Conversions to Orthodoxy

[MaRiNa_Orthodox]

HAHAHAHAH!

 

[MariaRegina]

I'm only giving a brief account of my conversion to Orthodoxy.

I come from a large Irish Catholic family, and felt a calling to enter the convent just out of high school, which was a mistake because of all the changes going on within the Church at that time. The experience was very unsettling for me, but I continued with my college education. However when I came home during the summer break, I learned that I had been left behind, as my parents and siblings had all joined the Baptist Church during my absence. Yeah, another LEFT BEHIND story. My mom was really cold toward me and told me that I was being disobedient by remaining a Catholic when they had gone ahead without me.

On the other hand, My aunt who was my godmother, was a staunch Catholic who sent me pictures of the Pope every Christimas and Easter. She became closer to me than my mom.

My confessor told me that I would probably end up marrying a Protestant who would convert to Catholicism at the last minute to marry me. Guess what? Two years later I did exactly that. My husband received Baptism-Confirmation and Holy Communion in August and we were married one month later in September. However, when we went on our honeymoon to Seattle, my newborn-husband-in-Christ was shocked and angry. The priest gave a sermon in which he told the congregation to grab their guns and join the guerrilla movement down in El Salvador. That was the beginning of our search which led to Orthodoxy. At first we joined the Melkite Church, but then we were drawn to the purity of repentance and worship in the Orthodox Church. The retreats were so devout, the repentance so real, the Divine Liturgy the most beautiful worship, that we just had to become part of it. In so doing, we lost almost all of our Catholic friends except 1 or 2. This forced us to make new friends within the Orthodox Church. We were received as a family on Lazarus Saturday of 1996.

 

[gzt]

I'll post a short version of the beginning of my story now and maybe a long version someday.

I grew up as some sort of evangelical nondenominational Protestant and my family was tied into the church rather well. My uncle was the senior pastor and my father was a deacon. It was a typical medium-sized evangelical church.

When I was 13, I became fervently interested in Christianity and Christian history and apologetics. As I read about Christian history, I began to wonder at what point an evangelical Protestant should start to distrust the testimony of the Church. I didn't read many primary sources, but I realized at the time that the Nicene Creed meant something very different to the early Christians than it did to me and that ecclesiastical organization was very different by the beginning of the second century from what we were doing. When reading a book of Catholic apologetics I realized that the only way to defend Scripture as such was through the tradition of the Church which produced it. At that time, I also read C.S. Lewis heavily, since my dad was a big fan and had all his books lying around. So, I began wondering how one could reconcile an acceptance of the traditions of the early Christians with the brand of evangelical Protestantism practiced by my church. I assumed it was, indeed, possible.

The intractability of the problem led me to put it aside and think of other existential problems, such as women and growing up. I certainly knew the Truth, but it had no great power over me, though I knew it to be true and tried, in my own manner, to live it. But I couldn't see how it was possible in the context of my little church. What else was there?

I was a bright guy and I think they wanted to push me into some sort of leadership role, so while in high school they had me lead the high school book-discussion group when they went over The Screwtape Letters. That was good enough to prevent me from degenerating into nothingness for at least the next year, but it wasn't enough to sustain me forever.

Eventually, I got to the point where I could intellectually assent to the truth of the Gospel, but it had no existential import, though I couldn't completely ignore it in my life because I knew it was truth. Perhaps I would've become a postmodernist, I did read some Zizek at that time which I really dug and somebody, someday, would've mentioned Tillich and Ricoeur...

Anyways, I began hanging out at a satire site [News for Grown-ups] during my senior year of high school because the people on it were rather clever. There was this man, a Russian man, who had very complex and insightful opinions about everything, and since it wasn't worthwhile to waste time posting an entire argument on the site, he'd argue by invective and aphorism. Frankly, that defines about half the regulars on the site. Anyways, every once in a while some new kids would come by and post some silly attack on a particular brand of American Know-Nothing Protestantism [a straw man], and while I'd sometimes write a correction, the Russian gentleman would, figuratively, whack them over the head with a stick and tell them what "real Christian theology" teaches in two sentences - Zen koan-like. And I would think, "That is eminently reasonable and in accord with my readings in Christian History." I thought such a [Orthodox] view of the Church and theology would be compatible with an eclectic evangelical Protestantism. And, in a sense, it was, but not enough to satisfy me. A friend of mine became Orthodox as a result, though, very Orthodox.

I'll cut it off here and discuss my disappearance into college later.

 

[gzt]

Continuation.

Anyways, so I left for college eventually and couldn't in good conscience become nothing, so I started to wonder about what I would do. I considered becoming an Anglican [the influence of C.S. Lewis] and even thought about Orthodoxy for a second [only a second!], but never got around to doing anything about either. I got invited to go to "Bible Study" by some guys with rather bad theology and skipped out on it 'cause they were weird, and that was it for the fall.

In the spring, however, they caught me again and, begrudgingly, I picked it up and even started going to their church. It was horrible! Everything I disliked about Protestantism. They didn't have any practice or even doctrine of either the Eucharist or Baptism. One thing it did do: it forced me to, once again, read Scripture and consider Christian history.

At the same time, I was busy discussing the coherence of the Christian [or even, any religious] worldview against the attacks of positivism and other scientisms alongside two rather intelligent Orthodox Christians. One was my friend who converted, the other another man, he's studying philosophy. Great guy, he's running a small press now which prints booklets containing early Christian literature, ie The Martyrdom of Polycarp. Somewhere in there, I read the Rainbow Series because I wanted to know what made Orthodoxy different from whatever mere Christianity I was practicing. A friend of mine asked what I was doing, I showed her what I was reading, and she asked, "Do you believe it?" So far, I hadn't had any problems, but I knew if I said yes, I'd be obligated to change my ways, so I told her I agreed in almost everything, but there are some fine doctrinal points where I didn't. She asked for an example. I waved my hands. Later, I read some St. John of Damascus because I was in a Renaissance Art History class and I wondered about the differences between late medieval western and eastern art and he was a logical starting point [and I ran into a girl on the bus reading him...]. Somewhere along the line, I also read Lossky's Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church, but I wasn't quite ready to move, since I was still, despite all my reading, not living in the faith. It was an intellectual interest. One day during spring break, though, I suddenly thought, "Wait, I know what truth is and I know what love is, and this [what I'm doing in life] is not it." After that moment of clarity, I began to pursue Christ again. At that bizarre group's Easter retreat [a horrible experience], I suddenly thought, "I know what the Church is, it's what I've been reading about all along." Shortly after getting back from the retreat, I subscribed to the OCF mailing list, started talking to the priest, got a pile of books from the library, and ignored my classes for a couple weeks.

I only had the chance to attend liturgy once before summer began and I went home, though. No Orthodox Church at home! My parents had moved to a new town while I was off at college, too, so I didn't know anybody, either. Hard summer in a shampoo factory on the third shift. I found out during the summer that one of my other friends at school was considering becoming Orthodox, but nothing came of it.

