Conversions to Orthodoxy

[Shubunkin]

As my story continues, I have now begun attending an Antiochian Orthodox parish here, and enjoy it very much. I am going to the Catechism classes as an inquirer. We have a small class of only five people. My family does not want to join me in this, but they are interested in my experiences. The one thing that really makes others pause to think is the fact church is about worshipping God, and not just for entertainment. I hope that my family will realize that this is the "real church" the one which worships God and heals us. I pray for this daily.

[ObviousRon]

Congrats, cygne. :thumbsup: It's good that your family is interested in your endeavour. I hope they will be supportive as you continue your journey.

[aomagrat]

I come from a religiously diverse family. My father is Episcopalian, my mother is Presbyterian and I was baptised into the Southern Baptist church at age 11. My parents were never big church goers so I usually took the bus to church with friends. However, as I became older I was going to church less and less. By the time I joined the Navy I had given up on it all together. For the first 15 years or so in the Navy, I was the cliche of the drunken sailor. In 1995, I decided to crawl out of the gutter and start attending church again.

I started going to the protestant services onboard ship. (The first time in 15 years I had attended church!) One of the sermons was about the parable of the wheat and tares. After the service, as we were leaving the room, the pastor was standing by the door shaking hands. As he took my hand, he held it tight, looked into my eyes and asked, "Are you a tare?"

I couldn't find the answer in my heart.

Shortly after this, my ship pulled into Haifa Israel for some liberty. I took a tour to Jerusalem and Bethlehem. Inside the Church of the Nativity there were several men dressed in all black. Someone asked the tour guide who they were. "Orthodox priests, this is an Orthodox church." came the answer.

We were soon back at sea, and one day I found an old Readers Digest laying around. I opened it to an article about Fundamental Christians converting to Orthodoxy. What a coincidence I thought. Right after I visit an Orthodox church, I open a magazine right to an article about the Orthodox church. "Are you a tare?" popped into my head.

After returning to the USA, I went on leave to visit my mother. Down the street from my mom's house was a small Lutheran church, but it wasn't a Lutheran church anymore. It was an Orthodox church now. Another coincidence? "Are you a tare?" went through my mind again.

Through the years, I attended church every now and then, and participated in a prayer group occasionally until I retired. But I just could not get the question out of my mind. "Are you a tare?" When I retired, my mom asked me to move back home as she was getting up in age so I did. I attended the Presbyterian church with her, but to me it felt like I was in an audience instead of worship. And every time I drove by that little Orthodox church on my way to the Presbyterian church I heard that little voice "Are you a tare?"

Finally I just couldn't take it any more. I bought a couple of books on Orthodoxy and started reading up. But that wasn't enough. One Sunday it was as if a big hand reached down and grabbed my by the back of my collar, lifted me up off of my feet and and set me down at the Orthodox church door. I had no say in it. So I went in. And I stayed.

On December 11, 2005 I was christmated.

I can now answer the question with all my heart. I am not a tare.

[DonVA]

Excellent testimony Aomagrat! Welcome home, brother, and may God grant you many years. :crosseo:

[KatherineOCA]

I come from a religiously diverse family. My father is Episcopalian, my mother is Presbyterian and I was baptised into the Southern Baptist church at age 11. My parents were never big church goers so I usually took the bus to church with friends. However, as I became older I was going to church less and less. By the time I joined the Navy I had given up on it all together. For the first 15 years or so in the Navy, I was the cliche of the drunken sailor. In 1995, I decided to crawl out of the gutter and start attending church again.

I started going to the protestant services onboard ship. (The first time in 15 years I had attended church!) One of the sermons was about the parable of the wheat and tares. After the service, as we were leaving the room, the pastor was standing by the door shaking hands. As he took my hand, he held it tight, looked into my eyes and asked, "Are you a tare?"

I couldn't find the answer in my heart.

Shortly after this, my ship pulled into Haifa Israel for some liberty. I took a tour to Jerusalem and Bethlehem. Inside the Church of the Nativity there were several men dressed in all black. Someone asked the tour guide who they were. "Orthodox priests, this is an Orthodox church." came the answer.

We were soon back at sea, and one day I found an old Readers Digest laying around. I opened it to an article about Fundamental Christians converting to Orthodoxy. What a coincidence I thought. Right after I visit an Orthodox church, I open a magazine right to an article about the Orthodox church. "Are you a tare?" popped into my head.

After returning to the USA, I went on leave to visit my mother. Down the street from my mom's house was a small Lutheran church, but it wasn't a Lutheran church anymore. It was an Orthodox church now. Another coincidence? "Are you a tare?" went through my mind again.

Through the years, I attended church every now and then, and participated in a prayer group occasionally until I retired. But I just could not get the question out of my mind. "Are you a tare?" When I retired, my mom asked me to move back home as she was getting up in age so I did. I attended the Presbyterian church with her, but to me it felt like I was in an audience instead of worship. And every time I drove by that little Orthodox church on my way to the Presbyterian church I heard that little voice "Are you a tare?"

Finally I just couldn't take it any more. I bought a couple of books on Orthodoxy and started reading up. But that wasn't enough. One Sunday it was as if a big hand reached down and grabbed my by the back of my collar, lifted me up off of my feet and and set me down at the Orthodox church door. I had no say in it. So I went in. And I stayed.

On December 11, 2005 I was christmated.

I can now answer the question with all my heart. I am not a tare.
Thanks for the great testimony...story! God is good

[MariaRegina]

I come from a religiously diverse family. My father is Episcopalian, my mother is Presbyterian and I was baptised into the Southern Baptist church at age 11. My parents were never big church goers so I usually took the bus to church with friends. However, as I became older I was going to church less and less. By the time I joined the Navy I had given up on it all together. For the first 15 years or so in the Navy, I was the cliche of the drunken sailor. In 1995, I decided to crawl out of the gutter and start attending church again.

I started going to the protestant services onboard ship. (The first time in 15 years I had attended church!) One of the sermons was about the parable of the wheat and tares. After the service, as we were leaving the room, the pastor was standing by the door shaking hands. As he took my hand, he held it tight, looked into my eyes and asked, "Are you a tare?"

I couldn't find the answer in my heart.

Shortly after this, my ship pulled into Haifa Israel for some liberty. I took a tour to Jerusalem and Bethlehem. Inside the Church of the Nativity there were several men dressed in all black. Someone asked the tour guide who they were. "Orthodox priests, this is an Orthodox church." came the answer.

We were soon back at sea, and one day I found an old Readers Digest laying around. I opened it to an article about Fundamental Christians converting to Orthodoxy. What a coincidence I thought. Right after I visit an Orthodox church, I open a magazine right to an article about the Orthodox church. "Are you a tare?" popped into my head.

After returning to the USA, I went on leave to visit my mother. Down the street from my mom's house was a small Lutheran church, but it wasn't a Lutheran church anymore. It was an Orthodox church now. Another coincidence? "Are you a tare?" went through my mind again.

Through the years, I attended church every now and then, and participated in a prayer group occasionally until I retired. But I just could not get the question out of my mind. "Are you a tare?" When I retired, my mom asked me to move back home as she was getting up in age so I did. I attended the Presbyterian church with her, but to me it felt like I was in an audience instead of worship. And every time I drove by that little Orthodox church on my way to the Presbyterian church I heard that little voice "Are you a tare?"

Finally I just couldn't take it any more. I bought a couple of books on Orthodoxy and started reading up. But that wasn't enough. One Sunday it was as if a big hand reached down and grabbed my by the back of my collar, lifted me up off of my feet and and set me down at the Orthodox church door. I had no say in it. So I went in. And I stayed.

On December 11, 2005 I was christmated.

I can now answer the question with all my heart. I am not a tare.

Thank you for sharing your conversion story.
The Lord our God is a Wonderful God.

[salve]

I am Roman Catholic but I have entered into Catechsis within the Orthodox Church of America after deep study of the faith of our early Church Fathers and much painful reflection.

PS: I almost went Greek but a local Parish Priest in the OCA has become so close that I can't leave his Mission. God Bless Him.

Peace.

[Petronius]

I am Roman Catholic but I have entered into Catechsis within the Orthodox Church of America after deep study of the faith of our early Church Fathers and much painful reflection.

PS: I almost went Greek but a local Parish Priest in the OCA has become so close that I can't leave his Mission. God Bless Him.

Peace.
OCA or Greek is the same. If you convert Orthodox you will OCA, Greek, Russian, Romanian, Serbian, Bukgarian, Carpatho-Russian etc at the same time as you are Orthodox. But of course, your human nature will let you be more attracted by a particular parish than an other.

Good luck on your journey.
I was lucky, already born there.

[salve]

OCA or Greek is the same. If you convert Orthodox you will OCA, Greek, Russian, Romanian, Serbian, Bukgarian, Carpatho-Russian etc at the same time as you are Orthodox. But of course, your human nature will let you be more attracted by a particular parish than an other.

Good luck on your journey.
I was lucky, already born there.
Thank you Petronius,

I have been reflecting on this a long time and, God-willing, I will enter into the fullness of the 'orthodox' Faith. Amen.

Peace and God Bless.

[Jacob4707]

OCA or Greek is the same. If you convert Orthodox you will OCA, Greek, Russian, Romanian, Serbian, Bukgarian, Carpatho-Russian etc at the same time as you are Orthodox. But of course, your human nature will let you be more attracted by a particular parish than an other.

Good luck on your journey.
I was lucky, already born there.

One should choose one's brand of Orthodoxy based on what kind of food one likes. :)

[Petronius]

One should choose one's brand of Orthodoxy based on what kind of food one likes. :)
For the best selection, it is recommended to taste all, but as we all are in communion, it is not a problem to switch later...

[Shubunkin]

For the best selection, it is recommended to taste all, but as we all are in communion, it is not a problem to switch later...

This is true. :)

[salve]

Hi Everyone,

I attended the Vigil of the Nativity of our Most Holy Theotokos Every-Virgin last night and 'wow' was it wonderful! :clap:

Prostrating before the Holy Icon and Sacred Scripture was amazing.

Everything was so instructive toward understanding our faith and Tradition.

Did anyone else have an opportunity to attend?

Peace.

[DavidBryan]

My story is here (http://fromprotestanttoorthodox.blogspot.com/).

[Shawners]

Thats Funny KATHXOYMENOC.

[Shawners]

David Bryan..
Wow..thats a great testomony.
God Bless you for the time and effort you put into it..may it speak to many searching
evangelicals.Bishop Mark (Antiochian Bishop for my region) went and taught
at ORU.My priest is going to set up a time for all of us to go to lunch together..I can't wait.
God Bless , In Christ ..Shawners

P.S. can I send that link to some of my
evangelical friends ?

[DavidBryan]

David Bryan..
Wow..thats a great testomony.
God Bless you for the time and effort you put into it..may it speak to many searching
evangelicals.Bishop Mark (Antiochian Bishop for my region) went and taught
at ORU.My priest is going to set up a time for all of us to go to lunch together..I can't wait.
God Bless , In Christ ..Shawners

P.S. can I send that link to some of my
evangelical friends ?

