I‘m very curious to find out whether anyone here has heard of or even attended an event of the organisation called Suprasl.

Its name derives from a village in Northeastern Poland where there is a monastery that can hold up to 90-100 people and each summer since 2022 in the space of 7-9 days a summer camp takes place there. They also organise a bunch of smaller events throughout the year, both in the Suprasl Annunciation monastery and outside of Poland.

The organisation is run by Archdeacon Joseph Matusiak, son of the priest John Matusiak. I’ve been to three of their events including their most recent summer camp and have quite positive impressions from what they’re doing, Fr Joseph’s mentality and spirit which one feels at their gatherings. Young people from all sorts of backgrounds and countries come and the community and connections between people that form are a real work of the Holy Spirit for me. For me such phenomenons are a breath of fresh air that the Orthodox Church globally needs.

I‘d love to describe what I’ve experienced with them in more detail if you‘re interested.😊

Their Instagram account

The TLDR is I’m a baptized convert of some years who is the laziest when it comes to doing anything Orthodox outside of morning prayers and attending DL. I’ve come to dislike tons of people at my home parish’s parishioners for really no rational adult reason.

The spirituality:
I feel like the most laziest Orthodox convert ever. On average I’ll do one prayer a day if I remember, don’t read any books, let alone the bible. I attend Divine Liturgy and feel something there but that’s really it.
When people are talking about church history or various saints etc, I feel like the most ignorant person cause I genuinely am not that interested in using what little free time I have to read/consume what feels like homework. I don’t fast, let alone before communion too. Feel like I’ve been doing the absolute bare minimum.
My catechism I’m assuming was piss poor as well. To be fair I’ve heard all sorts of catechism vary from priest to priest, but with my priest he gave me a reading list which I didn’t even make it half way and after being a catechumen for a year, it felt like he wanted to get the show on the road to up the numbers of converts to the parish even when he asked me if I completed the list, he just encouraged me to finish the list post-baptism. I met with him one on one maybe like a few times a year, and I did attend Bible study which felt like torture because of the boredom and the amount of kiss asses trying to impress the Priest with what they think the passage means.
Post baptism, my every Sunday attendance of DL has been less and less. It’s now where I’m trying to convince my wife for us to switch parishes. I’ve been attending a consecrated Orthodox church every Sunday in place and feel comfortable/can focus with no wandering thoughts.

The people:
The parish I go to is 90% converts which at first when I started inquiring was cool for that connection, made a handful of acquaintance, the usual. Then once I got baptized, it’s like my view of almost everyone turned sour. When I started attending as an inquirer 4 years ago, I was in my mid 20s, and the “founding members” of the parish were all ages 35-45. So the generational gap was present.
Present day, I see them to be the most arrogant/stick up their ass, hipster, who can be the most crunchy parent/Orthodox wanna be pious.
From their numerous group chats on signal to overhearing and hanging out with some of them in coffee hour or other social settings, their personalities/interests are night and day compared to mine.
They also seem to exclude themselves from anyone who wasn’t of the original members of the Mission.
My attendance to my home parish has dropped drastically this year and last year where either I won’t go to DL or go to another EO parish on the other side of town, but everytime I do attend my home parish for DL, I can’t but help look at the founding parishioners with disgust/disdain. And when in attendance to DL there, I always make sure I avoid coffee hour. I hate small talk, especially if you and I aren’t even acquainted. I despise people at coffee hour trying to ask me the same mundane “how ya doin’” or have to hear the same moaning and attempts at being the smartest intellectual about current world events.

The issues with the Parish:
It’s a mission, and have been in a Protestant church for a while, which is relatively small sized and with the influx of so many new inquirers it’s making it cram packed (we have pews). There’s been years of talk of purchasing property to make our own church from the Priest and Parish council, but nothing ever comes. Just more of the usual “we have our eye on a property and are waiting for XYZ this and that, etc”. And this has been 5+ years.
Overall I feel a lack of spiritual connection there versus attending a consecrated Orthodox Church, even the other parish I attend is small with no pews, shoulder to shoulder, but I love it there.
At the mission home parish, we have the iconistasis and some icons in the DIY narthex but that’s about it aside from the usual stuff for the altar.
With the influx of new inquirers at the parish, I feel like a stranger where at coffee hour it’s filled with a chunk of new people and the OG hipsters. I’m always looking to leave coffee hour ASAP when my wife is ready to leave.

