Worries, the Parts of the Soul, and the Daily Schedule – Fr. Theologos
5 November 2026
Listen to a very interesting discussion between Remus Rădulescu and Father Theologos regarding the missionary work of the Orthodox Church in the current context. You will gain insight into the way of thinking of one of the most seasoned media figures in Romania, Mr. Remus Rădulescu.
Enjoy!
Fr. T.: Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, now and forever and unto the ages of ages. Amen. Through the prayers of our Holy Fathers, Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on us! Amen.
Dear ones, we are here with Remus Rădulescu, a media man – that’s how I would introduce him… he is a very well‑known reporter and radio presenter.
R.R.: România Actualități.
Fr. T.: Radio România Actualități, since…
R.R.: In 1996 I began the collaboration, and it became more intense after 2000.
Fr. T.: So for more than 20 years and, more recently, he also collaborates with Trinitas TV, producing shows. So, today, we are actually going to talk about the Church in the media: problems, challenges, opportunities, and everything related to this topic.
First of all, Remus, I’d like to ask you something that is in a way both for our friends and for me personally. As a monk I am very little exposed to the media, although, yes, I go on Facebook every day for five minutes in the morning and five minutes in the evening to post. I don’t even remember, on Pinterest, on Twitter – all these are five minutes, plus of course on WhatsApp and so on, I disseminate the messages, and on YouTube if we have clips that I need to upload. Very little. So I preserve my spiritual life by avoiding the media. In the world, how can someone from the Church preserve their spiritual life if they are exposed to media or work in media? Because I’m thinking that one of the main things someone must follow if they are a media reporter or works in media is that they must preserve their spiritual life. How can this be done, in your opinion?
R.R.: When you say to preserve their spiritual life, you mean to preserve themselves, their inner life, without scattering themselves too much outward.
Fr. T.: Of course.
R.R.: By avoiding excessive presence in the media. I think that this way they preserve, they keep themselves within themselves and nourish themselves from this preservation, in order to offer convincing and pertinent messages when they are requested in media.
At Radio and TV Trinitas we invite people whom we try, though I don’t know if we always succeed, we try to sense that they are oriented in this way. We try to avoid those who seek visibility, because there are some like that as well. This tendency to be a star and to feel good in that role is present in some of our guests too, and we try to invite such people more rarely, if at all, so that we may offer content (this is what we say and what we try to do), the most convincing content, with the greatest impact for the one who needs it and consumes it… “consume” is a somewhat more profane word, but it is also a kind of consumption, because it is a consumption for the soul. The soul also needs nourishment, and it can receive it, we say (since that is why we do this work), through the media.
We receive many things through the media, through all the channels that exist now, which have diversified. I, for one, am a supporter of and follow the classic ones more: radio, television. Less these modern ones on social networks, on YouTube, although lately I have discovered some podcasts that really impressed me, and where previously I did not have the patience to follow a podcast of an hour or so, some actually succeeded, because they captured me, they held me captive.
Fr. T.: Glory to God!
R.R.: And they kept me captivated, realizing that I could make use of what I see there. I was saying that it is necessary, we need this nourishment that should also come through this technological way of interacting with the world, with people.
Fr. T.: You spoke about impact; how do you think the impact could be maximized? Here we are talking about the specifics of the Church, about a Church media, because that is what we’re discussing. What should an impactful program look like?
R.R.: Now, it has to follow certain rules like any other program. For example, if we think of television, as this is the most watched. I come from radio and I am more of a supporter of radio than of television because television exposes you, but if it is television, then it must have good image, good lighting. That is, the form should be like any program that looks good, but the major impact still comes from the content, from what you offer. And here the question is how you offer what you want to convey. In the end, the message is the Christian message; it is our attempt, all of us, to guide people toward spirituality.
I, for one, think that someone may follow me on television as well as on the radio, not necessarily an Orthodox Christian, but if I manage to make him reflect on the fact that he needs to turn inward from time to time, to take seriously the fact that he has a soul that must also be nourished, then I believe I have achieved my purpose or had a small, small impact. I also believe that God adds to this impact, through the way He makes something resonate in that person, in the listener, in the viewer, in the follower, so that something of what he receives from a program resonates within him.
Fr. T.: Yes, some values. That is, what should a person aim for at the moment when he wishes to be impactful?
R.R.: You know that the media not only informs, it also makes an impression, meaning you have to impress people. Personally, what impresses me most in people, in the people I see, in the people I talk to, is their spirit of sacrifice. Because in the end it comes from a love they have…
Fr. T.: A likeness to Christ, in fact.
