Fr. Josiah. I heard the news of your mother's falling asleep in the Lord. May her memory be eternal. ❤

What first lead me on the path to Christianity was the realization that the mass shooting problem is not a gun problem, not a mental health problem, not a video game problem, it's a spiritual problem.

Father, You couldn't come at a better time. Thank you! I see our orthodox brothers killing each other in Ukraine while the evils rejoice. In my own country we lost a million and a half orthodox youth fighting each other due to war perpetrated by an evangelical leader and his Muslim vp. Then when they saw our weakness they started to attack our churches, woman and children since last week, still continuing. But we don't fear what kills the flesh. Pray for us, we are families in Christ. Love from Ethiopia.

Fr. Josiah, I’m not Orthodox, but I have been following your channel for a while now. I find myself saying amen to the words you speak very often. Thank you for being a voice for Christ in this dark time.

I grew up in rural Texas. Guns were everywhere. They were “gasp” unsecured too. The nuclear family disintegrated. Now we all have steel safes instead of glass cabinets.

The secular civilization for all its self- righteousness has no mercy and no empathy. The pointless suffering of Orthodox in Ukraine and Gaza is a horror. 😢 Lord have mercy on us sinners and bring our hearts to repentance.

"God honored us with the gift, why do we dishonor ourselves by abusing it?" Love that line from Chrysostom, it can be applied to everything. Every vice is rooted in a good, twisted or carried to excess.

It is impossible to have morality without divine command. People left to secular humanism have nothing left but moral subjectivity where anything goes.

On a individual basis their are people that arm themselves to protect those that can't protect themselves. Recently in the news a man stopped three men kidnaping a woman with his pistol. He couldn't have done that unless he was armed. He cared enough to prepare himself for such a encounter. This happens often and thankfully people care enough to be be ready.

In one of the earliest Christian books, “On the Incarnation”, St. Athanasius provides one of the best observations on weapons in society I’ve read from the early church fathers: “While they were yet idolaters, the Greeks and Barbarians were always at war with each other and were even cruel to their own kith and kin. Nobody could travel by land or sea at all unless he was armed with swords, because of their irreconcilable quarrels with each other. Indeed, the whole course of their life was carried on with the weapons, and the sword with them replaced the staff and was the mainstay of all aid. All this time, as I said before, they were serving idols and offering sacrifices to demons, and for all the superstitious awe that accompanied this idol worship, nothing could wean them from that warlike spirit. But, strange to relate, since they came over to the school of Christ, as men moved with real compunction, they have laid aside their murderous cruelty and are war-minded no more. On the contrary, all is peace among them and nothing remains save desire for friendship. Who, then, is He Who has done these things and has united in peace those who hated each other, save the beloved Son of the Father, the common Savior of all, Jesus Christ, Who by His own love underwent all things for our salvation? Even from the beginning, moreover, this peace that He was to administer was foretold, for Scripture says: ‘They shall beat their swords into ploughshares and their spears into sickles, and nation shall not take sword against nation, neither shall they learn any more to wage war.’ Isaiah 2:4 Nor is this by any means incredible. The barbarians of the present day are naturally savage in their habits, and as long as they sacrifice to their idols they rage furiously against each other and cannot bear to be a single hour without weapons. But when they hear the teaching of Christ, forthwith they turn from fighting to farming, and instead of arming themselves with swords extend their hands in prayer. In a word, instead of fighting each other, they take up arms against the devil and the demons, overcoming them by their self-command and integrity of soul. These facts are proof of the Godhead of the Savior, for He has taught men what they could never learn among the idols. It is also no small exposure of the weakness and nothingness of demons and idols, for it was because they knew their own weakness that the demons were always setting men to fight each other, fearing lest, if they ceased from mutual strife, they would turn to attack the demons themselves. For in truth the disciples of Christ, instead of fighting each other, stand arrayed against demons by their habits and virtuous actions, and chase them away and mock at their captain the devil. Even in youth they are chaste, they endure in times of testing and persevere in toils. When they are insulted, they are patient, when robbed they make light of it, and, marvelous to relate, they make light even of death itself, and become martyrs of Christ.” Basically Athanasius is saying that the more Godless a society becomes, the more reliance will be placed on weapons to the point where you will not be able to travel peaceably anywhere without a sword in hand. So, it is not the swords themselves that cause the violence, but the society busily consumed with idolatrous, Godless pursuits. Until the values of our society are refocused on Godly pursuits, no amount of “sword control” laws will make any difference.

