our producer as we began the program, but a week in which I worked more hours than I would even in Holy Week! It was incredible. Several liturgies. We baptized seven new people; we welcomed 29 new catechumens. We had a funeral; we had a wedding. I had about 20 confessions, and house blessings season, and Theophany. It was every day, all day, morning till late at night. I’m almost coming into this program in this first show of the new year dragging, just kind of physically spent from the sheer volume of work. But, you know, we give thanks to God in all things.

I’m glad I’m here with you. Wide-open lines, which doesn’t totally surprise me as we get kicking off here with our live program here at Ancient Faith Radio in 2023. You can dial in with any question that you have about the Orthodox faith, her teachings and traditions, at 1-855-237-2346.

Now, if you have not yet purchased A Toolkit for Spiritual Growth or my new book, Reclaiming the Great Commission: A Roadmap to Parish Health, I encourage you to do so. I’m going to be on the road in the coming months, speaking on this book, both in Arizona at the National Assembly for Clergy in the Romanian Archdiocese; then I’ll be down in Birmingham, Alabama, at the cathedral there, at the end of the month; then again traveling in March and later in the year with opportunities to share about this book and what it means for individuals and communities who are wishing and hoping to share to a greater extent the Gospel of Jesus Christ and how that can be done through our own community parish’s health.

So, questions for me tonight. If you are unable to join us online, you can record a question by going to ancientfaith.com and going to the live radio program, and you can click on “Orthodoxy Live,” and you’ll find a microphone button where you can record a question for us even if you’re listening to this as a podcast. And you can also email us at orthodoxylive at ancientfaith.com.

Well, I’m going to jump into a question that has come from a mom, Maria, who is wondering how to explain to her seven-year-old girls who go to a Catholic school and hear teachings that are contrary to what we would teach in the Orthodox faith and what mainstream Christianity would agree to, related to the theology around Mary. She’s wondering: How do you explain the immaculate conception and that doctrine and dogma of the Roman Catholic Church to a little child? She says:

I’m well aware that the Orthodox do not subscribe to the doctrine. I’ve tried to explain to my girls that we should always be respectful and not argumentative with our teacher, but that we believe differently. I’ve tried to explain the differences, but they have so many questions, I have no idea how to simplify this for second-graders. Do you have any suggestions or advice for how I tackle this topic in a simple way? I’m sure this is going to be one of the many questions that comes up in these types of conversations with my kids. —Maria

Well, listen. I think by the simple fact that you’re in conversation with your children about their faith and about the things that they’re learning in school, you’re way ahead of so many. One of the challenges I think I see in many homes is that we don’t have theological discussion. Here I don’t mean we don’t need to make theological presentations—I need to make that really clear—but theological conversations. How important is it that our children can sit around the table with us or during prayer time or on walks or drives or whatever might be going on in our home life or outside of it, and can they converse—and do we converse about matters of faith?

There are some studies done about catechism and the transmission of faith. Most of them seem to agree that the mere fact that a parent discusses such things with their children is primary. It doesn’t mean we have to have answers, but that we discuss them. Now, in particular, I think if our spiritual life is part of our life, then it should be part of our child-rearing. As parents, not only having discussions, but times of prayer, times to read Scripture, times to question and wonder and let children ask their questions and have a discussion, do our best to answer what we can.

With regards to the immaculate conception, I think one of the simplest ways to approach this is to consider just what exactly is being said in the doctrine of the immaculate conception. Well, from a Catholic standpoint, what they are sharing is the idea that Mary is unique in the human race; she’s unlike the rest of us, born by a singular act of divine grace without spot of sin. And the simple way of saying this in the reverse is to say: No, Mary is just like us, that one of the incredible things that occurs in salvation history is the fact that when God considers entering—I shouldn’t say that; I should say it differently—when God, through his divine plan, enters humanity, he comes into creation through a human being, someone just like us.

And there’s even an Orthodox hymn that reflects on this mystery by considering: How does creation respond to the birth of this Christ, the Savior? And it lists all the different things that occur: The earth offers a cave; the heavens, a star; and humanity offers a young maiden. So I think to start with, just the idea that we say: Mary is just like us, and God asks someone just like us whether or not he can come into their life and into the world. And Mary, who is just like us, has to consider in her own freedom, using her own will, whether or not she wants to join her life to Christ.