Sure! Glad you liked it!

[DonVA]

DavidBryan: That's another testimony for the books! Thanks for the time you put into it, and for sharing it here with us.

[RamyAtto]

well, it seems to me that i am the only original orthodox among you ...
i am a syriac orthodox from northern iraq originally from turkey, but we fleed to iraq during the ottomon empire persecution to christians in the 18th century, and all my generation are orthodox since the 3rd century when they first became christians. now i am recentely arrive to the US and live in WI,
as i noticed .... here in the US many people are converting to orthodox church..
but in iraq you would see the opposite, we usualy don't convert from one to other faith coz we believe that we are all christian and there is no difference between orthodox or catholic or protestant ..... but after 2003 alot of protestant church starts and the try to attract other chritians to it church and they try to attract peope by money or some other beifits, and you see some people leave their mother churches like orthodox & catholic and head to the protestant churches.
however, i am new member and i am glad to be here with you folks gathered by jesus love and truly faith.

[Petronius]

[quote=RamyAtto;28584652]well, it seems to me that i am the only original orthodox among you ...
quote]

You are the only roginal or craddle orthododx in THIS is thread, because this thread is for converts to relate their conversion stories...

[MariaRegina]

Don't we have a revert or two among us - an Orthodox Christian who left and then came back into Orthodoxy.

Don't we all have a conversion experience whenever we repent of our sins? Therefore, aren't we all converts?

One Greek Orthodox Priest said that in a sense we are all catechumens undergoing instruction and through theosis attempting to put on Christ.

[DonVA]

[quote=RamyAtto;28584652]well, it seems to me that i am the only original orthodox among you ...
quote]

You are the only roginal or craddle orthododx in THIS is thread, because this thread is for converts to relate their conversion stories...
<cof> <cof>

Not so. I know of one REvert who felt like a convert, and posted a testimony here.

[Rdr Iakovos]

Don't we have a revert or two among us - an Orthodox Christian who left and then came back into Orthodoxy.

Don't we all have a conversion experience whenever we repent of our sins? Therefore, aren't we all converts?

One Greek Orthodox Priest said that in a sense we are all catechumens undergoing instruction and through theosis attempting to put on Christ.
Bravo.
cue standing ovation.

[MariaRegina]

David Bryan..
Wow..thats a great testomony.
God Bless you for the time and effort you put into it..may it speak to many searching
evangelicals.Bishop Mark (Antiochian Bishop for my region) went and taught
at ORU.My priest is going to set up a time for all of us to go to lunch together..I can't wait.
God Bless , In Christ ..Shawners

P.S. can I send that link to some of my
evangelical friends ?

So, was Bishop Mark the one who converted so many to Orthodoxy?

[NyssaTheHobbit]

Now that I've contacted the priest of my local Greek Orthodox parish and plan to enter the catechumenate, I'm posting this here. This is edited from a letter I sent to Father Peter a couple weeks ago. (I couldn't help noting that he said to me, "Yes, I got through it (the letter).")

I’ve been going through a long, tiresome spiritual journey, though from what I hear, there are many people who’ve been through at least as many denominations before coming to Orthodoxy. I was raised in South Bend, Indiana as a Nazarene, a Holiness sect with the doctrine of total sanctification, but without the extremes of another Holiness sect, Pentecostalism. Central Indiana and downwards had Nazarene churches with Pentecostal-like rules on what you could wear, makeup, hair, etc., but in other parts of the country, Nazarenes looked just like anybody else. We just weren’t supposed to dance, drink alcohol, gamble, or go to movie theaters (though nobody restricted renting movies to watch at home). We disagreed with the Pentecostals on speaking in tongues, though we agreed on sanctification/baptism with the Holy Spirit; we were more sedate and dignified in church, while Pentecostals did whatever they felt the Spirit moved them to do. In fact, the old folks in my Nazarene church tended to be the loudest and most active, occasionally raising a hand and saying, “Amen!”

I went off to college in Wisconsin in 1991. To my surprise, there were no Nazarene churches, and I had no car, so I went nowhere for about a month. (The college was out in the country.) Then I found out there was a Nazarene house church in town, with a handful of people, and I now had a boyfriend with a car, so we started going. But after a while, the leaders of the church decided they couldn’t do this anymore; they weren’t preachers, and had other jobs, so they were tired. And I no longer had a boyfriend with a car. I could only go to a church occasionally, whenever a friend could get a ride. I didn’t get to choose the church. I could have walked to the UCC church on the corner, but I didn’t feel comfortable with their beliefs or practices.

Once, I was taken to the Evangelical Free Church; it was similar in many ways to my own, except that it was “livelier.” I asked for church information, and it seemed to be much like the Nazarene Church, so I felt I found a church home–if only I could get there more often. I got a new boyfriend who had a vehicle and was Catholic. We went to my church one week, his church the next. I was impressed by his church, which was like a Gothic cathedral, the walls covered in beautiful statues. It even had a pipe organ. I didn’t want to convert to Catholicism–which became an issue when we got engaged–but I wanted to keep going to that church along with my own.

I couldn’t convert to Catholicism; I felt it would betray everything I had been taught. My dad was staunchly anti-Catholic, of the mindset that during the Middle Ages, some Catholics may have said the Sinner’s Prayer and been saved, but most weren’t. For a time, though it made me sad, I thought he was right; maybe around college-age, I realized that Catholics were saved, too. But I felt they had gone too far astray from biblical teachings, and I couldn’t possibly confess my sins to a priest, believe the Eucharist was truly Christ’s body, believe in Purgatory, or believe artificial birth control was a sin. For my fiancé’s sake, however, I agreed to use natural family planning. However, this fiancé turned out to be very controlling, and that relationship ended.

Though I tried to hold firm in my faith, college was also a time of immense spiritual testing; I often failed. I became more moderate, which I feel was a good thing, but I also made horrible mistakes regarding men. I also fell into the Charismatic teachings of Pat Robertson, believing everything he and guests on The 700 Club said about getting “words of knowledge/wisdom” from God about what we’re supposed to be doing in our lives, something that’ll happen in the future, that sort of thing. It was more fortune-telling than true works of the Spirit, but I didn’t know this at the time, and fancied myself some sort of prophet. These “words of knowledge” got me into trouble because I’d think I was meant to marry guys who broke up with me, and they never came back. I’d wait and wait; one turned Pagan, and the other was emotionally abusive. However, it took years before I stopped believing in the charismatic sign gifts. Once I did, I wanted nothing to do with Charismatic beliefs.

In 1995 I finally met my husband, a Lutheran (Missouri Synod). We agreed to marry without either of us having to convert. We lived in a different city in Wisconsin. I found another Nazarene house church, but it had only a few people. Going from hubby’s Lutheran church to my church became tiring, and we both agreed to start looking for a church which suited us both.

We thought we found such a church in an independent Bible church in 1996 or 1997. It had grape juice communion and familiar music, no strange hand-clapping or any of that stuff. However, we eventually discovered that it was very fundamentalist, with doctrines I could not agree with.

We went to the local Evangelical Free church after that, I believe in 2000. I had thought about going to it before going to the Bible church, but we discovered the church’s address was a home, and I didn’t want to go through yet another house church. But now, it met in a middle school auditorium, and had about 200 members. We were there for quite some time, even getting involved in different ministries. I began helping in the youth group, and loved it. Hubby had some trouble with the tithing talk and evangelical doctrines, and we were a bit uncomfortable around the hand-waving, but we felt we had found a home. I got used to the contemporary music, and began to like it.

Then in 2002, some big tithers had left the church, leaving it in financial straits, and we kept going from one building to another because we couldn’t afford our own. The pastor began preaching heavily on tithing: It must be 10% gross, given to the church, with charitable donations coming afterwards, or else you just don’t have enough faith. But we couldn’t give any more, and the pressure was too much for hubby. The pastor went on sabbatical and did a lot of reading and praying. When he came back, everything changed.

He must have been reading a lot of books by John Piper and Rick Warren. He began preaching “Cat and Dog Theology,” http://unveilinglory.gospelcom.net/ which used the glory theology which Piper, a Calvinist, has been spreading in Evangelical circles. We never heard of this glory theology until then. Coming from Calvinism, it says that every single thing God does is primarily driven by a passion for his own glory–even the Cross. http://www.middletownbiblechurch.org/mevangel/glryevan.htm We knew this was wrong, though we had no materials to back us up. In early 2003, the youth group was disbanded for lack of money, and the youth pastor essentially fired. It was so distressing that at least one of the kids cried. The other leaders tried to get the group back together, but with little success. The kids started going to other youth groups.

To be continued.......

[NyssaTheHobbit]

Hubby wrote a letter to the pastor about the glory theology and some other things (the church was in trouble), but felt ostracized after that. We felt driven out by wrong doctrine, and finally found the Presbyterian Church (USA) in 2004. Last we heard in 2005, the E-Free church was dying, with so few members they didn’t know if they could get another pastor when that one left. Apparently, it's still around, but we don't know what's going on with it anymore. Hubby feels it was spiritually abusive, especially since it’s taken him a while to recover from it.

I did a lot of searching on the PCUSA website, which is full of information, and felt satisfied that we’d found a good church. Glory theology was absent; they follow the theology of the cross. Tithing is encouraged, but we’re not accused of a lack of faith if we can’t manage it. The PCUSA allows considerable theological freedom among its members; I could be a conservative Calvinist, a liberal who believed homosexuality is perfectly okay with God, a universalist, or somewhere in the middle. Since I no longer believed in inerrancy, premillennialism, or strict literalism in the first chapters of Genesis, this was a comfortable place to be. Hubby and I became members and felt we were finally home.

I discovered we had a website with our server, and began tinkering with it. I posted a theology page as a reaction to things the E-Free preacher had taught, a way to deal with them, then began expanding it. As I searched for theological webpages disputing glory theology, they seemed to be sadly lacking, and I wondered if we were wrong. Hubby found a webpage by Lutheran writer Don Matzat that contrasted the theology of glory to the theology of the cross. As it turned out, this was an entirely different kind of glory theology, dealing not with God’s passion for his own glory, but with man’s constant striving to be “good enough” for God, the Sinner’s Prayer, rededicating your life to God when you “fall away,” etc. My own Nazarene church fell under this kind of theology of glory. In the first reading, I was offended that it said the teachings of Holiness churches were wrong. After a second reading, I was amazed at how wrongly I’d been taught in the Nazarene church. http://www.issuesetc.org/resource/journals/gloryvs.htm

Then, while reading a paper on the Lutheran (MS) official website disputing premillennial dispensationalism, I discovered that dispensationalism, along with Calvinism, are sources for the doctrine that God does everything for his own glory. Lutheran theology disagrees vehemently with this, saying that everything is centered in the Cross. Not only that, but I discovered the Nazarene church is premillennial dispensationalist, and that many of its teachings are wrong. This was quite a shock; I couldn’t tell which doctrines were correct and which were wrong anymore. I believe this was in the summer of 2005.

