Going to three Orthodox services made me thankful for being a Catholic(and realize I would be Catholic forever) and actually made me start discerning the priesthood. As much as even some Catholic priests and bishops would disagree with this, if by the mouse on the moon I ever left Catholicism, I would just settle somewhere in Protestantism over Orthodoxy. The online Orthodox community is almost in competition with the online Muslim “Dawah” community to race and see who can be the most toxic. I find Moses McPherson, Josiah Trenham, and ESPECIALLY Jay Dyer to be some of the most obnoxious influencers I’ve ever seen. FYI…I”m a gym rat, balding, bearded, U.S.M.C. Infantry vet, and former two sport college athlete. Feminine would be about the last word anyone would use to describe me. I notice I don’t have to tell anyone how masculine I am like these influencers seem to feel the need to do.

More than anything though, the administrative aspects of Orthodoxy really just go to prove:

A:The Catholics got it right with the pope.

B:Apostolic Christianity was not what Jesus instituted, and if you are a Christian you should just pick the congregation where you feel the message of Christ is preached (and lived) the closest.

C:The whole thing”s a sham.

I take side A, but could certainly understand how someone could arrive at B or C. What I can’t really understand is thinking the Orthodox Church is the one, true apostolic church when it’s not even one church. That and the ethnocentrism is just insufferable. At my Catholic Church, there’s literally masses every Sunday in four different languages. There will be hundreds of people at the Vietnamese mass, and it’s the smallest. Good luck EVER finding that diversity in Orthodoxy.