Pantheon and Pandemonium XIX: Asynchronous Q&A Feb 2026

Summary

The Lord of Spirits Podcast

Episode 134: Pantheon and Pandemonium XIX: Asynchronous Q&A Feb 2026

Date: March 3, 2026
Hosts: Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick & Fr. Stephen De Young
Theme: The Seen and Unseen World in Orthodox Christian Tradition—Listener Q&A

---

Episode Overview

This special, non-live episode features a curated set of 18 listener questions (voicemails via SpeakPipe) focused on the intersection of the spiritual and material worlds within Orthodox Christianity. Covering topics from episcopal authority and iconoclasm to haunted places, folk magic, and the fate of Constantinople, the hosts take a deep dive into how Orthodox tradition deals with everyday and esoteric questions alike, always tying discussions back to Scriptural and patristic sources.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Obedience, Episcopal Authority, and Righteous Disobedience

(03:52–13:45)

• Question: If a bishop commands something heretical (e.g., iconoclasm), how should a layperson respond? E.g., monks like St. Stephen the Younger.
• Fr. Andrew:
  • True, saints sometimes resist bishops out of conscience, but this comes with accepting real consequences. Saints' exemplary lives usually involve much suffering and not simply protesting online or switching parishes for convenience.
  • Quote:

    "If your bishop is telling you to do something that truly violates your conscience... there is a kind of righteous disobedience. But that also means that you have to righteously accept whatever consequences come with that." (04:57)

• Fr. Stephen:
  • Most Orthodox Christians are not faced with these dilemmas; focus should be on repentance, community, sacraments—not theological self-heroism.
  • 99.9% did not resist during the iconoclastic controversy; salvation isn’t achieved by “having all the right ideas.”
  • Memorable moment: calling out “Protestant church shoppers” who imagine themselves saints but simply switch parishes. (11:09)
• Conclusion:
  • Interpretation and obedience in Orthodoxy differs radically from Protestant individualist culture.

2. Nature Spirits, Forest Worship, and Pagan Parallels

(13:54–19:25)

• Question: Are nature spirits like those in Shinto or fairies in folklore really just fallen/faithful angels? Is there truth behind pagan forest worship?
• Fathers:
  • Christianity does not validate pagan practices but reorients the spiritual truths behind them: intermediary spirits exist, but worship belongs only to God.
  • Pagan frameworks identify real spiritual realities, but misidentify the players; missionary engagement can connect the dots for seekers.
  • Fr. Stephen:

    "Everywhere we see Christianity encountering paganism, it's like, no, that's a false narrative—here's the true narrative." (16:53)

3. What is "Plato Brain"?

(19:25–24:52)

• Question: What do you mean by “Plato brain” and how does it affect Christianity?
• Fr. Stephen:
  • "Plato brain" is having unexamined Platonic presuppositions: e.g., unity is better than diversity, metaphysical reality > physical, “distinction = opposition.”
  • This leads to misconstrued ideas about unity, the Trinity, and ecclesiology (e.g., “the true church must be invisible”).
  • Quote:

    "People have those presuppositions and they act on them, even if they've never read Plato..." (24:15)

4. Worship, Sacrifice, and Protestant Critiques

(25:09–37:03)

• Question: There are biblical instances of worship sans sacrifice (e.g., magi in Matthew). Does this refute the Orthodox connection of worship and sacrifice?
• Fathers:
  • English “worship” historically means “veneration” (showing worth); only sacrificial acts are exclusive to God.
  • Translation issues muddy the matter: words may overlap in Scripture, but the actions (A = for God alone, B = for others & God) are logically distinct.
  • Fr. Stephen's logical breakdown followed by CS Lewis’ love analogy helps clarify the distinction. (32:39–36:35)
  • Quote:

    "Without the labels... obviously there are different types of love... The fact that there's no distinction between those [Greek] words doesn't invalidate the distinction between types of love." (35:14)

5. Lunacy, Lycanthropy, and Demonic Phenomena

(37:10–44:43)

• Question: What’s the Orthodox understanding of “lunacy” (moon madness), its relation to demonic spirits, and is there a connection to werewolves?
• Fathers:
  • Originally, “lunacy” involved attack by spirits associated with the moon/night (distinct from generic madness/possession).
  • Modern myths combine various folklore elements (lycanthropy, vampirism, etc.) not originally linked.
  • Fr. Stephen shares collecting rare vampire treatise volumes as a bonus note of his interests.

6. Head Coverings, Sexuality, and Ancient Context

(45:54–55:44)

• Question: Why was hair so sexually charged in biblical times, and do head coverings still apply?
• Fr. Stephen:
  • In Greek/Roman context, long hair in women was considered a vessel for seed, making uncovered/unbraided hair a sexual display.
  • St. Paul’s command is rooted in a rejection of pagan worship sexualization, not a blanket biological assertion.
  • Application today? The principle (sexual modesty in worship) is timeless, but literal enforcement of head coverings is up to bishops/monasteries’ discretion.

---

[Break – Ads skipped in summary]

---

7. Blessing the Land after Pagan Rituals

(58:01–61:29)

• Question: How should Christians redeem or bless farmland previously used in gnostic/Nephilim-like rituals?
• Fathers:
  • Standard practice: bless the land with holy water, prayers, and priestly (or local episcopal) prayers for the healing/cleansing of land or livestock.

8. Egyptian Atenism and Israelite Influence

(61:29–67:32)

• Question: Was the Egyptian god Aten the same as Yahweh, or did Joseph influence Egyptian monotheism?
• Fathers:
  • No serious evidence Aten = Yahweh; Atenism is a monolatrous form of sun-worship (not true monotheism) and does not resemble Israelite faith beyond superficial “monotheistic” structures.
  • Hype about new archaeological finds is usually overblown; context and evidence matter most.

9. Repentance, Forgiveness, and Consequences

(67:51–73:02)

• Question: If we repent and are forgiven, why do consequences (sometimes for others) remain?
• Fathers:
  • Sin always has real consequences, often for more than the sinner; repentance means accepting and taking responsibility without expecting consequences to vanish.
  • David serves as the model: he owns the results of his actions (e.g., the loss of his son), doesn’t shift blame, and suffers for his choices.
  • Quote:

    "If you're really repentant, you're not trying to get out of those consequences, you're accepting them, and trying to do the best you can to fix it." (72:07)

10. Miraculous Grapes and “Spiritual Magic”?

(73:29–80:25)

• Question: Are monastery-specific “miracles” (like grapes for fertility at Hilandar) just magic?
• Fathers:
  • No—these are not magic, as results are not guaranteed; they are prayerful rituals seeking God’s will (compare to Paul’s healing handkerchiefs in Acts).
  • If miracles don’t occur, it's not failed magic but God’s providence.

11. Haunted Places, Cursed Sites, and Sanctification

(80:34–83:55)

• Question: Can locations be “cursed” or haunted, and do non-Christian influences return if societies become pagan again?
• Fathers:
  • Yes, actions shape the spiritual atmosphere of places (e.g., “cities of the giant clans”), and sanctification (blessing) of buildings/houses/lands is a key tradition.
  • Not only can places be cursed/haunted, but reclaiming them is part of living out the faith.

12. Fullness of the Gentiles (Romans 11 & Genesis 48)

(83:55–88:23)

• Question: What does the “fullness of the Gentiles” mean, and where can I find biblical references?
• Fr. Stephen:
  • “Fullness of the Gentiles” is a direct reference to Genesis 48: Jacob/blessing of Ephraim, (“his descendants will become the fullness of the Gentiles”).
  • St. Paul is not talking about a separate “Gentile age” but fulfillment of Ephraim’s prophetic destiny as dispersed among the nations.

---

13. Apocrypha, Tradition, and Feasts

(90:30–99:59)

• Question: If apocryphal texts (e.g., Protoevangelium of James) are for private reading, why are their contents included in feasts like the Presentation of Mary?
• Fathers:
  • Liturgically, texts aren’t directly read as “Scripture,” but both the texts and feasts reflect tradition rooted in real events.
  • The events happened in reality, not “in the Scriptures,” and just because a non-canonical text mentions them doesn’t mean the feast is based only on the text.
  • Fr. Stephen:

    "Events don’t happen in texts. The source is reality... All are just writing about reality." (94:15, 94:53)

  • Challenge to Protestant assumptions that tradition must only arise from written canon.

14. St. Constantine and the Holy War Vision

(100:10–105:24)

• Question: When Emperor Constantine had a vision (“in this sign conquer”) was this Old Testament-style holy war?
• Fr. Stephen:
  • Constantine was already at war; the vision was a revelation that his victory/authority was by Christ’s will, not a divine command to wage war.
  • Closer biblical parallel: Nebuchadnezzar’s God-given sovereignty and subsequent accountability.

15. Water Witching (“Dousing”) and Orthodoxy

(105:34–110:56)

• Question: Is rural “water witching” (dousing for wells) compatible with Christian practice?
• Fathers:
  • It’s a form of divination and considered folk magic—not Orthodox or Christian practice.
  • Many “folk customs” with pagan origins remain in both Protestant and Orthodox cultures but are not spiritually healthy or endorsed by the Church.

16. Nature Spirits, Indigeneity, and True Worship

(111:10–119:57)

• Question: Were indigenous/prehistoric religious practices simply demonic, or could true worship occur among the un-evangelized?
• Fathers:
  • Complex answer: Early ancestral worship may have preserved knowledge of the true God (as with Melchizedek), but real, intentional worship matters—accidental or misdirected worship (as in “the last battle” C.S. Lewis imagery) is poetic but not doctrinally solid.
  • For groups cut off from knowledge of the true God, sacrifices to local spirits are not “accidentally” worshipping Yahweh.
• Quote:

  "You could make relatively reliable conclusions [archaeologically]... but who are they sacrificing to if there's no writing?" (119:54)

17. The Different Types of Fear

(120:17–129:52)

• Question: Is fear of pain, death, and damnation the same? How do these affect spiritual life?
• Fathers:
  • Fear of pain is a natural, physiological avoidance reflex—healthy and built into human nature.
  • Existential dread (fear of death/damnation) is psychological/spiritual and can drive people to sin.
  • Christ’s resurrection frees believers from existential dread, allowing love, self-sacrifice, and hope for resurrection.
  • Quote:

    "Existential dread is what Hebrews is getting at... Christ, by having defeated death, takes away that existential dread." (126:05)

18. Fall of Constantinople, Islam, and National Repentance

(130:10–139:40)

• Question: Does the fall of Christian civilizations (e.g., Constantinople) indicate God’s judgment? Is there a parallel for America or the West today?
• Fathers:
  • Historical and biblical tradition interpret disasters as calls to repentance (see Abraham Lincoln’s Thanksgiving Proclamation citing the Civil War as judgment for slavery).
  • Orthodox Christians pray for current governments not out of political endorsement but as intercessors, asking God’s mercy for their nations’ sins.
  • When collapse comes, it is judgment; blessing/preservation only comes for the sake of the faithful remnant.

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Protestant “hero complex”:

  "None of these people actually become that heroic saint. They just go around complaining about their priest and their bishop online and then go join a different parish...That's not being a heroic saint, pal." (10:46, Fr. Stephen)

• On Tradition and Non-Canonical Feasts:

  "Events don’t happen in texts...Christ’s death and resurrection don't happen in the four gospels, they happen in reality." (94:12, Fr. Stephen)

• On Magic vs. Prayer:

  "Prayer is making a request—God is free to answer as He sees fit. Magic, the thing itself does whatever." (77:34)

• On Sanctifying the Land:

  "Have your priest come out and bless it, throw holy water around, say prayers; it's totally a thing." (59:56)

---

Timestamps for Important Segments

• [04:57] — Righteous disobedience to heretical bishops / True obedience
• [16:49] — Pagan worldviews and missionary approach
• [20:54] — What is Plato Brain?
• [31:02–36:35] — Distinction between worship and veneration; logic of translation
• [37:10] — Ancient notions of lunacy, lycanthropy
• [47:21–54:00] — Head coverings, ancient sexual symbolism, Pauline teaching
• [61:29] — Atenism and Bible, debunking "Egypt = monotheism" myths
• [72:07] — Repentance and responsibility for consequences
• [77:34] — Magic vs. Prayer, grapes from Athos, ribbon relics
• [80:34–83:55] — Haunted/cursed places, sanctification, decline of Christendom
• [83:55–88:23] — Fullness of the Gentiles (Ephraim, Paul, Genesis 48)
• [130:10–139:40] — Fall of Constantinople, American repentance, liturgical prayers for government

---

Episode in One Sentence

A rich Orthodox Q&A traversing practical, supernatural, and existential questions, connecting canonical tradition to lived experience, church practice, spiritual discipline, and the persistent mysteries of the seen and unseen world.

Transcript

[Caller]

Foreign.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Slayers and giant killers. You are listening to the 134th episode of the Lord of Spirits podcast. I'm Father Andrew Stephen Damick, and with me is the bog beast himself, Father Steven DeYoung. You know, I looked up that phrase just to make sure I wasn't referencing something bad, and it turns out it's a. It's in World of Warcraft. Bog beasts.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

Yes.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. But I want to just say I came up with that phrase independently of that game, so I guess you don't

[Father Steven DeYoung]

want to get copyright Struck by blue.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

I'm originally unoriginal. Is. Is. Yeah. Anyway, we're not live because when this airs, at least on. In. On the east coast, I'm going to be in church. Father Stephen's going to be probably preparing for church. Why are you listening to this live? Shouldn't you be in church, listener?

