Hello, and welcome to my website! My name is John Strickland and I have been in love with the past since first learning about it in books littering my father’s bookshelves while growing up in California. I now live with my wife and five children in beautiful Puget Sound, where I am the pastor of an Orthodox Church in the town of Poulsbo, amid the serene fjords and forested mountains that surround a place called Liberty Bay. I am the author of five books. Four of these make up a series entitled Paradise and Utopia: The Rise and Fall of What the West Once Was. I am also the author of The Making of Holy Russia: The Orthodox Church and Russian Nationalism before the Revolution. I have a doctorate in history and taught college courses for a quarter of a century.

My four-volume book series is about the history of Christian civilization, or Christendom, and this blog is designed to share some of the research I did for it. It too is entitled Paradise and Utopia for reasons that will be clear as you read through my posts, but if you would like a head start you can read the page entitled “What is Christendom?” off of the main page. You should also know that I have a podcast by the same name and you can visit it to listen to other presentations on the topics I raise here.

I will try to post new articles on this blog frequently, though as a parish priest my pastoral work always comes first. If you enjoy the blog please leave a comment, or (even better) subscribe to it! I currently do not use Facebook or any other social medium for distributing posts, so this is the only place to subscribe.

And if you wish to contact me, I can be reached through the contact form off of the main page.