Attorney Turned Orthodox Apologist - with Alex Sorin

He “blew up overnight” but the real story is years of research, catechesis, and court-tested thinking. Why does a trial lawyer’s mindset work so well for Orthodox apologetics?

Cloud of Witnesses Mario Andrew, Jeremy Jeremiah, Michael, and James St Simon talk with online Orthodox Christian apologist Alex Sorin (https://www.youtube.com/@Alex_Ortodoxie/videos) and we wrestle with a challenging line from Father Josiah Trenham: the Church doesn’t need you to defend her. So what is apologetics for? We land on a grounded answer: not saving the Church, but curing ignorance and clearing away myths, including “Constantine set the canon at Nicaea” and blanket accusations about icons, saints, and idolatry. If you care about evidence-based faith, patristics, and a historically rooted Christianity, you’ll leave with better questions and sharper tools.

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Audio: https://cloudofwitnessesradio.buzzsprout.com

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Panel:
Michael w/ Red Lines  @redlineshq
James St Simon  @jamessaintsimon
Mario St Andrew  @AndrewStMercy  
Jeremy Jeremiah

Please leave a comment with your thoughts!

Transcript

Welcome And Introductions

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Hi, welcome to Cloud of Witnesses. My name is Jeremy Jeremiah. Really excited about our podcast today. We've got joining us remotely, Alex Sorin, the man who needs almost no introduction, uh, certainly in the orthodox online world. Alex, it is an absolute pleasure to have you joining Cloud of Witness today. You're joined with Mario Andrew over there on the keys, James St. Simon, as well as our friend Michael. Alex, welcome to Cloud of Witnesses.

SPEAKER_02 0:28

Thanks for having me, man, and thank you for that very flattering introduction. I appreciate it.

SPEAKER_01 0:33

It's it's it's it's well deserved. You know, Alex, we, you know, were talking as we were approaching this conversation. We thought, you know, you, out of all of the online Christian apologists, and this might just be my perception, that's what what I want to start off to ask you about. I I kind of felt like not very long ago, I didn't know who you were. And then all of a sudden, it's like, oh, there's Alex Soren, and he's he calls himself the you know the Eastern Orthodox lawyer, and he's amazing in terms of his argumentation, and you just blew up. Is that how it felt for you, or have you been

The Overnight Success Myth

SPEAKER_01 1:15

doing this a long time and I just kind of didn't really realize it?

SPEAKER_03 1:20

It did feel rather sudden on my end, too, but there's uh there's a quote that that reminds me of, just like this description you just gave, where it says that uh every overnight success takes like two or three or a decade to get to become an overnight success, right? So I mean it was uh years of doing research, reading, really becoming convicted of uh holy orthodoxy, you know, attending uh a parish, being catechized and being received into the church, having my own spiritual father uh before I did any of that stuff. So I think because of all the preparation, I think that added to the quality, which when I did first get started in uh this area, I didn't want to focus mostly on quality and like giving content to people. And like I think you know, Jeremy, I don't do you work in litigation?

SPEAKER_01 2:06

Yeah, I was civil litigation for internet San Diego.

SPEAKER_03 2:09

So you know if like if it's an important client and like all the filings are tailor-made for them, then like every single space, every single comma, it's there for a reason. You don't want to waste the judge's time, you don't want to waste the jury's time. So I kind of brought that same mentality into politics where it's like just get to the point and don't waste people's time, you know, present the evidences and present it in a narrative context that that makes sense. So and I took that into you know, doing the online apologetics thing. I think it resonated with people and it's a bit of a different approach. So I think that definitely contributed to the popularity of some of those videos.

