Texas Monthly Hit Piece on Russian Orthodoxy in Texas

Note: The article in question is so over the top that I considered not responding to it directly, but I think the people in my parish, and people who have been part of the parish in the past, or will become part of it in the future will need to understand what happened with this article, and what to make of it.

Sometime last year, Meagan Clark Saliashvili contacted me about whether I would agree to be interviewed for an article she was writing for Texas Monthly on the growth of Orthodoxy in Texas. Meagan is an independent reporter who is a convert to Orthodoxy, married to a Georgian man, and a graduate of Harvard Divinity School. I was not unaware of the liberal bent to her past reporting, but I hoped since she was a recent convert that she would be honest and sincere, even though I had reasons to doubt she would be. However, I figured if she was going to write a hit piece, it probably wouldn't matter whether I spoke to her or not, and speaking to her might help. 

As it turned out, the article was not about the growth of Orthodoxy in Texas at all, but was in fact an extremely biased attempt to paint me, my parish, and other Orthodox Christians as racists, conspiracy theorists, and authoritarians. However, the fact that I did talk to her, and allowed her to visit my parish resulted in her putting in many details that contradicted much of what she was trying to accomplish. I am not sure if these things were included in the original version of the story or not, but I was contacted by a fact checker from Texas Monthly (a first from any news outlet I have ever interacted with) and pointed out to him a number of relevant facts that did in fact appear in the article as published. On the other hand, I did not anticipate how this would negatively impact some people in the parish, and that is my biggest regret about agreeing to this.

The extreme bias of the article did not take long to appear, however. The title of the article is itself one of the most ridiculous titles I have ever seen in my life: 

"Inspired by the Confederacy and Czarist Russia, “Ortho Bros” Are on the Rise: A Houston-area priest is part of a group of religious leaders and media figures who draw followers interested in conspiracy theories and authoritarian government."

Of the hundreds of inquirers I have encountered over the years, most of them would not have known what "Czarism" even was or how to pronounce the word when they first began coming to my parish. And discussing the Confederacy is something I don't bring in at all to my discussions about the Orthodox Faith with such inquirers. What I teach and preach is the Tradition of the Church, what it means to be an Orthodox Christian, and how to draw closer to God -- and that is what is in fact drawing people into the Church.

Apparently, to Meagan, thinking that the COVID lockdowns were a bad idea makes one a conspiracy theorist. But those she cites as authorities on Orthodoxy believe in conspiracy theories, such as the idea that Putin and Trump conspired to steal the 2016 election. And while Orthodox Christians are free to have their own views about how the government ought to be run, most of the people I encounter believe that the government we have right now is already too authoritarian... they are hardly begging for more. 

Why put all of that into the title? To make sure people who just read the titles know that Russian Orthodox Christians are scarry bad people.

Secondly, just look at the photo of me that they used for this article. My Church is a very well-lit Church. When this photo was taken, not only was the Church bright with natural light, the photographer had a lot of additional lights shining in my face. The fact that they made the picture so dark was clearly intended to communicate that this article was about something sinister.

The way words were used throughout the article were consistently designed to paint a negative picture of me and my parish. My parishioners don't walk into Church, they "shuffle" in. I don't wear vestments when serving; I wear a "cape." The Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia did not reunite with the Church inside of Russia in 2007 because the issues that kept us apart were finally resolved; it was "at Russian president Vladimir Putin’s request." 

I lived through the time before, during, and after the reconciliation of the Russian Church in 2007, and it did not happen because Putin requested it. He had no pull over those outside of Russia. This was an issue that had been on the table for years, and it happened because the time for it to happen had come, and both sides wanted it to happen.

Somehow my sermon on the day that Meagan visited, which was about the slaughter of innocent Palestinian civilians, and the Church's traditional understanding of itself as Israel in contrast to Protestant Dispensationalists who are cheering on the slaughter of Palestinians because of their bad theology, but which nevertheless called for us to not hate other people, was portrayed as if it were mere political commentary, to which my parishioners just nodded along to in some unthinking way. I would invite those who haven't heard that sermon to listen to it, and to judge for themselves.

Meagan suggested that I have people in my "orbit" that are "white supremacists." I have asked her to name them, because if she could point me to anyone who actually held such views, I would want to make sure that their bishop knew about it and dealt with them. But so far, she has named no one, but the smear remains.

She described my spiritual journey into Orthodoxy in ways that were dismissive. I would invite anyone interested in the facts to read my article on the subject: A Pilgrim’s Podvig.

I am quoted as saying: "I think the reason there’s been this big influx since the lockdowns is a lot of people have a sense that things are going in a very bad direction quickly, and they’re trying to grab on to something firm." But then Meagan editorializes, and writes "For Whiteford, that something firm is often certain aspects of traditional Southern culture."

This is not at all true. That something firm is the Orthodox Faith. Anyone who has read what I have written and heard what I have said would know that this is what I was referring to, but instead Meagan has to distort what I was saying so she can shift the focus to what she wants to talk about and further distort things.

She writes:

"During a recent talk in North Carolina, he spoke of the spiritual benefits of agrarianism and asserted that the legacy of the Confederacy has been misconstrued—he believes the Civil War wasn’t primarily fought over slavery. “Bad things happened, and we should never defend those things,” he noted. “But it would be the height of ingratitude for me to throw my ancestors under the bus, particularly when I don’t have any reason to believe that they did anything that they understood to be wrong, at least not in a grossly immoral way.”

The talk that I gave was entitled "Southern Agrarianism and Moldova." I think Meagan thinks that "agrarianism" has something to do with the Confederacy or white supremacy, but it doesn't -- it's a much broader concept. When the Texas Monthly Fact checker called me, he asked me about this, and I pointed out that Southern Agrarian writers came to prominence in the 1920's and 30's, but that the best known contemporary Southern Agrarian writer is Wendell Berry, who is often thought of as an environmentalist. Perhaps the article would have been even more distorted if I had not pointed this out, but that still seems to be her underlying assumption. In that talk, I mentioned the Confederacy only once, while talking about the racial diversity in the South, when I pointed out that the last Confederate general to surrender was Stand Watie, the chief of the Cherokee Nation. But as the title of the talk suggests, the focus of the talk was to discuss the lessons we could learn from Moldova, which is an Orthodox country with a largely agrarian culture. I would suggest that those who would like to listen to my talk, listen to it in its entirety.

