father thomas hopko blessed memory nice little introduction he is one of the most beloved and influential figures in American orthodoxy in the past century perhaps more than any other orthodox figure in America father Tom bridged the gap between the Academy and the parish as well as between the pre-internet in the internet worlds he was a prolific podcaster producing over 400 podcasts touching on nearly every aspect of the Orthodox Christian faith ultimately however father Thomas was a pastoral academic who brought decades of pastoral experience into his work as a professor and eventually as Dean of st. Vladimir's orthodox seminary it has been five years now since father Tom's untimely repose and it seems appropriate to remember his rich life and contribution to the Orthodox Church in America I was blessed to meet father Tom on a number of occasions one of which was in the summer of 2010 when he graciously agreed to sit down with me for this interview that morning it was a Sunday we celebrated the liturgy in the monastery Chapel and then went to the refractory for lunch the sisters sat me next to father Tom and for the next couple of hours I was blessed to listen to him discuss all sorts of topics from Orthodox theology and church history to American history and politics among other things father Tom effortlessly made connections from the breadth and depth of his knowledge and I had the impression that I could simply follow him around with an audio recorder and produce books from his remarkable conversation it was a joy to spend time with him and I'm glad to finally be able to make the fruit of that interview available to the world albeit 10 years later [Music] I think that those who are interested in the Orthodox Church in the Orthodox tradition I think there are two things that I would really very strongly suggest if I could insist upon it I would one is is that the people who would come obviously people come with their experiences their ideas their formation mental and spiritual but I think that what happens very often which is rather unfortunate and unhappy is that people come with their idea already about what the Orthodox Church is and what their tradition is and it's very often fashioned by their experiences with Christianity before they come and so what happens is that you know in the old days we would say that people think that you know orthodoxy is kind of like Roman Catholicism but without the Pope and without scholasticism and without the numbers and without the cloud it's sort of a kind of forgive me for saying it's kind of or old-fashioned Roman Catholicism without you know the modern appurtenances like the papacy and so on and then other folks think of Orthodoxy is some kind of Protestantism of the of the east where because the Orthodox Church does not have scholastic tradition and does not have you know the papacy and and that kind of thing then they kind of think well it's sort of the surgical and mystical Protestantism where others think that it's kind of Catholicism but but not kind of up to par so I would just beg everybody if you're interested in the Orthodox Church to realize not to not to prejudge not to come I mean you're gonna have the questions the questions are going to be formulated by your your tradition you know are you for Scripture and tradition or scripture or tradition or faith and works or how many sacraments are there two or seven or something well you have to know that Eastern Orthodox tradition which is very long and very complex and went through a lot of vicissitudes through history is in fact a different Christian tradition it comes from the gospel that comes from the Apostles is basically Asian it's Eastern it's not Western European I always mentioned that the Eastern Orthodox don't know st. Agustin don't know the High Middle Ages certainly don't know Protestantism some people even joke we don't know the Enlightenment either which may be a blessing but we don't have the Reformation it's a different Christian tradition it's a different history a different way of experiencing faith and I think that should be kept very strongly in mind when people come into contact with orthodoxy so I would suggest incredible patience be very patient take your time test things and and realize that a lot of times what's going to happen is the kind of questions that are raised can't be answered the questions have to be changed you have to reformulate the question in order to come up with an answer that would be proper for example I don't know if someone would say are the walls in this room you know purple or orange you got to answer one of them when you can't answer either because the walls are neither purple nor orange they're brown so how you formulate the question and how you approach it it will be fashioned by your experience but keep in mind you're encountering a Christian tradition that has a different experience a different way of dealing with things a different way of interpreting the Bible different understanding of worship a different understanding of sacramental life a different under and don't forget the episcopate and the priests oh that's a sacramental dimension how is that understood and I would say it is neither Latin Catholic nor reformed Protestant whether it's evangelical or liberal it's different and you got to be very aware of that difference that would be the first thing and it may be the basic thing patients taking the tradition on its own terms bringing your questions but always being ready to have the question reformulated because within that tradition it can't be answered very often the way it's asked hi again hope you enjoyed this episode from interview with father thomas hopko of blessed memory please subscribe to get notified when new episodes become available and if you enjoy the content on this channel please consider supporting it there's a link to the support page on our website below this video thanks so much have a great weekend and we'll see you soon