[Father Steven DeYoung]

Go back half of them. It's like three in the afternoon because of you.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

I know.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

Bedtime. So I know, like, there's probably not church going on for them.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

I know, I know, I know. But anyways, that means that Mike, brain scanned again, is not taking your calls this time. And it's been since August 2025, since we did a Speak by Palooza episode. So we're reaching into the mailbag, which I should admit that I first typed as mail bog, which is probably correct, just because I have bogs in the brain and fished around inside and pulled out 18 of them, and I deleted the rest of them with reckless and gleeful abandon.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

That's right. Each half of the three halves has six questions.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Six questions.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

This is the episode of the Beast.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

I think that there were, like, 80 or 85 questions in there, and some of you have been sending in lots of them. You should know if you, like, send me six or seven, the likelihood that I'll pick even one of them gets less the more you send. So I'm just. Just putting that out there, you know? And then those of you who's like, oh, I. I have three questions, and then just rattle them off in a row. That's cheating. Can't do that. Can't do that. So you got to be fair to the other kids. Let. Let someone else have a chance. We can't do all of them anyway, so why are you sending me, you know, six or whatever?

[Father Steven DeYoung]

Anybody leave you a message for them to pick you up at the mall?

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Huh? That might have been one of the ones I just deleted without listening. Okay. I listened to all of them, at least for a few seconds. I promise. So Anyway, yeah, we got a nice variety, and the first one is a reference to probably one of our most controversial episodes. Actually, we received several related to that one, but I figured, okay, I'm just going to. Just going to put in one, so. So here we go. This is.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

I don't even know which episode that is off the top of my head, given I know, you know, this is

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

the one that there literally have been YouTube videos made about, you know. Oh, there have been in protest against this one.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

I would have to do some Googling. I didn't even know about that.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. So here we go. This is from Jonah.

[Caller]

Good evening, Fathers. I had a question about Episcopal authority and obedience. I understand your explanation that a bishop can be factually or even theologically wrong, but still authoritatively correct. But what happens when heresy and authoritative rulings are deeply connected? Like the Council of Eria, which notably endorsed iconoclasm and ordered the removal of icons. That wasn't just an abstract error. It directly impacted worship. Yet monks like St Stephen the younger, who weren't bishops and held no ecclesiastical authority, disobeyed that ruling by keeping and venerating icons, and still they're commemorated as saints. Was this an exception, not the rule situation where someone like St. Stephen had clarity from the Holy Spirit that justified disobeying his bishop? And. And if so, how would someone know that it's truly the Holy Spirit guiding them and not pride or personal conviction? I want to understand how obedience and truth interact, especially in cases where the authoritative teaching seems bound up with real damaging error.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

So this is probably the best version of this question that I've heard. We've got into a bunch of different ways, like what if your bishop is a heretic, you know, this kind of thing. But this is probably the best, most precise. And that's why I wanted to go ahead and field it, because I thought it was, you know, well done and wasn't just some ranty YouTube video complaining. You know, whenever they talk about obedience, they mean blind obedience, because obviously the only kind of obedience that exists is blind obedience. Why would anyone obey except obeying themselves? What do you really do if your bishop tells you to do things that are indeed heretical and sinful and that, you know, are right? I mean, my. My quick response would basically be like, okay, if you're ever telling you, I'll wait, I'll wait. If your bishop is telling you to do something that truly violates your conscience, right, truly violates your conscience, not just I think you're wrong or Whatever, then you know, there is a kind of righteous disobedience. But that also means that you have to righteously accept whatever consequences come with that. So if you get sanctioned or, you know, the authorities come and hunt you down or whatever is in people. I mean, frankly, most of this is people's fantasies and their hypotheticals or whatever. But you know, let's say it does happen. I mean, the, the example of the saints is that they accept the suffering. Right. And that they're exonerated by and vindicated by their sufferings, which most people who are complaining about things bishops do are not signing up for suffering, you know. So what do you think, Father? What about something like this that's clearly like a conoclasm, clearly heresy.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

Right. So a lot of this is weird to me because a lot of this is in this kind of imaginary world.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

Like most orthodox Christians see their bishop once a year at most. Yeah, right. And he doesn't, like I was going

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

to say one of our other questions, which I didn't include, but it's probably worth mentioning here is someone asked like, and you know, you talk about how a bishop is going to have to give an account for the people in their diocese. And she asked, I don't remember her name. She asked, you know, I see my bishop maybe once a year. In what sense is he really accountable for me? You know, so he is. Yeah, yeah, yeah,

[Father Steven DeYoung]

right. But so you see, maybe once a year at most. And when he shows up, if you've been to a bishop's visit to a parish, he doesn't like, give you a lecture on Christology and demand you assent to his teaching, like, that's not a thing that happens. Right. So you're never gonna find yourself in that situation. Like, worst case scenario, you'll be sitting there and you'll be like, eh, bishop's homily today wasn't great. And you'll go on with your life. Right. Like that's not a thing that happens. Now if you're, if you're clergy, that's a different. Like as a presbyter, you are a representative of the bishop to the parish. You have delegated authority from the bishop. So if you decide you can't follow your bishop's directions, you have two options. You could ask for a release to another bishop. If that's not granted, you can be laicized. Those are your options as a priest.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right, Right. The idea of a priest saying this is my bishop's policy. I don't agree with it, therefore I'm not going to do it. That's not a thing.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

Yes, now, but for your orthodox lay people, who are. Who we're getting these questions from and who we're getting all the pushback from, apparently on this episode, like, that's never going to happen to you. Okay. Do you know what 99.9% of Orthodox Christians did during the period when iconoclasts had control of the empire? They kept going to church and receiving the sacraments, even though the icons were gone.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Didn't stage big protests or whatever?

[Father Steven DeYoung]

No. And it didn't stop. It didn't impede their salvation. You don't find salvation in the Orthodox Church. We're not Protestants. Get your conscience out of this, okay? You don't get saved by having the right ideas. Okay? You work out your salvation. You come to church, you receive the sacraments. Right. You strive to keep God's commandments in your life. You repent of your sins. That's how you find salvation in your family and in community, not by having all the right ideas.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Okay?

[Father Steven DeYoung]

When, when Arians, when most of the clergy of the church were Aryans at the beginning of the 4th century, you know what happened to lay people? They went and they received the sacraments. We're not Donatists. They're still valid sacraments even though the clergy are heretics. Okay. Yeah.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

I mean, Saint Athanasius said, you know, the. The world woke and grown to find self. Aryan, isn't that. That's from him, right?

[Father Steven DeYoung]

Yes. They went, they received the sacraments, they repented of their sins, they strove to keep God's commandments in their life and they found salvation.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Okay,

[Father Steven DeYoung]

this, honestly, I mean, man, things are going to get spicier from here probably. But this is an ego thing. This is a pride thing for people. Not the fact that they don't want to obey. The fact that when they think about these historical situations, they don't identify with just the normal Orthodox person.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

No, no. They're the hero.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

They're the heroic saint.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

Who took this heroic stand. But then when that gets applied to the present world, Right. None of these people actually become that, this heroic saint. They just go around complaining about their priest and their bishop online and then go join a different parish in a different jurisdiction on the other side of town. That's not being a heroic saint, pal.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

When you read about the lives of these saints, it's not. You know, even though the one thing you think about them is that they had this heroic resistance or whatever, the life story is how they were, you know, Kind to the poor, how they were aesthetic, how they were, you know, self sacrificing. Like that's the story.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

Yes.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

And then God put them in this situation where they could be this witness.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

When you do that, when you decide your bishop is a heretic or get spicier still or get all. He's going to chrismate me instead of baptizing me and you go to a different parish in a different jurisdiction on the other side of town, you're not Saint Maximus. You're not Saint Stephen the New. Okay. You're a Protestant church shopper.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

That's what you are when you do that.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yep.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

Okay. So this is an ego thing and this is a Protestant cultural indoctrination thing where your conscience is the highest authority. That's Protestantism. Your conscience is not the highest authority. God is the highest authority. And he's put men in authority over. Over you. We have an office, the office of bishop who has the authority to interpret and apply the Scriptures. The cannons, the teachings of the Fathers. Okay. You are not the authority who gets to interpret the Scriptures and the canons and the church fathers. And the reason for that is that interpretation doesn't affect your salvation. That's not how you get saved, is by having the correct interpretation of those things. Because we're not Protestants. The reason Protestantism makes your conscience the highest authority is that they believe that is how you're saved. If how you're saved is that you work this all out correctly, then yes, your conscience is the highest authority. Because you're the one who's going to go to hell if you get it wrong in the Orthodox Church, if you're being obedient, if you're going to church faithfully and receiving the sacraments, if you're repenting of your sins, if you're striving to keep God's commandments, okay. You're not going to the one who's going to go to hell if it's not worked out correctly. Your bishop is or your priest is. Okay. That's what it means, that they're responsible for you. That if they teach you incorrectly, they are responsible to God, not you. So, yeah, this is the first question. I'm already spicing it up. This will be. It's good. It's good. This will go over super well.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

I was gonna say I feel kind of bad for everybody else now.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

So.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

So now we've got one from Mark who.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

Well, let me say none of that was directed at that caller in particular. As you said, that caller asked it in a Very decent, nice way, trying to understand. So that was not direct at you. I'm not saying that caller in particular is a Protestant or blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Right, that's.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, yeah. All right. Okay, this next one is from Mark. Good morning, fathers. My name is Mark, I'm from Canada.

[Caller]

I just have a question.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

I kind of remember or I don't know if this is a false memory. Looking back on, talk about, you know, angels maybe having different roles in maintaining the, you know, the known universe in certain regards.

[Caller]

And I also was wondering if that kind of corresponds, as I know in

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

a lot of Eastern culture there's kind of that forest worship, let's say, or

[Caller]

you know, praying to spirits of the forest.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

I know spirits, let's say you've, you've said in the past spirits like fairies or that kind of idea. Mischievous creatures. Aren't really, they wouldn't, there's not really a middle ground. There's either angels who are fallen or not fallen. And so I was just wondering, you know, if, if praying, you know, intercessory prayers to, you know, appreciate nature, things

[Caller]

like that, if, if that would be

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

something that's way off base or like, is there something to those kind of Eastern cultures that, that have the, the forced worship, but maybe worship is, isn't the right term and they're, they're going too far.

[Caller]

Would love to hear your thoughts. Thanks.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Okay, so it seems that the question is essentially about what is the connection between what we know from the scriptures and our whole tradition as the reality of the spirits that are engaged in stewarding creation and then the pagan versions of that, like, are they getting everything wrong or, or what? Yeah, yeah. I mean, he mentions Eastern cultures particularly, and I know that for instance in, in Shinto they have this idea of the kami, sort of like little lesser spirits that inhabit particular places and things and this kind of stuff. But there's much larger concepts as well. And of course, you know, in a lot of ancient paganism you get full blooded, you know, gods that are kind of universally over a particular thing. Thunder gods or whatever else. Ocean gods. So. Yeah. Is it just completely wrong or is there something to this?

[Father Steven DeYoung]

I kind of don't understand the question in the sense that I don't know why, like why, why do we want to validate that?

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, I think, I mean, I can't speak for him because that's all we have is what Mark sent. But I would say lots of people

[Father Steven DeYoung]

ask this question or version.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

As he said. Right.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, yeah, I, I mean what the usefulness in it to me would be to say, okay, well, there. There is this back. This going on in the pagan world, and it could be used to show someone who's in that something greater, something better, you know, much the way that St. Paul used the unknown God on the Areopagus as an example.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

Yeah, but that was just a rhetorical device. Right.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Like, sure, but there was an actual alternate.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

He did. He didn't use, like, Zeus or, like, the N or the Dryads. Right, yeah. You see what I'm saying? Like, everywhere where we see Christianity encountering paganism, it's like, no, that's a false narrative. Here's the true narrative. Right?

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

And things that were dedicated to those spirits become dedicated to saints. Right, Right. So I don't. Again, I'm not sure the purpose. That's. I think sometimes, I don't know with this caller, because this caller didn't sound like he was from one of those Eastern cultures, but who knows?

