The Left's Subversion of American Orthodoxy

The new "Renovationists" and their assault on Fr. John Whiteford and the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia

On March 12th the Texas Monthly published a hit piece titled “Inspired by the Confederacy and Czarist Russia, “Ortho Bros” Are on the Rise.” This “article” was primarily an attack on my father-in-law, Fr. John Whiteford, the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia (ROCOR), and the notion of Southern Orthodoxy. This article was authored by a recent convert named Meagan Saliashvili, a graduate of Harvard Divinity who posts many things which may lead one to believe she is an advocate of pro-LGBTQP church policy, abortion rights, and a female diaconate/priesthood (she has denied this - though not publicly - and I will take her at her word. continued in note¹).

Meagan’s narrative (as well as subsequent statements she has made on Twitter/X) is that far-right extremist conspiracy theorists are infiltrating the Orthodox Church and, aided by political preachers, seek to change the Orthodox Church into a haven for some weird mix of neo-confederate monarcho-fascism - as if that even makes s…