A Litigator’s Method For Apologetics

SPEAKER_01 2:45

I I think you absolutely nailed it, Alex. Um, I remember some of the first videos I watched of yours, and you were there. I think you were on the right of the screen, and to your left, you had your kind of your presentation, and it was kind of like you were in court um and you were walking the jury or the judge through your arguments step by step by step. And I thought, wow, that's effective. Um, and I just think it's a perfect marriage of your legal training um as you know, with the the the orthodox, you know, the challenges to orthodoxy, right, that our Protestant and Roman Catholic brothers and sisters bring to us regularly. Um Alex, you mentioned, you know, kind of the years leading up to what you're doing now without necessarily getting into your entire story, because I know you have told your story online um elsewhere, which is great. Um, just about you know, your background, what is your what's your driving force here? I can tell you, speak for a cloud of witnesses. We're all in this room former Protestants. Um, some of us were non-denominational, some of us went the whole Calvinist route for a while, um, but we all came out of Protestantism. And so a lot of our content is geared towards hopefully those Protestants out there who are maybe dissatisfied with their current situation, their current church, whatnot. And maybe they'll hear something on Cloud Witnesses that'll be like, hey, you know what, that was interesting. I want to look into that. And they want to try to come find orthodoxy. What is it for you, Alex, that is kind of driving

What Drives Alex To Respond

SPEAKER_01 4:28

the engine?

SPEAKER_03 4:31

I think it's uh at first, you know, a similar thing. I was investigating orthodoxy, I was being prepared to be received into the church, and you know, suddenly my uh everybody in my life panics and they're sending me all of these Gavin Ortland videos. You really think like, do you really think I didn't watch these already, or that I'm not familiar with them by now? You know, that I I haven't thought things through, and like I I get it, they're concerned, you know. But like when I first started doing that, it was like, all right, well, let's you know, find some responses so I can just send them a video right back. You know, but there wasn't really anything that was what what am I gonna do? Send them a four-hour J Dyer stream or something. Like that's it's just it's not a conducive response. I was like, you know what, let me like take what I learned and like boil it down and just like present some sort of alternative to you know this Gavin Ortland stuff. So I thank you, Gavin, for you know the impetus uh behind posting some of these videos. I appreciate it. And uh also it's just that that uh fighting litigator spirit, you know. I don't know, I'm not sure yet if it's a blessing or a curse, but you know, I see somebody like talking smack about holy orthodoxy on Twitter or uh you know on YouTube, and it's like, are you willing to put your views to scrutiny, sir? Are you willing to subject those views to to scrutiny? Why don't we have a a timed formal debate where everything is fair, everything's equal, you get the same speaking time that I get, you get to press me and cross, I get to press you and cross. It is such a convenient overlap, I think, between the skills you learn in litigation and like online debate, it is slightly different. Like it is even more the wild west, I guess, than like criminal law or anything else like that, you know. Um, because they're they don't know about the rules of evidence, they don't understand, like, oh, you opened the door to a new topic. Well, now you have opened yourself to questioning on this kind of tangential thing, but I like it because it helps me. And this approach of just being an advocate for holy orthodoxy, I think that also is unique. But uh, I guess the the impetus behind it was the few factors, you know. It was number one, I need to have an enemy. I don't know what what my problem is. Maybe it's something with my spiritual father that I need to work through. I look throughout history and I just see like these people, like uh King David, like or Samson. Like, why did God give these men a gift of violence? You know, like maybe like it's it's not in his plan, but it's like some out of necessity needed for that time. So then he's willing to give some special dispensation because of like the the the circumstances. I think maybe it's a similar thing in apologetics.

Does The Church Need Defending

SPEAKER_01 7:05

What you just said reminded me of something I want to run by you, and I really want to get your thoughts on this. I was in a room once, blessed to be in a small room. Uh, this is just a couple years ago, with Father Josiah Trenham, and he was asked answering questions uh about the faith.

SPEAKER_03 7:23

He's an incredible spokesperson and advocate, by the way, for the faith, incredible man of God.

