August 3, 2026, marks the fifth anniversary of the repose of Father Leonid Kishkovsky. His son-in-law, Nicholas Sluchevsky (Kolya), met Father Leonid as a young priest in San Francisco in 1970 at a time of profound change. Father Leonid’s daughter, Sophia Kishkovsky (Sonia), who worked as a journalist in Moscow from 1991 to 2020, observed her father’s interaction with the Russian Orthodox Church as it rebuilt after the Soviet rule…
Section: Personal Stories
Contra Conversionis Narrationes
I’m a Christian who hates convert stories. I hate the genre itself and the way it implicitly teaches its creators and audience to think about faith. Some of it is temperament. As someone trained in the scholarship of critical and comparative religion, specifically in biblical studies, and in Greco-Roman classics, the convert story bothers my sensibilities. It seems to me to rely on simplifications and demonization of the “Other,” whether that “Other” is “secularism,” another religion, or another form of Christianity…
A Non-systemic Church Person: In memory of Natalia Skuratovskaya
On August 10, 2024, psychologist and psychotherapist Natalia Skuratovskaya passed away. “I am a non-systemic person in the church,” she often said, but nevertheless, Natasha managed to accomplish a great deal and assist many people. Her sober, critical, yet responsible voice was heard in the Russian Church for two decades…
Take off Your Shoes: A Pilgrim’s Account of Spruce Island
“Carrie, take off your shoes!” called my friend Betsy from the shore, as the small fishing boat I was on came to a stop. There was no dock, and the boat could not quite make it all the way to dry land, so a slippery wooden plank was placed on the stern.
“I’m Rejecting Nothing I Found in Orthodox Faith”
This reflection is excerpted from an essay published on the author’s blog Nonidiomatic in 2017, as he pondered his eventual departure from the Orthodox Church (www.davensati54.blogspot.com/2017/04/heretics-testament.html).
I Left the Orthodox Church Involuntarily
I was maybe five, sitting with the older kids on the altar steps watching [a priest] describe his vestments. The cuff cords were so long! Each item meant something. I remember wanting to understand.
Everything Is a Bit More Complicated
Love Is the Most Important Thing in the Universe
I Feel Less Inclined to Jump Ship
The Day I Committed Myself to the Abolition of Torture
From early on I had the desire to be politically engaged. Already in my student days I was tutoring troubled adolescents. I admit it without blushing: I have the soul of an activist—and it is true that the spirit of the 1960s was manifest in all that… After getting my degree in history, I became[…..]
The Sound of Heaven
My first experience with an Orthodox choir was in my senior year of college in New Britain, Connecticut. I had walked into another world. The atmosphere was a haze of incense. The light was dim as it filtered through the enormous stained glass windows on both sides, but a glow came from the countless candles[…..]