R.R.: Yes, it is the way, following Him, because He is the absolute model of sacrifice.
Fr. T.: Of course.
R.R.: And I cannot help but always remember, every time we speak about Christ’s sacrifice, the fact that He, being on the cross in utmost suffering, prays for those who make Him suffer.
Fr. T.: Of course.
R.R.: This is impressive, and if a part of this impressiveness is conveyed by the person you are talking with and you try, through questions, through probing, to bring this out…
Fr. T.: His state of sacrifice.
R.R.: Yes, I think it resonates in the other person.
Fr. T.: Could you give us some examples?
R.R.: Examples from what I have done, or from what I have seen as a viewer, as a follower?
Fr. T.: Of course, it would be preferable from what you have done. Why? Because your personal experience – I’m not speaking about you as a person, but about personal experience – of a report that you yourself have made, or a meeting with a person in a state of personal sacrifice, has a much greater power because you speak from your own personal experience. If it is that you have seen someone, it is a little more… but as you wish.
R.R.: It is less participatory.
Fr. T.: Yes. As you wish.
R.R.: I have spoken with many people who were, who are, deeply living in their desire to follow Christ: monks, lay people. I have made very many recordings for the radio with father professor Constantin Coman. He was also my professor at the Faculty of Theology, in Biblical Studies, in New Testament.
Fr. T.: All our love! We know Father Constantin.
R.R.: I have also told him so many times: Father, I prefer you as an interlocutor because you have a living message, and I understand that when you answer a question, mostly on biblical themes, but not only, it is clear that these are not prefabricated or read-out answers.
Fr. T.: They come from his lived experience.
R.R.: They spring from a search, from an effort to understand what is written in Scripture through a personal filter, and I have noticed this also in the feedback I received, in the responses coming back from those who listened. And it is a state of joy when you meet… Especially when the interlocutor also tells you: I felt good when we spoke and I felt that something beneficial came out of me.
Fr. T.: Yes, it was a liturgy of the word.
R.R.: Yes.
Fr. T.: It was a service of the word. On the other hand, how do you think the Church should – now I am jumping to the opposite side – how should the Church manage more delicate situations, the aggressiveness in the media towards the Church, the distorted news and all this very dark amalgam?
R.R.: Yes. We know that there is the institution of the spokesperson who reacts when necessary to various disinformation. The tone used matters very much, and I believe that at this moment our Romanian Orthodox Church is doing well through the tone it adopts when it has to respond to very aggressive and very malicious messages from people who truly have public influence, because they are visible. But this is important – the tone, and that it should never be felt that aggression is answered with an aggressive message. Because, after all, the Christian is…
Fr. T.: A pacifist, peaceful…
R.R.: The one who wants to be a true Christian is the one who does not respond but who responds with love even to the person who has resentment, hatred. We all try to rise to the height of those words that we sometimes consider a bit utopian or difficult, very difficult to reach: to love your enemy. But we are on this path.
Fr. T.: Yes, this is our example – which is Christ. How do you think the Church could come closer to young people or to the younger generation, so to speak?
R.R.: Yes, this is a problem. Through these classic means of communication, to which I am more attached, it is more complicated today, because young people no longer really listen to the radio, or if they do, they listen only for the music, and not even that anymore, because now there are all kinds of playlists on various apps; everyone listens to their own music. Through television, not that way either, because there is a lot of television on the internet, many videos. There, presence on these platforms that are very popular for young people is needed, but here it is also a dilemma for me how to be present in order to attract them.
Fr. T.: I believe that, from my experience, the flexibility of humility is needed. That is, a person must seek and find the Holy Spirit by following the teachings of the Holy Fathers, and once they find the Holy Spirit, through the Holy Spirit they also find the other spirits – that is, the souls of people – and then they understand people, understand their needs, understand the needs of young people, to a greater or lesser extent. And by understanding the needs of young people, they try as much as possible, with the prayers of their elders, to speak to young people in their own language.
R.R.: Yes, language is important.
Fr. T.: Language is very important, and especially, I think it is very important to discover the needs of young people… what the problems of young people are today. They are this and that and that.
R.R.: Yes, and approaching those issues with a truly unconventional language… that is, to have this courage, as a cleric, even when you are present on a platform with a message, to present it in an unconventional form, even if you might attract, let’s say, criticism from some conservative brothers of yours, because you step outside that framework of a traditional, established language.
I do this on the radio. From the beginning, I felt that it is the medium – you know that saying that the medium is the message. Who? McLuhan. It shapes the type of message, that is, the medium influences it for you. That is, if you talk on the radio about Christ, you do it in a more camouflaged form than when you speak in a sermon or in a purely ecclesial setting.
