A few years ago, I visited the monasteries of Meteora in Greece. The Great Meteoron monastery is the largest and oldest and was established around 1340 by St. Athanasios Meteorites.

The Great Meteoron monastary has impressive 16^th Century frescoes decorating the narthex – the area where the unbaptized had to wait while Communion was taking place in the sanctuary. To edify the newcomers, the frescoes depict not only notable events in Christ’s life such as his Resurrection, but the gruesome deaths of early Christian martyrs. Rather than a cheery church greeter, the 16^th Century seeker was assaulted by images of people being skinned, roasted and having appendages, intestines, eyes and just about anything else that we usually consider permanently attached, removed. The idea was not only to create an indelible impression of the sacrifices made by those who founded the church, but that the neophyte should count the cost before making a rash decision.

The odd thing is, the tactic was more successful than our contemporary mania of making the church so doctrinally malleable, so comfortable with secular culture, that its members can do and believe almost anything without so much as an ecclesiastical eyebrow being raised.

And, just as bad, so can the clergy.