SPEAKER_01 7:28

100%. We are so blessed, and I say it all the time, Alex. We need to continue to pray for him constantly, because as you know, you he's on the front lines, and you know, God forbid, um, you know, because he is absolutely a tremendous spokesman for the faith. Um, and may God grant him many years as to you as well, Alex, because what I'm getting at is I I, you know, for your salvation and and not to um, you know, say anything that would lead to pride, but I do believe God has given you a gift and God's allowing you to use your skills powerfully for the church. But here's what here's what Father Josiah Trenum said, and this is what I want to get your thoughts on. He said the church does not need you to defend her. And I was like, hard to hear. Those are hard words to hear. Alex, put that into context in the context of what you're doing.

SPEAKER_03 8:29

I think the way I would evaluate that is that like, you know, we don't need to apologize for the church. And I mean that in like the common parlance of today, right? Not like the Greek term apolog apologia or something. But in the sense that uh like all we need to do is present it to people. We don't need to make apologies or be sorry for one thing or another. Like

Church History As Spiritual Warfare

SPEAKER_03 8:50

it is the church that's founded by Christ, and to to that degree, it it stands on its own. I think a lot of the what we're doing here on the apologetics side online is uh just kind of curing ignorance, really, presenting information. Like I think you and the crew over there, they know that you guys know that as Protestants, uh, or even evangelicals, it might be even worse, that there's a vast ignorance of church history, what happened to the church after the book of Acts, uh and you know, what is the story going on from there? And I was I was researching that. I was like, this is like after the Bible and uh the story of the incarnation, and you know, because the Bible is all about Christ, this might be the best story ever. Because you see Christ's church and bad guys show up almost, you know, like clockwork, right? You in the pre-Nicene era, you have numerous heretics: the Gnostics, the Montanists, uh XYZ, heritage, the Apollinarians, you know, and then you see the Arians, it's like this big, big bad guy, and then the Eunomians, the Macedonians, and every time you have some heresy, some spiritual warfare waged against the church, you see that God raises men to smite them and swat them away, right? And it's it's such a great story, and I don't know. I I I love it in because I you know we're gonna evaluate it in terms of that narrative, you know. Um, but I I think that's that's what Father Josiah is probably getting at there is that yes, we have these not to equivocate between some online apologists in 2026 and these like heroes of the faith, you know, throughout the the centuries and the thousands of years before us, but you know, there's a lot of confusion, and I think that collectively God is using the church and you know the people within the church to you know explain things and really to just dissipate ignorance.

SPEAKER_00 10:36

So you know, if I if I may say something about what's very frustrating, because I'm one of those people who um if I hear someone give a really bad take on something, I'll want to ask more inquiring questions. And Mario smiling because he see he's been in the room where someone says something just out of turn, and I'm like, tell me more about that. Hold on a second, because they say it with such confidence, but you realize what they're talking about is it's all rhetoric, right? It's

Rhetoric Vs Evidence In Objections

SPEAKER_00 11:05

not argument, it's not making a claim that's supported by evidence. And it's frustrating as someone who really takes their time to look into the evidence and to really deep dig deep and look for reasons to believe something and not really give it any any um substance or or credibility until there's it's worthy of acceptance. Um that's probably uh really difficult when you hear a lot of people who make these arguments against you know orthodoxy and making you know these these defenses of of sola scriptura and and justification by faith, and you realize it's not really grounded in anything solid. There's really not a a good epistemology for it, but it's it's primarily just empty rhetoric and just throwing out these you know idolatry cra claims and and saying that you know they've they're idolaters, they they um you know they believe in the church has authority and scripture has no authority. They throw them so flippantly that it's hard to just sit back and be like, well, let's just let them say that. Like your arguments are not good, and let me show you how. Is that part of what drives you as well? That it's just it's so easy to fall victim to rhetoric that sounds appealing, but that's different from a sound argument.