But when Meagan says that I "asserted that the legacy of the Confederacy has been misconstrued—he believes the Civil War wasn’t primarily fought over slavery. “Bad things happened, and we should never defend those things,” he noted. “But it would be the height of ingratitude for me to throw my ancestors under the bus, particularly when I don’t have any reason to believe that they did anything that they understood to be wrong, at least not in a grossly immoral way," she is again misrepresenting what I said. Fortunately, the comments she is alluding to were from the question-and-answer period, and you can listen to what I actually said in context here:

You can listen to another comment from the question-and-answer period that was along similar lines, by clicking here.

I don't think that the Civil War was fought for the purpose of abolishing slavery, and I say that for historical reasons that I have laid out before. If I am wrong on the facts I point to, I would be happy to have someone correct me and provide me with the evidence to the contrary, but there are many historians who have reached the same conclusions I have. And yes, I don't support destroying historical monuments and artifacts, because that is what Bolsheviks do -- not people who care about history. No one has to agree with me. My position on this is not a matter of Orthodox Dogma, to be sure. I don't hate anyone because they come to other conclusions on the matter. I believe in being tolerant of other people's opinions. 

Further on, Meagan wrote:

"It’s difficult to determine how many of St. Jonah’s congregants are in accord with Whiteford’s ideology and how many are devoted to the church for more traditional reasons. But it was clear that fringe ideas, including conspiracy theories, are welcome, from anti-vax stances to prepping for apocalyptic scenarios."

What is odd about this is that Meagan has not provided any evidence that I have an ideology, much less that I have imposed it on anyone else, nor has she described what that ideology might be. I would be very interested to learn what that ideology is supposed to be, because I believe ideological thinking of any sort is wrong in principle, and is contrary to a Traditional Christian Mindset. People in my parish hold a wide variety of views on a great many topics, and I don't tell them what they can or cannot think as long as they don't advocate for something contrary to the teachings of the Church. I have people who are very conservative, but I also have people who are politically on the left. Again, I believe in being tolerant of other people.

The article suggested that I somehow support the establishment of a monarchy in the United States. I have never suggested any such thing, as you can see from this answer I gave to a question on the subject: Why Monarchy Won't Work in America.

Meagan made mention of an "anonymous Reddit user who in 2020 posted a call to burn down the “misogynistic xenophobic homophobic St Jonah Russian Orthodox Church.” (Nothing seems to have come of the threat, which Whiteford speculates may have been planted by the FBI.)" 

She makes it sound like this terrorist threat against my Church was no big deal. But let me quote from a review I did of Sarah Riccardi-Swarz's book which tried to portray members of ROCOR as being Putin's fifth column in the United States:

"In June of 2020, my parish had a serious terroristic threat from someone who referred to our parish as "St. Jonah Russian Orthodox Church," despite the fact that we never use "Russian" in the name of our parish, though we make no secret about being part of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia. When that happened, I called the FBI, as well as the local Constables office. The local authorities were very responsive, but the FBI never called me back. I mentioned what had happened to a Protestant minister I know who is fairly well connected. He contacted our Lt. Governor, and he called the FBI. Only then did I get a call back, but in the end, they did almost nothing to track down the person who had made these threats, though he had an online profile that should not have been hard to track down, and he was certainly living in this area. This year, on Old Calendar Annunciation, I finally received a visit from an FBI agent (nearly two years later), who began by mentioning what had happened in 2020, and who said that they just wanted to make sure everything was OK, given tensions around the war in Ukraine. He asked if I would agree to talk to him, and I did. His line of questioning had almost nothing to do with the safety and security of my parish. It was all about what contacts I may have had with the Russian Consulate in Houston, whether the Russian government had any influence over my Church, and things of that nature. Recent history has shown that you don't have to actually be guilty of anything for the FBI to put you in jail. So obviously, this attention is unwelcome, though it would have been nice if they had been more interested in my parish in June of 2020. 

I have speculated that perhaps the guy who made this threat was an FBI asset that was trolling to see who would respond to his call to burn my Church down. I entertain that possibility only because it would have been shooting fish in a barrel for the FBI to have tracked this guy down, had they any inclination to do so, but they didn't, and so the question is why didn't they? I don't claim to know the truth about what happened, I only know that it is very odd as it is.

Then Meagan talks about a specific family in my parish and introduces that paragraph with "Not everyone who comes to Whiteford’s church is looking to get involved in political or ideological battles." I was told by the family that spent about three hours talking with her, they talked about homesteading and homeschooling, and the Faith, but that Meagan kept trying to get them to talk about politics. They told her that they don't come to Church to talk politics, but it was Meagan who kept bringing the subject up in the first place.

The fact is no one has come to my parish looking to get involved in political or ideological battles, except perhaps Meagan herself, but the way she words this suggests that this family is exceptional. They are not exceptional in why they have come to my parish, nor in why they have stayed.

It is a shame that a person who ostensibly is an Orthodox Christian, and who assured me that she was doing an article to talk about the growth of Orthodoxy in Texas decided to instead use the occasion to attack people she doesn't agree with. 

The day after this article was posted people in my parish were contacted by a scammer claiming to be me, who was wanting to get access to our parish directory. We don't know what this person's intentions are, but we can reasonably assume that the intentions are not good. When you vilify Russian Orthodox Christians, and paint them as Putin stooges, who are somehow associated with white supremacists despite wanting to establish a Spanish speaking parish, co-authoring statements against racism and preaching sermons about how we can't hate people, unhinged people might decide to do something that results in real people getting hurt. I hope that people like Meagan will keep their responsibility for that kind of reaction in mind in the future.