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

From Canada. That's what he said.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

Yeah, but lots of people move to Canada from other places.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

It is true.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

So we don't know ethnically his background is what I'm saying. But I know a lot of. Or I think. I think a lot of people are coming at this because there's something from their ethnic background that they want to say wasn't evil.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Hmm.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

A lot of people who ask this about fairies in, like, English folklore and stuff, it's because they're from some kind of Anglo Saxon background or something and don't want to kind of endorse that part of their heritage or something. Whereas I've always been perfectly comfortable saying that until St. Boniface showed up at St. Willibrord, like, all of my ancestors were worshiping demons and sacrificing their neighbors. Right.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Probably the most useful bit about it is essentially that the framework itself is not entirely wrong. It's just the players and how they function are misidentified.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

Right, Right. And so if that's a perspective you're coming at it from, if you're saying, could we say the same thing to Shintoism, that, like Philo said to the Greeks, Right. That, like, yes, there are these intermediary spirits. No, you shouldn't worship them because they're either evil or they're, you know, servants of the true God. Like, if that's where you're coming from with it, like, could you use that kind of missionary appeal to someone who's a jinn? Okay, yeah, yeah, you could, sure.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. You know, but all right, well, the next question comes from Andrew. Actually, this happens to be my godfather. I just picked the godfather with, with the best possible name and he's asking about Plato brain.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

I thought your name was Stephen. Anyway, good evening, fathers.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

This is Andrew from Raleigh. I have a question. You often use the term play doh brain. What is Plato brain and how does it affect Christianity? I'd like to know. Thank you very much. So, yeah, just straightforward. What's the definition when you mention that, Father, this is your phrase.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

You have to understand that Plato brain is just a shadow of the actual Plato and his mind.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

That's a joke. Most people should be able to get.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

Yes, throw out a low hanging fruit of a joke there. Yes. So when we say that someone is afflicted by Plato brain, what I mean by it is that they have recognized or unrecognized presuppositions in their thinking which come from Platonic, usually metaphysics. So ideas like distinction implies opposition. An example of which is just the idea that in any situation or anything in general, there is one good thing and then everything else, because it's not that one good thing is not only like lesser somehow, but is actually opposed to the good thing, meaning it's bad.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Well, and even, even the way that we talk in English colloquially when we're want to, when we're just drawing distinctions, sometimes we'll even use the phrase as opposed to what? As opposed. You know, we'll even say as opposed to. Yeah, versus as distinct from. Yes.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

So distinction applies opposition, which that ultimately is a corollary of the presupposition that unity is better than diversity, that the one is greater than the many.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. And this is the basis for like, for instance, I had a comment on Facebook where it was responding to a post where people were discussing. I mean, it was essentially apologetics on some level, you know, critiquing one set of theology and saying another one is correct. And a person responded, does it really matter which tradition we belong to? You know, does. You know, what really matters is that we're part of the body of Christ. Right. So that's again, this is the idea that unity is good and diversity is bad, but also that you know that when you're trying to get into the weeds of these distinctions and differences, that that by itself is bad, you know, like stop, stop confusing me with all of that, you know.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

Well, that's another good example though too of another element of Plato brain, which is that the reality is the spiritual reality, quote unquote. Spiritual reality.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

Not the earthly reality.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Does it really matter which church you belong to? Yes.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

Yeah.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yes.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

The real church, they're going to say, is this amorphous, heavenly thing in the world of ideas. Right. That's the real church. And then various actually existing churches participate in that to varying degrees.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

And we could argue about it. So that's Platonic metaphysics right there at the core of, like, evangelical ecclesiology.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

Right. They. They de facto rule out that kind of metaphysics. De facto rules out the existence of a true church on earth. It can't possibly be because as an institute, physical institution, it's got to be some shadow of. So, yeah, this and the whole one versus many thing is why the doctrine of the Trinity gets all screwed up in Latin theology, as we talked about a little in the last episode. Because the idea. That's why you find all this emphasis on the divine essence, like the oneness of God, as this thing. And talked about as if it's almost a fourth person of the Trinity. Unless you're Cornelius Van Till then, you kind of make it a fourth person of the Trinity because one has to be superior to three. If you're doing a Platonic metaphysics, this comes into. Every time a Roman. Roman Catholic debates an orthodox Christian, this comes into play, the one in the many. We've got this one head, so clearly we have unity. And you guys are just a mess.

[Caller]

Right.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

You're all over the place.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yes. We need the guy with the keys from Peter.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

Yes, yes. Because clearly the Roman Catholic Church is all on the same page about everything all the time.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

Not like us Orthodox.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

God bless. You know, it's true.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

Right. But that kind of. All of that kind of thing. And people have those presuppositions and they act on them, even if they've never read Plato. Right. It's a cultural thing.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Sure.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

Right. And so when we. When I'm pointing out Plato brain, I'm trying to point out those presuppositions that you may not have thought about. Why do I assume that this is better than that, you know, et cetera. And a lot of the reason is that we just presuppose these things that come from Plato that have been sort of ingrained in our culture.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right, this next. So we actually have, I think, three different questions for this episode from different men named John. I'm pretty sure that they're different Johns, but two of them right. In a row. So here's the first of our John questions.

[Caller]

Hello, Fathers. This is John from Allegan Michigan. I have a question about the nature of worship. We know from the Old Testament scriptures that worship involves sacrifice. And the implications of that also extend into the New Testament and into how we celebrate the Eucharist and what we mean by that. But there are particular references in the Scriptures to worship that I'm a little confused about. In the opening chapters of the Gospel of Matthew, the magi come, and when they find Christ with Mary's mother, they are said to bow down and worshiped him. I think there are a couple of other places. St. John and an angel in the book of Revelation as well, though I could be mistaken about that one, where. Where someone bows down to worship, but there's no evidence of sacrifice. There's no obvious sacrifice being offered. What do we make of this kind of worship?

[Father Steven DeYoung]

And what do we.

[Caller]

Well, frankly, what do we do when, you know, our Protestant friends say, well, look, clearly worship doesn't have to be sacrifice at all. So your sacrificial understanding of the Eucharist is completely unnecessary. You know, to that point, there are references to worship without any kind of sacrifice or offering of incense. Thank you.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

All right, so this is a great question, and we've talked about this before, but I think it's worth coming back to. So a lot of this is about translation. There are a number of words in Greek and Hebrew that get translated into English as worship or bow down in worship. And one of the big difficulties that a lot of people do not realize is that the English word worship, which has a long, long history of being used to translate those Greek and Hebrew words for most of its history in English, did not mean offer sacrifice, but meant basically venerate, because it's, you know, comes from the word worth, as in showing the worth of something. And this is why, even now, I think that British judges are called your worship. Course, very famously, Princess Leia is called your worship. And by Han Solo.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

Is he called.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Is she called that by anybody else? I think it's just Han Solo movie.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

I think he was mostly being sarcastic, but yes, maybe.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

You don't think he was offering her sacrifices. No, I. This for your revolution Princess.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

Han Solo did later extended offer to her, but that was a different.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

That's right, that's right.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

An offer of marriage. Get your mind out of the.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

That's right, that's right. But also. Also, I mean, related. Right. Good segue, Father. You know, in the. In the Anglican wedding service, the couples say to each other, with my body, I. The worship. They were saying. They're saying to each other, I worship you. Unless you want to argue that Anglicanism is inherently idolatrous, which, I don't know, maybe it is for not, not for that point. They don't, they're not treating each other as gods. So the key thing is what is appropriate to do towards your God, the one God, you know, if you're Christian, if you're an Israelite, the one God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and what is appropriate to do to other beings? You know, set aside the words themselves. Okay, so let's say A and B. We're going to say A is what's appropriate to God alone and B is what's appropriate, you know, to other kinds of beings. It's clear that in the scriptures that you're not supposed to offer sacrifices to any God but God. That's the A, right to put food in front of him, burn it, to put incense, you know, to offer incense to him. That's, that's A, the thing you're supposed to do with God alone. And then B, which includes actions like bowing down and singing praises. These are done. You know, we don't accept sola scriptura, not being Protestants, but even if you just want to function that way, those are done to other people in the Bible. And no one says, oh, idolaters, idolaters. Like for instance, when Jonathan and David meet each other, they make big prostration in front of each other. And you know, David is not accused of idolatry because of this act. Right? So that's an instance of B. Now one can do both A and B towards the one God, but only A belongs to him exclusively. B clearly can be done. I mean, they sing praises. To use David again as an example, praises are sung to David in the scriptures, praises are sung to various other people in the scriptures. And no one's saying, you know, no, no, no, you're a bunch of idolaters. So that's the thing. Like if you want to say, okay, worship can include just playing a guitar and singing praises, fine, but you need to have a word for something that's, that's directed at God alone. Because if you mean you can only play a guitar and sing praises to God, then you better stop listening to, you know, Taylor Swift because she plays a guitar and she sings praises or

[Father Steven DeYoung]

singing the national anthem or.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, the national anthem. Right. You know, it's so, so I mean, we, we in English speaking orthodoxy, we tend to use the words worship for the A and veneration for the B. Veneration is just to show respect in various kinds of Ways, various kinds of ways. You can respect God, and that's good, but you should also worship him. The problem is when you evacuate the thing that's exclusive and say that, you know, B is everything because. And that doesn't make sense even within the Bible because there's a whole lot of B being done towards other. Other people. You know, I don't know anything. You wanted to add, subtract, multiply, or divide that.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

Well, there's a basic breakdown in logic here in terms of the Protestant argument, as Father Andrew just pointed out, there's a distinction made. To make a distinction in a language, you have to choose labels from that language. Right? So you have to label A with some word and B with some word, whether it's in English, whether it's in Greek, whether it's in Latin. Right? You have to pick a word to label A and to label B. Okay? And so the Protestant counter argument is we're gonna find places that use that word. The word you've chosen as a label for A, for example, where it's used for B or the word you chose to label B. We're going to find places where it's used for A. And then we're going to claim that, because we've shown that those labels you chose aren't used consistently in the Bible in English or Latin or Greek for A and B. Therefore, your distinction of A and B is invalid. That's completely illogical. That is completely irrational. Okay, so let me give you another example with this. Okay? You've probably heard, I don't know if this comes from CS Lewis or he just made hay with it, this distinction between different types of love. And he used Greek words to label these three types of love. Right? So there's this.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

It's the four.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

I'm going to use their pronunciation. I know it's called the four loves. I know this is incorrect Greek pronunciation. Right.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

But you torture me all the time with this.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

But I'm going to be using this is how they say it. Okay? So there's this agape love. That's like the pure love of God. Right? And there's phileo or philia, which is the love, like your friend.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

Buddies, the love of friendship. And then there's Eros, which is like sexual desire and love.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

And don't forget storgi or. Sorry, I'll say store. Gay store.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

Yeah.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

People talk about basically, like the way you feel about kids and puppies.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

Yeah, that's less used. Right. But yeah. Okay, and so without the labels. Okay, let's Remove the labels. Obviously, there are different types of love. When I say I love my wife, I don't mean the same thing as when I say I love ice cream or when I say I love God. It's not quite the same idea. Or what I say I love my best pal. Okay, we can see that there's a distinction there. I could go through the Bible and show you all kinds of examples. Song of Solomon. The only word used for love in the whole book in Greek is a yape or agape when he's literally talking about her anatomical parts.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right. I mean, it's an erotic book, kids.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

Yes. Does it use eros? Right. In St. John's gospel, he uses those words interchangeably. For example, when he says, go ahead. The disciple who Jesus loved. That famous phrase that happens all through the Gospel of John. Sometimes it's the disciple whom Jesus loved. Ayupao. Sometimes it's the disciple whom Jesus loves. So are there two different disciples? One that Jesus loved with the pure love of God and one that was just his buddy.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right. I was gonna say, even like in Greek love songs, the word, you know, the term that's, that's often used is saga po, you know, I love you, I love you. Like that's the thing the guy's saying to his girlfriend.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

Right.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

It doesn't mean I love you with a universal, all encompassing love of humanity.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

So, okay, so in the Bible, there's no distinction between those words. Does that mean there's no distinction between those types of love?

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right, right.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

Of course not. Of course not. Without getting gross, I'd add that philia is most commonly used in English to refer to something other than friendship. Right, but so the fact that there's no actual distinction between those words doesn't invalidate the distinction between types of love.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

Those are just helpful labels to help distinguish those different types of love in speech. Okay.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. I think in a lot of ways the, the Protestant objection is, frankly, it's a retcon to deal with the, the direction that their church services went over time. You know, it wasn't that they had this argument and then they said, oh, we're going to stop doing that. As a result, the argument went this way.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

It's a posteriori. Yeah, it's. You're making this distinction. I want to invalidate that distinction. So I'm going to try to do theology by Strong's concordance to do it.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

And that's irrational. Okay, label it A and B. We do A, where we only worship God or we do A, which is only directed toward God. We do. B, which we direct toward God and toward respected people, the country, other things. Right.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Tombstones.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

Yeah. And God. Okay. Just call it A and B. They could try and go and find places where the letter A and the letter B are used differently. Right, but that shows you how silly the argument is. That is like going and finding uses of the letters A and B. That it's the same argument. That's not sillier. Right. The other is just as silly as that. Okay. Because that's not how distinctions work in logic.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

All righty. Our next one comes from another John, and this one is actually a little bit about werewolves.

[Caller]

Well, there's. Bless. I was hoping you could shed some light on the orthodox understanding of lunacy. Moon madness. Does it have something to do with spirits associated with the moon and. Or the moon itself? Is this related to the matter of Christian astrology that you've laid out before on the show? Is there a link between lunacy and lycanthropy? And most of all, how should an orthodox Christian lunatic act with regards to his condition? Is it like possession or curse that he should pray to be lifted? Or more like a peculiarity of the body that can be lived with? Thank you for your time.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

And he didn't mention it, but I kind of wish that he would have, which is, at least I've heard that hospitals and the police will mention that when there's a full moon. That kind of business picks up for both of those professions.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

I feel like we talked about this. I feel like, I don't know, maybe the madness episode we've been.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, it could be, I think one

[Father Steven DeYoung]

of the Halloween episodes.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

It's been. We've been doing this podcast for five and a half years. Father. I. I'm starting to forget some things we've said. We could loop back around eventually.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

I don't remember stuff I said, like, five minutes later.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

So.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Well, I mean, there's people on Twitter pointing out comments you made on a blog from eight years ago and holding you to it.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

Yeah, I heard about. I heard about that. Yeah. So just for. Just for the record, let me address that.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Oh, all right. It's a bonus, everybody.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

Yeah, because I. Because I saw that. That. First of all, they clipped it to one sentence, so I don't even know what I was saying eight years ago. But let's just presuppose that they did cut it there in order to misrepresent it. Let's just give the benefit of the doubt. So if that's the case. I was wrong eight years ago.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

How dare you?

