The Arena · Father Josiah Trenham

Reflection | The True Holy Land

April 3, 2026·25 min·2 clips

The Holy Land for Christians is not in the Middle East—it's the kingdom of God, found in the churches where we pray.

1. An unnamed Orthodox Christian priest delivers a reflection titled 'The True Holy Land,' addressed to listeners of the podcast series The Arena. 2. The speaker is a priest in the Orthodox Church, citing patristic sources, and frames this reflection as emerging from his preparation for the Fourth Sunday of the Great Fast, dedicated to St. John of Sinai. 3. The reflection argues that many influential Western Christians have a fundamental misunderstanding of typology — the relationship between Old Testament types and their New Testament fulfillments — which leads to political and theological errors. 4. The reflection begins with Genesis 28 and Jacob's vision of a ladder, noting that Jesus himself interprets the ladder as referring to himself in John 1, when he tells Nathaniel he will see 'angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.' 5. St. Augustine in City of God is cited as interpreting the stone on which Jacob rested as an image of Christ, noting that Jacob anointed it and 'Christ' means 'the anointed one.' 6. St. Ephraim the Syrian, a fourth-century poet and theologian, is cited as identifying the ladder also as a type of the Virgin Mary, since she was the earthly means through which Christ took on humanity. 7. The ladder is also interpreted as an image of the Christian life — the ascent toward God through prayer, virtue, and the sacraments — and is the origin of the title of St. John of Sinai's major work The Ladder of Divine Ascent. 8. The speaker states twice and emphatically that the Holy Land for Christians is not in the Middle East, arguing that the types that made that land holy were fulfilled in Christ and the Church. 9. He draws a structural parallel between how a church building is consecrated — anointed with chrism, sprinkled with holy water, with the eucharist enthroned on the altar — and how a Christian person is made through baptism, chrismation, and eucharist. 10. St. Paul in Romans 4:13 is cited as evidence that the promise to Abraham was for him to be heir of the whole world, not just the Middle Eastern land, with the land being a type pointing to the larger fulfillment. 11. The speaker argues the 'rebuilt temple' anticipated by some Christian and Jewish movements is theologically impossible because the earthly temple was a type of Christ's body, and rebuilding the type after the fulfillment has come would be 'the greatest blasphemy.' 12. He cites St. Cyril of Alexandria's argument that the earthly temple was 'a foretaste of the true temple' and states that the Aaronic priesthood has been permanently superseded by Christ's priesthood 'according to the order of Melchizedek.' 13. St. Paul in Galatians 3:16 is cited as identifying the singular 'seed' of Abraham as Christ himself, not a collective of physical descendants. 14. The speaker argues that physical descent from Abraham without sharing Abraham's faith is 'more than worthless,' citing Jesus's words to the Pharisees: 'Abraham is not your father, but rather you are children of the devil.' 15. He identifies two prominent American political figures — 'the Huckabees and the Cruises of our land' — as well-intentioned but 'awful theologians' pushing a heretical 19th-century hermeneutic into American political life. 16. St. Gregory of Nyssa's fourth-century treatise On Pilgrimages is introduced: written in response to the boom in pilgrimage after St. Helen built churches on holy sites, Gregory argued the true Holy Land is heaven and the holiest earthly geography is wherever the most altars and active worship are. 17. Gregory argued the church altar is a portal between heaven and earth, and concluded that his home region of Cappadocia — with the most altars — was more worthy of pilgrimage than Jerusalem. 18. The reflection is a solo monologue, delivered in a measured and educated clerical style with frequent quotations from scripture and church fathers; there are no guests or dialogue. 19. Orthodox Christians, Eastern Catholics, and other liturgically grounded believers interested in patristic typology and the theological basis for rejecting Christian Zionism will find this most engaging. 20. Listeners who are not familiar with Orthodox or patristic theology, or who are committed to a dispensationalist or Christian Zionist framework, may find the argument challenging or disagreeable.

As heard by us

An Orthodox meditation on typology, worship, and the true Holy Land.

This episode reads as an Orthodox case for typology. It uses St. John of the Ladder and the Genesis 28 reading for the fourth Sunday of the Great Fast to argue that Scripture should be taken as type and fulfillment, not as isolated scenes.

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Why you'd press play

Jacob’s ladder becomes a map to worship, heaven, and the true Holy Land.

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