Father Nathan Monk

For many years now, I have silently been suffering from a persecution. I have endured this in silence, because I felt that it would be the most just thing for the persecutor and I prayerfully, or ignorantly, believed that all would be resolved in it's time. But this hatred that the individual has felt towards me has grown into lies, disgrace, and has begun to spread. I feel that silence no longer serves any good purpose and if my speaking out is in error, God forgive me.

I grew up in the Southern Baptist tradition and though I had never attended a liturgical service in my life, much less ever met a priest, I had an obsessive calling inside me to seek the priesthood. As a small child my mother found me after church one Sunday in our family barn with a cup of grape juice and baked bread with my bible open having private "communion". I rebelled against my calling. I never stepped foot in a Catholic Church. I ran like Jonah and God had a whale waiting for me.

One day, as I went to my ultra-trendy non-denominational church in downtown Nashville, an old homeless man sat outside begging. The congregation was meeting in a bar and a large sign outside said, "Rented for Private Event", hardly inviting. So there this man sat begging. Something inside of me was drawn to speak to the man. We talked for hours, and I heard the stories of his plight. All he wanted was out of this town and as it was I was leaving to visit my family in Florida. I offered to pick him up at that same spot in three days.

When the day finally arrived I silently hoped he wouldn't be there. What was I thinking? But there he was waiting for me with a smile. I drove him to Pensacola and stepped right into the belly of my whale, waiting. Six months later I would return to this town, six months later I wouldn't leave.

I arrived and took a walk downtown and met this homeless man again and listened to the stories of his struggles with the police and hateful people. While sitting there listening to my friend, an arab looking man approached me and gave me a $20 dollar bill and told me to buy this man and his friends food. He said his name was Abraham and then he left. I returned with food and the guys asked me if I would ever come back. I said I would return the next week and if I could I would provide food. I returned and with my father who helped me buy some chicken and chips. Each week I returned and each week the group would grow, but so did the volunteers. Soon, the questions people asked me stopped being simply practical, but also spiritual in nature. We began having open discussion bible studies in my home. I had no idea what I was doing.

The more that people asked me questions, the more I sought the answers, not just for them, but for myself. Little did I know, my search to help one man was becoming my vocation and even little less did I know, it was leading me into the very Church I had refused so often to enter. Each time I was searching for truth, the answers kept leading me to the Fathers of the Church and their answers did not simply stick to one idea. They did not divorce their theology from the poor and the eucharist, or redemption and suffering, there seemed to be an absolute continuity to their thinking.

My studying led me into the Old Catholic tradition, but shortly after this I began to realize some logical disconnects. As I would ask questions about these problematic issues I was given flat answers. And once I was asked the question that I could not answer regarding the Filioque clause, I realized I had an error on my path to truth and had taken a wrong turn somewhere. My wife had always appealed to me that we should have gone East instead of West. I should have listened. So, I humbly made the realization that I needed to appeal to Orthodoxy.

Over the years, our work with the poor had sometimes put us at odds with certain officials and other protestant churches. However, I had found a friend in a local Orthodox priest at the Greek Church. Father Michael was a great inspiration to me both in his care for his people and in his faith. But a schism was brewing under him that took us all by surprise. A few of the wealthier congregants at his Church where all converts and they didn't like the fact that they had a Greek Orthodox priest who was Greek. So they broke away and purchased their own building, started having lay prayer services, and the whole thing cost poor Father Michael his job. At the request of the parishioners who left, an Antiochian priest was sent to serve them and thus the local Antiochian parish was born.

Even though I personally could have been bitter at the loss of my friend and his cruel treatment, I decided that this poor young priest could not be blamed and I took the time to introduce myself. We had a surface level cordial relationship. After my conversation of the heart began and we appealed to the Antiochian Orthodox Church for reception, our relationship took a turn for the worse.

Almost immediately the local Antiochian priest decided to make an enemy of me. He appealed to his bishop to have our parish dissolved instead of received. But we had already been approved as a provisional mission by the Metropolitan and placed under the care of the Department of Missions and Evangelism. So this request of his was not successful.

We were told by the Department that our orders from the Metropolitan was to continue with "business as usual" until our reception. So I continued to say liturgy, baptize, and hear confession, all the while continuing my study and catechesis within Orthodoxy. We were told that this process would take six to eight months. We were also told to visit with the local Antiochian clergy and parishioners and "build a good relationship". So on Pascha of that first year we went to their local feast after we both had our respective liturgies. The priest, who had originally invited us, decided to shun me. The next day he called me and told me to never again speak to his people or address myself as Father or to wear a clerical collar. Now this was completely against the directives of the Department and the Metropolitan.

I called the priest back after he hung up on me and asked him why he hated us so much and why he was trying to hurt us. Doesn't he want us to be Orthodox? We met in person to try and resolve the issue, but he refused to see his error or how his shunning of us was not helping. Said he would again request that our church be dissolved and I be only allowed to be a layman. I was always received by the laity of the Orthodox Church even while I stood outside the walls.

During this time, a group of atheists who had been feeding the poor in Orlando were being arrested weekly for giving food away in a local park. Even though countless of them had been arrested, no one was willing to speak out against it. I reached out to the spokesman of their group because we had experienced similar issues here in the past and I wanted to offer encouragement. He asked me if I would be willing to come down to one of their protests and speak to their people. I was the only religious person who had been willing to talk to them. What an opportunity! To share the reason for our care of the poor with these people who suffered. A local Orlando paper printed an article on the issue and they identified me as an Orthodox priest.