Review: "Between Heaven and Russia," by Sarah Riccardi-Swartz

 

Before reading this review, I would recommend anyone who has not already done so, read my essay "Sarah Riccardi-Swartz and Russophobia." That essay was written before the book in question was available to the public, and so was not based on my having read that book, but was based on reading a number of essays on the same subject written by Sarah, after listening to a number of talks and interviews she has done, and also based on my own experience with her, as well as with people in the communities she has focused on, along with my 32 years as a member of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia (ROCOR). This book repeats quite a bit of what Sarah had already put out in public, but it does provide some new information and new accusations that I don't recall her having stated in public previously, and so I will primarily be focusing on what is new in this book.

One new fact I learned from this book is that she never considered herself to be a member of ROCOR. This is interesting because when she first began appearing as a speaker at various forums and panels, she was routinely identified as a member of ROCOR, and I don't think she would have failed to notice this, but for whatever reason, she made no attempt to correct this information that I have seen, prior to the publication of this book.

In her book, Sarah Riccardi-Swartz uses pseudonyms for places and people, ostensibly because this is how anthropologists do their thing, but the people and the places she is taking about are easily determined by anyone with the slightest familiarity with the Holy Cross Monastery and Christ the Savior Orthodox Church in Wayne, West Virginia. In this review, I will replace these pseudonyms with the real names, because under these circumstances, using pseudonyms is just silliness. I will note this by the use of brackets, where applicable.

Those "Crazy Converts"

One of the notable aspects of this book is how frequently Sarah Riccardi-Swartz chooses to use the label of "convert" -- which is odd, given that she is ostensibly a convert to Orthodoxy herself. For example, as she sets the stage for the rest of her book, she attributes the existence of the parish and monastery in Wayne, West Virginia to converts:

"Both [Holy Cross Monastery] and [Christ the Savior Orthodox Church] came to be in [Wayne, WV] in the early 2000s when two converts -- a local university professor, who donated land for the monastery, and a local politician, who built the parish building -- began to missionize the region" (p. 4).

This is an example of telling half-truths, in the interest of building the desired narrative. The university professor that she is referring to is Maurice Sill, who is a man I got to know fairly well. He was indeed a convert. But Maurice was a man who had long been married to Nadya Danilchik Sill, who was a Russian American who was not a convert, and in fact was the daughter of a very well known, old school, ROCOR priest, Fr. Michael Danilchik (who was the first assigned priest for the Seattle ROCOR Cathedral) -- and so it would be difficult to find a person with deeper roots in ROCOR than Nadya Sill had. And given that the property that Maurice and Nadya Sill owned was joint property, and also given that Maurice would not have done anything of that magnitude without the agreement of his wife in any case, the whole truth would be that that this property was donated by a "cradle" member of ROCOR and her convert husband, who had been a convert of many decades by that time -- but this didn't fit the narrative that Sarah wanted to build, and so this fact was simply excluded from being mentioned here.

Another example of Sarah being selective with the facts that she will mention is that she always mentions that the people she is criticizing are white, except that when she talks about other converts who are not white, she will simply omit any mention of their race. For example, she often mentions a person on Twitter who is known as Patriarch Primus, and who is a convert to Orthodoxy, but she almost never mentions that he is black, though she will mention that he lives in the South (leaving people to assume he is a white southern "cracker"), and this is clearly because the whole truth doesn't fit her narrative.

Those "Crazy People in ROCOR"

Sarah also took pains to try to portray the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia as some sort of fringe entity. And so, when laying out the landscape of Orthodox Christianity in America, she says:

"Historically, other forms of Orthodoxy in the United States, particularly the Greek Archdiocese, the Antiochian Church, and the Orthodox Church of America, focused on assimilation, social care and justice movements, and, in many ways, the mainstreaming of Orthodoxy. ROCOR, however, perhaps because of its noncanonical status until 2007, created an insular social group that would preserve not only their understanding of Orthodox theology, but also particular cultural expressions of faith in order to re-missionize Russia after the end of the Soviet Union. Despite this containment of sorts, ROCOR did attract converts, and within the past thirty-plus years the number of coverts have begun to rise, even prior to the religious reunification between ROCOR and the ROC in 2007, when ROCOR was still considered non-canonical in the Eastern Orthodox world" (p. 24).

The history of the Russian Church after the Bolshevik Revolution is complicated, but to make a long story short, the persecution of the Russian Orthodox Church by the Soviets resulted in divisions within the Russian Church both inside of Russia and outside of Russia. Between the time of the death of St. Tikhon, who was elected Patriarch of Moscow in 1918, and the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, there was of course the Moscow Patriarchate, but at various times there was also the renovationist Living Church, as well as various catacomb groups, though after World War II, both the Living Church and the catacomb groups ceased to exist in any significant forms. Outside of Russia, there were two times when most of the Russian bishops were united together within ROCOR, and then there were times when the Paris Exarchate, American Metropolia, ROCOR, the Moscow Patriarchate, and the Living Church had all gone separate ways. For those who want to read about this history in detail, I would recommend reading the book "A Long Walk to Church: A Contemporary History of Russian Orthodoxy," by Nathaniel Davis, the Orthodoxwiki article "ROCOR and OCA," and also Metropolitan Kallistos (formerly Timothy Ware)'s "The Orthodox Church (it should be noted, however, that the older edition goes into much greater detail on this subject). But to be concise, with the exception of the Living Church, which was heretical and schismatic, the rest of the Orthodox Church generally viewed these divisions as unfortunate, temporary, and matters for the Russian Church to settle for itself, when it was free to do so -- which is ultimately what happened. 

Prior to the 1970's, ROCOR regularly concelebrated with the various local Orthodox Churches. For example, Archbishop Vitaly (Maximenko) was one of the consecrators of Metropolitan Anthony (Bashir) of the Antiochian Archdiocese -- and that obviously would not have happened if the Antiochians considered ROCOR to be noncanonical.