The more I searched the Lutheran Church website, the works of Don Matzat, and blogs on various issues, the more convinced I became that evangelicalism was full of wrong doctrines, but I wasn’t sure what was correct doctrine. One day I sang too many silly songs in the contemporary service, and began to want to sing hymns again. Hubby and I tried reading Purpose-Driven Life by Rick Warren, but it was full of prooftexting and wrong conclusions, so we couldn’t finish it. I read most of the way through the Message Bible, but discovered it took far too many liberties with the original text. The pastor of our new church occasionally asked us to do motions to songs, but we didn’t, standing there motionless while the people around us did these motions. We’d had far too much of this at the E-Free church, especially when visiting song leaders told everyone to do “clap offerings.” I began to see the problem with emotionalism in worship services, because I felt manipulated by song leaders.

The PCUSA does not teach the Nazarene, Fundamentalist or Evangelical version of Hell, a version which I had begun doubting. But what it does teach is unclear. I discovered that some people in the denomination are universalists, so out of curiosity I began checking it out. Universalist webpages described teachings of Origen and St. Gregory of Nyssa, claiming that the Early Church was originally universalist, but when Constantine made Christianity legal, paganism infused the church–leading to the demise of universalism. They also debated the use of the word “eternal” for “aeon” or “ages of ages.” I didn’t know what to make of this.

Then, one day, maybe a little more than a year ago, this guy VK posted on a Goth Christian Web forum, listing the problems with evangelicalism. He was Greek Orthodox. He wasn’t received very well by the other posters. I knew very little about Greek Orthodoxy, so I asked him what GO believes on various doctrines I'd been pondering. He couldn't answer everything, but his answers amazed me, especially one that said his priest told him that the meaning of "eternal" has never been dogmatically fixed. Wanting to know if the universalist webpages were correct, I began checking into the Orthodox view of Hell, using websites VK linked for me, and came across “River of Fire” by Alexandre Kalomiros in late 2005. It blew my mind. After that, everything changed.

I kept searching the Orthodox websites VK gave me, such as for GOARCH, OCA, and Orthodox Info. Originally I just wanted to find out whether or not the universalists were right about Church history. Instead, I found that the Orthodox had better theology about Hell than the universalists, but more loving than the fundamentalist doctrines I was used to. My dad had told me about the Harrowing of Hell, though he didn’t tell me the name for it; it always comforted me when thinking about the pagan generations who died before Christ. Then I discovered that Lutherans don’t believe in it, and didn’t know what to think about the fate of those generations. Then I discovered that the Orthodox do believe in the Harrowing of Hell.

The more I searched, the more intrigued I became. I used to think the Orthodox were just Eastern Catholics who let their priests get married and had a Great Schism with the Pope in the Middle Ages. Instead, studying the Orthodox Church became, for me, like an archaeologist coming across an island full of Stone Age people: the Early Church preserved throughout the ages, untouched by the various changes in Western Christianity.

I had issues with various doctrines–what Protestant doesn’t? But I bought the Orthodox Study Bible and began using the prayers in the back of the book. I began practicing the sign of the Cross. I left Evangelical forums which opposed everything even remotely Catholic, and joined an Orthodox forum to learn more. I became more and more dissatisfied with contemporary worship services, megachurch practices and Protestant doctrines of all types–Charismatic, Evangelical, Baptist, Presbtyerian, Lutheran.

I also learned that “River of Fire” is very controversial, though I e-mailed the guy who answers questions on the OCA site, and he said that the fires of Hell are metaphorical. I also found this on catechisms on the (I believe) Toronto church website and the Orthodox Europe site. On this and other things, I have to agree with a Lutheran blogger who wrote that it’s hard to pin down what exactly the Orthodox believe on many things, because you’ll read one thing and somebody will say, “No, that’s not true Orthodoxy. Try this website instead.”

The more I study the Early Church Fathers and histories, the more convinced I become that the Orthodox faith has the pure faith of the Early Church–and that it’s the most loving of all denominations I’ve investigated. With our local PCUSA church going into the megachurch “relevance” mindset, and the homosexuality issue driving more conservative churches into the Evangelical Presbyterian Church, I just can't stay there anymore. There’s a huge crack in the denomination, formed from some 25 years of arguing over homosexuality and other issues, and a recent denominational decision has started a split.

Every day that passes, I feel more sure that Orthodoxy is the original faith of the Apostles--that I've finally found what I was looking for. And that's why I'm entering the catechumenate.

[nikostheater]

Hello brothers and sisters in Christ!
I am Greek and i am Orthodox all my life,but i feel that i am truly converting to God all my life.
I am happy to see so many people from all over the world to learn and convert to the Orthodox Church!
May God bless you all my friends!

[Greg the byzantine]

Welcome Niko, and xronia polla (even though it's a little late)

[nikostheater]

Thank you Greg,eyxaristw!

[EmperorConstantine]

I was born and raised a Roman Catholic. When I was six years old my parents divorced and my dad had been the one taking my brother and I to church. When I was about eight, he met a lady (who would later be my step mom) who was Russian Orthodox. I never liked going to her church because it was too long and you had to stand all the time.

Due to my dad's job, he was transferred to Miami Florida and our mom never knew about it and still does not. The next year (2004) my brother and I left our mom's house to live at our dad's permanently. His then fiancee was living at his house and we lived with her there. That school year was the last I would be in a Catholic school. I had never been to a public school before and was extremely nervous. What was a bit of culture shock to me, was the absence of religion that and the fact that I was not getting to church due to my step mom's illness (chronic fatigue) and the lack of religion lead me away from Roman Catholicism and more towards an Agnostic view on life. This view would remain for about a year and a half. Every six months, my dad would have enough leave time to be up for two weeks and it was during these times that we would go to the Orthodox church for my now step mom and to the Roman Catholic church for me. My brother had given up on religion in general and holds to it to this day.

It was not until last school year (2005-06) that I decided I would "try" to be a Roman Catholic again, mainly because the summer before, my dad converted to Orthodoxy in Miami and I could not find it in me to convert because one side of my family had been Roman Catholic for generations upon generations in Germany. I guess it was some sort of rebelliousness that made me want to go to church again, so I found a ride.

This past summer, I went to Miami with my dad for two months; July through August. It was sometime in mid June when I thought to myself "I may as well become Orthodox because this is the only church I'm getting to and the local Roman Catholic church is getting a bit too modern for me." So, while I was in Miami, my dad and I went to Christ the Saviour Cathedral for vespers and Divine Liturgy. It was the absolute kindness of the people that really helped in my becoming Orthodox because 1) my dad was renting a room at the house of a priest's mother and 2) the house we were staying at while I was down there had been willed to the cathedral and the niece of the reposed allowed my dad and I to stay there while helping her empty the place out with various yard sales.

On August 19 I was chrismated. It was one week before I was due back home and chose the name of Constantine. My step mom and I now get to church somewhat regularly and after four years my dad is being transfered back home.

[Naozane]

I suppose I'll volunteer my story now... It's a bit long, so grab a cup of tea or something and settle in!

I was born into the Episcopal Church of the United States of America, and baptized Episcopal as an infant. I was active in ECUSA until my late teens, and was confirmed prior to falling away from the church.

During my late teens, I had fallen in with the complete wrong crowd, and as it turns out my parents picked exactly the wrong way to deal with it (I certainly don't blame them for acting the way they did - it was reasonable but completely wrong for how I was). This drove me further away from the life I had once known, and I abandoned my Christian faith at the time.

I spent a few years wandering in neo-paganism, the New Age movement (that didn't last long - too little intellectual rigor for my tastes) and the like, eventually settling in to a carefully-selected syncretic mystical belief system. During this time, I married.

My spouse and I began to have difficulties in our marriage, and they quickly grew to be insurmountable. We separated after just under three years of marriage, and began divorce proceedings.

At that point, I reconciled with my parents (the fact that they were willing to provide a place to sleep was a nice bonus - I was outdoors as they say, and it gets cold in January where I live) and began to reconnect with my Anglican roots. I started going to church again, to the same church that my parents attended. It was low-church Episcopalianism, but the priest was theologically conservative and held more or less to the core of the faith. I didn't find out until much later, but his stand for small-o-orthodoxy cost him his parish and his clerical livelihood! Though the churchmanship was pretty relaxed, it was a good place to be.

During this time, I met the woman who was to become my wife. She's actually active in the Forums (she convinced me to sign up), and you might know her - she goes by rainbowbright around these parts. She was from a rather vague nondenominational background, and after going to church together a few times, first to mine and then to hers, she decided that she wished to become Episcopalian as well. Her parents encouraged her in this, and I get the strong feeling that they later wished they hadn't!

I was very proud to be present at both her baptism and confirmation in the Episcopal Church. She was living a few hours away from me at the time, going to school. She had found the local Episcopal Church in the town, and started attending (it's where she was baptized). She became active, joining the choir and making friends with the clergy. I'd attend with her when I could. We were later married in this same church - one of the happiest days of my life! We set up house in the town where her school was, and I began attending college myself at the state school in a nearby city (kind of a late bloomer, I was).

All was not well on the Episcopal front, though. Though I hadn't been aware of it, liberal theology and revisionist practice were making vast inroads into even our little outpost of ECUSA.

We soon moved back to the city where our parents lived (and we've been ther ever since), when the economy went bad. We shopped around the various ECUSA churches in town and started going to the big conservative church. We were very happy to discover that it was not only theologically conservative, but also high-church. During this time, we became pregnant with our first child. He was baptized in the Episcopal Church. We were happily proceeding along the Episcopal life, but sought deeper understanding of the faith. During this time we became members of an Anglican/Episcopal Franciscan Tertiary Order (the Franciscan Order of the Divine Compassion), and began learning the mystical side of the Western Church. The FoDC was certainly heavily Anglo-Catholic! I had also started my college studies back up during this period, majoring in Asian Studies with a focus on Japanese religious history.

Then Gene Robinson was elected bishop.

Though the rector at our church vowed to stay and fight it out, we couldn't in good conscience remain in the Episcopal Church. A friend of ours (our son's godfather) was a former Episcopal priest who had left the church over theological issues. He had started supplying a local Anglican splinter church where we began having our FoDC services as well. Sadly, the splinter groups seemed to carry schism with them, and that church began to fragment. It was at that church that I began serving at the altar and doing the readings during the Mass, but it became a burden to put up with the politics of the church.

Having seen the church I grew up in begin to splinter under the weight of intellectualist moral relativism, liberal theology, and whatnot, my faith began to waver. We started to seek for a church where we could be at home.

We considered the various other Protestant denominations, but the lack of any liturgical consciousness (or the active rejection of same) was dreadfully unappealing. The only option left, in our minds at the time, was Rome.

As others have experienced, our attempt to convert to Roman Catholicism was thwarted by a legal technicality. My first marriage required an annulment, and we couldn't get one. We were told that there were not enough witnesses willing to talk to the marriage tribunal - not a big surprise, given that most of the folks who I associated with during the time of my marriage were (and still are) vehemently anti-Christian! I also hadn't spoken to most of them in literally years, as I sought to put that part of my life as firmly behind me as possible. Due to the paucity of testimony, the marriage tribunal rejected the annulment with all the love and compassion one might expect from the Department of Motor Vehicles.