Interestingly enough, I just arrived home today after picking up my first rifle. I Just finished watching this video. Very well said! God bless you Father!

Thank you Father. The tool is inanimate its a broken person who sins, who commits crimes.

You are right father, it is a heart problem. It is clear you can’t have a society function without a moral foundation. We need to seek Christ and repent. May the Lord have mercy.

We’re reaping the fruits of our labors. What else could we expect with the things that we’ve done, taught, allowed, etc in the past century or so?

So much of the great wisdom of our Founders are echoed in this wonderful reflection. Truly no society can flourish when the darkest recesses of the human heart gain control. Christ have mercy on us all.

Marine here. Love my wine and weapons and most of all God. Semper Fi father!!!

Well said, Father. May our Lord Jesus Christ have mercy on us.

May God have mercy upon us all and lead us all into repentance, softening our hearts and exposing the lies we too easily believe. Glory to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit now and forever. Amen.

Thank you for this important perspective about the source of the problem of gun violence.

WE MUST REPENT AND WEEP.

Well said Fr. Josiah! Well said! God bless you!

Well Spoken Father!

Thank you for your wise analysis, Father. I agree.

Thank you for this much-needed message.

preach it Abouna Josiah!!! When Cain killed Abel, our Lord did NOT admonish the rock that Cain used to kill Abel... Most Holy Theotokos save us!!!

Absolutely right!

Thank you fathers,God help You and bless with Mother Mary,Saints and Angels ,thank you God for everytning .Amen 🙏❤️💐

Father bless, your passion and words are moving. Changing our hearts as an example to others is the way.

Gun control has everything to do with control, and little to do with guns. It's not coincidence the same people who outlaw weapons also ban God. Bravo, father.

Well said father. Thank you.

Another amazing video. Thank you

Watching this from Romania. I agree with your spiritual approach, as a recently convert to Orthodoxy myself. However, I do not know how I can make so many Orthodox baptized Romanians who does not believe in God or does not practice Orthodoxy, to understand that God is the answer. So in the meanwhile I am forced to take all the necessary security measures. In Romania unfortunately we do have strict gun control, so I can only use some pepper spray so far.

Thank you for pointing out the obvious for some reason our sin nature continues to blind us from the obvious problem. I will send this message of yours to many of my friends and family. Thank you. God bless you. In the name of the father, the son and the Holy Ghost

Thank you, Father. God bless.

The guns and weapons we use are in the words we haphazardly choose. Our tongues are sharper than any two edged sword and kill more than any weapon.

Lord Have Mercy

There is a place for guns, as there is a place for wine... this place is not the untrained, undisciplined, immature, deluded and dejected hand. Laws which affirm this are not to be dismissed.

Exactly right, father. Thank you for adding that the Orthodox were (and in my view, are!) not innocent of these approvals of state violence and bloodlust.

It’s a pleasure to meet you, Father. Thank you for your words of guidance. Have a beautiful evening.

(Andrew Roberts is a brilliant biographer. I loved Churchill, a Walk with Destiny, as well as Napoleon.)

Thank you, Father, for your wise counsel here!

Perfect points, Father. Thank you!

Excellently said.

Amen x1000! God bless you Father ❤

The mystery of life is "The Spirit of the world" verse "The Spirit of God'... our challenge is to pick between the two, our duty as God's children is to choose duty and submission to God. Great video Father, thank you.

Your words are beautiful, I can really hear the lord through your voice.

Amen!

Thank you for this timely reflection Father!

Enjoyed this mediation very much, Fr. Reminded me of how Adam and Eve put the blame elsewhere than on themselves where it belonged. Also, this by Ignatius that I read today, which I hope to keep in mind: "Do not let us be blind to His goodness, then. If He were ever to imitate the way we ourselves behave, it would be all over for us. Now that we have become His pupils, let us learn to live like Christians. . . and have ourselves salted in Him, [preserving us from corruption]." We are so unlike Him, yet He deigns to show us His goodness and mercy that we might be conformed to His image. ~God be with you.

