Byzantine, Texas: An exceptional interview with Archpriest Artemy Vladimirov

I cannot encourage you enough to read this interview from the ROCOR Eastern American diocesan website. It's simply fabulous. I must also say that the responses are huge blocks of text with no paragraphs to speak of. Please don't be let that stop you as Fr. Artemy's responses are both insightful and often humorous. The topics - a mix of questions from the interviewer and parishioners from around the diocese - are wide ranging and cover things like the preservation of traditional values in Orthodoxy, the ties between ROCOR and the OCA, his feelings on Metropolitan Jonah, use of social media by priests, and even the spanking of children.

(ROCOR-EAD) - On Tuesday, April 12, Archpriest Artemy Vladimirov made a short stop in the Eastern American Diocese on his way home to Moscow after spending several days in California as a guest of the Western American Diocese. During his final hours in America, Fr. Artemy met with diocesan media office correspondent Rdr. Peter Lukianov and gave a second interview for the official website of the Eastern American Diocese. The extensive interview features several questions that were submitted by our readers and covers a wide range of topics, such as the current state of Orthodoxy in America, spiritual life, confession, missionary work, and much more. We are pleased to offer this interview for the enjoyment and spiritual benefit of our readers.

Representatives of various Orthodox jurisdictions in America are working to present their own vision of Orthodoxy. Inter-Orthodox dialogue is dominated by debates between traditionalists and modernists. Often we lose ourselves totally to these debates, thereby forgetting the true substance of our faith, attempting to remake the Church in our own image, instead of Christ’s. What say you, as an outside observer, of the condition of Orthodoxy in America? What direction and comfort can you give to the Orthodox living in America?

It was with great joy that I learned that, over this past year, the Kursk Root Icon "of the Sign" has continued its mission in the New World. And, as His Holiness, Patriarch Kyrill of Moscow and All Russia, rightly noted, this may be the only icon of the Mother of God that is now traveling to every country in the world, calling all Orthodox – Greeks, Russians, Romanians, Georgians – whomever She encounters along Her travels, to true unity in adoring the Heavenly Queen, Who intercedes for us before God’s Throne. It was a total surprise to me to learn the reaction of the Greek Church in America, whose members gathered in the thousands to greet the Protectress of the Russian Diaspora, offering her such sincere prayer, such true veneration, from which perhaps our own "Russian traditionalists" could stand to learn. And those stunning miracles and signs of grace-filled power, which we hope will be published not only on the Greeks’ websites, but on the websites of the Russian Church Abroad, bear witness to the God-pleasing nature of this undertaken endeavor. We can all see that the powers of darkness in the world never sleep, and they continue all the more to squeeze, to tighten their grip, attempting to darken the minds and hearts of the peoples of the world. That is why the Mother of God today is traveling along the roads and fields, the hedgerows and fences, in the words of the Gospel parable ‒ calling one and all, the white and the black, everyone who yet retains a modicum of the faith and piety in this land, so far from Russia. And for us Russians living in the homeland, it is abundantly clear that the mission of the Icon of the Sign is Orthodoxy’s penultimate sermon, whose call even those totally distant from the Orthodox Church will answer. Everything that has taken place undoubtedly contributes to the elevation of the Russian Diaspora, the Russian Orthodox Church in America, as the guardian of Patristic Tradition. The so-called Autocephalous Church in America is experiencing trying times. It is clear that various schools are clashing within it; having last year become a witness to the first, brotherly sit-down between the Church Abroad and the American Autocephalous Church, I can see that the spiritual closeness of the clergymen leading these Churches is utterly loathed by the spirit of darkness, who from the ages has acted according to the principle of "divide and conquer." And the Evil One always finds his spokesmen, people who see things in this reconciliation that do not exist. Perhaps they are troubled solely by the material aspect of the issue, while others, for some reason, embrace the mentality of the older brother from the parable of the Prodigal Son – What is this feast?! What is this happy celebration?! Why, father, have you gone and wasted, slaughtered the fatted calf, but you never gave me a goat – why is your younger son shown such honor?! He, I say, who has devoured your living with harlots, now receives a son’s rights! – and he was angered, and refused to enter into the radiant and festal hall. "My son," meekly responded his father, "Is it not right to rejoice, for this, your brother, was dead, and it alive again. He was lost, and is found!" It seems to me that the spirit of Orthodoxy – true, unofficial, informal, non-dogmatic, non-modernistic Orthodoxy – lies in the very ability to rejoice in every soul that, having felt the approach of the divine, heeds its call with sincere prayer, repentance, or even simple interest – for everything begins by catching one’s attention, moving the mind, and then the heart, to the divine. I think that Orthodoxy, in its endurance and faithfulness to its roots, which in turn means its ability to preserve those grace-filled outward forms, which were neither created nor established by us today, will always manifest a certain spiritual novelty – not a novelty comprised of endless reformations which are not of God, but in the ability to speak to people in their own tongue, in the ability to reveal the treasure of Orthodox Tradition, the treasure of the Scriptures, in an accessible and understandable way. A sermon is nothing less than the ability to find a common tongue with those who are intuitively drawn to the grace-filled depth and height of Orthodoxy, who wish to fall down before its inexhaustible spring...