Tag: Community

The Forgotten Virtue of Stability

· Hieromonk Gabriel 8 Leave a Comment on %s
When people think about the vows that a monk or a nun takes before God (if they think about such things at all), three likely come to mind: chastity, poverty, and obedience. Such vows are quite striking, since in the modern world these three things are no longer generally considered to be virtues common to the life of all Christians, exemplified in monasticism chiefly by the degree to which they are put…

The Metaverse and the Garden of Eden

· Hieromonk Gabriel 6 Leave a Comment on %s
Recently the company formerly known as Facebook officially rebranded itself as “Meta,” declaring that its new “overarching goal” is “to help bring the metaverse to life.” What exactly is the metaverse? According to an increasing number of influential CEOs and other leaders in the tech world, it is a nascent globally connected virtual reality experience which, in the words of Mark Zuckerberg, will eventually become “an embodied internet, where instead of just viewing content…

Making Angels Out of Men

· Hieromonk Gabriel 1 Leave a Comment on %s
We celebrate today the Synaxis of the Bodiless Powers, the feast-day of all the holy angels, from their Chief Commanders Michael and Gabriel to each of the guardian angels whom the Lord God appointed to watch over every one of us — throughout all our lives — at Holy Baptism. Today should therefore be a day of great joy and profound gratitude for every Christian, no less than our namesday on which…

On Big Tech and Christian Freedom

· Hieromonk Gabriel 11 Leave a Comment on %s
Over the last month we have been given a glimpse of just how much power Big Tech has gained over our society. In the aftermath of the Capitol Hill riot, the corporations which have become the de facto gatekeepers of the internet acted with remarkable unanimity in deplatforming those they deemed to be responsible for the outbreak of violence… including no less than the sitting President of the United States. For the better part of a…

On Secular Churches and the Mystical Sacrifice

· Hieromonk Gabriel 8 Leave a Comment on %s
A headline caught my eye several days ago: “They Tried to Start a Church Without God. For a While, It Worked.” While the concept of a church without God is beyond doubt bizarre, it nevertheless also makes perfect sense. In our age of loneliness, amidst the near-total collapse of practically every traditional form of community and social structure, to abandon Christianity is to hurtle oneself into the void foretold by Nietzsche when…

Not Yours, But You: Almsgiving in the Modern Age

· Hieromonk Gabriel 16 Leave a Comment on %s
In the Gospels there are many “hard sayings” of our Savior. Of these hard sayings, there are also many which have been all but forgotten — even by those who sincerely strive to be faithful Christians. Of these hard and forgotten sayings, I would like to call our attention today to one in particular: When you give a dinner or a banquet, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your…

The Rights of Man (Anthropology of Antichristianity, Part 4)

· Hieromonk Gabriel 4 Leave a Comment on %s
Individuals throughout human history have found themselves at odds with their societies. But only in modern times has the view taken hold that the authentic inner self is intrinsically valuable, and the outer society systematically wrong and unfair in its valuation of the former. It is not the inner self that has to be made to conform to society’s rules, but society itself that needs to change. -Francis Fukuyama In my most…

The Crucible of History (Anthropology of Antichristianity, Part 3)

· Hieromonk Gabriel
In the most recent article of my series on the anthropology of Antichristianity, I discussed loneliness as the defining characteristic of the modern age, stating that: “We have become existentially unmoored, and so it is no surprise at all that we feel lost, purposeless, and alone.” Faced with such a dilemma, as I see it modern man has only three real choices: Christianity, Antichristianity, or suicide (the latter of which comes in…

The Age of Loneliness (Anthropology of Antichristianity, Part 2)

· Hieromonk Gabriel
We live in strange times. Modern technology has nearly obliterated the constraints of distance, allowing us to become interconnected with one another to an extent unimaginable even a few short decades ago, and yet nevertheless at the same time we find ourselves living in an age of absolutely unprecedented loneliness. According to a recent article in Psychology Today: In the last 50 years, rates of loneliness have doubled in the United States. In a survey of over 20,000…

On Political Philosophy, Fairy Tales, and the Spiritual Life

· Hieromonk Gabriel
It might, at first glance, seem strange that I spend so much time writing about political philosophy and propaganda on a site dedicated to Orthodoxy and the spiritual life. It might seem even stranger given the fact that I am a monk, and claim to have renounced the world. Why should I concern myself at all with political philosophy, much less write articles on the internet trying to convince others of my…