Pints With Aquinas - Catholicism or Eastern Orthodoxy w/ Derek Cummins

Episode Date: January 15, 2022

I chat with Derek Cummins about his decision between Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy. Timestamps below. Hallow! http://hallow.com/mattfradd Exodus 90: https://exodus90.com/matt/ Cross The Tiber: https://crossthetiber.org    

Hey, Matt Fradd here. Welcome to Pints with Aquinas. If this show has been a blessing to you can just chat and all the jokes that I make, you can laugh. Oh, what was the funniest joke we told this morning on our morning coffee live stream? The polar bear one. Yeah, that was so good. Please tell us that one again. And Neil, I want to get an example of you laughing at this. All right. Just reset, uh, cleanse your palate. So polar bear walks into a bar and he sits down and the bartender is just so enamored

that this polar bear made a pilgrimage to his bar, his pub. He says, buddy, whatever you want. It's on the house, man. Whatever you want, order it. And the polar bear says, okay, I will have a rum and Coke. The bartender says, absolutely, it's no problem. But I got to ask you, man, why the big pause? And he says, because I'm a polar bear.

He's not even laughing. Neal's dead on the inside. Yeah, that was such a good joke. The trick would be, what would be fun is just seeing how long you can hold that pause before the, and just blank recipient of the joke can no longer take it. I thought it was good. I don't know why I didn't laugh. There was two guys. I need to hire somebody else just to laugh. Get a laugh.

We didn't find somebody else to sit there and laugh. So I noticed you have your ring chod key. Yeah. Yeah. It's that's cute. It is cute. You're over. All right. Hey, listen, before we get going, I want to let people know that at the start of the new year, I had an idea that all of these interviews and debates would be available early access to my supporters because I love them and they're all beautiful and canonizable. But then I asked them what they wanted and if you're a supporter this is you and the majority of people were like we don't care about early access because we you know it's not like I have three hours to sit around and watch your live stream anyway. So from now on what we're going to be doing is post show wrap-up videos where we take questions from our supporters on Patreon and locals and so that video will be

up today if you're a supporter. If you're not yet a supporter, please feel free to support us by going to pints with Aquinas.com slash points. So now that that's out of the way, the other thing I have to say is that Exodus 90 is sponsoring the show and you only have a few days to make the decision as to whether or not you're going to do it. So Exodus 90 is an ascetical program for men who take 90 days fasting from many things, taking on many ascetical practices like cold showers and things like that. It's done communally with a small group of men.

So click the link in the description below, Exodus90.com slash Matt, Exodus90.com slash Matt. And the reason you only have a few days to figure out whether you're doing this or not is because there's gonna be thousands of men on the 17th of January, three days, who are going to begin Exodus 90. Why the 17th of January? I hear you ask.

I didn't ask that. I feel you asking through your gaze at me. Well, the reason is because it ends on Easter Sunday. So go to Exodus90.com slash Matt to learn more. It's only for dudes. So if you are a dude, check it out. Exodus90.com slash Matt. They do discriminate.

If you are a Sheila, you cannot join. But if you're a bloke who's considering it, Exodus90.com slash Matt, click the link in the description below. Derek, it's great to have you. It's great to be had. Ah, it's really good to have you, man. I like you a lot. You're very funny.

We've become friends since I've moved to Steubenville. You live in the Berg, the Pittsburgh. Is that what they call the Berg? Nobody calls it that. We call it the Ville. But we did, growing up, call Steubenville the burb of the Berg. We did, growing up, call Steubenville that crap city. Whoa.

Your words not mine. No, I love it. And I'm just here's why I'm so excited for this show today. Even though you are an orthodox catechumen, you are still discerning in some sense between orthodoxy and Catholicism. And you and I have been saying, you know, there's so many videos out there where people are like, I saw the light and now I'm this, which is great. But there's a lot of people who are legitimately confused about what to do. And so today's episode, not to disappoint people, but it's not going to be about me trying to talk you into Catholicism. It's just going to be talking about what it's like discerning between two faith systems and not being entirely sure what to do. And I think

this will be beneficial if you're watching today. Maybe you're an atheist considering Christianity and you're not sure what to do. And you're trying to make yourself decide one way or the other. One day you feel one way, one day you feel the other, but you can't seem to. Maybe you're just sitting between Protestantism and Catholicism, Catholicism and orthodoxy. That kind of like inner tension and just journey that I think a lot of people are on is something that doesn't often get highlighted. So that is why I'm excited to have you on the show today. I appreciate it, man.

Yeah. Now give us a bit of your background because I mean, starting with being a Protestant youth pastor at least. You want me to start there? You want me to starting with being a Protestant youth pastor at least. You want me to start there? You want me to start with? When I was three. Yeah. So I came into the world naked, screaming and covered in blood.

Like everybody does. And it's only gotten worse since then. I can start with that or if you want me to start with like how I became a Christian in the first place. Let's do it. Which is kind of a long drawn out story. But so I grew up fairly nominally Christian, I would say that my family, my grandparents belong to the church of the Nazarene, which I thought until recent history was the church

from Footloose. Turns out I was wildly wrong. Okay. But never seen footloose. Just pretend it is. Okay. So we would go, you know, maybe Christmas and Easter randomly with my grandparents. I mostly ate cookies

and drew pictures of crayons and went down into the basement would have like a weird green carpet and like toys that were missing eyes and stuff. So it's kind of like Toy Story. So I kind of hit this point eventually where it didn't feel like it had any impact on my life, no bearing either way. So I kind of wrote it off in high school and kind of did the whole sex drugs and rock and roll bit and would say really classic, really edgy and cool things like God's an imaginary friend for old people, you know, because I thought that made me cooler. And so, you know, eventually went to college as you do and stayed with the same kind of friends.

Like all of my friends just were getting high all the time and drunk. And within one semester, every friend that I had dropped out or transferred. So I had no friends. And my advisor said, you should hang out with these people. They're in your major. They're in the music department. And they just wanted to go to chapel all the time. And I was like, I guess I'll go with them, you know, whatever. But there was this life about them that was, that was attractive, you know? So that kind of started things. Was it a evangelical sort of school?

Yeah. So it was affiliated with the Presbyterian Church. I think it was PCUSA. There's two Presbyterian churches. I can't remember which one's which. So yeah, kind of got into that. And then I was at least warmed up to the idea of faith at that point. And then the summer between my junior and senior year, my band

went on tour. Nice. And just like a two week. Name of the band? Oh gosh. It was called Round Hand Rowan. That's awesome. I love that name. It's based on Norse mythology as all good metal bands are. Mine was Stitchwork Ninjas, which is also good. That's pretty good. We briefly changed it to Carcosa because we thought that was cooler. What does that mean? Just a made up word or? Well, we knew it from True Detective, because we thought that was cooler. What does that mean? Uh, made up word or that's front? Well, we knew it from true detective. If you've ever watched that true detective quality, but, um, actually thinking of some like demonic connotations.

So we got away from that and on tour, every bad thing that could happen. Happened. Like I was, I had just broken up with this girl and was like super lonely. It was like drinking a ton while we were on the road. Just like, it was disgusting, man. We lost a rotisserie chicken under the back seat for a week. That sentence is a sentence that very few humans have said. We lost a rotisserie chicken under the back seat for a week.

We ate cold Chef Boyardee ravioli out of the can and sometimes we would put tuna in it. Okay. And then we would duct tape said can to the wall to use as an ashtray. Oh wow. So there was just a real, a real stank about the place, you know, plus all the dude steam. You know, we didn't shower. How did you find the rotisserie chicken? How did that happen? When we got home from tour and we were clearing out the van, we were like, I thought we threw this away. What did that happen? When we got home from tour and we were clearing out the van, we were like, Oh, I thought we threw this away. What did it look like? I mean, it still looked like a chicken, at least the carcass of a chicken.

Oh, okay. So it wasn't like decomposing. Yeah, no, it wasn't long enough for that though. It was, I mean, swelteringly hot. There was no air conditioning. But so the van was bad. It was not a good van. We called it the round hand row van and it broke down all the time. And in some pretty sketch areas, like we were in the backwoods of Eastern Tennessee one time and the van was dead. The mechanic said, this van will not start. You need like 1500 bucks to fix it.

We had no money. He said, I promise you, you're not going anywhere until you fix this van and you need to get out of here tonight. Cause like legitimately hillbillies will come out and rob you. So we're terrified and the only thing I could think to do at that point was pray and I was praying like God just let the van start and the van started and this happened like four more times and one time it was the last time the van broke down same thing mechanics like you need 1500 bucks or something like that to fix it might have been more than that.

We had nothing. The mechanic closed at like midnight, the dude came back. I said, I'll fix the van for $300 if you have it. So we were able to like scrounge together 300 bucks, you know, like our parents deposited money in our account and we pulled it out or whatever. And at that point I was like, okay, God's more than just an idea.

Like there's something there where like I can interact with him and he actually cares, he like gives a crap, you know? And so very long story short, we moved back, we were planning our next tour and I told the guys, I think we should be a Christian band, you know? That's the only thing I could think to do. Like I wanted to keep doing music and I knew bands. They weren't Christian. We were like, oh, they were nominally. Yeah, you know, like I mean it used to be like, I mean my friends would

just get messed up and pontificate about like, hey man, do you think, do you think that like the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil was like weed? You know, and like cool stuff like that. Yeah, that's great. And they were like, no, we don't, we don't want to do that. stuff like that. And they were like, no, we don't, we don't want to do that. So I quit and I moved to Nashville and this will lead into the pastor. No, I'm loving this because I, you know, we know each other, but I don't know the story. So this is great. So I moved to Nashville and I immediate, I was like, I don't know what to do. So I enrolled in a graduate program at middle Tennessee state university for recording technology. And again, that was rough

because we'd have like midnight. So I lived in Nashville proper. It took me like 40 minutes to get to school. I worked 35, 40 minutes the opposite direction. So there was this triangle of just driving. I'd have midnight recording sessions that have to be at work at like 4 a.m. So I was just sleeping in my car a decent amount.

And I remember like a couple days a couple weeks into classes this dude was just walking towards me on campus and I kid you not he was smoking a blunt and he had a shirt that just said F God. Oh. And I was like I'm not gonna make it. I was kind of like a new devout Christian at that point I said I'm not gonna make it if I stay here like I'll fall right back into, into crap. So I dropped out pretty quickly and I was like, well, I don't know what to do.

I'm into this whole spirituality thing. Maybe I should go to school for that. So I enrolled in seminary and yeah. So I did seminary at Lipscomb University. What were your parents reaction to this? My mom was like, whatever, you know, she, she was supportive of it. I mean, she didn't tell me not to do it, but I think she was confused. Like, why are you doing this?

Was your dream? Like you wanted to be a musician. You want to work in recording studios. You're giving up on your dream. I'm like, no, it's not that it's just, I've changed. Like my whole, everything, my thought process is different now. And at that time I had also met who was on my wife, Becca, who I've heard, so she says hi and, um, you Becca, who I've heard say she says hi.

Cool. And people thought that that was part of it, like, oh, you're changing for a woman. And I'm like, no, a woman has helped me change for the better. I remember distinctly telling Becca when we were on the road, we were texting, we were friends at that point. And I said, I don't know, she's always been a devout Christian. And she was asking me about faith, getting a feeler for like, where am

I in that? And I remember saying, I don't know anything about God, but I know that I love his love, you know, and there's a lot of times that I wish I could go back to just that was enough for me. You know? But so anyway, yeah, the dudes in my band were kind of disappointed, I think, because they thought like, oh, he's going to learn how to do all this recording stuff. Do you have that clip of you screaming, your band playing?

Is that on YouTube? Yeah, it's on YouTube. We are going to find that and we are going to put a, can we do that? Sure. Put a link below. You had long hair and you were in a metal band and screaming. Metal band, punk band. It's metal, metal core.