I think for a child who is learning to make choices and learning what independence and freedom looks like, this is also a point of conversation and reflection. What does it mean to be able to say yes to something or no to something? And how do we have a clarity about our decisions and a freedom about our decisions? And we can move that conversation into the direction of: Has someone like your child, who is seven, felt at times like a decision was something that she had no control over? Maybe an expectation or perhaps someone of her own age has coerced her or swayed her in a certain way. Here again we can say: Well, look at this person, Mary, who’s just like us, and she makes a decision of her own will to accept God’s plan. What would that be like for me, to enter into the same way?

Now, the other thing that we point out is how Mary doesn’t make a one-time decision for Christ, but rather she makes a continual set of decisions for Jesus, and just like us, being a human being just like us, she has to—we could say it, in a way—struggle to ensure that she remains faithful to God.

Hope these are some ideas, [Maria], but at least to start with the idea that I think it’s wonderful that you’re just having these conversations, how important it is that you’re doing that. God bless you.

All right, so back to this list of email questions. This comes in from an anonymous listener.

Hi, Father. Bless! And I hope you’re well. I’m not sure if this has been asked on your show, but if it has, please feel free to ignore. Also, feel free to keep this anonymous. I know it can be a touchy subject with some. The question is a practical one. With a now disproportionate over-representation of LGBT relationships on television and in movies, which is a complete about-face from 40 years ago, how do we speak about this with our children in a way that conveys compassion and yet a solid understanding of the human person?

To put it another way, this is a very different or vastly different landscape than when I was a child. I watched a popular series on Netflix recently in which 90% of the relationships depicted took some sort of non-monogamous, non-heterosexuality. This isn’t even remotely reflective of reality, so it’s not a matter of just explaining the way some people are to our children; it’s that what is being presented is entirely other. How do we have conversations with our children without sounding like old fuddy-duddies who are just out of touch with the way things are now, while still allowing for the possibility that we are? Thanks.

This is a difficult question. It’s a question that I think a lot of us are struggling with right now. I was having a conversation with a parishioner today who was expressing the same concern and even the confusion that’s kind of existing over the idea of gender and how the school that their child goes to has a number of children who’ve chosen to put off the title or the identification of their gender, and their teenage daughter was nearby and said, “Yeah, in fact a number of my peers at school identify as”—oh, I think it’s called a [furry], that they identify as an animal. And she said, “I even have a friend who says she’s not attracted to humans sexually, but attracted to animals sexually.” It is a really confusing environment.

I think one of the things that we can do that is first and foremost is to have an active spiritual life, personally. We have to be active in our faith and in our participation in the life of the Church. Once a week on Sunday is probably not enough, especially when we consider the amount of time that we’re being inundated with messages that are counter to the Church’s perspective. And so if the Church is just a drop in the bucket in a sea of contrary messages, that’s going to be difficult for us as parents when we have this conversation. So I think first of all it’s just the environment that we place our children in.

I think second of all, similar to the first question that I answered from another parent, is just being willing to discuss such things and not become reactive. I like to follow a formula when it comes to this, when you’re having a conversation in which you may be in conflict with where your children are if they’re teens and maybe supporting a pro-LGBTQ agenda or a non-binary agenda or whatever it might be, and that is not to become accusatory or critical, because that only leads to people becoming defensive, or to show stereotypes or discuss or put forward stereotypes or show contempt, which really would just lead to shut down; but rather to find a respectful, curious, and accountable way in which we can discuss such matters. Sometimes it’s really about positing, placing, an alternative idea, and not sort of overstating our case but presenting a plausible and thoughtful alternative to what’s being said to us.

I think the other thing that could and should be done is—we do need to be good stewards, and we need to be careful in attending to our children’s upbringing. Do they have unfettered access to media platforms? I would agree: the representation often in the media is as if 90% of the human population is in an alternative relationship versus a traditional one of male and female, one that’s first committed to God, then to marriage, then to one another in that sexual sense. So it can appear as if the Church is out of step.

One of the points of conversation that at least I’ve had with my own children in positing an alternative point of view is to say: Look, the Church isn’t prudish; the Church isn’t regressive; the Church isn’t stuck in a calcified past at all. The Church is interested in our liberation, in our maturation, in our well-being. And so even to start a conversation with saying this isn’t about restriction, this is about life, and this is about our development in a holistic way—then the conversation can turn on the question of: What is helpful? St. Paul himself speaks about this. All things may be legal or he might be free to do all things, but not all things are profitable. That’s kind of an interesting way to also turn the conversation, is about what’s beneficial.