At this point, my faith died for a while. This time, though, I avoided the traps of the New Religions and the New Age movment and whatnot, instead seriously studying Theravada Buddhism and philosophical Taoism. During the course of my studies, I had to take several classes on East Asian religion, and had found myself strongly attracted to the strong ethical tradition in Buddhism, along with the mystical foundations of Taoism. Further, we had become pregnant with our second child.

During this time, my wife had been considering the available avenues and suggested that we check out the Orthodox Church. Orthodoxy was not unknown to me, as part of my family was Orthodox. My aunt (now reposed - Memory Eternal!) had married a Roman Catholic who later converted to Orthodoxy - you may know of him - Fr. Alexey Young, now Hieromonk Ambrose. Prior to our serious investigation of Orthodoxy, I had only attended my aunt's funeral up at the ROCOR parish my uncle served, but that was one more Orthodox service than my wife had attended!

The Orthodox Church felt like home. We did the usual inquirer's classes prior to becoming catechumens, and were received into the Orthodox Church just before Holy and Great Lent in 2005. My wife and I, along with our children, were baptized - the date of our baptism corresponded nicely with the 40th day after our daughter's birth. We elected to be baptized again as our previous baptisms had been by sprinkling rather than full immersion. We felt the full immersion was also symbolically appropriate.

Since then, we've been working out our salvation in the Orthodox Church. Our third and fourth children were recently baptized into the Orthodox faith. It's been equal measures joy (Orthodoxy is a great place to be), sorrow (the non-Orthodox among our families are still dead set against our being Orthodox and have been very hard about the whole thing), and hard work, but we are persevering by God's grace. After many years, we feel we have found the true expression of Christianity, and have come home.

[nikostheater]

Nice story!

[ma2000]

Hello everybody!

I was searching for the source for an orthodox-related article and the search engine gave me a link to this site. I've started reading this thread and I was very happy.
My name is Marius and I'm from Romania. I was baptised as an orthodox when I was a few weeks old so I don't have beautiful stories like yours to tell.
I see the site isn't coping too well with so many threads so I'll write in here instead of creating a new one to introduce to my orthodox brothers and sisters.

It is nice meeting you all and may God bless us!

[Matrona]

Nice to meet you, Marius! :hug:

[Jacob4707]

I was baptised as an orthodox when I was a few weeks old so I don't have beautiful stories like yours to tell.

That in itself is a beautiful story. Welcome to TAW. May your time here benefit us and you spiritually (Romans 1:11-12).

[MariaRegina]

My story is here (http://fromprotestanttoorthodox.blogspot.com/).
I don't know why, but all I see is a blank screen.

Do you think you can reprint your conversion story?

thanks

[Jacob4707]

I don't know why, but all I see is a blank screen.

Do you think you can reprint your conversion story?

thanks

It is working fine now. Sometimes Blogger goes down for awhile. http://fromprotestanttoorthodox.blogspot.com/

[Mirc]

Hello everybody!

I was searching for the source for an orthodox-related article and the search engine gave me a link to this site. I've started reading this thread and I was very happy.
My name is Marius and I'm from Romania. I was baptised as an orthodox when I was a few weeks old so I don't have beautiful stories like yours to tell.
I see the site isn't coping too well with so many threads so I'll write in here instead of creating a new one to introduce to my orthodox brothers and sisters.

It is nice meeting you all and may God bless us!

Hello everyone! Just like Marius, I was baptised in the Orthodox Church of Romania when I was very young, so I didn't need to convert.
I knew a priest, from my city (Bucharest), who is probably the best priest I've ever met, and I was helping him inside the altar, so I spent a lot of time in the church some years ago. I was dressing in some special clothes and helped him with candles and holding his books, etc. But this is not so important.
I am member on another big forum (100,000+ members) since 2005, and I was very surprised by the number of atheists there, which seem to be 70% of the members. There was a time really not wrong ago when I was spiritually confused, being afraid by what's going to be after death, etc.
On that forum however, in the Off-Topic section, a certain category of threads, "Ask a...." threads, are very popular. And I was browsing through one of those threads, "Ask a Muslim". In there was a guy from the USA who labeled himself as "fundamental Muslim". He started every post of his with "Hello, Brother [user name]". I was extremely pleased by his view on the world, tolerance and everything. This lighted up in me a certain wish of tolerance, good will, and religion. I was then browsing through the Internet trying to convince me not all the forums are dominated by atheists. One of the results of my serches led me here, and I am convinced that not all forums are dominated by atheists. On that forum, I am a hunted minority, everyone is mocking me and laughing at my belief. So here I am. I have hope that the world is not going to lose the greatest thing it still has: religion. And I am willing to post and dedicate a certain part of my time to prove this.
After finding this forum I was looking through this topic and I found it extremely interesting so I decided to make my first post here.
I have never labeled myself as anything else than an Eastern Orthodox Christian, however as I mentioned above there have been times when I was not so sure of the truth. Now I am, and I hope this will last for the rest of my life. (you can see I am very young, for this kind of forum especially)
About myself: my name is Mircea (male!); I am from Bucharest, Romania (and I proudly say it's one of the most Eastern Orthodox countries in the world, being the country with the highest percent of Christians in Europe); I am 15 years old, which I think is young for this kind of forum, and have always been a religious person, even though in the past year I had some unfounded doubts about Christianity. I can only hope God will forgive me. Fortunately I went past this period, for ever, I hope. Maybe God took care of me.

This forum seems a very nice place. Maybe sometime, I'll be active here.

[NyssaTheHobbit]

Hi there! We have several teenagers on this forum, and they're all just as much a part of it as anybody. Don't feel alone; I've been through various up-and-down periods with my faith all through my life.

[Jacob4707]

I added a post about my early Orthodox experiences to my Weblog:

http://waterandspirit.blogspot.com/2007/02/in-beginning-or-my-first-experiences.html

"In the beginning...," or: My First Experiences with the Orthodox Church

My first experience of an Orthodox Church was actually a year or so (and maybe more) before I began looking seriously at Orthodoxy, i.e., sometime in 2003 perhaps. I went to St. Maximus the Confessor Orthodox Church (OCA) (http://www.stmaximus.org/) in Denton, Texas (the church we now attend) for a Vespers service, I think.

(I remember that I was purposely kind of secretive on the phone when I called the church to see if I could attend a service, because I didn't know what kind of follow-up or anything they would do if I gave them my name!)

So I went to the service, and what I most remember was how strange it seemed, in almost a humorous way. I remember describing it to a friend, and I imitated the priest chanting the Gospel selection (I think it was about the shepherds in the field at the announcement of Christ's birth), saying that they read the Scriptures, but it and everything was done in this repetitive sing-songy mode. I also mentioned how the priest was sometimes dressed with this weird robe or vestment that stood up over the back of his neck, and that he went in and out of these doors, and sometimes they turned the lights on and off, etc. As I recall, I left before it was over because I didn't want to have to talk to anyone or let them know who I was. At the time, the thought of returning didn't even enter my mind.

I think it was maybe a year later, as one who was now somewhat interested in Orthodoxy, that I attended a Vespers Service at St. Seraphim of Sarov Orthodox Cathedral (OCA) (http://dallas.orthodoxinternet.com/) in Dallas. Again, I found it kind of strange, and also rather boring. (St. Seraphim is the "mother church" of St. Maximus, as well as of all the other churches in the OCA Diocese of the South.)

Then at some point, after having visited several of the local Catholic Churches a few times, and having less than positive impressions of them (I won't go into detail), I decided to attend a Divine Liturgy at St. Maximus, even though I didn't think Orthodoxy was on my radar screen, as I thought it was "too foreign" for me, a Western Protestant. (At least I think that was where I attended my first Sunday morning Divine Liturgy - it's been too long to remember all of this accurately.) This time when I called the church, I talked briefly with the priest (Fr. Justin Frederick) and gave him my name, and asked him if he was a convert (both because of his last name and because he didn't sound Russian), and he said he was.

So I went to the service, expecting it to be quite similar to the Catholic masses/services I had attended. Boy, was I wrong! The Orthodox Divine Liturgy was nothing like what I had experienced in the Catholic churches. It was like stepping back in time 1,000 years, or what I thought it would be like to do so. I was intrigued, and I think I talked for awhile with Fr. Justin during the after-service coffee hour.

Sometime after that I visited some other Orthodox Churches - e.g., Sts. Constantine and Helen Antiochian Orthodox Church (http://www.sch-dfw.com/) and St. Seraphim again. When I asked my wife if she wanted to attend with me some time (I think this was late Spring 2005, because were attending a non-denominational Charismatic church in Carrollton from January - June 2005, if I recall correctly), surprisingly she said she would. (I hadn't shared much about my search in Catholicism and Orthodoxy with her, because even I wasn't sure if either of them was the direction I wanted to go.) So we went to Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Church (http://www.holytrinity.info/), partly because I wanted to attend a Greek-speaking Liturgy, since I could somewhat read and understand it. We got there early, and that's when we found out that the service would be about one-half in Greek. That would be fine with me, but with the very echo-y acoustics at the church, I knew my wife would not enjoy it at all. So we left before the service began, and drove to Sts. Constantine and Helen in time for their Divine Liturgy.

INCENSE! I was used to it, and expecting it, but my wife was not. It was so much for her that we left immediately after the service, without me being able to do any more than wave "hi" and "goodbye" to my acquaintance Joseph who had befriended me at the coffee hour at my first visit there. I figured he was wondering why I left without even talking with him.

Surprising to me, though, my wife said she kind of liked it. So at some point shortly after that, I asked if she wanted to visit the Orthodox church in Denton. And after a short while, we started going there, and we have been there ever since.

(A side note: I met and talked with Dr. Daniel Clendenin at the November 2005 Evangelical Theological Society meeting in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania. The theme that year was "Christianity in the Early Centuries," and since I was already exploring Catholicism and Orthodoxy, the conference theme was just what I needed. I bought both his books, Eastern Orthodox Christianity: A Western Prespective and Eastern Orthodox Theology: A Contemporary Reader (2nd Edition) (which he kindly autographed), and at one point in the conversation, I mentioned that my wife was already wanting to join the Orthodox Church (she had been going for only a few months, but she was already saying that she couldn’t go back to Protestantism - this, after nearly 30 years in non-denominational Charismatic and Evangelical churches), so I asked Dr. Clendenin his advice (since I still had doubts and questions and serious issues with Orthodoxy, and he himself has firmly decided not to become Orthodox for reasons he has explained in an essay that is on the Internet - http://www.ctlibrary.com/ct/1997/january6/7t1032.html). He said: "I think you ought to listen to your wife!" :^) So here we are, almost 1-1/2 years later, ready to enter the Church on Holy Saturday 2007!)

- - -

All this is written to say that you should not be surprised if your first visit (or visits) to an Orthodox Church is underwhelming and perhaps even a total turnoff. That was my initial reaction, yet look at us now ... eagerly awaiting our entrance into the Church!

And as for the services being "strange" or "boring" .. well, frankly, I don't think either of us can think of any other way that we would now prefer to worship God in a church setting.

