New digs for ponderings about Levantine Christianity.

 

 The interior of Saint Paul Melkite Greek Catholic Church, Harissa, Lebanon.

I have decided to set up a Substack exploring Eastern Christianity (especially the Melkite Greek Catholics) from the perspective of a near-complete noob. 

A near-complete noob nigh unto double-nickels in age, no less.

You can find it here, and follow/subscribe as you prefer. I do not have paid-only posts, nor do I judge if you do. I'm a paid subscriber to a couple myself.

But if you feel compelled to sling change over, I won't stop you, either. 

Prayers for your and yours.

So I have been trying to figure out what to do.

 Those who have followed this space no doubt noticed a bit of an eastward drift, spiritually. 

Largely, but far from entirely, due to Catholicism's current CEO, who seems to have certain similarities with a failed American business executive when I think about it. 

I can't quite pull the trigger on Orthodoxy for a clutch of reasons. I think a lot of the Catholic apologetic against Orthodoxy is unpersuasive to laughable, especially in light of the last decade.

But I also can't shake that there was a real primacy in the undivided Church, if not of the Vatican I variety. I may post about my thinking over the past year and a half one day, as it may be of some value. We'll see.

Where does that land me? It lands me in the Catholic branch of the Church of Antioch, better known as the Melkite Greek Catholic Church. The most ambivalent and independent of the Eastern Catholic Churches (though the current pontiff is also teaching the Ukrainian Catholics a valuable, if painful, lesson), the Melkites have spent the last three-plus generations recovering their Orthodox traditions, with full encouragement from That Council. And my wife is intrigued, which is essential. 

 So off we go. May God grant you and yours a blessed (Great) Lent.