The other thing that I think is helpful is to delay our own children’s engagement in physical relationships. That doesn’t mean that we lock them up and we restrict them from interacting with communities and other people in their schools or sports or other communities, but that we set some boundaries for them. And this is something that we need to be fostering as we go. I can say on the flipside that homes that have been overly restrictive and overly reactive and overly critical can often raise children who then react and swing the other direction or themselves become judgmental and hypercritical. So there is a great deal of, let’s say, deft and sort of a soft touch that’s needed.

But as I mentioned before, it begins with our own spiritual life and our own commitment to growing spiritually before we’re even going to have these conversations. Lots of prayer to God for guidance for ourselves and guidance for our children. But I don’t think at the same time it means we have to abdicate, because this needs such a soft hand, but it doesn’t mean that it doesn’t have a clear backbone. It’s okay for parents to say: This is our belief, this is our set of values, and this is our set of expectations. And it guides our children.

We do this in so many areas, and I’m kind of confused by society’s decision now to sort of let go of raising our children in righteousness. We might say to a child, as it’s preparing to go to college, “This is the level of debt we think is acceptable, and here are the types of programs that we think are beneficial to be studying,” or we might do this with sports or we might do this with nutrition—“We’re not going to have Coca-cola and doughnuts for dinner”—but somehow we don’t have that same level of conviction or clarity when it comes to matters of the faith. We need to have a backbone; we need to have some courage, so to speak, of course, as you said, with the idea that we do so in love.

All right. We’re going to take a short break. As I said to you at the beginning of the program, there’s wide-open lines, so feel free to call in at 1-855-237-2346 with your questions about the Orthodox faith, her teachings and her traditions. I’m your host, Fr. Evan. It’s January 8, first show of the new year. We’ll be right back after this break.

Fr. Evan: Well, welcome back to the program. Again, you’re listening to Orthodoxy Live here on Ancient Faith Radio. I’m your host of Ancient Faith’s show, Orthodoxy Live, Fr. Evan. Glad you’re with us. As our announcer said, we’ve got open lines at 1-855-237-2346.

Got an email from a listener, Shirley, who’s curious about the distinction that is made between love within a relationship of marriage and love in a community, and how might those two things differ or be similar. Well, let’s start with some of the similarities. I am fond of reminding all of you that love—love itself—has, if you will, some basic building blocks, and without them I don’t think that what you are experiencing could be called “love.” So what are they? One of them is freedom. For there to be love, there must be freedom. Second is the other. Third is being focused on the other. The fourth would be sacrifice. And the fifth would be growth. Those are some of the basics.

When we are in a community with numerous people, the healthiest communities operate in love, a community of love, and those attributes, those building blocks, are present. We could say the same in a marriage, that a marriage between a committed male and female requires the same elements, building blocks. The reality is that when they’re not present, the relationship is limited.

What’s the difference now between love in a community and love in a marriage. Well, the obvious answer is that love within marriage is a distinct commitment that we make to a specific individual, and we live at a level of intimacy that we wouldn’t live—and can’t live and shouldn’t live—within a community. Perhaps you can notice the difference when it comes to people who are in a community and it lists—or I shouldn’t say it lists. They act in a way that is overly familiar and inappropriately intimate: they don’t have correct boundaries. It’s not healthy when someone lives in such a way. So we’ve all experienced that sort of disfigured way of living in community. And then we have people who are in, let’s say, marriages, who struggle to be intimate and to share life with their spouse. So as a result, their spouse may feel as if the relationship is very cold and distant. So there is a distinction and a difference in communal relationships and personal, marital relationships of this intimacy and level of vulnerability, I would even say. It’s greater within a marital relationship.

