Transcript

Cyprian (Vin Armani) on The Divine Feminine, Charlie Kirk, Family Life, and more

From Orthodox Family Life · Episode page · Watch on YouTube

· 2 h 3 min · 19,296 words · 150 timestamped sections

This is the full, timestamped transcript of "Cyprian (Vin Armani) on The Divine Feminine, Charlie Kirk, Family Life, and more", an episode of Orthodox Family Life published September 13, 2025 (2 h 3 min, about 19,296 words). It mentions 17 people, works and ideas, including Charlie Kirk, The Female Brain, Father Turbo Qualss, St. Cyprian of Antioch, Priscilla and Aquila.

What this episode is about

In this episode of Orthodox Family Life, host and guest Cyprian (Vin Armani) explore the divine feminine, examining the devouring mother and blessed mother archetypes and why Orthodox Christians should take them seriously. Cyprian draws on the centrality of the Theotokos in Orthodox theology and contrasts her with the mother-goddess cults of the ancient world, which he links to demonic influence drawn from his own past in the occult. The conversation also touches on family life and the broader cultural conversation around masculinity and femininity.

Key takeaways

  • The Theotokos is the saint of saints: Orthodoxy without the divine feminine is a contradiction, not a neutral starting point.
  • The occult's mother-goddess cults are the most ancient animistic religion, and Orthodoxy's truths always have demonic inversions.
  • Many people aren't soldiers in spiritual warfare; they're civilians caught in the crossfire, so meet them with compassion.
  • Newly Orthodox converts often need basic guidance too, like skipping mushrooms and keeping phones away from kids.
  • Israel's whole story, in this view, exists so that a teenage girl could say yes.

What is discussed, and when

  1. – 15:00: Father Turbo Qualss, St. Cyprian of Antioch
  2. – 45:00: Priscilla and Aquila
  3. – 1:00:00: The Female Brain
  4. – 1:15:00: Charlie Kirk
  5. – 1:30:00: Charlie Kirk, Candace Owens, Donald Trump, Milo Yiannopoulos
  6. – 2:03:14: St. Mary of Egypt

Notable quotes from "Cyprian (Vin Armani) on The Divine Feminine, Charlie Kirk, Family Life, and more"

  • The other team right I was my background before this and it's it's why you know Father Turbo Qualss who's my who's my baptizing priest and who's my spiritual father said you're going to be St. Cyprian of Antioch which is pretty scandalous.
    about Father Turbo Qualss · at
  • Like zero concept. You couldn't go to the Old Testament for them, right? You couldn't. And now Priscilla and Aquila, I believe Achila was a Jew.
    about Priscilla and Aquila · at
  • Understand my role as a husband so much better. It's by a woman called Luanne Brisendon and it's called The Female Brain and it's from maybe it was written it's probably 20 years old.
    about The Female Brain · at
  • Of this tragedy has happened. This is we're we're recording the day after Charlie Kirk was killed.
    about Charlie Kirk · at
  • If my reaction is vengeance, which was the reaction of Donald Trump in his, in his talk when he got up there, not direct vengeance, but we will be going after not only the people who did this, which should be.
    about Donald Trump · at
  • Overbearing mothers and see if there isn't resentment. it's interesting because Milo Yiannopoulos was just recently on Candace Owens. I only listened to maybe about the first…
    about Milo Yiannopoulos · at
  • Or like St. Mary or like St. Mary of Egypt did.
    about St. Mary of Egypt · at

Who and what is mentioned in this episode?

People

Books & papers

Companies & orgs

Products & tech

  • Moana — Product · 1 mention

Full transcript with timestamps

Welcome back to Orthodox Family Life. Today we have our special guest, Cyprien from formerly from from the Royal Path. But uh welcome to the show, Cyprien. Thank you for having me. Um I'm pretty excited about this conversation. Um, but I'm a little scatterbrained in everything that's been going on for a few days and and looking at all your old interviews, which have so much interesting uh ideas to chew on. So, um, I don't even know how to introduce you. So, can you maybe just give my audience a little introduction of who you are, maybe some of the things you talk about?

Oh, man. I have I've been I've been trying to figure that out myself lately, haven't I? I'm not Man, I'm not sure. I I know that I am I know that I am a father and a husband and an Orthodox Christian and that I am uh working hard as hard as I possibly can and struggling to to uh to allow God to to manifest his will through me. So, well, some of the things you talk about, you talk about a very broad array of subjects, but one of the things I've heard you talk about that I want to uh discuss today is this um idea of the devouring mother archetype and the blessed mother archetype.

And um you know, you know, obviously there's a lot of conversation going on around men and women. And uh my feeling is that often the women kind of get mentioned and then we dive really deep into masculinity and what that means and everything. So I want to do the same thing for women today. Let's dive really deep into what are these archetypes, where do they come from, why should Orthodox Christians care, and then maybe fleshing out some examples of of this and how it impacts us. It's a lot to start with. Sorry, but but what are maybe we start maybe we start with your last question because I think that that's the most important especially given how you sort of introduced that uh because it's I I think you're really identifying maybe a much larger blind spot and that is why should orthodox people care.

I think the fact that we even have to ask that question is like prof in some ways it's profoundly disturbing if you're orthodox that you that you would ask that. Um I think if you ask that to a monk on aos that he would probably laugh right because his focus is on the panaka. That's that's the church is she. When we refer to the church, we say she um the mother of God is the the the saint of saints. Uh the our understanding of Israel, if we are Israel, that the purpose for the project of Israel is so that a teenage girl could say yes.

Why should So if we're asking a question, why should why should we be why should an orthodox person be uh almost like why should why should we should actually be asking why should we not be hyperfocused on the divine feminine or how could we not be and still be orthodox because you There is no orthodoxy without the mother of God. Of course. Of course. I think orthodoxy without without the the divine mother. And I'm not and I'm not saying this to you, right? I don't think that the question that that you asked you you you described a reality of something that's happening in the broader conversation of especially I think orthodox newly orthodox people for many of them in the west. Right.

Yes. And I think there's a ton of things in the world that are very obvious that I find myself having to say like don't do mushrooms and don't give your kid a phone, right? So I, you know, like I mean I thought we were going to talk about I don't mean you but I just in my channel I thought we were going to talk about really deep things and those are the things I'm realizing oh these things actually have to be said. So yes. So that's why I'm asking. No, no. I think I mean I I think it's No, no, no. I think it's I think it's wonderful. I think it's wonderful and I think it's it's hyper important and um you know my in some ways I had a little bit of a shortcut to this because my life when I was let's say playing for the other team right I was my my my background before this and it's it's why you know Father Turbo Qualss who's my who's my baptizing priest and who's my spiritual father said you're going to be

St. Cyprian of Antioch which is pretty scandalous you know to say that I was I was looking for like St. Zabus who was there with St. of Egypt, you know, which is again a focus on the focus on the feminine. It is right. But but this is like so for me it was a little bit of a shortcut because if people know my past when I was let's say playing for the other team and in the occult um it was hyperfocused on the divine feminine like that was my that that was my life and much of the occult is the divine feminine. the, you know, Iawasa and Gaia worship and Ishtar and all of these things, right? So, the the the mother goddess cult, if you want to go back, this is the most ancient animistic cult, right? It's all about the mother goddess. And so, and those are demons, right? So, those are demons. Um, Callie would be another example, right? And so now we can start to get into this devouring mother divine mother sort of

situation. So you know the divine feminine is a part of reality. And just as with all things in orthodoxy uh you will find their inversion uh on the other team right on the on the occult side on the demonic side. Um you will find all of the tools all of the things and all of the concepts. And I do very much like this idea of and this was something that that you know uh father Turbo had told me as well was that he really emphasized to me that like no you're going to understand that uh you're now playing for the many people are not actually playing on the field right many people are just trying to get through the the kind of turmoil and uh the the the consequences of spiritual warfare right just like any warfare You know, most people are not soldiers.

They're civilians. And yes, their house gets bombed. And yes, they get kidnapped. And yes, they make get might get pressed into doing something and their children taken away and these sorts of things just like in any warfare. But 99.9% of the people in Ukraine are not fighting, right? Uh you know, 99.9% of the people in Israel are not actively engaged in hostilities and certainly not Iran. Um, and this is true of any war and it's as above so below, right? So it's true of on earth as it is in heaven. It's true of spiritual warfare that we have here now. And so you know my my background was I was fighting on the field for the other side and I switched sides.

So, I switched kings. And it's one thing to be a civilian, but it's quite another to um it's it is quite another to be a deserter. Well, it's one thing to be a deserter. It's another thing to be a deserter and pick up a weapon on the other side. And the uh punishment for the people who do that and the way that you will be attacked when you do that is obviously going to be sign that's that's the worst thing that you could do. Right. So this is true in warfare. It's true. It's true in everything. And and so I say this I say this to to give a background of the fact that like the place that that we'll be speaking from and what people should understand and I think one of the things that makes it difficult as we were you know speaking even before I think one of the things that makes it difficult when we start to talk about these topics is that there there is often a kind of a dichotomy that people make that is a false

dichotomy. Right? So if I start to have a conversation about the devouring mother and I use the archetype of the Hindu god Khali as an example, I think that there's often a temptation for many Orthodox people to like turn it off at that point, right? To turn their mind off because they're like, "Oh, he's talking about something from another religion and like that religion is not true." And it's like, "No, no, no, no, no no." or or let's say that religion is not true because truth is a person. There's it's it is it is a lie. It is a deception, right? But it's like that religion is talking about gods that don't exist.

I think this is something that's very much in the Protestant kind of ethos if you come from a Protestant background, right? Is that it's like, oh no, those gods don't exist, so I can kind of ignore this. Um this is this is false. Um but that's not true. That's not true at all because if that was true, Orthodox fathers now wouldn't be saying don't do yoga. Right. Right. Is it? They're not saying don't do yoga because well, it's just maybe it's not good for you and maybe it's not you're not really orthodox. They're saying don't do yoga because those gods are real. Small G gods. They're real and you will be interacting with them in a real way if you do yoga.