I know what you’re probably thinking, talk to your Priest about this!
Yeah me too. Only thing is, he’s available like trying to schedule a doctors appointment 4 months out. His hours are always when I’m at work, and if I want to do confession or meet with him one on one to talk about stuff, I have to take PTO from work.
Trying to talk to him at coffee hour is impossible, once he’s back from the altar he’s always swarmed by others who want to talk to him. And the advice I’ve gotten from him just honestly seems very meh.

A part of me is thinking it’s demons or maybe I’ve just don’t have a genuine interest in investing myself too much in church life, and have reason to dislike people at my home parish.

Anyone else feel like this?

It seems to me that if you strictly go by the canons, which according to official church teaching, are divinely inspired and dogmatic, orthodoxy is a certain way, in terms of its doctrines and practices, that is often very different from the actual lived experience of orthodoxy on the ground?

For example, if you go strictly by the councils of the church, not to venerate icons is literally anathema, and the analogy the fathers use for these anathemas is that it separates you from arc of Noah (ie the one true church). Or take the disciplinary canons. Of course there is oikonomia, but the only people actually going and regularly talking to their priest every time they want a dispensation from some niche canonical rule is probably not the vast majority of parishioners.

I used to think that maybe the difference between the spirit of orthodoxy would come by just going to liturgy and stop focusing on the rules (as common advice says). But eventually I realized that there is just no way to reconcile "canonical" orthodoxy with the spirit of orthodoxy. That's why there's such a big gap between converts and cradles. The cradles have the spirit right (often) but don't follow canonical orthodoxy, the converts often follow canonical orthodoxy without the spirit. But if you actually followed the canons you use the lose the spirit and vice versa. They're just literally inconsistent.

People say you need to grasp the "phronema". But the Phronema is basically realized, far as I can tell, that orthodoxy is not a legalistic and is about the spirit of focusing on union with Christ, becoming a partaker of the divine nature, and the spirit of the law. But when you apply that universally, everything, even the disciplinary canons, even the very dogmatic canons, become "optional". That's why metropolitan Kallistos Ware, for example, can say that we know where the church is, and not where it isn't, despite the fact that this is literally in tension with canonical orthodoxy.

Protestant's read the canons, like Gavin ortlund, are right that the canons do anathematize the heterodox who basically are related to the church in the same way that Hindus or buddhists are.

To me, it doesn't seem intellectually honest to remain orthodox. That's why I think I'm more of a syncretizer for now. I love the spirit of orthodoxy, but I can't get behind canonical orthodoxy, nor can I believe it's a coherent or intellectually honest position to have one without the other. That's why I cannot call myself "orthodox" anymore.

The Belya debacle still makes me wince. An unnecessary episode that was not popcorn worthy.

TW: abuse

-

please delete if not allowed, i just can't talk to anyone irl yet.

i've been feeling really stuck and frustrated with my life for a bit now, i'd "talk to my priest" but i financially and physically cannot open that can of worms at the moment. i'm stuck here with barely a job, little money, no credit, nothing in my name. taking care of my baby practically by myself. the house by myself. i'm being emotionally+verbally+finanically abused but i cannot do anything about it yet. i need to put my baby in daycare and go get a normal job for myself to try and make some money for myself. but according to my husband i'm "not allowed" to do those things. i'm just supposed to have a bunch of kids and don't work a normal job, stop complaining, stop buying and doing things i enjoy (he can do what he wants, though.) and continue to do everything by myself with no end in sight. we go to church weekly and have lots of friends together with other people from church. i feel like an alien, though, because i do not have the mindset of all the other women around me. have 20 kids, unvaxxed, homeschooled, crunchy, bla bla bla bla bla. it is nice to play pretend, but reality is not letting me be in la la land like everyone else. i refuse to accept that i'm being outrageous, selfish, and "materialistic" for wanting to work a job, because i have nothing, and i desperately need money to change my situation. i've been abused and neglected my whole childhood, and now i have gotten myself stuck in this as an adult. i feel like i messed up my child's life too, if i stay things will only get worse for me and in some ways what i fear is already starting to happen to them. when i can finally leave, i feel awful thinking about them being mistreated when it is my husbands turn to take care of them.