The other thing that happens—it’s similar but different—is that when you’re by yourself, what I like to say, let’s say in a very simplistic way, is it’s easy to sort of live with the fantasy that you’re righteous, because you’re not rubbing up against anyone. Your own pride, your own selfishness, your own egotism, your own anger and impatience, it doesn’t have a tendency to come out as easily and as often as it does when you’re in a community. The same is true in marriage. Marriage is a struggle to die to one’s self, and it’s always in front of you. Now, sometimes people opt out of the struggle, and they opt out in different ways. They can opt out by sort of living within a relationship and becoming sort of disinterested in the needs of another and just pursuing their own, so they get really selfish, and they can even become rather cold to the pain they’re causing. And you can do that in community, too, but usually within a marital relationship, the pain that that causes surfaces quicker. It does surface in community, but it typically surfaces quicker and is made more apparent to us within a marital relationship.

And then of course there’s the whole aspect of physical intimacy, which again is very limited in a community setting—and it should be—but in some ways within the marital relationship, that physical intimacy is again an aspect of learning how to love: gift of self and sacrifice, the level of growth. And that physical intimacy is connected with our spiritual, emotional, intellectual intimacy, and there’s another level of growth that can occur there. Ultimately in both, going back to similarities, we enter into community so that we might be saved, and we enter into marriage in order that we might be saved. We do both of these things. I just did a wedding yesterday, and the whole purpose of the marriage, we speak about it at least three times: the community of marriage for salvation. And the same is true of our broader community. Therefore, our communities are for our growth in Christ and our entrance into the kingdom. So thanks for the question.

All right, we’re going to go out to our first caller tonight. Melissa, welcome to the program.

Melissa: Hi, Fr. Evan. How are you?

Fr. Evan: Good. How are you, Melissa.

Melissa: Good, good. Happy new year!

Fr. Evan: Happy new year! Where are you calling from?

Melissa: Thank you. Miami.

Fr. Evan: Mm!

Melissa: I’ve called a number of times in the past.

Fr. Evan: Oh, well, it’s nice to have you on the program again. Welcome!

Melissa: Thank you. Thank you very much. So I was calling because next month it’ll be a year since my three children and I entered the Orthodox Church. My two older ones have severe food allergies. They’re six and four, and then the little one is one. So my four-year-old son is severely allergic to wheat. Obviously that presents a problem with receiving Communion. Previously we were Catholics, Roman Catholics, so the kids didn’t receive Communion with my husband and [me]. That was actually one of the things that drew me East, the fact that, yeah, Communion to infants and children is still practiced.

In any case, so last year when we entered the Church, he received Communion for the first time ever, and he had a reaction to having ingested the body of Christ with the substance of wheat, and we actually had to run to urgent care.

Fr. Evan: Oh!

Melissa: Yeah, they had to give him a steroid shot, because he was wheezy and wheezing and the whole nine yards. It wasn’t too bad; we didn’t have to use an epi-pen, but since then he hasn’t received Communion again. And it hurts my heart! It literally hurts my heart. My husband and I have discussed it, and we… It’s scary! It’s scary because he’s severely allergic to it. We have been in a therapy to help them desensitize, like, to help them become desensitized from their food allergies. Right now it’s on hold. We’re starting up again in March, but I’m like: How much longer are we going to do this? How does the Orthodox Church handle this kind of situation? I’ve spoken to my priest about it, about how— Because some people have said, “Oh, we just commune people who have gluten intolerances,” but this isn’t a gluten intolerance, it’s an allergy to wheat. It can cause— He already had an episode, the last time when he was 18 months old, so I want my child to receive the body and blood of our Lord, and he doesn’t right now.

So I don’t know how other Orthodox priests… Yeah, how do other Orthodox priests treat this? I know some people say just give him a drop of the blood. Our priest said that he can maybe put some of the blood of Christ, after the consecration has taken place, into a separate chalice, and we can try to commune him from there. It’s still I guess—I don’t know what the correct term is—commingled with the body of Christ? But it’s just a dilemma, at least for me, especially now that we’re reaching the one-year anniversary. How much longer do we have to do this? Or should I try to commune him again and put his health at risk? I don’t know what to do.

Fr. Evan: Well, I have a couple of ideas to share. They come from my own pastoral experience and the pastoral experience of others that I’ve seen, a path forward for people who have these severe allergies related to wheat. It is something that is real; it’s a medical condition. And the Church has always had a perspective in its canons and in its teachings that when there is a medical necessity, that the Church has to adjust pastorally. So I’ll give you precedents. Someone is ill and needs to take medication with food. The Church in her canons would say: Well, you don’t fast before you receive. So we adjust, because we’re talking about an exception.

