Faith Without Irony and the Byzantine Catholics

An ex-atheist's encounter with zeal, authenticity, and medieval faith.

This article is part of a series. The next essay is now available: The 10,000 Mile Journey to Orthodoxy!

The Search for Ancient Faith

After departing from the foolishness of modern atheism, I became convinced that people need to adhere to transcendent principles and multi-generational traditions to be saved. So I joined the Roman Catholic church, hoping to find the original, primordial faith that binds together the entire universe.

This part of my journey took place on the college campus, where I pursued my career-driven undergraduate studies but also indulged in history and philosophy as a side hobby. Looking back, it’s easy for me to say that being a religious convert at a university is, in some sense, pretty awesome. The intellectual caliber of college students can be quite high, and my school had a Roman Catholic club that met frequently for catechesis, social events, and church services. We attended Bible studies together, shared deep questions and faith stories with each other, and got meals semi-regularly. Moreover, the prevailing ideology within our school was mostly modern and atheistic, so we had a sense of camaraderie among our small group of religious “zealots” (which I say jokingly; at the time, it felt like anyone who was even a little skeptical of mainstream thinking was lumped in together with the hardcore right-wingers). As an ex-atheist in these religious clubs, I got to talk about my spiritual journey all the time with some of the brightest minds of the nation, who were all curious and greatly desirous to hear my story. Outside of that, I did not speak about faith with my other secular friends, since I was worried about being stigmatized as a “religious idiot.”

Although I am quite grateful for the friendships I made and the spiritual refuge I found within the Roman Catholic club, I see now that my experience was kind of like being a “party member” within the “Christian Conservative faction.” During my catechesis (RCIA), we learned about history and faith topics, but I struggled to actually figure out how to pray, what the Christian mindset is supposed to look like, and how to cultivate interior spirituality. My conversations with the Roman Catholic comrades tended to be discursive, related to history, culture wars, politics, or papal announcements, which was very fun and enjoyable but did not teach me much about how to practically cultivate the virtues. Whenever the topic of virtue and vice did come up, I was often told “just pray” or “just say the Rosary” in response to every spiritual need that I had, without any sort of deep conversation on the root causes of sin and how to heal the passions of the soul.

During this period of my life, I often felt like a fundamentally ironic and absurd modern person wearing the shell of a religion, participating in discursive belief statements that made me a comrade of the “Christian Conservative party” but which did not transform my soul internally. I had a strong philosophical conception of God, but it was difficult for me to really bring it into my heart. Although I had sincere belief in moral principles, the question of genuine miracles and the superstitious folk piety of older people continued to elude my comprehension, and I explained them away within the perennialist framework as being explosions of the divine within the mundane world happening over grand scales of time. For people who have been raised religious from birth, it might be hard to imagine what it’s like to be an ex-atheist trying to acquire faith. I think it is similar to watching TV and feeling like a spectator, or being an actor in a performance going through the motions. This poem reflected some of my feelings at the time:

We are no other than a moving row
Of Magic Shadow-shapes that come and go
Round with the Sun-illumined Lantern held
In Midnight by the Master of the Show;

But helpless Pieces of the Game He plays
Upon this Chequer-board of Nights and Days;
Hither and thither moves, and checks, and slays,
And one by one back in the Closet lays.

Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, translated by Edward FitzGerald

Within this half-hearted, semi-ironic interior life, I tried to become reasonably serious about Roman Catholicism, participating in the sacraments of Confession and the Eucharist. I was convinced, at a metaphysical level, that such things were given to us by God to cleanse our souls and to give us the true life through communion with the Body and Blood of Christ. But I was not so enamored with Roman Catholicism as to become religiously exclusive. I continued my internal belief in “perennialism” (the idea that all orthodox religions are valid) with great fervor, deriving spiritual refreshment from the beautiful and mystical teachings I encountered. I continued to read the non-Christian Frithjof Schuon in my spare time, admired Buddhism and Sufism from a distance, and later on relied on Carl Jung and the Orthodox Philokalia to help with spiritual self-improvement. I could not fully shake off perennialism, because I experientially encountered that Roman Catholicism alone could not satisfy my spiritual needs. In particular, I was sometimes frustrated by the liturgical prayers and hymns of modern Roman Catholicism, which usually involved praising God for being a wonderful Eternal King, without touching on personal repentance or the more philosophical, cosmic-scale spiritual themes that I encountered in other religions.

Spiritual Drought

After graduating from college, I got a job and moved to a new city, and the situation became quite different. I no longer had the tight-knit, college campus religious community, and it seemed that ordinary people in normal Roman Catholic parishes do not easily mingle or meet with new friends. I also realized, only in hindsight, that my university Mass was actually a fairly high form of the Roman Catholic liturgy, with organ music and pious choir singing. In contrast, the new churches I encountered would innovate with guitars, drums, “performance” spectacles, layperson ministers, clapping in church, and semi-modernistic sermons.

