Young American men who join ‘male’ Russian churches

“Many people ask me:” Father Moses, how can I increase my masculinity to absurd levels? “

In A YouTube videoA priest defends a form of virile, unapologetic masculinity.

Skinny jeans, cross your legs, use an iron, forming your eyebrows and even eating soup belong to the things that he misses as too feminine.

There are other videos from Father Moses McPherson – a powerfully built five -year -old – weightlifting to the sound of Heavy Metal.

He was raised a Protestant and once worked as a roofer, but now serves as a priest in the Russian Orthodox Church outside Russia (Rocor) in Georgetown, Texas, a spur of the mother church in Moscow.

Rocor, a worldwide network with headquarters in New York, recently expands in parts of the US – mainly as a result of people who convert from other religions.

In the past six months, Father Mozes has prepared 75 new followers for the baptism in his church of the mother of God, just north of Austin.

“When my wife and I repented 20 years ago, we called Orthodoxia the best kept secret, because people just didn’t know what it was,” he says.

“But in the past year and a half our municipality has tripled.”

During the Sunday liturgy in the church of Father Moses I am struck by the number of men in the twenty and thirty people who pray and cross at the back of the ship, and how this religion – with traditions that goes back to the 4th century AD – uncomfortably attracting young men with life in modern America.

Software engineer Theodore tells me that he had a dream job and a woman he worshiped, but he felt empty inside, as if there was a hole in his heart. He believes that society has been “very loud” for men and tells them constantly being wrong. He complains that men are criticized because they want to be the breadwinner and support a woman staying at home.

“We are told that today is a very poisonous relationship,” says Theodore. “That’s not how it should be.”

Almost all converts I meet have chosen to train their descendants at home, partly because they believe that women have to prioritize their families instead of their career.

Father John Whiteford, an Arch priest in the Rocor from spring, north of Houston, says that home education provides religious training and “a way to protect your children”, while you “avoid a conversation about” transgenderism or the 57 genera of the month or what.

Compared to the millions of worshipers in the Evangelical Megachurches of America, the number of Christian Orthodox is small – only about one percent of the population. This includes Eastern orthodoxy, such as practiced in Russia, Ukraine, Eastern Europe and Greece, and the Eastern Orthodox from the Middle East and Africa.

Founded by priests and clergymen who flee the Russian revolution in 1917, Rocor is seen by many as the most conservative Orthodox jurisdiction in the US. Yet this small religious community is vocal, and what unfolds is reflected in broader political shifts, especially after President Donald Trump’s dramatic pivot to Moscow.

The actual increase in the number of converts is difficult to quantify, but Data from the PEW Research Center suggests that Orthodox Christians are 64% male, an increase of 46% in 2007.

A smaller study From 773 converts seems to support the trend. The most recent newcomers are men, and many say that the pandemic has encouraged them to look for a new faith. That survey is of the Orthodox Church in America (OCA), founded by Russian monks in Alaska in the late 18th century and now has more than 700 parishes, missions, communities, monasteries and institutions in the US, Canada and Mexico that identify themselves as Russian.

Professor Scott Kenworthy, who studies history and thought of Eastern Orthodox Christianity – especially in modern Russia – says that his OCA parish in Cincinnati “is absolutely bursting of the seams”.

He went to the same church for 24 years and says that the congregation numbers have remained stable to the Covid locking. Since then there has been a constant stream of new researchers and people who are preparing to be baptized, known as Catechumens.

“This is not just a phenomenon of my own parish, or a few places in Texas,” says Prof Kenworthy, “it is absolutely a bit wider.”

The digital space is the key in this wave of new converters. Father Mozes has a large following online – when he shares a Photo of a positive pregnancy test On his Instagram feed he gets 6000 likes to announce the arrival of his sixth child.

But there are dozens of other podcasts and videos presented by Orthodox clergy and an army of followers – mainly male.

Father Moses tells his church that there are two ways to serve God – to be a monk or a nun, or get married. Those who take the second path must prevent birth control and have as many children as possible.

“Let me see a saint in the history of the church that has once blessed any form of contraception,” says Father Mozes. Regarding masturbation – or what the church calls self -abuse – the priest condemns it as “pathetic and unmann”.

Father Moses says that orthodoxy is “not male, it’s just normal”, while “everything in the West has become very feminated”. According to him, some Protestant churches are mainly focused on women.

“I don’t want to go to services that feel like a Taylor Swift concert,” says Father Moses. “If you look at the language of ‘worship music’, it is all emotion – that’s not men.”

Elissa Bjeletich Davis, a former Protestant who now belongs to the Greek -Orthodox Church in Austin, is a Sunday school teacher and has Her own podcast. She says that many converts belong to “the anti -wokrowd” and sometimes have strange ideas about their new faith – especially those in the Russian church.

“They see it as a military, rigid, disciplinary, male, authoritarian religion,” says Elissa. “It’s pretty funny. It is almost as if the old American Puritans and their madness are popping up again.”

Buck Johnson has been working as a fireman for 25 years and organizes the Counterstream modcast.

He says that he was initially afraid of entering his local Russian -Orthodox Church, because he “looks different, covered with tattoos”, but tells me that he was welcomed with open arms. He was also impressed that the church remained open during the Covid -Lockdown.

Sitting on a couch for two huge TV screens in his house in Lockhart, he says that his new faith is changing his view of the world.

“Negative American views on Russia are worried,” says Buck. He tells me the mainstream, “Legacy” media gives a distorted picture of the invasion of Ukraine.

“I think there is a remnant of the Boomer generation here in America who has experienced the Cold War,” says Buck, “and I don’t fully understand why – but they say the bad thing about Russia.”

The head of the Russian church in Moscow, Patriarch Kirill, has stubbornly supported the invasion of Ukraine, called a holy war and little compassion for its victims. When I ask the archpriest John Whiteford for the best spiritual in Russia, who see many as a warmtoner, he assures me that the words of the patriarch have been distorted.

Images and photos of Putin quote Bible verses, holding candles during services in the Cathedral of Christ, the Savior of Moscow, the Savior and stripping to his swimsuit to dive into icy water in Epiphany, seem to have made an agreement. Some – in America and other countries – see Russia as the last bastion of true Christianity.

Almost ten years ago, another Orthodox convert priest from Texas, Father Joseph Gleason, from America to Borisoglebskiy, a village four hours to the north of Moscow, with his wife and eight children.

“Russia has no homosexual marriage, it has no civil trade unions, it is a place where you can train your children at home and – of course – I love the millennial history of Orthodox Christianity here,” he said a Russian video post.

This worryful Texaan is in the forefront of a movement that encourages conservatives to move to Russia. Last August, Putin introduced fast-track Shared values ​​Visa For those who flee Western liberalism.

Back in Texas, Buck tells me that he and his colleague cups turn his back on immediate satisfaction and American consumerism.

“We think of long -term things,” says Buck, “such as traditions, love for your family, love for your community, love for neighbors.

“I think orthodoxy fits us well – and especially in Texas.”