537. A Church for Super-masculine Men?

 

Pray for the people of Ukraine and Gaza.

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“If you are here because you think this is a place where you can reinforce some cultural masculinity [or] because you think this is the place to rebel against what you see going on politically around you or socially around you, please…go somewhere else.”

Those tough words are taken from a talk by Russian Orthodox Bishop Irenei, delivered in their cathedral in London last Sunday morning. They were given in response to a BBC article published earlier that same day about some American men who, in order to recover true masculinity and escape “WOKE” political culture, are joining the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia (ROCOR). *

• ROCOR was founded originally for exiles from the Communist Revolution. They are now part of the Moscow Patriarchate, under His Holiness Kirill, Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia.

A quick summary of the article:

It is headlined “Young US men are joining Russian churches promising ‘absurd levels of manliness.’” It tells of Father Moses McPherson, a ROCOR convert priest in Texas, who promotes “true masculinity” in his parish and on YouTube *

• On his YouTube site he says (among many other things) that truly masculine men follow the Church’s fasting and worship disciplines and keep a regular job to support their family. (That’s good.) He also says that manly men should have their wives stay home and have as many babies as possible (That’s not good.) but men should help care for the little ones. (That’s good.) Also real men should not wear skinny jeans or cross their legs consume thin soup – only chunky. (That’s weird.) Some think it’s satire. It  isn’t.

The BBC article also tells of American male converts to ROCOR who believe Mr Putin has been misunderstood regarding his [immoral *] invasion of Ukraine, as has Patriarch Kirill who publicly supports the [unholy *] war and punishes any clergy who do not. Did you know that some American converts to ROCOR have moved to Russia in order to be truly Orthodox!

• editor’s notes

If you, dear reader, are inquiring about what the Holy Orthodox Church is all about… this is not it.

In the BBC article, a former Protestant who now belongs to a Greek Orthodox Church in Austin, Texas, “says many converts belong to ‘the anti-woke crowd’ and sometimes have strange ideas about their new faith – especially those in the Russian Church. They see it as a military, rigid, disciplinary, masculine, authoritarian religion… It’s kind of funny. It’s almost as if the old American Puritans and their craziness is resurfacing.”

So, with that forewarning, here is how to access:

The BBC Article

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c30q5l8d4lro

My Response

I’m putting this first only because I had it worked out before I learned of Bishop Irenei’s much more adequate and insightful response (below). I’m afraid I got to thinking about this during Divine Liturgy last Sunday. (Forgive me, Lord.)

As we’ve noted before, there is currently a “surge” of people into the Orthodox Church in the United States – especially young men and young families. I have noticed for years that, with converts to the Faith, it is usually men who first discover Orthodoxy. This is contrary to the general pattern in my previous denomination.

The New York Post recently had an article about the “masculinity” of the Orthodox Church. * I think this is dead wrong. I believe in the “humanity” of the Orthodox Church.

• https://nypost.com/2024/12/03/us-news/young-men-are-converting-to-orthodox-christianity-in-droves/

In my 35 years as an Orthodox priest, I have known no male converts who I thought came here in order to become more masculine. Men and woman alike have come seeking blessed Christian “normalcy” – Jesus Christ and the Truth revealed in Him, the solid Faith of the Apostles and the Fathers, the community of Christ’s Holy Church.

At the end of the Post article one young man, a convert, said this: “Orthodoxy isn’t about us, it’s about God, and I think young people today can intuitively sense that out. We know when we’re being pandered to…  Everything’s changing. Protestant churches are changing. The Catholic Church is changing. The culture is changing. The government is changing. People want something that is historic and not going to change. They want something that’s stable and sound and is not built on sand.”

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Bishop Irenei’s response

…delivered the same morning the BBC article came out. Perhaps he also had been thinking about it during Liturgy?

“A Word From His Grace Irenei, Bishop of the Russian Orthodox Diocese of London and Western Europe, after the Divine Liturgy on 25th May 2025 in the Diocesan Cathedral, London.”

Seeking After “Masculinity” is Not an Orthodox Pursuit.

Christ is risen!

I wish to say a small word here after this Divine Service, in the name of the Father and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

It’s not often, in fact, it’s extremely rare that I ever comment from this place on things going on in the media or in the political world, because for the most part these have no bearing upon our life in Christ. But I do want to say something today that’s in response directly to something in the press. As of this morning, there’s an article that has been published in the mass media. It’s on the radio and so on, about the Russian Church, particularly in America, but more broadly about the Church Abroad, and it talks about the Church in terms of people seeking ‘masculinity’ and a ‘conservative environment’ and a political environment that’s different from the ‘liberal’ world around them. And I feel it’s necessary to say something in light of this to all of you who are here.

It doesn’t overly concern me when the media misrepresents the Orthodox Faith. In fact, I cannot even really blame them most of the time, because of course, it’s not their job, and we don’t expect an understanding of spiritual things from a non-spiritual environment. When they try honestly and openly and make mistakes, we simply ignore it. It’s different, of course, if there is malicious intent or a deliberate desire to misrepresent the teachings of the church. This sometimes happens, though it doesn’t seem to be the case, really, in this particular instance.

I’m not overly concerned about what the media thinks of us. However, I am very concerned about what you think of us. That is to say, about what each Orthodox person understands about the Church. We live in a culture where too many people, including people in our own Church, turn to the media, whether it be traditional or social media, or other things, and think that they will find there some accurate echo of the Church’s teaching. This almost never happens. Almost always, what is presented in the media — especially in social, but even in traditional media — is a distortion, a mischaracterisation, intentional or otherwise, and not a safe place to gain an understanding of the Church’s teaching.

