George Demourtzidis Part 2 | Orthodoxy and Modern Manhood

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A calm voice can carry more strength than a shout, and that idea runs through our chat with George from the Gold Coast. We begin with the everyday realities of work and place, then get practical about what property and land development actually looks like: buying land, master planning, civil works, subdivision, and selling blocks to families, homeowners, and investors. It’s a useful lens on patience, responsibility, and long-term thinking, not just business talk for business’ sake.

From there, we move into Orthodox Christianity and what it asks of modern men who want marriage and family life. George shares how his view changed from the Hollywood “honeymoon forever” story to an Orthodox understanding of marriage as a union ordered towards salvation, with husband and wife helping each other towards the Kingdom of Heaven. We speak frankly about preparation: prayer, confession, communion, repentance, and the slow building of discipline so a relationship has foundations rather than vibes.

We also explore masculinity through the Orthodox lens of meekness. Not weakness, not passivity, but controlled power: being cool, calm, and collected in the eye of the storm. That connects to fatherhood too, including the idea that a father sets the atmosphere of the home. We then tackle self-mastery, sexual discipline, pornography, and why some men practise semen retention as part of resisting compulsions and staying focused, plus the countercultural boundaries around sex and preparation before Holy Communion.

If this conversation helps you think more clearly about Orthodox marriage, masculine strength, fatherhood, and spiritual discipline, subscribe for more, share it with a friend who needs it, and leave us a review with your biggest takeaway.

Transcript

Welcome From Gold Coast And Hastings

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Sunny Bonani, everybody. Welcome back to the Sunny Banana. I see you. Here we're with George Timorcedis sitting in the Gold Coast. I'm sitting in Hastings. It's supposed to be some in England, but it's overcast and it's a bit chilly, so that's that must be much nicer there in the Gold Coast, George.

SPEAKER_01 0:18

Yeah, it is. Oh, it's a bit overcast now, but it's winter in Australia, but Gold Coast is the place to be. It's about 22 to 26 degrees.

SPEAKER_00 0:28

It's perfect. Lovely stuff. I've been to Australia once before, Brisbane and Sydney, and loved it. Loved it. It reminded me a lot about my home, my home country as well. The culture, the outdoor life, the the love of food and people and communities. Good place. What what year did you come? Oh, that was 2019 or 18, I think.

SPEAKER_01 0:54

Okay, so before COVID. Yeah, yeah. Brisbane. Brisbane is the probably the best place to be at the moment. Sydney is good, but very expensive. Yeah, depending on where you want to live. To go to Sydney for a a trip is good

Real Estate Development And Faith

SPEAKER_01 1:10

to live there. It's very busy. But Brisbane is at the moment the place to be, or the Gold Coast, but Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:19

Yeah. Now I think you're talking from a knowledge of you y you work with land and real estate. So just uh our listeners in the show notes, everything, all the links will be linked to to what George does, especially his his Instagram stuff and his uh Shillogy product. But also yeah, you so you're telling tell us a little bit about the the the land business that you're doing. Uh is that right? Or the real estate? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:43

What did you what did you want to know about it exactly?

SPEAKER_00 1:47

Well, what does it entail shortly? Like, and then it if orthodoxy has any effect on how you run your business?

SPEAKER_01 1:56

Well, I think orthodoxy, whatever business that you're in, you know, you the way you compose yourself, the way you communicate, obviously you've got to be, you know, stay humble. So whether it's in real estate or chilogy or hospitality, orthodoxy in and of itself, you know, you've got to put your best foot forward and and stuff. But with the the land real estate stuff, so pretty much I've got a project in Walleroo, North Beach, which is about an hour and a half out of Adelaide, and pretty much purchased a piece of land, doing a master plan, doing all the civil works, and subdividing the one big block into smaller blocks, and then selling those blocks to mum and dad investors or homeowners or potent even developers that they can actually build a house on, and then they either live in it, sell it, or rent it out. So that's a business that I've been in the the last three years. I used to have a plumbing business, which was a family business, but now I'm sort of transitioning more into the development side of things. I've got the Shirgy product, and then of course my content as well.

SPEAKER_00 3:16

Awesome, brother. You're the first Australian on the show. Just had a thought now. Debut for Aussies. I feel honored. I had a s uh had a had had a Kiwi guy on New Zealander, um which is close but not not Australian, is it New Zealand's very similar to Australia?