We'll definitely put a link to that for people's enjoyment. You're going to love it. It's real uplifting stuff, you know, where these dudes are screaming and spitting into the air. But, so yeah, enrolled in seminary and it was kind of ironic. I was in a school affiliated with the Church of Christ, which believes that if you are not water baptized, you are most certainly not saved. Again, just that whole paradigm of you're either saved or you're not, you know.

I was in the seminary and I was not baptized, but somehow they still accepted me into seminary, you know, that checks out. So we were studying the prison epistles, like Paul's letters from prison, and somehow referenced the Philippian jailer in Acts, And I was really moved by that. So I got baptized on campus in the fountain in the middle of the campus. And yeah, my wife and I got married and moved home. And I finished my last semester of seminary online and we found a church. And this is kind of funny too, the church we landed in, I remember like the first time we went we're like, yeah, music's not good. Didn't care for the preaching. This book that

they're reading is really bad. What book was it? It was called The God I Never Knew by Robert Morris. Okay. People might be upset that I said that, but didn't care for it. And we're like, but the people are just beautiful. This wonderful community and it's really close to home and they had a lot going on. So we plugged in and we dived in hard. And like a year later I was on staff as the youth pastor. So as you had had your degree in what kind of degree did you get from seminary? I have a master's in theological studies. Okay.

So what does it look like when you become ordained or are they just like, yep, we'd like you to be the pastor or the youth pastor. And that particular church was a non-denominational church, you know, so it was kind of like, yeah, we'll just print you out this word document that just says that you're ordained. That was kind of it. Like there was no formal process, no laying on of hands, you know, anything like that. Which the whole thing felt kind of weird. It was just like, okay, I graduated, I was already doing the job. And then all of a sudden

it was like, yeah, here, you're ordained now. So if anybody asks if you are, you can at least show them this. So yeah. There's no ceremony or no sort of thing like that. Yeah. No, I guess the elder board has to like approve it. Cool. And what was it like being a youth pastor at that church? I loved it. It is to date the most fulfilling thing I've ever done vocationally for sure. Just like those relationships, like teenagers man are really fascinating.

Like the inherent spirituality they have, even if they claim to have no spirituality at all. Like there's just this, I don't know, it's just this intuitive openness and that could be formed either very beautifully for the kingdom or very poorly for the world. So I mean, I didn't take it lightly. You know, there was, it was a really important role to be in for sure. And if a teenager came up to you during this point and said, Hey, what's your opinion of Catholics and Eastern Orthodox Christians? What would you say?

Well, I didn't even know Orthodoxy existed at that point, but I did have a decent, I don't know if I would call it decent, but I did have a lot of exposure to Catholic thought at that point. I was always very amicable towards those things. So I would tell them like, yeah, they're Christians, they're beautiful, they have all the, I got in a lot of trouble because I kind of like would appropriate some of that spirituality

in our youth ministry, which just does not fit. Like what? Like we would do Lectio Divina and we would do like. You knew of that, you knew of Lectio Divina. So when I was in seminary, I took this class called spiritual formation and guidance. And I didn't know like what it was. I just knew I had to take it. So I took it.

And I mean, we did a lot of stuff of like silent prayer, the Jesus prayer. You did the Jesus prayer with your kids or just at seminary you learned it? At seminary I learned about it. And the whole world of like, I mean, I guess it would be Jesuit spirituality, you know, Ignatian prayer exercises, the examine, the like praying with scripture, imaginative prayer, those sort of things blew me away. I mean, that was probably the first, I guess you would call them charismatic experiences that I had ever had. So we had to do retreats. I would go away for like 48 hours, silent retreat.

And just, I mean, it just felt like my soul was drinking fresh water. I mean, these things blew me away. We would do, now I think this practice is kind of weird, but we would do this thing where you like write a letter to God, then you go off and pray for a while, and then you kind of let God respond to the letter, and then you kind of write.

His response? Yeah. And I don't know, these things just sort of like wrecked me. So I would like, I would do those things with my, my youth kids. We did like prayer labyrinths, which I think is actually kind of like, I don't know where that falls. Is that okay? Whatever. But, um, it can be, I made one out of duct tape on the floor in our youth room and we would do that. And just a lot of these silent practices. And people didn't like that? Because I would think lexio divina would be something that

Protestants would be very open to. No. Well, not this particular flavor, really. But the kids, the students loved it. The teenagers loved it. They were just like, I've never, my world is so inundated with noise. And people were always trying to get me to like do things. It's nice to not have to do anything. You know, they said sometimes always trying to get me to like do things. It's nice to not have to do anything. You know, they said sometimes you come to youth group and you feel like, oh, it's just an extension of school. It's like school for Christians where we have like a lesson and then we have to talk about it or you know, whatever. And we did that sort of stuff. But you know, we would do annual retreats where it's like, okay, you're going

to sit in silence for an hour. And I mean, you think that would be hard to do, but it was hard to get them to talk after that. Because they were just so like, I don't know, mellowed out in a good way, you know, open to read the scriptures open here. One time, this, I can see now how maybe this wasn't, I shouldn't have done, I'm glad I did it, whatever. So we did this retreat and I basically set up like a Protestant version of Eucharistic Adoration.

I bought an icon of the Last Supper. I had my friend build these beautiful candle stands out of wood and I had this kid to get up at 530 in the morning and come in and light a candle. And I had a big, like a loaf of sourdough and a cup of grape juice and have them just sit for an hour and just reflect on the last supper and what communion really means. Did you know what adoration was back then? Yeah, I knew what it was.

But I knew this wasn't really it because I didn't believe in a real presence, but they loved it. Wow. So I did a lot of stuff like that. And then I slowly started liturgizing our youth services where we would like, the students would kind of process in with a gospel book or an epistle book. They would do a reading. We pray the Lord's prayer together. We would have like responsive Psalms and the leadership didn't really love that.

And what, what was their reason for not loving it? Some of it was, Oh, the Lord's Prayer is vain repetition. I'm like, that doesn't seem right. That doesn't. Yeah. I mean, it's how number one, one of the things that we always talk about all the time is God's word doesn't return void. Like this is God's word, like literally in the Holy scriptures. And Jesus says, when you pray, pray like this and it unifies us and it's one voice. And I thought it was beautiful. Did they ever say it's a bit too Catholic? No, that never happened.

After I did in our college age ministry, I did a study of the Nicene Creed. And then I kind of got a talking to of like, hey, maybe don't talk about sacramental things. You know, because the church was very keen on like baptism is just an outward expression of an inward decision. And I mean, you can be baptized as many times as you want. And at one point I remember communion, we were live streaming and like there was a slide that came up that said like, don't have crackers and juice, use whatever you have at home, cookies and milk. And I was like, I just don't know. But yeah, you know? So it was funny is like, that's the logic. Like that's if you deny the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist and say that there's no sort of inherent connection or relation

between the bread and the body. And that's kind of where it gets you, where it takes you. It makes sense. It like doesn't really matter. We just do it because it's an ordinance. Jesus, Jesus told us to do it. So we just do it, you know, which obedience is beautiful, right? Like, I mean, let's try to look at the good things that come out of that. But yeah. So, um, so when did you get to the point where you left? Cause, cause I mean the first conversation we ever had, I was like right before I moved to Steubenville. So it was just over a year ago. I was in a, um, I was buying a used car. That's when you called

me. Um, but I, and I knew that you had recently left your job as a youth pastor, but I don't know really how that happened. Yeah. So like a few steps back, the thing that sort of, sort of got me like rolling on investigating anything else, really, I was content to stay where I was, but kind of appropriate these traditions. And I thought there was something beautiful and unifying about them. I thought they bore a lot of fruit. I saw it not only in my own life but I saw it in my students in youth ministry. But I never thought like, hey, what would happen if I jumped into this thing, whole ham dog as it were. So I'm trying to

think of how that kind of came to be. So really the first thing, the very first thing was my stepdad's father passed and he was a Catholic. And at the funeral mass, they asked me to lead, I don't even know what they were calling it, petitionary prayers. I don't even remember much about the actual flow of the service, but they were sensing the casket. And my hometown, Burgutstown, Pennsylvania, the sunny beaches thereof, very small, very run downtown. It's basically the plot from the movie

Cars. Have you ever seen that? So it's like they put in this highway thinking it's going to build up the town and it just destroys it. Everybody just drives past it. So we all, this town, the one Catholic church there, I saw the whole town come together. All these people that I knew, some of them were like just a hot mess. Some of them I didn't know had any faith. And I saw every one of them come together and do the exact same thing. And there was something really beautiful about that. And my stepdad said to me at the, at the wake afterwards, he's like, we're going to make a Catholic out of you yet. And I thought, well, hey, maybe you will.

I don't know, it was just kind of, it was interesting. Kind of filed that away, I didn't think much about it after the fact. And then one day I was driving in my car and I was listening to the radio and I was just kind of scanning through and I landed on WAOB, We Are One Body Radio. And I was listening to this smooth voice

and I was like, man, this guy, this sounds like grace. This sounds like the same faith, at least my understanding of it. This kind of sounds like the same faith, you know? Like this guy's a Christian. I've always been told that Catholics aren't really Christians. They had some good ideas,

but they didn't believe the right stuff. And I found out it was Father Boniface, who was, you know, you had on the show. And I was looking for a spiritual director because I was learning about the ministry of spiritual direction from that class and seminary, really kind of piecing everything together. So I found his blog, I found his email, I hunted him down. I reached out to him. I said, I need, I want a spiritual director. Do you do that sort of thing? And he responded and said, I'm, I don't have any time, but I've never had a Protestant reach out for direction. And I'm curious as to where this will go. And that was like four years ago. And I still like, I, I'm going to have spiritual direction with him tomorrow. And so I've been with Father Boniface as my spiritual director for four plus years at this point. And so that was like another domino that sort of fell. And

then I think the thing that really, so I started paying more attention in our services, like, because I played guitar almost every week and we were playing this song and I sat down with the lyric sheet and I counted that it said it referenced either I or me or us or we 30 some times. And it only mentioned God by any name maybe 10 or 12 times. And I said, I can't, I can't be right. Like there's that's off balance. Like I, and then I looked around the sanctuary and I'm like, these seats are so comfortable and these big screen TVs and people have their coffee in here. And again, I don't want to like downplay what was going on

and that church was feeding the hungry, that church was doing outreach, they were preaching the gospel to the best of their understanding of what the gospel is, really beautiful ministry things. But I thought like all of this is centered around us and our comfort and our sensibilities. I just didn't know if that was the right way to do things. Like it didn't look like what I was reading in the scriptures necessarily. And then the fire marshal was in one day to like make sure we were up to code, you know, check all of our fire extinguishers and stuff.

And this one dude was looking around and I said, what's you okay? And he said, man, this place is a technological wet dream. And I thought, why were you okay with saying that in a church? But was he a Christian? I don't know. But my thought was like, if we were in traditional architecture and there were stained glass in an altar, would he have said that same thing? You know, so I brought that up in an elder meeting and one of the elders said,

people don't know what holiness is. And I said, I think people know it when they encounter it. And I'm wondering, did he encounter it? Like, what are we doing? How are we preaching the gospel without words? You know, we're all about words. You know, everything is words. Like, we don't have any, there's no, you know, iconography of any sort. I didn't know what iconography was at that time. But what are we doing to set people up to experience God from the moment they walk through the door? You know, how is this any different than when they walk into Walmart or Target and there's a greeter and we want to get their information and give them a gift

and get them a cup of coffee and make them, like, I see how those things work for bringing people in, but where, you know, you get what I'm saying. Like I'm trying to piece that together. And then as as a Charismatic Church, we had the strong affinity for the nation of Israel, kind of this bleed-in of dispensational theology, where it's like, this is still God's special chosen people. I heard a lot of words about replacement theology. I didn't know what any of that meant. But so, we brought in a messianic Jewish rabbi

to teach about the festival of booths and how that's fulfilled in Christ. And I was like, this is interesting. I'm going to check this out. So he, you know, he preached his message. I don't really remember anything about it. We had the tabernacles set up. We built them in the, in the sanctuary. And at the end, he was chanting and praying and blessing the people, the blessing from numbers, you know, may the Lord bless you and keep you, make his face to shine upon you. He was chanting it in Hebrew. And afterwards, I mean, people were just enamored with this. I mean, they were just lauding the tradition. And I wish we had, I wish I just love the Jews. I wish we had what they have. And at this point, I'm like thinking we've got to have

something, right? Like we're making this up every week. It's up to like the production team to decide what songs are we playing? What's the message about? Will there be communion? Won't there be communion? Is there going to be a special object lesson, you know, kind of making things up as we go. And I said, there's gotta be something. So I was part of this group of guys that would get together to pray at like 6 a.m. And so we got together and we were talking about that service.