So what I have seen done is a gluten-free or a wheat-free bread placed on the paten in a separate vessel that is consecrated and then the blood is added to that, and the person is communed using the body and blood. There are no canons in the Church that sort of guard the recipe of the bread. So we don’t— We guard the mystery of faith, that the offering of the bread is transformed by the descent of the Holy Spirit into the body, but we don’t have to say, “Well, it’s made only with wheat.” You following me?

So is it possible—and again, depending on the conversation you’ve had with your priest and maybe with your local bishop—to place on the paten in a separate—so that it doesn’t become contaminated with the wheat that would make your child sick—is it possible to place that on the paten, to consecrate that into the body, to add some of the blood before the bread that has got wheat with it is commingled, and commune your child? I’ve seen it done.

Melissa: Is the blood of Christ, in this scenario that you mentioned, is it— Has it already been consecrated with the wheat, with the body of Christ made of wheat?

Fr. Evan: No. So the way that the liturgical practice of the Eastern Church does it is that the blood and the body remain separate until the time right before Communion, because if we go back in the liturgical practice of the Church, the faithful received them separately: you receive the body and you receive the blood. For ease of communing such large numbers of people, the liturgical practice became that the body was placed in the chalice right before distribution. So up until that moment—it’s after the clergy receive, because the clergy receive the blood and the body separately—but right after the clergy receive, that’s when the body is placed into the chalice. So what I’m suggesting is it is possible to consecrate a non-wheaten offering and place that blood into that container or vice-versa, and then your child is receiving the Eucharist. Does that make sense to you, Melissa?

Melissa: It does… When I talked to my priest about it, coming from the Roman Catholic Church— I have friends— I have known people with gluten intolerance, and they can only receive the blood, which the laypeople do not receive in most cases.

Fr. Evan: That would be the second scenario.

Melissa: Well, I asked my priest about this. I mean no disrespect, of course, to the liturgical… I’m all about preserving the way that the liturgics need to be carried out and everything, but I thought maybe there would be a possibility of him receiving the wine—sorry, the blood of Christ—without it having touched the body of Christ. But what he maybe understands is that he needs to place the Lamb inside the chalice, in order for the consecration to take place. So then obviously the blood of Christ is contaminated with the wheat from the Lamb.

Fr. Evan: So let me jump in.

Melissa: That’s my understanding right now.

Fr. Evan: Yeah, let me jump in. Again, I don’t mean to, let’s say, offer words that would be contradictory to what your local priest has said, but let me be clear. The consecration of the chalice and the wine in it, and the consecration of the bread on the paten occur separately in the liturgical tradition. You hear it in the Liturgy: “And make this bread the precious body of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.” You hear that. And then the priest says, “And that which is in this cup to be the precious blood.” So the consecration of the elements does not require the mingling of the body with the blood. That would not be a correct theological perspective. Once again, the distribution of the gifts, practically speaking, includes the body being with the blood, commingled, because it made it easy for the clergy to distribute, but the tradition of the Church was always that they were distributed separately. The Roman Catholic Church has kept that more ancient tradition which the Byzantine rite has put aside.

So it wouldn’t be theologically or canonically incorrect to receive the blood, the difference being that in the Orthodox mindset, we don’t just simply receive the blood, we receive the blood and the body, and that’s why I made that suggestion of the consecration of a non-wheat-based bread that could be added to a separate chalice. So again, it is a pastoral— This is not a universal move that we make in the Church, but we are understanding the specific needs of a specific person who’s got a medical condition, and the Church has always, both canonically and pastorally, adjusted to meet the needs of the faithful, without, if you will, putting at jeopardy the teaching—and this doesn’t put anything in jeopardy.

Now, again, you may just want to go back and say, “Hey, some more questions. Not challenging, just wondering. Would these things be possible?” If neither of those things are possible, then really what you’re— the situation that your child is in is to be in a situation where they receive a blessing, they’re going to receive perhaps holy water and unction, and the Eucharist would be something very, very, very I guess infrequent, given their severe medical allergic reaction. Well, email me, Melissa—

Melissa: Right now he just kisses the chalice. Okay.

Fr. Evan: Yeah, let me know kind of how this goes, okay?

Melissa: I will.

Fr. Evan: Okay. Thanks for calling.

Melissa: Thanks, Fr. Evan.

Fr. Evan: You’re so welcome.

Melissa: God bless. Good night.