Right? So this was one of the things that was help. I'm just trying to set the stage here. So just bear with me. No, it's great. It's perfect. I'm just trying to set the stage. Okay. This is one of the reasons why for me I didn't have to fundamentally abandon my worldview of what reality was moving from the occult to orthodoxy. And neither did Cyprian of Antioch, which is appropriate, right? Like he he asked to be baptized the first day that he came in because he because he was attacked by the demon that he had summoned and he killed it with the he he made it go away. It was choking him to death and he made it go away with the sign of the cross which he had never done before but he saw Eustina do.

Right. His story by the way is on my channel and it the whole thing where people can listen to it. It's phenomenal. Yeah. So, so, so I won't even go into it deeper because you did that. Please go listen. Right. So, it and it is I think it's an important his among many others obviously, but it is an important indication that there is a a a foundational level of spiritual reality that orthodoxy recognizes. Now, we don't we choose not to focus on talking too much about the demons and their specifics and what they do and how they are, right? It's like Father Turbo has said to me, see without looking, right? So, see see, but don't don't dig into it. Don't go spend time with them. Don't go sit down and interrogate them. You don't there's nothing there for you. And the longer you talk to them, the more they will deceive you. the more you think about them, the more chance there is that you might give them rights,

right? But I think you know what we're going to talk about today hopefully is that we can talk about this basis of reality that is the the divine feminine so that we can I think better appreciate the mother of god because that's ultimately what those experience gave experiences gave to me is to see the sort of false promise of the inverted divine feminine as opposed to the true fulfilled promise and continued gifts that the mother of God offers as the the the truth of the divine feminine. So that's the answer to your last one of why should why should Orthodox people care? Well, I think it's a good one to start with because, you know, if I hear some Orthodox person start using language that is maybe unfamiliar to to the, you know, the general population, the church, you start going, "Okay, wait a second. What is he talking about here?" But, you know, I've heard you enough to know that you you understand

this. You're just using a new language to describe it or maybe bringing something back from long ago. But, it's really important because we have so many people coming from the occult now. So, thank God for that. Uh, so where to go from here? I'm going to let you guide this because I'm not sure where you want to jump in next. It's a big topic. Okay. Well, I Well, I'm you're you're the one who who knows what's most interesting to you. I mean, we're talking about the devour. What What is it? Maybe you can help me and then that'll help to guide us. What What What sort of sparked the interest for you about the devouring mother to even want to have this conversation?

Yeah. So I do a lot on my channel with it's for Orthodox women and families and so I try to read the lives of the saints uh for women saints and families um you know and then have different dialogues about parenting and and other issues about women and I noticed that um every time there was a video put out by an Orthodox person about uh the gender issues going on they would usually say oh women their issue is feminism. and then spend the entire rest of the video talking about men in great detail. And I thought, well, I know feminism is an issue. I'm not arguing that, but there's a lot more to this, right? And I found very few men seem to really understand how women uh think about the world. And you know, most women don't.

I feel like women need a model, and they haven't been given a model for decades of what it even means to be a woman. And so their whole life is set up in a way from um elementary school, middle school, high school, I can point to several things in each of these levels to by the time they get through college, of course they're a leftist feminist because the whole system set was set up to create that in multiple ways. And I know for my own life that um when I was starting to be a wife and a mother, I was looking for those models and the only place I found it was the panagia, the female saints, the female monastics and eventually literature, Jane Air being my favorite of the female heroine.

So that's what kind of start me down it down this road. Um, I just think we need to talk about it more. Like we there's more going on with women than just feminism. Wow. Is that not the understatement? It's on my obvious things list, right? Thank you for saying that because uh I just started to feel like maybe I'm crazy. Maybe that's our only issue and I'm just a dork over here. I don't know. But Oh. Oh, I mean it's what I find interesting is that and I have I have seen these conversations. I mean I don't spend a I don't spend a lot of time um in that particular uh let's say segment of the orthosphere.

Um it was one reason that I like left Twitter a while ago and uh I actually completely deleted my Twitter account yesterday. um all my tweet history of I don't know decade and a half all of that I just completely deleted it and it was because um I mean basically because the replies that I was getting back was from that segment of the uh orthosphere and it was so I mean I'll just say it just so demonic that uh I didn't and and I think it has gone from misguided to demonic Like, and I'm not saying everybody. Yeah, I've seen some pretty concerning stuff. But again, I don't want to focus on the men today, Sabrina. I want to dive into it.

Well, it's, you know, well, here's the thing. There's not, and I think again, that's the dichotomy, right? Yeah. The dichotomy is that there is some means of separating woman from man. There is not. The problem The problem that we have is that we're trying to make the separation. And that was the direction I was going that the separation itself is uh something completely of the world and is completely not of Christ. Okay. So explain that. What do you mean? Yes. Yes. Yes. Of course. Well, there is no uh Well, look, let's go to the creed.

Let's go to the creed, right? Um the things that we believe, right? that Jesus Christ is was made incarnate of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary. Of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary, he was made incarnate. There is no incarnation without the mother of God. So there is no separation. If it our Lord made flesh, his flesh is her flesh. He does not have any other flesh. He does not have from a biological standpoint, he does not have any other chromosomes. He does not have any other genetics. Right? If if we were to go on the scientific and crude, you would say he is a clone.

He is a genetic clone of a woman. There is no separation between and and and it's being shown to us. There is no separation between man and woman. But even in Genesis, there is no separation between man and woman. Woman is woman is woman is a clone. If they are the new Adam and the new Eve, why? Because they are of one flesh. One flesh. We are of one flesh. There is no difference between man and woman. If we try to make there be a difference, if we try to make there be a dichotomy, then we've missed it. Right? So, and this is what this is what I'm saying is that that trying to make that separation is is a is a symptom, right, of something that leads you away from life.

It leads you away from life. And so all of these things, the divine feminine, the blessed mother, the the tyrant, the wise king, they they are not separated. They are not separated from each other. They cannot and do not exist separate from each other in a vacuum. They are all part of the same fabric of reality. They are all part of the same organism. Yeah. To be clear, I think you're saying they're distinct, but they're inseparable because they're in relationship and from one from the other. Because I don't want people to confuse that with like transgenderism or something where you're saying gender or sex or whatever doesn't exist. That that confusion is not what you're talking about. You're talking about Oh, I'm certainly not saying that.

Yeah. Yeah. I just want to make sure people know that this is the internet. I want to make sure. So, we could just say we could just go if if I'm going to say something like that, I will always say it explicitly. You're not going to get anything implicit from me. What comes out of my mouth is what I'm saying. Okay good. I'm I'm I'm working real hard at that, right? What comes out of my mouth is what I'm saying. But I do want to say that there is in the same way that my my hand is distinct from my foot. But that distinction that distinction is a wholly intellectual distinction.

Right? And I can stop making that distinction as soon as I say the word my body. I've just now ceased to make a dichotomy between my hand and my foot by saying my body. Right. And when I say human being, I've ceased to make the dichotomy between body and spirit, body and soul because we're both. We're both, right? So, we can make the dichotomy because we're going to we're going to talk about it, right? And we're going to talk about these archetypes. We're going to talk about the devouring mother. But this is this is one of the things I don't want to fall into the temptation because I think then we'll miss something. I don't want to fall into the temptation to say, "Well, let's just talk about the female side because I I I you can't understand the female side without the male side." Or for us to say, by the same token, the flip, well, let's let's just feminism is a women's problem. Let's talk about the

issues that men have, right? How well wait a minute? Wait a minute. If I'm going to be in the church and I'm going to be a man in the church, right, I'm either I'm going to have one of two things. I'm either going to have to have an in like well I should have both, but if I'm going to be a monastic as a man, I'm going to have a relationship a very important relationship with the Theotocos. Very important relationship. She's she's going to be like my deepest daily relationship. You talk to the monks on AOS. She's the deepest daily relationship that they have.

So again, like wait, let's just talk about the men. What are you talking about? For me to be a man right now is about my relationship with her. Outside of the relationship with her, there is no aos. There is no aos. They are not there outside of her. Right? So we can't make that distinction. and the the and but again the reverse is true. Without her there is no incarnation. So we can't just say let well let's not talk about the women. Let's not let's not because for whether you're man or woman, she is I mean when the woman from the crowd calls out and says, you know, blessed is the womb that bore you and the the breast that nurse you and he says, no, blessed are those that hear the word of God and keep it. Well, he's talking about her.

Right. Right. It's often misunderstood, but he is actually referring to his mother. He's he's talking about her. He's saying, "No, it's not that she bore me." Her he's taking it back further. The fact that she even bore me, anybody could bear a child. The fact that she heard the word of God that she would bear me and she kept it. That's what makes her blessed. Right? So even he is saying there's no separation. He's saying there's no separation. If I am the word, there's no separation of word. It's just a it's just a piece.

It's a conduit. Any dichotomy is something that we're like making, right? And so then that so then that gets us to what we see then is then we see that there is this male and there is this female. There is not the dichotomy between the two. And just like with a body and there not being a dichotomy between my hand and my foot, right? Well, if I get a carcinoma or a melanoma on my hand and it I let it fester that that cancer to fester, my foot is going to die too, right? Where's your dichotomy? There's no dichotomy. it the the foot can't just be like, "Ah, well, hands got cancer.

Not gonna not gonna hurt me." Yeah. Well, you hear a lot of conversations sound this way, you know, online, right? You hear Yes, you do. Yes, you do. The hand over there's got a problem. You know, hand, man. We gota, you know, that that hand I they got to deal with their own thing. That ain't nothing about me, right? That ain't nothing about me. And it's like no no, that's your death, too. It's like it's talking about yourself as a wife without the context of your husband right? Is how how can you be a wife without a husband?

Yeah. How can you be a husband without a wife? That's ridiculous. Yeah. It's ridiculous. And to say that you're going to have a conversation about being a man and part of that is being a husband and that it somehow is going to be divorced, pun intended, from a discussion about your wife, a deep discussion about your wife. Like actually, I don't even need to talk about being a husband. Like the conversation about me being a husband really should be entirely a conversation about my wife because my husbandness my husbandness is my relationship to my wife.