Anyways, when I got back to school, I began to make preparations to enter into the Church at Pascha along with a few others, and the rest of the story is the typical matter-of-course stuff. Catechism etc etc. Not that catechism is something to be taken lightly! It's a marvellous work. When I returned from Christmas Break, I was surprised to see that one of the people from that bizarre "Bible Study" was there. He wanted to be received into the Church, too, and, by the grace of God, both of us were chrismated on Holy Saturday this year.

I didn't have any difficulties with my family or friends or other Christians as a result of this, the only hard part was fighting my own demons. The churches I had been a part of didn't seem to mind I'd left them, though often the people would say, "That's an interesting choice," as though my becoming Orthodox were merely the expression of my personal preference. In a sense it is: there is only one sadness, that of not being a saint. But I'd prefer self-worship, and did for a long time.

I left out some things: my first encounter with The River of Fire, how I learned to stop worrying and love my neighbor, reading the entire Catholic Catechism twice, my first visit to a monastery, and not rejecting a church for the wrong reasons. I didn't mention any of the questions driving me towards Orthodoxy. Perhaps some other time.

 

[Rilian]

I left out some things: my first encounter with The River of Fire

That was like a two by four between the eyes for me. It was one of the first things I read, it really got me thinking.

 

[prodromos]

That was like a two by four between the eyes for me. It was one of the first things I read, it really got me thinking.

It sent me in tears to my icon corner. Some don't like it, but I think it was just what I needed at that time

 

[gzt]

That was like a two by four between the eyes for me. It was one of the first things I read, it really got me thinking.

I'm used to two by fours since I was a big fan of polemics growing up [and it's quite a temptation not to engage in them]. I forget when I read it, but it was most likely before I left for college. What took me so long, I guess, was fact-checking. I feel silly: I nearly showed it to that one guy, the one who eventually became Orthodox, that spring when I realized I had to convert. I don't know what he would have said. I don't know what's changed in him. I wonder who prayed for him [I don't think it was me, I was far too self-absorbed]. In fact, I've never really talked to him about when he left that group and what made him do it, all I know is that one day he showed up at church and he already knew how to venerate the icons. I think he wants to be a priest. May God have mercy on him.

 

[ExOrienteLux]

I'm going to post my testimony (so far as it goes thus far) once I get done writing it down. Iconographer has the right idea: I've done this before and I'm going to do it again, so I might as well make a detailed, standard version.

I don't know how long it's going to take, though, so bear with me.

His sinful and unworthy servant,
Josh.

 

[ExOrienteLux]

Well, here's part one of my story, for any who might be interested:

I grew up in Eastern Ohio, born to slightly to moderately Protestant parents. I mention those two factors first because in the Ohio River Valley, there are a lot of steel mills. Lots of steel mills means lots of immigrants. Lots of immigrants means lots of Catholics (all those Italians and Irish, which are both in my blood, by the way). Like I said, I was born to rather un-religious Protestants, which means that either I didn’t think about religion that much growing up, or, if I did, I thought that Catholics generally had it wrong, even though I knew a lot of them (including my great-aunt and great-uncle).

Anyway, I had a typical American childhood. My family got along fairly well, and we never really went to church apart from Christmas and Easter. That started to change after I got confirmed in the Methodist Church when I was 12. Still, even though I knew a little more and had a Bible, it didn’t make a difference in my day-to-day life.

I don’t think I’ve ever been atheist or agnostic. I’ve always known that there was a God. I just didn’t care about Him. However, I’ve always had a fascination with ritual, and I think that’s why the adversary tempted me for a time through the channels of the occult, primarily the Kabbalah. However, thanks be to God, I never got too far into it.

As I look back over the almost two decades, I can see how the Lord has blessed me. One of the biggest ways is that He’s given me an insatiable appetite for good books, and he hasn’t hesitated to use it to His advantage.

The first time that He used my love for books to draw me closer to Him and to His Church was in December of 2001. My first experience with Christianity was rather different than most other peoples’, because I was actually converted through books and not through the ‘typical’ means of evangelism.

The books that did it were, sad to say, the Left Behind series. Originally, I only read them because they were bestsellers. What really puzzled me, though, was the question of where they got all of the information for their books. So, I went out and bought me a copy of a ‘book’ on ‘prophecy’ by one of the authors of the series (and I use both ‘book’ and ‘prophecy’ very loosely) and read it through. Of course, seeing as that series was a dispensational Protestant series, it had the typical “sinner’s prayer” that such works have, and when I found it, I was sufficiently Jonathan-Edwards-ed out of my wits that I prayed it. Of course, looking back now, I see that those ‘books’ are works of shoddy eschatology and third-rates writings in and of themselves, but it’s amazing how God can use even the works of schismatics to bring people to the Truth of Orthodoxy, isn’t it?

Anyway, after my initial conversion experience, I began to devour all the Christian literature that I could find, started going to church more and more, and became involved in the local Young Life group. For those of you who don’t know what that group is or what it does, it’s an ecumenical (and when I say that, I mean it; in my group, the people ranged the gamut from Pentecostals AGers, to more main-line Protestants like Baptists, Presbyterians, and Methodists, with a few Catholics thrown in there for good measure, and [this is the important thing] the leaders happened to be Orthodox) outreach group aimed at evangelizing unchurched teens by coming to them where they are and working through developing relationships and trust with them, not by handing out tracts. It’s worked very well, and I know that it’s introduced many teens to Protestantism (no idea how many have become Orthodox because of it; for all I know, I might be the only one).

Young Life’s ministry is based around ‘Clubs’, where the leaders (both adult and youth) put on various skits, lead singing in both popular and slightly religious music, and where one of them gives a talk. It also incorporates “Campaigners”, which is a discipleship group for those who are already Christian which helps them grow in their faith. The national organization runs camps around the country where all of this is done on a major scale, as well. In addition to this, my leaders had smaller, more intimate discipleship groups with some of the more committed Christians in order to help them become stronger in the faith and to help minister to others. I mention all of this now in order to keep from clarifying things later.

After I ‘committed my life to Christ’ (oh, how I dislike that phrase now! I have to that every single minute of every day!), I started going to Club and Campaigners. It was there that I first heard the Gospel presented in a cogent fashion and where I learned what it truly meant to be a Christian. Still, it wasn’t until I went to Camp in the summer of ’02 that I truly began to change my life to become more Christ-like. After that, I joined the discipleship group that John (my male leader; he and his wife Pam ran the area) was leading. I believe we started off with C.S. Lewis’ classic works, Mere Christianity and The Screwtape Letters. Seeing as I had loved the Chronicles of Narnia as a child, I was anxious to read more of Lewis. It was there when I first noticed the discrepancies between the way mainstream Protestantism believed and the faith that Lewis described. Still, it wasn’t an enormous issue for me; it was more of a nagging annoyance pricking my mind.