And the one dude, Mike, he said, hey, what do you know about Greek orthodoxy? I said, I don't know anything about it. I'm not Greek, you know? He said, well, there's this other dad on my son's soccer team. He's Greek orth Orthodoxy. I said, I don't know anything about it. I'm not Greek, you know? He said, well, there's this other dad on my son's soccer team. He's Greek Orthodox. He goes to this Mount Athos like every year and he's just like patient and peaceful. He never gets angry and he's never trying to convince me of anything. He said, and it's weird because like, even if I visit another Protestant church, they're like still like proselytizing me and this guy who thinks he has the truth isn't trying to convince me of it. So well,

let's find out about it. Let's learn about it. So we got a copy of a book called Becoming Orthodox by Father Peter Gilquist. That blew my mind. We took a visit to an Orthodox monastery in Elwood city that wrecked me. So then I started like investigating that. And so to tie it back into how I left my position, because I think I just went on a big tangent, more or less, I started having meetings with the senior pastor, I started pushing back on things in our elder meetings thinking like, maybe we could fix this, you know, and that was the wrong way to do it. I think too, like, it wasn't up to me to try

to change this whole church's mind on things. But eventually we got to a point where I said, I think I believe that baptism is sacramental and it's a means of grace and it's important and it's not to be repeated. And I believe in the real presence in the Eucharist. And he said, well, you know, you might want to consider resigning, you know, because long term, if that's what you believe, you wouldn't be the-term, if that's what you believe, you wouldn't be the guy we'd want in this role. And we were building this massive youth center and that was going to be a big thing. And he's like, we really need the right person to lead that project. I said, I don't think I'm, I don't think I'm him. So I resigned.

How was that for Becca and your family and providing? It sucked, you know? Yeah. But she was super supportive. Like never once was she like, are you sure? Maybe we shouldn't do this. Cause on her own, like she wasn't interested in these same things that I was interested in, but she was on board with the idea that I,

I don't agree wholeheartedly with what we're doing here. I love the people, I love the church. I love everything they've done for us. But I just don't think that this is the way to do church necessarily. So she had kind of actually quit going probably almost a year before that, which was weird, you know. But it was, it was hard because we were expecting our second child. We lived in a parsonage. We lived in a church house, you know. This was our main source of income.

And that conversation about my resignation was the week before all the COVID lockdowns. So it was like, we have to buy a house during all of this. We have to have a baby during all of this. We have to find, I have to find a job, which I still haven't. So if anybody wants to hire me, that'd be cool. Throw that out there. But yeah, the church was cool though. I mean, they gave us this buffer zone.

They said, we'll pay you for like six months, but like don't come to work. It's gonna be nice. It was pretty nice. But it was still really hard, man. Like that transition out of that. That takes, I mean, I'm sure you'll object to this, but that takes a ton of courage. Because whenever somebody takes a hit financially, and as you say, it's not like you had something else lined up. It's been over a year now and you still aren't employed. Right. So it wasn't like, well, I know where I'm going and it's not like you had something else lined up. It's been over a year now and you still aren't employed.

So it wasn't like, well, I know where I'm going and it's a safe bet. You got to a point where you couldn't keep justifying it and you're kind of suffering the consequences as it were because of that decision. So I think that takes courage. When did we talk? Like it was right. It was after I resigned. So you moved to what? January? I moved here

in January. Yep. January 4th. So it was around that week. I think that we just sent, I sent you an email because at that point I was, how did you hear about me? Yeah. So I was searching. Oh, okay. This is, this gets interesting. So I was kind of like Nicodemus style going to Orthodox churches. If I was off on a Sunday or I'd go for Vespers or I'd go for a feast day or something. And, um, there was like a month, two months, I couldn't make it to a, to a liturgy or anything like that. And I was used to like, I'll go to a liturgy. So you were going to an Orthodox church while I was still employed. Oh,

I see. Yeah. So, but I was just getting dry because I was, you know, that was really feeding me. Yeah. And I just couldn't make it, you know. And I was used to this sort of like spiritual tourism, you know, I remember in seminary, I went and visited a Hindu temple and a mosque and like really investigating everything. And I've always been curious as to like, how do I know that I have the truth? You know, if I don't, I have to know what everybody else believes in order to really evaluate is, do I believe the right thing? Maybe that's not the right way to live your life. Certainly has made me crazy, but that's where you're at. That's where you're at. Yeah. So I had just Googled, it was bizarre because I, it was right before the great fast

that year and I had Googled Eastern churches near me. And I don't know why I didn't type Orthodox. And Holy Trinity, Ukrainian, Greco-Catholic Church came up and I said, it's Catholic, but it doesn't look Catholic. It looks Orthodox, except there's like no icons and the iconostasis is different. It's weird. And I said, well, maybe you'll check it out. They had a Tuesday Divine Liturgy at noon, which I thought was weird. So I emailed the church email and Father Jason emailed me back and he said, hey, I hope this isn't too forward, but you want to come over for a steak and a cigar right now? Oh my goodness. Yeah. The first time I ever reached out to him. And I said, I would love to. And just so people know, we've had Father Jason on the show. So we've already referenced

Father Boniface who's been on the show. We've had Father Jason Charon, who's been on the show. People need to go check him out. We both love him dearly. He's such a good man. So I was like, I'll come to this Tuesday liturgy if that's a real thing. Like who does liturgy on Tuesday at noon? He said, no, we do. You know, so I went, I drove to it. Actually, the first time I went to go to it, I chickened out. I thought, no, I can't do this. Like I'm firmly planted in Orthodoxy and, and my priest- And did you become a catechumen at that point or were you just visiting? No, I was still inquiring at that point. And I was really kind of bouncing between,

so I was at an OCA parish in McKees Rock, St. Nicholas. For those at home, OCA. Orthodox Church in America, Russian Roots, which is a very active, beautiful parish. And I landed there because they had a symposium about Orthodox Christianity and the scriptures. And I wanted to learn about it. I was like, okay, I'm a Protestant, I'm a Bible guy, you know,

so let's see what they believe about the scriptures and developed a relationship with Father Tom at that parish and that's where I am currently. So I went to visit, you know, back to the other thing, I went to visit Holy Trinity and I went to the liturgy and this girl, Emily, who's so sweet, you've probably met her. And she comes up, she goes, hey, I've never seen you before. Do you want to sing in the choir? And I said, I don't. I can scream really well.

Yeah. I said, I don't really sing. She goes, we don't either. Come on. I was like, this is my first time here. She goes, just come on. So I sang the liturgy in the choir with them. And this other dude, Matt, gave me a free dozen pierogies.

And I was like, I mean, they're doing everything to bring you in, gave me a free dozen pierogies. And I was like, I mean, they're doing everything to bring you in. So God's sake, pierogies. And, and then father Jason sat with me afterwards and I said, what's, how, how are you this? Like, how are you all of this, but you're still Catholic? Like, what do you do with this Pope thing? What are you doing with the filioque, the immaculate conception? And that just started like these conversations that we had. I mean, that we're, we still have on occasion, but, um, and this was also really, really cool of him. Uh, I told him, I said, Hey, I just basically lost my job. You know, we're moving. He goes, do you need a house? I was like, what do you mean? Do I need a house? Because

I have this other parish in Wheeling. Like if you don't, if you have to get out of that person and you can just live there. Oh my goodness, I didn't realize that. Yeah, that was the first time I ever met him. Crazy. So I left and somehow I made this connection between Matthew 25, I think it's Matthew 25, the gospel reading for the Sunday of the Last Judgment.

He says, I was hungry and you fed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was in prison and you visited me. And I thought like, man, they housed me. They fed me pierogies. They clothed me in community. They let me sing with them. And so I was really moved by that.

At this point, like I'm still not interested theologically in Catholicism, but there's something there, right? And that kind of kicked off this whole, over the past, that was years ago, this vacillating between the two. So- So I don't mean to make this about me, but I'm interested as to how you and I got in touch. Oh, that's right. So after that, I'm like, okay, so there's a thing called Eastern Catholicism. I'm not interested. I don't think that I could be a Roman Catholic. I have, I don't, my mind isn't working that way. Like, I'm not formulating theological ideas that way. And that spirituality, like, I like parts of it. But like, you know, I'm not gonna, I, it's not me, you know? So I start researching Eastern Catholicism to try to understand how Orthodox is it?

How capital O Orthodox is it? And I come across your video with Father Michael O'Loughlin talking about Byzantine Catholicism and you know, how that works. Which subsequently I ended up getting connected to him, had like a three hour phone conversation with him. And I mean, I've talked to like everybody at this point. So if somebody's out there being like, oh, no, you just need to speak to, done it. Done it. Talk to everybody. You know, sometimes it makes it better. Sometimes it makes it worse. So that's, you know, I come across your stuff. I start watching like all of your videos. That was a period of time where you were doing a lot of, you know, should we be Eastern Orthodox with

Trent Horn and like that kind of stuff. So I'm just really interested. Same thing, like the same feeling I have with Father Boniface, where it was like, you kind of spoke the same language as I did. And I knew you were attending a Byzantine parish. And when you were getting ready to move, you said this thing that I was like, dude, that's me. Like that's, I'm sure a lot of people felt this way, but you said, you know, I'm excitable and I'm restless. And if somebody were like, let's move to Colorado, I'd be like, yeah, maybe we should. And I'm like, dude, that's me. So I thought this guy probably thinks the same way that I do. He's got to have some draw to Eastern spirituality, but he's firmly a Catholic.

If I'm really going to investigate this, maybe I should like find out how to get a hold of him. So I found your assistance email, then connected me to you. I sent you this like desperate email and I did the thing that I do that 100% of the time works. If I want somebody to respond to me, I include a GIF of Michael Scott saying, you miss 100% of the shots you don't take, Wayne Gretzky, Michael Scott, and they always respond. Always. So then you did and we kind of connected. Well, so like what you've said up until now just makes it sound like that you're on the path to

orthodoxy. I mean, you're an orthodox catechumen right now. So why not just do that? why not just do that? I don't know. I just keep having this attraction to Catholicism. But what's strange is you also say that you're not attracted to Roman Catholicism, which is like 90 plus percent of the Catholic Church. Which is weird to me that like people are discerning when they're discerning which path to go if they leave Protestantism or they're coming from atheism or whatever that they're like, oh, I'm either going to be a Roman Catholic or I'm going to be Eastern Orthodox. And it's like these two are so seemingly they're maybe not that different, but they're like really different. I mean, the way that they do theology is different. And I can't understand how somebody's like, these are both live options.

Like how could your brain work in both of those ways? So for me, it's always been either Eastern Orthodox or Eastern Catholic. And for those who are watching who may not know this, talk a little bit about Western orthodoxy. Yeah. What is that thing? Depends on who you ask. There's varying opinions on it, but there is in the Antiochian church and in the Rokor, Russian Orthodox church outside of Russia, they have what's called the Western rite. And what it is is they've kind of tried to revive

something from like the sixth century. I think it's- Father Patrick, who I often have on for debates, is a Western Orthodox. Which I'm surprised you haven't gotten more crap for that. Really? I really thought like Orthodox people wouldn't be cool with that. I mean the fact that he's debating the position they hold probably gives him a pass. He's not on talking about the merits of Western Orthodoxy.

