Is Orthodoxy Too Foreign?

Dr. Alan Harrelson is an historian, musician and Southern Agrarian who was raised Pentecostal, but has converted to Roman Catholicism. I find his cultural commentary to be very interesting, and usually agree with him. I have no doubts that Dr. Harrelson is completely sincere in his beliefs, and is a good man.

However, in a recent video, he decided to address the question of Orthodoxy in the American South. He said that almost every 3 or 4 days, he gets an email or comment on his channel asking him why he become Roman Catholic rather than Orthodox. And so in this video, he answers this question.

He says:

"I think that Culturally, Orthodoxy is very very foreign to the American South.... There is a history of Catholicism in the South. Particularly around New Orleans and around different coastal regions, Maryland... people moved from Maryland to the bluegrass region of Kentucky. I fail to understand why, particularly young Southern men, are becoming attracted to Eastern Orthodoxy. It's a different culture. It's not our people. It's Christian, but it's not a part of the universal papacy."

I first came across Dr. Harrelson when he gave some lectures at the Abbeville Institute (e.g. "The Origin and Character of Southern Music," "The Southern Origins of the Bluegrass Sound," and "Gospel Music and the Rural South"). The past president of that organization is Dr. Donald Livingston, who is himself an Orthodox Christian, and he doesn't feel he has adopted a foreign religion. He is also one of the founders of the Ludwell Orthodox Fellowship, which has as its purpose, the spreading of Orthodoxy in the South.

It is certainly true that there is a longer history of Roman Catholicism in the South, and that the numbers of Roman Catholics have certain been much larger, but it is not true that Orthodoxy has no history in the South. My cousin Philip Ludwell III (1716 – 1767) was the first known convert to Orthodoxy in colonial America. He came from a prominent Virginia family, and was related by blood to both the Washingtons and the Lees (who are also my cousins). As a member of the Royal Governor’s Council he played a key role in obtaining a commission for George Washington as Colonel of the Virginia Regiment in 1755. By that time, he had already been an Orthodox Christian for about 17 years. George Washington courted his sister-in-law, Lucy Grymes, who to his sorrow, ended up marrying Henry Lee II, and together they became the parents of General Henry "Light Horse" Lee, and the grandparents or General Robert E. Lee. He translated “The Orthodox Confession” of St. Peter (Moghila), and this translation is still in print to this day. He also translated the text of the Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts of St. Gregory the Dialogist.

There was a prominent Serb who fought in the Texas Revolution -- Đorđe Šagić, AKA George Fisher. By the time of the Civil War (AKA the War to Prevent Southern Independence), there were Orthodox parishes in Galveston Texas, and in New Orleans. There were Serbs that fought for the Confederacy in the Cognevich Company which was part of the Fourth Regiment of the European Brigade which was part of Louisiana Militia. There were also Serbs who fought with the Slavonian Rifles at the Battle of Gettysburg, at least one of which was killed there. There were also Greek Confederates, some of whom also lost their lives in battle.

As, I am sure, Dr. Harrelson would acknowledge, the dominant religion in the South has always been Protestant, and to Protestants, Roman Catholics have generally been seen as very foreign too. And, as a matter of fact, Orthodox Christians in the United States have been using English in their services for a lot longer than Roman Catholics have.

Aside from that, the current forms of worship found in most Roman Catholic parishes in the United States today would seem very foreign to Southern Roman Catholics of previous generations. I am sure that Flannery O'Connor would feel far more at home in an Orthodox Liturgy today, than she would in a Charismatic Catholic Church Mass, or at Pope Leo's recent LGBTQP pilgrimage to the Vatican, or even in a more common Novus Ordo Mass. I also don't think she would be a big fan of Pope Francis's decision to bless gay couples (a decision which has gone unchallenged by the current Pope).

I would also note that the kind of worship that takes place in most Protestant churches in the South today bears little resemblance to the kind of worship that I remember when I was growing up, prior to Protestant worship essentially becoming the adult version of what used to be called "children's church," with its focus on entertainment and with contemporary music and vapid lyrics taking the place of the old hymns that had been standard fare for generations.

For a typical Southern Protestant, an Orthodox Liturgy which is conducted in English is no less foreign than a traditional Roman Catholic Mass... and a lot less foreign than a Mass conducted in Latin. And the fact that the Orthodox Church is not a part of the "universal papacy" makes it even less foreign to those from a Protestant background.

"When you have a culture that is dedicated to the principles Western civilization -- which is what the South is -- Orthodoxy doesn't fit very well into that. Orthodoxy is more or less an ethnic religion. You have Russian Orthodoxy. You have Ukrainian Orthodoxy... so forth and so on. It's ethnic."

Most Roman Catholic parishes in the US were divided along ethnic lines until the last several decades, and some still are. But while you still can find some very ethnic Orthodox parishes, most parishes are very mixed. Of the adults in my parish, about 30% to 40% come from a traditional Orthodox ethnic background, but the rest are converts that consist of typical American white folks, black folks, Asians, and Hispanics of various varieties.

To sum up his answer to the question of why he became Catholic and not Orthodox, Dr. Harrelson says:

"Because I believe in the universal papacy. I believe in the teaching authority of the magisterium. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the heartbeat of Western Civilization. And anything Southern that we can celebrate comes out of the heartbeat of Western Civilization. So, no. I say "no" to Orthodoxy in its relationship to the South. I say "yes" to my Protestant brothers and sisters. I say "yes" to Roman Catholicism. That is where the religiosity... the older religiousness of the South truly exists."

Does Dr. Harrelson not consider Greece to part of Western Civilization? Would he want to categorize Dostoyevsky and his writings, which are considered to be among the best works of literature ever written in any language, as Asiatic? Did Tesla play no role of significance in Western Civilization?

Furthermore, though I would agree that Protestantism is a product of the "universal papacy," the excesses of which spawned it, I doubt most Southern Protestants would be inclined to agree that the Papacy is the heartbeat of Western Civilization.

The reality is that Orthodoxy is booming in the South, and men and women, both old and young, are flocking to it precisely because they are rejecting what the "universal papacy" and its offsprings have come to, and it is that "older religiousness" of the South that is largely motivating them to move in that direction.

The Ludwell Orthodox Fellowship is hosting a conference in Kentucky (where Dr. Harrelson currently lives) on September 12th, and I hope he will come and give it a fair hearing.