How to Be an Orthodox Christian

Recent episodes

1. Confession: Holy Repentance and the Second Baptism from How to Be an Orthodox Christian

   Jul 20, 2026

   Taking up the first of the Mysteries of healing, Dcn Seraphim presents Confession not as a courtroom but as a hospital — the place where the oldest human reflex, Adam hiding among the trees, is finally undone. He recovers the meaning of repentance as metanoia, a change of mind and a turning toward home rather than a religion of guilt, and distinguishes the godly sorrow "mingled with joy" from the worldly sorrow that ends at the noose. Drawing on St. John Climacus and St. Symeon the New Theologian, he explains why the Fathers dare to call confession a "second baptism" — the renewal, not the repetition, of baptismal grace — and walks through the Church's gallery of penitents as the Triodion sets them before us: the Publican, the Prodigal, David and Psalm 50, the sinful woman, Peter, and Zacchaeus, gathered up in the Great Canon of St. Andrew of Crete. Music Used: Cherubic Hymn, Romanian Chant, Tone 8 Choir of St. Seraphim Orthodox Cathedral, Santa Rosa, CA

2. The Holy Eucharist (Part 2): Worthy Preparation from How to Be an Orthodox Christian

   Jul 13, 2026

   In the second of two episodes on the Eucharist, Dcn Seraphim turns from what the Mystery is to how an Orthodox Christian prepares to receive it. He begins with St. Paul's sober warning that whoever eats and drinks unworthily is "guilty of the body and blood of the Lord" and "eats and drinks judgment to himself" (1 Corinthians 11), and draws the Church's careful distinction: no one is ever worthy of the Eucharist, but we are asked to come in a worthy manner. He walks through the converging disciplines of preparation — a life of continual repentance, confession, the Eucharistic fast, the pre-Communion prayers, and reconciliation with the brethren (Matthew 5) — and then closes with the practical mechanics of approaching the chalice, the prayers of thanksgiving, and the Christian live as lived from chalice to chalice. Music Used: Cherubic Hymn, Romanian Chant, Tone 8 Choir of St. Seraphim Orthodox Cathedral, Santa Rosa, CA

3. The Holy Eucharist (Part 1): The Mystery of All Mysteries from How to Be an Orthodox Christian

   Jul 6, 2026

   In the first of two episodes on the Eucharist, Dcn Seraphim explores what the Holy Eucharist is according to Holy Tradition: the fruit of the Tree of Life given again to the children of the new Adam, the sacrifice of Melchizedek brought to its perfection, the anamnesis of the Lord's passion, the very Body and Blood of the incarnate Christ made present by the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the gifts. Drawing on Nicholas Cabasilas's Life in Christ — "the clay is no longer clay when it has received the royal likeness, but is already the Body of the King" — he ends with the central claim of the whole Orthodox sacramental life: that the purpose of the Christian faith is to eat God so that we may become, by grace, what God is by nature. Handouts and resources: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1FOxCuUeiWEKWzdt_6w2i121c6R82hjVK?usp=sharing Music Used: Cherubic Hymn, Romanian Chant, Tone 8 Choir of St. Seraphim Orthodox Cathedral, Santa Rosa, CA

4. Baptism and Chrismation: The New Birth and the Breath of Life from How to Be an Orthodox Christian

   Jun 29, 2026

   Dcn Seraphim takes up the first two mysteries of Christian initiation: Baptism, by which we are reborn out of the waters into the humanity of the new Adam, and Chrismation, by which the Holy Spirit Himself is sealed upon us. Drawing on his own background as a former Baptist minister, he traces the two great modern misconceptions about baptism — that it is only a symbol, and that it can only be administered to those old enough to consent — back to the Radical Reformation, and refutes both from a long line of New Testament passages. He then walks through the Orthodox baptismal rite moment by moment. Handouts and resources: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1GSl_XdilbI9lDmaZYKufyh6pITpxmMni?usp=sharing Music Used: 11 Cherubic Hymn, Romanian Chant, Tone 8 Choir of St. Seraphim Orthodox Cathedral, Santa Rosa, CA