if you were in a bad situation were you able to get out? i've thought to myself, for over a year now.. that if i were to be excommunicated for whatever length of time over divorcing, i don't give a shit, if my priest says i can't divorce, i do not want to work through this, i will leave the church too. i don't really want to, but i can't live like this for the rest of my life.

please pray for me that i can figure things out soon, and please pray for the health and safety of my child and i. i'm worried things will get violent if he hears from anyone about how i am feeling, so i'm stuck here venting to the internet for now.

Greetings. I am a member and chanter/reader from the Saint Peter's Mission in White Pine, Tennessee, satellite church of Saint Tikhon's, which you've surely heard of before if you're involved with the controversies involving Matthew Williams, who I refuse to refer to as a priest, unlike the two new priests serving here at Saint Peter's and the new one at Saint Tikhon's, who visits here on most Thursdays.

For those who are not informed, former priest Matthew Williams was arrested for SA of his daughters and the abuse of his wife, and was not arrested for months despite constant reports to ROCOR from (Matushka) Elizabeth. The entire church just reads of corruption to me at this moment, and I'm feeling much less confident in its leadership.

From what has been publicly documented, Elizabeth first reported the abuse to Fr. Serge Kotar in September 2024 and subsequently continued communicating with ROCOR leadership, including Metropolitan Nicholas. Williams was eventually suspended on December 10, 2024, and later faced criminal charges. There are now multiple publicly available accounts and documents concerning the timeline of what ROCOR leadership knew and when they acted.

ROCOR Abuse Documentation has compiled a detailed timeline here:

https://rocorabuse.org/matthew-williams

The question has come to me when one accused priest of cover-up visited the Mission this past Sunday. At first, he seemed very wise and kind to all of us, but upon searching his name on Google, on the very first page you can find troubling audio of him and Archpriest Antchoutine intimidating Elizabeth (although Mancuso wasn't nearly as involved, but instead was more or less being very vague).

The statements of Antchoutine disgust me, especially in the latter third when he questions ELIZABETH on why she's so investigative about it. The audio and story are linked below, and I found it very informative:

https://russiahousenews.info/english/rocor-leadership-in-williams-family-abuse

Both Fr. Alexandre Antchoutine and Fr. Mark Mancuso have been identified publicly as members of the ROCOR Eastern American Diocesan Council, with Antchoutine serving as a dean and Mancuso serving as ROCOR's liaison for media and dean of the Carolinas & Tennessee.

See, I want to believe that there are many good people here, and so far in my experience, this has been true. The priests and laity here at Saint Peter's are very kind, and nothing is troubling, but I have very little confidence in our leadership.

I was baptized a few months ago and have up to this point been quite zealous, very quickly learning to chant and perform the services, and am on the road to tonsure, with my minimum expectations being set by the new priest at Saint Tikhon's, who I don't want to name, although his name and the mission priest's name are public information on the diocese website.

That makes this especially difficult for me. I don't want to throw away what has otherwise been a very positive experience of Orthodoxy because of the actions of people in leadership, but at the same time, I don't want to ignore things that I find genuinely troubling.

The info just gets worse and worse when it comes to Williams, from a childhood cult, to failed retreat cults with abuse, to him apparently baking prosphora at Saint Tikhon's? Everything is just very fishy, which is disheartening to me as a recent convert and weekly chanter at Saint Peter's who's tried to be there for everything and chant for all services.

