313 - Fr. Andrew Damick - Redeeming Pagan Symbolism
The Symbolic World
Jonathan Pageau
4.8 • 824 Ratings
🗓️ 26 October 2023
⏱️ 73 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
I had a wonderful conversation with Fr. Andrew about his latest project, The Wolf and the Cross. This podcast series documents his Orthodox pilgrimage to Lithuania, the last pagan nation in Europe.
We discuss how Eastern Orthodoxy deals with the traditions and symbols from paganism and how it adapts elements of non-orthodox branches of Christianity.
Listen to The Wolf and the Cross: https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/wolfandcross
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PAST INTERVIEWS WITH FR. ANDREW
• Arise O God: A Cosmic Vision of the Gospel | https://youtu.be/6U7c_89FeWM
• The Areopagus Podcast: Storytelling by Subverting Subversion | https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/areopagus/storytelling_by_subverting_subversion_with_jonathan_pageau
• JRR Tolkien and The Applicability of Stories | https://youtu.be/QcQShPpbEgc
• Gods, Angels and Demons | https://youtu.be/NW_WlIurGtA
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⏯️ TIMESTAMPS
00:00 - Preview
00:28 - Intro music
00:52 - Introduction
02:59 - Second visit to Lithuania
03:00 - Lithuania on the border between Catholicism and Orthodoxy
04:05 - The last pagan nation in Europe (late 14th century)
05:42 - The backstory of Christianity and other religions
09:55 - God redeems or untwists pagan symbolism
13:22 - Transformation and creative engagement
19:14 - Germanic Paganism and Christianity
29:46 - Orthodox and non-orthodox Christians
37:47 - The Sun Cross
39:44 - Dievdirbys and Pensive Christ (Rūpintojėlis)
44:05 - The Hill of Crosses (Kryžių Kalnas)
48:45 - St. Peter Mohyla and Latinization
50:24 - All Souls Day in Lithuanian Orthodoxy (Vėlinės)
55:19 - Our Lady of the Gate of Dawn, Theotokos
57:16 - Our Lady of Pažaislis
1:03:04 - The porous nature of religious traditions
1:09:20 - Humility vs. the demonic spirit of polarization
1:11:32 - Conclusion
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LINKS
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My intro was arranged and recorded by Matthew Wilkinson.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | You can't have those two at the same time. |
| 0:02.3 | The actual reality is that it's neither of those. |
| 0:05.3 | Yeah, that's right. |
| 0:05.8 | It's neither of those. |
| 0:07.0 | That it's Christianity as Christianity took hold. |
| 0:10.0 | It integrated the things it could integrate. |
| 0:12.2 | It kind of let fall to the side the things that couldn't be integrated. |
| 0:17.0 | And it ended up with a world that was based on the ancient pagan world in terms of a lot of the |
| 0:22.7 | forms, but moving, using its meaning, pointed towards God and towards Christ, you know. |
| 0:42.5 | This is Jonathan Peugeot. Welcome to the symbolic world. |
| 0:59.3 | Hello, everyone. I am happy to be back with Father Andrew. It's been a while since we've had a discussion. |
| 1:04.6 | And so we felt like this would be a great time to catch up with some of the things that we're doing. |
| 1:12.1 | Father Andrew has been publishing a wonderful podcast called The Wolf on the Cross, which documents his visits to Lithuania and exploration of Lithuania as this amazing center where orthodoxy thrive, where Catholicism |
| 1:18.5 | is there. |
| 1:19.3 | And that is actually what we're going to talk about. |
| 1:21.1 | So Father Andrew had the idea of looking at how the church has dealt with the question of |
| 1:26.1 | its encounter with other religious |
| 1:27.8 | traditions, you know, the opposition, the compromise, they're also bringing in all of these |
| 1:33.2 | types of things. So I'm looking forward to our discussion. Father Andrew, thanks for, thanks for |
| 1:37.5 | meeting with me again. Thank you very much for agreeing to talk to me. I think this is a really |
| 1:42.6 | interesting topic that does not get a lot of |
| 1:45.6 | press in our very polarized days. Yeah. And for you also, this whole adventure in Lithuania is also a very |
... |
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