“The Orthodox Christian Should be the Funniest Man in the Room:
Fr. Job Watts on pastoral guidance and the spreading of Orthodoxy in the Southern U.S.”
Originally published October 2018 at ROCOR Studies
This fall I got to visit the American South for the second time in my life. Last year I was in the greater Atlanta area and this time I was in the parish of St. Nektarios of Pentapolis in Lenoir City, Tennessee. Modern life is very demanding – to survive, Americans are expected to work at least forty hours a week. With such intensity, it is clear that time is a scare commodity. Therefore, it was amazing for me to see that the Christians of St. Nektarios eagerly spent a whole Saturday and Sunday, enthusiastically engaged in discussing Byzantine imperial history, canon law, and the Inter-Council Assembly of the Russian Orthodox Church. I would love to see similar engagement in adult education classes all over Eastern American Diocese of the ROCOR. For my part, I hope that I will be able to continue my study of Dixieland. Meanwhile, I offer you now an interview with the Rector of the community, Father Job Watts. — Deacon Andrei Psarev
