Orthodox Reflections

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

The murder of Charlie Kirk on 9/10/2025 was an horrific, monstrous, and malicious act. At only 31 and the father of small children, Kirk’s life was cut entirely too short. His mortal life has ended. However, the battle over his complex, multi-faceted legacy has only just begun. Let’s look at that legacy from three sides – effective Christian evangelism, Zionism, and freedom.

Effective Christian Evangelism

Charlie Kirk was a modern Christian Evangelist to the youth, not just in America but across the West. The sincerity of his faith came across to everyone who ever watched him speak and debate. At a time when social scientists forecast nothing but declining religious adherence in Western youth, Kirk inspired those same young people to go to church, find Jesus, avoid porn, get married, and start families. Kirk met the young people, particularly the college students, where they were, and helped them find the strength and motivation to go where they needed to be.

The media usually refer to Kirk as a conservative political influencer. However, those who followed his work closely have observed that the politics, rather than Kirk’s main focus, seemed to be more of a “hook” to gather a crowd to hear the Gospel. On X, Orthodox commentator Byzantine Texas wrote:

If you paid attention to Charlie Kirk when he was alive for any period of time, you realized something. He could be talking about any topic and he was really talking about the Gospel. Property rights, first amendment, marriage, taxes whatever was a vehicle for Christianity and its values.

 

He was a republican because it was closer to his biblical idea of society. Not too many decades ago he could have found the common man in the other party. Few people know how much D is now R and vice versa.

 

You contrast him to the average politician thus: Elected people often use the Bible to get their political goals accomplished. Kirk used politics as a vehicle for Christianity. If you call a bunch of college kids to your rally and make it explicitly religious, they won’t show up. Call them to discuss hot button topics, use them to articulate the Christian underpinnings of this country, and they flock for the show but are secretly fed real truths. Any parent who has thrown greens in a blender to “hide” them in a sauce to make it healthier knows this method.

 

So, some consider him a political figure who put the Church and State too close together while using faith to prop up a “problematic” president. I consider him a man who saw an opportunity to “crowd heaven” with the converted and used politics as the vessel for his evangelism.

Kirk’s success with young people, often achieved through a respectful debate format, shows that being politically persuasive might convince a college student to vote differently. However, that is not nearly enough. Changing a young person’s vote isn’t much of a victory. Winning a few elections won’t make much difference in our nation. What really matters is awakening a desire for Christ within young hearts, something at which Kirk excelled. Seeking and finding Christ makes college students live differently. Politics can’t save souls, but accepting Christ absolutely does. Following Kirk’s murder, at memorials in many parts of the world, young people poured out their hearts as to how Charlie Kirk changed their lives.  The truth is he didn’t change their lives. He introduced them to the Gospel, and then Jesus Christ changed their lives.

It is truly amazing, isn’t it? The success of Kirk’s campus evangelism completely shatters the lie that the youth are content with a vapid, nihilistic culture. Young people are looking for tradition, for permanence, for transcendence, for meaning in their lives. Politics won’t give them any of that. Radical ideologies won’t give them any of that. But Jesus Christ can and will. Off the top of my head, I can think of multiple secular podcasters who have also tried doing campus tours similar to Kirk’s. None of them have ever gotten anywhere close to Kirk’s level of success. As long as their focus is solely on winning political debates, rather than sharing the Gospel, none of them ever will.

Kirk was an Evangelical Christian. Earlier in his career, some of his content had been quite dismissive of Roman Catholicism. However, Kirk’s wife is a practicing Roman Catholic, and her influence has been readily apparent for some time. Kirk has been going to mass with his family, and may even have begun to pray the Rosary (according to some reports). On his podcast, Kirk encouraged Evangelicals to venerate the Virgin Mary, even saying that doing so was a way to combat toxic feminism.

Aside from Roman Catholicism, Kirk has positively mentioned the Orthodox Church several times in clips available on YouTube, and recently even had an entire show featuring Orthodox priest Fr John Strickland. Preview is below, full podcast available here. Orthodoxy in the United States is growing fast, especially among the young. It is an interesting question as to how much of that growth we owe to Kirk’s influence. That would make an interesting research topic.

Kirk’s good friend Candace Owens observed on her show that, “In the end Charlie was going through a spiritual transformation.” Was Kirk on his way to joining his wife in the Roman Catholic Church? Or was he inquiring into Orthodoxy? Sadly, we will never know as a murderer’s bullet put an untimely end to Kirk’s earthly journey. What we can say is Kirk’s success in promoting Christianity and Christian values has drawn admiration from some of our most illustrious Orthodox priests such as Fr Josiah Trenham. Fr Josiah’s moving tribute to Charlie Kirk is below.

