You’re probably trying too hard. That’s the short answer.
Orthodox burnout happens when you treat the faith like a performance you have to nail instead of a hospital where you’re getting healed. It’s real, it’s common, and the Church has dealt with it since the desert fathers warned about the “demon of despondency.” You’re not failing. You’re just approaching things wrong.
Here’s what usually happens. You discover Orthodoxy and it’s beautiful and ancient and true, so you dive in headfirst. You take on a full prayer rule. You fast strictly. You show up to every service. You read three Orthodox books at once. And somewhere around month six or year two, you wake up exhausted. Prayer feels like drudgery. You resent the fast. You start making excuses to skip Vespers. You wonder if you’re even cut out for this.
But Orthodoxy isn’t about being cut out for it. It’s about being healed by it.
The Church has always known this tension. We have two principles that work together: akribeia and economia. Akribeia is the strict application of the rules. Economia is pastoral flexibility. A good priest knows when to apply which one. If you’re burning out, you probably need more economia and less akribeia. That’s not compromise. That’s medicine.
Talk to your priest. Seriously. This is what confession is for. Not just “I yelled at my kids” but “Father, my prayer rule is crushing me and I don’t know what to do.” A wise priest will probably tell you to cut it in half. He might tell you to skip the midnight office you added on your own. He might give you a blessing to eat fish on Wednesday because you work a twelve-hour shift at the plant and you’re about to pass out.
This isn’t lowering the bar. It’s meeting you where you are.
The fathers talk about “little by little.” You don’t become a saint by September. You become a saint over decades of showing up, falling down, getting back up, and letting God work on you. The goal isn’t to white-knuckle your way through a prayer rule that makes you miserable. The goal is union with God. And if your current approach is making you despise prayer, it’s not working.
Some of you came from evangelical backgrounds where you learned to measure your faith by how much you do. You had quiet times and accountability groups and Bible reading plans, and if you missed a day you felt like a failure. Orthodoxy can feel like that on steroids if you’re not careful. All these services! All these fasts! All these rules!
But that’s not what this is. The services aren’t hoops to jump through. They’re where we meet Christ. The fasts aren’t tests to pass. They’re training for freedom from our appetites. The prayer rule isn’t a spiritual report card. It’s a relationship.
When you’re burned out, you’ve probably turned means into ends. You’re doing the thing instead of meeting the Person. And Christ doesn’t want your exhausted compliance. He wants you.
So what do you actually do? First, confess. Tell your priest what’s happening. Second, cut back. If you’re praying an hour a day and it’s killing you, pray twenty minutes. If you’re trying to make every service and you’re resenting it, pick two a week and be present for those. If the fast has become an obsession, talk to your priest about economia.
Third, remember why you’re here. You didn’t become Orthodox to achieve spiritual athlete status. You became Orthodox because you found the Church Christ founded, and you wanted to be healed. Let yourself be healed. That might mean doing less for a while.
I’ve seen people leave Orthodoxy because they burned out. That’s a tragedy. They found the truth and then buried themselves under a pile of rules they made up or inherited from overzealous converts or read about in some Russian monastery book that wasn’t written for a guy working rotating shifts in Beaumont, Texas. The Church is flexible. The Church is a mother. She knows you’re tired.
Metropolitan Kallistos Ware says somewhere that the spiritual life isn’t about techniques. It’s about standing before God as you are. Not as you think you should be. As you are. Tired, distracted, weak, confused. That’s who God wants. He can work with that.
One more thing. If you’re burned out, you might be isolated. Orthodoxy isn’t a solo project. You need the community. You need coffee hour. You need to serve at the fish fry and complain about the heat and laugh with people who are also stumbling through this. If you’ve turned your faith into a private athletic competition, you’ve missed the point. We’re a body. We carry each other.
So give yourself a break. Talk to your priest. Adjust your rule. Show up to Liturgy. Receive communion. Let the Church do her work. You don’t have to be a champion faster or a prayer warrior or the most dedicated convert in the parish. You just have to keep showing up and let God love you.
That’s enough. It’s always been enough.
