# Russian Orthodox churches are attracting guys in search of “manliness” **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [May 25, 2025, 11:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russian-orthodox-churches-are-attracting-guys-in-search-of-manliness/1018763 "2025-05-25T11:31:14Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Love\_Rhombus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/love_rhombus/32/10694_2.png) [@Love\_Rhombus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Love_Rhombus)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2025, 11:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russian-orthodox-churches-are-attracting-guys-in-search-of-manliness/1018763/1 "2025-05-25T11:31:14Z")
It seems that if you have such a yawning gulf of insecurity about being “manly” that you would devote yourself to a new religion, perhaps therapy would be a better fit? And of course a healthy dose of sympathy for Putin. There’s lots of interesting bits here, such as: “It’s kind of funny. It’s almost as if the old American Puritans and their craziness is resurfacing.” and : “ Last August, Putin introduced a fast-track shared values visa for those fleeing Western liberalism.” > **[Orthodox Christianity: Young US men joining 'masculine' Russian churches](https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c30q5l8d4lro)** > > A religion with traditions dating back centuries is attracting young American men. ---
**Author:** ![PatrickLondon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/patricklondon/32/4422_2.png) [@PatrickLondon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatrickLondon)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2025, 11:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russian-orthodox-churches-are-attracting-guys-in-search-of-manliness/1018763/2 "2025-05-25T11:47:20Z")
The Russian Orthodox, who condemned the Eurovision Song Contest when it was won by [a man with a beard in a gold frock](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-05-11/austria-conchita-wurst-wins-the-eurovision-song-contest/5444778) How very manly: [![](https://mf.b37mrtl.ru/rbthmedia/images/2021.05/original/60ac048085600a459f18791f.jpg) ](https://mf.b37mrtl.ru/rbthmedia/images/2021.05/original/60ac048085600a459f18791f.jpg) ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2025, 12:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russian-orthodox-churches-are-attracting-guys-in-search-of-manliness/1018763/3 "2025-05-25T12:25:50Z")
You know, you’re allowed to say “gay”. It’s a lot quicker and easier than “men in search of manliness”. ---
**Author:** ![Slithy\_Tove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slithy_tove/32/18248_2.png) [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2025, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russian-orthodox-churches-are-attracting-guys-in-search-of-manliness/1018763/4 "2025-05-25T17:28:05Z")
These guys are joining because they feel brow-beaten and man-shamed by the churches already there… in Texas? Can we expect a push-back movement by Jewish guys who feel unappreciated? _Promise Kippahs?_ ---
**Author:** ![Love\_Rhombus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/love_rhombus/32/10694_2.png) [@Love\_Rhombus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Love_Rhombus)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2025, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russian-orthodox-churches-are-attracting-guys-in-search-of-manliness/1018763/5 "2025-05-26T14:52:00Z")
> [@Slithy\_Tove](#): > > Can we expect a push-back movement by Jewish guys who feel unappreciated? _Promise Kippahs?_ I can’t decide if this deserves applause or shame. Or both! ---
**Author:** ![Slithy\_Tove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slithy_tove/32/18248_2.png) [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2025, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russian-orthodox-churches-are-attracting-guys-in-search-of-manliness/1018763/6 "2025-05-26T17:47:46Z")
Hey, I’ve been waiting almost thirty years to make that crack! Seriously though, what’s the appeal to these guys? Is it the beards? The Catholicisms are mystery religions, while Protestantism tends towards revelatory. Most conversions either way are motivated by tastes for either. It may be the appeal of authoritarianism, especially since Putin has followed Stalin in selecting some little tramp to be Patriarch of Moscow and serve as his personal chaplain. But it’s not as though the Orthodox Church lacks historical voices against secular tyranny. The RC has the Thomases Beckett and More, the Protestants have Dietrich Bonhoeffer and the White Rose kids, and the Orthodox have [Phillip of Moscow;](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_II,_Metropolitan_of_Moscow) murdered by Ivan the Terrible. Anti-Roman Catholicism or just the sheer novelty of something strange and new might play their parts too. The RC is completely a top-on-down “just shut up and do and think as you’re told” religion. I’m lot a language maven, but I’ve read that Greek is a good one for kicking the bullshit back and forth, while Latin better-suited to laying down the law. Religions based on these differences will tell in their mechanisms. And these converts, the independent-minded among them at least, will have the opportunity to look a little further. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2025, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russian-orthodox-churches-are-attracting-guys-in-search-of-manliness/1018763/7 "2025-05-26T17:57:59Z")
I think you’re making it too complicated. I think it’s just “Liberals hate Russia, so rah Russia!”. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2025, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russian-orthodox-churches-are-attracting-guys-in-search-of-manliness/1018763/8 "2025-05-26T18:20:10Z")