Right. Is that how you say a Western Orthodoxy? Western right. Western right, okay of Western Orthodoxy. Is that how you say a Western Orthodoxy? Western rite. Western rite, okay, within Orthodoxy. So it's like the math, I think it's the the liturgy of St. Gregory. Right. It looks like a Latin mass. Yeah, just in English. But a lot of Orthodox will look at that and say, well, the Western rite is kind of inherently divisive because, I mean, this is so laden with trip-wise. Yeah, I got to really be careful of this. But more or less, it's like one of the big

hallmarks of Orthodox thought is you have this organic continuation of the tradition that's unbroken. And that particular part of it kind of stopped in the sixth century or later, you know, especially by the schism, you know, and has lived according to Orthodox thought apart from this continuation of Orthodox tradition. So you're trying to take it and skip this middle part and plug it right back in to a current place when it hasn't had a chance to organically develop. Now someone might be saying, you just admitted to development of doctrine in a way, because there, and maybe, maybe not. But so that's part of it. And so if you read like Father Alexander Schmemann,

he'll talk about, he has writings on the Western right where he says, you know, the Byzantine right is the fullest expression of Orthodox spirituality now. The Byzantine right in Orthodoxy. Yeah. Which they all, I mean, other than the Oriental churches all use the Byzantine right. So like the Russian church, the Antiochian church, the Greek church, the Serbian church, it is the Byzantine right. It all comes from Constantinople. So there's kind of like this idea that like this whole other,

this whole other part of our spiritual life was kind of lost. And that's unfortunate, but we can't just like plug it back in and try to make it happen again. Fair enough. I just think it is funny, like people watching at home, they who are Catholic, okay, I get it. Eastern Catholics, just as Catholic as we are, they are Orthodox who came back into union with Rome, back in the 16th century or something. But they don't often realize that there's Orthodoxy, but then you could go to something that looks that there's a Western right of Orthodoxy. Yeah. And there's even an argument that the Western right has been, the Western right in Orthodoxy has been Byzantinised far worse than the Eastern churches were Latinised.

Yeah. You know, so you'll have icons and not statues. Yeah. And you know, the language used is very Eastern still. So I get that. Yeah, so why not? I mean, I don't want to press this if you don't want to go there, but why not just become Orthodox? I mean, it sounds like this is where you feel like you're being led.

It feels like this is where you're being home. I guess what I'm trying to ask you is like, there must be something about Catholicism that just is like a pebble in your shoe that you would love to be able to, I don't want to put words in your mouth, but like dislodge. It just sounds like an easier life if you'd be like, cool, I'm Orthodox. This is it done. It would be easier. Try to figure out how to say this. We could talk about that. What would be easier? I actually think going Catholic would be far easier for me in terms of like my social life, potential employment opportunities for my children, education, unity, the availability

of sacraments, the availability of liturgical services that I could go to. You know, there's Catholic churches on every corner where I could be a communicant. I could go to confession at any one of them. I could go to adoration at any of them. Would I do that? I don't know. I don't live close, like Holy Trinity is like 30 minutes from me. And the closest Byzantine church is not very active. So in some senses, it would just be conveniently easier to be a Catholic, for sure. But it would be easier intellectually just to continue on this path towards Orthodoxy. And I've even tried to claim it as what I've called an ecclesiological Pascal's wager, which is that Catholicism recognizes the validity of the liturgy, the validity of the Holy Orders,

the priesthood, the validity of the sacraments within the East, within orthodoxy. But orthodoxy doesn't always reciprocate that. So it's like, if I wasn't sure which one was holy, true, this would be the route to go. This is like the safest bet. Catholicism. Orthodoxy. Yeah. Because it's like both sides saying, yeah, this is okay. You know what I mean? But the parts about Catholicism that have been attractive to me have been like this, maybe I've been like spiritualizing this discernment process. So I got to figure out how to pivot this. If it were just doctrine, which some people would say it should only be doctrine,

if it were just doctrine, I'm Orthodox all day. I've had to like really try hard and do a lot of intellectual gymnastics to try to sign off on some Catholic stuff. Like, and this is probably the part where the chat blows up and tells me I'm a heretic. Hopefully they'll have a little more grace and patience, the sort of patience they'd like, you know, given to them if they were at this. Yeah, you hear that? So, um, okay. What was I saying? Certain doctrines that you just can't get on board with. When I look at, so I think the thing that kind of happened is, you know, I'm still searching the scriptures, which is good, you know, that's not just an exclusively Protestant thing,

but that's what I'm trained to do is to look for my answers exclusively in the scriptures. So that's my starting point, at least. You know, at this point I've kind of of shed sola scriptura and all of that stuff. And I'm open to other things, but I'm seeing Jesus locked in this combative relationship with the Pharisees. And the Pharisees are on paper, right? I mean, he even says, do what they teach you.

Don't do what they do though. And so I'm looking at it and I'm like, okay, I believe that orthodoxy has all the right doctrines. I really do. But then I see some of the behavior online, you know, the ortho bro thing and like even just in some visits to parishes where it's like, people don't talk to you. They don't care if you're there. The American problem, you know, a lot of people talk about the ethnic problem in

Orthodoxy, which I really think is just an American issue. Like I don't think anybody in Serbia or Russia is saying like the church is too Russian. It's too Serbian, you know. That's the point though, isn't it? Isn't that the point? That's the complaint. The complaint arises from being an American and going to say a Greek Orthodox church and being like, this is really Greek. Yeah. Are you Greek? No. Oh, that's okay. I've gotten that. You know, I've gotten that sort of thing. What did you say when you were going to get your child baptized or something or someone had their child baptized and now becoming Serbian? Yeah, I was in the Serbian parish and the woman we were talking and she thought it was cool that we were interested. And she goes, you know, my

grandbabies, my daughter won't have them baptized. And I just don't understand why she doesn't want them to be Serbian. And I thought, what do you think? What kingdom do you think they're being baptized into? Like into the kingdom of Serbia? That doesn't, I digress, but the Pharisees, right? So I see a lot, I've seen a lot of pride, you know, on both sides and the tradition, the trad movement and Catholicism and, you know, the hardline Orthodox movement as well. And this is something that both sides need to learn about

and fix and correct. But I'm like, okay, right doctrine's great. But then I also read like, again, that Sunday, the last judgment, that gospel reading, when Jesus talks about what you will be judged by But then I also read, like again, that Sunday, the last judgment, that gospel reading, when Jesus talks about what you will be judged by when he returns, there's not a single mention of theological correctness in there. Now, I think it is that theological correctness should lead you to bear the fruit of these

things by which you will be judged. Are you feeding the hungry? Are you clothing the naked? Are you visiting the sick and the imprisoned? Are you taking in the homeless? Are you doing the hungry? Are you clothing the naked? Are you visiting the sick in the imprisoned? Are you taking in the homeless? Are you doing these things? And at least as an American witness, the Catholic Church is doing an exceptional job of,

I mean, what's the largest charitable organization in the world, whatever. But I see a lot of those things. I see people doing that stuff. So that's super attractive, you know? And I'm thinking, okay, what's better? Should I yoke myself to a system that is doing the things that I need to do to be prepared for my judgment, to bear the fruit that the kingdom of God demands that we bear? Or do I need to just be right? See, okay, but one of the objections a lot of people have to Catholicism is the hypocrisy, or they say, well, I went to a Catholic school and you

should see what they believe there. And the faithful Catholic responds by saying, okay, but don't judge Catholicism by those who aren't taking the medicine, right? Judge Catholicism by those who are. And so, couldn't something similarly said about orthodoxy? And of course the answer is yes. But someone would say, okay, I understand that you go into these Orthodox parishes and maybe you're not seeing a lot of either welcoming people there or people who are engaged in charity, but they do exist. Trey Lockerbie So just become right and do the right thing. Jared Ranere And that's the, that's kind of the follow-up thing is there's nothing inherent to the system

in Orthodox theology that says don't feed the hungry. Make sure you isolate people by asking if they're Serbian, demanding that they be that. And there's a lot of beautiful examples of that living like Focus North America or the fellowship of St. Moses the Black, but the neighborhood resilience project in Pittsburgh that are doing these things, you know, and there's there are opportunities. But the thing is you in America, you have this imbalance where, you know, Catholics run the show. Yeah. And orthodoxy is, you know, orthodoxy came to this country as a refugee movement, not as a missionary movement aside from Alaska. And ifodoxy is, you know, orthodoxy came to this country as a refugee movement, not as a missionary movement, aside from Alaska.

And if you look at all the other countries where orthodoxy went as a missionary movement, it is the normative form of Christianity. That's not the case in America. So all these refugees pile in, they start bringing in clergy from back home. And now you have these parallel jurisdictions, which is an anomaly. It's a canonical anomaly. It directly goes against the canons that say you should only have one bishop per city.

Which is why, if I understand correctly, even if like, let's say like France, which is predominantly a Catholic country, if an Orthodox parish sets up a mission in like Paris, they're not gonna install a bishop there because there's already a Catholic bishop. If I understand, I might be wrong, but they'll be under like the, um, under the bishopric of like, like if, if Russia sends, you know, there's a Russian population, so they set

up a parish there, they won't put a Russian bishop there. He'll just be underneath one in Moscow or whatever. Um, I don't know why I told you that, but, um, yeah, so that's why America is a mess like that. So it's like, we're just kind of finding our voice as an orthodox people in America. Notice there that I just said our voice. I did notice that. And you said we. Like I'm so deeply in love with and connected to that. But yeah, I think one of the things that, well, I get a couple of random thoughts which

don't connect but I think are interesting. It seems like even just in my lifetime, each religious group has had its heyday. Each religious group has had a time where they seemed like the cool kids on the block. Like there was a time where, you know, I was after my conversion, I was 17 years old, I would look at the Assemblies of God and I would see, oh my goodness, it's like a rock concert. And to me at the time, that was a good thing. Yeah.

You know, but they seemed young, they seemed hip, they seem positive. They were, they were welcoming, like legit virtues, you know? And I'm sure there was a time where I or others thought, I just, I want to belong to this. Like whatever you think of Hillsong, you know, you can't deny the fact that they are a beautiful, shiny, attractive group of human beings. And no doubt there were people who were going to some run down, aging Catholic parish and their evangelical friend invited them to Hillsong.

They're like, no, this is it. Right. So they've had their heyday. And then it felt like there was a time when the Catholic church had its heyday. It's like John Paul II was a saint, a boss monster. He was a philosopher of a high caliber. And it felt like both Orthodox, whatever criticisms could be leveled at John Paul, to whatever Orthodox and Protestants

looked at that man and thought, this guy's a saint. I want to belong to that. They may not have wanted to belong to their particular local Catholic parish, which may have been teaching heresy or may have been sloppy in the liturgy, but they'd look at John Paul II and they're like, I want to be part of this worldwide church, right? Whereas now, honestly for me, I look at Pope Francis, who I'm not particularly impressed with. I see the corruption in the church financially, sexually. I see some bishops who seem to lack backbone. And I'm looking at orthodoxy, I'm like, yeah, I can see why that's completely attractive.

Like, at least online, the curb appeal is great. It's like, yeah, man, like this is the ancient church. And I understand, and as a Catholic, believe that there has been, you know, you can trace the lineage of the Catholic Church back to Christ and the Apostles, but you look at the way some Novus autos are celebrated, you're like, oh my gosh, it's that, or this glorious Russian Orthodox liturgy. So I get it. Like I feel like I'm kind of with you in that attraction to it.

Obviously neither of us, and no one should be making a decision based on just what seems cool right now. Right. You know, like what if we had like a saintly pope right now, and some people might say we do, but like what if we had someone who most people are like, wow, this guy, you know, he's terrific, he's holy, his teachings are orthodox, there's no ambiguity. Maybe Catholicism will look a heck of a lot more attractive. And yet at the same time,

we don't want to be deciding where we go based on how something looks and appears in the moment. You know, right. My mind went into like a hundred different fractals on that. But, um, and you know, all that, I know, by the way, I know I'm not saying anything you don't know. It's just, yeah, no, but it's, but that's, I mean, that's interesting. Like the first time that we ever talked, I was telling you that the attraction to Catholicism for me were the fruit that I saw in this. And you said, well, that's great. Well, why don't you just be a Mormon?

