An excerpt from a longer interview with Fr. Ted Pulcini a retired Orthodox Christian Priest and professor of religion at Dickinson College.

00:00 Search without being in private mode.

00:02 Sure.

00:03 Why? Because I don't want to be bombarded by things that cater to my basest, meanest level of personality. So, no.

00:12 But do you think, Father, that that's really any different than fundamentally than things have ever been? Was Sodom and Gomorrah about anything less than feeding an individual's need for dopamine?

00:29 Yes, I think you're right in the basic sense. But at Sodom and Gomorrah, there were larger circles of accountability that made Lot and his daughters get out of that town. They had to leave it, because in the larger accountability that they had, they realized that what they were doing there.

00:47 Was destructive just by staying, just by.

00:50 Saying, and why would anyone leave their house and their home and risk their wife turning into a pillar of salt and get out of there? Because there were other levels of accountability they could not deny. Take those levels of accountability out of that picture. Gee, this family would have stayed there and probably capitalized on.

01:14 They would have been blissfully unaware of just. Just how bad things were. You say. That makes me think of the question that always goes through my head, which is how Jews in, especially in Germany, but in Europe in general, watching developments through the 30s, stayed as long as they did. Well, of course, part of it was there was nowhere to go because nobody wanted them, but there were people who just stayed.

01:43 I know, but. Okay, let me be personal at this point. If I were 20 or 25, let's say 22, I just graduated from college, I would seriously consider moving out of this country. All right? Because I see patterns of interaction developing that I think are inevitably going to develop into violence, into coercive laws and things like that. I'm not saying anywhere else in the world is Shangri La or perfect. But I have to tell you, with all the advantages I have in this country with money and with structures that protect me and enrich me, there's something about that that makes me say it's going to degenerate into something that ultimately will be destructive and not helpful. And so maybe there's a different culture that I could live in. Maybe not do so well materially, but maybe psychologically and spiritually.

02:37 Think about when we lived in Crete.

02:40 Well, let me add one last thing.

02:41 Sure.

02:41 There are groups, there are subgroups in this culture that already do this. When I taught, and remember, I taught religion for 25 years here, you know, and I could see among my students a real interest, a developing interest in subcultures like the Amish and the Mennonites. How could you live in this area and not be somewhat attracted to that or people who. I had one student from a Jewish background, I taught a section on the Hutterites. She was obsessed with them, first of all, because she had an interest in farming communities and so forth. And she. What I'm saying is there are a lot of people who do want to leave, even though they can't say, I'm going to leave here to move to Sweden, for instance, or I'm going to leave here and move to Italy. That was my other option. But, I mean, I have to tell you that the people sense that something is awry here, and it's sort of like fighting to be at the top of the heap. If you're the king of the hill, you can stay, but if you're underneath, it can be very unpleasant. And if you're gonna raise families, you wanna do that in a place where that kind of dynamic is gonna form your children.

03:51 It's interesting you say that. Our public history speaker a couple weeks ago, Sheila Joy, she graduated our program 2015. Her first job was at the Lutheran Seminary in Gettysburg. And now she's moved on to their archive somewhere outside of. Outside of Phillies, Montgomery county, somewhere. Anyway, and I've lost my train of thought where we're going with this.

04:23 About the subcultures.

04:24 About the subcultures and the. Gosh, I hate when this happens.

04:30 Well, I remember I was talking about students who were attracted to this.

04:33 Oh, yeah. We were talking about how there was a question that I had and Dr. Bloom would chastise me for not having written this down. While I was thinking about it, she was telling us about. We'll have to come back to this. It'll come back to me in 30 seconds, I'm sure, as soon as I get onto something else. But she was very interesting about the things that were preserved. And. Gosh, where was this? I know, the Hutterite thing, that, for me, was an interesting. Because there was just talking about healthy living and how this stuff affects us. Asthma is almost unknown among the Hutterites.

05:15 Yeah, it's in that something.

05:17 Right. And the biologists think that it's because they're in this intimate contact with animals.

05:24 All gay and everything is not sanitized with everything. Right, right.

05:28 You know, and it's, you know, that that's a part of it.

05:31 But I'm tempted every year to become a Hutterite on April 15, but there's no personal property. It makes tax a lot easier.

05:40 Well, I mean, you know, of course, for us, you know, my Thing to you is like, why join the Hutterites, go to Athos.

05:46 Okay, thank you. You brought this up. The growing interest in monasticism among Orthodox young people, I think stems from the same thing. I had a student maybe five, six, seven years ago. He wrote an undergraduate thesis, a very good one. He was a philosophy major, knew how to write, he knew how to think in a linear fashion. I know that's forbidden in some circles, but he could do it very well and developed a very good thesis on death to the world, that movement among people who are very inclined to monasticism. And he was just enamored of it, Believe me. He was not a monastic type. In his personal life, neither am I.