So there have been a few reports of late, including this most recent one currently making the rounds, about a number of young people converting to Orthodoxy, particularly young men, converting because they find in the Orthodox Church, according to these reports, an environment that preaches ‘masculinity’ and real ‘manhood’. And I want to say that if you’re here because you think that that’s what we are here to do, then you are a fool. This is stupidity. ‘Masculinity’, so far as I am aware, is not an Orthodox term. It is not a term that has any traditional place in Christianity. It is a term embraced by the secular world because this world has rejected normal concepts of humanity, in which of course there is male and there is female, there is child, there is adult. These are simply human beings. But because the world has lost sight of the basics of what it means to be human, it is forced to respond to the lack of clarity it has pushed on itself by fostering these concepts of ‘femininity’, ‘masculinity’, and so on.

None of this has anything to do with the teaching of Jesus Christ. This Church proclaims a simple reality that in Jesus Christ our Saviour, all of us discover what it means to be a human being, what it means to become a human person. And this is to live according to the Gospel after the image of Christ. If you have lost sight of what it means to be a man in this strange world, or if you have lost sight of what it means to be a woman in this strange world, this is hardly surprising. This world is more confused about these simple concepts than about almost anything else. So if you are here because you are confused and you wish to find sanity and normality in the teaching of Christ: God bless you, and may we by God’s mercy be of some help.

But if you are here because you think this is a place where you can reinforce some cultural masculinity, if you’re here because you think this is the place to rebel against what you see going on politically around you or socially around you, please keep on going — go somewhere else. We are not here for this reason.

We preach one thing and one thing only: the Gospel of Jesus Christ, our Lord. We preach it without fear, and we preach it without agenda. Our only goal is that every single human being might become a living image of Christ Himself. That men might become Christ-like men; that women might become Christ-like women; that children might be true children of God; that the aged might find the real respect due to those who long live and struggle for Christ; that this world might come to understand what it means to be redeemed.

All of these other characterisations of Christian life and characterisations of Church life, the thing they all have in common is that they seem never to be religious at all. Their only interest is in social and political questions. ‘What are your views on masculinity, on sexuality, on politics, on government, on war?’ Do not come here, if those are the questions that drive your life. Come here for one reason: because you are aware, somewhere deep inside of you, that something is wrong. Something is wrong with you, with me, with the world in which we live, and this something is called sin, and this is the place where it can be healed.

If you come to this place because you think it’s the spot to find a political ideology that matches yours; if you come here because you think we are going to preach some politics, some worldly mindset, as if it allies with the teachings of the Church, please — don’t stay. It is foolishness, it is stupidity, to think that there is any government anywhere, be it in Russia, be it in America, be it in Europe, be it anywhere, whose teachings can be aligned with those of the Orthodox Church. This is nonsense. And if you’re seeking that, keep looking. You’ll never find it, and you certainly won’t find it here.

If you’re seeking a place to come where you can compare a ‘right’ leaning ideology against the ‘left’ leaning ideology, go somewhere else. This is not the place to lean right or left, but the point up towards the Kingdom of God. ‘Left’ and ‘Right’, these are totally worldly things. I tire of hearing them. I tire of being asked whether the Church sides with one or the other. We reject the entire model. We seek one Kingdom, and that is Christ’s kingdom. We have one vision for the future of mankind, and that is the vision that Christ lays out in the Gospel. Nothing else.

We are committed and we will be strong to always maintain the truth and nothing else. We are not here to be politicians. We are not here to be social commentators. We are not here to foster any worldly agenda. We are here, and I pray from the bottom of my heart that each one of you is here, for only one reason: to listen to the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and to do it.

And let me just conclude by saying this. If you have come here for any of those wrong reasons, God bless you. Stay, if what you want is to become something different. If what you want is to be changed into something different, higher, better than this. That is the whole reason the Church exists — for repentance, a change of life. But if any of us is here so that we can be reinforced in our cultural understandings, so that we can somehow have strengthened our own politics or our own social norms, if that’s what you want, go do that at home. Go do that by yourself, and come back to us when you’re ready to repent.

This is the Church. Christ’s church. If you want to know what we believe, don’t look at the Internet. Don’t read media reports. Listen to your own voice when you open your mouth during the Liturgy, and we sing «Верою..», ‘I believe…’ (the Creed). That is what we believe. If you want to see what humanity looks like, look at the humanity in the Church: a humanity grounded in forgiveness and love and mutual support, and following Christ God. May this be our only mission and our only goal. And if we have failed in proclaiming this to the world, if the world has cause to think of us otherwise, because of our shortcomings, let us do better. And where others are misrepresenting us, just ignore them, don’t react, don’t respond; but above all, don’t be swayed by this kind of nonsense. We know what is the truth. We know what is our calling, and that is what we will do with our life.

God bless you.  Amen.

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Our Pastor’s Response

I’ll let Father Ignatius Valentine, Pastor at Saint Nicholas Church, Cedarburg, Wisconsin, have the last word here. He sent the BBC article and Bishop Irenei’s response to all members, adding this concise summary:

“The main point is, if we are coming to the Orthodox Church for anything other than Christ, and our own repentance, then we are coming for the wrong reasons. We have no ideology but the Lord Himself.”

Next Week: Pentecost: “My Search for the Church”

Week after Next: Summer: Time to go traveling!