Orthodoxy Live September 27, 2026

This is Orthodoxy Live with Father Evan Armitage, a live interactive call-in program where your questions about the Orthodox faith are addressed. Father Evan is the priest at St. Spirit and Greek Orthodox Church in Loveland, Colorado. Call in your question at 1-855-AF RADIUM That's 1-855-237-2346. Here now is Father Evan. Good evening and welcome to Orthodoxy Live, your live call-in show about the Orthodox faith, your teachings and traditions. I'm your host Father Evan and we're streaming with you tonight here on Ancient Faith. I'm glad you're with us. And I've got my friend Mike on the other side who usually is producing and engineering this show because tonight we're going to be offering another mailbag episode. Mike, we've done a number of these and I have got to tell you and I've said this before I really have enjoyed doing these special editions of the show with you. I know we've got a list of questions that we've gotten either through email or when we're on air live and people are writing in using the chat room and YouTube or Facebook and so I know we've got a host of questions that hopefully we'll get to but it's been fun to kind of do these. Yeah likewise Father. I've done so many of them at this point. I think I can put industry veteran on my bio online, maybe my LinkedIn. Yeah just before we got on air you were sharing the start date of the show which corresponded to the date that your grandmother fell asleep in the Lord and of course eternal memory to her and when you mentioned the date I was a little surprised myself. I just don't think about the show going back that far but in another month here we'll be hitting starting our I should say our 15th year of broadcasting which is surprising to me. It doesn't seem like 15 years have gone by but I guess so. Yeah it's just a blessing to bring this to people. I think that you touch a lot of hearts and you help a lot of souls out with all the answers that you give them. Thank God for that. As we were preparing I was scrolling through some of the questions and I've still got emails going all the way back to 2016 that I haven't answered so it gives you a sense of just how many questions are still out there that haven't been answered but nonetheless. So tonight sit back and listen in with us as we take some of these questions that we haven't had a chance to get to while we've been live taking calls. So you are again listening to this special edition of Orthodoxy Live, a mail bag episode. Mike let's jump into our first one. Alright we got kind of a interesting sort of marriage question that I don't really see very often on this show I wanted to start us out with. YouTube listener writes, Hi Father Evan in the OCA can married people become monastics with correct blessings and discernment? If so can one spouse stay in the world and the other enter the monastery? Yeah well it's interesting the opening part of the question in the OCA what they're indicating there for people are like I don't even know what that means that acronym Orthodox Church of America and you know that's come up on this show many times where in America and in a few other countries around the world mainly countries of what we would you know in the Orthodox mindset called the Aspera we have various jurisdictions. So typically like you know in a country like Romania you don't have different administrative structures right it's just the Romanian Orthodox Church right or in Greece you know the Church of Greece but in America because of the way Orthodoxy arrived in the country and the various you know people who are immigrating you have these different jurisdictions right so I'm part of the Greek Archdiocese you attend a church that's under the Antiochian Archdiocese and this person obviously attends a church that's under the Orthodox Church of America all the same church just has a different administrative structure so in one way we would say we could we could kind of strike the in the OCA out because this is a question like almost all questions we get that just is really asking you know what is the practice in the church right and so for example in this question someone's saying you know in a marriage is it possible that at some point one part of the of the marriage you know either the guy or the or the woman could enter into the monastic life right is that is that possible and for people listening to that you know statement you know especially people who are you know investigating Christianity and the church that might sound like what what are they even talking about right and obviously there are people who live as Christians in the world that are married I happen to be one of them there are people who are in the church who are not married and are single Mike I think you're single right I'm in fact yeah there's no difference in in how you or I live within the church and the church doesn't treat us differently right a married person isn't you know ahead of or behind right there's there's nothing sort of like in the US tax code where there's a you know a marriage filing and a single filing right no we both partake in the sacraments we both live within the life of the of the community as members of the church right within the church there's also those who choose a life of celibacy and enter into the monastic life and live in a monastery and surprisingly at least for for some who may not know it you can enter a monastery having been married maybe you're widowed you can enter a monastery single having never been married or you can enter a monastery while you are still married okay and that's really where this person's asking this question right can I enter a monastery while I'm still married this happens not a lot but it is a an old and and venerable and respected tradition of the church lots of discernment needs to take place before something like that occurs as you can imagine Mike you know you know it's it's not acceptable in the church for you know if I wake up one day and and I just take off and go into the monastery my wife looks over on the other side of the bed and I'm not there and and she she goes looking for me and finds out well he just went to the monastery like he he abandoned you and the kids like no no no that's not how it works certainly we don't really have any viable examples of this with newlyweds you know it's not like oh we're you know six months into our marriage and you know I just decided I think I'd rather be celibate right um almost all of the instances of this occur late in marriage you know maybe someone's in their 60s or 70s in fact I have a schoolmate from seminary married is a