Orthodoxy In A New Media Age (Discovering Orthodox Christianity)

hello welcome to discovering Orthodox Christianity I'm Stacy Spanos your host for this series of programs designed to explain the basic teachings of Orthodox Christianity we're honored to be filming at the Holy Cross Chapel on the campus of Hellenic College Holy Cross Greek Orthodox school of theology in Boston in today's program we'll discuss orthodoxy in a new media age our special guests today are His Eminence Metropolitan Savas of Pittsburgh one of the first clergymen to embrace social media and who currently has 7,000 friends and followers on Facebook also technically Keys he is the director of the department of information technologies for the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America he is the founder and developer of the award-winning internet presence that our archdiocese has today and he is also an Archon of the ecumenical Patriarchate thank you for both for being with us today let me start with you your eminence 7,000 followers on Facebook I can say I saw I got a glimpse of how you managed to keep them all going you are on Facebook a lot what interest what did you find enjoyable about it the back and forth actually the fact that I have a lively group of followers who respond to just about anything I put out there and it keeps me kind of plugged in as well because I end each day by posting the Epistle and gospel for the next day often changing my profile pic to reflect the saint or the feast of the next day so I'm plugged in in a very real way to the liturgical calendar and it's it's a kind of a askesis a powerful exercise for me to do this before the end of the day but I'm also always looking for places where religion and culture intersect or sometimes clash and I just want to bring those things to the attention of my friends for their awareness and for their to get their perspective on it you know because some of these stories are underreported in the media you have to search them out and I make an effort to search them out and pick the ones that I think will be most edifying from my friends and I also get to share my own personal preferences as well I like to tell people what I happened to be reading at the time what movies I've happened to see what I'm listening to because I think that's all important as well you're very plugged into current culture yes I'd like to share that tale there are so many platforms when it comes to social media did the church make a concerted effort to get on many of them or did it just happen naturally it's been a combination of both is I think that we try to strategically look at where things are trending and we try to use the appropriate platform so you know whether we're talking Facebook or Twitter or Pinterest or YouTube it's trying to see where we're able to utilize a presence and I think that the key here is each platform offers a unique angle and the one thing that we try to be cognizant of is are we using the medium effectively with what the medium offers so you know if we're using something on Pinterest are we able to use that photographic and visual element appropriately if it's something on Facebook are we able to do something that's going to be engaging if we're doing something on the web can we do something that's going to be both a reference but also allow people something that's going to be shareable and allow them to engage in the topic what social media platforms is the church on right now we're actually on we're on LinkedIn we're on Facebook we're on Pinterest we're on YouTube and we're on Twitter and we're exploring a few others right now that we just haven't made the for a yet but they're coming that's pretty modern to be on so many it would to be on Pinterest of course seems like everybody is on Facebook these days and and you the church is so beautiful it's so spiritual and it's almost like an antique the beauty of it so to think of icons and whatnot being on Pinterest it's kind of strange for a lot of people I'm sure what do you say to people when they say we're on Pinterest Facebook Twitter what well I think that beauty is prevalent in any medium that we have and I think that part of the responsibility in the world where the role of the church is to take the different mediums that are introduced in to try to sanctify that space to bring the message of the gospel oftentimes it's called the new evangelism that that you'll hear thrown around and I firmly believe that as an Orthodox Church as Orthodox Christians part of what our calling and responsibility is to witness the message of Christ number one is what we do as a church but also to try to establish the framework of what does it mean to be an Orthodox Christian as I'm participating and interacting in these different mediums and I think the two go hand-in-hand your eminence how have you felt that this is helped shape the faith of the spiritual or perhaps people who are non-believers well I won't address the question of non-believers right off but I think that you know it's made it easier for people who are casually Orthodox to have a kind of a daily reminder if they like something or if they friend you you may be the only religious thing that they like or friend but you're there in the mix and from time to time they'll visit and from time to time something you post will get under their skin and so why not take advantage of that opportunity you know I mean for so many people religion is at most a Sunday to Sunday experience so why not be a day to day experience and maybe even an hour-by-hour experience just to create that kind of connection with the word you know I see no downsides actually one of our guests said that a lot of people when they go to Greece or when they go to their home country and they see the signs of Orthodoxy everywhere because is because it is the predominant religion that is a daily reminder we could use this just the same way yeah yeah I mean our physical presence here is a lot less pronounced than it is in a traditionally Orthodox country if you're in Greece or in Serbia or in Russia you're gonna pass by things in your daily