The timing on this! There was just another shooting at university of Nevada Las Vegas.

Excellent message.

Saint Sava day is a blessing

From your mouth to all legislators' ears. However 95% of them all have black hearts. God have mercy on your creation.

Thank you Father for your Saving, true words. Glory To God☦️

Thank you father.

Glory to God to be peace on Earth,thank you Father for keeping us safe .🙏💐❤️Amen ,,the angels try to help allways us but depends most of our will and is so precious and important our decisions and how close and trust and understanding we have four our guardian angels ,because they can't make everytning,they have imposibilities also in our ways ,i think it's an idea 💖

Well done.

Amen, amen, amen. Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on us sinners!

“Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” - John Adams

so illuminating as usual

Father! If You ever need security, I would be honored to also provide janitorial work (of course I'm not qualified to clean icons ☑️) for just catechumanship! I am from that area, and I hear from "Christian warrior training" channel, that churches will be even more subject to terrorism or harassment soon, and downtown Riverside is extremely liberal. I have pertinent experience and understand the probability of collateral kinetic dangers, deescalation and vetting measures, and will be fully transparent of any questions! God totally Bless You Sir! Via: J.P

There are so many stabbings in london that they banned butcher knives XD

Thumbs up. Without the spiritual component to these problems, trying to solve them is like bringing a knife to a gunfight.

Please pray for my wife, Cathy Father.

Its not about guns its about sin. Sin is the problem

Even the Founding Fathers understood that the nation could not stand for long without a moral and virtuous citizenry.

The salt has lot it’s savor

May God bless you!

Good, good, meditation. Remember Bryan malinowski

3:33 "Gun control should be a discussion about heart control". Truly, a culture of compassion and family values would be far more effective.

Amen.

Thank you Father. This is the voice of reason we need in these times.

Spot on

Thank you father. Orthodox convert here in Australia. I have some awareness of the right to bear arms being part of the American culture but thought I’d enlighten on a couple of issues. If I might be so bold as to suggest it isn’t either or but both and. Laws are meant to uphold order and protect especially, but not only , the innocent. We have not had a mass shooting here since the Port Arthur massacre of 1996. That sparked a buy back of “ assault” weapons and tightening of gun ownership and storage laws. Our household has firearms as we have cattle and sheep. The tightening of the law has been beneficial but we are a godless country and in need of salvation +++ I do not believe the US government can do what ours did simply because of the second amendment and the shear volume of legal , let alone illegal, firearms. And I understand security checks already happen. I don’t know that the gun violence in the USA can be legislated away- I can’t see how. But for us here it has made a big difference to male suicide ( still the biggest killer of young men) and mass killings. Thanks for your staunch faith Father- I understand you are heading down under soon?

Jesus is King

God Bless, Father. As a Catholic, I have always loved listening to the Eastern Rites of the Bride of Christ. God has blessed your parish to have a priest like yourself and I am thankful to see priests like you spreading the word of God. I hope one day we can all be reunified as One Body again, I will never call for a perfect reunion as we are not perfect like the Almighty. Ave Maria. Kyrie Eleison. Ave Christus Rex.

Fantastic

3:23 Amen.

Father bless! Isn't it the steel that is the gift from God, rather than the weapons? Does that mean that weapons should only be used for hunting? I am asking, not arguing.

Why blame the steel for murder, Cain killed Abel with a rock! However, it's Cain's sinful envious heart that took up the rock to bash in Abel's head! God warned Cain that the Devil was crouching at his doorstep!

You hit the nail on the head Father.

So true, not going to vote or legislate your way to morality.

Amen fr

i never noticed the Scottish flag on Father Josiah's sleeve, is that suppose to show his Scottish heritage?

jesus would not have a gun, thats enough for me

Before our time it would be sword, Speer, bow-arrow, musket control.

I'm surprised that he doesn't mention gun control in these mass shootings in the USA?

The most peaceable societies on earth are not Christian societies, but small-scale ones, typically,pagan, where everyone is related by family or other close ties. A soi disamt Christian society like we have in many parts of the US is rife with violence because the people are alienated and have no humility, despite their claims to ‘know Jesus’. Buddhism teaches non-violence and many buddhist places are very safe indeed. You might get robbed in Thailand, but your chances of being beaten up or shot are pretty slim. But in America you have to be careful not to offend rugged individuals and police who are quite trigger happy and feel justified in slaying a stranger.