So if you feel like you might be curious about Orthodoxy or find yourself wanting to explore it, if your first (and second and third!) impression isn't necessarily positive, don't give up. Take your time, read and pray, talk to Orthodox folks and priests (online or in person), and visit several Orthodox churches if you are able to (or even other churches if you are not sure you want to make the jump out of Protestantism or Catholicism or whatever you currently attend or came from). And then, if and when you are ready, wade in deeper. The Orthodox Church will still be there, as it has been for nearly 2,000 years.

[jckstraw72]

Naozane thanks for sharing your story. May God bless you richly in His Church. and also ... your uncle is Fr. Ambrose?! thats awesome!

[Nichole]

I had never heard of Orthodoxy until my husband was in Korea with the US military and was introduced it. He then shared it with me and for the first year I refuted the thought of it, due to my upbringing in the Protestant faith. After he was stationed back state side and started going to an Orthodox church I then took interest and went with him. About 5 months later I too became an Orthodox Christian!

[MariaRegina]

Glad you could join us, Bushmaster's wife.

[ConanTheLibrarian]

I had never heard of Orthodoxy until my husband was in Korea with the US military and was introduced it. He then shared it with me and for the first year I refuted the thought of it, due to my upbringing in the Protestant faith. After he was stationed back state side and started going to an Orthodox church I then took interest and went with him. About 5 months later I too became an Orthodox Christian!
Welcome to CF, even if I do mostly hang out on One Bread, one Body these days.

[Nichole]

Glad you could join us, Bushmaster's wife.

Thank you Aria!

[Nichole]

Welcome to CF, even if I do mostly hang out on One Bread, one Body these days.

Thank you Conan! I hope to see more of you on here too!

[NyssaTheHobbit]

Hey, it's Bushmaster's Wife! :D

[ProfChrysostomos]

Hello Bushmaster's Wife!

Welcome to CF. May God's blessings and grace be with you abundantly.

I always like to look at all Christians as converts to the Faith, some as early as infancy and others later in life. How much indeed can we "cradle Orthodox" learn from those recently illumined in the Church. As an aside, I think the greatest lesson to be learned by us "cradle Orthodox" is how to get out of the cradle . . . and begin living the Faith!

God bless,
+ Prof.

[KoolKat]

Hello everyone! Just like Marius, I was baptised in the Orthodox Church of Romania when I was very young, so I didn't need to convert.
I knew a priest, from my city (Bucharest), who is probably the best priest I've ever met, and I was helping him inside the altar, so I spent a lot of time in the church some years ago. I was dressing in some special clothes and helped him with candles and holding his books, etc. But this is not so important.
I am member on another big forum (100,000+ members) since 2005, and I was very surprised by the number of atheists there, which seem to be 70% of the members. There was a time really not wrong ago when I was spiritually confused, being afraid by what's going to be after death, etc.
On that forum however, in the Off-Topic section, a certain category of threads, "Ask a...." threads, are very popular. And I was browsing through one of those threads, "Ask a Muslim". In there was a guy from the USA who labeled himself as "fundamental Muslim". He started every post of his with "Hello, Brother [user name]". I was extremely pleased by his view on the world, tolerance and everything. This lighted up in me a certain wish of tolerance, good will, and religion. I was then browsing through the Internet trying to convince me not all the forums are dominated by atheists. One of the results of my serches led me here, and I am convinced that not all forums are dominated by atheists. On that forum, I am a hunted minority, everyone is mocking me and laughing at my belief. So here I am. I have hope that the world is not going to lose the greatest thing it still has: religion. And I am willing to post and dedicate a certain part of my time to prove this.
After finding this forum I was looking through this topic and I found it extremely interesting so I decided to make my first post here.
I have never labeled myself as anything else than an Eastern Orthodox Christian, however as I mentioned above there have been times when I was not so sure of the truth. Now I am, and I hope this will last for the rest of my life. (you can see I am very young, for this kind of forum especially)
About myself: my name is Mircea (male!); I am from Bucharest, Romania (and I proudly say it's one of the most Eastern Orthodox countries in the world, being the country with the highest percent of Christians in Europe); I am 15 years old, which I think is young for this kind of forum, and have always been a religious person, even though in the past year I had some unfounded doubts about Christianity. I can only hope God will forgive me. Fortunately I went past this period, for ever, I hope. Maybe God took care of me.

This forum seems a very nice place. Maybe sometime, I'll be active here.
hi, i'm a kid here....and i'm Othodox since birth and i live in America..... do U got to the teens section at all?

[TrueHope]

It is like watching an opera about Lord Jesus.

oooh. I love that!!!!!!!!!My conversion began with loving a Greek man. And then Marrying him....and God did all the rest on His own. When I have the "Orixy" to write it, I will...but to say the least, it is a fascinating journey, a thought provoking journey and a spirit filled journey!!! Amen!!!!

[MariaRegina]

hi, i'm a kid here....and i'm Othodox since birth and i live in America..... do U got to the teens section at all?
Dear Kool Kat,

You can start a thread for Orthodox Teens here at TAW. There is no rule against it and you will find that we do have quite a lot of Orthodox Teens and also teens who are inquiring into Orthodoxy.

Will the Teen section allow you to link here to TAW?

[MariaRegina]

It is like watching an opera about Lord Jesus.

oooh. I love that!!!!!!!!!My conversion began with loving a Greek man. And then Marrying him....and God did all the rest on His own. When I have the "Orixy" to write it, I will...but to say the least, it is a fascinating journey, a thought provoking journey and a spirit filled journey!!! Amen!!!!

Welcome to TAW.

[KoolKat]

Dear Kool Kat,

You can start a thread for Orthodox Teens here at TAW. There is no rule against it and you will find that we do have quite a lot of Orthodox Teens and also teens who are inquiring into Orthodoxy.

Will the Teen section allow you to link here to TAW?
i don't know how to do that.....

[TrueHope]

When I became Orthodox...I manily did it because I was marrying a Greek man. And the journey kind of spiraled on its own. I never told my mother I was baptized Orthodox because when the suggestion was made, she deeply frowned. ("Those Orthodox think they are better than everybody"...bla bla bla) (She now knows...and keeps quiet...but I get plenty of whispers about the icons)

Well, what I do beleive is this. The more opposition you face regarding Christ...the path you travel is the straight and narrow, the hardest. And be grateful! For what Christ revealed to me...On His Own, blew my mind. Going to Liturgy only enhanced it and what I once thought was ....(Overly decorated, overly painted, overly incensed...blablabla) I find the most beautiful, most honoring, most humbling way to worship. It's not the religion....it's the walk! And Christ WILL show you His will regarding church...but He will also show you His Walk....so will you be able to endure.

I think for us converters in to Orthodoxy, it is an immense battle against all! Which tells me, we've done something right, because the devils got everyone around us ranting and raving against it! Amen!



By the way....In my lifetime...through foster homes, my own searching....I, like many others, had been in so many denominations. At 20 something, I also tried the Wiccan thing. And left that. Nothing seemed right. (There was that constant yearning and pulling that kept tugging at me for so long. Hmmmmmmm who could that have been?!?!)

Through the Wiccan experience, I learned one thing....that powers beyond our reasoning do exist....and it's scary! So when I woke up to Christ....he put it to me so strong one day....If you understand that these things exist....why and how could you have denied ME for so long? BAM! Boy did that hit me like a ton of bricks....it made far too much sense for my simple reasoning!!!! LOL

So through trying, praying....messing up...a LOT..and daily....He showed me things in liturgy that no-one else could see. Mainly because I can't understand any of it. (for when I felt I was going crazy and explained these things to the priest...he said...Never question why...just thank Him for showing you mysteries) But try as hard as I do
id to understand something other than when to stand up for communion....which in the beginning...I couldn't even figure that out here and though I was in church, I somehow ALWAYS missed it! HOW PATHETIC IS THAT ONE? But now, each Sunday that I go to church, it is amazing. Unexplainably amazing! So no offense to anyone....my relationship with Him is fantastic, and filled with humor!!!! (I think...since I don't understand half of what goes on around me....Glossa problema!!!!)

I am so grateful! This walk I have with Christ.... It's tiring, trying,extremely humbling, sometimes filled with immense displeasures...filled with intense miracles...and a lot of heart aches.....but I wouldn't give it up for anything in the world. Not EVER!!!!!

[nikostheater]

:clap: :clap: I love conversion stories!
TrueHope excellent!

[SeraphimSarov]

I'll post my conversion story later. It's only just beginning now. I can already see it's not going to be easy, but nothing that's worth it ever is.

[TrueHope]

I'll post my conversion story later. It's only just beginning now. I can already see it's not going to be easy, but nothing that's worth it ever is.


AMEN to that.....but it is sooooooooooooooo worth it in the end!!!!!!! Praise God!

[Silouan]

I have recently joined CF due to the persuasions of a friend, so I thought it meet and right to present my introduction to my fellow Orthodox. Briefly, I am a former Southern Baptist, Charasmatic, Non-Denominational and Emergent Church devotee. It seems that most convert stories are similar, so I wont beat the dead horse. In search for the historic church, I did my research in the fathers and the history of the church and now I am Orthodox and have not looked back. I am open to any questions, comments , BLESSINGS, you may have.

[Mary of Bethany]

Hey buddy. :thumbsup:

I wish I had some more blessings to send your way!

Mary

[Jacob4707]

I have recently joined CF due to the persuasions of a friend, so I thought it meet and right to present my introduction to my fellow Orthodox. Briefly, I am a former Southern Baptist, Charasmatic, Non-Denominational and Emergent Church devotee. It seems that most convert stories are similar, so I wont beat the dead horse. In search for the historic church, I did my research in the fathers and the history of the church and now I am Orthodox and have not looked back. I am open to any questions, comments , BLESSINGS, you may have.

You forgot to list DTS in your profile under "Colleges Attended"! :D

Welcome to TAW!! (Maybe see you Sunday night at the pan-Orthodox service at the Cathedral?)

[Silouan]

You forgot to list DTS in your profile under "Colleges Attended"! :D

Welcome to TAW!! (Maybe see you Sunday night at the pan-Orthodox service at the Cathedral?)


Haha..I left DTS unmentioned out of shame. It was never the same after I wrote my paper about the veneration of the Theotokos in my Theology class :) :crosseo:

[Jacob4707]

Haha..I left DTS unmentioned out of shame. It was never the same after I wrote my paper about the veneration of the Theotokos in my Theology class :) :crosseo:

Maybe this would have helped:

http://pastors.crossmap.com/images_pastors/365.jpg

From Publishers Weekly
In this dense, learned study, Perry, a professor of theology at Manitoba's Providence College, attempts to bridge the different accounts of Mary that have long divided Catholics and evangelicals. The book was born of Protestant Perry's nagging sense that his tradition did not give the mother of Jesus her due. He insists, in good Protestant fashion, on grounding his evangelical Mariology in scripture, not in "postbiblical legends." Perry first examines how Mary figures in the New Testament. The major New Testament writers, according to Perry, had wildly different views of Mary, with Luke seeing her as a prophet and Paul viewing her as "no more than an anonymous mother." Perry then turns to the church fathers, arguing that medieval doctrines about Mary were not new inventions, but elaborations and clarifications of doctrines that were articulated in the patristic era. He concludes with a constructive (but too brief) Protestant theology of Mary, including the controversial claim that, in some senses, it is appropriate to consider Mary a "mediator." Thanks to Dan Brown and Elaine Pagels, many readers are interested in the women in Jesus' life. Although this book is too scholarly to attract a large following, Perry makes an important contribution to Catholic-evangelical dialogue. (Nov.)