Under Metropolitan Philaret, there was the beginnings of a self-isolation on the part of ROCOR as a whole, that was a reaction to the lifting of the Anathemas against Papism by Patriarch Athenagoras of Constantinople, but this was something that varied quite a bit depending on the various bishops of ROCOR, and especially on which local Churches were in question. And the key thing is that this isolation was self-imposed. It was not at all something imposed upon it by any other local Church. ROCOR always maintained close relations with the Serbian Patriarchate (because of the decades prior to World War II when it was headquartered in Serbia with the permission of the Serbian Patriarchate), and also with the Patriarchate of Jerusalem (because ROCOR has always maintained a presence in the Holy Land which continues to the present day, and this was always with the blessings of the Patriarch of Jerusalem). The low point of ROCOR relations with other local Churches was probably in the mid to late 90's under Metropolitan Vitaly, but even then, no local Church condemned ROCOR as "noncanonical." And I myself frequently concelebrated with the local Serbian clergy the entire time I was a clergyman (beginning in 1995). My spiritual father, who baptized me and my wife was ordained by Metropolitan Philip (Saliba) of the Antiochian Archdiocese, and he was given a canonical release by him to ROCOR in the 80's -- which again, would not have happened if they considered ROCOR to be noncanonical.

It is also hardly accurate to suggest that the Greek Archdiocese and the OCA were promoting assimilation in America, while ROCOR was not. The oldest continually published Orthodox Journal in English is "Orthodox Life," which has been published by Holy Trinity Monastery since 1950. ROCOR sponsored the translation of the first complete set of service books into the English language. The Greek Archdiocese, on the other hand, while it is by far the largest Orthodox jurisdiction in the United States, and certainly has far greater resources, has still not published even half of the service books in English translations, and many of their parishes continue to primarily use Greek, and generally if you talk to Americans who have had the experience of looking into Orthodoxy, Greek parish remain some of the least welcoming parishes to outsiders of any jurisdiction. The OCA has certainly had many parishes that have used English going back before the Bolshevik Revolution, but it has also not published an extensive set of English Language service books of their own, and many of their parishes continued to use mostly Slavonic well into the 80's. You can still find ROCOR parishes that serve mostly in Slavonic, to be sure, and some would be less welcoming to outsiders than others, but on the whole, ROCOR has been very welcoming to non-Russian converts, and this goes back to the 1950's. Speaking from my own experience in ROCOR -- having been in mostly Russian parishes, mostly convert parishes, and parishes with a good mix -- I have never been made to feel unwelcome because I was not a Russian.

The Antiochians were probably the earliest champions of using English extensively in the United States, and that goes back to the influence of St. Raphael (Hawaweeny), who had the foresight to see that this was necessary if his flock was to keep future generations within the fold, and so they were ahead of the curve on this point.

"Because ROCOR was not in communion with most of the Orthodox world for almost eight decades, it has seemingly become an echo chamber or perhaps an incubator of prerevolutionary Russian Orthodox thought. Its emphasis on tradition, adherence to the Old Calendar (Julian), submission to spiritual father confessors, and highly structured gender roles have all become concentrated over the years. These distilled ideological distinctions often put them in opposition to their spiritual cousin, the Orthodox Church in America, which embraced among other things, the New Calendar (Revised Julian), pews, and shorter service rubrics" (p. 28).

For Sarah to assert that ROCOR was not in communion with most of the Orthodox world for "nearly eight decades" is an assertion that even the harshest critics of ROCOR would not support -- at least not the ones with the slightest familiarity with the actual history of the period of time in question. 

We live in times that are extremely ideological, and no doubt this is why Sarah cannot imagine embracing Orthodox Tradition and piety without that being an ideology. Ideological thinking is a relatively modern mode of thinking, which is pretty much the opposite of traditional thinking. For more on that, see "What is Wrong with Ideology?" by Donald Livingston.

Speaking for myself, when I discovered the Orthodox Faith, it happened to be in ROCOR. There was nothing political about it, and having brought more than a few people into the Church since then, I have only rarely seen where political thinking even played a significant role in the motivation behind someone becoming interested in the Church, much less was it a big factor in moving them to actually convert. 

Sarah also seems unaware of the fact that the OCA was on the Old Calendar until the 1980's, and big parts of it remains on the Old Calendar to this day (the Dioceses of Alaska and Canada, along with scattered parishes throughout the lower 48 states).

Sarah also fails to explain why being in America requires wearing Roman Catholic clergy suits, being on the New Calendar, shortening the services, or the use of pews. As far back as 1972, it was observed in the book "Why Conservative Churches Are Growing: A Study in Sociology of Religion," by Dean Kelley, that liberal churches tend to shrink, and conservative churches tend to grow. So there is no scientific basis for such an assertion -- there is just the bare assertion of Sarah's opinions without any basis.

For one thing, Roman Catholic clergy suits are of fairly recent vintage. Traditionally, Roman Catholic Priests wore cassocks that were not all that different from the kind of cassocks that Orthodox clergy wear. 

In the classic Bing Crosby movie, Going My Way (1944), Barry Fitzgerald played the old Irish priest Father Fitzgibbon, and he is seen wearing an old fashioned Roman Catholic cassock as well as a clerical biretta which looks no less odd than an Orthodox skufia. Bing Crosby played a young hipster priest, who wears a modern Roman Clergy suit. In the 1940's, you could see why people might have thought that this was an improvement, but looking at the decline in Roman Catholic piety ever since then, I am not so sure it has worked out very well for them, and so why should we emulate failure?

"...many of the older Orthodox folks in [Wayne, WV] converted to ROCOR prior to the reunification [of the Russian Church in 2007]. Those who did so, opted to select an Orthodox body without canonical authority. It seems as if these converts were not looking for an unbroken line of apostolic succession, but rather a religious world built for the purposes of preserving and defending what they saw as traditional Orthodoxy and orthopraxy" (p. 29).  