06:29 But I have a great love for it.

06:31 And that's what he had. But except for one thing. You know why I'm not a monk? I'll tell you why I'm not a monk. I could take poverty, chastity, I could do both of those things with great conviction. Obedience, forget it. I would be out in a week.

06:46 I got to tell you that it's funny how some of these, some of these monks that I've encountered, that they're obedient, but they're not subservient, if that makes any kind of sense.

07:00 Yes, and I think you're right. I think there is a difference between genuine obedience and not being, you know, a butt kisser, you know? Yeah, I understand that.

07:08 And these are the idiothmic ones who, who, you know, live in their little hermit.

07:12 I could deal with maybe idiot. But I'm telling you, I got to.

07:16 Tell you that, you know, I probably. I mean, it's been a long time since I've been there, almost 15 years. But Father Joseph was one, and I forget what the other other guys was. Who was an Australian Greek. So he spoke English first, but with that thick Australian. Greek accent from Australia. Right. And he lived by himself. But he was always overjoyed when somebody would come to visit him. Father Joseph was the same way. He says, I value my time, I value my silence. You know, the Izakiya, right.

07:52 I can understand this. Basically I live that way.

07:55 He says, but I love company.

07:58 I understand that totally. What I don't like is someone who sees their primary function is beating me into subservience. And let's face it, when you're living an idiorhythmic life, you do have a spiritual father, of course, and you do have some choice in who that will be. He's not assigned to you. But I have to say I could live that but tell me this now, I don't know, but I've heard. Is it true that in the monastic communities of Athos, they're trying to eliminate the idiorhythmic option?

08:32 I think that this whole movement that happened 100 years ago, maybe less than that of getting back into the Synovium or the Kenobium. Synovium.

08:45 Well, I would say is Chenobium, but probably I would say Synovium. The academic student would say Kenobium. But I refuse to do Synovium.

08:57 Right. I don't speak Latin. It's like people say, well, Turkey's now spelled with an I. And I'm like. And Germany is spelled Deutschland. Okay. Turks can call it whatever they want, but it's T, U, R, K, E, Y in English.

09:09 That's right.

09:09 Right. In the same way that Deutschland is G, E, R, M, A, N, Y in English. Right. And what are we. What are you going to do with China?

09:16 Right, Right.

09:18 So it's like, I recognize the Turks are like, you know how great we are. We're going to Turkishize or whatever it is. We're going to apply Turkish Alphabet to it, and everybody else has to do it. Yeah. Okay. Good luck with that. Okay.

09:33 Here's where you were going with this, though.

09:35 So where I was going with our speaker, Sheila Joy, she talked about how she embraces what she calls slow living. Right. And when asked about that, she says, I try to live intentionally. Okay. I'm home. Which, if you're a monastic, that's intentional living.

09:58 Yes.

09:59 It's a very intentional life. Right. I couldn't deal with it. I like meat too much. Okay. I mean, it's like, I'm sorry, this is not the environment I grew up in. There were aspects of it that I really loved, you know, that I know what I'm going to do every day. Every day I know what I'm going to do. Okay.

10:21 And I'll tell you, I have great respect for monasticism. Believe me, I do. They're the ascetical. They're the ascetical virtuosi of our church. And I look to them as a standard, but I don't look to the people who pretend to be monks living in the world wearing a monastic schoolface and a vest, but belonging to the local country club, too, and hobnobbing with the wealthy and those of great status. I don't like it. Either you're going to be a monastic or you're not. And I think that I, in my own personal life, very, very. How to put it Unsuccessfully, but intentionally try to live idiothmically. But I could not be part of the Synovium. I just couldn't. I would be out in a week. And I think because in many ways, my mind has been formed in the American fashion, where all else is negotiable except autonomy.

11:19 But, you know, even among the monks, there's. There's friction because when the. The trip that I went to, when I think I had this was when I found out I had the brain tumor. And I said, I didn't know.

11:34 When did you have a brain tumor?

11:35 2006. They found it, okay, right. And they wanted to get rid of me immediately, right? It was like, you've got to get out of here, right? I did my research. It was a very slow growing, you know, usually benign tumor. It's. I knew I had time. I need to go to the mountain for a week, right? So I went to the mountain. And of course, they're very stoic about things, right? You know, so I'm going there. You know, it's like, you know, dad, I have a brain tumor, right? Father Strathios, who's like in his 60s, you know, he just goes, okay, right? It's like I might lose my hearing, okay, right? It's like I might die. You might. Why does this trouble you? You know? And I said, but I could lose my hearing. And he's like, okay, you have another earth. And even if you're stone deaf, you can still read. It's like this very sort of talk about being dead to the world. This is very much that. But talking about the friction, the thing was, is that my last day there. Of course, they're doing the liturgy every day, and the synobitic sort of routine is that the monks only go to communion on Saturday, right? But I knew that I was going to have surgery and I was leaving that day, right? So when the priest came out with the cup, I came up and he communed me, right? And I was the only. I was surprised. I was the only one, right? That afternoon, I go to the alkandariki, and the priest that's there, priest, monk, who's there, he's like, basically, he's like, you know, what is your name? You know, why did you take communion this morning? Right? We don't take communion here on Thursdays. You know, there's all this stuff, right? And of course, I'm like, you know, I'm sorry, Father, I'm sorry, right? Of course, the first thing in my.