In the midst of a lonely spiritual drought, my faith level started to decline. I kept in touch with my dearest and beloved Roman Catholic friends with messaging apps and travel meetups, but in my ordinary life, I slowly began to be pulled back into the sphere of my local friends and coworkers, who were all ambitious transplants to the new city. The modernistic and liberal tendencies of these kind and well-intentioned people is not to be underestimated, and I tried (and often failed) to keep my moral positions and political opinions to myself.

This all changed one day, during an indulgent drinking party at a friend’s house, when I bumped into a guy named Will who was suspiciously quiet about his opinions on almost everything. We started talking about Japanese anime, and as we discussed different themes within the story … I began to feel, more and more, that this guy must be a secret Conservative Party member! I revealed my power level to him, and he did the same, and we quickly bonded over our shared beliefs and started talking about many topics in great detail. To my surprise, a small crowd of people began to form, listening to our conversation and disagreeing with our positions, and they even began discussing their own personal attachment to certain passions and arguing with us! Fired up with the zeal of a rookie, and encouraged by a sense of brotherhood, my new friend and I teamed up together and began to “preach” to our fellow party-goers about these topics for quite some time…

My new friend Will became like a spiritual brother to me, and was himself a lapsed Roman Catholic, and so together we decided to break out of our spiritual idleness and actively search for new churches. Browsing casually on Google Maps, I saw that one of the recommendations was a “Byzantine Greek Catholic Church.” My curiosity for ridiculous and obscure esoterica was immediately triggered.

“GREEK Catholicism? What in the world even is that? We’ve got to go!”

Coming to church, I cautiously attended the “Byzantine” Liturgy for the first time and was completely blown away. We heard beautiful music that surpassed anything we’d ever heard in the other nearby churches, but could not see where the choir loft was located. We even wondered if it was just a recording…

The walls were covered with Eastern-style icons that greatly appealed to me with their symmetry, symbolism, and mystical appearance. I was particularly drawn to what was explained to me as “Our Lady of the Sign,” the image of the Virgin Mary with Christ emerging out of her as a child surrounded by stars. The image seemed to be of grand cosmic scope, the exact sort of idea that I had been searching for in my spiritual journey. The icons within the church clearly represented subtle spiritual realities and were meant to uplift the soul, unlike the standard Roman Catholic artwork, which depicted earthly scenes in humanistic, Renaissance-style paintings.

During the consecration of the Eucharist, the doors to the altar were closed, and a curtain was drawn. No one could see how the priest was preparing the Holy Gifts. My friend and I both turned to each other with our jaws dropping in amazement. We had never seen that before. Of course you should close the door to the altar, and not let ordinary people see the consecration, because this was a great sacramental mystery! Whereas ordinary modern churches seemed to be letting anyone do whatever they want in the altar, the Byzantine church was powerfully affirming the sacredness of this holy space by closing it off.

The priest emerged from the doors, carrying the magnificent chalice, and he proclaimed a glorious prayer:

I believe, O Lord, and I confess that Thou art truly the Christ, the Son of the living God, who camest into the world to save sinners, of whom I am first. I believe also that this is truly Thine own most pure Body, and that this is truly Thine own precious Blood. Therefore, I pray Thee: have mercy upon me and forgive my transgressions, both voluntary and involuntary, of word and of deed, committed in knowledge or in ignorance. And make me worthy to partake without condemnation of Thy most pure Mysteries, for the remission of my sins, and unto life everlasting. Amen.

Of Thy Mystical Supper, O Son of God, accept me today as a communicant; for I will not speak of Thy Mystery to Thine enemies, neither like Judas will I give Thee a kiss; but like the thief will I confess Thee: Remember me, O Lord, in Thy kingdom.

May the communion of Thy holy Mysteries be neither to my judgment, nor to my condemnation, O Lord, but to the healing of soul and body.

For what felt like the millionth time, I was astounded again. This single prayer contained the entire truth and explanation of the Holy Eucharist, which (in the context of a valid church) is indeed the Body and Blood of Christ. Listening to this powerful prayer, I felt that modern Protestantism was blown to bits and never even stood a fair chance. Living in a lukewarm cultural zeitgeist where most Christians and even many baptized Roman Catholics did not believe in the literal presence of Christ within the Eucharist, I was shocked to hear this faith proclaimed so openly, and in such a simple and straightforward manner, during the routine operation of the liturgy.

During the service, I loved hearing the Bible, which was enclosed in a magnificent silver cover, chanted according to an intoned melody. Whereas modern Roman Catholics and Protestants walk up to a podium, flipping through pages of paper, voice-acting their own dramatic interpretations of the text, the Byzantines used these flat musical tones to wipe away the individuality of the reader, allowing the faithful to concentrate on the words themselves.