travels and you'll do your cross as you go by a church you'll see the roadside shrine there'll be something that that that brings that to mind and you know we can be that you know on the Internet so let me ask you tale about Twitter because it's 140 characters do you have a difficult time paring down the messages because your eminence I know you post you like to post more lengthy things on your Facebook page sometimes you're not a Twitter fan how do we parse down these beautiful beautiful scripture deep thoughts into 140 characters or less what you can and I think that we need to look at how we're doing these micro blogging services something like a Twitter that the Beatitudes can all be tweeted we're under 140 characters with that and often times when people use for Twitter or some of these services is a little reference point teaser to now bring you in so it sort of becomes the hook is here it is a little bit have a taste now come experience the fullness elsewhere what is the downside of all this new technology of social media well you asked the Jew asked yes I think and we were talking about this earlier this morning my vantage point personally is we're at a point now where things are developing so quickly it's oftentimes challenging to really socialize - how do we use all this these new formats these new mediums these new services and I think you start to get a much larger generation gap between parents and kids so we'll give a kid a device and that device might be not just an iPhone or an Android phone a smartphone might be a gaming device that's fully Internet enabled and parents don't know it so any device you're buying gaming set-top box televisions nowadays there's a trend tor interconnectedness and the ability to share and the danger becomes when a child is given a device that child is now given a very very powerful tool that they may not have the capacity the framework the educational background so to speak to to really delve into using it appropriately and the parents sometimes feel overwhelmed they take a step back that's the worst thing that parents can do and I think that as we bring technology into our homes give it into our kids over time we need both as a church and as a family unit become more involved in how our children are utilizing those device and be aware what the potential pitfalls may be you know I think this is the first time in human history where children have the upper hand when it comes to knowledge there was a time when that book would go on the upper shelf out of their reach or it would be in a special collection under lock and key at the library and you had to be of a certain age to access it now the kid can get to it much faster and with much greater ease than the parent and so this is a new world you know and there is there are I think I said a few minutes ago there's no downside well yeah there there is a dark side you know there are dark possibilities I'm saying there's no downside to us being present there but the thing itself is capable of you know introducing people to lots of danger well you've gotten some negative comments on your Facebook page how do you deal with that or how would you counsel other people to deal with that well I I try to remind people when they ask me to be their friend I let them know that there are house rules and that I don't mind difference of opinion but I do mind nastiness I try to describe what I'm doing is hosting a a buffet and that people are welcome to sample of everything that I put out there and some of it may be to their taste and some may not some may be you know traditional Americans some maybe exotic Middle Eastern whatever it may be some may be cold or spicy or hot or just fishy but whatever it may be if you don't like it leave it and go somewhere else and you're free to engage with other people but don't spit the food at them don't itself the the the the the the hosts don't track your might in you know come properly dressed you know those kinds of things and otherwise I'll show you the door but I have to say that in the six years I've been on line I've only banished from my premises about 20 people and they've largely been single issue people who've wanted me to conform to their agenda and felt that I haven't been consistently dealing with their pet issue and crossed the line I'd become very insulting not just to me but to my other friends when I say friends you know 7,000 people III probably know a couple hundred of them I don't really know 7,000 people but it creates a weird phenomenon and that I can go to any parish now and two or three people will know me you know and they'll come out through Facebook when they say we're friends and I say yeah if you mean alright yeah does that feel strange to you does it feel like you've got an instant connection with them well it feels good it feels good you know that I know something about this person I know oh yeah you know I was praying for your daughter she was sick a couple of weeks ago how are things going with her you know let me ask you do people ask you a lot for prayers what are they asking for well they write to me privately for that yeah and and and when you anybody can write to me privately you know you don't friends have the right to comment on your post but anybody can interact with you in your mailbox you know so I get a lot of people that I don't know asking me for to remember people in prayer so it makes it kind of challenging for me you know in preparing for the Liturgy I come to the Ross community to the to the preparation bringing the lists of prayer book Facebook requests you know hey what do you make of that that's pretty fascinating isn't it that we've come to this point in the church's evolution I think it's beautiful from this perspective is we're trying to I don't if the word is interpret but try to bring our orthodox experience of prayer life of our liturgical cycle and bring that to the online world you just like because I man instead of me one of the first things that we did on the archdiocese website is we wanted to bring the liturgical life to the go arch org site so the site will actually change