Protestant Interviews Orthodox Priest

well hey everyone welcome or welcome back to the channel we are now sitting down here still here at christ the savior and i'm here with father john and we're just going to talk a little more about orthodoxy what it's like life in the orthodox church but once again thank you for taking the time to do this i really appreciate it and so to start off with we i think just touched on it briefly at the beginning of the tour but this is an oca orthodox church what does that mean and how does that play out okay well the orthodox church in america on the oca is uh our mother church is is from russia okay so when the russian mission came over uh to in to america uh through alaska made its way down through california we are a part of that original mission uh we were under the moscow patriarch until 1970 there's a group known as the metropolia we were in in 1970 we were given autocephaly so we are the only autocephalous orthodox church in the united states oh and could you break that down auto so what that means is we we have our own senate of bishops um we our senator bishop makes the decisions for the church in this country we don't have to go back to an ancient patriarchate and uh you know for for bishops or any decisions uh any disputes that need to be decided they're all decided within the holy synod of bishops in in the in this country okay interesting and now from my limited understanding obviously um and like i've mentioned i have a lot of catholic subscribers obviously for them they also have bishops and there's councils but they have a pope at the top for you like as in your role here as priests what is the if you what does the org chart look like up from you so um for each parish priest we serve at the leisure of our bishop so they they place us here and we get to serve here as long as they want us to okay and that's because the the great number of churches and parishes of parishes that are in a diocese a bishop can't be at every one every sunday uh and so my direct uh link is is to my bishop which is archbishop paul okay of chicago in the midwest okay uh and then there is uh each local diocese has its its hierarch its bishop and then we they form a holy synod and then we have what is known as a metropolitan in the oca okay uh that would be metropolitan ticon he's the archbishop of washington and all of north america uh that is a position that is a representation position it's a administrative position but he's also uh the the overseer of all the the oca okay so not that he would ever intervene with any um one diocese okay he's a bishop in his own diocese but it's it's an administrative position that is is uh you know that he's the the one that they all he dissolve our pr so to speak and okay does all the visits and and other patriarchates and churches around the world okay and so the and this might be like a crude difference to not um not the most like academic explanation of it but you're the difference being so for the metropolitan he he is a bishop like i think you know the they would say the pope is the bishop of rome but for them they would put the pope over the bishops whereas the metropolitan would be he's equal he's equal with the bishops okay yeah and that's a position that um you know that by consensus he was he was elected to okay it's an elected position within the oca um by his brother bishops okay who appointed him to serve in that capacity all right interesting and so another interesting difference that i've noticed right off the bat is that you know when we came in in the tour at the beginning you talked about the uh patron saints of your wife and kids so you are a priest and you have a wife and kids that is different than most of my roman catholic friends who might be a priest different than all of them just about so is that normal are most orthodox priests married or yeah i think it's it's uh normal that that orthodox priests are married every now and then you'll come across one who's not for various reasons um but celibacy is is a calling not uh something that is forced upon uh clergy within the orthodox church throughout the whole world so i'm married i've got five children wow um most most clergy are are married every now and then you'll see a monastic that serves a uh a parish okay um and every now and then there's you'll find a celibate clergyman for various reasons i have a friend who i have a couple of close friends who are our celibate priests now one of their wife died and the other one he just chose to be celibate because he was when he went to seminary later in life and one of the things that before you you have to be married before you were ordained so you're married first and then ordained he was in his you know i think at that time early 30s and you know the pickings get a little slim as you get older sorry to find someone who hasn't been married and doesn't have any children and and uh to be married and someone who wants to marry a priest at that age and you know so just felt his calling but it wasn't anything that was forced on it was a choice that he made to the way he wanted to live so awesome very very neat that yeah i think those are some perhaps easy surface level differences i'd love to get in to a bit of just what it's like being a priest here in the city i imagine that brings its own interesting joys and challenges but like you mentioned we are not only in downtown chicago you're right across from moody bible institute which if people aren't familiar is the school i go to but it's also one of the bigger or more well-known bible institutes out there what is that like both being in the city across from moody how does that all play into life as a priest here it's been it's been an interesting ride um i think it takes a unique calling to be a city priest i don't think i'm unique but i think it's definitely a unique calling that you have to want to uh be fully immersed in and really that's what it is it's full immersion i mean you notice like you walk down the streets here um and you're immersed with everything oh yeah i mean you know when you walk around dressed like this it's a little uh it's you know you stand out a little more but it's it's been uh it's i really feel this is where god has placed me wanted me to be when i first came here there was a hand literally a handful of people here really um i came here i was bi-vocational i wasn't they couldn't afford to pay me full-time so i i worked