[NyssaTheHobbit]

Gee...I wonder who the "friend" was who persuaded you? ;)

[Mary of Bethany]

Gee...I wonder who the "friend" was who persuaded you? ;)

Well, actually . . . . it was me. :)

We sing in the choir together at our parish. But he's also met KATH and others on here, too.

SilouanAthonite and I are always talking about TAW around him, so he finally gave in.

Resistance is futile. :cool:

Mary

[Silouan]

Well, actually . . . . it was me. :)

We sing in the choir together at our parish. But he's also met KATH and others on here, too.

SilouanAthonite and I are always talking about TAW around him, so he finally gave in.

Resistance is futile. :cool:

Mary

Was I predestined for TAW or did I come on my own free will? Just kidding:liturgy:

[silouanathonite]

Welcome Silouan, glad to see you made it.

[Mary of Bethany]

Was I predestined for TAW or did I come on my own free will? Just kidding:liturgy:

Bad Silouan, bad!

Mary

[Petronius]

I have recently joined CF due to the persuasions of a friend, so I thought it meet and right to present my introduction to my fellow Orthodox. Briefly, I am a former Southern Baptist, Charasmatic, Non-Denominational and Emergent Church devotee. It seems that most convert stories are similar, so I wont beat the dead horse. In search for the historic church, I did my research in the fathers and the history of the church and now I am Orthodox and have not looked back. I am open to any questions, comments , BLESSINGS, you may have.

Your conversion story can only look being apparently simmilar, but it is unique the same as you are unique....

[THORmonger]

I just got done the long process of going through all 57 pages of posts, and I've felt inspired by all the conversion stories I read. After Holy Week is over, I'm going to properly write out my conversion story (well, I'm a catechumen, so my conversion is not yet complete). It's kind of a convoluted and often-painful journey...

In Christ,
-Thor

[CuriousityKilledThe]

I got chrismated Lazarus Saturday and am celebrating my first Holy Week as a Orthodox. Hooray! I could go into details, but I've floated around TAW for a while now, and that was a pretty big part of the process.

[NyssaTheHobbit]

I just finished adding extensively to my conversion story: http://webpages.charter.net/nyssacugan/cgn_000046.htm

It goes into far more detail about what was going wrong with the churches we were in, and why we left. I think if I show this to anyone who thinks I'm a church-hopper, they'll change their mind. :P

[nikostheater]

Wow!That was a long journey!
I am happy that you are home finally!
:)
Welcome to the Holy Orthodox church Nyssa!

[NyssaTheHobbit]

Thanks! I'm exhausted--I don't wanna go anywhere else! :)

[Anatole]

I was brought up Missouri Synod Lutheran and my husband was Roman Catholic. He never liked his faith so we we're occasionally attending the Lutheran church, but we didn't care for it either. We felt our small children needed to go, so we went for them. My husbands best friend married an Orthodox girl and he converted to Orthodoxy. He sent books to my husband to read. He read them and knew he had to go to an Orthodox Liturgy, but I said no because from the way he was describing this faith to me and their traditions, I didn't think this Irish girl would fit in. He was not going to go without his whole family. So about three years went by and I was still dragging him to the Lutheran church. Then my dad became ill with melanoma cancer and died very quickly. When I asked my Lutheran pastor where my dad was, he said, "your father is either sleeping until Christ comes again or since he was a good Christian man he is in heaven". My pastor's answer did not satisfy me. So I asked my husband if I could read one of his Orthodox books. He had me read, Conversations With Protestant Sectarians, by Kallistos Ware. I read this book and I can honestly say I was scared into the faith. That very next Sunday we visited the closest Orthodox church, 45 minutes from our home. We weren't there more than maybe 20 minutes and we both looked at each other and smiled. At that moment we knew we were finally home. We talked to the priest, Fr. David, and we were happy with all of his answers to our questions. We've been going to the same church for 11 years. A lot of driving back and forth, but we don't mind at all. We have never once woken up on a Sunday and not wanted to make that drive. Our children have never told us that they don't want to go to church (unless they are sick). Our son wants to be a priest and our daughter can't wait to meet an Orthodox boy who will sweep her off her feet. God has given us a very blessed life. Sometimes I wonder if I had to lose my dad to open my eyes to Orthodoxy? I believe I did! I miss my dad so much. I feel though if he wouldn't have died, I wouldn't have received the unfulfilled answers from the Lutheran pastor. So, because of that, now we have a chance at salvation. Thanks be to God!

[Jacob4707]

I was brought up Missouri Synod Lutheran and my husband was Roman Catholic. He never liked his faith so we we're occasionally attending the Lutheran church, but we didn't care for it either. We felt our small children needed to go, so we went for them. My husbands best friend married an Orthodox girl and he converted to Orthodoxy. He sent books to my husband to read. He read them and knew he had to go to an Orthodox Liturgy, but I said no because from the way he was describing this faith to me and their traditions, I didn't think this Irish girl would fit in. He was not going to go without his whole family. So about three years went by and I was still dragging him to the Lutheran church. Then my dad became ill with melanoma cancer and died very quickly. When I asked my Lutheran pastor where my dad was, he said, "your father is either sleeping until Christ comes again or since he was a good Christian man he is in heaven". My pastor's answer did not satisfy me. So I asked my husband if I could read one of his Orthodox books. He had me read, Conversations With Protestant Sectarians, by Kallistos Ware. I read this book and I can honestly say I was scared into the faith. That very next Sunday we visited the closest Orthodox church, 45 minutes from our home. We weren't there more than maybe 20 minutes and we both looked at each other and smiled. At that moment we knew we were finally home. We talked to the priest, Fr. David, and we were happy with all of his answers to our questions. We've been going to the same church for 11 years. A lot of driving back and forth, but we don't mind at all. We have never once woken up on a Sunday and not wanted to make that drive. Our children have never told us that they don't want to go to church (unless they are sick). Our son wants to be a priest and our daughter can't wait to meet an Orthodox boy who will sweep her off her feet. God has given us a very blessed life. Sometimes I wonder if I had to lose my dad to open my eyes to Orthodoxy? I believe I did! I miss my dad so much. I feel though if he wouldn't have died, I wouldn't have received the unfulfilled answers from the Lutheran pastor. So, because of that, now we have a chance at salvation. Thanks be to God!

Different author, but is this the book/essay you meant:

http://www.trueorthodoxy.org/heretics_protestants_missionary_conversations.shtml

Missionary Conversations with Protestant Sectarians
by Rev. Kyril Zaits
New Sarov Press Edition 1993

[Anatole]

Sorry, I don't know where the book is since it's been 11 years. I should have researched that better instead of trusting in my bad memory. You are right, that is the real name of the book and author. Thanks, for correcting me!

[Philothei]

Welcome Anatole to TAW :). Thanks for the beautiful story you shared with us.
I only have a daughter sorry no boys for your girl... but I am sure she will find some nice Orthodox young man.

God bless,
Philothei

[Jacob4707]

Sorry, I don't know where the book is since it's been 11 years. I should have researched that better instead of trusting in my bad memory. You are right, that is the real name of the book and author. Thanks, for correcting me!

Thanks for confirming this. Now we can all read it at the link I found. Glad to have you at TAW!

[NyssaTheHobbit]

Thanks for confirming this. Now we can all read it at the link I found. Glad to have you at TAW!

I don't know...That website looks like it's run by a VERY traditionalist group which considers the canonical Orthodox groups to be schismatic or heretical.

[Jacob4707]

I don't know...That website looks like it's run by a VERY traditionalist group which considers the canonical Orthodox groups to be schismatic or heretical.

You may be right. I didn't read it. The fact that it "scared" her into becoming Orthodox was a bit of a concern to me, too, but I'll read it first. :)

[mophed20]

well i am not baptized nor catechized into the Orthodox Church, but i have been an inquirer for the past 3 or so months. I got a little bored with the cheap grace that my former church raised me on. i also got bored of mainstream/modern Christian thought and how post-modernism seeped into Christian theology and translation of the scriptures. i am just worried about the human tendency of depending a ton on tradition and losing the love towards Christ that every Christian should have, so it's hard for me to go any further. i don't even feel like i can venerate icons without feeling like i am doing something wrong. though i do understand the purpose of icons, and know where my heart needs to be when venerating them, i just can't seem to get to that place. and a lot of other stuff is really hard to take to heart. it's not like i don't agree with it, it's just tough to accept as my own, and take responsibility for my faith. theosis is by far the hardest thing for me to even start trying to do. if you all have advice, i'd gladly take it.

[Jacob4707]

well i am not baptized nor catechized into the Orthodox Church, but i have been an inquirer for the past 3 or so months. I got a little bored with the cheap grace that my former church raised me on. i also got bored of mainstream/modern Christian thought and how post-modernism seeped into Christian theology and translation of the scriptures. i am just worried about the human tendency of depending a ton on tradition and losing the love towards Christ that every Christian should have, so it's hard for me to go any further. i don't even feel like i can venerate icons without feeling like i am doing something wrong. though i do understand the purpose of icons, and know where my heart needs to be when venerating them, i just can't seem to get to that place. and a lot of other stuff is really hard to take to heart. it's not like i don't agree with it, it's just tough to accept as my own, and take responsibility for my faith. theosis is by far the hardest thing for me to even start trying to do. if you all have advice, i'd gladly take it.

Pray and take it slowly and don't lose heart. Keep Christ central. It took me over 2 years of regular study, attendance and dealing with similar issues for me to be able to say "yes" to becoming Orthodox.

[Mary of Bethany]

well i am not baptized nor catechized into the Orthodox Church, but i have been an inquirer for the past 3 or so months. I got a little bored with the cheap grace that my former church raised me on. i also got bored of mainstream/modern Christian thought and how post-modernism seeped into Christian theology and translation of the scriptures. i am just worried about the human tendency of depending a ton on tradition and losing the love towards Christ that every Christian should have, so it's hard for me to go any further. i don't even feel like i can venerate icons without feeling like i am doing something wrong. though i do understand the purpose of icons, and know where my heart needs to be when venerating them, i just can't seem to get to that place. and a lot of other stuff is really hard to take to heart. it's not like i don't agree with it, it's just tough to accept as my own, and take responsibility for my faith. theosis is by far the hardest thing for me to even start trying to do. if you all have advice, i'd gladly take it.

Hi, mophed. I bolded the part that I want to respond to. Trust me - I was Baptist for 37 years - you don't need to worry about losing love for Christ in Orthodoxy. Oh my - it's completely the other way around, I've found. Traditions don't get in the way, they only help us, once we understand their purpose.

