Orthodox Christianity: Young US males becoming a member of ‘masculine’ Russian church buildings

“Lots of people ask me: ‘Father Moses, how can I improve my manliness to absurd ranges?'”

In a YouTube video, a priest is championing a type of virile, unapologetic masculinity.

Skinny denims, crossing your legs, utilizing an iron, shaping your eyebrows, and even consuming soup are among the many issues he derides as too female.

There are different movies of Father Moses McPherson – a powerfully-built father of 5 – weightlifting to the sound of heavy metallic.

He was raised a Protestant and as soon as labored as a roofer, however now serves as a priest within the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia (ROCOR) in Georgetown, Texas, an offshoot of the mom church in Moscow.

ROCOR, a world community with headquarters in New York, has lately been increasing throughout elements of the US – primarily on account of individuals changing from different faiths.

In the final six months, Father Moses has ready 75 new followers for baptism in his church of the Mother of God, simply north of Austin.

“When my spouse and I transformed 20 years in the past we used to name Orthodoxy the best-kept secret, as a result of individuals simply did not know what it was,” he says.

“But prior to now year-and-a-half our congregation has tripled in dimension.”

During the Sunday liturgy at Father Moses’s church, I’m struck by the variety of males of their twenties and thirties praying and crossing themselves in the back of the nave, and the way this faith – with traditions relationship again to the 4th century AD – appears to draw younger males uneasy with life in fashionable America.

Software engineer Theodore tells me he had a dream job and a spouse he adored, however he felt empty inside, as if there was a gap in his coronary heart. He believes society has been “very harsh” on males and is consistently telling them they’re within the improper. He complains that males are criticised for eager to be the breadwinner and assist a stay-at-home spouse.

“We are informed that is a really poisonous relationship these days,” Theodore says. “That’s not the way it must be.”

Almost all of the converts I meet have opted to home-school their offspring, partly as a result of they imagine ladies ought to prioritise their households moderately than their careers.

Father John Whiteford, an archpriest within the ROCOR from Spring, north of Houston, says home-schooling ensures a spiritual training and is “a approach of defending your kids”, whereas avoiding any speak about “transgenderism, or the 57 genders of the month or no matter”.

Compared to the hundreds of thousands of worshippers in America’s evangelical megachurches, the numbers of Christian Orthodox are tiny – solely about one p.c of the inhabitants. That contains Eastern Orthodoxy, as practised throughout Russia, Ukraine, japanese Europe and Greece, and the Oriental Orthodox from the Middle East and Africa.

Founded by monks and clergy fleeing the Russian Revolution in 1917, ROCOR is seen by many as probably the most conservative Orthodox jurisdiction within the US. Yet this small spiritual neighborhood is a vocal one, and what’s unfolding inside it mirrors broader political shifts, particularly following President Donald Trump’s dramatic pivot towards Moscow.

The true improve within the variety of converts is tough to quantify, however data from the Pew Research Centre suggests Orthodox Christians are 64% male, up from 46% in 2007.

A smaller study of 773 converts seems to again the pattern. Most current newcomers are males, and lots of say the pandemic pushed them to hunt a brand new religion. That survey is from the Orthodox Church in America (OCA), which was established by Russian monks in Alaska within the late 18th Century and now has greater than 700 parishes, missions, communities, monasteries, and establishments within the US, Canada and Mexico which establish as Russian Orthodox.

Professor Scott Kenworthy, who research the historical past and considered Eastern Orthodox Christianity – notably in fashionable Russia – says his OCA parish in Cincinnati “is totally bursting on the seams”.

He’s attended the identical church for twenty-four years and says congregation numbers remained regular till the Covid lockdown. Since then, there was fixed move of recent inquirers and folks getting ready to be baptised, referred to as catechumens.

“This isn’t just a phenomenon of my very own parish, or just a few locations in Texas,” Prof Kenworthy says, “it’s positively one thing broader.”

The digital area is vital on this wave of recent converts. Father Moses has a giant following on-line – when he shares a picture of a positive pregnancy test on his Instagram feed he will get 6,000 likes for asserting the arrival of his sixth baby.

But there are dozens of different podcasts and movies offered by Orthodox clergy and a military of followers – primarily male.

Father Moses tells his congregation there are two methods of serving God – being a monk or a nun, or getting married. Those who take the second path ought to keep away from contraception and have as many kids as doable.

“Show me one saint within the historical past of the Church who ever blessed any form of contraception,” Father Moses says. As for masturbation – or what the church calls self-abuse – the priest condemns it as “pathetic and unmanly”.

Father Moses says Orthodoxy is “not masculine, it’s simply regular”, whereas “within the West every little thing has turn out to be very feminised”. Some Protestant church buildings, he believes, primarily cater for girls.

“I do not wish to go to providers that really feel like a Taylor Swift live performance,” Father Moses says.” If you have a look at the language of the ‘worship music’, it is all emotion – that is not males.”

Elissa Bjeletich Davis, a former Protestant who now belongs to the Greek Orthodox Church in Austin, is a Sunday college trainer and has her own podcast. She says many converts belong to “the anti-woke crowd” and typically have unusual concepts about their new religion – particularly these within the Russian Church.

“They see it as a army, inflexible, disciplinary, masculine, authoritarian faith,” Elissa says. “It’s form of humorous. It’s virtually as if the previous American Puritans and their craziness is resurfacing.”

Buck Johnson has labored as a firefighter for 25 years and hosts the Counterflow podcast.

He says he was initially scared to enter his native Russian Orthodox Church as he “seems to be completely different, coated in tattoos”, however tells me he was welcomed with open arms. He was additionally impressed the church stayed open all through the Covid lockdown.

Sitting on a sofa in entrance of two enormous TV screens at his residence in Lockhart, he says his newfound religion is altering his view of the world.

“Negative American views on Russia are what fear me,” Buck says. He tells me the mainstream, “legacy” media presents a distorted image of the invasion of Ukraine.

“I believe there is a holdover from the boomer technology right here in America that lived by the Cold War,” Buck says, “and I do not fairly grasp why – however they are saying Russia’s dangerous.”

The head of the Russian Church in Moscow, Patriarch Kirill, has doggedly backed the invasion of Ukraine, calling it a Holy War, and expressing little compassion for its victims. When I ask Archpriest Father John Whiteford about Russia’s prime cleric, who many see as a warmonger, he assures me the Patriarch’s phrases have been distorted.

Footage and pictures of Putin quoting Bible verses, holding candles throughout providers in Moscow’s Cathedral of Christ the Saviour and stripping all the way down to his swim trunks to plunge into icy water at Epiphany, appear to have struck a chord. Some – in America and different international locations – see Russia because the final bastion of true Christianity.

Nearly a decade in the past, one other Orthodox convert turned priest from Texas, Father Joseph Gleason, moved from America to Borisoglebskiy, a village 4 hours’ drive north of Moscow, together with his spouse and eight kids.

“Russia doesn’t have gay marriage, it doesn’t have civil unions, it’s a place the place you possibly can home-school your youngsters and – after all – I really like the thousand-year historical past of Orthodox Christianity right here,” he informed a Russian video host.

This wispy-bearded Texan is within the vanguard of a motion urging conservatives to relocate to Russia. Last August, Putin launched fast-track shared values visa for these fleeing Western liberalism.

Back in Texas, Buck tells me he and his fellow converts are turning their backs on prompt gratification and American consumerism.

“We’re pondering of issues long run,” Buck says, “like traditions, love for your loved ones, love for you neighborhood, love for neighbours.

“I believe that orthodoxy suits us nicely – and particularly in Texas.”