Listening to the hymns and prayers of the Byzantine Catholic service, I heard words of deep repentance, interior spirituality, and even metaphysical truths which I had never heard before in any Christian liturgy in my entire life. Instead of praising “Christ, the King and Great God” as in the modern churches, I heard for the first time “Christ, the True Life and Source of Existence.” The music, in just two to three short sentences, concisely explained the theology that would require multiple paragraphs from less-talented hands. One of my all-time favorites was “Only Begotten Son”:

Only Begotten Son and Immortal Word of God,

Who for our salvation didst will to be incarnate of the holy Theotokos and Ever Virgin Mary,

Who without change didst become man and wast crucified, O Christ our God,

Trampling down death by death, Who art one of the Holy Trinity,

Glorified with the Father and the Holy Spirit, save us.

- Hymn of Justinian

As Far as the East is from the West

After that one Sunday, I was completely finished with modern (“Novus Ordo”) Roman Catholicism. After having been so thoroughly nourished by this beautiful and grand liturgy, I could not in good conscience go back to regular attendance to the barren, anti-traditional, and also genuinely boring services that constituted 95% of Roman Catholic Masses in America. I truly felt that this was the greater, higher truth of the Roman Catholic religion. It was like finding real gold for the first time after a lifetime of being tricked by pyrite.

Forcing myself out of bed to listen to guitar music at the modern Mass and receive communion from a T-shirt-wearing laywoman had become a homework assignment that I usually dreaded, but now, I found myself thoroughly looking forward to the liturgy every Sunday. I became a serious parishioner of this Byzantine Catholic church. The Byzantine Catholics say that they are “Orthodox Christians in communion with Rome,” and I believed them and basically started viewing their religion as Orthodoxy. I performed cursory research on Orthodox teachings, practices, and online communities. Whenever I wanted an actual, serious answer for any controversial or difficult questions, I always added “Orthodox” to my online search queries and knew that I could trust the answer that was provided. Byzantine Catholic believers repeatedly emphasized to me that the Eastern Orthodox Church is a valid church with real sacraments and priests, and that the two churches are one religion but differ in the question of the Pope.

At the Byzantine Catholic church, I was introduced to the concept of “coffee hour,” which is a post-liturgical meal shared with fellow believers. During these meetings, I was able to talk to many intelligent and extremely interesting new friends. They were very zealous and redpilled me on what they believed to be the dark secrets of the modern Vatican, explaining to me the errors of Vatican II which led to the degradation of the modern Roman Catholic Mass, as well as the mistakes of Pope Francis who, despite being the Pope, has nothing to do with our daily faith lives and should be continually ignored. One of them had been a seminarian in Europe and told me about the improper conduct and illicit activities that had become a frequent occurrence among the students. It was here that I basically learned about the “Traditionalist Catholic” (tradcath) movement, which sought to roll back the cultural damage from Vatican II and bring back the Roman Catholic Church (and American society) to how it was in the 1950s. Although the church was supposed to be “Orthodox Christianity, in communion with Rome,” in practice, the core of my parish community was essentially Tradcath and Latin-oriented in mindset. The coffee hour conversations inevitably went towards topics of modern politics and “What did the Pope do wrong today?”

My spiritual research, especially when it came to hard questions of religion and practical virtue, was a combination of discussions with parish brothers and independent inquiry, as the Greek Catholic priest was not really a spiritual father to me. The Orthodox-style liturgy encouraged me to dip my toes in the vast ocean of Orthodox Christian literature, and during these cursory investigations I read books like “Way of a Pilgrim” and the Philokalia. I continued to get positive confirmations that these hymns, prayers, services, and books clearly resembled the same faith as the Desert Fathers. The Philokalia obviously had the interior spirituality demanded by the perennialists, along with the philosophical sophistication to compete with the Buddhists and the Neoplatonists.

Eastern Easter and the End of Irony

As time passed, I continued diving into the church services, and eventually, we entered Great Lent. In my previous Roman Catholic communities, Lent basically consisted of making a vow to give something up and the continued eating of meat and cheese. Moreover, the grand culmination of the Roman Catholic feast cycle was really about Christmas, not Easter, which usually felt like a normal Sunday to me. However, in the Orthodox-style practice, Lent was a big deal, and the rigorous rules were explained to me: no meat, no eggs, no fish. Plus extra church services during the week.

For my first Orthodox-style Lent, I undertook it with my spiritual brother Will, and we full-heartedly and even somewhat foolishly went on this journey together. Since we lived close to each other, we frequently visited each other’s apartments and cooked Lenten meals together. We were not great chefs and a lot of our concoctions ended up being like bachelor slop, but it was a joy to eat lentil soup, almonds, and bread in the spirit of fraternity.