with its color the iconography the whole tenor of the site depending on the liturgical year so you know we'll have the icon of the resurrection up in the banner during the Paschal period what-have-you it'll actually turn purple the banner during the Lenten period but this natural this natural tendency towards real Christian community is something that we are trying to bring I think via these mechanisms like a Facebook and what-have-you and the ability to offer prayer the ability to offer that Christian sense of love and communion is something that the social media really allows us to do in a way we haven't been able to do before you've been with the program for 19 years of the archdiocese trying to get the technical technology department up and running and doing it successfully obviously his eminence has embraced this wholeheartedly but I might imagine there are probably many who have not what do you tell them in trying to sway their opinion in trying to get on social media well it's funny having the the perspective of almost 20 years I find the same questions arise with the introduction of every new medium first it was email then it was the web we've come right and it's the same thing as G we shouldn't be there because they'll read something negative in the news and that's their only experience of the medium or the service it's something that was written in the news article and what I what I try to say back is it's our responsibility if there is someone who's they err we need to go and witness there with them within with moderation in what we're doing but I think it's our evangelical responsibility to proclaim the gospel to be there for somebody because if we're not are we really doing what we're called to do you know III just want to pull back even further and just deal with the notion of Technology and just remind people that the alphabet is a technology writing is a technology roads or a technology you know and there was a downside to every one of those new developments you know Socrates or Plato has Socrates say in one of his dialogues he laments the development of writing because it weakens the memory and people can download stuff onto paper and paper will do the remembering and we're becoming less human you know so there was there were people who are always aware of the cost you know the the road will get you someplace quicker but it also provide easier access for your enemies to you know they can get at you quicker you know the Telegraph created a lot of confusion when it first because until the Telegraph news only traveled as fast as you could travel on land and what was that 30 miles a day you know and then the Train of course accelerated that process but with the Telegraph you were getting bombarded from all over the world with stuff that you now had to think about in process and you had to wonder does it matter that there's a rebellion in in Beijing how does that impact me right now that some guy has just broken the record for a flagpole sitting you know that it's 70 degrees in London you know I mean all these things are like you're overwhelmed by factoids you know and you have to process that so the development the the technic technology changes you to it makes you a different person you know with the development of the telephone which we now all take for granted and we couldn't think of living with that one but American pastors in particular were very Laoghaire of the telephone they would preach sermons against it because it invaded the privacy of the home you didn't know who was at the other end and they were interrupting meals and it was providing for unchaperoned conversations between members of the opposite sex that's an interesting way to look at it now that just seems so old-fashioned right let me ask you when other priests talk to you or bishops or whomever in the church says you know why are you doing this how do I do it do you give them counsel do you have to teach them is there a class because people of my parents generation certainly don't know how to navigate this I don't know that they all have to you know I think it is time-consuming I think if it is a kind of a special ministry that I feel particularly called to but you know I recognize that it does take a lot of time that I have my Episcopal responsibilities my face-to-face stuff my meetings my visitations but in the but there really isn't any more down time in my life because I I will go online to see what's happening you know to the Christians in Egypt or in Turkey or in Syria or to this legislation or whatever that I think is of interest to my people and I want to keep them up to date and I want to hear what they have to say about it too so it is a kind it's a very it's a it's a big commitment and I'm not recommending that everybody do it but I do think that there are right ways and wrong ways of doing it you know I think that when we and and we have to figure it out as we go along you know and that's a very good issue are there classes are there rules set out for people like His Eminence on what to post what not to post the good thing and I think it's really a credit to the archdiocese is the the youth and adult ministries Department actually published an entire set of guidelines much of which includes social media and how that should happen I know I've been invited to a few metropolis is to talk to clergy about issues related to social media how you should do it and I think that the one thing that that transcends clergy and anyone is we should never use social media or online as a way to become a different person we should always try to maintain who we are as Orthodox Christians whether we're clergy whether we're laypeople and we should never have a dualistic personality between the online world in our offline world so to speak we should be consistent and always witness the gospel it's actually a very good rule of thumb for everybody to use don't try to be anybody that you're not online because that's an easy trap to fall into have you found that there are any hazards along the way when you're navigating social media well there's always kind of you know there's