Fr. Evan: God bless you. Good night. Good-bye.

We’re going to out to Alexis. Alexis, welcome to Orthodoxy Live.

Alexis: Hey, Father.

Fr. Evan: Oh, we have to catch up on the radio to be able to talk, huh, Alexis? [Laughter] Hi, Alexis!

Alexis: Yeah, I thought I’d just call you on the show.

Fr. Evan: Happy new year to you and—

Alexis: Hey, Father, I’m glad you’re back online.

Fr. Evan: Thank you. Thank you. Happy new year to you and Dr. Pete. How was your holiday?

Alexis: Everything was wonderful.

Fr. Evan: But you didn’t get to go to Montana.

Alexis: We didn’t go to Montana, and our team’s not in the big game tomorrow night.

Fr. Evan: Oh, sorry. You’ll survive.

Alexis: [Laughter] Two disappointments.

Fr. Evan: Two disappointments, okay. Well, for people who are wondering, our team—so obviously she’s an Alabama fan, and Alabama’s not playing in the national championship, I take it?

Alexis: Correct.

Fr. Evan: Oh. Well, that’s okay. You’ve been there enough. You’ve got to skip a few years to make it feel fresh.

Alexis: Exactly!

Fr. Evan: [Laughter] So are you back in Birmingham?

Alexis: We’re driving home from North Carolina. This really is the final stretch of the holidays for us.

Fr. Evan: Oh, how wonderful. That means one of my— I’m two months, no, I’m less than two months from being with you all down in Birmingham.

Alexis: Yes, February 24 and 25.

Fr. Evan: Has your parish started doing registration for that. If there’s people in the area who want to come, are they welcome to come?

Alexis: Absolutely! We’re going to open up registration this week. We’ll get it on our website.

Fr. Evan: So how do they get to your website? What’s the website?

Alexis: Holy Trinity Holy Cross dot [com].

Fr. Evan: Holy Trinity Holy Cross dot [com], and of course I guess if you were just to Google “Holy Trinity-Holy Cross Orthodox parish Birmingham,” you’ll get to your parish website, right?

Alexis: Yes.

Fr. Evan: So this week registration will go up. I’ll be down there… I’m speaking on the— Am I speaking on the 24th which is Friday or just on the 25th?

Alexis: Yes. No, Friday night, and two talks on Saturday.

Fr. Evan: Okay, and then I’ll be there Sunday as well for the Liturgy and offering a homily, I guess, right?

Alexis: Absolutely.

Fr. Evan: I’m looking forward to being with you all down there. I’m going to bring my daughter, Eleni. She’s going to go check out the University of Alabama. It’s one of the schools on her list.

Alexis: Yes, that’s going to be a great visit, too.

Fr. Evan: I don’t think she’s heard from the school year, from the office of the president. You had a friend that was going to work something out; I haven’t heard from them, though, I don’t think.

Alexis: Yes, I told Eleni that we’ll give it till Tuesday and then we’ll circle back.

Fr. Evan: Jump on it? [Laughter]

Alexis: Yes.

Fr. Evan: You’re so sweet. I appreciate it. Well, what’s on your mind, Alexis?

Alexis: Well, I may have told you before that there’s a megachurch that’s based in Birmingham. I think they have over 40-, 50,000 members.

Fr. Evan: Wow.

Alexis: Yeah. They have different satellite churches and they sometimes go into the schools and minister to young people. They really do a lot of beautiful work, but one of the most popular things they do is called 21 days in prayer, and it starts tomorrow, I think. You meet at one of their campuses, and I think they have a morning and an evening. I’ve known people that have gone there, and they really enjoy it, and there’s a part of it that’s on their website, that you can add fasting and different levels of fasting, and their worship music.

Sometimes in our parish, young people will ask me about this, like: “Miss Alexis, could we get a group of high schoolers to do this 21 days of prayers together at the megachurch?” And I’ve always basically discouraged them and kind of challenged them and said, “Why don’t we find a way to increase prayer and fasting in our community and our young people? Or step into some of the already-set times that we have, like we could all meet on Wednesday nights during Lent, and we could all go together to the first 15 days of August.” And this year I just started to question how that answer might be received, because it’s not as if anything ever comes. They don’t really come back to me and say, “Yes, let’s do this.” I think they accept my no and move on, and maybe they go but they don’t go with an organized group from the church.

