Orthodox Reflections

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

There are Orthodox Christians in Gaza enduring severe hardships. Their church, Saint Porphyrius, has been bombed more than once. Our Orthodox brethren live in the midst of a genocidal attack which they are powerless to resist. Bombing and sniper attacks are a daily occurrence. There is no medicine and no functioning health care system. Even a minor injury or illness can prove fatal. Food and water have been cut off and are running scarce. The situation appears bleak. So on Palm Sunday, what did these Orthodox Christians do? They gathered at their Church to welcome Christ into Jerusalem.

It wasn’t just them either. From Jerusalem to Syria to Lebanon to Iraq to Ukraine, Orthodox Christians, despite war and persecution, gathered in procession, publicly proclaiming their faith in Jesus Christ. In Jerusalem, Houthi ballistic missile attacks have been causing air raid sirens to go off. No one knows what could happen at any minute. Even though many Palestinian Orthodox were kept out of Jerusalem, those that could get into the city still bravely and proudly carried their palm crosses openly through the streets. In Damascus, despite horrific levels of violence in a broken country, the Orthodox still boldly proclaimed their faith in Our Lord Jesus Christ.

Palm Sunday in Jerusalem

Holy Cross Greek Antiochian Church in Damascus, Syria

We could go on and on posting pictures of the old, the young, the men, the women – all coming to Church under conditions Americans cannot even begin to imagine. For Holy Week services, and for Pascha, they will all be back. Regardless of what is happening around them.

Their witness will do more to save souls than any online apologetics, any preaching from any pulpit, any book, any song, or any movie. Talk is cheap. Proclaiming the Risen Lord from the comfort of your sofa impresses no one. Inspires no one. What these Christians do, under extreme circumstances, tells the entire world, “Our God is real!” They don’t just talk the talk. They actually walk the walk.

Christians have always known that personal holiness was the most effective witness. The Christian martyrs dying in public executions drew more souls to Christ than anything else in the first few centuries of the Church. It isn’t what you say, but what you do that really shows what you believe. Which is why hypocrisy is so damaging to the Church. Does a villain in a cassock who abuses children really believe in a just and loving God? Does an obvious coward really believe that the Tomb is Empty and that Christ has conquered death?

Social science has noticed the phenomenon that people are impressed more by what they see than what they hear. Actions that concretely demonstrate belief are called “Credibility Enhancing Displays.” The information below is put together from some academic papers on the topic:

Cultural evolutionary research strongly suggests that people are more likely to accept empirically unverifiable beliefs (for example the existence of God or that He eternally exists as Three Persons) if they have witnessed other people’s behavioral commitment to these same beliefs. These behavioral cues are known as ‘Credibility Enhancing Displays’. Credibility Enhancing Displays consist of ‘costly’ or ‘hard to fake’ actions such as frequent ritual participation, lengthy or demanding rituals, taboo observation, scarification, celibacy, martyrdom, enduring persecution, selfless acts of service or charity, etc. Such acts offer proof that belief is more than a matter of lip service and should be taken seriously. Humans have a natural desire to avoid deception. They, therefore, have a preference for verbal statements backed up by hard to fake behaviors that provide evidence of true belief. Religions that associate beliefs with costly or hard to fake behaviors become more successful than those that don’t. Further, when people stop participating in ritual and other behaviors, it becomes difficult to transmit religious beliefs  to the next generation. Religious beliefs then become peripheral add-ons rather than the core of group identity. Over time, such beliefs are discarded in an ongoing process of secularization of the type we are seeing today throughout much of the West.

Celebrating Holy Week and Pascha, with all the demands that entails, in the midst of wars, famines, and persecution are the ultimate “Credibility Enhancing Displays.” Of course, the Orthodox Christians involved are not following Christ to impress anyone. They are just following Christ. But their devotion to God will inspire tens of millions nonetheless.

On the flip side, however, failing to stand firm in one’s Christian convictions is demoralizing to yourself and others. Which brings us all to the Lost Pascha during COVID in 2020. Do you remember it? The Saturday night when the vast majority of Orthodox Christians in the U.S. sat at home watching online as priests celebrated the Resurrection of Christ in empty, or mostly empty, Orthodox Churches?

We closed our Churches on the holiest day of the year because government bureaucrats and politicians told us to. Why on Earth did we listen to them? Were we really so afraid of disease and death? If so, what does that tell everyone about our faith in Christ, whom we proclaim overcame “Death by Death”? Is the tomb empty or not? The Apostle Paul said to die was but to gain. Is that really true, if we Orthodox cower in our homes in fear of a disease with a 99% survival rate for most people? Earlier generations of Orthodox Christians went out into the streets, in the midst of horrific plagues, to care for the sick and the suffering. We skipped Church, worked from home, watched Netflix, and chilled.

Just looking at pictures of our Orthodox brethren, under severe hardships but still thanking God with grateful hearts, fills me with the deepest possible shame.

Syrian Christians suffering under Islamic rule, but refusing to back down or be silenced. American Orthodox allowed their Churches to be closed to hide from a virus. 