doing something else as well as the parish began to grow um i was able to make this just to be full time and not do any other side jobs and it's been interesting for my family i mean you know being raising five children in downtown chicago has been a challenge but there's been a lot of blessings with that as well you know they they have a unique perspective on on life that a lot of people don't have living in a downtown area you know seeing uh people on the street that are are different from them and people who are suffering and and homeless and and being able to uh not be afraid of people who are different from them yeah you know and it's there's been some you know interesting things that have happened here i've had some close calls with people with obviously mentally disturbed and and uh neighbors who don't like the bells ringing at two in the morning on on posca night and i was attacked once we uh really on on a posca evening we read the gospel at midnight out on the front porch and the bells were ringing and a guy came we must have woke him up from down the street and he came running down the street at me with uh wearing just some jeans no shoes socks no shirt started screaming tried to tackle me on the porch wow you know one of the guys luckily grabbed him and and uh police came shortly afterwards but he didn't want to be woke up that night wow so it's it's been interesting but it's it's you know it's it's it is a unique calling i'm grateful to have been here for so long and you know one of the things we do here what i what i try and do is whenever the weather permits is the front doors are open you know when there's a service going on you know the the front doors are open and and the candles you'll see lit in the candle stands there and and people will come by and they look in and and you know if they hear something from coming from inside they're singing you know that's again that's the whole idea of just the prayers spilling out onto the street you know during the chicago marathon it runs right by the church here so that sunday i mean there's things you just have to deal with when you're a priest at this parish in you know downtown the marathon we used to have to um begin later the service that day but now they changed the time of the marathon so that isn't a big deal but i would come in early i do the pros committee service i'm fully vested in my vestments i go stand out there on the front porch and it's amazing just to see how many people will run by and and wave or say father bless me or i had no clue there was an orthodox church here or i have one lady that's every year has come by and runs up she was can i use your bathroom same woman every year you know where it's at go ahead uh so you know interesting things that that you wouldn't uh get in a suburban church for sure yeah um but it's it's you know you have uh a ministry of just being present yeah uh you know riding the bus and and being dressed like this and you know sometimes it's good sometimes it's not so good sometimes you get on the bus and there's a girl that's you know will hike her shirt back up a little bit or the guys that are in the back will stop swearing and then but then there's other times people you know that that behavior gets kind of exaggerated uh just to see if they can push your buttons i think so it's it's interesting i i've enjoyed it i that's that's really interesting i love the way you talk about it of allowing the church to spill out into the city as well it reminds me actually you know him a moody student that comes here every week and i don't know if it was this church or if he if it was at the greek orthodox church up the street but he had no plans of ever really looking into orthodoxy and one day he heard the chanting from on the street while he was walking up to uh moody church okay and went in and as you know he's been coming to orthodox churches about every week since then but it has to be an interesting place where the ancient meets the the modern in a sense in that and and where the sacramento meets the secular yeah you know we do processions and uh for various feast days and we're carrying you know the the cross and and uh icons and people are singing and we're walking you know down lasalle and people are you know they're they're bewildered what is going on here right you know and we walk around the church and we can't you know usually when you do a procession in the in a liturgical tradition the orthodox uh church you go around the church we can't do that we have condos pushed right up against us uh and so we have to walk down the street and we walk up the alley and you know the people behind us are there sometimes they're looking out their windows watching us and you know one of the other things we have to do is we have to have somebody at the end of the alley make sure a car doesn't whip through there and run us all over you know unique challenges really you have that that meeting of the secular and the sacramento when you open those doors and when we go out into the streets and and it's a visible presence of of christ and the kingdom of heaven really in the middle of you know this urban jungle for you know a lack of a better way of looking at it but yeah it really is at times that's really interesting and you know it's it's interesting to think about as someone who grew up in non-denominational churches where i mean we bent over backwards to make the church look like the outside that there wouldn't be that that hard contrast i mean when you'd walk into the church i grew up in you'd you know get your your latte or whatever and you know you'd have your big screens and i remember sitting in meetings i worked at this church for a time of thinking about our favorite coffee shops that we go to or and how can we adjust how can we make it as welcoming and that way as possible but obviously that's not the orthodox ethos when you walk into this church you feel like you're in a completely different space in a way it it's like chicago's out there and you're in chicago but you're kind of in a different world is there what what is kind of the orthodox perspective on that why is it why is there this emphasis on retaining the ancient church in this way that's a great question you know it's um the church is timeless it's unchanging it's the body of christ christ is eternal and so you have that within the orthodox church you have this this bit of eternity right here and and so