Orthodox Reflections

By Nicholas – member of the Western Rite Vicariate, a part of the Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese in America

Most Americans believe the Constitution guarantees them certain essential freedoms such as freedom of speech, free exercise of religion, right to keep and bear arms, protection against unreasonable search and seizure, and the right to remain silent under questioning. That isn’t true, however. The Constitution is just a document. It sits under glass in Washington. It guarantees nothing. In reality, you have exactly the rights that the government is willing to grant you during any given encounter with an armed law enforcement officer. No more. They can take everything from you in an instant, and then force you to try and reclaim it all afterwards in court.

Let us illustrate this point.

You encounter a police officer at a peaceful protest held in favor of religious liberty. The cop doesn’t like your sign and the slogans you are chanting. He demands you shut up, and put away the sign. Like most modern police, the officer is trained to see any resistance to his commands (lawful or otherwise) as dangerous. He has been drilled repeatedly that maintaining order requires unconditional submission. You fail to comply with his commands, asserting your rights to freedom of speech and to freedom of assembly.

Like most modern police, the officer is trained to seize first, establish dominance, and investigate (if at all) afterwards. He grabs you unexpectedly by the arm. Like the vast majority of Americans, you have never been roughly grabbed like that before. Especially if you are female. Your reaction is to pull away. Now it’s really on. You’ve just resisted arrest. So the officer and his buddy slam you to the ground, grind your face into the pavement, put their full weight on you to hold you down, and break your arm, while wrenching it behind your back to handcuff you. All the while yelling “Stop resisting!” for the benefit of onlookers and their own body cams.

You scream you can’t breathe with their weight crushing you. You go into a full-blown panic. So they pepper spray you. That only increases the panic. So they “dry tase” you, even though you are already handcuffed and on the ground. The crowd around you films the encounter. Your pitiful cries for help are captured on their recordings. Help? Who is going to help you? It’s the cops that are beating you.

Eventually, they haul you up roughly by your broken arm and realize how badly injured you are. So they call EMS. The paramedics treat you at the scene, then transport you to the hospital. Now the real fun begins. The arresting officer writes up a report that charges you with disorderly conduct, resisting arrest, and assault on a police officer. You are formally charged upon medical discharge.

Congratulations. You now have an arrest record that will follow you for the rest of your life. You are facing charges for which you have to hire an attorney. That costs thousands of dollars you can’t afford. Your life will be on pause for the next unknown number of months while these charges hang over your head. You are out on bail, so there are conditions imposed on where you can live, what you can do, and where you can travel. You are no longer free in any real sense of the word.

Were your rights violated? Of course they were. Your First and Fourth Amendments, at the very least, were trampled on the pavement along with your face. And, what of it? The police officers will go about their business, free as migrating birds, while you recover from mental and physical injuries waiting to find out if you are going to prison. Maybe, if you are lucky, your lawyer is good enough to get the charges dismissed. If you are less lucky, you beat the charges in court. If your luck has run out, you might have to agree to a plea deal. If the worst happens, you lose at trial in front of a jury of your peers, all of whom have been conditioned their whole lives to always give the benefit of the doubt to law enforcement.

Only months later, after the criminal charges (God willing) are gone, can you even think about suing the law enforcement agency for violating your constitutional rights. Of course, you have to find a civil rights attorney that will take the case. If you are fortunate enough to find one, then a potentially years’ long process ensues. If you are lucky, the preponderance of evidence in your favor will cause the law enforcement agency, and sponsoring government entity (city, county, state or federal), to settle the case. If you are unlucky, the fight could go all the way to the Supreme Court.

If you win some money eventually, then congratulations to you! The violation of your rights has been formerly recognized. Any money you collect will be paid out by the helpless tax payers whose police officers broke your arm, strangled you, ground your face into the pavement, incarcerated you, muzzled your speech, gave you a permanent arrest record, and crippled you with lifelong PTSD. The officers who attacked you, by the way, got promoted. They are doing just fine.