This statement is a gross distortions of the actual history of ROCOR. It also reflect a rather shallow view of Orthodox Tradition and ecclesiology. Sarah would have her readers believe that St. John (Maximovitch) was a fake bishop, "without canonical authority." But no local Church believed that during his life, and none have believed that since then either. He is one of the most highly venerated saints throughout the Orthodox world today.

Pluralizing Singular Instances

In speaking of the rise of a "new wave of conservatism" since the 1990s. Sarah spoke of "Shootings in historic Black churches throughout the American South..." (p. 45). I am only aware of one shooting since 1990 in an historic Black Church, and that was the shooting in Charleston in 2015 -- which was of course horrendous enough by itself, but it is a gross exaggeration to suggest that this happened many times throughout the American South, when we are actually talking about the actions of a lone crazed young man.

This propensity for taking an isolated case and extrapolating it into something that is ubiquitous perhaps explains how she could take a single layman who allegedly said that he hoped to take up arms on behalf of Russia when it invades the United States (p. 124), and extrapolating this to be a common view among converts in ROCOR. I have been in ROCOR for 32 years, and have never heard anyone say any such thing.

Gender and Sexuality

She is particularly bothered by the fact that people in ROCOR tend to have "ultra-conservative understandings of gender, sexuality, and the roles of women and men should have in the Church, the domestic sphere, and society more broadly" (p.127). The question an Orthodox Christian should be asking, however, is whether or not these views are consistent with the teachings of the Church. Sarah, on the other hand supports homosexuality, transgenderism, and the whole ever expanding alphabet soup of sexual deviancy that the left is promoting. These things are completely contrary to the teachings of the Church, and so she should either humbly submit to the teachings of the Church, or find a religion that better suits her predetermined beliefs. The Orthodox Church is not a religious Burger King, where you can "have it your way." The Orthodox Church is what it is, and you can either take it, or you can leave it. See: The Pro LGBTQP "Orthodox," for more information.

"Within ROCOR, it is the job of spiritual fathers to monitor how and in what ways men and especially women participate in the church, just as it should be the job of a monarch to guide a country" (p.130).

 I don't think Sarah knows what she is talking about here. In my parish, I have a Greek American woman choir director who has a Masters of Divinity degree from St. Vladimir Seminary. I have had her teach classes before in the parish in the past, and would do so more frequently if she didn't already have her hands full with the choir. I don't micromanage the choir, because I know that she knows what she is doing. And as a matter of fact, if I have a question about how something ought to be handled liturgically, I often ask for her opinion, because she has been in the Church all of her life, she knows both Greek, Antiochian, and Russian practices fairly well, and so she has a good feel for what is normal or what is odd. I have a Sisterhood Vice-President who is an engineer, and as I often tell my parish, she is the handiest man or woman in the parish. If something needs to be fixed, built, or if I need an opinion on what we ought to do with regard to anything mechanical, I call her. And since I am usually busy serving or hearing confessions, I have little time to pay attention to what happens in the Nave of the Church during the services. I leave that to lay leaders in the parish, both men and women. I certainly am not monitoring the women in my parish during the services, or outside of it. I do hear confessions, and so give advice when it is warranted, and direction when it is called for, but I have told my people where the boundaries are when it comes to pastoral guidance from a priest, and that they should flee any spiritual father that would try to impose monastic style obedience on a layman. For more articles on Women in the Church, Click Here.

Monarchism and American Politics

Sarah seems to think that ROCOR is full of monarchist revolutionaries who want to overthrow the United States government and install a Tsar (p. 126f). You will certainly find a higher than average percentage of people in ROCOR who admire the idea of Christian Monarchy, I don't believe I have ever heard anyone seriously suggest that it could be imposed in the United States. There are many prophecies of a new Tsar returning to power in Russia, and so you do find interest in that. But I don't think anyone envisions that happening even in Russia by a violent revolution.

There are certainly people in ROCOR who are "right-wing," but what that means, even among those who could fairly be labelled as such, varies quite a bit. You have those who are American Nationalists, in the Hamiltonian sense, and then there are those who have more of a small government Jeffersonian view, and then you have just about everything in between. But there are people who are in ROCOR who politically are on the left, but who theologically nevertheless embrace the Traditions and teachings of the Church. I have some in my parish, and I am sure if I had a parish in a heavily Democrat region, I would have a lot more of those folks. I don't tell people how to vote, and I don't get upset if they don't share my opinions on political matters, because I believe in being tolerant of other people, and I can imagine people coming to conclusions that are different from my own without them having to be evil people. If someone denies the teachings of the Church, however, that is obviously another matter altogether.

The Russian Collusion Hoax Goes to Church

Sarah repeatedly makes assertions about "Russian interference" in the 2016 election (e.g., p. 76), as if it were a fact. I don't think that it is a coincidence that she began looking for Russian boogeymen in West Virginia in 2017 either. There is no doubt that Sarah is on the political left. She promotes the LGBTQP agenda. She capitalizes "President" when she speaks of Barak Obama (e.g., p.168), but not in reference to Donald Trump. She speaks of people who were merely at the rally in Washington D.C. on January 6th, 2021, as "insurrectionists," even if they were nowhere near the Capital building. Clearly, Sarah was one of those on the political left that was traumatized that Donald Trump was elected, and spent four years arguing that the 2016 election was stolen, but who now argues that any suggestion that the 2020 election might have been less than kosher is a Q-Anon conspiracy theorist. It doesn't seem to matter that the claims about Russia and the 2016 election have since been debunked, and originated with the Hillary Clinton Campaign. Not only is it clear that politics drove Sarah's interest in this research, but if it were not for this political element, it is also clear that few would be paying any attention to her work.

West Virginia is one of the most conservative states in the United States. It should come as no surprise that you would find a high concentration of political conservatives in a ROCOR parish in rural West Virginia. Had Sarah gone down the street and spent much time in a local Baptist Church, she probably would have found that those people have lots of guns, voted for Trump, and that they don't support transgenderism either. On the other hand, if Sarah went to a ROCOR parish in a heavily Democrat area, while there would probably also be some people who were politically conservative, she would also find a lot of Democrat voters too.