As far as the rest - being able to venerate icons, etc - don't do anything you don't feel comfortable doing. Don't try to force something. As Jakob said - take it slow and easy. Orthodoxy is Truth, of that I'm sure, but that doesn't mean we can just forget everything we've been taught and all of a sudden accept everything the Church teaches. It's a process - sometimes a long process. But it's worth it! May God bless and guide you.

Mary

[mophed20]

thank you guys for the advice. it may have been small to you, but it was big to me. i have felt like i need to rush into this, and venerate icons and all the orthodox stuff. but it's good to know that i shouldn't do that. i have a lot of learning, and growing and repentance to do. thanks guys!

David

[ArmyMatt]

I was born and raised as an Episcopalian from a very Episcopal family on my mother's side (dad was raised Methodist but converted when he married my mom).

Openly gay bishops did not sit well with me so I knew that I had to get out of the Church. What got me even worse was that no one was saying anything about any moral implications that this might have on the faithful.

When I came to Penn State, I bounced around between churches and fellowships, even going so far as to consider Mormonism and Unitarianism, and ultimately settled down with a Pentacostal group known as Veritas.

Everyone who goes to PSU will have at least one class in the Willard Building. Standing outside the Willard Building is a guy called the Willard preacher, who preaches Eastern Orthodox Christianity. Every Monday called Protestant Monday where he challanges Protestants on their beliefs. He challanged mine on Sola Scriptura and Apostolic succession. The more I tried to prove him wrong, the more I realized Orthodoxy was the True Church of Jesus Christ.

After a few months of debate and discussion with him, I came to my first OCF, then to church a month after that. One month later I was a catechumen, and 2006's Pascha I came into the Church. The rest is history, and I have loved it ever since. The intensity alone is staggering.

[NyssaTheHobbit]

Wow--so street preachers really can work! ;)

[jckstraw72]

ol Willard Preacher got me too!

[ThomasAugustus]

Through much deliberation and following a great deal of misguided direction i found that an all encompassing and tolerant love was the way forward.

[Michael the Iconographer]

I was brought up Missouri Synod Lutheran and my husband was Roman Catholic. He never liked his faith so we we're occasionally attending the Lutheran church, but we didn't care for it either. We felt our small children needed to go, so we went for them. My husbands best friend married an Orthodox girl and he converted to Orthodoxy. He sent books to my husband to read. He read them and knew he had to go to an Orthodox Liturgy, but I said no because from the way he was describing this faith to me and their traditions, I didn't think this Irish girl would fit in. He was not going to go without his whole family. So about three years went by and I was still dragging him to the Lutheran church. Then my dad became ill with melanoma cancer and died very quickly. When I asked my Lutheran pastor where my dad was, he said, "your father is either sleeping until Christ comes again or since he was a good Christian man he is in heaven". My pastor's answer did not satisfy me. So I asked my husband if I could read one of his Orthodox books. He had me read, Conversations With Protestant Sectarians, by Kallistos Ware. I read this book and I can honestly say I was scared into the faith. That very next Sunday we visited the closest Orthodox church, 45 minutes from our home. We weren't there more than maybe 20 minutes and we both looked at each other and smiled. At that moment we knew we were finally home. We talked to the priest, Fr. David, and we were happy with all of his answers to our questions. We've been going to the same church for 11 years. A lot of driving back and forth, but we don't mind at all. We have never once woken up on a Sunday and not wanted to make that drive. Our children have never told us that they don't want to go to church (unless they are sick). Our son wants to be a priest and our daughter can't wait to meet an Orthodox boy who will sweep her off her feet. God has given us a very blessed life. Sometimes I wonder if I had to lose my dad to open my eyes to Orthodoxy? I believe I did! I miss my dad so much. I feel though if he wouldn't have died, I wouldn't have received the unfulfilled answers from the Lutheran pastor. So, because of that, now we have a chance at salvation. Thanks be to God!
Often God will do something in our lives like take a loved one from us in order to open our eyes to his will. He is kind of bittersweet like that.

[hedgehog51]

Me I went to all kind of churches before I found the Orthodox,
and I'm glad now I didn't give up the search. I have finally found home.
:crosseo:

[Philothei]

Welcome Hedgehog!!

Welcome also to TAW :)
God bless,
Philothei

[disasm]

Hey everyone. This is going to be really long, but I hope it inspires someone...

So here is my story...

Part I - The Early Years

I grew up Methodist. We went to church every Sunday, I was a part of
Sunday School, and my dad was in the air force, so we moved a lot. I
was the kid no one liked in Sunday School because I had all the
answers. I would memorize bible verses, would always know the answers
to the simple watered down questions, and had read through my picture
bible probably at least 10 times. The first real change in my life was
when I finished second grade and received my first non-picture bible.
We were getting ready to move from Vegas to Tucson, and the church
wanted to give me a bible even though I wasn't completing third grade.
The bible I received was the KJV translation, and I loved that bible.
I would read the stuff I could understand whenever I had the chance.

So then we moved to Arizona, and we found another methodist church. I
always liked wearing my best clothes to church. Suits and ties were
common for me. So in this new church, even though we followed a
curriculum, the Sunday School teachers were much more flexible with
what we talked about. This allowed me to finally get away from the
watered down stories and into the meat of scripture. I loved reading
my KJV bible in these Sunday School classes, and learned a lot. I
received another bible, the NRSV version, and at the request of my
teachers/peers I started reading it at Sunday School, and eventually I
gave up on my KJV bible and it sat on the shelf. I continued to be a
devout Methodist kid, and entered the confirmation class as soon as I
could. I learned about the basics of what we believed, and about the
book of acts and the start of the church. This really intrigued me,
and I got confirmed in the Methodist Church at twelve I think it was.

So, in comes middle school. I still went to church, but we were
changing pastors so often, and I really learned to dislike this change
happening all the time. It seemed every time a new pastor came, the
message was changed ever so slightly. Church numbers started going
down, and except when the oldest pastor was preaching, I hated
listening to the sermons, and my parents gave me the choice to
continue going or not, so my church going slowed down drastically.

I got involved with some friends of my sister's friends, and we had
good times, riding BMX bikes and doing jumps. One of the new kids I
was hanging out with was big on "spiritual" experiences. We did things
like "light as a feather, stiff as a board", and he eventually talked
us into doing a seance where we were initiated by burning ourselves
with matches, of which, some of the physical scars lasted for months.
We lit candles and spoke to "spiritual beings" of which I am now
convinced were certainly demons. Well, this lasted for a week, and
then my mom was asking why me and my sisters had these random burns, I
told her, and we all went to church that week. Well, my favorite
pastor was talking in the sermon, and the sermon was about joy in our
lives being stuck in a vessel and unable to escape, and we needed to
let that joy spill over into our lives. This sermon really touched me,
and I repented right away for my turning away from God. This was a
huge turning point in my life. I got involved with our upcoming "Youth
Band" and started going to Sunday School every week, and even did the
weekly bible studies. I learned everything I could about Christ and
his Church.

Around this same time, High School was starting, and I got involved in
Marching Band. My best friend Josh Richeson, the lead trumpet player,
helped me get caught up with marching, since I started school a week
late due to Philmont Boy Scout Ranch backpacking trip I went on.
Anyways, Josh and I formed a solid bond as friends, and we started to
do things outside of Band as well. Come sophomore year, after school
everyday we would go to his house and lift weights. Well, Josh was
also a mormon, which gave a perfect opportunity to talk to each other
about our different beliefs, and we both helped each other grow, as
odd as it sounds.

So, this continued till the end of high school, and Josh and I decided
to start a rock band. We did a couple of gigs, and decided we wanted
to make it big, so we decided to move to PA. I would go right away,
and he would come a year later because he was still locked into a
lease. So, two weeks later, my dad is hauling my truck with his truck
from AZ to PA, and we end up in Bellefonte, just north of State
College. My cousin Steve, moved from Michigan, and he wasn't very
religious at all, and I started to lax myself. My friend Jeff, the drum
major from marching band as well as a good friend and member in the
band I started, that upcoming spring, and he helped me turn my life
around a little bit. He grew up in a non-denominational church, and
knew scripture very well. When he left a month later, I promised him I
would find a church in the area and start going. Thus, began my
protestant search for truth...

[SaintPhotios]

Because I was raised with no denominational bias (skipped around from Baptist to Nazerene to whatever was convenient), I didn't really have a starting place. After I sowed my wild oats, I discovered the love of theology when I was about 15 -- a dangerous passion if unharnessed, but was my portal into my Christian search for truth. With some influence from a local sect and some members of my family, I began to immerse myself into Calvinistic theology in the classical Reformed school of thought best represented by Van Til, Bahnsen, Rushdoony, etc.. After spending two years in a Reformed Presbyterian Church (devoutly Calvinistic), a former Calvinist friend of mine introduced me to Church Fathers.

Because of our Western biases, we were falsely convinced of traditional Roman Catholicism via the early Church Fathers. We realized the corrupt state of the Roman Catholic Church, so we rejected Vatican II and became involved with sedevacantism (rejecting the Papacy of current Popes due to heresy = the Papal throne was vacant).

However, around the end of last year, my Roman Catholic friend and I read into the filioque controversy sparked by St. Photios of Constantinople and the Great Schism. After reading a little more deeply into the Church Fathers, it was clear that they did not view the Pope as head of the Church, and also the West had an entirely skewed view of the Trinity which led to all of their other innovation contrary to Tradition. So this caused us to leave Roman Catholicism and embrace Orthodoxy.

[Dorothea]

My table had been staffed by myself and a devout Catholic woman. On the walk back from the organization fair, she and I discussed religion, and she offered to get me in touch with a Catholic priest. I got her priest's name and number too. But when I finally got up the nerve to call up the priest that Friday, at the appointed time she'd given me... there was no answer. 'How strange is that,' I thought. 'Well, I still have this Orthodox thing to go to on Monday. I guess I'll do that.'

To be continued... ;)
Matrona, that was an interesting read! I hope to get through the rest of this thread and read the rest of your exciting journey to Orthodoxy.

Hello, everyone,

I'm new here. I've been on another religion forum, but I felt I needed to join an Orthodox forum and have some fellowship with my fellow Orthodox, as I was the only Orthodox (Greek Orthodox for me) in the forum.

Anyway, I have been a Greek Orthodox since I was a baby. I was born and baptized in a Greek Orthodox Church. My mother is Greek, and my father is American. He was in the Air Force for 30 years, and he met my mother while stationed in Greece at the time. His faith was Presbyterian until about 10 years ago.

I didn't really grow up in church. I went a handful of times to a Greek Church while in Greece visiting family, and then I went to Sunday school in some Christian grade school for a couple weeks, and also once to a protestant church on one of the Air Force bases we lived on at the time. I knew the traditions of crossing yourself and what to do when going up for Communion, and I knew of God and Christ, his son. I didn't, however, know anything about what the Bible said, what God's words were in the OT or the NT, other than the 10 Commandments and Christ dying on the Cross for our sins. Really, my faith wasn't discussed much at all. It was just something we did once and a while by going to Church.