Like the Mormons are so nice. They'll take care of you. And you're like, and I said, that's just not, you know, as you always say, that's not a live option because I know that there's, that's not true. So it's been this kind of like head and heart battle to like bring the two together and connect it. Like what is true. And I realized, you know, along the way, like as I dove very deeply into orthodoxy that I mean, as deep as you can in a number of years, I mean, it's infinitely deep, but

I never took the time to kind of examine some of these theological things in Catholicism that I didn't believe. I just didn't believe them, you know. And I have found that it's at least to the best of my understanding, which is flawed, that things are far closer than I thought they were in a lot of things. So, you know, immaculate conception, the view of the theotokos as panagia in orthodoxy. And there is an idea of primacy in the first millennium. It's just, you know, where did that overstep? And you know, taking St. Paul seriously, where he says, if you depart from the tradition, then you shouldn't go to the table together. And that's why there's a break in at least ecclesial communion and, or even, you know, purgatory and aerial toll

houses. And they're very different, but you see that there's at least some idea that, you know, death is purgatorial. So it's just like, there's, there's something to work with there, you know, if we can talk about it, I guess. But yeah, so I slowly like one by one felt like, you know, I could probably sign off on some version of the filioque, right? Like at least, you know, maybe as expressed by like St. Maximus, the confessor or something. And then I thought, Oh, but I wouldn't express it that way, you know, or maybe I could sign off on some version of the Immaculate Conception. I'm okay with, I mean, technically you could hold to it as an Orthodox and not be heretical. It's just the imposition of it.

So slowly I'm like, I could sign off on these things maybe, but I wouldn't express it that way. So does that put me in the position of an Eastern Catholic? Where it's like, okay, I can't outwardly, I can't outright deny these things necessarily. So eventually it kind of boils down to just the issue of the papacy, which still, you know, I just, I'm not, I can't, like, I'm not at a point where I could do that. I have a question and forgive my ignorance here. Okay. But sometimes I think Catholics view Orthodox as, this is going to make people angry, I don't mean it to be disrespectful, but as Protestants who also have the fathers and

who also have maintained the traditions within the liturgy. I guess what do you think of that? Because it's almost like solar scripture plus the consensus of the fathers plus we have to maintain the liturgy. But I wonder what happens when you get down to issues of the day that need to be discussed and decided upon and suppose you're an orthodox priest who thinks actually contraception is okay. You know, this is not something you know, that should divide us or, or whatever. I mean, contraception might be an obvious issue. But it's an easy one to discuss. Do you then just like leave your Orthodox communion

and join another one? Because that's the other thing I think a lot of Catholics wonder about, you know, and please don't hear me say, look how united we Catholics are. You only have to spend 10 minutes online to realize we're a mess as well. But you have Serbians and Russians and Greeks, and then you have this sort of schism between the Greeks and the Russians. And it also looks messy over there as well. Yeah. Yeah. Well, in terms of the bouncing around, I mean, that definitely happens where people are like, let's say they're in a Greek parish and they're like, oh, there's a lot of liberalism here.

And so I'm going to go to a Russian parish. It's far more conservative. I mean, you see the same thing in Catholicism where somebody's like, I'm in a Novus Ordo parish and it's getting super liberal. So I'm either going to go to a Latin mass or I'm going to go to a Byzantine church. And that person isn't breaking union and doing that. That's the difference. In reality, neither is the Orthodox. Oh, I see. So even though like, so in the example that you put forward of like Constantinople and

Moscow being out of communion, it's the best of my knowledge. I don't think anybody, some people say, well, there's a parallel church now, but it's still one church. So like, you know, first millennium, you see kind of more of this communion ecclesiology, Eucharistic ecclesiology, where it's like at any given point, one of the particular churches is out of communion with another one. Like that's not abnormal at all in church history. Like even I think like St. John Chrysostom when he died, wasn't in communion with Rome. If I, if I remember, I might be wrong, but he's still a saint in Catholicism. Yeah. So it's like, he wasn't technically, he wasn't in communion.

So you would say he wasn't part of the church, but he's still a canonized saint. So there's this kind of flexibility when it comes to that. So in some sense, maybe I do think even currently, maybe here comes the- There's a potential position that someone somewhere probably holds. Asking for a friend. That it is still maybe one church. Right. It's just currently, these ones are not in communion with one another.

I would like it to be that. That'd be far easier. You mean Catholicism as well? Yeah. Yeah. Who wouldn't? Right. So, you know, a friend says like, Satan loves to divide and if he can't actually divide, he at least gives the appearance of division, you know?

And there's plenty of examples, especially're cross communing, you know, either way. Like I know Catholicism allows for that sort of thing. Like an Orthodox could commune there, but vice versa too has happened. Like I've heard of those sort of things. But especially in the Middle East, like you go to Syria, the Melkite Church and the Antiochian Orthodox Church, they can celebrate Pascha together. And part of that is because of persecution, so maybe that's what we need. But it's funny, in some sense, it seems like Catholics are bending over backwards to say, hey, brothers, we're the same, please. Whereas it can seem that the Orthodox are very like, we're nothing like you, like please, you know. Whereas it can seem that the Orthodox are very

like we're nothing like you, go away, you stink. But then at the same time it's like no, if you break communion with the Pope of Rome, if you deny papal infallibility, like you are in schism, like you're outside of the bands. Yeah. Well, even with the bending over backward thing, like in my opinion, I think that the Catholics need the Orthodox to be like, hey, we're not going to bend over backwards when it comes to the liturgy or when it comes to doctrine. Like Lexarundi, Lex Credendi, right? We pray what we believe. Like you don't trifle with the liturgy.

And I mean, this is a pain that you're going through right now is like, we're being liturgically suppressed, we're being, you know, all these innovations and crazy crap and... So that's going to be a turnoff for you as somebody who's looking at these two things. Is it a turnoff? It is, yeah. And you know, a big thing that I heard a priest say once too, like when he was Yeah, and a big thing that I heard a priest say once too, like when he was an Orthodox priest, when he was a former Presbyterian, say like, I realized that the church my children

would inherit could not be guaranteed to be the same church. And I thought about that. Like my life, I grew up in a broken home, I moved around a lot, I had no stability. So just on a practical level, I want to provide my children with stability, not just in the home, but spiritually as well. Like I want to give them a firm foundation and I want to be able to guarantee that their children

and their children's children are going to inherit the same church that believes and expresses the same things and prays the same way. You know? And can I try to sum up where you're at just so that I can find out where I'm wrong? Sure. You know, so it sounds like right now you've, you've had this sort of journey discovering the truth taught by orthodoxy and Catholicism, and you feel that what the Orthodox Church maintains and teaches is correct. But a lot of your friends, such as your spiritual father and others, are Catholic, and you see a virtue in them that can't be discounted. And the idea that, well, it's true over here,

so just go there, is to discount the importance of the communal aspect that you see in the Catholic Church, perhaps, and the way in which it feeds the poor and puts emphasis on that. And so it feels like, I don't know, like too quickly to say, well, whatever, whatever about that, that's not what matters. What matters is right doctrine. And so it's over here. So just do that. Is that, does that kind of,

not to mention the other problems you have with Catholic doctrines that you cannot go all the way there, like with papacy, filioque, like maybe somewhere, but why would I bother to try when I'm also looking at what's going on at Rome, when I'm seeing what's going on in some of your parishes? Yeah, I think that's all in all pretty fair. Because if that's fair, then I think you should become Orthodox. And people are going to be very upset. Everybody's going to be mad at both of us. What they don't realize is that you and I have talked for hours about the papacy, filioque,

macular conception. And not only that, but like you and I and Scott Hahn have had cigars and spoken about this and we've gone to dinner and spoken about this. So I'm just thinking like someone in your position, it, it makes sense that you just become Orthodox and then be those things that you see in Catholicism. Okay. So obviously I want you to become Catholic because I think Catholicism is the fullness of the truth.

Um, but, but why not do that? Like that seems probably what I'm do that? I mean, that's probably what I'm going to. I mean, that's what I'm doing. Well, thanks for watching everybody. But I mean, it's still, it's something that you have to talk about. Like you're right, you can't just immediately dismiss these things over here. But on, on in the same vein, like I can't immediately dismiss all of Protestantism either for the same reasons. Like, so there's something that like, when you look at, I guess, especially post Vatican II, this expression of all baptized believers are in one degree or another communion with the church, that's helpful. You know what I mean? That's helpful to say like, oh good,

we're all Christians, you know? But there's a spectrum of belief and understanding and orthodoxy as well where you'll have on one movement, there's no grace anywhere else. If you pray with these people, you're in heresy and you're inherently in schism. You know, I have a friend who's a Ruthenian Catholic priest. He was an Anglican. And when he converted, it was between, he's like, I knew I was Eastern. I knew I had to go one way or the other. He said, I had one brother who's a Ukrainian Orthodox priest. And when we would go on family vacations, he refused to pray with us even at meals. He said, that's just so, you know, I just,

to him, he's like, that doesn't feel like Christ to me. But then who's to say in orthodoxy? That's what I always find difficult. And that's not meant to be a gotcha question. It's just like, if I was discerning orthodoxy, you've got these real issues about if you're not orthodox, you're going to hell. Or maybe hell doesn't exist according to some orthodox. And I just want to know, how do you get away from having an ultimate authority that makes these decisions to continue to teach the church? You might see the appeal in that, even if you

ultimately disagree with it. No? No, I mean, I do. I brought this up in a chat, I think in one of the morning coffee things. Number one, people who don't do well with gray areas don't do well in orthodoxy because it is so yoked to mystery. And even the scriptures are pretty mysterious, you know, the scriptures scriptures don't have any like real explicit teaching on things like hell. I mean, you can, you can glean something from that and formulate that it exists and that it's real.

But like what happens when you die? What happens at the moment the soul separates from the body? Like, you know, things like that. So we need to be okay with that sort of, you know, you can't grasp everything sort of thing, which I find appealing. Yeah, there's frustrations in that,

but there's equal frustrations with somebody who can define and parse out everything. So that's, you know, like for example, there's a lot of like Catholic teaching on finances and economics and stuff like that. That like blows my mind. I'm like, why? I mean, I guess it's somebody said like, isn't it good? You know, the church should have something to say about those things. I'm like, yeah, but at a certain point, you know, now let's tie it back into that idea of like a pharisaical doctrine. So it's like, you know, the fair, eventually it became that there was like 600 songs. I

mean, more, there was just, you know, the traditions of, I gotta be careful with my words. At what point are you, are you binding people to so much teaching authority that you yourself cannot bear to keep them? And that seems to be a fracturing problem that I see in Catholicism, and is that there's so many points of Catholic explicit parsed out teaching on every little thing that the faithful within can't keep them all anyway. Mason Hickman And see, I think why Jimmy Akin is so necessary is that I think he would say that that's not the case. That Catholics often make it seem like there is much more you have to accept. And there is actually a lot of play in the joints.

So like even though you'll hear a Dominican talk about Thomas's answer to free will and God's sovereignty, okay, but you still have, you know, Molanism as an option that a Catholic can embrace even though the Dominican thinks he's wrong. So there is this flexibility there, and you might just say like there are these kind of guardrails and within that, you know, that's actually why I appreciate Jimmy Akin so much. I often find that Catholics get super into their particular thing and their way of explaining something. You know, one example would be the rosary. It's so funny because I love the Holy Rosary, but it just bugs me when you hear Catholics say things

like you have to pray the rosary or you're not a Catholic. You're like, but the Catholic Church doesn't teach that, except for that. Well, that's even the thing like with the, like, how do they know what is, what holds how much weight? Like it's so defined that it's like, Like academic almost. I would have to spend the rest of my life studying how to parse out and define what is authoritative in Catholic teaching before I could even follow it. I see.

And that's when I think like Jordan Peterson talks about this too with when it comes to orthodoxy and what's attractive about it is personal responsibility. Like, okay, you're, you say this too, like you have the scriptures, you have the lives of the saints, you have the prayers. You have the catechism. I always include that. Sure. And I mean, there are catechisms in orthodoxy. And it's like, okay, you know, like he says, pick up your cross and stumble up the hill to the city of God. Like, and that struggle of, you know, you can't know everything.