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Here’s the thing about constitutional rights everyone must remember. They are enforced, as the above story makes perfectly clear, after the fact. Armed agents of the government, at the scene of any encounter, are constrained by their own sense of morality. Or, in some cases, by the knowledge of what their superiors are willing to tolerate. You know what they aren’t constrained by? A document sitting on display in Washington under glass. As a general rule, most armed government agents are poorly trained on constitutional procedures. Many of them wouldn’t care about proper constitutional procedures even if properly trained. When your rights are violated, all the burden falls on you, not them. 

Even if you are totally innocent. Even if the whole thing was a giant mistake, your life can be still be completely destroyed. The media will report the version of events put out by law enforcement. Your neighbors will assume the police are telling the truth. Future employers look at your arrest record as the Mark of Cain. There must be something to it, after all, why else would you have been arrested? Incarceration can cause you to lose everything you have. Even if you win in court, or get cleared by subsequent investigation, your reputation, finances, and future job prospects can be entirely ruined.

Below is a brief summary of the story of a grandmother who was mistakenly arrested for a crime she not only did not commit, but couldn’t possibly have physically committed. She rotted in jail for 5 months before any investigation was done to clear her. She’s just one of countless victims

Sometimes cases of abuse are so egregious, and so well-publicized, that the involved officers are punished through dismissal and/or criminal charges. Yay! The system works, right? Except that you still had to suffer through having your rights trampled in the dirt first, and only later were able to reclaim some measure of them.

So in interactions with law enforcement, you can assert your rights all you like. That works to the extent the armed, uniformed men in front of you are willing to recognize them. Local and federal law enforcement had a history of routinely violating citizens’ rights, out of ignorance or malice, even before heavily militarized ICE Agents began to appear. After their anonymous, violent demonstrations on the streets of various American cities, the potential for the violation of constitutional rights has been dialed up to the maximum.

When society allows the training and equipping of a paramilitary force as an occupation army, don’t be shocked when the government uses it like one. 

With that introduction to constitutional rights out of the way, let’s talk about Carrie Prejean Boller.

Contrary to what Americans have previously believed, the U.S. does have an official religion. It’s called “Zionism,” and blasphemy against it is increasingly publicly punished. This is an unprecedented historical development that few foresaw. For the normies at home, the Carrie Prejean Boller affair was the first major warning sign that America was becoming something different than they thought it was.

Boller’s crime is that she allegedly disrupted a meeting on “combating antisemitism and upholding religious freedom” at the Museum of the Bible in Washington. The meeting was called by Donald Trump’s Religious Liberty Commission, founded in May 2025 by executive order to support “Federal laws that protect all citizens’ full participation in a pluralistic democracy, and protect the free exercise of religion.” Boller, a Roman Catholic convert from Evangelicalism, got into multiple, fiery exchanges with other participants at the meeting. She objected to the bundling of Zionism with Judaism as a protected religious belief. She particularly objected to the “free ride” granted to the state of Israel in spite of its mass-murdering behavior in Gaza and elsewhere.

She later posted to X regarding Israel: “Christians have been manipulated into believing that God blesses bombing, starvation, and mass killing. That is the opposite of Christ, who came to stand with the suffering and confront power. I reject that lie completely. I am not owned by money, donors, or access. I belong to Christ alone who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. I would rather die than bend the knee to Israel.” In a subsequent statement she made the case for her religious freedom to reject Zionism, “As a Catholic, I have both a constitutional right and a God given freedom of religion and conscience not to endorse a political ideology.”

President Trump subsequently removed her from the commission for stating a case, against mandatory acceptance of Zionism, which could have been identically argued by Orthodox Christians and most “traditional” Protestants (Lutheran, Episcopal, Reformed). The continuation of the people of God is not a secular state founded in 1948. The Church is Israel. Boller’s open letter to Trump on her removal is worth a read.

For almost the entirety of Christian history, the teachings defended by Boller were uncontroversial, and certainly not suppressed by the power of the American State. That has demonstrably changed. Boller’s very public removal, from an ironically named “Religious Liberty Commission,” shocked a lot of everyday Roman Catholics, Orthodox Christians, secularists, and others. Many posts online have encouraged her to sue the Trump Administration. Which only confirms what was written previously – first they take away your rights, then you have the burden of trying to win them back in court.