Well, 2002 was my junior year in high school and obviously, college started to be more and more on my mind. I duly submitted my applications to about five different Protestant schools, and with my high SATs and ACTs, got accepted to all of them with flying colors. But, when push came to shove, I narrowed it down to two schools, both within reasonable distances from home: Malone College in Canton, Ohio and Geneva College in Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania. In the end, it came down to Geneva giving me more money than Malone did. Well, that wasn’t the only factor: Pam and John are both Geneva alums, so that made a difference, since I trusted them (and still do) as my unofficial godparents.

2002 passed without much happening in my personal life or in my spiritual life. I mostly continued plodding down the same road as I had been. I still never really questioned the central tenets of Protestantism, and I hadn’t really had a need to. That was all going to change in the next year.

Part two will be forthcoming...

His sinful and unworthy servant,
Josh

 

[Happy Orthodox]

Hello, everyone! This is an awsome forum and these are some wonderful stories! I love conversion stories, too, since I get to see for myself that people come to my beloved Church. The day I believed in Jesus and in Orthodoxy was the day I ackwired my firm faith once and into the ages of ages, amen. I thank God that He brought me to His True Church and that He still tolerates me in this earth. I have never been so sure of my choice and I have never been in (spiritual) love like this, so I know that if I am lead astray by my laziness or error, I would still know that I do something wrong and that I have to come back to Orthodoxy. If I don't want to do it, I have to do it. There is never way back, but only forward to the Light Everlasting.

So, here is my story of a prodigal daughter, a Russian who converted into Orthodoxy in the US.

I was born in Russia, and my grandparents, who raised me most of the time while my mother was struggling in private business, are mostly atheists. Mostly because deep in their hearts they believe in God, only their faith is not enough for fully practice religion. They live in a muslim small town, in addition to that. So, Orthodoxy for me was a vague religion, I knew almost nothing of it. Muslims have that stereotype that a person is born into a religion. If the person is Russian, he/she is supposed to be of "Russian" faith, Orthodox, and if the person is of their nationality (Russia is a union of many nations, and some are just called Russians, some Ukranians, some Kaukazians, Tatars, Bashkirs, and others; all of them have different backgrounds, history and even culture and characteristic behavior), Bashkir, that means that they should be muslim. Of cource, Russians did not share the same view, especially Orthodox. So, recently I came to a conclusion that all other religions are religions of superstition, including Protestants, meaning, they don't really know what they are doing. Orthodoxy is not like that, I can not even call it a religion. I myself am half Russian half Bashkir, so for me the question of religion was harder to resolve

Anyway, in the end of Socialism, when the New Russia was being born, the common atheist mood has become obsolete, and everyone started believing in everything. And I was a very gullible (not sure how to spell it) child. I believed in everything -- superstitions, magic, yoga, evil spirits -- remains of Russian peganism, etc., etc, in everything that had an echo from the "other" world, from the mysterious being, non-material. I did not believe in black cats crossing the road or other stupid things like that children make up with a speed of light very much, but out of coution I followed them. I remember that I believed in Christianity as being true, maybe just because I believed everything, but did not attend any church, that was the least on my mind. I even remember me talking with two Russian girls in our town who were baptized, and one girl said that if you are baptized you are judged harder than if you weren't. Then I thought -- no way, I am not going to baptize!

The big period of my life refers to me being enslaved my magic and occult practices. In our town there was an old lady who "cured" by hands. Although her room was filled with icons (that was my first encounter with Orthodox icons) and she read a prayer while her practice, her way was totally non-Orthodox, and I knew that. I knew that she used icons in a different way, not in which Orthodox use in their worship. I didn't believe in her power of healing very much either, but was agreeing to lay in the couch in front of her for an hour and satisfy my mom with saying that her "energy" really made me feel better. My mother is a separate story, since she believed all that deeply. There is a special paragraph about her later on, on how deep her occult practice went, and pulled me down there too (I don't blame her, I rather was like a fellow-believer in magic to her, we always came to same spiritual conclusions together, and even Christianity we found together). That woman told me a lot of wierdest stories, including about exterraterrestrials that are on earth but disguised and that visit her sometimes because of their interest in her "ability". I can't say that I really bought that, but I admited that some of it might be true.

My grandmother knows how to tell fortune by cards. She taught my mom how to do that and they often would exchange sets of card layings and tell each other what to expect from the future. Now, that I believed more, although sometimes the cards "lied".

We moved to Moscow when I was in the last year of my high school. After a year, my mom had become involved with occult people and she entered the circle of magic. During that year I got to know a girl who became a witch, because she underwent a ceremony for that. I am horrified right now of what she did, and I am aware of harm that that brought upon her soul. She had many books in magic, and she told me what I should do to become a witch. Wait a minute, I thought, none of that for me, thanks. It was too dangerous, I thought, since I herd that those kinds of practices were dangerous. I believed that a "little magic" was fine, but to go very deep in it was dangerous for phisical health, well-being and even life. I was still wrong, though. My mom had that feeling, too, and she forbid me to read that girl's stuff any more, so I quit. That girl was not a witch at that time, because that was her inspiration of youth. She grew up and left her former "childish" beliefs, however the influence was still strong, all the cards, books, signs (like pentagrams), and occult pop music. It also influenced me, since we were room-mates. My faith in fortune telling and magic rituals was deepened by that experience.

So, when my mom started practicing magic, I was already prepared. She shared very interesting stories about how talanted she was and how many people stated that. In magic world there are its own "saints", or geniouses of esoterism, with special talents and abilities. Some people have more, some less, I did not have at all, according to that belief, but my mom was like a gem in that crown of death. Her soul still held her back and she did not get too much involved, thank God. Her heart is sensitive to right and wrong, so that saved her.

Later we met a real witch. She was a shaman and practiced pegan occultism, which was really dangerous and deep. She was a professional. And my mom said once, already here in America, that that woman told her that she has sold her soul to the devil in order to ackwire that ability. She saw demons and directly spoke to them, ordered them around. She could cast a severe sudden sickness on a person, and all kinds of wierd stuff. She saw my mom from the distance and immediately senced that occult "ability" of her. She said that my mom was very talented but not diveloped yet (like that wasn't enough!). Mom was very intrigued by this woman and they got really close. The woman performed some rituals for mom, and my mom layed a set of cards for her. We were dining together, discussing faith questions, helping each other. Only now I realize how evil that woman was, although she was fond of my mom.

Then we together attended an expencive "developmental" occult cource based on buddist practices but flavored by neo-ezoderic spice that was very popular and modern in Russia. That consisted of moving the "bio-energy" around the body, making it "even" and "strong". Now I know that all that I felt was given by demonic powers. That woman went with us, she said, in order to "control her abundant magic power" that burned her body. However the course made her burn even more. As it was logical, I did not have much success, but my mom got to fortell that woman's daughter wedding day (that was on Easter). That was it, that was the culmination of my mom's practice and a testimony that she is going in the direction of big success in magic. We left that cource, however, without going to the second level when they teach how to concentrate and see past, present and future in pictures in the head, how to "handle" them, and how to blow a concentrated flow of "energy" through the eyes and blow out candles with it, as well as interfere with another's "bio-enegretic field" and cause harm to it. We simply did not have any money for that, thank God. And I was releived since I wasn't going to be embarrassed not to be able to blow out the darn candle while others did that so well.

