On Zozobra & Events Like it

A Pastoral Letter Re: Zozobra

Wednesday, August 10, 2022

Laurence the Holy Martyr & Archdeacon of Rome
Chitus of Athens, Bishop of Rome
Hippolytus the Martyr of Rome
Afterfeast of the Transfiguration of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ

Dear icons and lights of the Living God,

The Lord bless you!

After some prayer, thoughtful reflection, and consultation with brother priests, I am compelled as your pastor to address a well known Santa Fe annual tradition that is quickly approaching in early September, the burning of Zozobra. If you’re unfamiliar, this wikipedia article explains it well enough: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zozobra

The question I hope to answer with this letter is: Can an Orthodox Christian in good faith attend such an event or events like it?

The first question I asked is: is it pagan? If it is, then no, we can’t go. End of discussion. But what exactly is “pagan”? There certainly are “official” pagan religions, and Zozobra isn’t overtly connected to any one of them in particular. (Nor is it an overtly Catholic ritual despite its historic influences.) However, the term “pagan” can also be used to indicate non-Christian ritual. And make no mistake, the burning of Zozobra is most definitely a religious ritual, despite its lack of an official religious affiliation. More on that below.

Attendants write down and place in the fire their anxieties from the past year, their “glooms” , in hopes that by doing so they are assuaged or perhaps entirely resolved. That sounds an awful lot like prayer, doesn’t it? Don’t we also write down the names and concerns of those for whom you want the priest to pray at the altar? Yes, Zozobra is most certainly a religious ritual. (Not to forget the dance of the “fire spirit dancers”.)

The glooms is the part that concerns me the most. If someone attends Zozobra, writes down and lays at the feet (literally) of the effigy, and burns these glooms in hopes that by doing so some change will come to their life, or a burden will be released, or for an answer to a “prayer”, then we must ask a few very important questions.

To whom exactly are participants directing these requests, these glooms? If it is God, our God, the One True God in three Persons, Father, Son, & Holy Spirit, then I ask: why isn’t the ritual of Zozobra a part of the Tradition of His One True Church, the Orthodox Christian Church, His Body on earth? Why aren’t we instructed by Holy Tradition and the Fathers to go to Zozobra and offer our prayers? The reason is obvious. And if it is indeed a ritual that is legitimately not a part of our Tradition, then we would do well to avoid it. We also apply this to other heterodox rituals. Why wouldn’t it apply here?

That leaves us with the possibility that these glooms are not being directed to God. And if not God, then who? The short answer is: a demon or demons. And we should reject outright anything that is even potentially connected to the demonic. Remember that demons are not above helping us with something - improving the “quality” of our lives even - especially if it means drawing us away from the One True God.

I imagine if you ask a typical attendant of Zozobra, they might offer assurances that it’s not an overtly religious or spiritual event. That should concern us. Remember that demons don’t want you to have an obvious reason to reject them, but are happy to supply ample reason to reject Christ. If it were an overtly pagan ritual, with the obvious intention of offering sacrifices to a demon, then we could easily reject it. It’s a far more effective strategy to have it disguised as something neutral, something purely material. But there is no such thing as spiritually neutral territory. Nothing in this world is just an idle or neutral object or event or relationship. And the more ritualistic something is, combined with the ever increasing assurance that it isn’t associated with a particular religion or spirituality, the more we can expect it to be connected with the demonic.

Someone might insist that they will only participate in the non-spiritual parts of the event. They might ask, what if I don’t participate in the offering of glooms? What if I just go for the cultural experience, the fun, the food, the fundraising, etc? What’s the harm then? In this case I think we need to ask ourselves some honest questions. Do I really want to attend an event that has even the slightest potential of being associated with demons, especially one that has obvious ritual elements? I can’t help but wonder, why risk it?

Let’s suppose someone with good intentions, does indeed restrict their participation to the non-spiritual activities, in an effort not to engage the potentially demonic aspects. Who’s to say the demons won’t engage you? And which of us is foolish enough to think we can withstand them at such an event, when no one among us can even withstand them on a typical day? It’s been said that Eve’s first mistake was even acknowledging the serpent as someone worthy of dialogue. And so again I ask, why risk it?

And so, with all this in mind, I do not see a way to bless the attendance of any Orthodox Christians at the Zozobra event or other events like it.

Santa Fe is my new and - God-willing - forever home, and I love it. I love why and how its here. Together I hope we can witness its salvation along with our own. This means capturing the ground wherever we can. It means enacting St. Paul’s words to Titus, to “…insist on these things, that those who have believed in God should be careful to maintain good works. These things are good and profitable to men.” (Titus 3:8) That is, to all mankind. It means being in the world, but “not of this world” (John 17:14) and for our light to shine before all (Matthew 5:17). This is going to mean going against the culture of the world around us, especially the one in our own town.

I leave you with this quote from Fr. Seraphim Rose. “Christian compromise in thought and word and negligence indeed have opened the way to the triumph of the forces of the absurd, of Satan, of Antichrist. The present age of absurdity is the just reward of Christians who have failed to be Christians. And the only remedy for absurdism lies at this, its source: we must again be Christians.”

Forgive me.

Your unworthy priest,

Fr. Jesse