SPEAKER_01 3:42

I was actually in New Zealand when I was a young kid. I went to I think it's Wellington and Rhoda Rotarua. But yeah, it would be a New Zealand is a beautiful

Why Marriage Needs Preparation

SPEAKER_01 3:55

place.

SPEAKER_00 3:55

Yeah. So we were in part one, at the end there, you were talking about you said something that you believe God is preparing you for family life. Now, what is your are you single or are you in a relationship now, George?

SPEAKER_01 4:12

No, I'm single at the moment. Yeah. And I've been doing a bit of a deep dive into the whole preparation for marriage. Yeah. And thankfully, some of the girls that I went out with when I was younger, because I had no idea about the church life, actually, even what marriage means. A lot of people don't know what marriage is or what it entails. When I was growing up, I thought marriage was what they portrayed on the Hollywood movies. You find someone attractive, you propose to them, and your marriage life is pretty much like a honeymoon for the rest of your life, which is the furthest thing from the truth. Now, now that I've been doing some research into marriage in terms of orthodox, I've come to realize that marriage is a union between two people, and its main purpose is for these two people to strive to for salvation. So they're meant to help each other get to salvation. That's the main purpose of marriage. Second purpose is from a reproductive point of view, if God blesses you with children. And I had no idea about this. And that's in to answer your question about preparation. I feel like as a as all men, you have to be the foundation in the in the relationship. So you're the rock, you're the anchor, you're the foundation. If if you don't understand the church life, prayer life, confession, communion. For me anyway, I was not in the position to have gotten married when I was when I was younger. Because a lot of people seem to think, you know, if you're a young man or woman, you're in your party, your years, you just you meet someone, and then the next week you get married. There's that there's a there's a big preparation that needs to happen. There's a there's a there's a season of repentance and there's a season of preparation. Now, this information, I don't want you or your viewers thinking that I know it all. This is from what I've heard. I heard father from a podcast talking about this. So what I'm saying to you now is sort of regurgitated from from what he he was saying. But as a young man, you can't be going out to the clubs, you know, being a womanizer, you know, taking drugs, getting drunk, and then all of a sudden you get you find a girl and you get married. Your marriage is gonna crumble. You need to get some discipline in your life. You need to be responsible. Again, you need to know the church life. How is God gonna bless you with one of his daughters when you're like in that state? So for me, as I said to you before, I was living a very hedonistic lifestyle, and God's like, George, how am I gonna give you a daughter of mine when you're living like a like a heathen? So clean your life up, get some responsibility, fight your passions, stay away from you know, this and that, and yeah, and like I was saying to you before in part one, um, I feel like I'm in my season of preparation. And it it goes the same with girls as well, like this particular father that was on the podcast was saying, and I hope none of your female viewers get offended, but he said, you know, some of the girls this generation, you know, they're they're going out to the clubs till two, three in the morning, they're coming home sleeping until one o'clock in the afternoon, and their mother are washing their undies. She's he's like, how is that woman, that girl, going to sustain a household? How's she gonna sustain a husband when her whole life is based around having fun and parting? She's not gonna get married. She's not prepared to get married. So the preparation for marriage is a big thing, and understanding why what marriage is is another big thing as well.

SPEAKER_00 8:58

So yeah, that you remind me of what we're talking about in part one about the sacrament, or we say mysteries in the Orthodox Church about communion being prepared for something like that. And I've never heard someone talk about that like that. I've never actually seen it like that. So you need to prepare your body and your soul to enter that mystery of marriage, because if not, nine times out of ten, it's gonna be chaotic, it's gonna be it might not work, and probably won't work. Yeah, it's definitely a salvivic. I I'm God bless me with two young girls, two daughters, and the marriage is difficult, like being a Christian is difficult, like being orthodox is difficult, but the process keeps you humble, you need obedience, you need discipline. And also, I think like what you said about salvation, you you need to say help each other to be saved. I I think of my children, and I like you know, and I think of myself as if I can't control my passions or if I can't work with the Holy Spirit and God to control my passions and not be obedient, how am I supposed to teach my daughters on the way to the kingdom of heaven?

SPEAKER_01 10:05

Well, exactly. And they say children especially they don't so much do what you say, they watch what you do. So, you know, for example, a lot of parents saying, Oh, well, you know, I want my son or daughter to go to church. Well, hang

Fatherhood As The Home’s Atmosphere

SPEAKER_01 10:20

on, they monkey see, monkey do. How you live your life, that will emulate that.