The occult stuff was put off for a while when the trouble of getting into America dominated our life in the time around the year 2001. That time was also the time when my mom turned to the Church for help. She had that internal "sence" of spiritual things and she felt that there is something in the Church also. We kinda assumed that since magic had some power in it, the Church also had power. However that faith was not a faith in God, but rather it was based on the same belief system of "energies". We believed in the power of ritual and the kinds of magic utterings, like prayers in Christianity. We believed that putting a candle had really a "cosmic" and organic meaning in the spiritual world, and we felt "energy" flows from icons. Mom especially felt that. So we thought that we need to learn about that church thing a little more. We visited little churches some times, but we never coincided to come for service, as much as we had no idea of what a service was. The churches were always open and any one could enter and put a candle infront of an icon. We did not talk to any one, nor we wanted to speak with anybody. We just went and "experienced" the "energy" of the churces. Our favourite were the old ones, stone churches with ancient type of building. We believed that they had more "energy" in them, because there were lots of prayers read inside them.

Once my mom and I went to a monastery to see the relics of saint Matrona, a recent saint. Somebody told us to go and ask Matrona to help us to get to the United States. Again, we believed in that and went to see her. The line was long, and in about two hours we went inside the church. We were supposed to kiss the glass over the relics and touch it with our forehead (the Russian way of venerating icons and relics). And ask what we want during that. I went on and did that, though I did not know why I was supposed to do it in that particular way. Now I know that kissing is a confirmation of faith and love, a sign of it, and that is a part of honoging an icon. When you kiss, your message goes to God or saint. It's like prayer -- it is better to pronounce it verbally than in your mind. Same is kissing, it is a statement of your love, and thus the love is taken account of. I was not taught that by people, but by the Holy Spirit, who showed me the power of a kiss. We need to kiss. But that is an off-top. So, I went on and kissed, and my mom, too. To tell you the truth, I did not really believe that that would help any, but my mom seemed to believe.

One interesting moment. Catholic Church for me always seemed too "puffed up", non-organic, false, artificial religion. Orthodoxy was real and it had sence even for our occult-poisoned minds. I did not like Catholicism from the very moment I heard of it. Everything seemed so abstract and man-made. Once my mom went to Europe and visited a Catholic cathedral. She didn't like it, I remember, and when she told me that candles there were really electrical lamps that lit up when you drop a coin. I went: pfff! What a wierd religion! Lamps instead of candles! No, non for me, thanks! They don't know the real "cosmic" law of ritual and the real importance of details. However, I was right then. Lamps just did not make sence. So that option was denied in its base.

We landed in New York in July 16, 2001, and our lives have never been the same again. Occult stuff was forgotten, but my mom still wanted to continue her magic business here in America, hoping that it would have same success as in Russia. Nope, God hade a different scenario for us...

We found a Russian Church after a while. We desiced to go there and check it out. There were many Russians there, too. When we found it, it was a tall stone building which did not look like it had much money in it. It was closed. We looked at the table of hours and found out that there was services on Saterday and Sunday. Sunday was too yearly for us -- 10 am And we decided to visit it sometime on Saterday evening. When we came next time, it was open, but there was a guy who maintained the church. He opened it and showed us the inside of it and the book store. We were surprised to see benches in it, and that we didn't like, thanks again to our occult-organic world view (which later transformed into Christian spiritual organic lookout on things). Mom picked up the Bible in the book store and read it some. We have never read it, or knew what that was. We heard lots about it, and it was interesting to study it not like a testimony about God, but for purely intellectual purpose. It was a bit expencive, and I remember feeling uneasy when mom payed for it. But then I got over it, and was even glad that we got it.

My mom became very sick at that time and she got plenty of time for reading the Bible. I also wanted to read it and I starded searching for it on the internet. I found the Russian libary on-line, the Moshkov Library, very famous, and found a bunch of other Christian stuff there along with the Bible. I downloaded the Bible and told mom that I found some other stuff. She said that I should read that too. I thought that I would read the Bible later (I still did not finish the Old Testament ) and first check out the books in there. I found a book called Dialogues of Valentine Sventsitsky. That was a dialogue of a priest with an atheist. I thought -- wow, how that guy would crack the unbelief of that silly atheist? My mom found that interesting too so I started to read it aloud for both of us. The book is very deep and it runes through fundamental questions about immortality, soul, God, Jesus Christ, Church, Sacraments, and many other stuff. It is highly intellectual and is strichly based on religious philosophy.

 

[Happy Orthodox]

To continue...

That book brought us to Orthodoxy. In the end of it we converted into Orthodoxy together with the former atheist, the one in the Dialogues. That book changed everything inside us and God's grace descended upon us. We came back to the same Church and threw the message into the face of the priest -- Baptise us!!! He was surprised with such an urge in us, and asked, do we know everything about faith and are we aware of our choice. We said -- yes, yes and yes!!! Baptise us now!!! But he had time only on a sunday after almost two months. That was like an eternity for us. We started attending the church and learnign about the actual "service". That book introduced the most basic stuff, so we did not feel uncomfortable in the church. I couldn't believe that I am becoming a part of it. That was incredible. When we were baptised, i was crying all the time so that the guy, the one that sold the Bible to us, had to bring me two peices of paper towel, the thick one, but they still were crumpled in my nervous hands and I needed some more. He made pictures of it, and we are glad now to witness our own baptism.

My mom, on the other hand, did not feel anything and was distructed by that guy. There wasn't anybody else in the church except for us four -- the priest, us two, and that guy. She even doubted wether the sacrament was done since she was distracted and did not "concentrated". But later our friend in Russia explained to her that God doesn't give any feelings or sensations during baptism or those who were in occulism before. Because magic people rely and tuned to their feelings and smal fluctuations of the "energy". God wants to show us that sacraments is something different, so she did not feel anything special that day, but I did (hey, that was the revenge of me being "magically" dum and unskilled! but that's a joke ).

So, there started our jeorney upon the path of rigteousness. A year passed since we were baptised, during that we have learned a lot from the Fathers and from the Grace, and just from people. We went to Russia again and went to the church there, this time for a service . We found that what we knew from the English way of Liturgy and Vespres, in Russia it was all the same, only in the Old Church-Slavic language, the deep and very hearty language, beautiful.

Now we attend a Greek parish, and we don't care that the service is in classic Greek (the language of the Apostles -- the thought that brings chills run down my spine), and that we don't understand it. We know what the Liturgy is about, its prayers, so we remember. We like the beautiful songs that they sing, and the way they are so humble and pure. That just fasinates us and satisfies our spiritual hunger. The father is a separate story, he is very close to be holy. I love him very much and I don't like the thought that we might move one day from Texas. This is our home. This is the end of the trip of years of wandering in error and delusion, in assumptions and superstitions. This is the Truth, the Only, the Purest and the most precios. This is spiritual and it is so sweet . If an angel comes up to me and says that Orthodoxy is not the True Church, I would kick his butt with Jesus prayer and with God's help. I had encounters with devils that wish to bring me back. My mom had even more temptations. But God has mercy on us, and we are just happy to be in this monastery, in Orthodoxy. That is beyond describtion, like love itself.