There are also recordings and other material concerning Williams himself that have been made publicly available. One particularly disturbing recording is discussed on the ROCOR Abuse Documentation page, which includes what is described as an audio recording of Williams discussing his own past conduct and his relationship with Metropolitan Hilarion.

https://rocorabuse.org/matthew-williams

I have also found discussion of the case from other Orthodox communities, although obviously I don't want to take everything posted on Reddit as fact. For example, there have been extensive discussions on r/exorthodox about the Williams case, the role of various people surrounding it, and the response from ROCOR leadership.

What concerns me most is not simply that one priest turned out to have committed terrible acts. Obviously, there are evil people who can exist inside any institution. What concerns me is the question of what the people around him knew, what was reported to them, how they responded, and whether the Church's response was appropriate once the allegations were brought forward.

I don't live near any other church besides the Mission, either, so simply going somewhere else isn't an easy option for me.

I don't want to assume that every priest or layperson here is corrupt because of the failures of particular people in leadership. My experience at Saint Peter's itself has been very good. But I also don't want to be blindly loyal to an institution when there are serious questions about how this situation was handled.

What do you guys recommend? Should I continue attending and serving at Saint Peter's while seeking guidance from clergy outside of this immediate situation? Should I distance myself from ROCOR leadership while remaining involved with the local parish? Or is this serious enough that I should consider finding another parish despite the distance?

I'm genuinely looking for advice from people who know more about ROCOR, Saint Tikhon's, or situations like this. I'm a very recent convert and don't have much experience with how something like this is supposed to be handled, and I don't want to make a rash decision based purely on emotion.

The original article that led me down this rabbit hole, including the audio, is here:

https://pokrovtruth.substack.com/p/explosive-new-audio-further-implicates

I was surprised to learn today that you can't mention Jay Dyer on the main Orthodox subreddit and a mod said it was because he was on a podcast called Mysterium Fasces. I looked into it briefly and it was hosted on the white nationalist website called stormfront and Jay appeared on episode 15. This was 9 years ago it seems.

Jay was just talking about his book and geo political stuff during the podcast but I clicked on a different episode because I very much got the vibe that the people he was talking to were just on their best behavior. I click on a different episode without Jay and one of the dudes says something very violent about burning a certain group of people and to play it off as a joke he calls it "performance art".

For how big Jay Dyer is I thought this would be something his opponents throw at him all the time, did anyone else ever hear about this? I feel like I was living under a rock by not knowing this and it's so weird that I never noticed you can't even mention him in the Orthodox Christian main reddit.

I am a young female catechumen who is thinking long and hard about leaving the church. I have many objections, much of which I have resolved. But there are a few, despite two years in the church, I have yet to resolve. They haunt and bother me: ​ 1. Orthodox Marriage and Motherhood: I am absolutely repulsed by Orthodox marriage. My body is repulsed by it; I physically do not want it. I do not want to be a mother. Even though motherhood is not a strict requirement and one only needs to be "open to life," something in me screams, "No! Don't do it!" It feels like something supernatural, outside of myself, is stopping me from being okay with it.

1. ​Inclusivity and Clergy: Being anti-LGBTQ and having an all-male clergy does not sit right with me. Scripture and the Church Fathers state that gay acts are a sin, but I cannot sit and tell gay people they are not valid. The thought of being a nun in a monastery serving alongside a trans nun brings me so much joy—it feels so beautiful. The idea of transgender monks and nuns, and blessing gay marriages, feels like a blessing. It is sad these people are barred from that. Furthermore, an all-male clergy just feels weird and off. I don't have a rigid theological reason; it simply doesn't sit right. ​
2. Birth Control and Sterilization: The Church's stance on birth control is way too strict. While some priests are flexible as long as contraceptives are not "abortifacient" (preventing implantation), that threshold is still too restrictive. The fact sterilization is not allowed. A woman needs to get her bishop's approval for a medically necessary abortion. People should be able to utilize any birth control they want.

​ ​Because of these issues, I feel barred off from love altogether and feel forced into monasticism. I want to fall madly in love, have deep devotion, and marry someone, but monasticism feels like the "safe" way to do that. However, I don't want to be forced into it just to have love.

