I’ve just noticed that I’ve developed an inability to trust people in dealing with religion. This is not a problem I had before.

When I moved to A’ville, the folks at St Nicholas parish reached out to me: the Deacon took me into his own house and fed me every weekend. His kids called me “Uncle Raphael”. Other members of the parish gave me furniture, offered help in moving, made sure I never went hungry or that I was able to come to Liturgy in bad weather. I’d hear bad things about the Greek parish in town (or silly stories about every priest over the last 10 years), or about the ROCOR parish or about the Carpatho-Russians or the other Antiochian parishes in our area – and know that I’d made the right choice. When people would leave the parish, I’d hear gossip about them from the priest.

Increasingly it felt cult-like. When Todd and I began sharing a house and I no longer needed to rely on the rest of the parish for help, things only got worse. It all went sour the evening I spent 45 mins in confession listening to things like like “I can’t believe you could treat the people of this parish like that after they have opened their homes to you!” This after I dared to vote against the priest on the parish council. How dare I? But it took a few more months to end it all. And when the parish closed I went to the monastery for healing. I found out all the bad things I’d heard about all the other churches were not true: in fact most of them pitied us trapped in our little cult world. It was all just a way to keep me in the on place, and not go looking at the others. A number of times the priest would say, “I don’t know why, whenever someone leaves the parish, they blame me…” and he would sigh and get a wounded puppy dog look in his eyes. Eventually, I began to get ideas about why this was.

Then I began to suspect the monks – and later members of their parish – of doing the same sorts of cultic things. I found myself wondering if I could trust my fellow worshipers.

Later, when I wondered what the priest might have said about me to the other parishioners… I began to wonder how much of the hospitality at St Nicholas/St Raphael mission had, in fact, been manipulated by the priest himself for his own purposes. I began to doubt that any of it had been real. These feelings only grew as no one from the old parish seemed interested in staying together: of the families involved in the parish the Sunday when it “exploded” I was the last one attending an Orthodox Church. Of those families, I think I’m still the last one attending any church at all. (Others, who left before that day, stayed in Church.)

Since moving to Buffalo, I’ve had my security system triggered twice by the oddest of things: things said offhandedly in email, odd comments after mass. I can and do trust – to what some would think is a dangerous extent – people I meet on the internet, people I meet on the street, coworkers and landlords. None of them have ever disproved themselves.

But when someone involved in a religion does just one little thing that triggers my memory… all hell breaks loose internally and I want to run away, far away. And I begin to see there is still some damage that need healing. It is rather like PTSD. Fr Brent, at St Mary’s in A’ville, never triggered these flags though, in less than 6 months, he had me teaching Sunday School and singing the Prayers of the People at Mass. St Andrew’s sent me into a tizzy by sending me (unasked) offertory envelopes with my name on them. Trinity Church has bonked me by sending me one email reply beyond my “not just yet, thanks” email.

I sent an email to a friend last night wondering where I could study martial arts – asking for a recommendation to avoid any cults. Only after the conversation (and when the friend had replied with good, common sensical suggestions) did I think “how odd am I?”

Rather than walking in and asking questions, just go and watch. The important questions are ones you’ll feel the answer to. Are these people enjoying themselves? Are they welcoming? Is there a lot of ego on the mat? Are people trying to prove something?

I wish someone had said such common-sense things to me 5 years ago.

This may be what caused my recent bout of looking at other religions: I’m not the only one to have gone searching or rejecting. As one former member of the parish said to me, “If God can allow that man to be a priest, there is no God.” It may be… but I don’t think so. More like a catalyst coupled with my own internal workings. At first I thought it was a fear of commitment that was plaguing me in Buffalo – or maybe my desire to keep searching. But, in fact, it’s a fear of getting trapped in a cult that is bothering me. I’d never ever had that before. Heck: what cult of personality are you going to find at most Episcopal Churches? Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice…

This is a new thing.