Husband is just a relationship. the the the let's say I'm the subject that's the object of the relationship and then there's a relationship in the middle right how can I like why am I talking about the relationship why am I talking about that there's the subject there's the object the let's talk about the object because then the relationship exposes itself right right so so this is now we can get into like the value of these archetypes I hope you're not hearing there's they're going crazy in the jungle. Are you hearing crazy stuff in the background here?

No. No, I'm not. Okay wonderful. Because I wouldn't know how to edit that out either. Okay, so I think that that's I think that that's a good place. Now we've set the I think now we've set the stage for for why this conversation will be important to everyone, right? and and why it is not not a if we're going to have a conversation about the divine feminine and about uh this concept of the devouring mother and the blessed mother um why it is not also separated from a conversation of the divine masculine. Okay. Right. So okay shall we uh go a little bit about the devouring mother concept?

Absolutely. Yeah. So what is the devouring mother? What is that? Okay. So the if we're going to talk about if we're going to make these uh we're going to make these dichotoies not because they're real but because or or they're real right but because yes in order to understand my body I'm going to have to talk about well what's the difference between my foot and my hand? They have a lot of things similar, but they're different in ways and they do different things and that contribute to the health and well-being of my body and they are connected to each other and related to each other and they are all a part of me. And so I think that example that I gave about like the cancer um I think that that's very helpful as we start to talk about what is the difference between for instance the devouring mother and the blessed mother. And for me, the easiest way uh to understand a lot of this was one of the priests who has randomly

showed up here on our little island of Saipan, a wonderful priest by the name of uh Father Carol Scarbull. He's based in Taiwan, Russian Orthodox priest, and he spent extra time catechizing our little community here. He's really an expert on uh ancient the practice of the ancient church in church history. highly educated uh academic and but also very mystical uh priest and he introduced us to the da I'm sure you're familiar with this right and it's uh for people who don't know this is a uh the church considers this to be basically the an example of if not the catechetical document or catechetical uh protocol if you will that the apostles were using to catechize the people in the early church. We're talking first century that this is from.

And obviously there's no Bible. There's no Bible at the time. So there are some some verses that are clearly things that the church was using that either were then became written down later, but it's you could tell that they're definitely there. There's already an oral tradition for sure at that time, but there's no Bible proper. And so it opens and it's sort of the way that it frames, you know, it's asking the question like what is the faith? Like when we see the ancient saints, oh, they were taught the faith, right? Or we see uh this scene of in in acts where uh Apollos has come. I believe this is I believe he's come to Corinth at this time. It's either Corinth or Ephesus because that's where Achila and Priscilla were. But he's come to Corinth and he's preaching a baptism but he's only preaching the baptism of St. John the Baptist and he because he doesn't know the other one and Priscilla and

Akquila appropriate to our conversation because she's always mentioned first which is interesting whenever they and they were the ones who had their apostles and they were the first their house was the first church proper of the Gentiles like in their house right so I think very appropriate to this conversation right but that they go And they instruct Apollos on the actual baptism, the Christian baptism, correct his error basically because he's only talking about the baptism of St. John the Baptist which is covered in the dedism, right? So this is so we can sort of see that like okay this is what's even in Acts they're talking about there's already some catechism so this is it.

And of course, this document starts and it's something that's weird that we don't hear it all that often in the church presented this way, but it's like, wow, this is the way that the apostles would have opened their idea of what is it that we believe. And it says there are two ways, the way of life and the way of death, but a great difference between the two. I'm so glad you said that. I was just telling my son this and I could not remember where it was from. I thought it was indication the way they have I just kept going through the books. Okay, say that line again cyprian because it's a really beautiful way to start.

It's like yes it is the the opening words there are two ways the way of life and the way of death but a great difference between the two. Yeah. And then it goes on to say what is the way of life? And this has been it has been the most powerful thing to me because it's like wouldn't you want to know and again I've been become obsessed with uh Priscilla and Akila and of course um they're they're wonderful. I mean they're they're they're they're wonderful to think about these these two early saints and how devoted they were.

And of course when Paul goes to Corenth he he lives with them for a year and a half. He's making tents with Achila because Akquila is a tent maker. He finds a tent maker. So that's his work. Could you imagine a year and a half of St. Paul living with you, working with you on a day by Could you imagine what what you would walk out with, right? I just I'm I'm fascinated by forget that's what the apostles had with the Lord. Like it wasn't just what's in the gospel, but every day for three years, you know? every day. So, and and this is I I I think that when you see that like how did how did they understand it and how were they communicating it to people who had no concept, right? These are these are not Jews.

These are Gentiles. These are pagans. Like zero concept. You couldn't go to the Old Testament for them, right? You couldn't. And now Priscilla and Aquila, I believe Achila was a Jew. I don't think Priscilla was. She may have been. I don't remember exactly. I know Aquila was definitely a Jew, but they're around. They're in a Jewish community, but they're preaching to the Gentiles right? So, how do you how would you approach somebody? And it's like, well, there's two ways, the way of life and the way of death. And that's why I think that example of the cancer is a pretty good example, right? Because there are kind of two states of a cell, right? There's the state of life and the state of death, but it's not just death.

Like a a a cell can die. There's like a a one that's like worse where it's actually going on the way of death to where this cell is not just dying. This cell is taking actions that is going to kill the whole body, right? That this cell is is growing and moving toward death. And it looks like death, but it's not dead. It's like a it's the the the the manifestation of an energetic death. It's actually death growing, right? And so it's a way of death. So we have a way of life when the body is like good to go and then we have the way of death and in a biology we see that we call that cancer.

The like the because it's the body doing it on its own. It's not some external thing that's coming in. It's like the body actually pursuing a path towards death. And so this is the way to understand these two. Of course, I mean this is a pattern. This is a pattern. We're part of it. And so of course there is going to be the sustainable lifegiving uh the the the way that the spirit a spirit your spirit is moving and that that motion and that pattern is going to mean sustained and long life. And then there's another one that's the cancerous route that is going to lead to the death of the entire body.

And so when we understand the devouring mother as versus so the blessed mother clearly right she is the the way toward life eternal there's no question that she is she is the way of life in terms of the divine feminine. Well I mean she gives birth to life. I mean literally she gives birth to life it the the person of life I am the way the truth and the life she gives birth to the life so clearly she is the way of life there's no question okay but there's but there is a way of death as Christians we understand there are two ways there is not just one way there are two ways so that means that there must be another an inversion a cancer a a a mode of behavior and operation.

Unlike her mode of behavior and operation which was to hear the word of God and to keep it, there is another mode of operation. That is the way of death. That is how we understand the devouring mother. Regardless of what we could we are going to use the term devouring mother but the the way to understand it and now it's this should be obvious to orthodox Christians that obviously there is this way this way must exist if we're orthodox and if we're like well the apostles understood that this way existed but again we don't we try not to talk about it we try not to focus on it because we don't want to look but we need to see Right.

Just like we need to do a I actually just went to the dermatologist like last week. I had flew to Guam. Went to the dermatologist. Right. Why? Because I needed I wanted them to take a look at my skin, you know, just to just do a check. I've got moles. I'm of mixed race. My mother had melanoma when she got older. And he was like, "Yeah, you should do this every year." And I try, right? Let let us look. let us look just real quick. We'll see what's going on, but we won't spend a lot of time, right? Which what I don't want to do, and the reason I do that is because I'm a bit of a hypochondric, and I don't want to go and obsess on every, which I have a tendency to do, obsess on every little thing, even though the dermatologist always says, "Oh, you're fine." The one who's the expert, right, who has the training, I don't want to I don't want to focus on that. So it's the same way that it's like we should be able to identify the

devouring mother when we see it but we don't need to spend a whole lot of time on it. So I hope that what what we can do is just like identify what are those things that we would see but I think maybe hopefully even after this conversation we don't even need to we've given a huristic already where we can just identify it right so the problem is not feminism the problem is not feminism right the problem is not transgenderism right again like I said those are just symptoms those are just like oh that spot looks kind of it's doing some kind of weird stuff there that spot.

You know what I mean? But the real issue is that that you've got a cluster of cells that have that have flipped to the way of death. And so we say, "Oh, abortion. Abortion is bad." Well, why is abortion bad? What's the way of death? Clear. It's literally the way of death because if everybody gets an abortion, we all die. Why is transgenderism bad? Not because they're degenerates and this and that and you could say that. No. Why do why why is it because it's the way of death? Why? Because if everybody's a transgender, there's no more humans.

What's the That's how we know the heristic of the way of life and the way of death. It's this real simple heristic and it's like this. If everybody did this, would human beings survive? If everybody believed this and everybody took this action, would human beings survive and thrive if everybody did it? In other words, is it universal? Can is it Catholic? Can it can this be a Catholic practice? Can this be a practice that every single person can adhere to and human beings still survive? That's the way of life. So, can every single person choose to be homosexual and only homosexual and the human species survives?

No. Can every single woman when she's pregnant choose to have an abortion and the human species survives? No. Can every single person choose to be on fentinil all day long and the human species survives? No. Can every single man decide that uh he that his uh only um sexual satisfaction or that the majority of his sexual satisfaction or that he will spend 18 hours a day watching pornography and self-abusing? Can every single man decide to do that and the human species survives? No. Like it's very simple. And I think that we can get ourselves totally distracted.

We can get ourselves totally distracted with uh calling out degeneracy and signaling virtue and piety uh as opposed to just getting at what we're talking about. There are two ways. The way of life and the way of death. That action that you're taking. What is that? Can you do Can you do that all day and and you're going to be okay? You're going to survive and the people around you are going to survive. It's like Dr. Phil always says, "How's that working for you?" Yeah. How's that working for you? How's that working for you?

Yeah. Right. And and this is this is where there is no there is no monopoly on truth because truth is a person and he's for all of our salvation. Mhm. So there is no monopoly. So it's like yeah, you should see in even worldly individuals like Dr. Phil, when he's right, when he's right, it'll be because it's oriented toward Christ. When he's telling the truth, he is oriented towards Christ because Christ is truth, right? So this is so I think in terms of if we want to talk about the devouring mother, you just all you need to do is look at the things that would represent the actions that a mother would take.