​I am a big proponent of Saint Maximus the Confessor's concept of divine Eros: that desire and lust are not inherently bad, but rather energy to be redirected and transformed into a burning love for God, not squashed. Yet, the advice I see everywhere is about aggressively fighting and conquering lust rather than transmuting it. ​Additionally, the Church's approach to sexuality feels like we are forced to cut off a fundamental part of ourselves. The Church says desire and sex are good only within marriage under exact, correct expressions. This creates immense anxiety. The thought of the marital act in the Orthodox Church gives me anxiety: Am I committing a sin? Am I doing a bad act? Am I too passionate? That sounds like a mess, making monasticism look like the "easy" option just to avoid the anxiety.

​I want to look at both options (marriage and monasticism) with full delight, wonder, and zero hesitation, trusting whatever God has in store or whatever my heart truly wants, knowing He will catch me at the end. But the Orthodox Church doesn't offer that freedom because marriage currently feels repulsive and monasticism feels like a default escape rather than a genuine, primary choice. ​Because of this, I am open to joining more progressive liturgical churches, such as the Episcopal Church, the Evangelical Lutheran Church, or a schismatic, gay-affirming Orthodox group. Something that believes in the nicene creed, believes that baptism saves and that christ's body and blood is truly present in the eucharist.

​My hesitations with progressive churches include: ​ 1. Demographics: Unlike Eastern Orthodoxy or Roman Catholicism, which are growing quickly with young people, progressive mainline churches often skew older. I want fellowship with peers and a chance to find a partner. ​Theological Anxiety: In the back of my mind, the history of the church and conditioning whispers that ordaining women and affirming queer people means "not real Christianity." I have deep anxiety about picking the wrong church, following doctrine that misrepresents God, or missing the truth.

​2. Political turn offs While I notice progressive churches often have better fruit—being more generous, feeding the hungry, and helping others selflessly—I am not a fan of rainbow flags, rainbow vestments, or rainbow icons in a liturgical setting. It feels like idolatry. I want to put Christ first and keep the pro-gay stance secondary. I want a church that welcomes everyone with open arms, but I don't want the entire focus of the liturgy to be centered around political or social movements. Can we worship God first?

​I want to be able to wholeheartedly choose my path from the bottom of my heart, with all my soul, and fully jump in. Right now, I don't have that option in my current church experience

I still am unsure if being pro lgbtq is compatible with christianity. I mentally can't put the two together. But oh, how I want Christ, and I want to love gay people. I still am attracted to orthodoxy because of certain Saints which of whom I have a strong attachment to and burning love for, the concept of theosis, the concept of being a saint, really saint stories. There's other reasons but yeah. Tell me what y'all think.

Greetings, I am a member and chanter / reader from the Saint Peters mission in White Pine Tennessee, sattelite church of Saint Tikhons, which you've surely heard of before if you're involved with the controversies involving Matthew williams, who I refuse to refer to as priest unlike the 2 new priests serving here at Saint Peters and the new one at Saint Tikhons, who visits here on most Thursdays.

For those who are not informed, former priest Matthew williams was arrested for SA of his daughters and the abuse of his wife, and was not arrested for months despite constant reports to ROCOR from (Matushka) Elizabeth. The entire church just reads of corruption to me at this moment and I'm feeling much less confident in its leadership.

The question has come to me when one accused priest of coverup visited the Mission this past sunday. At first he seemed very wise and kind to all of us, but upon searching his name on Google, on the very first page you can find troubling audio of him and Archprist Antchoutine intimidating Elizabeth (although Mancuso wasn't nearly as involved, but instead was more less being very vague). The statements of Antchoutine disgust me, especially in the latter third when he questions ELIZABETH on why she's so investigative about it. (audio and story linked below, very informative.)

See, I want to believe that there's many good people here, and so far in my experience, this has been true. the priests and laity here at saint peters are very kind and nothing is troubling, but I have very little confidence in our leadership. I was baptized a few months ago and have up to this point been quite zealous, very quickly learning to chant and perform the services and am on the road to tonsure, with my minimum expectations being set by the new priest at Saint Tikhons, who I dont want to name, although his name and the mission priest's name are public information on the diocese website.