That's what faith is all about, you know? So I guess it appears to me, at least on a personal level, that sometimes the tendency to over-define in Rome's corner almost eliminates, I don't want to say eliminates faith, that's a bad way to say it, but I think you kind of get what I'm saying. Like isn't part of the problem that like Catholicism has had to confront maybe different sorts of heresies than the East has. Like if you're a persecuted church, maybe you're just trying to stay alive as opposed to respond to particular heresies. Whereas you're saying that orthodoxy has the persecuted church being like under the Ottomans

and different things. Communism. Yeah. Whereas, you know, if you've got all sorts of like Protestantism, for example, that's going to make you have to define a lot of things. If people start saying false things, you have to in response, say right things. And then even in orthodoxy, if you start to press orthodox about say the the energy's essence distinction, I mean, you got to get pretty bloody specific if you want to show that it doesn't contradict God's divine simplicity. So you know, maybe this is just where I struggle to understand. You know, like I see what you say we do in the mysticism of the East. I love that sound. I love the sound of that.

And no doubt God is ultimately mystery and unknowable. But you know, if I'm going to respond to real specific objections, I need to give real specific answers. If I'm going to show that I'm not contradicting myself. I get that you probably disagree with that, but like, do you really see where I'm coming from? Yeah. Like if someone wants to, if someone has a very nuanced heresy regarding the two natures of Christ, you're going to have to get real specific.

I know that this happens now in our current context and culture and on the internet, but this whole idea of among the laity combating over orthodoxy and heterodoxy is pretty foreign to orthodox life. Like yes, there's a large contingency right now of, of online orthodox people that are like, you're heretic, you're this, you're this is wrong. That's not, that's not the way that it's done. Like that's not, you're not going to see, it's just not part of the system. If that makes sense. Like, you know, I'll just leave that at that. But yeah, it's interesting, like even as you're saying, you know, something about like having somebody to have like an ultimate authority and define things.

It's even strange to say like, okay, you know, this, this papacy, this pope figure, this Bishop of Rome, who's supposed to be the source of unity seems like he's anything but right now. And then even as you have all this infighting for geopolitical reasons over here in the Eastern Church and Orthodoxy, I actually know that the faith that I'm going to hear and pray in any of those churches is going to be the same. So I mean, you want to talk about unity, like even, like let's say Bartholomew, this is going to get hot, but let's say Bartholomew, this is going to get hot, but let's say Bartholomew had some friends in who brought a- And just for those at home, Patriarch of Constantinople.

Yeah, Patriarch for the Greek Church and others. Let's say he had some friends in from out of town and they brought a statue and everybody kind of bowed down to it in the garden. You better believe the laity of that church would change the locks and they would depose him. Like there would be no equivocation whatsoever about that. So there is a deep unity in orthodoxy, even though people want to point at it and say, oh, it's not one church. It's yeah, it has problems, but like, and then, you know, the counter to that is something

that people express as part of the beautiful thing of Catholicism, you know? Well, just, just to be clear, I mean, a faithful Catholic took that idol and threw it in the Tiber and it was celebrated all over the world. Right. But then there was like a subsequent attempt of like, let's maybe make this sound like it wasn't as bad as it was, or then some people made it sound worse than it was, or whatever. Maybe that wasn't a great example. But the point that I'm trying to make is that I really do look at the two and I see that like, yes, there's this kind of community in Catholicism that seems more unified. But in terms of faith and belief and consistency, it seems like Orthodoxy is far more unified

in that regard. And in general, like when I, now we could get into the topic of like doctrinal development if we wanted to, I don't know that we should, but it seems that Orthodoxy has kind of maintained this Semitic mind that the early, that the apostles had, you know, that I believe that any of the apostles would be able to teach comfortably in an orthodox church. And I try to like play that out, you know, what would it look like if St. Paul showed up at, you know, your average novice ordo parish and started teaching, you know, how

would people receive that if they didn't know who he was? It does seem to me that in most Orthodox parishes, people would say, yeah, this is our faith. So for whatever that's worth, I don't know. I mean, this might be a little defensive on my part, but the fact that we read Paul's epistles at every mass, I would think that we would sort of be like, yeah, that's our faith. Yeah, that's fair. That's true. I'm sorry.

I didn't know it wasn't an attack. That's definitely not what your point was that maintain the Semitic mind. Yeah. And so the Orthodox would actually look at, at like Roman Catholicism and Protestantism and say these two things are far more similar. Yeah. In some ways. So I mean, just, you know, ignore the question if it's too much of an ask, but like what specific things do you think, um, people would react to in, in Paul's preaching that you think are, are more in line with, uh, Orthodox kind of, not only

the, the, the doctrine, you know, in some library far away, but also lived out in these, you know, Orthodox parishes that you see. What are some of the things that you think are more in line with that than it would be, you know, on the Catholicism side? Yeah, that's a great question. And I'd have to think probably a lot longer than I have to do that. So maybe that kind of reveals a deficiency in my own thought process, which I'm okay with. I recognize that. Like I'm, I'm not super smart.

I'm educated, but I'm not super smart. And, and all of this in the scheme of things is still kind of new. But you know, one, one passage that I referenced before where Paul's saying like, hold fast to these traditions, you know, whether we taught you in letter or word of mouth, and then in another spot and I think one of the Corinthians first, maybe, you know, if anybody's departed from these things, like, don't go to the chalice with them, don't go to the table with them. And kind of that, you know, forced idea, maybe in Catholicism where it's like we are going to maintain this unity in this Eucharistic cross communing by any means necessary, you know? And even though there's some varying theological thoughts or expressions, and maybe sometimes

they are even contradictory to one another, I don't know. Especially in the Eastern and Western expressions, you know. I feel like I just didn't answer you really well. What was the question again? If you were saying that you think that the Orthodox Church, both in its doctrine kind of in a, you know, Orthodox library locked up far, far away, but also in how it's lived out in the Orthodox parishes that you've seen, you think that it more closely reflects, you know, the Apostles and what they would teach, and they would be more comfortable in

an Orthodox church. So it's just kind of, you know, it seems like there's a lot of talk about consistency, the doctrines, how they look on paper and then how they look lived out and things like that. I think just my question is, you know, if you don't mind like getting into like specifics, like what are some specific things that you think that Maybe you've seen in parishes Either Catholic or Orthodox where they would be more or less comfortable with what specific things so even let's stick with the liturgy, right? And to be fair all the things that are Apostolic about the Eastern liturgy or part of the patrimony of the West too.

Unfortunately, that's the part of your tradition that's some would say being actively attacked or suppressed. Because like a, so a friend of mine went to seminary in his church, I think his church history or maybe his New Testament professor, ironically enough was a practicing Jew. And she said, you know, if you want to see the closest thing to temple worship that we have, and this is all she knew at the time, was go to a Latin Mass,

you know? And the Latin Mass and the Byzantine liturgy in terms of its form, I mean, I still see that form even when I visited Novus Ordo Parish, loosely it's there, you know. But that it's the same in that continuity. You know, in Acts, the apostles and the early Christians were still going into the synagogues, they're still going to the temple, they were maintaining that worship,

and they were doing the exclusively Christian parts of it in their homes, and then eventually they kind of, you know, brought the two together. So, do you think if the West was Latin, just it was all Latin mass, you'd be a lot more open?

I don't know, because I, I don't know, I've never been to a Latin mass. Oh, well, let's take it. Yeah, I'd check it out. Yeah. I don't know, either probably be a part it. Yeah, I'd check it out. Yeah, I don't know. You know, there'd probably be a part of me too that would find something to say like, oh, well, you know, why isn't it in the vernacular? And, you know, and I think about too, like even missionary activity, you know, the way that the West did missionary activity versus the way the

East did missionary activity. There's a lot of imposition of you have to learn Latin and adopt our customs, where it seems to me that the East did a better job of going and learning the culture and baptizing the good things and get rid of the bad things. And you don't think that happened in the West so much? It doesn't seem like, I mean, like if you go to India, right? So you have like the Malankara church, both, or Malabar. Both Catholic or Orthodox, you know, and they have their distinct flavor in their liturgy, but they maintain all those elements. But then

you also have like this large portion of, you know, the Indian population celebrating the Roman Catholic mass too. Like, why are both of those there? Why did we have to impose something that was distinctly Western on them? You get what I'm saying? Mason- Yeah. When there was this right to begin with. I'm not sure much about the Malabar or where they came from. Trey- It kind of happened everywhere a little bit. So even if you go to Alaska, the Russians came over and walked over the ice shelf and evangelized them. And they kept things like, they took their totem poles and they made them into icons. So it's like, you don't

believe that your God is actually in this. It's just like a depiction and it's like a window into the, so they kind of re-appropriated that. So one of the things I thought was so important to have you on and talk about is just like that angst, that feeling of being unsettled, where you want to make a decision, but for the life of you, you can't. You said already that you had kept vacillating

between the two, and just what an exhausting experience that is, where one day you're convinced of one thing, the next day you're convinced of another. I imagine sometimes you even try to impose upon yourself a sort of artificial certainty so you can finally think about something else. Yeah, and I keep thinking, if I could just get this one thing figured out,

maybe everything else will fall into place. Maybe I'll be able to find vocationally that'll work out. My family, my wife and I are not entirely on the same page with it. And maybe if I had some stability in this and was sure, my family, you know, my wife and I are not entirely on the same page with it. And, you know, maybe if I had some stability in this and was sure, like she'd be like, okay, maybe I'll give it a shot, you know? And she did kind of give it a shot, but then she saw that I was still, well, maybe this, maybe that, you know?

So like, I mean, am I just catching you on a like orthodox bend at this point? Like if I had interviewed you a week ago or in two weeks from now, might this sound a lot more, I'm open to Catholicism? Dude, I don't know. Yeah. Bless you. What a beautiful answer. Yeah. I mean, if you would have asked, what's today? Friday? If you would ask me on Monday, I've, I actually, you know, forgive me for Orthodox friends listening. I was like, maybe, you know, maybe I do belong there, you know? Then there's the whole issue of, and we can talk about this too, like, okay,

I wanna discern properly using my reason to look at all the evidence and come to a conclusion, but I also wanna be open, and maybe this is a hangover from my charismatic days of where does God want me? Could it be possible that he maybe wants me somewhere that I don't understand? Maybe he wants to require that level of faith faith or maybe there's something he wants to do in me and through me with me in that space, you know?

And some people might say like, that's foolish. Like, you just need to go with what's true. I'm like, well, okay, you know, what is truth? Like if God is truth and prayerfully, I feel like he's revealing for me to go somewhere, then I need to follow that. Now, I like what you're saying because what you're not saying is if I feel that God's leading me somewhere, that contradicts what I know to be true. That's not what you're saying.

Right. Right. So I think that's an important distinction there because you're not being a religious indifferent at this point. You are saying like, maybe I understand everything about it. I don't, you know, I won't accept something that I think to be in contradiction to the truth. I mean, you can even look at something like maybe a loose analogy, like the prophet Jonah, like he's called to Nineveh and he's like, no, that's not a good place. I don't want to go to there. But he, and he runs away from it, and he runs

away from it. And then ultimately he, he follows that call and then like something good happens out of that, right? Now I'm not saying that the Catholic church is Nineveh and I'm going to call it to repentance and fix all of its problems. I know that's not the case. Mason- Be cool if it was, please come. Trey- Wouldn't it be? But yeah, you know, so it's like I've had these moments in prayer and I, you know, circling way back to like the Ignatian stuff, right? I'm having a hard time letting go of that. You know, that's not something that exists in Eastern thought. There's kind of this avoidance of imagination and that sort of thing. But I've discerned a lot of things using that process. I've been told by individuals, like, hey, when you come into the Orthodox Church,

you have to renounce that. Mason Hickman And forgive me, but it also sounds like you've had experiences where our Lord has done profound healing in you through these imaginative experiences that you can't discount. Exactly. So, you know, I was doing, I was in a program where I was getting a certification in lay spiritual direction. So like I, part of our reading for that was this book called God's Voice Within by Father Mark Thibodeaux. He's a Jesuit. And so I'm reading this book and this is around the time that I'm kind of like I've just kind of discovered Holy Trinity But I'm comfortable at st. Nicholas and I'm like, where do I go? What do I do?