always the risk of scandalizing people you know because I do try to be myself online and that was a challenge to at the beginning how much of myself was I going to be in in this in this process was I just here to be kind of a source of Orthodox information a kind of an Orthodox Answer Man or was I going to engage as the person that I am and you know a person who has brothers and sisters and who has particular likes and dislikes you know and how did you navigate that I just started letting things slipping things in and and then I became more and more comfortable with it because I know look when I was in the seminary I was in a band you know the wooly bullies that I knew that a lot of people knew that all my seminarian friends knew that the tapes are still in circulation and I wondered is that something that I should worry about that I'm gonna be exposed as a former rocker you know no just embrace it just include it you know yeah so but but the people can be bothered people will say this isn't what I expect I expect a different standard of my bishop and I and I you know I do have to have private discussions with a lot of people to try to you know bring them around it but if possible to my point of view on this it's often said that we live in a in a microwave world but the church obviously moves at a slower pace and has can we keep up with a fast pace of Technology tale I think we can and I think we've done a decent job of doing that what we I think what we try to find is when we try to control the technology that's when it blows up in our face I think that what happens is that the world has changed completely so if you try to say there's a news item and now we're going to look at it and we're gonna try to get something together well you know what the news release is today it's Twitter so-and-so's resigned this is what what has happened boom it's about getting the information out there just for the sake of getting it out there to inform people and I think that if we try to again try to control or shape it that's where you're gonna lose and you've seen it with the uprisings that have happened in the Middle East the so-called you know Arab Spring and other things his information flies too fast from too many vantage points that we have to have a voice we have to get it out there not thinking that if something happens we can just sort of turn aside and it's going to go away it's actually going to magnify if we don't say something about it so yes I do think we can we can keep pace by having that perspective do you feel that people are drawn to the orthodox faith and maybe engage more or maybe their experience is enhanced through the use of social media I do I certainly do yes because as you know it's not just text that goes back and forth people will post a liturgical celebration of some kind or a family celebration or a gallery of icons or the hem of the day and and for a lot of people this is access to a world that they've never experienced before and it gets under people's skin it hooks them and they enter into conversation and and you know I am I hear time and again people write to me privately again pray for me I'm going to be received into the church this week you know and I came into the knowledge of the church you know through Orthodox discussion groups or something I saw online when I was studying here there was probably I don't know 35 40 50 books in English about orthodoxy you know we all we what we bought them all you know the Hellenic college press books and the Holy Cross press books is in st. Vladimir's and and we we had them all now everything I mean there's no explosion in English language resources and it's all at your fingertips you know it's just amazing and and and why shouldn't good things come from that you know you don't have to send away for a book that you know or make a trek to a library to have a question answered about about this thing you can actually get online and and I mean you can you can you can go to Mount Athos you know you can experience a liturgy there I think I was surprised that one of that Mount Athos was one of the earliest Orthodox presences that I found online and that's that's the last one I think would be on though and and and it was what was very interesting about it is that doors would open and you would come in and it says five or six years ago and you would light a candle you take a candle from here and you light it and leave it in the in the sand box before coming into the church you can light as many as you want it of course you had pre-registered and it was costing you a dollar for each one saying is I've always viewed our adoption of technology through the lens of st. basil he he wrote a treatise which is the worst titled that's called the address to young men on how they should you know use Greek literature and it really raises a fundamental question is now that Christianity was legalized in the Roman Empire how do you view all of these pagan texts the Philosopher's and what st. basil uses an image as he uses the image of the honeybee and says just as the honeybee is discerning on which flower it lands on to pull the nectar that's the way we have to be with with life whether it comes to music art technology to be discerning because there is truth there is value in life and even in technology but it's how we use it how we choose what to take and I think that if we can use our our life the posts to interpret it through a Christian lens so people aren't viewing life as a Sunday exercise that we can have a truly a Christian existence I think that's what we're trying to get at and that's where we can add value to it but there is you know as I said that every technology is going to change you in some way this technology is changing us you know we're aware of ourselves in different ways we're aware of ourselves as kind of performers in our own reality show we're aware of ourselves is being observed from multiple angles you know this is not it's just these are adjustments we're living through right now and it's hard to know exactly if this is a good or bad thing you know we'll look back on it and figure it