Were we so afraid of death, or perhaps we were really afraid of the government? Is the government now in charge of what we can and cannot do in the practice of our faith? Evidently the government can simply declare an emergency and close the Churches. Meanwhile, we ‘believers’ calmly sip lattes at home with nary a peep of protest. By acceding to government fiat, we have set a very dangerous, and credibility destroying, precedent. RFK Jr, head of the Department of Health and Human Services, has already declared that rising antisemitism is our new crisis. The Federal Government, and states such as Texas, have adopted into law definitions of antisemitism which could easily be construed as outlawing certain Holy Week prayers, some Gospel readings, and even specific Orthodox Christian dogmas as antisemitic. Can the government close Orthodox Churches to stamp out antisemitism? Can the government censor our prayers, our scripture readings, perhaps even demand dogmatic changes in exchange for allowing us to operate our churches?

So are we, the Orthodox Christians in America and the West, ready to stand up to whatever government interference in our Faith comes next? Are we going to act like God is real and matters, or are we going to cave in again? Perhaps you might be tempted to say, “But our First Amendment will protect us from having to confront persecution!” Where was the First Amendment a few years ago when your Church was closed and you watched Pascha on a livestream at home on your couch? Never underestimate the malevolence we are up against, or the sacrifices we may be called upon to make as Orthodox Christians.

Some Orthodox Christians might have gone COVIDian to avoid appearing ‘fanatical’. Some (too many) Orthodox hierarchs and clergy referred to their critics as fanatics. As compared to what, one has to ask? Compared to Christian martyrs and to our foreign brethren braving war and famine just to worship the Risen Christ? Carefully crafted moderation in service to God inspires no one, even if it does get you invited to the right cocktail parties.

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It’s not all gloomy in the West, however. Somewhere between 17-22% of Orthodox parishes never closed during the ‘COVID Pandemic’. That compares to an average of 7% across all other Christian denominations. Orthodoxy stood out then, and keeps standing out because our religion is very demanding. We fast, keep rules of prayer, go to confession, actively try to live godly lives, have celibate monks and hierarchs, provide charity, and struggle to put God at the center of everything. It doesn’t hurt to be associated with Christians who, under severe persecution, would rather die than surrender to the world.

Our much better than average parish open rate, and the nature of our Orthodox Faith, have helped regain some of the credibility abandoning Pascha cost us. The Orthodox Church is growing in the U.S. and the Western world. We see this in the cheerful announcements of parishes baptizing and receiving dozens, even hundreds, of converts at once all over the world. Even in very secular countries such as the U.K., the growth of the Orthodox Church is astounding. In the U.S., we see anecdotal evidence that the number of converts is large, accelerating, and diverse.

We can also see success in the explosion of media coverage, both positive and negative, devoted to Orthodoxy and converts. One such article was posted on 4 January 2025 in the U.K. Telegraph called Young, single men are leaving traditional churches. They found a more ‘masculine’ alternative. For most of my almost three decades in the Orthodox Church, we couldn’t buy media coverage, let alone get it for free. There is a reason why we called the Orthodox Church “America’s best kept secret.” The secret has gotten out.

We also see it in surveys and census data. According to 2016-2021 census data, Orthodoxy is the fastest growing denomination in Australia. Like the U.K., Australia is a very secular country in which organized Christianity was supposed to be on the way out.

Orthodoxy is not alone in its growth. Roman Catholicism, in its traditional form also a very demanding faith, is reporting record growth in many places around the world. This includes the U.K., where Roman Catholics are on course to outnumber Anglicans for the first time since Henry VIII. The growth is driven by younger churchgoers who outnumber younger Anglicans by more than two to one. Generation Z and younger Millennials were supposed to be the so-called ‘nones’ who abandoned organized religion in favor of atheism or a do-it-yourself kind of vague spirituality. Instead, a noticeable number of them are finding the Roman Catholic and Orthodox Churches, even in countries which were supposed to be totally inhospitable to traditional Christianity.

Perhaps Christian Churches that can survive Nero, Diocletian, Muslims, the communists, and the Israelis can also survive modernity? 

They can. That is, if they practice what they preach. A survey called the National Study of Youth and Religion found that one of the biggest predictors, of whether or not a young person remained in church, was the extent to which his/her parents practiced the Christian Faith in the home and in daily life, not just in public or churchly settings. The same applies to gaining converts as it does to retaining youth. We have to walk the walk, not just talk the talk. Nobody wants to join a bunch of frauds. We have to treat our faith in Christ, in all respects, as if it is the only thing that really matters. Because it is, actually.

Put God first. Do not fear death. Build strong communities in which you tend the sick, feed the poor, adopt the orphans, and comfort those who need comforting. Love one another as Christ first loved you. Joyfully and dutifully keep the fasts. Pray daily according to a rule of prayer. Attend Divine Liturgy as often as you can. Pursue righteousness. Work out your salvation in fear and trembling. Remember always that you will stand before the Dread Judgment Seat of Christ.

Have a blessed Pascha this year and every year that Jesus tarries. Above all, we must never let them take it from us again!