Another thing that I might note in conclusion is the fact that before I have become Orthodox, everything was like in a fog, unclear and unfirm. I did not know the Truth and thus did not know where to go and what to trust. I didn't trust even my own feelings. And all that I wrote about my feelings and thoughts weren't exactly that clear as I stated them. They were rather some fine unexplainable sensations and feelings, I could not define them. Only now I can examine my condition more definately and more precicely. Now everything is clear, I mean -- everything. I have all the answers for all questions. It's great. It brings peace to my soul and love of God to my heart. I love Him not only with my heart, but with my mind and all my body (however, I am still sinful and unworthy of even living in this earth, because I cannot show that love in my deeds), and I try to love Him with all my strength. No way back, like someone sais: "I'd rather stick needles in my eyes". Kill me, but I won't deny Christ, with His help.

God be with you.
Tanya.

 

[ExOrienteLux]

Part II of my conversion story:

As my senior year approached, I greeted it much the same way I had the rest of my years of high school: counting the days until I could get out of my redneck area. But now, I had a definite destination: in less than a year, I would be attending an explicitly Christian school and studying to be a teacher in English lit. Like the previous year, ’03 passed rather uneventfully; that is, until about February or April, when I learned that John had taken an offer to work as an intern at a Young Life camp in Florida. They were planning on moving at the end of August, so it meant that I had less than half a year before we parted ways: I to college and they to Florida. Therefore, we Campaigners, and especially my discipleship group, made the most of the time we had left.

We began getting into serious theological discussion, and eventually, the inevitable topic came up: ”What happened to the New Testament Church, and which church today most closely parallels it?” This was a rather lively discussion, seeing as one of my friends was a pseudo-Pentecostal, one was a Presbyterian, one was a non-denominational Protestant, one (me) was somewhere between Methodist and Presbyterian, and John was Orthodox. The discussion went back and forth, until John basically ended it (for me, at least) by gently saying that the New Testament Church had never disappeared and that it still existed today as the Orthodox Church. Now, naturally, this piqued my interest.

I think I should take a moment to describe my knowledge of the Orthodox Church before this point about 15 months ago. It’ll only take a moment because what I knew can be summed up in two words: nearly nothing. I had heard of the Orthodox Church, I had gone through a Byzantine Catholic church in addition to a lot of other churches when I was in confirmation class, I knew that most Eastern European countries were Orthodox, and up until I met Pam and John, that was the extent of my knowledge. They were undoubtedly Orthodox: they had icon cards all around their house, and a prayer corner in their barely-used dining room complete with holy water and incense. They were never very blatant about their Orthodoxy, however. I think it was mostly because they were almost always around unchurched people and Protestants, and that being too blatant might scare off potential converts.

Anyway, John’s comment has stuck with me ever since he said it. I can’t imagine any other reason for it making such an impression on me other than the grace of God. I spent the summer working with my father in construction and working at a summer camp, so I didn’t have access to much information about Orthodoxy, but I just waited until I got to Geneva to learn about it.

Now, a word about Geneva: it’s a Reformed Presbyterian school. What that means is this: they have one saint, John of Geneva, and they use the Bible and one way of interpreting it: using the Institutes. They acknowledge one Church Father (St. Augustine) and are Calvinist through and through. I’ve never been able to swallow predestination in any of its doctrines. Growing up Methodist, I was raised as an Arminian and the only Calvin I knew was a little blond-haired kid who has a stuffed tiger. When I read Lewis, he reinforced my assurance that predestination couldn’t be right. Still, I went (and am heading back) to Geneva knowing full well what I was getting into. I think of it now as a furnace to test my faith.

At the end of August, Pam and John headed to Florida and I went to Geneva. It was here that I was first able to read books on Orthodoxy and, most importantly, attend Liturgy. More on that next time.

Part III will be coming once I write it...

 

[Athanasios]

God bless our Serbian brothers

Of all the Byzantine Orthodox traditions, I would have to say that the Serbian is probably the most beautiful. I was almost moved to tears once attending a Serbian Liturgy because the presence of God was so strong in it - the only other time I felt anything like that was at an Antiochian parish on Easter when the priest and subdeacon were singing the Liturgy - the priest in English and the subdeacon in Arabic. In that instance, it sounded like they were so together and the liturgy just flowed like a refreshing crystal stream. Just my two-cents'-worth on the subject.

Breekh Moloda d' Moran

 

[MaRiNa_Orthodox]

hello!

So many nice stories here....made me cry. Athanasios, I am Serbian and I go to Serbian Orthodox church and I am glad you like it so much. However, to me every Liturgy is beautiful. Two weeks ago I went to Greek Orthodox Church with my family and I felt GREAT, but the only thing that kept bothering me is that they have the benches just like Catholic church and they sit during Liturgy a lot! Other thing that was weird is that they use New Calendar while Serbs still use the old one...so they were fasting while we still didn't start our fast, but other than that it was very nice. And there I heard Byzantine singing which I love. I used ot go with Orthodox religion classes back in Serbia to one monastery called Kovilj, where monks sung everything in Byzantine style and they are very very good. One of them thaught us how to sing it was so nice and I was 12 back then. And you know what I realized about music? I am musician muself and I love music but whatI realized is that any other kind of music, except for Church music(Byzantine), becomes boring after a day or two, but Church music never becomes boring. I can listen to the same song millions of times(which I do hehe), but I never get bored and that's because Holy Spirit is in those songs. too bad Serbs don't sing Byzantine as much as Greeks. Back in my city we tried to put back Byzantine singing, but it was all young ppl who wanted that and old ppl were singing the same things for their whole life and when we tried that it was too hard for them to get used to it, especially to some priests. One priests was so much for it he learned how to sing Byzantine style himslef, but others...and then we moved to Canada and now I hear theydon't sing at all like that. too bad. Anyways....bye bye

 

[ExOrienteLux]

And the long-awaited part III of my conversion story follows:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

When I got to Geneva last fall, I went through the usual new freshman orientation courses, designed to help people adjust to college life. For me, though, they and my other classes were a side note to the important issue: reading all of the library’s books on Orthodoxy. Now, granted, at a Calvinist school, that consisted of maybe five or six actual ‘introductory’ books, of course not counting the Fathers or (it really surprises me that they have this one) the Philokalia. The library has the usual suspects: Bishop KALLISTOS, Fr. Peter Gillquist, and Frankie Schaeffer, among others. However, I was rather stupid (or was it simply my Protestant mindset of King Dogma?), so I tried reading an overview of Byzantine history and theology by Fr. John Meyendorf, if I remember right. However, I soon gave that up as way too difficult and moved onto Bishop KALLISTOS’ book.

