Young Penitent

In this episode I read White Rabbit's conversion story, with commentary.

X is a platform that is home to a lot of drama. I joined X (when it was still called Twitter) simply as a way to help promote my YouTube channel. When something happens on X, it is sometimes hard to understand the whole picture of the situation if you happened to not be logged in the day of the event. It's easy to miss something, in other words, and it's hard to track down after the fact and understand the big picture of what happened. It's in the nature of the platform. For those who missed what happened last week on X, this stream is for you. A week ago Sunday I sent off a tweet just before going to bed, thinking nothing of it. Normally my tweets get around 15 views and so I haven't had to pay too much attention to what I write in a tweet - since (almost) nobody would see them. The next day I began to notice an unusual amount of interaction with the tweet and the view count began to grow. When it passed 50k the next evening I thought it might have peaked but the view count continued to grow into the next day. At present the tweet has garnered 115k views. What I wrote in the tweet was apparently controversial and so I want to break down in today's stream whether what I said is true or not. There is an interesting twist to this story, a highly unlikely event that nobody knows about, which I plan to tell as part of todays stream.

I had a viewer send me a message a few weeks ago asking about a certain Orthodox book. When I searched the title on Amazon I was stunned to see that the small volume was for sale for $600! I had read the book before, although I didn't own a copy, but this incident sent me down the rabbit hole of looking at rare Orthodox books that are not only hard to find but cost exorbitant amounts of money. The book "Fr. Seraphim Rose: His Life and Works" isn't for sale anywhere online except as a used book going for $200 or more. This is actually a lamentable state of affairs, because this book should be available everywhere for a reasonable amount of money. In todays stream we will be joined by Raphael Fiedler from Orthodox Review, a channel which focuses on Orthodox books. We will be discussing the phenomena of hard to find Orthodox books, how we got in this situation, and what might be done about it. Pull up a chair and join us, it's going to be an enlightening conversation!

Gary Cattell began preaching Christianity outside of Willard Hall at Penn State University in 1982, which is how he has come to be known as "The Willard Preacher." He began his career in open air preaching as a Protestant, but since his reception into the Orthodox Church in 1999 he as been preaching from the perspective of Orthodox Christianity. Over the years as a preacher he has had the opportunity to discourse with many people with a wide array of personal beliefs about God, and has learned how to answer all of the common arguments against Orthodox Christianity that one may encounter. In todays discussion we are going to find out what are the most common arguments against traditional Christianity (whether they be Protestant, Catholic, atheist, or other) and how one should go about responding to those arguments.

At the Faith Unaltered YouTube channel there is a collective of hosts who have had wide ranging conversations on topics related to Christianity. There are hundreds of videos posted on their channel in which they have interviewed a myriad of guests, and so they can tell us better than anyone which ideas are prevalent in our society, and especially within the various Christian denominations. In our conversation today we are going to be speaking with Tyler and Josh, two of the hosts from Faith Unaltered. Tyler is a catechumen in the Orthodox Church, while Josh is aware of and very warm towards our faith (yet hasn't made any commitments to the Church). Please join us as we get to know our guests, what makes them tick, their spiritual journeys up to this point, and how they would describe the religious landscape of America in 2023.

In this broadcast we will be conducting an interview with the Orthodox Christian iconographer Shayne Swenson. Shayne is an extremely talented artist and it was said of him by another regional iconographer that he is a "miracle." Largely self taught, his icons grace churches, monasteries, and private icon corners around the country (including mine: the icon of the Prophet Daniel which can be seen in my icon corner during my livestreams was painted by him). He is especially affiliated with All-Merciful Saviour Monastery; it seems that every time I visit their monastery temple there is a new icon there which was painted by Shayne. In this stream we will be having a conversation about his journey and artwork. We will also showcase his website where people can make inquiries if they would like to commission work from him. Finally, Shayne has recently begun posting tutorials for how to paint icons on his YouTube channel.

Recently I was introduced to Nomadik Vagabod through a mutual friend. I called him up and was surprised by how much we have in common; our backgrounds were similar, we are both Orthodox, we both rap, and we were born one day apart from each other! He also lives near me so I attended his parish for liturgy and afterwards we chopped it up. Nomadik, besides being a rapper, dj, beatboxer, drummer, and producer, is also the co-host of the podcast "Brews, Beards, and Shipwrecks" which is hosted by his friend Jamie Bennet (also an Orthodox rapper). Nomadik is such a cool cat that I decided to have him on the show to discuss his journey to Orthodoxy and how music influenced him growing up. This is going to be a laid back episode so tune in because who knows where the conversation will take us?

Recently there was an article published on the internet stating that Fr. Seraphim Rose has been canonized in a diocese in the country of Georgia. The article references a video which was published on the YouTube channel Punks and Monks in which Metropolitan Nikoloz of the Georgian Orthodox Church makes the statement that Fr. Seraphim had been canonized in his diocese. As this news was being spread on social media, another post was made which claimed that this news was false, which left many people feeling disappointed and confused. In this video we will be breaking down this story and referencing the source material which form the basis of these claims which are being made. We will also talk about the general process which is usually followed when the Church decides to glorify a Saint. The veneration of a Saint usually begins with popular veneration by the faithful. People who knew the person who is being considered for sainthood will testify to the sanctity of that person's life. There are various criteria which are usually used to verify a persons sanctity, among which are miracles which were performed through the Saint both before and after their death, as well as the general impact that a person's life and work had on the Church. Fr. Seraphim Rose's sanctity has been attested to by both miracles (some of which we will be discussing) and also through the broad impact of his writings. His books and articles have been read and published widely throughout the Orthodox world and have helped many people come to the faith. After a person has begun to be venerated and prayed to by the faithful, the "Glorification" of the Saint must be given a stamp of approval from the hierarchs of the Church. This will usually involve a formal process with the participation of as many hierarch of the Church as possible, since it is a big deal to canonize a Saint. There will be a service held in which the Saint is prayed to and Magnified publicly in the Church, after which a service will be performed to the Saint. What is a bit odd about the claim that Fr. Seraphim has been canonized is that this process doesn't appear to have been followed, or if it was it was done quietly without any fanfare. Why was this? Tune in to find out.

We welcome back today as a returning guest Fr. John A. Peck! Fr. John knows a thing or two about how to plant a mission church in America. He is the rector of All Saints of North America Orthodox Church in Sun City, Arizona. He has been instrumental in planting five other parishes in Arizona besides his home parish, and there are more being planned. Through the Great Martyr Euphemia Theological Academy, of which he serves as Dean, he is also involved in an annual Missions Development Conference which explores the practical principles which make for growth and development in the church. He also has a special interest in the use of new media in the missionary field. Besides developing many websites through which the faith is disseminated, he also has a weekly program called Ecclesioclasm on Rumble in which he breaks down the latest news stories from a Christian perspective and interviews premier guests to keep the faithful informed on what is going on in the world and how it affects the Church. From what has been said here you can see that Fr. John has been very busy, and we have only scratched the surface of the activities he is involved in. Pull up a chair and join us, because this is an episode you will not want to miss!

On Saturday, May 6th, 2023 I was on pilgrimage at All-Merciful Saviour Monastery. During the course of the day I interviewed three of the monks who belong to the monastery which resides on Vashon Island. I asked the same list of questions to each of the monks. In this, the third and final episode of the series, I interview Monk Nicodemus.