Kirk changed lives, and our national discourse, because in a sincere and authentic way, he put Christ at the center of his mission to the youth. That differentiated his organization, Turning Point USA, from all the others which have failed to gain any traction. Kirk’s replacement is quite likely to be a more standard political operator. If so, Turning Point is likely to become as relevant to the national discourse as the College Republicans. Which is to say, totally irrelevant. Politics do not save.

For effective evangelism, Kirk’s legacy looms large. He proved that young people are hungry for Christ, often without even realizing it, and that change is possible for any of these young people. Former gay, trans, and radical students have testified that Kirk’s encouragement led them seek out Christ, thus transforming their lives forever. The Orthodox Church, though already succeeding in evangelism to a degree in our post-Christian society, needs to take a page from the Charlie Kirk playbook to really reach the youth. We need to go out and meet them where they are, in person, with love and compassion. When it comes to outreach for Christ, we all need to be Charlie Kirk.

Scroll Down to Continue

Zionism

Charlie Kirk’s career was not an accident, nor the result of pluck and ingenuity. Charlie Kirk the man was born. Charlie Kirk the successful influencer was a creation of Zionist megadonors.  Here is how Max Blumenthal at the Gray Zone put it:

Kirk was 18 years old when he launched TPUSA in 2012. From its inception, his career was propelled by Zionist donors, who showered his young organization with money through neoconservative outfits like the David Horowitz Freedom Center. He repaid his wealthy backers over the years by unleashing a relentless firehose of anti-Palestinian and Islamophobic diatribes, accepting propaganda trips to Israel, and sternly shutting down nationalist forces challenging his support for Israel during TPUSA events. In the Trump era, few American gentiles had proved more valuable to the self-proclaimed Jewish state than Charlie Kirk.

People have somehow gotten an impression of Charlie Kirk as a scrappy, underdog outsider. Nothing could be further from the truth. In 2024, TPUSA reported revenues of approximately $85 million, most of it from people who, if they were not in America, would be referred to as “billionaire oligarchs.” Kirk’s salary for the fiscal year ending June 2024 was reported to be $285,929, with additional benefits bringing his total compensation to nearly $390,000. Almost $400k a year to manage a massive organization with multiple departments handling different media channels and events. Charlie Kirk, for all his dedication to the Gospel, was an integral part of the “establishment.”

You can see this clearly in the aftermath of his horrific murder. Under orders from either the President or VP, Charlie Kirk received military-style honors, with Airmen carrying his casket to a government plane in what is called a “dignified transfer.” This ceremony is usually reserved for military members killed in service to the nation, or high ranking government officials. It is quite possible that Charlie Kirk is the first case of a pure civilian ever being given such an honor. You can see a picture of the “dignified transfer” below, with Vice President J.D. Vance acting as a pall bearer. Charlie Kirk was not just a rich, successful media influencer. He was also a de facto high ranking member of Donald Trump’s government.

For the vast majority of his career, Charlie Kirk was worth every penny to his Zionist oligarch backers. He was unwavering in his support for Israel, for Zionism, and for Zionist political candidates in the U.S. In the past few years, most of Kirk’s influencer peers, and the vast majority of his audience, had turned against Israel. Kirk, however, kept right on dutifully carrying water for Netanyahu. Kirk was probably the last right-wing, Gentile influencer under 50 to do so. Given his vast reach among future American voters, and the absolute necessity of maintaining American support for Israel to survive, keeping Kirk on the reservation was deemed essential by Zionists. Which is why, following his death, they immediately tried to focus his legacy totally on his support for Israel.

On the day Kirk was murdered, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was already seizing the narrative, posting on X the following:

“Charlie Kirk was murdered for speaking truth and defending freedom. A lion-hearted friend of Israel, he fought the lies and stood tall for Judeo-Christian civilization. I spoke to him only two weeks ago and invited him to Israel. Sadly, that visit will not take place. We lost an incredible human being. His boundless pride in America and his valiant belief in free speech will leave a lasting impact. Rest in peace, Charlie Kirk.”

That was only the beginning of Benjamin Netanyahu exploiting Charlie Kirk’s death for pro-Israel propaganda. He quickly went on Fox News to connect Kirk’s death to the so-called “Islamist-Marxist” alliance that Israel has been hyping:

“This is a worldwide problem…the radical Islamists and their union with the ultra progressives…they use violence to try and take down their enemies, whether it’s President Trump, who has been almost assassinated twice, or they tried to kill me too, but they got Charlie Kirk.”