parish priest several kids both he and his wife have decided that as the kids move into their adult lives and as they age there'll be a time where they're both going to enter into the monastic life now that's that's a mutual agreement they've made they both have connected and built relationship with relationships with the monasteries are going to go to in fact not too long ago I was visiting a monastery in one of the deacons there he is serving at the monastery and his wife is at the sister monastery about 50 miles away right and they're in their early 70s it's it's similar to what st paul's talking about when he says to married people how they should for a time refrain from the marital bed so that they can dedicate themselves more to prayer and so really the way that this is understood is that as we age if we're blessed by God with a longer life we know that our attention turns more and more toward the end of our life and and the reason I say that is because I am pastoring people who age and that is a very common thing as they get older they start thinking more about their death they recognize they have a limited amount of time of course you and I are younger you're younger than I I don't think about you know my death I would say all the time it does cross my mind and I certainly think about the fact that I've passed the midpoint of my life you know I'm 57 I don't think I'm gonna live to 114 that would be highly unusual so I recognize I have less time in front of me than I have already passed in this life and so it comes up in my mind more and more but like my father he's in his late 80s and you know often when I call him you know and I'll say hey dad how you doing he goes he goes pretty good for an old man and then he'll say something like you know I've got another day and you know at my age that's really good you know so he's he recognizes he's got a limited amount of time and so when that happens you know you may hopefully be more focused on that preparation from the passage from this life into the next and so that's why one would consider the monastic life right to dedicate oneself fully to prayer and fasting and alms right and prepare for their death now there's a nuance to their question which says what if one of us doesn't want to go into the monastic life you know and one of us does well the nuance here that this person brings up like it just basically stipulates that there has to be a lot more conversation and pastoral consideration it's possible there's no doubt that there are couples where one enters and one remains let's say at home maybe caring for the children and and I'm not talking about young children but perhaps maybe there's a child that needs care right a special needs child that stays in the home that needs care or perhaps their family situation is such or there's just not a desire of one of the of the part of the couple to enter monastic life but they're fully supportive of right it's a it's a little unusual but not unheard of right now how would any of this apply to you or I well it probably never would right but sometimes single people will spend the majority of their life you know living and working in the world and then late in life decide to do the same that's not unusual either I have a friend and colleague who in her mid 50s had a very successful business career had a monastery that she visited frequently overseas and just recently he was uh uh tauntured right she became a monastic and is you know it was something she prepared herself for and she you know got rid of her worldly possessions and did this but but mostly what what this helps you know maybe you and I consider is you know if someone brings that focus of the end of their life into you know sharp relief by entering into a monastery it begs the question why aren't you and I doing the same even if we don't enter a monastery right um you and I live with this illusion that well we're just going to live forever which is a true and so how is it that we are preparing ourselves you know for the day of our death to make that transition from from this life into the next you know peacefully so yeah Mike I'm assuming you've probably heard of of this this decision tree that some people go down oh yes uh ecclesiastical divorces I think like um like so many other elements of orthodoxy are much talked about online but as a practical occurrence you know very very rarely happen I would say it's tied right up there with apparently there's a lot of priests excommunicating people without ex explaining themselves to anybody I mean oh really that's an online topic yeah apparently all these occurrences happen online all the time I'm not sure I'm kind of doubting the you know the the commonality of these claims but yeah ecclesiastical divorces are another one that people are talking about all the time and it's just like that's such a momentous decision in your life um I don't think it happens very often I think it's a very blessed beautiful thing um well let me say something Mike there may be a confusion for people you know when you enter into the monastic life the church doesn't process your marriage through that ecclesiastical divorce you remain married oh wow yeah but but the idea of an ecclesiastical divorce which you know you brought up that does occur in the church it's it's a long and important and spiritual process the one that's really got me intrigued this is the idea of of of you know priests excommunicating people as I've said I don't know dozens of times on the show we excommunicate ourselves right and and the church may recognize that we've done that but like in my parish in the years that I've served as a parish priest uh you know over two decades there's only been one instance where I have connected with a parishioner to alert them to the fact that that they at the stage were no longer in communion with the church and um it was a pastoral decision uh that I made that they actually responded to and and rectified but but yeah I I would find it suspect that priests are going around you know like we've got time you know they start excommunicating people I think we're trying to get people to join the church anyway well maybe let's move on to our next question yeah the uh the online space is a very interesting place and uh I've never really experienced their form of orthodoxy in real life but uh but it's out there for them I I suppose so I suppose so that's hilarious okay uh this question gets a little bit more theoretical but I think that then we normally do it but uh I think it's nonetheless an interesting uh an interesting one it's a historical one uh YouTube viewer writes