[Father Steven DeYoung]

Do you not. I've done things. I've done things in the last eight years, like writer dissertation about atonement. So I've learned some things.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

I thought you only write dissertations about things you already know and agree with, Father.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

Yes, that's. That's what a dissertation is. You just sit down and write out your thoughts and opinions and they give you a PhD. Yeah, I don't know why everyone doesn't have one. So, yeah, that's it. And this is more broadly applicable than just this one instance because I get these emails like, oh, Lord of spirits, last week you said, da, da, da. I found this old Bible study on Ruth from 2015. And you said this other thing and it's like, well, I was wrong then.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Well, you need to take that down, Father. It's out there. It's causing damage.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

There you go. It's.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

I.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

It's.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

I don't know. It's funny to me. I mean, I, I'm. You know, I love words, right? I love, love words. I love language. I love reading. I love talking. But I think sometimes people act like these are magical incantations and that, you know, being responsible for every stray word you say means that there needs to be this utterly pure and pristine and perfect and constant kind of retconning if you were ever wrong about something. You know, I mean, it's just. It's this poor guy who asked about lunacy and werewolves and stuff. It's. It's just cancel culture of another. It's just cancel culture. Like that's what it is. It's like, okay, yeah, we're, you know, we're just talking here. If it's useful to you, great. If it's not useful to you, like, move on. What are you doing? Listen to this.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

Yes. And I constantly rethink things.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

Because guess what? I'm not right about everything.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

And when I realize, what. What are those? Like, that's not on purpose. I'm not wrong about things on purpose. So what I learned more and I figure out, oh, hey, I think I've been wrong about that. I adjust that and try to get it right.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

Okay, so sometimes years later, I will say something that contradicts something, and you can't.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

And honestly, especially professional or semi professional talker, you can't remember everything you said on a podcast ever, or everything you ever wrote or every. Like.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

Yeah, that's why I'm saying. I'm just assuming it's not Being misrepresented, what I said. Right. Like, which may be. I might not have been wrong then. It might be being misrepresented, but I'm totally willing to accept the fact that, yeah, like I said something that was incorrect eight years ago.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Okay, so how about the lunacy thing? Yeah, we did talk about. I'm pretty sure we did talk about this in the episode on Madness.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

On some level, to my knowledge, we were not incorrect about it at that

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

time, as far as we know.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

If I went back and listened to it. This is the other thing. This is why I don't go back and listen to myself. Because I would pull it all down. I would pull it all down because I would pick out everything I think I was wrong about.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Ah, so you admit it.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

Yes, I admit that I'm wrong about things sometimes.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. So is this mental illness? Is this being influenced by demons? Is there something to do with the moon? What exactly is.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

Well, so you know there is. Biblically, the sun shall not strike you by day, nor the moon by night. And that of course is referring to the gods and spirits associated with the moon and the sun. That's why if you try and read that, you know, the can ham literal way, like in the movie Moonfall, like the moon's just going to come down and smack into the earth right where you are or something. So, yeah, so there is. This was originally an idea related to possession and attack by spirits associated with the moon that were associated with the night. Right. That is where it originates. That's not the same thing as madness more broadly, or even demonic possession more broadly. Because of course there are concepts of both of those things that have nothing to do with them. Moon lunacy was just originally the moon related versions of those. And as we talked about the episode where we talked about werewolves and lycanthropy, the whole werewolf phenomenon is associated with cannibalism.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

More than the modern version of actually turning into a wolf, it's behaving like a predatory wolf. Right. Beyond sort of the modern myth making where a bunch of these things get pulled together. And we talked about this a little like the modern concept of the vampire really comes from Bram Stoker who pulled together a bunch of different things, including werewolfism. Right. His vampires turned into wolves stuff. There's the cannibal aspect of vampirism, but also vampirism stories more proper from Eastern Europe and that kind of thing all kind of get pulled together. Same thing with full moon. You turn into a werewolf is really something that gets pulled together with Like Lon Chaney jr's the Wolfman and stuff and certain other predecessor things that start to pull together different elements of folklore and things associated with those things and putting them together. But those connections weren't all sort of originally there.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

And the modern version of that is not like a textbook definition of a phenomenon.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

So relatedly, I did ask actually recently, since I mentioned it on the show at the time, I did actually get that four volume leather bound set of books reprinting all of those 17th and 18th century writings on vampirism.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Oh, really?

[Father Steven DeYoung]

Yes. Finally got those recently from the Kickstarter and pretty cool stuff. If you want to know how to alchemically deal with a vampire outbreak in

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

your village, someday someone is going to do an inventory of your possessions and I hope they will publish it.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

They'll be greatly confused. People wander through our house on Posca, kind of like a museum, because there's just random. Our mantle has like my wife's saber tooth, tiger skull and like.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

And then like random book people just like, wow, there are certainly a lot of things here. She has a painting of a cow on a couch. There's just things.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Doesn't everyone? Okay, we've got one more question and then we're going to take our first break. So this comes from Mandy.

[Caller]

Hello, Father Andrew. Hello, Father Stephen. Father's bless. My name is Mandy and I'm calling in from the Atlanta area of Georgia. And I'm going to be very upfront and say that I have not made my way through most of these episodes, although I did search to see if this had been covered yet, and I don't think it has. And all the way back in, I think your very first episode, you had a brief mention about head coverings and you talked about the reason why hair being attractive to the men of that time was going to really blow our minds when we heard it in a future episode. And I was curious if you could go into that more and also cover whether you think head coverings are applicable in the modern era or not and why. Thank you so much.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

You know, to this day I, I, I don't remember if we actually talked about that or if, or if this is the big lacuna in the Lord of Spirits podcast that we.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

I feel like I did, but it may have been somewhere else.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

First episode. You did do a blog post about it.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

I did do a blog post about it. I also know I talked about it, obviously when we got there in First Corinthians.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Oh, in your whole Council of God podcast. Yes. Yes, you did.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

But, you know, the thing about Mandy, she came and she gave without taking, but you sent her away.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

You know, one of my deep, dark secrets is that I have a soft place in my heart for Barry Manilow's musical stylings.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

I am completely unsurprised. I know.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, Yeah. I mean, every. It's true. On every November 1st, I re. Listen to the song When October goes. I just can't. Can't help it. You know, I thought you were going to go a different direction with that Mandy musical reference. As in, Mandy, there's a minister handy. Okay, so what do you want to say about this without getting too deep into the.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

Yeah, I was going to say what do I want to say? Or what? What will you say? What can I get away with saying?

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, yeah. I'm not asking to boulderize it, but I'm asking you to boulderize it.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

Father Steve. I will do my best.

[Caller]

Okay.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

Since this is pre recorded, interventions could happen.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Okay, that's true. We could always edit it.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

Yes. We could try to ameliorate. So in context, the section talking about head coverings and hair. Hair length from St. Paul in First Corinthians, what he's doing there, this is the TLDR is he's prohibiting any kind of sexual display or activity in the worship setting. That sounds bizarre to us, but these are Roman pagans in Corinth who were used to sexuality. Displays of sexuality, Actual sexual activity as worship.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. As we have talked many, many times in the past.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

Yes. In the pagan world. Right. And so St. Paul is backing way up from that. Right. No display of sex. That's the tldr. Okay. You really get this when you read the original Greek in the particulars. So St. Paul clues us in. He says that he's speaking according to nature, or nature tells us this because he then is referencing essentially Greek medicine from the period. Okay. And you can find all this in the Hippocratic corpus. Okay. So the understanding from medicine. From Greek medicine at this time. And so St. Paul says, when St. Paul says nature shows us this, he's not endorsing this medical view. He's using this. When he says nature shows, he's like, look, we know this from science, Right. He's using this as a. As a. An illustration. Basically. He's using this as an example that they would accept because they live in this pagan world. He's not endorsing it as being biologically true. Okay. But what was leaving at the time is that hair, women. Well, for men or women, hair served as a vessel or container for seed. Men's seed. And it did this. There's a comparison made in the original Greek between a woman's hair and a part of the male anatomy that originally contains and generates that seed and then women's hair, because hair was believed to attract that seed and become the vessel of that seed after said seed was transferred from a man to a woman. Therefore, a woman who had long uncovered hair culturally was portraying herself as available for sexual interactions with men. That was also believed. Having long hair was believed to make her more likely to get pregnant.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. Wasn't it the case that prostitutes would shave their heads.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

Shave their heads or cut their hair very short and. Yeah.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Understood as being essentially as kind of contraception.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

Yes. To prevent pregnancy. Yes.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

Men who grew their hair long, then. Right. That was perceived as them representing themselves publicly as being open to such encounters with other men. Right. In the Roman world, that's why St. Paul talks about long hair being ashamed to men. And then you're like, well, wait a minute, what about, like, Christ and St. John the Forerunner and stuff? He's not talking to Jews, he's talking to Greeks. So he's using these examples. He just said he's using illustrations from their culture in order to explain this to them. Okay. He says, you guys know. You guys believe. You guys know from your. Your medical things that displaying hair, especially displaying long hair, has this sexual nature to it. So he's presenting this as, like, this is the very beginning. Of course, the pagans were doing a lot more than that sexually, in worship.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

They're just showing off their hair. Okay. But he's kind of saying, okay, here's. Here's where it's. Here's the first domino. Here's like the very first step in that direction. Right. Is a woman displaying her hair. And so he forbids that. Right. He forbids even that first step in that direction. And that's what that. Because of the angels thing is about, is that St. Paul making a reference to basically the Nephilim. Right. That. That's sort of the other end of the spectrum. That's where sexuality and worship goes. So we don't even take the first step down that path toward those pagan abominations. So that's what the original text is talking about. So how do we apply that today? We don't. The bishops do.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

See the first question in this half.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

Yeah. See the first question in this episode. And so, I mean, broadly, obviously, the principle that St. Paul is elaborating that sexuality and sexual display has no place in Christian worship. That obviously is a timeless principle.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

And that principle is bigger than just the question of women's head coverings. So you could imagine, you know, a woman showing up at church very immodestly dressed, but she puts on a head covering that doesn't, like, fix it. You know what I mean?

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Or men without head coverings, nonetheless, dressing and acting immodestly.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

Yeah. A man who shows up dressed immodest, Immodestly or inappropriately, but he takes his hat off, that doesn't fix it. Right. Like, that's not. That's representative of the issue, but it's not the whole issue. And then in terms of how literally we take that, that's, you know, in terms of. I say it's up to the bishop. It's up to the bishop whether that's enforced in any way. If the bishop or the abbot of a monastery says, hey, this is gonna be our policy, then it's the policy there under the sphere of their authority in terms of women wearing head coverings where there is not such an edict from the bishop. Usually I don't know of anywhere where a bishop or an abbot of a monastery has disallowed head coverings. Yeah. And so in that case, without any kind of enforcement of it, then it becomes up to the woman in particular how she is going to appear and present herself in church in a modest and appropriate way. Just like it's up to individual men to do it in an appropriate way and parents to make sure their children show up at church dressed in an appropriate way.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. Yeah. All right.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

Yeah. And all the people who are going to say just before we. A lot of people are gonna say I'm a liberal for saying that I do not have the authority to enforce head coverings on women where my bishop hasn't said so. And I especially don't have the authority to do that outside my diocese. I would never teach outside my diocese.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

All right, well, great. In case we did, I think it's true that we did not actually cover this before in the podcast. So this has been a five and a half year old lacuna. Now the circle is closed.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

Did I sufficiently bowlerize Was pretty good.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

It's pretty good. I don't think I'm gonna need to do any editing to that. So, yeah, we're gonna go ahead and take our first break and we'll be right back.

[Caller]

Poised between east and west, between Orthodox and Catholic, Lithuania, the last of Europe's pagan nations did not forget its ancient

[Father Steven DeYoung]

tales such as that of the giantess

[Caller]

Neringa Eglay, Queen of Serpents and the Iron wolf. Rather, they fulfilled and enriched them with

[Father Steven DeYoung]

legends like the hill of Crosses and

[Caller]

the miracle working icon of Our lady

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

of the Gate of the dawn in

[Caller]

the Wolf and the Cross, Father Andrew Stephen Damek and Deacon St. Seraphim Richard Rowland take a very personal pilgrimage into a land where history and legend have

[Father Steven DeYoung]

met and fused, where orthodox Christians have

[Caller]

lived as a minority for nearly seven centuries, their faith founded upon the blood

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

of martyrs and the witness of dozens of saints.

[Caller]

To find this book and others like it, you can go to store.ancientfaith.com again, that is store.ancient faith.com.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Hey, we're back. You're listening to this non live all Q and A episode of the Lord of Spirits podcast. It's the first week of Lent, so you should have done a lot of church by now. If you're, if you're listening to this when it first comes out, we're doing 18 question shaming people, for Pete's sake.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

I'm much more the rigorous worthy of blessings.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

I'm much more the rigorous than you are, Father Steve, and I think the world should know that. Yeah, all right. Yes. Like the Kool Aid man, you come through the wall. We've got six more questions in this half, and this first one comes from Aaron, who has a question about farming, actually. And listening to this recording of him, there's this background noise, I almost feel like he's walking through his vineyard or something like that. You'll have to tell me whether you think that that's true. So here we go.