How would you respond if Eleni or some of her friends said, “Dad, we really want to do this 21 days of prayer. Can we get some people from our church to do this?”

Fr. Evan: Well, not too long ago, I have a couple of catechumens who came to me who, at their former parish, had been offered a job as youth pastors. And they said to me, “Could we continue in that relationship with this community, even though we are moving into entering the Church? And what’s your perspective?” And I looked at them and said, “Well, I think it sounds great.” And they were sort of bowled over. [Laughter]

And then I’ve got a young father in our parish who finished a program at Notre Dame, and he was invited to become a chaplain at a residency center run by a large Protestant organization here in Colorado. They’ve got a satellite campus up north; it’s called The Farm. And I encouraged him.

I think you probably, having read my most recent book—I know that it’s something you’ve read—I talk about healthy communities are bridge-building and not barrier-building. I think building bridges is a good thing, and I think I’ve got a biblical reference point here, when Christ himself encounters his disciples’ restriction of people healing in his name, and he says, “Hey, those who are not against us are for us.”

Now, I can understand the hesitancy and you’re a little bit unsure, because is this something that perhaps our children would encounter that would do any number of negative things? Like, would it draw them away from their Orthodox faith and life? Would it introduce ideas that are unusual or contrary to our Orthodox teaching and perspective? I think those can all be pretty easily mitigated. My own children, who go to a high school that has a very large Protestant youth group that’s non-denominational, they’ve asked me to go on retreats and attend youth group meetings, and I have encouraged them to do it, the results of which have been really beneficial. They’ve grown stronger in their own understanding.

We can be bees. We can collect some nectar from plants that are in God’s garden, and I think this is one of those opportunities. Now, I think that you can leverage that. I know how you tried to leverage it, like: “Well, okay, let’s find something within our own tradition that we could do,” but perhaps it is a hybrid. We’re going to do the kidsPACK, which is a northern Colorado initiative to end homeless—or I shouldn’t say “homeless”; I should say food-insecure families with children, and kidsPACK is a non-denominational ministry, and we are participating with kidsPACK to do meals. We’re going to go to their facility and pack the meals, but then we’re going to end it with vespers and a teaching. So we’re hybridizing the opportunity.

That’s kind of how I think I would look at it. I would just say: How can I leverage what’s good here, and how can I buttress it within our tradition? Now I don’t know. I would assume you probably also have to talk this through with your clergy.

Alexis: Right, for sure. If they really wanted to do it… I mean, it’s not… It could be one or two people.

Fr. Evan: But your participation might come up again.

Alexis: Right, because it’s every January, correct.

Fr. Evan: Well, here’s kind of another perspective on it. If we’re challenged by what’s going on in the larger Christian community, and our families and individuals in our communities are seeing things that are occurring in Christian communities that are robust and transformative, and they’re not seeing that in our own community’s life, that can feel like a threat, because you can say, “Oh, gosh, we’re not pulling the oar very hard!”

Alexis: Right.

Fr. Evan: And I think you’ve got to square your shoulders to those kind of things and say, “All right, well, let’s face what’s true. Let’s have a dialogue with it.” Now, I realize in saying all that I’ve just said, Alexis, I think I’m a little bit on the fringe here.

Alexis: Yeah, I would agree. [Laughter]

Fr. Evan: I’m on the vanguard of this idea.

Alexis: Well, and also it’s hard to— If you made a decision, it’s hard to communicate all the questions that other maybe parents would have and how would you do this. When they were in the schools actually one of our priests called the principal and said, “I have a problem with this church proselytizing in our local public schools.” So it has such a strong presence.

Fr. Evan: In the Birmingham community.

Alexis: Yeah. And so it is— It does feel threatening.

Fr. Evan: Yeah. Well, look at things like IOCC (International Orthodox Christian Charities). They leverage relationships with Lutheran World Services and Catholic Charities, and you name it. And they’re often working side-by-side with these organizations. I know the director of IOCC fairly well, and I remember having a conversation with him not too long ago, and he said, “Look, the path forward for Christians in the broader world is going to be cooperation and not getting siloed.”

Now, again, that’s nuanced, because when we’re talking about distributing meals or clothing or shelter, it’s a little less complicated than sharing spiritual practices.

Alexis: Right, definitely.