Americans immediately began to connect the dots and worry about changes to laws that would make such repression more commonplace. So far, 39 states and the District of Columbia have adopted or recognized the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) working definition of antisemitism, either through legislation, executive orders, or proclamations, according to reports from the American Jewish Committee. The working definition is summed up by the IHRA as:

“Antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities.”

In practicality, such laws establish a framework under which it is extremely dangerous to criticize either Zionism or actions of the Israeli Government. Even criticism of individual Rabbinic Jews, such as Ben Shapiro or Mark Levin, gets regularly denounced as “antisemitism” that could result in legal trouble for critics. The situation is made even worse by having entire departments of the State Department and Justice Department devoted to enforcing the ban on “antisemitism.”

Does the campaign against “antisemitism” violate the Constitution. Sure it does. So? What are you going to do about it?

Given the war with Iran, the campaign to silence “antisemites” now takes on a “national security” character. Those who question Zionism also tend to question the premises of the Iran War. The Epstein Class is not going to tolerate such insubordination. Just ask the most popular right-wing podcaster on the planet, Tucker Carlson, who has announced that he is being investigated by the CIA with a future possible referral to the Department of Justice for prosecution:

Tucker Carlson dropped a bombshell over the weekend: He claims that the CIA spied on him, read his text messages, and is in the process of making a criminal referral of him to the Department of Justice.

 

The reason seems clear enough: Carlson is perhaps the most prominent Trump supporter and conservative commentator who actually opposes the war with Iran.

Tucker’s rights have already been violated. They will be further violated no doubt. Tucker has fame, fortune, and massive public support. All that might save him. Or all that might make him the perfect example to teach us a lesson in obedience the Zionist Federal Government desperately wants us to learn. Like anyone else who becomes a target, Tucker will just have to wait and pray. He is much better off relying on God’s mercy, than on the scribblings of long-dead American founding fathers.

New laws curbing freedom of speech, under the guise of combatting antisemitism, are dangerous. New methods of surveillance to identify crimethink are dangerous. Labeling anti-Zionism and opposition to the Iran War as treason, also extremely dangerous. But even without any of that coming into the picture, and without any dramatic declaration of martial law, you already do not have the rights you think you do.

Let’s use a final example to illustrate just where we stand as non-Zionist Christians. In your parish, on a normal Sunday, the priest says things in his sermon about the Apocalypse, about the Iran war, about targeting civilians, and about Zionism – all in context of Church teachings on the subjects. His sermon is livestreamed, as per usual in the post-COVID era. Unfortunately, thanks to constant government surveillance of social media, his comments attract the attention of the wrong people.

The following Sunday, towards the middle of the Liturgy, dozens of ICE agents burst through the doors of the Church Narthex. They are dressed in combat uniforms, faces covered, and their rifles pointed at the congregation. They demand everyone freeze, loudly announcing that this is a federal immigration enforcement action. Agents then proceed to check everyone’s ID. They demand everyone answer questions about name, place of birth, date of birth, and other very invasive questions. Anyone refusing to answer is threatened with arrest for obstruction. They use facial recognition scanners to scan everyone, including the priest.

Children are crying. The elderly are in shock. The priest is at the altar, unsure of what to do. He just stands there helplessly while his people are assaulted. After checking the congregation, the agents grab a few of the younger ladies. They accuse some of potentially having false ID’s. One they accuse, based on notoriously unreliable facial recognition technology, of matching a known illegal alien criminal. They roughly handcuff the crying young ladies, stating they must be detained for further investigation.

An older man in the back moves to talk to the agents as they hustle the sobbing young ladies to the door. He is a retired law enforcement officer, and a veteran of Desert Storm. He tries to talk to the agents carrying out the arrests. He has known these young women since they were born. He knows their parents. He was at their baptisms. This is clearly a mistake. When he approaches and tries to have a civil conversation, one of the agents violently shoves him backwards. He falls hard, causing his legally carried sidearm to drop out of his jacket pocket onto the floor.