5. Introduction to the Holy Mysteries: What's with All This Stuff? from How to Be an Orthodox Christian

   Jun 23, 2026

   Every visitor to an Orthodox church eventually asks the same question — why so much stuff? The icons, the candles, the incense, the relics, the bread and wine and water and oil. In this episode Dcn Seraphim argues that the question itself is the wrong one, and that the Orthodox question is never "what is the bare minimum?" He diagnoses the quiet, unstated gnosticism that has shaped modern American religion and then lays out the central thesis that will frame the rest of the series: that the Holy Mysteries of the Church are the recapitulation, in Christ, of what God did with Adam in Genesis 1–3. Handouts and resources: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1xZEu9Y48xE8Z4A_XC7bKLjxbK39ZTreB?usp=sharing Music Used: 11 Cherubic Hymn, Romanian Chant, Tone 8 Choir of St. Seraphim Orthodox Cathedral, Santa Rosa, CA

6. The Moral Life (Part 2): Sexuality, the Sanctity of Life, the Tongue, and Possessions [EP. 9] from How to Be an Orthodox Christian

   Jun 15, 2026

   Picking up the framework from Part 1, Dcn Seraphim applies it to the specific moral questions where the Church's teaching most visibly cuts against the assumptions of our age. He begins by rejecting the quiet gnosticism of the modern world and affirming the goodness of the body, then takes up sexual ethics at length, working from Genesis 1 and Ephesians 5 to chastity, marriage as the icon of Christ and the Church, fornication, pornography, and the image of God in the human person. Finally, he talks about the discipline of the tongue: lying, gossip, judgment, and the new domain of online conduct. Handouts and resources: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/16IQ-i3cukC75VMFRqGP1q9oLoED_uXa-?usp=sharing

7. The Moral Life (Part 1): The Ten Commandments, the Sermon on the Mount, and the Transformation of the Heart [EP. 8] from How to Be an Orthodox Christian

   Jun 8, 2026

   In the first of two episodes on the moral life, Dcn Seraphim works through the two great moral texts of Scripture — the Ten Commandments given to Moses on Sinai, and the Sermon on the Mount given by Christ to His disciples on a mountain in Galilee — and shows how Christ does not abolish the law given to Moses but fulfills it, taking it inward into the dispositions of the heart. The Decalogue marked off Israel by clear external standards of conduct; the Sermon on the Mount addresses a new community, the Church, in which God is concerned not only with our outward actions but with our inner thoughts, our affections, and the very movement of our wills. Handouts and resources: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1z-OVpbdZqhEDT0v3M9tipcdb-_frY4zP?usp=sharing

8. Holy Tradition: Scripture, Councils, Fathers, and Liturgy [EP. 7] from How to Be an Orthodox Christian

   Jun 1, 2026

   Where does all of it come from — the eastward-facing altar, the icons, the hymns, the precise theological claims woven into every prayer? In this episode Dcn Seraphim takes up the question of Holy Tradition: not a rulebook or a second Bible, but the whole living transmission of the Christian faith from the Apostles to today, the river in which Scripture itself flows. Drawing on St. Paul, St. Irenaeus, the ecumenical councils, and the witness of saints from St. Athanasius to St. Sophrony of Essex, he shows how the Church discerned the canon, defined the faith at councils like Nicaea and Ephesus, and continues to confess that faith in her worship under the principle of lex orandi, lex credendi — the law of prayer is the law of faith. Handouts and resources: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1CD0DyDFbR8DEr1yNyb_N2tdrrX8PCmUL?usp=sharing Intro: 0:00 Two Modes of Transmitting Tradition: 4:04 Scripture in Tradition: 6:45 St. Irenaeus on Tradition: 12:06 Conciliary Principle/Councils : 13:56 Fathers of the Church: 21:45 What the Church pray is what we believe: 26:14 tradition vs. “T”radition: 30:36 Closing statements: 32:16

9. How to Read the Holy Scriptures [EP. 6] from How to Be an Orthodox Christian

   May 26, 2026

   In this episode, Dcn Seraphim explores the Orthodox understanding of the Holy Scriptures as a verbal icon of Christ — a living encounter with the One who speaks through every page, from Genesis to Revelation. He looks at how the Church gave us the Bible, why Orthodox Christians use the Septuagint, what is meant by reading Scripture with the Fathers, and why typological reading is not an invention of the Fathers but an extension of the way the New Testament teaches us to read the Old. Along the way he draws on St. Irenaeus, St. Theodore the Studite, St. Isaac the Syrian, and St. John Chrysostom, and shows how the hymns and readings of the Divine Liturgy are themselves the Church's living school of biblical interpretation. The episode ends with practical guidance for daily Scripture reading at home.