Fr. T.: Officially, so to speak, yes.
R.R.: Also bearing in mind that the person who hears you is in various situations and catches only a word, perhaps has a slight allergy to the sacred, because there are people who are allergic to the sacred, but if you manage to catch that person with that camouflaged message which is about the sacred, you have gained them or have achieved something.
Fr. T.: You have helped a soul, you have healed a soul.
R.R.: Yes, yes, you try to make them think and further on, God works and they themselves work according to the availability they have.
Fr. T.: Yes. How do you see the future?
R.R.: Yes, the future is… The Church as an institution, and in fact as a guarantor of a way of being, because Christianity is a way of being… There is also the institutional part that the Church manages with its institutions. It is in any case one step behind everything that happens because by its definition it is conservative, that is, it preserves some perennial values that are not distorted as time passes…
Fr. T.: They are above time, some eternal values.
R.R.: But we must find a way to convince these people who are in step with technological progress, with the progress of mentalities, all kinds of innovations on all levels, to understand that there is something that cannot change and it is not good for it to change either. And to orient themselves, to always return there so that they do not get lost, so that they are not scattered…
Fr. T.: Do you think that people in the Church have a crisis of the Church’s identity? I mean, do they no longer know what the Church is, in fact?
R.R.: I don’t know if… I don’t think so, only that there is a difficulty in transmitting this identity to modern people, that is, to the people of today who are assaulted by all kinds of messages from all sides, by all kinds of temptations and thoughts that take you outside yourself, that do not gather you, that scatter you.
Fr. T.: So people, as I understand, have very many centers of attention that draw them in different directions, and the Church has to enter into competition with these.
R.R.: Yes, somewhat, somewhat in competition. Yes, that’s right. You know how it is? Screens are, they are part of our daily life, to a very large extent, aren’t they?
Fr. T.: A very large extent. Screens have already entered everyday life.
R.R.: Yes, and there on the screen the messages of the Church must also be present.
Fr. T.: If the Holy Apostle Paul were here today – the famous question – how do you think he would have acted?
R.R.: Well, I think he would have written, you know, epistles on Facebook. I think he would have written, wouldn’t he? Well, maybe not in the same language in which he wrote them and they are in the Scripture because that was the language of…
Fr. T.: Of that particular time, and especially since the Holy Apostle Paul even used pagan poets.
R.R.: I think he would have used these means. The means themselves are not the problem, but the spirit in which you are and in which you communicate. Because even through the technological means I think I can convey a spirit.
Fr. T.: That is right. Of course, it is not like face-to-face, but it is evidently possible to convey it.
R.R.: Yes, and above all, the presence of Church people on these modern means of communication is meant to convey something much more about others than about themselves. It seems to me that the greatest risk right now, the risk of being in the spotlight and, in some cases, of being overly visible, is that they are promoting themselves rather than Christ.
Fr. T.: Oh, I understand.
R.R.: There’s the risk of perception, even if perhaps that is not their intention. Their intention is certainly not that, but in perception this foreground reversal, as they say, might happen.
Fr. T.: Meaning that they use Christ while pushing themselves to the front.
R.R.: Yes, through an excess of visibility, through theatricality, through an artificiality that can show through beyond the screen and reach people sooner or later. And there is this danger of making people believe that their faith depends on an influencer or on a person, and not on their relationship with God.
What has stayed in my mind, and what I always bring up when I talk about the way we need to be present with the Christian message, is a line from the recent film about Saint Nectarios, when, after many sufferings, a close disciple asks him or says to him: “Father, if they had done all this to me, I would no longer have believed in God, I would have left them all!” And Saint Nectarios replies: “Woe to me if my faith depended on people!” That’s it. We do not depend on the way a priest influences us… Yes, he helps us to walk on a certain path.
Fr. T.: Of course. But he is not God.
R.R.: Yes, my faith is the gift that God gives me and it is my relationship with Him.
Fr. T.: Yes, I believe that this is, at some point, also a form of unintentional idolatry, of course, but still a form of idolatry. That is, I believe in that influencer rather than in God.
R.R.: And then, when the influencer dilutes, let’s say, their consistency or for various reasons, disappears, something happens, I might waver in my faith.
Fr. T.: To be in a hell, in the hell of the absence of god, of the god with a small “g” who was the influencer for me.
R.R.: Yes, that’s it… we must be very careful about this risk! Because I notice some presences that may carry this risk.
Fr. T.: You even spoke at the beginning about celebrity culture. Is that what you meant?