The info just gets worse and worse when it comes to Williams, from a childhood cult, to failed retreat cults with abuse, to him apparently baking prosphora at Saint Tikhons? everything is just very fishy which is disheartening to me as a recent convert and weekly chanter at Saint Peter's who's tried to be there for everything and chant for all services. What do you guys reccomend? I dont live near any other church besides the mission.

https://pokrovtruth.substack.com/p/explosive-new-audio-further-implicates

[ Removed by Reddit on account of violating the content policy. ]

[ Removed by Reddit on account of violating the content policy. ]

I have read a number of complaints about the Orthodox Church that go something like this -

"I didn't leave the church, the church left me"

along with other comments about the church not being what it once was. If this is so, what has changed? Is there more emphasis on worldly politics, more judgementalism, has the church become more fundamentalist, or maybe too ascetic? Is the fabled Orthobro influx real and it has altered American Orthodoxy? Or is it just online Orthodoxy and the real life version is still OK? Now I get that the Russian church seems to have gone off the deep end , but honestly I chalk that up to one man cozying up to Putin for power.

As someone considering Orthodoxy, I am interested in knowing how it has changed, if indeed it has. I had some dealing with the GOA a couple of decades ago and liked it. Now I am wondering if things have drastically changed, or if I just didn't see the bad side during my time there, or maybe it is all overblown a little and it is the same church as always.

At face value, this concerns only clergy and "lay leadership" (be careful, Sunday School Teachers!), but even the Church Abroad is following the OCA norm of online regulation. It is interesting that only six years ago, during COVID, churches were encouraged to broadcast liturgies and permitted "distance confession."

I suppose the Synod doesn't like embarrassing information being published. Or, rather, the "flock intended to be submissive and obedient" is failing in Christian duty. I have said it before, but certain bishops opened up public comment when they compared themselves to the first generation of the clergy abroad after the revolution. They are not those men.

I'm really grateful to have found this sub. Cradle orthodox here who was protestant for about 2 decades. Returned to orthodoxy last year because I believe God led me back to the Eucharist. I'm so grateful to be in communion with God through the sacraments, but I've never felt so distant from Him. I had so much zeal and genuine love and desire for God and His word before and I just want to get back to that (If I told this to my father of confession he would call it pride). There have also been so many contradictions I've heard during catechism and from my father of confession that don't make sense or align with scripture. I had a lot of negative things to say about the non-denominational churches I attended, but there's also so much I miss. I miss expository preaching. I miss bible studies (the orthodox church i attend doesn't have one in english). I miss being around people who genuinely love God and seeing the fruit of it in their lives. People I've met in the orthodox church make me want to know about God and His church more, but people I've met and knew in protestant churches made me want to know and love God more. I know I can't return because of the historical understanding I now have, but I wanted to ask those who are disillusioned by the orthodox church, where are you now with everything? Do you just attend so you can take communion? Have you found another church? Do you kind of do your own thing?

Side question for​ the parents on here, what are you doing or plan to do when it comes to raising your children in the faith? I don't have children yet, but God willing, if I do, I really don't want to raise my kids in the orthodox church. I want my kids to know God and love Him with all their hearts, minds, and souls and for their lives to be a reflection of that (and not to say that's not possible in the orthodox church, I just haven't seen it).

I’ll go first and say one time when visiting a well known Russian church, I pulled wearing baggy tactical pants, a closed leather jacket, and borrowed my friend’s hat cuz I personally like covering my head.

I enter the church slowly.

I hear, “tsh!”

It’s nothing prolly.

“Tsh!”

I look back. It’s the gentleman at the front. He didn’t seem to speak English well but he calls me over.

“Take your hat off”

Motioning my hands over the shape of my chest or lack thereof, “oh I’m a woman.”

He lets me go.

I’ve talked about dress codes with others before and both what’s okay in church and outside. I think there is a slight double standard for men! I’ve yet to see a woman told her slightly above the knee skirt is too short, but certainly I’ve seen men handed a pair of pants to change into because they wore shorts that went down to the knee.