Part of our foolish joy was owed to the fact that modern men who’ve grown up in a formless ironic modern world actually love the austerity and discipline of spiritual rules. Being able to take on virtuous burdens as a layperson in the secular world feels very empowering and is a genuinely exciting form of chronological tourism. Eating bread and oil makes you feel kind of like a medieval monk. While we were eating soup, Will pointed at a single lentil and said, “You see this? The Desert Fathers would be overjoyed to even eat one bean! They would say, ‘Oh boy, I get to eat a WHOLE LENTIL today? Yippee!’”

My friendship with Will was full of this kind of light-hearted humor. He was totally okay with making jokes in order to crack your skull open with the spirit of the Gospels.¹ Like a Zen Buddhist using ko’ans to dispel delusion, he used comedy to pierce through the veil of modern rationalism. We would say things like these:

"You're telling me that church is extra long today? Woohoo!"

"Who would've thought that the greatest king who created the entire universe made this life just for me!"

"You know what would really help with that problem you're having? Some penance and prayer."

"Have you considered being more like the Virgin Mary, who is perfect and pure and is so saddenned when she sees your sins?"

“Sometimes when I’m struggling, I just say, ‘Thank you God, that You didn’t send down heavenly lightning to obliterate me for my failures.’”

Eventually, we reached the joyous feast of Pascha (Easter), where a long, midnight liturgy revealed the triumph of Jesus Christ and the opening up of the Kingdom of God. The altar doors flew open, bright lights cast away the darkness, and we celebrated the Resurrection in all its glory. I heard the Paschal Homily of St. John Chrysostom for the first time in my life: "Rejoice today, both you who have fasted and you who have disregarded the fast.… Christ is risen, and not one dead remains in the grave!" The words spoke to me about how God offers His mercy even to the latecomers and prodigal sons, and a victory cry as He conquers death itself. Death has died a death, as Christ entered into death to undo the curse of Adam by His Resurrection, saving the lost souls that came before Him.

Processing around the church building at midnight, with incense blowing in the wind, this felt like the culmination of all of our pious efforts for the previous 40 days, and indeed of my entire spiritual journey. I shouted joyfully in the church with the other parishioners: “Christ is Risen! Truly He is Risen!” We brought baskets of meat, cheese, eggs, and alcohol, previously prohibited during Lent, to have them blessed by the priest so that we could eat them during the celebrations.² At around 1 am, we feasted with the fellowship together, under the happiness and assurance of the Resurrection.

O Death, where is your sting? O Hell, where is your victory? Christ is risen, and you are overthrown. Christ is risen, and the demons are fallen. Christ is risen, and the angels rejoice. Christ is risen, and life reigns. Christ is risen, and not one dead remains in the grave. For Christ, being risen from the dead, is become the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep. To Him be glory and dominion unto ages of ages. Amen.

The Paschal Sermon

After a year of participating in the Orthodox-style services, I felt that Orthodoxy was a serious and authentic faith. It was not symbolic, an exoteric peasant’s religion, or a mythical fairy tale for kids, but meant to be embraced deeply with a man’s soul and heart. As an ex-atheist, I had not known how to pray, what it meant to be spiritual, or how to put my full self into the religious services. With Byzantine Catholicism and its Orthodox-style faith, I finally started getting closer to understanding the Christian life. Whenever I had spiritual battles, I tried to integrate my personal readings of the Philokalia and apply them to the movements of my soul. Hanging out with my spiritual brother, Will, gave me encouragement and allowed me to approach Christianity without an overly-rationalized perspective. I was no longer an anti-atheist, simply reacting against the negativity of modernity, but became a struggler of the soul using my body and mind to apply positive traditional teachings to my own life.

The Papal Question

With Byzantine Catholicism, it felt like you could have your cake and eat it too. You can be Orthodox, and you can still follow the Pope — or not! You can go to Tridentine Latin Mass (which I attended on several occasions), pray the Rosary, get plenary indulgences, and celebrate western Easter. You can even attend a lame Novus Ordo Mass at 2 pm if you want to sleep in and check off your Sunday church obligation. You can’t visit an actual Orthodox Church, though, because that doesn’t legally count as an obligation fulfillment.

Is this really how it should be, though? Over the years, I continued my faithful participation in the Byzantine (and Roman Catholic) church. I felt that there was no reason to actually consider Eastern Orthodoxy — until one day, I received an unexpected answer for a question I’d never asked. I hope to elaborate on that in Part 4 of this article series, which is now available here: The 10,000 Mile Journey to Orthodoxy.

If you liked (or hated) this essay, check out the previous article “Tradition and Rationality.”

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1. Writing this, I see now that Will and I had unknowingly become like characters in a Hermann Hesse story.

2. This was also quite new to me. I’d never seen the blessing of objects or really cared about them, and I greatly enjoyed what seemed to be like a folksy tradition. It was a lot of fun to make an Easter basket and fill it with meat and goodies.