Uh it's also some people have called her the smothering mother. But look at the actions that a mother would take that would be to the detriment of the thriving. I like I like the word thriving because it really it captures this idea of of life broadly holistically, right? And and they have this idea of like children dying. This was a big thing in Romania after the uh so after the um communism fell of um they would just like take babies from mothers and like put them in or orphanages and no one would touch them. Like if you don't touch a baby they'll die from what they call failure to thrive.

Right. Right. So it's like oh wow they actually need like the touch they actually need physical touch or they their body will just like shut down. That's a mystery. Right. Right. But this so this is to say that there are there is a a way that a mother behaves and lives that is so broad like it's not a simple list of things we don't even know the things she doesn't know the things right it's their instinct they're the maternal instinct which is given to her by God and the maternal instinct is the way of life and all of The things that we would see as the devouring mother or that cancer, the immediate response that we have to it is a disgust. And what do we say? How could a mother do that?

How could a mother do that? What are we recognizing that it's contrary to the maternal instinct? There's a the top story in our newspaper today, and it's interesting. It's the top story is that a mother left her 18-month-old baby in a car strapped into the car seat. so parked in the parking lot of a gambling establishment so she could go in and gamble. Okay, you see the reaction you have? That's the reaction everybody has. Why do we ha why do we all There's nothing ideological there. That reaction didn't come from ideology.

That reaction isn't cultural. You could go to any culture and tell them that and every woman and hopefully every man, but certainly every mother and every father would have the same visceral reaction that's from God. So, how do you explain the mother that did it? Because I I agree with what you're saying. However, as a as a person who like my family was really dysfunctional, I didn't have, you know, things modeled. I became a mom and I didn't know what to do. So I was actively looking for the models. There are times when I actually had no idea how to respond well to a child. So what happened there? Because it's there's instinct, but there's something else going on because some people are pushing the instinct down or there's extreme selfishness is what I think it is.

An idolization of themselves. Well, it's being overridden. It's being overridden. And I think it's pretty key when we look at so if I was to tell you like if I was to tell you and the only thing I told you and let's not take this scenario but the only thing I told you was there's a mother she left her 18-month-old in uh a car seat and mind you this is uh Saipan. I don't know what time of day it was but it's it never gets below about 75 degrees here. Yeah. Right. So, I hope it wasn't during the the daytime. And I don't I didn't even want to read the story because it would just bother me all day, right? But if I told you a woman left her just abandoned her child to go do something, okay something.

And then I said to you, what what would you bet if you had to bet, no pun intended, on this story, but what would you say was the uh was the thing that she went and did? What would be your like your Give me three. What would be your top three? I would say uh when parents drive home and the kid is sleeping and they think, "Oh I'll leave the kid there. Let it finish its nap." Um grocery store, like they somehow forgot the child in the grocery store parking lot when they went in or dropping off at daycare, the parents switch. That happens a lot. It seems like those would be the three.

Well, this is let's let's say that these are not. So, one of the things here is like this is not inadvertent. That's one of the other pieces about this, right? This is not just like somebody just like totally being discombobulated or something like this. This is like there's something that I'm going to do and I'm gonna act. Ah, there we go. Right. That's the first thing that came to your mind. Yeah. Right. What would be another What would be another one you think? Yeah. Sex. Some kind of weird sex thing going on. Why did Why did I think about the same two things? Right.

It would take some pretty disturbing um psyche going on for you to do that if you did it on purpose. And what And what did this woman do? Gamble. Gamble. Yeah. Okay. Drugs, sex, gambling, addiction. Addiction. Where do addictions come from? No, they're demonic. And passions. Uh disordered passions. There you go. So this is very simple like the answer to the question is very simple. There is the way of life and the way of death. And remember I talked about there's two teams playing right? One team is watch you on the way of life and it's trying to and it's as you walk the way of life as you acquire the spirit of peace thousands around you are saved. And as you acquire the spirit of chaos thousands around you are damned.

Right. So, there's there's another team that wants you on the spirit of chaos, that wants you moving on the way of death. That's where it comes from. That's where all these things come from. There's no I mean, and so, and then it's simple like, oh, if that's where they're they come from, so so this woman is sick. The woman who did this, right? She's sick. She has a sickness, right? And that sickness comes from the demonic. If we have an Orthodox Fimma and we look at what at at her actions and we just did it. We just did it. We as Orthodox people, we cannot see this as coming from somewhere other than the demonic in terms of what our worldview is and how we understand reality.

And so if she's sick, there's and it's coming from the demonic, then we have a clear pathway to if she will be saved, if she will be delivered from that, there's one who can deliver her, right? And so this is so again, it's like yes, this is about a mother. This is about motherly instinct, but there's not a separation from the masculine and the her and for for her if she is to be saved. So her her conduit and her pathway to him is the mother of God. Especially in this case, right? Like this is a woman who uh her beseeching the mother of god is like the mother of god is for her she's for all of us she's there but for her she's waiting she's really really wait like please please you know because that's because I mean she's the You know if we ask if a mother asks how do I interact with my child there is an ultimate what is my relationship to my child and what should the relationship to my child

be as a mother I mean there's we have the answer we have the answer and I think that there's this there's this really I don't know where I saw it and I don't know what saint it was from but it's It's you might even know but it was just so so deep for me and it was only recently that I ran across it and I had had this feeling but it was kind of like there was um someone who was asking um and they were asking I don't know whether this was an elder or a bishop but they were asking them like how do I how can I like know if if like I should do this or I shouldn't do this if I should like do this thing or I shouldn't do this thing and this this elder or this bishop was saying, "Yeah, people come to me all the time and they ask me about these very specific things." Oh, uh, father or or heronda, I I want to do this very spec like should I go this and have this career path or should I go here and have

this career path? Like should I go and do this with my child or should I go and I do this with my child? Should I send them to private school or should I send them into the public school? Should I? And I feel like there's a lot of that conversation like in the orthosphere that we spend a lot of time on that. And he said, "Really, what you need to do is you need to pray and you need to think about those what it is you're going to do and you need to say, can Christ follow me there? Can Christ go there?" Like imagine Christ is stand is is with you because he is.

And then be like, "Can he can he go with me there or is that someplace that he's not going to go?" And I think the same thing with the mother of God is even for for as a man it's even more powerful I think for the mother of God right because there's for me it's like wow can I can I take her to this to this place that's like I I I can't I have too much like it's a mother you know what I mean and it's like it's one thing if I'm going to take Christ like he battles he battles demons not to say she doesn't battle demons but she's a mom you know what I mean right and it's Like I'm there's some places I just can't take a take a mom. You would and people say that, right? Would you use those would you use those words around your mother?

I've often thought we could fix the internet by putting more Russian granny's in the chats or something, you know? Well, kind of. Yeah. You know, babushka serve an important Babushka serve an important cultural purpose. Yeah. Right. And and I'm so glad that you brought up the Russian granny's, right? Because again, false dichotomy, but but the divine feminine is also separated into three in a way that the masculine is not. The maiden, the mother, and the crone. Women have three. Men don't have this. We have childhood and adulthood and then like and even biologically a man can continue to procreate into his 80s right 90s 100 never stops right so even biologically God has only given us two phases procreative not pro procreative right that's it you can have babies now you can't these are the these are our two childhood and adulthood women have three they have three.

And this has always been understood in spiritual practice, the maiden, the mother, and the crone. There's I there's a for people who are like, and if they're a little bit of little bit more materialistic, I would suggest this book changed my life. Uh it's important for every woman to read this book, I think, but it's even more important for men to read this book and husbands, right? And it's a totally materialist book, but it fits, but you'll be like, "Oh, this helps me to understand my role as a husband so much better." It's by a woman called Luanne Brisendon and it's called The Female Brain and it's from maybe maybe it was written it's probably 20 years old maybe more but she was the head of the hormone uh hormone like research clinic at Harvard I believe but she and she studied how the female brain changes is and also the endocrine system and the nervous system and it's very different. And she studied

men and it's totally different. Totally different. And that women actually even biologically have three completely different phases and their brain even changes. Right. But we but menopause is right there. Like it's a like that's a thing. What is that? I'm 47. I've been learning all about this. like right why were we never told this? Yeah, it's a huge part of again the reason why we're never told this is because we're making the dichotomy between women and men that this isn't something that's important for men and it's like are you kidding me?

Do you what what is Russian orthodoxy and what is Russia without babushkas? Yeah. What is Russian culture without babushkas? And what do we not have in in the west? We have an unwillingness of women to become babushkas. That's right. They do everything that they can to never become the crone. And it's like, well, that's the way of death. That's cancer. Because your biology, it the biology is there that you go through this. Why do you go through this? Why did God put this there? Or if you're an evolutionary biologist, which is just a BS artist, why did we evolve so that babushkas are a biological?

They're a biological thing. A babushka. Yeah. No. Oh, they're in every culture that survives. They're in every culture that survives because and that's and we only see the reason we see them in every culture is because all the cultures that survived had them. I guarantee you there were cultures that didn't have babushkas. And guess what? We don't see those cultures. Why? Cuz they're dead. Yeah. That's not looking so good for us because as you said this is completely absent from from modern day. We have Karens that's the closest thing we have but it's not the same. Completely not the same.

Right. Well completely not the same because one of the things about babushkazar is they aren't mothers. Karens are they are not they are not behaving as mothers and biologically they cannot they can no longer be mothers. Mhm. They are objectively not mothers. They are something else, something very, very important. Right? Babushka's grandmothers, there's been so much written on this too. Anthropologists sociologists grandmothers are the storehouse of a of a culture of the culture. Mhm. Right. And we even see this in in pop.