Fr. Evan: Definitely, but the Orthodox Church is part of the World Council of Churches, and so it’s not as if we’ve taken the stance of “We’re not going to participate within the Christian greater diaspora.” It’s not like we’re saying, “Hands off. You guys are going to do your thing; we’re going to do our thing. We’re not listening to anything you have to say or participating.” We are participating. We do show up and represent ourselves and we do join in dialogue and prayer. So how do you work that out at a local level, and what are the things that you’ve got to navigate, knowing your community, knowing that megachurch, and really how they’re representing themselves in the city and stuff like that. I think there’s a lot obviously that you’re sorting through.

But if we step back from the specificity of this particular challenge, I’m just putting forward and positing the idea that I think as parishes we’ve probably got too high of walls and too narrow of doors in most instances, and we could probably lower the walls a little bit, we could open the doors a little more, and we could build a few more bridges than maybe we’ve been used to building.

And in doing so, perhaps— I mean, I had a group of I think it was ten Protestants this morning joining us for worship, and they came because they told me they lost a bet over the Christmas holiday. They played a game with part of their group that’s becoming Orthodox, and they said, “All right, whoever wins this, the other side has to come to church with us on the next Sunday.” So they all came, and it was the first time they had ever been in an Orthodox worship service. And the encounter provided the opportunity for the consideration of a different way of praying. There was some cross-fertilization. I had a wedding Saturday. Other than the bridal party and the parents, the church was full of non-Orthodox people. And then at a funeral on Monday, the woman worked in the school district. She was well-known and incredibly beloved. She died: there was 270 people that weren’t Orthodox in the church for a funeral service.

Now, I think we’re all comfortable with the idea: “Well, you show up at my house, and I’ll show you my stuff,” right? But what about that entry into the other space and making a representation and also listening to a different perspective? That doesn’t mean agreement. I know for Eleni, who has gone to retreats and been in sort of the Protestant worship environment and dialogued with youth pastors, it was an opportunity for her to listen and then to sort of be able to define and articulate her own beliefs, and I thought that was a good opportunity! I don’t know. It’s an interesting question, Alexis.

Alexis: Yeah, it’s an interesting answer.

Fr. Evan: [Laughter] Oh, that’s great. I don’t think anybody’s really asked that type of question before. Again, I just think— You know, let me state it in another way. I think Orthodoxy was a lot more engaged and robust prior to Ottoman occupation, prior to the Communist experience. We were less afraid of mingling, and that historical, political, cultural experience has really closed us off. And so I think a new breath of fresh air needs to come through, and we need to have a more open stance. There’s some good things to learn from people outside of the Orthodox Church—I’m not saying theologically speaking, but to listen and to engage in dialogue I think is a good path forward. I don’t want to become someone who’s plugging my ears every time someone’s speaking that’s not Orthodox.

Alexis: Right. Well, you know, I’ve learned through Effective Christian Ministry that the number-one thing that young people deal with right now is doubt, and now, rethinking my question, that they’re looking for an experience of God, not facts about God. It’s something they have to broaden that, widen that, to experience God in different places.

Fr. Evan: I agree.

Alexis: Or if you hear it from— I could tell your kids something you’ve told them a hundred times, but they hear a different messenger and they say…

Fr. Evan: It’s true.

Alexis: This thing with doubt and young people is kind of also got me to reconsideration.

Fr. Evan: Yeah, I would agree with you. I think it’s an important perspective that you’re bringing up. Well, thanks for calling, Alexis. Happy new year! Tell Pete hi, and all the kids and boys, okay?

Alexis: I will. The same.

Fr. Evan: Talk to you soon.

Alexis: Yes. Okay, take care.

Fr. Evan: Good night. Bye.

Well, thanks for tuning in to Orthodoxy Life tonight. We got our feet wet with a show in 2023, and look forward to being with you again next week. If you’ve never listened to this show before, please check out our previous episodes. If you haven’t yet done it, if you’ve read either Toolkit or Reclaiming the Great Commission, please write an online review, both here on Ancient Faith and also other platforms. It gets the word out.

My new book, Reclaiming, is out on Audible, so if you’ve been waiting for the Audible version, it’s out. Also let people know about this show. That helps us share the good message and the good news of Jesus Christ. For Ancient Faith Radio and Orthodoxy Live, I’m Fr. Evan. Good night, and God bless!