Common Myths About Nicaea And Icons

SPEAKER_03 12:25

Oh, absolutely. If I had, you know, a few bucks every time somebody told me that uh, you know, Constantine set the canon at the Council of Nicaea, or that you know, the praying to saints was like these pagan practices that hundreds of years later had uh you know come into the church. It's like these are all Second Temple period practices, the canon was disputed for hundreds of years, and it's like really just it by reading not even advanced material, just like introductory level books on these topics, like that's enough to dispel like all of those myths, right? Like we we know what happened at Nicaea, we have the meeting that it's like it's it's not a mystery, right? Um, and we have church histories, we have historians, Eusebius talking about portrait icons going all the way back to the time of the apostles, right? So uh, and then we have even hostile witnesses to icons uh in the Gnostic Acts of John, which is from the 100s uh A.D., talking about how the Gnostics were against portrait icons, and they describe almost exactly you know what a orthodox prayer corner would look like today. It's oh, that's the position of the bad guys, that's the one that you want to take as a Protestant, and that puts you in a bit of an awkward position because now you're going through history, and you know, instead of being on the side of Saint Alexander and Saint Athanasius and the Arian controversy or the Cappadocian Fathers or Saint Cyril of Alexandria, like well, now you're on the side of like all the bad guys, right? That's a little awkward, you know. It puts you, like I use this analogy sometimes, in the position of a sovereign citizen, you know, where oh, I don't need these ecumenical councils, this like rough equivalent of like a Supreme Court decision. I'm gonna interpret it on my own. I'm gonna do, I don't need any of this stuff, right? But yeah, there's like there are so many claims that are expressed as so much confidence in that culture that XYZ is idolatry or necromancy, or it happens every time. It happened recently. I had uh you know, a Baptist pastor on for a dialogue on icons on my channel, and uh he was saying, uh, yeah, he has he's he graduated

A Real Icon Debate Breakdown

SPEAKER_03 14:30

seminary, he's been a pastor for I think a decade, you know, credentialed person who, with the smallest bit of scrutiny, all of his objections to iconodulia more or less fell apart. And uh it it reduced to, well, you know, him saying, well, because I debate and sometimes use strong language, that that undermines my uh my doctrine of iconodulia. Because if a person is an icon, you you shouldn't be too hostile to another person, right? I brought up some examples of St. Paul and even our Lord using strong language in the scriptures and ended up you was just calling me a blasphemer and a heretic, and that's what it what it boiled down to at the end of the day. So I think you're right, you're totally onto something that uh there is like a weird, like this, like a visceral reaction, and it manifests itself in a like a discrimination, like a tier system, like you're a second-class Christian or something. It's like, wait a minute, how am I the second-class Christian when your views can't stand up to scrutiny for like a few seconds?

SPEAKER_01 15:33

100%. Alex, I love how you pointed out how it doesn't even necessarily require a super in-depth study. I'll never forget it was one of the seminal moments in my

Protestant Sources And Sola Scriptura

SPEAKER_01 15:45

early, early you know, years where I was coming to orthodoxy. I was this hardcore Calvinist, and I'm reading Philip Schaff's history of the Christian Church, which I'm sure you're very familiar with.

SPEAKER_03 15:54

And that stuff was actually monumental because it was like let's go to Protestant sources and see what they have to say. Exactly. You'll be shocked at the concessions they make in there. Not you, but the viewers. You'll be shocked that the concessions in there.

SPEAKER_01 16:09

And and the one I was just gonna point out is exactly that, Alex. He says literally, Sola's Puttura was an invention of the Protestant Reformation. And I will never forget reading those words where I was like, wow, right? And that was just it changed, it changed everything.

Patreon And Closing Requests

SPEAKER_01 16:25

Look at that, you made it to the end. What an amazing conversation. This is only part one of a very long conversation with Alex. He was kind enough to share a lot of his time and insight with us. Remember, all of our Patreons right now get early access and uncut, unedited access. There's this conversation in its entirety available right now. And it's actually been available for a few days now. So please go check out our Patreon. It is the best way to support Cloud Witnesses. We really appreciate you. We hope that you enjoyed this talk with Alex. Please let us know what you think down below. Give this video a like if you haven't already. If you haven't subscribed, please do so. Ring that bell. It helps others find this content. We look forward to seeing you in the next one. God bless and bye-bye.