Like even the wokes recognize it. Even the wokes who are trying to never get old and who will be a 60year-old woman trying to look like she's 30. But look, the right does it too. Yeah. How old is Laura Trump, right? She she's probably passed menopause. I think the classic example is Madonna, right? Like I mean, sure. Sure. But it's but it's on but it's on the it's on the left and the right. It's it is they're both side both sides doing it. Look at Judge Janine Perau. Judge Janine. I don't know who that. That ain't no good. She she is the uh she she was this big like court uh TV person that Trump named as I think she's the New York district attorney now US attorney for New York right but again it's like Botox surgery you know breast augmentation ompic always in the gym let me post my picture of me hot granny hot grandma you know what I mean unfortunately I do I did a whole segment on grandparents and I covered this

actually on board no more over on study of stuff uh channel but um it was pretty disturbing that there's more pictures of hot granny's old mature women that we need because they guide the young women. They have a perspective way yes that we don't have. They have to they have to, right? And it's like really it's that's where you know when you ask the question of like well how do I how do I relate to my child? Well, where does that information come from? Comes from Yeah, it's from babushkas and even young girls about I mean look like I was saying even pop culture you know Moana the movie Moana.

Mhm. Right. S probably one of Disney's most popular uh you know at least in recent memory and they did the second one. How does Moana start? The grandmother the grandmother telling the story of Maui and their people and she's communicate. They're in it's to the children. It's the grandmother passing on the culture, right? And it's the grandmother who tells Moana, "Hey, go up in that hill and look at who our people really are." And there's boats in there. We were voyage. Go look. Go look. Right. It's the grandma. What happens if there's no grandma?

The island dies. If there's no grandma in the Moana story, nobody knows about Maui to even go find him. And no one knows where the boat is, which is what we have in America now. We have because if people have grandmothers, they're not in relationship to them. And you know, I felt like our family was a little ahead of the curve and that we didn't interact with our extended family for good reasons, but you know, we didn't. So, it cut off all those relationships. And you can't learn how to be an aunt or sister, mother, whatever, if you're not on the receiving end of that. And now it's gotten worse because now we're breaking down the nuclear family. Not just not just like 20% of the people, but like massive, you know, over half of the people now are isolated and atomized. And I don't see a way out and atomization.

Let's talk about atomization and isolation and putting it right on the nose. What was what was COVID all about in terms of specifically who was isolated from the children? The grandparents specific. Yeah. On the nose and a complete inversion, right? Because what was the idea? We have to isolate the grandparents from the children because it will kill the grandparents. And it's like, oh no, no, no. If you isolate the grandparents from the children, you kill everybody because that's the way of death. So how do we rebuild from that? You know, this feels like when this is sort of thing is lost, I don't want to be, you know, I I try to be hopeful about these things. You know, I I keep coming back to panagia, the saints, female monastics, the granny's we still have. But what can people do?

Well, it's well the thing is it's not lost. It's not lost. It's not lost at all because it's built. It's because again it's our instinct. Nobody has removed the instinct. You know how hard you have to work. You know how hard the enemy is working on a daily basis to get to to to get people to work against their instinct. Do you know how hard that is? I do when you look at how much they've been working. I can look at the work. I've made a study of looking at the work and it's it's a lot of work. So, but it here we are and it's well and it's work. It's uh I think that we there's the work we see, right? But I tell you that's the limited hangout.

That's the limited hangout. Right? Because the enemy the enemy is not concerned. He's not I mean it's horrible but his target is not that woman who's going in and gambling in Saipan, you know, like she's the as we were talking about the the soldiers uh you know in war. She's she's she got hit she got she's getting hit by stray bullets. you know, she's she's she's hit by a stray bullet uh because there's there's warfare around her, right? Oh, no, no, no. The target the target is where it's always been. The target is in the church.

The target, that's the target because who is she going to turn? Who is she going to turn toward the way of death? Nobody. Who is she? She's nobody, right? But, and this is again why I why I've left X, but wouldn't it be nice wouldn't it be a nice target to have somebody with a nice orthodox cross icon after their their bio and, you know, 5 to 10,000 followers on X. Wouldn't it wouldn't it be nice to get them turning towards the way of death in a way that they weren't even aware because they don't even think about the world this way that there is a way of life and a way of death. Wouldn't it even be good if they were calling for other people to be killed? Wouldn't that be awesome?

Oh no, they need to that that Oh, kill them. Kill them. Bury him six feet under because they're degenerate. So, it's like, wow, that's that's even better. What when what what about them calling for They're not concerned about the woman who left her baby in the car, but that individual I'm talking about, you know, let's show them that baby getting left in the car, right? And uh let's uh let's let them make a comment and let's let it build up and build up and let's nudge it a little bit until we've got that person calling for her to be executed, put away for life, and never able to see her child again instead of calling for Christ to rid her of the demonic influence that that got her to do that.

Yeah. This is why I'm not on X. I spent uh less than a month and it was like, yeah, no, it's a couple years ago just it's uh the internet is bad, but X is um something else. I don't know what it is. It's um Oh, I know. It's uh it's the X stands the X stands for hell. It's standing in for the word hell. Yeah, that was my experience. Yeah. Yeah. So, and I think you're right. People don't think in the moment about choosing the life, the path of life in in that moment of this tragedy has happened. This is we're we're recording the day after Charlie Kirk was was killed.

Very tragic and tensions are high. You know, people are emotional. They don't think in the moment of, you know, my response has to be of Christ. It has to be towards life every moment regardless of how I feel. We have to embrace that. And you know, I was reading from um sorry, we're a little off topic maybe, I don't know, but reading from Metropolitan August who's a bishop from Florina from the I think 50s or 60s in Greece. And he had this he was talking about the Lord's crucifixion and how he kind of drops you in the story almost like a little guy on the Google map and just shows you like the apostles saw the crucifixion and it was dark for 3 hours.

They thought this was the Messiah. They're completely devastated. They're completely disappointed. And then they see these guys over here laughing about it and celebrating the Lord's death, you know, and it's like, you know, I mean, Charlie, I'm not saying he's a Christ figure, but he is a Christian. And if we live as Christians, we're going to mimic the life of Christ or we're not Christians. Yeah. And I just saw that in him so much this morning in that reading. like he was preaching, you know, love and listening and and he was killed tragically and then people are celebrating.

Um, so it's upsetting. I just I shut it off if it gets to that point. I I want my thoughts to be unclouded by a bunch of Hold on one second. I've lost you. There we go. I'm back. Okay. Um, yes. So, I heard I heard none of that, but I did hear that I did hear, you know, I got the Charlie Kirk part and I got that Yeah. that we will be we will be called. And I think that there's a there's an interesting aspect um to this. You know, people were there was a a meme that I saw that was a quote from Charlie Curtain who said uh you know, you can't kill a Christian. you can only um something like you can only uh expedite them coming to Christ or something to that effect and the same was echoed by his pastor and I think partner in turning point as well.

Um so it is and it's it's it's interesting because one the Lord says that this is what's going to happen to you if you're a Christian. the history of the the martyrs says that this is what's going to happen. Um the biatitudes, you know, are also basically saying that that that this is the life that you have as as a Christian that you're not going to win in a worldly sense. In other words, um but you are going to win, right? It it's it's the zar. Do you take the heavenly kingdom or do you take the worldly kingdom, right? If it's the worldly kingdom, you die on the battle today, right? But if it's the heavenly, you know, or if it's the if it's the worldly kingdom, you live, right? And you get it. But you don't get the heavenly kingdom. If it's the heavenly kingdom, you die today on the battlefield, you know, and so and blessed are you.

And and well, and you're blessed. And I is the this is the heruristic, you know. Well, I think that this is how you know whether or not you yourself are a Christian is that it is how you respond to that exact moment, right? Because are you, you know, we see reading the lives of the saints is so important, right? And we see because we see so many so many uh martyrs going to their death thanking their executioners. blessing their ex legitimately. Thank you for giving me this opportunity to wear the martyr's crown. Thank you.

I just read the life of um saints Adrien and Natalya, speaking of married couples, right? And she was Christian, he was pagan, he he's in the court, he sees people convert, right? And in the end, she uh she is actually placing his limbs on the anvil for the executioner to crush them like with love. Day day before yesterday, right? Something like that. Two days ago. I'm on I'm on the new calendar, so I'm not sure. Okay. Okay. Couple weeks. Yeah. For me, I just read it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's uh And she locked him out of the house when she thought it was an unpaste for for the record, you know.

Right. Right. That's a different conversation. But uh but this is this is the I I think you're bringing you're bringing up the point, right? That the point is these are the moments in which we see this is the this is the litmus test. It's a litmus test for you as a Christian that if you say, "Oh, he was a Christian and in the midst of so either there's a few things here, right? that it's really the litmus test for and it's for us to dig deep into ourselves, right? To where like so you said he was a Christian. I think that there's some people in the Orthodox church who would say that's up for debate, but let's say that not that I agree with everything, you know, I hate to like put that caveat, but yeah.

And and and I'm not and I'm not even going to I I don't even think we need to go there. That's not the point that I'm making, right? I'm saying this is a litmus test for us, right? It's about our reaction. And so it's like, okay, was he a Christian? If I say yes, he was a Christian. Okay. Was he in the midst of doing God's work? Right? Because he was in the midst of something. He was in the midst of work, a ministry, right? He that's literally I mean, it was a ministry. You look at that, that's a ministry, right? And it's like, okay, was his ministry to the service of God at that at that moment that this thing happened to him?

And if I say yes, right? Then as a Christian, my reaction has to be glory to God for all things. If my reaction is vengeance, which was the reaction of uh Donald Trump in his, you know, in his talk when he got up there, not direct vengeance, but we will be going after not only the people who did this, which should be because justice is required, right? Correct. But also also all the organizations that had ever called Charlie Kirk a Nazi because uh that's what led to this happening. And it's like, no, blessed are you when men shall revile you and persecute you and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely for my sake.

If Charlie Kirk was a Christian and Charlie Kirk was doing God's work and people were calling him a Nazi, Charlie Kirk is blessed by that. Those people blessed him. And if they did it to such a degree that it made someone operate operating under demonic influence martyr him and give him a crown of martyrdom then he is blessed and then that is blessed. Then that whole thing is blessed. If Charlie Kirk is a Christian and if the work that Charlie Kirk was doing was the work of God, then the whole thing is blessed. Glory to God for all things. Now that is scandal.

