The Orthodoxy of my youth no longer exists in the United States (or perhaps in the world) today. The young, immigrant-heavy American Church had grown up into an openness to change, liturgical reform, improved conciliar approaches to Church governance, and a dynamic parish interaction.

A recent study by the Pew Research Center, America’s Changing Religious Landscape, indicates a decline in the number of Americans who identify themselves with major organized churches. Does this decline make you uncomfortable? Were you correct when you advocated the theory of secularization, or when you renounced it?

It has become a truism for many in the West that faith and science belong to two conflicting worldviews. An atheist may say that science is rational, based on empirical observation and necessarily self-correcting as new theories eventually modify or replace old and outdated ones.

For good or ill, it has come to pass. Humanity has multiplied, filled the earth, and gained dominion over it. The earth’s ecosystems, biodiversity, geochemical cycles, and climate are all now powerfully affected by human decisions. The influence of humanity is so pervasive that geological societies have been debating whether to formally recognize the start of a new epoch, the Anthropocene. And now we have also begun to fumble with tools that could shape our own evolution.

Walking in the hills above Elliot Bay in Seattle, I am greeted by unique images that call out to my attention. A design formed by moss climbing the stairs, ancient maps on the stones, the play of light against a wall, a precious color reflected off a petal only at this moment, on this day, in this season.

In June of 2000 Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh gave a long interview in London, part of which was published several days later by the Parisian Russian language newspaper Russkaya Mysl. In that interview, Vladyka Anthony pondered the atmosphere of internal fear which was beginning to permeate the Orthodox Church.

In this paper, I want to explore the phenomenon of fundamentalism, which has become an inalienable part of contemporary religious discourse. First, I want to chart the origins of the fundamentalist movement in antimodernist Protestantism and its parallels in the Roman Catholic sphere, and to look at its development in the later twentieth century. In the second part of the essay, I will examine the rise of Orthodox fundamentalisms in various forms and the recent development of Orthodox fundamentalist politics, especially as this has developed in the Ukrainian conflict.

“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God” (Matt. 5:9)—thus says the seventh Beatitude. What does it express, what does it point to in the teaching about being human that is given to us in the Sermon on the Mount?

First of all—what is peacemaking?

Many contemporary Orthodox theologians regard philosophy with suspicion, and this has encouraged the same attitude within the wider Church. Several of the texts of the so-called neopatristic synthesis indulge in repeated condemnations of “Western” and “scholastic” philosophy and instead laud the “mystical” approach of the Eastern tradition. Orthodoxy, on this telling, has no recourse to philosophy because it has direct experiential access to the mystery of faith, which not only requires no rational exposition but would actually be harmed by it. Philosophy destroys mystery. Thinking is antithetical to faith.