Can an Orthodox Christian Have Doubts? The Orthodox Tradition has the Answer

Added: 2026-05-23

[00:00:00]Hello friends. Today I want to talk about something that many Orthodox Christians feel but very few will say it out loud. I want to talk about doubt.

[00:00:10]Have you ever sat in the liturgy and suddenly wondered is any of this real?

[00:00:14]Have you ever prayed and felt that your words were going well, nowhere? Have you ever looked at the suffering in the world around us and thought where is God in all of this? If you have felt any of these things, this video will be interesting for you. And I want to tell you something right at the beginning.

[00:00:33]You're not alone and you are not lost.

[00:00:42]Before we go any further, I think we need to be clear about what we mean when we say doubt because not all doubt is the same and this distinction is very important. There is what we might call intellectual doubt. These questions that arise in our minds about theology, about the existence of God, about the reasonableness of our faith. Let's say why does God allow suffering?

[00:01:07]How can God be three person and one being at the same time? How do we know that the church is telling the truth?

[00:01:14]So, these are very serious questions and they deserve serious answers. By the way, you can find videos on this channel that answer some of these questions. So, check them out. So, intellectual doubt is on one side. It is one kind of doubt and then there is what the holy fathers call spiritual desolation.

[00:01:33]And spiritual desolation is those periods in our prayer or in our Christian life when God seems well, distant or absent altogether. When we pray and feel nothing, when we attend the liturgy and are distracted, when we read the scriptures and they seem like dry words on the page. So, this is a different experience from intellectual doubt. However, it is just as real and just as frightening for anyone going through it. So, today I want to speak about both because the Orthodox Church has wisdom for both. I would like to share with you something that I personally find very comforting. Truly, doubt is not a problem of our age only.

[00:02:18]It is not something invented by internet, by us, by the atheistic worldview, or by philosophy. Doubt has been around and and has been a part of human experience since the beginning of our relationship with God. Just remember Adam and Eve, and you will know.

[00:02:37]But, I would like us to come closer to the New Testament. Think about the Holy Apostle Thomas.

[00:02:43]After the resurrection of Christ, the other apostles told him, "We have seen the Lord." However, Thomas, what did he say? "Unless I see in his hands the mark of the nails and place my finger into the mark of the nails, seeing is not enough. Touching, experiencing the wounds was something that would take away his doubt. And place my hand into his side, I will never believe, right?"

[00:03:07]So, he doubted. He doubted openly, and he doubted completely.

[00:03:13]And what did Christ do? Did he cast Thomas away?

[00:03:17]No, he did not say you your doubt has been uh uh a reason to disqualify you from my love.

[00:03:24]You're no longer an apostle. Just get get lost or something like that.

[00:03:30]Instead, he came to Thomas. He showed him his hands and his side, and Thomas seeing this cried out and with the greatest confession of faith in the New Testament, "My Lord and my God."

[00:03:43]Or think of the father in the Gospel of Mark. Uh You remember whose son was possessed by a demon, and he came to Christ and said, "If you can do anything, have compassion on us and help us." And Christ said to him, "All things are possible for one who believes." So, what did the father say? Well, honestly and courageously, desperately. He said those beautiful words that we all need to remember, I think, in my opinion.

[00:04:10]I believe, but help my unbelief.

[00:04:15]Lord, I do believe. Help my unbelief.

[00:04:17]So, in my opinion, this is one of the most honest prayers in all of the scriptures. So, and Christ healed the the son of that unfortunate father. So, we see that even those closest to Christ experienced doubt. But, let me ask you this. What does the Orthodox tradition say about it? What do the holy fathers teach? Because this is where I think we find the most helpful guidance. So, let us look at that now. I would like to draw your attention to St. John of the Ladder. You know him. He's a great monastic father of the 6th century, and you probably know his book, The Ladder of the Divine Ascent.

[00:04:56]Uh and that book is read in Orthodox monasteries during Great Lent. However, he writes that doubt is not the absence of faith.

[00:05:06]Remember this. It is the struggle of faith.

[00:05:10]He said that the person who has never struggled in their faith has perhaps never truly engaged with it. So, faith that has never been tested is like a muscle that has never been exercised.

[00:05:23]I'm sure you've heard the name of St. Theophan the Recluse.

[00:05:27]He lived in the 19th century. He was a Russian bishop and one of the great spiritual fathers and writers of the time.

[00:05:35]And he writes about what we today would call spiritual desolation. He says that God sometimes withdraws the feeling of his presence, not his presence, but the feeling of his presence, in order to test and to strengthen our faith. He writes that in these periods of dryness, the Christian must not conclude that God has abandoned them. On the contrary, the Christian must continue to pray. A Christian must continue to attend the services, continue to fast, continue to help others, even when they feel nothing. Continue, says Saint Silouan, and trust that God is working in you, even when you cannot feel it.

[00:06:22]We lose the feeling, but God is there for us. One of the most frequently quoted, in my opinion, and one of the most beloved saints of recent times, because he was a monk of the 20th century, Saint Silouan of Mount Athos.

[00:06:37]He writes extensively about what he calls the absence of grace.

[00:06:43]Periods when the soul feels completely cut off from God, when prayer feels empty, when the heart is cold, when you want to do nothing with with the rest of the world. And he says that these periods, as terrible as they are, as terrible as they feel, are actually a gift.

[00:07:04]They are a gift because they teach us humility. They teach us that our spiritual life does not depend on feelings or emotions. It depends on, he says, our faithfulness.