Mhm. That is scandal to the word to the world. People watching your channel right now who are saying that they are Orthodox Christians are going to be completely scandalized by what I just said. But the cross is a scandal. It is foolishness to some people in the world. And to those who of us they're being saved, it is the wisdom of God. Right. I mean, to those of us who are Christians, yeah, the cross is the wisdom of God, right? And so I think that this this is the moment when those and and I believe that the vast majority of people who would be triggered by that the vast maj like I can understand and I know the turmoil that even hearing what I just said if they haven't already turned this off if they haven't already turned this off because the emotional turmoil and that is the demons Christ doesn't give you turmoil like that. When he convicts you, you lean in.

When he convicts you, you lean in. When when you are when you're at liturgy, when you're at services and a homaly is delivered by the priest that hits particularly deep and you say, "Oh, that's me. Lord have mercy. That is me." Do you walk out of the church or do you lean in? Right? That's it. And so then you have to decide is what is what I and what we have just said about this situation and the Christian response to this situation is that in line with the teachings of the church? Have have you or I said anything that is not completely in line with the teachings of the church and the the and orthodox theology?

Okay. So, if what we've said is in line with the teaching of the church and orthodox theology and what's happening inside of somebody who hears that is incredible turmoil, that's the demons. That's the demons. And so then if you reject that and then go on to serve whatever that thing is, whatever that temptation is, whatever that passion is, whatever that desire that is coming from intern inside of you, you're not serving Christ. Like we have to understand it that way. But we don't we don't really have another way. We don't have another way of understanding it.

There's two paths as you said. There's two ways. We're either with Christ or we're not. There is no neutral path. There's never a neutral. There is none. Yeah. And it's and it's not going to feel good because it's the cross. Like that's the that that's the I think you know this is this is the piece for this is truly the piece for men where men can learn from women where where the divine masculine can learn from the divine feminine. Right. And and it is all in that the womb that bore you and the breast that nursed you. Right?

Because yes, that is a sacrifice and that is pain and that is discomfort and and women have that in a way that men are not going to to have at the visceral level, right? But that's not what the the true cross that was bear that was born was. The true cross was to hear the word of God and to keep it. To hear the word of God and to keep it. Because to assume that she had zero turmoil, she probably had a lot less than most everybody else because she was p very pure, very purified at that point. But to believe that she had no turmoil, well, Christ himself had turmoil in the garden at Gethsemane.

Mhm. He's praying and sweat is coming. He's praying. Father, take this cup from me. If it be your will, that's turmoil. That's discomfort. And he's God. So, she probably had some, too. And so, it's like these men, these men, they want to go to that. There there's your war. There's your war. It's this moment right now. This moment right now is is your war. This moment right now to where you say, "Oh, the hardest thing right now is to say glory to God for all things and mean it." There could be nothing harder than that.

It would be so much easier to go out and shoot somebody and kill them and even get killed myself or hurt or bleed. That would be so much easier right now than to say, "Glory to God for all things." But the only way that that this is solved and we get through this is glory to God for all things. Yeah. And it it also reminds me of the the apostles in the garden as as the Lord is being betrayed, right? We have a new icon of this on the wall. Yeah. Yeah. It's it's the icon of the uh you know the the whole scene is very chaotic. You've got the soldiers and the swords on one side. You've got Judas kissing the face of the Lord and then all the disciples swords drawn and the only figure that's total peace is the Lord and it's the Lord looking at you right amongst all this chaos and betrayal and it's such a moving icon because that's what we want to do. We want to fight like we want to we want human justice is what we want

and you can't have human justice and divine justice. I don't think I don't think that happens. And the manifestation of this with the devouring mother. So this is how we go full circle, right? So the manifestation of this with the with the devouring mother is the it's it's the same. She has the same turmoil, but her turmoil is the turmoil of the mother of God to to to still to look at her son on the cross and to still glorify God. She's a human being. She's a human being. Mhm. An angel comes, tells you you're going to bear God.

Gives you a a a virgin birth of a a virgin to where everybody's thinking you're lying, right? You got to first you got to bear that. You bear the Lord. You watch him through his ministry. You watch people say these things about him, but you know who he is. So, not only is he your son, of course you love him, but he's God and he's perfect and they put him on a cross and they're hurting him and they're killing him and they're laughing about it and still and still she's she's she she stays to save mankind. She doesn't turn and say they're not worthy. Were those were were was anyone to reach out to her and beseech her to pray to her son on their behalf, she would do it.

If they pray out pray out earnestly no matter what they've done. That woman who left her her kid in the car, right? But the devouring mother, the devouring mother no you're not going to the cross. She's She doesn't let Charlie She doesn't let Charlie Charlie you can't go out in front of those people. You got to do these on Zoom because what if something happened to you? You know, one of the interesting things that I saw the the that was so interesting because they are the manifestation of the devouring mother that as I was uh you know, flipping through with the Charlie Kirk thing and watching the mainstream MSNBC, CNN and all of that as they were reporting on this, they kept saying over and over and over again, "But there was no security.

Why was there no security?" They were interviewing people and they were like, "But was there security?" Somebody was like, "Well, I bought a ticket, but nobody checked tickets. Just everybody just came. But security, why was there security? Why wasn't there security? There shouldn't There shouldn't there have been security? There was no security. And it's like that's the devouring mother. There's a reason there was no security. Because if it was the if Jesus didn't have security, you just brought it up. He said, "She's your sword.

I don't need security." This is blessed. What's happening right here? I don't need security. The devouring mother is like security. We need sec. That was co overabundance of it. Too much. Well, but if you have all that security, the you the thing can't happen. The thing can't happen that is to the glory of God. If you have all that security, yeah, you're preventing the cross. This is you can I could talk about that for an hour on in parenting and the the way we make the world so safe for children in a way that it impedes their growth. You can't get a driver's license as easy as you used to.

You can't work like you used to. Uh I mean I could literally I could talk for an hour about that. So um yeah, that's spot on. And I've noticed it's often about control. It's kind of framed in security, but it's really control. Even in a in a mother and child situation. And if you're a mother, you should want the best for your child. You should love your child not in a way that idolizes the child or your or yourself as a mother, but to love is to give your life for them. So it doesn't matter how I feel. It's like I have to whether it's I have to give you a little spanking or I have to do this thing I don't want to do because that's what you need. That's what love is. It's what the mother does.

And that's the that's the way of life. That's the way of life. And and because it is it is in suffering that there is growth. All all growth is through suffering. There can be no growth without suffering. It always hurts. It always hurts to grow. But the the the role of a mother, but especially not the I mean a mother is one thing because she does have those maternal instincts, right? And and she is going to I see it in my I see it in my own wife, right? And how we temper each other's discipline and we and it's so it's so needed, right? But also, I can tell those moments when she's like, she backs off and she's like, "Well, your father's dealing with it now." Right? That it's like "Okay okay." you know, but it's that it's this it's this interplay. But also what I see is that I think that our I think that our children for the most part for the most part I mean I always I always question it but I think that our

children are for the most part well disciplined. Um, interestingly enough, their their teachers and their coaches always compliment on how good of children and well disciplined of children they are when they're not around us. And I'm like, are you talking about they're like, "Oh, she's a delight. Are you kid?" And I'm like, "You're talking about my daughter? What are you talking who who is this child?" Right? But it's like maybe that maybe that's a good sign. But the other thing that I also see is that our I know our children are infinitely comfortable around us right even even post discipline that there is not a not a shred of fear uh about about us and I think that that's there's something intrinsic about that that they know like that that's that's what love is right and I think that we could sometimes worry that we if we allow allow our children to suffer that somehow there will be some kind of

blame or something like that. And it's like, bro, it's actually the reverse. It's the reverse. Absolutely. It's the reverse. Talk to men who have overbearing mothers and see if there isn't resentment. Uh it's interesting because uh Milo Yiannopoulos was just recently on Candace Owens. I only listened to maybe about the first 20 minutes, but I thought it was really powerful because he was talking about how coming to Catholicism, I mean, granted is Catholicism, but how he he seems to be coming to it and how he has had a lot of revelations about, you know, the genesis of um his own homosexuality and perhaps the genesis of more homosexuality. But he did just keep bringing up overbearing mother.

It's a huge problem as like a key even more. He he brought it up as even more than like being abused. He was like that's definitely a thing and like that will definit that that will definitely do it. That will definitely disorder you and kick you over to this side. But he was like overbearing. He just kept overbearing mother overbearing mother. Overbearing mother, you know. And so if we want to talk about like Okay. Okay, so there we go. Here's the degeneracy right? Here's the degeneracy that that you want to talk about. And where's it's the trans. Well, where's all this trans stuff coming in? You look at these celebrities and they talk about, well, the mother has somehow convinced the child that they're trans.

Mhm. It's always the mother. It's never You don't hear this from the fathers are not being like the fathers, if anything, are are beaten down by the wives. Yeah. And that's the reason why they're going along with it and accepting it or becoming trans themselves, right? Like Bruce Jenner, right? So the o the control the control, the overbearing and the control, right? And so it's like, well, what's the solution? So it sounds like to me like when I see this whole thing I'm like man the devouring mother she's like the genesis of all this chaos in the same way that the mother of God the blessed mother is the genesis of life itself.

Right? So the cancer is coming from the womb of the devouring mother, so to speak, you know, which by the way, the whole thing about her womb is the devouring mother never lets the child out of the womb, which is going to it has to be born. Otherwise, it's going to die. When it's time for it to be born, it has to be born. Otherwise, it dies. If you keep it if you force it to keep it in the womb, it dies and you die. You both die. Right? So the devouring mother is like it's and it's so you can see how it is such the inverse and how our theology teaches us, right? How it teaches us like because so much is about the matrix- which means womb.

