Fishes and Submarines

by John Johnstone, Jr.

The following is paraphrased from an image heard in a sermon by Fr. Michael [Azkoul]:

The Orthodox swim in Orthodoxy as fish swim in the ocean.  But among us there are those who are like submarines.  They too "swim" in the ocean, but they are sealed off from the ocean.  They call themselves "Orthodox", and to many they appear as Orthodox. But they are not Orthodox.  They are in it but not of it.  They are from outside the "ocean" but come into it bringing their own, and keeping it with them, sealed up inside themselves.  They have their own atmosphere from elsewhere, and the ocean does not go though their gills nor permeate them.

-Orthodox Life, September 1973