by Fr. David Khorey, OCAN Spiritual Advisor

Most of us are familiar with the line from Shakespeare’s Henry VI, Part 2, “First thing, let's kill all the lawyers."  Most of us probably came across it first not in the play itself, but in some other context that was less than positive about lawyers.  Most likely, it was delivered with a smirk, or maybe in a more sinister tone.

It really is sinister, in its original context. The line is delivered by a character named Dick the Butcher, a revolutionary and a thug, who wants to cause chaos and disorder. He knows the lawyers are the ones who preserve order. That’s why it’s important to kill them “first.”

While it’s sinister in its intent, it’s actually somewhat of a compliment to us lawyers. And it’s something important for us as attorneys to remember on several levels, especially in our present time as Orthodox attorneys.

On what we might call a societal level, as attorneys we are indeed responsible for preserving the rule of law. If where we live is an orderly place, it is largely because of the work of lawyers.

On what we might call a vocational level, our very existence as a profession implies the need for such order in the first place. A society that produces and includes men and women who desire to practice law in an ethical and competent manner reveals itself as orderly by nature, and is more orderly in actuality if we do what we as lawyers are “called” to do, so to speak.

On a personal level, we should also lead orderly lives ourselves. It is hard to promote and preserve order unless we are to some degree living out that order in our own lives.

As Orthodox Christian attorneys, we have a specific calling that we must live up to, at this specific time. It is a time in the Church of great growth, a “surge” in interest, new inquirers, new members. It cannot reasonably be said that any of us were ready for this. That should not come as a surprise; we know that we are not able to anticipate, let alone control, what God has store for any of us.

But there are consequences to these circumstances. The Church is responding to growth, much of it driven by a medium it has no historical experience with, without having planned for such growth in advance.  As a result, structures, processes, paradigms, attitudes, and dispositions are developing in a very different environment from the milieu in which the Church’s more familiar means of proper order functioned. Yet continued maintenance of such order must be a priority.

Hierarchs, priests, and parish leaders are working hard to respond to the blessed challenge that is this “new normal” in an orderly manner.

We are called as Orthodox Christian attorneys, in this unfamiliar situation, to return to our familiar role of helping to preserve proper order, in new ways.

The formation and work of OCAN is one such effort. Previously, there were of course Orthodox lawyers, and many of them enjoyed good relationships with each other, but the time calls for a more orderly process and structure, and more topical and focused programming, and more direct support.

And with the “surge,” with the unparalleled and unprecedented and unprepared-for growth it brings, the order that we as lawyers bring on all levels in 21st century Orthodox America, is the gift of service. The Church needs you, us, not only to promote and preserve order in Church matters, but to project by our very existence that we are Orthodox Christian attorneys, that we exist because in a divine manner God brought order to the world, and so order is a good and necessary thing.

Above all, may all of you answer this current call by continuing to lead orderly lives, that you may have a beneficial role as attorneys in the coming years, and that God as always may bring His divine order and saving grace to His Church and its people.

© 2026 Fr. David Khorey

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Father David Khorey is the associate pastor of St. Nicholas Antiochian Orthodox Church in Grand Rapids, Michigan. He was a partner at a large regional law firm where he practiced labor and employment law for nearly four decades and served as a deacon for two decades before retiring from law and becoming a priest.