I didn't know that's what that meant. That makes sense. The word matrix matrix means womb. Wow. Right. Okay. And so so and so it's interesting when Andrew Tate says, "The Matrix is out to get me." Yeah. That puts it in a different light. Oh. Oh, you see. Yeah. You see, but it's her it's it's Go ahead. Go ahead. Yeah. I You know, I don't want to make this about me. That's Go ahead. But I've noticed that when I'm online, when I'm online and I'm interacting maybe with some young men that have some issues, I've noticed there's like this aggression towards me.

And after I heard you, I went, "Oh, they think I'm like their mother. They're like painting because I'm an older woman, right? I'm probably am their mother's age." I was like, "No, no, no. I actually want you to thrive. I'm not here to like be a hall monitor or whatever." Like, you know, my sons, I taught them to go out and my I'm going to brag for a minute. My 18-year-old like built his own house. Like, they can do stuff, you know, like you shall know them by their fruits. You shall know them by their fruits. And their dad, I mean, their dad taught them everything. I'm just saying it's that's not who I am. Like, I want the young men to go and to do stuff. And I think it might help the young men to think about that with the women in their life. They've got to have some woman in their life who's a healthy, you know, blessed mother archetype that they can maybe heal some of that relationship with.

Well, you know, again, this is the babushkas. This is the babushkas. This is the babushkas or the Greeks out there. Exactly. Exactly. Because because you know you look at a marriage and you look at how if it when we're following the way of life, how important of a figure if everything is in order is the wife's mother. How important is well both of both of them for sure. Both of them for sure. the wife's mother and the husband's mother, but for different reasons, right? The the husband's the husband's mother because she can both give him correction but also validation, right? Because there's there's a a female a female validation that he's not when things are in order that he's not always going to be able to get from his wife. And it's the validation of him just do being a man, just doing with my son. Like my son is awesome and he can do these things. And that's exactly right. And and in some

ways he shouldn't get that from his wife because that's his responsibility as a man to her. Yeah. You get what I'm saying? I do. I wouldn't say that to my husband. I did it. Right. Right. Right. You would you would you would help him. You would assist him in it. You would work with him. You're on his team, but you're not his cheerleader. Yeah. But men men don't just need teammates. They need cheerleaders. If we didn't need cheerleaders, there wouldn't be cheerleaders in sports. If it didn't actually help the team win, there would it wouldn't be universal.

That there would be women cheering. And not only that, any young man who played sports knows how important it is that his mother is there watching him and that and that she tells him how wonderful he played. It's why we have like team moms. Okay. Yeah, I can see that we need that. We It's It's crucial crucial and this is actually I will tell you this is the biggest problem with men. They don't have cheerleaders. No man, no man can thrive without a cheerleader. This is the one thing I could say about about my mother and I'm even getting goosebumps.

Me and my brother and we are high achievers. Oh, what a cheerleader. for all her flaws, for all the things that I could I we had a incredibly dysfunctional family, incredibly dysfunctional family on many levels. And she, you know, she learned a lot through her life and whatnot. But what a cheerleader. Almost to the point where I where I didn't even where I was like, would you stop? Would you would you just stop? You're embarrassing You're embarrassing me, Mom. You're embarrassing me, Mom. Like, you want your son to Oh, it's so important, mothers, that that you that you cheerlead your son to the point about his real not not about fake things, about real things.

About real things about the real things that he's done that you see that maybe other people don't see that you see. And get him to the point where he says, "Mom, please stop. You're embarrassing me." Do it. Do it. He's because everything before mom stop you're embarrassing me is nourishment. That's so good. I can totally see that in my nephew. I can see that in my nephew too. You know, he was the typical kind of young man was struggling a lot in school because school is designed for girls and other reasons, right?

And he got out, you know, high school. He's a little overweight, just no self-confidence at all. But my sister just all those years poured that into him and just eventually he just flipped and he works out and he's healthy and he's reading all these great books and married kids like the whole thing. That's it, you know. And I really think it's his mom doing that for him. Not telling you can't Yeah. Not telling him to live at home forever, but just you can do it and he did it. But I think that this is so now I think we're really digging in, right? Because now we've come full circle to this dichotomy and me saying there's not a separation between the two.

There's not a separation between that good man that you see and the the his mother. The good man that you see is the the the product. She she's she's giving birth to that man. Right. And on the other side, right, the the wife's mother is so crucial when things are ordered because she is the one that tells her to tone it down and appreciate him while at the same time taking the burdens that she has of motherhood off her at every opportunity and telling her. Go take care of yourself as a woman. You're not just a mother.

You're a woman. Let me take the kids so you and your husband can go out. Let me let me let me watch them and you go get your hair done. Go get your nails done. Go to the gym. Go hang out with your girlfriends. Go do something. I got the I got these little babies. Don't worry about it. Mhm. And it's in those moments that she also because that's when she's going to take the role cuz she needs them all to herself, too. Cuz she's going to teach them that she's teaching them. That's when she's imparting. That's when they're going to learn the things.

That's where they're going to learn the food and the stories and who their family is and who their mother is and all of these. And they're going to develop that relationship. And that's when they're going to develop a confidant. You could tell me things that you can't tell your parents. You ever anything come to me? Children need that badly and they need to hear the same thing their parents are telling them from somebody else too. Like grandma is not a good grandma is not going to go against what the parents are saying, right? She's going to help the child to understand the parents and what they're acting out of love, right?

And what happens if every woman in society decides she's not going to be a grandma? I guess we don't survive. What happens to your society? We're dead. We don't We're dead. We're dead, right? And so these things are simple when you see them. When you see them, there's nothing complex. There's what that's why I was telling you philosophy, that stuff, I can't stand it. And we're going to make up some new Let me make up some new jargon about this little symbol over here and how we're doing a pedagogical blah blah blah. What are we talking about? We're talking about grandmas, man. We're talking about why we need grandmas. Like, it's really that simple. We don't have grandmas being grandmas. And because we don't have grandmas being grandmas, we don't have mothers being mothers and fathers being fathers and husbands being husbands. And we and the kids are growing up malformed. Period.

Absolutely. Absolutely. And I do want to interject here. Little shameless plug. Another video I have is um a Siberian's grandmother uh letter about confession and it's a conversation the grandmother has with the granddaughter and it is one of the most beautiful things. I'll try to repost it under this video but you see the grandmother lay out so gently for the granddaughter like what how to go to confession and like how to see your sins, right? and says at one point, you know, selfishness is like, well, the sugars are expensive and for a long time you're the only one taking sugar.

Did you not notice your mom wasn't taking sugar in her tea? And the girl gets ashamed. She's like, I didn't say it to shame you, love. You know, no one cares about the sugar, but I'm I'm showing you something, right? And this is the value of a of a pious granny. It can't be understated. Very true. It's very true. Yeah. A friend of ours here, there's a Go ahead. I'm sorry. Please continue. I'm sorry. I was going to say uh I think they're they might be the least valued person in society. Might I think when we have the whole Karen thing going on, they might because people think of an inversion, right? Like the the good grandmother, it she doesn't exist almost at this point.

She's hard to find. So hard to find. Well, that's a culture that's about to die. So, what do people do if you don't have a grandma? Do you go find one? That's That's what I did. But what do people do? For sure. For sure. I think that the I think that the first thing is the first thing is simply to just see. to just see and to just value and to just communicate the value as we're doing here so that people can see because I think that no matter whether some this isn't even an orthodox conversation because the value of grandmothers is not orthodox it's it is it is completely orthodox right because it's the way of life but it's but it's not like some specifically orthodox Christian thing because the value of grandmother is, as you said, it's in every single culture that survives.

Every single culture that survives. If you see a culture that doesn't have it, that culturees dead man walking, right? So, the first thing is if you want to if you want to salvage your culture, well, look, I mean, we know that it's in the church, right? That that's where the salvation lies, of course. Yeah. I'm I'm just saying practically as a family would do what you So so so I think here's the here's the thing. We can we can often want to uh give some like checklist of like what are the there's a temptation always to do that. Like there's a temptation and I'm not even gonna I'm going to try to keep this away from anything mystical in this case, but I'm going to say that like even if I give somebody a checklist, if their intention is to check off the checklist, like we get like what you would call like mission creep or it's it doesn't it doesn't actually like solve it. We it's what it's becomes

bureaucratic, right? And then like you your culture still dies because you're like no but I'm checking off it's the it's idiocracy where they go why are you why are you watering the plants with brondo? Well because it's got electrolytes is what plants need. And it's like wait well wait a minute wait a minute. And so you're like no we got to check off this list. It's so important that we check off this list of things. And it's like no no bro it's not about the list. It's about how do we get grandma's right? Like even I don't know the I don't know the list. Maybe this list is wrong. And it also presents a situation where it's like maybe this list is for today, but tomorrow there needs to be something added or something taken away or whatever. But if you're so obsessed about, well, but we didn't check this.

We didn't. And this happens to people so often. I see it all the time. But we didn't check off this. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But it's not about checking the thing off. Dude, the reason we put it on there in the first place is so that we could get more grandmas. And now that's not going to work. So, we need to take it off and put on the thing that we now know will get us more grandmas. Right. Right. This is the issue of why we don't have an orthodox curriculum, by the way, because there is no perfect orthodox curriculum. It will never exist.

Exactly. You have to be an orthodox teacher in your own heart and soul and then your curriculum's orthodox. That's how you do it. And well, the curriculum is clearly we're talking about the curriculum. Yeah. Right. the the curricul look there's no curriculum that could have produced that letter that's right of the grandmother to her granddaughter. There is no curriculum that you could ever design that the result of that curriculum the fruit of that curriculum would be that letter and yet that letter is exactly what is needed.

Right? So let's talk about the things that are actually practical. Okay? Right? Actually practical. So what is always actually practical is to figure out what is the most important thing and to orient toward it. So right now we're talking about what is the most important thing and we've already identified the most important thing is life because that's Christ. He tells us he is life which is also truth. It's a truth. It's an equal. Truth equals life equals Christ. They're equ they're equivalent with each other. They're the same. They're the same thing, the same concept, the same idea.