um you know i i think practically as as we play this out you know i mean just look at the way people are today i mean you know people are i think really people are thirsting yeah they're thirsting they're hungry they don't you know if they want a coffee they'll go to a coffee shop right or i have some friends who are our protestants and and you know they they get tired of the way things are going so they they switch up the service or they switch up the you know the way the music they're playing or it's always this thing of trying to keep up with the times and make it relevant and yeah and you know and to me and i don't mean this in the it just seems kind of it it kind of is it's it's just a a really watering down of of of you know what we are and who we are called to be as christians we're called to you know partake of the body and blood of christ and become like him we're called to become like god and when you step into an orthodox church there is this this feeling this presence of holiness you know and it's not much different from when you meet a holy person you know i've had a couple opportunities in my my life to meet people that were really holy i mean vessels of grace and you knew it from the minute you were in their presence it wasn't because they act there was some sort of show they put on it wasn't because they had a big long beard it wasn't because of anything other than the fact that they radiated love they radiated the spirit of of god yeah and i think that's what people want absolutely i get a i get a latte uh you know i make my own lattes i don't even want to go spend five bucks for what i'm starving yeah and there's no shortage of coffee you know so we retain what is is you know retain this because you know it's unchanging it doesn't it it doesn't change with the times it's not something that can be just it's not disposable you know it's not something that's recyclable it's eternal and everlasting and so there's a really um i think it's just a really cool way to talk about the ethos of the orthodox church or an understanding it's really cool to walk into a church like this and you know know that a thousand years ago same thing yeah same hymns being sung same way same prayers the prayer book the language of the church you know there's a power that comes with that with with thousands and thousands and hundreds of thousands and millions of people saying these same prayers and yeah and worshiping in the same way and and be ultimately becoming god willing you know sanctified yeah you know and that's really all the things that we do you know the prayers the fasting the ascetic labors the the good works the you know everything is done in order to become you know become more like christ and we can't do that um alone uh it's important that we do that in communion obviously and so here is a really unique place in chicago to do that yeah you know i really wish there was a way that to you know open the doors for the times that we're in services but you know the weather's not really it's just crazy out here for a whole lot of the time so we do little things you know get a speaker outside where people can hear just faintly what's going on inside you know or i've got some other ideas of things that i'd like to do i like i like there's there have been times where uh they have orthodox coffee shops really i'd love to put one i've always wanted to put one next door just to be another presence in the city um just where you could go and get your coffee and hang out and have a place to read and and hear some orthodox chat in the background nothing that's you know in your face or anything but uh just to you know those big doors to come in are scary for a lot of people i think yeah they're beautiful but they're they're intimidating yeah they are intimidating that's why i want them open yeah that's when you come by and you you see the candles you see the icons of christ and and there's something that draws some people in wow you know i have to say that's just so refreshing to me to hear because something i hear people i don't want to call it an accusation but i guess that's a fair word to use about the orthodox church is that while it's beautiful if you get into it that it can sometimes feel a bit exclusive that it's you know so detached from the world in some good ways but that it's it's difficult to break into or it feels like you know you have to be this ethnicity to get in or you have to have this background and if not it's you know not not for you i think it was actually maybe an orthodox metropolitan that said orthodoxy was the best kept secret in america which i imagine isn't a goal yeah you don't want this to be a secret and i love that you're thinking in those ways and is that something you see is that a tide turning in the orthodox do you see that you have that feeling in spite of being orthodox or in fact because you're orthodox that you want to reach out well i think i think you're you're right i mean it is it's it's changing times are changing and there's um less of an ethnic divide i think you know the way that the orthodox church came over to the united states uh to north america for that matter um you know it was ethnic you know communities yeah um and and slowly you know people married into the faith or or people learned about the faith but now i mean you come here and and we've had i mean we've had every ethnicity here i mean we have we have asians mexicans blacks um you know it's just a good melting pot of what america is i think maybe there's some parishes that you go into that may be a specific ethnicity and that's you know who they cater to and you do get that a lot here and i think in chicago more than you may somewhere else because there are such heavily concentrated ethnic communities here okay you know uh chicago is the second heavy heaviest populated greek city in the world really athens is number one chicago is number two i never would have known that you know so there's lots of greek orthodox churches here but there's lots of greek orthodox and there's so many priests to take care of all those people right um and so they cater to to maybe them some parishes more than others same with the serbs you know belgrade is is the number one populated serbian city and chicago is number two what do you know so you you may get that more here than you would other places but i really think you know it's just it was a matter of time and we're probably about 100 