Aesthetic Orthodoxy, Sacred Longing: The Memes of Catholiccore vs. Orthodoxcore (and Their Siblings in Faith)
Tuesday, MAY 27, 2025.
In the digital age, a curious spiritual renaissance has unfolded not in pews but on TikTok and Instagram.
Two distinct aesthetic movements—Catholiccore and Orthodoxcore—have emerged as memetic subcultures steeped in sacred longing.
They offer not only beauty and nostalgia but also ideological counterweights to postmodern fragmentation.
These are not just trends but visual theologies, each animated by the hunger for form, ritual, and transcendence.
They are acts of digital devotion, remixed through filters and longing.
Catholiccore: The Romantic Return to Rome
Catholiccore is soaked in aesthetic sentimentality: candlelit Latin Masses, incense drifting through Gothic arches, lace veils, and the soft melancholia of Gregorian chant.
It draws from centuries of artistic tradition and sacred drama, portraying suffering as cinematic and devotion as performative grace.
While its most visible expressions lean into fashion and architecture, its core impulse is theological: to reassert beauty as a path to God (Barron, 2017).
The movement often resonates with exvangelicals, deconstructing Protestants, and secular souls seeking enchantment.
However, Catholiccore also flirts with reactionary politics in some of its manifestations, especially within the "tradcath" subset (Sullivan, 2020).
These corners of the movement idealize hierarchy, patriarchy, and liturgical orthodoxy. Yet many adherents are simply pilgrims of beauty, aching for sacred meaning amid the noise.
Orthodoxcore: Ascetic Mysticism with a Gold Leaf Filter
Orthodoxcore offers a sterner mystique. Its visuals are darker, more solemn—icons kissed with trembling, monks silhouetted against candlelit icons, Slavonic chant echoing from vaulted domes.
If Catholiccore is theatrical sanctity, Orthodoxcore is transcendent minimalism.
It resonates with those disillusioned by liturgical modernity and theological relativism.
The theology behind Orthodoxcore is apophatic and ancient. It gestures toward the ineffable, favoring mystery over explanation (Ware, 1993).
Its appeal lies in its refusal to adapt.
It is not a Church of relevance, but of rootedness. This sometimes attracts reactionaries or mystics drawn to its incorruptible stillness. But at its best, Orthodoxcore is simply reverence made visible—a solemn reminder that eternity is not user-friendly.
Sacred Siblings: Jewishcore and Muslimcore
Other traditions have parallel memes.
Jewishcore spans everything from Shabbat chic to Hasidic TikTok, oscillating between irony and reverence.
It is a deeply intergenerational aesthetic, shadowed by historical trauma and liturgical joy. From "Torah Girl Summer" to viral snippets of nigunim, Jewishcore often wrestles with ambivalence—trying to reclaim ritual without necessarily reclaiming God (Biale, 2020).
Muslimcore, meanwhile, is expansive and serene.
From hijab fashion accounts to Quran recitations over moody B-roll, the aesthetic expresses both modesty and sacred elegance. Its roots lie in ihsan—the pursuit of spiritual excellence—and its reach spans continents. It is structured, rhythmic, and symmetrical, offering a calm authority in contrast to secular disarray (El-Aswad, 2013).
The Meme as Devotional Architecture
All four of these social media cores—Catholic, Orthodox, Jewish, and Muslim—are projected mental maps of spiritual yearning.
They use the aesthetics of symbols, garments, and sacred soundscapes to construct meaning in the digital void.
But they also carry risk: the substitution of vibe for virtue, cosplay for conversion, and nostalgia for practice. Still, they illuminate a generational hunger not for novelty, but for the ancient.
These memes are not regressions. They are the ardent longing for the return of the sacred through digital ritual. They assert: you are not the center. The sacred is not convenient. God is not an algorithm.
Form, Fire, and the Return of Awe
If Catholiccore is the rosary in a clawfoot tub, and Orthodoxcore the icon in a mountain cave, both are arrows pointing to the sacred.
They are not the same, but they share a pulse: the ache for transcendence, coherence, and thick traditions that modernity cannot dissolve.
Memes are how Gen Z theologizes. And these memes, for all their filters and irony, might just be prayers in disguise.
Be Well, Stay Kind, and Godspeed.
References (APA Style)
Barron, R. (2017). Vibrant Paradoxes: The Both/And of Catholicism. Word on Fire Catholic Ministries.
Biale, D. (2020). Not in the Heavens: The Tradition of Jewish Secular Thought. Princeton University Press.
El-Aswad, E. (2013). Muslim Worldviews and Everyday Lives. Lexington Books.
Sullivan, A. (2020, February 7). The Reactionary Temptation. New York Magazine. https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/02/andrew-sullivan-the-reactionary-temptation.html
Ware, K. (1993). The Orthodox Way. St. Vladimir's Seminary Press.