during the period in the west where there was no orthodox church no one had access to the true church meaning they did not have access to the body of Christ correct how could they be saved well you know okay it's a it's a important and and and and an earnest question right um but there's actually a very very simple answer God's a perfect judge and his judgment is executed both in justice and mercy right which are the same thing you know his justice is his mercy his mercy mercy is his justice he sets things right and he and he loves humanity right so it's not like you know let's just play out a scenario in our minds that you know maybe we thought through like so God's sitting there and and you know someone passes uh and they and they immediately are judged because they lived you know in in the American frontier you know or or they were in some part of the world that that wasn't in contact with the church and God says well you know I'd love for you to be part of the kingdom but here's the deal say you were never baptized as as an orthodox christian so I've gotta I've gotta keep you from entering the kingdom I mean does that even sound remotely plausible yeah not really no no it's it's it's uh it's a type of uh legalism actually that that still sort of exists in many of our minds like we we uh we we kind of confine God to a set of rules that you know we we've sort of constructed on our own you know um no God doesn't he's not limited in any way at any time and any by any form or idea you know uh I had a beautiful conversation this week with a a new friend uh pastor Eric and it's you know it's a topic we kind of spoke about when it came to how the orthodox approach the cross and how maybe protestants approach the cross in terms of thinking about you know God the father nini uh his his righteousness you know and I you know these are not theological concepts I've lived with so you know they get fuzzy for me but this idea that christ you know makes payment on the cross and I said to him you know for an orthodox person uh for orthodox theology that that's a hard theological concept for us to grasp right because we we say you know God doesn't need anything he's perfect and immutable um but this would be a similar kind of idea a little bit less charged and and built up over time you know with through theological concepts you know in the sense that you know okay well God can't save someone who didn't encounter the one true church and that's just you know a false statement you know um God can save whoever he wants um if we were to point to something in scripture that kind of indicates that of course we could we could point to the thief on the cross right uh wasn't baptized never received the Eucharist never sort of went through the formal process of confessing that his his sins right but he is clearly told that at his death he'll enter into the kingdom with christ and so uh you know the the divine prerogative is such that it always protects the idea that anyone anywhere can encounter God and receive salvation um and so yeah thank thank God for God and the fact that you know he's not constrained right absolutely I'm into that yeah I uh have many I'm a convert myself I have many friends and family Protestant and otherwise and um yeah I mean I pray for them all I don't uh thank God I don't you know sit around and get consumed by worry about them um yeah I know that yeah I know that God is uh going to take care of everybody um on their own time and he's going to meet them where they're at yeah yeah I had this conversation we had a men's fellowship this week at the parish and so we'll do liturgy and then afterwards we'll have dinner together and it was a new person who came and he was sharing with me his joy of having found the church but also sharing with me his concern you know about his parents who he said you know they live in a small town there is no orthodox church there there isn't one for miles and he's you know thoughts crossed his mind you know what about them and um and of course you know we talked about it and you know I think he himself understood that you know God's God's big enough to handle that situation and you know I of course reassured him as well that you know that that's not something that you know as you mentioned I have family members I have family members you know that that aren't part of the church at all even a Protestant or Catholic or you know they're just not part of the church and you know I pray and I entrust them to God I try to be an example and and I'm not a good enough example obviously so I'm worried about more my judgment than theirs um but you know you know God is merciful and loving and we we certainly entrust ourselves to his merciful judgment so why don't we take a short break and then we'll pick up with our next question sounds good father hello this is father Evan Armitas in my book toolkit for spiritual growth I covered three fundamentals of orthodox practice for those seeking to strengthen the foundations of their faith prayer almsgiving and fasting and the sequel volume toolkit for spiritual growth too I cover three more gain a better understanding of the sacrament of confession the importance of reading the bible and the importance of living in the present where the eternal touches ordinary time my books draw upon the wisdom of the old and new testaments the orthodox church the saints and years of pastoral experience they mix theology with practical advice and personal stories to teach you about spiritual tools that will help you heal and become truly human if you are seeking support living a transfigured life in Christ try toolkit for spiritual growth too available now at store.ancientfaith.com again that is store.ancientfaith.com well we're back and if you're joining us you're listening to orthodoxy live here on ancientfaith radio we are recording in advance this special mailbag episode which is an opportunity for us to take some of the questions that get emailed to us or get left in the chat room after one of our live shows and so if you dial in at the number that our announcer just shared with you you're not going to get us because we pre-recorded tonight's episode but we're glad you're with us and of course if you've got one of those questions that has been on your mind and you want answered you can always email us at orthodoxyliveatancientfaith.com if that's too hard to remember you don't have pen and paper handy you could just write inside your own mind the email address ask at ancientfaith.com well Mike we've covered a couple let's get to our next question all right this one comes from Ian who emailed in the question