Doxologia has published a video feature on the experience of Sophrony (Brett) Shackles, an Orthodox convert from England, who waited 17 hours to venerate Saint Paraskeva during the pilgrimage in Iași.
Sophrony was baptised into the Orthodox Church in August 2025. “I started my Orthodox journey in Romania, in Bucharest,” he says. His godfather is from Bucharest, and the young man says that it was in Romania that he truly discovered Orthodoxy, after he entered a church for the first time.
“Converted” by Romania, baptized in England
Last year he took part in the consecration of the National Cathedral’s iconography, and this year he came to the feast day of Saint Paraskeva to experience the pilgrimage for himself. “It feels like a way I’m being grateful to Romania because of what it’s given me – by coming here to celebrate one of its most beloved saints,” he explains.
He told the Doxologia reporter why he came to Orthodoxy: “I was very dissatisfied with my atheistic life, with my very secular lifestyle, and I was very keen to seek the truth. In the end, I found it in Christ.”
“When I was looking to get closer to Christ and looking at Christianity, Orthodoxy was the Church that stood out to me as the true Church. And when I went there and experienced it, it confirmed it for me.”
A total change
After he received the Orthodox baptism, everything changed, the young man said.
“The goal, the purpose, everything’s changed. I don’t try and live as a selfish individual person. I’m trying not to live that way. It’s all directed towards Christ and about becoming a true human being, which is being one with everybody, all of the human race,” said Sophrony.
Christianity is presented in a “very diluted” way in England, he says.
“When I discovered Orthodoxy, probably on the internet or something, just something about it instantly felt different. The spirit was different. The icons just immediately stood out to me as different. The doctrine was different, the chanting is different. And then what drew me in the most was the fact it’s 2,000 years unchanged,” continued the young Englishman.
“And it’s like, if that’s Christ’s Church and His words are truth, they don’t change because He’s God. Then of course the Church that He started is never going to change the doctrine. So it’s like, yeah, of course this makes sense!”
Waiting for hours, a path to forming a community
When asked what it was like to see so many people waiting for hours on end to venerate the relics, he replied:
“Something my spiritual father said was what makes Heaven [to be] Heaven is [that] everyone there is trying to do God’s will, and it seems like this is the perfect example of this. So really, it’s a piece of Heaven. Think about it!”
The saints are alive and next to us
The new convert was asked to explain the veneration of saints and relics in a way that those outside the Church could understand.
“Well, for me, it’s that if everything that Christ said is true, and He said He’s the God of the living, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, then of course it’s the same thing with those people who have become closer to God in their life and they pass on to the next life with their soul, and they’re close to God,” Sophrony answered simply.
“They’re not dead. They’re living, and of course there’s not going to be a physical barrier, but not a spiritual barrier. And they’re our friends. They’re our friends; they want to help us, so of course we ask for their prayers to help us, like we do with our family members, our friends in the Church. And so even more so, we go to the people who are really close to God to ask for their help.”
A lesson in patience
After waiting for 17 hours and paying homage to the saint, the young man said it had been a trial for which he was grateful.
“No one was complaining about it. Everyone was actually quite happy and joyful. That spirit from everybody else encouraged me and fuelled me. So it was quite inspiring, actually, seeing everyone, the way they were queuing for so many hours,” he said.
“I’ve never had to wait so long for anything in my life, in terms of one day sitting and standing, waiting for one thing. So hopefully St. Paraskeva can help me apply patience to my life when I go back home.”