On September 11th, one day after Kirk’s murder, Fox News aired a segment called, “Charlie Kirk’s Legacy of Supporting Israel” with special guest Benjamin Netanyahu. Bibi called Charlie “an extraordinary friend” of Israel. In the segment, Netanyahu claims Kirk wrote him a letter in May 2025 declaring, “One of my greatest joys as a Christian is advocating for Israel.”

Also on September 11th, Benjamin Netanyahu insisted Israel had nothing to do with Charlie Kirk’s assassination. He added that anyone who believes otherwise is out of their mind. Netanyahu compared the rumor to the old accusations against Jews, like poisoning wells and drinking the blood of Christian children. Stop for a minute and ponder the strange world we live in. A Prime Minister of a foreign nation stopped everything he was doing to exploit the death of an American influencer who held no elective office. That same Prime Minister further felt compelled to deny any involvement with his death. Strange times indeed.

Ben Shapiro stepped in on September 12th to seize Kirk’s mantle, proclaiming that he will start going to college campuses and that, “We’re going to pick up that blood-stained microphone where Charlie left it.” Shapiro is a Rabbinic Jew that has publicly insulted Jesus Christ in the past. His taking over from Charlie Kirk will reduce campus appearances to the level of mere political debates, focused on him scoring rhetorical points against goyim students about whom Shapiro cares nothing. Without a focus on Christ, and the love Kirk brought to his engagements with students, this effort will go absolutely nowhere.

Within days of Kirk’s murder, billboards and murals were already appearing in Israel honoring the special relationship between Kirk and the Zionist state. Even an image of Kirk with Donald Trump, President of the United States, featured the Israeli flag and a reference to an Israeli hero. Over and over again, the Zionists want to make it clear that Kirk was their guy.

Israel, using the cover of the Kirk murder, stepped up its attacks on Gaza and on the West Bank. The attacks on Gaza are particularly horrific, with the IDF clearly aiming to completely destroy every building standing. That is bad enough, but disgustingly, images appeared online of IDF soldiers dedicating bombs to Charlie Kirk’s memory. The IDF soldiers are so demonic, that they honor a devout Christian by slaughtering innocent civilians in his name.

Also incredibly galling, on the Sunday following Kirk’s murder, when tens of millions of Americans (some for the first time) were gathered in churches remembering Charlie Kirk, Secretary of State Rubio was in Israel prostrating himself before the “wailing wall” with Mike Huckabee and Netanyahu. It is not hard to see where the establishment’s true loyalties lie, and they aren’t with Charlie Kirk and His God.

We could keep going with example after example. The Israelis are hell bent on completely appropriating Kirk’s legacy for themselves, and Charlie’s own countrymen are in on it.

Also shocking was the way the Zionist Deep State establishment capitalized on Kirk’s death to cover up for controversial actions. On the same day he was murdered, the Republican-led Senate defeated an amendment introduced by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. to compel the Justice Department to release all of the Jeffrey Epstein files. Kirk had called for release of those files, and even speculated that Epstein could have been Mossad. Congress shortly passed the $895B National Defense Authorization Act, giving Israel over $650M for missile defense, extended access to U.S. weapon stockpiles until 2029, mandatory Pentagon briefings on arms transfers, protection from ICC warrants, and U.S. boycotts of arms expos that bar Israeli firms. The House passed an amendment to punish boycotts of Israel. Rep. Brian Mast, who wore an IDF uniform after Oct 7 to Congress, introduced a bill allowing Marco Rubio to strip Americans of citizenship if they’re accused of “material support” for Israel’s enemies. Critics were quick to warn this vague language could be twisted to punish speech, protests, or even journalism. Fortunately the backlash forced Mast to withdraw the abomination. 

What a way to honor Charlie Kirk’s memory!

The Zionists want to monopolize Kirk’s legacy to sell their genocidal wars to the next generation of young voters. In truth, for most of his professional life, Kirk was a dedicated Zionist, willing to excuse anything done by Israel no matter how ungodly. Unfortunately, however, for the Zionists, it is very apparent that Kirk was changing on Israel as part of his spiritual journey.

Max Blumenthal writing in the Grayzone details the drama surrounding Charlie Kirk as he evolved on Israel:

Charlie Kirk rejected an offer earlier this year from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to arrange a massive new infusion of Zionist money into his Turning Point USA (TPUSA) organization, America’s largest conservative youth association, according to a longtime friend of the slain commentator speaking on the condition of anonymity. The source told The Grayzone that the late pro-Trump influencer believed Netanyahu was trying to cow him into silence as he began to publicly question Israel’s overwhelming influence in Washington and demanded more space to criticize it.