13:36 Mind was, it's none of your business.

13:38 Well, no, to go and tell Father Astrates that I had done something wrong, right? And he goes, I said, I have something that I need to tell you. And he's like, well, what is it? And I said, you know, do you know the priest who runs the Archondariki? Yes, right. And he goes, he was, you know, on me about having taken communion and everything this morning. He says, did you fast? And I'm like, yes, you made confession with me, right? It's like, what's his problem? Right? And I said, I don't know. He says, some monks should mind their own business.

14:13 That makes me feel good that that was my initial response, right?

14:16 And it was just. He's like basically saying, I will address this and tell him, father, mind your own business. This is my spiritual son, okay? If you had a problem with something that he did, you tell me, right? You know, because anybody else, you might have run him off the mountain.

14:34 There's a great story. If I have a copy of it, I'll give it to you, about a monk who came down very hard on another monk, because that monk confessed to him a sin that this monk was just horrified by, and he just told him to get off the mountain. You don't belong here. And one of the older monks found out about this, and he told the younger monk, don't stop packing. You're not going anywhere. And he went outside the cell of the monk who had given this bad advice to this other young monk and told him, I pray that the demon that assaulted this young monk now assaults him. And it did. And he said. And he said, now you understand what you've done. What would you do if I told you get off a holy mountain rather than tending to your need and helping you not to condemn you, but to correct you. A doctor doesn't take a patient and scold them for being ill. He helps them to get well. And anyhow, these kinds of things, I could deal. I think the monastic rule that enables you to live intentionally and seriously and in a productive. Both individually and, you know, you're praying for the world. You are linked to other people that I could deal with idiotically. But the power plays that go on in the cenobitic form of monasticism, I can deal with.

15:56 It's like every monastery that I've been to, I have heard something less than flattering about the abbey, because they're all politicians.

16:07 Yeah, well, you saw man of God, right? The movie. And who were the real culprits in that? Usually the bishops and one person, I think it was Father Timothy who said this either in a personal conversation with me or maybe in a sermon. I think it was a personal conversation that someone asked him, why were they all so mean to this. You know, he was a threat to them. Yeah, exactly. To their. Not their authority, their power.

16:35 This was the thing with our monks that actually started joking about the patriarch and started calling him black Bart. Bartholomew came to the mountain to read. He went to all the monasteries to read them the riot act. Basically say, I'm the boss and you listen to me. And the monks told him, says, no, we're going to do things the way that we know how to do them. Right. He says, well, I'll turn you out of your monastery. It's not my monastery. Right. This rasa, it's not even my rasa. You can turn me out naked, I'm not going to change. Right. And none of them did. And you know what they did? They took him out of the. They took him out of the.

17:19 Triptych.

17:19 They took him out of the triptych. Right. They didn't commemorate him for like years. They refused to commemorate him. Right. Because he was trying to come in. And it's the same thing that happened with what's his name out in Arizona, Father Anthony. Right. And who was telling me this? I think it was. Might have been Father Tim. It might have been Father Father Yanni or one of them says that, you know, they'll have some big synecdosmos and, you know, two or three of these Greek bishops would get him in the corner and they're, you know, read him the riot act about everything, and he's like, you know, yes, Holy fathers, yes. You know, yes. You know, all of this other stuff. And they pretty sure that they've got him calibrated. Right. And then he goes back to Arizona and picks up right where he left off. Right. And it's because I think that this is. It's like every. Every human organization is like that, isn't it? That if you have too much obedience and not enough independent thought, you get heresies.

18:18 Yes. Yeah. Because you become the standard for all truth.

18:24 You individually solipsism.

18:26 Yes. Unless I experience it, it can't be real.

18:30 Yeah. So of course, this gets us into some of the other questions that we wanted to ask. So let's take a moment here and do my slate. Okay. My name is Joseph Baxter. I'm here doing an interview for StoryCorps with my good friend Father Ted Pulcini. We're at Allison hall at Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. Today's date is the 19th of October in the year of our Lord 2024. Father Ted, would you give your full name for the record, please?

19:03 My name is Theodore Pulcini. That is my full name. No middle name. And I taught here at Dickinson for 24 years. I retired five years ago, and I'm still connected with the.