“I would say, broadly speaking, that the biggest issue revolves around the human person: “What is a human person?” The question of progressive ideas today is usually framed in the context of issues like sexuality, gender and all those things, which are issues that come up in our parishes. But I think they come up because there is confusion before those questions about what is a real human person. So, I see especially with the youth those questions, not simply about sexuality, but more broadly: “What is my existence about?”  and, “What is the purpose of having religion?” That’s a big general question that many people struggle with. They reject not just Christ, but organized religion or any kind of existence outside of themselves. So the spiritual problems are from that isolation that people bring upon themselves by rejecting Christ or organized religion or even rejecting a sense of community, which you see reflected in divorce and people not getting married to begin with. But I think all of those questions come down to confusion about what it means to be a human person in the image and likeness of Christ, and despair about being in a broken state without knowing how to get out of it. Therefore some turn to false solutions: drugs, pornography and all these other things that promise some kind of answer to life’s questions, but really alienate the person more from true life.”

– Interview at Stretensky Monastery, 2019

 

***Now and then we include a particularly thought provoking or inspiring excerpt not from one of our regular ‘Elders’***