I should probably mention that when I first got to Geneva, I tried out the various churches that were within walking distance. So, I went to a Methodist church and a Reformed Presbyterian church. By this time, I had gotten fed up with the lack of a weekly Eucharist (I’m like Wesley in that regard – he took Communion as often as possible, several times a week if he could), and I started looking for churches that had it. This naturally led me to the Anglican and Lutheran churches, which I visited with a hard-core Calvinist friend of mine from my orientation group.

While I was doing all of this reading, I still had yet to set foot inside an Orthodox temple. But, it was at an Honors Program get-together in early September, of all places, that I met another freshman who was also slightly interested in Orthodoxy. However, she had a one-up on me, because she had already been to Orthodox services at the church downtown.

Well, one thing led to another and we ended up walking the mile and a half to church the next Sunday. Fortunately, she gave me the site by Khouria Frederica about what to expect at an Orthodox service, so I didn’t make a total ass of myself. When we got there, I wasn’t all that impressed by the exterior of the church (it’s a converted government building, so it’s not all that pretty outside); needless to say, however, once I walked through those doors and got my first scent of incense, I knew this was going to be different.

Once I got over the initial sensory overload that seems to be typical to entering an Orthodox temple for the first time, I was subsequently overwhelmed by the beauty of the Liturgy, even though there were times when I didn’t understand the theology behind it. I just knew that there was great beauty and grace in this little church of under 30 souls that I have never known in Protestant churches with ten times that number. I guess you could say that I had what I like to call a “St. Vladimir’s emissaries’” moment: like them, I “knew not whether [I was] on earth or in Heaven; but knew only one thing: that there the grace of God dwells with men.”

At the coffee hour, I continued to be amazed at the warmth of the parishioners and how welcoming they were to someone who they had never seen before (but who, it turns out, they were going to know as a son and a brother). I, an absolute stranger to them, received more love from them than I had ever received in the Methodist church that I had grown up in! Needless to say, I went away from my first Liturgy in a daze that didn’t wear off for a day or so.

After that, I eagerly devoured every single Orthodox book in the library (except for the Philokalia – I don’t see myself getting into that book anytime soon). Not surprisingly, my Calvinist friend (who in the intervening time started dating the girl I first went to St. John’s with) noticed this, and began doing some research of his own into Orthodoxy. Needless to say, he almost had an apoplectic fix. For a while, he tried to dissuade me from converting, but I had been e-mailing John and asking him the questions that I had (as well as asking Father), so he didn’t manage to make me Calvinist (though he tried his damnedest). He still treats me like a traitor to Protestantism, gives me dirty looks when he sees me around campus, digs on Orthodoxy whenever he can when he’s near me, and generally serves as the focus point for what little persecution I’ve found on campus.

Since that first Liturgy in September, I’ve taken only one look back at liturgical Protestantism before I realized that I can’t go back, having tasted the Truth. I’ve been going to St. John’s for nigh on a year now, and I have to say that Holy Week and Pascha sealed the deal for me – seeing those beautiful services showed me that I need to actually become a catechumen and to stop holding out. Perhaps unfortunately, Father told me to keep taking my time at my last service before I left for the summer. But, I’ve been reading and studying online, and when I go back, I’ll broach the subject with him again.

Though God alone knows when I’ll be chrismated, I know that I will be. There’s no place else for me apart from Orthodoxy. Having tasted of the fullness of the True Faith, how can I ever return to the half-filled wells and empty banquet halls of Protestantism? I hope only that in due time, I will be united with the Body of Christ and made worthy to partake of His most pure Body and Blood. I humbly ask your prayers as I continue my journey toward Orthodoxy, and I thank God continually that such a sinner as I has been blessed to have such godparents as I have, such exposure to Orthodoxy as I have had, and such a forum as this.

All I can say is: Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Well, there you have it. The story thus far. Enjoy.

+IC XC NIKA+
Josh.

 

[johannah]

I'm not a convert - I've been Orthodox all my life. However, I did leave the church for a long time, before finally coming back. I was waiting for the church to become more Americanized, and finally, it did so. Now, my husband, Stephen, has become Orthodox, and is very active in our church. I never asked him to convert, not once. He fell in love with the faith on his own. Our children are happy being raised as Orthodox Christians as well. Brewmama, you're from Denver - do you know our pastor, Fr. Demetrius Nicoloudakis? Let me tell everyone on the list, we have SO many converts in our parish! We're having another Chrismation this Sunday. It is a wonderful and emotional experience, welcoming new Orthodox Christians into the fold.

 

[Matrona]

I'm not a convert - I've been Orthodox all my life. However, I did leave the church for a long time, before finally coming back. I was waiting for the church to become more Americanized, and finally, it did so. Now, my husband, Stephen, has become Orthodox, and is very active in our church. I never asked him to convert, not once. He fell in love with the faith on his own. Our children are happy being raised as Orthodox Christians as well. Brewmama, you're from Denver - do you know our pastor, Fr. Demetrius Nicoloudakis? Let me tell everyone on the list, we have SO many converts in our parish! We're having another Chrismation this Sunday. It is a wonderful and emotional experience, welcoming new Orthodox Christians into the fold.

Welcome to TAW, Johannah, glad to have you with us!

 

[aesthetic]

I was struck by orthodoxy about 6 yrs ago, but decided that the Lord had placed me where I was at. After much contemplation, and not a few coincidences, I decided that we (my wife and family) should leave the protestants. After explaining to my wife the concept of an apostolic church, giving her a rundown of Catholicism, Orthodoxy, and even the Anglican church, I suggested Catholicism because there was a church in town, and that it would be the less of a shock. We had both quickly ruled out the Anglican church. I really expected her to shun the whole idea of changing but she was quite receptive. Over the course of time I was persuing the Catholic rite but my wife kept questioning me about orthodoxy. I explained to her that she would probably find it too extreme a change, and besides the nearest church was over an hour away.

Anyway, as I had determined to contact a catholic priest she approached me with reservations. After a lengthy discussion, she suggested that we "draw Lots" over which direction to go. So we took a bowel, placed two pieces of crumpled paper into it, one labeled Catholic, the other Orthodox. We prayed and then I drew the "lot". The rest is history. She was so happy and told me that she knew that orthodoxy was the one I would pick. I feel really secure with the decision because it was not mine. And immediately afterward things fell into place. We were informed that there was a monastery just five minutes from our home. We were spared from of driving over an hour away for catechism with our 5 children.

The more I learn about orthodoxy, the more I am thankful for the Lord leading me to his church. I regret my hesitance 6 yrs ago, but maybe we were not ready then ( it has caused not too little strife with family and friends), but now we are more than ready. It is good to know the kingdom of God.