An agent yells, “Gun!” Fortunately, the poor man is already lying on the floor in a pool of blood from a severe head injury. Otherwise the agents would have shot him. One agent grabs the gun, while multiple others jump on the unconscious man, rolling him over violently and handcuffing him. He is bleeding profusely. From the congregation, a couple of nurses plead with the agents to let them render first aid. They are rebuffed and threatened with arrest if they move towards the bleeding, unconscious man. Other agents finish hauling the hysterical young women outside, and bundle them into a waiting van.

Members of the congregation, seeing the agents milling around nonchalantly over the injured parishioner, finally start calling 911 to get EMS on scene. When help does arrive, the agents keep them outside while the injured man just lies there, in his own blood, possibly dying. At some point, the agents finally allow EMS in to do their jobs and get the man to the hospital. As the ambulance departs, so do the remaining agents. On the way out, one turns and says in a clear, commanding voice, “We can come back as often as we need to.”

If the injured man lives, he will face every possible charge the agents can come up with. He will be publicly labeled a “domestic terrorist,” and may even be charged as such. The fact that he had a gun will make it all ten-times worse, even though he was legally carrying it and never intentionally brandished it. Whatever is left of his life could well be completely ruined, if the government chooses to pursue “justice.” Multiple young ladies are now in custody. No one knows where. No one knows for how long. Their families are distraught. No one will tell them anything.

So in the situation above, multiple constitutional rights were violated. So? What are you going to do about it? The families of the detained women will hire lawyers. The lawyers will attempt to find out where the women are. They will attempt to get them released. The process could take days. Or weeks. The women will probably be released, though often from detention facilities hundreds or thousands of miles from where they were originally seized. Traumatized and afraid, possibly with injuries, they will just want to go home. They might eventually try a law suit against the Federal Government. Good luck with that.

The injured parishioner will get a lawyer to try and escape the charges leveled against him. If the charges are dismissed, or dropped, he might also get a lawyer to try and sue the Federal Government. Good luck with that.

What will the parish do? Have a press conference? A huge percentage of the American population will believe you all got exactly what you deserved. How much popular support do you think you will rally against immigration enforcement? Because that will be what the government press release will claim this was. A lawful immigration enforcement action that was illegally impeded by an armed domestic terrorist who tried to stop ICE from detaining suspected illegal immigrants. Shame on you, your priest, and your whole parish for being crybaby liberals who hate America. Viewers of Fox News will send you hate mail, not letters of support.

Call Congress? Congress is not even enforcing its authority to stop a ruinous war. Do you think Congress will care about what happened to your parish?

File a law suit against the Federal Government that was only “enforcing immigration law?” Good luck with that.

The entire parish is traumatized. The priest is traumatized. Did he get the message? Will he turn off his livestream for sermons? Will he start self-censoring out of fear that the agents will be back? Will parishioners start skipping liturgy, out of fear that one “immigration” action is only the beginning? What effect will this have on other priests, other parishes? Even if no charges are ever filed against anyone, just one such “law enforcement” action would have a chilling effect on the speech of millions who were not even personally involved. For the Epstein Class, your compliance is all that matters. Fear ensures compliance. 

You have no rights that can be enforced at the scene of an encounter with law enforcement. Does that mean you should not assert your rights in such encounters? Absolutely not. Assertion of your rights may be what helps you, eventually, win in court. Your Fifth Amendment right to remain silent is especially important. Do not talk to police or trust them. Ever. However, remember the key point of this post. You shouldn’t expect your assertion of rights to protect you from bad outcomes. Your “rights” won’t magically stop you from being beaten, arrested, and charged. Those outcomes are out of your control.

Unless you plan to be always quiet and obedient, you need to spiritually prepare for a type of Martyrdom. They don’t have to kill you to take away your life. Pray. A lot. America is likely to get a whole lot worse, before it ever gets any better.