I think it’s more of the same… whatever? that drives young men to dolts like Joe Rogan, Andrew Tate, and the other ‘manosphere’ bloggers. There’s something missing for them, or some kind of feeling like they’re marginalized in some way for being men and wanting to be masculine. Or maybe like something changed and they were left behind in some fashion. I don’t know. I’m not sure what it is, but this sort of reassurance and reinforcement that traditional gender roles and behaviors seems to be a powerful thing for these men. And a certain element of top-down authority is something they seem to enjoy as well. ---
**Author:** ![PatrickLondon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/patricklondon/32/4422_2.png) [@PatrickLondon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatrickLondon)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2025, 7:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russian-orthodox-churches-are-attracting-guys-in-search-of-manliness/1018763/9 "2025-05-26T19:27:53Z")
The attraction to the Orthodox doesn’t seem to feature over here (yet), but clinging to exaggerated traditional concepts of masculinity seems fairly obviously to reveal underlying insecurities. Recent piece in the Guardian: > **[Nick wanted to drop bodyfat and build his own micro-harem of women: how my...](https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/may/25/nick-wanted-to-drop-bodyfat-and-build-his-own-micro-harem-of-women-how-my-friend-fell-for-the-red-pill-hucksters-of-the-manosphere?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other)** > > His is a cautionary tale of what happens when someone who feels inadequate listens to the new generation of masculinity salesmen ---
**Author:** ![Slithy\_Tove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slithy_tove/32/18248_2.png) [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2025, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russian-orthodox-churches-are-attracting-guys-in-search-of-manliness/1018763/10 "2025-05-26T20:15:51Z")
Or… maybe you had that big kid in your junior high who enjoyed throwing his weight around because he’d been held back a year in grade school? That’s kind of who Russia is, delayed by the Mongols when the West was entering the Renaissance. 2020s America is fertile ground for the seeds of an imported inferiority complex from Russia. Hopefully it won’t flourish as well as their thistle bushes, but no guarantees. ---
**Author:** ![Jophiel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jophiel/32/66_2.png) [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2025, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russian-orthodox-churches-are-attracting-guys-in-search-of-manliness/1018763/11 "2025-05-26T20:19:57Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > I think you’re making it too complicated. I think it’s just “Liberals hate Russia, so rah Russia!”. It’s even less complicated than that. Socially deficient boys think Russia is full of _Eastern Promises_ style burly men in saunas and blonde Instagram models and go “That’s awesome! Way cooler than here!”. The political stuff just comes along with deciding that Russia is the best. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2025, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russian-orthodox-churches-are-attracting-guys-in-search-of-manliness/1018763/12 "2025-05-26T21:50:36Z")
From the OP’s link: > [@](#): > > This wispy-bearded Texan is in the vanguard of a movement urging conservatives to relocate to Russia. Last August, Putin introduced fast-track [shared values visa](https://russianresidency.com/) for those fleeing Western liberalism. Russia can have 'em. Let’s hope we see the back of lots more of these conservative refugees from the dread liberalism. ---
**Author:** ![DocCathode](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doccathode/32/18773_2.png) [@DocCathode](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DocCathode)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2025, 12:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russian-orthodox-churches-are-attracting-guys-in-search-of-manliness/1018763/13 "2025-05-27T00:41:39Z")
> [@Slithy\_Tove](#): > > Can we expect a push-back movement by Jewish guys who feel unappreciated? _Promise Kippahs?_ I deeply apologize. I have been busy dealing with my Mom’s medical emergency (she is being moved from the hospital to a rehabilitaion facility tomorrow). So I missed this earlier. Genius! Simply genius! :chef’s kiss: ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2025, 1:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russian-orthodox-churches-are-attracting-guys-in-search-of-manliness/1018763/14 "2025-05-27T01:12:26Z")
The Russian Orthodox priesthood are [known](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/11/09/russian-soldiers-given-church-blessed-warhammer-40k-seals/) to imitate Warhammer 40k unironically. This is fascist, militarist toxic masculinity with religious mania thrown in on top. And no sense of the ridiculous. Men like this are the sort who never grew up past the “girls have cooties” stage. The sort who largely define “manliness” _in opposition_ to women rather than as any positive qualities to be aspired to. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2025, 1:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russian-orthodox-churches-are-attracting-guys-in-search-of-manliness/1018763/15 "2025-05-27T01:32:04Z")
> [@Love\_Rhombus](#): > > “ Last August, Putin introduced a fast-track shared values visa for those fleeing Western liberalism.” I generally oppose Putin but I support his program of taking these people out of the United States.