Conclusion

In June of 2020, my parish had a serious terroristic threat from someone who referred to our parish as "St. Jonah Russian Orthodox Church," despite the fact that we never use "Russian" in the name of our parish, though we make no secret about being part of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia.* When that happened, I called the FBI, as well as the local Constables office. The local authorities were very responsive, but the FBI never called me back. I mentioned what had happened to a Protestant minister I know who is fairly well connected. He contacted our Lt. Governor, and he called the FBI. Only then did I get a call back, but in the end, they did almost nothing to track down the person who had made these threats, though he had an online profile that should not have been hard to track down, and he was certainly living in this area. This year, on Old Calendar Annunciation, I finally received a visit from an FBI agent (nearly two years later), who began by mentioning what had happened in 2020, and who said that they just wanted to make sure everything was OK, given tensions around the war in Ukraine. He asked if I would agree to talk to him, and I did. His line of questioning had almost nothing to do with the safety and security of my parish. It was all about what contacts I may have had with the Russian Consulate in Houston, whether the Russian government had any influence over my Church, and things of that nature. Recent history has shown that you don't have to actually be guilty of anything for the FBI to put you in jail. So obviously, this attention is unwelcome, though it would have been nice if they had been more interested in my parish in June of 2020. 

When people like Sarah Riccardi-Swartz promote conspiracy theories that try to convince people that ROCOR is somehow connected to Putin stealing the 2016 election, and is full of a bunch of Fifth Columnists, who are anxiously awaiting the Russian invasion of the United States, so that they can join in on their side, this has real world consequences. If Russophobia continues to heat up in this country because of further deteriorations in our relations with Russia, it is not farfetched that the kind of Blue-Anon conspiracy theories spun by people like Sarah will result in innocent people being seriously harmed or killed. This is dangerous, unchristian, and it is irresponsible.

Aside from all of that, this book is not particularly well written. Sarah doesn't know her history. She is politically motivated, and she has taken her own spin on isolated people and two particular communities, and made the logical leap that she can fairly characterize the entirety of ROCOR, despite all of the geographic and cultural differences one can find within ROCOR. We have parishes in Australia and New Zealand. These parishes have very different histories than the typical ROCOR parish in the United States and Canada. We have parishes in Latin America, Asia, Great Britan and Western Europe that are even more distinct. Sarah Riccardi-Swartz has made no effort to study ROCOR more broadly than what she could find in Wayne, West Virginia. Anyone with any sense of logic or even just a sense of fairness would not make extrapolations beyond what she actually has studied. But from what I know of the communities in Wayne, West Virginia, I have little reason to believe she was fair to them either. In a recent presentation, she pointed out in passing that these communities did not tolerate hate speech, but she has made an entire career out of suggesting that they are somehow connected with racism and white supremacy... but how she could think that those two things could coexist in the same universe is beyond me.

*We don't have that on our sign, are website, or anywhere else, because we do not want anyone who is not a Russian to think that this is not a Church for them. Our parish, as a matter of fact, is a fairly diverse parish in comparison with what you would find in the average Orthodox parish in the United States.

Sarah Riccardi-Swartz and Russophobia

The cover of Time Magazine, 

promoting the idea that Russia was behind the election of Donald Trump, 

from their May 18, 2017

Sarah Riccardi-Swartz is an Orthodox anthropologist who has written extensively about her studies of the ROCOR (Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia) community in and near the Holy Cross Monastery in West Virginia. She has been identified in academic forums as being a member of ROCOR, but if she has ever written about how she came to convert to the Orthodox Faith, I have not seen it, and she is at least currently not affiliated with ROCOR. She began her study not long after the election of Donald Trump, and it is clear that her analysis of ROCOR converts is entirely viewed through a political lens that is colored by her own left-wing politics. Her observations are entirely improbable -- and I speak as someone who is a ROCOR convert, and after having been in ROCOR for most of my life at this point.

ROCOR does not represent millions of people. Alexei Krindatch's data had the membership of ROCOR estimated to be about 27,700, within the United States. I have been in ROCOR since 1990, and so in this relatively small world, while I may not know everyone in ROCOR, there are probably not many members in North America that I don't at least know someone who knows them. In the case of Holy Cross Monastery, I have a former parishioner who is a monk there, whom I have known for decades, and his mother is still a very active member of my parish. There are others in the monastery and in the nearby parish that I know on one level or another, and I simply do not believe her descriptions have any relationship with the reality on the ground there.

For example, in the following video presentation, Sarah speaks of "converts" (in the plural, as if this is common) who are "willing to take up arms for Russia if they invaded the United States," who speak "of the revolutionary day when Vladimir Putin would invade the United States and restore moral order in order to avoid God's wrath." In my 31 years in ROCOR, in which I have traveled all over the country, I have never encountered anyone in ROCOR that I have ever heard say such things, nor could I imagine anyone I have known ever seriously saying anything of the sort. I can imagine someone speaking this way in jest, or someone who is mentally ill speaking this way... but I rather doubt Sarah has heard more than one mentally ill person saying such things in earnest, who thought they were speaking of a realistic scenario. After all, in the age of nuclear weapons, who thinks Russia would ever attempt to invade the United States, much less that they could do it successfully?

She also speaks of a man named "Reynolds" whom she describes as a mid 50's business man, who is ex-military, and regarding whom she makes the following comment:

"For Reynolds, converting to Russian Orthodoxy was more than sitting on the back porch of his priest's cabin drinking vodka and shooting rifles into the night's air, although he admitted to thoroughly enjoying those moments."

I frankly do not believe that anyone with the slightest idea of gun safety, much less someone who had been in the military, sits on anyone's back porch, and fires guns into the night air. People who use guns that I have known will never point their gun, even when they believe it is unloaded, at anything they are not trying to destroy, and they certainly would not be firing a gun into the air, with the knowledge that they could accidentally kill someone by doing so. I could imagine someone shooting at a target from a back porch, but not into the "night's air." But I am sure that many liberal academics get a kick out of having their stereotypes of toothless rednecks confirmed by such assertions.