[00:07:19]Even in doubts, even when we we feel dry, when we feel cut off from God, when we feel that our prayer is empty, we need to remain faithful to him. I don't understand what is happening to me, why this is happening to me, but I want to be faithful to my Lord. I want to emphasize this, because I think it is very important. The Orthodox tradition does not say that the Christian life is always warm, always joyous, or or some kind of a certain experience. The great saints themselves went through periods of darkness.

[00:07:55]So, what separated them from those who fell away was not that they never doubted. It was that they did not abandon the practice of faith when doubt came.

[00:08:07]Now, I want to make this distinction that I believe is very important.

[00:08:13]Because there is a difference between doubt and unbelief.

[00:08:18]And the holy fathers are very very very clear on this as well. Let's say, when we are in doubt I'm struggling. I am I have questions. I am not sure, but I am still here.

[00:08:30]I am not leaving. I am still seeking. I am still praying even if my prayer feels empty.

[00:08:37]And when we are in unbelief I have decided I do not want God. I reject his love. I am leaving.

[00:08:48]Doubt and unbelief. Do you see the difference? Doubt is a struggle within faith. And unbelief is a rejection of faith altogether.

[00:08:59]And the Orthodox Church and Christ himself, as we saw with Thomas and with the father in in Mark's gospel, responds to doubt not with condemnation, but with compassion. St. John Chrysostom writes that God honors the soul that struggles. He writes that even our imperfect, distracted doubting prayers are precious to God because they are an act of will, an act of turning toward him even when we do not feel him near.

[00:09:33]As I said the The must might be gone for for the time being.

[00:09:39]But we need to remain faithful as said St. Silouan of Mount Athos.

[00:09:44]And now I want to take a brief moment to say thank you because you support this channel whether through membership, through subscription, active participation in comments, or giving your likes to the videos on this channel. You support this channel and this support allows me to keep making these videos. So thank you, friends, from the bottom of my heart. So what do we actually do when doubt comes?

[00:10:08]Because there are some practical recommendations and the wisdom of the Orthodox tradition has them. So let us go through them because we all are not immune to doubts. The wisdom of the Orthodox Church suggests that while in doubt, we should not stop praying. This sounds simple, but it is the most important thing and one of the hardest things to to keep on doing while doubting. When prayer feels empty, continue to pray. Even if if you have to shorten your prayer rule, but continue to pray. Use the written prayers of the church, the morning and evening prayer rule, the Psalms, the Jesus Prayer. As St. Theophan the Recluse said that in times of spiritual coldness, the form of prayer holds us until the feeling returns. That's why I usually recommend if you can't pray or your prayer feels empty, continue. Shorten the rule, may but make it happen so that prayer continues to go because the form, according to St. Theophan the Recluse, of of prayer holds us in this time of spiritual coldness. Holds us together. So keep the form for the time being and trust that God hears you even when you are very formal in your prayer.

[00:11:31]I think many people who are in doubt amid this uh next recommendation that they don't talk to their priest. Please do not hide your doubt from your priest.

[00:11:41]Confession and spiritual direction exist precisely for moments like this. Your priest is not there only for your sins.

[00:11:50]Of course, he he he will forgive your sins, no doubt about that, but he is there for your struggles as well. So, speaking openly about doubt with a trusted spiritual father can bring enormous relief and practical guidance. You are not the first person to sit across from a priest and say, "Father, I am struggling to believe."

[00:12:12]What is also critically important in times of doubt is to attend the services, even when you do not feel like going to a service. This is important, why? The liturgy of the Orthodox Church does not depend on your or my feelings.

[00:12:28]The Eucharist is offered. It's not our production. It's offered to us. The Eucharist is offered whether we feel joyful or dry, whether we are certain in in some matters of faith or uncertain.

[00:12:42]So, come, stand there, be present, let the prayers of the church carry you when your own prayer feels weak. I would not want to omit here that the desert fathers recommended reading the Psalms precisely because the Psalter is full of doubt, full of lamentation, full of the honest cry of of our human heart to God.

[00:13:08]Just remember the words, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"

[00:13:13]"How long, O Lord, will you forgive forget me forever?" The Psalms give us this permission to be honest with God, and let us use them.

[00:13:23]And the wisdom of the Orthodox tradition offers us one more step or one more uh guidance.

[00:13:32]Be patient with yourself. Spiritual growth is not in straight lines. There will be seasons of warmth and seasons of coldness. So, this does not mean you are failing. It means you are human. And God became human precisely to meet us where we are, whether we are at our ups or at our downs. But, remember this. Be patient with yourself. So, can an Orthodox Christian have doubts, you and I? Yes, of course. And the fact that we are asking the question any question about faith the fact that doubt troubles us it itself is a sign of faith and not a sign of betrayal. The person who has truly abandoned faith does not ask whether it is okay to doubt. They just leave.

[00:14:24]Or, they have left already.

[00:14:27]Doubt handled rightly, honestly, prayerfully, with the support of the church as we discussed, with the support of our spiritual father or the parish priest can actually deepen your faith.

[00:14:38]It can strip away what was maybe super- superficial and maybe leave it behind and just uncover what is real for you. It can teach us that our faith is not built on on our feelings and we should not look for feelings but on the living God who met the Apostle Thomas in his doubt and who meets us in our doubts. So, you are not alone. Remember this. And God has not forgotten you. He just removes the feeling sometimes. As always, don't forget to leave your comments below, especially if you are going through a period of doubt right now at this moment. God bless us all. See you next time.

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