out but you're right it is a lot to keep up with yeah but there really is no option if the river is flowing absolutely right well let me ask you how would st. Paul and the Apostles use social media would they use social media well did they use the latest technology st. Paul was present in his writings you know st. Paul didn't just rely on face to face he sent letters that he expected to be copied and transmitted to other communities and his voice is still heard today because he put his voice on paper you know he certainly used the road system to travel which was the new technology and I mention Jo do you believe the same thing I do and and then now really strikes volumes with me you have the charismatic element the spoken word you had the liturgical element you had the Roman roadway system all of those played an incredible role of technologies we don't think of them as technologies but they were innovations that allowed the preaching and the charismatic element of the the gospel well let me ask you then with so many roads on social media so many hazards as well what do you tell Orthodox parents about navigating it with their children or even for the parents themselves tale well we've done a couple of things since the 1980s the archdiocese has been actively involved actually a founder of the religious liance against pornography and that's an interfaith coalition made up of Christians Muslims and Jews representing about 100 million people of faith here in the United States talking about these issues that have obviously changed over time and now speaking about it through the perspective of technology there have been a couple of summits that have been held in the Washington DC area we've held meetings with different agencies the CTIA being some of them we have meetings with Facebook most recently to try to engage them on some of these issues and now we've just done a major partnership with the Roman Catholic Church specifically the US Conference of Catholic Bishops and we've launched an initiative called faith and safety so that we're putting out there for parents busy parents bite size information that they can start to digest about different apps that are available on the phones what are some of the pitfalls well what's the right age at which I should give my kid a cell phone or an iPad or an account on some of these things and just try to educate them as much as possible I think that's where our role is is number one we care about families that's an important message number two is our faith has a role an important voice in the process and number three is to try to encourage parents to be active parents because that loving environment speaks volumes the technology is always always going to change you can't teach to a device I can't teach to the iPhone I can't teach the iPad what I can say is why am i engaging in this activity is it spiritually beneficial to me number two will my actions directly or indirectly hurt harm or impact somebody and number three is if I'm still conflicted well what would Christ do in a situation like that if we can convey that message Christian citizens in the digital world then I think we've done something I think it's fascinating that and probably exhausting at a certain level on the administrative level that the church has become such an umbrella not only is it tending to the spiritual needs of people but now it's also tending to some of the social issues do you find that it gets daunting at times your eminence I really don't make such a sharp line between the spiritual and the material or social I mean that's how the spiritual is communicated you know I don't think of the spiritual as the disembodied you know I don't think of it as just inner versus outer I think the whole of reality is is it the church is about everything you know and and yeah it's daunting but so what you're excited about the future yeah of course yeah and what does the future hold for social media platforms in the church tayo there's a man in charge of it tell us I think what we're going to what we're already seeing is the challenge of content what what you're seeing or right now at a seminal level is the desire and a drive to share and that's shareability well right now I can share my Facebook page through my computer I can share on my phone well it should be any device any medium anytime in the format that I choose so the living room is going to be the next frontier and I think that that's gonna be where it is and then it's going to be you're gonna start to see the tech industry more and more trying to figure out is how can I become I'm not saying this is right or wrong but how can I be plugged in all the time or have the capability to be plugged in all the time because right now it just as His Eminence was saying earlier and if you think about it the paradigm is almost identical if I wanted to know something I went to an encyclopedia so I'd have to go someplace now that information is accessible to me either on my device my phone my mobile device what-have-you and now I'm using services to get that whether it's Wikipedia whether it's a search engine like Google and it's become a more organic way of how we interact with individuals I don't know something pull it out look it up okay well here's the information well we thank you both for your time and as we said earlier you'll have to kick some Facebook friends off in order to let others on after seeing this it's kind of a natural attrition rate people sort of get their fill and they drop out and so I have this waiting list of people they might just pull them in every day there's a movement of two or three well your eminence thank you so much and Te'o Nicolai Q so thank you very much and to view more programs in the series entitled discovering Orthodox Christianity and by e to log on to our YouTube channel it's WW youtube.com slash Greek Orthodox Church I'm Stacey Spanos thanks for joining us you you

Channel: GreekOrthodoxChurch

Views: 8,434

Keywords: Greek, Orthodox, Christian, America, Orthodox Christianity (Religion)

Id: hxq6pR_k8Xk

Length: 35min 51sec (2151 seconds)

Published: Mon Nov 04 2013