[Caller]

Hello, Fathers. I'm currently enrolled in the Jubilees course. And this Tuesday, Father DeYoung mentioned that Noah at one point makes atonement for the land. My wife and I farm some vineyards that are owned and operated by a gnostic cult in Northern California. And there have been in the past what I would describe as Nephilim like rituals taking place here. We just are here for the vines. We have no affiliation with the cult. I attend a little o Orthodox Episcopal parish nearby and I'm wondering if you have any advice for how farmers can redeem the land itself when there have been these practices on it. Thank you for all that you do and have a great day.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Anyway, I thought I heard birds twittering and it sounded like footsteps through.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

I don't know, he's rambling through Chateau Picard Vineyards.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

I know I was imagining him like walking through in his hand touching the leaves, you know, as he's as He's Wendell Berry style. Thinking about blessing the land, I thought this was such a great question, so I had to include it, you know. So, I mean, I don't know what they. I don't know what they do in the small Orthodox Episcopal Church, but, like, what we would do, right, is we'd have a priest come out and actually do blessing of the land. Throw holy water around, say prayers. It's totally a thing. And certainly you can pray.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

I've never farmland, but I have done that with livestock.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

And the most recent time I did that with livestock, a sheep gave birth mid prayer.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Nice.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

As I was praying that the sheep would be fertile.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Nice boop.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

Lamb.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

And we had a very nice pascha that year. Yeah. I mean, there's lots of traditional blessing prayers for land, for fields, for plants, you know, that's. I'm sure that exists in the Episcopal, you know, the Anglican tradition.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

Yeah. That was most of human life, for most of human history.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. So, like our, Our book of needs has that kind of stuff in it. I'm sure they have an equivalent, you know, breviary or whatever that has that kind of stuff. So. But yeah, I love, I love that

[Father Steven DeYoung]

we're not saying the Anglican version works.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

That's right. I mean, what you really should do,

[Father Steven DeYoung]

Father Andrew and a Cubanist, again, is

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

become an Orthodox Christian and have your Orthodox priest come and do it. You know, I'm sure if you talk to a local Orthodox priest, he probably would come and do it even if you remain in that heterodox church of yours. But thanks for calling. That's a great, great question. So. All right, flipping over to the other side of the world and way back in ancient history, we have a question from Isaac about Egyptian religion. Hello, Potter fathers.

[Caller]

I have a question regarding the Egyptian God Aten. I wonder if it is the same as Yahweh and whether Joseph influenced Egypt to the point that Yahweh was briefly worshiped there. And did this happen before or after Yahweh judged the gods of Egypt? Thank you very much, Pot fathers. God bless.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Alrighty.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

Short answer. I would definitely know.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, exactly.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

Long answer is no.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. The reason why people think this is that there was. I can't remember which fear it was now that the way the story usually goes is that he outlawed all the polytheism and told everybody that had to, you know. Yeah. Akanat. Oh, yeah. Well, that would explain it. He's got a theophoric name. Yeah. That. That he supposedly outlawed worship of all the other gods and said we have to worship this one sort of disc of the Sun God. So it's. It's described as being, you know, an early monotheism. And some people believe that was the hype.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

That was how it was hyped.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right. That, that, that Israelites got their idea of monotheism from their time in Egypt. So. But yeah, that's. I mean, if you actually look at Atenism and its actual details.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

Yeah, yeah. And in general, as Public Enemy taught us all, don't believe the hype. Every time there's a new archaeological find, every time they find a new Gnostic gospel or something, we get a bunch of hype. Right.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

This is gonna turn Christianity on its head. This is. Right. Like, and I don't blame them because, you know, I know how poorly paid archeologists and textual scholars are. So they're trying to fund their next project.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

So they're trying to hype up what they're doing. Right, I get it. But the general public just sees the hype. Yeah, right. It doesn't see sort of the actual. Right. So, like, the hype is, oh, there's all these inscriptions chiseled out and, oh, there's these idols of other gods that were destroyed and, oh, this, that, the other. Right. And that's real evidence. Right. What you may not know is that was super common in ancient Egypt. Right. In ancient Egypt, the way history was preserved was not primarily in texts. It was primarily on obelisks, on walls. Right. In buildings. And so if you're the new dynasty and you don't like the old dynasty, the way you sort of erase them from history was destroy their statues, get rid of their inscriptions. Right. That was. It happens a lot. Right. In Egyptian history at different dynastic changes. Well, not. Regardless, somebody could come up with a new theory tomorrow. But none of the current commonly held theories about when Joseph and the Exodus were match up with him in any way. Right. So there's no influence there. But even more importantly than that, when you look at Atenism, as Father Andrew said, Aten is just a hypostasis of Rey.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. Disc with the sun.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

So Ray is the. Is the sun God. Right. And so Aten is the sun itself. Like the sun in the sky. Right, yeah. So very frequently, again, when you have dynastic changes, we've talked before about how there weren't really pantheons. Right. Different cities had different gods. And as those cities rose and fell in political prominence, those gods rose and fell in the pantheon. Right. And so new dynasty from a different city than the old Dynasty, that city's God becomes the most high God. Everyone agrees now that autism is just henotheism. It's not monotheism. Did not deny the existence of any other gods, did not even really force them. He basically got rid of the previous imperial cult. Yeah, right. It was the previously held most high God, that particular form of worship from the city that the previous dynasty was from. Right. He quashed that in favor of his new imperial cult because he's trying to. There were a long succession of dynasties in Egypt. Right. Dynasties didn't go on for a long, long time in terms of direct father to son. Right. Exchange. And so one of the things you were trying to do with that was not just self promotion, but you were trying to dispose of the previous dynasty so they couldn't come back, and you were trying to cement your current dynasty. Right. Think about maybe, I don't know, some hypothetical current political figure who wants to name everything after themselves. So they have this lasting legacy even when they're. They're personally gone. Right. It's that same kind of thing. So you want to embed your particular version of religion and culture and way of seeing everything as deeply as possible to make it really hard to uproot in the future when you're gone. Right. That's what Akhenaten was doing. Tutankhamun was part of his dynasty, by the way.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, Tutankham. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

There's really no connection between that and biblical religion.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yep. But I could see why people think it will be.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

Yes. So especially because of the way it was hyped.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. All right, well, this next one comes from Victoria, who has a question about repentance, but consequences that still kind of go along with. With sin.

[Caller]

Hello, fathers, this is Victoria. I had a question regarding the most recent episode and the Q and where you talked about repentance. I understand that repentance is changing the way that you're living and no longer committing the sin. And then forgiveness is acting in a way toward the other person that is not taking into account that sin. I was wondering, though, if you could talk about another position in which the person has repented. So like David, he repents, but the child still dies. And Bathsheba, it's her kid. Like, she is also suffering the consequences of David's sin, despite not having the same culpability as David. I was just hoping you could talk about that a little bit more. Like, in those situations, what do we do? You just. Again, is this just working on our forgiveness, making sure. That we ourselves are acting positively toward that person who caused us this hurt. If you could just talk about that, that would be great. Thank you so much. I love the podcast.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, number one, the consequences for sin don't necessarily go away because of repentance, especially other people who have to suffer the consequences. Like, you know, there's some kinds of sins that you do that you can't undo it, right? Like if you. If you commit murder, for instance, you can't make those people come back. You can't make their families feel better. It's just not a thing. You can certainly repent, but that doesn't mean that it's undone. These things only get truly healed in the end. In the end of time. But. So I don't know. What do you want to say about that, Father? I mean, I think it's a good example. You know, David has victims because of his sins. Can't bring Uriah back one of them, you know? Yeah, yeah.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

Well, yeah. And David is our image of repentance. So that's a good example. Right? And what you see when you read the story of David closely is again and again, when these things happen, he accepts responsibility for them, right? He doesn't say, oh, God, I repented. Why are you punishing me by killing my son? He says that it's his fault his son died. And he says that to Bathsheba, right? In her grief at losing a child. David says that it's his fault because of his sin. When one of David's sons, Absalom, right, Assaults, right, another member of the family and ends up that he ends up trying to set himself up as king and exiling David, right? All this stuff happens in his family. What does David say? David doesn't say, how dare you do this to your father? David says, this is my fault. David says it's his fault that one of his sons assaulted another family member. He says that it's his fault that one of his sons forced him into exile, tries to seize. Tried to seize the throne.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right?

[Father Steven DeYoung]

That's not saying Absalom, for example, or Ammon, Right. Or Absalom aren't responsible for their actions. That's not what it's saying. But it's David accepting the fact that, you know what? There's this chain of dominoes that starts with David's sexual immorality. Taking multiple wives, right? Including another man's wife. How he behaved, how he lived his life in that area that was knocking down some dominoes that led in a chain to these things happening in his family later. And so a big part of repentance is accepting. Not trying to get out of, but accepting responsibility for the chain reaction that our actions cause. Right. And I know in terms of repentance, I've used adultery as an example a lot, but that it's part of Davidson. Right. But, you know, if. If you're in a family, especially if there's kids and you cheat on your spouse, that's not just something that you could be really sorry about. And, okay, now everything's fixed.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. Right.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

Right down the road, the kids find out about it. That's a whole nother wave of Right. Like there's consequences. And if you're really repentant, you're not trying to get out of those consequences, you're accepting those, and you're trying to do the best you can to fix it. Right. To fix the damage you've done. But you accept that it. That you did that and you caused this.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

So that's important because I think a lot of our ideas of repentance are, well, if I repent, then I won't have to face the consequences. Repenting is getting out of the consequences, and the consequences are some kind of punishment from God, not the results of our actions. And that's all wrong. Right?

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

The consequences are the results of our actions. They're not a punishment from God. And repenting is not a way to get out of them. Repenting involves accepting them.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. And it's. It's about personal transformation. You know, it's not just about, hey, I'm sorry, I won't do that again. That's a start. But it's. It's not. It's not the whole thing, so. Great question, Victoria. Okay, our next one comes from Basil, who has a question about grapes from Hillandar Monastery on Mount Athos. I thought this was a really cool question.

[Caller]

Father's bless. My name is Basil. I'm leaving this message from Serbia, though I'm from PA originally, and I wanted to ask about something I heard the other day. So I have a friend who was telling me about a friend of his who, when he wanted to find a wife and to have a family, he was told by his spiritual father to eat grapes from the Gilandar monastery on Mount Athos and to accompany that with a particular prayer rule. Not long afterwards, he met a woman, and now they have a family. And so I've heard of these grapes before, but used by couples who are experiencing infertility to have children. And this isn't the first thing I've heard of related to particular holy sites or particular saints relics, where there's some kind of procedure or ritual, I guess, that's undertaken in order to seek the specific, specific results, whether that's a cure for something or whatever. And so I guess I'm just trying to understand what this is. Is it some kind of spiritual magic? Is it like a mystery that this has been revealed in a particular way, that doing something can help people in a certain way? Is it my modern mind that's giving me the heebie jeebies about this? And this is totally normal. Yeah. So just try and understand.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, I mean, there's. There's actually a lot of practices like this within the Orthodox Church. Another one, also from Mount Athos is. And at Vatopedi Monastery, they have, you know, there are no body relics of the Theotokos. So there are. There are clothing relics of the Theotokos. So, you know, they have the belt of the Theotokos there at Vatopedi Monastery in a big, long reliquary in three pieces. And they will often take these ribbons

[Father Steven DeYoung]

celebrated on August 31st.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yes, yes, that's right. The very last day of the year, they will take ribbons and then lay them on that reliquary. And then they will be given, and often given to women who are infertile. And they're told to wear them to say particular prayers and, you know, ask God for. For children. So, yeah, I mean, I imagine to especially to say, like a skeptical Protestant, this looks like magic. Right. Do this thing, follow this formula and you'll get this result. But I mean, the first thing that I would say is this stuff doesn't always quote, unquote work. You know, it's not automatic. Just as people, for instance, who are anointed with myrrh from a mer streaming icon where you can literally watch the mirror streaming off the icon. It is an obvious, obvious miracle, you know, very obvious right in front of you. It doesn't, you know, doesn't necessarily cure whatever is ailing the person who gets anointed with that. I mean, there's all kinds of things like this, drinking holy water or maybe water from a miraculous spring. I mean, there is actually such a miraculous spring on Long island at the St. Padeskavy Church, where many people have been cured of blindness or various kinds of eye problems, but then other people have not. And actually, I was told one story by the priest who's there about a man who came and he was really losing his eyesight and he went to the shrine and he anointed his eyes with the water from this spring, and he. He was not cured of blindness, but actually he had a vision of St. Padaskivi, who basically came to him and said, you're not going to be cured of your blindness, but you know, you're going to be okay. And so, yeah, it doesn't always kind of go the way that you might want it to go or the way that you might. If you're trying to do magic, you might think it should go. Yeah, so. So. So what. What about this kind of stuff?

[Father Steven DeYoung]

Yeah, well, so if you want. For our Protestant friends, if you want. Where's that in the Bible? Book of Acts, St. Paul, blessing cloths, sending them to people for healing. Yep, that's where it's in the Bible.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yep.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

But so. And I mean, you can even talk about, in this context, the idea of praying to particular saints about particular things. Right. Even. Even that is kind of a related phenomenon. But when you have an action like this, so the caller pointed out, right. He's saying these particular prayers and he's doing this action. Right. And if you read about the Desert Fathers and stuff, you'll find them telling their disciples sometimes to do just bizarre actions, like go find a dead dry stick, put it in the ground, and go water it every day. You know, like just where you're just like what. You know, like, way more bizarre than just eat some grapes from a monastery. Right. The point is at sort of a base level, not only are you praying intently to God about a particular thing, but you're taking an action toward that particular thing, whether it's going to a particular place, drinking water from a particular string, eating grapes for a bigger place. Right. It's an action that you're doing often, repeatedly, like with the grapes. Right. Every day. And that is basically a focus and intention to your prayer. As Father Edrew points out, what separates prayer from magic is that prayer is prayer. You're making a request of God, and God is free to answer that as he sees fit. Right. Whereas magic, the thing itself does whatever. Right. So it's like 100%. If you're doing magic and you don't get the result, the idea is, oh, well, you. You did the magic wrong. Right. Whereas if this person had eaten the grapes and said the prayers and hadn't found a wife, the answer would not have been, oh, you ate the wrong grapes, or you didn't eat them the right way, or you missed the prayers one day. That's why it didn't work, the answer would be God has something else for you. God knows something else. He has something else for you. Right. And so the answer to that particular prayer from God was no or not now or what have you. Right. Yeah. That's the difference between that and magic. But, yeah, it's taking those actions. Right. Is a way of expressing your seriousness and your dedicatedness about your prayer, about that particular thing to God.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. All right, our next one comes from John, who basically is asking about haunted places.