And I thought well, this is a great resource like he's granted. It's Catholic He's talking about this is how you can kind of discern things, you know, look for the movements of the spirit consolations desolations You're you know looking back from your deathbed, which decision do you wish you would have made? Pray it forward and think, what will my life look like if I go down this path, if I go down this path? And when I read that book, every single thing that I went through on that was like, you should go, you should join the Catholic church. But then I'm like, okay, my, my Orthodox sensibility say you can't trust that.

You could either be deceiving yourself, or even in your prayer, these maybe visions that you're receiving or whatever, could be demonic influence, you know? So you gotta resist those. And if you resist the devil, he will flee from you, but if it's God, like, he's not gonna stop. So that's kind of a weird tension where I'm like, okay, maybe, maybe that's just a natural part of my, my spiritual growth,

where it's like that, that played a part of my life for a particular period of time. Like the writing of the letters, which I think now we would look back on and be like, I could see how God would work through it, but it doesn't seem like a great way to be like, this is basically scripture. It's God's words. So that's hard because there's like these profound emotions attached to that, to these experiences, you know? And even like one day I was like, okay, you know what? Screw it, man. I'm just not going to eat for three days and I'm going to pray and I'm going to fast as though this were some prescription for getting an answer after three days, you know, that's kind of cool. I love it. I love your enthusiasm in your heart. That's not how it works. Right.

What happened though? When did you faint? Well, I didn't faint, but I did it and I did the same. I was praying and I was like, okay, if I go down this path and I look at my life, I'm like, I'm going to have, you know, I'm going to have all these people and have all these, you know, I could see maybe this vocational path, you know, in front of me and I could maybe influence people for the kingdom of God and do all these really great things and be really comfortable and be really happy. Like it was just a very smiley thing that I was discerning. And I thought I finished that prayer and I said, all right, that's what I'm going to do. Now the next day. What was the conclusion? The conclusion was if I were going to,

if I went down the Catholic path, I would be far happier. Oh, okay. And then the next day I thought about it and I said, all those things that I thought were going to make me happy really were kind of worldly things. So is worldly happiness the right thing to pursue? You know, is that me just tapping back into some prosperity gospel or some version of it that I was a part of at one point where it was, if I just do all the right things, if I follow what I think God is, he's going to bless me, I'm going to have all this prosperity and all these relationships and things like that. And again, I read all these Orthodox writings where it's like, you're going to suffer, you're

going to be persecuted, you're going to be trampled underfoot by the world, and that's how you know. So for whatever that's worth. Will Barron Tell us a time when you were basically about to bite the bullet on orthodoxy, because I think you've spoken a lot as someone who's like, looked at Catholicism and have shown us like why you just can't get on board with it. But like, can you flip for a second and tell us about maybe the times that you've almost bought into orthodoxy, but what was it about Catholicism

that kept bringing you back? I mean, you've spoken a little bit about apostolic activities and- Trey Lockerbie I'm on my second go around in the catechumen in the North of Austria. So I was a catechumen before by myself, without my family. And I got to this point where Becca was, my wife, was so attracted to what she saw in the people in Catholicism, specifically at that Ukrainian parish, you know, in Carnegie. And I was, there was another family that was received into the Orthodox church, like a couple of weeks before I was supposed to or something. And it broke my heart because I was like, that whole family, I can't do this by myself. I can't do this because either what's going to happen is I'm going to be received into the church by myself

and my family's not going to be there and it's going to be one of the most profoundly lonely experiences of my life, which should be the most profoundly joyful. Yeah. Or my family's going to be there watching me saying, well, there goes dad without us. And neither of those felt like a good option. Yeah. So Becca was like, listen, if this is what you want to do, I will, I won't attend this Orthodox parish, but I will attend Holy Trinity with you weekly. Just attend, I'm not saying I'm gonna join.

And I said, you know what, I wanna unify our family as best as I can. So I left the catechumenate, which was painful and hard in and of itself, then we started going to Holy Trinity. And at first it was fine. I was like, this is an Eastern church, it's familiar, I love the liturgy. I feel like I'm getting the same sort of thing. But then like slowly over time, there was this large influx of like Latin right Catholics.

I guess that would be the right terminology. So it started kind of diluting it a bit. And it's like, now people are playing praying the rosary together and just the language at coffee hour is different. Like we're not, it's, it's like, we're not speaking the same language that we were at one point. And then the month of May hit, which there's this extra extra emphasis on Mary and a lot more discussion of what I, what I at the time deemed to be specifically Western expressions of Mariology and both my wife and I got very uncomfortable. And I said, I, you know what I said, I wanted, I want to be an Orthodox Christian, you know? And so we left there

and then kind of bounced around, went to the Serbian parish for a while. So I, I was very close to becoming Orthodox that I was like a year or two ago. And then I thought I was like 85% sure at least that we were going to be received into this Ukrainian Catholic Church and then kind of bailed out of that. And maybe people are listening and saying like, we'll see this guy can't make up his mind. Like I know that's the point of the conversation, but like, but not a virtue we're trying to extol. Yeah. I'm not trying to say like, this is the way to do everything. It's like, it's a human reality, but it's a painful one. Right. And even those things like family, you know,

I know that there's scripture that says like, if you don't leave behind father or mother, or I believe it even does say spouse, husband or wife, you know, for the kingdom of God, you know, you're not worthy to enter it or something like that. But I also believe like God led me to this woman and bless me with these children. And if I don't do everything I can as, as the priest of my own to sacrifice my understanding of being correct, you know, what's the more virtuous decision here to sacrifice my family for the sake of doctrinal purity or to sacrifice doctrinal purity in my opinion for the sake of my family? That's

a really hard decision to make. And even, you know, the family issue too, like everybody said, just read the fathers and you'll be Catholic. Just read the fathers and you'll be Orthodox. Just read this book. Everybody has some book that they think is going to solve this problem. And it's like, listen, I could spend the rest of my life reading books and not get through all of them and never make a decision. Yeah. But I do have a life with this woman and these children and I have to be attentive to that. So I can't dump all of my time into going to every service and reading every book. And yeah, that's great. That's so true.

We spoke about this a little bit beforehand about how sometimes it seems like people just want you on their team because it will justify and reaffirm their own decisions, which they might be insecure in. I see this with Jordan Peterson, you know, it's like people smell blood because he just mentioned he loves Jesus or something. And I don't mean to, I'm not calling into question everybody's motives. Obviously people want him to come to know Christ and have salvation, receive Eucharist. His wife Tammy has talked repeatedly about her devotion to the Rosary, which is beautiful. And I think a big thanks should be given to Bishop Robert Barron for that. She's said explicitly that he helped her with that, or it was Jordan Peterson who said in

his conversation with Bishop Robert Barron, you know. Anyway, point is, you've got people kind of vying for him and sometimes you're like, okay, do you want his good or do you want him on your team so you can feel more secure? And maybe talk about how that's a frustrating thing. Like, I'm sure you've received this both from Catholics and Orthodox who are trying to like, bait you in in a way that doesn't actually seem like they have your good in mind. They just want you on their team. I mean, you said it pretty well. There's that. Then you wonder for some people is it, I'm not sure about my team. And if you come in, then maybe that'll make me a

little more sure, you know, especially when things are so tumultuous. I think that's a big, a big part of it. I think also it's, Hey, if we just get like in Jordan Peterson, as an example, if we just get this guy, everybody else will come in. So it's almost like maybe, you know, to put myself in his shoes, does it feel like, do you want me to be a part of this home or do you just want me to be like your warrior, you know, your front lines guy? That's perhaps part of it. Then there's this question, because I remember specifically asking you one time, which was super melodramatic, where I said, if I become a Catholic, you promise to take care of me. And it's like,

did I answer? You called me and you said, can you come down right now? I said, I cannot. But where it's almost like you wonder, okay, all these people are saying, come home, come home, come home. Okay. What if I walk through that door and then you're not there for me? Because that's only part of the journey. I keep thinking now when I land, God willing, very soon, what happens next? I've been praying about this for five years. What do I pray about after this? I've been trying to fit in somewhere. It's almost like discerning marriage for 10 years, getting married and then, oh wow, now it begins. Now we have to live together. Now I have to see, do you sleep with the door open or shut? Do you, how do you brush your teeth? How do

you chew your food? Now we're part of the same household. You know, how are you going, how are you going to love me when I'm in there? You know, And that's something to think about for sure. There is, I know like Austin, Gospel Simplicity talks about, he did a couple of videos on Catholicism and Orthodoxy and his thoughts thus far. And he talks about the deep psychological impact of people saying, just come home. Like, yeah, I want to be home. Who doesn't? Right. And so it's very unhelpful to people to make an objective discernment of where is the truth and where do I belong? Because everybody wants to be home. And home is such a fluid, weird thing now. People aren't stationary, you know? So does home mean, oh, come in for two years and then go do something else? And, or, you know, what, what does that mean? And, and it's also weird, you know, you have all

of these people that are, they, you know, like, as you said, want you on their team, but it's, it's funny, like people will say, like I was talking to somebody once and I said, you know, I just don't believe in Catholic theology on certain points. And, um, but the people, exactly. Yeah. Well, I know plenty of people who have just been loved into the kingdom. And I'm like, okay, but you're telling me like a faithful Catholic has to submit to these things. But if I can't submit to them, you're still telling me to join the church. Like, wouldn't, isn't Like, wouldn't that actually be a sin on my part? Yeah, I could see that, yeah. So kind of, yeah.

So what is the real motivation? Like, do you want me there because I believe it's true, or do you just want me there because it's your thing? Yeah. So that's weird. Yeah, it's tough. I think you, I don't know about you, but I find that whenever I'm able to really express

how I feel, and as I'm saying it, I'm terrified because I don't see how it ends. There's no bow to wrap up on it, but I'm just honest. What I find is that impacts people the most, you know? And I think what you're doing today just in sharing this journey is doing that. It's like, yep, no bow. This is it. The end. There's no end. I don't know where I am. It's, yeah, you're voicing a lot of people's concerns because I mean, part of it is we live in like a chaotic society where we don't know what the hell's happening.

We don't even know, I mean, how long, is America still existing? Is it still a thing? Oh, it is, okay, but we'll see how long that lasts. Like, we come from broken homes, we're in a broken country, we're in a confusing church. We desperately want certainty because we can't live in chaos.

No one can live in chaos, which is, I think, what leads people into those fringes of ortho-bros, rad-trads, Calvinist, whatever they are. They're that kind of fringe of the Protestant movement online. And these seem to be the ones, and I don't want people to misunderstand me. I'm not accusing anyone in particular, and I know terms can be used differently. I'm not saying you go to a traditional Catholic parish, then that's you. That's not what I'm saying. But I think we've all experienced that kind of anger

and that kind of self-righteousness in those sort of groups who are on the peripheries desperately trying to make everything calm and safe and certain again. You make things certain by calling everyone a heretic. Well, two things that just occurred to me as you're saying that. Okay, so one is also tying in to everything. So there's this idea too that people are saying like, you know, when you come into the church, whichever it may be, it should be this joyful, beautiful occasion.