10. Almsgiving: How to Be Like God [EP. 5] from How to Be an Orthodox Christian

    May 18, 2026

    In this episode, Dcn. Seraphim takes up the third great discipline of the Sermon on the Mount and shows why the Orthodox Church understands almsgiving not as an optional extra but as the practice by which we become like the God who gives Himself away. Drawing on Christ's teaching in Matthew 6 and 25, the Book of Tobit, the parable of the Widow's Mite, and the writings of Sts. Basil, Gregory the Theologian, John Chrysostom, and Clement of Alexandria, he traces almsgiving back to its roots in the very nature of the Trinity. He then turns to the practical questions: tithing, the corporal and spiritual works of mercy, parish stewardship, and how the whole Divine Liturgy forms us as a school of giving. Show notes: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1WENS_5xjgyLnr5kJQPTiK3qqYTgi5Hd6/view?usp=sharing

11. Fasting: The Second Wing of the Christian Life [EP. 4] from How to Be an Orthodox Christian

    May 11, 2026

    Dcn Seraphim traces fasting back to the first commandment given in Eden — a commandment about food — and shows how the Fall itself was a failure of fasting, answered in the wilderness by the New Adam who refuses to turn stones into bread. Drawing on Basil, Chrysostom, John Climacus, and John Cassian, he distinguishes Orthodox fasting from dieting or self-punishment and presents it instead as the rider's training of the horse: a medicine for the soul whose dose must be fitted to each person through the Church's principle of oikonomia. Then, he walks through the Orthodox fasting calendar — the four great fasts, Wednesdays and Fridays, the approximately forty percent of the year spent in fasting — while pairing Christ's "when you fast" in Matthew 6 with Isaiah 58's warning that a fast without mercy is no fast at all. Practical guidance follows on how to live a fasting day, how cravings become occasions for prayer, and how every act of bodily restraint is oriented toward the Eucharistic table, where food is at last received on God's terms rather than seized on our own.

12. Prayer: The First Wing of the Christian Life [EP. 3] from How to Be an Orthodox Christian

    May 4, 2026

    Beginning with the desert story of Abba Macarius — "Lord, as You will, and as You know, have mercy" — this episode grounds Orthodox prayer in the simple act of turning toward God and asking for mercy. Dcn Seraphim moves from the definition of prayer as communion (Evagrius, Gregory Palamas, Anthony Bloom) into the Sermon on the Mount, walking phrase by phrase through the Lord's Prayer with the help of Chrysostom, Cyprian, Theophylact, Maximus, and Gregory of Nyssa. He then lays out the daily cycle of the Church and introduces a beginner's prayer rule as a trellis on which a prayer life can grow. The episode concludes with a demonstration of the rule at the icon corner and the encouragement that dryness in prayer is often the sign that God is drawing us deeper. PRAYER LESSON OUTLINE: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1wY5vsnQr2ND9GciZbsfV4b148k7qzlUp/view?usp=sharing SAMPLE PRAYER RULE: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1d2WdXDHC7_-Uw0oYDtEWlsXJ4fwYSn_Y/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=113635573846427389195&rtpof=true&sd=true

13. Entering the Church of God [EP. 2] from How to Be an Orthodox Christian

    Apr 28, 2026

    Orthodox Churches are laid out very differently from almost any other kind of church you're likely to walk into in North America. Why are there so many icons? What's with the wall and curtain between me and the altar? Why are people lighting candles? How should you stand, behave, dress, and orient yourself in Church? These are things that our ancestors took for granted -- and things that are often the most difficult and intimidating for newcomers. In this video, Dcn. Seraphim gives a tour of his own church, and talks about how the whole plan of salvation is inherent in the architecture and iconography of an Orthodox temple. Outro music: Cherubic Hymn, Romanian Chant, Tone 8 Choir of St. Seraphim of Sarov Orthodox Cathedral

14. Introduction [EP. 01] from How to Be an Orthodox Christian

    Apr 21, 2026

    Dcn. Seraphim opens the series by arguing that Orthodoxy is fundamentally a life to be lived — in the nave, at the icon corner, at weddings and deathbeds — rather than a body of information consumed on a screen. Drawing on the tradition of the martyrs and the Celtic threefold martyrdom (red, green, and white), he frames the goal of catechesis as the making of witnesses to Christ in whatever state of life God has placed them. He closes by previewing the shape of the series: praxis first (prayer, fasting, almsgiving), then moral life, the Holy Mysteries, and finally dogmatics. Outro music: Cherubic Hymn, Romanian Chant, Tone 8 Choir of St. Seraphim of Sarov Orthodox Cathedral