 

[Marjorie]

I wrote up a bit about my conversion for a pagan friend of mine who is considering Christianity:

I was born Jewish, and was actually quite the Super-Jew for a long time... by 6th grade I was an atheist, and in 8th grade I was a Wiccan. I believed in spirituality. I saw something in nature, something I couldn't touch, but knew was there... I knew I believed in love and a Power beyond comprehension, and I needed it, I knew that I needed to feel it tangibly. By 9th grade I had become disillusioned with Wicca, after studying its history, but still considered myself a pagan.

Towards the end of 9th grade, I began to feel drawn to the story of Christ. There was something deeply poignant about it, something I couldn't explain-- but the idea of the suffering god crucified and resurrected... something in me just said "yes," to it.

But I hated Christianity. I always had. My mother is an ex-Catholic and I grew up hating Christianity for all the usual reasons-- i.e. sexism, homophobia, conservatism, self-righteousness, superiority complex, illogical, etc. etc. etc. Christianity, I thought, was a religion for the mentally deficient.

I had considered myself a communist for a while at that point, and I still firmly believed that Christianity was the opiate of the people, even if religion wasn't.

Yet I couldn't help it. The more I read the stories, the more I thought about the story of Christ, the more it touched me. Something about it just seemed... perfect. Not something I could ever guess, but something that spoke to me on some level. Later, when I read C.S. Lewis, I understood why: "The story is strangely like many myths which have haunted religion from the first, and yet is not like them. It is not transparent to the reason: we could not have invented it ourselves. It has not the suspicious a priori lucidity of Pantheism or Newtonian physics. It has the seemingly arbitrary and idiosyncratic character which modern science is slowly teaching us to put up with in this wilful universe, where energy is made up in little parcels of a quantity no one could predict, where speed is not unlimited, where irreversible entropy gives time a real direction and the cosmos, no longer static or cyclic, moves like a drama from a real beginning to a real end. If any message from the core of reality ever were to reach us, we should expect to find in it just that unexpectedness, that wilful, dramatic anfractuousity which we find in the Christian faith. It has the master touch-- the rough, male taste of reality, not made by us, or, indeed, for us, but hitting us in the face."

I couldn't have guessed that then. All I knew was that I couldn't ignore this. I had been waiting for some pantheon to draw me to them. I hated that I *was* being drawn to a "pantheon," but it was Christian-- Jesus and Mary, the Magdalene and the saints... Mary especially. I will never stop being thankful to our Holy Lady Theotokos for all she has done for me. I felt drawn to her long before I felt REALLY drawn to Christ... she brought me to her Son.

Anyway, I looked into Gnosticism. I read the gospel of Mary, the gospel of Thomas, the gospel of Philip... there was something about gnosis that I was attracted to. Later I would realize what exactly I was looking for there.

I *HATED* Christianity. I fought against Christians and called them literalists and hypocrites and told them that Jesus's real message had been about something completely different.

I hated Paul. I hadn't actually *read* much of Paul, but that didn't matter. You don't have to read Paul to hate him in today's world. I used to inform people (it says it on religioustolerance.org-- the name of that site is a misnomer if I ever saw one) about the three forms of early Christianity... Jewish, Gnostic, and Pauline. I would say things like "I like both but Pauline! Booooo Paul!"

I think my first step to orthodox Christianity was a visit to my best friend's church... the priest mentioned St. Paul, and was going to read something from one of his epistles-- which I'd only read excerpts from, of course-- and I was whispering to Kirsten how Paul was stupid, and terrible, and sexist/homophobic/etc. and how I hated him. Then of course, the priest reads some of Paul's words on love; I don't think it was 1 Corinthians 13... I think it was Galatians 5... "For in Jesus Christ neither circumcision availeth any thing, nor uncircumcision; but faith which worketh by love..."

That shut me up pretty quickly.

One day, sitting in front of the TV, I realized that if I had to take the good aspects of Judaism and what I considered the good aspects of Gnosticism, and put them together... it could not have possibly have been as perfectly put together as Paul's vision... I mean to say his vision which is beyond the wisdom of the Greeks and the knowledge of the Jews. After realizing this, I wanted to throw up.

During all this I began to read some of the Catholic mystics-- St. Teresa of Avila, Thomas Merton, St. John of the Cross, etc. I began to believe in a sort of Gnostic-Catholic mixture of beliefs. I realized later that what I was searching for in Gnosticism was a fuller spirituality-- along with a goal for union with God as the center of Christian life-- separated from legalism, and what I was searching for in Catholicism was the sacramental life of the Church, the communion of saints, the Ark of Salvation that is the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church of Christ.

One day while I was in a Catholic chat, I was arguing with someone about something. I didn't actually *believe* a lot of the things that I debated at that point, but I knew the Catholic defenses and I would argue for them. In any case, I said something about how no one (except Jesus/Mary, from the Catholic viewpoint) was born without sin, and we won't stop sinning until the next life. Someone said something to the effect of "don't forget those that have attained a state of theosis..."

Being the arrogant f--k that I am, I was like "oh yeah... except for them." Then I opened google and searched for the word "theosis." To my great interest, a number of sites came up, almost all of them by Orthodox writers. Theosis, I found, was what I had been looking for in gnosis. Theosis is the goal of Christian life. We are saved from our sins, but whatever God empties He also fills. We are purified, and then we are filled with God's grace, His Uncreated Energies, and are made one with Him.

Catholics believe this too, and it can be found in the Catechism (CCC 460, 1129, 1265, 1812 and 1988.) However, it is mostly thought of by monks and nuns, and the occasional mystics. In Orthodoxy, I found, it was the center of Christian life.

I was intrigued, but annoyed. It had taken me a long time to decide on Catholicism (I was thinking of contacting someone from RCIA at the time), and I didn't want that to change now. I searched out Catholic apologetics, something to prove the Orthodox wrong. I read all their arguments, and they would satisfy me, until I would lay on my bed at night and questions would come up, about the nature of the Church, about its unity-- was not the nature of the Church conciliar? Is that not how the Bible and the Church Fathers described it? How could one see have supremacy over another when the center of the Church is the *Eucharist*? How could the scholastic idea of "temporal sin," i.e. sin that needs to be expiated after it is forgiven in Purgatory, fit in with the early Christians' understanding of God as the all-merciful? How could I accept the Filioque, when it was an addition to the Creed and drastically changed the Western Church's view of the Trinity? Why was the modern view of the need for Christ's sacrifice so different from the explanation of the early Fathers?-- and I couldn't answer them. And I couldn't find sufficient apologetics either.

One day I ordered two books from Amazon-- Fr. Aidan Nichols's A Theological Introduction to Catholicism and Fr. Michael Pomazansky's Orthodox Dogmatic Theology. I asked God to show me which one was true... I needed to know. I got a letter back from Amazon that the first one was no longer available. I later read Nichols's book online, but that was long after I had read Pomazansky's book. I read Pomazansky and I knew that it was Truth.

I kept reading. The more I read the more I understood... I understood what it meant to be Christian. Fr. Alexander Schmemann taught me what the Eucharist meant. The writer of The Way of a Pilgrim taught me what prayer was. The Desert Fathers taught me what it meant to live as a Christian.