She also makes some rather unlikely comments about "typical" converts in ROCOR:

"While statistical data has yet to catch up with the influx of converts in ROCOR, primarily because of its geographical diffusion across the US,  clerics and laity consistently offer examples of a typical convert, which aligns quite readily with the folks I have encountered during my research. A composite rendering of a likely convert often paints them as a single or married male between the ages of 20 and 60, typically with a college degree or more often then not a more advanced degree from a seminary or graduate training in theology, philosophy, or history. On the whole their political leanings are conservative at least, and sometimes far more radical, including but not limited to far and alt-right affiliations, and monarchism. Religious backgrounds of typical male converts, often run the gamut from non-denominational to Southern Baptist, to Pentecostal, to Catholic, but the largest number generally hail from Evangelical backgrounds. Crucial to the political concerns of converts were fears over social and moral issues, such as abortion, same sex marriage, human rights -- gay, trans, and women's right primarily, and restrictive access to legal fire arms. These fears are not new, but an embedded part of the religious right's platform, that came to rise during the early years of the cold war, and spread through the latter half of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century. The language of moral evil that came to prominence during the Cold War, and helped spawn the religious right, and eventually the moral majority, is re-emerging with unabashed vigor among far right Christians today. And those iconic cold war marketing images, of Russia as the red menace, and the United States as the salvific global figure robed in nationalistic -- which we can read as White Christian pride -- have seemingly been inverted for the typical far right convert."

I have not seen Sarah allude to any scientific surveys that she has conducted to find out what the typical views and demographics of ROCOR converts are. Apparently, she is basing her comments on her limited observations in one community, and supplementing this with anecdotal evidence from conversations she has had. This hardly seems like the basis a real scholar would use to make these kinds of sweeping comments. In my experience, I have found converts vary rather widely in terms of their backgrounds and how and why they became Orthodox.

She also is very much off the track in terms of her knowledge of the history she alludes to. There were no culture war issues in the early years of the Cold War. I am old enough to remember when Democrats and Republicans didn't differ very much on issues of morality. In fact, the first presidential race I was old enough to pay attention to, was when Jimmy Carter ran against Gerald Ford in 1976, and I remember a Southern Baptist preacher, whom I think was Adrian Rogers, saying "I'm not going to tell you who to vote for, but he has the same initials as Jesus Christ." Jimmy Carter ran as an Evangelical, and he won the Evangelical vote by a big margin. Well into the 80's, many mainstream Democrats ran as being Pro-Life, including Bill Clinton and Al Gore -- in fact I well remember Al Gore's wife waging a mini-culture war against x-rated and violent music lyrics, and she was joined by a lot of Republicans and Democrats. Barack Obama ran for president twice, taking the position that he opposed same-sex marriage, and only after the mid-term elections of his second term did Joe Biden float the trial balloon of supporting it. This is not ancient history, we are talking about here. So to act like it is the lunatic fringe who oppose abortion and gay marriage, when most people still oppose abortion on demand, and when 20 years ago, almost no one was seriously talking about gay marriage as anything other than as a joke, only shows the youth, inexperience, and ignorance of recent history of the person making these comments.

The idea that concerns about the moral issues she mentions have anything to do with "White Christian pride" is also both slanderous and ignorant. It is slanderous, because the implication is that these concerns are driven by racism, when there is nothing in evidence to support such an assertion. It is ignorant, because only someone who has not spent much time around non-elite Black people could make such an assertion. I am sure that, these days, tossing around accusations of racism in an academic context is common, but in the real world, people should be more careful about such things.

When I first began working for the State of Texas, I was part of a training group for six months that consisted of about eight Black women, two white women, one black man, and one Hispanic man, and myself. We were also trained by a team of three Black women. I remember one day when we were eating lunch together we somehow got on the topic of abortion, and it was me and the eight Black women, against the two liberal White women, with the other two men staying out of it. Over the 27 years that I worked with the State of Texas, I discovered that Black people generally are far more socially conservative than most White people. This was also evident in California when they had a constitutional amendment on the ballot to ban same-sex marriage. Had only White people voted, the amendment would not have passed. It was Blacks and Hispanics that swung that vote. Here in Houston, when they had an ordinance that would have allowed men who think they are women to use women's restrooms, the ordinance was voted down... and this is in a city in Which white people represent about a third of the population. It was Black and Hispanic Churches that led the push to overturn this ordinance, and it was voted down by an overwhelming majority of voters. 

This past October, I agreed to be interviewed by Sarah, and I was a bit hesitant because I had read some questionable things Sarah had written before, but when I asked the monk I know from Holy Cross about her, he told me that he thought she was sincere, and so I did the interview. I could be wrong, but I am fairly certain she quoted me in her most recent article about the suspension of Fr. Mark Hodges: "After Orthodox Priest Suspended for "Stop the Steal" Activity, A Renewed Spotlight on the Orthodox Far-Right." She wrote:

"Many far-right Orthodox Christians I’ve encountered are gripped by the conviction that progressives have shifted the social ethos of the United States so far left that they are in danger of being persecuted for their moral ideologies. As one convert priest told me, “I don’t know what the future is gonna hold, if this thing doesn’t change and it keeps getting worse, I don’t know what that’s going to mean for us as Russian Orthodox Christians, as American converts to the Russian Church.” His apocalyptic worries are echoed online among far-right Orthodox folks, who suggest that persecution looms on the horizon. [See image below left]"

And here is the image the article refers to:

If memory serves, and she is in fact quoting me, I was speaking specifically about the anti-Russian drumbeat that we have been hearing ever since the 2016 election, when the left tried to say that the Russians stole the election (back when we still had the freedom to think an election might be stolen). My concern is of course that anti-Russian propaganda can lead to anti-Russian actions, and any people or institutions associated with Russians could easily become targets of unhinged people. I have spoken with many Russians about what it was like to be a Russian in the US during the Red-scares of the 50's and 60's, and it was not easy. The older ROCOR parish in Houston, up until the time I talked them into changing their listing in the 90's, was officially "The Eastern Orthodox Church of St. Vladimir," which made finding them in the phone book difficult. This parish was founded in the 50's, and it was because of this anti-Russian sentiment that they made sure to avoid using "Russian" in their name for the public to see.

