Even though Eastern Orthodox Christians only make up 1% of the American and 4% of the global population,

I've been seeing more posts from them saying Christians should leave their churches and come home to orthodoxy.

And some of the reasons these apologists give undermine their own Orthodox commitments.

So in today's episode, we'll look at those reasons, and I'll share my thoughts on engaging in Orthodox polemics.

And to help me do that, I've asked Eastern Orthodox priest, Father Laurent Cleanwork, author of His Broken Body, Understanding and Healing the Schism, between the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches to review today's script.

All right, the worst arguments Eastern Orthodox apologists make against Catholicism are the ones that would also apply to their own church.

And to be clear, what I'm talking about seems to be unique to Eastern Orthodox who spend a lot of time arguing on the Internet.

Like many terminally online people, the Internet can deaden your ability to think critically.

It lulls you into a complacency

where you post whatever feels good or based, and you don't stop to think of what your posting

makes sense. For example, one common post by Eastern Orthodox critics of Catholicism goes like

this. The Pope did something the poster doesn't like or thinks is cringe, like blessing of

lock of ice at an event about climate change.

Therefore, Catholics should become Eastern Orthodox.

But cringe isn't a synonym for heresy, and the patriarchs of the Eastern Orthodox Church also do things the poster probably doesn't like,

such as supporting efforts to combat climate change.

Plus, what's wrong with the Pope blessing ice, given that Catholics and

Orthodox bless themselves with holy water all the time? If there are Orthodox priests who bless

ballistic missiles, then the Pope can bless frozen water. Or Orthodox apologists will say if the Pope makes

a doctrinal error, then all of Catholicism is false and so all of Orthodoxy must be true.

I saw a lot of posts like this when Pope Leo reaffirmed the Catholic Church's opposition to the death penalty.

But Eastern Orthodox patriarchs and even groups like the Orthodox Church in America have opposed the death penalty as well.

...