SPEAKER_00 10:27

And yeah, yeah, yeah. So how I come across your your content was you was you were you have your videos and you were reading The Orthodox Father, a book. This is bad from me, but like the the who was the the author of that book? So we can I'll put it in the show notes because it's a fantastic book for a whiny man.

SPEAKER_01 10:50

I'll send you the details of that. I don't know off the top of my head, but pretty much how I came across that book. I actually wasn't searching for it. A bit like how you found me, I was just posting content, and this particular gentleman, he lives in Melbourne, he reached out to me and said, Hey George, I want to send you this book that I've published called The Orthodox Father. And so he sent it to me, and I started reading it, and it's it's a very easy book to read. Don't get me wrong, you know, the the Bible is very important and we should read it, but but this particular book here and some of the other books, you know, from St. Beesos, the you know, contemporary man and family life, uh I resonate with a lot more because it's very relatable. And so when I was reading The Orthodox Father, there was things in there about how a man needs to hold himself, you know, and as I mentioned to you before, you know, the the man is the rock, the foundation in the house. If he's had a stressful time at work and he comes home and he's agitated or he's looking at his phone, or you know, he he may be, you know, in his room watching pornography while his family's out there having dinner, the the atmosphere, like the father from what the book says is the atmosphere of the home. So if he comes and his all those things that I've mentioned, the home will feel it. But if he comes and he understands the prayer life and his, you know, participating in the sacraments of the church and his cool, calm, and collected, then I know you want to touch on, you know, masculine frame, but being truly masculine is when you're cool, calm, and collected. You know, a lot of people might think being masculine is shouting and screaming and being obnoxious. That's actually far from what masculine is. Masculine is when you're in the eye of the storm and you're sitting there in peace and quiet. So the Orthodox Father, which I'll send you some of the details, is probably one of the best books that I've read. And it's actually helped me understand, you know, George, when you do meet that person and when you do become a father, God willing, what what kind of person do you need to be in order to be a high-level, high-functioning father? Because it it is a difficult role.

SPEAKER_00 13:31

And yeah, so it's it's Blagoya Elieski. I think I've said that terribly wrong. Blago Blagoya Elieski is the author of that book. Yeah, powerful stuff. There's too many puns happening here as we go in my mind going forward, a seminal moment now to go into another topic of masculinity. And I I was a philosophy teacher, and I used to people and a chaplain at a school, so that people used to ask me, Why is God a father? And I could only think that we we understand things that the origin of things is a masculine property, the origins of things, like a seed. A seed is even in the French language, is a masculine thing. It has potential. However, it cannot it cannot reach its potential if it doesn't connect with something that is feminine, something like soil, which is a feminine prompty property. Uh the ancients knew this very very deeply. And so when you say the the father must lead, the father must be the the cornerstone. He he he originates, he gener he generates the atmosphere of the house, and then the mother or the the woman, and and this also happens in must happen in culture and and the church, they they they nurture what is there and they they provide sustenance that it can keep going.

Semen Retention And Self-Mastery

SPEAKER_00 15:05

So without that, without the woman, it will just crumble if it was just um yeah. So and so I came across a video of you of you speaking about semen retention. And you know, when you were talking about being a man and masculine, not being aggressive and not shouting and going and getting what you just what you want. What I've learned in orthodoxy is actually meekness. I never understood meekness until now. Meek to be meek is actually to control all of that, to have all of that going on, to have all the temptations going on, the chaos, the storm, that be be at peace and resist and be strong and quiet and calm. That is that is being meek and humble. Before I thought meek and humble was was to be weak, was to was to submit and and uh not partake, but actually it's actually opposite. So semen retention for for for the young men in our in our in our podcast out there, what can you tell? What you can tell us about what you were saying in that video, or what can you tell us about that?