[Caller]

Hello, Fathers. My name is John, and I'm one of your papist friends from Northeast Ohio, Akron. Specifically. My question is not sacred geography. In your episode of the topic, you talked about how some places God can be more present, like holy sites, churches, the tabernacle. I might be dipping into some Plato brain here, but does that imply that there could be unholy or cursed sites or locations and that there are places considered evil, corrupt, like a haunted wood? Or to, like, dip into Tolkien, a demonic city like Minas Morgul? I know you've mentioned before that with Christ's victory, that he rules amongst his enemies, saints, and that saints are replacing pagan deities and other fallen beings as rulers over cities. But with the decrease of practicing Christians and the small rise of neopaganism, could these cities and people once again fall under demonic control and influence and kind of retake the city from the saints? Thank you. I love the podcast and its twin, Amen Sul.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

God bless its twin.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

Short answer. Yes.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right. I mean, isn't, you know, like, the cities of the giant clans, Aren't they basically cursed places? And is that why God says, you

[Father Steven DeYoung]

know, they're literally cursed places? The whole city is under the ban. Yeah, Harem. Yeah.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. I mean, whatever you do in a place affects that place. Right. So this is why there's the Day of Atonement ritual. But this is also why your house gets blessed every year in the Orthodox Church, God willing.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

Unless you don't sin in it.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Unless you don't sin in it, then you don't have to get the house, bud. Yes, that's right. That's right. That was always my policy.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

Yeah. If you've committed zero sins in this house, then we're good.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

So. Yeah, I mean, that's a great, great question, John.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

And yes, there are haunted and evil places.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right. And the key thing is if you. If you suspect something like that or just, you know, even if you just have a feeling or whatever, pray in that place. Get your priest to bless it.

[Caller]

Right.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

You know, sanctify it, set it aside for God's purposes.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

And frankly, due to recent revelations, we kind of now know that just like St. Paul's World, our world is run completely by demon worshiping betterasts. So I think people still have it reckoned with that I still hear people arguing about culture war stuff. And I'm like, dude, we lost. Like, what are you talking about? Like, there's not even a war happening. But so, yeah, I think Christendom is way more non existent than a lot of the crusaders preserving, quote unquote, the west ever imagined. Like, it's long gone, man. That's not what's running the world right now.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

The task is not to rebuild something that was lost. The task is to do like the apostles did. Yeah, that's. That's the task. So, yeah.

[Caller]

Yeah.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

All right, one more question in the second half and then we'll take our next break. So this next one is from Deborah.

[Caller]

Hi, yes, my name is Deborah from Kentucky. I was wondering if Father Stephen could readdress the fullness of the Gentiles, what that really means and where I could go to pull up references to that to show my Protestant son. Thank you.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

All right, well, she addressed that directly to you, so I guess I'm totally off the hook for this one. Yeah.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

Genesis chapter 48, that's what St. Paul is referencing in the fullness of the Gentiles, because in that passage. So that's right before what we usually call the Testament of Jacob, where he talks about his sons. Genesis 48, Joseph brings his two sons, Manasseh and Ephraim, to see Jacob before he dies to get a blessing. And Manasseh was actually the older son. But by the time you get to the end of Genesis, you should be used to this by now. Jacob crosses his hands and puts his right hand on Ephraim. It makes the younger son the older son, sort of effectively in terms of the blessing. And he says to Ephraim, and remember, Ephraim is going to become the largest tribe of Israel and the sort of ruling tribe of the ten tribes of the northern kingdom when they split. Samaria, the capital city, is in Ephraim. The Ephraimites are. And to the point that when talking about the divided kingdom throughout the Old Testament, in the Psalms and the Prophets, they refer to the southern kingdom as Judah, even though it also includes Benjamin. They refer to the northern kingdom as Ephraim very commonly. And what Jacob says to Ephraim in this prophecy about the destiny of his descendants is that his descendants will become, quote, the fullness of the gentiles that's what St. Paul is referencing in Romans 11.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

When he says that the Jews, meaning the Judeans, the Judahites, have been hardened for a time until the fullness of the Gentiles comes in. And then when that happens, all Israel, overarching category, will be saved.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

Because the prophets talk about the remnant of Judah being rejoined with Ephraim. Well, Ephraim's gone. Northern kingdom got scattered among the nations, but scattered among the nations as seed. Right. So that there would be this harvest. That harvest is the Gentiles coming back to God through Christ. So you can show that phrase, the fullness of Gentiles comes from Genesis 48 in Ephraim. You could also show them Christ himself. In St. John's Gospel, we tend to stop reading after Saint Photini. Right. That's the big hymn talking to Saint Photini, the Samaritan woman at the well, we kind of stop reading and we don't go on to the place where talking about the Samaritans, Samaria, Ephraim. Right. Christ says the fields are ripe for the harvest.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Huh. Yeah.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

Right. This is that exact same imagery.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

I would also add, even though it's not as obvious, but I would also add reading the Book of Hosea, which has lots and lots of references to Ephraim, and particularly like in chapter 13, where it talks about Ephraim being ransomed from the power of Sheol, being redeemed from death. I mean, this is actually where, you know, St. Paul quotes, you know, in. In Hosea, it says, oh, you know, I shall ransom them. This after just talking about Ephraim. I shall ransom them from the power of Sheol. I shall redeem from them from death. O death, where your plagues. Oh, Sheol, where's your sting?

[Father Steven DeYoung]

Right.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Which of course, you know.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

Yeah.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Is echoed by St. Paul and then. And of course then quoted by St. John.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

Yeah.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

So, yeah. I mean, once you kind of get that Ephraim represents these lost. The northern kingdom, which gets dispersed into the nations. And then there's these prophecies about the nations coming to worship Israel's God, then

[Father Steven DeYoung]

it all prophecies about Ephraim being restored.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, yeah. It's crazy. It's. It's really fascinating to look at how it all kind of connects together. So. Great question, Deborah. All right, we're going to go ahead and take our second break, and we'll be right back. The Book of Lamentations was written after the Babylonians had invaded the land, slaughtered the populace, and brought about national anti.

[Caller]

Extinction what remained for Jerusalem and Judah. The five poems of the book represent the authentic voice of Israel in a mourner wailing over the judgment of God, desperately seeking an audience with him, but finding him hidden and inaccessible.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

In Prayers in the Dark, Father Lawrence

[Caller]

Farley paraphrases the book of Lamentations and interprets each passage, following it with a meditation on human suffering, not to explain it, but to point a way forward into hope. In the words of the sacred text,

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

we find assurance that we are not

[Caller]

unique in our suffering and that the way home to the kingdom brings pain as well as joy. Find Prayers in the dark [e-mail] faith.com that's store.ancientfaith.com. Foreign.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

We're back. It's the final half of this All Voicemail, All Speak pipe Q A episode, Lord of Spirits podcast, and we have six more questions. So are you ready for the home stretch, Father Stephen?

[Father Steven DeYoung]

Sure. Why not?

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

All right. Okay.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

This first one, I got nothing else to do right at the moment.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

You got nothing else to do? That's good. This first one comes from Lexi, who has a question about the apocrypha.

[Caller]

Hi Fathers, my name is Lexi and I'm calling from Bend, Oregon, and I have called before. So thank you so much for taking my call and for your previous answers. Me and my husband have become catechumens at our local OCA parish. Praise the Lord. And I had a question about what you've said about the definition of the apocrypha being books to read at home or to read in private, and then the canon, you know, the main scriptures being used in church, and that kind of being the definition of those terms. So I'm reading a book called the Life of Saint of the Virgin Mary, the Theotokos that my priest lent to me. And it said in the intro of the book that apocryphal writings are used on the feast day of the presentation of Mary. And that was interesting to me because, yeah, it just seems to go against what you said. So. Yeah, is that an exception or how does that work? Is there a more full understanding that I can have about apocryphal literature being used in church? Thank you so much.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Okay, that's a good question. I'll say two things about this, and then I'll hand it over to you. So one is maybe what's not obvious, especially for those who don't have much or any experience of orthodox worship, is that there is no point in the feast of the entrance of the Theotokos from the temple, which is sometimes called the presentation. But the word there in Greek is isodia, which means entrance. There's no point where it's like, end. A reading from the Proto Evangelion of James, let us attend. Like, that's never happens in that service. Right. So it's definitely not being presented as scripture in that service. And the other thing is, I think, and here I'm speculating a little bit, but I don't think it's correct to say that those writings are used in that feast or any of the other feasts that one might mention of that sort. Like the Dormition, for instance, of the Theotokos, which is not an event that happens in Scripture. I don't think it's correct to say that those writings are used in the feast, but rather that both the feast and the writings are witnesses to these traditions about the Theotokos. It's possible, I suppose, that the hymnographers for those feasts might have been reading those things. That's possible. But, like, I'm not familiar with. I don't think there's any, like, direct quotes or whatever or, or even if we know a kind of genealogy of texts for this stuff. So that's. That's what I have to say about those two things.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

Yeah. So this isn't really an. Actually, it's going to be a. More of a nitpick, maybe.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Okay.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

I don't know.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Pick a nit.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

But. Or just pointing to the way that even you yourself used language just now. Oh, no, you said that's not an event that happens in the Scriptures.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Okay.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

What does that sentence mean?

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

It's not depicted there.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

Right. That's what I mean.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

That's what I mean by that.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

Events don't happen in texts.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right. Okay. Okay, okay.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

Right. No, I know that's what you meant. Right.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

But when we're talking to our Protestant friends, they use that language and actually kind of mean it.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Okay.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

Right. The Scriptures is this realm. Right?

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. I mean, we all agree that the Virgin Mary died.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

So.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

But my. So the point is. The point is the source of any of this is reality.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

Right, Right. So Christ's death and resurrection don't happen in the four Gospels.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

Okay. Christ died on a hill. You could go there. It's inside the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Now, he died on a hill outside Jerusalem, and he rose again in a cave nearby in a tomb. That's where that happened. That's the source. Right. And everyone who writes about Christ's death and resurrection, whether it's the four Gospels that are in the Bible, whether it's St. Paul writing about Christ's death and resurrection in his epistles, whether it's Christ's death and resurrection in whatever form that takes in Gnostic gospels or other uncanonical texts. Right? Or straight out heretical texts, the source that they're all using is reality, okay? And so we believe the same things, same thing about the Theotokos. Death at her body being taken into heaven, her birth to saints Joachim and Anna, her being taken to the temple as a child, her being betrothed to St. Joseph, St. Joseph being an elderly man who had children from his previous marriage from which he was widowed. Right? We believe all of those things because the reality, that's what happened. That's what actually happened. That's the actual state of affairs. Now. There are no texts talking about those events that are included in the canonical New Testament, Right? There are texts that talk about those events that name the Theotokos parents and all these things that are external to the New Testament. Some of those texts are written by pious orthodox Christians. Some of those texts are written by impious orthodox Christians. Some of those texts are written by like, in the case of some of the stuff about the Theotokos by opponents of the faith, like Celsus. Some of them are written by different heretical groups. Right? But all of them are just writing about reality. Okay? This is very important because, yes, it is an incorrect statement to say that our feast is based on or is even using those texts. But it's also important because someone pointing out that there are potential Gnostic elements in the Protevangelium of James doesn't mean it got the name of her parents wrong.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right, right. I mean, she had parents.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

Why would. Those are utterly unrelated. Right?

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, I know.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

That's like taking a Gnostic gospel and saying, well, this says Jesus was crucified, so clearly he wasn't. Because this text is Gnostic. Yeah, yeah, Right. So the fact that it has a heretical take on something that really happened doesn't mean that that thing didn't really happen. Right. Also, it's important to remember in any kind of discussion about this stuff, right, that there's a difference between the earliest text that has survived that we have today and the earliest text. There may have been a thousand different texts in the second century talking about the early life of the Theotokos. We don't know. Right. Because we don't have all of them. We've got the Protevigelium of James, but that doesn't mean that it's the first or only place to ever talk about that stuff. It's just the earliest one we've still got. Right. And so this is another logic point. Right. When we're talking to our Protestant friends, they will tend to do this even in formal debates. I might have seen recently the first person to ever say, this is this person in the third or fourth or fifth century. Right. You're like. And the answer to that is, well, first of all, no.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

The earliest writing we have today that mentions that is that text.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Because most writings from that period are completely lost.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

You have a tiny fraction of what was written in that period. Right. So, yeah. So that's one of the presuppositions of a false conclusion. Like our feast of the entrance of the Theotokos must be based on the Protevangelium of James. Is this assumption that, well, that's the only text that talked about this stuff before we find evidence of the feast? Well, no, it's not.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

Definitively. It's not the only text or the only person talking about that. It's just the earliest one we still have.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, yeah. All right, our next question comes from Nicholas, who has a question about St. Constantine.

[Caller]

Hello, my name is Nicholas and I'm a member of parishioner St Nicholas at Tarpon Springs, Florida Greek Orthodox Church. My question is, I just finished the series of lectures by Father Stephen about violence in the Old Testament, and, you know, a lot of it being focused

[Father Steven DeYoung]

on holy war and gigantomachy. And, you know, I have a better

[Caller]

understanding of what happened. Now my question is, you know, given what we saw in the Old Testament, that the holy wars were spiritual warfare which continued into the New Testament, what are we to make? How are we supposed to understand what happened to St. Constantine the Great when he had his vision or his dream that, you know, was the cross and said in this conquer. So interested in the way the church sees that and, you know, the violence that took place after that. Thank you very much.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. So is St. Constantine essentially a continuation of spiritual warfare has begun. You know, that from generation to generation, God will make war against Amalek for having set a hand upon the throne of God.

