Journalist Cristian Curte published in the weekly Formula As an interview with Kenan Dionisie Wang, a PhD student in History at the University of Bucharest and a first-year student in Orthodox Theology. Kenan was born in China and converted to Orthodoxy in Romania. He dreams of becoming an Orthodox priest.

“Priesthood is the lifestyle of those who can only feel fulfilled by dealing with divine things. Although we are all called to deification and participate in the universal priesthood, very few are truly called to this lifestyle and enjoy the right circumstances ordained by God,” the new theology student confessed.

“A clear sign that someone fits this lifestyle is that they don’t need huge efforts to adapt to it.”

Rebellion against materialism

“My first step towards faith was a kind of rebellion against the materialism, utilitarianism and idolatry of survival, which are characteristic of the Chinese society in which I was born, but to which I could not adapt. A society where survival is the ultimate goal of existence,” he told the journalist.

“I wanted to find an answer to an essential but somehow ignored question in today’s society, namely: If only material pleasures and achievements define the meaning of my existence, then what is the point of me, a person who is not interested in these things, shall I live any longer?”

Buddhism, a sweetened nihilism

Kenan Wang began to study Buddhism but soon concluded that “it is actually a kind of sweetened nihilism, which does not aim to discover the meaning of human existence” but only aspires to “the extinction of existence, the passing into non-being, because once you no longer exist, you no longer suffer.”

“I liked the Orthodox way of looking at faith. It asks us not to define what God is or what belongs to the Christian faith because, after all, He is a mystery,” said Kenan Dionisie Wang.

Born under the curse of survival

He said Christ is “the Person who confirmed to me the correctness of those values I have held since childhood and for which I was discriminated against and marginalised even by my own family. Moreover, I was born under the curse of survival, and Jesus is the Person who freed me from it.”

“Perhaps it is difficult for you, Romanians, to understand, but for me, the verse “Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God” (Matthew 4: 4) has an immense soul-healing power; it is the answer to the many exhortations that my parents and many other people addressed to me, with the aim of “correcting me.”

Devotion to martyrs

Kenan Dionisie Wang also explained to journalist Cristian Curte why he has a special devotion for martyrs: “The idolization of survival is the constant theme of Chinese culture, which I have faced since childhood,” he noted. And the martyrs “are people who set the ultimate example that survival is not preferable to divine commands.”

“Faith is, after all, above the individual life; it is above even the existence of society. That was the healing that Christianity brought me and through which I finally found my peace.”

Photo source: Formula As