February 23, 2026 02/001

To the clergy, monastics, and faithful of the Orthodox Church in America, beloved children in the Lord:

Glory to Jesus Christ! Glory forever!

First, please be assured of my prayers for you, my flock throughout North America, as we enter into this great and holy season of the Fast. May God grant each of you his aid and support, comfort and blessings, as we all take up our Lenten podvig.

In our present media-mad, ever-online cultural atmosphere, opinion often appears to be our society’s highest value, both morally and economically. To hold and express an opinion on all manner of “issues” is cast as the highest form of self-realization. In the meanwhile, the so-called attention economy coddles our biases in order to peddle us all manner of products. Many of you, beloved in the Lord, will know that I have written of this before, but I do so again because the reign of opinion has only become more firmly entrenched, and the spiritual dangers which this situation presents have become only more pervasive.

However, I exhort you to remember, especially during this sacred season of the Holy Forty Days, that, no matter how entrenched or pervasive these realities have become, we find in our Orthodox Christian tradition spiritual medicines, therapies, and inoculations for every temptation, sin, trial, and affliction. Thus, against the background of the technological and social developments and trends that have led us to the present moment, the sacred tradition of Orthodox Christianity appears more distinct perhaps than ever before. In marked contrast to our society’s lionization of opinion and constant public self-expression, our faith highlights the spiritual value of dispassion, restraint, sobriety, balance, and discernment.

This is not to deny that our faith may sometimes call us to speak and act. Rather, it is a reminder that our starting point should be, not certainty of our own moral superiority and clarity of judgment, but rather humility and self-examination. As the spiritual classic Unseen Warfare points out, we must be suspicious of any thought of ours, no matter how apparently good it may be on the surface. We do not blindly trust our every notion; rather we submit all our thoughts to a process of discernment, in accordance with St. Paul’s exhortation: “Examine yourselves, to see whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves” (2 Cor. 13:5).

If we try to make this practice our own, we will find that, perhaps unexpectedly, such sobriety and restraint do not limit our God-given freedom, our human agency, but rather increase it. After all, the opinionated person is battered by the winds of change, forced to react to every event and controversy, forced to take a

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stance on every issue and topic. On the other hand, the sober-minded person, the practitioner of discernment, is free from the shackles of the news cycle, free from the expectation and compulsion to take a stance on the issue du jour. He who is accustomed to restraint is free to form his own opinions—or not— and to do so in his own time, with recourse to prayer, reflection, and unhurried reasoning.

In the end, however, we do not practice discernment, self-examination, restraint, and dispassion as an end in and of themselves. Yes, they may help to liberate us from the whirl of current events and the churning waves of controversy, and this can bring us a measure of temporal peace and well-being. But as Christians we desire not merely to be free from evil, but to be free for good. From this perspective, restraint and sobriety are simply spiritual tools—albeit invaluable spiritual tools—and we use these tools to draw nearer to Christ, or rather, to allow Christ, in his great mercy and love for mankind, to draw closer to us. As the holy apostle James says, “Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you” (Jam. 4:8). For, if we are obsessed with our own opinion, what room do we leave for understanding and acting in accordance with God’s will? If we are loudly pointing out the wounds of others, what time and space to we leave for Christ to tend own wounds?

From our vantage at the beginning of the Great Fast, all of this serves to remind us that our entire Lenten effort, indeed our entire Christian life-long struggle, is ultimately directed toward joy – not the passing joys that stimulate our passions, but the everlasting joy of communion with God the Father, in Christ, through the Holy Spirit. The path of repentance may indeed lead us through valleys of sorrow and up rocky slopes of adversity, but the end of the path is true freedom, true happiness, true delight, true love, true existence.

Therefore, when we draw the contrast between the world and its opinions and Christian sobriety, we do not offer dour moralism in place of excitement and expression. Instead, Christ offers us every good gift—now and eternally—if we desire to receive those gifts. Instead of being dragged along in the wake of shifting events, the Lord shows us the way toward lasting peace of mind and heart: through dispassion, yes, but ultimately through his own presence in us: the true Peace of God in our hearts and in our midst, now and ever.

To him, our Lord and God and Savior Jesus Christ, our Peace and our Salvation, be all honor and glory, together with his Father and his Holy Spirit, the Comforter, now and always and unto endless ages of ages.

Once again, please be assured of my prayers for you during this sacred season, and may God sustain all of us as we prepare, through our Lenten struggle, to meet the supreme feast of his radiant Pascha.

Yours in Christ,

+ Tikhon
Archbishop of Washington Metropolitan of All America and Canada

P.O. Box 31409 Alexandria, Virginia, 22310 516-922-0550 - metropolitan@oca.org - www.oca.org