And the Liturgy, oh my! One thing about Orthodoxy that everyone comments on, Orthodox and non-Orthodox, is the beauty of the Orthodox liturgical life. The hymns are unparalleled, the art breathtaking, somehow silent and haloed with sanctity... but what really got me is that the more I read about Orthodoxy, the more I heard the music, saw the art, saw the people, talked to them... the more I realized that this is a Church which has a sort of childlike joy in the Resurrection of Christ. I swear, Orthodox people never get tired of repetition of that. "Christ is risen!" "Indeed he is risen!"... ALL THE TIME. And every time, it's like new... it's like Chesterton (a Catholic) wrote, the closer we get to God the more childlike we get... and a child LOVES repetition. For all we know, he argues, God could say "do it again!!!!" to the sun every day, and to the moon at night... some of this joy in the freshness of Creation I found in Orthodoxy.

So I finally gave up and decided I wanted to become Orthodox.

Then came the doubts. I found that in Orthodoxy there were downsides-- there are people who argue about jurisdictions/canonicity/rituals/etc. 24/7, as if man were made for the Sabbath. There are people who treat the fasting seasons as if they were mandatory and the heart of our faith. There are people who lack love, just like in every other religion.

For a while this bothered me, because I couldn't understand how people who had "seen the True Light, received the heavenly Spirit, found the true faith," in the words of the Liturgy, could still be *******s sometimes.

But as I went on, this became less of a problem for me. We are all sinners-- that is what the Church is for. If everyone were perfect, we wouldn't need repentance. And the Church is all about repentance. Even in the earliest Church, there were hypocrites and sinners-- reading the epistles of Paul shows that clearly.

As I've continued in my decision to join the Orthodox Church, I've gradually cooled down. (A lot of people talk about "convertitis"-- i.e. that when people decide to become Orthodox they spend a year or so crusading against modernism and ranting about how all other denominations are heretical before they cool down and realize that the greatest darkness and sinfulness they're ever going to have to deal with is inside themselves-- which is so hard, and one of the reasons, perhaps, that people avoid doing this for a year or so.) I love the Orthodox Church as much as ever. I believe that it is true-- I believe that it is the Church of Christ. I believe that the Church is primarily a group of people coming together to receive the Eucharist and love one another in the self-emptying reciprocity of the love of the Trinity. I believe that the Incarnation of Christ has sanctified Creation, and that God works through water, wine, bread, oil, and other fruits of the earth to touch us. I believe that Christ is present today, present for each one of us. I believe that we are called to be a holy people, filled with the Spirit, growing in truth from "glory to glory," forever, always, unto ages of ages.

Yet I also believe that the schisms in Christendom can be healed. I have a great appreciation for Catholicism. Though when I became Orthodox I spent a month or two decrying Catholicism as heretical, I now believe that there are less fundamental differences between Orthodoxy and Catholicism as I formally thought. There are supreme psychological/cultural differences, but there are only a few matters which separate us entirely. I believe that the Catholic understanding of what the Church is deficient, but they believe ours is too, so that's okay. As for Protestantism, I also believe that there are less differences than I formally thought. The bulk of doctrine is the same, especially when we are discussing Trinitarian Christians. From someone who was raised non-Christian, I see this... my dad, who was raised and is Jewish, for instance, doesn't see the difference at all between a Catholic and a Protestant. To him, we're all Christians. "We are all rightly distressed," wrote C. S. Lewis, "and ashamed also, at the divisions of Christendom. But those who have always lived within the Christian fold may be too easily dispirited by them. They are bad, but such people do not know what it looks like from without. Seen from there, what is left intact despite all the divisions, still appears (as it truly is) an immensely formidable unity. I know, for I saw it; and well our enemies know it. That unity any of us can find by going out of his own age. It is not enough, but it is more than you had thought till then. Once you are well soaked in it, if you then venture to speak, you will have an amusing experience. You will be thought a Papist when you are actually reproducing Bunyan, a Pantheist when you are quoting Aquinas, and so forth. For you have now got on to the great level viaduct which crosses the ages and which looks so high from the valleys, so low from the mountains, so narrow compared with the swamps, and so broad compared with the sheep-tracks."

In general, I think the one thing that truly matters in terms of the separation between Christians is the Eucharist. I think that if everyone attained a true understanding and awe of the Holy Gifts, then Christendom would be united within just a few years.

I pray for the healing of the schisms of the Churches.

As I've become more and more Orthodox, everything has confirmed my decision. I see the entire world in the light of Orthodoxy. Everything connects, every doctrine connects to every other doctrine in the simple love and joy of following the Risen Christ. What looks like intellectualism and complicated mysticism in the creeds and praxis of the Church to outsiders are only natural extensions from the experience of God at the Holy Table.

I didn't find Orthodoxy. Orthodoxy found me. Thanks be to God!

In IC XC,
Marjorie

 

[orthodoxos]

The Book of Holy Prophet Isaiah 53,1-9.
Who hath believed our report? and to whom is the arm of the LORD revealed?
For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground: he hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him.
He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not.
Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.
But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.
All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.
He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth: he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth.
He was taken from prison and from judgment: and who shall declare his generation? for he was cut off out of the land of the living: for the transgression of my people was he stricken.
And he made his grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death; because he had done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth.

I was born into a family of a Yugoslav Air Force Officer.... And that meant communist. No God. No Saints. No babtism. My grandma (fathers mum), had to take my older brother to the Church when he was at work, to get him babptised. She was always Orthodox which meant that she was not very happy with her sons attitude towards God. But she prevailed. The old communist, went to the Chruch on St Stephens day in 1992, 23 days before he died in what was to become the war to end old Yugoslavia.

I was interested. And I was a refuge in Serbia. Woefull days. One day I went to a serie of lessons called Discoveries in Biblical Lands. It was organised by Chistian Adventist Chruch. I was hooked. I was an adventist baptised in 1994 in an Orthodox country, if you can call Serbia that. More to the point like all new believers I wanted to argue with real heretics, brothers of the devil, the Orthodox.

And I did. We used to go to the St. Lazars Church in Krusevac and argue for hours with deacon and argues some more. But he was not going to become one of the remnant. I was a good adventist... held the teaching of EGW with all my hearth and soul.. ah sorry.. Adventists do not have soul.. that is the teaching.

In 1995 I migrated to Australia. Happy to be out of the wasteland of Orthodox stupidity, i thought. And then sometime in 1996 i met a priest. A Roman Catholic Priest.

It will sound stupid but he led me to Orthodoxy. And he did.

I went to Agios Oros in May 1998 and there got copletely destroyed, if u want, by a man who knew everything about everything. Sometimes I think that he might've been an angel or something. But. Who knows. After leaving the Orthodoxy or death monstery... I was not an Adventist anymore.

How blind and sorry I was. I was arguing against His Chruch. His Body.

Not anymore.



Orthodoxia i thanatos.

IC XC

NI KA