years behind the catholics in that regard you know i think maybe 100 years ago if you were in chicago and you had an irish catholic church next door to you and you were a german household you would go three blocks away to the german catholic church um you don't have that anymore here from at least what i can tell and i think that's it's just a matter of time before it becomes the same way for the orthodox church yeah you know it's interesting you bring that up and i know so many of my subscribers will be asking as i've mentioned so many of them are catholic which is very interesting as a protestant but grateful for the community that god's given me on that channel but whenever i talk about orthodoxy they do mention that and i i think this is kind of a newer thing in catholicism that there's been several eastern churches that are now in union with rome and so they say like hey i heard you enjoyed going to that divine liturgy we've got all that too in our eastern catholic churches as an orthodox priest what what do you see when you look at that because i i noticed and i mentioned it in that video that you guys you don't claim to be just like the eastern side of catholicism it's on the pamphlet that you guys put out and so not not to put you on the spot but um what is what does that look like as an eastern catholic priest because sorry as an eastern orthodox priest because i imagine if you walked into one of their churches it would look similar in some ways to this well yeah i think you know um you can you know put icons and say you you know you like icons and you want to have dress in black and and have you know the hymnography be a certain way but i mean you still have the doctrine which we don't adhere to that you know we say is is is heretical yeah um and so we'd say they are you know not part of the orthodox church part of the catholicism and it'd be you know if someone went from the orthodox christian church to catholicism they would consider them an apostate well yeah well thank you for sharing that i know it's i imagine those aren't things you say lightly but i appreciate you just being forthright about it i mean it's just it's just what it is i mean it's you know speak the truth and love i mean it's just it's not it's not a judgment it's it's not casting stones on anybody it's it's what the ecumenical councils have held and what we adhere to as as orthodox christians so um yeah i i remember when there's uh the the last pope's funeral i they had a group of byzantine catholics um or eastern what i don't know sure what they call them for sure now but um yeah i thought it was kind of cool seeing them yeah you know like hey they look like us sure yeah and but we don't adhere to this whole thing about the pope being the you know the vicar of christ sure and i think at the end of the day that's probably the the biggest dividing point there because from my understanding of i've talked to a few catholics who have been kind of upset with the novus ordo and then have not wanted to go to latin mass but now they go to a byzantine catholic church because they appreciate the liturgy and i believe they don't recite the filioque way when their creeds at least at that church and the time um well maybe they're on the way back yeah yeah who knows but but it's interesting and so there's on one hand the catholics who have picked up some orthodox things but there is at least some diversity within the orthodox church in that well and i guess i'd be curious to hear this so i've been to this orthodox church only one i've ever well i met with a catholic orthodox priest once but never went to a service there so this was my first it was great thank you you're welcome it was nice having you it's good to see i wish i don't we did i didn't get to sit down and talk with you afterwards because we have the coveted restrictions i can only have four at a table at that time so it was already taken but yeah no it was great i really enjoyed it and i appreciate you doing this now my understanding just a couple blocks up the street there's a greek orthodox yeah church if i went in there i mean the building might look different but how different would a service be and could someone from your church go over there and back and forth or is it yeah is there a bit of a separation in any way no i mean um you know all the orthodox churches are in uh communion with one another so there's been times where we've done things with with the church up the street um our one of my altar servers now uh a younger man who who attends here he's the the parish secretary up there oh really so but he comes to church here and and he works up there uh we did a procession with them on on holy friday uh with with the church up the street a couple years back so um in communion with with all the churches whether whatever ethnic uh background they may be there are small differences i think you know maybe the church up the street they they use a bit of greek up there i believe so i would notice the difference yeah you would notice the difference in that maybe the vestments might be a little different um you know so i wear high backs sometimes sometimes i wear serbian style as well the low backs um but uh you know the hypnography would be a little different we use a different tonal system for our chant than they do in byzantine chant um so the hypnography would be a little different then we would have more of a four part choir where they would have maybe just have one person chanting the service okay um so little differences that that play out um maybe different things slightly liturgically but nothing major okay nothing major you would feel at home a little oh yeah of course and and if it was all in in greek and i know very little greek um but whether i was i went up the street there i went to mount athos i've been there several times uh in russia you know you walk into the the liturgy and you you know where you're at wow there's a beauty to that yeah you know where you at the service is gonna be the same nothing's gonna no one's gonna throw a curveball at you uh and if you do you're probably not in a canonical church if they're doing something strange um and and so that's you know that's the universe universality of it all this is you know that it's it's really it's like going home wherever you wherever you go yeah um being home so i appreciate that yeah that's wonderful well i want to make sure to respect your time i'm sure there's