R.R.: Yes, yes, because there are priests who are more well-known, and priests who are more withdrawn, more discreet, but the one who is known should never create the impression, even if he doesn’t intend it, that he is playing the celebrity.
Fr. T.: That he is a celebrity, yes. I think that can be resolved. So I speak from my experience, through an intense spiritual life.
We have also been pressured, and you’ve seen that pilgrims also come to us and pressure us to speak a lot, to answer, and so on, and I really want to ask forgiveness from our audience because I don’t reply, I don’t manage to reply and I don’t want to reply. Please forgive me, don’t misunderstand me, precisely because I want to focus on my spiritual life. I know that if I were to reply more, or if we made more videos, both I and the abbot, since we each make one video per week, of course I make two, but in the second video it’s you, the guest is in the foreground, precisely because we want to preserve our spiritual life. I think that if in the life of each of us, mainly of priests, but not only, in the life of any celebrity, both in a good sense and in a negative sense, the spiritual schedule intervenes, the connection with God, at that moment I think there is a balance. And this celebrity culture is not explosive. We might lose views, but our goal is not views. Our goal is theosis. I believe. I believe our goal must be spiritualization.
You are talking about celebrity culture. How do you recognize celebrities? In a negative sense, so to speak, from your experience.
R.R.: Celebrities in the Church environment?
Fr. T.: Yes.
R.R.: We are referring to them, as there are many celebrities.
Fr. T.: Yes, of course.
R.R.: First of all, through too much, excessive visibility. That is, in my opinion, an exceeding of due measure. Through posts that have as their subject the person in question and the presentation of an event from that person’s private life.
Fr. T.: Oh, I see… I do not watch.
R.R.: Even if everything is meant to point, let’s say, to a way of expressing the gratitude of those who follow for that particular religious influencer. And through the tone, through the way you speak and try to instill Christ, to introduce Him to the soul of the one who follows you.
Fr. T.: Through the way they relate to you, let’s say, or to people, right?
R.R.: Yes. A sign of celebrity culture is also the theatrical gesture that can exist. It can also appear in the case of a man, of a cleric, or of someone who speaks about God. Theatricality. Yes, it is, I would say, a departure from what is natural.
Fr. T.: Yes, yes, from what is normal.
R.R.: Yes. These are challenges, and I think we are learning these things, because everything comes without a user manual, because it comes quickly and we have to learn along the way.
Fr. T.: Yes, that’s right. The user manual exists, it is called the Holy Scripture, but it is difficult to translate.
R.R.: Yes, to transpose…
Fr. T.: To be put into practice.
R.R.: This language, this type of language.
Fr. T.: That is right. My opinion is that all these celebrities, I don’t know, I haven’t met them or if I have met them perhaps I didn’t… it is true that, as I was saying, I don’t go on the internet or I do, but very rarely, I believe that they, like any person, want to do good.
R.R.: Yes, of course. I even said that the intentionality is good.
Fr. T.: It is good, but the poor souls… and this can be seen in the Romanian Orthodox Church. It is an extraordinarily beautiful Church, and I say this from the Holy Mountain, but there is a lack of experience, and then when people do not have the experience of the tradition that exists on the Holy Mountain – because I didn’t have that experience either and I learned it on the Holy Mountain – at that point people necessarily, I think, end up in extremes. Among the elderly fathers in Romania, who lived the tradition from before communism, did you know anyone, do you know anyone?
R.R.: Yes, I met him and I even had the privilege to record some answers from Father Arsenie Papacioc.
Fr. T.: How was it?
R.R.: Extraordinary. I mean, with the father, I think you didn’t even have to listen to him say something. You just looked into those lively eyes of his, of extraordinary intelligence and brilliance. It is not for nothing that it is said you can see the soul through a person’s eyes. Yes, he conveyed something through his presence. Yes, you know how it is. Like in that parable from the Paterikon. Someone was sitting there and not asking anything, “So, why aren’t you asking?”
Fr. T.: That is right. At Saint Anthony the Great, yes.
R.R.: It is enough for me just to look at you and I do not need answers…
Fr. T.: This is a sign of holiness. This is a sign that this person is spiritual and partakes of the living Christ.
R.R.: And more recently, I could say the same about such a very bright presence for me, it was, and is, the father abbot from Putna Monastery, Father Melchisedec Velnic.
Fr. T.: Oh, yes!
R.R.: With a very warm…
Fr. T.: Yes, very warm and very gentle and humble. May we have his prayers! So do you see the future as being more online, or how?