I feel like I'm able to see through peoples lies and immediately know the truth of the matter and and usually know the bigger picture. Its like I feel the truth in my gut and can clearly see it in my mind. I don't know what to call it but I feel like their are a small group of people controlling the world with larger circles of people around them and larger groups around them and so on, each one knowing less of their true intention and manipulated more and more the further from the center of this group they get. And the people at the center or the top, however you want to think about it, are serving dark forces and somehow in communication with them and receiving orders on how to corrupt this world and the people and keep people from knowing the truth and stopping as many people as possible from believing in and serving the Almighty, just as their ancestors did and their parents taught them and only the most powerful of this organization truly know there doing evils bidding and the rest are just controlled by money and lies and some may think they are actually doing good deeds.

Thank you for your braveness Father

Wow father. You make such a potent point. If all our technology is based on our desire to destroy each other, then isn't civilisation itself just the progressive movement away from paradise? Kyrie Eleison. Edit: i love what you say about humility father, there is such a lack of self criticism. Far be it from me, a sinner, to say, but its true. I write this in a state of drunkenness honestly. But, through the grace of God, i know my sin, and beg God's Mercy to keep me from judgement of others lest i be judged, which I'm sure i will be. Pray for me all please all you who read this.

What is the orthodox position on self defense?

Reminds me: 1. God's Law (Lev. 23:6) commands UNleavened Bread/Passover be eaten on the 14th day of the Bible's first moon-based month. 2. Paul re-enforced it (1 Cor. 5:8). 3. Beloved John, his disciple Polycarp, and all the earliest churches of Asia minor kept Passover thus [Eusebius, History, bk5, ch.23-25]. 4. Rome's Bishop Victor (c190AD) wanted to excommunicate all Asia minor for keeping Passover according to Law and the Gospel [Eusebius, History, bk5, ch.23-25]. 5. Nicea (325AD) followed Victor, forsook the legal date, and by law enforced lawlessness universally by emperor's decree. 6. By the time of the Synod in Laodicea, (c364) 7th day Sabbath-keeping was anathematized (Canon 29), lawlessness was made law; and the curse on obedience to God's Sabbath was reaffirmed later at Nicea 2 (787AD), where 7th day Sabbath- keepers were completely barred from entering any "Orthodox" church (canon 8). 7. By 1583, the Orthodox Synodikon eternally damned anyone who believed that Christ ate UNleavened bread at the Last Supper, which is precisely what the Law commanded (Lev. 23:6), what Christ ate and distributed (Luke 22:7,15,19), and Paul reinforced (1 Cor. 5:7,8).

you are correct, of course, no doubt about it, but just as the political question of gun control cannot be used as an argument in the Church, so the spiritual question of our heart's corruptness would be if not out of place, at least very eccentric, I guess, in a political debate. Maybe I'm wrong, but it seems that matters of faith today are mostly left to the individual themselves, so maybe some form of psychological discussion would mediate between secular and spiritual authorities... I know obviously this wouldn't satisfy Christians, but what else can you discuss with someone who just does not (and doesn't want to) believe?

so we shouldnt have any laws? we should just talk about our hearts ?

Hello, Father Josiah! What is the symbol on your right sleeve in this video?

While Father Josiah didn't directly address the issue of carrying weapons for self defense, I will. Unfortunately, we live in a world filled with no shortage of violent people. I'll assert that we not only have the moral right, but the moral obligation to protect ourselves and others from unprovoked violence. It's not a moral virtue to allow a criminal to take your life for no good reason, especially if you have others who depend on you for their welfare. It's also not a moral virtue to witness an innocent stranger being assaulted while having no means at your disposal to stop the threat. More often than not, when I'm out in public I carry a concealed firearm. I take it very seriously, and I pray I never have to unholster it, but it does level the playing field somewhat. Women especially, IMO, should be willing to carry a firearm. I do however take my wife's observation extremely seriously- "If carrying a gun changes your behavior in any way, then you shouldn't carry one."

Shall not be infringed

Father, can you give me the exact reference for the st. Chrisostom quote?

Bullseye!