SPEAKER_01 16:15

Yeah, sure. So what young men need to realize, we are born into this world, into a spiritual war. So there's an attack on the masculine frame, there's an attack on the souls and an attack on the minds. Now the semen retention, semen has life force in it. Aside from many other properties and minerals and about it, the semen itself has life force. Men have the capacity to create life. Women have the eggs, but men have in them the life force. Now, when I was going to my spiritual father in the early days, when I was when I went to my first confession, when I was about 19 to 22, the way he had asked me was, Oh, do you have you spilt your seed? And that was the first time I'd actually heard of that. I didn't know that the man's sperm was called seed in ancient texts. But only up until a few years ago, I took a deep dive on semen retention. And you can look this up yourself. But a lot of the top professional athletes before a big fight or before a big game, they actually get told by their coaches to do semen retention. Because as I mentioned to you before, it it has life force in it. And if you're depleting that life force, if you're depleting life force out of you, what do you think that's doing to you? Well, you're taking the life out of you. And I know, and your younger viewers, male viewers will relate to this, every time you do the deed and you do spill your seed, you become weaker, you become less motivated, you become more irritated, you become anxious, aside from you feeling bad as well. But the the from from my research, our semen as one purpose only. It's not for pleasure, it's not for entertainment, it's for reproductive purposes. And, you know, what do they teach young? I don't know, the about the school system in the UK, but here in Australia, it would probably be the same. They teach young men to spill their seed, you know, if they feel like it. You know, they say it's healthy. But like I said to you before, we're born into this spiritual war. And to emasculate a man, the first thing that they do is to make sure that they spill their seed, to take the life force out of them. Because if they have a bunch of men that are dumb, docile, anxious, well, they can control them more or they won't fight back. Have you heard of the theory about them putting stuff in the water to make men weaker?

SPEAKER_00 19:46

Or they, you know.

SPEAKER_01 19:49

Yeah. So yeah, there's this constant war of this ruling class wanting us to spill our seed, wanting us to watch pornography, wanting us, and in actual fact, it's what it's pretty much doing is just weakening the the male species. Yeah. And you don't get a bunch of strong strong men anymore, or honorable men. And you were talking about meekness before. If you can't control your urges, and like I explained in my post, men will typically operate from two realms. They'll operate from from their their nous, their mind and soul, or they'll operate from the lower parts of their body, which is more the animalistic parts of your body. You know, sometimes I might be out with a couple of guys, and you know, they might see a girl and they get all excited, and they might say they're horny and this and that, then they might go home and and go spill their seed. Like they're not in control of these of these things. Me, I want to be in control. I don't want my emotions to rule my actions. I want I want to be in control. And and not only that, you'll notice that a lot of the men that do watch porn and spill their seed, tend to age a lot quicker. Because, like I said, it's taking the life force out of them. Whereas when you retain that life force, and as I said in the in the post, and when I went to Manathos, a lot of the monks there, even though they were in their 50s and 60s, they had baby faces. And I think it was a testament to the semen retention, even though they weren't doing it for you know beauty standards to try to look young. But yeah, they were but I think that whole premise of you know using your seed to reproduce, nothing like that gets taught in, you know, modern education. You know, they say when you get married to your wife, people tend to sort of make it into some porno film, you know, where they think you just spill your seed every day and you know have sex with your wife, which I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that. But I I think we we don't really truly understand the nature of ourselves. Like we haven't really been taught, like when you go to school, you know, you learn algebra, you learn all this nonsense that actually doesn't set you up for life. But things like semen retention, things like you know, orthodoxy, things that you don't get taught this stuff because, like I said, they want to keep us uh at a lower vibrational frequency. I think to truly master yourself as a man, you have to practice semen retention. Until you know, I find a wife is yeah, semen retention all the way. Because it helps you, it helps you stay focused, it helps you keep a clear mind. And like I said, the women won't be able to relate to this, but the young men that are watching, they know as soon as you spill your seed, you get like you get lazy, you feel like going to sleep. Whereas when you retain that life force in you, it's you're you're on like 24-7, you know, with sharpness, you're more motivated, you know. If you're hitting the gym, you're lifting heavier, there's more, you've got more presence about you. But women will be able to pick up on it as well. You know, if you're if you're out and you're practicing semen retention and it and it changes your complexion as well, you know, it changes the tonality of your skin, how you look, your eyes. Because I think there's a saying, one one drop of semen is like equivalent to a liter of blood. And there's a lot of mystical things about which probably won't have time to get into. Not only seed, but the you know, sex, the the power that gets produced by, you know, sex

Sex, Discipline, And Communion

SPEAKER_01 24:35

as well. But yeah, yeah, we'll leave that for another time.

SPEAKER_00 24:41

Yeah, yeah, that's that's definitely that. But it's brilliant, brilliant stuff, and um it's great. We need to talk about this stuff. There are teachings in the Orthodox Church that you should not have men should have no emissions or couples should not have sex before receiving Holy Communion, the night before at least. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:00

And and on Wednesdays and Fridays, I'm pretty sure. Yeah, yeah. I think holy week, the whole week. So again, sex from my understanding in marriage is to number one like to bond with your spouse and number two for reproducing.