 

In the weeks leading up to his September 10 assassination, Kirk had come to loathe the Israeli leader, regarding him as a “bully,” the source said. Kirk was disgusted by what he witnessed inside the Trump administration, where Netanyahu sought to personally dictate the president’s personnel decisions, and weaponized Israeli assets like billionaire donor Miriam Adelson to keep the White House firmly under its thumb.

 

According to Kirk’s friend, who also enjoyed access to President Donald Trump and his inner circle, Kirk strongly warned Trump last June against bombing Iran on Israel’s behalf. “Charlie was the only person who did that,” they said, recalling how Trump “barked at him” in response and angrily shut down the conversation. The source believes the incident confirmed in Kirk’s mind that the president of the United States had fallen under the control of a malign foreign power, and was leading his own country into a series of disastrous conflicts.

 

This July, at his TPUSA Student Action Summit, Kirk provided a forum for the right-wing grassroots to vent its fury about Israel’s political hammerlock on the Trump administration. There, speakers from former Fox News stalwarts Tucker Carlson and Megyn Kelly, to the anti-Zionist Jewish comedian Dave Smith, denounced Israel’s blood-soaked assault on the besieged Gaza Strip, branded Jeffrey Epstein as an Israeli intelligence asset, and openly taunted Zionist billionaires like Bill Ackman for “getting away with scams” despite having “no actual skills.”

 

Following the confab, Kirk was bombarded with infuriated text messages and phone calls from Netanyahu’s wealthy allies in the US, including many who had funded TPUSA. According to his longtime friend, the Zionist donors treated Kirk with outright contempt, essentially ordering him to fall back into line.By the following month, Kirk had become the target of a sustained private campaign of intimidation and free-floating fury by wealthy and powerful allies of Netanyahu – figures he described in an interview as Jewish “leaders” and “stakeholders.”

 

“He was afraid of them,” the source emphasized.

 

But as Israel’s genocidal assault on the besieged Gaza Strip drove an unprecedented backlash within grassroots right-wing circles, where only 24% of younger Republicans now sympathize with Israel over the Palestinians, Kirk began to shift. At times, he toed the Israeli line, spreading disinformation about babies beheaded by Hamas on October 7, and denying the famine imposed on the population of Gaza. Yet he simultaneously ceded to his base, wondering aloud if Jeffrey Epstein was an Israeli intelligence asset, questioning whether the Israeli government allowed the October 7 attacks to proceed in order to advance long-term political goals, and parroting narratives familiar to his most vociferous critic on the right, streamer Nick Fuentes.

 

This July, at his TPUSA Student Action Summit, Kirk provided a forum for the right-wing grassroots to vent its fury about Israel’s political hammerlock on the Trump administration. There, speakers from former Fox News stalwarts Tucker Carlson and Megyn Kelly, to the anti-Zionist Jewish comedian Dave Smith, denounced Israel’s blood-soaked assault on the besieged Gaza Strip, branded Jeffrey Epstein as an Israeli intelligence asset, and openly taunted Zionist billionaires like Bill Ackman for “getting away with scams” despite having “no actual skills.”

 

Kirk appeared visibly outraged during an August 6 interview with conservative host Megyn Kelly, as he discussed the menacing messages he was receiving from pro-Israel bigwigs.

 

“It’s all of the sudden: ‘oh, Charlie: he’s no longer with us.’ Wait a second—what does ‘with us’ mean, exactly? I’m an American, okay? I represent this country,” he explained, before addressing the powerful Zionist interests harassing him.

 

“The more that you guys privately and publicly call our character into question—which is not isolated, it would be one thing if it were just one text, or two texts; it is dozens of texts—then we start to say, ‘whoa, hold the boat here,’” Kirk continued. “To be fair, some really good Jewish friends say, ‘that’s not all of us’… But these are leaders here. These are stakeholders.”

 

He went on to complain to Kelly, “I have less ability… to criticize the Israeli government than actual Israelis do. And that’s really, really weird.”

As a result of Kirk charting a semi-independent course on Israel, he was pilloried as an antisemite.

Kirk was hounded by his Zionist donors. He felt threatened. According to Grayzone reporting:

 “A month before Charlie Kirk’s killing, billionaire pro-Israel moneyman Bill Ackman arranged an intervention in the Hamptons during which sources say he and others ‘hammered’ Kirk for the conservative leader’s growing criticism of Israeli influence in Washington. Kirk came away fretting about Israeli ‘blackmail, sources say, as he contemplated a Catholic conversion.”