Right. They're just again they're uh they're they're distinctions without a difference. Just like my hand and my foot. Right. Right. So, it's about value and like we've basically done it. we've done the practical thing in this conversation because there's people if they if they've continued listening if they weren't if they if they stuck around right after I after I dropped the bomb into the conversation and it exploded if they've stuck around right then they are probably chances are because it's not something that we in our culture think about very often they're probably like oh yeah this grandma thing is kind of really important Maybe they're old enough that they uh like I would say I'm old enough. I'm 47.

Um it was still kind of like the grandma like I had grandmas who were like that. Like what I'm describing is I had grandma's like me too. And it was like yeah it was my grandma who took me to church. That's true for so she grandmothers are I mean my our Russian we have a Russian friend here woman who we were sitting talking about orthodoxy and she was like yeah you know my parents never took me to be baptized but I would go to out to Siberia she's from Vladavosto I would go out to Siberia to to my babushka like for a couple of weeks to to help with like the the harvest And it was actually her that took me.

Even my mom didn't know. She didn't even tell my mom. Like she took me to get baptized and then it was her that would take me to to church. And you know, she's telling me very common. Yeah. Oh, so common in the Russia. Yeah. And and so it's like, whoa. Okay. Wow. saving saving the the grandmother is saving the child, right? This is so it's like it's at every level of analysis that it's like we are disordered in the most simple ways. I think that that's really the practical thing. The practical thing is like we're not disordered in a way where you need to write a 70,000word blog about, you know, the decline of the West and how that was affected by, you know, what happened with Bzantium and then we had the gold standard that was removed and then you did all blah blah blah and that and that's it's not no dude.

It's not even about that. We're disordered in ways that are like manifest in your life that that you're that that you as like if it's a woman that you are thinking about be growing older with fear and trepidation like that you are thinking about moving into that period of your life and that you are raging against it to do anything to prevent it rather than leaning into it as your martyrdom, right? And that it's like, no, now I can really serve Christ. And how blessed is it that I can play that role and my husband can't play that role.

He'll play a different role. He'll play a different role, right? And it's a very important role but it's not that one. This is a one only I can play you know and it's like that that is how that is how you save your culture. It sounds and it sounds so like it's not what we want. It's not the answer that we want. We want a complex answer that's that's got this glory in it and we get to do all this organizing and all this stuff. It's not. No, but it's interesting that you bring up disorder because I don't know the last month in particular, this idea of disordered life is coming up everywhere for me. And we already know like in our theology, the passions are disordered desires. Like that's what they are, right? And and whenever there's some movement in me that I can feel is not right, it's Yeah.

it's stemming from some disordered. Yeah. And you know, I do a lot of the like very practical like being careful about what your kids should watch on TV. Like that's a big thing I think PE parents should do. But ultimately, it does go back to disorder. Like what are what is your what are you trying to do with with your life? Like you said, are you going the path to life or the path of death? Keep pouring life into your kids every day or are you pouring things that are putting them on the other path? That's really what it is. But it I don't know why people seem to need, you know, the really obvious things.

Don't take mushrooms. Don't give your kid a phone. Don't watch porn. Like, you know, it is a checklist, right? It's a pretty bare bones checklist, but that feels like where we're at with people. But the checklist doesn't solve it. Because the thing is, you could do all of those things, but if you're But if you're disoriented, the devouring mother will do all those things. Yeah, you're right. We see a lot of that. Actually, we see a lot of that. Thank you. So, it's so it's none of those. So, it's none of those things.

Like, it's those things if those things are done from an orientation toward Christ. If they are done for any other reason then they are not I mean it's just it's the same but this is like man everything is always the truth is always on every level and all things right so it's the same thing that I especially young men coming into the church who will ascribe virtue to what my father would call he wouldn't say it about the church but he would say it about sports he he he used to refer to the trappings of sports Right. And he would say it's like when we would talk about what the colors of the uniforms were or what type of football helmet we were using this year or what the best cleats to buy were, he would say that's the trappings.

Yeah. That's the trappings. And there's nothing there's nothing in that, right? Because the real what you're here to do is about like it's what's in here and it doesn't matter what's you could be barefoot. You could have nothing and maybe that would be better for you. at the end of the day and don't focus on that at all. But it's the same thing, you know, young men where they they will get, you know, who who chanting, right? Uh or or uh they want to talk about in they get real obsessed with in incense and the layout of how the icons are and and all of this fasting. Oh, I'm going to get real big on the fasting.

And I'm like, "Brother, incense, candles, icons, fasting. I did all that in a cult. In the occult magic, you summon demons with the same thing. Go read Alistister Crowley. He don't read Crowley, guys. But I get your point. Fair enough. It's the if if one were to read Alistister Crowley, there you go. you would see that before a before a black mass, it's going to be the exact same prescription that you have in terms of fasting as the church gives us before liturgy. Really? Wow. And so it's like there's no there's no fasting. It's not the fasting.

It's that you are taking action specifically oriented toward Christ and his worship and that you are making that sacrifice to Christ. It's not about sacrifice. You can sacrifice to demons, but that what you are doing is oriented towards Christ. And so I think that that's the thing that it's like seek to orient seek to orient toward Christ. Then it's like, is that going to manifest as you not giving your kid a phone? Maybe. Maybe it's or maybe it does for you. Maybe it doesn't. Maybe that's why we have fools for Christ.

Like maybe it doesn't, maybe it doesn't for you. But the the the key is that you are interrogating and that your action is to serve Christ. So like how can I serve you? This is the way of life. I have a responsibility to my child. Uh you participated in the creation of this life. You are participating in my marriage. You are participating in my home. You are participating in this child with me. I am oriented towards you. You are the king. You are my leader. I am every day concerned with serving you more than serving myself. Okay.

Here's the here's the thing that I'm about to do. And then that heruristic, can Christ come with you? Can Christ come with you on this? Now, obviously, there's some things that are just like clearly that we don't even need to like take mushrooms. We don't even need to talk about that because that's the demons. Christ can't come. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Right. We don't even need like we don't even need to mention that, right? Well, let's let's you know, let's mention let's go out and slit somebody's throat for no reason. No, we're not. Wait, what? What are we talking about?

Yeah. Right. Go burn go burn down a school for no reason. Christ is not he's not coming with you on that mission. So we don't even there's we don't even need to talk about that. Right. It's the things that are like that are not that are like well but what's the what are you asking of me? And and I think that what's the most important thing is like I don't know, right? That's the first thing like I don't know. There's this thing I'm conflicted. It's not obvious whether you to me whether you could come with me or not.

And it's actually like it's then the this it's actually that that draws you closer to Christ because what do you have to do to get the answer? You have to move closer to Christ to get the answer in prayer. in confession, in services, in discussion with your spiritual father or godp parentents. Yeah. And I think this is why the modern Greek elders are so important because they really exemplify the freedom that you're talking about, you know. Um, and I think people maybe I attended a Greek monastery and I think people um maybe look at Greeks as being lax and and some are you're going to have lax people in every church. But what I really see in the Greeks is this freedom that you're talking about that whatever Christ wants like it's not about a checklist. It's not about a certain set of rules or doing things just right. There there's just total freedom. It's a relationship of love and of um

trying to be with Christ and no matter what the situation is. And I I don't know that I've seen that anywhere else like I've seen it in the Greek church in America and in Greece. St. Purious being probably the pinnacle of that. It is the well it is if if Christ is a person for real right which he is then that's that's the only thing that you could expect like if you are being led by Christ and not a book or a checklist or an ideology or something on paper or well that's yourself right or yourself or some other person, right? If you are being led by Christ and if he's here and if he has a relationship with you and if you can go to him again, that's why there's no curriculum because he's just like you don't need a curriculum when the master professor is already standing in front of the class.

You don't need the Bible if you have the Lord in front of you like the apostles did. You know, I mean, it's like Yeah. Or like St. Mary or like St. Mary of Egypt did. Mhm. Or like St. Mary of Egypt did. Right. Because she says to St. Zimus, "I've never read a book. I've never read scripture, nor have I ever had it read to me, but the spirit of God which is alive makes a man wise." Because she was quoting scripture to him. Are you you've read scripture? Never read it. Spend 25 years with Christ and uh in the desert in prayer. And yeah, it's not like he's going to say something different than he said to everybody else. It's the It's the same guy.

No, he said it to me, too. Have you read scripture? No, he said it to me, too. Right. Wow. And I think that that's and and that that's the practical thing is it's like he's standing in front he's standing in front of you to teach you just lean in. Well, Srira, we've gone two hours. That sounds like a really excellent place to stop. Um I appreciate your time. Um where can people find you online? Nowhere now. Glory to God. Maybe my maybe my YouTube channel at least. Yeah. Well, there you go. Yeah, there's a lot of interviews. So, just go and just go and search my name somewhere. You'll find it.

Google. All right, Sabrian. Well, thanks so much for being here and uh thank you. God bless everyone.

Questions about this episode

What is "Cyprian (Vin Armani) on The Divine Feminine, Charlie Kirk, Family Life, and more" about?

In this episode of Orthodox Family Life, host and guest Cyprian (Vin Armani) explore the divine feminine, examining the devouring mother and blessed mother archetypes and why Orthodox Christians should take them seriously. Cyprian draws on the centrality of the Theotokos in Orthodox theology and contrasts her with the mother-goddess cults of the ancient world, which he links to demonic influence…

What is mentioned in this Orthodox Family Life episode?

17 people, works and ideas are mentioned, including Charlie Kirk, The Female Brain, Father Turbo Qualss, St. Cyprian of Antioch, Priscilla and Aquila, Donald Trump. Each one on this page links to its own page with every episode that mentions it.

How long is "Cyprian (Vin Armani) on The Divine Feminine, Charlie Kirk, Family Life, and more"?

The episode runs 2 h 3 min; the transcript is about 19,296 words in 150 timestamped sections.

More from Orthodox Family Life

About this transcript: the episode's spoken words as captioned on YouTube, split into timestamped sections. Reclip.Me locates every person, work and idea in the text, keeps the time it is first named, and quotes the words around it verbatim. Last updated October 9, 2025.