been so much that people have gotten out of this and thank you so much for doing this i know i've greatly enjoyed it i i want to just close with just a couple things one i'd love to just hear how did you end up as an orthodox priest um well i'll take you back to the beginning when i was when i was when i was a a young boy i grew up in michigan um i wasn't baptized as a child okay my my dad's side of the family um is serbian okay my mom's side of the family was was of a protestant denomination and my mom didn't want me to be baptized until i was old enough to decide for myself kind of protestant type thing and so when i was young i would go to the orthodox church with my serbian grandmother one week and the next week i would go to another church with my with my protestant grandfather on the other side and i went back and forth and it was kind of um christian schizophrenia for a while i bet you know um and i think when i was about seven i stopped going to the protestant church with my my grandfather i just i really liked and felt at home in the orthodox church and uh the priest there was just this enormous man his father raphael bernanke a blessed memory he was just the kindest loving man you'd ever meet and he was he was six foot eight just a monster he might have been that big maybe he was i mean he was probably that big he was just and i remember him going around the church sensing and just in his fellow and going behind him and he seemed like a superhero wow you know and i thought i want to be a priest when i grew up well um time went on i got older i got into high school and and started liking girls and sports and and doing other things and figured priests can't have any fun i kind of threw that one out the out the door i was baptized when i was 11. um went to church frequently was an altar server never never left the church never became a non-believer never walked away from christ always very believing and faithful and read the scriptures and and prayed every now and then but kind of uh teenage years i didn't have any direction my parents weren't church i had an aunt and a grandmother who would take me you know when i was younger on my dad's side and and thank god through them that kind of uh instilled something within me that lasted that lasted and got me through those teenage years and my early twenties my early twenties i was in a place where i didn't really like the way my life was i wasn't happy i didn't feel fulfilled something was missing i was having a lot of problems and i went back to that church and in the meantime i was i had gotten married my wife and i had gotten married in the church because i knew i needed to be buried or married in the orthodox church i was before i didn't slept i said buried so we were married in the church but this priest came there and he was he was there when i needed him i i i rolled up on my motorcycle one day i was coming from a construction site i was working construction and i went in there and talked with him and he didn't turn me away um he made time for him even though i'm sure i showed up there probably somewhere before 4 pm and i gotta be thinking now he was probably thinking about wanting to go home at that point and this guy rolls up on a harley davidson with long hair and and you know asking to speak with him and he he i can't remember how long we talked for but it was a long time and i started going back and he just had this um he was just always open to me anytime i had a question any time i wanted to talk there was never he never turned away wow and he made me remember things in my life that i had forgotten about and i remember one time i went to confession him this is the short version of the story sorry no i love this but i went to confession one time to him and he said you ever think about being a priest and i laughed and i said you know you just heard my confession what do you mean do i have ever thought about being a priest and he he started just kind of nurturing me and and and one day i ran into him at church afterwards or something and he handed me an envelope and i think there was something like 200 in it and he said st tcon summoner is having a vocations encounter i want you to go yeah and handed me this envelope with some money and i was like i don't know he's like i want you to go here take this i was kind of obliged to go right so drove to pennsylvania um in ninth what was that was that was in 2000 early 2000 i've been going to church for a couple years coming back by then started serving the altar again and and uh came back from this weekend there and went to my wife and just said i i think you need to come and check this out wow uh and we went back with our two children on memorial day weekend it was the weekend that they were glorifying saint raphael of brooklyn as a saint the first bishop consecrated in the united states he was he's upon our econos one two three four over from christ on the right-hand side there they were and there were thousands of people there for this canonization of the saint and my wife was just blown away as i was and we went home and that weekend and sold our house in like two weeks and everything just kind of happened and ended up in seminary and uh here i am now that wasn't i wasn't sure what i was gonna do and one day a bishop knocked on my door i lived about a mile from the seminary and he said hey i want to talk to you and i was like okay come on in wow and uh here i am that's the kind of the short version kind of long but that's wonderful and i mean praise god for that priest just being willing to take that time but yeah that's fantastic i mean he was he really changed my life i mean if it wasn't for him i don't know where what my life would have taken um and in becoming a priest i i always have in my mind if i can do for one person what he did for me then this will all be worth it wow it'll all be worth it i i don't think i can top that so i think we'll we'll end on that note but thank you so much for being here and if anyone wants to learn more about christ the savior i'll put a link in the description and you guys also you broadcast on ancient faith radio ancient faith radio every sunday at 9 30 a.m we do an audio stream of the service yeah we've been doing that for five or six years now i think so we're grateful to be able to have that ministry awesome well i'll put links to that and thank you so much for doing this this was a pleasure thank you [Music] you