[Caller]

Yeah.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

Who's Amalek this week? Apparently it's most of the governments of the world this week. From what I've read recently.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

You know, there was a reading I was listening to. I think it's from Numbers this morning. And there was. I think. Yeah, it was in the prophecy of Balaam. Actually, this is a question that I have. That's kind of related to this, that it said something about Amalek being the first among the nations. And I wanted to know, does that mean like, you know, like we're number one, or does it mean that the nations as a kind of category, that Amalek is sort of the prototypical nation in terms of the nations.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

In terms of the nations seen as hostile toward God's people. Yes.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

Which is not always the way the nations are referred to, but sometimes it's. Yeah, right.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Although, you know, usually in the Old Testament particularly, that's way. The way that it is, because it's Israel and then the nations.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

Right, right. But there's not always a relationship of opposition is what I mean. Sometimes the nation's descending upon. Right, right. Sometimes it's, you know, Israel is supposed to be a light to the nations. Right, yeah. So the, the big discontinuity here, of course, is that St. Constantine wasn't inspired by that vision to go to war.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

Like St. Constantine was going to war.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. It was a, you know, struggle against other rulers within the empire.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

Right. And so before the. This decisive battle, he has this vision where he's told in this sign, conquer. Right. Meaning not in your own name. Right. Not in your own. And therefore the. The purpose of the vision was to reveal, to say, Constantine, that the reason he was going to be victorious and become emperor is because Christ had chosen him for that role. Right. We believe that is always true. Right. This is what St. Paul says in Romans 13. Right. Whoever's in charge is in charge because God put them there. That does not mean that God is endorsing everything they do. Quite the opposite. Right. It means God is going to hold them accountable for what they do. But God is in charge of who's control, especially Lafayette city government. I have to say, there's an idiot joke. So. But God is choosing to reveal that to St. Constantine. Why? So that Satan, Constantine would do exactly what he did. Right. Become a Christian. Right. So I think the more direct biblical parallel to St. Constantine is actually Nebuchadnezzar. Remember when God humbled Nebuchadnezzar by driving him mad so that Nebuchadnezzar would learn that he was in his position, position as emperor, because Yahweh, the God of Israel, had chosen him to be in that position. Right. So I would parallel it more to that.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

Right. This battle is Constantine preparing to become the emperor, the sole emperor. And so God is revealing to him you're receiving this role because Christ is granting it to you, and you need to act accordingly.

[Caller]

Yeah.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. Okay. Our next question comes from Calvin, who has a question about water witching.

[Caller]

Hi, I'm Calvin Knight. I'm a Protestant and I had a question about water witching or dousing or doodle bugging, whatever you want to call it, in the Protestant community, at least in very blue collar rural areas, it seems like it is a common practice, whether you're Christian or not, when digging a well or septic tank or a lot of other things that you engage in water witching. And to me, it seems like 100% divination and have no part of it. But I have myself seen church leaders engage in it and other people that are very clearly church people. And I guess my question is, what is the orthodox view on that? Have you guys referenced that somewhere? I've started listening to your podcast about a year ago, but I have not heard anything about it. But it came up the other day and I just wondered what your take on it would be.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, I don't think we've ever addressed this directly.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

I think the correct way to do it is with a stone and a hat, though. Right, right.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

That's right.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

That's a cheap shot. But.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

It is a cheap shot. But I mean, you know, Joseph Smith was definitely into divining. I mean, this was kind of what his early career was about. Yeah, this is a form of divination. And yeah, it is weirdly common in the United States in. In religious contexts that often you would not think as. As Calvin says here, you know, that there are people who are church leaders and stuff in, in some of these communities, Protestant communities, that do this. And, and for those of you who don't know what this is about, you've probably seen. I don't know if this. They still do this, but like, I remember in Bugs Money cartoons, it's a. It's a trope that you would sometimes see where you'd see one of the characters with a stick in their hands, which is typically kind of Y shaped. So they'd hold two ends of the stick in their hands and then the other part is pointing downwards and they're kind of following it. And then wherever they. It sort of leads them to go, there's water down there. You know, it's a way for finding

[Father Steven DeYoung]

wells or for finding treasure, and they cross each other. Yeah, anyway.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, yeah, I mean, yeah, this is not an orthodox Christian practice.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

Yeah, this is. So this is one of the little known things. There's actually tons of European folk magic in A lot of European Protestant immigrant circles that survived.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, I mean, Jonathan Peugeot and I can't remember if he was ordained yet, but Deacon Sarah from Richard Rowland did a whole. I mean, it's mostly Deacon Seraphim did a whole episode on the symbolic world about this kind of stuff.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

That guy would. That guy would know all about this stuff.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, he knows a lot about a lot of odd stuff like this

[Father Steven DeYoung]

and other.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

I mean, questionable activities.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

It persists. Yeah. Folk.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

But yeah, that's where it comes from. Like, if you're in a German immigrant community, there's a lot of German folk magic, stuff like this. This is more from an Anglo Saxon folk magic kind of stuff. And yeah, it's all. It's. It's the, the vestiges of paganism that have survived into the religious cultures of those countries. And to be fair, we have to be fair. There is stuff like this in Orthodox countries.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Sure. Yes.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

And it's different. You go to Greece, you go to Serbia, you go to Russia, there is stuff like this. It's not good there either, right?

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

Like, we're not saying the Orthodox version of this is good and the other versions are bad. It's not Orthodox either. Even if Greeks do it. I know that's shocking. Okay. But look, go to the Greek archdiocese website. They say they're here to promote Orthodox Christianity and the spirit of Hellenism. Okay. All I'm saying is this stuff is in the spirit of Hellenism category, not the Orthodox Christianity category.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. Although.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

Calm down, Greeks.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

I haven't, I haven't noticed on their website instructions on how to do a Greek water witching.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

As far as I know, this is more Reading tea leaves and.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yes, yes, yes.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

Blue bead and.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, I mean, yeah. I mean, like, yeah, the mati. The. Like. In middle. In Middle Eastern cultures, often you have coffee grounds. Reading coffee grounds, exactly. You know, this kind of stuff. This is not official church stuff by any means. It's definitely not.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

No. This is remnants of paganism and it's not good.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Not good. So, all right.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

Yaya does it. You know, you don't have to confront Yaya about it. Let Yaya be okay. But you don't do it. Okay.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right, Right. So, okay, our next one comes from Luke, who has a question that's in some ways related to the question we had earlier about nature, spirits and stuff. But. But, but is a little bit different. So here we go.

[Caller]

Hello, Fathers. My name is Luke. I'm from Flagstaff, Arizona, on the Lord of Spirits. You have discussed how God administers creation through his divine counsel, I. E. The sons of God and angelic beings. You have also spoken about how regions and peoples possess a spirit or life. Additionally, you have emphasized that God's salvation and grace extend throughout all creation, not only within Christianity. Many ancient cultures, such as the indigenous peoples of the Americas, were largely untouched by Judaism or Christianity for millennia. Was all of their religious behavior necessarily demonic? Or could there have been genuine expressions of veneration for God's administration, love for God, and even forms of sainthood through extra canonical religious life? In other words, could these people accidentally do a true worship of the true God despite misled understanding? Thank you.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

All right. I. I think like the, the lens through which I would understand this is, you know, where St. Paul talks about if the nations do you know, what is according to the commandments of God? They have a law written on their hearts. Right.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

Well, they're a law unto themselves. They'll always. On your heart. Yeah, Right, right, right.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

They're a law unto themselves. So, like, you know, a good work is a good work, no matter who does it. Like, it is objectively good because it's in accordance with what God said to do. Like, this idea that just because you're not a Christian means that every single thing you do is hopelessly, you know, depraved is not traditional Christian teaching. You know, but I. I don't know if I think it's a little bit of stretch to go that from there to, you know, they accidentally worshiped Yahweh because, you know, ritual worship is not accidental. You know, it's directed towards a deity.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

Right. Yeah. When you're offering a sacrifice, you're offering it to someone or something.

[Caller]

Yeah.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

In some way. Right.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Probably the, the example that some people might have in mind is in. In the last battle by C.S. lewis, there are people who worship this God called Tash, who seems to be a kind of thinly veiled Muslim Ish deity. And. And then there's one. There's this person who, you know, is. Is good and is, you know, one of those. I think they're called the Colorman. And it's revealed to him by Aslan, you know, who's the Jesus lion. You know, you were worshiping me all along, you know, kind of thing, which I think is a good way of kind of illustrating the principle.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

But I have some bad news for people.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

Narnia isn't real. And CS Lewis is not a religious authority.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

What?

[Father Steven DeYoung]

He was not even ordained as a Protestant.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right, Right. Yeah.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

Okay. Like, guys.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, okay. But, but poetic, I mean, I think, like, I think poetically it can kind of illustrate a certain sort of principle. But I, I think the problem comes if you attempt to literalize it too much.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

Right, but I'm just, I, I, okay, I get that everyone likes CS Lewis more than I do for some reason. That's fine. Okay, probably everyone. But like I'm not going to try and make religious points from like.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

No, no.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

And our caller did Jack Kirby. Right. Like, I'm not going to see her talk about like the anti life equation, like it's real or something to do with Christianity or Judaism or something.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

Like, yeah, I love Jack Kirby, but he's not a religious figure or authority. Right.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

And this is different from these Abrahamite groups who are worshiping Yahweh, but they're not Israel.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

Well, so, okay, look, right, so although

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

they go off the deep end, I've

[Father Steven DeYoung]

argued and will continue to argue that most of my Neanderthal ancestors were worshiping the true God because I believe in monotheism.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Earliest ones.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I mean we're talking about however you want to conceive it, whether we're talking about the children of Adam and Eve or the children of Noah. Right. There's some period of time for which the knowledge and worship of the true God persists. Right. And that's apparently Into Abraham's Time, 2000 B.C. because Melchizedek shows up.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Where did, yeah, where did they get it from?

[Father Steven DeYoung]

Right. Now that was ancestral. It was handed down. Right. So it persists for some period of time where it, where it kind of ends outside of Abraham and his family and the Midianite, you know, we don't know exactly. Yeah, right. We see it ending for particular groups in the Bible, like within Old Testament history, the Edomites, the Moabites lose it. Right. And become basically pagan. Right. Like the other nations, Israel too for that matter. Yeah, but we don't know when people in Asia. Exactly. Right. And how long there were people still worshiping the true God. In Southeast Asia, for example, we know that by the time we have writings, clearly something has changed. But most of human history was pre literate. Yep, I guess. Unless, okay, sorry, young Earth folks, okay, take exception to that. But, but pre littered history, we don't know when exactly. Even, even on a very young Earth timeline. Right. We don't know where in prehistory, pre writing that was lost. So if you're talking about that like. Okay, but if we're talking about, you know, by the time we have literate Culture. And if we're talking about, specifically about the Americas, which is the example the callers mentioned, I mean, keep in mind the Incas of the Aztecs and stuff. You may be thinking about them because they have pyramids as if they're like Ancient Egypt, timeline. That's all AD Man.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, that's.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

That's like really late, usually medieval. Yeah. So like that's. We're not even talking about like the ancient Sumerians or something. This is like way past that. And this is way past, like the Vedic religion in India. This is way past. Right. Like.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Well, if you're going to make arguments about, you know, New world worship of the one true God, I definitely would not pick the Incas or the Aztecs.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

Well, the problem is that's not who they pick.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, right.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

The problem is who they pick are usually various North American tribal groups. And those North American tribal groups didn't have writing.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right. The earliest sources that we have related to North American native religion are all post contact with Christianity.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

Right. And so all of our accounts are colored by that. Just like all the accounts of Norse mythology are colored by Christianity.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

That's right.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

As I've said many times, same thing. So this isn't a Native Americans versus Europeans thing. The same thing is true of a bunch of European groups. Right. They didn't have writing pre contact with Christianity. And so we don't know exactly what was really going on in the 13th century in Virginia. Religiously, we have to try and reconstruct that not based on what native indigenous people said in the 16th century. That's not how you figure out what was happening 300 years before that. We're doing it archaeologically. Three archaeological sites. And then because there's not writing, you're doing a lot of reconstruction. There's a lot of stuff that we just don't know for sure.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Reconstruction, which is a fancy word meaning academic guessing.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

Yeah, basically. Yeah. I mean, you know, there's certain things, you know, you find something that's that, that looks like an altar, you find a bunch of burned bones nearby, you find, you know, I mean, you could make relatively reliable conclusions. But they're sacrificing animals. But who are they sacrificing them to if there's no writing?

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, yeah, Hard to tell. Hard to tell.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

You know, if there's a picture on a wall of a guy, it's like, are they sacrificing him to that guy?

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Or maybe the one doing the sacrifices?

[Father Steven DeYoung]

Yeah. And who is that guy? Right.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, exactly. We don't know. All right, so we have a question from Anya, who she's asking about different kinds of fear.