That day I received an angry email from the head of the Department saying, "You aren't helping your case!" and saying, "What were you thinking!". We had been in limbo waiting for reception for nearly two years by now and I had never spoken to the bishop, but he wanted to speak to me now. So at his request I gave him a call. He spend fifteen minutes yelling at me, about why would I associate with these atheists, why would I go down there, didn't I know it would bring shame to the other churches, and he said, "If you come to Orlando, the doors of the Orthodox Church will be shut to you forever."

Thus began a long process of having to fix what I had apparently broken. As it turns out, the park where these young atheists were being beaten and dragged away in hand cuffs for feeding the poor was located directly across the street from an Antiochian Orthodox Church and apparently my appearance was to the priest's shame. The local priest there was offended, so I had to make a call and apologize. I did as I was told and the priest told me how upsetting it was to have the poor in this "nice park" and how he fears for his small dog whenever he has to walk by this "element downtown". He admitted to agreeing with the police for having these "atheist rift raft" arrested. So these poor souls were suffering their persecution at the hand of a priest who cared more for the sensibilities of his dog than the poor. He cared more for clean streets than the souls of these atheists. I was sick, but I was trapped.

That night I wept for hours, do I go for the redemption of the poor and of these young atheists suffering for their care of the poor? Or do I submit to my bishop who refuses to even recognize me as a sheep of his fold? I chose submission, but it was all to my damnation.

There was nearly eight months of silence and I began to lose faith. I had watched one by one as we lost people to other churches, other traditions, and I suffered through it all. But I needed to bring my people to safe harbor somewhere and I began to consider abandoning ship. Not for lack of belief in the theology, faith, practice, of principle of Orthodoxy but because of the practicality of it. I had found the truth, but I was standing outside of the walls of Jericho and I didn't know what to do. I confided this truth in a friend of mine who is a Orthodox lay person who is a blogger. He shared my story with another priest who called me and encouraged me to stick it out a little longer. Ultimately, I sent a letter requesting to be removed as a provisional mission and said I no longer desired to continue with the Antiochians. My letter was met with silence.

After this, I took some time for prayer and reflection and appealed to the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia and began the long process of school, canonical examinations, and application. It was like starting all over again. Everything was done in silence and secret because of the attacks we were receiving from the local Antiochian clergy. I couldn't even announce the date of my ordination. I felt like Paul being dropped out of the city gates in the basket.

Shortly after my application to Russia, I received numerous calls, emails, and messages from the Department, asking to meet with me. They sent a delegate and I shared my story with him. He spent a few days with us, he came to our parish council meeting, our food sharing, and to liturgy. He wrote review of our church and submitted it to the Department saying that he felt we had suffered enough and that we should be put on the fast track to reception. But the ball was in my court. I was assured it would only take "six to eight months", but the wounds were too deep to be repaired and I told him so. We had found a home in the Russian Church.

The whole time, I was hopeful that once everything was done, once we were canonical that the veil would be lifted, and the local clergy would be kind, that he would see the suffering and anguish he had caused and embrace me.

We did make it through the doors of the Orthodox Church, bloody and bruised, stumbling as we walked up to the altar, many friends who started the journey with us had exited, others had died before we got there, but here we are four years later. I wept as the bishop laid his hands upon my head, tears of joy, tears of relief, and tears of unworthiness. The day I returned to chrismate my people, I looked out upon the church, so many faces missing, so many faces down turned, we had started on what was promised to be six to eight months, and yet it felt like we had spent the time in the desert wondering as the Isrealites.

After I returned, I scheduled an appointment with the Antiochian priest. I arrived wearing my cassock and my cross, my now consecrated hands trembling as I approached him, this man had been the lock on the door I was told we would never pass through, we had beaten the odds, but giants don't fall softly. He greeted me with a kiss like Judas and asked me, "how did this happen?". I shared our journey, our story, a story of a wounded people coming home. He listened and finally said, "I have spoken with my bishop, you are never to come here again, your people can not receive here and mine will never receive from you, you can not concelebrate at this church, maybe someday things will be different but this is how it is now. Additionally, I would like a copy of your ordination certificate."

I spoke with my bishop and process has been made to resolve the issue, but the worst was yet to come. This priest walked up to his people, on the very day I served my first liturgy at our newly Orthodox Church, and denounced us, told them to stay away and reject us. I received emails from people across the states who heard about this and asking if a schism existed between Russia and Antioch and what was going on.

Now this priest and his friends have begun to say publicly that I am a "nutcase" who is a radical element in my care for the poor, they have lied and said I was rejected by Antioch and my ordination was refused, but this is hardly the truth, considering a delegate had been sent by their church begging us to come back after we had said we no longer wanted to be received.

The pain and suffering we received at the hand of this priest and his friends has been unexplainable, and they are continuing to spread lies, continuing to try and bastardize my name, accusing me of setting up a church in their area. Our congregation was here years before them! They were born out of schism but they accuse me of sheep stealing? All I have wanted is brotherly love, all I have wanted is peace, all I wanted was family. The wounds are so deep. I have silently in my heart struggled so deep and wept many a night away. I can not explain in any amount of words how hard this has been. All I have ever wanted is to care for the poor and to seek truth and it has all been to my own external damnation even if salvation awaits at the end.

Today, as many celebrate the feast of St. Basil, the protector of the poor, I must reflect on my silence, have I helped the Church by saying nothing during this persecution? Have I helped the poor or my people? No, I feel I have sinned in my silence because it was silence born not out of humility, but fear, fear of retaliation or rejection, fear of more hurt, more pain, more suffering, but not out of fear of the Lord. So whatever will be done to me for speaking the truth let it be but may it be for the redemption of us all and for unity. We can not be better if we don't acknowledge the truth. God forgive me if I error in speaking it.