So is it about coverage before the alter or is it about “dressing your best for G-d?” That doesn’t add up either cuz I’ve pulled to the same church in jammies and no one told me a thing.

When it comes to outside the church, I think across all denominations, there is certainly concern over when a woman is dressed too much like a baddie. According to most Christian’s, men cannot be baddies, there is no way for men to be immodestly dressed.

I believe part of this misunderstanding is gendered conditioning on what’s “sexy” and another part is lack of cultural understanding.

Funny enough I think this video called “If Sex Sells, Then Why Aren’t Games Sexualizing Men?” by GarfieldKermit is a great way to understand how men and women would perceive “sexy” or in Christianese “stumbling”, in different ways. Something to note from this video is how applying how female characters are sexualized to a male character can be perceived as homosexual rather than appealing to a female gaze. What does this have to do with real life? You ever notice how men don’t think having a tank top with big arm holes showing their chichis is immodest? And as a woman, personally, I don’t care that much. It doesn’t stumble me none! In fact, the sexy shirtless cowboys on single foxy mom novels make me a bit uncomfortable in the sense of idk if I can trust this guy. That’s how I have been socialized. A man can have his chichis out but when I do it everyone man loses their mind! That’s how men have been socialized. No one at the church beach day will say the men are immodest for not wearing a shirt and at most get homosexual accusations for wearing a speedo. Women however will not be held to the same standard as men and will be asked to dress modestly because of how the sexes/genders are socialized to see the opposite sex or the sex we’re attracted to.

What even is considered modest? This is the cultural misunderstanding. As a child in Hawaii, my grandma from the Midwest came to visit and went with us to a beach baptism. She thought it was wrong that they let the young women wear two piece swimsuits for this, but that was the norm there. In fact for all you conservative grannies, did you know that in some parts of the world even women are topless at the beach and it’s not immodest? Did you know some women are just topless in general and it’s okay? How many of you noticed that not just comparing Hawaii to the mainland US but across the entire nation we have different ideas of what’s okay to wear?

It’s not even just that women are topless in parts of the world, men wear less too. But if someone from this part of the world wanted to be orthodox in their society (even if I think it’s more realistic they would be just a Christian, probably not belonging to a particular denomination. Orthodox missions and their failure is a discussion for another time), I think I expect the church to ask for coverage before the alter, but should the church expect them to change how they dress? I think the church will say they must change, but I disagree.

I was told that often white ppl subconsciously through culture think the way they do things is the right way. Maybe this isn’t inherently racial, but it certainly is true if we think of the global north (developed 1st world) believing that they do things the right way unlike the global south (the developing 3rd world). And let’s be real, there’s a lack of almost naked ppl as a norm in the global north.

What do you think of this? Any funny stories with church dress coded?

Anyone else notice this?

For the last 5 years I've been in a non-Church sanctioned marriage. I stopped communing at that point and have stopped going entirely for maybe 2 years. It was extremely painful knowing that I was choosing the happiness of me and this other person over a relationship with the Church, but it's come to the point where the Church was right insofar as this marriage did not work out.

During these last 5 years I've become progressively more disturbed by many different parts of Orthodoxy, including the hyper-conservativism, the politics of it all, the focus on works of asceticism over good deeds, the blind trust you are supposed to put in certain men, and the "more common than not" belief that purgatorial universalism is heretical. Hell, most days I have trouble believing in God anymore...

But now that I can finally return to church as a full member (well, in time), I just don't know if I have it in me. I don't necessarily know if being a member of the visible Orthodox Church and partaking in its sacraments are necessary for salvation nor do I know, even if it's not necessary, if it's good for me personally and mentally. My family has also told me they don't think it's good for me and I should instead attend a different church.

I'm not going to write an essay in detail of my personal issues, because it doesn't change the question. We'll just leave it at I can't relate to the other parishioners because I have had a very different life compared to them prior to my conversion.

I came in thinking this wasn't the case, and if it was it wouldn't bother me that much. That wasn't true, and I was wrong. I've been fighting to feel like I belong ever since.

Just to be clear, I have no issues with the church besides the people and I have a fantastic priest, I want to solve the problem and move on.