Yes, it will be. But there's also gonna have to be this kind of solemn joy about it. And I read this book a long time ago, it's a Catholic book called, A Poverty of Spirit by Johannes Metz. You need to read it. It's short, it's beautiful. But he's talking about decision-making

and he says something along the lines of to make any decision at all is to sacrifice the potentiality of any of the thousands of other options that laid before you prior to that. So it's like there are all of these potentialities for me in Catholicism and orthodoxy, things that I could do for the kingdom and things that I would benefit from either church. I have to sacrifice one of those two things. At this point, I've spent enough time with both and fallen in love with both to different degrees that I have to be partially brokenhearted when I enter whichever one I enter, which, you know, again, I don't want to, well, I'll leave that. But, um, so that's a part of it. But the other thing too, um,

yeah, crap, I forgot. If I can just pick up, I'm tired of people like psychoanalyzing everybody. That bothers me. You know, like if, if we see somebody bending a particular way that isn't where we are at, like, oh, well, yeah, see, he just didn't want to, you know, he just wanted to go along. This isn't, I'm not speaking about you here, but someone might say he just wants to use contraception, right? Or the atheist who doesn't become a theist. He just wants to sin. It's like maybe, but what the hell do you know?

Have you just been told not to judge man's heart? Cause he just wants to remain Protestant. He like maybe, but what the hell do you know? Have we been told not to judge mankind? He just wants to remain Protestant. He doesn't want to submit to a pope. Yeah. And the same thing, he's just becoming Catholic because things will be easier for him, like he said, and we all knew that he's being a coward. It's like we don't, yeah, we have no idea what's going on in other people's hearts and minds. And this is a difficult bloody thing at times. I remember the other thing I was going to say, and it's kind of in line with when you had Ralph Martin on. Yeah. He was talking about, he said, orthodoxy is not enough. And

I was thinking about that. So everything that I said that I believe about, about capital O orthodoxy, that it's, it's apostolic. It's, some may disagree. I believe that it has catholicity to it. I believe that it has orthodoxy and doctrine. I believe that it has orthopraxy, you know? All of those things are not enough if I'm not like Christ. Right. If I have all the right beliefs, I can go to hell. Right. I mean, it's first Corinthians, right? You do all these things without love. Yeah. You're nothing. Yeah. So it's like, where do I go to be most in a disposition of being able to love and exist like Christ? Like Christlikeness is really all that matters. People will say, okay, so all these other things, all these other doctrines and expressions are, these are vehicles by which you get to Christlikeness. I agree with that, you know,

but they in and of themselves are not, they're not it. Christ is it. Christ is in all and all are in Christ and he is all, you know? And why aren't, why is that not our foremost thought process? It's, well, are you Catholic? Are you Orthodox? Are you like Christ? You know? And maybe that's some ethereal hippie crap. I don't know. Well, whatever it is, there's truth to it. You can carve away as much from that statement as you want. You'll still be left with a true statement. Like, so I hear you. Yeah. Yeah. Why don't we take a break and come back? Is that cool, Neil? I'm really glad he said yes. I would like to talk about

Hello and thank Hello for sponsoring this episode. Oh, there's no coffee left. Neil. Damn it, Neil. Okay. Hello is a really great app that will help you to pray. It's a prayer and meditation app. There are a ton of mindfulness sort of apps out there. What's one of them? Calm, that would be one. Sure. I don't know.

There's others. I don't listen to hip hop. Not even worth mentioning the others. Yeah, please. But HALO is a really fantastic app. And so I would check, invite you to download it. It'll lead you in the rosary. It'll help you with praying through scripture.

It has sleep stories. Some of them are read by, well, yours truly, but you don't have to listen to that one if it just aggravates you. You can listen to Father Mike Schmitz, Jonathan Rumi. There's a ton of great content on the Halo app. That's H-A-L-L-O-W. Now you can download the Halo app right now, Android, iOS, obviously, whatever, and you'll get some of great content on the Halo app. That's H-A-L-L-O-W. Now you can download the Halo

app right now, Android, iOS, obviously, whatever, and you'll get some of the content. You might want to do that just to check it out. But if you want access to the entire app for free for a month so you can really give it a fair shake, go to halo.com slash Matt, I think, or halo.com slash Matt, Fred. Either way, we're going to have the link is in the description below. Hello.com slash Matt. Maybe. Matt, maybe Matt, we mentioned the other meditation apps, but what's wrong? Why should we do?

Thank you, Neil. Thank you, Neil. Okay. So why you should check out hello instead of these other meditation apps. I think a lot of people are finding themselves anxious because they can't decide between orthodoxy and Catholicism. Well, one thing you could do is put, no, not put. One thing you could do is download the Halo app

because that'll actually help you to meditate and pray and it's really beautiful. I actually would use, I'd go into adoration. I'd feel kind of guilty about this because it felt wrong, but I would put my earbuds in and just pray through like a 20 minute meditation and it would just guide you through a kind of a prayer experience. So one would just guide you through a kind of prayer experience.

So one of the reasons you get Hello instead of one of these other things is it's 100% Catholic. None of this new age business. Hello.com slash Matt. It's in the description. It's Matt Fred. Okay, there we go.

Hello.com slash Matt Fred. Hello.com slash Matt Fred. Click on it, get it. They'll be happy with me. I'll be happy that they're happy with me and everything will be okay. I've used it quite a bit. Have you really?

I wish. They have the Jesus prayer? Just any Eastern prayer. I mean, there's stuff that's like- It's too much to ask? A common, you know, but put your saggy in prayers, throw an acathist hymn on there. They'll do it.

They'll do it. They'll hear it. They'll do it. Yeah. It's already done. Did you like it as an app? It's really, you know, it's funny is you only have to start to create a website or create an app to realize how bloody hard it is and how much money it takes. Anyway, how you doing? Good. What are we going to do after this? I don't know. I kind of want to get lunch. Yeah. But you know, to your point, like I was actually thinking about that when you said, when you choose something, you necessarily like reject other things.

And that's kind of what keeps us perpetually open to say marriage or God or Catholicism, whatever. But it's like, just like lunch, like you and I have to choose something for lunch, even though there are a lot of options. Like we can drive to Robinson, we can go into Pittsburgh, we could hang here. There's two options in Steubenville, but we could go elsewhere, right? And whatever we choose, we have to reject others. And that's something we might be disappointed by the one we choose.

Exactly. Or get food poisoning and die in Steubenville. No, that's not true. Your ghost is the bomb. So are you kind of looking forward to finally making a decision here? Like, it sounds like you're about to land. Yeah, but I'm also terrified of that, you know, like what happens if I, like I think in my mind, you know, magically, you know, the chris, the chrism dries and I'm just solid as a rock. I'm not going to change my mind again. And I do plan obviously to

fully commit and be all in. But what happens if I wake up the next day and I think, oh man, I still, you know. That's funny. It's not funny. That's terrifying. I mean, I have a friend who recently got an annulment because she was in a very manipulative relationship with a dude. And she was also part of this like prayer group. And even though she didn't want to marry him, these people were saying, no, we, you are

being called to this. And the fact that you don't want to marry him is just the devil. You'll realize that once you have the grace of the sacrament, this is all these sorts of things that they told you. Dude, I hear that same kind of stuff. So my point is she got married. She goes and she sits in the, in the limo and he sits down and he looks at her and he's like, hello wife. And she was just like, horrified. Now thank God that wasn't a marriage. So she got an annulment and she's with a beautiful man right now and three beautiful kids. But it's like, that's cut to your point, not to make you scared, more scared, but that's the feeling you're kind of referring to.

That's definitely the thing I get. Like people are saying, oh, you know, if you don't want to become a Catholic, it's because you're obstinate and hard hearted. And if you just really, if you just get in and you receive the Eucharist, then you'll understand all of it. It's fine. And it's like, man, that's a, that's a really manipulative thing to say. That's a tough sell. I mean, but both sides do it too. It's like, you know, you'll never have the Orthodox mind until you're chrismated and you're participating in the sacramental liturgical life. And I mean, sure. I believe there's truth to that on probably both sides. But this feeling of like, you know, trying to figure things out, trying to grow.

I mean, in some, sometimes it won't feel much different. It's like, if you just be Catholic, then you'll be Catholic. It's like, wow, man, thanks. I never thought of that. So, but yeah, like it probably will be that you'll become Orthodox or you might become Catholic and then you wake up and you will feel that same sort of, there's still a ton to learn, ton to grow in, ton of sin to shed, ton of virtue to obtain. Like I think about all this stuff and all the theological effort that I've put into it, but like I've never done something as simple as go to sacramental confession.

I know I'm so excited for you. That's probably the thing. I'm one of the things I'm most excited about. But it's like, I haven't walked in those shoes yet. Is there part of you that's just like, okay, I just need to make a choice, even if I'm right or wrong, so I can receive Eucharist and confession? Sometimes, maybe. I feel that way.

I have a lot of respect for you. Sometimes maybe I feel that way. I have a lot of respect for you. I mean, this has been a brutal thing. And as you say, like you left the job to do this and you're still kind of, that's just, that's tough, man. God bless you. And that's been the weird thing. It's like, I've interviewed, I interviewed at a Catholic school and I told him I was discerning between the two and they were like, well, when you become Catholic, call us and maybe we can have a job for you. You know, or like, um, and that's the thing. You applied for that job as an Orthodox priest too, right?

And you were like, well, I might become Catholic. And they're like, that's just not going to, it's not going to fly. Then that's a weird thing too, is like this imposition of, oh, well, now you're going to be a priest. You were a pastor, you're going to be a priest. And I was like, oh gosh, that's terrifying. So I have to consider that. And it's weird, you know? I don't know what it is, but I think I might as well have had no work history

for the past five or six years. Like, I feel like people look at my resume when I apply to secular jobs and they say, I mean, the culture, maybe this is me being cynical, but the culture is not very- Youth pastor. Youth pastor, that's fantastic. Oh wow. How you were a babysitter, you know? Yeah. Um, or it's like, Oh, you were a pastor and now you're not, you're applying for this secular job. Like what happened? What did you do?

What did you do? What's wrong with you? You know, you couldn't hack it. So that makes it even more difficult, I think. But, um, yeah, I don't know. Trying to learn what I can about fatherhood and sacrifice and patience. I've been a stay at home dad mostly for the last year and a half. God bless you. And by far the most difficult position I've ever held.

The most rewarding, beautiful. Except it isn't. Not a joke. No, I mean, I love it. I'm joking. You know, it's, it's weird, but that does something to your thoughts of like your own manhood. And, uh, you know, you want to provide for your family, right? Obviously, you know, people saying like, Oh, well you're at home while your wife's working.

Cause you're a beta male. Did people say that? No, I hate people. Yeah. Nobody said Jesus. I would not have died fast. You've told me that. Also, new internet rule that people don't know. If you're a dude who calls another dude a beta male, you are not just a beta male yourself, but no doubt a pale-faced basement dwelling frequent masturbator. That's a new rule. Or I've heard it. Because I don't know any alpha male, I don't know anybody who's like, I'm comfortable

with my masculinity, who goes around the internet with four subscribers and a profile pic of a crusader tearing down other men. Like, yeah, I don't know any man who's confident in his masculinity who does that. So that's the new rule. You're a dude. You call someone a beta male. That's, that's unfortunately. I know you are, but what am I? Yes, that's a good one too. I don't know if you've ever heard that. Or do you remember that? Like, what are you looking at? I don't know.

I don't have my you've ever heard that. Or do you remember that? Like, what are you looking at? I don't know. I don't have my animal book. Yeah. What? Like if I had my animal book, I could be like giraffe. Okay. Okay. Yeah.

Anything else, Neil? We good? I think we're good. Do we want to do patron questions? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So what we're going to do now, I'm going to try to do this every single time we do

an interview or a debate is we are going to be taking a supporter questions from locals and patrons and that video will only be available to our supporters. So if you're considering supporting us, please do that. We need your support. Patreon.com slash Matt Fradd or locals. You can choose which one you want to give through. It's both the same to me. But if you go to pints with Aquinas.com slash give, you'll see those two options give to us in one way or the other.

The other thing we've been doing every weekday morning is morning coffee over on Locals. So we'll put a link in the description below. We just chat. It's like a new podcast we're doing. You don't have to subscribe. You have to pay to watch it. Anyone can watch it. I'll be there. And Derek will be there. He's there most mornings, slamming his coffee. Right in the brown dragon. And let us know what you think of that like intro music we played today from Emma Fradd. All right. Thanks. See you. Bye.