[Caller]

Father's bless. This is Anya from New Hampshire. And my question is this. Is there a significant difference between the fear of pain, the fear of death, and the fear of eternal condemnation? And how do these fears influence or interact with each other? Thank you very much for the show and for all that you do. God bless.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Wow. I mean, my. My initial take on this would be to say, like, especially thinking of fear in terms of, you know, an emotional state. Yeah. Number one, like, these are different levels of immediacy. Right. Like the way that I. When I look at a hot stove, and I think, okay, I don't want to put my fingers in that. That's a different kind of fear than I'm afraid that I'm going to die someday. And that's a different kind of fear from I don't want to be damned. Like, there's a. There's different kind of levels of remove. You know, in terms of immediacy. And, And I think also, like, I don't know, we do use the word fear to describe these different things, but I think that the sense of.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

Of.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Of how the negative sense that we have about each of those possibilities is. Is not the same. I just. I don't know that we have an appropriate vocabulary, at least in English for them. They don't. My sense is that they're not. Not the same. And also, I would say, like, they do have an impact on the way that you live your Christian life. Because, you know, as an example, like, okay, we're. We're in great lent now, and there is a certain kind of pain, although it shouldn't be like pain full, like, ouch, but there's a certain kind of pain that. That comes with fasting. Like, the sense of. Of. Of depriving yourself of things that you want to eat is. Is unpleasant, you know, especially initially. But then the. The. Like, the fear of death, that's that. I mean, I'm just sort of working this out aloud because I don't think we have a clear vocabulary for how to describe these distinctions. Maybe we do. I don't know. But there is reference in the Scriptures to, you know, being subject to sin because of the fear of death, although I don't know that that's the way that most people experience fear of death. So, yeah, I. I think really it's much more about what you're. The good way of avoiding these things, you know, or. Or. Or in some cases, the good way of Embracing them like we're all going to die. So there's. There is a good way of embracing that. Suicide is not a good way of embracing it. You know, obsessive freaking out over it is not a good way either. It's more just this kind of acceptance of death and hope in Christ and all that sort of stuff. And, you know, the fear of damnation, I think comes into play that's there. Like it's almost always in the scripture and what the saints say about this. It's about not becoming lax, not about slacking. It's about not slacking off from the Christian life. Right. So it's all designed to kind of motivate us towards the right stuff. I don't know. I'm kind of stumbling around. Father, what do you have to say about that?

[Father Steven DeYoung]

Yeah, well, I think there's two different things that are at work here, and they have kind of an overlay and an intersection. So I think the fear of pain and one aspect of the fear of death is we're talking about a physiological avoidance response, right? Like you feel pain, you feel burnt, right? You feel pain, you jerk your hand away. You don't think about it. Like, you don't even consciously process it, right? Like just you jerk your hand away because your hand feels pain.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Fight or flight reflex or your leg or your Whatever.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

Right? Whatever body part is feeling pain, right? Where built into human nature is the desire to avoid pain and death. This is part of what the 6th Annual Ecumenical Council says is going on at the Garden of Gethsemane.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. Christ does not want to die because he is human.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

Christ's human will is a function of his human nature, Right. And that desires to avoid pain and death, right? Like that's not sinful. That's built in to human nature, Right. It is not proper to human nature to die or to suffer. Suffering and death are something that afflict human nature because of the Fall, right? So there is that. Right. Natural. But that's not the fear of death that is being talked about in Hebrews when it talks about the fear of death driving us to sin, right?

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

That is talking about more existential dread, which is not a physiological phenomenon. It's a mental phenomenon and spiritual phenomenon. And that's what that existential dread is what we call the fear of death or the fear of damnation. Right? And really the fear of damnation is the fear of a negative afterlife following death, right? So that's really all part and parcel of the fear of dying. Dying. And what's going to happen to me when I do.

[Caller]

Right.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

That existential dread, right? Which is not completely disassociated from physicality, right? Like you could feel existential dread in the pit of your gut. Right? See now, finally, finally, as a Gen Xer, a feeling. I know something about existential dread.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

You have feelings. It's just the one, right?

[Father Steven DeYoung]

Something I have experienced myself. These other things, feelings you millennials get on about. I don't know what you're talking about, but existential dread, I'm here, okay? Right.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

So.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

And that the way that drives you to sin is that existential dread is a singularly unpleasant experience, right? And so it drives you to various forms of escapism, right? It drives you away from itself so you don't have to think about, you know, as Albert Camus summarized it in Caligula, men die and they are not happy. Right? Yeah, we're all gonna die. And while we're alive, we're all miserable to one degree or another. Say, Gen X land. Here we are. So. Right. And we don't want to think about that. That's what the play Caligula is about. That's how. That's why it's in a play about Caligula, right. That he's driven to all these obscenities and all these things because he's rebelling against that fact, that basic fact, right? He doesn't want to be miserable, so he's pursuing not being miserable. And he doesn't want to die. Right. And that is, I think, what Hebrews is getting out there, right? And we think that sexual sin or getting rich and indulging our appetites or whatever, whatever, whatever will put off our death and will make us happier, at least maybe while. While we're alive. And it doesn't work. And the existential dread just keeps coming back. And so you keep going to further and further extremes in those regards. And so the reason Hebrews is pointing that out, of course, is that Christ, by having defeated death, takes away that existential dread. Takes away that existential dread. It allows us as Christians to accept the fact that our life in this earth is going to come to an end, to see that not as this horrible looming impending doom, right? But to see it as actually right. And St. Paul says to die is gain, that we're going to be entering into the presence of God, that we're going to be with Christ, that we're going to rise again to the life of the world to come. Which is a better world than this one.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. I mean, there's this very striking language in Hebrews about, you know, you've come to the church of the firstborn and surrounded by the heavenly hosts and all this kind of stuff. You know, a very clear difference from day to day life in this world.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

Right. And if I'm free from that existential dread, I don't have to cling to my money. I don't have to try to use every moment of this life to try to indulge myself and try and have some kind of happiness. I'm set free from all that. So I'm free to love other people, to give to other people. Right. To live in community in this life, to follow Christ in this life. The sufferings I do have in this life, the times when I am kind of miserable in this life now have a meaning and a purpose in transforming me and healing me and preparing me for the life of the world to come. Right. And so I would say, yes, there is that existential dread thing. That's precisely what Christ has set us free from. But that doesn't mean, again, fundamentally changing human nature. Right. That doesn't mean we learn to enjoy pain or learn to crave physical death. No, that's not entailed. Those are different things.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. Yeah. All right. And our final question for, for this all Q and A episode of the Lord of Spirits podcast comes from Demetrius, who admits that he thinks about Constantinople every day.

[Caller]

Hello, Father's Bless Demetrius from Charlotte. I was reflecting back on the fall of Constantinople as Greek as Mendu, and specifically the tale of the Theotokos departing the city from on top of the Yagia Sophia days before the sacking. It's even depicted in Netflix's series Rise of Empires. There's also, I believe, a orthodox saint or patriarch. I can't remember now. It's been mentioned on the show before that said Constantinople would have been saved if there were even 10 righteous left in the city. Drawing a parallel to Abraham's conversation with the Lord about the judgment against Sodom. It therefore seems that orthodox thinkers of the past and perhaps present view the conquering of is of Constantinople by Islam as God's judgment. Islam itself certainly views it that way, but in the other direction. And so reflecting on all of that, I noticed the connection that when there's a majority quote unquote, Christian nature culture that subsequently falls and that is is all. Could we see the rise of Islam in the post Christian west as judgment as orthodox thinkers in the past have about theirs? Is this a call for America to repent? There seems to be a religious revival among the younger generation here. And there seems to be an increase of orthodox catechism across the country. Is this our chance to change the course of our country by repenting? Or will we see the Lord rise up the metaphorical Assyrians against us? Thank you.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

All right. You know, when I. When I listened to that question, it brought to mind there was a lament for the fall of Constantinople that was written not too long after, you know, 1453. And it was. It was composed by Manuel Chrysafis. It was a very famous Byzantine composer of that period. And the text of it is Psalm 79, you know, which starts out, oh, God, the nations have come into your inheritance. They have defiled your holy temple. They have laid Jerusalem in ruins. They have given the bodies of your servants to the birds of the heavens for food, the flesh of your faith to the beasts of the earth. And it goes on like this. And then, you know, eventually the psalm says, you know, do not remember against us our former iniquities. Let your compassion come speedily to meet us, for we are brought very low. Help us, O God, of our salvation. Deliver us, and go on so on and so forth. And so the church through this composer, Emmanuel Chrysaphis, this great Byzantine composer, I mean, one of the most famous, when he composed this lament for the fall of his city, he clearly, you know, it's interpreting it in terms of the like. Like Demetrius mentions the Assyrians attacking Israel. That this notion is that it's the sins of the people that bring that invasion and destruction on them. And I mean, this is. This is the. This is the understanding that's in the scriptures of when disaster befalls a people is that it's a call to repentance. I mean, indeed, Father, like, you know, in one of the key moments of the genesis of this podcast was when you and I were on Father Tom Siroca's show, and the question was, you know, is Covid judgment from God? And, you know, you and I both, without actually having compared notes beforehand, both said, well, yes, obviously, because God is calling us, repent. That's what, you know, mass disaster is about. And so, yeah, I think that, you know, when you see bad things happening in your society, bad things happening in your community, the response to that should be repentance, that it's a call for us to repent of our wickedness. And, you know, as is going to be always the case, repent on behalf of other people who are utterly unrepentant, because that's always going to be a thing you know, so I thought this would be a good one to finish up this episode with. What do you have to say about all that, Father?

[Father Steven DeYoung]

Yeah, well, I mean, this is something that was obvious to all, even vaguely Christian people in the past, Right. This is just something we've lost fairly recently. Go read Abraham Lincoln. Talk about somebody vaguely Christian. Go read Abraham Lincoln's proclamation of Thanksgiving. He created the holiday of Thanksgiving for people who may not know that piece of American history. But if you read his proclamation, he says straight out that the Civil War and the six figures of death in the Civil War in the United States and all of the destruction was God's judgment against the United States for slavery.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

Straight out. Why did all this happen? Because of the evils of slavery. And this was God's judgment. Right. So, I mean, this kind of thinking. Abraham Lincoln, no great theologian, even in Protestant circles. Right. But obvious to him, Right? So, yeah. And the other side of this, as the caller mentioned, right. God would have preserved it if there were 10 righteous people. Right. This is an important part of our tradition. Right. Saint Barsa Nufius was one of the two people whose prayers kept the world from ending in his era. Whenever a nation is preserved, it's because of the remnant of Christians within it. When we. When we say the liturgy that we're offering the Eucharist for the life of the world and for its salvation, that's the life of the world part. And the main reason I want to address this is I think there's a misinterpretation by a lot of people of some of the things we pray in the liturgy and other services. Right. Like when we pray for the president here. Right. It's the prime minister and the king in Canada. Right. Other places it's the head of state. Right. We pray for the military. Right. We pray those kind of things. I think those are often misinterpreted by people. Some people think it's positive, this misinterpretation. Some people think it's negative, this misinterpretation as being this kind of jingoistic kind of patriotism.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, right.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

Like we're praying for the president. It's like somehow endorsing him.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

Whoever it is at the time. Right, right. Because that flips fairly frequently in the

[Caller]

US

[Father Steven DeYoung]

or the armed forces that were praying that they'll be victorious in battle and go and kill the other people efficiently or something, and civil authorities and these kind of things that. That's some kind of endorsement or saying they're good or being rah rah, patriotic in that kind of sense. Like, we're the best, you know, we're gonna trash everybody else. And that's not at all. Not at all what that's about, right? Because what's the response to those prayers?

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Lord have mercy.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

Lord have mercy.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, yeah.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

We're literally asking God to have mercy on our president and civil authorities, to have mercy on our armed forces, okay? We're asking God to preserve the nation, right? For our sakes. If you actually read the priest's prayers, right, it says, for example, grant peace to our armed forces so that in the peace and tranquility, we can pursue our lives in godliness and sanctity, okay? We're asking God to preserve our government so that within the peace provided, we could pursue our Christian lives. So this is not a rah rah patriotism thing. This is asking God to preserve our nation. We're the ones, right? We're the 10 people not saying I'm righteous, right? Because I'm not. There are 10 righteous within our midst more than that, right? But my point being, we're the ones for whom God is preserving the nation state. And when it falls, it will be because of his judgment. Not just the United States, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, the United Kingdom, Serbia, right? I mean, Serbia fell to communism within living memory, right? That's when that happens. That's how that works on a global scale for every country, right? And so what we're doing in liturgy is praying for the preservation of the world in general and of our nation and place of residence in particular. Interceding on its behalf. We are interceding on the United States's behalf or Canada's behalf or Australia's behalf before God that God would not today hold it accountable for its sins.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. Yeah. All right, well, 18 questions, and we'll be back in a couple weeks with our next episode. So that's our show for tonight. Thank you very much for listening, everybody. If your question didn't happen to get addressed this time around, then we'd still like to hear from you. You can email us@lordofspirits and ancient faith.com. you can message us through our Facebook page. You can also leave us a voicemail like all those people [e-mail] LordOfSpirits and if you have basic questions about Orthodox Christianity or you need help to find a parish, go to orthodoxintro.org and join

[Father Steven DeYoung]

us for our live broadcast on the second and fourth Thursdays of the month at 7pm Eastern, 4pm Pacific, 6pm and

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

you fix the spray.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

Wow.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

I know, I know, I know.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

6:00pm Eastern, 3:00pm Pacific sweet berries ready for two ghosts are no different than you. Your ghosts are now waiting for you. Are you?

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

And if you're on Facebook, you can follow our page. You can also join our big discussion group. Leave reviews and ratings so that people will be exposed to this show and share this with one of your friends.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

And finally, be sure to go to ancientfaith.com support and help make sure we and lots of other AFR podcasters stay on the air. Do we know when we fly? When we when we go? Do we die?

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Thank you, good night and may God bless you always.

[Father Steven DeYoung]

You've been listening to the Lord of

[Caller]

Spirits with or Orthodox Christian priests, Father

[Father Steven DeYoung]

Andrew Stephen Damick and Father Stephen DeYoung. A listener supported presentation of Ancient Faith Radio and I beheld and I heard the voice of many angels round about

[Caller]

the throne and the beasts and the

[Father Steven DeYoung]

elders, and the number of them was 10,000 times 10,000 and thousands of thousands, saying with a loud voice, worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power and riches and and wisdom and

[Caller]

strength and honor and glory and Blessing. Revelation chapter 5, verses 11 through 12.