It wasn't until my mid 20s that I wanted to get back into my church. I always had a relationship with God, but it was kind of a selfish one. You know, pray for what you want, not giving thanks and such. So, anyhow, about 3 or 4 years before I became interested in learning more about my faith, my sister had gotten involved in an Antiochian church down in Louisiana where she and her family live. Her husband is from there. Her husband's family is Southern Baptist. He ended up converting to Orthodoxy a couple years after they married. This didn't go too well with my sister's in-laws. Her father-in-law didn't go to either of her daugther's baptisms, but her MIL did.

I went off on a tangent kinda there. Ok, back on track here, I was having a hard time with life in my early to mid 20s in regards to relationships and all, and finally I let go and just prayed to God that whatever He wanted, I'd do. So, I ended up leaving the state I was in at the time and moving to where my parents had moved a year before to be close to my sister and her children. Not more than 6 months later, I met my soon-to-be husband there. Coincidentally, once I decided to let go of a fruitless relationship and make this move, everything flowed so smoothly. That's how I know that's what I was supposed to do. So, I met my husband. Turns out he'd been searching 1/2 of his life for something he felt was missing in all the churches he'd gone to growing up. He grew up mainly in a United Church of Christ, and then his mother went through the evangelical/born-again experience and became quite zealous about it, and dragged him to a couple other churches. One really got him very uncomfortable and never went back. In all the churches he went to....and he went to even a Synogogue and Temple when he got to his late teens....there was always something missing...questions that couldn't be answered....something missing in the worshipping of God. Then, we went on a few dates, and on our third date, I believe it was, he went to my church after I'd gone to his on the date before. I was open to whatever he was going to at the time. Although the church he was in at the time...Southern Baptist because he was in Louisiana and couldn't find a UCC that was like his back home in PA, ended up there, and the people were extremely welcoming and nice there, I felt it was very empty of Holiness, worship, tradition and all that I had started to re-experience in my Greek and the Antiochian Church I started going to with my sister once I was there. He said he'd come to mine and see what it was like. The congregation was just starting out and just in a rented building at the time. It didn't matter. 10 minutes into the Liturgy, my husband was in love and felt at home. So, anyway, I went with him and my dad to catechism and learned more about my faith. My dad at the same time was coming into the Orthodox Church, and my mom was learning a lot about the rituals and such she didn't know what they meant before. So, on the same day...Ephiphany in 1997, my dad was chrismated and baptized (for the first time baptized) and my husband was chrismated (we weren't married yet...a couple more months). It was a beautiful experience. So, my husband helped bring me back to my church, and we've been on our Orthodox journey together ever since. :)

[Dorothea]

I am enjoying everyone's conversion stories! Such inspiration!!

[Mary of Bethany]

Matrona, that was an interesting read! I hope to get through the rest of this thread and read the rest of your exciting journey to Orthodoxy.

Hello, everyone,

I'm new here. I've been on another religion forum, but I felt I needed to join an Orthodox forum and have some fellowship with my fellow Orthodox, as I was the only Orthodox (Greek Orthodox for me) in the forum.

Anyway, I have been a Greek Orthodox since I was a baby. I was born and baptized in a Greek Orthodox Church. My mother is Greek, and my father is American. He was in the Air Force for 30 years, and he met my mother while stationed in Greece at the time. His faith was Presbyterian until about 10 years ago.

I didn't really grow up in church. I went a handful of times to a Greek Church while in Greece visiting family, and then I went to Sunday school in some Christian grade school for a couple weeks, and also once to a protestant church on one of the Air Force bases we lived on at the time. I knew the traditions of crossing yourself and what to do when going up for Communion, and I knew of God and Christ, his son. I didn't, however, know anything about what the Bible said, what God's words were in the OT or the NT, other than the 10 Commandments and Christ dying on the Cross for our sins. Really, my faith wasn't discussed much at all. It was just something we did once and a while by going to Church.

It wasn't until my mid 20s that I wanted to get back into my church. I always had a relationship with God, but it was kind of a selfish one. You know, pray for what you want, not giving thanks and such. So, anyhow, about 3 or 4 years before I became interested in learning more about my faith, my sister had gotten involved in an Antiochian church down in Louisiana where she and her family live. Her husband is from there. Her husband's family is Southern Baptist. He ended up converting to Orthodoxy a couple years after they married. This didn't go too well with my sister's in-laws. Her father-in-law didn't go to either of her daugther's baptisms, but her MIL did.

I went off on a tangent kinda there. Ok, back on track here, I was having a hard time with life in my early to mid 20s in regards to relationships and all, and finally I let go and just prayed to God that whatever He wanted, I'd do. So, I ended up leaving the state I was in at the time and moving to where my parents had moved a year before to be close to my sister and her children. Not more than 6 months later, I met my soon-to-be husband there. Coincidentally, once I decided to let go of a fruitless relationship and make this move, everything flowed so smoothly. That's how I know that's what I was supposed to do. So, I met my husband. Turns out he'd been searching 1/2 of his life for something he felt was missing in all the churches he'd gone to growing up. He grew up mainly in a United Church of Christ, and then his mother went through the evangelical/born-again experience and became quite zealous about it, and dragged him to a couple other churches. One really got him very uncomfortable and never went back. In all the churches he went to....and he went to even a Synogogue and Temple when he got to his late teens....there was always something missing...questions that couldn't be answered....something missing in the worshipping of God. Then, we went on a few dates, and on our third date, I believe it was, he went to my church after I'd gone to his on the date before. I was open to whatever he was going to at the time. Although the church he was in at the time...Southern Baptist because he was in Louisiana and couldn't find a UCC that was like his back home in PA, ended up there, and the people were extremely welcoming and nice there, I felt it was very empty of Holiness, worship, tradition and all that I had started to re-experience in my Greek and the Antiochian Church I started going to with my sister once I was there. He said he'd come to mine and see what it was like. The congregation was just starting out and just in a rented building at the time. It didn't matter. 10 minutes into the Liturgy, my husband was in love and felt at home. So, anyway, I went with him and my dad to catechism and learned more about my faith. My dad at the same time was coming into the Orthodox Church, and my mom was learning a lot about the rituals and such she didn't know what they meant before. So, on the same day...Ephiphany in 1997, my dad was chrismated and baptized (for the first time baptized) and my husband was chrismated (we weren't married yet...a couple more months). It was a beautiful experience. So, my husband helped bring me back to my church, and we've been on our Orthodox journey together ever since. :)
That's a great story, Dorothea! Welcome to TAW!


Mary

[Dorothea]

That's a great story, Dorothea! Welcome to TAW!


Mary
Thanks for the warm welcome!

[disasm]

Okay, here's the second part of my story.

Part II - Beginnings of a search for truth

I met up with my cousin Cathy at a Memorial Day Celebration at the Gate's Cabin, and she talked me into coming to a CMA church. I went a couple weeks later, and it was the most energetic thing I had ever seen. The last couple of years in Arizona, the church I went to started to become contemporary, but it was nothing like this. Everyone had their hands reaching to the sky, clapping along, distorted electric guitars, drums you could hear a mile down the road, and I liked it being in a band and all. It was like a rock concert for God. This led me to start buying every Christian Rock CD I could get my hands on. I also was reading my NIV bible I got my Senior Year of High School like crazy during this time. But something just didn't fit. I thought it was because I wasn't getting involved enough, so I volunteered with the Youth Group at this church over the summer. A couple friends of mine went to Guatamala and came back telling me stories of laying of hands and healing of broken bones and it was just too much. I was also struggling with temptation and sin at this time, and everyone told me I didn't read my bible and pray enough, so I read more and prayed more, and the temptation only grew stronger the more I prayed. Things just weren't matching up, and I didn't know why... So, I left and didn't go to church again for a while.

So, Josh shows up in November, and we start working on building the band. His fiance was visiting with us, and they broke up so she took a bus back to Arizona. Both of us didn't care about religion at the time. We just wanted to start the band. However; he gave me late notice when he was moving, so I had already purchased a plane ticket to Arizona to visit my family over Christmas for a couple weeks.

While I was in Arizona, I spent a lot of time with my friend Jeff talking about church and other problems I was having. I also spent a good bit of time talking to my old friends and the two pastors at the methodist church. The one, Billy Still, was an amazing speaker, and spoke from the heart. He really touched me and after talking to Angie, the other pastor, I decided I needed to find a good Methodist Church in the area when I got back into PA. I returned to PA after New Years, and came home to my friend Josh that had religious books, tapes and website printouts all over the house. I was rather in shock, and he told me he felt he was being called to return to the mormon church. I told him I wanted to look into some of the methodist churches on campus, and we decided to both go to together so we wouldn't feel so out of place. The church I picked out was St. Pauls, and the Wesley Center had a service called open door listed on their website for college students. We went there and I absolutely loved it. It was contemporary, but not to the extreme of the CMA church I went to. The group was very welcoming and I got involved in the band, as well as their Thursday bible study.

The following week I went with Josh to the LDS church and I just had a bad feeling deep in my stomach. The singing sounded amazing, but I knew something just wasn't right. Josh also invited the missionaries over for dinner, and over this couple of months he convinved me the Ecumenical Councils were not Christian, and I should reject them, but I still remained Methodist, I just didn't agree with the Creeds, rationalizing they were catholic fabrications. Anyways, I read ever Christian book I could get my hands on. Everything from the Divine Romance, to Wild at Heart. Everything was going perfect for me. I felt I was spiritually at home. Josh eventually left for Idaho to return to his family and got married in the temple at Idaho Falls in Summer of 2005.

So, change started to happen in the fellowship. Three major changes to be precise. The one was graduation. My friend Aaron was graduating and moving away. He was a strong encourager of my faith, and had loaned me most of the books I had read. The second change was I began going to Penn State with a Computer Engineering Major. And the third and most striking requires a bit of background. The summer before I joined Wesley, the Student Pastor had been fired, and that first semester we ran the show. Students had keys to get in. We worshipped whenever we felt like it. We did things the way we wanted, but that summer, they hired a new Student Pastor. His name was Tyson, and boy did he have changes in store. I tried to go with the changes, even joined his bible study on Deitrich Bohnhoffer, which was absolutely amazing, but some of the changes were just too much for me. We lost our focus on community outreach, and a few political struggles really made it not feel it was where I wanted to be any more. I still maintained strong relationships with my friends, especially my friend Josh, who grew up Lutheran, but I started to split away from Wesley after that first semester of school.

[Jacob4707]

All right, you've got me biting my nails for Part III.

DON'T KEEP US IN SUSPENSE!!! :D

A couple friends of mine went to Guatamala and came back telling me stories of laying of hands and healing of broken bones and it was just too much.

So, what did you make of the above? Why did you react against it (or so it seems)?

[disasm]

All right, you've got me biting my nails for Part III.

DON'T KEEP US IN SUSPENSE!!! :D



So, what did you make of the above? Why did you react against it (or so it seems)?
Sorry, for the suspense, I'll get the next part up soon. My perspective now is that miracles do happen, but the context of the background I had with being a conservative