In clips of Charlie Kirk prior to his murder, he even goes so far as to suggest that there was a military stand-down order on October 7th (thus allowing Hamas to attack unchecked). Kirk in one clip accused Israel of ethnically cleansing Gaza. In other clips, Kirk lambasted secular, leftist Jews for their funding of Woke politics, and the decline of our culture as a result.

So memo to Zionists – we know that Charlie Kirk used to be a loyal soldier. But he moved on from you, and embraced God ever more tightly as he found his way to a greater fullness of the truth. His legacy, his image, his memory – do not belong to you. 

Freedom

Charlie Kirk was a champion of freedom of speech and freedom of association. Even when he was publicly dedicated to Zionism, he was prone to questioning the draconian “antisemitism” measures favored by many of his erstwhile MAGA allies. The exchange below with Mark Levin is emblematic of Kirk’s willingness to take heat when standing up for civil liberties.

In the aftermath of his murder, a narrative is being built in conservative circles that “we are at war.” The time for peaceful dialog is over. It is now time for all those on the “American Right” to put aside their differences, come together, and “crush the Left.” Matt Walsh, of Shapiro’s Daily Wire, is emblematic of this reaction.

Of course, the biggest issue dividing the MAGA movement right now is support for Israel. But let’s just forget about that shall we, and come together for the big win over Leftists by any means necessary? To make that happen, some so-called conservatives are calling for giving Trump dictatorial powers.

Other activists are urging President Trump to push for a so-called “Charlie Kirk Act” that would make “news corporations accountable for lying to the American people and spreading propaganda instead of truth.” The U.S. government, of course, would be responsible for determining what is true and what is misinformation. Attorney General Pam Bondi called for prosecution of hate speech:

“There’s free speech and then there’s hate speech, and there is no place, especially now, especially after what happened to Charlie, in our society…We will absolutely target you, go after you, if you are targeting anyone with hate speech.”

Heck, even free speech enthusiast Nick Fuentes has called for mass internet censorship because people celebrating Charlie Kirk’s death hurt his feelings.

Prior to our current calls for war, many on the Right were skeptical, or even outright hostile, to Peter Thiel’s company Palantir. Palantir is the go-to company for what the intel industry refers to as “mining” – collating and analyzing digital data information for American and Israeli intelligence and law enforcement agencies. In the United States, police departments from southern California to Boston use Palantir to track all sorts of people. Palantir has been working directly with the Israeli military on their campaign of so-called “targeted killings”. Palantir has been using social media information from Meta and other firms, as well as mobile phone data, to track people the IDF can then target for assassination. Experts estimate tens of thousands of people have been killed in this Palantir-enabled campaign, including innocent journalists. Recently Palantir has been wallowing in more and more government contracts to build databases, and make the U.S. government “more efficient.” Now that we need to identify, track and “crush” the Left, angry right-wingers are singing Palantir’s praises. The party of freedom is now openly calling for more digital surveillance. For “safety,” of course. 

This is no way to honor the legacy of Charlie Kirk, a man who denied that “hate speech” even existed as a legal category.

What happened to Charlie Kirk is tragic and infuriating. However, going too far as a result can have dire consequences. No matter how much you trust President Trump, extraordinary measures against free speech and free association will not be overseen by the President directly. The day-to-day power will rest in the hands of the same political appointees, the same Deep State career hacks, the same local police, the same local judges that, together, created so many of our current problems. In addition, whatever controls are put on speech, assembly, and/or NGO funding will be available for the administration, and the Deep State, to use against right-wing critics of the administration. Unhappy with the ongoing wars? Unhappy with deficit spending? Inflation has you bothered? Whether you want to accept the truth or not, complaining about President Trump and his administration can be “terrorism” too. It just depends on who is defining “terrorism.”

This is not to say that we are powerless or without legal recourse. Violence and conspiracy to commit violence are already illegal. We need to make sure severe penalties are enforced. We can ban porn. We can ban sodomy. We can ban pride parades and furry marches. Such things were always understood as public lewdness, not speech. We can ban transgender surgeries, treatments, and advocacy. None of that is speech either. Such specific laws could never be used to muzzle or harass law-abiding Christians.

It is a myth that dialog with Leftists is impossible. Kirk did that on campuses across the nation in a calm, respectful manner. He did so in love, and as a result, many who heard his message left behind sick, twisted ideologies on their way to finding Jesus Christ. Yes, Charlie Kirk was murdered while having a campus dialog. However, we can’t honor his legacy by proclaiming that the very thing he gave his life doing is now meaningless. Violent offenders should be punished to the full extent of the law. However, for those who are merely lost and thrashing about, drowning in their own despair, it is up to us to throw them a lifeline. Not muzzle them or put them in jail.