What Sarah probably does not know about the picture the article included is that it is a picture from a book published in the early 1980's, at a time when Ronald Reagan was president, and few could imagine America ever harboring any sympathy for Marxism. This book based this inscription on the prophesy of a Russian Elder (the Elder Ignatius), who was living in Harbin, China in the 1930's, who said "What began in Russia, will end in America." He obviously did not say this because he was a Trump Supporter, or because of anything to do with the current culture wars of the United States. And so to use this, as evidence that ROCOR converts are a fifth column force for Russia in the United States is ridiculous, slanderous, and based on an ignorance of what she is talking about.

I can't remember if I mentioned this to Sarah when I spoke with her or not, but this past June, my parish was the subject of a terrorist threat from a local Antifa supporter, who was trying to gin up a group of like-minded terrorists to burn my Church down. He made a point of referring to my parish as "St. Jonah Russian Orthodox Church." This is despite the fact that we nowhere use "Russian" in the name of our parish -- not on our sign, and not on our parish website.*  I had to get the FBI and local law enforcement involved, and our parish subsequently had to spend well over ten thousand dollars to beef up security. So I don't think my concerns are unfounded. We have much better uses we could have put that money towards.

When I entered ROCOR, the Cold War was still going on, and certainly no one in the Church was talking about the Soviet Union as anything other than an evil. When the Soviet Union collapsed, we rejoiced that the Church was once again free, and we have welcomed the growing strength of the Russian Church. I do not, however, think of myself as being a Russian, nor do I want Russia to invade the United States, nor would I encourage anyone to take up arms against the United States on Russia's behalf.

I would also suggest to Sarah that she spend some time talking with people who have experienced Communism. I am married to one, and have talked to many such people over the years. In fact, I have a professional relationship with a Chinese man that has been ongoing for about two decades now. We have often made small talk about our families, but after this past election, he cautiously asked me about it, because he was wanting to make sure I was a safe person to talk to, and then he began expressing his concerns about the rise of Marxism in the United States, as well as the stifling of dissent and the control of the flow of information. He was raised and educated in Communist China, and he told me this was too much like what he had seen there for his comfort. And after seven months of riots across the country, conducted by people who identify themselves as Marxist, you can't seriously argue that there is no reason to be concerned. He has very grave concerns about where things are headed, and he is certainly not a White convert to ROCOR. I certainly hope that these concerns turn out to be unfounded, but eternal vigilance is the price of liberty, and if we are not concerned about keeping it, we will certainly lose it. In fact, there is no doubt that we have lost a lot of freedom in this country already -- but someone in their 20's would probably be too young to have noticed.

What seems to be behind all of this nonsense is sort of the left-wing version of Q-Anon conspiracy theories. We had many on the left spend four years asserting the Russia had taken over the United States in 2016, and that Donald Trump was Putin's puppet. Evidently Sarah either has bought into such conspiracy theories, or she is at least willing to feed them with her work, and doing so has certainly garnered her a lot more attention than she otherwise would likely have gotten.

The idea that ROCOR converts are not loyal to their own country is offensive and baseless. I was baptized in ROCOR the same week I enlisted in the United States Marine Corps, right as the first Gulf War was on the horizon. ROCOR actually worked with the US government during the Cold War, in its efforts to bring down the Soviet Union, and was thanked by Ronald Reagan for doing so. One can want the best for Russia without hating America, and one can also be concerned about the direction America has been heading in, and be motivated by love of both God and country. If Sarah doesn't believe that immorality could spell the end of the United States, she should open up her Bible and read it. God certainly does judge nations for immorality, and especially for the shedding of innocent blood. In the Bible, she will find, for example, that God destroyed the kingdom of Judah because they engaged in child sacrifice:

"And he [Manasseh] made his son pass through the fire [a form of child sacrifice], and observed times, and used enchantments, and dealt with familiar spirits and wizards: he wrought much wickedness in the sight of the Lord, to provoke him to anger" (2 Kings 21:6).

"Surely at the commandment of the Lord this [the destruction of Judah by the Babylonians] came upon Judah, to remove them from His sight because of the sins of Manasseh, according to all that he had done, and also because of the innocent blood that he had shed; for he had filled Jerusalem with innocent blood, which the Lord would not pardon" (2 Kings 24:3-4).

And also, that God drove out the inhabitants of the land of Canaan because of their immorality (see, for example, Leviticus 18:24-30).

Of course, I hope God will be merciful to this country, and that our country will be given time to repent. I live here, and so naturally want the best for the country, for my parishioners, and for my family, but being concerned about God's judgment is not a fringe idea for a believer who takes the Bible at all seriously.

Sarah, also in her most recent article, wrote:

"The Orthodox far-right in the United States are caught up in the global Culture Wars; whatever political ideology they align themselves with—fascism, populism, monarchism, and many of the other isms—they are typically homophobic, transphobic, anti-intellectual, and, more often than not, white supremacists—whether avowed or in spirit."

I would ask Sarah to define what she means by "homophobic" and "transphobic," but I would also ask her why she thinks those "phobias" are bad, why she feels the need to stoke Russophobia, and whether she thinks that this is any way a Christian ought to treat those she claims to share the same faith with. Stoking Russophobia has real-life consequences for those who either are ethnically Russian, or who belong to the Russian Orthodox Church, and if people like Sarah continue to stoke it, it is not hard to imagine lives being lost as a result.

*We do not hide the fact that we belong to the Russian Church, but we do not want people to think that our parish is only for Russians.

For More Information, see:

Converts and Culture