R.R.: It is online and it will remain so. It will also remain in the classic formats, but in the classic area I think radio will have an advantage over television because it is the communication medium of mobility. You can only watch the internet while driving at risk. You cannot watch television while driving, but you can listen to the radio, and that is what I am thinking of. It won’t disappear as a traditional means of communication, but its role is clearly diminishing because people are constantly glued to their screens.
Fr. T.: Sadly.
R.R.: Yes, that is the mirage of the image.
Fr. T.: Do you think the Church press will be relevant in the future, will it increase its share, will it have more impact, or less impact?
R.R.: I think so because we are trying to innovate, we are trying things in order to modernize them, at Trinitas television as well, and now there is also a great work being done online. I say yes. And the Church too will gain in its mission through this kind of presence, because it is an environment where presence is needed. A colleague from the press, in discussions with him, when we were expressing our reluctance about having a presence, said: “We have to be there because if we are not, someone else will take our place.”
Fr. T.: Of course.
R.R.: And if that place is not occupied, someone else will certainly come and occupy it for you.
Fr. T.: That is true.
R.R.: So it is a place of mission, this online, virtual space, let us call it what we will. But always with this tendency and with this thought: to come out of the virtual and to come into the real, because that is where life is truly lived.
Fr. T.: Of course, of course. So we must not push people, young people, into the virtual [world], but on the contrary, we must go there, because they are there, and bring them out into reality.
R.R.: Yes, and reality is there, in front of the icon, in front of the vigil lamp, in front of the chalice.
Fr. T.: In the Church.
R.R.: In Church, yes, this is the reality. Yes, because there is also this risk, and we experienced it and still experience it as a sort of inertia after the pandemic, when there was an inflation of online broadcasts of services. And of course, some were broadcast as each parish could, with modest means and in a precarious form, but this created for some of us, perhaps, the impression that this is also a way to follow a service and to be present. But it is not. It is not a way.
Fr. T.: It is only a way of economy, only when someone is ill and cannot go. So for this reason, Trinitas does well to continue broadcasting services online, but good people, go to church! Go in person! Come on, let’s be real!
R.R.: I think we should make this announcement, and we make it on the radio from time to time. Now I am going to tell you something about the comparison between broadcasting a service on the radio and on television. But I think that on television there should also be, at some point, not only from time to time because it might become annoying, a message written on the screen: this broadcast is for those who have valid reasons not to be in a church.
Fr. T.: Of course.
R.R.: And everyone knows their own reasons.
Fr. T.: We do not pressure anyone.
R.R.: But in this way each person takes responsibility.
During the pandemic, and I also discussed this with colleagues in the press, I came to the conclusion that the most suitable way to broadcast a service, a Liturgy or another service, through a modern means of communication, a technological means, is the radio rather than television, which also offers you the image.
Fr. T.: Yes? Why?
R.R.: Because sound, just sound, I would say preserves better the spirit in which a person integrates into the church through physical presence. Usually, when you have only sound you are more involved in what you hear than when you also have image. This, as a general comparison between means of communication. You are captivated in a completely different way when you are also offered the image, but when you have only sound, you participate with your own imagination.
Fr. T.: I understand.
R.R.: You create the images in your mind…
Fr. T.: You do not see…
R.R.: You don’t get them ready-made, and then it’s as if you are more present, if you want to be present, if you don’t want to… than in front of some very professionally mixed images by broadcast directors… Because, by the way, the only service that is broadcast professionally in Romania, now and during the pandemic, was from Trinitas TV, because here there are people who do and know how to do this work. So what each parish broadcast with a fixed, static image is…
Fr. T.: Yes, a cell phone on a tripod.
R.R.: It was tiring, but it was a way to participate in some exceptional circumstances.
Fr. T.: Yes, of course.
R.R.: But let’s learn from all these experiences!
Fr. T.: Let’s learn and move forward.
R.R.: Of course.
Fr. T.: May the Good Lord help us! Thank you very much, Remus!
R.R.: I thank you!
Fr. T.: It was very useful to me. I hope that to our dear viewers as well… what are they called? I do not even know what they are called.
R.R.: Here, in this environment, followers.
Fr. T.: Followers.
R.R.: But followers in the good sense, because we know there are also followers in the bad sense.
Fr. T.: Dear followers, dear people, in fact. Dear people. And I liked this message because, brothers, I always talk about this topic: let’s be real! Come on, let’s be, let’s move into reality!
R.R.: Yes! Always, these meetings should be an opportunity to live our lives more truly than we do.
Fr. T.: Exactly. More intensely in reality!
R.R.: More intensely, yes.
Fr. T.: May Good God help us! Through the prayers of our Holy Fathers, O Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on us! Amen.
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