Channel: Gospel Simplicity

Views: 60,629

Rating: 4.9371452 out of 5

Keywords: Orthodoxy in america, becoming a priest, orthodox priesthood, orthodox priest, protestant and orthodox, converting to orthodoxy, orthodox perspective on uniates, orthodox testimony, Christ the Savior orthodox church, orthodoxy in chicago, Austin Suggs, Gospel Simplicity, Ecumenism

Id: bw45OChdnJ4

Length: 35min 4sec (2104 seconds)

Published: Mon Nov 23 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/RatherGoPhishin]

I like this kid. He seems very sincere.

[u/feeble_stirrings]

Excellent. I’ve been following this guy a bit on YouTube and watching a few of his videos. I think he does a good job, is very respectful and asks some good questions. He been doing a lot of digging into Catholicism for a while now. His inquiry into Orthodoxy is more recent. Hope he comes home.

[u/TsarNikolai2]

This was very enjoyable

[u/anotherview4]

I really like Austin's videos. I always learn something. Love the murals in this church!

[u/MrWolfman29]

Just found this and watched it. Like it much better than the 10 Minute Bible Hour counterpart that had a bit cut from it. Father John did an excellent job and I pray this kid is in the well worn path many of us have travelled home.

[u/[deleted]]

This is a beautiful church

[u/Superatio]

Austin is doing a lot of interesting videos about Orthodoxy. It will be great if he finally convert to Orthodox Christianity

[u/Chocobean]

:) i think the first video in the series https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_e3BMMy41uo&ab_channel=GospelSimplicity is when he visited our Church for liturgy.

Let us pray for the host and everyone watching <3

[u/Thrakioti]

Nobody told him not to cross his legs in church. Edit: not a serious comment.