SPEAKER_00 25:21

Yeah. Yeah, definitely, definitely countercultural. Uh uh like to I've worked in schools for about 15 years now, and it was basically if it feels good, it's okay.

SPEAKER_01 25:37

You know, yeah. Well, that's what they're teaching, especially young, you know, if you want to get into the occult or feminism, you know, YOLO, go live your life, you know, experiment, go sh share your sexuality with different people. All these things dangerous, and people don't actually really know the effects of them, long-term effects, and not from a physical point of view, but from a psychological point of view as well. Like there's a reason why God intended for us to get married and have one partner, because there's things that the ruling class don't tell us. And I've been doing a bit of a deep dive into the transfer of energy that happens between when two people have sex. Like there's an exchange of of energy, there's a transfer of information, DNA, family history. And these are things I didn't know. And I remember in my past when I had, you know, had sex outside of marriage, now that I'm thinking of it, I did feel diff very strange after. And even in the Bible, I think St. Paul says you become one flesh with the person you have sex with. And so the ruling class, they don't, they don't, they don't teach us about this stuff because what I think they want to do is, and especially you see this a lot with females, the females tend to have many sexual partners, when they do end up with the man that they marry, they they they tend to not be um as happily in the marriage compared to a woman that's you know a virgin. Because it it it it when a woman it does it it's

Sexual Culture And Spiritual Consequences

SPEAKER_01 27:40

also the same with men, but it's more so with women, but it it uh messes them up on a psychological point of view as well. They're harboring, because as I said to you before, the transfer of energy. But let's just say, for example, I'd met a girl that had been into the occult, or I'd met a girl whose father could have been a you know, a criminal or a rapist or something like that. These things get transferred to you, these characteristics, these personas, these personalities, it's really bizarre. And when I look into it, like this episode that I was watching of this guy explaining it, he was saying, you might have a beautiful, virtuous young woman, but as soon as she starts hooking up with the bad boys and getting passed around, all of a sudden her character changes. She's no longer that sweet little, you know, virtuous woman that she once was. And then they start, you know, getting tattoos and they start getting so that there's something to her. I haven't, you know, looked into it too deep, but I'm I'm on the verge of taking a deep dive into that. And if you have a look at the occultists, anytime that they want to appease their deities, I know we're sort of going off on a bit of a tangent now, but do you know what two rituals they do to appease their deities? I'm talking not church, I'm talking like the the evil people. Yeah. They do they do blood sacrifices and they do sex magic. And then I was thinking to myself, why? What is it about sex that they haven't told us? There's something about sex that they're not telling us that they're using to appease their deities. That's why, you know, hopefully this doesn't get censored, but the whole Epstein files and stuff. I don't know if you've had a look into that, how they were doing some satanic sex rituals and stuff. There's something about something about sex that they haven't told us. And this is all tied up with the seed and sex, and this is what they're not, you know, we young men don't understand. They're just, you know, watching porn, spilling their seed, or going out, sharing their body with multiple people, but they don't know like the damage they're doing to themselves, yeah, from a physical, spiritual, psychological standpoint, you know.

SPEAKER_00 30:36

George Noble, these are very important topics, and I don't want to stop you there, but I think it's getting a bit darker there by you. And I'd love to I'd love to keep I'd love to keep going. Perhaps we do a a part three another time. You go and enjoy your holiday now on the Gold Coast.

Where To Find George

SPEAKER_00 30:55

But I wanted to just ask you to tell us, tell our listeners out there, where can we find your stuff?

SPEAKER_01 31:03

So at the moment, I've got TikTok, but I mainly post on both TikTok and Instagram. Instagram's probably the best place to find me. So it's just George Demo underscore. So G-E-O-R-G-E D-E-M-O underscore. That's the best place to find me.

SPEAKER_00 31:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 31:23

So if there's yeah, anyone that wants to follow my content or ask me any questions, you can find me there.

SPEAKER_00 31:30

Awesome, brother. Yeah, we'll we'll link all that in the in the show notes, and hopefully people can find your your great stuff. It's topics that there's the last we were going into, it's topics that people tiptoe around, and it was great that we could as as as two grown men have a good conversation about this so we can help help the young men out there, how the help, the young women out there live the best lives they can, you know. So George. 100% really appreciate your time. And I'm just gonna greet the the listeners out there, Sunny Bunani. Thank you for listening to the Sunny Banana. We see you.