CALLING OUT THE ORTHOBROS: STOP 'WESTERN' ORTHODOXY!
I am saying goodbye to the online Orthobro movement. Of course we should be overjoyed and welcoming to any new converts. I am restricting my wrath to a particular segment of the online community of new converts who, as the saying goes, by nature are more fanatical than cradle believers. Given the overwhelming influx, what you see developing is an entirely new Orthodox culture that does not exist in cradle countries. You can catechize all you want, but there is a level of mindset that is beyond learning facts, dogma and primary consciousness. It's so deep that on the surface it escapes most people, yet it is what moves us and determines our values and actions. The problem was the subject of a recent homily at the Annunciation Greek Orthodox Church in Rochester, NY.
Jul 16, 2025 Annunciation Greek Orthodox Church: The Dangers of the Orthobro Movement.
There is nothing wrong with the kind of theological debate on the basis of arguments, that people like Jay Dyer are having with representatives of other faiths. But meme and culture wars are another matter altogether.
What we see happening on social media is a one-on-one substitution of various hues of Protestantism and Roman Catholicism with Eastern Orthodoxy.
Seeing someone advertising this morning on X as a an Ortho coach, is the final drop for me personally. We have catechists and spiritual fathers, but we don't have coaches. Coaches are for wandering souls who have lost their way in the individualistic labyrinth of mono scriptura!
The Orthobro movement doesn't understand that Western religions come from a culture that is much more oriented on individualism and the legalistic approach to religion than Orthodoxy. What this would create is an Orthodox version of Western religious tradition; precisely that what they are running from in the first place.
The entire social media phenomenon is a product of Western culture. Even outside the confines of religion it has far reaching consequences where societies are as yet are trying to grapple with.
As Dr Porcu has been trying to explain (playlists), this stems from Protestantism and the Enlightenment, born out of the Thirty Years War. This was a series of conflicts between Roman Catholic and Protestant nation states between 1618 and 1648, some of the longest and most destructive wars in European history. The endeavor to get away from state religion produced the secular culture we are fleeing from today.
Eastern Orthodox countries had a completely different course of history. Orthodoxy lacks the types of thinkers and theologians that influenced Western religion since the The Great Schism of 1054, like Saint Augustine, Saint Anselm, Martin Luther, Descartes, Kant, Hegel and Marx who made Western culture into what it is today.
The Eastern Orthodox phronema (attitude to life, sense of life, world view) is therefore entirely different. Professor, Biblical scholar and cradle Greek Orthodox author Eugenia Constantinou has written and lectured quite extensively about the issue (links).
Living permanently in Greece I can attest to the fact that no native Greek Orthodox would discuss such matters online in this way. In so far as they touch on religious issues, these are questions related to organization, like the recent problems concerning Saint Katherine's Monastery in Sinai (link).
You would advise these Orthobros to stay off line, but of course they are not going to be persuaded to do that (since obedience or modesty are not part of their phronema). Nor do you want to send them on their way with a flee in their ear, back to dispensationalism, or whatever cult they came from. So what is the solution?
Education, catechism and repetition, I guess. Hence the e-book I am writing, explaining this stuff in depth and at length. Once a certain culture takes root, it's almost impossible to change. At least, in the short term. This is why the West is in the trouble it's in.
What we need is coordinated action by persons in authority and responsible influencers. At least in so far as they are able to understand the problem. Because as I said, this goes rather deep. I have been warning about this for some time. The time for action is now!
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